Weekend Gazette 072614

Saturday July 26th 2014

Gaza conflict: Death toll passes 1,000

The death toll in Gaza has passed 1,000, Palestinian medical officials say, 19 days after Israel launched an offensive against Hamas militants.

It comes amid a 12-hour humanitarian truce, which Gaza residents have been using to gather essential supplies and retrieve bodies buried under rubble.
Forty-two Israelis have also been killed since the Israel-Hamas conflict began on 8 July.
International talks urging a longer truce were held in Paris on Saturday.
Dozens of bodies have been retrieved from previously inaccessible areas since the truce began at 08:00 local time (05:00 GMT), the BBC's Yolande Knell in Gaza reports.
About 5,870 Palestinians have also been wounded in the 19 days of fighting, health officials say.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said three soldiers were killed in fighting overnight, bringing the total number of Israeli deaths to 40 soldiers and two civilians.

Egypt-Turkey relations: Egypt to summon Turkish envoy over Erdogan's Palestinian remarks 

CAIRO - Egypt will summon the Turkish charge d'affaires in protest at comments by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who accused Egypt of lacking a sincere approach to the Palestinian issue, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
Erdogan made the comments in a recent interview with broadcaster CNN. The most senior Turkish diplomat in Egypt was already summoned earlier this month after Erdogan called Egypt's President an "illegitimate tyrant".
Relations between Egypt and Turkey have soured since the Egyptian army last year ousted the governing Muslim Brotherhood, which Erdogan supports.   
Erdogan has also angered Israel of late.
Last week, Erdogan made comments about Israel's actions in its operation against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip that caused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to complain to US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Netanyahu told Kerry that the words of the leader of Washington’s close NATO ally were anti-Semitic and that they profaned the memory of the Holocaust.
Erdogan, in the midst of a presidential campaign, said on Saturday that “Those who condemn Hitler day and night have surpassed Hitler in barbarism.”

Egypt to try 20 suspected militants accused in terrorist attacks against security forces

CAIRO –  Egypt's chief prosecutor's office says it has charged 20 suspected militants with carrying terrorist attacks that killed seven people and wounded more than 100.
The statement released by Hisham Barakat's office Saturday said those charges belonged to a terror group called Ajnad Misr, which started its attacks after the July ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. The group's name means "Soldiers of Egypt" in Arabic.

The statement said the suspected militants planted explosives around police stations and security checkpoints. It said 14 suspected members are in custody and six others are on the run.
Ajnad Misr has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks, latest of which were bomb blasts that killed two senior officers outside the presidential palace.

Across Multiple Fronts, Syria Records One of Its Deadliest Weeks Ever

As the global spotlight shifted to Gaza, the past month has been particularly deadly in Syria. Why?

Last week, 700 people died in two days in Syria, in what has been described as the deadliest 48-hour period in the country since its conflict began more than four years ago. And 1,700 are reported to have died in the last seven days, in one of the worst weeks on record.

As the global spotlight shifted to Gaza, the past month has been particularly brutal in Syria. Why? Experts cite a bloody fight between Assad forces and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) for control of the large Shaar gas field, east of Homs; an increased regime offensive in Aleppo; and clashes between ISIS, which is rapidly consolidating its territory in the east, and rebel factions like Jabhat al-Nusra.

Joshua Landis, Editor of Syria Comment and Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma:

Deaths have increased because fighting has increased. ISIS is attacking the regime now and they're also trying to consolidate, and they're attacking the other militias. They are on a real tear. The whole of Deir Ezzor province saw lots of fighting this month, and there's been a lot of fighting in the Kurdish areas as well.

US evacuates embassy staff from Libya due to militia clashes

The US says it has temporarily evacuated its staff from the Libyan capital Tripoli over security concerns.

Staff, including marine guards providing security to the embassy, have been transferred to Tunisia "due to the ongoing violence resulting from clashes between Libyan militias," it adds.
Secretary of State John Kerry said there was a "real risk" to staff.
It comes amid fierce clashes between rival militias in the capital, with intense fighting at Tripoli airport.
Libya has been gripped by instability since the 2011 uprising, with swathes of the country controlled by militias.
With no army, Libya's central government has increasingly lost control over the country to rogue and powerful militias in the last two years, says the BBC's Rana Jawad in Tripoli.
Military assistance The US embassy in Tripoli was already operating on limited staffing. All remaining personnel were driven overland to Tunisia in the early hours of Saturday.
The US military said it had "assisted in the relocation" of embassy staff, using F-16 and MV-22 Osprey aircraft.
It said the five-hour operation was "conducted without incident".

