Impasse in the Arab world

The more we (Arabs) relied on and trusted in the United States, the more the US failed us, sweet-talked us and — yes, let’s call a spade a spade betrayed us.
From May 14, 1948 when under the stewardship of President Harry S Truman the US became the first nation that recognised Israel, to the time earlier this year when President Barack Obama gave an approving nod to Israeli colonization of Arab land, Washington continued to string us along.
And what about the visiting secretaries of state? We had a surfeit of them, from William Rogers in 1970 to John Kerry earlier this week, who visited Arab capitals armed with their nation’s professions of impartiality and even-handedness.
Oh, yes, John Kerry. Consider this: Last Tuesday, on the eve of his arrival in Tel Aviv in a quest to create “two states for two peoples,” he was greeted by the news that many in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition and many more in his party, the Likud, along with a substantial number of Knesset members, not only opposed the idea of a Palestinian state but put forward their own plans to annex larger swaths of Palestinian land in the West Bank.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin, a staunch annexationist, said, “regardless of the world’s opposition, it’s time to do in (the West Bank) what we did in (Arab East) Jerusalem and the Golan.”
And Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon, another Greater Israel nutcase, was quoted as saying: “I think we should no longer think of Jewish settlements in the West Bank but of Palestinian settlements in Israel.” And not a peep from Kerry, who remained deferential, as all his predecessors had been in the face of Israeli provocations.
Imagine the hell that would break loose, if say a majority in the Palestinian Parliament and in President Mahmoud Abbas’ Cabinet had greeted a secretary of state, on the eve of his official visit to their country, by suggesting that since historic Palestine had been Arab for 13 centuries, Israel itself is a large colonial settlement grafted on their homeland, and no way would they bring themselves to accept or legitimize its existence as a state.
It’s irrelevant here to ask as to why the US has eaten humble pie in response to Israeli excesses all these years. The US sees Israel as a vital strategic asset in our part of the world?
The answer to that question is: The Jewish lobby in Washington wields enormous power. The Americans have been quoted as saying, “Israelis are a people who share our values.”
If we, the Arabs, have learned anything over the last six decades, it is that the United States is wholly committed to Israel, right or wrong, will fight for it tooth and nail at international forums, and forgive whatever transgressions it may be guilty of even when those transgressions are directed at American interests, or at Americans themselves. (A case in point is the deliberate attack in June 1967 against the USS Liberty by Israeli fighter jets that killed 34 crew members and wounded 171 others, and severely damaged the ship, an incident that was swept under the rug, meriting not one single congressional investigation.)
Truth be told, I do not blame the US, a big power, for this posture, anymore than I blame the canary for singing or the beast of prey for preying. Nor, for that matter, do I blame Zionism for its territorial ambitions, its messianic pretensions and its blatant racism. That is the nature of the beast, a nature that was well defined, well declared and well articulated at the First Zionist Congress in Basel in August 1897, long before Zionism transplanted itself to Palestine. Rather, I blame us and us alone for having failed to chart a path that would’ve led us to be the only determining force in our political destiny by drawing on our own resources in order to regroup our own national interests.
Before we became free nations, our grim history as colonized peoples had imposed a cruel yoke on our process of socialization, locking a majority of us into the belief that we are what the Italian theoretician Antonio Gramsci had called “subalterns,” a community without access to political power, dependent on rulers in some foreign capital to solve its problems.
It’s about time, I say, that we freed ourselves from this straightjacket and recaptured for ourselves the ethos of that “assabiyeh” (Ibn Khaldun’s term) that for centuries had defined our civilizational core. In those days, we were tough, independent and free Arabs who allowed no one to mess with their rights, their land, their property and their social practices and religious beliefs. Thus, for example, when the Crusader Kingdom in Jerusalem stepped on our toes in 1187, the punishment we meted out to it that year was heavy indeed and we did it without calling 911 in Washington.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has been a guest in our part of the world this week. Let’s listen to him and treat him with respect as is Arab wont toward their guests but we should tell him clearly and bluntly what we think of that charade known as American foreign policy in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, it pains one to imagine that one’s region may have become like Blanche Debois, the character in Tennessee Williams’s play, A Street Car Named Desire, who proclaims on stage: “I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.” When will we ever learn that to go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right via another’s direction or dictates? –ARAB NEWS

