Home » August 31st, 2011
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MULTAN, Pakistan (AP & staff) — The main ingredient in most of the homemade bombs that have killed hundreds of American troops in Afghanistan is fertilizer produced by a single company in Pakistan, where the U.S. has been pushing unsuccessfully for greater regulation. Enough calcium ammonium nitrate fertilizer for at least 140,000 bombs was legally produced last year by Pakarab Fertilizers Ltd., then smuggled by militants and their suppliers across the porous border into southern and eastern Afghanistan, according to U.S. officials. The U.S. military says around 80 percent of Afghan bombs are made with the fertilizer, which becomes a powerful explosive when mixed with fuel oil. The rest are made from military-grade munitions like mines or shells. The United States began talks a year and a half ago with Pakistani officials and Pakarab, one of the country’s largest companies. But there is still no regulation of distribution and sale of calcium ammonium nitrate fertilizer. “If you have a host country that has a factory making a substance that ultimately becomes the problem, then that country has to contribute at least half the solution,” said Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, who led a congressional delegation to Pakistan last week to press army and civilian leaders for action. U.S. officials say Pakistan and Pakarab have expressed willingness to regulate the fertilizer, which is also widely used in the manufacture of bombs used by insurgents to kill thousands of soldiers and civilians inside Pakistan. They acknowledge the difficulties: 15 years after ammonium nitrate was used in the Oklahoma City bombings, the U.S. government only presented its proposals to regulate it on Aug. 2. But with the death toll from homemade bombs rising almost daily inside Afghanistan, continuing inaction by Pakistani authorities will add more strain to a U.S.-Pakistani relationship already frayed by allegations that Islamabad is aiding Afghan insurgents on its side of the border. “This is a test,” Casey said. “The key thing now is to see results.” ____ The only producer of calcium ammonium nitrate fertilizer in Pakistan, Pakarab operates two factories in Punjab province, the country’s agricultural heartland. The largest is on the outskirts of Multan, an ancient city surrounded by thousands of acres (hectares) of mango orchards and cotton fields. A sprawling industrial complex of smoking chimneys, pipes and tanks surrounded by high walls, the 39-year-old facility churns out the chemical 24 hours a day when it’s [...]
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FRANKFURT, Germany (AP & Staff) — A Kosovo Albanian man confessed Wednesday to killing two U.S. airmen at the Frankfurt airport, saying in emotional testimony at the opening of his trial that he had been influenced by radical Islamic propaganda online. Arid Uka is charged with two counts of murder for the March 2 slaying of Senior Airman Nicholas J. Alden, 25, from South Carolina, and Airman 1st Class Zachary R. Cuddeback, 21, from Virginia. The 21-year-old Uka also faces three counts of attempted murder for wounding two more airmen and taking aim at a third before his gun jammed. Although Germany has experienced scores of terrorist attacks in past decades, largely from leftist groups like the Red Army Faction, the airport attack was the first attributed to an Islamic extremist. Since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, there have been about a half-dozen other jihadist plots that were either thwarted or failed — including a 2007 plan to kill Americans at the U.S. Air Force’s Ramstein Air Base. Uka went to the airport with the intent “to kill an indeterminate number of American soldiers, but if possible a large number,” prosecutor Herbert Diemer told a state court in Frankfurt. No pleas are entered in the German system, and Uka confessed to the killings after the indictment was read, telling the court “what I did was wrong but I cannot undo what I did.” He went on to urge other radical Muslims not to seek inspiration in his attack, urging them not to be taken in by “lying propaganda” on the Internet. Uka, dressed in jeans, sneakers and a crisp white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, smiled at his attorneys as he was brought in and his handcuffs were removed. But he wept repeatedly as he recounted the attack and watched the jihadist videos he said motivated him. “To this day I try to understand what happened and why I did it… but I don’t understand,” he said, at times speaking so softly that court officials had to bring in a microphone and put it directly in front of him. Cooperating with authorities and confessing can help reduce a defendant’s sentence — but Uka refused to tell the court where he obtained the 9mm semi-automatic pistol he used, which Presiding Judge Thomas Sagebiel said meant his confession was incomplete. Uka described becoming increasingly introverted in the months before the attack, staying at [...]
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SANTIAGO, Chile (AP & Staff) — Chile’s first lady on Wednesday reassured all 33 rescued miners that the government won’t abandon them, a day after she announced early retirement benefits for just under half of them. President Sebastian Pinera’s wife Cecilia Morel said Tuesday that 14 of the miners who are at least 50 years old or suffer from health problems that prevent them from working will receive lifetime pensions of about $540 a month. The miners themselves helped decide who among themselves who should qualify for the pensions. Most of the others have yet to find steady work, and some are facing a financial squeeze because they’ve been taken off medical leave, meaning the state-run workplace insurance agency no longer pays their salaries. Morel said when she presented the pensions at the Regional Museum of Atacama in Copiapo that this government didn’t just fight to bring them to the surface after being trapped for 69 days deep inside a collapsed copper mine. “Now we have to keep helping them, because their experience was very traumatic. They should feel that the government has not abandoned them, that they are part of Chilean history,” she said. Shift foreman Luis Urzua, one of those who will receive the pension, thanked her for the gesture and stressed that the miners’ ongoing lawsuits accusing Chile’s mine safety agency and the mine’s owners of negligence should not be seen as an attack on the government. “We’ve always had a good response from the government to our requests,” he said.
