Gazette 072514

Friday July 25th 2014

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Israel Hits 30 Gaza Homes, Kills Senior Militant

Four Palestinians were shot and killed Friday during West Bank protests against Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian hospital officials said.

The circumstances of the shootings in the northern village of Hawara, near the city of Nablus, and the southern village of Beit Omar, near the city of Hebron, were not immediately clear.
Clashes between Israeli troops and protesters were reported in both locations. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
The West Bank has become increasingly restive over Israel's ground operation in Gaza, in which more than 800 Palestinians were killed and more than 5,200 wounded since July 8, according to Palestinian health officials.
On Thursday, thousands of Palestinians clashes with Israeli forces at a West Bank checkpoint and in east Jerusalem, the largest protests in those areas in several years.
On Friday, two Palestinians, ages 21 and 22, were shot and killed during a protest in Hawara, said Mazen al-Hammouz, director of Rafidiyeh Hospital in Nablus.
In Beit Omar, protesters threw stones at Israeli soldiers posted at the entrance to the village, according to local journalists. The emergency room at Hebron hospital said two men, ages 47 and 27, were killed by gunfire.

Gaza conflict deaths pass 800 as Kerry pushes ceasefire

Efforts to secure a ceasefire between Israel and the militant Hamas movement are intensifying as the number of deaths in the 18-day conflict rises.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has been in Cairo meeting Egypt's foreign minister and the UN secretary general.
At least three Palestinians were killed in the West Bank, while one Israeli soldier was killed in northern Gaza.
Activists called for a "day of rage" over the deaths of 800 Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has lost 35 people.
Most of the Palestinian deaths have been civilians, while 33 of Israel's dead have been soldiers. One Thai worker was also killed by rocket fire in Israel.
Related: Short truce between Israel, Hamas could begin this weekend as parties look for long-term peace

West Bank Rises, Tens Of Thousands Join Largest March Since Last Intifada

Amid the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, the West Bank has risen.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians marched with President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement from the West Bank city of Ramallah toward Jerusalem to protest Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza, which has claimed the lives of nearly 800 Palestinians, many of them civilians.
The protest appears to be the largest mass demonstration since the 1980s. The uprising promises to be different from previous intifadas, partly because it comes in the wake of the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street and other mass protest movements around the globe. But the way in which the world engages with protest has also evolved, due to the advent of Twitter and cell phone video, which can focus attention on raw conflict in a way that bypasses the mainstream media. Today's march is being live tweeted at the hashtag #48kMarch.
Reuters reported that protests also broke out in Jerusalem itself, near the old walled city and outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque. 

Missing soldier St.-Sgt. Oron Shaul declared dead 

The IDF says Shaul's body has yet to be recovered; the Golani Brigade fighter was killed Sunday along with six other soldiers and officers when their APC drove over an explosive device.

Golani Brigade fighter St.-Sgt. Oron Shaul, 20, who was unaccounted for after an attack on his APC in Gaza killed six other soldiers Sunday, was pronounced dead by the head IDF rabbi Friday afternoon.
Shaul's body had yet to be recovered, the IDF said, adding that no funeral will take place.
The IDF announcement that Shaul was missing came after Hamas claimed to have kidnapped an Israeli soldier on Sunday, not saying whether he was alive or dead.
Abu Ubaida, the masked and camouflaged spokesman of Hamas’s armed wing, said “Shaul Aron” was seized during heavy fighting on the Gaza border. He displayed a photo ID and the army serial number, but showed no image of Shaul in Hamas’s hands.
In the attack, which took place at 1:05 a.m. on Sunday, an APC carrying soldiers from Golani’s 13th Battalion drove over an explosive device that detonated.
Residents of the Gaza Strip lit fireworks and chanted “God is great!” into the early morning darkness on Monday after Hamas’s claims of capturing the soldier.
Israel’s envoy to the United Nations denied the claim on Monday.

