Gazette - ST.Patrick's day 03-17-14

HAPPY ST.PATRICK'S DAY!

Monday March 17th 2014

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'Independent' Crimea in Russia bid

Crimea's parliament has formally declared independence from Ukraine and asked to join the Russian Federation.

It follows Sunday's controversial referendum which officials say overwhelmingly backed leaving Ukraine.
The government in Kiev has said it will not recognise the results. The US and EU say the vote was illegal and have vowed to impose sanctions on Moscow.
The Crimean peninsula has been under the control of pro-Russia forces since late February.
Moscow says the troops are pro-Russian self-defence forces and not under its direct control.
The crisis follows the ousting of Ukraine's pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych on 22 February, following months of street protests and deadly clashes.
Ukraine's interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has called the vote "a circus performance" which had been backed up by "21,000 Russian troops, who with their guns are trying to prove the legality of the referendum".

US and EU expected to announce sanctions against Russia

The US and its allies in Europe are expected to announce sanctions against Russia, including visa bans and potential asset freezes, one day after Crimeans voted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.
The US president, Barack Obama, told his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on Sunday that Crimea’s vote “would never be recognised” by the United States, as he and other US officials warned Moscow against making further military moves toward southern and eastern Ukraine.
The leaders spoke after people in Crimea voted overwhelmingly in favour of the split in a referendum that the US, European Union and others said violated the Ukrainian constitution and international law and took place in the strategic peninsula under duress of Russian military intervention. Putin maintained that the vote was legal and consistent with the right of self-determination, according to the Kremlin.
Russia’s lower house of parliament will pass legislation allowing the Crimea region to join Russia “in the very near future”, Interfax news agency said on Monday, quoting the chamber’s deputy speaker.
The final results of the referendum showed that 86.8% of voters had supported union with Russia, the head of the election commission said. Mikhail Malyshev told a televised news conference that the commission had not registered a single complaint about the vote.
“The results of the referendum in Crimea clearly showed that residents of Crimea see their future only as part of Russia,” the deputy speaker of the State Duma, Sergei Neverov, was quoted as saying.
But the White House said Obama reminded Putin that the US and its allies in Europe would impose sanctions against Russia should it annex Crimea.
During the call, which came amid an exchange of decidedly cold war-style rhetoric between east and west, Obama urged Putin to pursue a diplomatic de-escalation of the crisis, support the Ukraine government’s plans for political reform, return its troops in Crimea to their bases, and halt advances into Ukrainian territory and military build-ups along Ukraine’s borders.
Obama told Putin that “a diplomatic resolution cannot be achieved while Russian military forces continue their incursions into Ukrainian territory and that the large-scale Russian military exercises on Ukraine’s borders only exacerbate the tension”, the White House said in a statement.

Kremlin website hit by 'powerful' cyber attack

Victories are hard to come by for Vladimir Putin's opponents, activists are jailed, protests draw dwindling crowds, but on Friday they celebrated a minor triumph by briefly knocking out the Kremlin website.
To red faces in the Kremlin and government, the central bank's site was also brought down by a cyber attack and the Foreign Ministry suffered similar problems.
"A powerful cyber attack is under way on the [Kremlin] site," a spokeswoman for the Russian president's press service said by telephone as security experts struggled to curtail disruption. All three sites were working later on Friday.

A group calling itself Anonymous Russia highlighted the Kremlin website's crash on Twitter, signaling it may have been behind the attack. The same group said it brought down the website in May 2012 in solidarity with protests against Putin on his return for a third term as president.
A Kremlin source told Itar-Tass news agency there was no link with "the events in Ukraine", referring to the standoff with the West over Crimea, which votes on Sunday on unification with Russia.
But the cyber attack reveals a small chink in the Kremlin's defences as it defies Western demands to pull forces back to base on the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula.
Critics may see Friday's attacks as revenge for similar attacks on official websites in Ukraine since the national parliament ousted Moscow-backed President Viktor Yanukovich last month and the standoff with Russia worsened.
Friday's attacks are particularly embarrassing for Putin because Russia blocked access to the internet sites of prominent Kremlin critics Alexei Navalny and Garry Kasparov on Thursday, under a new law critics say is designed to silence dissent.
Hacktivism
"In this case we are talking about 'hacktivism', a form of cyber attacks which is an expression of political or social protest," said Sergei Lozhkin, an expert at the Kaspersky Lab computer security firm.
"For someone who has certain skills it is much easier to attack the government website or the media than organise a real protest or demonstration."
He said there had also been similar attacks this week on the internet sites of several Russian media outlets that support Putin, causing embarrassment although having no lasting impact on them.

