Gazette 092914

Monday September 29th 2014

Islamic State crisis: Iraq air strikes 'halt IS advance'

Iraqi ground forces, backed by air strikes, appear to have halted advancing Islamic State (IS) militants in a key town near Baghdad.

The BBC's Lyse Doucet in the Iraqi capital says the air strikes followed clashes with IS militants, who have been making gains towards the capital.
Amariya al-Falluja, 40km (25 miles) from Baghdad, is a key strategic town.
It comes as a US-led coalition continues to carry out air strikes on IS targets in Syria and Iraq.
The area around Ameriyat al-Falluja is now said to be calm, but there is a standoff along the main road to Falluja to the north, which is controlled by IS, our correspondent says.
In an US television interview on Sunday, President Obama candidly admitted the US had "underestimated" the threat of IS.
He said a political solution - one that would arise out of an accommodation between Sunni and Shia populations - was key to defeating the jihadists.

US-led airstrikes hit four Syrian provinces, activists claim civilians killed

BEIRUT –  U.S.-led coalition warplanes bombed Islamic State group positions overnight across four provinces in northern and eastern Syria, hitting a grain silo as well as the country's largest gas plant, activists said Monday.
Washington and its Arab allies opened their air assault against the extremist group last week, going after its military facilities, training camps, heavy weapons and oil installations. The campaign expands upon the airstrikes the United States has been conducting against the militants in Iraq since early August.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said coalition forces hit Islamic State group facilities overnight in Aleppo, Raqqa, Hassakeh and Deir el-Zour provinces. It said there were casualties, but that it did not have concrete figures.
Among the facilities hit was the entrance to Syria's largest gas plant, Conoco in Deir el-Zour province, and grain silo in the extremist-held town of Manbij in Aleppo province.  It said the gas facility itself was not damaged.
Another activist group, the Aleppo Media Center, also reported the strike on the grain silo in Manbij, northeast of Aleppo city. It said the attack ignited a fire at the facility.
There was no immediate confirmation from the U.S. or its allies on the reported air raids.

Australian cabinet to sign off on military action in Iraq within days, Julie Bishop says

Foreign minister also says Australia would be prepared to consider a separate request for military engagement in Syria
Australia is close to signing off on military action in Iraq with the legal framework for the mission likely to be settled within days, Julie Bishop has confirmed.
The foreign affairs minister said the government would be prepared to consider a separate future request to extend Australia’s involvement to Syria, but the current focus was on Iraq.
“Let’s take it a step at a time,” Bishop told the ABC on Sunday.
“We’ve been requested by the US and the Iraqi government to support efforts in Iraq. That’s what we’ve been considering, that’s [why] we’ve pre-deployed aeroplanes and our special forces for that mission. And we are comfortable that it requires a legal framework from the Iraqi government, an invitation and consent from the Iraqi government.
“Now Syria is another step, different considerations would apply. It would have to be a completely different discussion within the national security committee, within cabinet and presumably with the opposition.”
Australia has pre-deployed 600 Australian Defence Force (ADF) members to the Middle East in anticipation of an imminent decision to join US-led air strikes against Islamic State (Isis) militants in Iraq. The deployment includes armed special forces members who would provide military advice to the Iraqi and Kurdish security forces.
Tony Abbott arrived back in Canberra on Sunday after participating in talks at the UN in New York on the situation in the Middle East. The prime minister underlined Australia’s willingness to join planned action against Isis, which he described as “a death cult that in declaring itself a caliphate has declared war on the world”.

Turkish Tanks Take Up Position On The Syrian Border

MURSITPINAR, Turkey, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Turkish tanks took up position on a hill overlooking the besieged Syrian border town of Kobani on Monday after several shells hit Turkish territory as Islamic State militants fired on the town, a Reuters correspondent said.

At least 15 tanks were positioned, some with their guns pointed towards Syrian territory, near a Turkish military base just northwest of Kobani. Plumes of smokes rose up as shells hit both the eastern and western sides of Kobani.
At least two shells also hit Turkish territory on Monday.

New Afghanistan president sworn in, marking peaceful transfer of power

Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai was sworn in Monday as Afghanistan's new president, replacing Hamid Karzai in the country's first democratic transfer of power since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban.
Moments after Ghani Ahmadzai took the oath, he swore in his election challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, as chief executive, fulfilling a political pledge he had taken to share power and defuse election tensions that had threatened to spark violence between the country's north and south.

