Gazette 092313

Monday September 23rd 2013

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Kenya forces storm militants in mall

Kenyan security forces have launched an assault on the Westgate shopping complex in the capital Nairobi in an attempt to break the two-day siege.

Heavy gunfire can be heard and there were earlier reports of explosions at the complex. A plume of black smoke is billowing from the building.
The Kenyan interior ministry said in a tweet: "We've arrested some individuals at the airport for questioning."
The official death toll now stands at 62 and more than 170 have been injured.
The Somali Islamist al-Shabab movement has said it carried out the attack in retaliation for Kenyan military operations in Somalia.
The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse, who is at the scene, reported sustained gunfire. 
Dozens of Kenyan troops were seen crossing the road into the Westgate centre, said Daniel Howden, a journalist for the British newspaper, the Independent.
Meanwhile, the police have used tear gas to disperse crowds of onlookers gathered close to the Westgate Centre.
The Interior Ministry said in a tweet: "We are pleading with you, #WestGateMall is a scene of crime. For your own safety keep off that area. Roads leading there have been cordoned."

At least 85 killed in suicide bombing at Pakistan church

Angry Pakistani Christians on Monday denounced the deadliest attack ever in this country against members of their faith as the death toll from the church bombings the day before climbed to 85. A pair of suicide bombers blew themselves up amid hundreds of worshippers outside a historic church in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday.
The attack on the All Saints Church in the city of Peshawar, which also wounded over 140 people, occurred as worshippers were leaving after service to get a free meal of rice offered on the front lawn.
A wing of the Pakistani Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the bombings, saying they would continue to target non-Muslims until the U.S. stops drone attacks in the remote tribal region of Pakistan.
The bombings raised new questions about the Pakistani government's push to strike a peace deal with the militants to end a decade-long insurgency that has killed thousands of people.
"What dialogue are we talking about? Peace with those who are killing innocent people," asked the head of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, Paul Bhatti, whose brother, a federal minister, was gunned down by an Islamic extremist in 2011.

Egypt Bans Muslim Brotherhood

CAIRO — An Egyptian court on Monday ordered the Muslim Brotherhood to be banned and its assets confiscated in a dramatic escalation of a crackdown by the military-backed government against supporters of the ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi.
The ruling opens the door for a wider crackdown on the vast network of the Brotherhood, which includes social organizations that have been key for building the group's grassroots support and helping its election victories. The verdict banned the group itself – including the official association it registered under earlier this year – as well as "any institution branching out of it or ... receiving financial support from it," according to the court ruling, made public on Egypt's state official news agency MENA.
The judge at the Cairo Court for Urgent Matters also ordered the "confiscation of all the group's money, assets, and buildings" and said that an independent committee should be formed by the Cabinet to manage the money until final court orders are issued. The verdict can be appealed.
The Brotherhood was outlawed for most of its 85 years in existence. But after the 2011 ouster of autocrat Hosni Mubarak, it was allowed to work openly, formed a political party and rose to power in a string of post-Mubarak elections. In March, it registered as a recognized non-governmental organization.

Russia offers troops for Syria plan

Russia can send its military personnel to help in the proposed operation to eliminate Syria's chemical arms, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says.

Mr Lavrov told Russian TV that military observers could help Syria destroy its stockpiles under a US-Russian deal.
He also accused the US of using "blackmail" over a UN resolution.
The international chemical weapons watchdog, the OPCW, says Syria has met the deadline to submit details of its estimated 1,000-tonne chemical arsenal.
This was the first step in a deal, brokered by Russia and the United States, to eliminate the weapons by the middle of next year.

More than 60 killed in Iraq funeral bombing

At least 60 people have been killed at a funeral in the mainly Shia Muslim Sadr City district of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

A tent where mourners were gathered was hit by two explosions, one of them a suicide car bomb.
A third explosion followed as police, ambulances and firefighters gathered at the scene, according to one report.
Officials reported that women and children were among the dead and that more than 120 people had been injured.
No group has claimed responsibility for the bombing, which happened early on Saturday evening.
The explosions reportedly set the tents and nearby cars on fire, with eyewitnesses describing the scene as an "inferno".
"I saw several charred bodies on the ground and tents on fire and also burning cars. Wounded people were screaming in pain,'' says one of the mourners, Sheikh Sattar al-Fartousi.
Medics in nearby hospitals confirmed the scale of the casualties.
Also on Saturday, eight people were killed in a separate bomb attack in a street in the nearby neighbourhood of Ur.
And at least five police officers were killed in an assault on a police station in Baiji, north of Baghdad.

Two killed in suicide attack in Russia's Caucasus

Two officials were killed and more than 10 people were wounded when a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb on Monday in the volatile Russian Caucasus region of Dagestan, investigators and police said.

