Weekend Gazette - 082414

Sunday August 24th 2014 - Afternoon Edition

Gaza conflict: Erez crossing 'attacked' amid Israel raids

Israel says it has closed the Erez crossing after it came under rocket fire from Gaza, wounding four people.

The crossing is used by aid workers, journalists and Palestinians with Israeli permits to enter or leave Gaza.
Meanwhile, an Israeli air strike in northern Gaza killed a mother and three children, local health officials said.
More than 2,090 Palestinians - mostly civilians - and 67 Israelis have died in recent fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants.
Most of the dead on the Israeli side have been soldiers. A Thai national in the country was also killed by rocket fire early on in the six-week-old conflict.
Hostilities between the two sides resumed on Tuesday after a temporary truce, scuppering efforts by Egyptian negotiators to achieve a long-term ceasefire deal.
 
Hamas finance chief 'killed'
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said Palestinian militants had fired missiles at the Erez crossing from a concealed rocket launcher in northern Gaza.
The military added that at least 50 missiles had been fired into Israel since Saturday night.

Iran: Revolutionary Guards Shot Down Israeli Spy Drone

DUBAI, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards have shot down a radar-evading Israeli spy drone that was trying to penetrate Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment site, state news agency ISNA said on Sunday, quoting the Revolutionary Guards.
ISNA said the Revolutionary Guards had shot down the drone with a ground-to-air missile when it tried to penetrate "the nuclear off-limits area of Natanz". 

ISIS militants reportedly capture major Syrian air base

BEIRUT –  Activists say Islamic State fighters have captured a major military air base in northeastern Syria, eliminating the last government-held outpost in an area dominated by the extremist group.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the jihadis broke through the Tabqa air field's defenses Sunday and routed the government forces.

Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman says some army troops also withdrew from the base, and the Islamic State group is now in full control of the facility.
The SANA state news agency confirmed that the government had lost the air base, saying troops "are successfully reassembling after evacuating the airport."

US 'set to launch air strikes' on senior Isis leaders in Syria

White House will 'take action' against threats as Turkey comes under pressure to halt flow of jihadists across its border

The United States was said to be considering air strikes aimed at eliminating individual leaders of Islamic State as Turkey came under mounting pressure to stem the flow of jihadists across its border into Syria.
As Washington on Saturday debated extending air strikes into Syria, senior British politicians urged Ankara to act to block recruits from the UK and other countries from entering Syria via Turkey, en route to joining Islamic State (formerly Isis). This weekend large numbers of Isis jihadists were trying to secure greater control of the border area, pushing northwards in armoured trucks looted from abandoned Iraqi military bases.
Isis wants to establish dominance in the area to make it easier for potential recruits to gain safe passage and to allow the movement of vital supplies, including weapons and oil. The route has been used by most of the foreign fighters who have joined the cause, and is believed to have been taken by several hundred of those who have joined Isis from the UK.
US officials said that there was now a "new context" for confronting Isis – and cutting off its supply routes – following the beheading of US journalist James Foley. In a sign that Washington may widen the field of its air strikes, the White House said it was ready to "take action" against any threat to America in Iraq or Syria. US military officials confirmed on Saturday night it had carried out an air strike against Isis near the Mosul Dam to support Iraqi and Kurdish operations.
Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said before the strike: "If we see plotting against Americans, if we see a threat to the US emanating from anywhere, we stand ready to take action against that threat. We have made it very clear time and again that if you come after Americans, we're going to come after you, wherever you are – and that's what's going to guide our planning in the days to come."

Iraq forces defeat militant push to take oil refinery

Iraqi government forces say they have defeated a militant attack on the country's largest oil refinery, killing several insurgents.

The Baiji refinery in northern Iraq has been the site of several battles between government forces and militants over the past few months.
The Islamic State (IS) militant group is suspected of carrying out the attack.
Meanwhile, a car bomb killed at least seven people in the capital Baghdad.
The bombing targeted the mostly Shia district of Shula.
IS has seized large swathes of Iraq and Syria in recent months.
Since 8 August, the US has carried out more than 90 air strikes to support Iraqi and Kurdish troops tackling the insurgents.
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is currently in Baghdad to talk about the growing threat posed by IS.

