Syrian forces fight their way into Palmyra, as Kerry and Putin hail thaw Syrian troops backed by Russian air support fought their way into the Islamic State-held city of Palmyra on Thursday, their biggest offensive yet against the jihadist caliphate, as Moscow and Washington discussed how to help to end the civil war.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in an atmosphere that was noticeably more amiable than past meetings, reflecting new diplomacy the two Cold War superpowers have championed in recent weeks. Both men expressed hope for more progress towards ending the fighting. In Geneva, where the first peace talks involving President Bashar al-Assad’s government and his foes began this month, the opposing sides were expected to sign on to a U.N. document reflecting some initial common ground.The aim was to move towards discussing the divisive question of a political transition in Syria when the talks resume next month.
Moscow is the main ally of Assad’s government, while Washington and other Western countries have backed foes trying to overthrow him during five years of civil war that has killed 250,000 people and led to the world’s worst refugee crisis. Both superpowers share a common enemy in Islamic State, the Sunni Muslim fighters who have declared a caliphate to rule over all Muslims from territory in Syria and Iraq.
After Russia intervened with air strikes to shore up Assad last year, Washington and Moscow have jointly sponsored a peace process that has produced the first sustained ceasefire of the war and the first negotiations involving the warring parties. « The serious approach that we have been able to cooperate on has made a difference to the life of people in Syria and to the possibilities of making progress on peace, » Kerry said at the start of talks with Putin in Moscow. »The people of Syria and the people of the region have as a result been able to taste and smell the possibilities of what it means to have a huge reduction of violence and receive humanitarian assistance. » Putin, who has announced he is winding down Russia’s military involvement in Syria, even offered warm words for U.S. President Barack Obama, with whom his relations have sunk to a Cold War-era level of hostility since Washington imposed sanctions on Russia over its intervention in Ukraine in 2014.
« We understand that what we have been able to achieve on Syria has been possible only thanks to the position of the U.S.top political leadership, President Obama, » Putin said at his meeting with Kerry. « I very much hope that your visit will allow us to bring our positions closer on moving forward to solve the Syrian crisis and … on Ukraine. » The U.S. and Russian-sponsored ceasefire between Assad’s government and his enemies does not cover Islamic State, allowing Damascus to ramp up its fight against the jihadists. After months in which the West accused Moscow of helping Assad fight mainly against other foes, Damascus has launched a major offensive this month to take back Palmyra, which the fighters seized in their biggest Syrian offensive of last year.
The state-run news channel Ikhbariya broadcast images from just outside Palmyra on Thursday and said government fighters had taken over a hotel district in the west. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army had advanced into the hotel district just to the southwest of the city and reached a residential area, after a rapid advance the day before brought the army and its allies right up to its outskirts.Palmyra has some of the most extensive ruins of the ancient Roman empire, some of which were dynamited by Islamic State in what the United Nations calls a war crime.
BABY STEP The peace talks in Geneva were due to be adjourned on Thursday until next month, with the sides expected to agree to a document drawn up by a U.N. special envoy outlining basic principles, in what one diplomat called a « baby step » forward.The sides still have yet to address the biggest challenge: the nature of a post-war « political transition ». Opposition leaders say Assad must leave power; the government says this is not up for negotiation.
Washington believes that Moscow, closely allied to Assad, can nudge Damascus to make concessions.Before political talks can begin, U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura aims to establish if there are points held in common by the different parties and announce them. »Basic principles have been laid out. De Mistura wants to announce that all sides have agreed so that he can move on to the transition issue at the next round, » said a senior Western diplomat. « It’s a baby step, but a necessary step. It’s not a bad result. » De Mistura said later that in the next round of talks « we have to start focusing on the political process ».
A summary of the document seen by Reuters contains points including reforming state institutions, rejecting terrorism unequivocally and implementing United Nations Security Council resolution 2254 that guarantees a political transition of power.It also calls for no tolerance of acts of revenge from either side, rebuilding the Syrian army on national criteria, ensuring a democratic non-sectarian state and preserving women’s rights in fair representation.
BATTLE FOR PALMYRA The capture of Palmrya and further eastward advances would mark the most significant Syrian government gain against Islamic State since the start of Russia’s military intervention last September.Islamic State has lost territory in both Iraq and Syria since last year when it captured Palmyra in Syria and Ramadi, a provincial capital in Iraq.A soldier interviewed by Ikhbariya TV said the army and its allies would press forward beyond Palmyra.
« We say to those gunmen, we are advancing to Palmyra, and to what’s beyond Palmyra, and God willing to Raqqa, the centre of the Daesh gangs, » he said, referring to Islamic State’s de facto capital in northern Syria.
The Syrian state news agency SANA showed warplanes flying overhead, helicopters firing missiles, and soldiers and armoured vehicles approaching the city.The U.S.-led military coalition against Islamic State said it had also struck targets in and around Palmyra, a rare example of the U.S.-led force attacking an area also under attack by Russian-backed government forces.Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Thursday it had carried out 41 sorties between March 20-23 in the region of Palmyra, attacking 146 « terrorist targets. »
Russia, U.S. agree to speed up Syria peace effort Russia and the United States agreed at talks in Moscow on Thursday to use their influence over the sides in the Syria conflict to speed up progress towards a political solution. Speaking after a four-hour meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Moscow and Washington would try in the next few days to nudge Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to « make the right decision » about committing fully to peace talks.
Negotiations in Geneva between representatives of the Syrian government and opposition are bogged down, and Washington believes that Moscow, closely allied to Assad, can convince Damascus to make concessions. The main stumbling block is whether Syria’s political transition will lead to Assad leaving office. His opponents and Western governments say he must go, but Damascus says that is not even on the agenda for negotiations. »Russia will have to speak itself as to what it is going to choose to do in order to help Mr Assad make the right decisions, but we agreed today that we will accelerate the effort to try to move the political process forward, » Kerry told a news conference after his talks with Putin.
« I believe that Russia is fully engaged in this effort and all of us are going to try and get President Assad to make the right decision over these next days to engage in a political process that results in a genuine transition » and brings peace to Syria, » Kerry said. However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who appeared alongside Kerry at the news conference in the Kremlin, did not say in his remarks if Russia was prepared to apply any pressure specifically on Assad.He said only that Russia would encourage all sides to commit to the principles of the talks in Geneva, which are being brokered by the United Nations. »Perhaps the most important thing at this stage: we agreed to increase efforts to establish the necessary conditions for a political process, » Lavrov said.
« The political process should end with the Syrians themselves agreeing on how they want to see their country. » « As for the most immediate tasks, we have agreed to work towards a speedy start of direct talks in Geneva between the government delegation and a whole spectre of the opposition, » Lavrov told reporters. Both Kerry and Lavrov said they agreed to take immediate steps to reinforce the cessation of hostilities and halt attempts by warring parties to seize new territory, to push for expanded humanitarian access to all parts of Syria, and for the government and opposition to start releasing detainees starting with the most vulnerable.
