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B Mannke

Lone Survivor's Takeaway: Every War Movie Is a Pro-War Movie - Calum Marsh - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...282812

shared by B Mannke on 12 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • The point of this sequence, it seems, is to show how exceptional the real-life SEALs are before introducing SEALs as characters. With soldiers’ conviction and might thus demonstrated, the film can then whisk a few of them off on a mission that, as the title suggests, does not end particularly well.
  • Many of its more aggressively nationalistic elements are just a matter of following genre protocol.
  • They are, in other words, ordinary guys, totally down-to-earth despite being the best at what they do.
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  • This is cartoon villainy—the realm of the black hat and the twirling moustache. Such gestures serve a straightforward dramatic purpose: They align the audience with the heroes while encouraging them to dislike the bad guys, so that when the battle finally ignites, the viewer’s sympathies have already been sorted out.
  • We need to believe, even subconsciously, that while the Americans are three-dimensional characters to whom we can relate, the seemingly endless droves of attackers who besiege them are not—they’re merely The Enemy, a faceless mass, a manifestation of evil
  • it’s doubtful that even the most outrageously jingoistic war films are actually dangerous in any meaningful sense
  • Not asking is its own kind of answer. It tells us to focus elsewhere: on the heroism of these men, on the bravery of their actions. The moral issues are for another day.
  • But it’s important to remember that despite their moralizing, war films are still essentially action films—blockbuster spectacles embellished by the verve and vigor of cutting-edge special effects. They may not strictly glorify. But they almost never discourage.
  • War isn’t great; war makes you great. What is such a sentiment if not pro-war?
  • He grumbled that it was just “another goddamned recruiting film.” And maybe that’s all they’ll ever be
B Mannke

How to Solve America's Democracy and Poverty Crisis - Daniel Weeks - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...282983

shared by B Mannke on 12 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Fifty years ago this week, President Lyndon Johnson promised to "strike at the causes, not just the consequence" of persistent poverty in America.
  • "strike away the barriers to full participation in our society."
  • Not only does poverty persist across the United States today, but American democracy itself has become impoverished. The two are more entwined than is commonly thought.
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  • Millions more low-income citizens have a hard time making it to the polls for reasons that are partly within and partly beyond their control.
  • They are far from equal citizens in the public square.
  • Long before citizens go to the polls, candidates are recruited to run for office in a process scholars call the "wealth primary"; long after the polls have closed, candidates continue to raise large sums of money in anticipation of their next campaign.
  • In no instance should a former felon be permanently disenfranchised under the Constitution. State legislation or a constitutional challenge or amendment could accomplish this task.
  • Turnout in these states consistently ranks seven to 15 percent higher than other states.
  • Denying approximately 10 million taxpaying U.S. citizens the right to vote or voting representation in Congress, because of a prior conviction or the district or territory in which they live, is morally and constitutionally suspect.
  • Since electoral competition is also a democratic good, congressional and state districts should be drawn not by partisan state legislatures but by independent commissions charged with balancing representativeness and competitiveness.
  • They are a necessary part of our nation’s response to persistent poverty.
B Mannke

BBC News - Winter Olympics: Russia arrests five 'terror suspects' - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-europe-25701603

shared by B Mannke on 12 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Russian authorities say they have detained five members of a "banned international terrorist organisation" in the restive North Caucusus region.
  • Russia earlier announced it was deploying more than 30,000 police and interior ministry troops to the region.
  • The main concern is the threat of attack by Islamist militants. Security fears have been heightened after two suicide bomb attacks killed 34 people in the southern city of Volgograd on 29 and 30 December.
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  • The five suspects were in possession of "grenades, ammunition, and a homemade explosive device packed with shrapnel", the National Anti-Terrorism Committee said.
  • A "controlled zone" near Olympic venues will limit access to people with tickets and proof of identity while another "forbidden zone" will be in place in large areas around Sochi.
  • On Friday, the US issued a travel alert for its citizens planning to attend the Games.
B Mannke

