Gazette 080614

Wednesday August 6th 2014

Gaza: Israeli-Palestinian indirect talks begin in Cairo

Indirect talks between Israeli and Palestinian representatives are taking place in the Egyptian capital Cairo.

They come after a four-week conflict in Gaza that has claimed more than 1,900 lives.
Egyptian mediators are shuttling between the two delegations, relaying each side's demands.
A 72-hour truce is now in its second day in Gaza, the longest lull in fighting since the conflict began on 8 July.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has called for an end to the "senseless cycle of suffering" in Gaza.
Speaking at the General Assembly in New York, he strongly criticised Israel for shelling UN compounds during its offensive.
He said that while there were reports of Hamas rockets being fired from near UN premises, the "mere suspicion of militant activity does not justify jeopardising the lives and safety of many thousands of innocent civilians".
US Secretary of State John Kerry has urged both sides to use the ceasefire to move towards broader negotiations.
Mr Kerry told the BBC that the situation could "concentrate people's minds" on the need to negotiate a two-state solution.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of displaced Gazans have been returning to their homes.
The BBC's Jon Donnison, in Gaza City, says many people have found nothing left.
Related:Israel-Hamas cease-fire holds for second day ahead of Cairo talks on Gaza's future

Iraqi Airstrike Kills 60 Islamic State Fighters In Mosul: State TV

An Iraqi army airstrike in the militant-held northern city of Mosul on Wednesday killed 60 fighters from the extremists Islamic State group, Iraq's state television reported.The claim could not be independently verified and the area was inaccessible to most media.
According to the report, which cited unnamed intelligence officials, the dawn strike targeted a downtown Mosul prison that was being used by Islamic State members as a religious court and detention facility.

The TV said 60 militants were killed in the strike and about 300 people who were in the militants' custody were set free. The report did not say if there were other casualties besides the militants and did not say who freed the prisoners or how.
Sunni extremists from the al-Qaida-breakaway Islamic State group seized Mosul, Iraq's largest second-largest city, in a blitz offensive in June that also captured large swaths of the country's north and west. The militant onslaught plunged Iraq into its worst crisis since the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011.
The group has since imposed a self-styled caliphate in territory it controls in Iraq and Syria, imposing the militants' harsh interpretation of Islamic law.
Iraqi government forces and allied Sunni tribal militiamen have been struggling to dislodge the militants from the area they captured, but with no apparent progress.
A Mosul resident, speaking on condition of anonymity fearing for his own safety, told The Associated Press over the phone that families of the prisoners rushed to the site to help their kin after the airstrike.
"The prison was partly damaged in the airstrike," he said, adding that he did not know if there were casualties.

40,000 Iraqis stranded on mountain as Isis jihadists threaten death

Members of minority Yazidi sect face slaughter if they go down and dehydration if they stay, while 130,000 fled to Kurdish north

Tens of thousands of members of one of Iraq's oldest minorities have been stranded on a mountain in the country's north-west, facing slaughter at the hands of jihadists surrounding them below if they flee, or death by dehydration if they stay.
UN groups say at least 40,000 members of the Yazidi sect, many of them women and children, have taken refuge in nine locations on Mount Sinjar, a craggy mile-high ridge identified in local legend as the final resting place of Noah's ark.
At least 130,000 more people, many from the Yazidi stronghold of Sinjar, have fled to Dohuk, in the Kurdish north, or to Irbil, where regional authorities have been struggling since June to deal with one of the biggest and most rapid refugee movements in decades.
Sinjar itself has been all but emptied of its 300,000 residents since jihadists stormed the city late on Saturday, but an estimated 25,000 people remain. "We are being told to convert, or to lose our heads," said Khuldoon Atyas, who has stayed behind to guard his family's crops. "There is no one coming to help."
Another man, who is hiding in the mountains and identified himself as Nafi'ee, said: "Food is low, ammunition is low and so is water. We have one piece of bread to share between 10 people. We have to walk 2km [1.2 miles] to get water. There were some air strikes yesterday [against the jihadists], but they have made no difference."

Afghan soldier who killed US general hid in bathroom before attack, official says

KABUL, Afghanistan –  The Afghan soldier who killed a U.S. two-star general and wounded other top officers hid in a bathroom before his assault and used a NATO assault rifle in his attack, an Afghan military official said Wednesday.
The investigation into the killing of Maj. Gen. Harold J. Greene, the highest-ranked U.S. officer to be slain in combat since 1970 in the Vietnam War, focused on the Afghan soldier, who went by the single name Rafiqullah, the official said. The shooting wounded about 15 people, including a German general and two Afghan generals, before Rafiqullah was killed, the official told The Associated Press.

