Gazette 05-14-14

Wednesday May 14th 2014

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At least 238 miners dead, more than 100 trapped in Turkish coal mine

Rescuers are hunting desperately for scores of Turkish coal miners still missing after an explosion caused a pit to collapse, killing at least 238.

Dozens escaped the pit in the western town of Soma, but officials say about 120 are still unaccounted for.
On a visit to Soma, PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said every aspect of the tragedy would be investigated and "no stone would be left unturned".
Frantic relatives have gathered at the mine, waiting for news of loved ones.

As ambulances took away an increasing number of bodies, some of the bereaved wailed uncontrollably and were carried away by their families.

More than 350 miners were rescued, but no survivors have been found in the last few hours.
Mr Erdogan said 80 of those rescued had been treated for injuries, none of which were serious. Nineteen of these had already been discharged from hospital.
"I just want everybody to know that the disaster will be investigated in every aspect and will continue to be investigated and we are not going to allow any negligence, or leave any stone unturned," he told journalists in Soma.
Earlier he announced three days of mourning for the victims.

Nigeria hints at talks with kidnappers amid calls for more US involvement

Nigeria's government said Tuesday it is open to negotiations with an Islamist militant group to secure the release of nearly 300 kidnapped schoolgirls, as two senior U.S. lawmakers called for military action to free the girls.
'We are willing to carry that dialogue on any issue, including the girls kidnapped in Chibok, because certainly we are not going to say that (the abduction) is not an issue," Nigerian Special Duties Minister Taminu Turaki told AFP.

Nigeria's interior minister had previously dismissed Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau's demand that jailed fighters be swapped for their freedom, but the military later said "all options were open," Sky News reported.
U.S. reconnaissance aircraft flew over Nigeria in search of the nearly 300 kidnapped schoolgirls Tuesday, a day after Boko Haram released the first evidence that at least some of them are still alive. The girls were shown fearful and huddled together dressed in gray Islamic veils as they sang Quranic verses. 
The footage was verified as authentic by Nigerian authorities, who said 54 of the girls had been identified by relatives, teachers and classmates who watched the video late Tuesday.

Nigerian village vigilantes 'repel Boko Haram attack'

Residents of three villages in northern Nigeria have repelled an attack by suspected Boko Haram Islamist fighters, an eyewitness has told the BBC.

About 200 of the militants were killed during the fighting in the Kala-Balge district of Borno state, he said.
The witness said the residents had formed a vigilante group.
The area which came under attack is not far from the site of a market massacre last week in which more than 300 people were killed.
The suspected Boko Haram militants overran the town of Gamboru Ngala 10 days ago on its busy market day in a killing and looting raid which lasted about five hours.
A security official told the Associated Press news agency that the vigilantes in Kala-Balge, which is near Lake Chad, were ready for a fight after learning of an impending Boko Haram attack on Tuesday.
The eyewitness, who spoke to the BBC Hausa Service on condition of anonymity because of security concerns, said the area was littered with bodies after the fighting.
He had seen 50 bodies in one village and 150 in another village, all of which he thought were the corpses of militants.
Residents also seized three cars and a military vehicle from the attackers, he said.
On Tuesday, Nigeria's government said it was ready to negotiate with Boko Haram after it abducted more than 200 girls during a raid on a boarding school in Borno state a month ago.
Their kidnapping has caused international outrage, and foreign teams of experts are in the country to assist the security forces in tracking them down.
It is exactly a year since President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in Borno and its neighbouring states of Adamawa and Yobe in an effort to curb the insurgency.
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 Vietnamese Mobs Set Fire To Foreign Factories In Anti-China Riots

Thousands of Vietnamese set fire to foreign factories and rampaged in industrial zones in the south of the country in an angry reaction to Chinese oil drilling in a part of the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam, officials said on Wednesday.

The brunt of Tuesday's anti-China violence appears to have been borne by Taiwanese companies in the zones in Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces, as rioters mistook the firms to be Chinese-owned. There were no reports of casualties and the rioting appeared to have subsided by Wednesday.

The row over the South China Sea and anti-China violence in tightly-controlled Vietnam have brought relations between Hanoi and Beijing to one of their lowest points since the Communist neighbors fought a brief border war in 1979.

Islamist group claims Urumqi bombing

Monitoring service says Turkistan Islamic Party posted video claiming responsibility for April attack in western China

An Islamist militant group called the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) claimed responsibility for a bomb attack at a train station in China's western city of Urumqi in late April that killed one person and injured 79, the Site Monitoring service said.
China had said the attack in its restive Xinjiang region, home to the Muslim Uighur ethnic group, was carried out by two religious extremists who were killed in the blast.
Site, which tracks Islamist militant statements, said TIP had released a 10-minute video in the Uighur language showing the construction of a briefcase bomb it said was used in the station attack.
"A fighter is shown placing the explosive material and shrapnel of bolts inside a box, then inserting the detonation device in a briefcase with the explosive, and leaving the trigger exposed in an outside pocket," Site said of the video.
It said the video had been produced by the TIP's Islam Awazi Media Centre and posted on its website on 11 May.
Beijing says it faces a threat from militant Islamists in Xinjiang who want an independent state called East Turkestan. Authorities say many have links with foreign groups, although rights groups and some foreign experts say there is little evidence to support this.
The TIP, which China equates with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), keeps a low profile in Pakistan. Unlike the Taliban, it rarely posts videos promoting its activities or ideology. Its exact size is unknown and some experts dispute its ability to orchestrate attacks in China, or that it exists at all as a cohesive group.
In a rare interview with Reuters in March, Abdullah Mansour, who says he is the leader of the Turkistan Islamic Party, said it was his holy duty to fight the Chinese.

