Gazette 02-25-14

Tuesday February 25th 2014

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

Egypt minister Mahlab 'asked to form new government'

Egypt's president has asked outgoing housing minister Ibrahim Mahlab to form a new government, state media report, a day after the interim cabinet quit.

Interim Prime Minister Hazem Beblawi did not give a clear reason for his government's resignation on Monday.
The surprise announcement came amid a series of public sector strikes and an acute shortage of cooking gas.
Mr Beblawi was appointed in July after the military overthrew President Mohammed Morsi following mass protests.
Since then, more than 1,000 people have been killed and thousands of others detained in a crackdown by the security forces on the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement to which Mr Morsi belongs.
Militants based in the Sinai peninsula have meanwhile stepped up attacks on government, police and military personnel, killing hundreds.
 

Unity 'indispensable' Before becoming housing minister, Ibrahim Mahlab was chairman of Arab Contractors, a state-owned construction company that is one of the biggest in the Middle East.
He was a senior official in ousted President Hosni Mubarak's former ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and was appointed to the now-disbanded upper house of parliament, the Shura Council, in 2010.

Syrian al Qaeda group gives rival Islamists ultimatum

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The head of al Qaeda's wing in Syria has given rival Islamist militants five days to accept mediation to end their infighting or face a war which "will terminate them", according to an audio recording posted on Tuesday.

Abu Mohammed al-Golani, leader of the Nusra Front, called on the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group to agree to arbitration by religious scholars to end more than a year of feuding which has turned violent in some areas in Syria.

Heavy clashes between the two groups and other Islamist fighters in rebel-held northern and eastern Syria have led to hundreds of deaths and have undermined the wider military campaign against President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

"We will wait for five days from the date of this recording for your formal reply," Golani said in the audio tape, released on an Islamist web site.

"By God, if you reject God's ruling again and do not put an end to your plague against the Umma (Muslim nation), then the Umma will launch an assault against this ignorant ideology and will terminate it, even from Iraq," he said.

The fighting broke out at the start of the year when several rebel groups launched what appeared to be coordinated attacks on ISIL fighters, who have alienated many Syrians in the areas under their control.

Golani's Nusra Front, which has sworn allegiance to al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, had until then avoided openly confronting ISIL, with which it shares a radical jihadi ideology, despite deep rivalry and tensions between the two groups.

Al Qaeda has dissociated itself from ISIL.

Ukraine leaders push back deadline to form new government 

Ukraine's interim leaders pushed back their self-imposed deadline to form a unity government Tuesday, while the whereabouts of the country's fugitive president, Viktor Yanukovych, remained unknown. 
Members of the Ukrainian parliament had set a Tuesday deadline to form a unity government. However, parliament speaker Oleksandr Turchinov, the leader of the interim government, announced that the deadline would be pushed back to Thursday.
On Monday, interim Interior Minister Arsen Avakhov issued an arrest warrant for Yanukovych on charges of orchestrating the murder of civilians during last week's mass protests in the capital, Kiev. At least 82 people died in clashes between anti-Yanukovych protesters and members of the security forces. 
Yanukovych is believed to have fled to the pro-Russian Crimea region in the east of Ukraine. Avakhov said Monday that the last confirmed sighting of Yanukovych was in the city of Balaclava, where he departed a private residence for an unknown destination, accompanied by one of his aides. 
A spokesman said Tuesday Yanukovych's former chief of staff is hospitalized after being wounded by gunfire.

Erdogan Tapes: Opposition Calls For Probe Into Turkish PM After Alleged Leaked Recordings

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — An opposition party leader on Tuesday demanded an investigation into Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for alleged corruption, a day after the disclosure of audio recordings purportedly of him ordering his son to dispose of vast amounts of cash amid a graft probe.
Erdogan met with Turkey's intelligence chief shortly after voice recordings of two people — alleged to be Erdogan and his son — circulated on the Internet.
The voices were heard discussing means of getting rid of large amounts of money from an undisclosed residence.
A statement issued by Erdogan's office later said the tapes were fabricated and that legal action would be taken against those responsible.
Devlet Bahceli, the leader of Turkey's far-right Nationalist Action Party, on Tuesday called the recordings "mind-blowing" and urged prosecutors and other judicial bodies to intervene.
He said Erdogan should "not even think about" escaping blame by claiming the tapes were edited.
The Republican People's Party, Turkey's main opposition, called on Erdogan to resign, saying the government had lost its legitimacy.

US presses Iraq on reports of Iran arms deal

The US has said it is "seeking clarification" over a report that Iraq has signed a deal with Iran to buy arms in violation of a UN embargo.