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TRIPOLI, Libya (AP & Staff) — Moammar Gadhafi’s son al-Saadi is trying to negotiate the terms of his own surrender, the rebel commander in Tripoli told on Wednesday in what would be a major blow to the Libyan leader’s crumbling regime. The commander, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, said al-Saadi first called him Tuesday and asked whether his safety could be guaranteed. “We told him ‘Don’t fear for your life. We will guarantee your rights as a human being, and will deal with you humanely,’ said Belhaj, confirming a report on Al-Jazeera television. Belhaj added that al-Saadi would be turned over to Libyan legal authorities after his surrender. If the offer is confirmed — the rebels have previously claimed to have captured Gadhafi’s son Seif al-Islam, who later turned up free — the surrender would give the rebels a significant boost as they try to consolidate their hold over the country with the longtime dictator and several sons and aides still at large. Opposition fighters have been pressing toward Gadhafi’s key remaining stronghold, his hometown of Sirte, and loyalists now only control a handful of areas, including Bani Walid to the west. Belhaj said Al-Saadi told him he had not killed anyone, and that “he was not against the people.” “I told him ‘This is good. What is important for us is not to shed Libyan blood. For the members of the regime to surrender is the best way to do this,’” said Belhaj. The commander said al-Saadi had called back Wednesday morning, but that he had missed the call. He said he knows al-Saadi’s whereabouts, but prefers to negotiate a surrender. He gave no further details. Belhaj’s comments came hours after Gadhafi’s chief spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, called the AP headquarters in New York, reiterating the senior Gadhafi’s offer to send al-Saadi to negotiate with the rebels and form a transitional government. The rebels have previously rejected such offers. Ibrahim also rejected a rebel ultimatum for loyalists in Sirte to surrender by Saturday or face an attack. “No dignified honorable nation would accept an ultimatum from armed gangs,” he said. There has been speculation that Gadhafi is seeking refuge in Sirte or one of the other remaining regime strongholds, among them Bani Walid or the southern town of Sabha. Top rebel officials say they have “a good idea” where Gadhafi is hiding, but haven’t given any details. Belhaj said the rebels have [...]
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AMSTERDAM (AP & Staff) — Dutch police have uncovered huge caches of child pornography on “hidden” websites, including four based in the United States, prosecutors announced Wednesday. The discovery was made as part of the far-reaching investigation into a suspected pedophile identified only as Robert M. who was arrested in Amsterdam last year. He is accused of abusing dozens of young children while he worked in at least two Amsterdam preschools. The Dutch police’s National Investigations Office said in a statement it had managed to infiltrate several “hidden services” sites internationally where users can surf the internet and communicate anonymously. There, they found some 220,000 child pornography photos and videos. Four of the websites were housed on two servers based in the United States. Investigators managed to break into them and access the images as well as online chats that included identifying details of users of the sites. The details are being turned over to the FBI, prosecutors said. Prosecution spokesman Wim de Bruin said no arrests have yet been made as a result of the discovery. Prosecutors said they saved the images as evidence before deleting them from the servers. One of the hidden sites police discovered was called “Violent Desires.” “As well as child pornography, it contained a discussion forum that included chats about abducting, abusing and killing children,” prosecutors said. They also gained access as visitors to 11 sites containing child pornography, where they posted police warning signs in a move designed to scare off people accessing the sites. Robert M. was arrested last December and his computers seized. Prosecutors say he has confessed to dozens of sex crimes inflicted on boys and girls aged under four years.
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WARSAW, Poland (AP & Staff) — A Polish court on Tuesday convicted three people of blackmailing Krzysztof Piesiewicz, a senator and screenwriter known internationally for collaborating on the award-winning “Three Colors” movie trilogy. The district court of Warsaw also sentenced the two women and a man to 18 months in prison. The verdict is not final, however, and the defendants said they would appeal, the news agency PAP reported. The verdicts in the closed-door trial came after a tabloid released video in 2009 of Piesiewicz wearing a dress and appearing to take cocaine with prostitutes. Piesiewicz has said he was not using cocaine but another powdered medication. He has said he paid the women twice to keep the meetings secret but went to police when they demanded money a third time. Police have said he fell victim to an extortion ring. Piesiewicz had been planning to run for re-election to the Senate, but despite the verdict in his favor announced late Tuesday that he was withdrawing from the race. On the radio station TOK RM he said that criminals were continuing to post material in the “electronic media” about him and that he was therefore withdrawing his candidacy to the Senate. He did not explain further. Many Poles perceive Piesiewicz as a victim in the case, though there is a perception that he was exceptionally naive for allowing himself to fall into a trap set by the blackmailers. Piesiewicz collaborated with the late director Krzysztof Kieslowski on the films “The Double Life of Veronique” and the “Three Colors (Blue, White and Red)” trilogy.
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ABUJA, Nigeria (AP & Staff) — A Norwegian and 10 Nigerians were among the United Nations staffers killed in a suicide car-bomb attack claimed by a radical Muslim group at the world body’s headquarters in Nigeria’s capital last week, the U.N. said Tuesday. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon later Tuesday identified the Norwegian staffer as a young woman named Ingrid Midtgaard from Oslo. Authorities have also recovered the bodies of nine non-staffers and three unidentified bodies, the U.N. statement said. The bombing in Abuja on Friday killed 23 people. The U.N. also said it has flown 12 critically injured staffers to South Africa for further medical care. More than 80 people were wounded in the attack, Ban said. U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said Sunday the dead also included a Kenyan and a citizen of Ivory Coast. Ban told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that the organization will conduct a full review of the attack and of security measures at the building that was targeted. “We will also be initiating a global threat review shortly,” he said. “I will share the results with you at the first opportunity.” “Clearly, the U.N. and our people are being targeted more and more often by terrorist worldwide,” the U.N. chief said. “Too often, it seems, we are considered a ‘soft’ target. The security of our staff working overseas must be paramount.” A suicide bomber on Friday rammed through two sets of gates to reach the U.N. building’s glass reception hall. There, the bomber detonated explosives powerful enough to bring down parts of the concrete structure and blow out glass windows from other buildings in the quiet Abuja neighborhood filled with diplomatic posts. The attack was claimed by a sect known locally as Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the local Hausa language. The sect, which wants to implement a strict version of Shariah law in the nation, has reported links to African terror groups al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and al-Shabab of Somalia.