Ghani Ahmadzai, a former World Bank official and Afghan finance minister, wore a dark black turban popular in the country's south as he swore in his two vice presidents and then Abdullah.
Abdullah, a former foreign minister, spoke first and thanked Karzai for his service and the people of the country for casting votes in the millions despite the threat of attack from Taliban militants who tried to thwart the election process.
"We are committed as one in the national unity government," Abdullah said. "Our commitment will be fulfilled together as unified team to create national unity."
Ghani Ahmadzai then congratulated Karzai for a peaceful and democratic transition of power, and he thanked Abdullah for making the national unity government possible.
"I am not better than anyone from among you. If I do any good, give me your support. If I go wrong, set me right," Ghani Ahmadzai said.

Afghanistan To Sign U.S. Security Agreement, Adviser Says

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A senior adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama said Monday that Afghanistan will sign a deal Tuesday to allow American soldiers to remain in the country past the end of the year.
John Podesta, speaking to a news conference at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, said he didn't know if newly inaugurated President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai would be the official signing the deal for Afghanistan.
Podesta said he would sign it on behalf of the U.S.

The deal will allow about 10,000 American troops to stay in the country after the international combat mission ends on Dec. 31.
The announcement comes after Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai was sworn in Monday as Afghanistan's new president, replacing Hamid Karzai in the country's first democratic transfer of power after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban.
Moments after Ghani Ahmadzai took the oath, he swore in his election challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, as chief executive, fulfilling a political pledge he had taken to share power and defuse election tensions that had threatened to spark violence between the country's north and south.

Eastern Ukraine Shelling Kills At Least 12

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Eastern Ukraine has suffered the worst violence in more than a week as fighting between pro-Russian rebels and government troops in the region killed at least 12 people and wounded 32, officials said Monday.
Col. Andriy Lysenko told journalists in a briefing in Kiev on Monday that at least nine troops had been killed in a day and 27 had been wounded.
Meanwhile, the city council of Donetsk said in a statement published online that at least three civilians were killed and five wounded in overnight shelling of a residential area in the northern part of the city, where fighting has centered on the government-held airport.
Violence has continued despite a cease-fire declared on Sept. 5. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has been at pains to insist to a skeptical audience at home that his peace plan is working.
Since fighting began in April, the conflict has claimed at least 3,500 lives. On Sept. 20, representatives of Russia, Ukraine, and the rebels signed another agreement that would require both sides to remove all heavy artillery from the frontline, creating a buffer zone that would allow the cease-fire to be better enforced.
On Sunday, in the second-largest Ukrainian city, Kharkiv, nationalists tore down an enormous statue of Vladimir Lenin to cheers from the crowd. Across Ukraine, people have torn down statues to the former Communist leader in a symbolic display of anti-Russian sentiment.
The authorities in Kharkiv supported the move. Arsen Avakov, Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs and a Kharkiv native, wrote on his Facebook page: "Lenin? Let him fall... As long as nobody gets hurt."

Watch Protesters Tear Down A Massive Lenin Statue In Ukraine

Demonstrators in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv toppled one of the country's largest statues of Vladimir Lenin on Sunday. Captured in a bevy of tweets and videos posted to social media, crowds of pro-Ukrainian protesters surrounded the Soviet idol as ropes wrenched the Lenin statue from its moorings and sent it hurtling to the ground.
Statues of Lenin, once abundant in Ukraine and a reminder of its past as part of the Soviet Union, have been a common target ever since the start of the revolution that ousted the nation's Russian-leaning leader earlier this year.
Kharkiv's statue was a notable exception to the massive cull, not only because of its size but also because previous attempts to take it down were met by opposition from a pro-Russian group, which formed a blockade against Lenin's destruction. The division was emblematic of the rift between Western and Eastern Ukraine that continues to be a source of conflict.
Kyiv Post editor Christopher Miller reported that demonstrators had been threatened with jail time for attempting to take down the statue, but they persisted anyway. 

Karadzic 'drove Bosnia war crimes' - UN prosecutors

War crimes prosecutors have called former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic the "driving force" behind the persecution of non-Serbs in the 1990s.