COMMON GROUND The atmosphere at the talks was less frosty than in previous encounters. Putin cracked jokes, and afterwards, both Kerry and the Russian foreign minister tried to accentuate the common ground in their relationship, rather than their many differences.They said they agreed to keep working together to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine between Kiev’s forces and pro-Moscow separatists.
Kerry said he raised with Putin the issue of Nadezhda Savchenko, a Ukrainian pilot in a Russian jail after she was convicted of complicity in the deaths of two Russian journalists during the separatist conflict. Kiev says she was the victim of a show trial. Lavrov said he obtained an agreement from Kerry to launch a dialogue about the U.S. missile defence shield in eastern Europe. Moscow argues the system is a threat to its security.Kerry arrived in Moscow 10 days after Putin announced he was withdrawing the bulk of Russia’s military force in Syria, a decision Western governments see as an opportunity to draw a line under the fighting and push ahead with peace talks.
Russia and the United States have emerged as the two outside powers with a decisive say in what happens next in Syria’s five year-old civil conflict.The United States and its allies have been backing armed groups that rose up against Assad’s rule, while Moscow has asserted its role with a five-month military campaign that turned the tide of the fighting in Assad’s favour.Western diplomats have said the government delegation in Syria is so far prepared only to talk about procedures for negotiations and has resisted attempts to broach the future of President Assad.
At the start of the meeting in the Kremlin, Putin made an attempt at levity, joshing Kerry over the fact that he carried his own luggage as he stepped off his plane on arrival in Moscow. »There was something in that briefcase of yours you couldn’t trust someone else with. Have you brought some money with you? » Putin said, to laughter from Kerry and the rest of the officials in the room.Kerry responded: « When we have a private moment I will show you what is in that briefcase and I think you’d be surprised…pleasantly. »
Turkish warplanes strike PKK targets in northern IraqTurkish warplanes bombed and destroyed nearly a dozen targets belonging to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq late on Wednesday, the armed forces said, the latest operations targeting insurgent camps near the Turkish border.The F-16 and F-4 jets carried out the operation against the camps in the Hakkurk, Haftanin, Avasin and Basyan areas at 9 p.m. local time (1900 GMT), destroying 11 targets including ammunition depots and shelters, the military said on Thursday.On Tuesday, warplanes struck shelters, caves and ammunition depots used by the Kurdish militants in northern Iraq and rural areas near the southeastern Turkish town of Semdinli.
Security forces also killed 10 PKK fighters on Wednesday in clashes in the southeastern towns of Nusaybin, near the Syrian border, and Sirnak, near the Iraqi border, the army said.The military says more than a thousand insurgents have been killed in the largely Kurdish southeast since a 2-1/2-year-old PKK ceasefire collapsed in July, prompting the heaviest clashes in the region since the 1990s.
President Tayyip Erdogan has said that more than 300 members of the security forces have died, while the pro-Kurdish opposition says hundreds of civilians have also been killed.Separately, the military said two soldiers had been killed and three wounded when a homemade bomb was detonated by remote control in Nusaybin. The town has been under a curfew since March 14, when security forces launched operations against militants there.
Late on Thursday, three Turkish gendarmerie were killed in a car bomb attack by the PKK on their station in Turkey’s southeast, security sources said.The attack, which wounded twenty-two gendarmerie, was staged on a gendarmerie station located between Diyarbakir and Bingol provinces and clashes continued after the attack, sources said.
Belgian police arrest six in bombing probe, French foil Paris plot Belgian police arrested six people in their probe of Tuesday’s Islamic State suicide bombings in Brussels, while authorities in France said they thwarted a militant plot there « that was at an advanced stage. » The federal prosecutor’s office in Belgium said on Thursday that the arrests came during police searches in the Brussels neighbourhoods of Schaerbeek in the north and Jette in the west, as well as in the centre of the Belgian capital.
The arrests came days after suicide bombers hit the Brussels airport and a metro train, killing at least 31 people and wounding some 270 in the worst such attack in Belgian history.
The attack in Brussels, which is home to the European Union and NATO, has heightened security concerns around the world and raised questions about European countries’ response to the threat from Islamist extremists. The Islamic State militant group, which claimed responsibility for the Brussels bombings, also took credit for coordinated attacks in Paris in November that killed 130 people at cafes, a sports stadium and concert hall.In Paris on Thursday, authorities arrested a French national suspected of belonging to a militant network planning an attack in France.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a televised address that the arrest helped « foil a plot in France that was at an advanced stage. » Cazeneuve added that the man arrested « is suspected of high-level involvement in this plan. He was part of a terrorist network that planned to strike France. » After the arrest by the French counterterrorism service, DGSI, the agency raided an apartment building on Thursday night in the northern Paris suburb of Argenteuil. French TV station ITele reported that explosives had been found in the man’s house. « At this stage, there is no tangible evidence that links this plot to the attacks in Paris and Brussels, » added Cazeneuve, who was in the Belgian capital earlier on Thursday.
RESIGNATION OFFERS Earlier on Thursday, Belgium’s interior and justice ministers offered to resign over a failure to track an Islamic State militant expelled by Turkey as a suspected fighter and who blew himself up at Brussels Airport. Brahim El Bakraoui was one of three identified suspected suicide bombers who hit the airport and metro train. At least one other man seen with them on airport security cameras is on the run and a fifth suspected bomber filmed in the metro attack may be dead or alive.Bakraoui’s brother Khalid, 26, killed about 20 people at Maelbeek metro station in the city centre. De Morgen newspaper said he had violated the terms of his parole in May by maintaining contacts with past criminal associates, but a Belgian magistrate had released him.
Interior Minister Jan Jambon and Justice Minister Koen Geens tendered their resignations to Prime Minister Charles Michel, who asked them to stay on. « In time of war, you cannot leave the field, » said Jambon, a right-wing Flemish nationalist. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Bakraoui, 29, had been expelled in July after being arrested near the Syrian border and two officials said he had been deported a second time. Belgian and Dutch authorities had been notified of Turkish suspicions that he was a foreign fighter trying to reach Syria.At the time, Belgian authorities replied that Bakraoui, who had skipped parole after serving less than half of a nine-year sentence for armed robbery, was a criminal but not a militant.
« You can ask how it came about that someone was let out so early and that we missed the chance to seize him when he was in Turkey. I understand the questions, » Jambon said. « In the circumstances, it was right to take political responsibility and I offered my resignation to the prime minister. » Geens said systems should be reviewed but noted that other countries had been attacked, citing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States in which he noted that « there were 3,000 dead. » Investigators are convinced the same jihadist network was involved in the November Paris attacks.
Belgian public broadcaster VRT said investigators believed that Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam, arrested last Friday, probably planned a similar shooting and suicide bomb attack in Brussels.One man was killed in a shootout with police on March 15 that led to the discovery of assault weapons and explosives and the arrest of Abdeslam, 26, and another suspect on March 18. Belgium lowered its security alert level one notch to three from the highest level, four, but officials did not say what that would mean in terms of security measures that have included a heavy police and military presence in Brussels.Islamic State posted a video on social media calling the Brussels blasts a victory and featuring the training of Belgian militants suspected in the Paris attacks.
