Tag: InternationalNews

{{The United States on Friday was repositioning naval forces in the Mediterranean to give President Barack Obama the option for an armed strike on Syria, although officials cautioned that Obama had made no decision on military action.}}

A defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. Navy would expand its presence in the Mediterranean to four destroyers from three.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, en route to Asia, said Obama had asked the Pentagon for options on Syria, where an apparent chemical weapons attack that killed as many as 1,000 civilians has upped pressure on Washington to respond.

“The Defense Department has responsibility to provide the president with options for all contingencies,” Hagel said. “And that requires positioning our forces, positioning our assets, to be able to carry out different options – whatever options the president might choose.” He did not elaborate.

The defense official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the USS Mahan, a destroyer armed with cruise missiles, had finished its deployment and was due to head back to its home base in Norfolk, Virginia. But the commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet has decided to keep the ship in the region, the defense official said.

The official stressed the Navy had received no orders to prepare for any military operations regarding Syria.

Obama’s senior national security advisers will convene at the White House this weekend to discuss U.S. options, including possible military action, against the Syrian government, another U.S. official said on Friday.

A senior State Department official said no final decisions were expected from the meeting, pending a further review of intelligence on the attack. Secretary of State John Kerry planned to attend via videoconference. The meeting was expected to take place on Saturday.

The U.S. president has been hesitant to intervene in Syria’s 2 1/2-year-old civil war, sentiments he repeated earlier on Friday.

But, in a development that could increase the pressure on Obama, American and European security sources said that U.S. and allied intelligence agencies had made a preliminary assessment that chemical weapons were used by Syrian forces in the attack near Damascus this week.

reuters

{{France’s Interior Minister Manuel Valls has sowed discord at the heart of the Socialist-led French government after making controversial comments about the country’s immigration policy and its large Muslim population.}}

During a closed-door ministerial meeting on Monday, Valls, who is in charge of French police, suggested that in ten years France’s immigration system would need fundamental reforms to tackle the influx of foreigners, especially from Africa.

In particular, he questioned whether the country would be able to maintain its policy of regrouping family members of immigrants who obtain legal residency.

Later in the meeting, he was quoted as saying it would be up to France to prove that Islam was compatible with democracy.

The comments were leaked to dailies Libération and Le Parisien by other ministers who, while wishing to remain anonymous, admitted feeling “outraged” by what they had heard.

Following the leaks, Valls and other members of the cabinet were forced to react publicly on Tuesday.

Sounding annoyed that his comments had been leaked to the press, Valls told French RMC radio that it was necessary to “rebuild a relationship with Africa, in particular over the issue of immigration.”

But Social Affairs Minister Marisol Touraine disagreed on France 2 television.

“We must remember that we are working within a legal framework that must be upheld,” she said. “In my view, calling family reunification into question does not help that framework.”

Separately, Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici defended Valls over his comments on Islam, saying they were misrepresented.

“Some are saying that [Valls] was questioning if Islam was compatible with our democracy. The opposite is true. He was saying, ‘We will show the world that Islam is compatible with our democracy’.”

Adding fuel to the fire

Whether or not Valls’s words were taken out of context, they have reinforced his image as a Socialist with a right-wing bent.

Some have even nicknamed him “the Nicolas Sarkozy of the left” in reference to the tough-on-immigration former president.

Last weekend, hard left-wing leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon claimed Valls had been “contaminated” by far-right, anti-immigration leader Marine Le Pen, in reference to the minister’s pronouncement that the government should debate banning Muslim veils in universities.

However, the recurring controversial statements appear to be working in Valls’s favour.

“His popularity has grown over the summer because the subjects he has focused on are widely popular among French people,” Jérôme Fourquet, the director of public opinion studies at French pollster Ifop, told FRANCE 24.

With an approval rating hovering over 60%, Valls, who was born in Spain and became a French citizen at age 20, is currently the most popular French minister, according to a recent Ifop study.

