Romania president impeached amid EU, US concern

July 06, 2012

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romanian lawmakers impeached President Traian Basescu in an overwhelming vote Friday, paving the way for a national referendum that could see the divisive and increasingly unpopular leader ousted from the powerful position he's held for eight years.

The vote of 256-114 in parliament came as Basescu and Prime Minister Victor Ponta have engaged in a bitter power struggle in the eastern European country of 19 million, which emerged from communism in 1989. The machinations, especially attempts to sideline the judiciary, have led the United States and the European Union to issue statements of concern about Romania's democracy.

Basescu's opponents accused him of overstepping his authority by meddling with the prime minister's office and trying to influence judicial affairs. The 60-year-old former ship captain also was accused of making racist remarks about Gypsies and disabled people.

Senate Speaker Crin Antonescu, who will serve as interim president now that Basescu has been effectively suspended from the role, said a popular referendum on Basescu's fate will be held July 29. Basescu was impeached in 2007 but survived a referendum. Still, his popularity has declined steeply, and he faces tougher odds this time.

One major reason is that the Ponta-led government changed the law this week to make it easier to oust Basescu from office. Now, a simple majority of votes cast is needed to push him out. Before, a majority of all voters in Romania was required.

Upon hearing of the impeachment, hundreds of Romanians rallied in downtown Bucharest to cheer the news, while others gathered to express their disappointment. Basescu vowed late Friday to use "all constitutional resources" to stay in office for his full five-year term, which ends in 2014, and called his impeachment "an abuse."

He denied abusing his power, but defended his outspokenness and active participation in political life. He had earlier defended himself against the allegations of making racist and disparaging comments by saying he has the right to free speech.

"The elected president cannot be a mute," Basescu said in a speech at the presidential palace. "He has to assume responsibilities." Unlike presidencies in some European nations, Basescu's position is not merely ceremonial. He is elected in a popular vote and is in charge of foreign policy, the powerful intelligence services and the country's defense policies.

Basescu claims that he steered Romania through the financial crisis that engulfed it in 2008, has improved ties with Moldova, which was part of Romania until 1940, and has made Romania a reliable partner of NATO and of the United States.

Basescu is a center-right politician, though as president he is not allowed to be a member of any party. Ponta, 39, heads the left-leaning Social Democratic Party, and became prime minister on May 7. He is the third Romanian premier in four months, and, unlike those who have held the role over the past decade, Ponta has not been deferential to the president. Instead, he has move quickly to sideline Basescu allies.

Earlier this week, Romanian lawmakers ousted the speakers of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies — the two houses of parliament. Both were allies of the president, and they were replaced with supporters of the prime minister, including Antonescu.

Also this week, Ponta issued a decree reducing the powers of the Constitutional Court with regard to its ruling on parliamentary laws. Also in recent weeks, Ponta ignored the Constitutional Court's ruling that Basescu, not he, should represent Romania at a European Union summit.

Those actions and others have prompted statements of concern from world powers. The European Commission, the executive body of the EU, on Friday called on the Ponta's government to respect the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law, calling them "the cornerstones of European democracy" and essential for "mutual trust" within the EU.

U.S. Ambassador Mark H. Gitenstein, also has expressed concern about threats to the "independence of democratic institutions" in Romania. In apparent reference to these concerns, Ponta said authorities would ensure that the referendum on Basescu was organized in a legal manner.

Elite counterdrug units proposed for Mexico

July 07, 2012

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The top security adviser for Mexico's next president said Friday that he is recommending the creation of elite units of police and troops who will target not just major drug traffickers but also lower-level cartel hitmen as a way of swiftly reducing violence.

The proposal newly retired Colombian police director Gen. Oscar Naranjo explained in an interview with The Associated Press offers a glimpse of how President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto might fulfill his promise to slash the number of murders and kidnappings by 50 percent during his six years in office.

Similar to the approach that Naranjo employed against Colombian traffickers, the proposal raises the question of whether the widely respected general can reproduce his success in a very different country.

