Obama adviser holds emergency talks in Riyadh as fighting between Yemeni government and tribal rebels escalates Ian Black Middle East editor The US is stepping up efforts to persuade Yemen’s veteran president to step down before escalating fighting between the government and tribal rebels develops into fully-fledged civil war. Diplomats said that Washington was now pressing hard to convince Ali Abdullah Saleh to reconsider his rejection of a peace plan brokered by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states alarmed by the prospect of growing instability in the region. John Brennan, Barack Obama’s counter-terrorism adviser, held talks in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, where the government has strong ties with Yemeni tribes but has been slow to act. It has been accused of sending mixed signals to Saleh, who is seen as desperate to cling on to power after 32 years. Brennan has previously worked closely with Saleh on fighting al-Qaida – a key US and western concern. The Yemeni leader has reneged on an accord which would see him hand over power to his deputy in return for an amnesty from prosecution. He has agreed to sign the deal on several occasions but then backed out, apparently holding out for terms that would wring new concessions from his rivals. The official Yemeni news agency Saba quoted a government source on Thursday as saying that he was now ready to sign, but the claim appeared to make little impact. “It’s all about getting him to sign that piece of paper,” said one western official. “It’s the only game in town but he clearly hasn’t grasped that yet.” Reports from Sana’a said Saleh’s forces were deploying heavy weapons at the entrance to the capital city to prevent the advance of rebels loyal to Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar, chief of the Hashid tribal federation, the country’s largest. At least 135 people have been killed in the last 10 days alone. The situation in Yemen remains confused and communications are difficult. Al-Jazeera TV reported that an estimated 2,000 members of opposition tribal groups, which were “armed and ready to fight,” had entered the capital to confront forces loyal to Saleh. “We expect [the tribal fighters] to take control of different government complexes,” said the editor of the Yemen Post, Hakim al Masmari. A military official told the Associated Press that government warplanes would attack the fighters if they tried to advance on the capital. “There are orders and instruction that if they approach and engage, we can strike them with airplanes,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity according to regulations. For their part, the tribesman said they were awaiting orders to approach. “We won’t leave al-Ahmar alone and will enter Sanaa to stand with him and to fight alongside him,” Mohammed al-Hamdani, a tribal leader, told AP. Video clips showed heavy fighting in the Hasaba area, where 15 people were killed overnight. One casualty was a seven-year old girl struck by a stray bullet. Sana’a international airport was closed briefly because of shelling, fuelling fears the country would be cut off from the wider world. But it reopened later as the authorities insisted all was normal. Russia urged its citizens to leave Yemen in the wake of the violence. The US and Britain have advised their nationals to depart and their embassies are both operating with reduced staff. A Yemeni government official said street fighting had intensified because special forces were now involved. Civilians have been fleeing Sana’a in their thousands, hurriedly packing possessions in their cars. “It felt as if the artillery shells were flying next to my head,” resident Sadeq al-Lahbe tolds Reuters before leaving. “My wife, my daughter were screaming. It was horrible. There is no electricity, no water and violent strikes shaking the house. Is this life?” In the central city of Taiz, where anti Saleh activists have held massive demonstrations since the start of the uprising, military police were seen firing live ammunition at protesters. The UN said at least 50 people had been killed there since Sunday. The battles in Yemen are being fought on several fronts, with street fighting between tribal groups and Saleh’s forces in Sana’a, popular protests across the country, and a battle against al-Qaida and Islamist militants who have seized the coastal city of Zinjibar, east of Aden. Government forces have been pounding the city for several days. Brennan’s Gulf mission followed mounting alarm and frustration in Washington and London at the way the crisis is unfolding. On Wednesday the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said Yemen’s conflict would not end unless Saleh and his government made way for the opposition to begin a political transition. “We cannot expect this conflict to end unless President Saleh and his government move out of the way to permit the opposition and civil society to begin a transition to political and economic reform,” Clinton said. Yemen Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Global terrorism al-Qaida Obama administration US foreign policy US politics United States Ian Black guardian.co.uk
