Gazette 03-26-14

Wednesday March 26th 2013

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Pakistan team in North Waziristan to hold Taliban talks

A team of Pakistani government representatives have arrived in the tribal region of North Waziristan for peace talks with the Taliban.

It will be the first direct contact between the two sides since peace moves began last month.
The government team flew by helicopter from Peshawar and are to meet Taliban negotiators at an undisclosed location.
Militants from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have been waging an insurgency in Pakistan since 2007.

Thousands have been killed in the violence.

The talks initiative was announced this year by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif after a spate of attacks.
The government says extending a one-month ceasefire is top of the agenda at Wednesday's talks.
The militants, who are fighting for their austere version of Sharia law across Pakistan, have repeatedly rejected the country's constitution. Many observers say that makes any lasting deal unlikely.
The TTP also comprises many factions, which makes a deal complicated to reach.
Since taking office last May, Mr Sharif has come under mounting pressure to bring the violence under control, with many accusing his government of lacking a strategy to deal with the militants, correspondents say.

US cuts Pakistan aid by $10 million to help Ukraine


WASHINGTON: A key congressional committee passed a legislation of new financial assistance to Ukraine, by reducing a small portion of US aid given to Pakistan under the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill.

The $10 million taken from the annual $1.5 billion to Pakistan would be used to carry out programming in the Ukrainian, Balkan, Russian, and Tatar language services of radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty and Voice of America, the house bill said.

The legislation — HR 4278, the Ukraine Support Act — was passed on Tuesday by an overwhelming bipartisan support by the powerful house foreign affairs committee.

Introduced last week by the committee chairman Ed Royce and ranking member Eliot Engel, it promotes Ukraine's sovereignty and democratic institutions while sanctioning those who have sought to undermine its independence and stability.

The issue of moving funds from the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Bill — which is officially known as the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009 — was raised during the mark up of the bill by the house foreign affairs committee.
Taliban launch series of deadly attacks in runup to Afghanistan elections
Taliban suicide attackers have left a trail of blood across Afghanistan , storming an election office in Kabul, shooting at a bank in the east and detonating a bomb at a sports event in the north. An unidentified gunman also killed a policewoman in Helmand.
The violence came less than two weeks before presidential and provincial elections that insurgents have denounced as a sham and vowed to disrupt, warning anyone who votes or works on the polls that they will be considered a target.
Spring is normally a bloody time in Afghanistan, as insurgent fighters start filtering back from winter safe havens across the porous border with Pakistan and Taliban commanders look for high-profile ways to start the "fighting season". But this year has been particularly vicious, with a string of attacks on civilian targets in recent days, mostly unconnected to the election, including a shooting that killed two children and seven other civilians in an upmarket Kabul hotel and a marketplace bomb in northern Faryab province.
At least 12 people were killed in Tuesday's attacks, including a provincial election candidate and an election worker at the Kabul office, several police and security guards and six spectators at a game of buzkashi, a horseback competition. Dozens more were injured.
The most high-profile assault was on the headquarters of the independent election commission in Kabul, a hub for training election officials, registering voters for last-minute identity cards and organising the credentials of candidates for the provincial council. Two suicide bombers detonated explosives at the gate, blasting an entrance for three gunmen who took more than 20 people hostage. Commando units battled for more than four hours to retake the complex, just a few hundred metres from the home of presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani.

Syrian Rebel Commander: Why Joining Extremists Was My Last Resort

ANTAKYA, Turkey -- Haj Faraj is fed up. The 36-year-old Syrian rebel commander, who says he leads a small brigade of 50 fighters just over the border, is angry, nearly broke, and more worried than ever.
For much of the Syrian civil war that has now claimed more than 140,000 lives and displaced millions, the commander and his men were part of an independent, moderately religious unit in coastal Latakia, a province largely controlled by the Syrian regime. But eight months ago, cash-strapped and disenchanted with what he deems a corrupt and disconnected Western-backed political opposition, Faraj says he and his brigade joined the ranks of Liwa Al-Ashr, a larger, fiercely Islamist rebel group.
"If you are a tool in someone’s hand, you will live luxuriously," Faraj says, sitting in his simple home that houses several Syrian refugee families in this border city. "But if not, you are poor."
As the Syrian civil war enters its fourth year, what started off as a pro-democracy uprising has morphed into vicious combat, including fights between rebel groups that range from Western-backed secular fighters to extreme Islamists. The fractured opposition has become largely dominated by hardline Islamist groups like Liwa Al-Ashr. In turn, more and more commanders like Faraj are now making the move from moderate groups into the Islamist camp, hoping to gain support and halt the disarray that has allowed President Bashar al Assad's regime to take the offensive.
Faraj says the groups that seek to violently enforce strict Islamic law are undermining the efforts of other rebels who, while also religious, do not follow the same interpretation of Islam. And yet like many others, his desperation for arms and support outweighed his aversion to joining these groups.

