Gazette 05-29-14

Thursday May 29th 2014

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Ukraine army helicopter shot down near Sloviansk

Pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine have shot down a military helicopter near Sloviansk, killing 14 people, the country's outgoing president says.

Olexander Turchynov said the rebels used a Russian-made anti-aircraft system, and that an army general was among the dead.
The town of Sloviansk has seen fierce fighting between separatists and government forces in recent weeks.
President-elect Petro Poroshenko has vowed to tackle "bandits" in the east.
Russia has reiterated calls for Ukraine to stop its military campaign against the pro-Moscow rebels and "start a real national dialogue".
The Russian foreign ministry also urged the United States and European Union "to use all their influence on Kiev to stop Ukraine's slide into national catastrophe".

US citizen reportedly carries out suicide attack in Syria

An American in Syria who was working with an Al Qaeda-backed militant group is believed to be the first United States citizen to be involved in a suicide attack in the country, reports say.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that jihadist social media sites said the man went by the name Abu Huraira al-Amriki, and the truck bombing occurred in the north region of the country.

"I know he was an American, had an American passport and that he was with the Nusra Front," an anti-government activist told the paper via Skype. The Nusra Front is also known as Jabhat al-Nusra, and is linked to Al Qaeda.
U.S. officials did not confirm the reported bomber’s identity.
The report said the civil war playing out in the country has attracted Westerners to fight against Syrian President Bashar Assad. Officials told the paper more than 70 Americans have traveled to the country to fight.
Seth Jones, a terrorism expert at the RAND Corporation, told The Times that these Americans may be "honing their ability to conduct terrorist attacks" that could be used in the U.S.
Click for more from The New York Times.

Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, Egypt's Former Military Chief, Wins Election By Landslide

CAIRO (AP) — With nearly all ballots counted, Egypt's former military chief has won a crushing victory over his sole opponent in the country's presidential election, his campaign said Thursday. But the results were stained by questions about turnout despite a robust government effort to get out the vote.
Retired field marshal Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi won more than 92 percent of the votes, compared with 2.9 percent percent for his sole opponent and 4 percent of invalid votes, according to a tally released by his campaign.
His victory was never in doubt, but the career infantry officer had pushed for an overwhelming turnout as well to bestow legitimacy on his ouster last July of Egypt's first freely elected president, the Islamist Mohammed Morsi.
Turnout was more than 46 percent after officials extended voting to a third day, according to interim President Adly Mansour.
That figure was lower than the 52 percent turnout in the 2012 presidential election that vaulted Morsi to power. It also was lower than the bar el-Sissi himself set in his last campaign interview, when he said he wanted three-quarters of the country's 54 million registered voters to cast ballots so he could "show the world" his support.
Still, el-Sissi can genuinely claim he comes into office with an impressive vote tally of 23.38 million votes — significantly more than the 13 million won by Morsi two years ago. His sole opponent, leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahi, received 736,000 votes.
It was telling that Sabahi, who came in third in the previous election, garnered less than the 1.03 million spoiled ballots cast.

Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif orders action on stoning

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has described the stoning to death of a woman by her family in front of a Lahore court as "totally unacceptable".

Farzana Parveen, who was three months pregnant, was pelted with bricks and bludgeoned by relatives furious because she married against their wishes.
Her husband told the BBC that police simply stood by during the attack.
Lahore's police chief has denied this and said Ms Parveen had been killed by the time police arrived at the scene.
There are hundreds of so-called "honour killings" in Pakistan each year.
This incident has prompted particular outrage as it took place in daylight while police and members of the public reportedly stood by and did nothing to save her.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has ordered the chief minister of Punjab province to take "immediate action" and submit a report by Thursday evening.
'Inhuman' "They watched Farzana being killed and did nothing," her husband, Muhammad Iqbal, told the BBC.
Mr Iqbal described the police as "shameful" and "inhuman" for their failure to stop the attack.

China suggests US may have made up evidence for cyberattacks

China suggested Thursday the U.S. fabricated evidence to back up accusations of cyberattacks of U.S. companies by Chinese military officers. 
According to Reuters, China also suggested the U.S. incited China's neighbors to "stir up trouble" in disputed waters. 

Beijing is embroiled in a territorial dispute with Vietnam and is trying to persuade other governments to avoid getting involved.
Washington announced criminal charges last week against five Chinese military officers accused of breaking into computers of major U.S. companies to steal commercial secrets.
"In the field of Internet technology and infrastructure, the U.S. is blessed with an advantage, so fabricating some so-called 'evidence' is certainly no hardship," ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng said, according to Reuters. "The international community has not seen the U.S.'s so-called proof; they've only seen the massive conflict and hardship endured by the people of Iraq."
Geng said that after the U.S. took up the Asia re-balancing strategy, "some countries took advantage of its power to behave recklessly, continuously stirring up new troubles in territorial disputes." 
On Wednesday, China reminded the U.S. of its need for Chinese help over North Korea and appealing to American officials not to hurt cooperation in anti-terrorism and other areas.
"The row between China and the United States over cyber security should not become a rift to undermine the two sides' cooperation on other issues of common concern," the government's Xinhua News Agency said in a commentary.
Xinhua noted that Washington needs Beijing's support in trying to resolve tensions on the Korean peninsula and to combat climate change, while China is an important market for U.S. companies.

