Category Archives: Lands

Human tragedy unfolds as Gaza runs on empty

The Telegraph reports: The horrific scars disfigure Mona Abu Mraleel’s otherwise strikingly beautiful face. Swathes of bandages cover the injuries the 17-year-old sustained to her arms and legs in a blaze from which she narrowly escaped with her life.

Still racked by pain from burns to 40 per cent of her body, she goes to hospital on a daily basis to have her dressings changed. Specialist doctors are preparing to carry out a delicate skin graft operation in the coming days.

Yet the hospital on which her recovery depends is woefully ill-fitted to the task – riddled by equipment failures, power cuts and shortages in a mounting crisis that doctors fear is leading to a “health catastrophe”.

Mona lives in Gaza, the impoverished Palestinian coastal enclave where chronic fuel shortages have led to electricity cuts of up to 18 hours a day and reduced ordinary life and public services to a standstill.

She is just one of many Gazans suffering in a rapidly worsening economic climate that this week prompted the British Foreign Office minister, Hugh Robertson, to demand urgent action to restore an adequate fuel supply to the territory. [Continue reading…]

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For Egypt’s new rulers, familiar scapegoats

Robert Mackey writes: This week, when Egypt’s military-backed government issued arrest warrants for Alaa Abd El Fattah and Ahmed Maher — two activist bloggers who helped drive the uprising that forced Hosni Mubarak from power in 2011 only to find themselves blamed for inciting unrest by each successive government — the same thought occurred to several readers of their popular Twitter feeds. “The only stability and reliability we have in Egypt,” the journalist Sharif Kouddous joked, “is that successive rulers never fail to arrest @alaa.”

The mood among supporters of the two men turned much darker on Thursday night when Mr. Abd El Fattah’s wife, Manal Hassan, reported that the police had raided their home, dragging off her husband and leaving his blood on the floor. [Continue reading…]

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Iran — the next stage

David Ignatius writes: Now that the Obama administration has won its breakthrough first-step nuclear deal with Iran, officials are planning strategy for the decisive second round that, over the next six months, will seek a broader and tougher comprehensive agreement.

This “end state” negotiation, as officials describe it, promises to be more difficult because the United States and its negotiating partners will seek to dismantle parts of the Iranian program, rather than simply freeze them. Another complication is that negotiators will be fending off even more brickbats from hard-liners in Israel, Congress and Tehran.

If the interim deal was reached largely in secret, through a back channel provided by Oman, this one will have to be negotiated in the diplomatic equivalent of a circus ring, with hoots and catcalls from bystanders.

As administration strategists seek a comprehensive deal, they have several priorities. All will be harder to negotiate than was the limited six-month freeze on the Iranian program agreed to last weekend. Given the arduous bargaining ahead, the United States will need the leverage of the sanctions still in place after the release of $7 billion in frozen Iranian assets — and the threat of more sanctions if negotiations break down.

The negotiators’ agenda: [Continue reading…]

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Ire in Canada over report NSA spied from Ottawa

The New York Times reports: Canadian opposition politicians expressed shock and anger on Thursday over a report that the National Security Agency conducted widespread surveillance during a summit meeting of world leaders in Canada in June 2010.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, citing a confidential briefing paper obtained by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor, reported on Wednesday night that the N.S.A. turned the United States Embassy in Ottawa into a command post for a six-day surveillance operation that coincided with the Group of 20 summit meeting in Toronto and the Group of 8 meeting in Huntsville, Ontario.

According to the document, the operation was “closely coordinated with the Canadian partner,” an apparent reference to the Communications Security Establishment Canada, a Canadian electronic surveillance agency.

Exactly who or what the N.S.A. was monitoring, however, was unclear from the CBC’s description of the report. The document does indicate, however, that the N.S.A. believed that its mandate during the summit meetings included “providing support to policy makers.” [Continue reading…]

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Prominent Egyptian blogger arrested; whereabouts unknown

Jadaliyya reports: At around 10:00 p.m. on 28 November 2013, police forces stormed the home of activist Alaa Abd El Fattah. They had no search warrant. When his wife Manal demanded to see it they were both beaten up. Police personnel took their computers and their telephones. Their two-year old son, Khaled, was asleep in the next room.

An arrest warrant was issued for Abd El Fattah following Tuesday’s violent dispersal of protestors under a new law effectively banning street protest in Egypt. At least fifty-one people were arrested that day, among them several prominent activists. All were beaten and the women were sexually assaulted. Later that day, authorities issued an arrest warrant for Abd El Fattah’s for the alleged incitement and organization of the protest. A warrant for the arrest of Ahmed Maher, founder of the 6th April Youth Movement, was also issued.

Abd El Fattah had stated publicly that he would turn himself in on Saturday but the police violently raided his home earlier tonight.