France Oil Giant Is Expected to Seek Shale Gas in Britain - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...seek-shale-gas-in-britain.html

shared by B Mannke on 12 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Total would commit about $50 million for a roughly 40 percent stake in licenses held by a group of companies in Lincolnshire in the East Midlands
  • Britain, however, is the lone country in Western Europe that has encouraged the exploration of shale gas, which is produced through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which uses a high-pressure mix of water, sand and chemicals.
  • “Total, a French company who can’t frack in their own country because the French government has stopped the French countryside being ripped up, have now turned their sights on the U.K. countryside, where the U.K. government seems happy to allow the industrialization of our green and pleasant land,” the environmental group Greenpeace said in a statement on Saturday.
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  • If 10 percent of that gas could be produced, it would be enough for about 45 years of British gas consumption at current rates.
  • The Gainsborough Trough, the geological formation where Total plans to explore, has not been investigated for shale gas and oil, but Igas Energy, a British company, has conventional oil and gas production in the vicinity
B Mannke

In Scandal, Turkey's Leaders May Be Losing Their Tight Grip on News Media - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-tight-grip-on-news-media.html

shared by B Mannke on 12 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Mr. Erdogan’s lawyers have also filed suit against a newspaper columnist, once a reliable supporter of the prime minister, for his critical Twitter messages.
  • reports on the discovery of $4.5 million in cash stuffed in shoe boxes at the home of a director of a state bank.
  • “We would never have expected anything like this,” said Numar Baki, a waiter at an Istanbul cafe, referring to the public nature of the scandal.
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  • slow erosion of what had been Mr. Erdogan’s iron grip on all levels of power within Turkish society.
  • More journalists are in jail in Turkey than anywhere else in the world, including China and Iran.
  • hen Nazli Ilicak, a longtime journalist here, lost her job recently at the pro-government newspaper Sabah after emerging as a strong voice against the government’s handling of the corruption inquiry, she said she would simply keep up her criticism on Twitter and on independent websites.
  • Followers of the Muslim spiritual leader Fethullah Gulen, who is in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, have over the years secured top positions in the judiciary and the police and are said to be leading the corruption investigation.
  • “Shoulder to shoulder against fascism” and “This is just the beginning. The struggle continues” — slogans like those raised during the antigovernment protests last May and June.
  • I think I should o
  • “I think I should only tweet about penguins from now on,” Mr. Zeynalov wrote on Twitter after the case was filed, referring to some television channels’ practice of broadcasting a documentary about penguins last spring rather than reporting on the antigovernment protests.
  • “My phone is being tapped,” he said, “but I don’t care.”
  • “Erdogan wants to show that this is a conspiracy, that the United States and Israel are behind it,” he said. “Under no circumstances does he want to talk about corruption.
B Mannke

BBC News - Blaze ravages ancient Tibetan town - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-asia-25694902

shared by B Mannke on 12 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • More than 100 mostly wooden houses were destroyed in the blaze in Dukezong in Shangri-La county, in the province of Yunnan.
  • Casualties have not so far been reported. The blaze was put out by 2,000 firefighters, police and volunteers, according to local media.
  • "The fire was huge. The wind was blowing hard, and the air was dry... it kept burning, and the firefighters were there, but there was little they could do because they could not get the fire engines onto the old town's narrow streets."
B Mannke

BBC News - West Virginia chemical spill creates water warning - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-us-canada-25686048

shared by B Mannke on 12 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • About 300,000 people in the US state of West Virginia have been warned not to drink tap water after a chemical spill into a river near the state capital.
  • President Barack Obama has accepted West Virginia's request for a disaster declaration, which allows federal aid to be used.
  • Freedom Industries has said the chemical, 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, could be harmful if swallowed and cause skin and eye irritation.
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  • The spill was first found after the state's environmental protection department received a report of a strange odour near the Elk river on Thursday.
  • While the leaking container held at least 40,000 gallons (182,000 litres), state environmental official Tom Aluise said they were "confident" that no more than 5,000 gallons escaped.
B Mannke