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Britain and US accept insurgents’ demand to end sanctions on ex-Taliban leaders including notorious Mohammed Qalamuddin Britain and the United States are pressing for United Nations sanctions against 18 former senior Taliban figures to be lifted later this month in the strongest indication yet that the western powers are looking for a negotiated peace with the Taliban. Candidates include the controversial former head of the regime’s religious police, Mohammed Qalamuddin, whose officers were responsible for some of the worst atrocities under the Taliban regime. Officals believe the move would send a clear signal to insurgents that reintegrating into Afghan society is possible if they put down their arms. The sanctions were imposed in 1999, when the Taliban were in power, and were expanded after the 9/11 attacks on America. They ban about 140 individuals from travelling or holding bank accounts. Removing the restrictions has been a key demand of insurgents in Afghanistan and has long been supported by the Afghan government. The removal of men like Qalamuddin is likely to be controversial. Patrols run by the religious police chief beat women and men in the street to enforce the Taliban’s rigorous interpretation of Islam. As a minister, Qalamuddin also issued his own edicts, including a ban on women wearing makeup or high heels. Other candidates include well-known figures who have acted as intermediaries in contacts between the Afghan government and the insurgents in recent years such as Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban education minister, as well as Qalamuddin, who has kept a low profile since being released from prison in 2005. An Afghan minister also said that lifting the sanctions on such men would facilitate the establishment of a political office for the Taliban in a third country as it would allow key intermediaries, mainly former senior figures in the movement now living in Kabul, to travel. Turkey, Turkmenistan and Qatar have all offered to host such an office, Afghan and western officials in Kabul have told the Guardian. Senior Afghan officials in Kabul also said that contacts with the Taliban leadership could now be described as “systematic” and a “significant advance” on earlier “disorganised” discussions. The talks involve an envoy travelling between Kabul and Pakistan on a regular basis relaying proposals and counterproposals, said the minister, who has direct knowledge of the “peace process” as it is known in the Afghan capital. The meetings come at a time of intensifying effort to find a negotiated solution to the 10-year-old conflict in Afghanistan as western governments prepare to withdraw troops. It was recently disclosed that US officials and a Taliban representative have held three meetings in the last two months, two in Qatar and one in Germany. In another important development, representatives of the Haqqani network, one of the most effective and intractable of the insurgent factions, visited Kabul “very recently”, the officials told the Guardian. The Haqqani network, named after its leader Jalaluddin Haqqani, is widely believed to have a relationship with the ISI, Pakistan’s main military intelligence service. In the last six years only 15 names have been removed from the sanctions list. A key shift has been in Washington where there is now almost unanimous support for the delisting of dozens of individuals. Delisting requires the assent of the five permanent members of the UN security council. Russia has made clear that it currently opposes any such move and may block any mass lifting of sanctions. France supports the move while China appears ambivalent. A request for the delisting of 47 individuals was supposed to be submitted by Kabul to the UN sanctions committee before a key meeting on 16 June. However, the necessary documentation for only 18 individuals was assembled in time by Afghan officials. Further opportunities to remove individuals will come later in the year. Britain and America are also keen to scrap entirely or split the sanctions list to distinguish between al-Qaida and the Taliban. However, the proposed lifting of UN sanctions has not been met with universal approval in Afghanistan. “If there is a deal with the Taliban and people like him [Qalamuddin] come back to power it will all go back to being like before and we will lose all our freedoms,” said Monisa, a 24-year-old female NGO worker in Kabul. Earlier this week Qalamuddin told the Guardian the restrictions weighed on him “as a human being” and that he has “rights like anyone else”. Active Taliban are unlikely to be among those removed from the sanctions list, officials told the Guardian. “Don’t expect to see Mullah Omar [the Taliban overall leader] among them,” one said. Taliban Afghanistan United Nations US foreign policy Foreign policy Jason Burke guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …China has rejected the notion that it was involved in a phishing campaign that hacked into the Gmail accounts of US government officials and Chinese activists, the BBC and the Telegraph report today. Google yesterday claimed the campaign originated in Jinan , although it did not directly blame the Chinese government….
