Gazette 070214

Wednesday July 2nd 2014

Palestinian teenager's body found in Jerusalem

Israeli police have found the body of a Palestinian teenager who was kidnapped overnight in East Jerusalem.

Mohammed Abu Khdair, 17, was seen being forced into a car early on Wednesday. Within hours, his partly-burned corpse was discovered in a forest.
Israeli police were unable to confirm the motive, but Palestinian sources said it appeared to be a revenge attack for the murder of three Israeli teens.
Later, Palestinians clashed with Israeli police near the boy's home.
The protesters threw stones at the officers, who reportedly responded by firing sound bombs, tear gas and rubber bullets.
The mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, called for restraint.
'Despicable murder'
Initial reports said the boy was abducted near his father's shop in the Arab district of Shufat in East Jerusalem. Witnesses said he was bundled into a white car.
RELATED: Netanyahu calls on police to quickly find culprits, motive for murder of Arab youth


Israel Releases Recording Of Kidnapped Teen's Appeal For Help

JERUSALEM, July 1 (Reuters) - The appeal for help - "They've kidnapped me" - came in a whisper on a furtive cell-phone call that one of three abducted Israeli teenagers made to police from the car that had picked them up on a road in the occupied West Bank.

Within seconds, the muffled sound of what could have been gunfire from a silencer-equipped weapon was heard on the recorded call. The recording was released on Tuesday, just before the three were buried.

Jewish seminary students Gil-Ad Shaer and U.S.-Israeli national Naftali Fraenkel, both 16, and Eyal Yifrah, 19, went missing while hitchhiking in the West Bank on June 12.

Their bodies were found on Monday not far from where they disappeared. Israel blamed Hamas Islamists for the abduction and killing. The group has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

The recording begins with a police emergency operator answering and giving his name as "Udi".

"They've kidnapped me," one of the youngsters, identified by Israeli authorities as Shaer, says in a hushed voice.

Unintelligible noise can be heard, prompting the operator to ask: "Hello?"

"Head down, head down," one of the kidnappers snaps, speaking in Hebrew with an Arabic accent. CLICK HERE FOR TRANSCRIPT

Police publicly acknowledged shortly after the teenagers were abducted that one of them had made the emergency call - and that operators failed to alert the appropriate security personnel, apparently believing it was a hoax. 

Iraqi prime minister says militants' declaration of Islamic state threat to entire region

BAGHDAD –  Iraq's prime minister has warned that an extremist group's declaration of an Islamic state in territory it has seized in Iraq and Syria is a threat to the entire region.
Nouri al-Maliki says the announcement this week by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant that it has unilaterally established a caliphate "is a message to all the states in the region that you are inside the red circle now."

He said in his weekly address Wednesday that "no one in Iraq or any neighboring country will be safe from these plans."
The Sunni extremist group has overrun huge swaths of northern and western Iraq in recent weeks, linking up with territory already under its control in neighboring Syria.

ISIS Leader Al-Baghdadi Urges Jihad In Ramadan Message

DUBAI, July 1 (Reuters) - The leader of the al Qaeda offshoot now calling itself the Islamic State has called on Muslims worldwide to take up arms and flock to the 'caliphate' it has declared on captured Syrian and Iraqi soil.

Proclaiming a "new era" in which Muslims will ultimately triumph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi issued the call to jihad - holy war - in an audio message lasting nearly 20 minutes that was posted online on Tuesday.

It was his first purported message since the group - previously known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) - proclaimed the caliphate on Sunday and declared him its leader, in an audacious bid to sweep away state borders and redraw the map of the Middle East.

Baghdadi, who has assumed the medieval title of caliph, used the message to seek to assert authority over Muslims everywhere. He called on them to rise up and avenge the alleged wrongs committed against their religion, from Central African Republic to Myanmar (Burma).

"Terrify the enemies of Allah and seek death in the places where you expect to find it," he said. "Your brothers, on every piece of this earth, are waiting for you to rescue them."

The audio message, titled "A Message to the Mujahideen and the Muslim Ummah in the Month of Ramadan," was posted online through the group's media arm. Another account affiliated to the group posted translations in English, Russian, French, German and Albanian.

"By Allah, we will take revenge, by Allah we will take revenge, even if after a while," Baghdadi said.

Iraq Violence Claimed More Than 2,400 Lives In June, UN Reports

BAGHDAD (AP) — The leader of the extremist group that has overrun parts of Iraq and Syria has called on Muslims around the world to flock to territories under his control to fight and build an Islamic state.

