Nigeria accepts Israeli help in search for kidnapped school girls
MEMO | May 12, 2014
Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan has accepted an Israeli offer to help search for 223 kidnapped school girls by the extremist Boko Haram group, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced yesterday.
Netanyahu is reported to have told the Nigerian president: “Israel expresses deep shock at the crime against the girls. We are ready to help in finding the girls and fighting the cruel terrorism inflicted on you.”
The statement gave no further details on the nature of assistance provided.
A foreign ministry spokesman said he does not know of any cooperation efforts in the present time.
Israel and Nigeria have a defence agreement whereby Israel supplied Nigeria with drones in September and joined other countries to advise Kenya to confront Islamic militants who attacked a trading centre in Nairobi.
In a statement, the Nigerian president’s office said: “President Jonathan has accepted an Israeli offer by Prime Minister Netanyahu to send a team of Israeli counter-terrorism experts to contribute to the ongoing search operations. Nigeria would be pleased to have Israel’s globally acknowledged anti-terrorism expertise deployed to support its ongoing operations.”
A total of 276 girls were abducted by Boko Haram on April 14 from the northeast of the country, which has a sizeable Christian community. Some 223 are still missing.
~~~
See also:
- ‘Boko Haram’ doesn’t really mean ‘Western education is a sin’
- How Nigerian police also detained women and children as weapon of war
Israel jails 20% of Palestinian children in solitary confinement: monitor
Al-Akhbar | May 12, 2014
Israel is placing increasing numbers of arrested Palestinian children in solitary confinement, an international children’s rights group said in a report issued Monday.
The report came just months after Israel’s army, under international pressure to introduce reforms, agreed to test alternative treatment for children it detains in the West Bank.
In more than one in five cases recorded by Defense for Children International (DCI) in 2013, children detained for questioning by the army reported “undergoing solitary confinement,” it said in a statement.
This was a two-percent rise on 2012 figures, it added.
“Use of isolation against Palestinian children as an interrogation tool is a growing trend,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish of DCI in the occupied Palestinian territories.
“This is a violation of children’s rights and the international community must demand justice and accountability,” he said.
“Globally, children and juvenile offenders are often held in isolation either as a disciplinary measure or to separate them from adult populations,” DCI said.
“The use of solitary confinement by Israeli authorities does not appear to be related to any disciplinary, protective, or medical rationale.”
DCI’s research included 98 sworn affidavits from Palestinian children aged 12 to 17.
In October, the UN children’s fund (UNICEF) said Israel had agreed to test alternative treatment for Palestinian children arrested in the West Bank.
These included issuing summons instead of arresting children at their homes in violent, overnight raids that often lead into street battles with locals who confront the occupation forces.
But UNICEF said that “ongoing” violations by the army were rife and included physical violence and verbal abuse.
Over the past decade, Israeli forces have arrested, interrogated and prosecuted around 7,000 children between 12 and 17, mostly boys, UNICEF found, noting the rate was equivalent to “an average of two children each day.”
(AFP, Al-Akhbar)
Syria says France, Germany to bar expats from voting
Al-Akhbar | May 12, 2014
The foreign ministry said Monday that France and Germany intend to prevent Syrians living in their countries from voting in Syria’s presidential election, expected to return President Bashar al-Assad to power.
Germany and France are “preventing Syrians living in their territory from voting,” the foreign ministry said.
“France… is carrying out a hostile press campaign” against next month’s election, it said in a statement carried by state news agency SANA.
“It has officially informed our embassy in Paris of its opposition to the holding of the vote on French territory, including the Syrian embassy.”
French foreign ministry spokesman Romain Nadal implicitly confirmed the decision.
“The organization of foreign elections on French soil is covered by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of April 24, 1963,” he told AFP.
“As we are authorized by this convention, French authorities have the right to oppose the holding of this election anywhere on French territory.”
He reiterated France’s demand for a “political solution” to conflict in Syria as well as a transition process and Assad’s departure from office.
“Bashar al-Assad, who is responsible for the death of 150,000 people, cannot represent the future of the Syrian people,” Nadal said.
The foreign ministry said Germany had “joined the countries trying to block the presidential elections in Syria.”
It accused Berlin of “supporting, funding and arming terrorist groups in a bid to destroy Syria,” referring to the anti-Assad opposition.
“It is not surprising that these countries have taken the decision to prevent Syrian citizens living in their territory from exercising their constitutional right to vote in the embassies of their country,” the ministry added.
Damascus has set the presidential election for June 3, with expatriate voting to take place on May 28.
(AFP)
Syrian rebels could swap 1,500 families for prisoners, food
Al-Akhbar | May 12, 2014
Syrian rebels have agreed to free 1,500 families in exchange for food and the release of jailed opponents of President Bashar al-Assad, a newspaper close to his government said Monday.
The reported agreement involves the release of families held by rebels in Adra, a pro-government town northeast of Damascus controlled by rebels and under siege by army troops.