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LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP & Staff) — Bolivia’s highest court on Tuesday convicted five former top military commanders of genocide for an army crackdown on riots in October 2003 that killed at least 64 civilians. It gave them prison sentences ranging from 10 to 15 years. In a unanimous decision, the six judges of the Supreme Tribunal also convicted two former Cabinet ministers of complicity in the killings and sentenced each to three years. Indicted in the case but not tried was Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, Bolivia’s president at the time of the killings. He was forced into exile by the widespread popular anger they provoked. Carlos Sanchez Berzain, the then-defense minister, also was indicted but not tried. Bolivian law prohibits trials in absentia and both men live in the United States. A lawyer for Sanchez de Lozada issued a statement calling Bolivia’s justice system highly politicized and saying that “no objective observer” can take the sentences seriously. “Plainly, the Bolivian judiciary was used here as a political tool,” said the statement by attorney Ana Reyes. The 2003 protests and crackdown, in what has become known as “Black October,” was a turning point in Bolivian politics: The country’s discredited traditional political parties collapsed and Evo Morales, one of the protest leaders, won the presidency two years later. The unrest was initially sparked by a government plan to export natural gas from this poor, landlocked South American nation through a proposed pipeline to Chile. It quickly set off protests by the largely Aymara Indian population of La Paz’s satellite city, El Alto, which vented centuries of anger over poverty and political marginalization. Sanchez de Lozada, whose indictment was authorized by Congress before Morales’ December 2005 election, has long argued that using force was justified because a blockade by unruly protesters in El Alto had cut off La Paz, the capital, from food and fuel. But prosecutors said nothing justified letting soldiers open fire on civilians who were armed only with sticks and rocks. Sixty-four people were killed and 405 wounded, Chief Prosecutor Mario Uribe said. One witness in the trial told of how her curious 5-year-old son, Alex Llusco, was killed by a bullet in the head when he went onto their porch to watch the protests. He was the youngest victim. Families of victims erupted in tears when the verdict was announced Tuesday at a brief public hearing in Sucre, [...]
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THE ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHER DIOGENES can hang up his lamp and end his centuries’ old quest – – -an honest man has been found! ALL HAIL OUTSPOKEN, BRAVE BILLIONAIRE WARREN BUFFETT who stood up, facing anger and hostility from some of his selfish peers, and told it like it is – – -THE MEGA-RICH SHOULD PAY MORE TAXES! IN AN OPINION PIECE IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, Buffet said households that have a taxable income of $1 million or more a year should pay more taxes and households with incomes of $10 million or more a year should cough up even more. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? We are talking millions here, millions in income a year. LEAVE THE RATES FOR THE OTHER 99.7 PERCENT OF TAXPAYERS UNCHANGED, this savvy seer of Omaha suggested. “MY FRIENDS AND I HAVE BEEN CODDLED long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress,” Buffett wrote. “It is time our government got serious about shared sacrifice.” BILLIONAIRE BUFFETT is chairman and CEO of Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway, and despite his wealth, lives a comparatively simple, non-gilt-edged life, driving an old car and residing in a small home. And he has pledged most of his wealth for charities when he dies, besides the good works he accomplishes now. DRIVING HOME HIS TAX-RICH THEORY, Buffett reminded that the mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15 per cent on most investment income but practically nothing in payroll taxes. The middle class, what’s left of it, falls into the 15 to 25 per cent bracket and pays heavy payroll taxes. Warren says higher tax rates will not keep anyone from investing. BOLSTERING BUFFETT’S CALL FOR HIGHER TAXES ON THE MEGA-RICH is his insistence that many of the super-rich “wouldn’t mind paying more in taxes, especially when so many fellow citizens are suffering.” BACK TO DIOGENES who carried a lighted lamp even in [...]
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HEISHA, Libya (AP & staff) — Libyan rebels say they’re closing in on Moammar Gadhafi and issued an ultimatum Tuesday to regime loyalists in the fugitive dictator’s hometown of Sirte, his main remaining bastion: surrender this weekend or face an attack. “We have a good idea where he is,” a top rebel leader said. The rebels, tightening their grip on Libya after a military blitz, also demanded that Algeria return Gadhafi’s wife and three of his children who fled there Monday. Granting asylum to his family, including daughter Aisha who gave birth in Algeria on Tuesday, was an “enemy act,” said Ahmed al-Darrad, the rebels’ interior minister. Rebel leaders insisted they are slowly restoring order in the war-scarred capital of Tripoli after a week of fighting, including deploying police and collecting garbage. Reporters touring Tripoli still saw chaotic scenes, including desperate motorists stealing fuel from a gas station. In the capital’s Souk al Jumma neighborhood, about 200 people pounded on the doors of a bank, demanding that it open. Civil servants said they were told they would receive a 250-dinar (about $200) advance on their salaries for the three-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which starts Wednesday in Libya. Rebel fighters were converging on the heavily militarized town of Sirte, some 250 miles (400 kilometers) east of Tripoli. The rebels gave pro-Gadhafi forces there a deadline of Saturday — the day after the end of the Muslim holiday — to complete negotiations and surrender. After that, the rebels will “act decisively and militarily,” said Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the head of the rebels’ National Transitional Council. His deputy, Ali Tarhouni, said in Tripoli that “sometimes to avoid bloodshed you must shed blood, and the faster we do this, the less blood we will shed.” There has been speculation that Gadhafi is seeking refuge in Sirte or one of the other remaining regime strongholds, among them the towns of Bani Walid or Sabha. “Gadhafi is now fleeing — and we have a good idea where he is,” Tarhouni said, without elaborating. “We don’t have any doubt that we will catch him.” Some 90 miles (150 kilometers) west of Sirte, about a dozen armored, gun-mounted trucks were parked at a staging ground in the desert. A highway overpass provided some shade for rebels, most dressed in T-shirts and camouflage pants. Commander Ismail Shallouf said patrols have gone 30 miles (50 kilometers) closer to Sirte, [...]