However, Rafiqullah's motive for the attack remained unclear Wednesday as American officials prepared to fly Greene's body back to the U.S. and a similar attack saw an Afghan police officer drug and shoot dead seven of his colleagues, authorities said.
Rafiqullah, in his early 20s, had joined the Afghan army more than two years ago and came from the country's eastern Paktia province, the Afghan official said. On Tuesday, Rafiqullah had just returned from a patrol around the greater Camp Qargha, west of the Afghan capital, Kabul.
The official said it appeared others on patrol with Rafiqullah had turned in their NATO-issued assault rifles on arrival, but Rafiqullah kept his and hid in a bathroom. Rafiqullah opened fire when the generals walked into view, the official said.

Ukraine crisis: Putin orders retaliatory sanctions

Russian President Vladimir Putin has banned or curbed agricultural imports from countries imposing sanctions on Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.

In a decree published on the Kremlin website (in Russian), he ordered the measures to be introduced for one year.
Government departments were instructed to come up with a list of products subject to the order.
Russia has imposed import bans on other states in the past, but normally on grounds of public health.
Wednesday's decree did not specify which countries would be affected by the new measures but the EU and US recently tightened sanctions on Russia, with Brussels extending them from individuals to sectors of the economy.
Russia buys fruit and vegetables from the EU worth an annual 2bn euros (£1.6bn; $2.7bn).
Last week it banned most such imports from Poland on grounds of public health in what was seen as a thinly veiled retaliation for Poland's advocacy of tough action over Ukraine.
Russia, which was first subjected to sanctions after annexing Crimea in March, has been accused of fomenting the armed rebellion in Ukraine's eastern regions.
Related:Putin orders limits on agricultural imports from countries imposing sanctions on Russia

NATO fears ground invasion as Russia masses troops on Ukraine border

Russia has massed about 20,000 combat-ready troops on Ukraine's border and could use the pretext of a humanitarian mission to invade, NATO said on Wednesday, its starkest warning yet that Moscow could soon mount a ground assault against its neighbour.
With fighting escalating and rebels losing ground in the weeks since a Malaysian airliner was shot down over separatist-held territory, Russia has announced military exercises this week in the border region.
"We're not going to guess what's on Russia's mind, but we can see what Russia is doing on the ground – and that is of great concern. Russia has amassed around 20,000 combat-ready troops on Ukraine’s eastern border," NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said in an emailed statement.
Moscow could use "the pretext of a humanitarian or peace-keeping mission as an excuse to send troops into Eastern Ukraine", she said.
Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in the Black Sea in March, and Western countries say it funded and armed pro-Russian rebels that rose up in the east of Ukraine in April.
Since June, government troops have gained ground against the rebels, who are led almost exclusively by Russian citizens and have managed to acquire tanks, missiles and other heavy weaponry that Kiev and its Western allies say can only have come from across the frontier.

1 Sikh killed, 2 injured in gunmen attack in Pakistan's Peshawar

ISLAMABAD: Unidentified gunmen attacked members of the Sikh community in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Wednesday killing one on the spot while injuring two others.
Police officials said that the attack occurred at a busy marketplace in Hashtnagari area of Peshawar when members of the Sikh community had just opened their respective cosmetic shops.

The deceased was identified as Jagmohan Singh while the injured, Manmit Singh and Param Singh, were said to be in critical condition in the city's Lady Reading hospital.

Angry members of the Sikh community blocked the main Grand Trunk Road linking Peshawar with the capital city of Islamabad with protesters shouting slogans against the government and demanding justice. They also burnt tyres before marching towards the chief minister's office while carrying the dead body. Following assurances by CM Pervez Khattak during a meeting with 14-member delegation of Sikhs that foolproof security will be provided to the minority community, the protesters ended their protest.

At least 520 Sikh families live in Peshawar with 380 of them living in a locality known as Mohallah Jogan Shah. Several of them migrated from the tribal regions when Pakistani Taliban established their control there. In the past decade, Pakistan has increasingly become an unsafe place for minorities. In recent years, members of Christian, Sikh, Hindu and Ahamadiyya communities were brutally targeted across the country.

Two Hindu brothers, Ashok Kumar Malhi and Heralal Malhi, were shot dead after they resisted a robbery attempt while returning home from their confectionary shop last Thursday night in Umerkot town of Sindh province. Recently an old woman and her grand daughter belonging to Ahmaddiyya community were burnt alive in Gujranwala city of Punjab province while six members of Sikh community were shot dead this year in different parts of the country.

