Slain Gaza militants were senior Qaeda affiliates
‘Japan security environs tougher’ Y OKOSUKA , J APAN —Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda told his navy on Sunday that Japan’s security environment was tougher than ever, underscoring tension with China over a territorial dispute and the threat of North Korea’s weapons programs. Sino-Japanese relations deteriorated sharply after Japan in September bought from private owners some of the East China Sea islets that both Tokyo and Beijing claim. That sparked violent anti-Japanese protests across China and badly hurt trade. “It is needless to say that the security environment surrounding Japan is getting tougher than ever,” Noda told about 8,000 servicemen and women, mostly from the navy, from aboard the destroyer Kurama. “We have a neighbor that launches missiles under the pretence of satellite launches. We have various developments concerning territory and sovereignty.” Noda, supreme commander of Japan’s military known as the Self-Defence Forces (SDF), was speaking during a fleet review off Kanagawa prefecture, south of Tokyo. His remarks were relayed to ships gathered in the area — about 40 vessels, including the U.S. cruiser Shiloh, were present for the review. About 47,000 U.S. troops are based in Japan. Noda braved occasional bouts of drizzle to review destroyers, submarines, minesweepers and fuel supply vessels that passed in front of him while SDF helicopters and P-3C anti-submarine patrol planes flew overhead. The disputed group of islands, called Senkaku in Japan and GAZA: Palestinians wheel the body of a militant at a hospital, following an Israeli air strike in the northern Gaza Strip Diaoyu in China, are located near rich fishing grounds and potentially huge oil and gas reserves.—Reuters
Colombia talks peace with FARC rebels BOGOTA—Colombia’s government and Marxist rebels will sit down this week to start peace talks aimed at ending nearly half a century of conflict after a 10-year military offensive against the guerrillas failed to deliver a coup de grace. President Juan Manuel Santos is attempting what many other leaders have tried but failed to do in the past - reach a negotiated deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and bring peace to Latin America’s No. 4 economy. The former defence minister has seen his popularity slide over the last year with former President Alvaro Uribe, for long a close ally, leading criticism that Santos has been too soft on the FARC. But a peace agreement before the next election in 2014 would all but guarantee Santos a second term. While security has improved by leaps and bounds since a U.S.-backed offensive against FARC rebels and drug barons began a decade ago, the security forces have been unable to land a decisive blow. The FARC is still a threat and, although weakened, it has stepped up its attacks in the last few years. Analysts say it is clear the conflict cannot be won by military means alone and the government has a greater chance of negotiating an end to the war from a position of strength than of completely wiping out the rebels. “We take on these talks with moderate optimism but with the absolute conviction that it is an opportunity that we cannot waste.”—Reuters
Montenegro rulers stay in power PODGORICA—Montenegrins voted in a parliamentary election on Sunday that could extend the 23-year hold on power for the ruling party and its leader, Milo Djukanovic, despite economic stagnation and widespread accusations of high-level corruption. The winner will oversee the ex-Yugoslav republic’s talks on joining the European Union. After Croatia, due to join next July, Montenegro is the only Balkan state that could become an EU member by the end of this decade. Djukanovic’s Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) remains popular despite economic woes for having championed the independence of the country of 680,000 people six years ago from a rump Yugoslavia union with Serbia. A victory would return to power the 50-year old Djukanovic, prime minister or president for all but two years in the last two decades. Italian prosecutors had accused him of involvement in massive cigarette smuggling during Yugoslavia’s international isolation in the 1990s but he was cleared of all charges. Looking confident and upbeat after casting his ballot in downtown Podgorica, the capital, Djukanovic said he was “calm and optimistic” about the outcome of the election. “Tomorrow we will talk about who will do what to contribute to the best interest of Montenegro,” he told reporters. He also dismissed the corruption allegations levelled by the opposition: “They have been aiming at the same target for two decades.—Reuters
