Gazette 12-25-13

Egypt Brotherhood 'terrorist group'

The military-backed interim Egyptian government has declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group after blaming it for a deadly attack on a police HQ earlier this week.

The group, whose candidate Mohammed Morsi won the presidential poll last year before being deposed by the military, had already been outlawed.
Thousands of its supporters have been arrested in a crackdown.
This escalation gives the authorities more power to crack down on them.
Deputy Prime Minister Hossam Eissa announced the move, saying that those who belonged to the group, financed it or promoted its activities would face punishment.
He said the decision was in response to Tuesday's suicide bombing of a police headquarters in Mansoura, in the Nile Delta, which killed 16 people and wounded more than 100.
"Egypt was horrified from north to south by the hideous crime committed by the Muslim Brotherhood group," Mr Eissa said.
"This was in context of dangerous escalation to violence against Egypt and Egyptians and a clear declaration by the Muslim Brotherhood group that it still knows nothing but violence.
"It's not possible for Egypt the state nor Egypt the people to submit to the Muslim Brotherhood terrorism."
The Brotherhood has denied being responsible for the attack, and an al-Qaida inspired group has claimed responsibility.

Bomb attacks on Christians in Baghdad kill 37

At least 37 were killed in Iraq after militants targeted Christians in two separate bomb attacks on Wednesday, according to officials.
In one attack, a car bomb went off near a church during Christmas Mass in the capital's southern Dora neighborhood, killing at least 26 people and wounding 38, a police officer said.
A little bit earlier, a bomb ripped through an outdoor market in the nearby Christian section of Athorien, killing 11 people and wounding 21, the officer added.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but Iraq's dwindling Christian community, which is estimated to number about 400,000 to 600,000 people, has often been targeted by al-Qaida and other insurgents who see the Christians as unbelievers.
Along with Christians, other targets include civilians in restaurants, cafes or crowded public areas, as well as Shiites and also members of the Iraqi security forces, who are targeted in an attempt to undermine confidence in the Shiite-led government and stir up Iraq's already simmering sectarian tensions.

U.S. Embassy In Kabul Attacked On Christmas Day

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The U.S. Embassy in Kabul was hit by indirect fire before dawn on Christmas Day but no Americans were hurt, as attacks elsewhere in Afghanistan killed at least six people Wednesday, officials said.
Two rounds struck the sprawling embassy compound but it was not immediately clear which part of the complex, and a U.S. Embassy official said the incident was under investigation.
"At approximately 6:40 local time in Kabul, approximately two rounds of indirect fire impacted the U.S. Embassy compound," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. "All Americans are accounted for and no injuries were sustained."
Indirect fire can refer to either mortars or rockets.
The Taliban promptly claimed they fired four rockets at the American Embassy on Wednesday and said they inflicted heavy casualties. But the insurgents often exaggerate their claims.

Turkey ministers resign amid scandal

One of three Turkish cabinet ministers who have resigned over a corruption scandal, Environment Minister Erdogan Bayraktar, has urged Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to step down.

Mr Bayraktar, Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan and Interior Minister Muammer Guler quit after their sons were taken into custody.
All three deny any wrongdoing.
Police are investigating allegations of illicit money transfers to Iran and bribery for construction projects.
All three ministers had appeared with Mr Erdogan in front of a crowd of supporters on Tuesday night on his return to Esenboga airport in Ankara from a trip to Pakistan.
In a telephone interview with NTV television, Mr Bayraktar complained of being put under pressure to resign by Mr Erdogan.

Antarctic expedition scientists trapped in ice

A team of scientists and members of the public who have been retracing the footsteps of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) of 1911 have become trapped in heavy ice a few miles from the coast of Antarctica.
Passengers aboard the ship, the MV Akademik Shokalskiy, were informed on Christmas morning that the captain had issued a distress call to the Maritime Service Authority based in Falmouth in the UK earlier in the day. Three nearby icebreaker ships have been notified of the Shokalskiy's situation and are on their way to help.
The nearest ship, the Chinese Xue Long (Snow Dragon), will take just over a day to reach the Shokalskiy's position, around 1,500 nautical miles from Hobart in Tasmania. A French ship called the Astrolabe, and sent out from the nearest Antarctic base, Dumont D'Urville, could arrive around the same time. The furthest ship, also on its way, is the Australian icebreaker, Aurora Australis.
"The ship is no danger," said Chris Turney. "We're currently in heavy ice and we need help to get out. It's frustrating – we're only two miles from open water. Everyone is well on board and morale is high. We've had a fantastic Christmas and the science programme has been continuing while we're stuck in position. The results looking really exciting. We're very fortunate the Chinese are in the area, passing relatively close by."
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Hamas attack thwarted by Egyptian army 