Syrian rebels, army clash over coastal town amid rebel push in Latakia province

Syrian activists say rebels and government forces are clashing over another coastal town in Latakia province, as opposition fighters slowly press their advance in the area.

Wednesday's fighting for the town of Qastal Maaf comes after rebels in recent days seized the Kassab town and border crossing with Turkey, as well as a small strip of the coast nearby — their first access to the sea since the Syrian conflicted erupted three years ago.
An activist in Latakia who only identified himself as Mohammed, fearing for his safety, says rebels hope that seizing Qastal Maaf will draw more Syrian soldiers to the area, relieving some pressure on rebels routed elsewhere.
Rami Abdurrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also confirmed the information.

Mass Egypt death sentences 'breach international law'

The UN human rights commissioner has condemned an Egyptian court's decision to sentence to death 528 supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi.

A spokesman for Navi Pillay said the "cursory mass trial" was "rife with procedural irregularities" and breached international human rights law.
The defendants were found guilty on Monday of charges relating to an attack on a police station in Minya in August.
Another 683 Morsi supporters went on trial at the same court on Tuesday.
They include the Muslim Brotherhood's general guide, Mohammed Badie, and the chairman of its Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), Saad al-Katatni.
Later, security forces clashed with hundreds of Minya University students protesting against the trials.
Tear gas was fired at the students after they blocked a main road, threw stones and set an armoured police vehicle on fire.
'Unprecedented' There has been widespread condemnation of Monday's decision by the Minya Criminal Court to sentence 528 people to death for their alleged participation in an attack on a police station in the central city in mid-August, in which a police officer was killed.
The incident took place in the immediate aftermath of an operation by security forces to break up two sit-ins in the capital Cairo that left almost 1,000 people dead. The sit-ins were set up by supporters of Mr Morsi's after he was overthrown by the military the previous month.
The trial, at which more than three-quarters of the defendants were not present, is reported to have lasted less than an hour on Saturday.

Arab League declares 'total rejection' of Jewish state recognition

The Arab League announced on Wednesday a full backing of a Palestinian refusal to meet Israel's demand to be recognized as a Jewish state, a condition Jerusalem says it required for peace.
"We express our total rejection of the call to consider Israel as a Jewish state," read a statement from the final day of the Arab summit in Kuwait.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has reiterated the call for the Palestinians to recognize the Jewish character of Israel as a requirement for a peace agreement.
On Tuesday Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the Arab heads, reiterating his refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and said that the Palestinians want an independent state on "all the territories that were occupied in 1967."
Earlier in the month, the Arab League endorsed the Palestinian position on recognition.
Arab governments, distracted by the upheaval convulsing the region since the 2011 Arab uprisings, have previously taken few stands on the floundering peace talks, leaving Abbas isolated.
The issue has lately overshadowed other stumbling blocks over borders, refugees and the status of Jerusalem.
Palestinians fear the label would lead to discrimination against Israel's sizable Arab minority, while Israelis say it recognizes Jewish history and rights on the land.

Russia accuses Ukraine of barring pilots from leaving aircraft

Russia accused Ukrainian officials on Wednesday of barring crews of Russian commercial airlines from going outside their planes in Ukrainian airports.

Tensions between Moscow and Kiev have been rising since Russian forces occupied the Crimean Peninsula and stayed there throughout the referendum earlier this month where votes overwhelmingly supported Russia's annexation.
Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement that Ukrainian border guards have been forcing cabin crews of Aeroflot, the state-controlled Russian airline, to stay inside their planes. The ministry said the decision violates international law and ultimately "poses a threat to the safety of civil aviation" because the crews cannot rest properly.
The ministry said that it had sent protest notes twice to the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow.
Russian authorities previously complained that Ukrainian border guards have singled out Russian men at the frontier and blocked their crossing, fearing that they may be activists coming to stir up unrest.

