Gazette 04-22-14

Tuesday April 22nd 2014

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

US urges Russia action on Ukraine

US Vice-President Joe Biden has said Russia must "stop talking and start acting" to defuse the Ukraine crisis.

He was speaking during a joint news conference in Kiev with interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
Mr Biden warned Russia that further "provocative behaviour" would lead to "greater isolation" and urged Moscow to end its alleged support for pro-Russian militants in eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the funerals took place for three men shot on Sunday. 

They were killed during a raid on a checkpoint manned by pro-Russian separatists near the town of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine.

The local separatists said the attack was carried out by ultra-nationalist Right Sector militants but Kiev called it a "provocation" staged by Russian special forces.
The bodies of those killed lay in open coffins at the funeral ceremony at the Church of the Holy Spirit in the centre of Sloviansk.

'Endemic' corruption
 
Earlier in remarks to Ukrainian MPs, Mr Biden said the US stood with Ukraine's new leaders against "humiliating threats" - an apparent reference to Russia.
The vice-president called on Moscow to urge the pro-Russian separatists to leave the buildings they are occupying in eastern Ukraine, and to abandon checkpoints.
Mr Biden also stressed the need for the new authorities to tackle corruption, adding: "The opportunity to generate a united Ukraine, getting it right is within your grasp."
The US is to provide an additional $50m for political and economic reforms in Ukraine, including $11m to help run the presidential election due on 25 May.
Related Story : Russian Forces In East Ukraine Aim To Disrupt Elections: Ukrainian PM

North Korea believed to be readying new nuclear test

South Korea's Defense Ministry said Tuesday that North Korea has upped activities at its main nuclear test site, prompting South Korea and the United States to prepare for a new nuclear missile test by Pyongyang.
The announcement came ahead of President Obama's scheduled trip to Japan and South Korea later this week. The speculated test would also take place as most of the South Korean public's attention has been taken up by the Sewol ferry disaster, which has killed over a hundred people, with the final death toll expected to be around 300.
Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said Tuesday that South Korean intelligence had "detected various types of activities at Punggye-ri," referring to the test site in northeastern North Korea. 
The Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, citing a source in the Seoul government, said that observers had noticed "a very brisk movement of vehicles and people in and around" the site. A second source quoted by the paper said that it did not appear a test was imminent, but "I don't think it's physically impossible for the North, if it has the political will, to do it to coincide" with Obama's visit, which is scheduled for Friday and Saturday.

Syria's Rebels Battle Fierce Government Assault On Homs

BEIRUT (AP) — Weakened Syrian rebels are making their last desperate stand in Homs, as forces loyal to President Bashar Assad launch their harshest assault yet to expel them from the central city, once known as the capital of the revolution.
Some among the hundreds of rebels remaining in the city talk of surrender, according to opposition activists there. Others have lashed back against the siege with suicide car bombings in districts under government control. Some fighters are turning on comrades they suspect want to desert, pushing them into battle.
"We expect Homs to fall," said an activist who uses the name Thaer Khalidiya in an online interview with The Associated Press. "In the next few days, it could be under the regime's control."

The fight for Homs underscores Assad's determination to rout rebels ahead of presidential elections now set for June 3, aiming to scatter fighters back further north toward their supply lines on the Turkish borders. Assad's forces are building on gains elsewhere — they have been able to almost clear rebels from a broad swath of territory south of Homs between the capital, Damascus, and the Lebanese border, breaking important rebel supply lines there. Rebels have also capitulated in several towns around Damascus after blockades that caused widespread hunger and suffering.
Homs, Syria's third largest city, is a crucial target. Located in the country's center, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Damascus, it links the capital with Aleppo in the north — the country's largest city and another key battleground. But rebels still control large areas of the countryside in the north and south and have consolidated around the Turkish and Jordanian borders.
"A total loss of Homs would represent a serious loss to the opposition," said Charles Lister, visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center.
"The military has maintained a steadily significant focus on Homs precisely due to this importance," said Lister. "This has been all been part of a very conscious strategy of encircling, besieging and capturing areas of strategic importance," particularly urban areas.

Yemen identifying dead 'militants'

Yemeni officials are working to identify some of the dozens of suspected militants killed in a series of air strikes in recent days.