 Officials say attacks targeting security forces across Iraq kill at least 13 people

BAGHDAD –  Authorities in Iraq say attacks targeting security forces have killed 13 people across the country.
Police officials say the deadliest of Wednesday's attacks happened when gunmen in two cars opened fire on a police checkpoint in the town of Adeim, killing eight police officers and wounding three.

Adeim is about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad.
Police say a roadside bomb blast that missed a military convoy killed three civilians in a town just south of Baghdad.
In Anbar province, police say a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into a police station's gate in the town of Hit, killing two police officers and wounding three.
Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

Russia Targets Space Station Project In Retaliation For U.S. Sanctions

MOSCOW, May 13 (Reuters) - Russia cast doubt on the long-term future of the International Space Station, a showcase of post-Cold War cooperation, as it retaliated on Tuesday against U.S. sanctions over Ukraine.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Moscow would reject a U.S. request to prolong the orbiting station's use beyond 2020. It will also bar Washington from using Russian-made rocket engines to launch military satellites.

Moscow took the action, which also included suspending operation of GPS satellite navigation system sites on its territory from June, in response to U.S. plans to deny export licences for high-technology items that could help the Russian military.

"We are very concerned about continuing to develop high-tech projects with such an unreliable partner as the United States, which politicises everything," Rogozin told a news conference.

Washington wants to keep the $100 billion, 15 nation space station project in use until at least 2024, four years beyond the previous target.

Moscow's plan to part ways on a project which was supposed to end the "space race" underlines how relations between the former Cold War rivals have deteriorated since Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea region in March.

Since the end of the U.S. Space Shuttle project, Russian Soyuz spacecraft have been the only way astronauts can get to the space station, whose crews include mostly Americans and Russians, as well as visitors from other countries.

Syria conflict: 'Hundreds die in government detention'

Nearly 850 people have died in Syrian government prisons and security forces facilities this year, activists say.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 15 children and six women were among the victims.
They lost their lives as a result of torture, executions, maltreatment and poor conditions, it added.
The Observatory - which relies on a network of activists, medical and military sources in Syria - said the number of deaths could be even higher.
It said some 18,000 people among those held by the government in the past three years had disappeared, and many were feared dead.
"The number of victims is increasing because there are no measures being taken to deter the regime," said the Observatory's director, Rami Abdul Rahman.
The Observatory said that in the 847 cases it had documented up until 13 May, the victims' families had been notified by the Syrian authorities.
The government has denied that its security personnel are engaged in the widespread torture, mistreatment and execution of detainees.

33.3 million forced to flee inside their own countries, 1 Syrian family each minute

GENEVA –  United Nations and Norwegian officials say a record 33.3 million people worldwide were displaced by conflict and violence inside their own nations in 2013.
That was 4.5 million above the 2012 total.

The heads of the U.N. refugee agency and Norwegian Refugee Council reported Wednesday that 8.2 million fled their homes in the last year, including about 3.5 million in Syria alone. The numbers show that every 60 seconds, another family within Syria flees the civil war.
The other two-thirds of the 33.3 million displaced by war worldwide fled in previous years.
The figures compiled by Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, part of the Norwegian agency, show that 63 percent of those internally displaced worldwide are struggling to live in five countries: Syria, Colombia, Nigeria, Congo and Sudan.
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Afghan election results delayed over fraud probe: Officials


KABUL: Afghanistan's presidential election result was delayed on Wednesday as authorities said they had not completed fraud investigations after the first-round vote last month to find a successor to Hamid Karzai.

"The final result has been delayed for an unknown number of days," Independent Election Commission spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor said.

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US 'considers Manning transfer' to civilian prison

The Pentagon is considering transferring Private Chelsea Manning to a civilian prison in order to treat her gender dysphoria, US media report.

Pte Manning, formerly known as Bradley, was sentenced to 35 years in military prison for leaking a massive trove of classified US documents.
After the conviction, she announced the desire to live as a woman.
However, the US military prohibits transgender people from serving openly in the military.
Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, confirmed to the New York Times that Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel had approved a request from the Army to "evaluate potential treatment options for inmates diagnosed with gender dysphoria".
The Associated Press news agency first reported the US military was weighing a potential transfer to civilian prison, citing unnamed Pentagon sources,
'Behind bars' But on Wednesday, Rear Adm Kirby said no such decision had been been made yet.
"Any such decision will, of course, properly balance the soldier's medical needs with our obligation to ensure Pte Manning remains behind bars," he said.
A local judge in Leavenworth, Kansas, approved Pte Manning's name change request last month, a move the military did not oppose.