State department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that if the $195m (£117m) deal for weapons and ammunition was confirmed, it "would raise serious concerns".
The Reuters news agency said on Monday that it had seen contracts signed by the neighbouring states in November.
A spokesman for Iraq's prime minister neither confirmed nor denied the deal.
However, he said it would be understandable given Iraq's security troubles, which have seen al-Qaeda-aligned militants step up sectarian attacks and take control of parts of the cities of Ramadi and Falluja.
"We are launching a war against terrorism and we want to win this war. Nothing prevents us from buying arms and ammunition from any party and it's only ammunition helping us to fight terrorists," Ali Moussawi added.
'Direct violation' Reuters reported that Iraq signed eight arms contracts with Iranian state-owned companies at the end of November, just weeks after Prime Minister Nouri Maliki travelled to Washington to ask President Barack Obama for more military aid to help combat al-Qaeda.
Six of the contracts were signed with Iran's state-owned Defence Industries Organisation (DIO), which agreed to supply light and medium weapons, mortar launchers, ammunition for tanks as well as artillery and mortars, according to Reuters.

North Korean ship enters South Korean waters, Seoul says

South Korea said Tuesday a North Korean warship strayed into South Korean waters late Monday, in the first reported maritime incursion of 2014.

South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said a 420 metric-ton vessel made three cross-border trips during the night and left after 2 a.m. without responding to warnings given by the South's navy. There wasn't an exchange of fire.
The incursions took place 13 nautical miles (15 miles) west of South Korea's Yeongpyeong Island, which is off the west coast of the Korean peninsula.
The maritime border, called the Northern Limit Line, is contested by North Korea. The area has been the site of deadly naval clashes between the two Koreas in the past. Fishing boats and patrol vessels from North Korea often ignore the line of demarcation.
In November 2010, North Korea shelled Yeongpyeong island, killing two soldiers and two civilians. A South Korean warship was sunk earlier that year near another island along the Northern Limit Line, killing 46. An international investigation concluded that a North Korean torpedo was responsible. North Korea disputes the investigation's findings.

Russian opposition activist convicted for protest

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny has been sentenced to seven days in prison after participating in an anti-government protest.

A Moscow court convicted Navalny on Tuesday for resisting police orders during a Monday protest near Red Square, where police say they detained 420 of about 500 demonstrators.

The sentence could prove particularly dangerous for Navalny, an anti-corruption blogger, lawyer, and vocal Kremlin critic who was convicted for embezzlement in July but ultimately given a five-year suspended sentence. According to Russian law, Navalny's latest conviction allows authorities to extend his sentence, and if he is charged again they will be able to convert his suspended sentence into jail time.

Unsanctioned demonstrations have become rare since the government signed anti-protest legislation in 2012, levying heavy fines and even jail terms on protesters.

Angel Vivas, Retired Venezuelan General, In Armed Standoff At Home

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — One of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's most outspoken critics has become the latest rally cry for opposition protesters after engaging in an armed standoff with security forces Sunday.
Retired army Gen. Angel Vivas sported a flak jacket, assault rifle and handgun as he defiantly addressed dozens of neighbors from the balcony of his home in eastern Caracas.
"I'm not going to surrender," the 57-year-old Vivas yelled to a crowd of cheering followers.
Supporters rushed to Vivas' defense after he announced to his 100,000-plus followers on Twitter that a group of "Cuban and Venezuelan henchmen" had come looking for him. The officers withdrew after the crowd built barricades outside Vivas' house. Vivas' lawyer said they didn't have an arrest order.
Maduro on Saturday ordered Vivas' arrest for allegedly encouraging students to stretch wire across streets where they've set up barricades in recent weeks. The president blames the apparent booby trap for the death of a government supporter who raced into a barricade on a motorcycle.
Vivas, one of the government's fiercest critics in the frequently vicious world of Venezuelan social media, rose to prominence in 2007 when he resigned as head of the Defense Ministry's engineering department rather than order his subalterns to swear to the Cuban-inspired oath "Fatherland, socialism or death."

Boko Haram Boarding School Attack: Nigerian Islamists Kill 29 Students

DAMATURU, Nigeria, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Gunmen from Islamist group Boko Haram stormed a boarding school in northeast Nigeria overnight and killed 29 pupils, many of whom died in flames as the school was burned to the ground, police and the military said on Tuesday.
"Some of the students bodies were burned to ashes," Police Commissioner Sanusi Rufai said of the attack on the Federal Government college of Buni Yadi, a secondary school in Yobe state, near the state's capital city of Damaturu.
All those killed were boys. No girls were touched, Rufai said.
The Islamists, whose struggle for an Islamic state in northern Nigeria has killed thousands and made them the biggest threat to security in Africa's top oil producer, increasingly are preying on the civilian population.
Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sinful" in the northern Hausa language, have frequently attacked schools in the past. A similar attack in June in the village of Mamudo left 22 students dead.
More than 200 people were killed in two attacks last week, one in which militants razed a whole village and shot panicked residents as they tried to flee.
The failure of the military to protect civilians is fuelling anger in the northeast, the region worst affected by the four- and-a-half-year-old insurgency. An offensive ordered by President Goodluck Jonathan in May has failed to crush the rebels and triggered reprisals against civilians.
A military spokesman for Yobe state, Captain Lazarus Eli, confirmed the attack and said "Our men are down there in pursuit of the killers."