Mauritania leader pleads for calm NOUAKCHOTT—Mauritania’s president appeared on television to call for calm on Sunday, hours after being shot by soldiers in what he said was an accident. Mauritania’s President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz takes part in the closing news conference after a summit of Mediterranean neighbours at Verdala Palace outside Valletta. Seen by the West as an ally against al Qaeda’s increasing presence in the Sahara Desert, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz has ruled over a northwest African country that has been largely stable since he seized power in a 2008 coup. Abdel Aziz was wounded late on Saturday when a military patrol opened fire on his convoy about 40 km (25 miles) from the capital, Nouakchott. A medical source said he had been shot in the abdomen. “I want to calm all citizens,” Abdel Aziz said in a broadcast on state television from his hospital bed. “I want to reassure everyone about my state of health after this incident committed by error.” Soon after the broadcast, he was flown to former colonial power France for further treatment, a Mauritanian official said. Abdel Aziz won an election in 2009 in the largely desert country, straddles black and Arab Africa on the West coast of the continent. Abdel Aziz’s government launched numerous military operations on Islamist bases in neighbouring Mali before a rebellion split that country in two, leaving much of it in the hands of heavily-armed groups linked to al Qaeda.—Reuters
Israeli polls on Jan 22 JERUSALEM—Israel’s cabinet announced on Sunday a January 22 date for a national election, a ballot that opinion polls predict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will win. The date needs to be approved by the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, which convenes on Monday to vote to dissolve itself and move up an election originally scheduled for October 2013. “The cabinet unanimously approved the proposal to hold Knesset elections on January 22, 2013,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said. Netanyahu called last week for an early election after his governing coalition failed to agree on the 2013 state budget. A new public mandate would strengthen his political standing as Israel confronts the challenge of Iran’s nuclear program. A survey published on Thursday in the Maariv newspaper showed Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party winning 29 of parliament’s 120 seats, up from a current 27, putting it in a prime position to form a coalition government.—Reuters
GAZA—Two Gaza militants killed by Israel on Saturday were the most senior al Qaeda affiliates in the Palestinian enclave, and one had links to jihadi networks in Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, sources said on Sunday. Hisham al-Saedni and Ashraf al-Sabah, who were killed by an air strike as they rode a motorcycle, were ultraconservative Salafi Islamists. Armed Salafis, while a fringe presence in Gaza, have been stepping up violence against Israel while at times clashing with the Palestinian Hamas government. They also operate in the neighbouring Egyptian Sinai. Saedni and Sabah were leaders, respectively, of the Tawhid wa-Jihad and Ansar Al-Sunna groups, two Salafi sources said. The movements share al Qaeda’s vision of global jihad and opposed the more pragmatic Islamism espoused by Hamas
and Cairo’s politically dominant Muslim Brotherhood. The men had recently merged their groups to form the umbrella Majles Shoura Al-Mujahideen (Holy Warriors’ Guidance Council), the sources said, becoming the de facto heads of the diffuse Gaza jihadi network. “Their blood will be a light to guide the holy warriors through the right path and will be fire that will burn the Jews,” one of the sources told Reuters, saying reprisals would not be limited to the short-range rocket launches that are Gaza militants’ favoured mode of attack on Israel. The Salafi sources said Gaza-born Saedni, 47, had lived in Egypt and Jordan and had fought for al Qaeda in Iraq. He had been wanted by Egypt on suspicion of involvement in attacks on tourist sites there.—Reuters
Syrian forces use cluster bombs to reverse rebels gains: HRW
B EIRUT —Syrian government forces have dropped Russian-made cluster bombs over civilian areas in the past week as they battle to reverse rebel gains on a strategic highway, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Sunday. The bombs were dropped from planes and helicopters, with many of the strikes taking place near the main north-south highway running through the northwestern town of Maarat alNuman, HRW said in a report. Rebels seized Maarat alNuman from President Bashar al-Assad’s troops last week, cutting the route from the capital Damascus to Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city. Government forces have been trying to retake the area since then. HRW previously reported Syrian use of cluster bombs, which have been
banned by most countries, in July and August but the renewed strikes indicate the government’s determination to regain strategic control in the northwest. Cluster munitions can drop hundreds of bomblets on a wide area as an anti-personnel weapon, designed to kill as many people as possible. Human rights groups say their use in civilian-populated areas can be a war crime. More than 100 nations have banned their use, stockpiling, transfer or sale under a convention which became international law in 2010, but Syria has not signed it, nor have Russia, China or the United States. Bomblets that do not initially explode can litter the ground, killing and maiming civilians long after a war is over. Towns targeted included Maarat, Tamanea,