BBC News - Libyan minister Hassan al-Droui 'killed in Sirte' - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-africa-25701470

shared by B Mannke on 12 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Local media quoted officials as saying unknown gunmen "sprayed bullets" at Hassan al-Droui near a central market. In another development, at least 15 people were killed in clashes between rival tribes in the country's south.
  • "Hassan al-Droui was killed by unknown attackers overnight, during a visit to his native city of Sirte," a security official told the AFP news agency.
  • Libya has been struggling to assert itself over up to 1,700 different armed militias, each with their own goals, following Col Gaddafi's death.
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  • The violence is the worst between the tribes since they struck a ceasefire agreement in March 2012.
julia rhodes

A Guillotine in Storage Bears Signs of a Role in Silencing Nazis' Critics - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...n-silencing-nazis-critics.html

20th century 20th century germany culture education history

shared by julia rhodes on 11 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • A guillotine used to execute thousands of people during the Nazi era, including a brother and sister who led a group of Munich students known as the White Rose in resistance to Hitler, has been provisionally identified in a storage area belonging to Bavaria’s national museum, museum officials said Friday.
  • Sophie and Hans Scholl, and another member of their White Rose group, Christoph Probst, were executed on Feb. 22, 1943, just four days after they were spotted by a guard at the University of Munich as they distributed the sixth edition of their fliers, which from the summer of 1942 had reported intermittently on Nazi crimes, including the mass killing of Eastern Europe’s Jews.
  • This was in keeping with a revival of beheading under Hitler, who “personally ordered a good number of guillotines to be built,” said Jud Newborn, the co-author of a 2006 book about Sophie Scholl.
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  • Ludwig Spaenle, culture minister in Bavaria, said he was startled by a find of “singular significance for German history.” Historians, political experts and the White Rose Foundation, named after the student resistance, should decide what to do with it, Mr. Spaenle said.
  • Instead, the guillotine — of a type used in Germany in the 19th century and revived for broader use under the Nazis — was taken from the Munich jail where the Scholls and hundreds of others were executed and taken first to nearby Straubing, she said
  • How the “historically significant” instrument is now treated, and whether it can be exhibited at all to the public, is a matter “for the utmost sensitivity and reverence,” she added.
  • Mr. Newborn, the American expert on White Rose, called the find “really remarkable” and of great significance in modern Germany, where the story of the Scholls is widely known and used to reinforce the message that Nazi crimes should never be repeated and that civil courage and resistance are important.
julia rhodes

Syria Aid May Resume Despite Fears Over Where It Will Go - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ars-over-where-it-will-go.html

US history politics crisis policy syria aid fears terrorism rebel

shared by julia rhodes on 10 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • The Obama administration is considering the resumption of nonlethal military aid to Syria’s moderate opposition, senior administration officials said on Thursday, even if some of it ends up going to the Islamist groups that are allied with the moderates.
  • The United States suspended the shipments last month after warehouses of equipment were seized by the Islamic Fron
  • some of the Islamists fought alongside the Free Syrian Army in a battle against a major Al Qaeda-affiliated rebel group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
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  • Restoring the aid, they said, would send a message of American support at a time when opposition groups are threatening to boycott a Jan. 22 peace conference out of concern that it will only serve to tighten Mr. Assad’s grip on power and discredit them at home.
  • Aid would continue to be funneled exclusively through the Supreme Military Council, the military wing of moderate, secular Syrian opposition.
  • Opposition groups are scheduled to meet on Jan. 17 to decide whether to attend the conference. But the meeting’s stated goal — to chart a political transition in Syria — seems more elusive than ever, given the recent military gains made by Mr. Assad’s forces.
  • The administration has signaled a willingness to talk to the Islamic Front, but an effort to arrange a meeting in December was rebuffed by the group when the White House opted to send two midlevel State Department officials rather than the ambassador to Syria, Robert S. Ford.
  • While analysts said a decision to resume aid may encourage opposition groups to attend the peace conference, it would be far short of what is necessary to salvage the meeting — known as Geneva II but set to be held in Montreux, a nearby Swiss city.
  • Among the questions now being debated at the White House and the State Department, officials said, is how to ensure that the aid flows only to vetted organizations, and whether Islamist groups that receive any of it could be compelled to pledge that they will not work with Al Qaeda.
  • Still, as other experts noted, the aid in question includes food rations and pickup trucks, not tanks and bullets. None of it is likely to change the trajectory of the conflict, which some experts said had fallen into a kind of “territorial equilibrium,” in which neither the rebels nor Mr. Assad’s forces have much to gain from further fighting.
B Mannke