Malaysia Airlines flight search: Authorities probe whether pilot's 'obsessive' political views played role in disappearance

Focus on the investigation into the fate of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet remained on the pilots Sunday, as speculation arose over whether one of the men flying the plane could have hijacked it in an anti-government protest.
Meanwhile, authorities said Sunday that the final words from the pilots came after the Boeing 777's data recorder and transponder had been disabled on March 8, adding to suspicions one or both of the pilots were involved in the plane's disappearance.
Britain's Daily Mail on Sunday, citing police sources, reported that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, was an "obsessive" supporter of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who was sentenced to five years in prison on a charge of sodomy just hours before the Malaysia Airlines plane took off. The Mail reported that Malaysian authorities fear that Zaharie, who was at Ibrahim's trial, may have been upset enough by Ibrahim's imprisonment to hijack his own aircraft as a form of political protest.
The Mail reported that investigators had already examined two laptops from Zaharie's home, one of which is believed to contain data from a sophisticated flight simulator. Khalid Abu Bakar, the inspector general, said police had reassembled the simulator in their offices to examine it.

Navy SEALs Board Oil Tanker Stolen From Libyan Rebel Port

March 17 (Reuters) - U.S. Navy SEALs boarded and took control of an oil tanker late on Sunday that escaped earlier this month from a Libyan port with armed men at the helm, the U.S. Department of Defense said.
Libyan anti-government rebels, who are calling for a greater share of oil wealth and autonomy, had managed to load crude oil onto the 37,000 tonne-tanker, which escaped the Libyan navy, embarrassing the weak central government and prompting parliament to vote the prime minister out of office.
No one was hurt in the boarding operation, approved by U.S. President Barack Obama, requested by the Libyan and Cypriot governments and conducted in international waters southeast of Cyprus, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said.
"The Morning Glory is carrying a cargo of oil owned by the Libyan government National Oil Company. The ship and its cargo were illicitly obtained" from the Libyan port of Es Sider, his statement said.
The Cypriot ministry of foreign affairs said the vessel was now heading west in the Mediterranean with a U.S. military escort. It was parked 18 miles (29 km) southwest of Cyprus when the operation occurred around midnight Cyprus time.
The standoff over control of OPEC member Libya's oil is one facet of wider turmoil that has engulfed the vast North African country since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi nearly three years ago.
The government and nascent army have struggled to control brigades of former anti-Gaddafi fighters who have refused to disarm and have used their military muscle to make political demands on the state, often by targeting the vital oil sector.

Tunisia: Counter-terrorism forces kill 3 militants after long shoot out in the northwest

Tunisian counter-terrorism forces killed three armed militants early Monday after surrounding their home in a clash which lasted several hours, the state news agency reported.

The siege took place in the northwest region of Jendouba, not far from the Algerian border, which has been the scene of previous confrontations with militants.
While Tunisia has been moving forward with its transition to democracy after overthrowing its secular dictator in 2011, there have been repeated clashes with armed militants affiliated with radical Islam.
On Feb. 16 in the same region, militants set up a fake checkpoint on a highway in the early hours of the morning and killed three members of the National Guard and a civilian.
The Interior Ministry also reported early Monday that two militants in a vehicle exchanged fire with the National Guard, wounding two before escaping in the southern town of Sidi Bouzid.

Paris car ban set to start after pollution hits high

Hundreds of police will monitor traffic in Paris on Monday after pollution levels prompted the French government to impose major restrictions.

Only motorists whose cars have odd-numbered registration plates will be allowed to drive.
On Tuesday, if the restrictions remain in place, it will be the turn of those with even-numbered plates.
Ministers acted after air pollution exceeded safe levels for five days running in Paris and surrounding areas.
The smoggy conditions have been caused by a combination of cold nights and warm days, which have prevented pollution from dispersing.