More than 47,500 people have been killed in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon launched a military-led offensive against Mexico's cartels nearly six years ago. Pena Nieto has pledged to reduce violence by refocusing law-enforcement efforts away from the current administration's heavy reliance on the military to capture drug-cartel leaders and seize their product. He says he wants to better protect ordinary citizens from criminals.

He provided few specifics during his three-month campaign, leading to speculation he would ease pressure on traffickers as long as they throttled down violence. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, who has held a series of meetings with the president-elect and his advisers, told the AP this week that Pena Nieto has discussed a new offensive against the smaller, local gangs that have cropped up in many Mexican states and earn money through kidnapping and extortion in addition to drug dealing.

Naranjo's proposal of small, elite units dovetails with that idea. Such units have specific goals and typically work in isolation. The better a unit performs, the more resources it gets. Information is compartmentalized to prevent leaks. The model worked in Colombia and Naranjo said it could also be effective in Mexico.

Such units, which Naranjo said could be comprised in Mexico of the Army, Navy and police, should pursue not just of "high-value targets" such as Sinaloa and Zeta cartel bosses, said Naranjo, who retired June 12 after five years atop his country's 170,000-member police.

"It's good to go after drug dealers in order to capture them. But it's not good not to have elite groups going after killers in order to impose the law, those squads of hitmen," he said. "You also have to put a lot of importance on these groups of hitmen to control the violence."

The idea has been discussed by Mexico's security experts, and makes sense as a component of a broader strategy to reduce violence, said Eric Olson, associate director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

"If you want to really stop the violence, don't focus on the kingpins, focus on the killers, it kind of eliminates this middle range of actors," he said. Naranjo also proposed setting violence-reduction targets for Mexico.

"In the first 100 days (of Pena Nieto's government) the goal should be set for reducing violence. It could go badly. It could go well. But it should be put in play," he said. "I think it's possible to tell the Mexicans, 'Look, in 100 days we want to cut the violence we have in half.'"

It's feasible, he said, because Mexico's violence "is really concentrated. If you look at the map of violence there it's in six places. It's impossible that in six cities you can't have some control."

The 55-year-old Colombian said he does not believe it wise to use Mexico's military against drug traffickers, criticizing Calderon's sending of 10,000 troops into Ciudad Juarez at the end of last year.

It neither reduced deaths nor intimidated criminals, he said. Naranjo, aided by his U.S. allies, had been advising Calderon's government since 2007. Colombian police have in the interim trained more than 7,000 Mexicans in investigative techniques.

A top foreign policy adviser to Pena Nieto said the president-elect is focused on fighting crime by swiftly spurring economic growth and job-creation with reforms that include bringing private investment into Mexico's state-owned Pemex oil company, developing massive shale gas deposits on the Texas border and building alternative supplies including wind energy projects in southern states like Oaxaca and Baja California.

Emilio Lozoya said Pena Nieto's transition team wants to forge consensus among the lawmakers when Mexico's next congress convenes in September, three months before Pena Nieto takes office. "Our aim is to have an energy bill that is clear and gives absolute clarity to local and foreign capital to co-invest along the state in developing these energy sources," Lozoya said. The importance of economic growth to security, he said, is that "you won't get one without focusing on the other."

"The best weapons against organized crime and insecurity is jobs," he said. He said a focus on developing infrastructure projects and agriculture would also be important for the new administration. Lozoya also said Pena Nieto's administration would want more intelligence-sharing from the U.S., particularly to combat money-laundering, and that Mexico would seek a bigger role in building stability in Central America, which he called a major source of the problems afflicting Mexico, drug-trafficking among them.

Despite major security gains under Naranjo, rural Colombia remains turbulent. Thousands of hired guns in the service of rival drug gangs continue to plague it as well as leftist rebels who are deeply engaged in cocaine trafficking.

Japan to reduce reliance on nuclear power?

Sept. 13, 2011

TOKYO, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- Japan aims to reduce dependence on nuclear power, new Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said Tuesday in his first policy address to Parliament.

