Gazette 080814

Friday August 8th 2014

Israel air strikes resume in Gaza amid rockets

Israel says it has resumed air strikes in Gaza after Palestinian militants fired rockets following the end of a three-day truce on Friday morning.

The Israeli army called the renewed rocket attacks "unacceptable, intolerable and short-sighted".
Palestinian militant group Hamas, which dominates Gaza, earlier rejected any extension of the truce, saying Israel had failed to meet its demands.
Some 1,940 lives have been claimed in four weeks of fighting in Gaza.
Israeli government officials say they have pulled out of Egyptian-brokered negotiations with Hamas and Palestinian factions, stressing they will not "negotiate under fire".
'Terror sites'
On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a fresh offensive with air craft, tanks and gunboats in Gaza.
A 12-year-old boy was killed in a strike near a mosque in Gaza City, Palestinian officials told the BBC.
The IDF earlier announced it was striking "terror sites across the Gaza Strip" in response to renewed rocket fire.
Militants began firing missiles from Gaza shortly before the ceasefire ended at 08:00 local time (05:00 GMT).
The IDF said more than 33 rockets and mortars had been launched at Israel on Friday.
The military added that its Iron Dome anti-missile shield had intercepted three rockets, while the remaining ones fell on open ground.
Two Israelis were wounded in the attacks, according to health officials.
Related:

• Cease-Fire Ends As Gaza Militants Resume Rocket Attacks On Israel

• Israeli delegation leaves Egypt; Gazans flee eastern neighborhoods, again

Syrian Islamist rebels 'withdraw from Lebanese town after truce'

Islamist militants from Syria have reportedly mostly withdrawn from the Lebanese border town of Arsal.

Sunni Muslim clerics brokered a truce after days of fighting between the Syrian rebels and the Lebanese army.
Lebanon's government on Thursday announced an extra 12,000 troops would be deployed to the area.
Arsal fell to militants from Syria over the weekend, the first major incursion into Lebanon since the start of the Syrian conflict.
Seventeen Lebanese soldiers have died in the fighting, and 19 soldiers are reported to still be held captive by the militants who released three soldiers and six internal security forces officers (ISF) on Wednesday.

Facing serious humanitarian, security crisis, Iraqi and Kurdish officials relieved by US help

BAGHDAD –  Iraqi and Kurdish officials have welcomed the U.S. decision to authorize airdrops of humanitarian aid and airstrikes in northern Iraq to counter advancing Sunni radical militants.
A string of victories across the north of the country by the radical Islamic State group and their allies have sent Iraq's minorities fleeing for their lives, exacerbating the country's already-dire humanitarian crisis with another 200,000 displaced.

"We thank Barack Obama," said Khalid Jamal Alber, of the Ministry of Religious Affairs for the Kurdish autonomous region of northern Iraq. "Kurdistan is the place for religious minorities."
Iraq's Ministry of the Displaced also welcomed the aid drops.
The announcements by President Obama reflected the deepest American engagement in Iraq since U.S. troops withdrew in late 2011 after nearly a decade of war..
Related: Obama Authorizes Targeted Airstrikes, Humanitarian Aid In Iraq

Hagel: US has enough intel to effectively target, strike Islamic militants in Iraq

NEW DELHI –  Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says the U.S. military has enough intelligence to clearly single out Islamic militants and launch effective airstrikes if they threaten U.S. interests or the thousands of refugees who fled to a mountaintop.
Hagel also says that more than 60 of 72 bundles of food and water airdropped onto the mountain reached the Iraqi religious minorities stranded there.

A day after President Barack Obama authorized airstrikes and humanitarian aid in northern Iraq, the military says it has the assets and resources in place to launch strikes by manned and unmanned aircraft based in the region.
Hagel says no airstrikes have been launched, and the Iraqis have not requested additional humanitarian aid. He says top U.S. leaders will meet later to assess the situation.

Afghan Candidates Agree To End Election Dispute

Afghanistan's feuding presidential candidates agreed Friday to resolve their election dispute and said they would set an inauguration date before the end of August.

