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DHAKA TRIBUNE
World
Thursday, May 8, 2014
S Africa votes in first born-free election
Residents of Qunu, the resting place of Nelson Mandela, wait in line to cast their ballot on May 7
n AP, Johannesburg South Africans voted in the first “Born Free” election yesterday, with polls suggesting the allure of the ruling African National Congress as the conqueror of apartheid will prevail even among those with no memory of white-minority rule. Voters young and old wrapped up against the early morning chill to stand in long lines across the country, evok-
ing memories of the huge queues that snaked through streets and fields for South Africa’s historic all-race elections in 1994. “It is great voting for the first time. Now I have a say in the country’s election and what is happening. It is something new in my life,” said 18-yearold Mawande Nkoyi - a so-called post-apartheid “Born Free” - in the Cape Town township of Langa. Voting ended at 1900 GMT and a firm
Hamas ‘forced’ into Palestinian unity deal! n AFP, Gaza City Unprecedented pressure on Hamas, from both Israel’s blockade of Gaza and a hostile Egypt, forced the Islamist movement to accept reconciliation terms dictated by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, analysts say. But Hamas’s subservience to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in the context of the unity deal could work to its advantage, allowing it to return to its militant roots, freed from the responsibilities of governance. Hamas and the Western-backed PLO, which is dominated by Abbas’s secular Fatah party, signed a surprise reconciliation agreement on April 23 in a bid to end years of bitter and sometime bloody rivalry. Under terms of the deal, the two sides would work together to form an “independent government” of technocrats, to be headed by Abbas, that would pave the way for long-delayed elections. Abbas has insisted the government will follow his policy of recognising Israel, rejecting violence and abiding by past peace agreements. Hamas has insisted however that as a movement it remains committed to Israel’s destruction, and it’s unclear how it would reconcile that stance with support for such a government.
Easing the pressure
Pressure on Hamas has been growing steadily since last July, when the Egyptian army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is the Palestinian offshoot of the Brotherhood and had warm relations with Morsi. After Morsi’s ouster, Egypt began destroying hundreds of tunnels along the Gaza border used to import construction materials, fuel, arms and money, plunging the besieged Strip into its worst-ever energy crisis and exacerbating an already-dire humanitarian situation. “The fall of the Brotherhood in Egypt and its effect on Gaza with the closure of tunnels and the border crossing, as well as resultant financial difficulties, forced Hamas to seek a solution,” said Naji Sharab, politics professor at Gaza’s Al-Azhar University. The unity deal could give the Islamist movement a new lease on life by handing over the challenging task of governing Gaza to an administration headquartered in the West Bank. An alliance with the PLO would help Hamas gain international recognition and acceptance without having to make political concessions on its own, such as recognising the state of Israel. l
AFP
idea of the outcome should emerge by midday on May 8 although there is little doubt about the result. Polls put ANC support at around 65 percent, only a shade lower than the 65.9 percent it won in the 2009 election that brought President Jacob Zuma to power. The ANC’s enduring popularity has surprised analysts who said the party could suffer as its glorious past recedes into history and voters focus instead
on the sluggish economic growth and slew of scandals that have typified Zuma’s first term. Africa’s most sophisticated economy has struggled to recover from a 2009 recession - its first since 1994 - and the ANC’s efforts to stimulate growth and tackle 25 percent unemployment have been hampered by powerful unions. South Africa’s top anti-graft agency accused Zuma this year of “benefiting unduly” from a $23 million state-funded security upgrade to his private home at Nkandla in rural KwaZulu-Natal province that included a swimming pool and chicken run. Zuma has steadfastly denied any wrongdoing, defended the upgrades to his home and said the accusations against him were unfair given the importance of protecting any head of state. He confidently told reporters on Monday the Nkandla controversy was “not an issue with the voters.” His personal approval ratings have dipped, but Zuma appeared relaxed and assured as he voted at a school near Nkandla, ending what he described as a “very challenging” campaign. Besides being easy fodder for the cartoonists who have reveled in the freedom of speech enshrined in the post-apartheid constitution, Nkandla has exposed the gulf between current and former ANC leaders, in particular Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, who died in December. It has also become the rallying cry for those who feel the ANC’s dominance as it enters its third decade in power has damaged the soul of the 102-year-old former liberation movement. l
Monica Lewinsky breaks silence on Clinton affair
n AFP, Washington Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky finally broke her silence about her illicit 1990s affair with president Bill Clinton, saying she wants to reclaim the narrative of events that brought her global humiliation. Lewinsky, now 40, was in her early twenties when she became the infamous beret-wearing muse who engaged in sexual relations with the president and then endured a colossal backlash that nearly drove her to suicide. After years of being turned away by potential employers, ridiculed online, and confronted by accusers as “that woman” who performed oral sex in the Oval Office, she decided to write her version of events in this month’s Vanity Fair magazine. “It’s time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress,” Lewinsky wrote in a lengthy essay in the magazine. “I am determined
