Gazette 081114

Monday August 11th 2014

Gaza conflict: Fresh talks begin in Egypt

Indirect talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators aimed at finding a long-term solution to the conflict in Gaza have begun in Cairo, according to Egyptian state media.

The fresh discussions come amid a new three-day ceasefire agreed between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas.
A BBC reporter in Gaza says the truce is holding so far, with signs of normal life returning to the streets.
About 2,000 people have died since the fighting in Gaza began on 8 July.
Those killed include more than 1,900 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the UN.
Sixty-four Israeli soldiers have been killed in the fighting and three civilians in Israel have also died. 
On Friday, Israeli negotiators had left Cairo after failing to agree a deal with their Palestinian counterparts.
But the Israeli delegation arrived back in Egypt's capital on Monday after agreeing to resume talks as long as the 72-hour ceasefire, which began at midnight (21:00 GMT Sunday) held.
Militants in Gaza said they had fired several rockets towards Israel shortly before the truce got under way and Israeli air strikes had continued on Sunday evening, but the ceasefire has been respected since.
The Israeli government spokesman, Mark Regev, said the Israeli military would be "ready to act to protect our people" if Hamas violated the agreement.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said its representatives would be involved in the Cairo talks, but warned that it was "the last chance" to find a long-term solution to the conflict.
Correspondents say Israel will continue to demand the demilitarisation of Gaza, while Hamas will resume its calls for Israel's blockade of the Palestinian territory to be lifted.
Israel has previously said that the lifting of blockades would only be dealt with in future talks on a permanent peace deal.
In an interview on Monday, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said that disarming militants in Gaza was crucial to chances of a long-term truce.
If a diplomatic solution was not possible, he told Israel Radio, then he was "convinced" that sooner or later the Israeli army would have to take "temporary control of Gaza to demilitarise it again".

Turkish aid group steps up preparations to launch 'Freedom Flotilla II' for Gaza 

ISTANBUL - A Turkish aid group said on Monday it would send ships again to challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza, four years after Israeli commandos stormed its flotilla bound for the Palestinian territory and killed 10 people.
The incident wrecked diplomatic ties between Turkey and Israel, once close Middle East allies but whose relationship had been tense since late 2008 over a previous Israeli military operation against Islamist militants dominating Gaza.
The Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) said in an e-mailed statement that members of a "coalition" of pro-Palestinian activists from 12 countries had met in Istanbul at the weekend and decided to launch a convoy "in the shadow of the latest Israeli aggression on Gaza," referring to the latest, month-long war. Fighting has abated under a 72-hour ceasefire deal.
"The Freedom Flotilla Coalition affirmed that, as most governments are complicit, the responsibility falls on civil society to challenge the Israeli blockade on Gaza," it said.
An IHH spokeswoman did not elaborate. The group will hold a news conference on Tuesday, she said.
However, in a previous statement, the organization claimed that the Turkish navy would provide protection for the ship.
Nine Turks died in May 2010 in international waters after Israeli soldiers raided their vessel, the Mavi Marmara, leading a flotilla to break Israel's seven-year blockade of Gaza. A 10th Turkish activist died in May from wounds suffered in the attack.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who on Sunday was elected president, has been among the most vocal critics of Israel's conflict with the Islamist Hamas movement that rules the Gaza Strip.

Iraq political crisis deepens as Maliki slams president, resists calls to resign

As Iraq's government forces continue to battle Sunni militants in the country's north and west with the help of American airstrikes, the country's parallel political crises deepened Sunday as embattled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki resisted calls to step down and accused the new president of violating Iraq's constitution. 
In a nationally televised speech Sunday evening, al-Maliki said he would file a legal complaint against the new president, Fouad Massoum, for neglecting to name a prime minister from Maliki's Shiite-dominated political bloc, which won the most seats in this past April's election. 