The lawyer for Abdeslam said the French national wanted to « explain himself » and would no longer resist extradition to France. His lawyer, Sven Mary, said Abdeslam had not been aware of the plan for the Brussels airport and metro attack that was carried out by men who had shared hideouts with him.Two sources familiar with the matter said the Bakraoui brothers had been on U.S. government counterterrorism watch lists before the attacks. But it was not clear how long they had been known to the authorities.
‘A NICE BOY’ Security sources told Belgian media the other suicide bomber at the airport was Najim Laachraoui, a veteran Belgian Islamist fighter in Syria suspected of making explosive belts for November’s Paris attacks.Laachraoui’s younger brother Mourad issued a statement condemning his actions, in the first public reaction from a family member of one of the Brussels attackers.
Laachraoui, 25, gave no warning sign of being radicalised before leaving for Syria in 2013 and breaking all contact with his family, Mourad told a news conference. »He was a nice boy, and above all he was clever, that’s what I remember of him, » Mourad said of his brother, who graduated in electromechanics. He said the last time he saw him, he looked « normal. »
Brussels suicide bomber Laachraoui « nice, clever, » brother says Brussels suicide bomber Najim Laachraoui was a nice, intelligent boy, his brother said on Thursday, and gave no warning signs of being radicalised before he left for Syria in 2013 and broke all contact with his family.
Laachraoui, a 25-year-old Belgian, was one of Tuesday’s suicide bombers, security sources have told local media. A veteran Islamist fighter in Syria, he is also suspected of making explosive belts for last November’s Paris attacks. No one in the family saw any change in his attitude before the day he called them to say he had left for Syria, his 20-year-old brother Mourad said. They also have no clue as to what could have led him to be radicalised, he said.
« He was a nice boy, and above all he was clever, that’s what I remember of him, » Mourad said of his brother, who graduated in electromechanics. The last time he saw Najim, he told a news conference, he looked « normal. » The family warned the police in 2013 when Najim told them he was in Syria, Mourad said. The police visited them at the time and came back to search their home after the November 2015 Paris attacks.
Mourad, who said he was deeply saddened by the November attacks, said he never saw his brother with their suspected mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud, another Belgian, or anyone else involved in the Paris or Brussels carnage. Najim was religious, as is the family, Mourad said, adding that he would do everything possible to make sure his three younger siblings still at school do not become radical.Mourad is a taekwondo athlete who has represented Belgium in European and world competitions, Belgium’s ABFT taekwondo federation said on its website. »It’s crazy, really – the same parents, the same upbringing, and one turns out really well and the other really bad, » his lawyer Philippe Culot said. « Mourad and his whole family are crushed that Najim could have committed such a barbaric act. » « You don’t choose your family, » Mourad remarked.Authorities have not officially said that Najim is dead and his family has had no confirmation either, Mourad told journalists.
« VERY GOOD STUDENT » Najim Laachraoui was a model student in a Brussels Catholic high school, its director told Reuters earlier on Thursday. »Najim Laachraoui was a very good student, » said Veronica Pellegrini, the director of the Institut de la Sainte Famille d’Helmet, a Catholic school in the ethnically mixed east Brussels borough of Schaerbeek.
« He never failed a class, » Pellegrini said of Laachraoui, who studied at the school for six years, until graduating in 2009. « We haven’t heard from him since, » she said.Travelling under the false name Soufiane Kayal, Laachraoui was documented driving from Hungary into Austria in September in a car driven by Salah Abdeslam, the prime suspect in the Paris attacks who was arrested in Brussels last week.
There is speculation Laachraoui had just returned from Syria, possibly by sea with refugees.Catholic religion classes are part of the school’s curriculum for all students regardless of their religion and Laachraoui would have attended those classes as any other student, Pellegrini said.It is not uncommon for Muslim pupils in Belgium to go to Catholic schools, which can be seen as more conservative or more exclusive than state schools.
Belgian ministers offer to quit over security lapses Belgium’s interior and justice ministers offered to resign on Thursday over a failure to track an Islamic State militant expelled by Turkey as a suspected fighter and who blew himself up at Brussels airport this week.
Brahim El Bakraoui was one of three identified suspected suicide bombers who hit the airport and a metro train, killing at least 31 people and wounding some 270 on Tuesday in the worst attack in Belgian history. At least one other man seen with them on airport security cameras is on the run and a fifth suspected bomber filmed in the metro attack may be dead or alive. Interior Minister Jan Jambon and Justice Minister Koen Geens tendered their resignations to Prime Minister Charles Michel, who asked them to stay on. « In time of war, you cannot leave the field, » Jambon, a right-wing Flemish nationalist, said.The security lapses in a country that is home to the European Union and NATO have drawn international criticism of an apparent reluctance to tackle Islamist radicals effectively. It also raised questions about information sharing between Western intelligence services.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Bakraoui, 29, had been expelled last July after being arrested near the Syrian border and two officials said he had been deported a second time. Belgian and Dutch authorities had been notified of Turkish suspicions that he was a foreign fighter trying to reach Syria.At the time, Belgian authorities replied that Bakraoui, who had skipped parole after serving less than half of a 9-year sentence for armed robbery, was a criminal but not a militant.
« You can ask how it came about that someone was let out so early and that we missed the chance to seize him when he was in Turkey. I understand the questions, » Jambon said. « In the circumstances, it was right to take political responsibility and I offered my resignation to the prime minister. » Geens said systems should be reviewed but said that other countries had been attacked and cited in particular Sept. 11, 2001 in the United States, noting that « there were 3,000 dead ».
« We must be very critical of ourselves, » he said. « On the other hand … we must note that such events have occurred in the countries with the highest security, with the best intelligence services in the world. » Investigators are convinced the same jihadist network was involved in the November Paris attacks on cafes, a sports stadium and a concert hall that killed 130 people.
Public broadcaster VRT said investigators believed Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam, arrested last Friday, probably planned a similar shooting and suicide bomb attack in Brussels. »The terrorists were planning the same scenario as in Paris, only it partially failed, » VRT said. One man was killed in a shootout with police on March 15 that led to the discovery of assault weapons and explosives and the arrest of Abdeslam, 26, and another suspect on March 18.Belgium lowered its security alert level one notch down from four, the highest level, to three; but officials did not say what that would mean in terms of security measures that have seen a heavy police and military presence in Brussels.
Islamic State posted a video on social media calling the Brussels blasts a victory and featuring the training of Belgian militants suspected in the Paris attacks. ABDESLAM TO « EXPLAIN HIMSELF » The lawyer of the chief surviving suspect linking the Paris and Brussels attacks, French national Abdeslam, said he wanted to « explain himself » and would no longer resist extradition to France. Salah, said lawyer Sven Mary, had not been aware of the plan for the Brussels airport and metro attack that was carried out by men who had shared hideouts with him.