North Korea Fires Short-Range Missile Into Sea

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile into waters off its east coast on Saturday, a South Korean defense official said. It was the latest in a slew of weapons tests by Pyongyang, and came on the eve of the 61st anniversary of the signing of an armistice that ended the rivals' war.
The missile, fired from North Korea's southwest Hwanghae province on Saturday evening, flew about 500 kilometers (310 miles) across the country before landing in the sea, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of department rules. He gave no further details.
North Korea routinely test-fires missiles, artillery and rockets, but the number of weapons tests it has conducted this year is much higher than previous years. Outside analysts say this indicates that North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un, is handling things differently than his late father, Kim Jong Il, who sparingly used longer-range missile and nuclear tests as negotiating cards with the outside world to win concessions. Kim Jong Un inherited power upon his father's death in December 2011.
Analysts also say Kim Jong Un is expected to order the military to keep conducting weapons tests unless rival South Korea and the U.S. make a major concession such as scaling down their regular joint military drills. Pyongyang calls the drills by Seoul and Washington a rehearsal for invasion, though the allies say they have no intention of attacking North Korea. Annual summertime exercises by South Korean and U.S. troops are slated for next month.
The Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war because an armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War has yet to be replaced by a peace treaty. The U.S. has about 28,500 troops in South Korea to deter potential aggression from the North.

 Ukraine launches offensive to retake Donetsk

KIEV, Ukraine –  Ukrainian officials said their forces advanced to the outskirts of a key town north of Donetsk on Saturday in hopes of retaking the stronghold held for months by pro-Russia rebels.
The move comes as Ukrainian forces appear to have gained some momentum recently by retaking control of territory from the rebels. But Russia also appears to becoming more involved in the fighting, with the U.S. and Ukraine accusing Moscow of moving heavily artillery across the border to the rebels.

Ukrainian national security spokesman Andriy Lysenko said Ukrainian forces were outside Horlikva, just north of the regional center of Donetsk.
"The direct route is open for the forces of the anti-terrorist operation to the capital of the Donbass region -- the city of Donetsk," Lysenko said.
Donetsk, a city of about 1 million people, is a major center of the separatist uprising that has battled Ukrainian government forces for five months.
An Associated Press reporter found the highway north of Donetsk blocked by rebels and heard the sound of artillery to the north. Explosions were heard in the direction of the town's airport, on the northwest edge of the city, an area frequently contested by Ukrainian forces and rebels. Black smoke rose from the direction of Yakovlikva, a northern suburb of Donetsk.
Related : 15,000 Russian Troops Amassed Along Ukraine Border: U.S. Ambassador To NATO

EU expands Russian oligarch sanctions blacklist in wake of MH17 crash

Measures against Moscow looking likely after shooting down of plane, though deep divisions remain among 28 member states

The European Union has expanded its blacklist of Russians subject to sanctions and broad economic measures against Moscow are looking increasingly likely following the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 despite deep divisions among the 28 EU member states.
Such measures would represent a rift between Russia and the rest of Europe of a depth not seen for over 20 years. While analysts balk at describing the looming standoff as a new cold war, pointing out Russia is a much less formidable power than the Soviet Union, they say the new east-west tensions could intensify and prove very hard to reverse.
So far, with no sign of an end to Russian military support for separatists in eastern Ukraine and reports of direct artillery fire from inside Russia against Ukrainian positions, Vladimir Putin appears to be responding to the threat of more sanctions by raising the stakes on the battlefield.
"Putin has dug himself into a hole," said John Lough, an associate fellow at the Chatham House thinktank's Russia and Eurasia programme. "He has revved up public opinion with grotesque use of propaganda, and it is not clear what he can do with the national mood he has released. What is it going to focus on? This could transform the relationship extremely negatively to one of long-term mutual alienation."
However, Lough added: "We are a long way off from a new cold war. Russia is a very different country from the Soviet Union, with no unifying ideology. This is a collision of interests rather than of ideologies. Inadvertently the EU finds itself in competition with Russia on its periphery."

Pakistan hands over Islamabad security to army

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan government on Friday handed over federal capital Islamabad's security to the army for three months.

The move is seen in light of opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan's call for "decisive" march to Islamabad on the eve of the country's independence day on August 14.

Khan has been mounting pressure on the government to agree to an independent inquiry into the alleged rigging in the national polls last year.

He said his dream of "new Pakistan" would be realized only by taking to the streets. "On the Independence Day, I would expose the whole team that had fixed the last general election match," Khan said in Lahore.

"The azadi (independence) march from Lahore will be a final battle to root out the corrupt and bring in a fair system in the country."

Political analysts believe the government is primarily trying to contain Khan's march besides countering the terrorist threats in the wake of ongoing anti-Taliban military offensive in North Waziristan by calling the army.