Continue reading …As Day 6 of Weiner-gate begins, no one seems able to stop talking about the is-it-or-isn’t-it crotch shot—including Anthony Weiner. After telling Luke Russert he was lacking “certitude” about whether it was, in fact, him in the photo, he kept talking. And he doesn’t seem to be doing himself…
Continue reading …The deadly outbreak of E. coli that has killed 18 in Europe so far is a new, never-before-seen strain of the bacteria, the World Health Organization said today. It looks to be a mutant strain formed by two different types of E. coli bacteria, which could be why the outbreak…
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Peter Bennett condemned for racist, sexist language as QC upholds claim over firm’s misuse of public funds The head of human resources at Network Rail, who was condemned by an independent inquiry for a long running record of bullying and using sexist and racist language, has escaped disciplinary action and will retire on a generous, publicly-funded pension. Former staff who say they were pushed out of Network Rail by Peter Bennett are particularly angered by the internal email from the company’s chief executive, David Higgins, announcing Bennett’s departure, which praises his “professional approach”. The email said Bennett, who earns an estimated £350,000 a year in salary and benefits, would remain in his post before taking early retirement later this year. It was sent four days before Antony White QC, appointed by Network Rail to investigate allegations of impropriety within the company, expressed his amazement at Bennett’s behaviour and that there was no record of his ever being disciplined. White, from Matrix Chambers, wrote in his report: “I find it little short of astonishing that the director of human resources of a major national company described a senior female employee in his department who was complaining of sex discrimination as ‘a silly cow’ and a black female employee who had recently succeeded in a race discrimination case … as a ‘silly fucking black bitch.’” It was “equally astonishing”, White said, that Bennett wrote in a formal employment tribunal document that a sexually suggestive comment towards a junior female colleague “would not have been unwanted”. White’s 143-page report dismissed as unfounded a series of claims by the TSSA trade union that Network Rail’s former chief executive, Iain Coucher, and other senior staff abused their positions for financial gain. When White looked into separate allegations that the company, which received £3.7bn from the Department for Transport (DfT) last year, misused public funds by repeatedly paying off staff to avoid embarrassing industrial tribunals, he documented a wealth of damning evidence about Bennett’s style, none of which appears to be disputed by Network Rail. An outside consultants’ study in 2007 found Bennett’s methods to be “universally” disliked by staff, due to his abrasive style and “wholly inappropriate” language. White himself heard evidence about Bennett’s “bullying and blatant sexist language and conduct”, including the routine use of offensive comments and jokes and inappropriate physical advances to female colleagues. Bennett had no comment about the report or the allegations. Such claims have surfaced before, with Network Rail repeatedly saying Bennett had “no case to answer”. White discovered an internal investigation confirmed many of the allegations yet concluded they did not amount to serious misconduct. Network Rail said Bennett had been verbally warned about his behaviour, but White said he could find no record of this. He said: “I find it impossible to avoid the conclusion that Network Rail simply failed to take Mr Bennett’s admitted and established misconduct seriously.” The one specific claim about the abuse of public funds upheld by the QC relates to Victoria Lydford, a high-flying senior HR manager who took the company to an industrial tribunal after alleging Bennett unfairly sidelined her when she returned from maternity leave. The investigation uncovered legal advice to Network Rail urging it to settle Lydford’s claim before the hearing as she would almost certainly win her case and the publicity would cause “considerable collateral damage”. The eventual payout, protected by a confidentiality clause but reportedly close to £500,000, constituted a misuse of public money, the QC found. A former Network Rail staff member, who asked not to be named, said Bennett was known throughout the organisation as a “school bully” with extremely worrying attitudes to women: “He was a vulture. In our old headquarters, a lot of female staff would try very hard to get a position as far away as they could from where Peter sat. But it wasn’t just women. If you were a man and he found you wouldn’t stand up to him, Bennett would bully you mercilessly.” A Network Rail spokesman said the company had no comment to make beyond last week’s statement which welcomed White’s report and said the company was “profoundly different today in terms of both its leadership tone and standards of acceptable behaviour”. The company’s new senior management team has spoken previously of wanting to change a prevailing “militaristic” culture inside Network Rail. A DfT spokesman said the report “highlighted some serious issues”. He added: “We welcome the action Network Rail has taken to ensure there is no repeat of these failings, and we hope this report draws a line under the allegations.” Network Rail Travel & leisure Transport Discrimination at work Work & careers Equality Peter Walker guardian.co.uk