North Korea fires mid-range ballistic missiles into sea: South Korea

Seoul: North Korea fired two mid-range ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast and towards Japan early on Wednesday, South Korea's military said as the leaders of South Korea, Japan and the United States discussed North Korea's arms programs.
The missiles, which appeared to be Rodong class, were launched from an area north of Pyongyang and flew about 650 km (400 miles) before dropping into the water, said an official at South Korea's office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who asked not to be named.
The North likely launched the missiles to drop short of its maximum range, which is believed to be more than 1000 km and enough to hit much of Japan, "mindful of neighbouring countries' reaction," the official said, without elaborating.
Wednesday's launch came on the day Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met South Korean President Park Geun-hye and US President Barack Obama.

Mr Obama, speaking after meeting both leaders on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit in The Hague, said the three countries had presented a united front against the threat posed by North Korea's arms programs.
The launch followed a series of short-range missiles fired over the past two months, and was seen as an act of defiance toward the annual South Korean-US joint military drills that are currently underway.
The North's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva So Se Pyongm said on Tuesday the country was conducting routine military exercises, when asked about the timing of the missiles coinciding with joint US-South Korea military drills.
Pyongyang routinely denounces annual US and South Korean joint military exercises as preparation for war.

Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro accuses three generals of plotting coup

The Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, has added three generals to the growing list of people and entities he accuses of plotting against him.
Maduro announced on Tuesday that his socialist administration had brought three air force generals before a military tribunal on charges of plotting a coup as anti-government protests continue across the country.
He said the generals, whose names he did not release, were working with the opposition and their attempt failed because younger officers became alarmed.
The announcement came during a meeting of South American foreign ministers aimed at easing the conflict between the government and its increasingly strident opponents.
Since taking office last year, Maduro has routinely accused opponents of plotting a coup like the one that briefly ousted his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, in 2002. He has rarely offered details or proof and few arrests have been reported.
Recently, Maduro has called the protest movement an "evolving coup d'etat," and accused the USof waging an "economic war" and supporting those who wish to do violence to Venezuela. The protests sparked by shortages, runaway inflation and rising crime have left dozens dead.
Analysts said the arrests do not necessarily mean Maduro's administration is losing ground with the Venezuelan military, which has historically decided political fortunes at moments of crisis.
The government might be publicising the purported coup as a way to emphasise the need for unity, said David Smilde, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America.
"When you talk about conspiracies, it's basically a way of rallying the troops. It's a way of saying this is no time for dissent," Smilde said.
The timing also allows the administration to portray to visiting dignitaries that Maduro's opponents are playing dirty.
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 Obama Secret Service agent 'found drunk'

Three US Secret Service agents tasked with protecting President Barack Obama in the Netherlands have been sent home for "disciplinary reasons".

The Washington Post reported that one was found drunk and passed out in the hallway of an Amsterdam hotel.
A Secret Service spokesman declined to give details but said the three had been put on administrative leave pending an investigation.
The service has been trying to rebuild its reputation after previous scandals.
In 2013 two agents were removed from President Obama's security detail amid allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct.
And in 2012 several agents were dismissed following allegations that they hired prostitutes while in Cartagena, Colombia.
President 'safe' Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said the latest incident happened before President Obama's arrival in the Netherlands on Monday for a nuclear security summit.
He said the three had been sent home for "disciplinary reasons" but declined to elaborate.
Mr Donovan added that the president's security had not been compromised in any way.

Obama administration extends health care enrollment deadline for some

The Obama administration will grant extra time to Americans who say they are unable to enroll in health care plans through the federal insurance marketplace by the March 31 deadline. 
All consumers who have begun to apply for coverage on HealthCare.gov, but who do not finish by Monday, will have until about mid-April to ask for an extension. 
"We are experiencing a surge in demand and are making sure that we will be ready to help consumers who may be in line by the deadline to complete enrollment -- either online or over the phone," Health and Human Services Department spokeswoman Joanne Peters told Fox News. 
The Washington Post first reported that users will have a chance to check a box on the website indicating they tried to enroll before the deadline, though the government will not try to determine whether the person actually made an effort to sign up.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus pounced on the extension, calling it another delay for a "failed health care law."
“Another day, another ObamaCare delay from the same Obama administration that won’t work with Republicans to help Americans suffering from the unintended consequences of the Democrats’ failed health care law," Priebus said in a statement. "Democrats in leadership may say they are doubling down on ObamaCare but you have to wonder how many more unilateral delays their candidates running in 2014 can withstand.”

