Gazette 05-20-14

Tuesday May 20th 2014

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Thailand army declares martial law 

The Thai military has imposed martial law amid a political crisis "to preserve law and order", but says the surprise move is not a coup.

In response, the acting prime minister urged the army to act "under the constitution" and "with no violence".
Soldiers have taken over TV and radio stations, and blocked off roads in the capital, Bangkok.
Martial law comes after months of escalating tensions between the government and the opposition.
Correspondents say the move could enrage supporters of the government, especially if it is seen as amounting to a coup. The army has staged at least 11 coups since the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932.
'No need to panic' Army chief Prayuth Chan-Ocha called on rival parties to talk to each other and resolve the political crisis. Martial law would remain in place until "peace and order" had been restored, he told government officials on Tuesday.
Soldiers have moved into the main government building in Bangkok, which has been unoccupied following months of violent demonstrations by opponents who want to be rid of an administration they say is corrupt.

5 dead, 45 wounded in train collision near Moscow

MOSCOW –  A collision Tuesday between a cargo train and a passenger train near Moscow killed at least five people and left up to 45 others injured, Russian officials said.
The Interior Ministry said the accident happened when several cars on a cargo train derailed and hit a passenger train moving on a parallel track near Naro-Fominsk, a town 30 miles southwest of Moscow.

Officials issued contradictory claims about the cause of the accident.
Footage from the crash site broadcast by Russian television showed one side of a passenger car torn away by the collision.
Nina Suslonova, the Moscow region's health care minister, told the Rossiya 24 news channel that five people were confirmed dead at the site. She said those who were injured were all from the same car.
The Emergency Situations Ministry said 45 people were injured and 25 of them were hospitalized. It said 15 were in grave condition.
The passenger train had been traveling from Moscow to Chisinau, Moldova.
Moscow's public transport department initially said the accident was caused by a crack in the rail, but the Investigative Committee said it occurred when a cargo container got loose and hit the passenger train.
Hundreds of rescuer workers, dozens of ambulance crews and several helicopters rushed to the site to help the victims.

Turkey Union Calls For Mass Strike Over Mine Disaster, 8 Held For Negligence

SOMA, Turkey, May 20 (Reuters) - The main labor union in a Turkish town hit by the nation's worst mining disaster called on thousands of workers to down tools on Tuesday at mines run by the same operator until the sites have been properly inspected.

Three hundred and one miners died last week after a fire in a mine in Soma, a small town 480 km (300 miles) southwest of Istanbul, fueling anger in a nation which has long had one of the world's worst workplace safety records.

Turkish authorities are holding eight suspects, including the head of the firm operating the mine, on provisional charges of "causing multiple deaths by negligence".

Soma Mining Chief Executive Can Gurkan was remanded in custody late on Monday, joining the mine's general manager and six others who are being held pending a formal indictment.

"We want the mining affairs directorate inspectors to carry out inspections and we will walk out until this has been done," Tamer Kucukgencay, regional head of the Maden-Is labor union, told reporters.

He said the action affected 3,200 mine workers in the town, where Soma Mining has three sites including the one hit by the fire. Monday was a public holiday in Turkey and miners have not yet returned to work.

The disaster has sparked protests across Turkey, directed at mine operators accused of ignoring safety for profit, and at Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government, seen as too close to industry bosses and insensitive in its response.

China denounces US cyber-theft charges

China has denounced US charges against five of its army officers accused of economic cyber-espionage.

Beijing says the US is also guilty of spying on other countries, including China, and accuses the US of hypocrisy and "double standards".
China has summoned the US ambassador in Beijing over the incident. It says relations will be damaged.
US prosecutors say the officers stole trade secrets and internal documents from five companies and a labour union.
The BBC's John Sudworth in Shanghai says it is extremely unlikely that any of the accused will ever be handed over to the US.
China's defence ministry put out a strongly-worded statement on its website on Tuesday saying that China's government and its military "had never engaged in any cyber espionage activities".
It also took aim at the US, saying: "For a long time, the US has possessed the technology and essential infrastructure needed to conduct large-scale systematic cyber thefts and surveillance on foreign government leaders, businesses and individuals. This is a fact which the whole world knows.
"The US' deceitful nature and its practice of double standards when it comes to cyber security have long been exposed, from the Wikileaks incident to the Edward Snowden affair."

Syrian army missile kills 13, including 8 children

BEIRUT –  A missile crashed into a rebel-held Syrian town while most people were at home sleeping, killing 13 people, activists said Tuesday.
The attack on northern town of Marea occurred late Monday, said a local activist who uses the name Abu al-Hassan. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the attack.

Those killed included an entire family composed of Mohammed Jafar, 70, his 40-year-old wife and their eight children. Abu al-Hassan said the Jafar's first wife died years ago, and he married for a second time. He said the marriage gave the retired mechanic a new lease on life: he decided to enroll in high school, and graduated when he was about 60, Abu al-Hassan said.
"He wanted to go to university but his grades weren't very good," according to al-Hassan, who said he used to attend annual exams with the man.
Abu Al-Hassan said he wasn't aware of any fighting in the area. He said the nearest front was 15 miles away in the area of Bureij.
A government airstrike also killed 10 people in the nearby northern town of Azaz early Tuesday, according to the Observatory.