UN urges Qatar to improve migrant labour conditions

DOHA : A top UN official on Sunday urged Qatar to improve conditions for foreign labourers, as the Gulf emirate builds a massive infrastructure for the 2022 football World Cup.
“Many migrants face human rights violations in the workplace,” said the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Francois Crepeau, concluding an eight-day visit to Qatar, which has come under fire over the alleged exploitation of workers.
“Some are not paid their wages, or are paid less than agreed,” he said.
“I am also concerned about the level of accidents in construction sites, and hazardous working conditions resulting in injury or death,” he told a press conference.
Qatar has the highest ratio of migrants to citizens in the world. Approximately 88 per cent of the total population are foreign workers, he noted.
Crepeau urged the energy-rich state to introduce measures that would protect workers, such as establishing a minimum wage for all employees, including domestic staff.
Gulf countries do not enforce a minimum wage for foreign workers, leaving it up to employers.
The UN envoy advised an “effective labour inspection system,” with more inspectors “well trained on human rights standards, and interpreters in the most commonly used languages.”
He also called for the “right of association and to self-organisation for all workers,” in addition to allowing workers to change jobs “without sponsor/employer consent and (to) abolish the exit fee requirement.”
The sponsor system, by which an employee must be sponsored by an individual or a firm, is applied in most Gulf countries, leaving expats at the mercy of sponsors who could refuse to allow them to leave.
Crepeau recommended that Qatar ratify a number of UN conventions on the protection of migrant workers, civil and political rights, and the convention against torture.
Britain’s Guardian newspaper earlier this year charged that labourers in Qatar were faced with “modern-day slavery” and were paying with their lives.
The country has come under the spotlight of human rights organisations as it embarks on a multi-billion-dollar plan to host the 2022 World Cup.
“The stress of the world cup, coming up in nine years, will probably develop solutions that can be then spread to the rest of the Qatari society,” said Crepeau.
Sepp Blatter, chief of world football’s governing body FIFA, said on Saturday from Doha that the issue of working conditions in Qatar was being addressed.
Amnesty International, which is publishing a report on Qatar migrant workers later this month, has urged the country to end “exploitation” by enforcing and reforming existing laws intended to protect workers.
Difficult conditions for migrant workers remain an issue across the oil-rich Gulf region, but some countries have introduced strict measures to improve their situation, including monitoring wages payments.

Yasser Arafat: a farce in Ramallah

Clayton Swisher 
At a packed conference in Ramallah today, the retired general Tawfik Tirawi, once head of the Palestinian Authority’s feared West Bank intelligence, squarely pointed the finger at Israel for the assassination of Yasser Arafat. There are lots of reasons to suspect Israeli responsibility. The former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon was vocal over the years in admitting he had tried but failed to kill Arafat. Israel had famously botched its 1997 attempt to poison the political leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal. It appears logical for the PA – under Israeli military siege in the Muqata when Arafat suddenly became violently ill on 12 October 2004 – to claim Israel alone is to blame.
But there are many other possibilities that Tirawi prefers to ignore. He himself was with Arafat during the siege; he was wanted by Israel, the CIA was shunning him, and he was accused of orchestrating suicide attacks against Israelis. That he was in close proximity when Arafat fell ill makes him at best a witness. For him to lead the investigation now is almost as farcical as the PA’s entire approach to date.
For the outside world Arafat was a very cold case until al-Jazeera broadcast its documentary What Killed Arafat? in July 2012. The PA had formed a committee to examine his death immediately after his passing. But it had several changes in leadership, and did little more than rail against Israel, pursuing nothing by way of forensics. Correspondence obtained by al-Jazeera shows that the doctor in charge of the PA cold case review, Abdullah Bashir, wrote a single letter to French authorities – Arafat died in a French military hospital – in 2009 asking for further information. The French stated that all their files had already been released to Suha Arafat, the widow, and Nasser Kidwa, the nephew.
That was it. No one had bothered to ask Suha the elemental question: did she have any materials that might yield forensic clues? That was the first question scientists had for me when I approached them at the Lausanne University Centre for Legal Medicine. When I asked Suha, she told me about a green gym bag she kept all these years. Arafat had taken it with him to France in his dying days. She was sceptical the Swiss would find anything, but once polonium was detected, she became unrelenting in her demands to go to the very end.
The exhumation of Arafat was not supposed to happen. The PA did not like the fact that Suha sought French jurisdiction. It preferred the UN security council, a curious choice given that it has almost never passed a resolution that benefits Palestinians. The PA also demanded the Arab League investigate, which again amounted to little more than platitudes.
But when the French government formally demanded access to Arafat’s body, it faced a conundrum it had sought to avoid for years. It was the PA that refused to push for an autopsy that most likely would have resolved this mystery years earlier. In a taped interview Nasser Kidwa told me: “I would think this would have meant the end of the peace process, as it stood at that time … because the Palestinian people would have seen a great crime, the crime of the killing of their leader.”
Instead, the PA chose to use the case as a political weapon in its quest for negotiations with Israel. This also helped it avoid a painful, if not self-evident question: was one of its own involved? Sure, the Israelis controlled the perimeter. But as food, water and medicines were allowed in, a microscopic amount of lethal Polonium 210 would not have been hard to get inside. At a very minimum, his closest aides and bodyguards failed to prevent someone from introducing polonium into Arafat’s system, whether by ingestion, injection, or inhalation. Could one of his aides have delivered the dose, with Israeli technical support?
This is why the idea of Arafat’s closest associates conducting their own investigation is inappropriate. For the time being, the proper investigators are the French authorities. Three investigating magistrates will now have the opportunity to review the Swiss testimony and incorporate their own forensic conclusions into the body of evidence. While in Ramallah last November, the French were refused permission by the PA to question its officials without submitting questions in writing. If the PA is serious about finding the truth of who killed their iconic leader, it must afford the French unfettered access.
If not, the “who killed Arafat” question will remain unresolved, and little more than a convenient political tool.
                                                       –The Guardian