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No plans to officially mark president’s 80th birthday amid growing concern over Cuba’s ageing leadership Raúl Castro turns 80 on Friday but Cuba is playing down the president’s birthday amid concern over the island’s ageing leadership. No official celebrations have been announced in the apparent hope of letting the event slide by, rather than refocus attention on the elderly figures who run the government and Communist party. The deputy president, José Ramón Machado Ventura, is 80 and Fidel Castro, who is retired but retains influence, is 84, meaning the three most important political figures are octogenarians. The government’s official No 3, vice-president Ramiro Valdés, 79, will soon join the club. At a Communist party congress in April Raúl Castro called the absence of younger leaders “really embarrassing” and lamented that fresh talent had not been groomed to take over. He promised to “rejuvenate” senior positions and said the party would consider limiting leaders, including himself, to a maximum of two five-year terms. But instead of promoting new faces at the congress Castro chose Machado and Valdés as his deputies. The appointments, said analysts, betrayed a failure of nerve as Cuba struggles to liberalise a moribund, centrally planned economy. “Their challenge is to bring in a younger generation but instead Raúl picked someone even older than him as his chief deputy,” Ann Louise Bardach, a Cuba expert and author of Without Fidel, told Associated Press . “It just shows how unconfident they are. They missed an opportunity.” The band of young guerrillas that seized power in 1959 has remained largely hermetic in power and has looked with suspicion on rising newcomers. In 2009 mooted successors such as Carlos Lage, a then 57-year-old vice-president, and Felipe Pérez Roque, the 43-year-old foreign minister, were respectively demoted and fired . Raúl is now a month older than Fidel was when a serious intestinal illness forced the latter to step down in 2006 . “And [Fidel] was always much healthier than Raúl as a young man … and now Raúl is 80,” said Bardach. Nevertheless the president appears in good shape. This week he accompanied Brazil’s former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, on a tour of Cuba and joked with reporters about his birthday. “How do I look?” he asked. “How many old men of 60 are there who aren’t in my shape?” Cuba Fidel Castro Rory Carroll guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …No plans to officially mark president’s 80th birthday amid growing concern over Cuba’s ageing leadership Raúl Castro turns 80 on Friday but Cuba is playing down the president’s birthday amid concern over the island’s ageing leadership. No official celebrations have been announced in the apparent hope of letting the event slide by, rather than refocus attention on the elderly figures who run the government and Communist party. The deputy president, José Ramón Machado Ventura, is 80 and Fidel Castro, who is retired but retains influence, is 84, meaning the three most important political figures are octogenarians. The government’s official No 3, vice-president Ramiro Valdés, 79, will soon join the club. At a Communist party congress in April Raúl Castro called the absence of younger leaders “really embarrassing” and lamented that fresh talent had not been groomed to take over. He promised to “rejuvenate” senior positions and said the party would consider limiting leaders, including himself, to a maximum of two five-year terms. But instead of promoting new faces at the congress Castro chose Machado and Valdés as his deputies. The appointments, said analysts, betrayed a failure of nerve as Cuba struggles to liberalise a moribund, centrally planned economy. “Their challenge is to bring in a younger generation but instead Raúl picked someone even older than him as his chief deputy,” Ann Louise Bardach, a Cuba expert and author of Without Fidel, told Associated Press . “It just shows how unconfident they are. They missed an opportunity.” The band of young guerrillas that seized power in 1959 has remained largely hermetic in power and has looked with suspicion on rising newcomers. In 2009 mooted successors such as Carlos Lage, a then 57-year-old vice-president, and Felipe Pérez Roque, the 43-year-old foreign minister, were respectively demoted and fired . Raúl is now a month older than Fidel was when a serious intestinal illness forced the latter to step down in 2006 . “And [Fidel] was always much healthier than Raúl as a young man … and now Raúl is 80,” said Bardach. Nevertheless the president appears in good shape. This week he accompanied Brazil’s former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, on a tour of Cuba and joked with reporters about his birthday. “How do I look?” he asked. “How many old men of 60 are there who aren’t in my shape?” Cuba Fidel Castro Rory Carroll guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Britain asks Iran to investigate death of women’s rights activist Haleh Sahabi
