Gazette Weekend 12-15-13

Sunday December 15th 2013

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

Huge rally in Kiev in support of EU

Some 200,000 people have rallied in the Ukrainian capital Kiev to protest against President Viktor Yanukovych's refusal to sign a landmark EU deal.

Mr Yanukovych backed out of signing the association agreement after months of negotiation, apparently under strong pressure from Russia.
He is to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday.
The EU has put any new talks on the agreement on hold until there is a clear commitment to sign. 

News agency estimates of the size of the crowd at Independence Square ranged from 150,000 to 300,000.

This is the latest in a series of demonstrations over the past few weeks by the opposition who see Ukraine's future as part of the EU rather than aligned with Russia.
The series of protests, the largest since Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution, is designed to push Mr Yanukovych to dismiss his government and call fresh elections, opposition leaders say.

Swedish police detain 28 after neo-Nazi attack

Swedish police say around 28 people have been detained after a group of neo-Nazis attacked an anti-Nazism demonstration in a Stockholm suburb by hurling bottles, torches and firecrackers.

Police spokesman Sven-Erik Olsson says two people were hospitalized and a policeman was injured in the back after being hit by a heavy object.
Olsson said around 200 people participated in the planned, peaceful demonstration in the suburb of Karrtorp Sunday when they were attacked by a smaller group of about 40. Those detained are suspected of rioting and various assault charges.
The demonstration was organized by a local citizen group as a protest against increased neo-Nazi campaigning in the area. A neo-Nazi group called the Swedish Resistance Movement claimed responsibility for the attack on its website.

Missing American In Iran, Was Working For CIA On Unapproved Assignment 

WASHINGTON (AP) — In March 2007, retired FBI agent Robert Levinson flew to Kish Island, an Iranian resort awash with tourists, smugglers and organized crime figures. Days later, after an arranged meeting with an admitted killer, he checked out of his hotel, slipped into a taxi and vanished. For years, the U.S. has publicly described him as a private citizen who traveled to the tiny Persian Gulf island on private business.
But that was just a cover story. An Associated Press investigation reveals that Levinson was working for the CIA. In an extraordinary breach of the most basic CIA rules, a team of analysts — with no authority to run spy operations — paid Levinson to gather intelligence from some of the world's darkest corners. He vanished while investigating the Iranian government for the U.S.
The CIA was slow to respond to Levinson's disappearance and spent the first several months denying any involvement. When Congress eventually discovered what happened, one of the biggest scandals in recent CIA history erupted.
Behind closed doors, three veteran analysts were forced out of the agency and seven others were disciplined. The CIA paid Levinson's family $2.5 million to pre-empt a revealing lawsuit, and the agency rewrote its rules restricting how analysts can work with outsiders.
But even after the White House, FBI and State Department officials learned of Levinson's CIA ties, the official story remained unchanged.
"He's a private citizen involved in private business in Iran," the State Department said in 2007, shortly after Levinson's disappearance.
"Robert Levinson went missing during a business trip to Kish Island, Iran," the White House said last month.

Iran claims to have captured MI6 spy

Iran says it has captured a spy working for British intelligence agency MI6 in the south-eastern city of Kerman.

The head of Kerman's revolutionary court said the alleged spy had admitted being in contact with four British intelligence officers 11 times, both inside and outside the country.
He said the accused was now on trial and had confessed. The nationality of the alleged spy is not yet known.
The UK Foreign Office said it did not comment on intelligence matters.
Iran regularly claims to have captured spies working for foreign powers but in most cases the accused is released without charge months later.
According to a report from Iran's conservative news agency Tasnim, the alleged spy was arrested after 10 months of intelligence work and had once had a meeting with British agents in London.
It quotes Dadkhoda Salari, the head of the Kerman court, as saying he is aged over 50, with an "academic education". He is said to be fluent in English but does not hold an official post.
The news comes as Iran and Britain take steps to try to re-establish diplomatic relations.
Britain shut down its embassy in Tehran, the Iranian capital, in 2011 after it was stormed in a protest over British nuclear sanctions.

Growing strength of Syria's Islamist groups undermines hopes of ousting Assad

The west is being forced to rethink its support for rebel alliance in civil war as forces linked to al-Qaida gain ground
The Bab al-Hawa crossing post sits under a low ridge on the Syrian-Turkish border, not far from the Turkish town of Reyhanli. There is a concrete canopy and a handful of buildings. It is important because of what lies not far away in the village of Babisqa – one of the main storage depots for the supreme military council of the Free Syrian Army including weapons and other equipment.
In the Syrian conflict, who controls crossings like Bab al-Hawa and depots like Babisqa is crucially important.
On the evening of 6 December, a series of events began, with ramifications threatening to be far-reaching. They point to a development many observers have been fearing: a dangerous new fracture opening within the fragmented ranks of Syria's opposition fighters, which threatens to pit the FSA against a powerful Islamist coalition. The ideological frontiers on the map of Syria's civil conflict are shifting.
Accounts are confused and contradictory. But according to one version, members of a powerful new alliance of Islamist groups – the Islamic Front, which includes among its seven core groups some which in the past have co-operated with the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra – took control of the warehouses at gunpoint, claiming they were defending them from an attack, and later the Bab al-Hawa crossing.
Within days, the US and the UK announced they had "suspended" all deliveries of non-lethal materials to the supreme military council through Turkey, which has included sophisticated communications equipment. Although the FSA's chief of staff, Salim Idris, and his aides have in recent days tried to play down the incident – claiming the warehouses were taken in agreement with him, and denying reports that he had fled the country – the events mark a worrying new turn in the conflict. "The situation in the north of Syria now is very complicated and very dangerous, because there are some problems between some groups, and I think we should try everything now to find a solution for this problem," Idris said last week.