Senate Democrats Grill Obama Judicial Nominee On Abortion, Gay Rights, Confederate Flag

WASHINGTON -- One of President Barack Obama's most beleaguered judicial nominees, Michael Boggs, finally got his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday. And it wasn't pretty.
One by one, for nearly two hours, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee laid into Boggs over his record on gay rights, civil rights and abortion. Progressive groups have been doing as much for months, given Boggs' track record as a social conservative during his time as a Georgia state legislator from 2000 to 2004. Among other things, Boggs voted to keep the Confederate insignia on the Georgia state flag, to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and to impose tighter restrictions on access to abortion.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) flat-out told Boggs she wasn't sure she could support him getting a lifetime seat on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia given his past votes, despite his assurances that he would follow legal precedent if confirmed as a federal judge.
"My vote depends on whether I believe that or not," Feinstein said. "For my vote, I have to have certainty. I don't know quite how to get it, in view of this record. I just want to put that out there publicly."
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said he felt misled by a private conversation he had with Boggs about his votes for keeping the Confederate insignia on the state flag. He went back and forth with Boggs for several minutes, replaying a conversation in which Boggs told him the only reason he voted for it was because his constituents wanted the right to vote on a referendum on the matter. But it turned out there was no referendum attached to those votes, and Boggs never introduced one.

Dem 'disarray'? Florida House candidate drops out, Conyers kept off ballot

Democrats suffered a double blow after their choice candidate in a Florida House race suddenly dropped out and longtime Michigan Rep. John Conyers apparently failed to qualify for the primary ballot in his state. 
Republicans, looking to defend their majority in the House this fall, seized on the developments as a sign that Democrats are in "disarray" in the mid-terms. 

"Whether it's this situation [in Michigan], or Democrats finding out today they have no candidate in the Florida 13 competitive seat, House Democrats are watching any remaining hopes of making Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House again evaporate before their eyes," said Daniel Scarpinato, spokesman with the National Republican Congressional Committee. 
In Michigan, Conyers is expected to appeal the decision after Wayne County Clerk Kathy Garrett said the Democratic congressman didn't get enough signatures to appear on the Aug. 5 primary ballot. He could still run as a write-in candidate, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee voiced confidence that Conyers will ultimately win re-election. 
But in Florida, the party for the moment appears to be left without a candidate after Ed Jany, an independent running with Democratic support against Republican Rep. David Jolly, dropped out.

Tea party goes to war against Eric Cantor

RICHMOND — There was a time when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) sympathized with the tea party’s frustration with Washington.

Now, he’s engaged in open warfare with the GOP’s insurgent wing.
This week, Cantor’s opponent in the June 10 primary — a tea party activist named David Brat — is gaining national attention as a potential threat to Cantor’s hold on his solidly Republican, suburban Richmond district. Brat has won support from some big-name conservatives and has tapped into discontent across Virginia’s 7th Congressional District. On Wednesday, Brat planned to travel to Washington to meet with leading conservative agitators, a sign that his effort is starting to be taken seriously at the national level.
The intraparty drama is the latest reflection of the deepening chasm in the Republican Party across Virginia and the nation. And it is all the more remarkable because it is happening to a man widely seen as the likely next speaker of the House.
Most Republicans continue to believe Cantor is safe; he won a primary challenge two years ago with nearly 80 percent of the vote. But the prospect of a competitive and bruising challenge to the second-ranking Republican in Congress is embarrassing to Cantor — and is rattling GOP leaders at a time when the party is trying to unify its divided ranks.
“The conservatives are becoming more vocal,” said Thomas J. Bliley Jr., Cantor’s political mentor and predecessor in the House. “Once I was elected back in 1980, I didn’t have a primary fight for the 20 years I was there, and this is the first time Eric has had a serious or semi-serious primary opponent. You have people who are frankly disgusted with Washington, and he is a visible symbol.”

Clintons seek to show new vigor amid age worries

CLINTONS SEEK TO SHOW NEW VIGOR AMID AGE WORRIES
It’s a big day in the campaign of 2016 Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Her loyal defenders spent most of Tuesday pouring out their fury on Karl Rove for remarks Rove made about her health and fitness for office. If she wins, Clinton would be 69 when she took the oath of office, older than every president other than Ronald Reagan. A Republican strategist and Fox News Contributor pointing out that Clinton’s 2013 bout of ill health, subsequent cranial blood clot and odd therapeutic eye ware at the height of the Benghazi scandal shouldn’t cause such consternation. But Democrats have long had a Rove bugaboo, ascribing many dark arts to the architect of George W. Bush’s two presidential victories. But its more than just hating Rove. It’s that he spoke to the fear pulsating in every Democratic nerve ending: What if she can’t run? Without a seemingly viable alternative, it would be lights out for the blue team.