The number of immigrants in France has remained relatively stable over the past ten years. Immigrants represented 5.6% of the population in 2003 and 5.8% in 2010, the last year for which figures are available, according to the Insee national demographics institution.

France is also home to the largest Muslim population in Europe, estimated at close to five million people, or 8% of the total population.

{france24}

{{Israel’s air force bombed a militant target south of Lebanon’s capital Beirut early on Friday in retaliation for a cross-border rocket attack the day before, a spokesman said.}}

The air strike targeted a “terror site” near Na’ameh, between Beirut and Sidon, according to an Israeli military source quoted by the Reuters news agency.

A Palestinian militant group based in Lebanon, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), confirmed that its base in Na’ameh had been hit by an Israeli rocket on Friday, but said it caused no injuries or significant damage, Lebanon’s Al-Manar Television reported.

The move comes one day after four rockets were fired from Lebanese soil into northern Israel. The attack, which was later claimed by the al Qaeda-linked Sunni Muslim group Abdullah Azzam Brigade, caused damage but no casualties.

“Israel will not tolerate terrorist aggression originating from Lebanese territory,” Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said in a statement announcing Friday’s retaliation.

Israel and Lebanon are technically at war. Israel briefly invaded Lebanon during an inconclusive 2006 conflict with Hezbollah. The Israelis now are reluctant to open a new Lebanese front, however, given spiraling regional instability.

france24

{{A photo journalist was gang-raped in the Indian city of Mumbai, police said on Friday, evoking comparisons with a similar incident in Delhi in December that led to nationwide protests and a revision of the country’s rape laws.}}

The attack on Thursday evening triggered protests and an outcry on social media, with many users shocked that it took place in Mumbai, widely considered to be India’s safest city for women.

“An FIR has been registered … nobody has been arrested so far,” a head constable at the police station dealing with the case told Reuters. An FIR is a preliminary police report. Several people were detained for questioning, another policeman said. Some media reports said one man had been arrested.

In rowdy scenes in the upper house of parliament, the opposition accused the government of not doing enough to protect women, despite tougher sex crime laws brought in this year.

The victim, who is in her early twenties, was admitted on Thursday night to a hospital in south Mumbai, where she is in a stable condition, a hospital official told Reuters by e-mail.

The attack took place in an abandoned textile mill in Lower Parel, a gritty former industrial district that is now one of the city’s fastest-growing neighborhoods of luxury apartments, malls and bars, media reports said. The woman was working on an assignment with a male colleague.

“In the evening, the girl and her colleague were clicking pictures. Two men approached her asking her if she had permission to shoot. Another man then joined in and the photographer was gang-raped,” Mumbai Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh told an Indian television station. Other reports said more men were involved in the attack.

“We’ve brought in 10 people for questioning. A case of gang rape has been filed,” Singh said.

Several dozen mainly male supporters of the right-wing Shiv Sena political party gathered with flags and banners outside the police station where the case was filed. A further protest was called later in the afternoon.

Women’s safety in India has been in the spotlight this year following the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in December, which led thousands of Indians to take to the streets in protest. The woman died of her injuries two weeks later in a Singapore hospital.

The trials of the four men and one juvenile accused of the December attack are expected to conclude within the next three weeks. The verdict on the juvenile suspect is set for Aug 31. Closing arguments in the trial of the four adult suspects started on Thursday.

Following public outcry over the Delhi attack, India introduced tougher rape laws in March, which include the death penalty for repeat offenders and for those whose victims were left in a “vegetative state”.

In contrast to Delhi, Mumbai has long been considered a safer place for women to travel alone, even at night.

“(Mumbai) has this sense of security … but these things make us feel that maybe we are not really that safe,” said A. L. Sharada, director of Population First, an NGO that works on women’s rights issues.

“Women should be able to move freely and take up work. Why should we be worrying about something bad happening to us all the time?” Sharada added.

{reuters}

The number of Syrian child refugees that have fled the country has now reached one million, according to a joint report published by the UN’s refugee and children’s agencies.