The Egyptian army said on Wednesday it has foiled an attack by Hamas in Sinai, a region embroiled with tensions due to recent political turmoil in Egypt.
The Egyptian military interogated a suspect and he admitted the plan, military spokesman colonel Ahmed Ali said, AFP reported.
Ali said "a Palestinian belonging to hamas who illegally entered Egypt...in a car with North Sinai license plate."
Egypt's army says militants from Hamas-run Gaza have staged joint attacks with hardline Islamists in North Sinai, where the government has ramped up security operations after a surge of violence set off by President Mohamed Morsi's downfall in July.
In October, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said “we do not have any security or military role in any Arab country, first and foremost Egypt.” The comments came in response to allegations about the involvement of Hamas in terror attacks against Egyptian troops. “We do not intervene in the internal affairs of anyone. What harms the Egyptian people also harms us.”

UN boosts peacekeepers for South Sudan

Cairo: The UN Security Council approved plans on Tuesday to almost double the number of peacekeepers in South Sudan in a bid to protect civilians from violence as the discovery of a mass grave fuelled fears of ethnic bloodletting in the world's newest state.
The 15-member council unanimously authorised a plan by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's to boost the strength of the force in South Sudan to 12,500 troops and 1323 police, as some 45,000 civilians seek protection at UN bases.
The decision follows the discovery of mass graves in a rebel-held city: one grave with 14 bodies and a site nearby with 20 bodies, said UN human rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani.

International mediation efforts have so far failed to halt the clashes, which broke out in the capital Juba on December 15 and have now reached the oil fields in Benitu in Unity State, the cornerstone of the fledgling country’s economy.

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The official death toll remains at 500, although observers say at least thousands if not more have died.
“Mass extrajudicial killings, the targeting of individuals on the basis of their ethnicity and arbitrary detentions have been documented in recent days,” the United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay said in a statement on Tuesday.
"There are reportedly at least two other mass graves in Juba,” she said, believed to be in the areas of Jebel-Kujur and Newside.
Tensions in South Sudan’s governing party emerged in July when President Salva Kiir, who is from the majority Dinka group, sacked his deputy Riek Machar, who is from the second largest group, the Nuer.
Those tensions spilled over into fighting in the capital on December 15.
Now, Ms Pillay says, “there is a palpable fear among civilians of both Dinka and Nuer backgrounds that they will be killed on the basis of their ethnicity”.
“There needs to be clear statements and clear steps from all those in positions of political and military control that human rights violations will not be tolerated and those responsible will be brought to justice.”
At least 80,000 people have been internally displaced by the crisis, with many seeking refuge in UN compounds around the country.

China smugglers dig tunnel into Hong Kong: Media

BEIJING: Chinese smugglers dug a "professional" concrete tunnel into Hong Kong equipped with lights, vents, steel reinforcements and even rails to transport goods, domestic media reported on Wednesday.

The underground path had "one end in a rented garage in Shenzhen and another in a thicket of reeds in Hong Kong, totally concealed", said a report posted on the official website china.com.cn.

"It was dug in a totally professional way," it said.

Semi-autonomous Hong Kong, along with Shenzhen in mainland China, are both important trade hubs for the fast-growing and massive market.

But the two have very different tariff systems.

The as-yet unidentified smugglers sought to exploit their proximity by building a 40-metre-long (130 feet) underground passage and installing a rail track and wagon with a block-and-tackle system to ferry goods such as cell phones and tablet computers.

The tunnel stood about 0.8 metres wide and 1 metre high, just big enough for an adult to crawl through.

It started from a remote area of Shenzhen, in a garage full of bags packed with sludge dug up from the tunnel, and ended in a cluster of tall reeds a few metres past a river dividing mainland China and Hong Kong, with the nearest village 20 metres away.

The project was estimated to have cost three million yuan ($490,000) and taken four months to build.

Border officers discovered the tunnel a week ago, and a nearby resident said she heard drilling noises for one or two nights but assumed they were for renovations.

The man who rented the garage had used a fake ID, authorities were quoted as saying.
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 Ex-NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who quit in prostitution scandal, says marriage is over

A former New York governor who quit in a prostitution scandal says his marriage of more than two decades is over.
Eliot Spitzer and wife Silda Wall Spitzer made the announcement Tuesday. They say in a statement they regret that their marital relationship has come to an end.
The Spitzers married in 1987 and have three grown children but have been living apart for months.
She supported his rise from state attorney general to governor. She stood by his side in 2008 when he resigned after admitting he paid for sex with prostitutes.
He attempted a political comeback this year by running for New York City comptroller but lost in the Democratic primary.

