Weekend Gazette 070514

Saturday July 5th 2014 Weekend Pt.1

Egypt life terms for Badie and 36 Brotherhood figures

An Egyptian court has sentenced Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie and 36 other Islamists to life in jail.

They were accused of inciting violence and blocking a road near Cairo during protests over the military-led removal of President Mohammed Morsi last July.

New President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has pledged to eliminate the Brotherhood.

Badie has already been given two death sentences. The court on Saturday also upheld death sentences on 10 other figures - eight of them in absentia.

Badie has yet to be tried on a number of other charges, as has Mohammed Morsi.

The Egyptian authorities have cracked down harshly on Islamists and other political opponents since President Morsi, who belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, was removed following mass protests.

The group was banned in December 2013. Mass trials

On Saturday, Judge Hassan Farid ruled the defendants were involved in violence and the murder of two people "to achieve terrorist goals" during protests last July.

Amnesty International says at least 16,000 people have been detained in the past year alone as part of the government's bid to silence Mohammed Morsi's supporters.

Egypt to increase petrol prices by up to 78% as government cuts subsidies

Electricity prices set to double over five years in attempt to revive economy battered by political turmoil

Egypt will start raising petrol prices by up to 78% from midnight on Friday, an oil ministry source told Reuters, as it tries to cut energy subsidies to ease the burden on its swelling budget deficit.

"The increase will start being implemented by midnight," the source said.

Food and energy subsidies traditionally eat up a quarter of state spending and the government is taking steps to reform its subsidy programme and revive an economy that has been battered by more than three years of political turmoil.

The source said the price of 92-octane petrol would be 2.60 Egyptian pounds (21p) a litre, up 40% from its current price of 1.85 pounds, while 80-octane petrol would rise to 1.60 pounds a litre, up 78%.

Diesel will rise to 1.80 pounds a litre, an increase of 63%, while the less commonly used natural gas for vehicles will rise by 175% to 1.10 pounds a cubic metre.

The newly elected president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, has already raised electricity prices in his efforts to reform energy subsidies, one of a range of politically sensitive subsidies that also cover transport, food and agriculture.

Electricity prices began to rise this month under a plan to eliminate power subsidies within five years, the electricity minister said on Thursday.

Electricity prices are set to double over five years, but the introduction of a more graduated pricing structure aims to reduce the burden on the poor in a country where one person in four lives on less than $2 a day.

State finances have been decimated by more than three years of political turmoil, but the government is trying to improve them without provoking a backlash from Egyptians, who have helped topple two presidents since 2011 but have yet to see an improvement in living standards.

Sunni extremist group destroys shrines and Shiite mosques in northern Iraq

BAGHDAD – Images posted online show that Islamic extremists have destroyed at least 10 ancient shrines and Shiite mosques in territory they have seized in northern Iraq in recent weeks.

The photographs, on a website that frequently carries official statements from the Islamic State extremist group, document the destruction in the city of Mosul and the town of Tal Afar.

Some of the photos show bulldozers plowing through walls, while others show explosives demolishing the buildings in a cloud of smoke and rubble.
Residents from both Mosul and Tal Afar confirmed the destruction of the sites.
Sunni extremists consider Shiites Muslims heretics, and the veneration of saints apostasy.

Taliban Militants Set 200 Oil Tankers Ablaze In Afghanistan

Taliban insurgents set fire on Saturday to about 200 oil tanker trucks supplying fuel for NATO forces in an attack just outside the Afghan capital Kabul, police said.
Television footage showed black smoke billowing above the site of the attack, with the charred wreckage of dozens of trucks scattered around a vast parking space.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the trucks carried fuel intended for U.S.-led NATO forces.
It was unclear how the fire was started. Some Afghan media reported that insurgents had fired rockets at the tankers late on Friday. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
"The number of tankers on fire is not yet clear, but based on preliminary reports from police around 200 tankers have been burnt," the interior ministry said in a statement.
The attack happened as Afghanistan prepares to announce preliminary results of the final round of a presidential election on Monday in a tense atmosphere. Each of the two candidates vying to succeed President Hamid Karzai accuses the other of mass fraud.
The Taliban have vowed to disrupt the election process. On Thursday, militants fired rockets into Kabul's international airport, destroying a helicopter. Related: Islamic State Militants Seize Syria's Al-Tanak Oil Field

