Weekend Gazette 092913

Sunday September 29th 2013

-------------------------------

'Air strike kills 12 in Syrian high school'

BEIRUT: An activist group says government warplanes have bombed a high school in northern Syria, killing at least 12 people, most of them students.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the regime airstrike took place on Sunday in the city of Raqqa, which is the only Syrian provincial capital under rebel control.

The Observatory said the death toll is likely to rise because many of the wounded have serious injuries.

President Bashar Assad's regime has relied heavily on its air force to strike rebel-held areas in the country's 2-year-old conflict.  

Kenya 'At War' With Al Shabab In Wake Of Westgate Mall Attack, Government Says

NAIROBI, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Kenya is "at war" with Islamist militants who attacked a Nairobi shopping mall, the government said on Saturday as it faced questions about whether it had received advance intelligence warnings of the deadly strike.

A week after the raid on the Westgate shopping centre that killed 67 civilians and police and was claimed by the Somali militant group al Shabaab, the government has been trying to reassure Kenyans that it can protect them from further attacks.

Three Kenyan newspapers reported on Saturday that a year ago the country's National Intelligence Service (NIS) had warned of the presence of suspected al Shabaab militants in Nairobi and that they were planning to carry out "suicide attacks" on the Westgate mall and on a church in the city.

Deadly blast hits Pakistan market

An explosion has ripped through a market in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar, leaving at least 33 dead and dozens wounded, officials say.

Police said a bomb had exploded in the Kissa Khwani market, with shops and vehicles set alight.
The blast comes a week after a double suicide bombing that killed at least 80 people at a church in the city.
On Friday, at least 17 people were killed in the bombing of a bus carrying government employees near Peshawar.
Peshawar, the main city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has been hit by numerous bomb and gun attacks blamed on Taliban insurgents in recent years.

Iraqi Kurdish capital hit by blasts 

Explosions hit the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region on Sunday, an AFP correspondent reported, a rare event in an area usually spared violence plaguing the rest of the country.

The journalist heard three blasts in Arbil, and heavy gunfire. Smoke could be seen rising in the air, and a number of ambulances raced to the scene.
A high-ranking security official said four car bombs exploded near the headquarters of the Iraqi Kurds' asayesh security services in Arbil, causing an unspecified number of casualties.
While much of Iraq is plagued by near-daily violence that kills hundreds of people each month, the three-province Kurdistan region in the country's north is largely spared the deadly unrest.
The blasts came a day after results were announced for the region's parliamentary elections, which saw an opposition movement in second place ahead of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's party.

Analysis: Rouhani drives wedge between Netanyahu, Obama on Iran issue

"American and Israeli officials like to say there's no daylight between them on Iran," former US official says. "But with his words alone, Rouhani has opened a window."

WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM - Six months after US President Barack Obama eased a strained relationship with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during a visit to Israel dubbed "Operation Desert Schmooze," the two leaders now face the biggest test of whether they can work together - and the stakes are higher than ever.
A diplomatic charm offensive by new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has suddenly opened up a gap between the White House and Netanyahu's government. How they respond could have far-reaching implications for their political legacies as well as the future stability of the Middle East.

Syria Vows To Abide By UN Security Council Resolution, Cooperate With Inspectors Destroying Chemical Weapons Stockpile

BEIRUT — Syria will cooperate fully with U.N. inspectors charged with securing and destroying the country's chemical weapons stockpile, the nation's prime minister said Saturday.
The comments from Wael al-Halqi came a day after the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to purge Syria of its chemical weapons program. The U.N. resolution, passed after two weeks of white-knuckle negotiations, marked a major breakthrough in the paralysis that has gripped the council since the Syrian uprising began in March 2011.
"This resolution is in line with Syria's approach toward joining the chemical weapons convention," al-Halqi said in an interview with Lebanon's Al Manar TV. "Syria will stand by what it promised. We will cooperate and facilitate the work of the inspectors. We have provided lists with the chemical weapons we have and they can check all our institutions."
The U.N. resolution allows the start of a mission to rid Syria's regime of its estimated 1,000-ton chemical arsenal by mid-2014. It also calls for consequences if President Bashar Assad's regime fails to comply, although those will depend on the council passing another resolution in the event of non-compliance.