At around the same time as al-Maliki's speech Sunday evening, the Wall Street Journal reported that security forces had deployed in unusually large numbers across Baghdad. The soldiers were particularly prominent in the so-called Green Zone, which includes the prime minister's home as well as the parliament building, crucial government offices and many embassies.
Al-Maliki is seeking a third term as prime minister, but the latest crisis has prompted even his closest allies to call for his resignation. A parliament session scheduled for Monday to discuss the election and who might lead the next Iraqi government was postponed until Aug. 19.
The Journal reported that al-Maliki had been urged to remove himself from consideration for a third term so that an alternate candidate from his National Alliance bloc could be chosen by the president. U.S. official told the Journal that consensus was building around an unnamed candidate whom Washington believes would be a better bet to unite Iraq's fragmented government. However, al-Maliki had not yet agreed to step aside. 
Massoum has given the bloc a deadline of 3 p.m. local time Monday (8 a.m. Eastern time) to choose a new candidate or he would name al-Maliki to a third term, two Iraqi politicians told the Journal.
Al-Maliki, speaking on Iraqi TV for the first time since U.S. forces began launching airstrikes and humanitarian airdrops in Iraq last week, said the security situation will only worsen as a result of Massoum's actions.
"This attitude represents a coup on the constitution and the political process in a country that is governed by a democratic and federal system," al-Maliki said. "The deliberate violation of the constitution by the president will have grave consequences on the unity, the sovereignty, and the independence of Iraq and the entry of the political process into a dark tunnel.

Obama Administration Sending Weapons To Kurdish Forces In Iraq, Officials Say

The Obama administration has begun directly providing weapons to Kurdish forces who have started to make gains against Islamic militants in northern Iraq, senior U.S. officials said Monday.

Previously, the U.S. had insisted on only selling arms to the Iraqi government in Baghdad, but the Kurdish peshmerga fighters had been losing ground to Islamic State militants in recent weeks.
The officials wouldn't say which U.S. agency is providing the arms or what weapons are being sent, but one official said it isn't the Pentagon. The CIA has historically done similar quiet arming operations.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the operation publicly.
The move to directly aid the Kurds underscores the level of U.S. concern about the Islamic State militants' gains in the north, and reflects the persistent administration view that the Iraqis must take the necessary steps to solve their own security problems.
To bolster that effort, the administration is also very close to approving plans for the Pentagon to arm the Kurds, a senior official said. In recent days, the U.S. military has been helping facilitate weapons deliveries from the Iraqis to the Kurds, providing logistic assistance and transportation to the north.
The State Department sought to downplay the significance of the apparent shift in U.S. policy.
The militants have "obtained some heavy weaponry, and the Kurds need additional arms and we're providing those — there's nothing new here," said department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

Iraq: US plans rescue mission for besieged Yazidi refugees

More than 20,000 of the 40,000 trapped by jihadists on a mountaintop have escaped but US considering full-scale rescue

The United States is exploring options to evacuate thousands of Iraqi civilians trapped on a mountain in northern Iraq by Islamic militants after four nights of humanitarian relief airdrops, officials in Washington said.
At least half of the 40,000 people besieged by jihadists on Mount Sinjar had escaped by Sunday night, aided by Kurdish rebels who crossed from Syria to rescue them.
But proposals for a mission to save the remaining thousands of Yazidi people underscore the limits of the airdrops, ordered last week by Barack Obama.
"We're reviewing options for removing the remaining civilians off the mountain," deputy US national security adviser Ben Rhodes told Reuters late on Sunday.
"Kurdish forces are helping, and we're talking to the (United Nations) and other international partners about how to bring them to a safe space."
The refugees, all members of the Yazidi sect, began streaming back into Iraqi Kurdistan on Sunday after a perilous journey past Islamic State militants who had vowed to kill them and had surrounded their hideout on Mount Sinjar after storming the area.
The day-long trek took them first over a mountain range into Syria, then through the Peshkhabour crossing three hours north-west of Irbil, where Kurdish officials were rushing to provide food and shelter.
Fleeing Yazidis said their escape had been aided by the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish rebel faction, and by US air strikes on Islamic State (Isis) positions which had forced the jihadists to withdraw for around six hours on Saturday.