More than 10,000 feared dead in typhoon-ravaged Philippines

The death toll from a super typhoon that decimated entire towns in the Philippines could soar well over 10,000, authorities warned Sunday, making it the country's worst recorded natural disaster.
The horrifying estimates came as rescue workers appeared overwhelmed in their efforts to help countless survivors of Super Typhoon Haiyan, which sent tsunami-like waves and merciless winds rampaging across a huge chunk of the archipelago on Friday.
Hundred of police and soldiers were deployed to contain looters in Tacloban, the devastated provincial capital of Leyte, while the United States announced it had responded to a Philippine government appeal and would send military help.
"Tacloban is totally destroyed. Some people are losing their minds from hunger or from losing their families," high school teacher Andrew Pomeda, 36, told AFP, as he warned of the increasing desperation of survivors.
"People are becoming violent. They are looting business establishments, the malls, just to find food, rice and milk... I am afraid that in one week, people will be killing from hunger."
Authorities were struggling to even understand the sheer magnitude of the disaster, let alone react to it, with the regional police chief for Leyte saying 10,000 people were believed to have died in that province alone.
"We had a meeting last night with the governor and, based on the government's estimates, initially there are 10,000 casualties (dead)," Chief Superintendent Elmer Soria told reporters in Tacloban.
"About 70 to 80 percent of the houses and structures along the typhoon's path were destroyed."
On the neighbouring island of Samar, a local disaster chief said 300 people were killed in the small town of Basey.
He added another 2,000 were missing there and elsewhere on Samar, which was one of the first areas to be hit when Haiyan swept in from the Pacific Ocean with maximum sustained winds of 315 kilometres (195 miles) an hour.
Dozens more people were confirmed killed in other flattened towns and cities across a 600-kilometre stretch of islands through the central Philippines.

Guantanamo prisoner’s secret diaries leaked

WASHINGTON - Al Jazeera America published Thursday part of the secret personal diaries of one of Guantanamo’s most high-profile prisoners, with records of meetings with Al-Qaeda’s chieftains.
The six volumes of Abu Zubaydah’s diaries, which span more than a decade from his student years to just before his March 2002 capture, were a key element of the George W. Bush administration’s justification of its “war on terror.”
US officials often use the accounts to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo without charge or trial, but they had never before been made public.
Washington once considered Abu Zubaydah to be Al-Qaeda’s number three leader - waterboarding him 83 times in a single month and subjecting him to other so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” - though it later dialed back its portrayal of the suspect as a senior operative.
The CIA had asked to be able to waterboard Zubaydah, a Saudi-born Palestinian whose real name is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, fearing he was withholding information about imminent terrorist attacks.
Al Jazeera said the documents - a copy of the government’s English translation of the diaries - were obtained from a former US intelligence official who worked with the CIA and FBI on Al-Qaeda issues.
The diaries reveal Abu Zubaydah’s ambivalence but also his passion over his decision to join Osama bin Laden in the early days of Al-Qaeda.
“Yesterday and only yesterday I decided to go to Afghanistan,” Abu Zubaydah wrote in an entry dated January 6, 1991, in describing his intent to return to India to complete his studies after receiving training during the trip.
“The intent is bona fide, God willing. Almost everything is ready except I am scared of the circumstances. Yet I trust in God, and we seek refuge in him.”
Al Jazeera published the first of six volumes of the diaries with plans to subsequently release the remainder.
He also acknowledged his inner conflict between seeking martyrdom and wanting family life.
“In spite of my yearning for sooner martyrdom, yet it is the truth that I am not denying; I am longing to a good wife, a small house, a child and the word ‘Papa,’” Abu Zubaydah wrote.
And the diaries’ value to US officials was clear in their account of key terror figures Abu Zubaydah met.
On that list were Al-Qaeda’s current leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri, 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef, late Al-Qaeda military leader Mohammed Atef, the Taliban’s spiritual leader Mullah Omar and bin Laden.
Zubaydah has hinted that the capture of his diaries by US authorities was even worse than waterboarding, and caused him to suffer 40 seizures.
“The mental anguish that came from broken promises in which they said they would give me my diary back contributed to the seizures,” Abu Zubaydah told his Combatant Status Review Tribunal hearing in March 2007.
“For me, it is bigger than what the CIA (did to) me.”

Guantanamo prisoner’s secret diaries leaked

WASHINGTON - Al Jazeera America published Thursday part of the secret personal diaries of one of Guantanamo’s most high-profile prisoners, with records of meetings with Al-Qaeda’s chieftains.
The six volumes of Abu Zubaydah’s diaries, which span more than a decade from his student years to just before his March 2002 capture, were a key element of the George W. Bush administration’s justification of its “war on terror.”
US officials often use the accounts to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo without charge or trial, but they had never before been made public.
Washington once considered Abu Zubaydah to be Al-Qaeda’s number three leader - waterboarding him 83 times in a single month and subjecting him to other so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” - though it later dialed back its portrayal of the suspect as a senior operative.
The CIA had asked to be able to waterboard Zubaydah, a Saudi-born Palestinian whose real name is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, fearing he was withholding information about imminent terrorist attacks.
Al Jazeera said the documents - a copy of the government’s English translation of the diaries - were obtained from a former US intelligence official who worked with the CIA and FBI on Al-Qaeda issues.
The diaries reveal Abu Zubaydah’s ambivalence but also his passion over his decision to join Osama bin Laden in the early days of Al-Qaeda.
“Yesterday and only yesterday I decided to go to Afghanistan,” Abu Zubaydah wrote in an entry dated January 6, 1991, in describing his intent to return to India to complete his studies after receiving training during the trip.
“The intent is bona fide, God willing. Almost everything is ready except I am scared of the circumstances. Yet I trust in God, and we seek refuge in him.”
Al Jazeera published the first of six volumes of the diaries with plans to subsequently release the remainder.
He also acknowledged his inner conflict between seeking martyrdom and wanting family life.
“In spite of my yearning for sooner martyrdom, yet it is the truth that I am not denying; I am longing to a good wife, a small house, a child and the word ‘Papa,’” Abu Zubaydah wrote.
And the diaries’ value to US officials was clear in their account of key terror figures Abu Zubaydah met.
On that list were Al-Qaeda’s current leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri, 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef, late Al-Qaeda military leader Mohammed Atef, the Taliban’s spiritual leader Mullah Omar and bin Laden.
Zubaydah has hinted that the capture of his diaries by US authorities was even worse than waterboarding, and caused him to suffer 40 seizures.
“The mental anguish that came from broken promises in which they said they would give me my diary back contributed to the seizures,” Abu Zubaydah told his Combatant Status Review Tribunal hearing in March 2007.
“For me, it is bigger than what the CIA (did to) me.”