Italy in chaos as Berlusconi ministers quit
Move damned as 'mad and irresponsible' by prime minister of a country that is enduring its longest recession in decades

All five ministers from Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right party said on Saturday night they were resigning from Italy's grand coalition government in a dramatic move that plunged the country back into political uncertainty and raised the possibility of fresh elections.
Just days before a senate committee is expected to vote for him to be stripped of his seat following a conviction for tax fraud, Berlusconi said he was withdrawing his support from Enrico Letta's government over an increase in sales tax.
Letta, who has fought to hold the coalition together for five months of tensions and threats, called the move "mad and irresponsible" and said it was based on a "blatant lie". The centre-left prime minister will on Sunday meet the president, Giorgio Napolitano, who is known to be desperate to avoid any return to the polls.
Talks will begin on whether an alternative parliamentary majority can be found to support a new Letta cabinet. He had called last week for the government to be put to a confidence vote, and, although it was unclear whether that would go ahead, the prime minister said on Saturday night: "Everyone will assume their own responsibilities before the country in parliament."

Israel announces arrest of Iranian 'spy'

Israel's Shin Bet security service on Sunday announced the arrest on September 11 of an Iranian "spy" carrying photographs of the US embassy in Tel Aviv.

The suspect, holding a Belgian passport, was sent to Israel by Iran's elite Republican Guards and arrested at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion international airport, it said in a statement.
The Shin Bet identified the suspect as Ali Mansouri, 58, and said he had enrolled in a "special operations unit of the Revolutionary Guards responsible for numerous terrorist attacks around the world."
It said he had been using the fake identity Alex Mans.
The Shin Bet said that under questioning, the suspect had said he had been promised $1 million to use his position as a businessman to set up companies in Israel on behalf of the Iranian intelligence services to "harm Israeli and Western interests." 

Saudi Arabian cleric says female drivers risk damaging ovaries
Leading conservative's comments aimed at activists protesting against Islamic kingdom's male-only driving rules

One of Saudi Arabia's leading conservative clerics has said women who drive risk damaging their ovaries and bearing children with clinical problems, countering activists who are trying to end the Islamic kingdom's male-only driving rules.
A campaign calling for women to defy the ban in a protest drive on 26 October has spread rapidly online over the past week and gained support from prominent women activists. On Sunday, the campaign's website was blocked inside the kingdom.
As one of the 21 members of the senior council of scholars, Sheikh Saleh al-Lohaidan can write fatwas, or religious edicts, advise the government and has a large following among other influential conservatives.
His comments have in the past played into debates in Saudi society and he has been a vocal opponent of tentative reforms to increase freedoms for women by King Abdullah, who sacked him as head of a top judiciary council in 2009.

Rambo 'mercenaries' arrested after murder set-up

His nickname was Rambo. He was a former sergeant in the US Army, and he trained soldiers to be snipers. But after leaving the military in 2004, authorities say, he put his skills to work in a less honourable way: earning a living as a contract killer.
In spring, Joseph Hunter, 48, and two other former soldiers agreed to murder an agent of the US Drug Enforcement Administration and one of the agency's confidential informers, both in Liberia, for a total of $800,000, federal prosecutors said on Friday in Manhattan.
The plot had been proposed by men who held themselves out as Colombian drug traffickers, an indictment says.
''My guys will handle it,'' Mr Hunter wrote in an email on May 30, responding to a question as to whether his team would be willing to carry out the killings, the indictment states. In fact, authorities said, the purported drug traffickers were confidential sources for the DEA and part of an undercover sting operation that ultimately led to the arrests of Hunter and two others, another former US Army sergeant, Timothy Vamvakias, 42, and a former German corporal, Dennis Gogel, 27.

Advertisement

All three were charged with conspiracy to murder the agent and informer, as well as conspiring to import cocaine into the US.
Two other men, Michael Filter, 29, and Slawomir Soborski, 40, who served in the German and Polish militaries, respectively, have also been arrested and charged in the conspiracy, prosecutors said.
-

US shutdown nears after House vote

The US government has less than 48 hours to avert a shutdown of government services amid political divisions over President Obama's healthcare law.

On Sunday, the Republican-run House of Representatives voted to pull the law's funding, raising chances of a shutdown.
The government needs to agree a new policy-wide spending bill before the US fiscal year ends at midnight on Monday.
If it fails, non-essential federal services face closure, with employees sidelined or left working without pay.
Early on Sunday, the House passed an amended version of the Senate spending bill that removed funding from the healthcare law.
US Senate Majority leader Harry Reid has vowed that his Democrat-led chamber will reject the Republican bill.
-

Obama's Debt Ceiling Red Line: No Deals

The president says he won't negotiate. John Boehner says he has to. Who blinks first?