Isis denies ordering that all girls in Mosul undergo FGM

Doubts grow over UN report, seemingly reliant on year-old document from Syria thought to have been doctored

Jihadi extremists who have taken over the Iraqi city of Mosul have denied ordering families to have their daughters undergo female genital mutilation in order to prevent "immorality" or face severe punishment, as claimed by a senior UN humanitarian official on Thursday.
Supporters of the Islamic State (Isis), previously known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, dismissed the story as propaganda based on a fake document – though residents of Mosul, as well as Kurdish officials, insisted it was true.
The claim about enforced FGM came from the UN's deputy humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, Jacqueline Badcock, who told reporters that up to 4 million women and girls aged 11-46 faced the risk of genital mutilation. "This is something very new for Iraq, particularly in this area, and is of grave concern and does need to be addressed," she said. "This is a fatwa from Isis. This is not the will of Iraqi people, or the women of Iraq in these vulnerable areas covered by the terrorists."
Reports about the issue have been circulating in Iraqi media for the past few days. On Wednesday a Kurdish website, BasNews, reported that the fatwa had been issued by the self-proclaimed "Caliph" of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as a "gift" to the people of Mosul. BasNews said on Thursday that it stood by its story. "Of course Isis would deny this," the editor, Hawar Abdulrazaq, told the Guardian.
Badcock's comments came in a briefing by videolink from her base in Irbil, capital of the Kurdish regional government, to reporters at the UN headquarters in Geneva.

In Iraq, Sunni tribal militias undermined by corruption, left vulnerable to extremists

BAGHDAD –  Wisam al-Hardan's cellphone rang late into the night. He let it ring on and on. He couldn't bear to answer.
Al-Hardan, a leader in the Sunni tribal militias that allied with the U.S. to help turn the tide against al-Qaida in Iraq, knew what the Sunni fighters on the other end of the line wanted: weapons to fight the Islamic extremists rampaging across their lands. Al-Hardan also knew he had nothing to offer them.

"I don't want to remember these hours," he said. "Very painful hours."
The various threads that came together to leave al-Hardan sitting powerless in his Baghdad home wind back through the years of broken promises and failed policies of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki toward the Sunni militiamen popularly known as Sahwa, or Awakening Councils. Al-Hardan and former Sahwa members say that under the Shiite prime minister, the militias were neglected, corruption flourished — and though millions of dollars were appropriated, militiamen were still left poorly armed and ill equipped.
The results speak for themselves. Over the past month, militants led by the extremist Islamic State group overpowered the military and the Sahwa, seizing control of most of the Sunni-dominated areas of Iraq. The jihadis have systematically killed dozens of former Sahwa leaders, forced others to flee and recruited the remaining foot soldiers through intimidation.
The checkered dealings with the Sahwa in recent years drained the Sunni community of any trust in the Baghdad government and particularly in al-Maliki, who is seeking a third consecutive four-year term. That presents an immense challenge to inducing the Sunni tribal fighters who turned on al-Qaida once before to risk everything again — even if they wanted to — and side with the government against the new insurgency.
"We have zero trust in al-Maliki, who will continue to deceive us and hurt us if he is to win a third term. If al-Maliki stays in power, then nobody will be willing to return to Sahwa," said Abu Sahir, a former Sahwa leader in Khan Bani Saad in Diyala province who became a fighter in the anti-government Mujahedeen Army militant group.
"But if al-Maliki is to be replaced by another person who would do something to stop the corruption and the humiliation, we might reconsider our position."
It's impossible to gauge how widespread that sentiment is. Other former Sahwa fighters who have joined the militants say they have severed ties with Baghdad for good. The internal dynamics of the insurgency — such as sometimes divergent interests between the Islamic State group and other Sunnis who have joined its fight — are also unpredictable and could affect the decisions of thousands of individual fighters on whether to stick with the movement.
But the bitterness Sunnis feel about their treatment under al-Maliki is clear.