India MP, wife in police custody over maid's death

NEW DELHI : A New Delhi court on Wednesday ordered an Indian lawmaker and his wife to be held in police custody over the alleged torture death of a maid at their home. Dhananjay Singh, a lawmaker from the regional Bahujan Samaj Party, and his dentist wife were arrested late Tuesday over the death of their 35-year-old maid, Rakhi Bhadra, who had allegedly been brutally assaulted. The case was the latest in a string of reports of impoverished domestic servants being abused by wealthy employers. "The offences are serious in nature," Judge Dheeraj Mittal said as he ordered the couple to be held in police custody for five days. The maid was alleged to have suffered massive injuries to her head, stomach, arms and chest while working at the couple's house. The lawmaker's wife Jagriti Singh was being held on suspicion of murder and wrongful confinement after the maid's death.
Her husband faces two other murder charges in unrelated cases. He was being held for allegedly destroying evidence by removing surveillance footage from 20 cameras installed in the couple's house, senior Delhi police official Mukesh Kumar Meena told reporters. The lawmaker had earlier denied any wrongdoing over the maid's death, saying he was away at his Uttar Pradesh state constituency at the time of the death. On reaching Delhi, he immediately informed police.
Another servant, a juvenile, "told us that Jagriti had (allegedly) been regularly beating the three domestic helps including Rakhi over petty issues", police officer Meena said. According to the 17-year-old servant, the maid was beaten with sticks and antlers for several months and died after being burnt with hot iron rods and kicked repeatedly by the dentist, police said.
The young boy showed his injuries to the judge at the court hearing, the Press Trust of India reported. A prosecution lawyer in the case also told the court that another of the couple's maids, Meena, was being treated in hospital after being allegedly being assaulted by the lawmaker's wife. "Her (Meena's) back and other parts of the body have been burnt by hot iron. She was also beaten up in an inhuman manner and and she cannot even sit," a senior police officer was quoted as saying later by the Press Trust of India.
Jagriti Singh is the lawmaker's second wife. Police said the couple are in the process of divorcing. The case comes just months after a teenage Indian maid was rescued from an upscale Delhi home by police and social rights campaigners, who said she had been slashed with knives and mauled by dogs.
Her employer, a senior executive for a major multinational company, is on trial on charges of assault and illegal confinement. In April last year police arrested a wealthy couple, both doctors, who locked up their 13-year-old helper while they went away on holiday. She was rescued by firefighters when neighbours spotted her crying on an outside balcony.
India passed legislation in 2006 banning the employment of children under 14 in households, roadside eateries and hotels, but the law is widely flouted. AFP

Arafat was murdered with polonium: widow

PARIS  - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned to death in 2004 with radioactive polonium, his widow Suha said on Wednesday after receiving the results of Swiss forensic tests on her husband's corpse.
"We are revealing a real crime, a political assassination," she told Reuters in Paris.
A team of experts, including from Lausanne University Hospital's Institute of Radiation Physics, opened Arafat's grave in the West Bank city of Ramallah last November, and took samples from his body to seek evidence of alleged poisoning.
"This has confirmed all our doubts," said Suha Arafat, who met members of the Swiss forensic team in Geneva on Tuesday. "It is scientifically proved that he didn't die a natural death and we have scientific proof that this man was killed." She did not accuse any country or person, and acknowledged that the historic leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization had many enemies.
Arafat signed the 1993 Oslo interim peace accords with Israel and led a subsequent uprising after the failure of talks in 2000 on a comprehensive agreement. Allegations of foul play surfaced immediately. Arafat had foes among his own people, but many Palestinians pointed the finger at Israel, which had besieged him in his Ramallah headquarters for the final two and a half years of his life.
The Israeli government has denied any role in his death, noting that he was 75 years old and had an unhealthy lifestyle. An investigation by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera television news channel first reported last year that traces of polonium-210 were found on personal effects of Arafat given to his widow by the French military hospital where he died.
That led French prosecutors to open an investigation for suspected murder in August 2012 at the request of Suha Arafat. Forensic experts from Switzerland, Russia and France all took samples from his corpse for testing after the Palestinian Authority agreed to open his mausoleum.
The head of the Russian forensics institute, Vladimir Uiba, was quoted by the Interfax news agency last month as saying no trace of polonium had been found on the body specimens examined in Moscow, but his Federal Medico-Biological Agency later denied he had made any official comment on its findings.
The French pathologists have not reported their conclusions publicly, nor have their findings been shared with Suha Arafat's legal team. A spokeswoman for the French prosecutor's office said the investigating magistrates had received no expert reports so far.
One of her lawyers said the Swiss institute's report, commissioned by Al Jazeera, would be translated from English into French and handed over to the three magistrates in the Paris suburb of Nanterre who are investigating the case.
Professor David Barclay, a British forensic scientist retained by Al Jazeera to interpret the results of the Swiss tests, said the findings from Arafat's body confirmed the earlier results from traces of bodily fluids on his underwear, toothbrush and clothing. "In my opinion, it is absolutely certain that the cause of his illness was polonium poisoning," Barclay told Reuters. "The levels present in him are sufficient to have caused death.
"What we have got is the smoking gun - the thing that caused his illness and was given to him with malice." The same radioactive substance was slipped into a cup of tea in a London hotel to kill defecting Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. From his deathbed, Litvinenko accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his murder. The British government refused to hold a public inquiry into his death after ministers withheld some material which could have shed light on Russia's suspected involvement.