Noda's stance contrasts with that of his predecessor Naoto Kan, who called for Japan to end its reliance on nuclear energy after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that triggered the radiation-leaking crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Kan was widely criticized for his handling of the response to the crisis.

While Japan must try to reduce dependence on nuclear energy "as much as possible" in the mid- to long-term, Noda said, nuclear power stations would restart after regular inspections in which safety "has been thoroughly verified and confirmed, under the premise that a relationship of trust is developed with the local government."

Japan's Nuclear Safety and Security Agency would be established as an affiliated agency under the Ministry of the Environment and work to "boldly unify regulations" for nuclear power safety, Noda said.

He said Japan will introduce a new energy plan around summer 2012 to replace its current policy, set to expire in 2030.

Under Japan's previous energy plan, prior to the Fukushima disaster, nuclear power had been set to meet more than half of demand by 2030, up from about one-third. In his first speech to the nation as prime minister Sept. 2, Noda said it was "unrealistic" to build new reactors and that existing reactors would be decommissioned at the end of their life spans.

Only 12 of Japan's 54 commercial nuclear power plant reactors are currently in operation.

Pointing to the nation's limited fossil fuel resources and advanced technological power, the Noda also said Japan must take the lead globally on new forms of energy, presenting "a cutting edge model for energy conservation and renewable energies."

A report from Greenpeace International says that by switching to renewable energy, Japan could permanently shut down all its nuclear stations by 2012 and maintain economic growth and meet its carbon dioxide emission reduction goals.

Greenpeace's plan calls for Japan's solar power and wind energy generation to increase from the current level of 3,500 megawatts to 47,200 megawatts by 2015.

"The tremendous potential of Japan's renewable energy industry not only allows it to retire its existing nuclear plants, but provides a huge opportunity to boost the economy by creating thousands of green jobs," Greenpeace International Renewable Energy Campaign Director Sven Teske said in a statement.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2011/09/13/Japan-to-reduce-reliance-on-nuclear-power/UPI-19221315934345/.

Court bans Egypt-Israel deal testimonies

Tue Sep 13, 2011

The Criminal Court of Cairo has ordered Egyptian media not to report witnesses' testimonies over the controversial gas deal between Egypt and Israel.

The court on Monday resumed the trial of several officials for exporting gas to Israel under market prices.

The defendants in the case included Egypt's former Energy Minister Sameh Fahmy, fugitive Egyptian businessman Hussein Salem, and five other executives of the Egyptian General Petroleum Authority.

The defendants are accused of "exporting gas to Israel at a price lower than international market prices, harming public finances." The deal allegedly incurred losses worth over USD 714 million to Egypt.

The new Egyptian government has been reviewing deals signed during ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak's rule.

Israel gets 40 percent of its natural gas from Egypt, under an arrangement put in place after a 1979 US-pushed peace treaty. Four Israeli firms have signed agreements to import Egyptian natural gas.

Egypt's gas export to Israel was halted after a series of explosions north of Eilat following the Egyptian revolution in February.

The deal has been repeatedly challenged in Egyptian courts as it was signed without a parliamentary consultation and approval.

Opposition groups have long complained that Egyptian gas was sold to Israel at below-market prices.

Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, but the situation has drastically changed since the Egyptian revolution which toppled former dictator Hosni Mubarak. A number of Egyptian political parties are now calling for changes to the peace treaty.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/198980.html.

World Bank recognizes Libya's NTC

Tue Sep 13, 2011

The World Bank has recognized Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) as the legitimate government of the North African country.

The financial institution said on Tuesday that its decision was based on "evolving events in Libya and the views of member countries," AFP reported.

The bank pledged to assume a major role in rebuilding Libya, devastated by seven months of fighting between revolutionary forces and loyalists of Muammar Gaddafi, as well as the destructive airstrikes by NATO warplanes.

China was the latest country to announce the recognition of Libya's NTC as Ma Zhaoxu, spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, said on Monday that his country would “respect the choice of the Libyan people.”