Jordan shoots down 'aerial target' near Syria

AMMAN, Jordan –  Jordan's air force shot down an "aerial target" near the Syrian border on Friday, a Jordanian military official said, while eyewitnesses said the object was a drone.
It was not immediately clear where the object came from, but there have been reports of intense fighting in the southern Syrian province of Daraa that borders Jordan.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said the incident occurred around dawn. He said the target was followed by Jordan's air force and shot down over an empty area in the province of Mafraq.
"We will firmly and strongly deal with any violation of the kingdom's land, air space or territorial waters," the official said. "The armed forces will not allow any infringement of the country's security."
Witnesses said a drone was shot down near the Zaatari camp, which is home to more than 120,000 Syrian refugees fleeing civil war.
In April, Jordanian warplanes struck a convoy of vehicles as they were trying to enter Jordan from Syria. The Jordanian military said the aircraft destroyed the vehicles after firing warning shots.
Jordan hosts nearly 600,000 registered Syrian refugees -- although Jordanian officials say the real number is far higher.
The kingdom has quietly supported Syria's rebels since the start of the uprising against President Bashar Assad in 2011, and ordered Syria's ambassador out in May after accusing him of making "offensive" statements about Jordan.
In Syria, state-run news agency SANA said troops have regrouped to face attacks by the extremist Islamic State group, which has been trying to capture a major besieged military base in the northern province of Raqqa.
On Thursday, members of the Islamic State group overran part of the army base, which has been under siege by the militants for months, in fierce battles that killed or wounded dozens on both sides, activists said.

Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian held in Iran

An American reporter for the Washington Post and his wife have been detained in Tehran, an Iranian official confirmed.

Jason Rezaian, a 38-year-old dual Iran-US citizen, and his Iranian wife Yeganeh Salehi, were taken into custody on Tuesday evening, the paper said.
Two freelance photographers, also US citizens, were being held too.
Western news organisations, including the BBC, have great difficulty operating in Iran, with journalists facing detention and surveillance.
"We are deeply troubled by this news and are concerned for the welfare of Jason, Yeganeh and two others said to have been detained with them," Washington Post foreign editor Douglas Jehl said in a statement.
Mr Rezaian has been the Post's Iran correspondent since 2012. Ms Salehi works as a correspondent for the National, an English-language newspaper based in the United Arab Emirates.
Their detention was confirmed by Iran's Chief Justice Gholamhossein Esmaili, who said they were being questioned but did not give a reason for the arrests, the AFP news agency reported.

Rival Libyan militias clash in Tripoli, Benghazi

Tripoli: Heavy black smoke rose over southern Tripoli after rival militias exchanged artillery and rocket fire in a battle over the Libyan capital's airport that has killed around 50 people in nearly a fortnight of fighting.
Sporadic blasts echoed across the city since Thursday morning in clashes that have deepened fears of post-war Libya becoming a failed state, with a fragile government unable to control heavily armed brigades battling for power.
Fighting in the capital and the eastern city of Benghazi, the heaviest since the 2011 war that ousted Muammar Gaddafi, has led most international flights to Libya to be cancelled and has prompted the United States to pull out embassy staff.
A Health Ministry official in Tripoli was unable to provide details of Thursday's casualties because he could not contact hospital staff in the area. One local doctor said at least 30 injured were at his hospital in Tripoli.
The Mitiga hospital in Tripoli said it was in an emergency situation because of a lack of resources and the inability of many employees to get to work due to the fighting and gasoline shortages, state news agency LANA reported.
Underscoring Libya's chaos, acting Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni said on Thursday that he was prevented by militias from flying from an airport outside Tripoli.
Mitiga, used mostly for military and oil company flights, has been opened to limited international flights since the clashes erupted and Tripoli International Airport was closed.
At least nine people were killed and 19 wounded overnight in Benghazi, mostly civilians, as government forces tried to oust Islamist militants holed up in Libya's eastern port city, medical sources said on Thursday.