Official says 3 people killed, including a child, in failed southern Afghanistan prison break

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan –  An Afghan official says two prisoners and a child were killed during an attempted prison break in southern Afghanistan.
The chief of police for Zabul province in southeastern Afghanistan, Ghulam Saki Roghlewanai, says some explosives had been placed earlier near a prison wall. He says the explosion Sunday was triggered by a child although it wasn't clear whether the child did it intentionally.

The police official says after the explosion two Taliban prisoners inside tried to grab the weapons of the police guards.
He says the police managed to shoot and kill the two Taliban prisoners. He says two officers were also wounded in the incident.
The militants have staged some elaborate prison breaks to free their comrades, including a 2011 incident in Kandahar that freed more than 400 inmates.

Unidentified Fighter Jets Strike Libya's Tripoli After Islamist Fighters Say Captured Airport

TRIPOLI, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Unidentified war planes attacked targets in Libya's capital Tripoli on Sunday, residents said, hours after forces from the city of Misrata said they had seized the main airport.

Tripoli residents heard jets followed by explosions at dawn but no more details were immediately available.

In recent weeks Libya has seen the worst fighting since the NATO-backed campaign to oust Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Renegade general Khalifa Haftar has declared war on Islamist-leaning forces, part of growing anarchy in the oil producer.

His forces claimed responsibility for air raids on Tripoli on Saturday and last Monday, targeting a group called Operation Dawn. But this group, consisting mainly of fighters from Misrata, said on Saturday that it had captured Tripoli's main airport from a rival faction from Zintan in western Libya.

In the campaign to overthrow Gaddafi, fighters from Zintan and Misrata were comrades-in-arms. But they later fell out and this year have turned parts of Tripoli into a battlefield.

Libya's neighbors and Western powers worry Libya will turn into a failed state as the weak government is unable to control armed factions.

Ukraine rebels parade seized troops

Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine have marched dozens of captured government soldiers through the city of Donetsk.

The incident came as Ukraine said it would spend $3bn (£1.8bn) on re-equipping the army to fight the rebels.
President Petro Poroshenko made the announcement ahead of a military parade to mark Independence Day in Kiev.
More than 2,000 people have died in recent months in fighting between government forces and the separatists.
Some 330,000 have fled their homes because of the unrest in eastern Ukraine.
The violence erupted when pro-Russian separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions declared independence from Kiev, after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in March.
 

'Constant military threat' On Sunday, the rebels force-marched Ukrainians soldiers through the centre of Donetsk.
Crowds lined the streets chanting "fascists" as the dishevelled-looking prisoners walked by. Some people threw bottles at the captives, Reuters news agency reports.
Donetsk has been the scene of the heaviest fighting since the conflict began.
Ukraine's defence ministry condemned the parading of captured Ukrainian soldiers.
"The organisers of this disgusting event cannot be considered human," a spokesman told Interfax-Ukraine news agency. "Nothing is holy" for them, he added.

Ukraine plans $3 billion boost to defense spending

KIEV, Ukraine –  As armored vehicles rumbled through downtown Kiev in an ostentatious celebration of Ukraine's independence, pro-Russian rebels who are battling government forces in the east paraded captured soldiers down the besieged streets of Donetsk and displayed charred wreckages of destroyed Ukrainian tanks.
Sunday's rival demonstrations on Ukraine's 23rd anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union underscored the bitter divide in a country already five months into warfare and making plans for potentially years more of tensions.

President Petro Poroshenko, addressing a highly militarized independence rally in Kiev, vowed to defeat the rebels and safeguard Ukraine's border with Russia by sharply raising defense spending for the coming three years. He warned that Ukraine too often in history had been caught by surprise from eastern invasions.
"It is clear that in the foreseeable future there will always, unfortunately, be the threat of war," Poroshenko said. "And we not only have to learn to live with that. We must always be prepared to defend our independence."
The rebels responded with their own show of strength in their stronghold of Donetsk, parading dozens of captured soldiers through the streets as bystanders tossed eggs and bottles at them. The insurgents also dumped battle-scarred Ukrainian military equipment on a central square, a bold rebuke to Kiev's announcement that it plans to strengthen its military.