Rocket fire into Israel continues as ceasefire remains elusive

A slew of rocket fire from Gaza continued throughout Saturday afternoon, with Palestinian terrorists launching eight rockets toward Israel since midnight.
A soldier was lightly wounded from shrapnel after a mortal shell exploded in Eshkol Regional Council Saturday afternoon, the IDF said.
The soldier was taken to hospital for medical treatment. No other injuries were reported.\
The Iron Dome rocket defense system intercepted one projectile over southern Israel.
On Friday, some 20 rockets were fired by Gazan terrorists.
The Israel Air Force struck targets in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday evening in retaliation for the Palestinian rocket barrage that pounded the South. There is no word of casualties.
According to the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, IAF aircraft struck three sites near the southern Gaza town of Rafah. The targets were apparently pieces of equipment used to launch rockets.
Within an hour after the attack, four rockets exploded in the Eshkol regional council. No word of casualties.
Israel was slated to wait an additional 24 hours from Friday to allow the Egyptian government to broker a ceasefire which Jerusalem hopes will restore calm along the Gaza frontier.
In total, 18 rockets from Gaza struck Israel on Friday.
Israeli commentators reported on Friday that Hamas has communicated to Cairo its desire to end the current round of fighting in the south. According to reports, Hamas has no wish to escalate the situation in the south, which has heated up in recent days as Palestinians in Gaza continue to pound the western Negev communities with rockets and mortars.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has seemingly opted for a restrained Israeli military response against Hamas despite the fact that rockets continue to explode in the south.
The Israeli cabinet was reportedly divided over the appropriate Israeli response to the Palestinian rocket barrage. Hawkish ministers like Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Liberman, and Gilad Erdan want a more aggressive military blow against Hamas, while Tzipi Livni, Yair Lapid, and Yitzhak Aharonovich have urged the prime minister to refrain from ordering a stepped-up assault on Hamas.
Thus far, Netanyahu has been siding with the moderates in the cabinet, according to Channel 10.

Palestinian Mohammad Abu Khdair 'was burned alive'

A Palestinian teenager killed in Jerusalem was burned alive, first post mortem examination findings quoted by the Palestinian attorney-general say.

"The direct cause of death was burns as a result of fire," Mohammed al-A'wewy was quoted as saying. Israeli authorities say the circumstances surrounding the death of Mohammad Abu Khdair, 16, are unclear.

His death followed the abduction and murder of three young Israelis, with violent clashes spreading overnight. The post mortem examination on Mohammad Abu Khdair was carried out by Israeli doctors, with Saber al-Aloul, the director of the Palestinian forensic institute, in attendance.

The Palestinian official news agency Wafa quoted the attorney-general as saying that Mr Aloul had reported fire dust in the respiratory canal, meaning the victim had "inhaled this material while he was burnt alive".

Mohammad Abu Khdair, who had also suffered a head injury, had burns to 90% of the body, it was reported.

Ukraine Claims Victory In Rebel Stronghold Of Slovyansk

DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's forces claimed a significant success against pro-Russian insurgents on Saturday, chasing them from one of their strongholds in the embattled east of the country.

Rebels fleeing from the city of Slovyansk vowed to regroup elsewhere and fight on.

President Petro Poroshenko said in a statement that government troops took Slovyansk, a city of about 100,000 that has been a center of the fighting between Kiev's troops and the pro-Russian insurgents, after a night of fighting.

Poroshenko ordered the armed forces to raise the Ukrainian flag over the city, which has been under control of the rebels since early April when they seized the city's administrative and police buildings.

However, Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for the National Security and Defense Council, said mopping-up operations were continuing.

"Slovyansk is under siege. Now an operation is going on to neutralize small groups hiding in buildings where peaceful citizens are living," Lysenko told journalists.

Andrei Purgin of the separatist Donetsk People's Republic told The Associated Press that rebels were evacuating, but claimed the army's campaign had left the city "in ruins."

Al-Shabab Launches Deadly Car Bomb Attack Outside Somalia's Parliament

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Four people were killed Saturday when a car laden with explosives blew up near the parliament building in the Somali capital, a police official said Saturday.

The Somali terror group al-Shabab, which has recently targeted parliamentarians, claimed responsibility.

Capt. Mohammed Hussein said the car exploded at a checkpoint where it had been stopped by Somali troops. The dead were soldiers and refugees from an internal refugee camp near the checkpoint, Hussein said.

Troops had ordered the driver of the car out the vehicle for a search when he detonated the explosives, Hussein said.

Seven children from the camp were wounded in the attack.

Somali legislators were holding a meeting at the parliament at the time of the attack, but al-Shabab did not say what the intended target was.

Al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab has said it was responsible for the killing of a Somali lawmaker and his bodyguard in a drive-by shooting earlier this week.

Queen Elizabeth gives her name to Britain's biggest warship

Queen Elizabeth has smashed a bottle of whisky against Britain's biggest warship as she gave her name to the new aircraft carrier at a ceremony in Scotland.
The 65,000-tonne HMS Queen Elizabeth is one of two carriers being built at a cost of £6.2 billion ($11.36 billion) to overhaul Britain's naval capabilities.
The pomp of the ceremony at Rosyth Dockyard came despite serious doubts about the carrier, which will not be able to operate its US-built jets until 2020.
The 88-year-old monarch, attending the naming ceremony with her husband, Prince Philip, said Britain's future flagship marked "a new phase in our naval history".
"Wherever this ship may serve, whatever tasks may be asked of her, let all those who serve on her know that on this day she was blessed with the prayers of us all for her success and her safe return to calm waters," she said.
"I name this ship Queen Elizabeth. May god bless her and all who sail in her."
She then pressed a button to bring a bottle of Bowmore malt whisky from the Scottish island of Islay crashing down on to the side of the ship.
British authorities eschewed the traditional champagne in honour of the Scottish location.
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron said the ship would be "the spearhead of British sea power for the next half-century".
The Royal Navy has been without an aircraft carrier since Mr Cameron's coalition government scrapped Britain's previous vessels in 2010 as part of austerity measures to curb a huge deficit.
The new HMS Queen Elizabeth is set for its first sea trials in 2016, before entering service in 2017.
Its sister ship, HMS Prince of Wales, is still under construction.
Once they are fully operational, the warships will be able to carry 40 aircraft, both rotary and fixed wing, and are intended to provide a mobile base for Britain's navy, army and air force around the world.
However, the ship will not actually be able to operate with its complement of US-built F-35 Lightning II jets until 2020, meaning Britain faces another six years without any active carrier capability.
The F-35 has been dogged by problems. The US military grounded its entire fleet of the aircraft on Thursday as it completes additional engine inspections following a fire aboard one of the aircraft in Florida last week.

Britain freezes assets of men said to have joined ISIS

LONDON: The British government on Friday froze the assets of three British citizens reported to have been involved in terrorism-related activities in Syria.

The Treasury added Nasser Muthana and Reyaad Khan, both from Cardiff, and Ruhul Amin, from Aberdeen, to its list of people targeted for financial sanctions, according to the list posted on its website.

Muthana, a 20-year old student, appeared in an online video last month urging Muslims to join the militant group the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), his father Ahmed Muthana told the BBC.

Khan is a school friend of Muthana and also appeared in the video for ISIL along with Amin, various media reports said. Amin also has Bangladeshi nationality, according to the website.