The breakthrough came as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry opened a second day of talks in Afghanistan aimed at preventing the fragile country from collapsing into political chaos after disputed elections.
"This is really an Afghan solution to an Afghan problem," Kerry said at a news conference. "Both parties have agreed to stay at it and both parties have agreed to live by the outcome."

Kerry paid a courtesy call on Afghan President Hamid Karzai and met later with the two men, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai. They've been locked in a bitter dispute over who will succeed Karzai.
Abdullah called the agreement "another step forward in the interests of strengthening national unity in the country, strengthening rule of law in the country and bringing hope to the people for the future of Afghanistan."
Ahmadzai said he and Abdullah, whom he called a "brother and colleague," were determined to turn what he termed a "vicious circle" of turmoil in many parts of the Muslim world into a "virtuous circle" for the people of Afghanistan.
Kerry is on a previously unannounced visit to Kabul to urge the candidates to accept the results of an ongoing audit of all ballots from the June election and form a national unity government by early September when NATO leaders will meet in Wales to consider their options in Afghanistan.
Kerry called Friday's agreement a "pivotal time" in Afghanistan's future.

Ukraine: Rebels Have Shot Down A Ukrainian Military Plane

The head of NATO called on Russia to "step back from the brink" of war by pulling its troops back from the Ukrainian border and warned further intervention in Ukraine would bring it greater isolation in the world.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the U.S.-led alliance's secretary general, made his call on Thursday during a visit to Ukraine in a show of solidarity after NATO warned of a possible invasion by Russia which, it said, had massed 20,000 troops near the frontier.

Saying Russia's support for the rebels was growing in "scale and sophistication", Rasmussen said: "I call on Russia to step back from the brink, step back from the border and not use peacekeeping as an excuse for war-making."
Earlier, he and Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk discussed possible Western alliance support for Ukraine's defensive strength - excluding lethal aid - even as the Kiev government's forces continued losing men in clashes with pro-Russia separatists in the Russian-speaking east.
Shortly after Rasmussen spoke, rebels brought down a Ukrainian Mig-29 fighter plane and a military helicopter sent into the conflict zone to pick up casualties, the Ukrainian military said.
The Mig-29 came down near Horlivka, about 100 km (60 miles) from the border with Russia. Its crew managed to eject from the aircraft, military information spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov told Interfax news agency.
Related:Three civilians killed and 10 injured in overnight shelling of Donetsk

WHO: Ebola 'an international emergency'

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the spread of Ebola in West Africa an international health emergency.

WHO officials said a coordinated international response was essential to stop and reverse the spread of the virus.
The announcement came after experts convened a two-day emergency meeting in Switzerland.
So far more than 960 people have died from Ebola in West Africa this year. 

The United Nations health agency said the outbreak was an "extraordinary event".

"The possible consequences of further international spread are particularly serious in view of the virulence of the virus," it said in a statement.
Complex outbreak More than 1,700 cases of Ebola have been reported in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
WHO director-general Dr Margaret Chan appealed for help for the countries hit by the "most complex outbreak in the four decades of this disease".
She said there would be no general ban on international travel or trade.

South Sudan: Living conditions in UN camp 'an affront to human dignity,' aid group says

NAIROBI, Kenya –  The aid group Doctors Without Borders says that residents in South Sudan living in a U.N. camp because of the fear of violence are enduring conditions that "are an affront to human dignity."
The aid group said Friday that residents are knee-deep in sewage-contaminated floodwater and that some residents sleep standing up to hold children out of the water. The residents can't leave the camp because of fear that they could be killed outside.

Doctors Without Borders said it demands that dry land within the camp be immediately made available for living space.
Human Rights Watch on Friday released a report documenting the ethnically targeted killings of thousands of civilians since violence broke out in December. The group called on the U.N. to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan.

Japan's security fears grow as neighbours build up arms

TOKYO: Japan finds itself surrounded by a worsening security environment as North Korea pushes forward with missile development and China and Russia step up military activity in the region, Japan's defence ministry said on Tuesday.

The ministry's annual white paper comes after intermittent testing by North Korea of ballistic missiles in defiance of a UN ban, and a record number of scrambles by Japanese fighter jets in April-June due to increased flights by Chinese and Russian planes close to Japan's air space.