Iran will continue nuclear talks with West despite tightened US sanctions, Zarif says

Iran will continue nuclear negotiations with world powers in Geneva despite measures taken by the US targeting several companies and individuals for supporting Tehran's nuclear program, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Sunday on his Facebook page.
The United States on Thursday black-listed 19 additional companies and people under sanctions aimed at preventing Iran from obtaining the capability to make nuclear weapons, US officials said. Iran says its program is purely peaceful.
“The Americans have taken improper measures in the last few days and we have given the appropriate response to them after considering all aspects of the issue,” Zarif said, adding the response will be "a proper, calculated, purposeful and smart."
Iranian negotiators halted nuclear talks in Vienna on Thursday to return to Tehran for consultations after Washington's new measures, Fars quoted one of the negotiators as saying.
Iran's deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told the semi-official Fars news agency on Friday that the new measures were "against the spirit of the Geneva deal."
According to the interim Geneva deal, that was signed between Iran and six world powers on November 24, the Islamic Republic would curb its nuclear program in exchange for limited relief from economic sanctions over the next six months.
Iran has repeatedly said it will not be pressured, warning that new sanctions "could kill the deal".
Russia on Friday echoed Iran's criticism of the new measures.

Violent protests in Bangladesh after execution

Dhaka, Bangladesh: At least 10 people are dead, children have been shot in the street, and hundreds of cars, businesses and homes have been torched, as violent protests seized Bangladesh following the execution of an Islamist leader found guilty of war crimes.

The country remains braced for a new wave of violence, with a nationwide "hartal", or strike, called for Sunday.

Advertisement

The outbreak of violence comes less than a month before national elections are due, and just a day before Bangladesh’s "Victory Day", a celebration of its defeat of Pakistan in its war of independence 42 years ago.
On Thursday night, Abdul Quader Molla, a leader of the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party, was hanged in a Dhaka prison, having been convicted by Bangladesh’s contentious war crimes tribunal.

Chinese troops 'detain' Indian porters at Chumar in Ladakh

NEW DELHI: The Chumar area along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh continues to be a major flashpoint between India and China, with People's Liberation Army troops once again taking three Indian porters and their mules into custody for a week earlier this month.

Sources say the porters were released by the PLA troops on December 11 only after the Indian Army intervened through the hotline and a flag meeting between local commanders to demand their return. "The issue was resolved amicably under the existing bilateral border mechanism between the two armies," said an officer.
Both Indian and Chinese armies have been conducting "aggressive patrolling" along all the three sectors of the 4,057-km long unresolved LAC - western (Ladakh), middle (Uttarakhand, Himachal) and eastern (Sikkim, Arunachal) - to strengthen their claims to disputed territories. India, for instance, has recorded close to 700 "transgressions" by PLA troops across the LAC in the last three years.

In the latest incident, the Indian porters were "detained" in the Chumar sector on December 4 by the PLA troops, who were apparently patrolling up to their "claim line" but which India considers as its own territory. "The porters were looking for their runaway mules when they were detained by the PLA patrol," he said.
-  China state media posts images from moon rover

BEIJING – Chinese state media early Sunday began transmitting images and video taken by its moon rover, a gold-hued unmanned exploration vehicle named the Jade Rabbit after the story of a mythological Chinese moon goddess who kept a pet rabbit.

The images were sparking excitement among space enthusiasts.
"It is just beautiful to see the surface of the moon up close in a way we haven’t in years. The images we remember of the moon were taken decades ago. These are the first photographs of the Internet age,’’ said Morris Jones, an Australian space analyst based in Sydney.
Maximizing the publicity value of the landing, China is posting video and images on state websites.
After days in orbit around the moon, the lunar probe known as Chang’e-3 touched down on the surface at  9:11 p.m. Saturday, Beijing time, in the Bay of Rainbows, the Beijing Aerospace Control Center reported. The six-wheeled rover then separated from the landing vehicle. At 4:35 a.m. Sunday, the rover touched the moon’s surface, leaving tracks in the lunar soil.
The rover is expected to spend three months on the moon exploring its “geological structure and surface substances and looking for natural resources,’’ the official New China News Agency said.
-

