VOCR Gazette - 070313

Wednesday July 3rd 2013

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Egyptian army holds crisis talks

Egypt's army has been holding talks with government and protest leaders, as the deadline it set for a resolution to the mass demonstrations approaches.

President Morsi has rejected an ultimatum to "meet the demands of the people" or face military intervention.
He says he is Egypt's legitimate leader and will not be forced to resign.
The army says it will issue a statement after the 16:30 (14:30 GMT) deadline expires, and now has control of the state TV building.
Clashes broke out at rival protests across the country overnight, with at least 16 people who were demonstrating against Mohammed Morsi killed at Cairo University.
Mr Morsi's opponents say he and the Muslim Brotherhood party from which he comes are pushing an Islamist agenda onto Egypt, and that he should stand down.
The Brotherhood has said the army's action amounts to a coup.
Related story : Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi Defies Military's Ultimatum

U.S. Drone Strike Kills 16 Militants In Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Unmanned U.S. aircraft fired four missiles at a house in northwest Pakistan before dawn Wednesday, killing 16 suspected militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
The drone strike elicited a swift condemnation by the Pakistani government, which released a statement saying the strikes are a violation of its sovereignty.
The attack in the Sarai Darpa Khel area of the North Waziristan tribal region also wounded two suspected militants, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
The suspected militants who were targeted were believed to be from the Afghan Haqqani network. U.S. officials consider the Haqqani network to be one of the most dangerous militant factions fighting American troops in neighboring Afghanistan. The leadership of the Haqqani network pledges allegiance to Taliban chief Mullah Omar but operates fairly independently.
U.S. drone strikes have become a serious source of tension between Washington and Islamabad. The Pakistani government regularly denounces the strikes as a violation of the country's sovereignty, even though senior officials are known to have supported some of the attacks in the past.

Wave of Iraq bombings kill dozens

At least 40 people have been killed in a wave of bomb attacks across Iraq - most of them in the capital Baghdad.

Busy Shia market areas in the capital were the main targets. In the most serious attack, nine people died when two car bombs went off in the northern Shaab district.
Iraq is suffering its worst sectarian violence since 2008.
The UN released figures on Monday indicating that over 2,500 Iraqis have died in violent attacks since April.
Heightened tensions More than 30 people were killed in Baghdad alone on Tuesday, with several car bombs ripping through markets and commercial areas.
Car bombs also went off in the predominantly Shia cities of Basra, Amara and Samawa, killing three people and injuring 50, the AFP news agency reports.
Four people reportedly died after a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a tent where a funeral was taking place in the city of Baquba, north-east of Baghdad - a day after a car bomb destroyed a coffee shop there, killing 10 people. 

Russian Islamist Doku Umarov calls for attacks on 2014 Winter Olympics

The leader of Russia's Islamist movement has lifted a moratorium on attacks inside Russia and called on his rebels to disrupt the upcoming Winter Olympics in the southern city of Sochi.
In a video dated June 2013, Doku Umarov said his followers must use "maximum force" to ensure the Games do not take place.
After claiming responsibility for deadly attacks on the Moscow metro and Moscow's Domodedovo airport, Umarov last year declared a ceasefire inside Russia as protests against the Kremlin leadership gripped the capital. In the video he said Vladimir Putin, the president, had mistaken the move for weakness.
"Today we must show those who live in the Kremlin … that our kindness is not weakness," Umarov said, speaking in a forest and dressed in green camouflage. "They plan to hold the Olympics on the bones of our ancestors, on the bones of many, many dead Muslims buried on our land by the Black Sea. We as mujahideen are required not to allow that, using any methods that Allah allows us."
Russia's Islamist rebels consider Sochi to be part of an unformed Caucasus emirate stretching along Russia's southern flank.
Security concerns over the Olympics, to be held in February 2014, are running very high, with Sochi just 250 miles from the republics of Chechnya and Dagestan, where most of Russia's rebels live.
During a visit by Putin and David Cameron to Sochi in May, the two leaders said Russia and Britain's security services would co-operate on security before the Games.

