Underground stories 092814

Rocket fired at U.S. Embassy in Yemen; Al Qaeda-linked group claims credit

The U.S. embassy in Sanaa, Yemen was targeted by a rocket attack by an unknown assailant on Saturday.
An M72 light anti-tank weapon was used in the attack, causing a blast 200 meters away from the building and injuring two guards, Retuers reported. Al Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sharia claimed responsibility shortly afterward, The Times of Israel reported Saturday.

“Ansar al-Sharia have targeted the U.S. embassy in Sanaa with a (shoulder-launched) LAW rocket,” the jihadist group posted on Twitter. The embassy has previously said over social media that there was “no reason to believe” it had been specifically targeted.
On Friday, the U.S. State Department instructed Americans to leave the country on due to increasing unrest in the country. Shiite rebels known as Hawthis have overrun large swathes of the capital. Thousands have been injured and close to 150 have died in the groups months-long effort to install a technocratic government in Yemen.

Small private bank fuels fortunes of Putin’s inner circle

Weeks after President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea in March, an obscure regulatory board in Moscow known as the Market Council convened inside an office tower not far from the Kremlin to discuss the country’s wholesale electricity market. It is a colossal business, worth 2 percent of Russia’s gross domestic product, and a rich source of fees for the bank that had long held the exclusive right to service it.

With no advance notice or public debate, though, the board voted that day in April to shift that business to Bank Rossiya, a smaller institution that lacked the ability to immediately absorb the work. For Bank Rossiya, it was a tidy coup set to yield an estimated $100 million or more in annual commissions, yet it was hardly the only new business coming in. State corporations, local governments and even the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea were suddenly shifting their accounts to the bank, too.
In a matter of days, Bank Rossiya had received an enormous windfall, nearly all from different branches of the Russian state, which was delivering a pointed message. In late March, the United States had made Bank Rossiya a primary target of sanctions, effectively ostracizing it from the global financial system. Now the Kremlin was pushing back, steering lucrative accounts its way to reduce the pain.
The reason the Kremlin rushed to prop up Bank Rossiya is the same reason that the United States, and later its European allies, placed it on the sanctions list: its privileged status as what the Obama administration calls the “personal bank” of the Putin inner circle. Built and run by some of the president’s closest friends and colleagues from his early days in St. Petersburg, Bank Rossiya is emblematic of the way Putin’s brand of crony capitalism has turned loyalists into billionaires whose influence over strategic sectors of the economy has in turn helped him maintain his iron-fisted grip on power.

Front National wins seats in French senate for first time

Marine Le Pen’s far-right party make third political breakthrough after strong showings in municipal and European elections

The far-right Front National (FN) scored a historic victory in elections to the French senate on Sunday, winning its first ever seats in the upper chamber as the ruling Socialists and their leftwing allies lost their majority to rightwing parties.
The shock victory of Stéphane Ravier from Marseilles and David Rachline from Fréjus confirmed the party’s political breakthrough under Marine Le Pen, who has brushed the poisonous legacy of her father Jean-Marie Le Pen under the carpet in an attempt to “de-demonise” the FN.
The two seats are both in the FN’s stronghold in southern France, and at 26 Rachline, the mayor of Fréjus, is the youngest French senator ever elected.
The result marks a third humiliating electoral defeat for the Socialist party, which has been punished by disillusioned voters while support for the FN has surged. Le Pen’s party won control of a dozen municipalities in elections last March, including the 7th district in Marseilles where Ravier was elected mayor.
It also came top in the European elections two months later, when it knocked the centre-right UMP into second place. One poll earlier this month said that Le Pen could theoretically beat the country’s president, François Hollande, in the second round of the next presidential election, scheduled for 2017.
Referring to the presidency after his election to the senate, Ravier said: “There’s just one more door to open, the Elysée. In 2017 we’ll have Marine Le Pen to do it.”
Sunday’s complex vote was for half of the 348 seats in the senate by an electoral college of 87,000 voters made up of city councillors and local officials. A first round of voting which concluded around midday provided a foretaste of the final shock result, with the Socialists losing seven seats, including in Hollande’s own constituency of La Correze. “It’s Berezina,” one leading Socialist said, referring to Napoleon’s defeat while retreating from Russia.
With Hollande’s popularity at an unprecedented low of 13% and the government hit by budget woes, record joblessness and zero growth, his party had expected to lose the senate majority it has held with the Communists and Greens since 2011.

Spanish judge orders jail for terror cell suspect

MADRID (AP) — A Spanish judge has ordered the detention of a Spaniard from the north African enclave of Melilla on suspicion he belongs to an Islamic terror cell.

National Court judge Javier Gomez Bermudez says that Mohamed Said Mohamed should be held because there is evidence he belongs to a group promoting jihad with cross-border bases in Morocco and Melilla.

