Gazette - 081305

Monday August 5th 2013

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Report: Syrian missile attacks killing hundreds of civilians

The Syrian military is firing ballistic missiles into populated areas where it is battling rebels, killing hundreds of civilians in recent months, Human Rights Watch said in a report Monday.

The U.S.-based group said it has investigated nine apparent missile attacks that killed at least 215 people, half of them children, between February and July. The most recent attack HRW investigated occurred in the northern province of Aleppo on July 26, killing at least 33 civilians including 17 children.
HRW activists visited the sites of seven of the nine attacks and found no apparent military targets nearby, the group said. Ole Solvang, a senior researcher with HRW, said it's impossible to distinguish between civilians and fighters when firing missiles with wide-ranging destructive effects into densely populated areas.
"Even if there are fighters in the area, you cannot accurately target them and the impact in some of these cases has been devastating to local civilians," Solvang said in a statement.

US extends closure of embassies

The US says it will keep a number of embassies in north Africa and the Middle East closed until Saturday, due to a possible militant threat.

Twenty-one US embassies and consulates closed on Sunday.
The state department in Washington said the extended closures were "out of an abundance of caution", and not a reaction to a new threat.
The UK said its embassy in Yemen would stay closed until the Muslim festival of Eid on Thursday.
The decision to close the embassies comes as the US government battles to defend recently disclosed surveillance programmes that have stirred deep privacy concerns.

U.S. Official Meets With Jailed Senior Muslim Brotherhood Leader

CAIRO -- A top U.S. diplomat met with a jailed senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood early Monday as part of mediation efforts to end the standoff between Egypt's military-backed government and protesters supporting ousted President Mohammed Morsi, Egyptian officials said.
The talks between U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Khairat el-Shater, the powerful deputy head of the Brotherhood, took place in the prison were the Islamist figure is being held, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media. Burns was accompanied by the foreign ministers of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as well as an EU envoy.
U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Patricia Kabra declined comment.
El-Shater was among a host of prominent Islamists arrested by authorities after the army ousted Morsi, a longtime Brotherhood member, on July 3. El-Shater has been charged with complicity in the killing of anti-Morsi protesters during the four days of protests that led up to the military coup.
The government officials did not say why Burns and the other diplomats visited el-Shater, who was widely believed along with the Brotherhood's spiritual leader Mohammed Badie to be the source of real power during Morsi's one year in power.

Turkish general jailed over 'plot'

Turkey's former armed forces chief has been jailed for life for plotting to overthrow the government, after five years of trials involving officers, lawyers, writers and journalists.

Gen Ilker Basbug was among dozens of people convicted of involvement in the so-called Ergenekon plot.
Critics of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have accused him of staging show trials to eliminate his enemies.
His supporters say the trials have pushed the military out of politics.

Blast on Pakistan train kills toddler, wounds 13

A bomb exploded on a passenger train in central Pakistan Monday, killing a toddler and wounding 13 others, officials said, in what the railways minister called "an act of terrorism".

The device on the Shalimar Express from the eastern city of Lahore to Karachi went off as it passed through fields near the town of Toba Tek Singh in Punjab province.
"It was an act of terrorism. The explosive was planted in the washroom of a bogie (wagon)," railways minister Saad Rafique told reporters in Lahore.
"Fourteen people have been injured, condition of three of them are critical."
Mohammad Hussain, medical superintendent in main Toba Tek Singh hospital told AFP that a child, aged two and a half years, had succumbed to his injuries in hospital.

Temple Bombed To Allegedly Avenge Violence Against Persecuted Group

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- A senior official said Monday that an attack on a Buddhist temple in Indonesia's capital was apparently aimed at avenging violence against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
The small explosion Sunday night near the front door of the Ekayana Grha Buddhist temple in West Jakarta injured one person and slightly damaged the structure while about 300 devotees were inside praying. Another low-explosive bomb placed near the back door emitted only smoke, while a third device inside the temple failed to go off.
Minister of Religious Affairs Suryadharma Ali, who visited the scene Monday, said there was a written message on one device saying, "We respond to the screams of Rohingya."
The attack was aimed at pitting Muslims against Buddhists, Ali said, adding he believes people from both faiths will not be stirred by such an act.
"We strongly condemn the attack. This is a damned and uncivilized action during the holy fasting month," Ali said.
Earlier Monday, Djoko Suyanto, coordinating minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs, called for increased vigilance against any sign of terrorism.
"Security authorities have been ordered to search and capture the perpetrators who have damaged the peaceful environment of the fasting month," Suyanto said.