Iran nuclear chief dashes hopes of resolution

Iran will continue enriching uranium, Tehran’s nuclear energy chief confirmed  Friday.
According to a Reuters report, the head of the Islamic Republic's Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, said production of nuclear fuel would ``continue in line with our declared goals. The enrichment linked to fuel production will also not change.''
The announcement-- at an energy conference in St. Petersburg, Russia-- dashed Western hopes that the election of a new moderate  president would change course in Iran’s nuclear activity.
Abbasi-Davani said through an interpreter that work at Iran’s underground Fordow plant - which the West wants Iran to close - would also move forward. Iran refines uranium at Fordow that is a relatively close technical step away from weapons-grade.
Iran claims it’s enriching uranium to fuel a planned network of nuclear energy power plants, and for medical purposes.  But, if processed further, enriched uranium can also provide the fissile material for nuclear bombs.
Abbasi-Davani said Iran's only nuclear power plant so far had been ``brought back online'' three days ago after repeated delays, and was working at 1,000 megawatt capacity. A U.N. nuclear agency report said in May that the Russian-built Bushehr plant was shut down, but gave no reason why.
Western powers hoped the election of Hasan Rouhani as president earlier this month would make a resolution to the nuclear dispute a possibility. Rouhani promised a more conciliatory approach to foreign relations than his predecessor, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
While serving as chief nuclear negotiator under a reformist president between 2003 and 2005, Rouhani struck a deal with European Union powers leading to Iran temporarily suspending uranium enrichment activities. But the work began again after Ahmadinejad was first elected and has been sharply expanded.

Militants kill 6 paramilitary soldiers in northwest Pakistan
  
PESHAWAR: At least six paramilitary soldiers were killed and seven others injured when heavily-armed militants attacked a Frontier Constabulary post in northwest Pakistan, police said on Wednesday.

Three personnel of Khasadar Force, a paramilitary police, were missing after the attack on Kishan Ganga check-post near Frontier Region (FR) in Peshawar district of Khyber Pakthunkhwa province on Tuesday night, they said.

A heavy exchange of fire between security forces personnel and the armed men continued till early on Wednesday morning.

Police said the dead and injured were moved to a nearby hospital while a search operation was underway to recover the missing soldiers.

Portugal tensions spook world markets, China slowdown weighs

Portugal’s 10-year bond yield shot above 8 per cent and its stock market slumped 6 per cent on Wednesday as deepening political turmoil in the bailed-out euro zone member threatened to reignite the bloc’s crisis.
Signs that Chinese growth is slowing also weighed on shares, while oil jumped to a 14-month high on fears that political unrest in Egypt will disrupt supply.
The threat of more resignations from Portugal’s government after the surprise departure of its finance minister this week set alarm bells ringing again across the euro zone bond market. The turmoil could trigger a snap election and derail Lisbon’s exit from its European Union/International Monetary Fund bailout.
Spanish and Italian yields rose and the cost of insuring periphery debt against default jumped, with nervousness over whether Greece will receive its next tranche of bailout money adding to fears the debt crisis will erupt again.
“Something had to happen, two months in a row with no action in the euro zone is very unusual,” said Uwe Zöllner, head of Pan-European equities at Franklin Equity Group.
“People are nervous at the moment anyway. We have seen a good start to the year and now we get the mixed data from China, and we see headlines again about political unrest in oil-producing countries, so people are probably taking the news from Portugal worse than they otherwise would have done.”

Canada thwarts parliament bombing attempt

Surrey, British Columbia: Police in Canada have arrested and charged a man and woman with terrorism for attempting to leave pressure cooker bombs at British Columbia's provincial legislature on Canada Day, when thousands of people were expected to be there.
John Stewart Nuttall and Amanda Marie Korody were inspired by al-Qaeda ideology but were self-radicalised, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner James Malizia said on Tuesday. He called it a domestic threat without international connections.

This self-radicalised behaviour was intended to create maximum impact and harm to Canadian citizens at the British Columbia legislature on a national holiday. 

Commissioner Malizia told a news conference there was no evidence or indication to suggest a connection to the deadly Boston Marathon bombings in April, which used bombs made from pressure cookers.

N. Korea restores hotline with South: Seoul officials

North Korea on Wednesday restored its official hotline with South Korea and announced it would let the South's businessmen visit a shuttered joint industrial zone, Seoul officials said.

