Ryan Crocker says attacks were a statement of militants’ weakness, after security forces kill last insurgents The American ambassador to Afghanistan has described a 20-hour assault on the heart of Kabul’s diplomatic and military quarter as “not a very big deal”, after security forces finally killed the last of a small team of insurgents who had paralysed the city. About six Taliban fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons took over a half-completed building on Tuesday, from where they rained down fire on the nearby US embassy and Nato compounds. Meanwhile, suicide bombers targeted police buildings in other parts of the city. Afghan security forces backed by Nato and Afghan attack helicopters were forced to fight floor by floor before the last insurgent was killed on Wednesday, putting an end to the longest sustained attack in the capital since the US-led invasion in 2001. At least nine Afghans, including four police officers were killed, and 23 people including civilians were wounded. The city’s streets were far quieter than normal: local staff of non-governmental agencies were told to come in late and many expatriate employees were locked down in their well-defended compounds. Afghans were again left questioning how such a complex attack could take place under the noses of international troops and their Afghan counterparts, who are due to take over security responsibilities in 2014. The US ambassador Ryan Crocker said the attack needed to be put into perspective. “These were five guys that rumbled into town with RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) under their car seats,” he said. “They got into a building and did some harassment fire on us and Isaf. This really is not a very big deal, a hard day for the embassy and my staff, who behaved with enormous courage and dedication, but half a dozen RPG rounds from 800 metres away – that isn’t Tet, that’s harassment,” he said in reference to the Tet offensive in Vietnam. “If that’s the best they can do, I think it’s actually a statement of their weakness and more importantly since Kabul is in the hands of Afghan security it’s a real credit to the Afghan national security forces.” Crocker said six or seven RPGs landed inside the compound. Isaf reported that six of its personnel were wounded. The ambassador blamed the attack on the Haqqani network, a terrorist organisation based in Pakistan which has long been accused of receiving support from the Inter Services Intelligence agency. The group has also been blamed for this week’s truck bomb outside an isolated US base that wounded 77 soldiers. “It’s tough when you’re trying to fight an insurgency that has a lot of support outside the national borders,” Crocker said. “And the information available to us is that these attackers, like those who carried out the bombing in Wardak, are part of the Haqqani network, they enjoy safe haven in [the Pakistani region of] Northern Waziristan. The Isaf commander general, John Allen, praised the Afghan security forces. “The insurgency has again failed,” he said of the attack. But for ordinary Afghans there was anger at the security forces’ inability to prevent the attack. Hundreds of people gathered in Abdul Haq Square for a glimpse of the bullet-ridden bodies of the six attackers being brought out of the building after it was finally cleared. “For Afghans, this is a strong attack and very sad for us,” said Malek Tose. “Afghans are dying but for America it is nothing because they are fighting all over the world,” he said. Mohammad Bashir Suleiman Khil, a shopkeeper, said people were increasingly scared, even in Kabul, considered to be the most secure city in the country. “Every 10 days there are attacks in Kabul. Afghanistan will not be quiet again. There is no work, there is no business. People are not coming out of their homes today. We don’t have any hope here.” The bodies of four insurgents lay on a concrete floor strewn with bullet casings. One had a bullet wound between his eyes. Crime scene investigators took the fingerprints of the dead and when they picked up a body to place it on a stretcher, a live grenade was found underneath him. At least one of the attackers had held out nearly 20 hours inside the building before he was eventually overcome by police commandos using stun grenades. The attackers appeared to have used metal barrels to climb floors inside the building to avoid the external and exposed stairwells. United States Afghanistan guardian.co.uk