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Disillusionment grows among Syrian opposition as fighting drags on

The New York Times reports: In a terrace cafe within earshot of army artillery, a 28-year-old graduate student wept as she confessed that she had stopped planning antigovernment protests and delivering medical supplies to rebel-held towns.

Khaled, 33, a former protester who fled Damascus after being tortured and fired from his bank post, quit his job in Turkey with the exile opposition, disillusioned and saying that he wished the uprising “had never happened.”

In the Syrian city of Homs, a rebel fighter, Abu Firas, 30, recently put down the gun his wife had sold her jewelry to buy, disgusted with his commanders, who, he said, focus on enriching themselves. Now he finds himself trapped under government shelling, broke and hopeless.

“The ones who fight now are from the side of the regime or the side of the thieves,” he said in a recent interview via Skype. “I was stupid and naïve,” he added. “We were all stupid.”

Even as President Bashar al-Assad of Syria racks up modest battlefield victories, this may well be his greatest success to date: wearing down the resolve of some who were committed to his downfall. People have turned their backs on the opposition for many different reasons after two and a half years of fighting, some disillusioned with the growing power of Islamists among rebels, some complaining of corruption, others just exhausted with a conflict that shows no signs of abating.

But the net effect is the same, as some of the Syrians who risked their lives for the fight are effectively giving up, finding themselves in a kind of checkmate born of Mr. Assad’s shrewdness and their own failures — though none interviewed say they are willing to return to his fold. [Continue reading…]

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Syrian war is making casualties of ‘a generation of innocents,’ warns UN

Al Jazeera America reports: School-age refugees who have fled Syria’s civil war to neighboring countries are cut off from education and are increasingly becoming primary providers for families who lack resources for basic survival, the United Nations said Friday.

A report published by the U.N.’s refugee agency (UNHCR) says children represent 52 percent of the total Syrian refugee population, which now exceeds 2.2 million. Seventy-five percent of those children are under the age of 12.

“If we do not act quickly, a generation of innocents will become lasting casualties of an appalling war,” Antonio Guterres, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said in launching the report.

The UNHCR report found a majority of the refugee children live in Syria’s neighboring countries, with Jordan and Lebanon combined hosting more than 60 percent. As of the end of October, 291,238 Syrian refugee children were living in Jordan and 385,007 in Lebanon.

“This is the moment for the international community to fully understand that the support provided to the countries of the region needs to be strongly enhanced, needs to be really massive, because there is a risk for the asylum space if that doesn’t happen,” Guterres added. [Continue reading…]

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Syria’s most powerful opposition groups unite

Jamestown Foundation: The leaders of seven Syrian militant Islamist armed opposition groups announced the formation of al-Jabhat al-Islamiya (Islamic Front) on November 22 with the stated purpose of uniting their disparate fighting groups into one coalition. The coalition has a strategy to present a popular political alternative to President Bashar al-Assad’s government, militarily defeat the al-Assad regime and establish an Islamic state in Syria. Al-Jabhat al-Islamiya includes several of the most powerful Syrian armed opposition groups currently fighting in the country’s civil war, including Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiya (Islamic Movement of the Free Ones of the Levant); Liwa al-Islam (Islamic Brigade); Alwiya Suqur al-Sham (Hawks of the Levant Brigades); and Liwa al-Tawhid (Divine Unity Brigade). Three other armed opposition groups, Liwa al-Haqq (Divine Truth Brigade), Ansar al-Sham (Partisans of the Levant) and Jabhat al-Akrad al-Islamiya (Kurdish Islamic Front) have also joined the coalition. [1] Combined, the constituent fighting groups within al-Jabhat al-Islamiya are believed to have as many as 50,000 fighters (Janes Terrorism & Insurgency Centre, November 24). The armed opposition groups that are forming the coalition are actively engaged against the al-Assad government throughout Syria, particularly in and around the northwestern governorates of Idlib and Aleppo, in the central western governorates of Homs and Hama and in Damascus and its suburbs (al-Jazeera, November 22).

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Five reasons Israel won’t attack Iran

Zachary Keck writes: Although not a member of the P5+1 itself, Israel has always loomed large over the negotiations concerning Iran’s nuclear program. For example, in explaining French opposition to a possible nuclear deal earlier this month, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius stated: “The security concerns of Israel and all the countries of the region have to be taken into account.”

Part of Fabius’ concern derives from the long-held fear that Israel will launch a preventive strike against Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons. For some, this possibility remains all too real despite the important interim agreement the P5+1 and Iran reached this weekend. For example, when asked on ABC’s This Week whether Israel would attack Iran while the interim deal is in place, William Kristol responded: “I don’t think the prime minister will think he is constrained by the U.S. deciding to have a six-month deal. […] six months, one year, I mean, if they’re going to break out, they’re going to break out.”