The move came hours after dozens of South Korean firms threatened to withdraw from the zone at Kaesong in the North, complaining they had fallen victim to political bickering between the two rivals.
"The hotline was restored this afternoon after North Korea accepted our request to normalise it," a South Korean unification ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
After months of tensions and threats of nuclear war, the North restored the hotline in the border truce village of Panmunjom last month for talks on setting up a rare high-level meeting to discuss the fate of the zone.
But it was switched off again after plans for the talks collapsed due to disputes over protocol.
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DNI chief Clapper apologizes for 'erroneous' answer on NSA surveillance

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has apologized for telling Congress the National Security Agency doesn’t gather data on millions of Americans. 
The apology comes after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden gave top-secret information to newspapers that last month published stories about the federal government collecting the data from phone calls and such Internet communications as emails. 
Clapper apologized in a letter to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein that was posted Tuesday on the website of Clapper's office. 
Clapper said in the June 21 letter that his answer was "clearly erroneous." 
Americans have long known the United States implemented surveillance programs under the Patriot Act, in the wake of 9/11, with the goal of preventing more terror attacks, and that the programs targeted foreign and overseas suspects. However, many Americans seem stunned at the apparent extent of the programs and that the broad data collection included basic details on Americans' phone records

White House delays a key part of ‘Obamacare’

The White House on Tuesday delayed for one year a requirement under the Affordable Care Act that businesses provide health insurance to employees, a fresh setback for President Obama’s landmark health-care overhaul as it enters a critical phase.

The provision, commonly known as the employer mandate, calls for businesses with 50 or more workers to provide affordable quality insurance to workers or pay a $2,000 fine per employee. Business groups had objected to the provision, which now will take effect in January 2015.

Homeland Security watchdog is under investigation by Senate panel

WASHINGTON – The official who investigates potential misdeeds at the Department of Homeland Security is under investigation by a Senate oversight panel for allegations of nepotism, abusing his position and covering up details from the Secret Service prostitution scandal.
Senate investigators are looking into allegations that Deputy Inspector General Charles K. Edwards was “susceptible to political pressure” and that he withheld information about the misconduct of U.S. Secret Service agents who were caught with prostitutes before a White House trip to Colombia in April 2012, according to a letter sent to Edwards by two senators on June 27.
“Numerous” complaints from DHS employees allege that Edwards improperly employed his wife as a government auditor and that he arranged for her to work from India for seven months, according to the letter from Sen. Claire McCaskill, the Missouri Democrat who chairs the oversight subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and the subcommittee’s top Republican, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
Subordinates also alleged that Edwards gave bonuses to employees who helped him write a dissertation paper for a Ph.D. course at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and complete lesson plans for a course he taught as an adjunct professor at Capitol College in Laurel, Md., the letter states.

Obama ends trip in Bush’s shadow 

President Obama’s eight-day trip to Africa came to a fitting end on Tuesday as he stood side by side with the man whose legacy seemed to trail him all across the continent.
Obama made a rare joint appearance with former President George W. Bush at a memorial to the victims of the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania.

The event with Bush capped off a trip that was largely defined by Obama’s attempts to dispel the impression that his administration largely ignored the continent during his first term in office. Throughout the trip, the president’s efforts were largely measured against those of Bush — who remains beloved in Africa for his signature AIDS relief program — and China, which has invested aggressively in the continent.
The president also sought to promote democratic institutions, only to find himself in the shadow of both Nelson Mandela, the ailing anti-apartheid icon battling a potentially fatal respiratory disease, and a brewing internal conflict in Egypt.

Texas House committee approves abortion restrictions

Texas Republicans voted early Wednesday to move forward with new abortion restrictions, after limiting testimony at a public committee hearing, refusing to consider Democratic amendments and imposing strict security precautions to prevent additional disruptions from protesting abortion-rights supporters.

On a party-line vote, the Republican majority sent the bill to the full Texas House for a vote next week. Gov. Rick Perry is pushing his allies in the Legislature to move quickly after he called lawmakers back for a second special session to pass the bill, which would limiting when, where and how women may obtain an abortion in the state.
More than 3,500 people came to the Capitol and registered a position on the bill, and more than 1,000 signed up to testify. But fewer than 100 people had a chance to express their views because the top Republican on the committee limited testimony to eight hours and refused entreaties to extend it.
"We took testimony in the regular session, in the first special. We've taken a lot of testimony," said House State Affairs Chairman Byron Cook, R-Corsicana, in explaining his decision to limit testimony.
But Rep. Sylvester Turner, a Houston Democrat and among the state's more senior lawmakers, said he objected to cutting off testimony.
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