Barclay said the type of polonium discovered in Arafat's body must have been manufactured in a nuclear reactor.
While many countries could have been the source, someone in Arafat's immediate entourage must have slipped a miniscule dose of the deadly isotope probably as a powder into his drink, food, eye drops or toothpaste, he said. Arafat fell ill in October 2004, displaying symptoms of acute gastroenteritis with diarrhoea and vomiting. At first Palestinian officials said he was suffering from influenza. He was flown to Paris in a French government plane but fell into a coma shortly after his arrival at the Percy military hospital in the suburb of Clamart, where he died on November 11.
The official cause of death was a massive stroke but French doctors said at the time they were unable to determine the origin of his illness. No autopsy was carried out. Barclay said no one would have thought to look for polonium as a possible poison until the Litvinenko case, which occurred two years after Arafat's death.
Some experts have questioned whether Arafat could have died of polonium poisoning, pointing to a brief recovery during his illness that they said was not consistent with radioactive exposure. They also noted he did not lose all his hair. But Barclay said neither fact was inconsistent with the findings. Since polonium loses 50 percent of its radioactivity every four months, the traces in Arafat's corpse would have faded so far as to have become untraceable if the tests had been conducted a couple of years later, the scientist said.
"A tiny amount of polonium the size of a flake of dandruff would be enough to kill 50 people if it was dissolved in water and they drank it," he added. The Al Jazeera investigation was spearheaded by investigative journalist Clayton Swisher, a former U.S. Secret Service bodyguard who became friendly with Arafat and was suspicious of the manner of his death.
Hani al-Hassan, a former aide, said in 2003 that he had witnessed 13 assassination attempts on Arafat's life, dating back to his years on the run as PLO leader. Arafat claimed to have survived 40 attempts on his life. Arafat narrowly escaped an Israeli air strike on his headquarters in Tunisia in 1985. He had just gone out jogging when the bombers attacked, killing 73 people.
He escaped another attempt on his life when Israeli warplanes came close to killing him during the 182 invasion of Beirut when they hit one of the buildings they suspected he was using as his headquarters but he was not there. In December 2001, Arafat was rushed to safety just before Israeli helicopters bombarded his compound in Ramallah with rockets.

Bangladesh court sentences 152 to death for 2009 mutiny

A special court in Bangladesh on Tuesday sentenced to death more than 150 people, from among hundreds of mutineers accused of murder and arson at the headquarters of the country's border guards in 2009.
Some 850 people had been accused of involvement in the bloody rampage that broke out in the capital, Dhaka, and quickly spread to a dozen other towns, killing 74 people.
Prosecutor Mosharraf Hossain Kajol told Reuters the court sentenced 152 people to death.
"The court announced the death sentence to them for the heinous killing of the country's brave sons," he said.
The incident shook the stability of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's newly elected government, which ended the revolt by negotiating a settlement.
The then chief of the paramilitary force was among those killed in the 33-hour rampage. Others included 57 top- and middle-ranking army officers deputed to the force, as well as several civilians.
After the mutiny, the paramilitary force was renamed the Border Guard Bangladesh instead of the Bangladesh Rifles.
The long-awaited verdict came nearly 5 years after the event. Four of the accused have died in jail during the trial while 20 more are on the run and 13 have been released on bail. The remaining 813 accused are in jail.
Tuesday's verdict had been deferred from a date of October 30 originally set by Judge Mohammad Akhtaruzzaman after the completion of arguments by both prosecution and defense.
The trial began in August 2011, with charges pressed against the 850 people in 2010 after an investigation that ran more than a year.
There were 801 members of the force among the 850 charged, and 23 civilians, including a former opposition lawmaker.
About 4,000 people have already been found guilty of involvement in the mutiny, all in mass military trials. They have been jailed for up to seven years.