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has done little to dispel this notion. Besides blasting the deal as a “historic mistake,” Netanyahu said Israel “is not obliged to the agreement” and warned “the regime in Iran is dedicated to destroying Israel and Israel has the right and obligation to defend itself with its own forces against every threat.”

Many dismiss this talk as bluster, however. Over at Bloomberg View, for instance, Jeffrey Goldberg argues that the nuclear deal has “boxed-in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu so comprehensively that it’s unimaginable Israel will strike Iran in the foreseeable future.” Eurasia Group’s Cliff Kupchan similarly argued: “The chance of Israeli strikes during the period of the interim agreement drops to virtually zero.”

Although the interim deal does further reduce Israel’s propensity to attack, the truth is that the likelihood of an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities has always been greatly exaggerated. There are at least five reasons why Israel isn’t likely to attack Iran. [Continue reading…]

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Americans give thanks — for television

Jason Lynch writes: Thanksgiving is a day when more than 100 million Americans will observe the most honored of traditions: gathering with family and friends to watch as many as 15 hours straight of TV.

More than any other major American holiday, Thanksgiving has become a TV-centric day, where people seem to spend far more time in front of the television than they do at the dinner table. And the broadcast networks are taking advantage of that rapt audience through marquee programs that last year attracted more than 114 million viewers.

The TV turkey day festivities kick off at 9am with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC, which averaged 22.4 million viewers last year, its largest audience since 2001. NBC Research estimates that 43.2 million people watched at least a portion of the parade. An additional 7.5 million CBS viewers watched that network’s unofficial coverage of the New York City event, billed as The Thanksgiving Day Parade on CBS. The parade concludes at 12pm, and segues into NBC’s coverage of The National Dog Show, which drew 9.2 million viewers in 2012. NBC Research estimates that 19.3 million viewers took in at least part of the Dog Show. [Continue reading…]

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Iran invites inspectors to nuclear site

The New York Times reports: Five days after Iran struck a landmark accord with world powers on its nuclear program, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced on Thursday that Tehran had invited its inspectors to visit a heavy water production plant linked to the deal — the first tangible step since the agreement was concluded.

In a speech in Vienna, the director general of the agency, Yukiya Amano, said the invitation was for inspectors to travel to the plant in Arak, in central Iran, on Dec. 8. Mr. Amano told reporters that it was “for sure” that inspectors would accept the offer.

The invitation was limited to the heavy water production facility on the same site as a reactor under construction to which international inspectors have had some access, Mr. Amano said. The facility producing heavy water, used in some types of reactors to control nuclear activity, has been off limits to inspectors for more than two years.

Part of the deal in Geneva specifically provided for Iran not to produce fuel for the Arak plant, install additional reactor components there or put the plant into operation. If it became fully operational, the reactor would produce plutonium that could be used in a nuclear weapon.

In return for that and other curbs on Tehran’s nuclear program, the powers promised a limited easing of the international economic sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy.

The speed with which Tehran offered access to Arak was taken by some analysts as a sign that Iran’s leaders wanted to press ahead with the deal, which is intended as an interim accord lasting six months during which negotiators are to discuss a comprehensive settlement. [Continue reading…]

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How Congress could derail a nuclear deal with Iran

Cameron Abadi writes: When Secretary of State John Kerry joined the nuclear negotiations at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva last Saturday, he employed the oldest negotiating trick in the book, evoking Congress as the bad cop to the Obama administration’s good cop. Kerry told Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that if they failed to reach an agreement that day, the Obama administration would be unable to prevent Congress from passing additional sanctions against Iran. Less than 24 hours later, Kerry and Zarif walked into the hotel lobby to announce that they had struck a deal to freeze Iran’s nuclear program temporarily.

In the face of criticism from members of Congress and U.S. allies in the Middle East, administration officials have insisted that the Geneva agreement is just the first step toward a more far-reaching disarmament deal. But such a deal will require that the Obama administration promise not just to forestall the imposition of new sanctions, but also to reduce dramatically the sanctions already in place. And that depends on the cooperation of a Congress that has been singularly uninterested in assuming the role of good cop in the showdown with Iran.

The White House has some discretion to rescind the Iran sanctions without Congress’s approval. The method for removing any given set of sanctions depends on how those sanctions were passed in the first place. If they’re the product of an executive order, as many of the existing sanctions against Iran are, removing them requires only that the White House decide to stop enforcing them. That’s exactly how Obama will be making good on its promise to Iran, as part of last week’s interim agreement, to restore access to $7 billion held in foreign bank accounts.