Pakistan strikes at Waziristan militant hideouts

Air force jets and helicopter gunships have struck militant hideouts in tribal areas near the Afghan border, killing nearly 25 insurgents, Pakistani military and intelligence officials said.
The strikes targeted areas in North and South Waziristan, the officials said. There is no way to confirm the claim independently. The lawless region is off-limits to journalists.
Tens of thousands of Pakistanis have died over the last decade in the Taliban's war against the state. The militants aim to enforce their harsh brand of Islamic sharia law.
The Waziristan tribal region is home to a mix of local and foreign al-Qaida-linked militants. Insurgents fighting American and Nato troops across the border in Afghanistan also operate there.
Pakistan's prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, has long favoured peace talks over military action to end the bloodshed in the north-west, but he is under pressure to retaliate for any Taliban violence.
Critics say the militants have used the peace talks to strengthen their ranks and regroup, and call for military operations to disrupt the insurgents' use of their north-western bases to stage attacks elsewhere in the country.
Local media reported that Sharif's cabinet was scheduled to meet on Tuesday to discuss options for operations in the region.
One official claimed that the latest air strikes targeted compounds where the militants trained recruits and stored explosives and ammunition.
Pakistan has regularly launched strikes against Taliban targets after recent peace talks broke down over the killing of 23 soldiers by the militants.
Several of Sharif's ministers have recently said that negotiations were still an option, but that the Taliban had to acknowledge the country's constitution as supreme law. The militants have rejected the constitution.

-

 Report: ObamaCare may raise rates for 11 million workers

Republicans renewed their fight against ObamaCare on Monday in response to a new report in which the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services concludes that 11 million small business employees may see their premiums rise under the law. 
The report, released Friday, says the higher rates are partly due to the health law's requirement that premiums can no longer be based on a person's age. That has sent premiums higher for younger workers, and lower for older ones.
The report found that 65 percent of small businesses would see a spike in insurance premiums and about 35 percent of small businesses would see lower rates for plans covering six million people, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The estimate is far from certain, partly because many small businesses renewed their policies in 2013. Renewing before the end of the year allowed them to avoid higher premiums that went into effect Jan. 1, when coverage was required to conform to the law.  
Also limiting the certainty of the estimate is the fact that the report looks at three specific provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Employers' decisions will be based on more factors, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Obama to decide on Keystone pipeline within months, governors say

WASHINGTON -- President Obama told the nation’s governors Monday that a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline could come in a matter of months, signaling he did not intend to let a recent court ruling derail his decision on whether to approve the much-debated project.
The president’s comments came during a question-and-answer session at the White House as part of the annual National Governors Assn. winter meeting. The session was private, but several participants said the president committed to making a decision in a matter of months.
“I did ask the president when we could anticipate a decision on the Keystone pipeline,” said Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican, the association’s chairwoman. “Finally, he did come back and say that he anticipates an answer one way or the other in a couple of months.”
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, also a Republican, said Obama indicated the decision would come “soon.”

Cheney: Military Cuts Do Enormous Long-Term Damage

FMR. VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: The other thing I know for a fact too, Sean, keeping in touch with some of my old friends that I used to deal with in the Middle East. They no longer have any confidence at all in American security guarantee. They're absolutely convinced that they can no longer trust the United States to keep its commitments. That includes the Israelis, the Saudis, and a lot of others in that part of the world. They peddle this line that now we're going to pivot to Asia, but they've never justified it. I think the whole thing is not driven by any change in world circumstances, it's driven by budget considerations. He much rather spend the money on food stamps than he would on a strong military or support for our troops.