DNA tests are being carried out to establish whether two senior figures in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - its leader Nasser al-Wuhayshi and bombmaker Ibrahim al-Asiri - are among them.
However, US officials say neither man was an intended target of the strikes.
Training camps in remote, mountainous areas and several vehicles were hit.
The last strike reportedly destroyed a 4x4 carrying at least three men that was travelling through the province of Shabwa.
Witnesses said that soldiers in an unmarked helicopter arrived at the scene soon afterwards to retrieve their bodies, suggesting one or more of them might have been a senior militant.
Al-Qaeda 'leaders' killed The strikes in Shabwa and the neighbouring provinces of Bayda and Abyan started on Saturday and ended shortly after midnight on Monday.

'Piles and piles' of bodies after South Sudan slaughter; thousands streaming to UN base

NAIROBI, Kenya –  The U.N.'s top humanitarian official in South Sudan says he saw "piles and piles" of bodies after rebels belonging to one ethnic group slaughtered members of other groups in a remote town.
Toby Lanzer told The Associated Press in a phone interview Tuesday that the killings are "quite possibly a game-changer" for a conflict that has been raging since mid-December.

U.N. human rights investigators said Monday that hundreds of civilians were killed last week because of their ethnicity after rebel forces seized Bentiu, the capital of oil-producing Unity state. Lanzer said thousands of civilians are now streaming to the U.N. base in Bentiu because many believe more violence is coming. The base now holds 25,000 people seeking shelter but has very little water and only one latrine per 350 people.

France clamps down on radicalisation of would-be Syria jihadis

Foreign minister Laurent Fabius targets young with package of measures amid fears French nationals were hostages' captors

Urgent measures to prevent young people from going to wage jihad in Syria are to be unveiled by the government in Paris amid fears that its nationals were among the captors of four French hostages.
The measures include a plan to stop minors leaving France without parental consent, increased surveillance of Islamist websites, and a system to encourage parents to signal suspicious behaviour in their children.
Following the release on Saturday of four French journalists held in Syria for 10 months, the foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, revealed that some of their jailers had spoken French, apparently as a native language.
Briefing RTL radio on the plans, he said "about 500" French citizens were believed to be fighting with jihadi groups in Syria. "The numbers are rising, and they are becoming younger," he said.
Fabius said online surveillance would be intensified so that young people in danger of being radicalised could be identified early. As soon as someone starts looking at an Islamist website, they will be flagged up and monitored, he added. .
A special unit will also be established so that parents who suspect their children are being radicalised can get help before it is too late. Psychologists, social services and experts on Islamist groups will be on hand to answer the questions of young people attracted to the romantic images portrayed by Jihadi websites.
-
Abbas prepared to meet Netanyahu 'anytime, any place' 

PA president tells Israeli journalists he's ready to extend talks if Israel freezes settlements, releases 4th batch of prisoners and agrees to negotiate on borders; Palestinian, Israeli negotiators meet in Jerusalem.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday expressed his willingness to meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu "at anytime, in any place."
Israel Radio quoted the PA president as telling a group of Israeli reporters that he was prepared to extend peace talks with Israel beyond the April 29 deadline for negotiations in the event that Israel freezes construction in the settlements for a period of three months.

He said that during this three month period he was prepared to negotiate with Israel on the borders of a future Palestinian state.
In addition, Abbas conditioned the continuation of negotiations on Israel releasing the last batch of Palestinian security prisoners from Israeli jails, a release that was originally supposed to have occurred last month. Abbas said that Israel was obligated to fulfill the release in exchange for the PA having held back on plans to seek recognition in international organizations.
Abbas said that Israel would have to assume authority over the Palestinians if it were to continue its current policy toward the Palestinian Authority.
Abbas seemed to be reiterating his reported threat to dissolve the Palestinian Authority in the event that peace talks fail, even as chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat was quoted Tuesday as saying that the PA leadership had no intention of dismantling the Ramallah government.
The comments came as Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams were  meeting in Jerusalem Tuesday afternoon in an effort to come up with a package that would extend the negotiations beyond next week's deadline. 

 

Pak successfully test-fires short-range missile 'Hatf III'

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday successfully test-fired a short-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile Hatf III (Ghaznavi), capable of carrying nuclear and conventional warheads to a range of 290 kilometres, that could cover parts of India.

The "successful training launch" concluded the Field Training Exercise of Strategic Missile Group of Army Strategic Forces Command, the military said in a statement here.