ISIL has in recent weeks seized control of large parts of northern Iraq and declared an Islamic 'caliphate' spanning adjacent parts of Syria and Iraq, renaming itself simply the Islamic State. 
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DOJ court documents in Benghazi suspect case put video narrative to rest

Court documents filed by the U.S. Justice Department in the criminal case against Benghazi attack suspect Ahmed Abu Khatallah provide unprecedented details about the evolution of the assault and further shatter the Obama administration's initial claim that it sprouted from protests over an anti-Islam film. 
The narrative that the video played a role continues to live on, with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying recently that some of the attackers may indeed have been influenced by the online video. 

But the Justice Department's court filings make clear that at least those spearheading the attack were part of a "conspiracy," one that involved several members of the Ansar al-Sharia "Islamic extremist militia." 
A government motion filed Tuesday seeking Khatallah's detention provides some of the greatest detail to date on the suspect's alleged role. 
The motion says that in the days preceding the attack, the defendant "voiced concern and opposition to the presence of an American facility in Benghazi." According to the motion, a group of 20 or more "armed men," including militia members, assembled outside the U.S. compound at 9:45 p.m. the night of Sept. 11, 2012, and "aggressively breached" the gate. 
They carried rifles, handguns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. 
After breaching the gate, they stole a U.S. vehicle, "forcibly entered" buildings and stole U.S. property. 

Some on right push to impeach Obama

WASHINGTON — For many on the far political right, it’s high time to charge President Barack Obama with high crimes and misdemeanors.

The “I-word” – impeachment _ is creeping back into the political lexicon nearly 16 years after the House of Representatives impeached President Bill Clinton for lying under oath about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

From conservative media outlets to the campaign trail to book stores, chatter about impeaching Obama and members of his administration has heated up in recent weeks. It’s fueled by conservative anger over the president’s increasing use of executive actions on issues such as immigration and air pollution regulations, the exchange of Taliban detainees for the release of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdhal, and the familiar issue of the Affordable Care Act.

“I submit that Barack Hussein Obama’s unilateral negotiations with terrorists and the ensuing release of their key leadership without consult – mandated by law – with the U.S. Congress represents high crimes and misdemeanors, an impeachable offense,” former Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., wrote on his website in June.

South Dakota’s Republican Party passed a resolution at its June convention calling for Obama’s impeachment for violating “his oath of office in numerous ways.”

“We wanted to have a shot across the bow to the president and Congress that nobody is above the law,” said Dr. Allen Unruh, the delegate who sponsored the resolution. “Our goal is to embolden Congress.”

Unruh said he has a “thick book on impeachable offenses of the president.” So does Andrew McCarthy, who’s been making the conservative media rounds with his recently released book “Faithless Execution: Building the Case for Obama’s Impeachment,” which offers a sort of template for removing Obama from office.

Here Are 4 Lawsuits That Could Inflict More Damage on Unions After Harris v. Quinn

On Monday, the Supreme Court's conservative justices on Monday defied some expectations by not decimating public-employee labor unions via their ruling in Harris v. Quinn. Given the opportunity to issue a sprawling decision that would overturn decades of precedent, and in the process kneecap the basic model of public-employee unionism, the five justices, led by Samuel Alito, instead issued a narrower decision. They ruled that home health care workers in Illinois are not full-fledged public workers and thus cannot be required to pay so-called fair-share fees to unions—money that goes toward the cost of union representation for all workers in a particular workplace.

But we may be back in this same situation a year from now, with the Supreme Court holding the fate of public-employee unions in its hands. That's because there are a handful of ongoing lawsuits in courts around the country that pose similar challenges to unions as Harris did and that could end up before the Supreme Court. It's possible that one of these cases could do further damage to the labor movement—with the potential to wipe out the precedent set in 1977's Abood v. Detroit Board of Education decision. (In Abood, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of public-employee unions collecting fair-share fees from nonmembers to pay the costs of collective bargaining.)