After calls from U.S. Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump for the possible use of torture in such cases, Belgian officials have faced questions over their failure to extract prior intelligence from Abdeslam.Two sources familiar with the matter said the Bakraoui brothers had been on U.S. government counter-terrorism watch lists before the attacks. But it was not clear precisely how long they had been known to the authorities. Bakraoui’s brother Khalid, 26, a fellow convict, killed about 20 people at Maelbeek metro station in the city centre. De Morgen newspaper said he had violated the terms of his parole last May by maintaining contacts with past criminal associates, but a Belgian magistrate had released him.
BROTHER’S CONDEMNATION Security sources told Belgian media the other suicide bomber at the airport was Najim Laachraoui, a veteran Belgian Islamist fighter in Syria suspected of making explosive belts for November’s Paris attacks.
Laachraoui’s younger brother Mourad issued a statement condemning his actions in the first public reaction from a family member of one of the Brussels attackers.The third suspect captured on airport security cameras pushing a baggage trolley into the departures hall is now the target of a police manhunt. He has not been named. The bespectacled man wearing a cream jacket and a black hat ran out of the terminal, federal prosecutors said, and a third suitcase bomb, the biggest of the three, exploded later as bomb disposal experts were clearing the area, causing no casualties.The U.S. State Department said it was trying to account for U.S. citizens in Brussels, including two who were U.S.government employees or their family members. Identifying victims and even some of the 316 wounded has proved difficult.
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the bloodshed in the Belgian capital showed European allies should do more to fight Islamic State alongside American efforts in the Middle East.The attacks highlighted Belgium’s problem with some 300 locals who have fought in Syria, the biggest contingent from Europe in relation to its national population of 11 million.At the time of the Paris attacks, its security service had fewer than 600 staff. The government has since raised spending on police and intelligence.
Brussels bomber brothers were on U.S. watch lists before attack -sources Two brothers who carried out suicide bombings in Brussels this week were known to U.S.government agencies before the attacks, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The sources said that Khalid El Bakraoui and Brahim El Bakraoui were both on U.S. government counterterrorism watch lists before the March 18 arrest of Salah Abdeslam, a French national whom prosecutors accuse of a key role in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks.Belgian prosecutors have identified Brahim El Bakraoui as one of two suicide bombers who attacked Brussels’ Zaventem Airport, while they say Khalid El Bakraoui was the man who carried out a suicide bombing at Brussels’ Maelbeek Metro station, near European Union headquarters.
Morocco says W.Sahara decision ‘irreversible’, UN council ‘concerned’ Morocco’s decision to reduce United Nations staff at the Western Sahara mission is sovereign and irreversible, but the government is committed to military cooperation with the U.N. to guarantee the ceasefire there, the foreign minister said on Thursday.
Morocco this month ordered the U.N. to pull out dozens of civilian staffers and close a military liaison office for the MINURSO peacekeeping mission after criticizing U.N.Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for using the word « occupation » to describe Morocco’s annexation of the disputed territory. »Our decision is sovereign and irreversible, » Foreign Minister Salaheddine Mezouar told reporters in Rabat.Morocco took over most of the territory in 1975 from colonial Spain. That started a guerrilla war with the Sahrawi people’s Polisario Front who say the desert territory on Africa’s northwest belongs to them.
The U.N. brokered a ceasefire in 1991 and sent in its MINURSO mission, which consists of military and civilian staff, to monitor the ceasefire and organise a referendum over the region’s future. But deadlock has delayed the vote for years.U.N. officials had repeatedly urged the U.N. Security Council to publicly voice its support for Ban and MINURSO, something the 15-nation body was unable to do until late on Thursday in New York.
Rabat has accused Ban of dropping the U.N.’s neutral stance on the dispute, which U.N. officials deny, saying the secretary-general’s remarks were merely an emotional response after meeting with Sahrawi refugees.Angola’s U.N. Ambassador Ismael Gaspar Martins, president of the council this month, told reporters council members « expressed serious concerns about developments » in Western Sahara and took « due note » of U.N. fears about the potential negative impact of the expulsion of personnel on MINURSO.
The council did not explicitly order Morocco to reverse its decisions or address Ban’s use of the word « occupation. » However, Martins said council members « stressed the importance of addressing in a constructive, comprehensive and cooperative manner the circumstances that led to the current situation so that MINURSO may resume its full capacity to carry out its mandate. » Diplomats had blamed the council’s days of silence on the issue on Morocco’s traditional ally France, along with Spain, Egypt and Senegal.
Mezouar said military contacts with MINURSO had not been disrupted and Morocco was committed to cooperation to ensure the continuity of the ceasefire.Mezouar said Morocco was ready for serious talks that would not ignore the reasons for the current situation.Polisario representatives say Morocco is putting a ceasefire at risk by expelling U.N. staffers and trying to scuttle the referendum, including on the question of independence. Morocco has offered an autonomy plan as the only way forward.
Egypt says murdered Italian student’s bag found with gang Egypt’s Interior Ministry said on Thursday that security forces had retrieved a bag and passport belonging to murdered Italian student Giulio Regeni that was in the possession of a criminal gang impersonating policemen who had been killed in a shootout.Human rights groups have said torture marks on Regeni’s body, which was dumped on the side of the road, indicated he died at the hands of Egyptian security services, an allegation the government has strongly denied.
Regeni, 28, disappeared on Jan. 25, the anniversary of the 2011 uprising that ended former president Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.He had written articles critical of the Egyptian government, the Italian newspaper that published them said.The Interior Ministry said security forces had targeted the criminal gang which had Regeni’s bag and that it had « specialized in impersonating police officers, kidnapping foreigners and forcibly robbing them ».
It said that a red handbag bearing the Italian flag was found, and inside it was Regeni’s passport and other items such as a visa card two cell phones and a « feminine wallet » with the word love on it and a dark substance resembling hashish. « A highly skilled investigation team was formed to uncover the mystery of several reported forced robberies and incidents of impersonating police officers, » said the ministry in a statement.The ministry named what it identified as four ring leaders of the gang; Tarek Saad Abd El-Fatah, 52, described as a dangerous offender guilty of fraud and other offences, and his son Saad Tarek Saad, 26.
Also mentioned were Mustafa Bakr Awad, 60, charged with fraud and 20 varied offences, and Salah Ali Sayed, 40, who the ministry said had committed similar crimes. The ministry said the gang had robbed several Egyptians, as well as a Nigerian identified as Rasheed G. and a Portuguese man named Carlos M., as well as David K., an Italian. Italian security officials had been notified of the investigation, said the ministry, which said it « deeply appreciates » Rome’s « close cooperation ».
The broken corpse of the Cambridge University student, who was researching the rise of independent labour unions following the 2011 revolt, was found in a ditch at the side of a motorway on Feb. 3. Egyptian forensics and prosecution officials have said his body showed signs of torture and that he was killed by a blow with a sharp object to the back of the head.