Islamic militants crush attempt by tribe to push them out of their villages in east Syria

BEIRUT –  Activists say Islamic militants have crushed a tribal uprising against their rule in eastern Syria following days of clashes.
The armed revolt by the Shueitat tribe in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour was the first sign of local resistance to the Islamic State group since its fighters swept into the province.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Turkey-based activist Thaer ak-Deiri said Monday that Islamic State group fighters regained control of three villages of the Shueitat tribe.
Fighting between the two sides erupted July 30 and for a time the tribesmen managed to evict the Islamic State group fighters from their villages.
The extremist group has taken over much of northern and eastern Syria as well as western and northern Iraq.


Will resist any move to topple government, Nawaz Sharif says 

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday criticized his political rivals for going ahead with their plans to hold anti-government protests and promised that he will resist any move to topple his government formed through people's mandate.

Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan and Canada-returned anti-government cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri have announced to bring their thousands of supporters in the capital on Thursday to remove Sharif's year-and-a-half old government.

Qadri yesterday announced that his 'Revolution March' would go along with Khan's 'Freedom March' on August 14 to send the Sharif government home.

The fiery cleric is fighting for a "revolution" while Khan is protesting against alleged rigging in the last year polls.

Sharif, addressing the launch of the Vision 2025 programme here, criticized the timing of the rallies and said Qadri and Khan should have protested before the elections.

"The runaway from Canada should have participated in the 2013 general elections if he wanted to bring a revolution in Pakistan," he said about Qadri, who holds dual nationality.

Also attacking Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, Sharif said he should have held his 'Azadi March' during the general elections and not a year after the polls.

The Prime Minister, however, expressed readiness to address Khan's concerns over alleged rigging of last year polls through talks. He said he was ready to meet him anywhere.

Sharif said he will resist any move to topple his government which was formed for five years through the mandate of the people.

Promising "to defend democracy", he lamented that some politicians have not learnt from the past when the country faced military rulers.

Kosovo police net Iraq and Syria 'militant suspects'

Forty men suspected of fighting in Iraq and Syria have been arrested by police in Kosovo, in an operation targeting Islamist extremists.

Up to 200 Kosovo Albanians have travelled to the Middle East to fight and 16 of them have died, reports say.
Some of those held are suspected of involvement in Islamic State (IS) and Syria's Nusra Front.
Several European countries are trying to stop people volunteering for militant groups.
European Union ambassadors are expected to meet on Tuesday to consider ways of countering the group's advance in Iraq, AFP news agency reports.
Islamic State is one of the main jihadist rebel groups in Syria and is at the forefront of an insurgency against the Iraqi government.
The suspects arrested in Kosovo had either fought for or supported IS and Nusra Front, police spokesman Baki Kelani said on Monday.
"We confiscated long weapons including AK-47s, small calibre weapons, different electronic equipment, ammunition and explosives," he said.
An estimated 60 raids were carried out cross Kosovo. Among the sites targeted were makeshift mosques which may have been used as recruiting centres, he added.
President Atifete Jahjaga said in a statement that Kosovo would "not be a shelter of extremism" and the Kosovo government said any threat against the state would be punished "without mercy".

Jailbreak in Ukraine After Rocket Hits Prison In Donetsk

Rockets slammed into a high-security prison Monday in the rebel-held city of Donetsk, igniting a riot that allowed more than 100 prisoners to flee, authorities in eastern Ukraine said.
Donetsk city council spokesman Maxim Rovinsky said a direct rocket hit killed at least one inmate and left three others severely wounded. In the chaos, he said 106 prisoners escaped, included some jailed for murder, robbery and rape.

In the past week Ukrainian government forces have intensified their military operations and surrounded Donetsk, the largest city in rebel-held eastern Ukraine. Exchanges of rocket fire and deaths from shelling have become a feature of daily life and hundreds of thousands have chosen to flee.

The prison break became possible after a substation providing the building with electricity was damaged, disabling the facility's alarm system.

"Extremely dangerous prisoners are now free. It is hard to know the extent of threat this poses to the city, which is flooded with weapons," Rovinsky said.