Closing arguments are being heard in The Hague, where Mr Karadzic has been on trial for five years.
Prosecutors want him to get life imprisonment. He is charged with 11 crimes committed during the Bosnia war, including the most serious, genocide.
He listened intently in court. The verdict is expected in a year's time.
"The policy of ethnic cleansing has been fully exposed as has Dr Karadzic as its driving force," said UN prosecutor Alan Tieger.
Mr Karadzic is accused of acting together with former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic to expel or slaughter Bosnian Croats and Muslims (Bosniaks) who were living in areas claimed by ethnic Serbs.
Their campaign was designed to carve out an "ethnically pure" region. Mr Karadzic, 69, portrays himself as a patriotic leader who was engaged in a heroic struggle to protect the Serb identity.
He is expected to close his own defence on Wednesday and Thursday.

Hong Kong Activists Defy Police Tear Gas As Protests Spread

HONG KONG, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Riot police advanced on Hong Kong democracy protesters in the early hours of Monday, firing volleys of tear gas that sent some fleeing as others erected barricades to block the security forces in the heart of the former British colony.
Earlier, police baton-charged a crowd blocking a key road in the government district in defiance of official warnings that the demonstrations were illegal.
Several scuffles broke out between police in helmets, gas masks and riot gear, and demonstrators angered by the tear gas, last used in Hong Kong in 2005.
The unrest is the worst since China took back control of Hong Kong from Britain in 1997. It poses a serious challenge to Communist Party leaders in Beijing, concerned that calls for democracy could spread to cities on the mainland and threaten their grip on power.
Thousands of protesters were still milling around the main Hong Kong government building, ignoring messages from student and pro-democracy leaders to retreat for fear that the police might fire rubber bullets.
Police, in lines five deep in places, earlier used pepper spray against activists and shot tear gas into the air. The crowds fled several hundred yards (meters), scattering their umbrellas and hurling abuse at police they called "cowards."
Related: Britain calls for Hong Kong protest rights to be protected
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Detroit bankruptcy judge says he can't stop city from shutting off water for unpaid bills

DETROIT –  A judge overseeing Detroit's bankruptcy won't stop the city from shutting off water if people can't pay their bill.
Judge Steven Rhodes announced his decision Monday after hearing two days of testimony last week. He says bankruptcy law doesn't give him the authority to interfere with specific services offered by Detroit.

The water department has said it would suffer financially if ordered to supply water without payment. Officials say 30,000 customers now are enrolled in two-year payment plans, but critics say the strategy still doesn't help the poorest residents.
City attorney Thomas O'Brien last week said "there are limits" to what the department can do.

California adopts college sex crime rule

California has become the first US state to require students on state-funded campuses to have clear, active consent before all sexual activity.

Governor Jerry Brown signed the "yes means yes" bill, which advocates say will change the perception of rape.
The legislation stipulates that voluntary agreement, rather than lack of resistance, defines consent.
In January President Obama launched an initiative to combat sexual assault, particularly on college campuses.
"Yes means yes" is the first law in a US state to make the language of affirmative consent a central principle of school sexual assault policies.
The rule defines consent as "an affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity."
Lawmakers say, however, that consent can be non-verbal, if it is unambiguous.
The aim is to improve the way that campuses deal with accusations of sexual assault, and to challenge the notion that victims of sexual crimes need to have resisted assault in order to have valid complaints.
The legislation also says that silence or a lack of resistance do not constitute consent. Under the bill, someone who is drunk, drugged, unconscious or asleep cannot grant consent.
Sofie Karasek, an activist from the University of California-Berkeley told San Jose Mercury News that she believed the bill would change the cultural perception of rape.
"There's this pervasive idea that if it's not super violent then it doesn't really count," she said.
However critics say that the new law dangerously expands the definition of assault.
The National Coalition For Men condemned the bill as "misandric" (man-hating), saying it "gives license to false accusations, denies the accused due process, will cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in law suits and sets the stage for ruining innocent lives."
The Department of Education has named dozens of colleges and universities under investigation for mishandling sexual assault cases.
The US estimates one in five women is sexually assaulted while at university.