Supreme Court Hears Cases on Contraception Rule

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear arguments in a pair of challenges to a part of President Obama’s health care law that requires many employers to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives. Here is a look at the parties, the lawyers and the issues in the case.

Q. Who are the challengers?

A. The cases were brought by two corporations whose owners say they try to run their businesses on religious principles. One is Hobby Lobby, a chain of crafts stores owned by a Christian family. The other is Conestoga Wood Specialties, which makes wood cabinets and is owned by a Mennonite family.

Q. When will the cases be argued?

A. The justices are set to announce one or more decisions from the bench starting at 10 a.m. After that, they will hear a consolidated argument in two cases, Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, No. 13-354, and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius, No. 13-356. The court has scheduled 90 minutes for the argument instead of the usual hour.

Q. Who will be arguing?

A. Paul D. Clement, a former United States solicitor general in the Bush administration, will argue for the companies. The current solicitor general, Donald B. Verrilli Jr., will represent the government. The two men faced off two years ago in another challenge to the Affordable Care Act, which focused on its requirement that most Americans obtain health insurance or pay a penalty. The court ruled for the Obama administration in that case by a 5-to-4 vote.

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In China, as Michelle Obama lauds press freedoms, questions arise about media access

CHENGDU, China — First lady Michelle Obama’s trip to China has garnered massive attention in this vast country over the past five days, as an aggressive pack of Chinese journalists has followed her every move and penned hundreds of stories about her visit.

But coverage of the trip has been made more difficult by tight restrictions on reporters and photographers, who have been kept far away from many events and were not allowed to accompany the first lady, her mother and her two daughters on their flight last week from the United States. Obama has had only one written question-and-answer session with a Chinese-based independent news outlet.

The constraints, including an absence of interviews by U.S. news reporters, have prompted objections from some journalists and conservative commentators, who see a contrast between Obama’s remarks here in favor of a free press and the restrictive nature of her travels.
The criticism comes during a trip that has turned out to be, in some respects, more substantive than expected. Obama extolled the virtues of journalistic freedom at Peking University in Beijing, discussed education policy with teachers at the U.S. Embassy and, on Tuesday, invoked the importance of the struggle for civil rights at a high school here in Chengdu. She is also slated to visit with members of the Tibetan community here on Wednesday.

Senators welcome White House curb on NSA, seek more restrictions

WASHINGTON —   Lawmakers opposed to White House-run surveillance programs welcomed the administration's announcement Tuesday that it would seek legislation to prevent the National Security Agency from storing bulk phone records of Americans.
At the same time the senators pressed the administration to go further.
"This is the start of the end of dragnet surveillance in America," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told reporters.
The unusual bipartisan alliance of Wyden, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) has continuously pressured the White House over its secret spying techniques.
While awaiting congressional approval for the administration's proposed plan, the NSA should immediately halt further collection of telephone records unless officials have court-approved warrants, the senators said.
"They can stop immediately," said Paul, who is known for his libertarian views. "There's nothing forcing them to keep collecting the data."
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Canada pledges $28M at Hague summit to combat nuclear terrorism

Canada is pledging $28 million towards efforts to combat weapons of mass destruction, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Tuesday as the nuclear safety summit wraps up in The Hague, Netherlands.
"The potential loss of life and destruction of property from a nuclear device of any kind would obviously be devastating," he said.
The funds will be channelled through Canada's Global Partnership Program, which will support projects to prevent the trafficking of illegal weapons and secure nuclear facilities in countries in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
A number of projects will be delivered in partnership with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which Canada has belonged to since 1957.
The $28 million is among a myriad of announcements Harper made Tuesday.
Building upon commitments made at the 2012 nuclear safety summit in South Korea, Canada also ratified two international conventions — the Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials and the International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism.
The first is the world's only legally binding agreement to physically protect nuclear materials and increases the ability for states to locate and recover stolen goods. 
The second, broader convention covers criminal acts, allowing states to share information and assist with investigations and extradition proceedings in order to prevent terrorist attacks.