Officials with Ukraine's state penitentiary service said later Monday that 34 prisoners had returned to the jail. It was not immediately possible to verify that claim.

Both Ukrainian government forces and the pro-Russian rebels who want independence for their eastern region have deployed heavy and often imprecise weapons in the battle that began in April. Apartments and other civilian buildings have frequently been hit, adding to the mounting death toll among civilians.

Cash-strapped France scrambles to sell state property

Paris: Strapped for cash and struggling to keep its dizzying debt in check, France is scrambling to sell its state-owned property as never before - at home and abroad.
The latest of the French family jewels up for grabs is 1143 Fifth Avenue, New York - a  1500-square-metre, seven-floor red brick and limestone building, housing five apartments as well as a dazzling eight-room duplex - which is on the market for $US32.5 million ($35 million).
Visits began in April but French authorisation for the sale was officially granted only last week in the country's Official Journal, normally meaning negotiations with a likely buyer are in their final stages.
The elegant 1923 building had previously housed diplomatic staff and was part of the French foreign ministry's vast array of prized properties abroad.
The Quai d'Orsay, as the ministry is known, boasts the third largest foreign diplomatic network in the world after China and the US.  
Even more spectacular was the sale in May of the official residence of France's ambassador to the United Nations.
The luxurious 18-room duplex at 740 Park Avenue, dubbed "Manhattan's richest apartment building" and once home to Jacqueline Kennedy and John D. Rockefeller, was snapped up for $US70 million by an American financier.
The Quai's profit for the sale was 3500 per cent. But not everyone has gained: France's new ambassador to the UN, Francois Delattre, has failed to find a new home after neighbours blocked him from moving into a 14-room Art Deco flat overlooking the East River, because they were worried about the number of parties he would be throwing.
The drive to sell domestic state-owned properties is also continuing unabated.
France has the highest concentration of state-owned property in Europe - according to government financial statements for 2012, property directly owned by the state is worth  €190 billion ($275 billion).
It is seeking to part with almost 1800 properties whose details can be viewed on its dedicated finance ministry website, with almost 400 more in the process of being sold.
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Michael Brown shooting: Riots erupt after vigil

Rioting over the killing of an unarmed black teenager by a police officer has erupted in the US state of Missouri, police say.

People looted shops, vandalised cars and stores, and set a building alight on Sunday as police tried to block off access to several areas of St Louis.
Police say Michael Brown, 18, was shot on Saturday afternoon in Ferguson, a mainly black suburb of the city.
He was shot several times after a struggle in a police car, they said.
The rioting erupted late on Sunday after thousands of people attended a candlelight vigil for Michael Brown.
County Police Chief Jon Belmar said the shooting occurred after the officer encountered two men, including Mr Brown, on a street in Ferguson, the Associated Press news agency reports.
Mr Belmar said one of the men pushed the officer back into his squad car and a struggle began.
At least one shot was fired from the officer's gun inside the police car, Mr Belmar said.
But authorities say they are still trying to clarify exactly what happened inside the vehicle.
The officer involved has been with the Ferguson police department for six years, and has been placed on paid administrative leave, Mr Belmar said.
Mayor James Knowles said he understood that people "want to vent their frustrations. We understand they want to speak out", but he added: "We're going to obviously try to urge calm."
Mr Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, said her son had graduated from high school and planned to go to a local college.
The killing has drawn comparisons by some civil rights leaders with the 2012 killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by a Florida neighbourhood watch organiser who was acquitted of murder charges.
"We're outraged because yet again a young African-American man has been killed by law enforcement," said John Gaskin, of the civil rights group NAACP.

Obama Directs Funds To Fight Terrorists In Africa

EDGARTOWN, Mass. (AP) — President Barack Obama is directing $10 million in emergency Pentagon spending to help fight terrorists in northern Africa.
Obama made the order Monday from his vacation on Martha's Vineyard off the Massachusetts coast.
He wrote to the secretaries of Defense and State that he's determined an unforeseen emergency exists in Africa. He says it requires immediate military assistance to France in its efforts to secure Mali, Niger and Chad from violent extremists.
France recently launched a new military operation to fight Islamist groups, with some 3,000 troops being dispatched to Africa's Sahel region.