Taftanaz and al-Tah. Cluster bombs have also been used in other areas in Homs, Aleppo and Lattakia provinces as well as near Damascus, the New York-based rights group said. “Syria’s disregard for its civilian population is all too evident in its air campaign, which now apparently includes dropping these deadly cluster bombs into populated areas,” said Steve Goose, arms director at HRW. Syrian government officials were not immediately available to comment on the HRW report. Initial information about the use of the explosives came from videos posted online by opposition activists although HRW investigators said it had confirmed the incidents in interviews with resident in two towns. It had no information on
Khaleda off to China to meet key leaders DHAKA—BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia left Dhaka on Sunday for Beijing on a weeklong visit to China at the invitation of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC). A regular flight of Thai Airways carrying the BNP chief and members of her entourage took off from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at 1:35pm. BNP standing committee members Moudud Ahmed, Mirza Abbas, and Nazrul Islam Khan, vice-chairman Abdullah Al Noman, Chowdhury Kamal Ibne Yusuf, and Sadeque Hossain Khoka, among other senior leaders of the party saw her off at the airport. The opposition leader will stay overnight at Bangkok on Sunday and will reach Beijing on Monday. BNP standing committee members Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, and Lt Gen (retd) Mahbubur Rahman, vice-chairmen Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury, and Selima Rahman, chairperson’s adviser Sabihuddin Ahmed, press secretary Maruf Kalam Khan Sohel, private secretary ASM Saleh Ahmed and special assistant Shimul Biswas are accompanying the former premier.
During her stay in China, the BNP chief will have meetings with key leaders of the Chinese Communist Party and top officials of the Chinese government, aiming to strengthen her party’s relations with the Chinese government and the CPC. She will discuss matters of mutual interests, the next general election of Bangladesh, regional problems, explore new areas of cooperation between the two friendly countries, and the BNP and the CPC, and seek Chinese investment in the country, her entourage member Lt Gen (retd) Mahbubur Rahman told UNB. Mentioning that his party shares traditional relations with China and CPC, the BNP standing committee member said Khaleda’s visits will renew and strengthen the ties further and consolidate the friendly relations between the two countries. Asked whether they are going to China to mobilise its support to mount pressure on Bangladesh government for restoring the caretaker government system to oversee the next polls, Mahbub said: “We’ll definitely share with the Chinese leaders about our ongoing political crisis and uncertainty about the next elec-
tion.” “Though China doesn’t interfere in the internal matters of any country, they can express their concern over the political instability in the country to the government of Bangladesh as good friend of it,” he said. Mahbub, a retired army chief, said Khaleda Zia will seek the Chinese cooperation and support for resolving Bangladesh’s maritime disputes with neighbours in an amicable and peaceful way and ensuring Bangladesh’s due share of waters from the common rivers. “ T h e chairperson will also seek Chinese investment in Bangladesh’s power and energy sector,” he added. Khaleda last visited China in December 2010. She is scheduled to leave Beijing on October 19 and return home on October 20 after a short stopover in Bangkok. Party sources said, the opposition leader may soon visit some other countries like India, Turkey, Korea and some European and Middle East ones, to drum up support from the international community to force the government to reinstate the non-party caretaker government system She is likely to go to New Delhi on October 28.—UNB
Pressure for N Mali intervention grows, no action soon MOPTI, MALI—Before Islamists seized the northern half of Mali, Mamadou Sekere sold masks and jewelry in Timbuktu to European tourists who rode camels and slept in the desert under the stars. Now, Sekere is in Mopti where one of his wives gathers leaves to feed the family. His other wife, who stayed behind when he fled Timbuktu, calls several times a day. He’s got 10 children with one and eight with the other, but can only shake his head when asked where they all are now. Sekere waits for the day when the Islamists leave Timbuktu, where they recently carried out a public execution in front of 600 people and have banned items ranging from perfume to Nokia ringtones. Sekere’s handicrafts are hidden inside the walls of his home until he, and the tourists, can return