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French appeal court upholds acquittal of former PM on charges of slandering Nicolas Sarkozy in Clearstream scandal A Paris appeal court has cleared the former prime minister Dominique de Villepin of running a dirty-tricks smear campaign against Nicolas Sarkozy. The verdict draws a line under the Clearstream affair, a marathon courtroom battle that exposed the seething hatred between the two biggest rivals on the French right. Sarkozy had accused De Villepin of smearing him over alleged acts of money laundering through the Luxembourg bank Clearstream. In June 2004, a French judge received an anonymous poison-pen letter accusing a number of senior politicians and business figures of laundering money through hidden foreign accounts. On the list was Sarkozy, then finance minister and contender to succeed Jacques Chirac as president. Paris braced itself for what seemed to be the corruption scandal of the decade, but the judge quickly established the accusations were false. Sarkozy accused De Villepin of deliberately using the bogus scandal to smear him in the run-up to the presidential race in 2007. The appeal court upheld an earlier decision to acquit De Villepin of charges of complicity in slander. They dismissed a state prosecutor’s request for a 15-month suspended sentence. The acquittal was a setback for Sarkozy, who had been the key plaintiff in the trial, and who once said he would like to hang De Villepin from a butcher’s hook . The Élysée said he would not comment. After the verdict De Villepin, who had complained that Sarkozy was pursuing a vendetta, praised “the independence of our justice system which resisted political pressure”. He said he had come out of this “ordeal” stronger and “more determined than ever to serve the French”. The acquittal in theory clears the path for De Villepin to run against Sarkozy in the 2012 presidential election. Best known for his stance against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, De Villepin quit Sarkozy’s ruling rightwing UMP party and set up his own small political grouping, République Solidaire. De Villepin, a Gaullist positioned on the centre-right, has been a strong critic of Sarkozy’s rightwing drift. But his political support base remains limited and his poll ratings are low. It is unclear whether he has enough support among politicians to muster a campaign. The six-year Clearstream battle was unprecedented in French modern history. A trial, appeal and retrial involved scores of plaintiffs and witnesses from the highest levels of French politics, including senior spies and businessmen, and damaged the credibility of the French political class. France Europe Nicolas Sarkozy Angelique Chrisafis guardian.co.uk
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Taliban spokesman and Isaf press office have spat online as insurgents attack Kabul’s diplomatic and military enclave As the 20-hour assault by Taliban insurgents on Kabul’s diplomatic and military enclave drew to a close on Wednesday, insurgents and coalition forces decided to prolong the battle the modern way: on Twitter. If the continued insurgency in Afghanistan represents a failure of dialogue, the spat between the Taliban and the press office of the international security assistance force (Isaf) on Wednesday proved that they are ready to exchange words directly, even if their comments offered little hope of peace being forged anytime soon. The argument began when @ISAFmedia , which generally provides dry updates in military speak of the security situation in Afghanistan, took exception to comments from a Taliban spokesman, tweeting : “Re: Taliban spox on #Kabul attack: the outcome is inevitable. Question is how much longer will terrorist put innocent Afghans in harm’s way?” The Taliban – who, when in power, eschewed most modern technology, including television and music players – decided to point the finger of blame back at the international forces. Showing an affinity with textspeak, Taliban tweeter Abdulqahar Balk (@ABalkhi) wrote : “@ISAFmedia i dnt knw.u hve bn pttng thm n ‘harm’s way’ fr da pst 10 yrs.Razd whole vllgs n mrkts.n stil hv da nrve to tlk bout ‘harm’s way’” @ISAFmedia was moved to respond by providing statistical backing for its case : “Really, @abalkhi? Unama reported 80% of civilians causalities are caused by insurgent (your) activities http://goo.gl/FylwU” But @ABalkhi questioned the value of the quoted statistics, pointing out, in somewhat sarcastic tones , that the Isaf, an organisation established by the UN security council, was using figures from another UN body (the UN assistance mission in Afghanistan) to try to win the argument: “@ISAFmedia Unama is an entity of whom? mine or yours?” That brought to an end the direct exchanges, although @ABalkhi continued to try to score points, registering a “lol” at a CNN article titled ” Pentagon: Afghan insurgency ‘less effective’ this year “. Taliban Afghanistan Nato Twitter Internet Haroon Siddique guardian.co.uk
