Tag: InternationalNews

{{U.S. President Barack Obama’s message of hope and change has inspired his half-brother Malik to launch a political career of his own, with his eye on elections in Kenya in March.}}

“If my brother is doing great things for people in the United States, why can’t I do great things for Kenyans here?” Malik Obama told Reuters in the village of Kogelo, President Obama’s ancestral homeland.

Malik, 54, is running for governorship of the rural Siaya county as an independent candidate.

His sibling’s message resonates with a Kenyan electorate angry over a political class widely regarded as greedy and corrupt.

However, the odds are stacked against lone candidates in a country where ideology is trumped by tribe or clan ties. This is the first time independents have been permitted to run in an election after a constitutional change in 2010.

For Obama, the inspiration comes from elsewhere.
“He is an inspiration to me and I feel that he is an embodiment of my father’s dream,” he said of the U.S. leader.

“All he told me is ‘brother, it is not an easy thing to get into public office. Just have a thick skin because people will be targeting you. The media will be saying this and that. There will be people who love you and people who won’t love you’.”

He said his younger brother has flourished by following the footsteps of their father, Barack Obama Snr – the first African to attend the University of Hawaii before returning home to work in the senior echelons of the Kenyan civil service.

“The old and tested way has not really worked for us. Right now we need a bold, radical and fresh approach,” he said.

Running late for the interview, Obama apologized, explaining he had to stop his car several times to talk to locals, who would routinely flag him down for greetings.

He says his race in the election is motivated by a desire to foster economic development and to answer the call of duty.

Obama, who said he is a polygamist with 10 children, has a campaign team that includes some family members and volunteers. He is unsure if the big name recognition he brings to the race will put him at an advantage.

President Obama visited Kogelo before his first election victory in 2008 which led to wild jubilation, dancing and parties. His November re-election was greeted with similar enthusiasm.

yahoonews

{{U.N. nuclear watchdog and Iran appear to have failed again in talks this week to finalize a deal to unblock an investigation into suspected atom bomb research in the Islamic state, a diplomatic source said on Thursday.}}

The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran were expected to hold a further meeting on February 12, following two days of negotiations in Tehran that ended on Thursday, the source added, giving no further details.

The apparent absence of a breakthrough in the January 16-17 discussions in the Iranian capital signaled a new setback for efforts to allay mounting international concern over Tehran’s atomic aims and help avert the threat of a new Middle East war.

The Vienna-based U.N. agency had hoped to clinch an elusive framework agreement with Iran that would allow the IAEA to resume a long-stalled inquiry into suspected military dimensions to the country’s nuclear program.

The IAEA, whose mission is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, has been trying for a year to negotiate a so-called structured approach with Iran giving the inspectors access to sites, officials and documents for their investigation.

The IAEA team led by Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts was due to return to Vienna early on Friday.

There was no immediate comment from the U.N. agency, which after a previous meeting with Iran in mid-December said it expected an agreement to be concluded in this month’s talks. Western diplomats later said key differences remained.

World powers were monitoring the IAEA-Iran talks for any signs as to whether Tehran, facing intensifying sanctions pressure, might be prepared to finally start tackling mounting international concerns about its nuclear activity.

The six powers – the United States, France, Germany, China, Russia and Britain – and Iran may resume their separate negotiations later in January to try to reach a broader diplomatic settlement.

They last met in June.

{Agencies}

{{Pakistani officials struck a deal late Thursday with a fiery Muslim cleric to end four days of anti-government protests by thousands of his supporters that largely paralyzed the capital and put intense pressure on the government.}}

The demonstration came at a time when the government is facing challenges on several fronts, including from the country’s top court. The Supreme Court ordered the arrest of the prime minister earlier in the week in connection with a corruption case, but the government’s anti-corruption chief refused to act on Thursday, citing a lack of evidence.

Tahir-ul-Qadri, the 61-year-old cleric who led the protests in Islamabad, galvanized many Pakistanis with his message alleging that the nation’s politicians are corrupt thieves who care more about lining their pockets than dealing with the country’s pressing problems, such as electricity shortages, high unemployment and deadly attacks by Islamic militants.

He demanded electoral reform to prevent corrupt politicians from standing for elections.

But his demand that the government be dissolved and replaced by a military-backed caretaker administration raised concerns that he was being used by the nation’s powerful army to try to delay parliamentary elections expected this spring.

Qadri has denied any connection to the army, which has a history of toppling civilian governments in military coups and has done little to hide its disdain for the country’s politicians.

Qadri returned late last year from Canada and became a significant political force almost overnight, leveraging support from a large cadre of religious followers in Pakistan and abroad.

Tens of thousands of people responded to his call to hold a protest in Islamabad and camped out in the main avenue running through the city, huddling beneath blankets at night to ward off the cold.

But Qadri was left politically isolated Wednesday when a large group of opposition parties collectively announced that they would not support the protest and opposed any movement that threatened democracy.

Their response and suggestions by the country’s interior minister that the government would use force to disperse the protesters might have factored into the cleric’s decision to strike a deal, which appeared to fall short of his demands.

The protesters also were being drenched by heavy rain.

The government agreed to meet with Qadri after he announced that Thursday would be the last day of the protest while warning that he would let the protesters decide how to respond if the government failed to meet his demands by the afternoon.