Libya crisis deepens as renegade former general gains control of airbase

Libya's fragile government faced a spreading armed rebellion on Monday when an air force base in the east of the country joined up with a renegade former general who is pledged to fighting Islamist militants.
Fears of a confrontation between rival groups mounted when the commander of the Tobruk air base announced he was putting it under the command of Khalifa Hiftar, a US-linked figure said to have been behind an attack on the parliament in Tripoli during weekend fighting which left about 80 people dead and 160 injured.
Most of the casualties were in Benghazi, Libya's second city, where Hiftar's men attacked Ansar al-Sharia, a fundamentalist organisation that has been designated by the US as a terrorist group.
The former general, who defected to the US in the 1980s, took part in the Nato-backed uprising against former president Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, but says the congress (parliament) in Tripoli lacks legitimacy. He has insisted he is not trying overthrow the government but to fight terrorists.
Residents described Tripoli as tense but calm on Monday but Saudi Arabia said it was closing its embassy, Afriqiyah airlines cancelled its London to Tripoli flights, Tunisia and Algeria announced they were sending reinforcements to their borders with Libya, Algeria recalled oil workers on security grounds, and Turkey closed its consulate in Benghazi.
Libya has been in a state of turmoil for months, with armed groups compounding the problems of a government struggling to acquire legitimacy and impose its authority. A planned new constitution remains unwritten and the country has had three prime ministers since March. Little progress has been made on security, democracy or economic recovery.
The gunmen who attacked the parliament belonged to brigades based in the western Zintan area, who are known for their opposition to Islamist groups.

London imam Abu Hamza convicted of US terrorism charges

London imam Abu Hamza al-Masri was convicted of terrorism charges in New York on Monday, following a four-week trial that shined a spotlight on the preacher's controversial anti-Western statements.

After deliberating for less than two days, a jury of eight men and four women found Abu Hamza, 56, guilty on all 11 counts he faced, handing Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara his second high-profile terrorism conviction in three months.

Abu Hamza could face life in prison when he is sentenced in September.

Prosecutors had charged the one-eyed, handless Abu Hamza with providing a satellite phone and advice to Yemeni militants who kidnapped Western tourists in 1998, an operation that led to the deaths of four hostages.

Abu Hamza also was accused of dispatching two followers to Oregon to establish a militant training facility and sending an associate to Afghanistan to help al-Qaida and the Taliban.

His lawyers claimed the case relied largely on the incendiary language in his sermons at London's Finsbury Park mosque, which earned him notoriety as one of Britain's most prominent radical Islamic voices.

Many of his words were played at trial, including an interview in which Abu Hamza expressed support for the September 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States.

Defense lawyer Joshua Dratel said the relatively quick verdict demonstrated that the jurors reacted emotionally to the inflammatory statements rather than sticking to the evidence.

Missing flight MH370 allowed to vanish, minister claims on Four Corners

Missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 was simply allowed to vanish because the country's military did not intervene as the commercial airliner was not deemed to be a threat, according to new revelations about the aviation mystery.
Malaysia's Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, under scrutiny over the way the country handled the matter, told ABC1's Four Corners that military planes were not sent to check on an unidentified plane which appeared on their radar.
The Malaysian Civil Aviation Authority called the military asking them to keep an eye on the plane but the military allowed the plane to just disappear after deciding it was not hostile.

MH370 flew almost directly over the Malaysian military air base located on the island of Penang but that it appeared nothing was done.
"It was commercial, it was in our air space, we were not at war with anybody,'' Mr Hussein said.
When questioned further about the lack of military intervention he said: "If we are going to send it (jets) up, are you going to say we were going to shoot it down?"

25 killed in Yemen army clashes with Shia rebels

SANAA: Eleven Yemeni soldiers and 14 Shia Huthi rebels were killed on Tuesday during clashes in a stronghold of the insurgents in the north of the country, medics said.

Dozens of other combatants were wounded in the gunfight that erupted on the western outskirts of Amran city, the medics at Amran hospital said.

A military source said earlier that three soldiers were killed in the clashes which broke out when rebels attacked an army position in the area.

Tensions remain high in Amran where Huthis have been trying to enforce their presence through armed parades and protests against the military.

But the suspected aim of the rebels is to enlarge their sphere of influence as the country is set to be divided into six federal regions, pushing out from their mountain strongholds in the far north to areas closer to the capital Sanaa.

The rebels complain that Yemen would be divided into rich and poor regions under the plan agreed in February following national talks that were part of Yemen's political transition.

The Huthis have fought the central government in Sanaa for years, complaining of marginalisation under former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was ousted in 2012 following a year of protests.