In a recording posted online Tuesday, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared he wants to turn the enclave his fighters have carved out in the heart of the Middle East into a magnet for militants. He also presented himself as the leader of Islam worldwide, urging Muslims everywhere to rise up against oppression.

The audio message came two days after al-Baghdadi's group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, unilaterally declared the establishment of an Islamic state, or caliphate, in the land it controls. It also proclaimed al-Baghdadi the caliph, and demanded that all Muslims around the world pledge allegiance to him.

His group's forceful seizure of territory and its grand pronouncement of a caliphate have transformed the Iraqi-born al-Baghdadi into one of the leading figures of the global jihadi movement, perhaps even eclipsing al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri.

Iraq crisis: Key players in Sunni rebellion

Iraq's government is fighting a rebellion which has seen it rapidly lose control of predominantly Sunni Arab northern and western parts of the country.

The militant group Isis is widely perceived as leading the uprising, but it is not acting alone.
Here, jihadist groups analyst Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi looks at who is taking part in the insurgency.

ISLAMIC STATE IN IRAQ AND THE LEVANT (ISIS)
While Isis has grabbed headlines around the world, there can be a tendency to overstate its role in the insurgency.
Indeed, initial media coverage of events like the fall of Falluja and Mosul often portrayed the insurgent offensives as solely the work of Isis. The perception is fed by Isis' social media output that puts great weight on holding parades and raising the banner in assertions of power.
However, it cannot be denied that Isis is at least leading the majority of moves into new territory to wrest control from government forces. This is partly because Isis is better equipped, having seized advanced weaponry and uniforms from security forces over the past couple of years.

JAMAAT ANSAR AL-ISLAM (JAI)
JAI is a rival of Isis and is primarily based in Nineveh (particularly Mosul), Kirkuk and Salahuddin provinces, though its numerical strength is not known. While JAI shares Isis' aspirations for a caliphate, it rejects Isis' claim to represent an actual state rather than a mere group. 

NAQSHBANDI ORDER
While exact numbers are difficult to determine, the Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order (Jaysh Rijal al-Tariqa al-Naqshbandia, or JRTN) and its front groups likely constitute the second largest insurgent grouping in Iraq after Isis. 

JAYSH AL-MUJAHIDEEN (JAM)
A group dating back to the 2003 invasion, JAM aspires to overthrow the central government and is anti-Shia in outlook.
Recent evidence suggests it has forged a special relationship with JAI as a counter to Isis, which JAM deems extremist, and there have been indications of co-ordination in the Hawija area, near Kirkuk city.
JAM also places emphasis on working with local tribes, and appears to be maintaining a strong presence in Karma. However, tensions have emerged there with Isis over allegations that the jihadist group has been attempting to gain a monopoly on the movement of commodities, though there have been no reports of actual infighting yet.

ISLAMIC ARMY OF IRAQ (IAI)
Another traditional insurgent brand, the IAI is distinguished from the other groups in that after the US withdrawal at the end of 2011, IAI formally demobilised and set up an activist wing - the Sunni Popular Movement- aiming to push for a Sunni Arab federal region. 
Click here for full indepth list

Syria chemical weapons moved to US ship in Italy

A ship carrying deadly material from Syria's chemical weapons programme has docked in Italy, in the final phases in the destruction of the arsenal.

Danish vessel Ark Futura arrived at the port of Gioia Tauro with a cargo that includes mustard gas and components of the nerve agents, VX and sarin.
The material is being transferred to a US naval vessel for eventual neutralisation at sea.
Syria agreed to the destruction of its chemical weapons stockpile last year.
The deal - backed by the UN and brokered by the US and Russia - was struck amid the threat of US air strikes, triggered by a sarin gas attack on a rebel-held suburb of Damascus.
Security cordon The latest shipment marks the closing phases in the operation to destroy Syria's toxic arsenal.
The Danish vessel docked on Wednesday morning, accompanied by Italian coast guard ships and a military helicopter.
Its cargo is being transferred amid tight security, with access roads to the port sealed off.

Hong Kong police detain hundreds after mass protests

More than 500 demonstrators arrested for illegally 'occupying' street in Central business district during pro-democracy protest

Hong Kong police have arrested more than 500 protesters for illegally "occupying" a street in the city's central business district, hours after hundreds of thousands of residents gathered for the city's biggest pro-democracy demonstration in recent history.
While the arrested protesters represented a wide cross-section of Hong Kong society, most of those arrested were students who had pledged to flood the street until 8am on Wednesday, despite vows by police to take "decisive action" if the "unlawful assembly" were to proceed.
Police began bundling away protesters at 3am on Wednesday, and continued until the end of the sit-in, when the remaining crowd – about 50 people – let out a cheer and dispersed on its own. No one has yet been formally charged.