UPDATE: On Friday afternoon, President Barack Obama appeared in the White House press briefing room to announce that he had spoken to Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, to note that Secretary of State John Kerry had made progress in getting a strong UN resolution regarding Syria, and to blast House Republicans for bringing the government to the brink of a shutdown and for threatening to play politics with the debt ceiling. He reiterated his vow not to negotiate over raising the debt ceiling. Extending the government's borrowing authority so Congress can pay the bills it has already racked up, he said, "is not a concession to me." He called it "the solemn responsibility" of lawmakers.
With the Washington crisis of the week not yet resolved—whether the US government will shut down on Tuesday because GOPers block legislation funding federal agencies—President Barack Obama, at a rally in Largo, Maryland, promoting Obamacare, looked ahead on Thursday morning to the next showdown and issued a hard-and-fast proclamation: "I won't negotiate on anything when it comes to the full faith and credit of the United States of America." Obama was referring to raising the debt ceiling, which will have to be done in the next few weeks (or the US government will default and possibly trigger a financial crisis that could go international). To emphasize that Obama was drop-dead serious about not responding to Republican threats to hold the debt ceiling hostage once again, the White House immediately tweeted out that sentence. The message: This was no off-the-cuff rhetoric.

As Washington debates, some U.S. states proceed with food stamps cuts


(Reuters) - As Congress and the White House debate proposed cuts in the federal food stamps program, Kansas and Oklahoma are going ahead with reductions that could leave thousands of people without subsidies for food if they do not find work, or sign up for job training.
The two states will require healthy adults through the age of 49 with no dependents to work at least 20 hours per week, or be in job training, in order to be eligible for food stamps.
The change takes effect on Tuesday, when those states allow a federal waiver of the work requirement to expire. Wisconsin will take a similar step next July, bringing to eight the number of states requiring work to get the assistance.
"These are people who should be working," said Theresa Freed, spokeswoman for the Kansas Department for Children and Families. "There are plenty of jobs available."
A near-record 48 million Americans - or about one in seven - receive food stamps, government data shows.
The Food Stamp Program administered by the U.S. Agriculture Department provides paper coupons or debit cards for low-income people to buy food. But states can ask for the work requirement to be added, which Oklahoma and Kansas have done.

NSA leak journalist Greenwald, colleague say new revelations coming

Two American journalists known for their investigations of the United States' government said Saturday they've teamed up to report on the National Security Agency's role in what one called "a U.S. assassination program."
The journalists provided no evidence of the purported U.S. program at the news conference, nor details of who it targeted.
Jeremy Scahill, a contributor to The Nation magazine and the New York Times best-selling author of "Dirty Wars," said he will be working with Glenn Greenwald, the Rio-based journalist who has written stories about U.S. surveillance programs based on documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
"The connections between war and surveillance are clear. I don't want to give too much away but Glenn and I are working on a project right now that has at its center how the National Security Agency plays a significant, central role in the U.S. assassination program," said Scahill, speaking to moviegoers in Rio de Janeiro, where the documentary based on his book made its Latin American debut at the Rio Film Festival.
"There are so many stories that are yet to be published that we hope will produce `actionable intelligence,' or information that ordinary citizens across the world can use to try to fight for change, to try to confront those in power," said Scahill.
"Dirty Wars" the film, directed by Richard Rowley, traces Scahill's investigations into the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC. The movie, which won a prize for cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival, follows Scahill as he hopscotches around the globe, from Afghanistan to Yemen to Somalia, talking to the families of people killed in the U.S. strikes.

Republicans Win Belated Legal Battles, but Elections Can’t Be Undone

You can’t rewrite history, but Republicans probably wish you could.
While two high-profile former GOP officeholders — Texas Rep. Tom DeLay and the late Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens — have now had their convictions overturned or dismissed, Republicans are still dealing with the political consequences.
It’s easy to forget the electoral impact of DeLay’s and Stevens’ legal problems at the time.
DeLay, the former House majority leader, stepped down from his post in fall 2005 when a grand jury convicted him of campaign finance violations. He eventually resigned from office in June 2006 and was later convicted in fall 2010.
DeLay’s Houston-area House seat fell into Democratic hands in 2006, when Democrat Nick Lampson defeated write-in Republican Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, 52 percent to 42 percent. Republicans would regain the seat two years later, but DeLay was the poster-child for Democrats’ “culture of corruption” message that helped them gain 31 seats and the House majority in 2006.
Last week, DeLay’s conviction was overturned by a three-judge panel.
But while the Republicans regained the majority in the House after the 2010 elections, the Stevens verdict had (and could have) long-lasting implications in the Senate.
During the 2008 campaign, FBI and IRS agents raided Stevens’ Alaska home in an investigation that centered on a large addition to the senator’s home and whether Stevens paid enough or was charged enough for the work. He was convicted eight days before the election, and Democrat Mark Begich won 47.8 percent to 46.5 percent. The conviction was voided and indictment dismissed five months after the election.
Only the most partisan Democrats would argue that the conviction didn’t affect the outcome of the race. But the electoral fallout from that ruling is still playing out today.
-