“Here I am getting by only on the generosity of my friends,” Sekere told a reporter from the upper level of a mud home in this central Malian town, now home to thousands of displaced northerners. “There at least I have a plot of land that I can work.” Sekere is one of nearly 500,000 people who fled northern Mali since the crisis began earlier this year. Many, like Sekere, who came to the south have found life difficult because unemployment is high. Here the civilian government is trying to exert authority over the military, whose junior officers launc hed a coup in March right before elections were to have been held. The soldiers still call a lot of the shots, even though they made a show of returning power to the civilians in April. Ordinary Malians and international experts alike are not sure what will reunite
and bring back political stability to a country that until recently had a reputation as one of West Africa’s most steady democracies. “This is not only a humanitarian crisis; it is a powder keg that the international community cannot afford to ignore,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said recently. The Obama administration, France and neighboring African countries are all weighing what will be the most effective policies to halt the rapid success of Islamic extremists in Mali. The 15-nation West African regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, has discussed sending 3,000 troops to help oust the Islamist militants from the north. Many, though, question how Mali’s weak military could take the lead on such an intervention.—Reuters
casualties. The cluster bombs were Russian-made but it was not known how or when Syria acquired them, HRW said. Residents from Taftanaz and Tamanea - both near Maarat al-Numan - told HRW interviewers that helicopters dropped cluster munitions on or near their towns last Tuesday. One that hit Tamanea released smaller bomblets in an area between two schools, a resident was quoted as saying in the HRW report. “The bomblets that exploded were the ones that hit the ground on the tip, we collected the ones that didn’t explode, their tip didn’t touch the ground,” the resident said. People were taking away unexploded bomblets as souvenirs, a highly dangerous action as they can still explode at the slightest touch or movement. Video showed some ci-
Lithuanian voters to give harsh verdict on austerity V ILNIUS —Lithuanians are
vilians carrying the bomblets around and throwing them on the ground. “The cluster munition strikes and unexploded ordnance they leave behind pose a huge danger to civilian populations, who often seem unaware how easily these submunitions could still explode,” Goose said. The United Nations peace envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, was due in Tehran later on Sunday for talks with Iranian officials, Iranian media reported. Brahimi, who took over the mediator job after former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan quit in frustration at the lack of diplomatic progress, will meet President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other senior officials. Shi’ite Iran is the main ally in the region of Assad, a member of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said this week Brahimi would visit Syria soon to try to persuade Assad to call an immediate ceasefire. The anti-Assad uprising, which has been led by the Sunni Muslim majority, is backed by Sunni-ruled Arab states and by Turkey, which has increasingly taken on a leadership role in the international coalition ranked against Assad. “The U.N. Security Council has not intervened in the human tragedy that has been going on in Syria for 20 months, despite all our efforts,” Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told a conference in Istanbul on Saturday. “There’s an attitude that encourages, gives the green light to Assad to kill tens or hundreds of people every day.”—Reuters
20 killed in Nigeria attack KADUNA —Gunmen opened ethnicity often erupt into viofire on Muslim worshippers as they were leaving a mosque in northern Nigeria on Sunday, killing at least 20 people, a local official said. The attack happened in a remote village called Dogo Dawa, in Kaduna state, said Abdullahi Muhammad, the traditional ruler and councillor of Birnin Gwari, a local government area next door to the village. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Like much of northern Nigeria, Kaduna is plagued by an insurgency led by radical Islamist sect Boko Haram. They usually attack security forces, government officials or Christians, but have hit Muslim clerics and mosques in the past, especially ones that do not follow their hardline brand of Islam. Kaduna also lies close to Nigeria’s volatile “Middle Belt”, where Nigeria’s mostly Muslim north and largely Christian south meet, and where tensions over land and