Peres says Abbas a 'true partner for peace' ahead of PA leader's meeting with Obama

President Shimon Peres expressed his belief that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is a true partner for peace ahead of Abbas's meeting with US President Barack Obama at the White House on Sunday.
"Abu-Mazen (Abbas) is a true partner for peace and a man of principles who opposes violence and terror," Peres said in a meeting with human rights activists.
"We are currently at the most critical juncture of negotiations and we must do everything in our power to ensure that they continue. There is a clear majority and agreement on two states for two peoples," the president said.
Peres said that he was happy that it was Abbas who Israel was negotiating with on the Palestinian side, adding that disagreements were a natural part of negotiations. He said that there were also plenty of points that Israel and the Palestinian leader agree on , such as the fight against terrorism.
The president said that his optimism was tempered by worry about the fateful decisions regarding negotiations which are scheduled to be made in the coming weeks. The nine-month period set for negotiations by US Secretary of State John Kerry is set to expire in April. Obama and Kerry are hoping that both the Israelis and Palestinians will agree to continue negotiations on the basis of an American-drafted set of principles known as a framework agreement.
Reports in the Arab media on Sunday, claimed that Abbas would make extra demands of Israel as condition for continuing the talks, such as freezing settlement construction and releasing high-profile Palestinian prisoners.
Peres said that he did not believe the sides would have entered into negotiations without the belief that they could eventually yield a peace agreement.

NKorea crimes on par with Nazis: UN

GENEVA: The crimes of North Korea's regime are as chilling as those of the Nazis, South Africa's apartheid regime or Cambodia's Khmer Rouge and must be stopped, the head of a UN inquiry said on Monday.

"Contending with the great scourges of Nazism, apartheid, the Khmer Rouge and other affronts required courage by great nations and ordinary human beings alike," Michael Kirby told the UN Human Rights Council.

"It is now your solemn duty to address the scourge of human rights violations and crimes against humanity in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea," he said.

His comments came a month after the investigators released a searing 400-page report documenting a range of gross human rights abuses in the country, including the extermination of people, enslavement and sexual violence.

"The gravity, scale, duration and nature of the unspeakable atrocities committed in the country reveal a totalitarian state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world," Kirby said.

"The country is a dark abyss where the human rights, the dignity and the humanity of the people are controlled, denied and ultimately annihilated."

North Korea, which refused to cooperate with the commission, has "categorically" rejected its report.

The country's permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, So Se Pyon, said Monday the findings were "shameless fabrications" by "hostile forces". 

Official: Gunmen kill judge and his bodyguard in attack in eastern Afghanistan

An Afghan official says gunmen have killed a judge and his bodyguard in an attack in the country's east.

A provincial police spokesman says Abdul Latif, a district judge in the province of Herat, and the bodyguard were in a car when they were shot to death.
The spokesman, Abdul Raouf Ahmadi, says Latif was a judge in Karukh district. Ahmadi says police are investigating and that there have been no arrests so far in the case.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Taliban and other insurgents frequently target Afghan officials as part of their campaign to undermine the Western-backed government.
The Taliban also have vowed to use force to disrupt Afghanistan's presidential elections slated for April 5.
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 Democrats seek ways to limit Obamacare fallout after Florida defeat


President Barack Obama and his Democrats face the challenge of limiting fallout from Obamacare and drumming up voter enthusiasm in the November congressional elections, problem areas exposed by the loss of a Florida candidate who had led in the polls.
The defeat of Democrat Alex Sink by Republican David Jolly in a special election last Tuesday has raised anxiety levels for Democrats as they struggle to hold on to control of the Senate in November and pick up seats in the Republican-held House of Representatives.
Paramount on the Democrats' list of concerns about November is the need to ensure that voters feel motivated to go to the polls. Obama won handily in presidential elections in 2008 and 2012, but Democrats lost control of the House in the 2010 midterm elections, when his name was not on the ballot.
The Florida race reflected turnout concerns, as Sink had been leading in the polls in the days ahead of the election. But the party did not get enough supporters to polling stations to take advantage.
"If we'd had better turnout, we would have won. It's that simple," said Democratic Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts. "We need to think about how to energize our base."
A focus simply on turnout, however, could distract party leaders from recognizing the dangers presented by the president's healthcare law and, with his approval rating mired in the mid-40s, his relative unpopularity.
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Governor Patrick says “maybe” to presidential run after 2016 election

Governor Deval Patrick cracked the door on Sunday to a potential White House run after the 2016 election, using a governors’ conference in Washington DC to stir national buzz.
Asked in an interview with Politico whether he could see himself running for national office, Patrick, who has ruled out vying for the 2016 nomination, replied, “Maybe. Maybe.”
“That’s a decision I have to make along with my wife of 30 years and she’s a tough one to convince,” Patrick told the popular Beltway publication.
He dangled the notion of returning to government after “a break” once his second term ends early next year.
“I’d like to have another opportunity to serve. I believe in service. I enjoy it,” the governor said. “I also like coming and going, you know, because I think that my private-sector life has contributed to how I think about public-sector challenges and what I do in the public sector.”
Patrick has told associates he wants to return to the private sector, where he enjoyed a lucrative career as a corporate attorney before winning the governorship in 2006.
But he also previously has signaled intentions to remain active on the national political scene. Last year, he hired his first campaign manager, former state Democratic Party chair John Walsh, to run his political action committee, Together PAC, with an eye on supporting like-minded candidates across the country.
Patrick and state executives are in Washington for the National Governors Association winter meeting.