In a statement Sunday, the judge said the suspect has a previous criminal record for violent armed robbery and there is evidence he was planning to travel to Syria or Iraq to fight for the Islamic State group.

The judge said two members of Said Mohamed's group had already joined Islamic State.

He said the custody was to prevent any tampering with evidence as investigations continue.

A rare Arctic land sale to Chinese tycoon stirs concerns in Norway

For anyone in the market for a majestic waterfront property with easy access to the North Pole, Ole Einar Gjerde has a deal. “We will throw in the polar bears for free,” said Gjerde, pitching the attractions of a huge tract of Arctic land 2 1/2 times bigger than Manhattan but considerably less noisy. It has a human population of zero.

But the sale of the property, across a frigid fjord from Longyearbyen, the capital of Norway’s northernmost territory, has kicked up a noisy storm fed by alarm over the Arctic ambitions of a Chinese real estate tycoon with deep pockets, a yen for ice and a murky past working for the Chinese Communist Party.
The tycoon, Huang Nubo, was rebuffed last year in an attempt to buy a tract of frozen wilderness in Iceland and has turned his attentions to Norway. This summer he reached a preliminary deal to buy a large waterfront plot for about $4 million near the northern city of Tromso and, according to Norway’s state-owned broadcaster, is also eyeing a much bigger and even more northerly property here on Spitsbergen, the main island in the Svalbard archipelago.
Huang’s company, Beijing Zhongkun Investment Group, denied reports in the Norwegian news media that it wants to buy land here in the high Arctic, and said it is focusing instead on plans for a luxury resort complex in Lyngen, a mountainous area on the Norwegian mainland near Tromso. That project, though centered on land much farther south than Svalbard, still puts Huang’s company inside the Arctic Circle and has set off a heated debate about his intentions.
“No need to doubt that billionaire Huang Nubo is a straw man for the Chinese Communist Party and the country’s authorities,” warned a commentary in Nordlys, northern Norway’s largest newspaper.

Turkey tells Obama, Biden ‘no-fly zone must be declared’ in Syria

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that a “no-fly zone” should be created in Syria to protect part of it from attacks by Syria’s air force.
In his comments to reporters on his return from the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Erdogan did not specify where such a zone should be located.

But Turkey is eager to re-focus the world’s attention on removing Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime from power as well as fighting the Islamic State militants who are battling Kurdish forces just over the border in Syria, triggering a refugee influx into Turkey.
“A no-fly zone must be declared and this no fly-zone must be secured,” Erdogan said, adding that he had discussed the issue with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.
In addition, Erdogan said a “secure area” should be created on the Syrian side of the Turkish border, where tens of thousands of Syrians have fled the fighting as refugees. Turkey could probably protect such an area with its artillery.
In Washington, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey did not rule out the possibility of enforcing a buffer zone for Turkey’s borders with Iraq and Syria, but they would not discuss the potential of supporting a no-fly zone over Syria.

U.S. OKs $2.5 billion to upgrade used military vehicles for UAE

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Friday said it has approved $2.5 billion in modifications and upgrades of used U.S. military vehicles that are to be sold separately to the United Arab Emirates as "excess" equipment.

If finalized, the work would be done by Navistar International Corp, Britain's BAE Systems and Oshkosh Corp, the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a notification to Congress.

The agency, which oversees foreign arms sales, said the deal would help UAE protect its troops, better provide humanitarian assistance, and protect vital commercial trade routes.

The Pentagon agency said UAE had requested the refurbishment and modification of 4,569 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, which are to be sold separately to UAE as excess U.S. military equipment.

The potential deal also includes kits to improve the underbodies of the vehicles, spare and repair parts, support equipment, and personnel training and training equipment, DSCA said.

Once a weapons sale is approved, it must still be negotiated by the two governments.

Bonfire of the ebola victims: The bones and ashes of 700 plague victims lie in a mound next to incinerators imported from Britain - just one of the macabre scenes that reveal the true toll of the world's deadliest virus...

• IAN BIRRELL reports from the ebola ravaged capital of Liberia
• Official death toll has passed 3,000 –  but could be up to 9,000
• The WHO has warned of 17,000 more fatalities over the next six weeks

As I walked into the walled Hindu-style cremation site outside Monrovia alongside the latest consignment of bodies, I saw a smouldering pile of ashes with smoke rising from it.
Scattered among the flickering flames were clearly visible human bones: femurs, hip joints and even the odd skull.
These were the remains of 15 ebola victims, their highly-contagious corpses set ablaze the night before on open pyres.

‘Look at that,’ said Stephen Rowden, a former landscape gardener from Essex overseeing the safe collection and elimination of corpses for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). He pointed to a massive mound of ash with more bits of bone sticking out: ‘That is more than 700 bodies.’
It was a very disturbing sight, underlining the immense human tragedy of this crisis that is ravaging parts of West Africa. Livestock incinerators imported from Britain are now replacing those open pyres. But this was just one among many horrifying scenes that confronted me in the heart of this alarming and worsening ebola outbreak. 