BBC News - Chris Christie 'humiliated' by bridge-gridlock scandal - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-us-canada-25671970

shared by B Mannke on 09 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • 9 January 2014 Last updated at 14:25 ET Share this page Email Print Share this pageShareFacebookTwitter Chris Christie 'humiliated' by bridge-gridlock scandal Advertisement $render("advert-post-script-load"); New Jersey Governor Chris Christie: "I am responsible for what happened" Continue reading the main story Related Stories Twitter drips with Christie snark Chris Christie's bridge-sized headache Christie: Republicans' best hope New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has fired an aide who allegedly orchestrated traffic mayhem to pursue a petty political vendetta. Mr Christie, seen as a potential Republican White House candidate, apologised for the scandal, which he said "embarrassed and humiliated" him.
  • Mr Christie, seen as a potential Republican White House candidate, apologised for the scandal, which he said "embarrassed and humiliated" him. The gridlock was allegedly engineered to punish a Democratic mayor who did not endorse the governor's re-election. Mr Christie denied any involvement, blaming "deceitful" staff.
  • "I had no knowledge or involvement in this issue, in its planning or execution," he said, "and I am stunned by the abject stupidity that was shown here."
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  • Asked about a 91-year-old woman who reportedly died after ambulance services were caught up in the gridlock, Mr Christie said that was "awful", though he added it was unclear whether the delay had contributed to her death.
  • "An apology today might be a bit premature. "I think this is a story that has not yet experienced its final chapter."
B Mannke

Saudis Back Syrian Rebels Despite Risks - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...despite-a-lack-of-control.html

shared by B Mannke on 08 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Abu Khattab saw something that troubled him: two dead children, their blood-soaked bodies sprawled on the street of a rural village near the Mediterranean coast. He knew right away that his fellow rebels had killed them.
  • The commander brushed him off, saying his men had killed the children “because they were not Muslims,” Abu Khattab recalled recently during an interview here.
  • It was only then that Abu Khattab began to believe that the jihad in Syria — where he had traveled in violation of an official Saudi ban — was not fully in accord with God’s will.
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  • the great challenge now facing Saudi Arabia’s rulers: how to fight an increasingly bloody and chaotic proxy war in Syria using zealot militia fighters over whom they have almost no control.
  • The Saudis fear the rise of Al Qaeda’s affiliates in Syria, and they have not forgotten what happened when Saudi militants who had fought in Afghanistan returned home to wage a domestic insurgency a decade ago
  • Abu Khattab also mentioned proudly that he is no stranger to jihad.
  • There is a shortage of religious conditions for jihad in Syria,” he said. Many of the fighters kill Syrian civilians, a violation of Islam, he added.
  • He proudly trumpets his return to jihad on his Twitter feed, which features a picture of him clutching a rifle with his mangled hands.
  • You cannot prevent all young men from leaving the kingdom. Many of them travel to London or other places, and only then to Turkey, and Syria.”
  • “They especially like Saudis, because the Saudis are more willing to do suicide operations,” he said.
  • In the end, it was the slaughter of innocents that made him decide to quit, he said, and a broader feeling that the rebels alongside him were not doing it for the right reasons. “If the fight is not purely to God, it’s not a real jihad,” he said. “These people are fighting for their flags.”But there was another reason he gave up the fight.
  • The real war is not against Bashar himself, it is against Iran. Everything else is just a false image.”
Javier E