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ALGIERS, Algeria (AP & Staff) — Hunted throughout her homeland and forced to flee into exile across a dangerous desert border, the daughter of ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi paused somewhere in the Sahara to have a baby. The dramatic birth of Gadhafi’s granddaughter, less than 24 hours after her mother and other relatives escaped Libyan territory into Algeria, lends a human dimension to the dictator’s downfall and the ongoing mystery of his whereabouts. The birth in exile was disclosed by the Algerian Health Ministry on Tuesday, but an official with the ministry would provide no other information, including exactly where the delivery occurred. The official was not authorized to be publicly named according to ministry rules. Gadhafi’s only biological daughter, Aisha had fled with Gadhafi’s wife Safia, and two of her brothers, Hannibal and Mohammed, entering southern Algeria from the Libyan border Monday, the Algerian Foreign Ministry said. Algerian news reports had said Aisha’s pregnancy was one reason for Algeria’s controversial decision to take the family in. An Algerian newspaper reported that the exiles, who also included an unknown number of Gadhafi’s grandchildren by his eight children, had waited 12 hours to receive authorization to cross the Algerian border from President Abdelaziz Bouteflika — while Aisha was in labor. The whole party is now wanted by Libya’s new rulers. Libya’s interim government criticized Algeria’s decision to take in Gadhafi’s fleeing wife and children, and demanded that Algiers hand them over for trial in Libya. Algeria has a nearly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) border with Libya. The arid, dusty desert is the backdrop for suspected weapons smuggling by militants with ties to Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, as unlikely a spot as any for the emergency child birth by the only daughter of Africa’s longest-ruling dictator. Libya’s rebel leadership demanded Tuesday that Algeria return Gadhafi’s wife and children for trial, accusing Algeria of an “aggressive act.” The departure of Gadhafi’s family was one of the strongest signs yet that he has lost his grip on Libya after 42 years in power. Aisha Gadhafi is a lawyer in her mid-30s who helped in the defense of toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the trial that led to his hanging. She is reported to already have three children, making Tuesday’s birth her fourth. She had cultivated an image of caring about ordinary Libyans, but neighbors said she had razed a local clinic to make [...]
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TRIPOLI, Libya (AP & Staff) — Since the rebel takeover of Tripoli, evidence has been mounting that Moammar Gadhafi may have lied about the death of his adopted baby daughter Hana in a 1986 U.S. airstrike. The strike hit Gadhafi’s home in his Tripoli compound, Bab al-Aziziya, in retaliation for the Libyan-sponsored bombing of a Berlin nightclub earlier that year that killed two U.S. servicemen. At the time, Gadhafi showed American journalists a picture of a dead baby and said it was his adopted daughter Hana — the first public mention that she even existed. Diplomats almost immediately questioned the claim. But Gadhafi kept the story alive through the years. Then, when investigations into the 1988 Pan Am airliner bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, pointed to a Libyan hand in the attack, some theorized that Gadhafi had ordered it to avenge Hana’s death in the U.S. airstrike. But when Libyan rebels took over Tripoli and Bab al-Aziziya last week, they found a room in Gadhafi’s home with Hana’s birth certificate and pictures of a young woman with the name “Hana” written on the back, possible indications that she lived well beyond infancy. A Tripoli hospital official surfaced, saying Hana worked for him as a surgeon up until the rebels came to town. And on Tuesday, Swiss officials confirmed that Hana’s name had briefly appeared earlier this year on a Swiss government document listing the names of senior Libyan figures targeted for sanctions. Many Libyans believe Hana was never killed and talked about her existence openly. Adel Shaltut, a Libyan diplomat at the U.N. in Geneva, said it was common knowledge that Hana Gadhafi wasn’t killed in the airstrike. “All Libyans knew from the very beginning that it’s a lie,” he told The Associated Press, saying that Hana was married and had children. However, some in Libya believed that after Hana’s death, Gadhafi adopted another daughter and gave her the same name in a memorial tribute. Adding to the mystery, two AP photographs from the 1990s show an adolescent girl identified in captions as Gadhafi’s daughter Hana. In one of them from 1999, she is standing next to South African President Nelson Mandela, with his arm around her, during a family visit to Cape Town. Gadhafi’s only biological daughter, Aisha, stands on Mandela’s other side and Gadhafi’s wife Safiya is next to the girl identified as Hana. In another AP photo from [...]
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TRIPOLI, Libya (AP & Staff) — Authorities in Tripoli have discovered the body of a top Libyan regime official suspected of a role in the 1984 shooting of a British policewoman outside the Libyan embassy in London, a senior official said Tuesday. The body of Abdel Kader Baghdadi, former head of Moammar Gadhafi’s Revolutionary Guards, was found along with several other corpses in a government building Tripoli’s Tajoura neighborhood, said Usama el-Abed, deputy chief of Tripoli’s new city council. Baghdadi’s identity was confirmed Tuesday, including by relatives who viewed the body, el-Abed said. Baghdadi was shot in the head, possibly in an internal feud, El-Abed said, adding that the circumstances of the death are still not entirely clear. “We think this was done a week or 10 days ago,” el-Abed said. “Only today could we confirm this.” He said Baghdadi was accused of a role in the shooting, but did not explain further. Policewoman Yvonne Fletcher, 25, was killed when officials inside the Libyan Embassy in London opened fire on a demonstration. The Libyans inside the embassy were eventually allowed to leave Britain and no one has ever been charged. The Daily Telegraph newspaper has reported that a British independent prosecutor said in April 2007 that there was enough evidence to charge Baghdadi and another man with conspiracy to cause Fletcher’s death. The prosecutor also named the man suspected of firing the fatal shot, but said there was not enough evidence to charge him with murder. Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service posted the Daily Telegraph report on its blog last week and said that the investigation into Fletcher’s death was ongoing. The British government said Tuesday that police are hoping to interview a number of people in Libya over the case — both potential witnesses and suspects. “There are some outstanding issues that we have with Libya and discussions will take place when it’s appropriate,” a spokeswoman for Prime Minister David Cameron’s office said, on condition of anonymity in line with policy. She confirmed that police hope to travel to Libya to carry out interviews. Britain broke off diplomatic relations with Libya for 15 years after the shooting. The two countries restored diplomatic relations in 1999 after Libya accepted responsibility for Fletcher’s shooting, apologized and agreed to pay her family compensation. Gadhafi said two years ago that he regretted the killing of Fletcher but did not know who was responsible.