A Lada car was driven near a police station in the Dagestani village of Khuchni early Monday morning and was detonated as it came to a sudden halt, regional police said in a statement.
"A suicide bomber was in the car," the statement said.
An employee of the federal migration service and a policeman died while more than 10 people received injuries, Moscow-based investigators said.
Nine parked cars and a building housing the police station were damaged.
The force of the blast was equivalent to more than 50 kilogrammes (110 pounds) of TNT, said investigators, citing preliminary information.


Protests Shut Down More Than 100 Factories
DHAKA, Sept 23 (Reuters) - More than 100 Bangladeshi garment factories were forced to shut on Monday as thousands of workers protested to demand a $100 a month minimum wage and about 50 people were injured in clashes, police and witnesses said.

Garments are a vital sector for Bangladesh and its low wages and duty-free access to Western markets have helped make it the world's second-largest apparel exporter after China.

But the $20 billion industry, which supplies many Western brands, has been under a spotlight after a series of deadly incidents including the collapse of a building housing factories in April that killed more than 1,130 people.

Workers took to the streets for a third day on Monday, blocking major roads and attacking some vehicles in the Gazipur and Savar industrial zones, on the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka.

At least 50 people, including some policemen, were injured, witnesses and police said, as police fired teargas and rubber bullets, and workers responded by throwing broken bricks.

Some workers also vandalised factories, witnesses said.

"We had to take harsh actions to restore order as the defiant workers would not stop the violence," an Gazipur police officer said.

The monthly minimum wage in Bangladesh is $38, half what Cambodian garment workers earn.

Merkel secures third election win

Angela Merkel was basking in a historic third-term election victory in Germany on Sunday night, having led her conservatives to their best result in more than 20 years.
Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and its sister party won 41.5% of the vote, with analysts calling the win a personal victory for the 59-year-old, who is now on track to overtake Margaret Thatcher as Europe's longest-serving female leader.
Merkel's performance was compared to that of conservative chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who was the last chancellor to secure a Bundestag majority without need of a coalition partner since 1957. After a campaign that concentrated almost solely on Merkel's personality and solid leadership in times of economic turmoil but was thin on detailed policy, she came within a whisker of obtaining an absolute majority, falling just five seats short.
Final results gave the CDU/CSU 311 seats, the Social Democrats 192, the Left party 64 and the Greens 63.
The historical dimensions of the election were clear, with Merkel set to become just the third postwar chancellor to secure three election wins, after Adenauer and Helmut Kohl, who brought her into the party as an inexperienced and gauche 35-year-old.
She has also bucked the European trend by becoming the only leader in the eurozone, whether from left or right, to be re-elected since the snowballing of the euro crisis in 2010. Out of 17 countries in the eurozone, 12 governments have fallen, indicating how protected under Merkel's leadership Germans feel from the crisis.
In a result that was closely watched across Europe, Merkel crushed her opponents – and, indeed, some of her allies.
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Russia's Putin warns of Islamic militant spillover from Syria into ex-Soviet bloc

SOCHI, Russia - Russian President Vladimir Putin warned ex-Soviet allies on Monday that Islamist militancy fuelling the war in Syria could reach their countries, some of which have Muslim majorities.
Russia, which has a large Muslim minority of its own and is fighting an Islamist insurgency, has accused the West of helping militants by seeking Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's removal without paying enough attention to the potential consequences.
Putin told leaders of the six-nation Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) that militants fighting Assad could eventually expand attacks beyond Syria and the Middle East.
"The militant groups (in Syria) did not come out of nowhere, and they will not vanish into thin air," Putin said.
"The problem of terrorism spilling from one country to another is absolutely real and could directly affect the interests of any one of our countries," he said, citing the deadly attack on a shopping mall in Nairobi as an example.
"We are now witnessing a terrible tragedy unfold in Kenya. The militants came from another country, as far as we can judge, and are committing horrendous bloody crimes," Putin said at a CSTO summit in the Russian Black Sea resort city of Sochi.

China's Bo Xilai to appeal against life sentence: Source

BEIJING: Former senior Chinese politician Bo Xilai will appeal against his conviction and life sentence for corruption, a lawyer close to the case said on Monday, adding further drama to the high-profile trial.

Bo, the key figure in China's biggest political scandal for decades, had already proved unusually defiant during the sensational court proceedings.

"He informed the court yesterday of his request for an appeal following the verdict," said a lawyer with direct knowledge of the situation who asked not to be named.

Experts say the appeal should be addressed within two months but is unlikely to succeed, with the ruling Communist Party retaining strict control over the courts.

The court in the eastern city of Jinan sentenced Bo on Sunday after a trial that exposed intrigue and wealth at senior levels of the party.

Bo, a member of the party's top 25-member Politburo before his downfall, was convicted of bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power.