Will Digital Networks Ruin Us? - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-digital-networks-ruin-us.html

digital divide network effects unemployment micropayments

shared by Javier E on 07 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • With unemployment seemingly stalled out at around 7 percent in the aftermath of the Great Recession, with the leak of thousands of National Security Agency documents making news almost daily, with the continuing stories about the erosion of privacy in the digital economy, “Who Owns the Future?” puts forth a kind of universal theory that ties all these things together.
  • unlike most of his fellow technologists, he eventually came to feel that the rise of digital networks was no panacea.
  • On the contrary: “What I came away with from having access to these varied worlds was a realization that they were all remarkably similar,” he writes. “The big players often gained benefits from digital networks to an amazing degree, but they were also constrained, even imprisoned, by the same dynamics.”
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  • Over time, the same network efficiencies that had given them their great advantages would become the instrument of their failures.
  • In the financial services industry, it led to the financial crisis
  • In the case of Wal-Mart, its adoption of technology to manage its supply chain at first reaped great benefits, but over time it cost competitors and suppliers hundreds of thousands of jobs, thus “gradually impoverishing its own customer base,”
  • The N.S.A.? It developed computer technology that could monitor the entire world — and, in the process, lost control of the contractors it employed.
  • “Networks need a great number of people to participate in them to generate significant value. But when they have them, only a small number of people get paid. This has the net effect of centralizing wealth and limiting overall economic growth.” Thus, in Lanier’s view, is income inequality also partly a consequence of the digital economy.
  • His great example here is Kodak and Instagram. At its height, writes Lanier “Kodak employed more than 140,000 people.” Yes, Kodak made plenty of mistakes, but look at what is replacing it: “When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only 13 people.”
  • the value of these new companies comes from us. “Instagram isn’t worth a billion dollars just because those 13 employees are extraordinary,” he writes. “Instead, its value comes from the millions of users who contribute to the network without being paid for it.”
  • There are two additional components to Lanier’s thesis. The first is that the digital economy has done as much as any single thing to hollow out the middle class
  • It is Lanier’s radical idea that people should get paid whenever their information is used. He envisions a different kind of digital economy, in which creators of content — whether a blog post or a Facebook photograph — would receive micropayments whenever that content was used
  • A digital economy that appears to give things away for free — in return for being able to invade the privacy of its customers for commercial gain — isn’t free at all, he argues.
  • Lanier wants to create a dynamic where digital networks expand the pie rather than shrink it, and rebuild the middle class instead of destroying it.
julia rhodes

South Korea Proposes Resuming Reunions of War-Divided Families - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...s-of-war-divided-families.html