US weighs rotating more fighter jets, bombers through northern Australia

The U.S. is considering rotating more fighter jets and bombers through northern Australia as part of steps to deepen its defense ties with Asia-Pacific allies.
According to briefing notes reviewed by The Wall Street Journal ahead of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, the plan is for more aircraft rotations at an Australian military air base near Darwin.

Australia's defense minister, David Johnston, will discuss the plan this week as part of broader talks including proposals for a larger ballistic-missile defense shield for U.S. allies in Asia.
"The interest here is for tactical aircraft, for closer cooperation between the Australian and U.S. air forces," said a local defense official familiar with Mr. Kerry's agenda.
The U.S. has around 1,150 marines and other military personnel that it rotates annually through Darwin. It has said it plans to more than double that number to create a 2,500-strong air and ground force in the northern city.

GOP takeover of Senate looking more and more likely

The decision by Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.) not to seek election in November in the wake of a plagiarism scandal is the latest piece of good news for Republicans as they strive to take control of the Senate in less than three months.
Walsh’s departure from the race came in the same week that two Republican senators — Pat Roberts in Kansas and Lamar Alexander in Tennessee — defeated tea party challengers in primary fights, ensuring that every GOP senator seeking reelection would be the party’s nominee.
These past seven days typified the fates of the two parties this election cycle. Democrats have been hit by retirements in tough states — Montana, West Virginia, South Dakota and, to a lesser extent, Iowa — and Republicans haven’t nominated the sort of extreme candidates who lack broader appeal in a general election.
Those realities — along with a national playing field in which a handful of incumbent Democrats are defending Republican-leaning seats in places where President Obama is deeply unpopular — have made a GOP takeover a better-than-50/50 proposition.
Let’s go through the races.
Walsh’s decision not to run takes what was an uphill climb for Democrats and turns it into something close to a no-chance race. (A committee of Democrats will pick the party’s nominee by Aug. 20.) Montana joins the contests for open seats in West Virginia and South Dakota in that category, meaning that, unless something drastically changes, Republicans should have three takeovers in the bank — a nice head start going into Election Day.

Hillary Clinton splits with Obama on foreign policy

(CNN) – Hillary Clinton, President Barack Obama's first secretary of state, dramatically distanced herself from the President's approach to foreign policy in an interview published Sunday.

"Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle," Clinton told The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, knocking the Obama administration's foreign policy.
Faced with a second term dominated by foreign policy issues - namely the rise of extremism in Iraq, conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and the increasing aggression of Russia - Obama has taken to describing his foreign policy doctrine as "Don't do stupid stuff."
Although Clinton added that Obama was "trying to communicate to the American people that he’s not going to do something crazy" with the refrain, Goldberg writes that Clinton "repeatedly suggested that the U.S. sometimes appears to be withdrawing from the world stage" during the interview conducted earlier this week.
Clinton added, “I think that that’s a political message. It’s not his worldview,” telling Goldberg, “I’ve sat in too many rooms with the president. He’s thoughtful, he’s incredibly smart, and able to analyze a lot of different factors that are all moving at the same time. I think he is cautious because he knows what he inherited.”
Since releasing her new memoir in June, Clinton has slowly taken steps away from her former boss’s positions. The tactic appears to be intentional: Obama's poll numbers are slipping and Clinton, who is widely considered the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, needs to separate herself from the negative numbers.
The first split with Obama came during the Syria chapter of her book "Hard Choices," where Clinton articulates that she and the President disagreed on how to handle the "wicked problem" of arming Syrian rebels.
The “risks of both action and inaction were high. Both choices would bring unintended consequences. The President's inclination was to stay the present course and not take the significant further step of arming rebels," she wrote. "No one likes to lose a debate, including me. But this was the President's call and I respected his deliberations and decision."
In her interview with The Atlantic, Clinton went further than she does in her book and called the inaction in Syria a "failure."
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