Yet during a five-day hearing last month, he mounted a spirited defence rarely seen in Chinese trials, in which defendants typically quickly admit guilt. 
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Obama in gun plea after Navy deaths

President Barack Obama has renewed calls for changes to US gun laws at a memorial service for the victims of last week's shooting at the Washington Navy Yard.

Mr Obama said tears were "not enough".
The president told mourners Americans must insist that "there is nothing normal about innocent men and women being gunned down where they work".
Twelve people were killed last Monday by contractor Aaron Alexis, who was himself shot dead by police.
The 34-year-old reportedly had untreated mental health difficulties.
'Difficult politics' Mr Obama called on Americans to abandon their "creeping resignation" to mass shootings.
Acknowledging that "the politics are difficult" - a reference to his failure to get measures through Congress earlier this year - the president said change would not come from Washington.

What’s the end-game? Lawmakers seek way out of ObamaCare showdown

Concerned their party is painting itself into a corner, some Republicans are trying to find a way out of the congressional showdown over a House-passed bill that would keep the government open past Sept. 30 only if lawmakers agree to de-fund ObamaCare.   
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid on Monday is expected to start the process of setting up a test vote on the House bill.   
Reid and his fellow Democrats, naturally, want to strip out the provision de-funding the health law. Republicans don't want that. So Tea Party-aligned senators like Ted Cruz have rallied around an only-in-Washington kind of approach -- in order to defend the House bill which they supported, they will try to block Reid from calling it up. 
But this raises a perplexing question: Even if Republicans can muster the votes to block the bill, what then? 
The approach threatens to end in a stalemate, with the Senate holding onto a bill and neither chamber, then, voting on anything that would keep the government open past Sept. 30. Congress hasn't passed a bona fide budget since 2009, forcing the government to operate on a series of short-term spending bills -- this practice sets up periodic deadlines, and opens the door each time to the risk of a shutdown. 
Some Republicans and Democrats are now looking for a resolution, worried about the political blowback from a shutdown.

Shutdown countdown: What the next 8 days could bring

On Friday, the House passed a measure that would keep the government running through mid-December. But it came with what Democrats consider a poison pill: It defunds President Obama’s signature health-care law, known as Obamacare. There is no way whatsoever — think pigs flying — that the Senate will agree to the House plan. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said the House bill was “dead,” then for emphasis added: “Dead.” ¶ That sets up eight days of brinkmanship between the Republican House and the Democratic Senate and White House, leading to midnight Sept. 30, when much of the government will shut down if there’s no deal. ¶ Leaders on Capitol Hill expect the face-off to go right up to the deadline, if not beyond. Below is a day-by-day look at how it’s all likely to play out — with the caveat that events can change quickly.

Monday: The Senate will convene briefly, with just a few members on hand. Reid is expected to call up the House bill, known as a continuing resolution, and file a motion that sets up initial votes on the measure. Under Senate rules, there will be two votes just to determine whether the chamber gets to a vote on final passage of the bill. These are the “cloture” votes, which require 60 ayes to choke off a filibuster; Reid will file a motion one day, then there must be an intervening day of debate, then the filibuster-busting vote comes. Reid will file the first of these Monday, setting up a vote Wednesday.

Hillary Clinton -- Someone better tell her she’s running!

The media have been chattering about Hillary and 2016 for so long that it seems like her candidacy is old news.
All of the demurring from the former secretary of state as she was leaving office about how she wanted to take time to smell the roses seem lost in the blur of her giving speeches, working on the foundation she now shares with her husband and generally being out there.
All that was missing was engagement with the press. Knowing that every syllable would be parsed, Hillary kept her distance from journalists—until now.
In an interview with New York Magazine, Clinton addresses the prospect of a second White House bid, but with great circumspection.
Does she wrestle with running for president?
“I do,” she says, “but I’m both pragmatic and realistic. I think I have a pretty good idea of the political and governmental challenges that are facing our leaders, and I’ll do whatever I can from whatever position I find myself in to advocate for the values and the policies I think are right for the country. I will just continue to weigh what the factors are that would influence me making a decision one way or the other.”
See? It has not even been a year since Barack Obama was re-elected. She’s still deciding.
Not so fast. Joe Hagan’s New York piece begs to differ.

White House seeks Hill leadership meetings to avoid shutdown

The White House is attempting to organize a meeting with congressional leaders next week ahead of the deadline for lawmakers to strike a deal to keep the federal government open.

The president and congressional leaders have not yet been able to iron out a specific date and time, although it will have to come in the latter half of the week. President Obama will be in New York on Monday and Tuesday to attend the United Nations General Assembly. The White House hopes to use the meeting to convince lawmakers to strike a deal on the federal budget, with a pair of rapidly approaching deadlines threatening the nation's economic stability. 
If lawmakers do not strike a budget deal before the end of the month, the government would shut down all non-essential services. A few weeks later, the government is expected to hit the debt ceiling if Congress cannot agree to raise the borrowing limit.