Gazette 070914

Wednesday July 9th 2014

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Israel and Hamas attacks intensify

Palestinian militants have fired more rockets at Israeli cities after Israel carried out dozens of overnight air strikes on the Gaza Strip.

Israel said it had intercepted 15 rockets on Wednesday, including eight over Tel Aviv, Ashkelon and Ashdod.
Reports from Gaza said at least eight people had been killed in the latest Israeli air strikes.
Gaza officials say 35 Palestinians have now died in the recent hostilities, with 150 more injured.
The officials say half of the casualties are civilians, a number of them women and children.
The military wing of Hamas has warned that all Israelis are now targets.
Israel has said it will expand its campaign against Hamas.
'Huge price' Israel's military said it had carried out 129 air strikes in Gaza on Wednesday, primarily targeting tunnels and rocket-launching pads.
It brings to 550 the number of sites in Gaza attacked as part of "Operation Protective Edge", including 31 tunnels and 60 rocket launchers.
The military earlier confirmed that it had targeted 118 concealed rocket launchers, 10 Hamas command-and-control centres and 10 tunnels in overnight attacks.
It said 117 rockets had hit Israel on Tuesday, with the Iron Dome interceptor system shooting down 20. Three rockets landed around Jerusalem.
Related: Kidnapped Israelis shot 10 times with silenced gun by Palestinians: US lab

ANALYSIS: Stunned by Israel's fierce response, Hamas sends distress signals 

Despite fiery statements issued by Hamas spokesmen over the past 48 hours, it was obvious Tuesday night that the Islamist movement was searching for ways to rid itself of the current escalation.

Hamas feels that it has been forced into a confrontation with Israel – one that it did not want at this stage because of its increased isolation and financial crisis.
The massive Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours have surprised Hamas and other Palestinian groups. Hamas apparently expected a limited response to the recent rocket attacks on Israeli cities and towns. But as the IDF intensified its strikes against Hamas targets – including the homes of some of its top commanders – it became clear to the movement’s leaders that Israel means business.
On Tuesday night, Hamas spokesmen were sending distress signals to various parties. The organization is concerned that if the IDF operation continues for another few days, the movement will pay a very heavy price – one that could even bring about an end to Hamas’s rule over the Gaza Strip.
Hamas accused Israel of “crossing all the redlines” by bombing the homes of its military commanders. This shows that Hamas did not expect Israel to take such a drastic move. Less than 24 hours after the beginning of the IDF offensive, Hamas talked about the need to return to the truce that was reached with Israel in 2012.
A spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, Izzadin Kassam, listed this demand as part of his movement’s effort to end the current confrontation. The spokesman called for an end to the IDF crackdown on Hamas members in the West Bank, which began after the abduction and murder of three Israeli youths last month.
On Tuesday night, Hamas and other Palestinian groups appealed to Egypt and Arab countries to intervene to stop the IDF operation. Given Hamas’s bad relations with the Egyptian authorities, it’s unlikely that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi would rush to save the movement that is openly aligned with his enemy, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Iraq confirms rebels seized Muthanna chemical arms site

Isis-led Sunni rebels are in control of a disused chemical weapons factory, Iraqi officials have confirmed.

In a letter to the UN, Iraq said it would be unable to keep to obligations to destroy its chemical weapons.
The Muthanna complex northwest of Baghdad houses remnants of rockets filled with sarin and other deadly nerve agents.
The UN and US say the munitions are degraded and the rebels will be unable to make usable chemical arms from them.
Commitment on hold In the letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Iraq's UN Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim said the rebels took over the complex on 11 June, after disarming soldiers who guarded the site.
The document stated that Muthanna's surveillance system showed that there was "looting of some equipment and appliances" at the factory, about 70km (45 miles) north-west of the Iraqi capital.