The launch was witnessed by the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Gen Rashad Mahmood, Director General Strategic Plans Division, Lt Gen Zubair Mahmood Hayat, Commander Army Strategic Forces Command, Lt Gen Obaid Ullah Khan, Chairman NESCOM Muhammad Irfan Burney and other senior military officials and scientists at an undisclosed location.

Addressing the troops in the exercise, Gen Mahmood commended the troops on achieving technical and operational excellence in operating the state-of-the-art weapon system, the statement said.

He "expressed his satisfaction over the training goals achieved during the exercise and expected that the officers and men entrusted with the task of deterring aggression would continue to maintain professional excellence", it said.

Gen Mahmood also congratulated all the scientists and engineers for the successful launch of Ghaznavi as another milestone which has further strengthened the defence potential of Pakistan besides ensuring peace in the region.

Pakistan's President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulated the participating troops, scientists and engineers for the successful launch of the missile, the statement said.

17 new cases of MERS discovered in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has discovered another 17 cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), as the total number of confirmed infections of the SARS-like disease has jumped by a third in the kingdom in the past week.
King Abdullah replaced the health minister, Abdullah al-Rabeeah, on Monday amid growing public disquiet at the spread of the disease, which was discovered two years ago and kills around a third of sufferers.
Rabeeah said on Sunday he did not know why there had been a surge but said it might be part of a seasonal pattern since there had also been a rise in infections last April and May.
However, the jump is of particular concern as Saudi Arabia is expected to have a large influx of pilgrims from across the world in July during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, followed in early October by the arrival of millions of people to perform the annual Haj in Mecca and Medina.
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second-largest city where many of the new cases have been discovered, is the main entry point for pilgrims visiting nearby Mecca, site of the holiest places in Islam but where there have been no confirmed cases so far.
Last year’s Haj passed without any new infections being identified.

Attacks in Pakistan kill 9 after militant cease-fire expires

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- A week after Pakistani militants refused to extend a cease-fire with the government, at least nine people, including five police officers, were killed and more than 30 wounded in two attacks in the country’s restive northeast, officials said Tuesday.
Officials said militants ambushed a police patrol in Bhadbare, on the outskirts of the provincial capital of Peshawar, late Monday night. Two police officials were wounded in the attack, and when other officers arrived at the site to retrieve the wounded, the attackers struck again, authorities said.
Five police officers and a civilian were killed. An ambulance also got caught in the crossfire, resulting in injuries, officials said.
In the other incident, three people were killed and 30 wounded when a bomb exploded in a congested bazaar in the town of Charsadda, east of Peshawar. Authorities said the explosive device was planted in an abandoned motorbike and that the target was a police van passiing through the bazaar.
The outlawed militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, saw its 40-day cease-fire expire on April 16. The cease-fire had been called to give space for negotiations with the Pakistani government, but the talks have deadlocked as leaders of the militant organization said government forces continued to kill and arrest members of the group.
-

 Hillary Clinton blamed in USAID memos outlining chaos in Afghanistan aid

In internal government documents with potential repercussions for the 2016 presidential election, top officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development repeatedly cited former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for setting into motion a policy to waive restrictions on who could receive U.S. aid in Afghanistan, resulting in millions of dollars in U.S. funds going directly into the coffers of Afghan ministries known to be rife with corruption.

References to Mrs. Clinton’s role in the policy first appeared in a November 2012 USAID action memo, which outlined how U.S. officials made a “strategic foreign-assistance decision” two years earlier to provide “at least 50 percent of U.S. Government assistance directly to the” Afghan government.
The decision was “reaffirmed by Secretary of State Clinton” in July 2010, according to the memo, which highlighted her actions as justification for why USAID should waive an internal policy that otherwise would have required the agency to first assess the risk that such “direct assistance” might be lost to fraud, waste or outright theft.
USAID conducted such assessments anyway in recent years and reached sobering conclusions about the overall effects of billions of dollars that the U.S. has spent on nation building in Afghanistan.
Copies of the confidential assessments were obtained and first reported on last week by The Washington Times, which exposed how USAID’s own auditors found the risk of mismanagement, fraud and waste to be “critical” at nearly all the Afghan Cabinet ministries receiving the money.
Mrs. Clinton did not respond to a request for comment.
But current senior officials at the State Department, which oversees USAID’s activities, dismissed the notion that the reference to her in the agency’s 2012 action memo was anything other than routine.
“It’s absurd to claim that her name being mentioned in this memo is anything but the everyday work of a bureaucracy of which she was the leader,” said Marie Harf, the State Department’s deputy spokeswoman.