Removing sanctions that have been passed into law by Congress, however, is a much more difficult challenge. Despite the partisan gridlock in Washington over the past several years, bipartisan majorities have managed to cooperate on three separate rounds of sanctions since 2010, including measures targeting Iran’s central bank, which Iran will undoubtedly want rescinded. Removing those laws from the books will force the White House to go through Congress all over again. That will require overcoming the partisanship and procedural hurdles that have consumed Congress in recent years. [Continue reading…]

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Iran allowed some construction at key nuclear site under interim deal, U.S. says

The Associated Press and JTA report: The U.S. said Wednesday that Iran can undertake some construction work at a key nuclear facility as long as fuel isn’t produced and advances aren’t made on a planned heavy water reactor.

The Arak site was among the thorniest issues negotiators sought to resolve in last weekend’s nuclear agreement in Geneva.

The White House said afterward Iran wouldn’t advance its “activities” at Arak or progress toward plutonium production. It spelled out several more constraints.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Wednesday while his country was honoring the deal, construction on building projects would continue.

Iran opens contacts with major Western oil companies (Financial Times)

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‘No military solution’ in Syria, admit both sides

The New York Times: The Syrian government announced on Wednesday that it will participate in talks scheduled for January to try to end the country’s civil war but added that its official delegation will attend with the blessing of President Bashar al-Assad and that it does not intend “to hand over power to anyone.”

The Associated Press reports: Syrian state TV says government forces have captured a western town near the border with Lebanon, a week after opposition fighters seized it.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirms troops are almost in full control of Deir Attiyeh, whose population is nearly a third Christian.

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Egyptian women jailed for 11 years for peaceful protests

Al Jazeera reports: A group of women have been jailed for 11 years for a peaceful protest in Alexandria, as Egypt’s interim prime minister gave a strong defence of a law further restricting public demonstrations.

The women, supporters of the deposed president Mohamed Morsi, received 11-year jail sentences on Wednesday for forming a human chain and passing out flyers earlier this month. Seven minors among the group were remanded to juvenile detention until they reach legal age. The youngest in the group is 15 years old.

Six men, described by prosecutors as Muslim Brotherhood leaders, were sentenced to 15-year terms, accused of being members of a “terrorist organisation”.

In a news conference also on Wednesday, Hazem el-Beblawi, the interim prime minister, defended a new law requires which citizens to apply for permission before marching as a “necessary step”.

“The cabinet confirms that it will apply the law fully to show its support for the police in the face of terrorism. The law is subject to change, but through the proper channels.” [Continue reading…]

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Fear rises of return to sectarian violence in Iraq

The New York Times reports: A family of five killed in their home. A group of men shot dead in a field. Eight bodies, tied up in cable, discovered on a farm, each with a bullet in the head.

More than 300 Iraqis have been killed this month in bombings and shootings in markets, along roadsides, near schools and mosques, and in bakeries. On Tuesday, the United Nations Security Council condemned the recent spike in violence in Iraq and the deliberate targeting of places where civilians congregate.

But on Wednesday, the daily tally of violence took on an air of pinpoint deliberation with the execution-style killings of several groups of civilians, a grim reminder of the worst days of sectarian warfare in the country. While major bombings have become common, the killings reintroduced the prospect of a resurgence in the type of violence that rattled Iraq in 2006 and 2007.

The bodies of the eight young men tied in cable were found on a farm in Jubor, a Sunni city south of Baghdad, the same place other bodies had been dumped during the sectarian turmoil seven years ago.

The bodies of five men shot in the head and chest were found in an open field in Shula, a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad, the authorities said.

The five family members, including two boys and a girl, were killed by gunshot in their house in Hurriya, a Shiite-majority neighborhood of Baghdad, the police said. They were identified as Sunni, but no further information about them was immediately released.

The 18 dead were among at least 40 people, including security forces, who were killed in attacks across Iraq on Wednesday. [Continue reading…]

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Pakistan’s PTI party names CIA station chief

Firedoglake: A political party in Pakistan has named the CIA station chief in the country and accused the chief and CIA director John Brennan of murder for their role in a recent drone strike in Hangu, where an Islamic school was targeted.

The drone strike on November 21 killed six and, injured a “large number of those present including children,” according to a letter submitted to police by Dr. Shireen M. Mazari, the central information secretary for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

Following the strike in the Khyber Pakhtunkwa province, a settled urban area, a First Information Report (FIR) was submitted to a nearby police station asking them to investigate crimes committed by those who were behind the strike.

Firedoglake is not revealing the alleged station chief’s name. The identity of the alleged CIA station chief in Pakistan has already been exposed by PTI, and his alleged name is circulating in the country.

The letter nominates Brennan and alleged CIA station chief Craig Osth for “committing the gross offenses of committing murder and waging war against Pakistan.” [Continue reading…]

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