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STOCKHOLM (AP & Staff) — Three of Sweden’s biggest newspapers are changing their websites to monitor instant, anonymous comments from readers — a move designed to crack down on Internet expressions of racism and hatred. The tabloid Expressen said Monday it will start monitoring all comments before, instead of after, they are published and remove those that are libelous, or contain threats or racist remarks. The dailies Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter, meanwhile, said Tuesday they will close down comment fields completely until they have installed new systems that require readers to log in through Facebook or an email account before making a comment. The decisions follow a debate raised after the July 22 terror attacks in Norway that left 77 people dead about the harsh words and racism that flourishes among some anonymous commentators on the Internet. When confessed killer Anders Behring Breivik’s manifesto became known after the terror attacks, many recognized his xenophobic arguments from reader comments and chat forums, Aftonbladet’s Chief Editor Jan Helin wrote in a comment. “The debate that has followed the terror attacks in Norway has made an impression on us. It is not possible to remain unaffected by that,” Helin said. Bjorn Hedensjo, head of Dagens Nyheter’s website www.dn.se, said the newspaper’s monitors haven’t managed to keep up with the flow of comments on its site and have discovered posts several days later that violate its policies. “Of course we are disappointed with having to take this step, the ideal is obviously a free and open debate that doesn’t even require monitoring,” he wrote in a comment. “The reality, unfortunately, is different: Ours and other’s comment fields have been abused by a small group of people who express racist views, among other things.” Hedensjo said he is not sure the new system will work perfectly, but that the newspaper believes it can raise the quality of the debate by encouraging people to make comments using their real name. Expressen’s Chief Editor Thomas Mattson pointed out the new monitoring plan doesn’t mean readers are banned from discussing issues such as the integration of immigrants. “We are making this change because far too many write ‘off-topic,’” he wrote. “It is not fair that people who we write about, or interview should risk being subjected to Internet hatred in the comments, or that far too many discussions about completely different topics should become dominated by xenophobic debaters.”
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JOHANNESBURG (AP & Staff) — Violent protests Tuesday by supporters of South Africa’s firebrand youth leader are the latest political salvo in a power struggle that could determine the future of South Africa’s president and the man who helped catapult him to power, youth league chief Julius Malema. Demonstrators burned flags of the ruling African National Congress and ran through the streets of downtown Johannesburg holding up flaming T-shirts bearing the image of President Jacob Zuma. “Zuma must go!” they chanted. When the protesters began lobbing stones and bottles, police detonated stun grenades and turned water cannons on the crowd of thousands. Later, they fired rubber bullets to get protesters off the roof of an armored car. The focus for Tuesday’s demonstration was the start of a disciplinary hearing for Malema and five other youth league officers accused of bringing the ANC into disrepute with their calls for the ouster of the democratic government of neighboring Botswana. They face expulsion or suspension from the party. Analysts say the hearing is a pretext to confront the growing power of Malema, who has mobilized disillusioned and unemployed youth with demands that the government nationalize the wealthy mining sector and appropriate white-owned farm land for black peasants. Malema, 30, says that is the only way to address growing inequality and poverty in Africa’s richest nation and better distribute wealth that remains firmly entrenched in the minority white community and among a few thousand blacks who have grown wealthy mainly off government contracts. Malema indicated Monday that he too believed that was the real issue, telling reporters that “This (disciplinary hearing) does not delay our economic struggle. We see this as a setback for the revolution we are pursuing. We will continue to push for economic freedom in our lifetime.” On Tuesday, he emerged from the hearing to appeal to thousands of cheering militants for a peaceful protest and to chastise them for burning the party flag and T-shirts. He urged them to respect the ANC and its leaders. “You are here because you love the ANC. We must exercise restraint,” he said. “We cannot burn ourselves.” The cheers turned to a roar when Malema insisted that the ANC youth league speaks “for the poorest of the poor” and will pursue a “radical and militant” revolution that also must be peaceful. The disciplinary hearing that began Tuesday and could last for days is a [...]
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP & staff) — A man was shot dead and two others are injured after a shooting outside a Copenhagen mosque following prayers to mark the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan on Tuesday, police said. Police spokesman Lau Thygesen said the shooting took place outside the Muslim Culture Institute, located in the Danish capital’s western Vesterbro district, and that the roads surrounding the mosque and a nearby car park have been cordoned off. “After the prayer, there apparently was some kind of quarrel between two groups. I don’t know if both (groups) had been inside the mosque,” Thygesen said. “The quarrel turned into a scuffle which was followed by the shooting.” A 50-year-old man and a third person, who was rushed away in private car, were injured. The third person’s whereabouts and his condition were not known, Thygesen said. No arrests have been made but police were on the lookout for “several perpetrators,” he said. A spokesman for the Muslim institute, who declined to give his name before hanging up the telephone, told The Associated Press that the incident took place on a parking lot next to the mosque as hundreds of people were leaving the 9 a.m. prayer service. Kuran Qureshi, who attended the prayers, told Danish broadcaster TV2 in a live interview that he had witnessed two groups of “younger men having some kind of argument” on the parking lot just before the shooting started. Qureshi said he had heard “15, maybe 20 shots,” as he drove away from the area with his 10-year-old son. “I saw people, women, children ducking and hiding behind cars. It was really unpleasant.” The Muslim Cultural Institute was founded in the late 1970s by Pakistani immigrants. It includes a mosque as well as facilities where Islam is being taught to boys and girls in Danish.