In their statement on Friday, the UNHCR and UNICEF said that children make up half of all refugees from the Syrian conflict and that most have arrived in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt.

“This one millionth child refugee is not just another number,” Anthony Lake, UNICEF Executive Director, said in the report. “This is a real child ripped from home, maybe even from a family, facing horrors we can only begin to comprehend.”

The report’s figures show that about 740,000 Syrian child refugees are under the age of 11 and that more than 3,500 children in Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq have crossed Syria’s borders either alone or separated from their families.

“The youth of Syria are losing their homes, their family members and their futures. Even after they have crossed a border to safety, they are traumatised, depressed and in need of a reason for hope,” UNHCR High Commissioner António Guterres said.

The UNHCR and UNICEF also estimated that about 7,000 children have been killed during the conflict and more than two million children have been internally displaced within Syria.

Some of the humanitarian efforts carried out by the agencies include providing vaccinations against measles, psychosocial assistance, education and water supplies.

Additionally, the UNHCR said it has managed to register all one million children and has helped Syrian babies born in exile to get birth certificates.

The report stated that despite the operations, more than $5bn in funding is still required to address the Syria crisis and to meet health and educational needs of these child refugees.

“While intensified efforts are needed to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria, parties to the conflict must stop targeting civilians and cease recruitment of children,” the statement concluded.

Aljazeera

{{The operator of Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant was careless in monitoring tanks storing dangerously radioactive water, the nuclear regulator said on Friday, the latest development in a crisis no one seems to know how to contain.}}

Tokyo Electric Power Co. also failed to keep records of inspections of the tanks, Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) Commissioner Toyoshi Fuketa told reporters after a visit to the nearby Fukushima Daiichi plant.

Fuketa visited the plant on Friday after NRA chairman Shunichi Tanaka said this week he was concerned more of the hastily built giant containers would fail.

“Fundamentally, for a facility holding that kind of radioactive water, they did not take action that foresaw the risks of possible leaks,” Fuketa said.

“On top of that, and this is an impression I had before my visit, I can’t help but say that the inspections were careless.”

Japan’s nuclear crisis this week escalated to its worst level since a massive earthquake and tsunami crippled the plant more than two years ago, with Tokyo Electric saying a tank holding highly contaminated water leaked 300 tons of radioactive fluid.

It was the fifth and most serious breach of the same type of tank, as the crisis goes from bad to worse, prompting neighboring China to express shock at the continuing leaks.

A tsunami crashed into the plant, north of Tokyo, on March 11, 2011, causing fuel-rod meltdowns at three reactors, radioactive contamination of air, sea and food and triggering the evacuation of 160,000 people.

It was the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986. There are 350 tanks in place at Fukushima holding radioactive water used to cool the fuel rods. The plant is fast running out of space.

Tokyo Electric said on Thursday new spots of high radiation had been found near the storage tanks, raising fear of fresh leaks.

Tokyo Electric, which has long had problems with documentation, did not keep proper records of its tank inspections and therefore missed problems, Fuketa said.

{reuters}

{{US Army Private Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in jail and dishonorably discharged Wednesday for the biggest breach of official secrets in American history.}}

Military judge Colonel Denise Lind delivered her verdict after a months long trial for Manning, who passed a massive cache of classified government documents to WikiLeaks, the anti secrecy website headed by Julian Asange.

Manning, 25, appeared ashen faced as he awaited the verdict, which came in a less than two minute statement by Lind.

A video link to the courtroom at Fort Meade military base near Washington cut out as soon as Lind stopped speaking.

The soldier was convicted of espionage and other crimes last month, having earlier admitted being the source of hundreds of thousands of battlefield reports from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and confidential US diplomatic cables.

His sentencing is considered especially important as another leaker the former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, currently in Russia is wanted in the United States on espionage charges, having disclosed details of the National Security Agency’s secret electronic monitoring operations.

Military prosecutors on Monday pressed for a 60 year prison term for Manning, arguing that the penalty would send a message to people contemplating the theft of classified information.