culture crisis policy south korea north war

shared by julia rhodes on 06 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • South Korea’s president proposed Monday that the two Koreas improve their tense relations by resuming the reunions of families separated since the Korean War, a humanitarian program that seemed close to being renewed last year but was scuttled as negotiations soured.
  • President Park Geun-hye’s overture came five days after the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, urged that Seoul and Pyongyang create “a favorable climate for improved relations” in a New Year’s Day speech.
  • Ms. Park, a conservative, made two other conciliatory gestures toward the North, offering to increase humanitarian aid to the impoverished country and to let South Korean civic groups provide assistance to its farmers and ranchers. But she expressed skepticism about the prospect of meeting with Mr. Kim, whose government has until recently exhorted South Koreans to overthrow her “fascist dictatorship.”
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  • She also said it had become “impossible” to predict “what will happen to the North and what actions it will take” since the purge and execution last month of Mr. Kim’s uncle, Jang Song-thaek, who was long considered Mr. Kim’s mentor and the second-highest-ranking figure in his secretive government.
  • South Korea halted the flow of aid and investment to the North in 2008, demanding that Pyongyang give up its nuclear weapons. It also curtailed inter-Korean trade following the sinking of a South Korean naval ship in 2010, which Seoul says was caused by a North Korean torpedo attack.
  • After months of harsh rhetoric following the North’s nuclear test last February, North and South Korea reached an agreement last August to revive the reunions. But the North later ended the talks, blaming the South for refusing to resume an inter-Korean tourism program at the North’s Diamond Mountain resort, which had been highly lucrative for Pyongyang until it was shut down in 2008.
  • The Korean War, which began in 1950, was fought to a stalemate and an ultimate cease-fire in 1953. Since then, no exchanges of letters, telephone calls or emails have been allowed between North and South Koreans, and family reunions remain a highly emotional issue and an indicator of the state of relations on the peninsula.
  • Mr. Kim made similarly conciliatory comments toward the South during his New Year’s Day speech in 2013, but they were followed by a series of provocative acts, including its February nuclear test. Just last month, Pyongyang sent a letter to Ms. Park’s office threatening “strikes without warning.”
julia rhodes

Kerry Opens Door to Iran's Participation in Syrian Peace Talks - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...kerry-iran-syria.html

kerry iran peace talks politics crisis policy hindsight syria history

shared by julia rhodes on 06 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Secretary of State John Kerry suggested on Sunday that Iran might play a role at the peace talks on Syria that are scheduled to take place this month.
  • Iran has been one of Mr. Assad’s main supporters and has been supplying his government with arms and supporting his war efforts with military advisers.
  • Russia has argued that Iran should be present at the peace conference, as has Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations special envoy. But France and the United States previously insisted that Iran first make clear that it supports the goal of the meeting: a transition to a governing structure that would exclude Mr. Assad.
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  • But Mr. Kerry also made clear that there would be limits on Iran’s role if Tehran did not formally accept that the goal of the conference would be to work out arrangements for a transitional authority that would govern Syria if President Bashar al-Assad could be persuaded to give up power.
  • On Iraq, meanwhile, Mr. Kerry expressed serious concern about the inroads made by Al Qaeda’s affiliate there, including the capture of major parts of Falluja, in Anbar Province. Mr. Kerry described the group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, as “the most dangerous player in the region.”
  • “This is a fight that belongs to the Iraqis,” he said. “We are going to do everything that is possible to help them.”
Maria Delzi

Egypt Detains Journalists It Says Aired 'False News' - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...zeera-english-journalists.html

shared by Maria Delzi on 05 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Egyptian authorities detained a team of journalists working for the Al Jazeera English news channel on Sunday, including an Australian correspondent and the channel’s Canadian-Egyptian bureau chief, accusing them of broadcasting illegally and meeting with members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that the Egyptian government classified a terrorist organization last week.
  • The arrests appeared intended to further isolate the Brotherhood by deterring journalists from interviewing its members or reporting on its continuing protests.
  • The ministry accused the journalists of broadcasting “false news” to the Qatar-based channel and possessing materials that promoted “incitement,” including information about campus strikes by students who supported the Brotherhood — another topic widely covered in the press.
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  • Al Jazeera said the detained journalists included the bureau chief, Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, who had worked for CNN and contributed to The New York Times, and Peter Greste, an Australian correspondent for Al Jazeera who won a Peabody Award last year while working for the BBC in Somalia. A cameraman, Mohamed Fawzy, and another producer, Baher Mohamed, were also detained, the network said.
  • The government has said it would follow that plan, citing it as evidence of its commitment to democracy.
  • Michael Wahid Hanna, a fellow at the Century Foundation in New York, said the government “seized on the moment and the grotesque nature of the attack” to accomplish several goals. While hard-liners in the security services seek to eradicate the Brotherhood, the terrorist designation gives other officials a “rhetorical” tool to stir interest in the coming elections, Mr. Hanna said. It also gives them a firmer legal basis to detain protesters and further suppress dissent ahead of the vote, he said.
  • On Sunday, a car bomb explosion outside a military intelligence building north of Cairo wounded at least five people, the third such bombing in less than a week.
Maria Delzi

