Thursday, April 7, 2011 9
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Gates in Baghdad for talks with Iraqi officials
Somalia to push insurgents from capital in a year
DNA test IDs 103rd stolen baby in Argentina
Unpaid electric bill leaves holy site in the dark
Afghan officials: 2-3 men suspected in UN attack
Rio’s ‘Operation Easter’ to check size of eggs
BAGHDAD — On his first visit to Iraq this year, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived Wednesday for two days of talks with senior government officials on the looming final withdrawal of American troops from a country still suffering from frequent insurgent violence eight years after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. Gates’ meetings Thursday were to include a session with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has publicly insisted Iraq can handle its security without U.S. troops beyond 2011. The bulk of the remaining 47,000 U.S. troops are to begin going home in late summer or early fall, officials have said. Gates has said in congressional testimony that it might be preferable to keep U.S. troops in the role of training Iraqi forces and providing security for an enlarging U.S. Embassy presence, but he also has said the U.S. will pull out completely on schedule at year’s end unless the Iraqis request an extension. — Robert Burns (AP)
MOGADISHU, Somalia— Somali government forces and African Union peacekeepers can take back control of the country’s ruined capital from Islamist insurgents within a year, the Somali prime minister said Wednesday. “We just need one year. Our forces are advancing in the city,” Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed told The Associated Press. The Somali transitional government, which is backed by about 9,000 African Union troops, now controls about half of the capital city, although attacks are frequent and sporadic gunfire can be heard throughout the day. Islamist insurgent group al-Shabab controls the other half and much of south-central Somalia. The State Department says some leaders of al-Shabab have links to al-Qaida. —Katharine Houreld (AP)
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — An Argentine human rights group says DNA evidence has identified the 103rd young person who was stolen at birth during the country’s dictatorship in the late 1970s. The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo said the young woman was born in 1976 to Cecilia Beatriz Barral, who was nine months pregnant when kidnapped with her partner, Ricardo Horacio Klotzman. The couple were militants in the Revolutionary Workers Party, prime targets for elimination after Argentina’s military coup. A court forced the woman to take a DNA test against her will and released the results to the involved parties Tuesday. The Grandmothers announced the results Wednesday. The Grandmothers said the woman’s half-sister has never stopped looking for her.
JERUSALEM — It’s a lesson that the rabbis who manage one of Israel’s most popular Jewish pilgrimage destinations have now learned the hard way: Even holy sites have to pay the electric bill. The tomb of Moses Maimonides, one of Judaism’s pre-eminent sages, has been plunged into darkness because of a debt to the electricity company totaling $11,500. Rabbi Israel Deri, one of the managers of the site in the Galilee city of Tiberias, admitted Wednesday that the bill “fell between the cracks.” As a result, the tomb — where people come to pray around the clock — is now closed to night visitors. “We accumulated a debt. We didn’t pay. And we’re working on it,” Deri said. Signs at the entrance announce that the site is closed at night “due to a power glitch.” —Daniel Estrin (AP)
KABUL, Afghanistan — Former insurgents who had renounced the Taliban and were in a reintegration program are suspected of taking an assault rifle from a Nepalese guard and opening fire during the anti-Quran-burning riot last week that left seven U.N. workers dead, Afghan officials said Wednesday. Parliamentarian Mohammad Akbari said government investigators have identified three men they believe were involved in the killing of three U.N. staff members and four Nepalese guards in the April 1 attack against the U.N. headquarters in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Four protesters also were killed. The men were arrested the day of the riot. It began as a peaceful demonstration, but after crowds stormed the building and set fires, some protesters seized weapons and started shooting. “They had one Kalashnikov which they took from a guard. They fired, according to witnesses,” said Akbari, who was part of the investigating team. “They have been recognized by witnesses.” —Patrick Quinn (AP)
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Officials in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro state are going to make sure the Easter Bunny isn’t short-changing children with the holiday’s hallmark chocolate eggs. Rio’s department of weights and measures launched “Operation Easter” on Wednesday to verify the size and weight of the multicolored eggs already lining supermarket shelves. The state-run Agencia Brasil said they will also also check the safety of toys inside the eggs. Investigators will collect eggs around the state. Department head Soraya Santos said the eggs will be stripped of their shiny wrappers and weighed in a lab to be sure customers aren’t being cheated. The toys inside will be checked against federal safety standards.