Feds: Thousands of ObamaCare web purchases not recorded, incorrect

The Obama administration acknowledged this weekend that the federal ObamaCare website failed to record insurance-policy purchases for as many as 15,000 Americans.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Saturday said the transactions were either not recorded or had errors and attributed the problem to “larger technical system issues.”
Agency spokeswoman Julie Bataille said the so-called “834 transaction forms” are processed by health insurance companies when consumers choose a policy on the site which has been plagued by technical glitches since enrollment started in October.
“As the technical improvements to HealthCare.gov continue making a difference to consumers using the website, our attention remains on addressing issues with the more ‘back end’ parts of the system,” she said. “Our priority is working to make sure that every 834 form is accurate.”
The story was reported first by The Washington Post.
Bataille said the errors occurred from Oct. 1 to Dec. 5, such problems have been “significantly” reduced since last month and that officials are contacting every consumer who selected a plan on the site -- or marketplace -- to remind them to pay their premium and connect with their insurer. 
Americans have until Dec. 23 to purchase insurance that kicks in Jan. 1.
The administration said it has fixed more than 70 software glitches over the past several weeks related to 834 forms.

White House delayed rules before election

The White House systematically delayed enacting a series of rules on the environment, worker safety and health care to prevent them from becoming points of contention before the 2012 election, according to documents and interviews with current and former administration officials.

Some agency officials were instructed to hold off submitting proposals to the White House for up to a year to ensure that they would not be issued before voters went to the polls, the current and former officials said.
The delays meant that rules were postponed or never issued. The stalled regulations included crucial elements of the Affordable Care Act, what bodies of water deserved federal protection, pollution controls for industrial boilers and limits on dangerous silica exposure in the workplace.
The Obama administration has repeatedly said that any delays until after the election were coincidental and that such decisions were made without regard to politics. But seven current and former administration officials told The Washington Post that the motives behind many of the delays were clearly political, as Obama’s top aides focused on avoiding controversy before his reelection.

CIA Benghazi Team Clash Led to "Stand Down" Report

WASHINGTON (AP) -- CIA officers revealed a clash over how quickly they should go help the besieged U.S. ambassador during the 2012 attack on an outpost in Libya, and a standing order for them to avoid violent encounters, according to a congressman and others who heard their private congressional testimony or were briefed on it.

The Obama administration has been dogged by complaints that the White House, Pentagon and State Department may not have done enough before and during the attack to save U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others, and by accusations that it later engaged in a cover-up.

One allegation was that U.S. officials told the CIA to "stand down" and not go to the aid of the Americans. Top CIA and Defense and State Department officials have denied that.

The testimony from the CIA officers and contractors who were in Libya on the night of Sept. 11, 2012, bolster those denials, but also shed light on what may have led to the delay of up to 30 minutes to respond, according to the varying accounts.

None of those who testified said a quicker response would have saved the lives of Stevens and communications specialist Sean Smith at the temporary diplomatic facility.

The senior CIA officers in charge in Libya that day told Congress of a chaotic scramble to aid Stevens and others who were in the outpost when it was attacked by militants on the 11th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Government Contractors Comply With Congressional Investigators; Ignore HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius

Vanguard of Freedom News reported yesterday on Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman, Darrel Issa's admonition of Kathleen Sebelius, Health and Human Services Director for her telling government contractors not to comply to the Congressional Committees requests for information about the roll-out of the HealtCare.gov website.  Issa promptly warned Sebelius that telling them not to comply was against the law. (See that story HERE).

Today two of those contractors ignored orders from HHS Director, Sebelius, and complied with the Committee's request for data regarding their involvement with the website.

The House Oversight Committee announced that contractor Creative Computing Solutions, Inc. (CCSi) "...rejected an unlawful request from the Department of Health and Human Services to withhold documents subpoenaed by the Oversight Committee..."

Jacques Corriveau charged with fraud in sponsorship scandal

A former Liberal organizer, whom former prime minister Jean Chrétien once described as a "good friend," is now facing charges related to the federal sponsorship scandal.

Corriveau is charged with fraud against the government, forgery and laundering proceeds of crime, according to the RCMP.
Jacques Corriveau, 80, was one of several Liberal insiders called to testify at the Gomery Commission in 2004 and 2005.
The inquiry, led by Justice John Gomery, heard that Corriveau's design firm secured millions of dollars in funding from the now defunct federal sponsorship program.
Among the testimony, former ad executive Jean Brault told the inquiry he paid secret commissions to Corriveau's firm as kickbacks to the Liberal Party of Canada.

Charges a reminder of scandal's scope

The investigation into Corriveau’s role has continued as part of a larger investigation launched in 2002, dubbed Project Carnegie.

The far-reaching investigation, which is still underway, focuses on allegations of mismanagement in the federal sponsorship program.
"Project Carnegie is not over yet, [but] the phase with Mr. Corriveau is over," said Const. Érique Gasse of the RCMP at a Friday afternoon news conference.
The RCMP allege Corriveau set up a contract kickback system involving the sponsorship program.
“Mr. Corriveau allegedly claimed that he could exercise influence on the federal government to facilitate the awarding of contracts to certain Quebec-based communication firms in return for several million dollars' worth of advantages and/or benefits for himself and other persons,” the RCMP said in a news release.

-