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NEW YORK (AP & staff) — Libyan troops loyal to Moammar Gadhafi forced civilians to act as human shields, perching children on tanks to deter NATO attacks, human rights investigators said. It was part of a pattern of rapes, slayings, “disappearances” and other war crimes that they said they found. Physicians for Human Rights was able to get a team of interviewers into the embattled city of Misrata from June 5-12, just after Libyan rebel forces expelled Gadhafi’s loyalists. Interviewing dozens of survivors of the two-month siege, the Boston-based PHR found widespread evidence of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including summary slayings, hostage-taking, rapes, beatings, and use of mosques, schools and marketplaces as weapons depots. “Four eyewitnesses reported that (Gadhafi) troops forcibly detained 107 civilians and used them as human shields to guard military munitions from NATO attacks south of Misrata,” said the report, which was released Tuesday. “One father told PHR how (Gadhafi) soldiers forced his two young children to sit on a military tank and threatened the family: ‘You’ll stay here, and if NATO attacks us, you’ll die, too.’” PHR obtained copies of military orders as evidence that Gadhafi ordered his troops to starve civilians in Misrata, while pillaging food caches and barring locals from receiving humanitarian aid. Rape was also “a weapon of war,” Richard Sollom, the lead author of PHR’s report, told the Associated Press on Monday. While he said no one has evidence to prove that rape was widespread, the fear of it certainly was, he said. And it had deadly consequences in the form of “honor killings” of rape victims by their shamed family members. “One witness reported that (Gadhafi) forces transformed an elementary school into a detention site where they reportedly raped women and girls as young as 14 years old,” the PHR report said. It added that it had found no evidence to confirm or deny reports that Gadhafi troops and loyalists were issued Viagra-type drugs to sustain their systematic rapes. The school where the rapes were said to have taken place was in Tomina, near Misrata, PHR said. In at least one instance, PHR reported, three sisters — ages 15, 17 and 18 — were raped at Tomina, and their father subsequently slit their throats as an “honor killing” to lift the shame from his family. PHR also noted that “some in Tomina have stood up against this practice, including [...]
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VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP & staff) — A Lithuanian military plane collided midair with a French NATO jet Tuesday and crashed after its two pilots ejected, officials in both countries said. The French Mirage fighter landed safely after the collision with the Lithuanian L-39 Albatros combat training aircraft near the Zokniai air base in northern Lithuania. The Lithuanian pilots ejected and were taken to a hospital for medical checkups, officials said. Their plane crashed in forested swampland near Rekyva lake, which is about 3 miles (5 kilometers) from the air base, Defense Minister Rasa Jukneviciene told the Baltic News Service. There were no reports of injuries on the ground. France has fighter jets based at Zokniai, 135 miles (220 kilometers) northwest of the capital Vilnius, as part of NATO’s air patrols over the Baltic countries. In rotating missions introduced after Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia joined the alliance in 2004, larger NATO countries take turns policing the skies over the Baltic countries, who all border Russia, because they don’t have any significant air defense resources of their own. French military spokesman Col. Thierry Burkhard said the accident happened during a patrol flight involving two Mirage 2000C jets and the Lithuanian aircraft. “During the patrol, there was a collision between two aircraft — one French and the Lithuanian — and this led to the ejection of the two Lithuanian pilots, and the two French planes landed,” he said. “The two Lithuanian pilots were recovered, and are safe and sound, and they are on the way to a local hospital for a check, and the two French pilots are safe and sound naturally because they were able to land,” Burkhard said. Lithuanian armed forces spokesman Skomantas Povilionis confirmed both pilots were found alive but didn’t give details on their conditions. Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius promised a full investigation into the accident. “I am very sorry about this accident, we do not know the circumstances yet, but it is a great relief to know that there we no human casualties,” Kubilius said. Burkhard said it wouldn’t change anything in France’s role in the NATO operation, carried out from a base near the northern town of Siauliai. Several such training flights occur each week, he said.
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BEIJING (AP & staff) — Their faces black with coal dust, 19 miners trapped for a week underground were pulled to safety Tuesday in northeastern China as rescuers searched for three missing colleagues. Helmeted teams brought each man up on a stretcher, their faces blackened and their eyes covered to avoid damaging sun exposure after so long in the dark. The provincial governor greeted each of the 19 and assured them the rescue work was continuing. “We are doing everything we can to save your colleagues,” Wang Xiankui said in footage shown on state broadcaster CCTV. Twenty-six miners had been trapped in galleries relatively near the surface when water poured into a shaft on Aug. 23 from an adjacent, flooded mine. Three had been pulled out alive Saturday and one body was recovered. The survivors, who were hospitalized in stable condition, were able to keep their helmet lamps operating for the 165 hours they were trapped. They sustained themselves with water that dripped from the ceiling and later nutrition packs sent through a 920-foot (280-meter) pipe drilled through the rock, which also provided fresh air. The Hengtai mine in Heilongjiang province was ordered shut in 2007 but reopened without permission on Aug. 16. Seven officials have been detained over the mine’s operation and the head of surrounding Boli county and his deputy have been dismissed. China’s mines are notoriously deadly, although safety improvements have cut annual fatalities by about one-third from a high of 6,995 in 2002. That improvement has come despite a tripling in the output of coal that generates most of China’s electrical power. Technological advances, better training and the closing of the most dangerous, small-scale mining operations have also made rescues more successful, even after several days. In April 2010, 115 miners were pulled from a flooded mine in the northern province of Shanxi after more than a week underground.