Quebec election campaign veering from one shrill attack to another

From the outset, the snap election in Quebec was Pauline Marois' to lose. But with each passing day, Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard is increasingly everyone's mark.
After lurching ahead in three successive polls, including the latest large online survey from Léger that gives the Liberals a seven-point lead, all are now intent on bringing him down.
One of the more shrill attacks came from Bernard Drainville, the Parti Quebecois minister in charge of the charter of values.
In a bizarre attempt to retrieve the PQ's lost lead, Drainville began insisting last week that Couillard is for niqabs and burkas, as if that were an actual Liberal position.
Drainville repeated the PQ's plan to ban face coverings in all dealings with the government, and even suggested that injunction could be extended to university students, education being considered a "government service" in the PQ's configuration of things.
Asked if a woman wearing a niqab could call on the police for help in an emergency, a cornered Drainville had to admit, "she will have to uncover herself, but if you tell me she is unconscious and needs help, we will look after everyone."
Aside from being absurdly reductive — and a signal that the PQ's campaign was flailing about —​ Drainville's intervention seems also to have been largely ineffective in rekindling Quebecers' zeal for the charter.
So the PQ moved on to other potential Liberal soft spots.

BC Liberal MLA Linda Reid defends spending as accepted ‘practice’

The speaker of the B.C. legislature says she has repaid more than $5,500 in taxpayers’ money spent flying her husband to South Africa for a conference she was attending.
BC Liberal MLA Linda Reid attempted some damage control Tuesday with a press conference held just hours after telling a Vancouver Sun reporter the public paid for her husband Sheldon Friesen to join her at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference last August.
Reid said she was told if she could find two plane tickets for the price of an upgraded one she could bring her spouse. She is also looking for other trip expenses that may have to be reimbursed.
Reid defended the initial billing — to fly business class — as normal accepted behaviour.
“It’s a practice, what this place has always done,” Reid told reporters. “I’m happy to lead on changing as we go forward.”
When pressed, Reid told reporters BC NDP MLA Raj Chouhan also made the trip and brought his wife at taxpayers’ expense.
Chouhan was not speaking to media Tuesday, but fellow NDP MLA Shane Simpson said Chouhan went economy class with his wife and the whole trip cost $6,300 for both of them.
“In Raj’s case he offered to pay for her; they told her ‘no, you don’t have to do that,’” Simpson said. “I know now he’ll probably be having a conversation with the speaker about that.”
Reid had posted photos on Twitter of her husband petting a giraffe during the trip.
Dermod Travis of the watchdog group IntegrityBC said the trip represents a pattern with politicians.
“They don’t seem to learn,” Travis said.
Travis also questioned the need for even taking the trip.

NDP Defends Mailings Sent Out Before 2013 Byelections

OTTAWA – The NDP is defending its use of taxpayer money to send mass mailings to hundreds of thousands of homes in advance of three byelections last year.
NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair told reporters Tuesday that his party was following the rules set by Elections Canada when it sent pamphlets to some 388,000 households in the Montreal riding of Bourassa, the Manitoba riding of Provencher and Toronto Centre.
“We’re allowed to contact voters. We’re allowed to send things out as long as we don’t send it out during the election period, and that’s exactly what we did. We sent it out outside of the election period. We respected all the rules,” Mulcair said.
In a letter on Monday, House of Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer said the Board of Internal Economy, the multiparty committee that administers the House, was reviewing the NDP’s use of bulk mailings to areas in which it has no seats.
The Huffington Post Canada has learned that the NDP sent close to two million pieces of partisan mail in some 26 ridings across the country using free mailing privileges offered to MPs within a seven-month period.
Scheer referred three specific cases to Elections Canada Monday. He questioned whether the NDP mailings to ridings where byelections were held constituted an unfair election expense. The byelections were called on Oct. 20 and took place on Nov. 25.

Toronto Mayoral Debate On TV As Rob Ford Faces Top Four Rivals

TORONTO - Toronto Mayor Rob Ford faces off tonight against the top four challengers for his job in the first televised debate of the campaign for the Oct. 27 municipal election.
The scandal-plagued mayor will debate key municipal issues such as transit with Olivia Chow, John Tory, Karen Stintz and David Soknacki.
Ford's admission that he has used crack cocaine, along with an ongoing police investigation into his connections to alleged drug dealers, have loomed over his re-election campaign.
The mayor maintains he does not have substance abuse problems and has not committed any crime.
The two-hour debate is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. and will be broadcast on CityNews as well as live-streamed online.
The network says viewers will be able to vote on the candidates' performance during the show on its website or by texting or tweeting.
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