Imam of Mosul mosque executed before 'caliph' gave sermon

Geneva: The Islamic State's execution of 13 Sunni Muslim clerics last month in Mosul was a move  to silence moderate voices among Iraq's Sunnis, and deserves greater attention, the top United Nations expert on religious freedom said.

"Here a Sunni movement is executing Sunni religious leaders. That should make us think," said Heiner Bielefeldt, the UN's special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. "It's important to focus more attention on these particular killings, because here we are not talking about Sunnis versus [Shiites]. This is a very clear case of atrocities committed against their own people, against religious leaders from Sunni Islam who probably have a less simplistic understanding of what Islam means."
The Islamic State's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, led prayers last Friday at Mosul's Great Nur al-Din Mosque. One of the first clerics executed in Mosul, according to the UN, was that mosque's imam, Muhammad al-Mansuri.
He was executed on June 12, the UN said, for failing to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State, which released a 21-minute video on Saturday of Baghdadi preaching from the same minbar, or pulpit, that Mansuri once occupied.
Twelve other Sunni clerics were executed on June 14, the UN says.
Baghdadi has asserted that all Muslims owe allegiance to the Islamic caliphate - which the Islamic State declared on June 29 and now exists in the areas it controls in Syria and Iraq - and to  Baghdadi, who now calls himself Caliph Ibrahim.
A resident of Mosul who once worked at the mosque said on Saturday that the Islamic State is now dictating the content of Friday sermons in the city. 
The killings emerged as Iraq's parliament on Monday stalled for a second time, cancelling its planned Tuesday session to give the country's deeply divided political factions time to reach an agreement on an urgently needed new government.

Iraqi PM accuses Kurds of hosting Islamic extremists

BAGHDAD – Iraq's prime minister has accused the largely autonomous northern Kurdish region of being a haven for the Islamic extremists and other Sunni militants that have overrun much of the country over the past month.

Nouri al-Maliki's comments are likely to cause tensions to spike in the central government's already testy relationship with the Kurdish self-rule region. He did not elaborate on his allegations or provide any evidence to back them up.
The Kurdish security force known as the peshmerga has clashed repeatedly with the Sunni militants led by the Islamic State extremist group in recent weeks.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have fled to the Kurdish-controlled areas to escape the militant onslaught. Related: Iraq: 50 Bodies, Many Blindfolded, Found South Of Baghdad

Syrian Army Lays Siege To Rebels In Aleppo

Syrian troops advanced in and around the northern city of Aleppo on Monday, in what appears to be an attempt to lay siege to opposition-held parts of the country's largest city, activists said.

The troops faced rebels stretched thin by a two-front fight against government forces and Islamic militants encroaching on opposition-held areas. If rebels are driven out of Aleppo, it would be a near-fatal blow to an uprising that began in March 2011 as largely peaceful protests against President Bashar Assad's rule, but later turned into a full-fledged civil war.
Aleppo is the last large urban area that Syrian rebels hold after losing territory to government forces over the past year, and it lies close to the border with Turkey, an important friendly supply route for rebels. Raqqa, further east, is held exclusively by Sunni extremists from the Islamic State group.
"If Aleppo falls, the Syrian revolution falls," said an Aleppo-based activist who uses the name Baraa Halabi, speaking to The Associated Press over Skype.
Aleppo, once Syria's commercial center, has been carved up into rebel- and government-controlled areas since an opposition offensive in mid-2012.
Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Monday that reinforcements, including members of the elite Republican Guards and allies from Lebanon's Hezbollah group, recently arrived in Aleppo.
They appeared to be reinforcing Syrian government forces, which have been steadily seizing control of the city's entrances.

Deadly chemical weapon Sarin, used in the civil war in Syria, traced back to Britain

LONDON: The deadly chemical weapon - Sarin that was used in the civil war in Syria has been traced back to Britain.
Britain it seems oversaw the sale of chemicals to Syria that were eventually used in the manufacture of the deadly nerve agent Sarin.