Take the bewildered family I met by the side of a street in Monrovia. The man was cradling his four-year-old daughter, her listless head flopped on his shoulder, while beside him stood his other two remaining children.
A tailor by profession, this courteous man had seen his eldest child and mother die in recent days. Now his six-year-old son Jabbi looked lost, while his daughter Jenneba, 22, seemed the sickest I have seen anyone still standing.
Jenneba’s face was pale, her mouth turned down in pain, she sweated profusely. ‘I think I have ebola,’ she whispered to me. ‘I have been ill since last week. I am so scared.’ Her father Victor was desperately trying to get his children tested at a new clinic opened with 150 beds to cope with this fearsome disease.

Indonesia’s scrapping of direct elections raises fears for democracy

Controversial legislation criticised as attempt by old political elites to consolidate their loosening grip on power

Fears have been raised for Indonesia’s democracy after its parliament voted to abolish the direct election of local leaders, a key post-dictatorship reform credited with assisting president-elect Joko Widodo’s rise to popularity as a mayor and governor before he won July’s national election.
The legislation – passed in the early hours of Friday after intensive lobbying – will mean provincial governors, district chiefs and mayors will now be elected by legislative bodies rather than directly by the people.
It could also lead to Widodo’s opponents in the incoming parliament – in which his coalition will hold just over a third of the seats – using its appointees to block his reforms at the local level.
Direct elections, part of the decentralisation measures implemented after the fall of dictator Suharto in 1998, have been credited with producing a handful of promising new leaders unconnected to the old elite, including Widodo, who beat a former general in the election in July.
After the tightest elections in the nation’s history ran peacefully, the world’s third-largest democracy was lauded for it political maturity and held up as an example in the region.
Raised in a riverside slum in Central Java, Widodo, known in Indonesia as Jokowi, is the first elected president with no direct ties to the old political and military establishment.
“The bill is a setback. A step back to a process of electing political leaders that is now in the hands of political parties,” said Djayadi Hanan, a political analyst from Paramadina University in Jakarta. “It is like a comeback for the political oligarchy.”
Doing away with direct elections, say analysts, will stymie the emergence of a new breed of accountable, responsible leaders and entrench the old elite.

U.S. considers new offer to Iran at nuke talks

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.S. is considering softening present demands that Iran gut its uranium enrichment program in favor of a new proposal that would allow Tehran to keep nearly half of the project intact while placing other constraints on its possible use as a path to nuclear weapons, diplomats told The Associated Press.
The initiative, revealed late Thursday, comes after months of nuclear negotiations between Iran and six world powers that have failed to substantially narrow differences over the future size and capacity of Tehran’s uranium enrichment program. Iran insists it does not want atomic arms but the West is only willing to lift nuclear-related sanctions if Tehran agrees to substantially shrink enrichment and other activities that Iran could turn toward making such weapons.

L.A. pays millions as police and firefighter injury claims rise  

Los Angeles Fire Capt. Daniel Costa liked to go all out on the racquetball court at the LAX fire station. A fellow firefighter described him as a "very competitive" player who "likes to win."
Costa seemed in fine form after five spirited games in the fall of 2011. So his supervisor was skeptical when Costa, then 53, said he'd hurt his knee on the court and needed time off, according to a report by investigators for the city attorney's office.
Costa was out on injury leave for a year, collecting his full salary, tax-free.
In 2009, he took a nearly year-long paid leave after a run-in at the fire station with subordinates he described as "bullies." He complained of chest pain, high blood pressure and other symptoms, state records show.
Costa has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of an injury-leave program for Los Angeles police and firefighters that has cost taxpayers $328 million over the last five years, a Times investigation found.
Total salaries paid to city public safety employees on leave increased more than 30% — to $42 million a year – from 2009 through 2013, the five-year period studied by The Times.
The number who took leaves grew 8%, and they were out of work an average of nearly 9 weeks — a 23% increase compared with 2009.
The increased frequency and cost of leaves has forced the Fire Department to spend millions of dollars a year in overtime and reduced the number of police officers on the street.
City leaders across California say the very design of the injured-on-duty program, IOD for short, invites abuse. Because injury pay is exempt from both federal and state income taxes, public safety employees typically take home significantly more money when they're not working. And time spent on leave counts toward pension benefits.

"What's the incentive to come back to work?" asked Frank Neuhauser, executive director of the Center for the Study of Social Insurance at UC Berkeley and a leading workers' compensation researcher.
The rate of claims in Los Angeles "is astronomical," he said. "It boggles the mind."
Nineteen percent of L.A. police and firefighters took at least one injury leave last year, a rate significantly higher than those of other large local governments, The Times found.
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