Japanese Oil Tanker Explodes Near Himeji Port

TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese oil tanker exploded Thursday off the country's southwest coast near Himeji port, leaving one of the eight people aboard missing, the coast guard said. Four others were severely injured.
Photos and video from the scene showed billowing clouds of black smoke as coast guard vessels sought to douse the fire, which gutted the middle of the Shoko Maru, a 998-ton tanker based in the western city of Hiroshima.
Seven people were rescued, though four suffered severe burns, public broadcaster NHK reported. A search was underway for the missing man, the tanker's captain, it said.
The cause of the explosion was unclear, said coast guard spokesman Koji Takarada. NHK said crew members were working on the deck of the tanker at the time of the blast.

Iran link to social media spying on military leaders

Fake social media accounts have been used by Iranian hackers to spy on senior military and political staff worldwide, a report suggests.

The accounts aided a four-year campaign that aimed to befriend targets, said computer security firm iSight Partners.
Accounts were used to make it appear that bogus identities set up by the spies were real people.
iSight said it was the most elaborate net-based spying campaign using social media it had ever seen.
Stealth campaign US Navy admirals, politicians, ambassadors and lobbyists, as well as senior government and military figures from the UK, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, were all targeted, said iSight.
"If it's been going on for so long, clearly they have had success," said Tiffany Jones, a spokeswoman for iSight, told Reuters.
In total, said the report, fake personas for 14 people were created and maintained on a variety of social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube and Blogger. The bogus identities were for staff who supposedly worked for a fictitious news agency as well as defence workers, an accountant and a naval IT administrator.
Friends, relatives, workmates and acquaintances of targets were initially contacted via social media to establish ties that were later used to lend more credibility to requests to connect to the true targets of the campaign.
About 2,000 people were used to establish these lower-level ties, which were used to go after a smaller group of about 200 higher-profile individuals.

Militants Attack Church In Central African Republic, Many Dead: Priest

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — Muslim rebels stormed a Catholic church compound in the capital of Central African Republic on Wednesday, launching grenades and spraying civilians with gunfire, witnesses said. At least five bodies were brought to area hospitals, though some witnesses said the death toll could be as high as 30.

The attack on the compound at the church, where thousands of civilians had sought refuge from the violence ravaging Bangui's streets, is the largest and most brazen blamed on Muslim fighters since their Seleka coalition was ousted from power nearly five months ago.

Wednesday's attack marked a rare attack on a house of worship, as Catholic churches have served as sanctuaries for both Christian and Muslim civilians since the country erupted into sectarian bloodshed in December.

Fears escalated late Wednesday that the new bloodshed would spark reprisal attacks on the city's few remaining Muslims, most of whom fled the city in a mass exodus earlier this year that the U.N. has described as ethnic cleansing. In the hours that followed, Christian militia fighters began putting up road blockades around Bangui.

Colombia presidential vote is neck and neck

Tightest election for two decades pits rightwinger Oscar Iván Zuluaga against President Juan Manuel Santos with focus on how to end Farc insurgency

Colombians voted for a new president on Sunday in the tightest election for two decades that may determine whether the country continues peace talks with leftist guerrillas or steps up its military offensive to end a 50-year war.
The vote has largely become a plebiscite on President Juan Manuel Santos' strategy of negotiating the disarmament of the (Farc) Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia to end the bloodshed that has killed around 200,000.
Rightwinger Oscar Iván Zuluaga dismissed the talks as pandering to terrorists and suggested he would scrap them in favour of US-backed military campaigns similar to those led by his mentor, former President Alvaro Uribe.
Santos and Zuluaga are polling neck-and-neck following a race marred by accusations of electronic espionage and drug-linked campaign funding. Neither is predicted to win enough votes to avoid a run-off on 15 June.
"Peace is the hope for humanity, and Santos is peaceful, not a warrior," said Arley Bustos, 48, who was selling umbrellas and World Cup stickers on a street Bogota. "Peace will bring us progress."
Uribe fell out with Santos, 62, when the president launched peace talks with the Farc instead of sticking to the eight-year strategy of forcing the group's surrender on the battlefield.
Santos appeals to Colombians who hope the guerrillas will finally lay down their arms after the deaths of their top leaders and the halving of their numbers to about 8,000 fighters.

UK’s inquiry on Iraq war “unblocked”

LONDON: The long-delayed results of Britain's inquiry into the Iraq war came a step closer to publication on Thursday after a deal was reached on how to use notes and phone call records between then Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush.

The investigation, called the Chilcot Inquiry, was set up by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown to learn lessons from the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and its aftermath. It started its work in 2009.

The inquiry had hoped to deliver its verdict by the end of 2011 or in early 2012. However, five years after it was launched it has yet to report because of problems related to the release of confidential documents.

On Thursday, the inquiry announced a deal had been reached between it and the British government on the disclosure of communications between Blair and Bush, previously cited as one of the big stumbling blocks to publication of its report.