HHS official found White House 'disarray' months before health law rollout

A senior Health and Human Services official was so frustrated last May over the White House's “disarray” on health care before the launch of Obamacare insurance exchanges that he warned of needing a “come to Jesus meeting” with his counterparts.
The comment from Anton Gunn, then-HHS director of external affairs, came in an email exchange with Anne Filipic, the president of the outside group Enroll America, a nonprofit with close ties to the White House that was formed to promote the fall Obamacare rollout and boost enrollment — an effort the two were working on closely.
While criticism of the botched healthcare rollout has focused on Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and her department's failures, the email exchange dated May 1 between Gunn and Filipic, reveals that HHS officials harbored deep frustrations about the White House's own health care messaging and preparations in the middle of 2013, months before the troubled rollout.
The Washington Examiner obtained the email exchange, along with 257 other pages of documents in late January, through a Freedom of Information Act request submitted in June 2013.

Justin Trudeau under fire for Ukraine joke

Canadian Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is under fire from Conservative MPs after joking about Russia 's Olympic hockey team going without a medal during a discussion about Ukraine violently suppressing demonstrations.
In an interview taped on Thursday, which aired Sunday night, Trudeau said that Russia was upset about its men's Olympic hockey team losing out on a shot at a medal in Sochi.

• Ballot Box: Should Trudeau apologize for his comments on Ukraine?
• Ukraine in crisis: Key facts, major developments
• Viktor Yanukovych wanted for alleged 'mass killing of civilians'​

Trudeau was answering a question about whether Canada should do more to help Ukraine, where violence had hit its worst point since the Soviet era, with 75 people killed in two days. The EU and Canada announced economic sanctions against President Viktor Yanukovych that day.
"Canada should do more," Trudeau said in the interview on Radio-Canada's Tout le monde en parle, a French-language interview show that's enormously popular in Quebec.
The Liberals had been urging the government to do more, Trudeau went on to say in French.
"President Yanukovych has been made illegitimate. It's very worrying, especially because Russia lost in hockey, they'll be in a bad mood. We fear Russia's involvement in Ukraine," Trudeau said.

Ex-Liberal senators' expenses missing key details

A CBC examination of federal Liberal Party documents released Monday reveals that key details are still missing, eight months after the party announced it would make its travel expenses transparent, as it began a release of travel claims by senators who were formerly part of its caucus.
The disclosure does not include travel costs incurred by spouses — who are permitted to travel business class to Ottawa with senators at public expense — and provides less overall information than what was previously issued by Conservative senators.

Ex-Liberal Senators' travel claims

The Canadian Liberal Party began a release of details on Monday about its former senators' travel expenses. Click here to see the data. 

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau announced his party's "Open Parliament" plan for MPs and senators last June, which pledged "quarterly online expense reports that are easily accessible by Canadians." 
The information on senators released Monday is tucked away on the Liberal Party website on a page titled "Senators who were formerly members of the National Liberal Caucus." 
The expenses made public include travel costs for the former Liberal senators, per diem claims for meals while in Ottawa and some hospitality expenses. The data covers a period from last September until Dec. 31.
Conservative senators started posting their travel costs, including for their spouses, online last fall. Liberal MP John McCallum said his party chose not to post spousal expense claims because "we decided to do what the ministers currently do, which is to release MP travel and hospitality." He added that the party will eventually post those spousal costs.

Rob Ford dodges drug use question on Today show

TORONTO - Mayor Rob Ford refused to say Tuesday whether he's done any drugs since November.
Just over three months after Ford admitted to smoking crack cocaine and embarked on a blitz of interviews with a handful of American and Canadian networks, the mayor sat down for a live interview Tuesday with Matt Lauer on NBC's Today show.
But Ford didn't answer a "point blank" question from Lauer about whether he has used crack cocaine or any other illegal drugs since they last spoke on Nov. 18.
"I don't use illegal drugs, I experimented with them probably a year ago," Ford told Lauer. "I don't use drugs and we're in great shape."
Lauer also asked Ford about his drinking. Ford flatly denied he's still "drinking heavily on occasion."
"No, not at all," Ford said. "Have I had a drink? Yes, I have but not to the point of some of the episodes before. You know what, that's past me and we're moving on. I just can't wait for the campaign."
The US host then brought up the video of a "clearly inebriated" Ford ranting in Jamaican patois in the Steak Queen restaurant.
"You know what, I've been brought up with a lot of Jamaican friends and we went out and, yeah, that's what I mean, I drank and I enjoyed myself," Ford said. "I can't remember what night it was. You know what Matt, maybe you're perfect but I'm not. We're moving on in a positive direction and we're moving forward."
Asked what changes he's made since November, Ford said he's "going to the gym every day, down a few pounds and just going from door-to-door campaigning hard."
"The election is on Oct. 27 and we're going to win, I just can't wait," he said.
Despite being stripped of most of his powers by council last fall, Ford told Lauer he has "absolutely" remained effective in the job as mayor.
"I led the charge in getting the power back on in the city," he said, referring to the December ice storm.
"We're on fire. We're doing a great job."
-