Hillary Deploys Iowa Army

Details on a pro-Clinton super PAC’s push last week show she’s miles ahead of any potential challenger for 2016.

The Iowa caucuses are still nearly two years away, but Hillary Clinton already has the makings of comprehensive organization on the ground in the Hawkeye State.
At the Democratic county conventions held in Iowa on March 8, the biannual gatherings where local party activists meet to conduct party business, the Ready For Hillary superPAC boasted of its ability to have to a presence on the ground in all 99 counties in the Hawkeye State. While only 95 counties actually held conventions last Saturday, Ready for Hillary fell short of its goal—but not by much.
According to data provided to The Daily Beast, Ready For Hillary had operatives on the ground in 84 counties. Ranging from Iowa’s most populous to tiny Adams County, with a population of barely 4,000 spread over 425 square miles.  The result was that in counties with over 95 percent of the state’s population, supporters of Clinton’s candidacy had a presence.  However, there were still some holes.
The most populous county without a volunteer from Ready for Hillary on March 8 was Buena Vista County. It’s a Republican-leaning county in northwest Iowa with 20,000 people.  But it was a comparative outlier in terms of its size as most of the remaining were small and rural counties of less than 10,000, many of which were in southern Iowa on or relatively close to the Missouri border and were overwhelmingly won by John Edwards in the 2008 caucuses.

House Republican leaders craft their vision for an alternative to health-care law

House Republican leaders are adopting an agreed-upon conservative approach to fixing the nation’s health-care system, in part to draw an election-year contrast with President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

The plan includes an expansion of high-risk insurance pools, promotion of health savings accounts and inducements for small businesses to purchase coverage together.
The tenets of the plan — which could expand to include the ability to buy insurance across state lines, guaranteed renewability of policies and changes to medical-malpractice regulations — are ideas that various conservatives have for a long time backed as part of broader bills.
But this is the first time this year that House leaders will put their full force behind a single set of principles from those bills and present it as their vision. This month, House leaders will begin to share a memo with lawmakers outlining the plan, called “A Stronger Health Care System: The GOP Plan for Freedom, Flexibility, & Peace of Mind,” with suggestions on how Republicans should talk about it to their constituents.
“We’ve got to get to where you can compare the two perspectives, Republican and Democrat,” House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in an interview. “We’ve got all of these bills out there, so we’re going to take this core of policies and grow from there.”
Republicans have campaigned heavily on their opposition to the health-care law in this year’s congressional elections, betting that anger with the law will propel them to gain seats in the House and take control of the Senate. Those efforts accelerated last week after Republican David Jolly’s upset victory in a special House election in Florida in which the campaigns focused on the law. 

Condoleezza Rice Urges Republican Party To Be More Inclusive

SAN FRANCISCO, March 15 (Reuters) - Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Saturday called on the Republican Party to become more inclusive on issues like immigration.

"We have a responsibility to those who do not yet have the liberties and the rights that we enjoy," Rice told a cheering crowd at the annual gathering of California Republicans in the San Francisco suburb of Burlingame. "We cannot abandon them ... We were once them."

She did not offer a specific policy idea.

The speech by Rice, who was secretary of state under President George W. Bush, was the highlight of the second day of the three-day convention, which has set out to rebuild the party in a state where Democrats control both houses of the legislature and every statewide elected office.

U.S. Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, who recently won a primary battle against a challenger from the populist Tea Party movement, also talked about broadening the Republican Party by joining in a fight with the Tea Party against Democrats and liberals.

"The opportunities that lie for Republicans are enormous this year with a team that will be together," Sessions said. "It's easier to get things done in a majority."

Jim Brulte, California's former and long-serving state senate leader who has been charged with reviving the party in the state, said in a statement he was aiming to push the party "outside of its comfort zone."

In her speech, Rice echoed the convention theme of "rebuild, renew and reclaim." Rice included individual freedom, private sector-led growth and equal access to quality education as key themes for Republicans to focus on in California and elsewhere.

Convention attendees said they were behind the idea of Republicans reaching out to groups that have traditionally felt alienated by the party, particularly Latino and Asian immigrants.