"With a trend toward arms buildup and modernization, and brisker military activity by neighbouring countries getting prominent, security challenges and destabilizing factors for Japan and the rest of the Asia-Pacific are becoming more serious," the ministry said in the paper.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe returned to power in December 2012 intent on easing the limits of the post-war pacifist constitution on the military to let Japan play a bigger global security role.

Abe's government this year took some historic steps away from Japan's post-war pacifism by easing weapons export restrictions and ending a ban that has kept the military from fighting abroad.

Hawaiian residents prepare as back-to-back hurricanes threaten islands at peak of tourism

A pair of hurricanes bearing down on Hawaii has grounded flights and closed visitor areas while threatening floods, landslides and blackouts during the heart of tourist season.

Hurricane Iselle weakened to 129 kilometers per hour from 137 km/h as it neared the Big Island of Hawaii, where it is forecast to go ashore overnight. The storm was 490 kilometres east-southeast of Hilo as of 5 am local time, the US Central Pacific Hurricane Centre said.

Farther to the east, Hurricane Julio has grown stronger, with top winds reaching 169 km/h, making it a Category 2 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, the US National Hurricane Centre in Miami said. It was 1987 km east of Hilo.

"Iselle is down to a Category 1; it continues to move pretty quickly," said Paul Walker, a meteorologist at AccuWeather in State College, Pennsylvania. "It will be making landfall this evening Hawaiian Standard Time. They will have winds exceeding 120 km/h, especially at the high elevations, and possible widespread and long-lasting power outages."

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide's storm preparations included shutting off gas lines to outdoor tiki torches and moving food and beverage service indoors, Stephanie Dowling, a spokeswoman for the company, said in an email. It also waived cancellation fees for guests whose travel plans are affected by the storms.

Key ObamaCare official likely deleted emails now sought in House probe

A key ObamaCare official involved in the rocky rollout of Healthcare.gov likely deleted some of her emails that are now being sought as part of an investigation into the problems by a House committee, Fox News confirmed Thursday.
The Department of Health and Human Services informed House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa in a letter Thursday that some of the emails belonging to Marilyn Tavenner, who leads the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, may not be “retrievable.”

The missing emails belonging to Tavenner, whose agency runs the ObamaCare exchanges, were first reported by msnbc.com.
Issa, whose committee is also dealing with a missing email problem in its probe into the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups, said it “defies logic” that multiple Obama administration officials are “ignoring” federal rules on records-keeping. 
“Yet again, we discover that this administration will not be forthright with the American people unless cornered,” he said.
HHS also informed the National Archives, which preserves government records, about the missing emails from Tavenner in a letter.

Mitch McConnell's wife sits on the board of a group working to kill the coal industry

For the pro-coal senator, the "war on coal" begins at home

For months, Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell has accused his Democratic opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, of engaging in a “war on coal,” casting her as an outright enemy of one of the state’s most vital industries.

But while McConnell presents himself as a defender of Kentucky coal mining, a member of his own family who serves as a key campaign surrogate is taking a role in funding one of the most aggressive anti-coal campaigns in the country.

McConnell’s wife, former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, sits on the board of directors of Bloomberg Philanthropies, which has plunged $50 million into the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” initiative, an advocacy effort with the expressed goal of killing the coal industry.

In 2011, Bloomberg Philanthropies teamed up with the Sierra Club to target coal plants for closure in an effort to "end our nation’s reliance on dirty coal, plant-by-plant, community-by-community, and state-by-state," according to Bloomberg Philanthropies’ website. The Bloomberg Philanthropies-funded campaign has a stated goal of “retir[ing] a third of the nation’s 500 coal plants by 2020, replacing the majority of retired coal plants, and keep[ing] coal in the ground in Appalachia.” The organization boasts that it has “prevented 150 coal plants from being built,” and has taken direct action against 16 plants in McConnell’s homestate of Kentucky, arguing that coal production is a health hazard and is harmful to the environment. The website takes credit for retiring 172 “dirty power plants” with “351 to go.” 