If you're looking for a common thread between these challenges, it's the National Right-to-Work Legal Foundation, the driving force behind many anti-union suits around the country. The foundation represented the plaintiffs in Harris v. Quinn, and it has provided legal help in two of the following cases. READ MORE

Congress poised to slash funding for new Homeland Security headquarters

The Department of Homeland Security’s long-delayed new headquarters is running into trouble in Congress again, with Republican lawmakers seeking to end funding for the troubled project and Democrats recommending cuts.

With construction of the headquarters complex already more than a decade behind schedule, a key House committee is recommending that the Obama administration’s $323 million fiscal year 2015 request for the project be cut to zero, according to budget documents.

Though Senate appropriators have not finalized their budget, they have already recommended slashing $25 million from the administration’s request.

The final amount of funding for the decade-old project — billed as critical for national security and the revitalization of Southeast Washington — is unclear. Neither chamber has approved a budget, and Washington’s broken budget process is never predictable. But a large cut would be another devastating blow for the capital region’s largest planned construction project since the Pentagon, an effort that has been bedeviled by partisan brawling, escalating costs and lackluster support from the Obama administration.

The General Services Administration, which is developing the site for the DHS, “needs the proper funding to complete what we’ve started and to deliver the project on time and on budget,’’ said Mafara Hobson, a GSA spokeswoman. More funding cuts, she said, “means that the project will become more costly over time” as construction and other expenses rise.

A DHS spokeswoman declined to comment.

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Keystone XL process requires 'patience,' U.S. ambassador tells Canada

The U.S. ambassador to Canada is asking Canadians for "patience" on the Keystone XL issue on his first Independence Day in Ottawa.
Bruce Heyman, in an interview with Hallie Cotnam on CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning, was asked about the diplomatic issue that has been dogging the Obama administration.
"Keystone is a challenge that we have," Heyman said. "It is something that we are going to have to work on together. Right now, it is in a process and a decision will be made. But we are going to move on."
Heyman, who started his role as ambassador in April, said Keystone XL is something Canadians and Americans take "very seriously."
The proposed Keystone XL pipeline would carry bitumen from Alberta's oilsands to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.
The Canadian government, business groups and Republicans have been pressuring the Obama administration to approve the pipeline. Environmental groups have been calling on Obama to reject it, arguing the project will contribute to global warming.
"I think that people need to just have some patience here with us as we are going through this process," Heyman said. "A lack of an answer is not a yes, it is not a no, it's just that we are working through this."
In June, Heyman outlined his agenda as ambassador. He indicated priorities for his tenure will include intellectual property, the Beyond the Border deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and slashing greenhouse gas emissions.

British Columbia and Vancouver demand answers about Kinder Morgan pipeline

VANCOUVER - The B.C. and City of Vancouver governments say energy giant Kinder Morgan is being evasive about its proposed Trans Mountain pipeline project, and the two governments filed a motion Friday with the National Energy Board to force the company to provide more in-depth answers.
According to Vancouver deputy city manager Sadhu Johnston, the company did not answer 146 of the 394 questions posed to it by the city, which has status as an intervenor in the project.
"They're not able to adequately answer issues related to spills and emergency response to those spills," said Johnston.
He said questions around what makes up diluted bitumen oil -- which could be transported in the pipelines -- were not answered by the company, citing trade secrets.
"It's really tough to develop an emergency plan to respond to it for our own municipality if we don't know how it behaves," Johnston said, pointing out the company said a sunny, warm day is a worst-case scenario for a spill. "We're trying to get more information, but can't seem to, on why they would assume that's a worst-case scenario."
Kinder Morgan said in an email Friday afternoon it met the requirements of the process in the answers it provided to the city.
The company said some of the questions asked would raise security or market concerns if they were answered and said intervenors have the opportunity to make more queries in September.
It also suggested some of the questions asked had no bearing on the proposal.
"Trans Mountain believes it provided robust responses to the questions submitted that were within the scope of the regulatory review," the email said. "It is normal in regulatory processes that there are debates about whether questions are appropriate and/or in scope."

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