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US envoys, EU foreign policy chief and Tony Blair all due to meet Palestinian and Israeli leaders this week Efforts to persuade the Palestinians to change tack ahead of next week’s UN meeting on the creation of a state of Palestine accelerated this week with a series of high-level delegations sweeping through Jerusalem and Ramallah aiming to avert a diplomatic collision in New York. The US envoys David Hale and Dennis Ross, the European foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, and the Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair were all due to meet Palestinian and Israeli leaders. Barack Obama piled on the pressure, describing the Palestinian push for recognition at the UN general assembly as “counterproductive”. Israel was also making last-minute efforts to persuade undeclared countries not to vote for a Palestinian resolution, amid threats to tear up previous agreements, impose financial penalties and annexe West Bank settlements if the Palestinians go ahead. Obama confirmed the US would veto a request brought before the security council. But the White House wants to avoid such a step, knowing it will play badly among Arabs whose own moves for self-determination this year Obama has endorsed. The European Union is at the centre of efforts to avoid a diplomatic meltdown at the UN. Its belief that only a negotiated settlement can resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is given added force by its desire to avoid a damaging split among its 27 members. But efforts to secure a breakthrough are constrained by Palestinian demand of guarantees that any talks would be based on the pre-1967 borders plus a total settlement freeze. Israel is unlikely to sign up to that. The Palestinians insist their approach to the UN does not preclude a return to negotiations later. “We see no contradictions between doing both,” said Mohammad Shtayyer, a senior member of the team heading to New York. The UN bid was “the beginning of the game, not the end. It is a process.” he said. In public, Palestinian officials are standing firm in the face of “very serious pressure” to backtrack. Privately, there are suggestions of wavering. However, the International Crisis Group warned this week that any climbdown now “could decisively discredit [Mahmoud Abbas's] leadership, embolden his foes and trigger unrest among his people”. It went on: “Most Palestinians do not strongly support the UN bid; but they would strongly oppose a decision to retract it without suitable compensation.” Israel has engaged in its own diplomatic offensive to try to derail the Palestinian bid, instructing its diplomats around the globe to campaign vigorously for votes and lavishly hosting delegations from undeclared countries. But Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, acknowledged that the “battle to stem the tide” was lost and warned that “this unilateral course of action won’t lead to peace and won’t lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state”. The Palestinians reject the claim that they are acting unilaterally, saying the UN path “is the ultimate expression of multilateralism”. They add that Israel’s apparent opposition to unilateralism has not stopped it acting without agreement, such as building and expanding settlements. Sallai Meridor, a former Israeli ambassador to the US, said the move “weakens the chances for negotiation and agreement and increases the chances of frustration and violence. For Israelis it will strengthen the voices saying there is no one to talk to. Once you act unilaterally, the chances for negotiations are much lower.” Israel is also alarmed at the prospect that the Palestinians could bring a case against it at the international criminal court, a possibility that would open up with enhanced UN status for the Palestinians. “No Israeli government could negotiate if it has criminal proceedings hanging over its head,” said a former official. Retaliatory options raised by Israeli ministers should the Palestinian bid succeed include tearing up the Oslo accords, under which the Palestinian Authority was given control of parts of the West Bank and Gaza, annexing the West Bank settlements and withholding tax revenues that Israel collects on behalf of the PA. The US Congress is also threatening to cut off financial aid to the Palestinians. Violence in the aftermath of the UN move has been predicted by the Israelis for months, despite Abbas’s insistence that any demonstrations would be peaceful. “Non-violent demonstrations have a high risk of developing into something violent regardless of planning,” said Meridor. “When you take gasoline and play with matches, you run the risk of a big fire.” The Israeli security forces have restocked with crowd-dispersal equipment, including teargas, rubber bullets and water canon. They are also training and arming settlers, fuelling fears on both sides that hardline elements could provoke violence. How the bid for Palestinian statehood will work at the UN • The main session of the 2011 UN general assembly opens in New York with a speech by Barack Obama on Wednesday 21 September. • The Palestinians say they will submit a formal application for full membership as a state next week. The approval of the 15-member security council is required. • The US will veto such an application. But it may set up a committee to examine the request in the hope of kicking the