Weekend 05-25-14

Sunday May 25th 2014

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Ukrainians vote in presidential elections

Ukrainians are going to the polls to vote in a new president after months of unrest following the ousting of former President Viktor Yanukovych.

There are 18 candidates on the ballot, which is widely seen as a crucial moment to unite the country.
But pro-Russian separatists have disrupted voting in the east, stopping many polling stations from opening and smashing up ballot boxes.
Some 20 people have been killed in fighting in recent days.
Voting in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk has been seriously disrupted.
There were no polling stations open in Donetsk city, and across the region only seven out of 12 district electoral commissions were operating.
The presidential elections were called after the last elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, was deposed in February amid mass protests against his pro-Russian policies.
Confectionary tycoon Petro Poroshenko, known as the "chocolate king", is the favourite to win.
At 15:00 (12:00 GMT) national turnout stood at more than 40%, Interfax-Ukraine news agency quoted election authorities as saying.

Israeli, Palestinian leaders accept Vatican invite to discuss peace efforts

BETHLEHEM, West Bank –  Pope Francis plunged Sunday into Mideast politics during his Holy Land pilgrimage, calling the current stalemate in peace efforts "unacceptable" and winning the acceptance from the Israeli and Palestinian presidents to pay a symbolic visit to the Vatican next month to pray for peace.
Francis issued the surprise, joint invitation after landing in Bethlehem, the cradle of Christianity, in a symbolic nod to Palestinian aspirations for their own state. In another unscripted moment, he prayed at the Israeli separation barrier surrounding the biblical West Bank town and briefly donned the checkered black and white headscarf that is a symbol of the Palestinian cause.

Jubilant Palestinians cheered Francis as he arrived in Bethlehem's Manger Square, shouting "Viva al-Baba!" or "Long live the pope!" Giant Palestinian flags in red, white, green and black and the Vatican's yellow-and-white flags decorated the square, which is home to the Church of the Nativity, built over Jesus' traditional birth grotto.
At the end of Mass in the square, Francis invited Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli President Shimon Peres to pray with him for peace, saying: "I offer my home in the Vatican as a place for this encounter of prayer."
The offices of the Israeli and Palestinian presidents quickly confirmed that they had accepted the invitation, with the Palestinians saying the meeting would take place in June.

Pope says Palestinians deserve sovereign homeland, Israelis deserve peace

Pope Francis arrived on Sunday afternoon at Ben-Gurion Airport, giving an address before moving on to Jerusalem for the religious climax of his first Middle East trip.

The pontiff was greeted at the airport by a host of Israeli dignitaries including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres.
Upon landing in Israel, Pope Francis said that it was God's will that Jerusalem be "the city of peace" as its name suggests, but unfortunately the city is still suffering from the consequences of a continuing conflict.
The pontiff said "the effort and energy invested in order to arrive at a just agreement to the conflict, which has caused so much suffering, is increasing...I call on all those responsible: don't stop seeking a solution  to these complicated problems for a moment, so that Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace."
The pontiff reiterated the words of his predecessor Benedict that "Israel has the right to exist and be universally recognized in peace and security within borders recognized by the international community."
He said that at the same time "the Palestinians have the right to a sovereign homeland, to live with respect and enjoy freedom of movement."
The pope added, "We hope that a two-state solution will become reality and not remain merely a dream."

Belgium steps up security after Jewish museum shooting

Security has been stepped up at Jewish sites across Belgium after a gunman shot dead three people at the Jewish Museum in the capital Brussels.