After a number of kidnappings from among the Sikh community in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and other tribal areas, some members have decided to wind up their shops in KP and relocate to Rawalpindi.

Italy falls back into recession

Italy's economy has fallen back into recession, latest official figures show, after contracting for two quarters in a row.

GDP, the value of all the country's goods and services, shrank 0.2% in the second quarter of the year.
The surprisingly weak number follows a 0.1% contraction in the first quarter.
Economists consider two quarters of shrinking GDP means a country is in recession.
At the end of last year the country appeared to be emerging from recession, growing fractionally in the last three months.
But since then the numbers have been getting worse.
Speaking before the release of the latest figures, Hetal Mehta, European economist with Legal & General Investment Management, told the BBC: "Italy has a huge pile of government debt and they need growth to bring that debt stock down, so having such weak growth figures is a major setback."
But the Bank of Italy said last month that GDP had contracted by 9% since the global financial crisis began in 2007.
Separate figures showed industrial output increased by 0.9% from May to June, the biggest increase in five months.

127 kg of cocaine seized from Spanish naval training ship, 3 detained

MADRID –  Spanish police say they have seized 127 kilograms of cocaine from Spanish navy training ship, which allegedly carried the drug from Colombia and dropped off some in New York.
A Civil Guard statement Wednesday said three sailors were arrested on July 12 when the ship returned to Spain, but the drug wasn't found until last Saturday, hidden in the ship's reserve sails.

Investigations began in May when U.S. authorities arrested two Colombians who allegedly picked up 20 kilograms of cocaine from sailors on the training ship, the Juan Sebastian de Elcano, during its stop in New York.
The Civil Guard said drug traffickers had contracted the sailors to transport the cocaine during a stop in the Colombian city of Cartegena de Indias.

Ebola outbreak: nurse who treated first victim in Nigeria dies

Nurse and five other people now battling the virus had helped care for Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, who died from Ebola

A nurse who treated Nigeria's first Ebola victim has died of the virus in Lagos as five new cases of the highly lethal disease were confirmed in Africa's most populous country.
The nurse had helped care for Patrick Sawyer, a 40-year-old Liberian-American civil servant who last month visited from Liberia, one of three countries in the region hit by the world's biggest epidemic. The five new cases are believed to be other health workers who came into contact with Sawyer, who died within days of his arrival.
The total death toll from the Ebola outbreak has now risen to 932 after another 45 patients died between 2 and 4 August, the World Health Organisation said.
"Yesterday the first known Nigerian to die of Ebola was recorded. This was one of the nurses that attended to the Liberian. The other five [newly confirmed] cases are being treated at an isolation ward," the Nigerian health minister, Onyebuchi Chukwu, told reporters in the capital, Abuja, on Wednesday.
Officials initially downplayed the risk of exposure, saying Sawyer had been immediately isolated when he collapsed on arrival at Lagos's bustling main airport two weeks ago.
But on Tuesday the state health commissioner, Jide Idris, said Ebola was diagnosed only after Sawyer had been taken to hospital and had direct or indirect contact with at least 70 others. They include airline passengers, airport officials and health workers, and have all been placed under precautionary surveillance. Seven have been quarantined.
Officials told reporters they were compiling a list of secondary contacts, and appealed to those who believed they may be at risk to come forward. "This is a call for everyone to be vigilant, especially with regard to relating to people who are ill," Idris said.
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Barack Obama hails 'new Africa emerging'

US President Barack Obama has said "a new Africa is emerging" as he opened the last day of a summit in Washington DC with 40 African leaders.

Wednesday's talks will cover both security concerns and corruption - two areas the US administration says is holding back growth in Africa.
US firms have pledged $14bn (£8.3bn) in investments during the summit.
Such investment will fight extremism across the region, US Secretary of State John Kerry has told the BBC.
In an interview with BBC's HARDtalk on Tuesday, Mr Kerry said stability from business projects was countering extremist ideologies and militant movements.
"There will be less Boko Harams, less al-Shababs. There will be less cause for people to have their minds filled with extremist ideology rather than to engage in the broader benefits of society."
In opening remarks at the state department on Wednesday, Mr Obama said Africa was a stronger continent despite challenges it faces, including the recent outbreak of Ebola.
"A new Africa is emerging - some of the world's fastest-growing economies and a growing middle class, the youngest and fastest growing population on Earth," Mr Obama said.
"Africa will help shape the world like never before," he said, adding: "Africa's progress is being led by Africans".
Leaders will discuss economic growth, security co-operation and improved governance in private talks during the day, ending the summit with an afternoon press conference.
Elsewhere in Washington DC, First Lady Michelle Obama and former First Lady Laura Bush are hosting a conference for spouses of the African leaders focused on education and health.