{Agencies}

{{Algerian forces stormed a desert gas complex to free hundreds of hostages but 30, including several Westerners, were killed in the assault along with at least 11 of their Islamist captors, an Algerian security source told Reuters.}}

Western leaders whose compatriots were being held did little to disguise their irritation at being kept in the dark by Algeria before the raid – and over its bloody outcome. French, British and Japanese staff were among the dead, the source said.

An Irish engineer who survived said he saw four jeeps full of hostages blown up by Algerian troops whose commanders said they moved in about 30 hours after the siege began because the gunmen had demanded to be allowed to take their captives abroad.

And while a crisis has ended that posed a serious dilemma for Paris and its allies as French troops attacked the hostage-takers’ al Qaeda allies in neighboring Mali, it left question marks over the ability of OPEC-member Algeria to protect vital energy resources and strained its relations with Western powers.

Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among at least seven foreigners killed, the source told Reuters. Eight dead hostages were Algerian.

The nationalities of the rest, as well as of perhaps dozens more who escaped, were unclear. Some 600 local Algerian workers, less well guarded, survived.

Fourteen Japanese were among those still unaccounted for by the early hours of Friday, their Japanese employer said.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has cancelled part of his trip in Southeast Asia, his first overseas trip since taking office, and is considering flying home early due to the hostage crisis, Japan’s top government spokesman said on Friday.

“The action of Algerian forces was regrettable,” said Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, adding Tokyo had not been informed of the operation in advance.

Americans, Norwegians, Romanians and an Austrian have also been mentioned by their governments as having been captured by the militants who called themselves the “Battalion of Blood” and had demanded France end its week-old offensive in Mali.

Underlining the view of African and Western leaders that they face a multinational Islamist insurgency across the Sahara – a conflict that prompted France to send hundreds of troops to Mali last week – the official source said only two of the 11 dead militants were Algerian, including the squad’s leader.

The bodies of three Egyptians, two Tunisians, two Libyans, a Malian and a Frenchman were found, the security source said.

The group had claimed to have dozens of guerrillas on site and it was unclear whether any militants had managed to escape.

The overall commander, Algerian officials said, was Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran of Afghanistan in the 1980s and Algeria’s bloody civil war of the 1990s.

He appears not to have been present and has now risen in stature among a host of Saharan Islamists, flush with arms and fighters from chaotic Libya, whom Western powers fear could spread violence far beyond the desert.

{{A handgun was found in the backpack of a 7-year-old boy at a New York City public elementary school on Thursday, triggering a brief lockdown amid heightened concern about gun violence in U.S. schools, officials said.}}

New York City Police Department spokesman John Grimpel said authorities are investigating how the unloaded .22-caliber handgun ended up in the child’s backpack.

Police also found an ammunition clip and a flare gun in the bag belonging to the second-grade student, Grimpel said.

Officials locked down the Wave Preparatory Elementary School, located in Queens, for an hour, the New York City Education Department said.

In December a gunman killed 20 first-graders along with six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

On Wednesday President Barack Obama launched the biggest U.S. gun-control push in generations, urging Congress to approve an assault weapons ban and background checks for all gun buyers to prevent mass shootings like the Newtown massacre.

Agencies

{{Japan’s top nuclear envoy on Thursday urged the UN Security Council to act “sooner rather than later” in punishing North Korea for its long-range rocket launch in December.}}

“We agreed that the Security Council, on behalf of the entire international community, must take appropriate action,” Shinsuke Sugiyama told reporters after talks in Seoul with his South Korean counterpart, Lim Sung-Nam.

“We are hopeful that the Security Council is responding in an appropriate manner sooner rather than later,” Sugiyama added.

North Korea’s successful launch sparked global security concerns, as well as U.N. condemnation and calls from the U.S. and its allies for tightened or expanded sanctions.

Pyongyang said the launch was a purely scientific mission aimed at placing a polar-orbiting earth observation satellite in space.

Most of the world saw it as a disguised ballistic missile test that violated U.N. resolutions imposed after the North’s nuclear and missile tests in 2006 and 2009.

The United States has been liaising closely with Japan and South Korea as it negotiates with China on what action the Security Council should take.

As the North’s sole major ally, China has been resisting tough sanctions, arguing that pushing Pyongyang into a corner could have dangerous consequences.

The US special representative for North Korea policy, Glyn Davies, is due to visit Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo next week.

AFP

{{Russia’s most notorious mafia boss was gunned down in broad daylight by sniper fire as he exited a restaurant in central Moscow today, according to Russia’s Interior Ministry.}}

Aslan Usoyan, who was more commonly known as Ded Hasan (Grandpa Hasan), was the patriarch of one of Russia’s most infamous mafia clans.

The tabloid news website Lifenews.ru published a bloody photo of Usoyan’s dead body.

The mobster had just left an Azeri restaurant around 2:30 p.m. when he was struck by gunfire. Reports said the shot came from a sniper rifle fired from a nearby rooftop.

Russia’s Interfax news agency reports that a female bystander was also injured by gunfire.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting, but Russian news reports immediately suspected it was the work of a rival gang.

Usoyan was an ethnic Kurd born in the former republic of Georgia, which was then part of the Soviet Union.

He had previously survived at least two other assassination attempts. In 2010 he was wounded but survived after being shot in the stomach by a Kalashnikov rifle.

At the time investigators suggested it was over a dispute with another Georgian mob boss over construction projects for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.