Lead defense attorney David Coombs, however, appealed for leniency for his client. He said Manning had expressed remorse, cooperated with the court and deserved a chance to have a family and one day walk free.

Coombs is scheduled to speak to reporters at 1:30 pm (1730 GMT) and outline the next steps in the soldier’s case, which may well include against the 35 year sentence, which will receive a 1,293 day discount for time he has already served.

Manning was a junior intelligence analyst at a US base near Baghdad when he handed over the data about 700,000 documents to WikiLeaks.

The soldier was arrested in Iraq in 2010 and has been in military custody since. The documents that he disclosed rankled American allies when WikiLeaks published them, prompting warnings from US officials that troops and intelligence sources had been jeopardized.

The most notorious breach was a video and audio file, dubbed “Collateral Murder” by WikiLeaks, showing graphic cockpit footage of two US Apache attack helicopters opening fire and killing 12 people in Baghdad in 2007.

Manning, a hero to supporters who regard him as a whistleblower who lifted the lid on America’s foreign policy, was found guilty of 20 of the 22 charges leveled against him.

AFP

{{The European Union stopped short of agreeing immediate cuts in financial or military assistance to Cairo on Wednesday, as the bloc’s foreign ministers held emergency talks to find ways to help bring an end to violence in Egypt.}}

The decision acknowledges Europe’s limited economic muscle in forcing Egypt’s army-backed rulers and the Muslim Brotherhood supporters of deposed President Mohamed Mursi into a peaceful compromise.

It also reflects a concern that abruptly cutting aid could shut dialogue with Cairo’s military rulers and damage Europe’s ability to mediate in any future negotiations to end the worst internal strife in Egypt’s modern history.

The European Union, seen as more neutral than the United States, which provides aid to Egypt’s military, has emerged a key player in Egypt since the army deposed Mursi on July 3. The new government allowed the EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to become the first foreign official to see him in detention.

“The principles of our policy are to support democratic institutions, not to take sides,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague told reporters after meeting his EU counterparts in Brussels.

“It is to continue to promote political dialogue and being able to maintain a position where we can continue to do that.”

The ministers agreed to review any financial aid given to Egypt but said assistance to civil society would continue.

They also agreed to suspend exports to Egypt of any equipment that can be used for internal repression and review any arms sales, though stopping short of explicitly agreeing to end such trade.

{{Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces bombarded rebel-held suburbs of Damascus on Thursday, activists said, keeping up pressure on the besieged region a day after the opposition accused the army of gassing hundreds in a chemical weapons attack.}}

With Wednesday’s death toll estimated between 500 and 1,300, what would be the world’s most lethal chemical weapons attack since the 1980s prompted an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council in New York.

Opposition activists said men, women and children were killed as they slept.

The council did not explicitly demand a U.N. investigation of the incident, although it said “clarity” was needed and welcomed U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon’s calls for a prompt investigation by the U.N. inspection team in Syria, led by Ake Sellstrom.

An earlier Western-drafted statement submitted to the council, seen by Reuters, was not approved. The final version of the statement was watered down to accommodate objections from Russia and China, diplomats said. Moscow and Beijing have vetoed previous Western efforts to impose U.N. penalties on Assad.

The Syrian opposition said President Bashar al-Assad’s forces fired rockets that released deadly fumes over rebel-held eastern Damascus suburbs, which are part of what is known as the Ghouta.

The area is an expanse of old farmland dotted with large built up areas inhabited mostly by members of Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority that have been at the forefront of the uprising against Assad’s Alawite rule.

Assad’s Shi’ite backer Iran said the Syrian government could not have been behind the possible chemical weapon attack as Assad had the upper hand in the fighting.

A report by the opposition al-Sham Research Center said the use of chemical weapons on a scale unseen since their use was first reported last year is “a message” from Assad to Turkey and the Arab Sunni backers of the revolt.

They appeared to have increased their support for the armed opposition, and the attack showed that Assad was not afraid of escalating the conflict, unleashing a new wave or refugees and destabilizing the region, the center said.

{wirestory}