The case has put a spotlight on alleged police brutality in Egypt, a strategic ally of the United State and other Western powers.Shopkeepers in Regeni’s neighborhood of Cairo said there were no signs that police in the area had been questioning people since his disappearance or death.Rights groups accuse the police of widespread abuses against Egyptians since the army toppled Egypt’s first freely elected president in 2013.
Italy has said Egyptian investigators should hand over the evidence they have uncovered on Regeni’s death. Egypt invited Italian investigators to take part in the investigation, but judicial sources in Rome say the collaboration has been limited because not enough information was shared.
An Egyptian forensics official has told the public prosecutor’s office the autopsy he conducted on an Italian student showed he was interrogated for up to seven days before he was killed, two prosecution sources had told Reuters.The findings were the strongest indication yet that Giulio Regeni was killed by Egyptian security services because they point to interrogation methods such as burning with cigarettes in intervals over several days, which human rights groups say are the hallmark of the security services.Interior Ministry spokesmen declined comment on this matter.
Human rights on trial in Egypt as NGO funding case revived Egypt has launched a new crackdown on human rights groups, questioning staff and ordering asset freezes over accusations they took foreign funding to destabilise the country after the 2011 uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule. Egyptian rights activists say they are facing the worst assault in their history in a wider campaign to erase the freedoms won in the 18-day revolt that began on Jan. 25, 2011.Some say they are working from home in anticipation of arrests as the noose tightens on non-governmental organisations that have faced growing pressure since the burst of activism that accompanied the Arab Spring uprisings that toppled autocrats from Tunisia to Yemen.
It is not clear how many groups will be investigated in the case that has so far affected staff or management from at least six of Egypt’s best-known rights groups. They include Hossam Bahgat, founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), and Gamal Eid, founder of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information.An investigating magistrate has banned both men from travelling abroad and ordered their assets frozen pending an April 20 court decision. EIPR associate director Heba Morayef expects that freeze to be extended to the group as a whole, potentially forcing its office to close.
« I think some in the security agencies see human rights organisations as part of this global conspiracy to sow chaos, and that is actually in the asset freeze order, » Morayef told Reuters. « This would be the biggest blow to human rights organisations in 30 years. » Egypt’s Social Solidarity Minister Ghada Waly, who oversees the NGO sector in Egypt, did not respond to a written request for comment this week. There was also no comment from Egypt’s prosecutors, who have banned reporting of the legal details of the case.
Since toppling elected president Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in mid-2013, general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Sisi has overseen a crackdown on opposition in which hundreds of Brotherhood supporters were killed and thousands jailed. The net has widened to include liberal and secular activists at the forefront of the 2011 revolt. Many are behind bars, charged with violating a 2013 law which prevents a repeat of the protests that helped unseat two presidents in three years.Sisi portrays himself as a bulwark of stability in a region that has slipped into chaos since the 2011 revolts, prioritising security over civil rights.
UNDER PRESSURE NGOs have felt exposed since late 2011, when authorities raided 17 pro-democracy and rights groups, accusing them of joining a foreign conspiracy against Egypt.In 2013, a court ordered the closure of several foreign pro-democracy groups, including U.S.-based Freedom House, and gave jail sentences to 43 NGO staff including 15 Americans who had fled the country.
A case against dozens more Egyptian NGOs and lawyers was never closed but remained largely dormant until this year. None of the NGO staff summoned for questioning have been formally charged. Egyptian law allows prosecutors to freeze assets, ban travel and remand suspects in custody for extended periods without charge. NGOs say they have received scant information on the investigation.
It is not illegal for NGOs in Egypt to receive foreign funding, according to Negad al Borai, a senior lawyer and anti-torture campaigner who is representing Bahgat and others, but that funding may not be used for illegal activities, including those that undermine security.According to a defence lawyer’s written notes of the magistrate’s asset freeze request memo, the groups in question saw a spike in foreign funding immediately after the 2011 revolt.
In the memo, the magistrate concludes that foreign funds were used to harm national security, destabilise Egypt and divide different social classes with the aim of « ensuring the failure of the Egyptian authorities. » « This all started because in 2011 … the security agencies wanted to find an explanation for what happened on Jan. 25. So they said money came to the NGOs before January and this is the cause of what happened, » said Mohamed Zaree, Egypt programme manager at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS). »But what happened actually happened because of the interior ministry, because of torture, because of repression, because of the state of emergency. » Zaree has not been summoned but two former staffers have, and CIHRS shifted its regional studies activities to Tunis in 2014 as the space for free speech shrank.
INTERNATIONAL CRITICISM The crackdown comes at a sensitive time for Egypt, which has been battling an Islamic State insurgency in northern Sinai and a weak economy.
It is keen to burnish its international image but has faced new criticism over human rights from the European Parliament since an Italian student murdered in Cairo in February.U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry expressed concern last week over Egypt’s decision to reopen its probe into the NGOs.In February, authorities closed the Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture and the dragnet has widened to include women’s groups.This week, the Nazra for Feminist Studies group saw three employees questioned. Its director Mozn Hassan has also been summoned.
« They want to stigmatise us, » Hassan told Reuters. « They want to say publicly that those people are spies, that those people are not patriots. » Most human rights groups do not deny receiving foreign funds and say any move to freeze their assets or to close funding sources would severely limit their activities.The campaign to curb NGO activities dates back almost as far as their establishment in the 1980s. NGOs had hoped the law would be reformed after 2011 to give them more freedom. Five years on, the NGO law is still in the works.
In the meantime, the Social Solidarity Ministry has ordered NGOs to register under a law that would give it ultimate control over their funding and activities.Groups like EIPR say they have tried to register but faced bureaucratic obstacles. Most rights groups are instead registered as companies or law firms and say they work within the law.
« Their goal is to eliminate several organisations that have been outspoken in the past few years, » EIPR founder Bahgat said.
« I think this is not a bluff. »
Israel slams UN body’s call for ‘blacklist’ of settlement companiesIsrael on Thursday assailed the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for adopting a measure that calls for the establishment of a database of businesses « involved in activities » in the occupied West Bank.
Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, called the database a « blacklist » and said the UNHRC was behaving « obsessively » against Israel.The Geneva-based council, a 47-member state forum established 10 years ago which Israel and its major U.S. ally accuse of bias against the Jewish state, adopted the motion with 32 votes in favour, none against and 15, mostly European nations, abstaining.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement calling the body an « anti-Israel circus, » adding the council « attacks the only democracy in the Middle East and ignores the gross violations of Iran, Syria and North Korea. » The council asked for the list of enterprises to be updated annually and to be appraised of the « human rights and international law violations involved in the production of settlement goods. » Netanyahu said it was absurd to condemn Israel rather than deal with attacks by Palestinians against Israel and by Islamic State in Europe. « Israel calls on responsible governments not to honour the decisions of the Council that discriminate against Israel, » Netanyahu said.
Danon said the council’s decision reminded of « a dark period in Europe when Jewish businesses were singled out. Whoever supported today’s decision, should be ashamed. » The council also named Canadian Stanley Michael Lynk as its new investigator on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories following the resignation in January of special rapporteur Makarim Wibisono, citing Israel’s failure to cooperate with him.