issue into the long grass. • In the event of a veto, the Palestinians say they will request enhanced “observer member status” at the general assembly, which does not require security council approval but needs a two-thirds majority (129 votes). • The Palestinians claim to have the support of 126 countries, equating to about 75% of the world’s population, including China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Egypt, South Africa, Turkey, Brazil, Ireland and Spain. • Israel concedes it will lose a vote at the general assembly but hopes to claim the support of a “moral minority” of countries, including the US, Canada and Italy. • The EU bloc of 27 countries is split. Of the “big three”, Britain and France have not explicitly declared their intentions, and Germany is opposed to full membership. France is inclined to back the Palestinians but is attempting to come up with a compromise acceptable to Germany in the interests of EU unity. • The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is due to address the general assembly on Friday 23 September. • Israel’s turn at the podium is also scheduled for 23 September. It has not been decided whether the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, or the president, Shimon Peres, will represent Israel. Palestinian territories Israel Middle East United Nations Harriet Sherwood guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Sick Travellers at Dale Farm offered legal pitches next to unauthorised site
September 14, 2011 No Comment
Owners of legal Traveller pitches make land temporarily available to families before planned eviction next week Ill and vulnerable Travellers from Dale Farm will be allowed to move to legal pitches next to the Essex site in a surprise attempt to defuse next week’s controversial eviction. Owners of legal Traveller pitches next to the unauthorised site, on a former scrapyard close to Basildon, have given permission for Dale Farm residents to live temporarily on their land. In a letter seen by the Guardian, Basildon council said it would not object to families moving on to the legal site. “It would appear that your proposal has considerable prospects of success,” Dawn French, the head of corporate services at the council, wrote to a resident who owns much of the legal site and offered to broker a peaceful solution to the eviction. Basildon council signalled that it would not interfere with any agreement between residents of the legal site and Dale Farm residents. There are 34 pitches on the legal site, on a field immediately adjacent to Dale Farm. One touring caravan and one mobile home is allowed on each pitch. The legal site could house the most vulnerable of the 86 families on Dale Farm, who will be made homeless when bailiffs arrive for the £18m eviction on Monday. The authorities’ acceptance of the Travellers’ plan has come with Basildon council under increasing pressure from the UN and other human rights monitors and agencies. Members of the UN habitat advisory group on forced evictions are visiting Dale Farm on Wednesday. Prof Yves Cabannes, the chair of the mission and a planning specialist from University College London, told Radio 4′s Today programme that Basildon council was infringing international human rights in three areas – the right of ethnic minorities to be protected, the right to adequate housing and the right to be protected from forced evictions. An eviction headquarters and a temporary road to the site is being constructed by private contractors to facilitate next week’s eviction of the largest unauthorised Travellers’ site in Britain, where Travellers have lived on land they own for the last 10 years. While the high court recently ruled that no human rights had been infringed during the lengthy dispute over the site, Travellers are planning to lodge another last-minute appeal, citing the declining health of elderly and sick residents on the site. Dale Farm Roma, Gypsies and Travellers Communities Patrick Barkham guardian.co.uk
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Helle Thorning-Schmidt expected to lead centre-left coalition into power and become Denmark’s first female prime minister Ten years of rightwing rule that have turned Denmark into the most closed country in Europe for immigrants looks likely to end this week, with a Social Democrat tipped to become the Danes’ first female prime minister. Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the daughter-in-law of Neil and Glenys Kinnock, looks set to head a new centre-left coalition, replacing the Liberal leader, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, whose minority government has been propped up for the past decade by the far-right anti-immigrant and europhobic Danish People’s party (DPP). The Social Democrats are struggling in the opinion polls and may lose votes and seats in the 179-seat parliament in Copenhagen, but her four-party “red” coalition is expected to nudge ahead of the coalescing liberals and conservatives. The latest polls ahead of Thursday’s general election give the centre-left a margin of victory of between three and 10 seats. A victory for the centre-left would wrest the kingmaker status from the DPP, which has leveraged its support for the current government to drive legislation on immigration and asylum. The DPP has tried to ratchet up the debate over migration and border controls, but in the run-up to the election the issue has been overshadowed by Denmark’s struggling economy. “With the economic crisis as the backdrop we find ourselves in the middle of a completely different election from what we have seen in many years,” said Thomas Larsen, a political commentator writing in the Berlingske newspaper. “Gone is the talk of value-based politics. Gone is the often heated and emotional debate about justice and immigration policies, which were such a big part of the elections in 2001, 2005 and 2007. Today the political battle is about three things – economy, economy and economy.” A Social-Democrat-led government might serve as a tonic for the centre-left across Europe, which has failed to come up with attractive policies in response to the financial and economic crisis since 2008 or to the potent issues of Islam and immigration, ceding traditional working-class support to populist far-right movements. If Thorning-Schmidt fails to secure the Danish premiership on Thursday, her six-year spell as Social Democrat leader may be over. Dubbed Gucci Helle by her opponents and the tabloid press because of her expensive tastes and privileged pedigree, she has struggled to shrug off doubts about her leadership credibility. She appeared on Danish television this week at home with her family, in an attempt to burnish her image. Her husband, Stephen Kinnock, a director of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland and former British Council official, said he had taken over the cooking, cleaning and child-minding during the campaign. The Danish press have raised questions about the couple’s tax affairs. Last year tax inspectors cleared them of tax avoidance after tabloid allegations that Kinnock was exploiting his employment in Switzerland to pay his taxes there at about a quarter of the rate in Denmark where he was said to be mainly resident. New allegations were aired this week concerning tax on the couple’s properties. It is unclear whether the allegations will have any impact on Thursday’s election. Danes are eager voters, with turnouts of up to 90%. The economy will be the key issue. In a country boasting some of the highest living standards in the world, the economy is stagnant, the budget deficit is set to soar to almost 5% this year, and job losses have been high. Thorning-Schmidt has promised a new era of public investment in welfare, education, and infrastructure. The government is preaching austerity and public spending cuts, the general trend across a Europe dominated by the centre-right. Denmark The far right Europe Ian Traynor Lars Eriksen guardian.co.uk
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Strasbourg court due to rule on kettling of Lois Austin in London during May Day demonstrations in 2001 A case that will decide the legality of the police containment tactic of kettling is to be heard at the European court of human rights in Strasbourg later. The case, brought by Lois Austin , began in 2001 after she was detained along with 3,000 protesters for up to seven hours at Oxford Circus in London during May Day demonstrations. Trapped alongside her were tourists and newspaper vendors who were not part of the protest but were refused permission to leave the cordoned area by the Metropolitan police. The 2001 incident was one of the first major uses of kettling, and came as a response to protests by anti-capitalists the year before that saw Parliament Square vandalised and a statue of Winston Churchill defaced and daubed with graffiti. Kettling has since been used by a number of police forces, particularly in the last 12 months as a response to anti-austerity protests, and most prominently during student demonstrations last winter. In April the high court ruled that thousands of protesters were illegally detained in a kettle at G20 protests in 2009. In 2009 the House of Lords ruled that the 2001 Oxford Circus “crowd control measures” had been proportionate. Today, lawyers acting for Austin will argue that the ruling was flawed on the basis that it allowed Austin’s liberty to be deprived. They will say in Strasbourg that article five of the European convention on human rights is an absolute right, and police detention tactics may not be justified by outcomes on the day and must be specified in law. Austin said: “Since the House of Lords judgment, the police have increased their use of the tactic of kettling, with disastrous consequences for the right to peaceful protest and the safety of protesters. I am deeply concerned that this tactic will discourage the next generation of peaceful protesters to express their legitimate concerns.” Kat Craig, of Christian Khan solicitors, said: “The police have, wrongly, taken the House of Lords judgment as a carte blanche to kettle protesters even when they are exercising their legitimate rights to express their opposition to government policies. “The judgment threatens other aspects of personal liberty which are highly prized in any democratic society, such as the right not to be interned. It is imperative that this decision is challenged and [that] the balance which has for decades been struck between personal liberty and the power of the state is restored.” Kettling Police European court of human rights Europe Shiv Malik guardian.co.uk