Guantánamo Defendant Gets Own Trial

A military judge has ruled that one of five prisoners at the Guantánamo Bay naval base charged in the Sept. 11 attack should be tried separately from his co-defendants. Col. James Pohl of the Army ruled Thursday that Ramzi Binalshibh should get a separate war crimes trial because legal issues that apply only to him are preventing the case from moving forward against the other four, one of whom is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a Pakistani who is the self-proclaimed mastermind of the plot. Mr. Binalshibh, of Yemen, and the four others are facing trial by military commission at the United States base in Cuba.

Detroit revs up for approval of bankruptcy plan

Detroit could be on the fast track to complete the final, crucial phase of its historic bankruptcy case, as settlements with key creditors line up and city workers and retirees demonstrate overwhelming support for cost-saving retirement benefit changes.
While a small, hard-core group of creditors continues to hold out for a better deal, the support among workers and retirees may help push through the city’s plan to adjust $18-billion of debt and exit the biggest Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. It has moved the possibility of a “cram down,” where a bankruptcy plan is imposed on objecting creditors, to center stage.

Obama: Migrant youths without claims will be sent home

President Barack Obama has told Central American leaders that migrant children flooding into the US without legitimate legal claims will be sent home.

The presidents of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador met Mr Obama at the White House on Friday to discuss the crisis at the US southern border.
More than 50,000 children, many unaccompanied, have been detained at the border since October.
Mr Obama said they must deter more children from attempting the journey.
"All of us recognise that we have a shared responsibility to address this problem," Mr Obama told reporters at the White House on Friday, flanked by Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez and El Salvador President Salvador Sanchez Ceren. 

Fight heats up over EPA sabotage of Alaska gold mine

The Environmental Protection Agency is under fire for a preemptive strike against a massive copper and gold mine in Alaska, where hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of jobs are at stake.
The controversy centers on Pebble Mine, located 200 miles southeast of Anchorage. It is the largest deposit of copper and gold in North America.

But environmental groups and fishermen, worried about the impact to the world’s most abundant salmon run in Bristol Bay, fought the mine from the beginning.
“It was people from Alaska that requested the EPA come in and take action,” said Tim Bristol, of Trout Unlimited in Anchorage. “We just don’t feel like we’re getting our concerns heard by the state of Alaska.”
The EPA did act, using the 1972 Clean Water Act for the first time ever to stop a mine before the owners even came out with a detailed plan.
The company behind the mine claims the agency went too far.
“The intent of the EPA is to take on an authority that nowhere has Congress given them, to go across America and determine where development should occur and where it shouldn’t occur before anyone ever files a permit,” Pebble Limited Partnership CEO Tom Collier said.

Dan Pfeiffer: White House Expects John Boehner To Try For Impeachment

WASHINGTON -- One of President Barack Obama's top advisers said on Friday that he expects House Republicans will ultimately file articles of impeachment against the president.
Dan Pfeiffer, a senior aide who has been with the administration since Obama first took office, told reporters that he anticipated that a lawsuit filed by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) over executive actions taken by the president on health care would ultimately not be enough to satisfy some of the more vocal conservatives in Congress.
Pfeiffer added that coming executive actions surrounding immigration reform would only stoke the impeachment flames.
"I think a lot of people in this town laugh that off," said Pfeiffer. "I would not discount that possibility. I think that Speaker Boehner, by going down this path of this lawsuit, has opened the door to Republicans possibly considering impeachment at some point in the future."
Speaking at the Christian Science Monitor breakfast, Pfeiffer based his prediction on several factors. The first was former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) calling for articles of impeachment to be drawn over the president's executive action allowing certain young undocumented immigrants to stay in the country. The second was a CNN poll released Friday morning showing that while just 33 percent of the country supported impeachment, a full 57 percent of Republicans were in favor of it.
"I think impeachment is a very serious thing that has been bandied about by the recent Republican vice presidential nominee and others in a very unserious way," said Pfeiffer. "And no one has even made any allegation of anything that would be within six universes from what is generally considered in that space."

More than 30,000 undocumented kids have been released to sponsors in every state

More than 30,000 unaccompanied child migrants have been released to sponsors in each state this year, according to federal data.
A recent spike in the number of undocumented child migrants — which federal officials describe as “unprecedented” — has forced more than half of the nation’s governors to weigh in on the issue, with some offering to help the federal government locate temporary shelters for the children, but many viewing it as an opportunity to chastise the administration for what they consider to be flawed border policies.
As depicted in the map above, huge numbers of children have been placed with sponsors, who take care of the minors while their immigration cases are processed. More than 1,000 children were released in each of 10 states. Texas was home to the most released children this year at 4,280. New York, Florida and California, each has received more than 3,000 released children. Nine states have received ten or fewer children. Vermont, which is looking for facilities that can temporarily house groups of children for the federal government, received just three, second only to Montana’s single released child. The children receive vaccinations and medical screenings before they are released to their sponsors, who are often relatives, and sponsors receive background checks.
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