 Sen. Alexander wins GOP primary in Tenn.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) easily won his primary on Thursday, defeating a conservative challenger and effectively ending the tea party’s hopes of unseating a Republican senator for the third straight election cycle.
Alexander beat state Rep. Joe Carr, a conservative insurgent who ran hard to his right on immigration. Five other candidates also fell short.
It seems that after seeing some longtime colleagues get picked off in two consecutive elections, Republican senators may have finally found the formula to keep primary competitors from defeating them: Take tea party upstarts seriously. And take them on early.
(Live Tennessee primary results)
The series of establishment candidate wins have bolstered Republican hopes of seizing the Senate majority in a year when they have no margin for error. Being stuck with flawed tea party nominees in Kentucky or Mississippi would have imperiled the GOP's quest to gain the six seats they need to control the chamber in 2015. 
With about half of the vote tallied, Alexander led Carr 51 percent to 39 percent.


Book: Hillary Clinton Made Fun of FBI Agent's Suit 

The former first lady was nasty to 'little people,' an author says.

A new book claims that former first lady Hillary Clinton, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, wasn’t so nice to Secret Service agents protecting her family in the 1990s.
Agents were expected to be out of sight and silent in the Clinton White House, Ronald Kessler writes in “The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents," which tells stories from security personnel spanning recent decades.
An unnamed Secret Service agent broke protocol and said, “Good morning, ma’am,” as Mrs. Clinton stepped out of a limo during her husband’s second term, Kessler writes.
“F--- off,” Clinton told the agent, according to an unnamed former agent who reportedly witnessed the encounter.
An FBI agent working with independent counsel Ken Starr, who was investigating the Clintons’ land deals in Arkansas, received a more personal tongue-lashing when he said, “Good morning, Mrs. Clinton,” the book says.
“How dare you? You people are just destroying my husband,” Clinton said, according to former FBI agent Coy Copeland, who relayed the story to Kessler secondhand. “Then she had to tack on something to the effect of, ‘And where do you buy your suits? Penney’s?'”
The FBI agent told Copeland of Clinton's barb about suit-shopping at the department store J.C. Penney weeks later, Kessler writes. According to Copeland, the agent told him, “I was wearing the best suit I owned.”
Kessler worked for several mainstream publications – including for more than a decade at The Washington Post – before a stint as chief Washington correspondent at the conservative online publication Newsmax in the early 2000s.

White House perimeter breached; suspect gets a timeout

The White House perimeter was breached Thursday night, but the perpetrator won't be saying much. He hasn't learned to talk yet.

A toddler squeezed through the fence in front of the White House about 8:10 p.m. as the media awaited President Obama's speech to the nation about the situation in Iraq.
The breach caused a brief commotion, according to a White House pool reporter, but the child was quickly returned to his parents.

The Secret Service made light of what would otherwise be a serious incident - if the perpetrator was old enough to understand what he did, that is.
"We were going to wait until he learned to talk to question him, but in lieu of that he got a timeout and was sent on his way with his parents,” Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan said in a statement.

Alison Redford used public money 'inappropriately,' AG says

Merwan Saher found planes used for personal, partisan purposes, Redford involved in 'skypalace' 

Alison Redford and her office used taxpayer money "inappropriately" during her time as Alberta premier, with planes used for personal and partisan purposes, provincial Auditor General Merwan Saher has found.
Saher released his report into Redford’s work expenses on Thursday morning.
"They consistently failed to demonstrate in the documents we examined that their travel expenses were necessary and a reasonable and appropriate use of public resources," Saher wrote.
"Premier Redford used public assets (aircraft) for personal and partisan purposes. And Premier Redford was involved in a plan to convert public space in a public building into personal living space.

"How could this have happened? The answer is the aura of power around Premier Redford and her office and the perception that the influence of the office should not be questioned."
In a written statement, Alberta Justice Minister Jonathan Denis said that the report has been forwarded to the RCMP for review.