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Chief inspector of prisons Nick Hardwick says decision to remand more than 65% of riot defendants in custody had resulted in problems at London jails An influx of more than 1,000 prisoners in the immediate aftermath of the riots that hit England last month has fuelled gang culture in prisons and led to serious incidents, the chief inspector of prisons said on Wednesday. In his first annual report, Nick Hardwick said the decision to remand more than 65% of riot defendants in custody had already resulted in incidents at Feltham young offenders prison and Brixton prison, in London, and “significant numbers” of people being placed on suicide watch. Hardwick said that although the prison service had coped with the influx of riot-related inmates, there had been serious tensions involving existing prisoners who had been moved to other prisons to make way for the new inmates. But he also reported that his prison visits in the last four weeks had revealed first-time inmates on riot charges had been joining gangs for their own protection. He said the gym at Feltham was wrecked during an incident, and young prisoners got out onto a roof space before the situation was brought under control. At Brixton, prisoners refused to go back to their cells. Prisons and probation UK riots Alan Travis guardian.co.uk
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Anderson Cooper debuted his new Oprah-esque afternoon talk show on Monday. The Washington Post does not see this as an occasion to wonder what this says about the hard-news brand of CNN — which after all, just made Cooper its top 8 pm attraction. Instead, in a splashy Style section piece on Tuesday, Post TV critic Hank Stuever felt it was an occasion to honor how “Daytime Anderson” has now joined “Action Anderson” and “Adorable Anderson” in the Cooper persona. Forget whether Anderson is just doing this gig for more fame or more money. Stuever wants the reader to focus on Cooper’s “catlike handsomeness,” and how he’s “even cuter” when he acts uncomfortable at all the attention he’s drawing. This goo-fest began: There are many Anderson Coopers now, collect them all! There is Action Anderson, the fit 44-year-old news anchor who likes to drop everything, don a gray T-shirt and chase the big story, which delivers him unto war zones and disaster sites, where, if his CNN publicists are to be believed, he Asks Questions No One Else Will Ask. There is also Adorable Anderson, the great-great-great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the rich kid with the aw-shucks humility. This more-popular Anderson will always get in the way of Action Anderson's journalistic idealism. Adorable Anderson is the one who hosts the ball-drop show with kooky Kathy Griffin every New Year's Eve and is as likely to turn up in a “Saturday Night Live” sketch with Pee-wee Herman as he is in “tornado alley.” Adorable Anderson is the one who nearly collapsed in a teary-eyed fit of giggles last month on his nightly CNN show during a pun-laced segment about Gerard Depardieu’s public-urination misadventure. The clip of that went viral, which reignited in many viewers a complicated longing for a man some call “America’s secret boyfriend.” You can either admit this to yourself or not. It’s the undetermined sexuality, the androgyne in the Ralph Lauren black-label suit; the catlike handsomeness; the silvery white hair and piercing blue eyes . Even cuter is how he makes a show of being terribly uncomfy with all the attention. The only words missing were “Call me.” Stuever then wrote now comes “Daytime Anderson,” who wishes to “somehow merge the best of Action Anderson…and Adorable Anderson into a superior Anderson” to fill America’s Oprah space. We'll have to wait for someone else to wonder whether Cooper is going to be spread too thin or will dilute the CNN brand.
Continue reading …Greenpeace, WWF and Friends of the Earth across the decades – interactive
September 14, 2011 No Comment
As this year sees the 50th anniversary of WWF and the 40th anniversaries of Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, this timeline charts the successes of the three green groups Christine Oliver Eric Hilaire Shiona Tregaskis
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