Local courts reviving 'debtors' prison' for overdue fines, fees

As if out of a Charles Dickens novel, people struggling to pay overdue fines and fees associated with court costs for even the simplest traffic infractions are being thrown in jail across the United States. 
Critics are calling the practice the new "debtors' prison" -- referring to the jails that flourished in the U.S. and Western Europe over 150 years ago. Before the time of bankruptcy laws and social safety nets, poor folks and ruined business owners were locked up until their debts were paid off. 
Reforms eventually outlawed the practice. But groups like the Brennan Center for Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union say it's been reborn in local courts which may not be aware it's against the law to send indigent people to jail over unpaid fines and fees -- or they just haven't been called on it until now. 
Advocates are trying to convince courts that aside from the legal questions surrounding the practice, it is disproportionately jailing poor people and doesn't even boost government revenues -- in fact, governments lose money in the process. 
"It's a waste of taxpayer resources, and it undermines the integrity of the justice system," Carl Takei, staff attorney for the ACLU's National Prison Project, told FoxNews.com. 
"The problem is it's not actually much of a money-making proposition ... to throw people in jail for fines and fees when they can't afford it. If counties weren't spending the money jailing people for not paying debts, they could be spending the money in other ways."

Enrollment deadline extended once again

The Obama administration provided a few details Tuesday about a special enrollment period for Americans who sought to sign up through the online federal health insurance marketplace for coverage starting Jan. 1 but failed to obtain it.
In a blog post under the heading, "Couldn't enroll by December 23? We can still help you get covered," the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid explained that individuals could reach out to a network of federally-sponsored call centers around the country any day this week besides Christmas Day to try to complete their health insurance applications.
“If you weren’t able to enroll in an insurance plan by Dec. 23 because of problems you had using HealthCare.gov, you still may be able to get coverage that starts Jan. 1,” the post reads. “Even though we have passed the Dec. 23 enrollment deadline for coverage starting Jan. 1, we don’t want you to miss out if you’ve been trying to enroll."
“Sometimes despite your best efforts, you might have run into delays caused by heavy traffic to HealthCare.gov, maintenance periods, or other issues with our systems that prevented you from finishing the process on time," it continues. "If this happened to you, don’t worry — we still may be able to help you get covered as soon as Jan. 1.”
During the past two weeks, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and other senior administration official have reminded reporters that rules for the federal insurance exchange include a "special enrollment period" for those who tried but failed to meet the deadline for getting coverage starting on New Year's Day. But they had not spelled out until now how consumers could ask for the special consideration.
The official deadline was Dec. 23, but administration officials have given people an extra 24 hours -– until 11:59 p.m. on Christmas Eve -- to sign up by quietly changing the computer system's software over the weekend. There is no mention of the extension on the HealthCare.gov site. The difference between the extra 24 hours and the special enrollment period is that anyone who chooses a health plan by the end of Dec. 24 will automatically be assigned for coverage starting Jan. 1. Starting on Dec. 25, requests for Jan. 1 coverage  will be considered on a case by case basis.

Hinckley home for the holidays

John Hinckley will almost certainly be home for the holidays, which will bring much joy to his 86-year-old mother but not to the U.S. Justice Department.
No matter whether there has been a Democrat in the White House or a Republican, the Justice Department has argued against letting Hinckley out of the mental hospital where he has been incarcerated since 1982.

His family, lawyers and a number of psychiatrists and psychologists who have treated Hinckley over the years say he has responded successfully to treatment, is no longer a danger to himself and others, and that he should be allowed more and more days outside the hospital.

Hinckley had been allowed 10 days per month to visit his mother in Williamsburg, Va. He is not allowed to make visits in Washington because the president of the United States lives in Washington and the last time Hinckley came across a president, Hinckley shot him. Hinckley is also not allowed to visit his sister in Dallas, because the home of former President George W. Bush is a 10-minute walk away.
Even in Williamsburg, Hinckley is trailed by Secret Service agents, and he must carry a GPS-enabled phone that tracks his whereabouts.
On average, a person convicted of a violent crime in America serves about five years in prison.
Hinckley has served 31 years in St. Elizabeths Hospital, even though he was found not guilty of any crime because a jury decided he was insane at the time he shot Ronald Reagan, press secretary James Brady, D.C. police officer Thomas Delahanty and Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy.
All lived. The bullets Hinckley used, which were supposed to explode on contact, fortunately did not do so, though Brady suffered a permanent disability.
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