Pakistan launches ground attack on jihadis in North Waziristan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan launched a ground offensive against militant strongholds near the Afghan border on Monday after evacuating nearly half a million people from the tribal region, the army said.
The ground offensive is the second phase of a long awaited operation against militants in the North Waziristan tribal area, a lawless, mountainous stretch of land in northwest Pakistan.

The military announced the operation on June 15 but has mostly limited its tactics to airstrikes while giving time to hundreds of thousands of people to pack up their belongings and leave to safer areas.

The army began a houseto-house search in Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan, the army said. It said 15 militants were killed in the initial ground advance.
The town is also the headquarters for a number of different militant groups such as the Pakistani Taliban.

Heavy fighting erupts in eastern Ukraine after Poroshenko ends ceasefire

Ukrainian government forces targeted pro-Russia militants with artillery and air strikes on Tuesday after President Petro Poroshenko said he wouldn't renew a ceasefire that was repeatedly violated during its 10 days in force.

"Termination of the ceasefire is our response to terrorists, militants and marauders, all those who torment civilians, who paralyse the economy of the region, who disturb payment of salaries, pensions and stipends," Mr Poroshenko said as he ordered a resumption of military efforts to recover seized territory.
He later wrote on his Facebook page that Ukrainians needed to unite for the fight "to free our land from dirt and parasites."

Ukraine's Defence Ministry said 27 soldiers were killed during the ceasefire and 69 wounded, evidence that the unilateral pause in fighting had failed to further the president's peace plan. Some factions of the pro-Russia rebels had said they would honour the ceasefire, but all rejected Mr Poroshenko's demand that they surrender their weapons and negotiate their grievances with a "contact group" of foreign and Ukrainian mediators.
A military spokesman in Kiev, Oleksiy Dmytrashkovsky, told reporters that government forces attacked the separatists in their strongholds in the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk.
"We opened artillery fire, carried out air strikes at the strategic points of the terrorists and places where they are concentrated," Mr Dmytrashkovsky said.
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Protesters block migrant buses in California

Protesters have forced buses carrying migrant children and families to be prevented from reaching a processing centre in southern California.

People shouting slogans and waving US flags blocked three buses carrying undocumented Central American families to a border patrol station in Murrieta.
The migrants were flown to San Diego from Texas, where facilities report overcrowding after a surge in arrivals.
The Murrieta mayor had urged residents to complain about the transfer.
There were about 140 migrants on the bus, both adults and children.
They were sent to California to be assigned case numbers and undergo background checks before being released under supervision to await the deportation process, US immigration officials said.
"We can't start taking care of others if we can't take care of our own," said protester Nancy Greyson, 60, of Murrieta.

The House that Talking Built: Clintons’ speaking riches a political conundrum

Speech in Saudi Arabia? $300,000. 
Speech in Austria? $500,000. 

Speech in Hong Kong? $750,000. 
And those are just a few of the windfalls banked by Bill and Hillary Clinton since each has left their respective office. 
For Hillary, the wealth factor could loom just as large in a potential 2016 White House bid as lingering questions about her handling of the Benghazi attack or dredged-up controversies from the Clinton White House days. But at issue is not just the net worth of the former first family -- but how they made that money. The Clintons have amassed a fortune on a ‘profession’ that few Americans can relate to. 
Simply put, it is the house that talking built. 
"[Clinton] thinks 'hard work' is giving speeches because she's a Clinton. There aren't many/any Americans who can identify with that," Republican National Committee spokesman Raffi Williams said. 
Asked about their success at a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative last week in Denver, former President Bill Clinton said: “I'm shocked that it's happened. I'm shocked that people still want me to come give talks. And so I'm grateful.”
Republicans, though, are still bruised from the beating Democrats gave Mitt Romney in 2012 over how he made his money. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus signaled Sunday that if Clinton runs, the GOP will give her equal treatment.
“I don't think flying on private jets and collecting $250,000 for a speech is considered to be hard work,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” drawing a distinction between other unnamed wealthy people and the Clintons. “People respect folks that earn their money and work hard and they become rich, but when you talk about being dead broke and when you try to make believe that you understand how average people live, but you made $105 million giving speeches, I think people are tired of this show.”
David Avella, president of Republican recruiting arm GOPAC, did not begrudge the Clintons for building a fortune off public speaking.
“Kudos to them,” he said.
However, he said Hillary Clinton already has a hard time seeming “authentic” and connecting with everyday people. “Her challenge is that she wasn’t able to do that in 2008 … and this book tour suggests she still struggles with that,” he told FoxNews.com, referring to awkward answers Clinton has given to questions about their earnings since leaving public office.