Boeing gets $4.6bn order from China's Shandong Airlines

China's Shandong Airlines has said that it has placed an order for 50 Boeing 737 aircraft, worth $4.6bn (£2.7bn) at list prices.

Chinese carriers have been looking to increase their fleets to cater for a growing domestic demand for air travel.
When contacted by the BBC, Boeing said it had received an order from the airline, but refused to confirm the number of planes.
The order still needs to be approved by the Chinese government.
"Boeing is delighted with Shandong Airlines' strong interest in the efficient 737 airplane and we continue to work with them and the Chinese government to determine the best way to meet their requirement," the plane maker said in a statement.
Growing demand A growing number of airlines are looking to purchase fuel-efficient aircraft, triggering competition among plane makers.
The 100-200 seat narrow-body, or single-aisle, aircraft market is forecast to generate $20 trillion (£12.8tn) worth of sales for plane makers over the next 20 years.
The sector is currently dominated by Airbus's A320 and Boeing's 737 aircraft.
If approved, the latest order from China will be a big win for Boeing which is not only competing with Airbus but also likely to face competition from China's state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac).
Comac is also targeting the 100-200 seat plane market with its C919 aircraft.

US conducts spy flight over Russia after delay

After a tit-for-tat series of delays, the United States conducted an Open Skies Treaty intelligence flight over Russian territory on Monday, a State Department official said.
The spy flight originally was scheduled for April 14 but was canceled by Russia after a U.S. team for the flight failed to arrive near Moscow on time and Moscow refused temporarily to reschedule it.

A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman also expressed anger on Monday over U.S. delays in certifying a new high-tech Russian aircraft to be used for spying missions over the United States under the Open Skies Treaty that permits limited legal spying over U.S. and Russian territory.
The State Department official said, however, that last week’s delay was the result of bad weather – despite radar images showing mostly clear skies over of Russia during the period of last week’s planned flight.
“The U.S. Open Skies mission dated April 14 was delayed due to weather conditions beyond the time permitted by the treaty,” the official said in a statement. “The flight was rescheduled and on April 21, the U.S. Open Skies Treaty aircraft began its mission in the Russian Federation.”

Obama’s Strategic Shift to Asia Is Hobbled by Pressure at Home and Crises Abroad

WASHINGTON — President Obama is expected to announce an agreement with the Philippines next Monday that would give American ships and planes the most extensive access to bases there since the United States relinquished its vast naval installation at Subic Bay in 1992.

The deal, which will be the centerpiece of Mr. Obama’s long-postponed trip to Asia that starts on Tuesday, is a modest step to reassert America’s military presence in Asia. But it could nonetheless antagonize China, which has stepped up its claims in both the South and East China Seas and is enmeshed in a standoff with the Philippines over a disputed clump of rocks known as Scarborough Shoal.

For Mr. Obama, it is the latest example of the deepening complexities of his efforts to shore up the strategic shift to Asia he announced three years ago and has struggled to maintain because of political pressures at home and a cascade of crises elsewhere in the world.

At a moment when Asia appears more rattled by China’s behavior than it has in decades, America’s fractious allies question its repeated assurances that the United States will be there for them. But the more Mr. Obama repeats his commitments, the more he plays into China’s narrative that his real motive is to contain its rise.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Stevens proposes changes to Constitution

WASHINGTON –  In his new book, retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens calls for no fewer than six changes to the Constitution, two of which are directly related to guns. Others would abolish the death penalty, make it easier to limit spending on elections and rein in partisan drawing of electoral districts.
His proposed amendments generally would overrule major Supreme Court decisions with which he disagrees, including ones on guns and campaign finance in which he dissented. It's his second book since retiring from the court at age 90.

The book, "Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution," is being published Tuesday by Little, Brown and Co., two days after Stevens' 94th birthday.
Stevens said in an interview with The Associated Press that the Newtown, Conn., shootings in December 2012 made him think about doing "whatever we could to prevent such a thing from happening again." Twenty first-graders and six educators were killed.
He said he was bothered by news reports about gaps in the federal government database for checking the background of prospective gun buyers. Those gaps exist because the Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that states could not be forced to participate in the background check system. Stevens dissented from the court's 5-4 ruling in Printz v. United States.
-