Israel releases 26 Palestinian prisoners - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...ease-20131230221424954472.html

shared by Maria Delzi on 05 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Twenty-six Palestinian prisoners have been released from Israeli jails, as part of a US-brokered deal to restart Middle East negotiations.
  • It is the third of four stages to free 104 inmates that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu committed to let go when the talks were renewed in July. They have been convicted of killing Israeli civilians or soldiers and have spent between 19 and 28 years in prison.
  • We will not sign a final peace deal with Israel before all the prisoners are released,'' he said.
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  • In Israel, though, the release was met with anger. Relatives of Israelis killed in attacks had attempted to prevent the release by petitioning Israel's Supreme Court
  • The 26 inmates were jailed before the signing of the 1993 Oslo accords, which formally launched the Middle East peace process.
  • They include 18 men from the West Bank, three Gazans, and in a concession by Israel, five men from East Jerusalem.
  • The US welcomed the release, with Kerry expressing "his appreciation for Prime Minister Netanyahu's decision to release the third tranche of prisoners," State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said.
  • The Israeli government's commitment to release Palestinian prisoners helped enable the start ... and the continuation of the final status negotiations, and we believe this is a positive step forward in the overall process," she added.
  • "As part of this release he has announced 140,000 additional new settlements in the West Bank," he said
  • "The Palestinians ask, how can you talk to us about being legitimate partners, if you're going to build inside the West Bank?"
Maria Delzi

BBC News - Syria crisis: Ships return as chemical removal slips - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-middle-east-25557989

shared by Maria Delzi on 05 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Norwegian and Danish ships waiting to remove Syria's chemical weapons are returning to port in Cyprus, signalling a key deadline will not be met.
  • Bad weather, shifting battle lines and road closures are being blamed for the delay.
  • The international mission is waiting for Syria's most dangerous chemicals to be transported to the port in Latak
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  • The deadline is the first milestone of a deal to rid Syria of its chemical weapons arsenal by the middle of 2014.
  • Western powers said only Syrian government forces could have carried out the attack, but President Bashar al-Assad blamed rebel fighters.
  • Under the international disarmament plan, US satellites and Chinese surveillance cameras are to track the progress of Russian armoured lorries as they carry the chemical weapons from 12 storage sites in Syria to Latakia, on Syria's Mediterranean coast.
  • Danish and Norwegian cargo ships will then transport the chemicals to a port in Italy, where they will be loaded on to the US Maritime Administration vessel MV Cape Ray and taken out into international waters before being destroyed by hydrolysis.
  • reports that the European ships are docked in Limassol, Cyprus on the day they are supposed to be escorting Syria's most dangerous chemicals out of the country.
  • The vessels left Limassol on Saturday but turned back on Tuesday after the hazardous containers failed to arrive for collection in Latakia. Now the plan is to refuel in Limassol before returning to sea in the coming days.
  • Co-operation on the chemical weapons removal programme was seen by many of those involved as a potential catalyst for broader peace negotiations in Syria.
  • Failing to meet this ambitious target, our correspondent adds, will demonstrate the difficulties involved in operating in a country with constantly changing frontlines - even with an international mandate and co-operation from President Assad.
  • "A number of external factors have impacted upon timelines, not least the continuing volatility in overall security conditions, which have constrained planned movements," a statement said.
  • The joint mission also noted that the Syrian government had met the 1 November deadline to destroy critical chemical weapons production equipment, which meant it could no longer weaponise the chemical agents at its storage facilities.
  • But deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf also acknowledged that it was a "complicated process", adding: "As long as we see forward progress, that what's most important here."
  • activists said a missile fired by government forces hit a bus in Aleppo, killing at least 10 people.
  • The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the dead included two children and that the missile was fired from a plane.
Maria Delzi