Sarin is 20 times more deadly than cyanide. A drop the size of a pin-head can kill a person. It is often called a "poor man's atomic bomb" and kills by crippling the nervous system.

Documents from the Foreign Office suggest chemicals and components were supplied to Syria in the mid-1980s.

A report by UN chemical weapons inspectors found "clear and convincing evidence" that rockets containing sarin were fired at suburbs near the capital Damascus last August in an attack that killed hundreds of people.

Earlier, it had emerged that the UK government authorised the export of two chemicals to Syria last year that can be used to make the nerve agent Sarin.

The licences were to export potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride, which can both be used as precursor chemicals in the manufacture of nerve gas.

US Secretary of State John Kerry had earlier confirmed that Sarin has been used on rebels by the ruling regime in Damascus. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills have however insisted that although the licences were granted to an unnamed UK chemical company in January 2012, the substances were not sent to Syria before the permits were eventually revoked last July following tightened European Union sanctions.

Related: Syria conflict: National Coalition elects new leader

Iran speaks of some progress, but "substantial differences" remain at nuclear negotiations

VIENNA –  An Iranian official says some progress is being made at nuclear talks with six world powers ahead of a July 20 target date for a deal, but "substantial differences" remain.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Marzieh Afkham spoke Wednesday as negotiators worked on a draft agreement meant to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for an end to sanctions.

Diplomats familiar with the closed-door talks say the main problem remains uranium enrichment, which can make both reactor fuel and the core of a nuclear weapon.
Iran denies wanting nuclear arms but insists on having either 50,000 enriching centrifuges, or fewer but more advanced machines with the same total output. The U.S. wants to a much smaller program.
Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany are also at the Vienna talks.

Iran needs greater uranium enrichment capacity, says Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Iran's supreme leader seeks right to carry out industrial-scale enrichment in order to meet its long-term energy needs

Iran's supreme leader said late on Monday that his country would need to significantly increase its capacity to enrich uranium if it was to meet its long-term energy needs, in an unusually detailed speech highlighting the obstacles to a deal on its nuclear programme.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei conceded that Iran would not need to immediately increase its capacity but made clear that his government sought the right to carry out industrial-scale enrichment in order to be self-sufficient in nuclear fuel for its research reactors and a Russian-built power station at Bushehr.
Enrichment capacity is the main obstacle to a comprehensive agreement between Iran and six major powers taking part in talks in Vienna. Western negotiators want Iran to be restricted to a research-scale capability to minimise the risk it could build a nuclear weapon at short notice but by publicly stating Iran's position, Khamenei could have made it harder for his negotiators to compromise.
"It is very unhelpful to say that in public," said Mark Fitzpatrick, a former US state department non-proliferation expert now at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "It's nothing different from what the Iranian negotiators have said privately, but to say it publicly boxes in the negotiators and makes it harder to climb down."
"The silver lining is that he says Iran doesn't need this capacity immediately but that doesn't help much. The six powers will argue Iran doesn't need industrial-scale enrichment. It would be terribly unsafe for Iran to use domestically-fabricated fuel in Bushehr. Khamenei has just made it harder to get a deal."
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Xi says US-China confrontation would be 'disaster'

Confrontation with the US would be a "disaster", Chinese President Xi Jinping has said as he called for mutual respect between the two nations.

Mr Xi's comments came at an annual China-US dialogue held in Beijing.
Diplomats are expected to discuss China's currency, North Korea and tensions in the South China Sea.
The US delegation is led by Secretary of State John Kerry, who in his opening remarks said that the US was not seeking to "contain" China.
Mr Xi said the two countries' interests were now "more than ever interconnected", with much to gain from co-operation.
"China-US confrontation, to the two countries and the world, would definitely be a disaster," he said.
"We should mutually respect and treat each other equally, and respect the other's sovereignty and territorial integrity and respect each other's choice on the path of development."
Mr Kerry, meanwhile, said the US did "not seek to contain China" and urged Beijing not to "interpret it as an overall strategy" when the US differed from China on certain issues.
US President Barack Obama also said in a statement that the US "welcomes the emergence of a stable, peaceful, and prosperous China".
"We remain determined to ensure that co-operation defines the overall relationship," he said.

