Tim Geithner is about to enact some “extraordinary measures” in anticipation of Congress’ failure to boost the debt ceiling by May 16, he wrote in a pointed open letter to John Boehner yesterday. These measures, coupled with “stronger than expected tax receipts” will allow him to stay afloat until Aug….
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Syrian troops claim coastal city from demonstrators challenging rule of President Bashar al-Assad Syrian security forces swept into the coastal city of Banias on Tuesday, a protest leader said, taking control of another urban centre from demonstrators challenging the authoritarian rule of President Bashar al-Assad. “They moved into the main market area. The army has sealed the northern entrance and security forces [sealed] the south,” Anas al-Shughri told Reuters. “They armed Alawite villages in the hills overlooking Banias and we are now facing militias from the east,” he said. Activists said arrests continued across Syria on Tuesday. Speaking from Egypt, Ammar Qurabi, head of the National Organisation of Human Rights in Syria, said the latest wave of detentions had involved more than 1,000 people. Assad, a member of the minority Alawite sect whose family has ruled majority Sunni Syria for 41 years, is pursuing a violent crackdown on six weeks of protests which began with demands for greater freedoms and now seek his overthrow. Germany and Britain said they were seekthe US announced sanctions last week – and France said Assad should be among the targets for sanctions. “The Syrian government’s continuing brutal actions leave the European Union no choice but to press firmly ahead with targeted sanctions against the regime,” said Werner Hoyer, Germany’s deputy foreign minister. Last week Assad sent tanks and soldiers into the southern city of Deraa, where the uprising broke out on 18 March. Syrian rights groups say more than 560 civilians have been killed by security forces since the start of the unrest. International condemnation of the crackdown has intensified since the Deraa assault, which revived memories of the 1982 repression of an armed Islamist uprising in the city of Hama by Assad’s father, President Hafez al-Assad. “Syria should not go through another massacre like Hama. We have reminded them of this,” Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has sent envoys to Damascus and spoken to Assad several times during the unrest, told Turkey’s A-TV channel. Israel, which has relied on Assad and his father to keep their front line quiet for nearly 40 years – despite Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights and Syria’s support for militants opposed to Israel – said Assad was losing his grip. “I believe Assad is approaching the moment in which he will lose his authority. The growing brutality is pushing him into a corner,” said Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister. “The more people are killed, the less chance Assad has to come out of it.” The International Crisis Group NGO said: “The situation in Syria is quickly going beyond the point of no return. By denouncing all forms of protest as sedition, and dealing with them through escalating violence, the regime is closing the door on any possible honourable exit to a deepening national crisis.” In Banias, a Mediterranean coast city that has witnessed some of the most persistent protests, Shughri said armed plainclothes security men had been deployed in the market street and were making arrests. Authorities have described mostly Sunni Banias as a “centre of Salafist terrorism”. Shughri denied residents had weapons and said youths carrying sticks were manning roadblocks, facing off against armed forces who had spread out in the area. Banias city centre has been under the control of demonstrators since, according to residents, Assad loyalists known as “al-shabbiha” opened fire on 10 April after a protest demanding the “overthrow of the regime”. Six civilians were killed, according to residents and human rights campaigners. Authorities said at the time an armed group had ambushed a patrol near Banias, killing nine soldiers. Foreign media are restricted from reporting in Syria, but residents of the southern city of Deraa told Reuters that security forces were still making arrests. “They are still dragging anyone who is less than 40 years of age to the Deraa stadium where they have held hundreds, including several women, in the last week without shelter,” said Abu Muhammad, a resident. Officials say the army stormed Deraa in response to appeals from residents, and blame the violence on armed Islamist groups. They say most of those killed have been police and soldiers. The Red Cross called on Syria to grant immediate safe access to people wounded and those being detained by the authorities. Wissam Tarif, of the human rights organisation Insan, said the Damascus suburbs of Zabadani and Madaya had been without communication for five days. “Military and security men have been raiding houses since early on Monday,” he said. The interior ministry offered an amnesty to protesters who surrender to security forces, saying people who carried guns, attacked security forces or “spread lies” would be spared punishment if they hand themselves over by 15 May. It also urged them to supply information about “saboteurs, terrorists and weapons caches”. Syria Bashar Al-Assad Israel Germany European Union guardian.co.uk