Haiti’s leader criticizes UN’s military efforts President claims peacekeeping missions lacked focus, were ineffective By Edith M. Lederer The Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS — Haiti’s outgoing president criticized the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday for being too slow to switch its peacekeeping mission in the Western hemisphere’s poorest country from military operations to development and peacebuilding. In his last address to the council, Rene Preval urged the U.N.’s most powerful body to consider the effectiveness of its interventions “that have practically led to 11 years of military presence in a country that has no war.” Speaking at the meeting attended by Colombia’s president, former U.S. president Bill Clinton and nine foreign ministers from Latin America and Spain, Preval said it was “sad to note” that in a quarter of a century “I’m the only president to finish two constitutional terms and was never jailed or exiled.” Preval urged the country’s newly elected president, pop star Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly, legislative leaders and the opposition to work in a spirit of peace and cooperation. But Preval focused mainly on the instability in Haiti due to the effects of “underdevelopment” and a culture of impunity dating back to the
dictatorship of the Duvaliers. The instability, he said, was compounded by deadly hurricanes and the devastating earthquake in January 2010, which according to the government killed 316,000 people and crippled much of the country’s economy. Since 1993, Preval said, the United Nations has had a series of peacekeeping missions in Haiti, “each time ... made necessary by instability created by the citizens themselves.” This was true most recently in 2004, when there was the possibility of clashes with heavily armed groups, he said. But he said when the danger of violent confrontation had passed, “peacekeeping operations did not quickly enough adapt to the new situation.” “Tanks, armed vehicles and soldiers should have given way to bulldozers, engineers, more police instructors” and experts on reforming the judicial and prison systems,” Preval said. When he was sworn in for a second term in May 2006, Preval said, “I emphasized this need — but I was unfortunately not heard.” Preval said he hoped the peacekeeping mission in Haiti would be reoriented, a view strongly backed by Colombia’s President Juan
Manuel Santos, whose country holds the council presidency. Santos said Colombia organized the council meeting because it wanted to renew efforts to stabilize and strengthen the rule of law in Haiti, given “the meager results achieved” so far. “We must all commit to a different vision for rebuilding Haiti,” Santos said. Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez criticized the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti for being too involved in Haitian affairs. “Haiti does not need an occupation army,” he said. “It is not, nor can it become, a United Nations protectorate.” Secretary-General Ban Kimoon said rule-of-law reform must be a top priority for Haiti’s next president, calling the judicial system “deeply dysfunctional” and prisons dangerously overcrowded. Haiti’s economy is also “on its knees” with public institutions barely able to deliver essential services and millions of Haitians still dependent on the assistance of nongovernmental organizations to meet their basic needs, he said. “As a result, citizens have lost confidence in the state and investors remain reluctant to do business in Haiti,” Ban said.
Gates tries to soothe Saudi residents rattled by unrest By Robert Burns The Associated Press
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Defense Secretary Robert Gates tried to smooth the worst rift in years with Arab ally and oil producer Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, reassuring the Saudi king that the U.S. remains a steady friend despite support for pro-democracy revolutions in the Middle East. The Saudi king, looking thin after months of medical treatment in the United States and elsewhere, welcomed Gates for what the Pentagon chief later said was a cordial and warm visit. The hospitality masked deep unease among Saudi Arabia’s aged leadership about what the political upheaval in the Middle East means for its hold on power, its role as the chief counterweight to a rising Iran, and its changed relationship with the United States. In a sign of the depth of the Obama administration’s concern about the political earthquake that has shaken the region, including the island of Bahrain off Saudi Arabia’s Persian Gulf coast, this was Gates’ third trip to the area in the past month.
“And we also have evidence that they are talking about what they can do to create problems elsewhere” Robert Gates | Defense Secretary He has echoed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s cautioning of authoritarian Arab governments on the risks of moving too slowly in response to peaceful protests for political freedom. Saudi Arabia views the threat of a nuclear strike from Iran as a far larger issue than the drive for political freedoms in Egypt and elsewhere. Although Gates said he and Saudi King Abdullah did not discuss the decision to send Saudi troops into Bahrain last month, the contest for influence in that majority-Shiite country was an important subtext to Gates’ visit. The U.S. is selling Saudi Arabia military hardware to upgrade the kingdom’s defenses against Iranian missiles. Gates said it’s already clear that Tehran is trying to exploit instability in Bahrain, the tiny island nation off the Saudi coast that hosts the
U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. “And we also have evidence that they (the Iranians) are talking about what they can do to create problems elsewhere,” the Pentagon chief added. He did not elaborate. Other officials have said Iran is using money and political pressure in Bahrain and elsewhere to promote Shiite unrest, but the extent of this effort is unclear. The unrest in Bahrain, which erupted in February, has played out against the region’s deep rivalries between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Protesters from Bahrain’s Shiite majority have demanded that the kingdom’s Sunni minority rulers grant them equal rights and a political voice. Saudi Arabia, a largely Sunni nation, has rushed to the aid of Bahrain, while other Gulf countries have accused predominantly Shiite Iran of meddling in Bahrain’s affairs by trying to stir Shiite unrest there.
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