Weekend Gazette 05-31-14

Saturday May 31st 2014

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US says China 'destabilising' force

The US defence secretary has accused China of "destabilising" the South China Sea, saying its action threatened the region's long-term progress.

Chuck Hagel said the US would "not look the other way" when nations ignored international rules.
Mr Hagel was speaking at a three-day summit - the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore - that involves the US and South-East Asian countries.
He also urged Thailand's coup leaders to restore democratic rule soon.
The forum comes amid growing tensions between China, Vietnam and the Philippines, with Japan-China ties also strained over disputed islands in the East China Sea.
The summit gives senior delegates from the region a chance to meet face-to-face to try to resolve tensions.
'No to intimidation' "In recent months, China has undertaken destabilising, unilateral actions asserting its claims in the South China Sea," Mr Hagel said in his address on Saturday.

Syrian rebels blow up tunnel in Aleppo, killing at least 20 government fighters

BEIRUT –  Syrian activists say rebels have blown up a tunnel packed with explosives in the northern city of Aleppo, killing at least 20 pro-government fighters.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the blast took place Friday near the Zahrawi market not far from the citadel in Old Aleppo. It says clashes followed the explosion.

A powerful rebel alliance called the Islamic Front claimed responsibility for the blast. It said in a tweet that it killed at least 40 government gunmen.
The Islamic Front also tweeted a video of the explosion. It shows a massive blast erupting from a skyline of rooftops and satellite dishes, throwing chunks of brick and a huge cloud of dust into the air.
The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other Associated Press reporting.

Pakistani army kills 14 militants in border clash

ISLAMABAD –  Backed by helicopter gunships, Pakistani troops on Saturday killed 14 militants following an attack on army posts near the Afghan border, two army officers and a government official said.
The attack began after dozens of insurgents sneaked across the border into Pakistan's northwestern tribal region of Bajur and hit at least two military checkpoints, killing one soldier and wounding two others, local government administrator Shah Naseem said.

Naseem said the attackers were armed with heavy weapons and targeted several military posts in Nao Top border village, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) northwest of Khar, the main town in Bajur.
The attack in Bajur prompted a gunbattle, which was still underway hours later, two army officers told The Associated Press.
Pakistani troops were fighting "effectively and responding to attack," the officers said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media.
Pakistan and Afghanistan share a volatile and porous border that is often the scene of cross-border attacks. Militants from both countries also cross the border to use the neighboring country's soil as a safe haven.
The area is remote and off limits to reporters, making it difficult to independently confirm information about fighting or military operations in the tribal regions.

Spain arrests 6 suspected of recruiting for terror groups

Madrid (CNN) -- Swooping in at 4 o'clock in the morning, Spanish police arrested six Spanish men on suspicion of recruiting and sending 26 radical Islamic fighters for terrorist groups in Syria, Mali and Libya, the Interior Ministry said Friday.

The arrests came in the Spanish enclave of Melilla, on Morocco's north coast, where a Spaniard and two Frenchmen were arrested just last March on similar charges.

The suspected leader in the cell disrupted on Friday had returned to Spain after fighting in Syria and training in a terrorist camp in northern Mali, the Interior Ministry said.

The movement of Islamic militants from Europe and North Africa to conflict zones such as Syria, Mali or Libya -- and their eventual return to Spain to potentially carry out terrorist attacks -- has been a prime concern for authorities battling terrorism.

The cell disrupted on Friday had recruited and sent at least 24 Moroccans and two Spaniards to conflict zones, according to authorities. But it was planning to expand its activities, to acquire weapons and manuals for preparing explosives, the Interior Ministry said, "which would have increased their level of danger, turning them into a serious threat to national security."

The latest arrests coincide with the final day of an Interpol conference, held in Granada, Spain, this week, on the problem of terrorist fighters who cross international borders. More than 130 security experts from 33 nations are attending, a separate Interior Ministry statement said.

The suspected leader of the cell disrupted on Friday is Benaissa Laghmouchi Baghdadi, 42, who spent about eight months in Syria and recently returned to Spain, via Mali, said an Interior Ministry spokesman, who by custom is not identified. He was among the first Spaniards to be detected as working with terrorist groups in the broad Sahel region in northern Africa.

Barcelona Riots: More Arrests In 4th Night Of Clashes Between Police, Protesters 

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Police in Barcelona have arrested 23 people after a fourth night of clashes with hooded youths.
A police spokeswoman says that after a peaceful protest late Thursday, about 60 youths began throwing stones, attacking stores and setting trash containers on fire in the central Sants district. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because of police rules preventing staff from being identified.
She said Friday that police responded to the violence, which lasted three hours, by using a high-pitched horn to try to disperse the crowd and by firing foam bullets.
The disturbances in the northeastern Spanish city began after the dismantling of a popular social center that had been run by squatters for 17 years. In all, 61 people have been arrested.