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Debate within Obama administration over whether to speed up pullout of US troops, set to start this summer The killing of Osama bin Laden has opened up divisions inside Barack Obama’s administration over whether the withdrawal of US troops in Afghanistan, which is scheduled to begin this summer, should be bigger and faster than planned. Politicians, soldiers and analysts from the US to Afghanistan have debated whether the removal of the al-Qaida leader will shorten the war and open the way for reconciliation with the Taliban. The Pentagon, braced for a Taliban onslaught in the spring, wants only a token cut of about 2,000 of the 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan. But members of Congress called for significant cuts given that Bin Laden had been the reason for going into Afghanistan, a view shared by some in the White House who are thinking about Obama’s re-election chances next year. Obama is due to announce in July the scale of the troop drawdown. Bin Laden’s death is also having a continuing impact on US-Pakistan relations and members of Congress called publicly for the billions of dollars in US aid to Pakistan to be suspended. The CIA director, Leon Panetta, contributed to the deteriorating relationship between the two countries when he told Time magazine that Pakistan could not be trusted with news of the mission. “It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardise the mission. They might alert the targets,” Panetta said. The White House spokesman, Jay Carney, when asked about the US relationship with Pakistan, opted for a diplomatic approach. “It is a complicated but important relationship,” he said. Carney said there was a debate within the White House over whether to release pictures of Bin Laden’s body. He said there were sensitivities attached to such an action, such as inflaming opinion in the Islamic world. He described the pictures of Bin Laden’s face, with a bullet hole, as “gruesome”. Seeking to clarify some of the conflicting statements made by the Obama administration over the last 48 hours about the mission, Carney said Bin Laden had not been armed when shot and Bin Laden’s wife had not been killed, only injured. US and British sources said the killing introduced a major new element to the debate about easing western involvement in Afghanistan. Barney Frank, a Democratic congressman who was until this year chairman of the House finance committee, told the ThinkProgress website: “We went there to get Osama bin Laden. And we have now gotten Osama bin Laden. So yes, I think this does strengthen the case.” He added: “We just killed Osama bin Laden, and I think that takes a lot of the pressure away – a lot of the punch away from the argument that ‘Ooh, it will look like we walked away’.” Richard Lugar, the most senior Republican on the Senate foreign affairs committee, speaking at a hearing on Afghanistan, referred to the $100bn (£61bn) the US planned to spend in Afghanistan next year. “It is exceedingly difficult to conclude that our vast expenditures in Afghanistan represent a rational allocation of our military and financial assets,” he said. Larry Sabato, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia, predicted: “One of the unintended consequences of Bin Laden’s death will be American soldiers coming back faster.Listen to the man in the street. I can’t count the number of times I have heard people say ‘We can get out off Afghanistan faster’. “People think the peace dividend is getting out of Afghanistan. By the summer, it will be unavoidable. We will have to get out faster.” The Pentagon, resisting major troop withdrawals, is arguing that big gains made by the US and its allies in Afghanistan over the winter would be put at risk if there was a significant cut in troops. A Taliban commander, among those who escaped from Kandahar prison last week, agreed with the Pentagon assessment, predicting Bin Laden’s death would not shorten the war. He told the Guardian: “The Afghans are fighting the foreigners, so killing Bin Laden won’t affect anything. The fighting will not stop. We will be just as strong.” A western source in Kabul suggested the short-term impact of the killing could be to fuel the fighting: “They have killed the person of Bin Laden but not the reason why he exists and what he is for. They have destroyed his body, not his cause. “In fact, they have created another martyr without addressing the fundamental reason why Osama and the movement