Weekend Gazette 06-07-14

Saturday June 7th 2014

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Ukraine's Poroshenko sworn in and sets out peace plan

Petro Poroshenko has been sworn in as president of Ukraine, setting out a plan to bring peace to the conflict-torn east of the country.

The 48-year-old tycoon, who won the 25 May election, offered political concessions to people in the east and said he did not want war or revenge.
But he also said he had told Russia's president that Crimea, which Moscow has annexed, would "always be Ukrainian".
Some separatists dismissed the speech, saying they would "never surrender".
Russia's ambassador said the address was a "promising declaration of intent".
Mikhail Zurabov, who attended the inauguration, said Ukraine should end its military operation in the east, provided that militias called a ceasefire and allowed humanitarian access.

European Central Bank is inching closer to long-taboo stimulus program of bond purchases

FRANKFURT, Germany –  The European Central Bank has deployed a raft of aggressive measures to boost Europe's economy, but stopped short of the one many economists insist would do the most to help: large-scale purchases of bonds.
That could change sooner rather than later, analysts say, if inflation remains low.

Purchases of bonds using newly created money — called quantitative easing — have been used with some success so far by the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan. They can reduce market interest rates, making it cheaper for consumers and businesses to borrow, helping growth.
So why not in Europe?
To begin with, the ECB faces technical and practical challenges that other major central banks don't have. It has 18 different government bond markets, raising the question of whose bonds to buy and how many.
Beyond that, creating new money has long faced resistance in Germany, the biggest economy in Europe where central bank stimulus measures are looked upon with suspicion and have a prominent place in public discussion.

Iraqi Militants Attack Anbar University, Take Students Hostage

BAGHDAD (AP) — Militants stormed a university filled with hundreds of students in Iraq's restive Anbar province Saturday, briefly taking students hostage before withdrawing from the school amid gunfire, officials and witnesses said. Meanwhile, fighting in a northern city killed 21 police officers and 38 militants, authorities said.
The attack on Anbar University comes as Islamic extremists and other anti-government militias have held parts of the nearby provincial capital of Ramadi and the city of Fallujah since December amid rising tensions between Sunni Muslims and the Shiite-led government in Baghdad. While shelling and gunbattles continue between the militants and government-allied forces, the school largely has been left alone while civilians fled the violence.
That changed early Saturday morning as the gunmen killed three police officers on guard at the university's gate, a police and a military official said. The gunmen then detained dozens of students inside a university dorm, the officials said. Sabah Karhout, the head of Anbar's provincial council, told reporters that hundreds of students were inside the university compound when the attack started.
Ahmed al-Mehamdi, a student who was taken hostage, said he awoke to the crackle of gunfire, looked out the window and saw armed men dressed in black racing across the campus. Minutes later, the gunmen entered the dormitory and ordered everybody to stay in their rooms while taking others away, he said.
The Shiite students at the school were terrified, al-Mehamdi said, as the gunmen identified themselves as belonging to an al-Qaida splinter group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The Sunni terror group, fighting in Syria with other rebels trying to topple President Bashar Assad, is known for massive, bloody attacks in Iraq as well often targeting Shiites that they view as heretics.

Syria conflict: Amnesty says ISIS killed seven children in north

Seven children were among 15 civilians killed by jihadist rebels in a feud with Kurds in the north-east of Syria, Amnesty International says.

Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) targeted families working in a farming community in Hassakeh province in May, it adds.
It followed fighting between Isis and Kurdish armed groups in the area.
The al-Qaeda-linked group is currently battling rival rebels in the north, as well as the Syrian government.
Isis grew out of the former Islamic State of Iraq, a jihadist militant umbrella group that included al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Five men, three women and seven children from two families working on land mainly owned by Yezidi Kurds were killed in the Isis raid on 29 May, the Amnesty report says.
The rights group said that the victims may have been mistaken for Kurds belonging to the Yezidi faith, who had mostly fled the area after Isis fighters took over last year.
Fighting was reportedly taking place in nearby villages between the jihadists and Kurdish militia group the People's Protection Unit (YPG) around the time of the attack.
"Sources in the area told Amnesty that, apart from the likely motive and the fact that ISIS operates there, they believe ISIS was responsible because of the clothing and behaviour of the perpetrators and the flag they were carrying," the rights group said, quoting sources in the area.
A hospital in the area confirmed it had received 15 bodies on the same day, with most victims receiving gunshot wounds to the head.

10 Muslim Brotherhood supporters sentenced to death in absentia in Egypt

CAIRO –  An Egyptian court has sentenced ten supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement to death in absentia on charges of inciting violence and blocking a road last July.
Judge Hassan Fareed on Saturday referred the sentence to the Grand Mufti, the highest Islamic authority in Egypt, a legal requirement usually considered a formality.

The remaining 38 accused in the case, including the Brotherhood's supreme guide and other senior members, will be sentenced at the next hearing on Jul. 5.
The case is one of several ongoing mass trials of supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Under Egyptian law, those sentenced in absentia will have a new trial if they are arrested or surrender to authorities.

