40,000 protest austerity cuts in Sydney

Thu Sep 8, 2011

Over 40,000 New South Wales (NSW) public sector workers have staged rallies in Australia's largest city of Sydney against what they say is an attack on their jobs and wages, Press TV reports.

Carrying flags and holding placards, more than 40,000 Australian teachers, nurses, police and firefighters and bus and ferry drivers took to the streets on Thursday to challenge NSW government's plans to cut 5000 public sector jobs and impose a 2.5-percent wage cap for public sector workers.

The government says dozens of fire stations and hundreds of schools have closed because of the strike as teachers were the biggest group in the crowd.

Unions NSW Secretary, Mark Lennon said the rally highlights the deep concerns about the Government's unwarranted and unjustified cutbacks.

"Yesterday's budget demonstrated just how little respect the NSW Government has for public sector workers and the services they deliver," Lennon said.

However, Barry O'Farrell, premier of the state, ignored the calls, describing the demonstration as "pointless".

"It's just chaos for the sake of chaos," he told reporters.

Unions said similar smaller-scale rallies also took place across the state.

Australians in 2011 are under more pressure than ever before, working longer hours than they are paid for and increasingly having to take their work home, a new national survey of 42,000 workers has found.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/198045.html.

Bahraini youth defies protest ban

Thu Sep 8, 2011

A young anti-government protester has defied tight security in the Bahraini capital of Manama in a symbolic move against the regime's persisting brutal crackdown on popular protests in the kingdom, Press TV reports.

The young boy ran to the iconic Pearl Square carrying Bahraini flags and continued to protest even when he was arrested.

The Saudi-backed Bahraini forces finally detained the young man and took him away.

Protests against the despotic rule of Al Khalifa regime in the Persian Gulf kingdom have recently flared up in different parts of the tiny state despite the continuing crackdown on any dissent by the regime's forces.

The Bahraini king has recently admitted that security forces have indeed abused anti-regime protesters, saying that compensation would be paid to abuse victims as well as the families of those killed during demonstrations.

Bahrainis, however, have rejected the monarch's apparent concession, insisting that he was personally responsible for ordering the brutal crackdown on peaceful demonstrators.

Massive protests broke out in Bahrain in February, with people taking to the streets and calling for a constitutional monarchy -- a demand that later turned into calls for the ouster of the monarchy.

Scores of protesters have been killed -- many under torture -- and numerous others have been detained and transferred to unknown locations during the regime's crackdown.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/198014.html.

'Prostitution rife in US-occupied Iraq'

Thu Sep 8, 2011

Reports indicate a rise in sexual abuse of Iraqi women following the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, saying female trafficking has become a growing business.

In her article, published by Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency on August 27, Rebecca Murray noted how prostitution and sex trafficking have become “epidemic in Iraq” during the post-invasion military occupation of the country by US-led forces.

In the past eight years, the country has been witnessing unrelenting violence and deadly terror attacks which smashed “national institutions, impoverished the population and torn apart families and neighborhoods.”

"Wars and conflicts, wherever they are fought, invariably usher in sickeningly high level of violence against women and girls," Murray cited an Amnesty International statement as saying.

The article told the story of Rania, who fell victim of Iraqi officials' sexual assault at 16, during a 1991 brutal crackdown on Iraq's Shia south by executed dictator Saddam Hussein.

Outcast Rania escaped to Baghdad and ended up as a sex trafficker's deputy after living and working in Baghdad's brothels for a while.

She describes female trafficking a lucrative business in Iraq, saying many virgin teenage girls are sold for around 5,000 dollars, and trafficked to destinations like northern Iraq, Syria and the United Arab Emirates.

After being arrested six years ago by US forces on charges of abetting terrorism, Rania was sent to jail in Baghdad's al-Kadimiyah detention and finally ended up as an undercover researcher for a women support group she got to know in prison.

In one of her harrowing findings, Rania and two other girls discovered a house in Baghdad's al-Jihad district, where girls as young as 16 were held to cater exclusively to the US military personnel.

The brothel's owner told Rania that an Iraqi interpreter employed by the Americans served as the dealer, transporting girls to and from the US airport base.

Before the Persian Gulf War in 1991, Iraq enjoyed the highest female literacy rate across the Middle East, and more Iraqi women were employed in skilled professions, like medicine and education, than in any other country in the region.

Norwegian Church Aid report last year highlighted “the US-led war and the chaos it has generated” among other factors giving rise to mounting prostitution in Iraq.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/198078.html.

Anti-regime protests rage on in Yemen

Thu Sep 8, 2011

Thousands of people in Yemen have staged yet more anti-regime demonstrations in the southern flashpoint city of Taizz and the central city of Bayda, Press TV reports.

The protesters took to the streets on Thursday to renew the call for the downfall of the regime of Yemen's embattled ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh.

They were chanting slogans in support of the popular revolution in the country, vowing to continue their peaceful protest gatherings until they braced victory.

The rallies come latest in the months-long popular revolt against the rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh since January.

Hundreds of thousands of people have turned out for regular demonstrations in Yemen's major cities, calling for an end to corruption and unemployment and demanding Saleh's ouster.

Hundreds of people have been killed and many more injured during the unrest as a result of the brutal crackdown on anti-government protests by military forces and loosely-organized individuals loyal to Saleh.

On Thursday, media reports said the Yemeni opposition called for massive protests against Saleh's rule after Friday Prayers, urging people to pour into the streets of the capital, Sana'a and other cities across the country to protest "lies by the Yemeni regime."

Saleh has been receiving treatment in Saudi Arabia since early in June for the wounds he sustained in a rocket attack on his palace by tribal fighters siding with the opposition.