Gunmen kill 15 civilians travelling in central Afghanistan

HERAT (Afghanistan): Suspected Taliban gunmen stopped two vehicles in central Afghanistan and shot dead 15 passengers at the side of the road, officials said on Friday, in the latest attack to highlight the growing civilian toll from violence.

Only one man escaped the execution-style killing in Ghor province when the armed attackers gunned down 11 men, three women and one child.

"They ordered all passengers to stand in one line, and then they shot them dead one by one," Abdul Hai Khatibi, spokesman for the governor of Ghor province, told AFP.

"One man managed to flee. All of the others were shot in the head and chest."

Fahim Qaiem, Ghor provincial police chief, confirmed the incident and blamed suspected Taliban militants for the killings late on Thursday night.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and the Taliban often deny links to incidents where civilians are the victims.

The attack occurred the same day that two Finnish female aid workers were shot dead by unidentified gunmen while in a taxi in the western city of Herat.

A suicide bomber on an explosive-packed motorcycle in Takhar province also killed six civilians and wounded more than 20 in a crowded market as shoppers bought supplies for the upcoming festival of Eid-ul-Fitr.

According to recent UN figures, civilian casualties soared by 24 per cent in the first half of 2014, while the International Crisis Group has said the "overall trend (in Afghanistan) is one of escalating violence and insurgent attacks".

Afghanistan is also mired in a bitter election dispute between presidential rivals Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah that threatens to fuel instability and revive ethnic tensions that ravaged the country during the 1992-1996 civil war.

The political deadlock and soaring civilian casualties have caused deep disquiet among Afghanistan's international backers, who sent tens of thousands of Nato-led soldiers and billions of dollars in aid to the country.

Nato combat troops will withdraw from the country by December, winding down a 13-year war against the Taliban that has failed to defeat the Islamist group that ruled Kabul before being ousted in 2001.
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Obama accuses firms of "cherry-picking" over tax rules

US President Barack Obama has urged lawmakers to end a tax loophole that allows US companies to avoid paying US corporate taxes.

He accused firms of "cherry picking" the rules, by moving their tax base overseas, while keeping most of their business in the US.
Know as inversion, nine companies so far this year have used the practice.
"My attitude is I don't care if it's legal - it's wrong," the president said in a speech in Los Angeles.
The potential savings of inversion were widely seen as part of the reason why US pharmaceuticals firm Pfizer attempted to buy Britain's AstraZeneca earlier this year.
That deal stirred up controversy with critics concerned that the company would cut back on UK research and development.
'Stop rewarding' President Obama also called for "economic patriotism".
"Economic patriotism says it's a good thing when we close wasteful tax loopholes and invest in education, and invest in job training that helps the economy for everybody.
"Let's stop rewarding companies that ship jobs overseas; give tax breaks to companies that are bringing jobs back to the United States," he said.
Democrats in the US Congress have put forward a proposal that would make inversion much more difficult and the president called on Republicans to support that effort.
US companies have called on the government to lower and reform corporate taxes, which would make it less attractive for them to move their tax base overseas.

‘Unchecked’ Putin puts pressure on Obama to take ‘decisive action’

Fresh evidence that Russia is directly shelling Ukrainian military targets is stoking concerns that Vladimir Putin feels increasingly comfortable running roughshod over his neighbors in defiance of the U.S. and Europe, putting pressure on the Obama administration to draw a red line that even Moscow can see. 
"Putin seems like he's unchecked," Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told Fox Business Network, calling the latest Russian involvement a "clear escalation." 

The Obama administration has taken a decidedly tougher tone than Europe against Putin since the start of the Ukraine crisis, but a failure to act in concert has left the Russian leader testing his limits -- to alarming results. 
The latest development, confirmed by Pentagon and State Department officials, is Russia firing artillery from its own territory into Ukraine. The Ukrainian government and media have made these allegations against Moscow for days now, but the Obama administration on Thursday backed up that intelligence publicly for the first time. 
"We have new evidence that the Russians intend to deliver heavier and more powerful multiple rocket launchers to separatist forces in Ukraine and have evidence that Russia is firing artillery from within Russian to attack Ukrainian military positions," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters.