A man who was detained by police shortly after the attack has been released without charge. A manhunt has been launched for a different suspect.
An Israeli couple in their 50s and a French female employee of the museum were killed in the attack.
A fourth victim, a Belgian employee, remains in a critical condition.
The Belgian prosecutor's office said the victims were struck by bullets in the face or throat, in what Brussels Mayor Yvan Mayeur said was probably a "terrorist act".
Public appeal Deputy prosecutor Ine Van Wymersch said the gunman "probably acted alone, was armed and well prepared," adding that "all options are still open" regarding a motive.
She appealed to the public to help identify the gunman and said that images taken at the time of the attack would soon be released.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement strongly condemning the killings which he said were "the result of endless incitement against the Jews and their state".
French President Francois Hollande said there was no doubt about the "anti-Semitic character" of the attack. 

Car bomb kills at least 10 in Syria

BEIRUT –  A car bomb struck a pro-government neighborhood in the central Syrian city of Homs on Sunday, killing at least 10 people, setting cars on fire and sending thick plumes of black smoke into the sky, activists and a government official said.
The blast in the Zahra district, which is predominantly inhabited by Alawites and Christians, sent tremors through Homs, where rebels and the government have struck two cease-fire deals this month that have restored at least a semblance of peace to the shattered city. The provincial governor, Talal Barazi, said the attack targeted such reconciliation efforts.

An official in the Homs governor's office said 10 people were killed in Sunday's explosion and more than 40 were wounded. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.
The director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group, Rami Abdurrahman, put the death toll at 12. He also said more than 40 were wounded.
Casualty figures frequently vary in the immediate aftermath of attacks in Syria.
Syrian state television blamed the bombing on "terrorists," the term it uses to describe those fighting to oust President Bashar Assad. The channel broadcast footage that showed cars on fire and people trying to push other vehicles away from the blast site.
Abdurrahman also said another explosion hit the Zahra area, although the nature of the blast was unclear.


China test-flies warplanes first time on highway strip
  
BEIJING: For the first time, China's air force on Sunday successfully test flew warplanes from a highway strip in central China's Henan Province.

Flight tests of military aircraft including the third generation of warplanes were held on the Zhengzhou-Minquan highway, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

However, it did not identify the exact location. The strip is one of the best road runways in China, Liu Shenyang, deputy chief of the Jinan military area command said.

The highway can serve as an alternative airport for civilian airplanes and allows take-offs and landings of cargo planes, he said.

It can also be used in exercises and training for military airplanes as well as emergency landings during wartime, he said.

The tests enhanced the air force's capabilities of emergency landing and coordination between military and civilian force, the media report said.

Deadly blast hits Nigerian city of Jos

An explosion in the central Nigerian city of Jos has killed at least three people in a suicide attack, police say.

Police said the blast happened near an open-air TV viewing centre where people were watching the Champions League football final.
No group has said it carried out the attack.
However it comes days after a twin car bomb attack blamed on Boko Haram militants killed 118 people in Jos.
A spokesman for Plateau state governor Jonah Jang said the latest blast happened on Bauchi Road at about 21:30 local time (20:30 GMT). 
Police commissioner Chris Olakpe told AFP news agency that the bomber's improvised explosive device detonated prematurely.
"He died in the wake of the heinous crime. It exploded before the viewing centre because of pressure from local youths and the alertness of the local people," he added.
Last month suspected Boko Haram gunmen stormed a venue in Potiskum, north-east Yobe state, and shot dead two people watching the two Champions League quarter-final matches.
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has previously described football and music as a Western ploy to distract Muslims from their religion.
The latest attack comes five weeks after Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls, prompting international outrage.
The UN Security Council has approved sanctions against the Islamist group.

Yemen army kills 3 militants, arrests 3 others in attacks in mountainous Arhab region

SANAA, Yemen –  Yemeni military officials say anti-terrorism units supported by regular army troops have launched an attack against hideouts of suspected al-Qaida militants in the mountainous Arhab region north of Sanaa, killing three of them and arresting three others.
The officials said the early Sunday attack targeted militants who had fled from Shabwa and Abyan provinces, where the army launched a big offensive earlier this month causing them heavy losses and forcing others to flee to Arhab.