Meanwhile, there have been ongoing talks with the Saleh regime to negotiate a power-transfer plan in a bid to end months of anti-regime protests. But a defiant Saleh, who has been in power in Yemen over the past 33 years, has refused calls to give in to popular demands.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/198087.html.

Palestinians launch statehood campaign

Thu Sep 8, 2011

Palestinians have launched their campaign to join the United Nations as a full member state by marching on the United Nations office in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Scores of Palestinian officials and activists gathered at the UN building on Thursday, saying they would stage peaceful events ahead of the UN General Assembly's annual meeting later this month, the Associated Press reported.

They also handed a letter addressed to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, urging him to add his “moral voice in support of the Palestinian people.”

The document was delivered by Latifa Abu Hmeid, a 70-year-old woman who Palestinian officials said symbolizes the plight of oppressed Palestinians.

Abu Hmeid has lost a son to Israeli aggression and has seven others held in Israeli prisons. A resident of a West Bank refugee camp, she has seen her house demolished twice by Israeli forces.

“Families of the tens of thousands of victims of Israeli occupation, including those martyred, wounded and imprisoned, and countless others who were expelled from their homes or lost their homes and their property, hope that you will exert all possible efforts toward the achievement of the Palestinian people's just demands,” the letter read.

Meanwhile, the executive committee of the Palestinian Authority has met for the last time before going to the UN for a vote on full sovereignty.

The Palestinian Authority decided to seek recognition of an independent state after Israel refused negotiations.

A round of US-brokered talks between the two sides also broke down in 2010, after Tel Aviv refused to halt settlement construction on occupied Palestinian land.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/198095.html.

Turkey vows to challenge Israel at sea

Thu Sep 8, 2011

Turkey has announced that last year's Israeli attack on a Gaza-bound aid convoy would not be repeated since Ankara intends to deploy navy patrols and warships in the Mediterranean to accompany and protect next Gaza-bound aid vessels.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday in an interview with the Al Jazeera TV network that Turkey has taken steps to stop the Israeli regime from unilaterally exploiting natural resources in the Mediterranean, Reuters reported.

"Turkish warships, in the first place, are authorized to protect our ships that carry humanitarian aid to Gaza," Erdogan said.

He added, "From now on, we will not let these ships to be attacked by Israel, as what happened with the Freedom Flotilla."

Relations between Turkey and Israel have been at their lowest ebb since Israeli forces attacked the Mavi Marmara, the flagship of the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla in May 2010 in international waters, leaving nine Turkish activists dead.

Last week, Ankara suspended its military ties with the Israeli regime and downgraded its diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to apologize to Turkey over the killing of its citizens.

In addition to an apology, Turkey has demanded that Israel end the illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip, where Tel Aviv has besieged 1.6 million Palestinians in a 360-square-kilometer coastal territory.

Erdogan said that Turkey will boost its naval presence in eastern Mediterranean to challenge Israel's domination in the sea.

In a reference to Israeli plans to exploit huge gas and oil reserves found beneath the Mediterranean Sea that are claimed by Lebanon, Erdogan said Turkish forces will stop Israel from exploiting natural resources in the area.

On July 26, Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah also warned Israel to keep its hands off Lebanon's offshore gas and oil reserves in its territorial waters.

“We warn Israel against extending its hands to this area to steal Lebanon's resources from Lebanese waters,” he said. “Until Lebanon decides to exploit this area, Israel must be warned against extending its hands to it.”

The Turkish prime minister stated, "You know that Israel has begun to declare that it has the right to act in exclusive economic areas in the Mediterranean."

"You will see that it will not be the owner of this right, because Turkey, as a guarantor of the Turkish republic of north Cyprus, has taken steps in the area, and it will be decisive and holding fast to the right to monitor international waters in the east Mediterranean," he added.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.com/detail/198145.html.

US reconnaissance plane under jamming attack: aide

Seoul (AFP)
Sept 9, 2011

A US military reconnaissance plane came under electronic attack from North Korea and had to make an emergency landing during a major military exercise in March, an aide to a lawmaker said Friday.

The aide said the plane suffered disturbance to its global positioning system (GPS) by jamming signals from the North's southwestern cities of Haeju and Kaesong as it was taking part in the annual US-South Korea drill, Key Resolve.

The incident was disclosed in a report that Seoul's defense ministry submitted Thursday to opposition lawmaker Ahn Kyu-Baek of parliament's defense committee, the aide to Ahn told AFP.

Spokesmen for the defense ministry and US Forces Korea declined to comment.

Jamming signals, sent at intervals of five to 10 minutes in the afternoon on March 4, forced the plane to make an emergency landing 45 minutes after it was airborne, the aide quoted the report as saying.

They also affected South Korean naval patrol boats and speedboats as well as several civilian flights near Seoul's Gimpo area, according to the report.

Seoul mobile users also complained of bad connections and the military reported GPS navigational devices malfunctioning as the South and the US were staging the drill, which was harshly criticized by the North.

The communist state has about 20 types of jamming devices mostly imported from Russia and it has been developing a new device with a range of more than 100 km (62 miles) near the heavily fortified border, Yonhap news agency has said.

The North is also believed to have been responsible for the intermittent failure of GPS receivers on naval and civilian vessels along the west coast in August 2010.

South Korea's then-defense minister Kim Tae-Young said at the time that the devices could disrupt guided weapons and posed "a fresh security threat" to Seoul.

The UN's International Telecommunication Union in April urged the North to stop disrupting signals in the South.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_reconnaissance_plane_under_jamming_attack_aide_999.html.