Nearly 80 countries have recognized the NTC as Libya's official governing authority.

This is while, South African President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday that the African Union does not still recognize Libya's interim government.

Zuma made the remarks a day before a regional meeting in Pretoria -- a city in the northern part of South Africa, where the government departments are based -- about the conflict in Libya.

The Libyan interim government is set to announce a new government in the coming days. Its Deputy chief Mahmud Jibril has said the new governing team will include representatives from different regions of the country.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/198984.html.

Egypt parties condemn emergency law

Wed Sep 14, 2011

Egyptian political parties condemn a decision by the ruling military council for enforcing the emergency law, demanding the release of the protesters detained by the army outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo, Press TV reports.

"Three people were killed, many injured and others were detained instead of expelling the (Israeli) ambassador and suspending ties with Israel. This SCAF action is totally unacceptable," Rasha Azah from "No to Military Trails Campaign" told Press TV.

The decision by the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to revive the emergency law has sparked criticism from most political groups from liberals to Islamists.

"This is very dangerous and indicated that the police officers like before to have more authority against citizens," said human rights activist Manal Khaled.

During a press conference in the Egyptian capital Cairo on Tuesday, the guest speakers stressed that the protesters were outraged after the Egyptian authorities built a separation barrier around the Israeli embassy while they did not show any attempt to protest the recent killing of the six Egyptian soldiers in an Israeli attack near the border.

"We condemn the silence of the SCAF to the Israeli attacks on our borders, not to mention the efforts made by the SCAF to hold on to ties with Israel," said Mohamed Attia from Democratic Front Party.

They also said the new amendments to the emergency law are illegal because they should be applied only in cases of natural disasters, war and epidemics.

"Such no articles can simply be used against freedom of expression that the people were deprived of during the reign of (ousted former Egyptian president Hosni) Mubarak," said Khaled.

A key demand of the revolutionaries after the January 25 revolution has been the immediate lifting of the state of emergency that has been in place in Egypt since 1981.

The Egyptian protesters stormed into the Israeli embassy in Cairo on Friday, destroying a part of a barricade wall around the building. The Israeli ambassador to Egypt, Yitzhak Levanon, flew from the capital a few hours after the event.

Three people were killed and several others injured in overnight clashes with the police outside the embassy.

Egyptians remain angry at the ruling military council for ignoring popular demands to expel the Israeli ambassador from Egypt.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/199094.html.

Al-Shabab denies kidnapping Briton

Wed Sep 14, 2011

Somalia's anti-government al-Shabab group has denied any involvement in the abduction of a British woman from a luxury beach resort in Kenya, Press TV reports.

A senior al-Shabab official in Kismayo, 200 km (120 miles) north of the Kenyan border, told Press TV on Wednesday that the Briton, 56-year-old Judith Tebbutt, had been brought to the Somali port city. He also dismissed reports that al-Shabab had any links with her kidnapping.

“We have credible information that the (British) woman is held in Kismayo but we are not responsible,” the al-Shabab official said on condition of anonymity.

“Hopefully we will find out who is responsible and issue official statement on the matter,” he added.

Unidentified gunmen raided the remote Kiwayu Safari Village, Kenya, in the early hours of Sunday, shooting dead publishing executive David Tebbutt, 58, and taking hostage his wife Judith before escaping by boat.

British Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament on Wednesday that he had chaired a crisis meeting on the kidnapping.

"We are doing everything we possibly can on this desperately tragic case," he said on Wednesday.

"The Foreign Secretary (William Hague) has met with the family today. I think on some of these cases it is not right to air all of these issues in public but I can reassure ... the Tebbutt family (that) we will do everything possible to help, " Cameron added.

Concern has been growing for Judith Tebbutt, who is believed to be deaf and wear a double hearing aid.

Police in Kenya say they have arrested a man suspected of aiding the gunmen. He is believed to have information about the person, who organized the kidnapping.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/199134.html.