Gibraltar: David Cameron says UK will not compromise with Spain

Downing Street says prime minister is seriously concerned by growing tension over British overseas territory
David Cameron has said he is "seriously worried" by escalating tensions with Spain over Gibraltar.
The prime minister's concerns arose after Madrid said it was preparing to impose a €50 (£43) fee on the border crossing with the British territory as well as being ready to close airspace to planes using the Gibraltar airport and to investigate alleged smuggling over the border and the tax affairs of Gibraltarians with property in Spain.
"Clearly, we remain seriously concerned by the events at the Spain-Gibraltar border," a Downing Street spokesman said.
"Specifically on this issue of border fees, the Spanish have not raised the prospect of introducing border fees with us. We are seeking an explanation from them regarding reports that they might target Gibraltar with further measures."
The government was in close contact with the Spanish about the issue, but the spokesman refused to give further details.

Report: Iran's Arak reactor to have nuclear weapons grade plutonium by next summer

According to Wall Street Journal report, the progress at Arak "crept up" on int'l officials whose focus was on Iran's uranium enrichment; says Arak is easier for Israel to attack than other sites.

The Arak heavy water nuclear reactor in Iran will be capable of producing two nuclear bombs' worth of weapons grade plutonium a year and will be capable of producing the material by next summer, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Monday that cited US, UN and EU officials.

Progress at Arak could complicate international efforts to negotiate with Iran on its suspected nuclear arms program and it also "heightens the possibility of an Israeli strike on the site," the report stated, citing officials.

According to the report, US and the West has been focused mainly on Iran's program to enrich uranium and that the issue of plutonium, that can also serve as a material for an explosive devise took some officials by surprise.

Regarding the capabilities of the Arak reactor the report quoted an official based at the IAEA's Vienna headquarters who said that it "It really crept up on us."

The Wall Street Journal report stressed that a site like Arak was more vulnerable to attack compared to Iran's other enrichment facilities at Natanz and Qom.

"There's no question that the reactor and its heavy water are more vulnerable targets than the enrichment plants," the report quoted Gary Samore as saying, a former top adviser on nuclear issues to US President Barack Obama.

Indian girl dies after being set on fire during attempted rape

An 11-year-old girl who was set on fire during an attempted rape has died of her injuries in eastern India.
The IANS news agency reports the girl was admitted to a government-run hospital in Kolkata with critical burns after the incident in Howrah district on Wednesday.
The Times of India reports the police arrested an 18-year-old suspect on Saturday and they are still searching for an accomplice, both of whom were named by the victim.
Police allege the suspects tried to rape the girl outside her home and the 18-year-old poured kerosene over her and set her on fire when she resisted and threatened to reveal his identity.

However, The Times reports the suspect told investigators his accomplice poured the kerosene and set her ablaze.

Five dead in southern Philippines bomb blast

 A powerful bomb exploded at the centre of the southern Philippines city of Cotabato on Monday, killing five people, police said.

The explosive device was placed in a vehicle -- either a motorcycle or a van -- parked near a hospital and a school, city police chief Senior Superintendent Rolen Balquin said.
"The explosion was on a very busy street. There are five confirmed fatalities," Balquin told local Catholic radio station DXMS.
The late-afternoon blast damaged at least four vehicles and triggered a fire that engulfed a nearby mortuary and a tyre repair shop, he added.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, and Balquin said the motive was still being investigated.
Cotabato is a mixed Muslim-Catholic city on the main southern island of Mindanao, where Muslim insurgents have waged a decades old rebellion that has claimed 150,000 lives.
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DEA Reportedly Covering Up Spying Used To Investigate Americans

WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.
Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.
The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.
"I have never heard of anything like this at all," said Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor who served as a federal judge from 1994 to 2011. Gertner and other legal experts said the program sounds more troubling than recent disclosures that the National Security Agency has been collecting domestic phone records. The NSA effort is geared toward stopping terrorists; the DEA program targets common criminals, primarily drug dealers.