Yemeni warplanes on Saturday night launched three airstrikes targeting suspected militants in two cars in the same area killing two militants, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief the media.
Washington considers Yemen's al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula the most active branch of the group.

Slavery Is Still Thriving And Is More Profitable Than Big Oil

It's hard to believe, but even today, people are forced into slavery, girls are sexually exploited and children are forced to do hard labor -- all for the sake of profits.
To find out just how widespread this "forced labor" is, the International Labor Organization (ILO), a United Nation's agency focusing on labor issues, this week released a report on the global industry. While the figures in the ILO's report are estimates, they help shine a light on the economics of a dangerous and flourishing underworld.
We took a look at the report and pulled out some of the most staggering facts.
There are 21 million victims of forced labor around the world.
More than half of them are women and girls, and 26 percent of victims are children.
Forced labor leads to $150 billion in profits. Every year.
To better understand just how big that number is, we compared it to the annual profits of the tobacco industry, Google, big oil and the U.S. banking system.
Guess what rakes in the most cash?

Production of India's Ambassador car suspended

Production of the Ambassador, the first car to be made in India, has been halted.

Hindustan Motors said it had suspended work at its plant outside the city of Kolkata, blaming weak demand and financing problems.
Modelled on the Morris Oxford, the design of the Ambassador has changed little since it first went into production in 1957.
It was once the only car driven by politicians and government officials.
But the company only sold 2,200 Ambassadors in the financial year which ended in March 2014.

In a statement on Saturday, Hindustan Motors blamed the shutdown on "worsening conditions at its Uttarpara plant which include very low productivity, growing indiscipline, critical shortage of funds, lack of demand for its core product the Ambassador and large accumulation of liabilities".

"The suspension of work will enable the company in restricting mounting liabilities and restructure its organisation and finances and bring in a situation conducive to reopening of the plant," the company said in its statement.
Analysts are not optimistic about the car's future.
"In the present shape I don't think the Ambassador has got any chances of revival," said Deepesh Rathore from research firm Emerging Markets Automotive Advisors.
"It doesn't make any business sense," he said.
There are 33,000 Ambassador taxis in Kolkata alone, but the car is being superseded by more modern vehicles.
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Elliot Rodger is Isla Vista drive-by killer - US police

US police have confirmed that a man who killed six people in a rampage in California was 22-year-old Elliot Rodger.

The student was the son of Hollywood filmmaker Peter Rodger, who was assistant director on The Hunger Games.
At a news conference, police said Elliot Rodger had stabbed three male room-mates to death at his apartment.
He later went on a rampage through Isla Vista in a black BMW, shooting at people at random.
After exchanging gunfire with police, Rodger was found dead inside his crashed vehicle with a gunshot wound to the head, police said.
Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said Rodger apparently killed himself during a shoot-out with police officers.
At a press conference, he called it a "chaotic, rapidly unfolding convoluted incident" that involved multiple crime scenes.
Investigators are analysing a YouTube video in which a young man who identifies himself as Elliot Rodger sits in a car and says he is going to take his revenge against humanity.
In a so-called manifesto published online, Rodger said he was born in London and spent the first five years of his life in Sussex.
"This was a time of discovery, excitement, and fun. I had just entered this new world, and I knew nothing of the pain it would bring me later on," he wrote.
Sheriff Brown said that after leaving his apartment, Rodger had gone to a sorority house, which houses female students, and hammered loudly on the door.
They did not open the door but Rodger had then shot three women in the street, killing two of them, Sheriff Brown said.

US gets serious about coup in Thailand, threatens to cut military aid

The Pentagon on Saturday canceled military exercises in Thailand amid a military coup and urged organizers to restore democracy in the Southeast Asian country.
The Pentagon canceled three upcoming events with the Royal Thai Armed Forces and suggested U.S. military aid could be stopped and U.S. military relations with Thailand would remain fractured until junta leaders restore democracy “including a clear path forward to elections.”