World leaders back campaign to drop Sudanese woman's death sentence

British PM David Cameron and US activist Jesse Jackson speak out against death row detention of Meriam Ibrahim

World leaders have added their voices to the campaign to lift the death sentence given to Meriam Ibrahim, a Sudanese woman sentenced to hang for apostasy. They join her husband, Daniel Wani, in calling for the sentence to be dropped.
The British prime minister, David Cameron, and the US civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson were among those to speak out after Wani appealed for international support to free his wife from death row, where she is being held with her two young children after giving birth in shackles this week.
Cameron said he was "absolutely appalled" when he heard of the decision. "The way she is being treated is barbaric and has no place in today's world. Religious freedom is an absolute, fundamental human right."
His words were echoed by the Labour and Lib Dem leaders, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg, and the former prime minister Tony Blair described the sentence as a "brutal and sickening distortion of faith".
Wani, a US citizen since 2005, said mounting international pressure could have a significant impact on the Sudanese authorities, and he felt overwhelmed by "the way people have come together around the world" to protest against his wife's sentence. "I want to thank everyone for this stand. It's looking like it had an effect. Perhaps it will result in the judgement being overturned," he told CNN.
Ibrahim was sentenced to 100 lashes for adultery and to death for apostasy this month. She told a court in Khartoum that she had been brought up as a Christian, and refused to renounce her faith. She and Wani married in 2011, but the court ruled that the union was invalid and that Ibrahim was guilty of adultery.
Ibrahim, a graduate of Sudan University's school of medicine, has been told that her death sentence will be deferred for two years to allow her to nurse her baby.
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In presidential race saga, Netanyahu is perceived as capitulating 

Former prime minister Ehud Barak made a rare appearance at the Knesset cafeteria Wednesday when he came to the parliament to attend its observance of Jerusalem Day.
He sat alone, joking that he was purposely keeping his distance from presidential candidate Dan Shechtman’s table so as to not take votes away from the Nobel laureate by being seen with him.
When The Jerusalem Post asked Barak whether he was on the long list of public figures Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had asked to run for president, he responded: “No, that’s a job for grownups.”
Barak’s response was fitting considering that at 72, he is 18 years younger than President Shimon Peres, though the average age of the six candidates running in the June 10 election is 71.8.
What Barak said took on new meaning four hours later, when it became apparent how childish the behavior of our politicians can be.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called his Likud nemesis Reuven Rivlin and told him he would support him despite their years of fighting, but only because he didn’t like the other candidates either.
Then Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman called Rivlin and told him he would not back him because Netanyahu broke his promise to tell him who he would support, and he was upset that he heard about the prime minister’s endorsement on the radio.

China plans to shut down 2,000 coal mines by next year

BEIJING: China plans to shut down over 2,000 small-scale coal mines by next year in an effort to eliminate outdated capacity and improve work safety and address pollution related concerns.

Coal mines in the provinces of Liaoning, Heilongjiang, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou, as well as Chongqing municipality, will be major targets, the State Administration of Work Safety said.

It will gradually weed out coal mines with an annual output at or below 90,000 tonnes, and shut down those that do not meet safety standards, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
China's mines are among the deadliest in th​e world, with fatal accidents occurring frequently due to poor safety regulations and a lack of safety awareness. 

Turkey PM Erdogan warns youth to ignore Taksim anniversary

Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan has urged young Turks to ignore calls to mark the first anniversary of Istanbul's Taksim Square protests.

He was speaking ahead of nationwide demonstrations planned for Saturday.
Thousands of police officers and dozens of water cannon trucks are to be deployed to the square, reports say.
Protests against plans to redevelop Istanbul's Gezi Park last year turned into mass anti-government rallies after a heavy-handed police crackdown.
A number of people were killed in the unrest, with thousands more injured.
A 64-year-old woman, who fell into a coma after inhaling tear gas during another crackdown on protesters in the capital in December, died on Friday.

Rio Grapples With Violence Against Police Officers as World Cup Nears

RIO DE JANEIRO — Alda Rafael Castilho dreamed of being a psychologist, and joined the police force to pay for her studies. Her dream ended at age 27 when gunmen stormed the outpost where she was on duty in Complexo do Alemão, a sprawling patchwork of slums. A bullet pierced her abdomen, and she bled to death.

“They left her there to squirm on the ground like some sort of animal,” said her mother, Maria Rosalina Rafael Castilho, 59, a maid who lives in the gritty outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. “The politicians talk about the pride of hosting the World Cup, but that is an insult,” she said. “They can’t even protect their own police, much less the visitors to Rio.”

With the start of the global soccer tournament in Brazil less than two weeks away, a crime wave is setting nerves on edge across Rio de Janeiro, which is expecting nearly 900,000 visitors. A security overhaul was supposed to showcase a safer Rio on the global stage, but muggings are surging, homicides are climbing, and there has been a spike in shootings of police officers.