8 Convicted Terrorists Executed In China

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese state media said Saturday that eight convicted terrorists were executed in the far western region of Xinjiang, where ethnic conflicts have left dozens of people dead this year.
Among those executed were three men convicted of plotting a deadly assault in the heart of Beijing last year in which the attacker — with his mother and wife as passengers — drove a sports utility vehicle through crowds, killing themselves and three bystanders, the government-run Tianshan Net news portal said. The incident was a sign that the ethnic violence was spilling out of the ethnic region of Xinjiang.
The others who were executed were convicted of offenses including police attacks, bomb making, murder and arson, the news portal said.
The report did not say when the executions took place.
Xinjiang is home to the Muslim, Turkic minority of Uighurs (pronounced WEE'-gurs). Beijing has blamed the ethnic violence on terrorism with overseas ties, but human rights groups say the Uighurs are suffering from repressive policies and practices.
All eight people executed have Uighur-sounding names.
China is in a one-year strike-hard campaign against terrorism in Xinjiang, following a series of attacks that left scores of people dead earlier this year. The authorities have vowed swift actions and severe punishments against terrorists, but Uighur rights groups have said the harsh measures would only further alienate the Uighurs and cause more resentment.

Beijing independent film festival shut down by Chinese authorities

Organisers forced to sign documents promising not to hold festival, as China's crackdown on freedom of speech continues

Chinese authorities have shut down the country's most prominent independent film festival for the first time in its 11-year history, raising concerns about a wide-ranging government crackdown on freedom of speech and civil society.
The Beijing independent film festival, one of China's leading platforms for the distribution of independent films, has suffered official interference nearly every year since its inception. In previous years, the organisers have simply changed venues or replaced large public events with smaller screenings in private homes.
On Saturday afternoon, about 15 police officers, security guards and rough-looking men in plain clothes stood outside of the office of the festival's organiser, the Li Xianting Film Fund, in a dusty alleyway in suburban Beijing, shoving away the few dozen people who tried to attend.
When a small crowd of directors and would-be audience members gathered on a nearby road, the plainclothes men walked over and demanded they disperse. The men grabbed mobile phones from onlookers and scrolled through saved photos, deleting images of the incident.
"Which agency are you from?" shouted an onlooker.
"We're villagers," one of the men replied.
Over the past year, president Xi Jinping has overseen the most intense crackdown on freedom of speech and civil society in recent memory. Authorities have shut down scores of NGOs, arrested critics for "spreading rumours" online and forced Chinese journalists to pledge not to post their articles on social media sites or share it with foreign reporters.
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California earthquake strikes San Francisco Bay area

An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.0 has shaken northern California, causing injuries and damage to buildings.

The USGS said it struck at 03:20 local time (10:20 GMT) four miles (6km) north-west of the town of American Canyon, at a depth of 6.7 miles.
At least 87 people have been taken to hospital in the Napa area, with three of them seriously injured.
California Governor Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency in order to deal with the effects of the quake.
Officials in Napa said in a statement that the quake had destroyed four mobile homes and caused "approximately 50" gas main breaks and around 30 leaks from water mains.
Three historic buildings in the town had been hit and two commercial buildings "severely damaged", the statement went on.
More than 10,000 households were without power in Napa, about six miles from the earthquake's epicentre, and the surrounding area, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company said.
An evacuation centre has been set up in a high school gym.
The California Highway Patrol in the San Francisco Bay area tweeted that it was "checking over crossings and bridges for obvious signs of structural integrity", and asked residents to report any signs of problems.

McCain gets more support for hawkish plan for Islamic State, but will Obama follow?

Sen. John McCain, one of Congress’ most hawkish members, called on President Obama Sunday to show greater leadership in the international fight to eliminate Islamic State and to present a more comprehensive plan to eliminate such terror groups in the Middle East.
“The president has to articulate the challenge and what we need to do to meet it,” McCain, R-Ariz., a member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, told “Fox News Sunday.” “That’s what has to be explained to the American people. And I think they will follow.”