June 2, 2011 No Comment
Daughter of veteran dissident leader died from a heart attack after scuffles with security forces at her father’s funeral Britain has called on Iran to launch an immediate investigation into the death of Haleh Sahabi, the daughter of a veteran Iranian dissident who died during scuffles with security forces at her father’s funeral on Wednesday. Sahabi was leading the procession at the ceremony by holding a picture of her father, Ezatollah Sahab. She died from a heart attack after reportedly being attacked by an agent and falling down. The Foreign Office (FCO) has joined the US state department and human rights organisations in urging Iran to carefully look into the case. “We call for an immediate and transparent investigation into her death and call on the Iranian authorities to allow her family and friends to mourn her father and her deaths without interference,” an FCO spokesperson said. Her funeral was held within hours of her death by authorities fearing popular protest. She was reportedly buried late at night in contrast to Islamic customs. Her relatives said her body was “confiscated” and her family were deprived of performing normal religious rituals. Iran’s opposition has blamed a security agent for Sahabi’s death, but authorities said she was already suffering from “high blood pressure and blood sugar”. “We are particularly disturbed by reports that her death followed heavy-handed action by the Iranian security forces at the funeral and by reports that the Iranian authorities rushed her burial that night with a limited traditional funeral,” an official spokesperson said. Haleh Sahabi, a women’s rights activist, was serving a two-year prison sentence but was allowed out temporarily to attend the funeral of her father, a highly respected dissident who was jailed before and after the 1979 Islamic revolution and spent a total of 15 years in prison. He headed an alliance of politicians whose activities came under scrutiny in recent years especially after the disputed presidential election in 2009 which gave Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term in the office. Iran Middle East Saeed Kamali Dehghan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Britain asks Iran to investigate death of women’s rights activist Haleh Sahabi
June 2, 2011 No Comment
Daughter of veteran dissident leader died from a heart attack after scuffles with security forces at her father’s funeral Britain has called on Iran to launch an immediate investigation into the death of Haleh Sahabi, the daughter of a veteran Iranian dissident who died during scuffles with security forces at her father’s funeral on Wednesday. Sahabi was leading the procession at the ceremony by holding a picture of her father, Ezatollah Sahab. She died from a heart attack after reportedly being attacked by an agent and falling down. The Foreign Office (FCO) has joined the US state department and human rights organisations in urging Iran to carefully look into the case. “We call for an immediate and transparent investigation into her death and call on the Iranian authorities to allow her family and friends to mourn her father and her deaths without interference,” an FCO spokesperson said. Her funeral was held within hours of her death by authorities fearing popular protest. She was reportedly buried late at night in contrast to Islamic customs. Her relatives said her body was “confiscated” and her family were deprived of performing normal religious rituals. Iran’s opposition has blamed a security agent for Sahabi’s death, but authorities said she was already suffering from “high blood pressure and blood sugar”. “We are particularly disturbed by reports that her death followed heavy-handed action by the Iranian security forces at the funeral and by reports that the Iranian authorities rushed her burial that night with a limited traditional funeral,” an official spokesperson said. Haleh Sahabi, a women’s rights activist, was serving a two-year prison sentence but was allowed out temporarily to attend the funeral of her father, a highly respected dissident who was jailed before and after the 1979 Islamic revolution and spent a total of 15 years in prison. He headed an alliance of politicians whose activities came under scrutiny in recent years especially after the disputed presidential election in 2009 which gave Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term in the office. Iran Middle East Saeed Kamali Dehghan guardian.co.uk
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