Fact Check: Clinton’s Benghazi chapter has holes

Excerpts of Hillary Clinton's forthcoming memoir obtained by Politico conflict with the factual record about what happened during and after the 2012 Benghazi terror attack.
Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., who sits on the newly formed Benghazi select committee and the House Intelligence Committee, told Fox News before the excerpts were released that he is concerned the administration has not fully grasped the impact of the terrorist assault.

"We know that intelligence analysts on the ground knew instantaneously that this was Al Qaeda and its affiliates who had led this attack. And yet it took an awfully long time -- indeed today, it's still not clear this administration has acknowledged the depth and the risks associated with what it means to have an Al Qaeda affiliate actually take down an American [consulate]," he said.
In the limited excerpts published Friday from Clinton’s Benghazi chapter, the former secretary of State continued to defend the administration from what she termed a “political slugfest.”
Specifically, she defended the flawed explanation -- used by then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice five days after the attack -- that an obscure anti-Islam video fueled a protest gone awry in Benghazi.
"There were scores of attackers that night, almost certainly with differing motives," Clinton wrote, according to Politico. "It is inaccurate to state that every single one of them was influenced by this hateful video.It is equally inaccurate to state that none of them were. Both assertions deny not only the evidence but logic as well."

John Boehner: Eric Shinseki's Resignation 'Changes Nothing'

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said on Friday that Eric Shinseki's resignation as secretary of the scandal-plagued Department of Veterans Affairs doesn't absolve the Obama administration of its responsibility to fix how the nation provides care to its veterans.
"Until the president outlines a vision and an effective plan," Boehner said, "today’s announcement really changes nothing."
"One personnel change cannot be used as an excuse to paper over a systemic problem," he added.
As criticism of Shinseki mounted over the past week, Boehner never officially joined scores of Republicans and Democrats who called for his resignation, because, Boehner said, it "takes people’s eye off getting to the bottom of the problems.”
President Barack Obama announced on Friday that he had accepted Shinseki's resignation shortly after meeting with him at the White House. He named Sloan Gibson as the department's acting secretary.
A scathing inspector general report released on Wednesday found that officials used inappropriate scheduling practices to conceal substantial treatment delays at veterans hospitals across the country.
In his statement on Friday, Obama called Shinseki a "very good man" but said that the secretary "felt that new leadership would serve our veterans best, and I agree with him."

Google to close Motorola smartphone factory in Texas

Google's Motorola Mobility has said it will close its Fort Worth, Texas factory after its Moto X smartphone failed to appeal to consumers.

The facility - which is the only smartphone factory in the US - opened in May of last year.
At its peak, the factory employed 3,800 people, although now only 700 workers remain.
In January, Google said it was selling the Motorola Mobility unit to Lenovo for $3bn (£1.8bn; 2.2bn euros).
That deal is expected to close later this year.
Short-lived When the Texas plant opened last year, Motorola said it was aiming to challenge the conventional wisdom that manufacturing advanced electronics products like smartphones in the US would be too expensive.
However, poor sales of the Moto X smartphone in the US - which initially retailed for $600 before the price was dropped to $399 - made it difficult to justify the higher costs of the plant.
According to research firm Strategy Analytics, the company sold 900,000 Moto X smartphones worldwide in the first three months of 2014.
Motorola says that the Moto X smartphone will still continue to be manufactured at plants in China and Brazil.

State, local officials blast ICE for dumping overflow of illegal immigrants -- including kids -- at bus stations in their cities

Scores of illegal immigrants, caught by authorities in Texas trying to sneak into the country via the Rio Grande Valley, are being flown, bused and then abandoned out of state in places like Arizona, New York and Maryland.
If the immigrants had been from Mexico, authorities would release them back across the border. But these would-be immigrants come from Central American countries, such as El Salvador and Guatemala, and trying to get them back to their country of origin has been a costly and largely unsuccessful endeavor.

Lawmakers in Arizona, which has been battling for years to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the state, wasted no time blasting the practice.
"What an astonishing failure of leadership at every level inside the Beltway," said Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Smith.
Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, told Reuters, “essentially, they have gotten successfully into the country and it’s unlikely that they’re going to leave.”
The number of apprehensions in the Rio Grande Valley has shot up in recent years, with south Texas now the main gateway for illegal immigration along the southwest border with Mexico.
Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley sector apprehended 154,453 immigrants last year – up from 97,762 the previous year.

Obama, Ukraine's Poroshenko to meet in Warsaw on Wednesday: White House

President Barack Obama will meet with Ukrainian President-elect Petro Poroshenko in Warsaw on Wednesday, part of a European visit aimed at reassuring allies that are nervous about Russian aggression in Ukraine, White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters on Friday.