American tourist held in North Korea brings US citizens in custody to three

Analysts say Jeffrey Edward Fowle, said to be detained for leaving a Bible in his hotel room, might be used as bargaining chip

North Korea has detained another US tourist for breaking its laws, its official news agency announced on Friday, bringing the number of American citizens in its custody to three.
The man, named by KCNA as Jeffrey Edward Fowle, was detained on 29 April. The terse news story said he was under investigation but did not explain why it had taken so long to reveal the news.
Japanese news agency Kyodo, citing diplomatic sources, said an American was detained in mid-May as he was about to leave the country, for leaving a Bible in his hotel room.
The news comes two months after Pyongyang said it was holding 24-year-old Matthew Todd Miller for "a gross violation of its legal order". According to KCNA, he tore up his tourist visa and demanded asylum on arrival.
In May, Kenneth Bae, a US citizen born in South Korea, was sentenced to 15 years hard labour for seeking to topple the government. He has been held since entering the country on a tourist visa in November 2012. His family says he has multiple health problems.
"It's hard to explain why they've suddenly been picking up so many people," said Jim Hoare, an expert on North Korea and former chargé d'affaires of the British embassy in Pyongyang. "They may be more vigilant, having had this run of people."
It might also reflect a generally higher number of foreign visitors in recent years, he said.
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Ben-Eliezer drops out of presidential race days before election 

Labor MK Binyamin Ben-Eliezer withdrew on Saturday from Israel's presidential race, days before the June 10 election.
The decision came a day after police questioned Ben-Eliezer over allegations that he received illicit funds during his tenure as a member of the Knesset. The Labor lawmaker denied the allegations against him and said he would fight to clear his name.
"With a very heavy heart, I have decided to quit the race," he said in a statement released on Saturday.
In light of the recent developments, Ben-Eliezer said an "aggressive and timed slander and smear campaign against him" had been aimed at preventing him from assuming the presidency since he decided to run for the post.
"On Friday,  during the final stretch of the long competition - four days before the Knesset vote for the new president - which in all modesty I was the leading candidate, I was given a 20-minute warning for a police check of the sources of financing for my apartment," Ben-Eliezer recounted of the proceedings that occurred over the past day.
"I reiterate what I have recently told the police and the media - every shekel that was used to pay for the apartment is transparent and known," he stated.
In order not to disturb Tuesday's election, Ben-Eliezer said that he would refrain from media interviews regarding his decision.
On Friday, Israeli media outlets reported that Ben-Eliezer purportedly received millions of shekels illegally from numerous individuals, among them businessman Avraham Nanikashvili, the oil magnate and financier whose net worth is estimated at NIS 3.35 billion.

37 killed in massacre in eastern Congo: Witness

SOUTH KIVU, Democratic Republic of Congo: Thirty seven people including women and children were killed in Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern region of South Kivu following an attack early on Saturday morning, according to a Reuters witness.

The victims had been shot, stabbed or burned inside their homes. Some of the bodies lay inside a village church, according to a Reuters cameraman on the scene.

South Kivu governor Marcellin Cishambo confirmed the attack, but gave a lower estimate of 27 for the number of dead.

French police oust hundreds of migrants from Calais camps

French police raided makeshift camps in the English Channel port of Calais on Wednesday, clearing out ramshackle shelters that housed hundreds of migrants from Syria, Afghanistan and Africa.
Dozens of migrants and activists gathered near one of the camps, some angrily trying to prevent police from evacuating it. There were no immediate reports of arrests.
Police officers checked in tents and under tarps for migrants before sealing off the camps early Wednesday morning. The camps, which have been infested with scabies, included dozens of tents covered with tarps and damp blankets.
Calais is a magnet for migrants from war zones and deeply poor countries who are trying to reach Britain, just across the English Channel. The three camps evacuated Wednesday housed up to 500 people, according to local estimates.
Officials at Calais police headquarters and city hall could not be reached for comment Wednesday morning.
“The situation in Calais is deteriorating to a deafening silence,” aid groups wrote an open letter to the French Prime Minister on Tuesday.

P.O.W. Deal Gives Qatar a Victory, and a New Test

DOHA, Qatar — The five hardened Taliban militants were quickly whisked in a fleet of cars to the shoulder of a highway on the outskirts of the capital just as they arrived. There, out of the public eye and under the watchful gaze of Qatari security, they exchanged warm hugs with a welcome delegation and then once more were whisked off into hiding.

If Qatar holds to its word, these men freed from Guantánamo Bay in exchange for the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl will not return to the battlefield or be drafted as a powerful propaganda tool by the Taliban, at least for the next year.

There is much at stake for President Obama, who has come under withering criticism by many who say he agreed to pay too high a price for the release of Sergeant Bergdahl. In the past, some prisoners discharged from Guantánamo have ended up back on the battlefield despite assurances from American allies that they would be restrained.

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 Iran nuclear talks: US and Iran to hold Geneva meeting

Senior US and Iranian officials are to meet in Geneva on Monday for two days of talks ahead of the next round of negotiations between six world powers and Tehran on its nuclear programme.