U.N. nuclear chief expected to visit Iran next week: state TV

U.N. nuclear agency chief Yukiya Amano is expected to visit Tehran on November 11, Iranian state television said on Tuesday, a possible sign of progress in a long-stalled investigation into suspected nuclear arms research by Tehran.
After years of worsening confrontation with the West, Iran has switched to a conciliatory mode - entailing diplomacy in search of a peaceful solution to its disputed nuclear activity - since the June election of moderate President Hassan Rouhani.
The International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran have held a series of fruitless meetings since early 2012 to agree ground rules for the IAEA's inquiry, but hopes for a breakthrough have been lifted by Rouhani's rise.
The Islamic Republic denies seeking nuclear weapons, saying it wants only civilian atomic energy.
Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's atomic energy organization, said he hoped the two sides would reach an agreement during Amano's visit, state television said on its web site, without giving details.
There was no immediate comment from the IAEA, which wants access to sites, officials and documents in Iran, including the Parchin military base where it believes nuclear-related explosives tests might have taken place, possibly a decade ago.
The IAEA's discussions with Iran are separate from broader negotiations between Tehran and six world powers that resumed in Geneva last month and will continue there on November 7 and 8.
But both diplomatic tracks center on suspicions that Iran may be seeking the capability to make nuclear weapons.
If Amano's trip is confirmed, it would be his first visit to the Iranian capital since May 2012. That time, he returned saying he expected to sign a deal with Iran soon to unblock the agency's investigation, only to see it fail to materialize.

Malaysia warns on dengue as deaths spike

KUALA LUMPUR:A Malaysian health official on Monday warned citizens to take steps to eliminate mosquito breeding spots as dengue fever cases have spiked.

The number of reported cases of the infection, which causes severe fever, headaches and joint pain and can trigger fatal haemorrhaging and death, has soared compared to last year, and deaths have doubled.

Between January and late October, 28,200 cases and 60 deaths were recorded, according to government statistics.

There were 17,800 cases and 29 deaths during the same period last year.

Officials have said a key factor has been frequent heavy downpours in recent weeks.

The disease is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito which, like other mosquitos, breeds in stagnant water and other damp spots.

Lokman Hakim Sulaiman, who heads the health ministry's public health division, said the ministry was calling on all Malaysians to “destroy all the breeding places,” such as illegal dump sites.

“We are trying to get the community to help make the environment free of the mosquitoes,” he told AFP, adding the ministry was working with local-level health officials to spread awareness.

He said prevention was key, due to the lack of proven vaccines or treatment.

“The problem with dengue is that we don't have enough tools to manage the situation. It's a global challenge,” he said.

Dengue fever affects between 50 and 100 million people in the tropics and subtropics each year.

Countries ranging from Nicaragua to Pakistan have in recent weeks reported deadly outbreaks.

In Singapore, which borders Malaysia, more than 19,000 people have been infected this year, according to a government website tracking the problem.

Five have died.

The previous high for number of cases in Singapore came in 2005, when 13,984 infections were recorded, according to official data. Twenty-five people died that year.

Singapore authorities have responded this year by distributing insect repellant to every household and recruiting hundreds of disease-control officers.

Researchers estimate that around three billion people in the world live in regions susceptible to dengue contagion.

Kerry hails disgruntled Saudi Arabia as important US ally

RIYADH. Secretary of State John Kerry praised Saudi Arabia as a “very, very important” ally on Monday as he visited the Gulf Kingdom on a mission to soothe strains in the relationship over US policy on Iran, Syria and the Palestinian issue.

Kerry, who is touring the region, met the Saudi foreign minister on Monday morning and was due to have talks with King Abdullah later.

“We have very important things to talk about to make sure the Saudi-US. relationship is on track, rolling forward and doing things that we need to accomplish,” Kerry said in remarks to U.S. Embassy staff.

Washington's relationship with the Saudis was crucial as the region faced changes and challenges from the transition in Egypt to civil war in Syria.

“The Saudis are very, very important to all of us. The Saudis are really the senior player in the Arab world together with Egypt,” he said.

Saudi Arabia, Washington's main Arab ally, is angry over what is sees as a weak foreign policy on the part of the Obama administration which has allowed Israel to continue building settlements in the Palestinian territories and conflict to persist in Syria.

Saudi concerns are also partly founded on a fear that President Barack Obama's moves to reduce tensions with Iran will give Riyadh's main regional foe an opportunity to extend its influence in Arab countries.

Speaking before his meeting with foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, Kerry reiterated that the United States was determined Iran would not get a nuclear weapon.

Kerry's visit is his first since the Saudi intelligence chief warned last month of a “shift away” from Washington and said Riyadh's abdication of its seat on the UN Security Council was a message for the United States.

A senior State Department official, who requested anonymity, played down suggestions of a major rift with Riyadh.

“We have a tremendous number of ongoing discussions, virtually on a daily basis, with senior Saudi officials,” he said.

The official acknowledged that Saudi Arabia opposed Iran's participation in proposed Syria peace talks in Geneva. Riyadh is a leading supporter of the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is a close ally of Iran.

Frustration

The Saudi English-language daily Arab News laid out the kingdom's reasons for frustration.

“Riyadh's alienation from its ally stems from how the US has continued in recent years to drag its feet on securing a peace settlement in Palestine, and most particularly from how it has pursued a wishy-washy policy in Syria,” Jamal Doumani wrote in the newspaper.

In the most senior levels of Saudi government, princes are also exasperated by the US. reluctance to back Egypt's military in July after it overthrew the elected Islamist president.

“The Saudis' position will not be changed until it's proven on the ground that the US is changing its policy,” said Mustafa Alani, an analyst at the Gulf Research Centre in Geneva.

Saudi royals were also disappointed by Kerry's efforts in bringing about an agreement to disarm Syria's chemical arsenal in August after a gas attack in Damascus, Alani said.