Among the nearly 40 resolutions adopted by the council at the end of its four week session were resolutions on Syria, Iran and North Korea.Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed East Jerusalem, declaring it part of its eternal, indivisible capital, in a move never recognised internationally.
Lebanese newspaper to close, blames country’s political problems Lebanese daily As-Safir is to cease its print and online operations after over 40 years, editor-in-chief and publisher Talal Salman said on Thursday, blaming falling revenues and Lebanon’s political and sectarian problems.
As-Safir, founded by Salman in 1974 with the slogan « a voice for those who have no voice », will end publication on March 31.
It is close to the Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah.
In a situation faced by print media around the world, Lebanese dailies al-Nahar and al-Liwa’ have also indicated they are facing financial difficulties because of falling circulation and advertising income. But Salman has said the country’s political environment also contributed to the problems of the Lebanese press.Lebanon has a paralysed political system and sectarian tensions left over from a civil war that ended around 15 years ago. These have increased with Syria’s civil war next door.The government has not passed a budget since 2005 and has been without a president for almost two years.
Lebanon’s economy grew 8 percent a year between 2007 and 2010, but growth has been relatively sluggish since the collapse of a unity government and the start of Syria’s uprising in 2011.Gross domestic product (GDP) grew at only 2 percent in 2014. »We tried and tried and tried and in the end the great sectarian divide took its first victim – the media, which is supposed to be the one guiding a unified national public, » Salman told Reuters.
« The press is connected with political life. In Lebanon there is no politics and no political life whatsoever, » he said. »This is a country without a state, with no institutions and no president. » In an editorial in his paper this week, Salman said the demise of his and other papers in Lebanon – a country famed across the Arab world for its press freedom – threatens the nation’s claim to be the « country of freedom ».The decision to close As-Safir (« The Ambassador » in Arabic)will be formally announced on March 30 at a press conference. « We have announced the death, but we await the funeral, » said Salman.
Bomb blast kills soldier in north Lebanon – national news agency, source A Lebanese soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in northern Lebanon on Thursday, the National News Agency (NNA) and a security source said.Three others, including one officer, were wounded in the explosion which took place near the town of Arsal close to the Syrian border, NNA reported from a military statement.The army shelled positions of militants on Arsal’s outskirts after the blast, the security source said.
Islamist militants are active in the area near the Syrian-Lebanese border. Fighters from Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front briefly overran Arsal in 2014 before withdrawing after clashes with the army.Nusra Front freed 16 Lebanese soldiers and policemen in December 2015 in exchange for jailed Islamists. It had captured the soldiers during the Arsal incursion in 2014. Islamic State is believed to be still holding nine soldiers it captured.
World Bank gives Lebanon $100 million loan for educationThe World Bank granted Lebanon a $100 million loan on Thursday to support educational projects, but said support worth 10 times as much was being held up by the country’s prolonged political paralysis.
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said the new loan had been approved by the bank’s board in recognition of Lebanon’s efforts in hosting more than a million Syrian refugees, and schooling many of the younger ones.Kim said an already agreed package worth nearly $1 billion was being held up by the political deadlock. The country has been without a president for nearly two years and parliament has rarely met during that time.
« We are doing everything we can to get that money out. It’s been slow going, » Kim told a news conference during a joint visit to Lebanon with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Islamic Development Bank President Ahmad al-Madani.
« …It has been difficult to move forward in an environment where there is no president and the parliament is not meeting. » The United Nations says Lebanon is hosting just over 1 million registered refugees from the conflict in neighbouring Syria, though Lebanese officials say the true number is closer to 2 million — in a country of slightly more than 4 million.The five-year-old conflict in Syria, which pits mainly Sunni Muslim rebels against a president from the country’s Alawite minority and regional Shi’ite allies, has escalated Lebanon’s own sectarian tensions and contributed to the political impasse.The Islamic Development Bank’s Madani said he had signed five agreements on Thursday worth $373 million, and expected another $220 million to be agreed in the next year. He gave no details.
Algerian forces kill would-be suicide bomber east of Algiers – state media Algerian security forces shot dead an Islamist militant wearing a suicide bomb belt before he could detonate his explosives in a small town east of the capital Algiers, the state news agency APS said on Thursday.The militant had been evading Algerian troops patrolling on Wednesday night around Maatkas near Tizi Ouzou in the mountainous region in what was once the stronghold of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
« Trapped by the army, he headed toward the police station in Maatkas, where he was probably planning to blow himself up, » APS said citing a security source. It said he was shot by the police and had been wearing a bomb belt.
Bombings and other attacks have become rare in Algeria since the North African state emerged from a 1990s decade of war with Islamist militants that killed 200,000 people. But al Qaeda’s North Africa branch and Islamic State affiliates operate in remote part of the vast, oil-exporting country.
The last attempted suicide attack in Algeria was also in Tizi Ouzou in 2011 when a militant tried to drive a bomb-packed truck into a police headquarters there, injuring 29 people.
The mountains around Tizi Ouzou, 60 miles (100 km) east of Algiers, were formerly a stronghold of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other Islamists during the 1990s war.Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb last week claimed a rocket attack on an Algerian gas plant, operated by BP and Statoil with state-owned Sonatrach, though it caused no casualties or notable damage. BP and Statoil said they would pull out some of their foreign staff from southern gas fields as security precaution.
U.S. indicts Iranians for hacking dozens of banks, New York damSeven Iranian hackers conducted a coordinated cyber attack on dozens of U.S. banks, causing millions of dollars in lost business, and tried to shut down a New York dam, the U.S. government said on Thursday in an indictment that for the first time accused individuals tied to another country of trying to disrupt critical infrastructure.
It said the seven accused were believed to have been working on behalf of Iran’s government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. Those named live in Iran and the Iranian government is not expected to extradite them. There was no immediate comment from Tehran.
At least 46 major financial institutions and financial sector companies were targeted, including JPMorgan Chase , Wells Fargo and American Express, the indictment said. AT&T also was targeted. The hackers are accused of hitting the banks with distributed-denial-of-service attacks on a near-weekly basis, a relatively unsophisticated way of knocking computer networks offline by overwhelming them with a flood of spammed traffic. »These attacks were relentless, they were systematic, and they were widespread, » U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch told a Washington news conference.
The indictment from a federal grand jury in New York City said the attacks occurred from 2011 to 2013. Washington has previously accused military officers from China and the North Korean government of cyber attacks against U.S. businesses.
The attack on the Bowman Avenue Dam in Rye Brook, New York, was especially alarming, Lynch said, because it represented a known intrusion on critical infrastructure. A stroke of good fortune prevented the hackers from obtaining operational control of the flood gates because the dam had been manually disconnected for routine maintenance, she said. The Bowman hack was a « game-changing event » for the U.S.government that prompted investigators to uncover other systems vulnerable to similar attacks, said Andre McGregor, a former FBI agent and a lead case investigator on the dam intrusion.