likely to eject their centerright government in an election on Sunday that could be a taste of what awaits other European leaders forced by the financial crisis to implement unpopular austerity measures. An ex-Soviet state of about three million people, Lithuania crashed hard when the crisis hit four years ago. It made tough budget cuts in response and is now returning to economic health but too late for voters fed up with belt-tightening. Opinion polls indicate they will throw out Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius and install a coalition led by the opposition Social Democrats, who promise to raise the lowest wages and make the rich pay more income tax than the poor. This country on the Baltic Sea, held up by eurozone countries as a model of how to respond to the crisis, is in some ways a bellwether for governments in Greece, Spain and elsewhere, who are being forced to make similar swinging cuts.— Reuters BRYANSK, R USSIA —Russia held local elections from the Baltic Sea to the Chinese border on Sunday, testing President Vladimir Putin’s grip nationwide and the reach of his opponents five months into his new term. The ruling T EHRAN —Iran’s defense United Russia party was exminister said Sunday that pected to win most of nearly Hezbollah’s launch of a drone 5,000 contests despite disafinto Israeli airspace earlier fection that cost it dozens of this week proves the Islamic national parliament seats in a Republic’s military capabili- December vote and helped ties, state TV reported. The spark the biggest opposition statement by Gen. Ahmad protests of Putin’s 12-year Vahidi was Iran’s first official rule. acknow ledgement that the Opponents accuse the Lebanese militant group’s Kremlin of using its position drone used Iranian technol- to give its favoured candiogy. It came a few days after dates an unfair advantage, reHezbollah leader Sheik moving potential competitors Hassan Nasrallah claimed re- from races. The votes included sponsibility for the launch ballots for regional governors and said the drone was manu- in five of Russia’s 83 provfactured in Iran and as- inces, the first since the Kremsembled in Lebanon. lin restored popular elections “Great job by Hezbollah,” of regional chiefs, which Putin Gen. Vahidi said. “The era in had scrapped during his 2000which the Zionist regime (Is- 2008 presidency as he tightrael) could think it has re- ened control. In one example gional supremacy is over.” cited by Putin’s critics as susIsraeli warplanes shot down picious, a candidate who had the unmanned plane, but the posed a threat to the Kremlin’s infiltration marked a rare man withdrew last month from breach of Israel’s tightly the governorship election in guarded airspace. Vahidi said Ryazan province, southeast Hezbollah had the right to of Moscow. Kremlin candilaunch the drone since Israeli dates faced a smooth ride in warplanes routinely overfly most other regions electing Lebanon.—Reuters governors, but in the western
lence. But Abdulladhi said the attack was most likely carried out by a local criminal gang. “We are suspecting a reprisal attack by gangs of armed robbers who lost some of their members after a recent exchange of fire with the villagers and the vigilantes,” he said. “The village had been terrorised by an armed group operating from camps in the forest. These armed men mostly attack villages and motorists along the busy Kaduna to Lagos highway.” The state police commissioner Olufemi Adenaike confirmed the incident, but said he could not yet confirm the death toll. The Islamist insurgency in northern Nigeria and weapons flooding in from its neighbours on the threshold of the Sahara have aggravated levels of violence in the region. Armed robberies and local disputes degenerating into deadly shootouts are increasingly common across the impoverished north.—Reuters
Russian local elections test Putin’s grip
‘Hezbollah drone proves Iran capabilities’
Bryansk region a tougher race was expected against a Communist who was struck from the ballot by a court and reinstated days before the vote. One medical worker in Bryansk accused bosses at her clinic of threatening senior staff with dismissal if they did not vote for the incumbent at multiple polling stations and record the evidence on their mobile phone cameras. “I refused, of course,” said Maria Makarova, 55, who said she voted for the Communist. Election officials in the region could not immediately be reached for comment. Among other closely watched votes were the only two contested by prominent leaders of antiPutin opposition protests: activist and environmental campaigner Yevgeniya Chirikova and liberal politician Vladimir Ryzhkov. Chirikova cried foul in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, saying hundreds of new residents had been registered in one apartment block alone shortly before the election and accusing officials at some polling places of hiding voter lists from observers. “New residents were registered early this morning, somehow they received local registration overnight,” she said at a polling station.—Reuters