The inquiry's interest in their communications focuses on how open-ended Blair's support for Bush and the war was.

Blair, who has repeatedly denied blocking the release of the communications, has said that he stands by his actions.
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 US economy contracted in first quarter of 2014

The US economy shifted into reverse in the first three months of 2014 shrinking by an annualised rate of 1%, official estimates have shown.

It is the worst economic performance since the first quarter of 2011.
It is also a big fall on the 2.6% rise in economic output in the final quarter of last year.
The US Commerce Department's first reading of gross domestic product (GDP) showed the economy grew at an annualised rate of just 0.1%.
The fall in output was blamed on an unusually cold and disruptive winter - one of the coldest in the US for 20 years - and a plunge in business investment. 

Economists estimate the weather could have cost up to 1.5 percentage points of GDP.

However, the Commerce's Department's report did not estimate the effect of the winter weather.
 

Rebound
The fall was also twice as big as economists expected.
Most Wall Street analysts had forecast the economy to contract by around 0.5%.
But the Commerce Department said there was already evidence that the economy was rebounding, with data ranging from employment to manufacturing activity already pointing to a sharp acceleration in economic activity in the second quarter.
Tumbling exports, while not as severe as initially thought, combined with stronger imports in the first quarter resulted in a larger than expected trade deficit which shaved 0.95 percentage points off US economic output.
Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of US economic activity, increased by 3.1%, which was revised up slightly from 3% in the first estimate.

House panel OKs North Korea sanctions bill

The House Foreign Affairs Committee has passed a bill to toughen sanctions against North Korea and restrict its access to hard currency.
Both Republicans and Democrats backed the move on Thursday, saying they supported stronger action to combat Pyongyang's development of nuclear weapons and serious human rights abuses.

The bill would empower President Barack Obama to target foreign banks that facilitate the North Korean government's proliferation of weapons technology, arms trafficking, "kleptocracy" and imports of luxury goods by barring them from the U.S. financial system.
The committee's Republican chairman, Rep. Ed Royce of California, likened the bill to sanctions the U.S. imposed against a Macau-based bank in 2005 but later lifted to facilitate nuclear talks with North Korea.
The prospects for passage of the legislation remain uncertain.

Mitt Romney: Obama 'Needs To Take Responsibility For His Failures'

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney slammed President Barack Obama over the unfolding Veterans Affairs controversy, and joined a growing list of political figures calling for the resignation of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki's resignation.
A report released Wednesday by the Department of Veterans Affairs' internal watchdog found widespread problems of delayed treatment at a Phoenix, Arizona, veterans hospital. The VA Office of Inspector General sampled 226 appointments and found that patients had an average wait time of 115 days until their first appointment, according to the AP.
During an appearance on Fox News' "The Kelly File," Romney criticized the president for not only the VA issues, but also "missteps" with Obamacare and the IRS scandal, saying there's "not been a level of competency."
"The president needs to take responsibility for his failures," Romney said. "In the case of General Shinseki, he needs to be removed. He either needs to resign, or should be replaced by the president."
Romney said it "would be nice to grill [Shinseki] over the coming weeks and months," and said "we really don't have time" for the secretary to keep his position amid the controversy.

Embattled veterans minister Shinseki fights on

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki has called the delays to veterans' medical care "reprehensible" as calls mount for him to resign.

Writing in USA Today, he vowed to address the problems outlined in Wednesday's damning watchdog report.
It found that 1,700 veterans in Phoenix were left to fend for themselves, not even on doctors' waiting lists.
Republican Arizona Senator John McCain is leading calls for him to step down, echoed by some Democrats.
But House Speaker John Boehner said on Thursday that he's reserving judgement about the embattled secretary.
The report by the inspector general for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) found systemic problems at the VA nationwide, but particular problems in Phoenix.
It said about 1,700 veterans in need of care there were "at risk of being lost or forgotten" after being kept off the official waiting list.
The average wait at that hospital for a first appointment was 115 days, 91 days longer than the hospital reported.
Mr Shinseki wrote that the findings of the report were "reprehensible to me and to this department, and we are not waiting to set things straight".

Congress funds Army’s hypersonic missile after Chinese strike vehicle test

Congress approved funding last week for the Pentagon’s advanced hypersonic missile program and expressed concerns over China’s recent test of an ultra high-speed strike vehicle designed to deliver nuclear warheads through U.S. missile defenses.
The House fiscal year 2015 defense authorization bill approved $70.7 million for the Army’s hypersonic missile as part of the Pentagon’s conventional prompt strike program.

The Senate, in its version of the fiscal year 2015 defense bill, also authorized $70.7 million for hypersonic weapons.
The prompt strike program is a strategic weapons program aimed at building high-speed arms capable of attacking targets any place on earth within 30 minutes.
A House report on the defense bill provided new details on U.S. hypersonic weapons programs and also stated that the Pentagon appears to be spending too little on U.S. hypersonic weapons programs in light of China’s first hypersonic missile test Jan. 9.
Click for more from The Washington Free Beacon
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