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FRANKFURT, Germany (AP & staff) — A 21-year-old Kosovo Albanian allegedly inspired by online jihad videos goes on trial Wednesday on charges that he gunned down two U.S. airmen outside Frankfurt airport, in the first successful attack by an Islamic extremist in Germany. The March 2 attack drove home worries about the increasing danger of the “lone wolf” terrorist — individuals who are self-radicalized, unaffiliated with any organization, and don’t show up on authorities’ radar until they strike. Arid Uka is charged with two counts of murder and three of attempted murder in connection with the attack. He faces a possible life sentence. Prosecutors say Uka was radicalized over time by propaganda he saw on the Internet trying to incite jihad, or holy war. The night before the attack, his attorney told The Associated Press, Uka watched a video entitled “what was done to our sisters,” which purported to show American soldiers raping a teenage Muslim girl. It turned out to be a scene from the 2007 anti-war Brian De Palma film “Redacted,” taken out of context. “That is the irony of this case,” said Uka’s attorney. Jens Joerg Hoffmann. “It was an American film from a leading director that was so believable that it looked real.” Uka gave a detailed confession to authorities after he was apprehended at the scene. Hoffmann said Uka plans to make a statement to the court after the indictment is read, but would not elaborate. No pleas are entered in Germany, so when the trial begins prosecutors will still have to lay out the facts for the court. Hoffmann said the best Uka can hope for from the panel of three Frankfurt state court judges is the possibility of an early release after he serves 15 years. That will have to do with his motivation, and whether there were any mitigating circumstances. Although Germany has suffered scores of terrorist attacks in past decades, largely from leftist groups like the Red Army Faction, the airport attack was the first by a suspected Islamic extremist to succeed. Since the Sept. 11 attacks there have been about a half-dozen other jihadist plots that were either thwarted or failed — including a 2007 plan to kill Americans at the U.S. Air Force’s Ramstein Air Base that was uncovered by German authorities acting on a tip from U.S. intelligence sources. According to the indictment, Uka went to the airport [...]
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TRIPOLI, Libya (AP & staff) — When Said Abdullah arrived in Libya’s notorious Abu Salim prison in 1996, he said he was “welcomed with blows and torture” for membership in an Islamist group. He was held in a small cell with 12 others, no mattresses and one squat toilet they had to unblock with their hands. In 2006, he was sentenced to death for membership in the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an Islamist organization that plotted to assassinate longtime Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. He was put in solitary confinement for a year and a half. At one point, he didn’t see the sun for three months and his daily meal was sometimes nothing more than a piece of bread. Fifteen years on, he thought he would die behind bars. Then without warning last week, something unimaginable happened: Neighbors stormed the Tripoli lockup and used rocks and metal bars to smash the locks off cell doors. Abdullah and thousands of other inmates were suddenly free in a city that was being upturned by a rebel takeover. At first, Abdullah was confused when he heard pounding on his cell door on Aug 24. “Where were the warden and the guards? And who are these people with the weapons?” he wondered. Then his cell door swung open. All at once, he realized he was free and hitchhiked home to his family’s farm on the outskirts of Tripoli. “I saw that the whole street was full of rebel flags and heard lots of gunfire,” he said, smiling widely as he recalled the scene. “But everyone was greeting us and saying, ‘Those are prisoners from Abu Salim!’” The regime’s loss of control over Abu Salim — where for decades Gadhafi had locked up and tortured opponents, or made them disappear — ended a dark chapter in the country’s history and was a stark illustration of how quickly the regime collapsed. The liberation of the prison also closed a circle. The first demonstrations of Libya’s uprising in mid-February demanded the release of a lawyer who represented families of prisoners killed in a 1996 massacre inside Abu Salim. When the uprising broke out in February, Abdullah was sharing a five-by-six yard cell with four others, one of whom had gone insane from the treatment inside, he said. The group had satellite TV and avidly followed the news. But after about a month, as the uprising evolved into [...]
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BEIRUT (AP & staff) — Syrian activists say security forces have opened fire to disperse anti-government protesters on the first day of the three-day Muslim holiday, killing seven. Tuesday is the first day of Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Activists say security forces fired at protesters in the southern province of Daraa, in the central city of Homs and in the Damascus suburbs following morning Eid prayers. The Local Coordination Committees activist network said six protesters were killed in Daraa and one in Homs. AP & staff’s earlier story: BEIRUT (AP & staff) — Syrians should not take up arms in their uprising against President Bashar Assad or invite foreign military action like the intervention that helped topple the government of Libya, a prominent activist group warned Monday. There have been scattered reports of some Syrians using automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and improvised weapons to repel government troops, but there appears to have been no organized armed resistance to Assad during the five-month uprising. Calls to launch such a resistance have been rare, but they were more widely reported than usual by witnesses at protests in Syria on Friday, at the end of a week that saw Tripoli fall to rebels fighting Moammar Gadhafi with the help of NATO. “While we understand the motivation to take up arms or call for military intervention, we specifically reject this position,” said a statement emailed by the Local Coordination Committees, an activist group with a wide network of sources on the ground across Syria. “Militarization would … erode the moral superiority that has characterized the revolution since its beginning.” The prime minister of Turkey, a former close ally, warned Assad that his regime could face a demise like those in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya if the violent suppression of protests does not stop. The commentswere some of the bluntest warnings yet and were particularly biting because they came from a leader whose government had extensive diplomatic ties with Syria. “The only way out is to immediately silence arms and to listen to the people’s demands,” said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking in his monthly address aired on Turkish TV late Sunday. “We have been watching the fate of those who did not chose this path in the past few months in Tunisia, in Egypt — and now in Libya — as a warning [...]