Mogadishu hotel targeted by bombs, at least 11 killed | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...ia-blast-idUSBREA000E020140101

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  • Three bombs exploded within an hour outside a hotel frequented by government officials in a heavily fortified district of the Somali capital on Wednesday, killing at least 11 people.
  • The attacks on the Jazira hotel, one of the securest places in Mogadishu, underscore the security challenges facing President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, whose election by lawmakers last year was hailed by many as a way to end two decades of conflict
  • The first two bombs came in quick succession and were followed by heavy bursts of gunfire by Somali security forces
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  • The third blast took place about an hour later when a bomb went off inside a car that was being searched by the military.At least one of the first two bombs appeared to be a suicide bomber, police said.
  • Donors pump in hundreds of millions of dollars into the Horn of Africa country every year to provide basic services.
  • An attack on Kenyan shopping mall in September that killed dozens of people highlighted the militants' ability to strike beyond Somalia's borders.
Maria Delzi

Children 'beheaded and mutilated' in Central African Republic, says Unicef | Global dev... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...rican-republic-violence-unicef

shared by Maria Delzi on 05 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • The UN agency for children says attacks against children have reached new levels of viciousness in the Central African Republic (CAR), where fighting between Muslim Seleka rebels and Christian militias left more than 1,000 people dead and displaced an estimated 400,000 in Bangui, the capital, this month.
  • According to Unicef, at least at least two children have been beheaded, and one of them mutilated, in the violence that has gripped Bangui since early December
  • Some 370,000 people – almost half the population of Bangui – have been displaced to dozens of sites across the capital over the past three weeks. About 785,000 people have been internally displaced throughout the country since the outbreak of violence more than a year ago.
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  • Diabate said armed groups were accountable for taking specific measures to provide protection to children. These include: clear directives by those in positions of authority within armed forces and groups to halt violations against children, meaning that children must not be recruited into the fighting, nor targeted. Unicef also called for the immediate release of children associated with armed forces and groups, and their protection from reprisals. Transit centres set up for the release and reintegration of children must also be protected from attacks.
  • Unicef and its partners say they have verified the killings of at least 16 children, and injuries among 60, since the outbreak of communal violence in Bangui on 5 December. In November, the UN warned that the number of child soldiers in the former French colony had more than doubled to up to 6,000 as anti-balaka militias have sprung up to counterattacks by the Seleka.
  • Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the medical charity, said on Monday that fighting, lynchings and violent attacks remained a daily occurrence in Bangui, and the situation in the city appeared to be out of control, despite the presence of international armed forces in the capital.
  • MSF said health facilities had been affected by the violence, hindering the provision of medical aid. On Sunday, a ministry of health ambulance was stopped and the staff were threatened with violence, preventing them from collecting the wounded. On the same day, armed men entered the Hôpital Communautaire with the intention of lynching patients, while health staff were threatened.
  • The UN launched an appeal for $152m last week to rapidly scale-up humanitarian operations over the next 100 days. The country has been plunged into chaos as its Christian majority seeks revenge against the Muslim rebels who seized power in a coup in March. Many Christian and Muslim civilians are armed, and the foreign troops brought in to try to rein in the violence have been sucked into the conflict and accused of taking sides.
  • The Chadians, part of the African Union force, are Muslim and are seen by the population as backing the Seleka rebels who toppled the president. But 1,600 French troops who were deployed in the first week of December are accused of backing the Christian majority, and their patrols have come under fire in Muslim neighbourhoods. Many say the bloodshed has little to do with religion as Muslims and Christians had long lived in peace. Instead, they blame a political battle for control over resources in one of Africa's most weakly governed states.
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