Obama Embracing Secretive Super PACs While Raising Money For Democrats

WASHINGTON (AP) — For years President Barack Obama railed against the surge of unlimited spending flowing into American political campaigns, arguing that average voters were being shut out of a secretive system that lets special interests bankroll elections.

Now as Obama enthusiastically raises money for Democratic super PACs, he's embracing some of the same secretive elements of that system, drawing charges of hypocrisy from good-governance advocates who say the public deserves to know what Obama's saying and to whom he's saying it when donors pay for a few minutes with the president.

After initially shunning super PACs, Obama in 2012 allowed his top officials to help raise money for the super PAC working to re-elect him, but his campaign promised to still "lead the way" on campaign transparency and reform. Obama took another major step toward embracing super PACs this year by agreeing to appear personally at fundraisers for Democratic super PACs. He argued that Democrats can't afford to play by different rules than Republican groups whose donors were flooding the super PAC zone.

Campaign finance reform advocates hoped that even if Obama was helping super PACs, he'd seek to make the process as transparent as possible. After all, Obama has backed legislation known as the DISCLOSE Act that would clamp down on secretive contributions and has said he's open to amending the Constitution to stem campaign spending.

Wikipedia blocks 'disruptive' page edits from US Congress

Wikipedia administrators have imposed a ban on page edits from computers at the US House of Representatives, following "persistent disruptive editing".

The 10-day block comes after anonymous changes were made to entries on politicians and businesses, as well as events like the Kennedy assassination.
The biography of former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld was edited to say that he was an "alien lizard".
One staffer said they were being banned for the "actions of two or three".
Edits from computers using the IP address belonging to the House of Representatives have been banned before, following similar acts of vandalism.

The latest block comes after rogue edits were brought to light by a Twitter feed, @congressedits, which posts every change made from the government-owned address.

'Russian puppet' One of the acts highlighted was an alteration to the page on the assassination of John F Kennedy, which was changed to say that Lee Harvey Oswald was acting "on behalf of the regime of Fidel Castro".
An entry on the moon landing conspiracy theories was changed to say they were "promoted by the Cuban government".
Another entry, on the Ukrainian politician Nataliya Vitrenko, was edited to claim that she was a "Russian puppet".

This animation shows how awful the California drought is this year

For the first time since 2000, air pollution is not the top environmental concern among Californians, according to a Public Policy Institute of California survey. It’s water.
A full 35 percent of the survey’s respondents cited drought or water supply as their top environmental concern in response to an open-ended question, PPIC reported this week. That’s up from 8 percent just three years ago. (The share citing air pollution as a top concern fell from 27 percent to 14 percent.) If you want to get a sense of how bad things have gotten, check out the animation below of drought conditions in the state since the end of 2013, created using U.S. Drought Monitor maps.

National Guard in Texas Could Get Arrest Power

HOUSTON — When Gov. Rick Perry of Texas announced plans to deploy 1,000 National Guard troops to help with the border crisis, it came with a power unexpected by some. By deploying them himself rather than through Washington, he has the power to order the troops to make arrests and apprehensions, something Guard troops in past border deployments have been prohibited from doing.

Immigrant rights advocates and others, including former federal officials involved in previous National Guard mobilizations, said the troops would lack both training and federal oversight, creating a risk of civil rights violations and deadly encounters with immigrants.

“This does not come from the federal government,” said Jayson P. Ahern, a former Customs and Border Protection acting commissioner who helped coordinate deployment of the National Guard to the border in 2006. “That’s the biggest distinction here. This is the governor taking unilateral action. Not having that oversight and supervision and direction as part of a plan from the federal authorities, I think it is reckless and could lead to significant safety issues.”