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TOKYO (AP & staff) — Yoshihiko Noda, elected Tuesday as Japan’s sixth prime minister in five years, faces a host of daunting problems, from post-tsunami recovery and an ongoing nuclear crisis to reviving a limp economy and reining in the nation’s bloated debt. The legislative vote was largely a formality as Noda was chosen head of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan on Monday. But the list of challenges he faces in his new job would make any politician’s head spin. Beyond providing vision and a strategy for the enormous task of rebuilding the northeastern coast after March’s tsunami— the worst catastrophe to hit Japan since World War II — Noda must unify his fractious party and restore public trust amid widespread disappointment over the government’s handling of the disaster and persistent political infighting. The former finance minister, Noda succeeds the unpopular Naoto Kan, who officially resigned earlier Tuesday with his Cabinet after a tumultuous 15 months in office, during which he was sometimes opposed by members of his own party. Noda, 54, is a “moderate voice” in the party, Sheila Smith, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, wrote in a comment. “He has a steady temperament and a reputation for fairness in a party where loyalties have been severely tested of late.” His Cabinet selection — which could be announced Wednesday — will be eyed closely to see how he will spread positions among the ruling party’s various factions. In Monday’s party vote, which went to a run-off, Noda defeated a minister backed by powerful party kingpin Ichiro Ozawa, who is embroiled in a scandal. The result was seen by some as a victory over old-style backroom politics. A fiscal conservative, Noda is respected for his economic credentials. He has been battling the yen’s recent surge, which hurts the country’s vital exporters, overseeing Japan’s intervention in the currency market earlier this month to weaken the yen. He has also voiced support in the past for raising Japan’s 5 percent sales tax to reduce the nation’s national debt, twice the nation’s gross domestic product, although he has toned down that tax talk lately. Given the pressing problems at home, Noda will likely focus on disaster reconstruction and other domestic matters. But he could face trouble in his relationship with China over past comments about convicted wartime leaders revered at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where [...]
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TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Moammar Gadhafi’s wife and three of his children fled Libya to neighboring Algeria on Monday, firm evidence that the longtime leader has lost his grip on the country. Gadhafi’s whereabouts were still unknown and rebels are worried that if he remains in Libya, it will stoke more violence. In Washington, the Obama administration said it has no indication Gadhafi has left the country. Rebels also said one of Gadhafi’s other sons, elite military commander Khamis, was probably killed in battle. The Algerian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Gadhafi’s wife Safia, his sons Hannibal and Mohammed, and his daughter Aisha entered the country across the land border. It said Algerian authorities have informed the United Nations Secretary General, the president of the U.N. Security Council, and the head of the Libyan rebels transitional leadership council. Ahmed Jibril, an aide to rebel National Transitional Council head Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, said officials would “demand that Algerian authorities hand them over to Libya to be tried before Libyan courts.” Gadhafi’s children played important roles in Libya’s military and economic life. Hannibal headed the maritime transport company; Mohammed the national Olympic committee. Aisha, a lawyer, helped in the defense of toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the trial that led to his hanging. Ahmed Bani, military spokesman of the council, said he was not surprised to hear Algeria welcomed Gadhafi’s relatives. Throughout the six-month Libyan uprising, rebels have accused Algeria of providing Gadhafi with mercenaries to repress the revolt. Over the weekend, the Egyptian news agency MENA, quoting unidentified rebel fighters, reported that six armored Mercedes sedans, possibly carrying Gadhafi’s sons or other top regime figures, had crossed the border at the southwestern Libyan town of Ghadamis into Algeria. Algeria’s Foreign Ministry had denied that report. Bani said Monday that rebel forces may have killed Khamis Gadhafi in a clash Saturday. Rebel clashed with a military convoy near the town of Tarhouna, 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli, destroying two vehicles in the convoy. The bodies in the cars were burned beyond recognition, he said, but captured soldiers said they were Khamis Gadhafi’s bodyguards. “We are sure he is dead,” Col. Boujela Issawi, the rebel commander of Tarhouna, told AP. But then he cast some doubt, saying it was possible Gadhafi’s son was pulled alive from the car and taken to Bani Walid, a contested interior area. Col. Abdullah [...]
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ANKARA, Turkey (AP & staff) — Turkey’s military said Monday that its air strikes and artillery fire on suspected Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq have killed an estimated 145 to 160 guerrillas and wounded as many as 100. The military also said those casualty figures for this month’s offensive did not include its latest air strikes on rebel targets on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, said Monday that only three rebels and seven civilians, including four children, have been killed since the Turkish attacks began on Aug. 17, but it vowed to respond with its own attacks. The PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union, is fighting for autonomy in Turkey’s mostly Kurdish southeast region, and it routinely launches attacks from its bases in northern Iraq. The casualty estimates by Turkish forces and the PKK often differ dramatically during such offensives in northern Iraq, and relief agencies, human rights groups and Iraqi government are rarely able to provide their own estimates. The military said its air force attacks on Thursday, Friday and Saturday included 21 sorties that hit rebel targets in the Zap and Gara regions of northern Iraq along the rugged border of the two countries. Artillery units inside Turkey also shelled rebel targets in Iraq. The military said it has tried to avoid civilian casualties in its attacks. Meanwhile, the rebels appeared to keep up their own sporadic attacks. A small bomb exploded on a beach in a Mediterranean resort of Kemer in Turkey’s Antalya province on Sunday, slightly injuring about 10 people, including at least four Swedes. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Kurdish rebels fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey have carried out deadly attacks at such tourist resorts. A funeral also was held Monday in the Turkish town of Cukurca near the Iraqi border for a Kurdish activist who died on Sunday when hundreds of Kurdish activists clashed with police while trying to cross into Iraq to serve as “human shields” against the Turkish offensive. Some of the mourners at the funeral threw stones at police. Tens of thousands of people have died since the PKK rebels began their campaign in Turkey in 1984.
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