Government Privacy Board Says Controversial NSA Surveillance Program Is Constitutional

A government privacy oversight board's draft report, released Tuesday night, finds the National Security Agency's use of a controversial surveillance authority is constitutional, but says some aspects of it edge up to violating the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches or seizures.
The report from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent agency within the federal government's executive branch, centers on programs revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that the NSA uses to pick up communications of foreigners that may also involve a U.S. citizen. The programs rely for legal authority on a law passed in 2008 to bring former President George W. Bush's warrantless wiretapping program under judicial oversight.
Critics charge that the NSA, in collecting the foreign targets' communications under its PRISM and upstream collection programs, incidentally picks up far too many Americans' emails and phone calls. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has raised alarm about what happens with Americans' communications once they're collected, because the NSA believes it can search through them without a warrant.
The privacy board's harsh January report on the NSA's separate domestic telephone metadata collection program provided ammunition for critics looking to end it. But in its new report, the privacy board largely accepts the government's assurances that NSA surveillance under the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is well-grounded. The board is set to vote on whether to finalize the draft report on Wednesday.
"Overall, the Board has found that the information the program collects has been valuable and effective in protecting the nation’s security and producing useful foreign intelligence," the report reads. The program, it says, "has been subject to judicial oversight and extensive internal supervision, and the Board has found no evidence of intentional abuse."

The White House gave out $1.3 million in raises in the last year

The White House released its 2014 salary list Tuesday, allowing those Americans interested in such things a window into the lives of people in the Obama administration. We are such people! So we crunched a bunch of the numbers.

The toplines:

• The White House employs 456 people, either as employees or detailees. That's down four from 2013.
• The combined payroll for those employees is just over $37.78 million. That's down about $83,000 from 2013.

• Between 2013 and 2014, the White House added 161 employees but lost even more. Those new employees earn a combined $12.7 million annually, or, on average, about $79,000 a piece.
• Between 2013 and 2014, the White House gave raises to 227 of its employees. In total, the White House gave out $1.3 million in raises. The biggest raise went to Chase Cushman, a scheduler, who went from $68,000 a year to $130,000 a year.
• It also cut the salaries of six employees. Seth Wheeler, an assistant on economic policy, dropped $94,500 in pay.
• Overall, the salaries of existing employees went up about $1.3 million. That's about $4,400 per person.
• The average amount of time current employees have been with the White House is 2.75 years. (Or 2.82 years if you count those who left and came back.) Since 2009, the listed staff have worked a combined 1,287 years at the White House.
• And why not? 322 of the 456 staffers, 71 percent of them, make more than the annual median household income (which was just over $51,000 in 2012).
• No one has done better for himself in his time at the White House than Cody Keenan, the president's speechwriter. He started in 2009 making $45,000 a year. In 2014, he stayed at the maximum salary for staffers, a sum he reached in 2013: $172,200.

Obama warns of deep cutbacks in highway construction aid

WASHINGTON –  As the summer driving season swings into full gear, states can expect a large pothole in their construction budgets if Congress doesn't reach an agreement quickly on how to pay for federal highway and transit programs, President Obama and his top officials are warning.
States will begin to feel the pain of cutbacks in federal aid as soon as the first week in August if lawmakers don't act, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a letter to states. That's because the balance in the federal Highway Trust Fund is dropping and will soon go below $4 billion, the cushion federal officials say is needed for incoming fuel tax revenue to cover outgoing payments to states.

The cuts will vary from state to state but will average about 28 percent, transportation officials said. By the end of August, the trust fund's balance is forecast to fall to zero and the cuts could deepen.
A second deadline is coming Sept. 30 when the government's authority to spend money on transportation programs expires.
As many as 700,000 jobs could be at risk over the next year, Obama told a crowd of about 500 gathered Tuesday beneath the Key Bridge, which spans the Potomac River and joins the District of Columbia and Virginia.
Revenue from federal gas and diesel taxes continues to flow into the trust fund, but the total is expected to be about $8 billion short of the transportation aid the government has allocated to states this year. Over the next six years, a gap of about $100 billion is forecast if transportation spending is maintained at current levels.
At the same time, transportation experts and industries that depend on the nation's highways to get their products to market are calling for greater spending on transportation to shore up aging roads, bridges and tunnels and to accommodate population growth.
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