« The investigation’s discovery of many more exposed computer systems with vulnerable management consoles is a constant reminder that basic cyber hygiene remains at the forefront of the battle against cyber attacks, » said McGregor, now director of security at Tanium, a Silicon Valley cyber security firm.
« We must step up our counter-hacking game ASAP to deal with threats from places like Iran and would be terrorists, » said New York Senator Chuck Schumer in a statement. Cyber security experts and U.S. intelligence officials have grown more alarmed in recent months by the possibility of destructive hacks of critical infrastructure such as dams, power plants and factories. Some have said a December cyber attack on the Ukraine’s energy grid that caused a temporary blackout of 225,000 should serve as a wake-up call.
LONG MEMORIES The defendants were identified as Ahmad Fathi, Hamid Firoozi, Amin Shokohi, Sadegh Ahmadzadegan, Omid Ghaffarinia, Sina Keissar and Nader Seidi, all citizens and residents of Iran. They are accused of conspiracy to commit computer hacking while employed by two Iran-based computer companies, ITSecTeam and Mersad Company. Firoozi also is charged with obtaining and abetting unauthorized access to a protected computer.The indictments are the latest attempt by the Obama administration to more publicly confront cyber attacks carried out by other countries against the United States.
The campaign began two years ago when the Justice Department accused five members of China’s People’s Liberation Army with hacking several Pennsylvania-based companies in an alleged effort to steal trade secrets. It continued with President Obama’s vow to « respond proportionally » against North Korea for the destructive hack against Sony Pictures.
« An important part of our cyber security practice is to identify the actors and to attribute them publicly when we can, » Lynch said Thursday. « We do this so that they know they cannot hide. » U.S. officials largely completed the investigation more than a year ago, according to two sources familiar with the matter, but held off releasing the indictment so as to not jeopardize the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran or a January prisoner swap.Even though Iran is not expected to extradite the suspects, FBI Director James Comey vowed to pursue justice. »The world is small and our memory is long, » he said at the news conference with Lynch.
Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer with cyber security firm CrowdStrike, said, « This sends an important message to Iran and other governments that these people cannot operate anonymously. » The U.S. and Israel launched a cyber attack against Iran in 2010, now famously known as the Stuxnet worm, in order to disable Iran’s nuclear centrifuges. Some security researchers and officials have long suspected the attacks against U.S. banks and the dam were done in part as retaliation.Separately, the U.S. Treasury Department blacklisted two Iranian companies on Thursday for supporting Iran’s ballistic missile program and also sanctioned two British businessmen it said were helping an airline used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
100 Chinese boats, ships encroaching into Malaysian waters – minister About 100 Chinese-registered boats and vessels were detected encroaching into Malaysia’s waters near the Luconia Shoals in the South China Sea on Thursday, the country’s national security minister Shahidan Kassim said.
According to state news agency Bernama, Shahidan said assets from the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency and the navy have been deployed to the area to monitor the situation.China claims most of the South China Sea through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. Neighbours Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have rival claims.
Malaysia would take legal action if the ships were found to have trespassed into the country’s exclusive economic zone, Shahidan was quoted as saying
As tensions escalate, Cruz calls Trump a ‘sniveling coward’The feud between Republican presidential contenders Donald Trump and Ted Cruz over their spouses heated up on Thursday, with Cruz calling the party front-runner « a sniveling coward » for threatening his wife on Twitter. The U.S. senator from Texas also sharpened his attacks on Trump’s conservative credentials, linking the brash billionaire to disgraced New York politicians Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner. Cruz continued bashing Trump for making Cruz’s wife, Heidi, a target of social-media barbs. »I have to say, seeing him go deeper and deeper into the gutter, it’s not easy to tick me off, » Cruz said at a news conference while campaigning in Dane, Wisconsin. « But you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, it’ll do it every time.
« Donald, you’re a sniveling coward, » Cruz said. « Leave Heidi the hell alone. » Cruz’s remarks were the latest burst of hostility between the two camps, which earlier this week erupted into full view when Trump accused Cruz of posting a nude photo of Melania Trump on Twitter. Trump responded by threatening to « spill the beans » on Cruz’s wife, Heidi. Cruz denied having anything to do with the image, which was part of an attack by an anti-Trump Super PAC, Make America Awesome. »Donald, real men don’t attack women. Your wife is lovely, and Heidi is the love of my life, » Cruz said in a post on Twitter earlier on Thursday. Cruz’s tweet followed one moments earlier by Trump in which he retweeted an image featuring a less-than-flattering picture of Heidi Cruz juxtaposed with a glamorous photo of Melania.The back-and-forth was too much for U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a former presidential candidate, who blasted both men in an interview on NBC’s « Today » show on Thursday.
« Talk about things that people really care about, and knock this crap off because these are serious times, and you’re not behaving like you want to be president of the United States, » he said. For Trump, attacking another candidate’s wife may carry some political risk.Half of U.S. women say they have a « very unfavorable » view of the billionaire businessman, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling in March.Cruz fared better, with 24 percent of the 5,000 women surveyed saying they had a « very unfavorable » view of him.
The Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, did worse than Cruz but better than Trump, with 36 percent of women polled saying they had a « very unfavorable » view of her. The poll had a credibility interval of 2 percentage points. Also on Thursday, Cruz began to press Trump on his history of supporting Democratic politicians in New York, which holds its Republican primary on April 19. And while Manhattan is home to Trump’s business empire, Cruz spent time there this week campaigning.
In media releases and social-media postings, Cruz highlighted Trump’s history of donating not only to Spitzer, New York’s former governor who resigned amid a prostitution scandal, and Weiner, the former U.S. congressman who quit after tweeting lewd images of himself, but also to other New York liberals such as U.S. Representative Charles Rangel, Senator Chuck Schumer, and New York’s current governor, Andrew Cuomo.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment, but Trump posted an Instagram video that showed former Republican presidential candidates Carly Fiorina and Graham expressing doubts about Cruz earlier in the campaign. Both have since endorsed Cruz, saying he is in the best position to halt Trump’s march toward the nomination.
Both Trump and Cruz are trying to garner enough delegates to win the Republican nomination ahead of the party’s convention this summer. After Tuesday’s contests in Arizona and Utah, Trump had 739 of the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination, according to The Associated Press. Cruz had 465.Polls show Trump leading in New York ahead of its primary.And there were also indications on Thursday of Trump’s strength in California, where many observers believe he could clinch the nomination by winning its primary on June 7.A new survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found that among likely Republican primary voters, Trump led with 38 percent to 27 percent for Cruz and 14 percent for Ohio Governor John Kasich.The next Republican contests will be on April 5 in Wisconsin and on April 9 in Wyoming.