to have a different ending to my story. I’ve decided, finally, to stick my head above the parapet so that I can take back my narrative and give a purpose to my past.” She said her radio silence was so complete for nearly a decade that rumors swirled that the Clintons must have paid her off to keep her quiet. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” she insisted. It is time to stop “tiptoeing around my past – and other people’s futures,” she said, in a likely reference to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s expected White House run in 2016. News of the Lewinsky affair broke in 1998 and became an all-consuming scandal that nearly crashed the Clinton presidency. He was impeached by the House of Representatives that December but was acquitted by the Senate. While the Clintons moved on, Lewinsky became an American outcast, even as she came to regret one of the most famous political affairs in US history. “Sure, my boss took advantage of me, but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship,” she wrote. “Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position,” she added. In the scandal’s wake, Lewinsky said, she “turned down offers that would have earned me more than $10 million, because they didn’t feel like the right thing to do.” The anxiety made her suicidal at times, she admitted, noting that the shame and scorn thrown at her caused her mother to “fear that I would be literally humiliated to death.” l
Israeli spying on US at alarming level
Israel mulls internment for hate crimes against Arabs n AFP, Jerusalem
n AFP, Washington
Israel plans to use detention without trial against Jewish extremists suspected of anti-Arab hate crimes, a minister said yesterday, as its failure to secure prosecutions drew mounting criticism. As police confirmed yet another incident of nationalist-inspired vandalism, in which “Death to Arabs” and other racist graffiti was found in northern Israel, senior law enforcement officials were to discuss with ministers how to halt the wave of so-called “price tag” attacks. “Price tag” is a euphemism for hate attacks by Jewish extremists predominantly targeting Palestinian and Arab-Israeli property. “It is the government’s intention to use administrative detention against those carrying out so-called ‘price tag’ attacks,” Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch told army radio. Administrative detention allows for suspects to be held without trial for up to six months. Such orders, which can be renewed indefinitely by a court decision, are almost exclusively used against Palestinians suspected of security-related offences. Although police have made scores of arrests, there have been no successful prosecutions for price tag attacks. l
Israel spies on the United States more than any other ally does and these activities have reached an alarming level, Newsweek magazine reported on Tuesday. The main targets are US industrial and technical secrets, the weekly said, quoting classified briefings on legislation that would make it easier for Israeli citizens to get visas to enter America. Newsweek said a congressional staffer familiar with a briefing last January called the testimony “very sobering ... alarming ... even terrifying,” and quoted another as saying
the behavior was “damaging.” “No other country close to the United States continues to cross the line on espionage like the Israelis do,” said a former congressional staffer who attended another classified briefing in late 2013, according to Newsweek. It said that briefing was one of several in recent months given by the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, the FBI and the National Counterintelligence Directorate. The former congressional staffer said the intelligence agencies did not give specifics, but cited “industrial espionage-folks coming over here on
trade missions or with Israeli companies working in collaboration with American companies, [or] intelligence operatives being run directly by the government, which I assume meant out of the [Israeli] Embassy.” Israel’s espionage activities in America are unrivaled and go far beyond activities by other close allies, such as Germany, France, Britain and Japan, counter-intelligence agents told members of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees, Newsweek said. “I don’t think anyone was surprised by these revelations,” the former aide was quoted as saying. l
Israel denies allegations of US spying n AFP, Jerusalem
Israel’s foreign minister yesterday denied allegations that his country was engaged in spying activities on US soil, following a report published in Newsweek. In the article, anonymous US officials said Israel had gone too far in its attempts to secure industrial and technical intelligence from its number-one ally, and had “crossed red lines.” “No other country close to the United States continues to cross the line on espionage like the Israelis do,” said a former congressional staffer who attended a classified briefing in late 2013,
according to Newsweek. But Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman denied the charges. “We categorically reject such an accusation,” he told army radio. “We’re talking about lies and falsehood, simply libel which is baseless and unfounded,” Lieberman said, describing the remarks as “malicious.” “I am sorry that there are apparently anonymous elements in the United States who are simply trying to maliciously spread false accusations,” he said. The minister said Israel had “learned its lesson” from the case of Jonathan Pollard, a US naval analyst who was arrested in Washington in 1985 and sen-
tenced to life in jail for spying on the United States for Israel. Lieberman said Israel was not involved in any form of espionage against the United States, direct or indirect. He also denied allegations in the Newsweek story that the alleged spying was connected to Israel’s so-far futile attempts to join the US visa waiver programme. Born into a Jewish family from Texas, Pollard passed to Israel thousands of secret documents about US spy activities in the Arab world over a period of 18 months. He won Israeli citizenship in 1995 and was officially recognised as an Israeli spy three years later. l
Archaeologists find 5,600-year-old tomb in Egypt n AFP, Cairo
Rebels evacuated from Homs, cradle of Syrian uprising
Ukraine’s rebel east readies secession vote
Archaeologists in southern Egypt have discovered a 5,600-year-old preserved tomb and mummy predating the First Dynasty of the pharaohs, the antiquities ministry said yesterday. The tomb was built before the rule of king Narmer, the founder of the First Dynasty who unified Upper and Lower Egypt in the 31th century BC, the ministry said in a statement. The tomb was discovered in the Kom al-Ahmar region, between Luxor and Aswan, on the site of Hierakonpolis, the city of the falcon, which was the dominant pre-dynastic urban centre and the capital of the Kingdom of Upper Egypt. The archaeologists found an ivory statue of a bearded man and the mummy of the tomb’s owner, who appeared to have died in his late teenage years, the ministry said. The tomb’s preserved state will provide new information on pre-dynastic rituals, said Renee Friedman, the head of the multinational archeological team. The tombs of king Narmer and king Ra, a pre-dynastic pharaoh who paved the way to Egypt’s unification, were previously discovered in Hierakonpolis. l
n Reuters, Beirut
TURKEY
n Reuters, Donetsk, Ukraine
Aleppo Hama LE B.