Iran's state media said Iranian officials would then hold similar discussions with Russia in Rome.
Talks in May ended without progress.
The West accuses Iran of trying to build a nuclear weapon, while Iran says its nuclear energy programme is for peaceful purposes.
Saturday's announcement by the Iranian foreign ministry said Iran was also "working to arrange" other bilateral discussions with members of the six powers - known as the P5+1 - before the Vienna meeting, the AFP news agency reports.

The bilateral talks will mark another milestone in the relations between the two countries, which have been at loggerheads for decades, says BBC Persian's Kasra Naji.

The two sides have been held relatively short bilateral talks on the sidelines of several rounds of nuclear talks.
Last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif insisted a final nuclear deal with the UK, China, France, Russia, the US and Germany was still within reach.
Each side accused the other of making unrealistic demands at the end of the May talks.
On 20 July, an interim deal under which Iran curb uranium enrichment in return for the lifting of some Western sanctions is due to expire.
The six powers want Iran to scale back its sensitive nuclear activities permanently to ensure that it cannot assemble a nuclear weapon.
Tehran is seeking the lifting of all UN and Western sanctions, which are crippling its economy.
Negotiations are due to resume in the Austrian capital, Vienna, later this month.

Military officials urged Obama not to trade Taliban ‘4-star generals,’ source says

Senior military officials had advised President Obama not to make the Taliban-for-Bergdahl trade, a senior Defense official told Fox News, likening it to "handing over five four-star generals of the Taliban." 
The claim adds to the picture that is emerging about the tense internal debate over whether to proceed with freeing five hardened Taliban leaders from Guantanamo in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's release. 

Sources told Fox News earlier this week that the Obama administration largely bypassed the intelligence community to green-light the swap, after such an exchange was first floated several years ago. 
The Defense official, in explaining internal military opposition to the exchange, said many in the military considered Bergdahl to be a traitor -- a reference to allegations that he deliberately abandoned his post in 2009. 
Yet on the other end of the trade were five high-value, sought-after Taliban leaders. The U.S. government's own records show some of them had ties to top terror figures including Mullah Omar and Usama bin Laden. Many Republican lawmakers have raised concerns that their freedom poses a major national security risk 
"You've just released five extremely dangerous people, who in my opinion ... will rejoin the battlefield," Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told Fox News.

CIA launches Twitter and Facebook accounts

The United States Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, has opened its first official accounts on Twitter and Facebook, it announced on Friday.

The spy agency said it would help it to engage more directly with the public and make unclassified information on the agency "more accessible".
"We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet," the spy agency quipped in its first tweet.
Within five hours, it had already generated more then 200,000 followers.
Twittersphere frenzy The agency confirmed the news of its launch on the social networking sites in a press release on Friday.
"By expanding to these platforms, CIA will be able to more directly engage with the public and provide information on CIA's mission, history, and other developments," said CIA Director John Brennan.
Followers can also look forward to images posted of artefacts on display at the CIA's museum, which is not open to the public, as well as updates to its "World Factbook" - a database of world leaders and maps.
The infamous response to journalists queries cited in the CIA's first tweet reveals the agency's sense of humour, sending the international Twittersphere into an utter frenzy, the BBC's Aleem Maqbool says.

John Podesta Says White House Is Ready To Spar Over Power Plant Rules

WASHINGTON -- White House senior counselor John Podesta challenged the assumption that new rules on carbon emissions from power plants, which the administration issued this week, would be a problem for Democrats in the fall elections.
"There's no doubt polluters will come after this rule. They’ll try to attack it, and they’ll try to put it squarely in the political context of 2014," Podesta said at a meeting Friday morning sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor and America's Natural Gas Alliance.
Podesta, whose tasks at the White House include shepherding the administration's climate change policies, cited a Washington Post/ABC News poll released earlier this week that found 70 percent of Americans favor limiting carbon emissions from power plants as a reason he's not particularly worried about attacks.
"People who deny the existence of climate change, who want to run suggesting that they don't really get it, they don't see what's going on around them, and they want to deny the public health effects pollution is having … I think that's the losing side of the argument," he said.
Podesta, whose arm is in a sling following hand surgery, joked Thursday on Twitter that it was a result of "fighting carbon pollution":

Moncton shooting: Justin Bourque charged with murder

A Canadian man accused of killing three police officers and wounding two others in Moncton, New Brunswick, has been charged with premeditated murder.

Justin Bourque, 24, appeared in court on Friday, with a heavy police presence in the building.
Officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrested him shortly after midnight on Friday.
The manhunt for Mr Bourque had gone into a second night after the officers were killed.
Following the arrest, police lifted a warning that residents should remain indoors and off the streets.
The three dead police officers have been identified as PC Fabrice Georges Gevaudan, PC David Joseph Ross and PC Douglas James Larche. One of the two wounded officers has been released from hospital.
They were all shot while responding to a report of an armed man at the north-west side of the town on Wednesday evening, in the deadliest attack on the country's police force since four officers were killed in the province of Alberta in 2005.
'I saw him arrested' Mr Bourque appeared in the court in Moncton, staring ahead intently and nodding when the judge said his name.
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