Cuba’s journey from rock labor brigades to the Rolling StonesWhen Carlos Carnero’s rock band Los Kent plugged in guitars and drums to play Rolling Stones covers on Cuba’s Island of Pines in the 1960s, soldiers stopped the gig at gunpoint in minutes and marched the musicians onto a boat heading back to the mainland. Now some 50 years later, Carnero is preparing to see the Stones play to a crowd of 400,000 people in Havana on Friday in the latest sign of Cuba’s thaw with the West.It is the first time the British band has performed in Cuba and caps a week in which U.S. President Barack Obama made a historic visit.The Stones arrived in Cuba on Thursday. »Time changes everything, » Mick Jagger said at Havana airport, when asked about a former ban on his music in Cuba.
Despite the stern treatment Los Kent received in the 1960s, Carnero’s instruments were not confiscated that day and his band survived to play in secret house parties. Others suffered more for their love of rock and roll, including being sent to farms in labor brigades meant to correct « ideological deviation. » « They called it the music of the enemy, » Carnero said, clutching dog-eared black and white photos of Los Kent as young men on stage in 1963.
Hippies and rock fans faced repression in Europe and the United States too in the 1960s, but Cuba went further, banning music from artists such as the Stones, the Beatles and Elvis Presley on the radio and television after the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power.Rock was frowned on for decades and it was only in 2000 that Los Kent were given a license to work professionally, as people of Carnero’s generation reached senior positions in government.Los Kent, who got their name from a guitar brand, will play on Thursday night in a bar at the Havana Melia hotel, where the Stones are expected to stay.To get his musical fix, Carnero, now 66, secretly listened to short-wave radio stations from Florida and shared pirated copies of vinyl records brought in by diplomats’ children and sailors and passed around the scene.
He was excluded from college for two years because he refused to cut his long hair, despite pointing out to the authorities that heroes of the revolution like Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos sported unkempt locks.His brother was among those sent to the countryside – given the choice of farm work and abandoning his tight pants and musical taste or leaving the technical college he attended.
« After two months in the countryside he decided he’d rather not continue at school and came home, » said Carnero, chuckling. »It was a moral punishment, you were doing something you weren’t allowed to do because somebody didn’t like it, » Carnero said, in a home studio where an electronic drum kit and keyboard vie for space with an acoustic guitar.
Some of Cuba’s leading personalities were sent to similar camps, including composer Pablo Milanes and Cardinal Jaime Ortega. Many rock musicians later left the country.Fidel Castro later regretted the censorship of music and attended the unveiling of a statue of John Lennon, one of the four Beatles, in a Havana park on the 20th anniversary of his death on Dec. 8, 2000.
Carnero said Castro told him that his revolutionary government was facing huge international challenges in the 1960s as he tried to consolidate the revolution and that many in his government did not understand what the young rockers were up to. »Despite all the difficulties, I wouldn’t change my youth for that of today – we had so much love for what we did that there was nothing that could stop us, » Carnero said.
Handful of nations see many unintended pregnancies despite sex with contraception Nations from Brazil to Egypt and Turkey are among developing countries with the highest rates of contraceptive failure, according to research released on Thursday on unintended pregnancies.Some 74 million unintended pregnancies occur each year in developing nations, a third of which are due to failed contraception, said the New York-based Guttmacher Institute which studied 43 countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Exceptionally high rates of contraceptive failures were found in Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Burundi, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Paraguay and Turkey, it found. The study by the research institute, which focuses on sexual and reproductive health, did not determine the precise causes of the particularly high incidences and said that would require additional analysis.
Withdrawal and rhythm methods were most likely to fail, while longer-acting methods such as intra-uterine devices (IUDs), subdermal implants and injection were least likely to do so, it found. »Many factors, such as the quality of contraceptive services, availability of a range of methods, and the continuous availability of contraceptive supplies in that country, may contribute to this finding, » Chelsea Polis, lead author of the study, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Overall, the researchers found the lowest contraceptive failure rates in East Africa and South Asia.The research pointed out that unintended pregnancies put women at risk of seeking abortions that are unsafe and illegal in many developing nations.Separate research by the Population Council has found that the highest proportion of unintended pregnancies occur in Latin America and the Caribbean.The Guttmacher researchers cautioned about the data quality from West Africa and stigma in some cultures as potentially affecting their analysis.
Argentine cleaner’s double life as prize-winning writer When the Buenos Aires subway closes at night, Enrique Ferrari goes underground to mop the platforms — and to polish his next thriller.The Argentine station cleaner, 44, with bags under his eyes, is also a prize-winning crime novelist.He has been published in several countries, but it is the nighttime cleaning job which puts food on the table for his three children.
« Live off writing? The money isn’t good enough, » he tells AFP.A representative for cleaning and other unskilled staff in the subway workers’ union, he is seen as a curiosity: a decorated writer who has never been to university.
The author — and his gritty, succinct prose — has caught the media’s eye, appearing on television, radio and in news reports where he has been dubbed the « subway writer ».But he is fed up with the sobriquet. « I understand that people find it surprising, but I am not a strange creature. There are lots of we laborers who write, paint or play music, » says Ferrari, an easygoing man who himself laughs about his disparate vocations. »It is a peculiarity of capitalists and the bourgeoisie to think that we workers have no culture, » adds the novelist, whose many tattoos include one of Karl Marx on his left arm.
– Writing on his break –
Ferrari, known as Kike, has published five novels and two collections of short stories.His murder mystery « Que de lejos parecen moscas » (« They Look Like Flies From A Distance ») won a prize at the prestigious Gijon crime writing festival in Spain in 2012. That got him published in France, Mexico and Italy.
Previously he won a prize in Cuba for « Lo Que No Fue » (« What Was Not »), a political thriller set in Barcelona during the Spanish civil war.In the subway, he clears up commuters’ rubbish in an environment that reflects the dark settings of his crime fiction. »I work in an abandoned city. In a universe which is always overpopulated, I come along after the party. »
In the brief breaks during his cleaning shift, he switches on an old laptop and polishes his manuscripts.
« I write whenever I can, wherever I can, » he says. « Although during the day I’m most interested in finding time to sleep. »
His other work space is a little table piled with books in a corner of his apartment in the Once district of Buenos Aires.He has worked as a baker, driver and street vendor.He spent three years living illegally in the United States before being deported, but came back home with his first novel under his belt: « Operation Bukowski », published in Buenos Aires in 2004.
– Dreaming of Hollywood –
A fan of River Plate football club and rock ‘n’ roll music, Kike grew up in a modest home.When he was eight, his father gave him a book of « Sandokan », from a series of classic pirate adventure novels by the early 20th-century Italian writer Emilio Salgari. »Instead of dreaming of being a pirate, I dreamed of writing without stopping, like Salgari. »But he doesn’t want to go the same way as his literary hero. »Salgari ended up committing suicide. He was tired of the publishers sucking his blood, » he says.
« He wrote them a letter saying: ‘I bid you farewell as I break my pen.’ I’m going to tattoo that on myself, » he says with a cackle.Despite the prizes he has won, Kike is on the margins of the literary scene, shunned by major publishers. »I do not think of literature as a career, » he says. »But at quarter to eleven, 15 minutes before I go to mop the floors, I dream of winning an international prize or of Steven Spielberg wanting to film one of my books. »
(World news summary compiled by Maghreb news staff)