His remarks follow the startling rise of Islamic State in northeast Syria through northern Iraq, and, most recently, the group's beheading of American journalist James Foley -- allegedly in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes in Iraq.
McCain also continued his criticism of the administration’s foreign policy -- calling it “feckless" -- but expressing optimism that tough talk last week by top White House and U.S. military officials will lead to a more aggressive, comprehensive approach toward stopping the militant group Islamic State.
McCain said he hoped the comments -- including Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying Thursday that Islamic State has an "apocalyptic” vision -- will lead to the changes.
“But so far [the administration] has not laid out a strategy,” said McCain, a former Navy officer and Vietnam prisoner of war.
McCain suggested that if the president goes to Congress to ask for additional authority to launch airstrikes in Syria, he will have to present a clear, convincing case to get the votes.
He also said he and South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, a fellow member of the Armed Services Committee, will propose a plan when Congress returns from August break to repeal so-called sequestration, which has put tight limits on the defense budget.

Obama Sends White House Aides To Michael Brown Funeral

EDGARTOWN, Mass. (AP) — President Barack Obama is sending three White House officials to the funeral service of the Missouri teenager whose death in a police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, has sparked days of racial unrest.
Leading the group for Monday's service will be the chairman of the My Brother's Keeper Task Force, Broderick Johnson. My Brother's Keeper is an Obama initiative that aims to empower young minorities. Johnson is also the secretary for the Cabinet.
Also attending will be the deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, Marlon Marshall, and an adviser for the office, Heather Foster.
The White House says Marshall is a St. Louis native and attended high school with Brown's mother.

Migrants risk life and limb to reach the US on train known as the Beast

A crackdown in Mexico is making life hard for Central American people trying to flee poverty and violence via rail to the US

Crammed into a patch of shade outside their dormitory in a migrant shelter in southern Mexico, a small group of women from Honduras and El Salvador spent much of a recent sweltering afternoon slipping into languid snoozes punctuated by bouts of bawdy banter. It was, they said, the way they gathered strength despite the knowledge that their flight from extreme street gang violence and desperate poverty in their own countries is not only far from over, but looking ever more difficult to complete.
"We can't go back and now we can't go forward either," said Natalia, a Honduran in her 20s, as the conversation turned serious and the smiles faded away. "And every day that passes means more suffering and danger for the families we left behind."
For years, the US border has been notoriously tough to cross. The Mexican leg is notorious for the risk of falling into the hands of criminal gangs such as the Zetas cartel, who rape, murder and demand ransoms from relatives in the US, often with the complicity of officials themselves known for demanding bribes.
However, the fallout from the political furore unleashed in the US by this year's spike in children and families turning up in Texas is adding yet more challenges. This has less to do with US border controls getting even tighter than with the Mexican authorities bowing to US pressure and cracking down as well, according to the migrants in the shelter.
"The hunt is on in Mexico, and we are the prey," said Natalia. "Mexico is doing what the United States wants."
The most obvious part of the Mexican crackdown is an unprecedented drive to keep migrants from riding the infamous freight train that trundles through the country from near the Guatemalan border all the way to the US and has traditionally been the route of choice for the poorest and most vulnerable. The Mexican government announced that it would start keeping migrants off the train in July, at a time when the US right was loudly complaining that Mexico was turning a blind eye to the wave of child migrants passing through the country.

China dismisses US criticism of jet encounter as 'groundless'

China dismisses the claim its fighter jet flew perilously close to a US military aircraft in international airspace earlier this week 

China dismissed US criticism of manoeuvres by one of its jets near a US Navy patrol plane off the Chinese coast as groundless and said its pilot had maintained a safe distance from the US aircraft.

The Defence Ministry statement came in response to a diplomatic complaint the Pentagon filed with Beijing on Friday when it said a Chinese jet had come within yards of the US plane.

"The US side's criticism of China is totally groundless," the Chinese statement said on Saturday.

The military forces of the two countries have been looking to forge closer ties, but these have been frequently tested as tensions between China and its neighbours, some of them US treaty allies, have heightened over competing territorial claims in the South China and East China seas.

The US complaint concerned an August 19 encounter about 135 miles (215 km) east of China's Hainan Island in which a Chinese fighter jet came within yards of the US aircraft performing acrobatic manoeuvres around it, the US side said.
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