Thousands flee Iraq government assault on rebel-held Falluja

Thousands of civilians have fled Falluja since last week after the Iraqi military intensified shelling in a new bid to crush a five-month old Sunni uprising, killing scores of people in what residents describe as massive indiscriminate bombardment.
The mortars, artillery and what residents call “barrel bombs” rained for at least seven days on Falluja - a city that was the nemesis of U.S. troops a decade ago and is now the main battle ground in a war pitting the Shi’ite-led government against rebellious Sunni tribal chiefs and an al Qaeda offshoot.
More than 420,000 people have already escaped the two main cities of western Anbar province, Falluja and Ramadi, in fighting since the start of the year. Residents say the new pounding of Falluja’s residential neighborhoods appears aimed at driving out all remaining civilians in preparation for an all-out assault to defeat armed groups once and for all.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is trying to cobble together a coalition to keep himself in office for a third term after an April 30 parliamentary election, has vowed to destroy fighters who seized parts of Anbar province last year.
The mainly Sunni desert province borders on Syria, and many of the fighters belong to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an al Qaeda offshoot waging war and holding territory on both sides of the frontier.
After several days of bombardment last week, the Iraqi military announced on Friday last week it was launching an assault on rural areas north, south and west of Falluja.
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China summons US envoy, warns that cyberspying charges could harm ties

China has warned the U.S. that it is jeopardizing its military ties with Beijing and demanded that Washington withdraw an indictment brought by the Justice Department against five Chinese military officials accused of hacking into U.S. companies to steal trade secrets. 
The state-run Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday that Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang summoned Ambassador Max Baucus on Monday night to make a formal complaint about the charges. 

A statement issued by the Foreign Ministry Monday night said the charges were based on "fabricated facts" and would jeopardize China-U.S. "cooperation and mutual trust."
"China is steadfast in upholding cybersecurity," said the statement, which was read again Tuesday on state television's midday news broadcast. "The Chinese government, the Chinese military and their relevant personnel have never engaged or participated in cyber-theft of trade secrets. The U.S. accusation against Chinese personnel is purely ungrounded and absurd."
"The Chinese government and Chinese military as well as relevant personnel have never engaged and never participated in so-called cyber theft of trade secrets," said a foreign ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, at a news briefing Tuesday. "What the United States should do now is withdraw its indictment."

Koch Brothers Revealed In Damning Film Exposé

White House scrambles to contain VA scandal

The White House is scrambling to contain growing outrage over delays in treatment and rigged recordkeeping at veterans hospitals as lawmakers on Capitol Hill prepared to vote Wednesday on a bill designed to help make it easier to fire career employees tied to scandals at the beleaguered Department of Veterans Affairs.

White House press secretary Jay Carney acknowledged that the administration must do more to address problems that have been reported at some of the department’s 152 medical centers. Republicans have seized on the recent VA allegations as potential fodder for this fall’s midterm elections, and a handful of GOP senators has called for the resignation of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki. Carney told reporters Monday that President Obama “has confidence” in Shinseki and White House officials say they will wait for the results of an internal review at the VA before taking any action against high-ranking officials.
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$10-million ad campaign joins 'avalanche' of anti-Obamacare ads

The big-spending conservative group American Crossroads and its nonprofit arm launched a new offensive Tuesday in the 2014 campaign for control of the U.S. Senate with an ad targeting North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan and her support of the Affordable Care Act.
The ad is the first in a $10-million campaign by the nonprofit Crossroads GPS and its sister "super PAC" American Crossroads that will target vulnerable Democrats this summer in four key states: Arkansas, Alaska, North Carolina and Colorado. The spot features Hagan echoing President Obama’s promise that if Americans liked their healthcare plans, they could keep them, and highlights the fact that thousands of North Carolina health insurance plans were canceled because they did not meet the requirements of the new law.
“Typical Washington. Deceiving us. Pushing their agenda,” the narrator in the new Crossroads GPS ad says, “Tell Senator Hagan: Keep your word on our health care.”  
The ad is just the latest salvo in what campaign advertising analyst Elizabeth Wilner calls “a four-year avalanche” of ads maligning the Affordable Care Act even though polls show that public opinion has essentially hardened on the law.
From its passage in March 2010 through this April, opponents of the Affordable Care Act spent $418 million on negative ads about the law, while proponents spent just $27 million to tout their support, according to an analysis by Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, which Wilner oversees. That means the law’s opponents have spent $15 for every $1 spent by supporters of Obamacare.

D'Souza pleads guilty to U.S. campaign finance law violation

The conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a campaign finance law violation, averting a trial that had been expected to begin the same day in Manhattan federal court.
D'Souza pleaded guilty to one criminal count of making illegal contributions in the names of others. A second count concerning the making of false statements is expected to be dismissed once the defendant is sentenced.
The plea came four months after Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara charged D'Souza with using straw donors to give funds in 2012 to Wendy Long, a Republican Senate candidate in New York who ultimately lost to Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand.
D'Souza entered his plea before U.S. District Judge Richard Berman in Manhattan.
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