Press groups call on Obama administration to end 'pervasive’ secrecy practices

Dozens of leading U.S. press organizations are urging the Obama administration to live up to its transparency promises and reverse a trend of increased secrecy at federal agencies.
Thirty-eight national press organizations and transparency groups—including the Society for Professional Journalists, Investigative Reporters and Editors, and the Poynter Institute—called on the Obama administration to end “politically driven suppression of news and information about federal agencies,” in a letter to the White House released Tuesday.

“Over the past two decades, public agencies have increasingly prohibited staff from communicating with journalists unless they go through public affairs offices or through political appointees,” the letter reads. “This trend has been especially pronounced in the federal government. We consider these restrictions a form of censorship—an attempt to control what the public is allowed to see and hear.”
Specifically, the letter points to numerous instances of federal public affairs officers blocking reporters’ requests to talk to agency staff, delaying responses to interview requests, and blackballing reporters who write critically of agencies.
According to the letter, “a recent survey found 40 percent of public affairs officers admitted they blocked certain reporters because they did not like what they wrote.”

Government Made $100 Billion In Improper Payments

WASHINGTON (AP) — By its own estimate, the government made about $100 billion in payments last year to people who may not have been entitled to receive them — tax credits to families that didn't qualify, unemployment benefits to people who had jobs and medical payments for treatments that might not have been necessary.

Congressional investigators say the figure could be even higher.

The Obama administration has reduced the amount of improper payments since they peaked in 2010. Still, estimates from federal agencies show that some are wasting big money at a time when Congress is squeezing agency budgets and looking to save more.

"Nobody knows exactly how much taxpayer money is wasted through improper payments, but the federal government's own astounding estimate is more than half a trillion dollars over the past five years," said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla. "The fact is, improper payments are staggeringly high in programs designed to help those most in need — children, seniors and low-income families."

US spying row: Germany investigates new case

Prosecutors in Germany have searched the home of a defence ministry employee suspected of spying, in the second such case in a week.

Residential and office areas were searched in Berlin on Wednesday morning, the federal prosecutor in Karlsruhe said.
An intelligence agency employee was arrested this month for passing secret documents to US intelligence.
The US promised on Monday to work to resolve the problem.
There were no reports of a new arrest on Wednesday.
The US has not denied allegations that the intelligence agency employee arrested earlier this month was passing secret documents to the US National Security Agency (NSA).
'Not connected' German media say the latest investigation is more serious than the intelligence agency (BND) case.
The German defence ministry said an investigation was under way, without giving details.

Border Patrol union spokesman: Obama request for funds 'does nothing to secure the border'

The vice president of the National Border Patrol Council told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Tuesday that President Obama’s request of billions of funds to deal with the illegal immigration crisis “does nothing to secure the border.”
Obama on Tuesday sent a massive $3.7 billion request to Congress seeking funds for everything from transportation costs to border enforcement to surveillance to health services.

Shawn Moran said on “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren” he believes the extra funds, if approved, would do nothing to help the situation.
“It seems like a lot of that money is slated towards the back end of this process and I’m going to hearken back to the 80s - where’s the beef?” he said. “Where is the money for border security? This does nothing to secure the border. It just streamlines the end of the process and does nothing to stop this flow of illegal aliens that are coming across in the Rio Grande Valley.”
Moran said what the Border Patrol needs immediately is increased manpower to handle the wave of immigrants, including thousands of unaccompanied children.
“We are sending agents from other sectors down to the Rio Grande Valley sector to assist, but the sheer numbers that are coming across, and the amount of work that it is taking to process, we are outnumbered and we’re unable to secure the border in that sector,” he said.
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