Syrian rebels started withdrawing from the heart of Homs city yesterday, leaving an early centre of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad and handing him a symbolic victory less than a month before his likely re-election. Two buses carrying the first of many hundreds of fighters left the besieged city centre in an evacuation agreed between insurgents and forces loyal to Assad. The deal also includes the release of captives held by rebels in Aleppo and Latakia provinces, and the easing of a rebel siege of two Shi’ite towns in northernSyria. The overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim fighters had held out in the Old City of Homs and neighboring districts despite being undersupplied, outgunned and subjected to more than a year of siege and bombardment by Assad’s forces. Video footage showed a group of men climbing aboard a green bus, watched by around a dozen men in khaki uniform and black flak jackets marked “police.” In front of the bus was a white car with the markings of the United Nations, which helped oversee the operation. Activists said a total of 1,900 people, mainly rebel fighters, were being evacu-
100 km
SYRIA
Homs
IRAQ
Homs
DAMASCUS
JORDAN
Al-Waer Old City 2 km
ated, starting with 600 wounded fighters and civilian relatives. But most of the people boarding the bus in central Homs appeared to be fit men of fighting age. Later video showed them arriving in a rebel-held area north of the city. Unlike an evacuation of civilians from Homs in February, activists said they were not detained for checks by security forces and were allowed to keep their light weapons. The evacuation comes after months
of gains by the army, backed by its Lebanese militant ally Hezbollah, along a strategic corridor of territory linking the capital Damascus with Homs and Assad’s Alawite heartland on the Mediterranean. The final rebel withdrawal from the centre of the city, known as the “capital of the revolution” when protests first erupted against Assad in 2011, would consolidate his military control ahead of a June 3 presidential election. l
Behind the barricades of tires and car bumpers, past the masked militants who hold Donetsk’s filthy administration building, there is a man in a suit in a spotless office, working from an Apple iMac on a vote to dismember Ukraine. Roman Lyagin, 33, head of this self-proclaimed republic’s electoral commission, does not hide his distaste for the gunmen who seized control here a month ago, but he shares their aims. “Every revolution accumulates its fair share of loons,” he told Reuters. But, he said, “we simply cannot live any more within Ukraine. Ukraine has already de facto said goodbye to us.” If Kiev has not already lost its industrial east, it risks doing so on Sunday, when people in thissteel and coal belt - many of them ethnic Russians or native Russian-speakers - vote in a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ referendum on secession. What comes next will decide whether this country of some 45 million people slides into civil war, or settles into a frozen conflict that could scupper any plans for integration into Western-led multinational institutions for years to come. The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic faces joining Georgia’s Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Azerbai-
jan’s Nagorno-Karabakh and Moldova’s Transdniestria as would-be statelets, unrecognized and ignored almost the entire world over since being spawned by the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. Kiev will reject the referendum result, but Russia’s response is uncertain. It annexed Crimea after a similar plebiscite in March, held under the watch of a Russian invasion force, but has been careful not to show its hand ahead of Sunday’s vote. Despite recent opinion polls suggesting only a minority supports secession, Lyagin says the result is in no doubt. The red-blue-black tricolor flag of the rebel republic already flies at the regional administration building in Donetsk, a well-tended city traversed by a long park dotted with open-air cafes andrestaurants. There are nods to the old Soviet order such as a statue of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. Beyond the city, large factories and mines loom over a rolling green landscape. Western observers won’t be attending the poll, their absence fueling accusations that it will be fixed. Nor will there be a minimum turnout for the result to stand. Neighboring Luhansk region, on the Russian border, will also vote. Gunmen hold sway there too, stoking fears that not everyone’s voice will be heard. l