"I really think that this country is going to be turned around with conservatives and new immigrants," said Susan Mason, of Sacramento, a Tea Party Republican. "We've got to get to them first." 

Alison Redford uproar: Tory MLAs consider leaving caucus

A group of at least 10 Alberta Progressive Conservative MLAs gathered Sunday night, ahead of a caucus meeting, to express their dissatisfaction with Premier Alison Redford’s leadership and consider sitting as independents.
“We didn’t have a vote, but I’ll tell you there were some significant concerns that were brought up,” Edmonton-Riverview MLA Steve Young said after the closed meeting, held at a downtown office building.
The gathering came at the end of a tumultuous week for Redford in which one of her MLAs left caucus and a Tory riding association president publicly called for her resignation.
“We shouldn’t have to be surprised when we’re talking about the elephant in the room,” Young said. “And we had a bunch of MLAs talking about that: the elephant in the room.”
Other MLAs who attended the two-hour, closed-door meeting included Moe Amery, Neil Brown, Ken Lemke, Jacquie Fenske, Mary Anne Jablonski, Matt Jeneroux, Cathy Olesen, Janice Sarich and David Xiao.
Few fielded questions as they left. Jablonski said the group was “talking about policy.”  Lemke merely referred to the event as a “potluck supper.”
None of those asked would say whether they still support Redford in her capacity as premier.
Young said the group discussed the controversies surrounding Redford, as well as her recent meeting with PC party executives in Calgary.

Olivia Chow beating Rob Ford Toronto mayor race, polls show

TORONTO — Olivia Chow began leading public opinion polls the moment she threw her hat into the ring.
The same evening Chow announced her entry into the Toronto mayoral race, more than one-third, 36%, of a sample of 1,271 voters said they would pick her on the ballot if the election was held that day, according to Forum Research.
That would mean Rob Ford would fall behind Chow at 28% and less than a quarter would vote John Tory at 22%.
Karen Stintz would hold a scant 5% of the vote and David Soknacki 2%. The remaining 7% have no opinion on the topic.
"By actually entering the race after standing on the sidelines for so long, Olivia Chow appears to have stolen the wind from John Tory's sails, and left both he and Rob Ford in her wake," Forum president Lorne Bozinoff said.
These findings represent relative stability for Ford since the company polled him at 31% in February, "while John Tory, who had just entered the race the last time we polled, has seen his vote decline from 27%," Bozinoff said.
The poll also found if Ford doesn't run, Chow also wins.
In a three-way race between Chow, Ford and Tory, Chow also wins with 38% of the vote.
But it's not Ford in the spotlight for highest approval ratings. Tory and Chow now share that position.
"Just three in 10 voters say they will vote for Rob Ford no matter what and this is down from the last time we polled (38%) and several months before that," said Bozinoff.

New Rob Ford St. Patrick's Day Video Shows Mayor Red-Faced, Swearing

A new video shows Toronto Mayor Rob Ford in an apparently intoxicated state and swearing in front of a mother and her 13-year-old son two nights before St. Patrick's Day.
CTV News released the exclusive recording on their 6 p.m. broadcast Sunday. The network said the clip was obtained around 10:30 p.m. on Saturday by a "starstruck" teenaged fan of the mayor's, who was downtown with his Mississauga-based mother. The video, shot near the downtown corner of Queen and Bay Streets, outside of Toronto City Hall, was reportedly submitted on the condition the family's identity be protected.
Watch the full video at CTV News

In the video, Ford, who sports a plastic green bead necklace for St. Patrick's Day, is surrounded by a group of younger-looking men, and agrees to take a photo with the teen. Soon after, he indicates he has to leave, saying "Bro, I need a taxi van to take us home."
On the shaky footage, Ford appears to stumble as he hugs a passerby while mumbling unintelligibly. Later, as the camera follows him, he appears to yell, "Don't run into the traffic, you f***ing idiot!" before getting in to a waiting cab. The words were censored by the evening broadcast, and a transcript of the video has not yet been provided.
If inebriated, this will not be the first time the mayor publicly celebrated St. Patrick's Day in a drunken state while in office. A City of Toronto security report from 2012 revealed a surly and slurring Ford was walking around with a half-finished bottle of brandy at City Hall at 2 a.m. Ford later admitted on his former NewsTalk 1010 radio talk show that the 2012 St. Paddy's Day celebrations "got a little out of control."
This new footage also follows several public statements from Ford that he had experienced his "Come to Jesus moment" in November 2013. The mayor insisted he had given up drinking and drugs. 
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