“While we have enjoyed a long and productive military-to-military relationship with Thailand, our own democratic principles and U.S. law require us to reconsider U.S. military assistance and engagements,” said Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby.
On the same day, the new army junta ordered dozens of outspoken activists, academics and journalists to surrender themselves to military authorities, a move apparently aimed at neutralizing critics and potential opposition.
The junta, which is already holding most of the government it ousted in a coup Thursday in secret locations against their will, said it would keep former Prime Minister Shinawatra and others in custody for up to a week to give them "time to think" and keep the country calm.

Obama To Make Case For Limited Foreign Policy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Confronting critics of his foreign policy, President Barack Obama will soon outline a strategy for his final years in office that aims to avoid overreach as the second of the two wars he inherited comes to a close.

The president will make the case for that seemingly more limited approach during a commencement address Wednesday at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The speech will come amid growing frustration in the White House with Republicans and other critics who contend that Obama has weakened America's standing around the world and faltered on problems across the Middle East and in Russia, China and elsewhere.

That criticism has only mounted over the past year following Obama's decision to pull back a military strike in Syria and his inability to stop Russia from annexing territory from Ukraine. A White House official said Obama would specifically address both situations, as well as the status of ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran.

The president is also expected to discuss how he views shifts in the counterterrorism threat from al-Qaida and other groups, according to the official, who insisted on anonymity to preview the president's speech.

Oil companies say new federal regulations on Southwest bird have halted drilling in Kansas

Oil companies say a weeks-old Obama administration ruling that protects a Southwestern prairie bird has already halted oil-drilling operations in Kansas and is costing the U.S. economy tens of millions of dollars, as a GOP congressmen suggests the move is another job-killing attack on fossil fuel.
The decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that was announced in late March and took effect May 1 includes a provision that should allow federal officials and landowners in the five impacted states -- Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas -- to manage conservation efforts.

But oil producers say the interim weeks was too little time for them to digest the regulations and figure out how to avoid the potential criminal and civil penalties.
“Not complying brings very stiff penalties, so we’ve basically just pulled out of western Kansas,” Mike Vess, owner of Wichita-based Vess Oil Corp., said earlier this week. “The reaction was ‘OK, we’re just not going to drill.’”
Vess told FoxNews.com that his company is established enough to survive, but smaller ones might not and hourly workers and subcontracters such as geologists and water haulers will be hit hard.
He is asking federal officials to suspend the enforcement of the new regulations for six months so both sides can talk about best practices and “find a way for companies to co-exist with the lesser prairie chicken.”
The reaction across southwest Kansas and in the four other states to putting the bird on the federal protected list has essentially been the same. And it follows warnings that the decision would result in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in oil and gas development in one of the country's most prolific regions, the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico.
"Nobody wants to be the first guy that gets sensationalized for running over a prairie chicken latch," Tim Sanders of Tomcat Drilling told a Kansas TV station.

Jeb Bush Gives Party Something to Think About

As governor of Florida, Jeb Bush flew in Ivy League social scientists for daylong seminars with his staff and carved out time for immersive brainstorming sessions he called “think weeks.”

A voracious reader, he maintains a queue of 25 volumes on his Kindle (George Gilder’s “Knowledge and Power” among them, he said) and routinely sends fan mail to his favorite authors.

A self-described nerd, he is known to travel with policy journals and send all-hours inquiries to think tanks. (A sample Bush question: What are the top five ways to achieve 4 percent economic growth?)

As Mr. Bush, 61, weighs whether to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, he is dogged by fears of voter exhaustion with a family name indelibly linked to his older brother, a self-assured Texan who prized instinct over expertise and once acknowledged a lack of interest in slogging through long books.

But in ways big and small, deliberate or subconscious, the younger Mr. Bush seems to have defined himself as the anti-George W. Bush: an intellectual in search of new ideas, a serial consulter of outsiders who relishes animated debate and a probing manager who eagerly burrows into the bureaucratic details.

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