behind him exists. America is still occupying two Muslim countries and bombarding another.” Michael Semple, who has held extensive talks with the Taliban as a European representative in Kabul and still maintains contacts, said the removal of Bin Laden might open the way for reconciliation with the Taliban. “There is an interesting conversation going on now. One side says this shows that the Americans will be preparing to leave and we can ride it out. There is another pro-talks and pragmatic point of view that this could be helpful for a settlement, as it gets Osama off the agenda and makes the al-Qaida issue much easier to deal with,” Semple said. In western eyes, the killing of Bin Laden makes it easier to cut the tie because it ends the personal bond between him and the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar. But that only becomes relevant if serious peace talks start. David Cameron joined the US in questioning Pakistan on how Bin Laden had a “support network” there. The prime minister told MPs: “The fact that Bin Laden was living in a large house in a populated area suggests that he must have had a support network in Pakistan. We don’t currently know the extent of that network, so it is right that we ask searching questions about it. And we will.” Adding to Pakistan’s embarrassment, it has emerged that its intelligence service had raided the compound where Bin Laden was found in 2003 while it was under construction. The intelligence agents had been looking for an al-Qaida suspect, raising further questions why they failed to put the compound under surveillance in later years. Cameron, who last year accused Pakistan of looking “both ways” on terrorism, declined to explain which elements in Pakistan may have assisted Bin Laden. The prime minister warned that the killing could lead to a “lone wolf” attack. He said: “Clearly there is a risk that al-Qaida and its affiliates in places like Yemen and the Maghreb will want to demonstrate they are able to operate effectively. And, of course, there is always the risk of a radicalised individual acting alone, a so-called lone-wolf attack. So we must be more vigilant than ever– and we must maintain that vigilance for some time to come.” Osama bin Laden United States Obama administration Afghanistan Pakistan US military US politics Barack Obama Ewen MacAskill Julian Borger Nicholas Watt Jon Boone guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Last year, there was a light-up dress ; in 2009, Madonna wore a kooky hat . From the looks of it, this year’s Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala was not quite as crazy, but there were definitely some interesting looks. PopEater calls last night’s fete “the year’s biggest fashion event….
Continue reading …McDonald’s national hiring binge is done, and the chain ended up handing out 24% more jobs than the 50,000 it said it would. And those 62,000 new employees must be la creme de la creme, because they were chosen from a field of more than 1 million applicants,…
Continue reading …The scene is shaping up to be a gruesome one: As reported earlier, Osama bin Laden was shot above his left eye, but a US official adds that the bullet blew away part of his skull, and that a second bullet hit him in the chest, reports CBS News . The…
Continue reading …“We got him!” crowed Stephen Colbert last night as he led his audience in a “USA! USA!” chant. “I cannot put this any plainer, but golly gee willikers! By which I mean suck my giant American balls, al-Qaeda,” he said. “I am as giddy as a schoolgirl who just shot…
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Madrid court claims government-linked groups paid $3.3m ransom to free Alakrana and its 36 crew members A Spanish court has sentenced two Somalis to 439 years in jail each for the 2009 hijacking of a Spanish fishing boat in the Indian Ocean, while claiming government-linked bodies paid a ransom to secure the release of the vessel and its crew. But Spain’s foreign minister, Trinidad Jiménez, quickly contradicted the court and denied the government had paid to secure the release of the Alakrana. The tuna fishing boat with a 36-member crew was seized off Somalia and held for 47 days. An alleged $3.3m ransom was paid. Spain says it does not pay ransom, but in the Alakrana case, the government said on the day of the release it did what it had to do. It did not elaborate. Spanish commandos captured two men as they sailed away from the boat during the hijacking drama and they were brought to Madrid for trial. The National Court identified them as Cabdiweli Cabdullahi and Raageggesey Hassan Aji. Jiménez told reporters that “the government did not pay ransom in the Alakrana case” and insisted this is what officials had said all along. However, the 50-page court verdict says the trial “had shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was not the ship’s owner but public organisations linked to the government which paid for the release of the crew and the ship”. Piracy at sea Somalia Spain Europe guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …It wasn’t long after 9/11 when a detainee in one of the CIA’s secret prisons first mentioned the name Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. That name—plus years of intelligence work—would eventually lead America to Osama bin Laden, the AP reports. The first break came in 2004, when an operative captured…