“They want a clear commitment from the American side that Geneva 2 (peace talks) will not turn into 3, 4 and 5. And if this process fails to achieve the objective of removing Assad from power, the Americans should change their policy from diplomacy to changing the balance on the ground,” he said.

The US official said Kerry will make clear to the Saudis that Iran would not be welcome at Syria peace talks in Geneva unless it backed a past agreement under which Assad gave up power.

“Iran has not done that, and without that even we couldn't consider the possibility of their participating,” he said.

On ending the stalemate with Tehran over its nuclear programme, the official said: “We frankly completely agree with the Saudis about their concerns.”

In addition to Riyadh, Jerusalem and Bethlehem, Kerry will make stops in Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria and Morocco.

Nigeria church stampede kills 24 people

ONITSHA, Nigeria : At least 24 people died during a stampede at an overcrowded church gathering in eastern Nigeria, the Red Cross said on Sunday.
Nineteen women were amongst the dead at the stampede in the Holy Ghost Catholic Church in Uke, Anambra state on Saturday, where around 100,000 worshippers had gathered for All Souls Day, Red Cross spokesman Peter Kachi said by telephone.
“There were too many people and the place was so overcrowded,” Osmond Okoli, who narrowly survived being squashed in the crowd, told local station Channels TV.
“We were too compacted so people fell and they were being pushed on us and then we all began to shout from the ground.”
Religious services gathering several hundred thousand people are common in Nigeria. Hours earlier the event had been attended by the local Anambra state governor, Peter Obi. He later returned to the scene of the tragedy and visited the injured in hospital, promising to set up an inquiry to establish the cause of the tragedy.

‘Terrorists’ behind murder of journalists in Mali: France

PARIS : Paris on Sunday blamed terrorist groups for the murder in “cold blood” of two radio journalists in northern Mali, and said French troops would boost security in the restive zone.
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Radio France Internationale (RFI) journalist Ghislaine Dupont and sound technician Claude Verlon were shot dead after being abducted by armed men on Saturday.
“They were killed in cold blood, one took two bullets and the other three,” he said after crisis talks led by President Francois Hollande on the murders in the northeastern town of Kidal.
“The killers are those we are fighting, the terrorist groups who are opposed to democracy and elections,” he said.
He said security in “the entire zone and neighbouring areas, in particular with concern to French citizens, will be intensified.”
A government source said this meant making the presence of French troops based in northern Mali “more visible.”
Justice Minister Christiane Taubira and the head of France’s external intelligence services agency Bernard Bajolet also attended the hour-long talks with Hollande.
Dupont, 57, and Verlon, 55, had travelled Saturday to Kidal to interview a spokesman for the Tuareg separatist group the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), and were abducted outside his home, according to their employer.
They were both veteran journalists experienced in Africa reporting. Dupont had spent 27 years covering the continent since joining RFI in 1986.
RFI quoted MNLA spokesman Ambery Ag Rhissa as saying he heard a commotion outside and saw the pair being bundled into a four wheel-drive vehicle after the interview.
Men in turbans and speaking the Tuareg language of Tamashek “ordered Mr Ag Rhissa to get back inside and forced the journalists’ driver to lie down”, RFI said, adding that Rhissa had heard Verlon and Dupont resist and protest.
“This was the last time that the journalists were seen alive,” said Marie-Christine Saragosse, CEO of France Media Monde, which owns RFI.
She said she was leaving for Mali to bring back the bodies.
The corpses were found less than two hours later by a French military patrol about 12 kilometres (seven miles) east of Kidal, Fabius said, adding their bodies were lying near the car.
On Tuesday, four Frenchmen were freed three years after being abducted in Niger, which neighbours Mali, by an Al-Qaeda offshoot. They had been held in Mali’s vast arid north.
But jubilation over their liberation was tempered by speculation that a huge ransom may have been paid to secure their freedom. Paris has denied paying money to the kidnappers.
The United Nations Security Council has strongly condemned the killing while European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called it a “barbaric assassination.”
Kidal residents ‘deeply upset’ over deaths
There has been a resurgence of violence in Mali, a former French colony in west Africa where Paris sent troops early this year to drive out Islamists and Tuareg MNLA rebels who had seized the country’s vast north after a coup in Bamako.
Malian Defence Minister Soumeilou Boubeye Maiga told France 24 television that Kidal was “the only region where the sovereignty of the state is not effective,” adding that the free circulation of arms in the area created a situation “which can benefit all radical elements.”
Kidal residents were still reeling from shock on Sunday.
“I am deeply upset. I saw the two journalists an hour before they died. They were happy to be with us,” said Awa Diallo.
“They were very kind,” she added.
Kidal, situated more than 1,500 kilometres northeast of Bamako, is the traditional homeland of the Tuareg people and the birthplace of the MNLA’s rebellion.
A French government source said the journalists had asked to be taken there with troops from France’s Operation Serval mission but ended up going with the United Nations MINUSMA peacekeeping force after Serval refused for safety reasons.
The deaths come just three weeks ahead of parliamentary elections which are supposed to mark the completion of Mali’s transition back to democracy following a military coup in March last year.
As the Islamists were driven out of their strongholds by the French-led offensive the MNLA, their former allies, in February took control of Kidal.
Malian authorities finally reclaimed the city after signing a deal with the MNLA on June 18 which saw the rebels moved into barracks as regular troops were deployed to secure Kidal.
Some 2,000 French troops from an initial deployment of 3,000 will remain on the ground - including around Kidal - until the end of December, with the withdrawal of a further 1,000 to be completed by the end of January 2014