Mosque controversy reveals media double standard

Justin Trudeau should be facing some tough questions this week about a past visit to a radical mosque. But instead of facing tough questions, the majority of the media in this country are happy to keep celebrating his hair, his looks, his tricks with making babies stand or his upcoming autobiography.
When Sun News Network and my colleague Ezra Levant broke the story of Trudeau's visit to the Al-Sunnah Al-Nabawiah Wahhabi mosque earlier this week, the media party that backs him did what they always do -- they defended him.
See, back in March 2011, Trudeau visited the mosque in his riding. The mosque has a long history of being associated with terror suspects and was listed in a US intelligence report as a place "where known al-Qaida members were recruited, facilitated, or trained."
Trudeau's handlers said there was no way he could have known about the mosque's alleged history with terrorism because the American report wasn't leaked until April 2011. Yet this is a place that had been listed in news reports in 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 for having links to terror suspects. Those reports included news outlets such as the Montreal Gazette, Associated Press, the Ottawa Citizen, PBS, the New York Times and Quebec's most watched TV network TVA.
Yet Trudeau and his camp now say that he couldn't have known. Or he wasn't curious about the groups he was speaking to.

Olivia Chow Slips To Third, John Tory Leads In Toronto Mayoral Race: Poll

A new poll suggests John Tory has taken the lead in the Toronto mayoral race, with Olivia Chow dropping into third.
The survey, conducted by Forum Research for the Toronto Star and interviewing 1,268 Torontonians by interactive voice response on August 5 and 6, found Tory to have the support of 35 per cent of respondents, a gain of seven points since Forum's last poll of July 21. Rob Ford was second with 27 per cent, unchanged, while Chow had slipped four points to 25 per cent.
David Soknacki had five per cent support, followed by Karen Stintz at four per cent, while two per cent said they would vote for another candidate, and the remaining two per cent was undecided.
While some other polls have indicated Tory's position has improved markedly during the summer, this is the first poll from Forum Research to give Tory the lead. And no poll so far in the race has recorded Chow to have so little support as to rank third behind Ford.
Chow's fall has been rather sudden, if it is real. From April to as recently as July 2, Chow was polling between 34 and 38 per cent support in Forum's estimation. But the last two polls from the company have shown a sharp decrease in her support.

Mount Polley tailings cleanup shouldn't fall to taxpayers, James Moore says

The federal industry minister says taxpayers shouldn't be on the hook for cleaning up a massive spill from a mine
tailings pond in British Columbia.
Water and silt gushed into nearby lakes and creeks when a tailings dam at the Mount Polley Mine in B.C.'s Cariboo region burst open on Monday, though officials are still assessing the impact of the spill.
Federal Industry Minister James Moore, who is also the Conservatives' minister for B.C., describes the tailings pond breach as "terrible" and he says it underscores the need for effective regulation and monitoring.
Moore, who was speaking at an unrelated event in Montreal, says whoever is responsible should pay for the disaster, but it shouldn't fall to taxpayers.
He says lessons must be learned from the breach to ensure resource industries operate responsibly.
B.C. Premier Christy Clark is heading to the nearly town of Likely near the mine site today as residents await the first results from water quality tests.

Canada Spy Plane Program Ditched, Tories Eye Surplus U.S. Aircrafts

OTTAWA - The Harper government has ditched a proposed competition to buy as many as four sophisticated spy planes — but with the U.S. looking to sell off surplus aircraft in the wake of the war in Afghanistan, the project may not be entirely dead.
Last year, Canada's Department of Public Works asked the defence industry for ideas on the possible purchase of manned airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance planes.
But a formal bidding process won't go forward because of concerns over "security and technical feasibility," according to a notice posted this week on the government's procurement website.
Instead, the government plans to hold a future competition for some surveillance "elements" and "obtain the others directly from the U.S. government," the notice said.
The Americans are in the process of selling some of their MC-12W Liberty aircraft, which were used by the U.S. air force and army in Afghanistan to monitor the border with Pakistan and track Taliban fighters in remote, mountainous regions.
The turbo-prop planes were equipped with the same sensor suite as MQ-1 Predator drones and were similar in configuration to the Beech King Air 300, which is owned by the Department of Public Safety, but operated by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
It is just the latest twist as the federal government struggles to re-equip the military with a much leaner defence budget.
The government's 2008 defence strategy, which is in the process of being updated, called for the purchase of spy planes capable of monitoring vast swaths of territory with not only sensors and cameras but infrared technology as well.
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