2 Southern California men convicted on terrorism charges

LOS ANGELES_Two Southern California men have been convicted on federal charges of being involved in a terrorism plot to travel overseas, join al-Qaida and kill Americans.
Sohiel Omar Kabir, 36, an Afghanistan-born American citizen, and Ralph Deleon, 25, a citizen of the Philippines who lived in Ontario, were found guilty Thursday by a federal jury in Riverside after a nearly seven-week trial.
Kabir and Deleon were convicted of "conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to kill officers and employees of the United States government," said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office.
The men face life without parole when they are sentenced Feb. 23, he said.
"This case shows that the appeal of extremist ideologies can reach from Afghanistan to America, demonstrating the clear need for continued vigilance in rooting out homegrown violent extremists who plot terrorist acts both here and abroad," said U.S. Attorney Stephanie Yonekura.
Two other defendants indicted in the case in 2012, Miguel Alejandro Santana Vidriales and Arifeen David Gojali, previously pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.
During the trial, prosecutors alleged that Kabir persuaded Deleon and the two other men to travel to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban and later join al-Qa-da.
Prosecutors said Kabir told the other men that once in Afghanistan, they would join the Taliban - which he referred to as "the students" - and eventually join al-Qaida, which he called "the professors." The men honed their abilities at firearms and paintball facilities in Southern California as part of their preliminary training, authorities said.

White House preparing to defy GOP in pushing through Holder replacement

Prospect of lame duck confirmation vote, which would rely on Democratic senators who could lose elections, angered GOP
The White House is preparing to defy Republicans and possibly push through the confirmation of a new attorney general in the lame duck session of Congress if Democrats lose control of the Senate in November’s midterm elections.
Though refusing to speculate on the exact timing of a replacement for Eric Holder, who announced his resignation on Thursday, Obama administration officials began laying the ground for such a strategy by listing precedents under previous presidents. The stakes have been heightened after a recent rule change under Senate majority leader Harry Reid which means that only 51 votes are required to confirm White House nominations rather than the 60 previously needed to avoid a filibuster.
The examples being cited by the White House include Robert Gates, defence secretary under George W Bush, who was confirmed in December 2006 despite the Republicans losing control of the Senate in the previous month’s elections.
“There is a precedent for presidents making important cabinet nominations and counting on Congress to confirm them promptly, even in the context of a lame duck session, if necessary,” Obama spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Friday.
The Gates example may carry little weight with Republicans who would point out that he was a bipartisan figure confirmed with near-unanimous support and who was also later appointed by Obama, whereas they fear a more divisive candidate in the mold of Holder. On the other hand, Democrats argue Republicans have become much more obstructive than ever before, which was one reason they felt it necessary to change the filibuster rules.

California will give undocumented immigrant children $3 million in free legal services

Children in California who illegally entered the country will get access to millions of dollars in legal aid under a new state law.
Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed a measure into law over the weekend that provides $3 million to nonprofits that offer such aid to undocumented immigrant children. The bill addresses what President Obama earlier this year described as a humanitarian crisis, following a summer surge in the number of unaccompanied children, mostly from Central American countries, streaming across the border.
“Helping these young people navigate our legal system is the decent thing to do, and it’s consistent with the progressive spirit of California,” Brown said in introducing the bill late last month alongside the leaders of the state Assembly, Senate, members of the Latino Legislative Caucus and California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris. The law also allows the state courts to provide the basis for the federally granted status necessary for expedited naturalization. A government official recently acknowledged that roughly 70 percent of immigrant families released into the United States never showed up weeks later for follow-up appointments with immigration agents.

Trudeau Liberals woo high-profile aboriginal candidates ahead of 2015

Trailing other parties in aboriginal representation in the House, party promises to promote new voices

A rejected aboriginal education act, a controversial financial transparency act, persistent calls for a national public inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women, court challenges to major energy projects and rumblings of more Idle No More protests.
Those are just some of the conflicts that threaten to further hobble an already fractured relationship between the federal government and Canada's aboriginal people.
With the next federal election campaign less than a year away, the Liberals are moving to position themselves as the party that can repair that relationship and give aboriginals a voice in Parliament.
At least three high-profile aboriginal candidates have decided to run for Justin Trudeau's Liberals in 2015, says Liberal aboriginal affairs critic Carolyn Bennett, who has been working with aboriginal members of the party to recruit candidates.
Jody Wilson-Raybould, a regional chief with the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, will run in Vancouver Granville. Daniol Coles, a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta, will run in the newly formed riding of Edmonton Griesbach. And Michèle Audette, the president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, has received the green light to seek the nomination in the Quebec riding of Manicouagan.
In separate interviews, all three candidates say Trudeau has not made them any promises.
"I think the most important thing we can offer them is a voice," Bennett said.
The governing Conservatives, in fact, count four aboriginal MPs among their ranks, including two cabinet ministers: Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq, Heritage Minister Shelly Glover, Rod Bruinooge and Rob Clarke.
Labrador's Yvonne Jones, elected in a by-election last year, is the Liberals' only aboriginal MP, while the NDP have two aboriginal MPs.
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