The rise of the drones

Duan Xiaolin
During his four-day visit to Washington in late October, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif emphasised “the need for an end” to America’s drone strikes. US President Barack Obama did not respond directly, but both sides agreed to develop bilateral relations and step up anti-terrorism cooperation. Given Washington’s approval of $1.6 billion in military and development aid to Pakistan, tensions appear to be under control for now. Still, continued drone strikes appear very likely to trigger more ructions between the two countries, as tactical counterterrorism needs trump more strategic interests. Indeed, drone warfare generally has the potential to heighten regional risks and even threaten global peace and stability.
Unlike the “boots on the ground” strategy employed by predecessor George W Bush in his War on Terror, Obama has relied heavily on the use of drones to eliminate high-value targets (HVTs). Members of the Obama administration have apparently described drone warfare as “efficient, and even morally necessary, given the state of the US economy and the war-weariness of the American people.”
Other factors may also contribute to this policy option: Americans’ zero- tolerance for terrorism (especially real or rhetorical threats to homeland security), strong domestic anti-war sentiment, and low tolerance for suffering. The use of drones began with the Bush administration, but has been stepped up considerably during Obama’s presidency. Today, the US has acknowledged drone use in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and has allegedly used them in Libya and Mali. Since 2009, the CIA has launched 239 strikes into Pakistan, and the US Navy launched 145 strikes in NATO’s Libya operations.
A heated debate rages over the effectiveness, morality and necessity of drone program. The first two of these are closely linked: whether drones effectively kill HVTs while avoiding civilian causalities, especially women and children. Because of a lack of transparency in CIA and Pentagon-led drone strikes, the media and academics lack access to accurate numbers of HVTs and civilians killed, but they usually agree that drones kill many more civilians and ordinary combatants than HVTs. Civilian deaths make it easier for terrorists to recruit new fighters and to win more local sympathy and even support.
The necessity of drone strike touches on a more strategic issue. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the death of Osama Bin Laden, left al Qaeda significantly weakened. That should signal a US shift to a more defensive approach, given that attacks only create more enmity among ‘Jihadists’, as seen for instance in 2010, when Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad placed a bomb in Times Square as “payback for the US occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq and for its worldwide use of drone strikes.”
Malala Yousafzai, the 16-year-old Pakistan activist, told Obama during their recent meeting that, “drone attacks are fuelling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people.” The Yemen government is under great pressure from its people over the increase in the number of civilian deaths.
Pakistan, Yemen and other countries where drone strikes take place are all weak states. The legitimacy and stability of their governments may be weakened still further, with local populations seeing their governments as traitors cooperating with foreigners in killing fellow citizens. The situation is exacerbated by the lack of transparency. Misperceptions and distrust increasingly destabilize the partnership between the US and other countries in the fight against terrorism. Today, for instance, Islamabad insists drones kills civilians, violates its sovereignty and should be stopped.
In a broader sense, America’s use of drones may create more strategic dilemmas for regional and global peace and stability: specifically proliferation and a possible arms race involving drones that could leave the world more prone to conflict.
Drones are usually deployed and sent to turbulent areas for intelligence collection and targeted assassinations. They rely heavily on remote control and information links. Small technical errors can result in the rapid proliferation of modern weapons and technology. Case in point: In December 2011, Iran hijacked a US Stealth RQ-170 by spoofing its GPS signal. Iranian Revolutionary Guards then reversed-engineered it, decoded the data and software, and produced a copy. Now, Iran has around 17 drones, including six armed UAVs in use. Its Shahed-129 is capable of attacking air and land targets, which “marks a significant technological advance.”
America’s use of drones has also prompted many other countries to develop their own or buy drones from the international market, including Britain, Israel, India, Russia, South African and China. Indeed, China is particularly ambitious, having sold Wing Loong UAVs to a number of countries. It is now developing its stealth drone “Li Jian” (Sharp Sword), which makes it the third country capable of producing such weapons, after America’s X-47 and France’s nEUROn.
Countries that don’t have drones may feel threatened and less secure, and seek similar or other asymmetrical means to maintain the balance of power. This could lead to an arms race. What’s more, as the adage says, to the man with a hammer everything looks like a nail. Leaders and field commanders may become overconfident in their technology, making them more assertive than prudence would normally dictate.
Security experts worry that drones, usually fielded in geopolitically dangerous areas of the world, may contribute to the outbreak of more small wars and conflict escalation. In the Middle East, Iran and Israel are adversaries armed with advanced drones. Israel is now more likely to use drones in strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. If that happens, Iran will certainly retaliate, probably using drones, too. In East Asia, China has used drones to monitor the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea, and Japan has indicated that it plans to do the same. Tokyo has said it may shoot down Chinese drones, prompting a warning by Beijing that this would mean war with China. Taiwan, South Korea, India and a number of ASEAN countries are seeking to buy Global Hawk drones from the US, potentially escalating tensions in the South China Sea.
While the US today enjoys the advantages of drones in its fight against terrorism, the White House needs to consider the strategic implications: proliferation, possible arms races, and the irresponsible use of UAVs in regional disputes and conflicts. As a global leader, the US should cooperate with the UN and other international organizations to monitor and regulate the use of drones. Irresponsible use should be taken very seriously, and condemned by the international community.–Diplomat