House Republican leaders outline agenda for immigration, ObamaCare, budget talks

House Republican leaders on Sunday outlined their caucus game plan for a critical next few months and beyond, suggesting a potential compromise on the sequester before an October deadline and a final vote on immigration reform.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor suggested that congressional Republicans are open to a compromise to end the deep, undiscerning cuts to the federal budget known as sequester but said the deal would require Democrats agreeing to entitlement cuts.
The Virginia Republican’s statement on “Fox News Sunday” knocks down criticism that his party wanted the cuts and is determined to keep them when Congress returns next month to negotiate a budget deal before the September 30 deadline.
“It’s a default mechanism,” Cantor said about the sequester cuts, which kicked in this spring after Washington failed to agree on a more measured approach. “It’s not the best solution.”

Once quiet, August now key time for activists

Lawmakers hoping for a respite from Washington’s intense lobbying climate won’t get a break back home during the August recess.

Once a lull in the political calendar, August is now officially part of the high season. An array of interest groups has methodically plotted how to use the congressional recess to press causes.
The sophisticated operations aim to drive a political narrative throughout the month, hoping to produce a strong display of voter sentiment that lawmakers will not be able to ignore when they return to Washington after Labor Day. At that point, they will immediately contend with a showdown over the budget, a House debate on immigration reform and the launch of new state health insurance marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act.
So this month, the pressure is on. At town hall meetings, lawmakers will face activists calling for a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. On walks in local neighborhoods, they could run into gun-control advocates, who plan to blanket key districts with fliers. During visits to the county fair, they are likely to encounter voters demanding defunding of President Obama’s signature health-care law.
Liberal groups are employing top-shelf political tactics in their grass-roots advocacy campaigns, driven by the memory of being outflanked by conservative activists in the summer of 2009.

Five years later, an evolving Tea Party movement wades into the 2014 elections

This wasn't the revolution the Tea Party had in mind.
Four years ago, the movement and its potent mix of anger and populism persuaded thousands of costumed and sign-waving conservatives to protest the ballooning deficit and President Obama's health care law. It swept a crop of no-compromise lawmakers into Congress and governor's offices and transformed political up-and-comers, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, into household names.
But as many Tea Party stars seek re-election next year and Rubio considers a 2016 presidential run, conservative activists are finding themselves at a crossroads. Many of their standard-bearers have embraced more moderate positions on bedrock issues such as immigration and health care, broadening their appeal in swing states but dampening grass-roots passion.
"They keep sticking their finger in the eyes of the guys who got them elected," said Ralph King, a co-founder of the Cleveland Tea Party Patriots. "A lot of people are feeling betrayed." 

Groundswell: A Secret Tape Reveals How It Lobbied Boehner and Issa on Benghazi

As Mother Jones revealed last week, Groundswell, the hush-hush right-wing strategy group partly led by Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, wanted to hype the Benghazi tragedy into a full-fledged scandal for the Obama administration, as part of its "30 front war" on the president and progressives. A secret audio tape of one of Groundswell's weekly meetings shows that prominent members of the group pressed House Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the chair of the House oversight committee, to expand the Benghazi investigation and make this supposed scandal a top-priority for congressional Republicans. This recording indicates Groundswell's mission extends beyond message coordination to scandal-stoking.
The tape has been posted at Crooks and Liars, a progressive web site, and it captured the first 20 minutes of Groundswell's May 8 meeting. (The site does not say how the recording was obtained.) The meeting opened with a prayer ("Father, we thank you for the opportunity to gather here as free Americans"), and a roll call was taken. Among those present were former GOP Rep. Allen West, Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, Jerry Boykin of the Family Research Council, Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, Stephen Bannon of Breitbart News, and Ginni Thomas. Catherine Engelbrecht, a founder of True the Vote, led the meeting, and the first order of business was a report on the Benghazi controversy from Boykin and Gaffney.
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