Killing of American general stirs new fears US leaving Afghanistan ‘short of the goal line’

The brazen killing of an American two-star general in an Afghan “insider attack” is raising new concerns in Washington that U.S. forces, when the combat mission ends in December, could leave behind a country vulnerable to extremists waiting in the wings.
Leading Republican lawmakers, who have long accused the administration of following a political timetable in Afghanistan and worry the country could follow in the path of unstable Iraq, pointed to the attack as another sign that militants are sending a message to the Afghan population.

“The Taliban’s recent campaign of high-profile attacks is calculated to accompany a global PR strategy highlighting the fact that U.S. and coalition forces will soon be leaving Afghanistan and abandoning its weak and ineffective government. The Taliban wants everyone to know it will soon dominate all aspects of life in Afghanistan once again,” House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement.  
“I have told the president privately and publicly that my biggest concern is that America will end its mission in Afghanistan just short of the goal line. … So let me reiterate: if the president decides to re-think his strategy, including withdrawals, deadlines, and policy restraints, particularly on certain associated terrorist networks, he will have my support.”
According to the administration’s latest timetable, announced in May, the U.S. combat mission will end in December of this year. Under the tentative plan, 9,800 U.S. troops will remain at the start of 2015, but that number will be cut in half by the end of next year. By the end of 2016, the U.S. is expected to maintain a “normal embassy presence” like it does in Iraq.

Senate report on CIA abuses delayed by fight over classified data

A long-awaited Senate report on the CIA's harsh interrogation of prisoners during the Bush administration will wait a while longer. The Senate and the White House can't agree on what to release to the public.
Last week, after months of review, the White House gave the Senate Intelligence Committee its list of what portions of the report's executive summary needed to be withheld to avoid disclosing classified information. But Tuesday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the committee chair, rejected the White House position.
"The redactions eliminate or obscure key facts that support the report’s findings and conclusions," Feinstein said in a statement. "Until these redactions are addressed to the committee's satisfaction, the report will not be made public."
Several Senate colleagues joined Feinstein in a coordinated assault on the White House position. Senate Armed Services Committee chair Carl Levin (D-Mich.), for example, said the redactions the administration wanted include "information that has already been publicly disclosed."

Feinstein said she was sending the White House a list of changes that would be necessary and that "the White House and the intelligence community have committed to working through these changes in good faith."

As U.S. Speeds the Path to Deportation, Distress Fills New Family Detention Centers

After declaring the surge of Central American migrants crossing the border a humanitarian crisis, the Obama administration has shifted sharply to a strategy of deterrence, moving families to isolated facilities and placing them on a fast track for deportation to send a blunt message back home that those caught entering illegally will not be permitted to stay.

In a far corner of the New Mexico desert, in the town of Artesia, more than 600 women and children are being held in an emergency detention center that opened in late June. On Friday, officials began filling up a new center in Karnes City, Tex., for up to 532 adults and children, and they are adding beds to a center for families in Pennsylvania that now holds about 95 people.

Most of the debate over the illegal influx has centered on about 57,000 unaccompanied minors apprehended since October. But the number of minors with parents has increased even faster, nearly tripling to more than 22,000 so far this year from about 8,500 in all of 2013, according to the Pew Research Center. More than 40,000 adults and their children — an unprecedented number — were caught along the southwest border, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Pentagon official begins to question Bergdahl 

A top Pentagon official began interviewing Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl on Wednesday morning at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, Bergdahl’s attorney, Eugene Fidell, confirmed to The Hill. 
Maj. Gen. Kenneth Dahl has been tasked with investigating the circumstances surrounding Bergdahl’s 2009 disappearance from his Army base in Afghanistan.
Dahl was appointed to the case in mid-June and Fidell told Reuters last week that Dahl is expected to complete the probe within 60 days from his appointment. It might, however, be extended, Fidell added. Bergdahl was abducted by Taliban militants who held him captive for nearly five years. 
When he was exchanged for five Taliban prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay in late May, a number of his Army comrades accused Bergdahl of deserting the military. Desertion would be punishable under the military’s code of justice. 
Bergdahl returned to regular duty last month after going through a reintegration process. He was assigned to perform administrative tasks at the base where he’s being questioned. 
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