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Decision not to prosecute PC Simon Harwood under review after inquest rules that Tomlinson was unlawfully killed The police officer who attacked Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests in London in 2009 could be prosecuted for manslaughter after an inquest jury ruled that the newspaper seller was unlawfully killed. Returning their verdict after three hours of deliberation, jurors said Tomlinson died of internal bleeding in the abdomen after being struck with a baton and pushed to the ground by a police officer. For legal reasons, the verdict did not name the officer, Metropolitan police constable Simon Harwood. However, the jury said that “excessive and unreasonable” force was used when he struck the newspaper vendor who “posed no threat”. The director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, immediately said he would “review” his decision last July not year not to prosecute Harwood. There were shouts of “yes” from Tomlinson’s family when the jury confirmed their belief that the 47-year-old father of nine was unlawfully killed. The family’s lawyer, Jules Carey, said : “Today’s decision is a huge relief to Mr Tomlinson’s family. To many, today’s verdict will seem like a statement of the blindingly obvious. However, this fails to take account of the significant and many obstacles faced by the family over the last two years to get to this decision.” Police initially denied Tomlinson had contact with police officers before his death on 1 April 2009. The Independent Police Complaints Commission only launched a criminal inquiry a week later, after the Guardian released video footage showing Tomlinson being struck from behind by Harwood near the Royal Exchange Buildings. The footage was played repeatedly during the five-week hearing at the International Dispute Resolution Centre in Fleet Street, London. Jurors were given two divergent explanations of his death. The first pathologist to conduct a postmortem examination on Tomlinson, Dr Freddy Patel, said he died of a heart attack as a result of coronary heart disease. He was contradicted by three other pathologists who examined the body, all of whom found he died of internal bleeding in the abdomen. Starmer said last July that complications with the medical evidence led him to believe prosecutors would be unlikely to prove a cause of death. His decision, which was backed by the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, prompted widespread anger and questions in parliament. The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, said he could understand the “outrage” over the decision not to prosecute Harwood. Jurors at the inquest were told they could only decide Tomlinson was unlawfully killed if they were convinced beyond reasonable doubt, the same burden of proof which would apply in a criminal trial. The Crown Prosecution Service will now also consider new medical evidence given to the inquest by Professor Kevin Channer, a heart expert who contradicted the theory that Tomlinson died of a heart attack. He said defibrillator readings of Tomlinson’s heart activity obtained moments after his collapse were “entirely inconsistent” with Patel’s explanation of his death. Tomlinson had been trying to walk home from work through the demonstrations near the Bank of England on the evening he died. An alcoholic, he had been drinking heavily and was looking vacant and confused as he was repeatedly turned away from police cordons. At 7.20pm, he stumbled on to Royal Exchange Buildings, a passage police had been ordered to clear. Tomlinson had his hands in his pockets and was walking away from police when he was struck with a baton and pushed from behind by Harwood. During three days of evidence at the inquest, Harwood, 43, told jurors that he believed at the time that Tomlinson was obstructing police and he believed his actions were proportionate. Harwood will face a Metropolitan police gross misconduct hearing at which he stands accused of “inadvertently causing or contributing to” Tomlinson’s death. If found guilty by the disciplinary panel, Harwood, who is currently suspended on full pay, would almost certainly be sacked. The verdict brings to an end a two-year wait for Tomlinson’s family, who maintain police attempted to cover up officers’ involvement in his death. Ian Tomlinson Metropolitan police Police London G20 Protest Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk
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