Under the deal, food supplies would be allowed into Adra, and an unspecified number of people held in government jails would be set free, in exchange for the release of the 1,500 families held in the town, said Al-Watan.
In a first phase and as a gesture of goodwill, “a family of eight people would be released in exchange for food for civilians in Adra,” said the newspaper.
Afterwards, “the exchange would involve the release of one family held hostage in Adra per each detainee released” from government jails, it reported.
While the edges of Adra are under government control, the interior of the town is in rebel hands.
It is strategically located on the northeastern entrance to Damascus, and has in the past been used as a launching pad for attacks on the edges of the capital.
When the rebels took Adra in mid-December, they prevented thousands of people — many of them from Syria’s Alawi and Christian minorities — from leaving.
An activist in Adra told AFP via the Internet he could not confirm whether any deal was in the making, but he said the humanitarian situation for people in the town was dire.
“A kilo of rice is sold here at $8. Today, a little child died as a result of the food shortages,” said Abul Baraa.
The deal reported by Al-Watan was being discussed with religious leaders in Douma, a rebel bastion near Adra.
National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar told AFP: “I don’t want to discuss this question with the press before the talks are completed.”
At the end of December, at the height of the fighting around Adra, the government said it had evacuated more than 5,000 residents who had been blocked from leaving by rebels, according to state news agency SANA.
The rebels control Adra’s workers’ city, once home to workers of all religious groups who traveled to the Damascus outskirts for work. The army is still in control of the rest of Adra.
(AFP, Al-Akhbar)
France refuses to block Mistral warship deal with Russia
RT | May 12, 2014
The French government has said that it will go ahead with 1.2 billion euro ($1.6 billion) contract to supply Russia with two Mistral helicopter carriers because cancelling the deal would harm Paris more than Moscow.
In the wake of the crisis in Ukraine, the United States had been pressing France as well as Britain and Germany to take a tougher line against Russia and cancel the Mistral contract.
But France refuses to link the helicopter carrier deal to the US/EU debate over tougher sanctions against Russia.
A French government official travelling with President Francoise Hollande in Azerbaijan Sunday, who asked not be named, told reporters that the contract was too big to cancel and that if France didn’t fulfill the order it would be hit with penalties.
“The Mistrals are not part of the third level of sanctions. They will be delivered. The contract has been paid and there would be financial penalties for not delivering it.
“It would be France that is penalized. It’s too easy to say France has to give up on the sale of the ships. We have done our part,” the official said.
President Hollande also said earlier on Saturday that the contract will go ahead.
“This contract was signed in 2011, it will be carried out. For the moment it is not in question,” President Hollande said on Saturday during a visit to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s electoral district.
The Russian defense ministry warned Paris in March that it would have to repay the cost of the contract plus additional penalties if it cancelled the deal.
EU foreign ministers met in Brussels Monday and expanded their sanctions over Russia’s stance on the Ukrainian crisis, adding two Crimean companies and 13 people to the bloc’s blacklist, EU diplomats said.
They have threatened a further widening of sanction if the Ukrainian presidential elections do not go ahead on May 25.
US Secretary of State Victoria Nuland expressed concern over the deal on May 8 after US lawmakers had demanded more pressure be put on France to stop the contract.
“We have regularly and consistently expressed our concerns about this sale, even before we had the latest Russian actions, and we will continue to do so,” Nuland told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
US Secretary of State John Kerry is due to meet the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius in Washington Tuesday and President Barak Obama is expected to raise the issue during a visit to France next month to commemorate the D-Day Normandy landings.
US officials have suggested France could sell the ships to another buyer or sell them without the advanced technology, although it is not at all clear at this late stage who the other buyer could be.
The French deal was Moscow’s first foreign arms purchase since the end of the Cold War and was hailed by then President Nicholas Sarkozy has an important step forward in French-Russian relations. The contract has created some 1,000 jobs in French shipyards.
The first of the two ships, the Vladivostok, is due to be delivered by November this year and the second, called Sevastopol, will arrive in St Petersburg for further fitting out with Russian weapons systems in November 2015 and will join the Pacific fleet in the second half of 2016.
The Mistral can carry up to 16 attack helicopters such as Russia’s Kamov Ka-50/52, more than 40 tanks or 70 motor vehicles and up to 700 troops. The ships for Russia have been modified from the version used by the French navy to operate in northern altitudes and ice covered seas.
The Russian navy will fit the ships with air defense systems and rapid fire artillery guns to allow them to go on combat missions with fewer escort vessels.
Donetsk People’s Republic asks Moscow to consider its accession with Russia
RT | May 12, 2014
Donetsk People’s Republic has proclaimed itself a sovereign state and has asked Moscow to consider its accession with Russia, the Republic’s council said.
“We, the people of Donetsk, based on results of the May 11 referendum and the declaration of sovereignty of the Donetsk People’s Republic, declare that from now on DPR is now a sovereign state,” Republic Co-Chairman Denis Pushilin said.
Earlier on Monday the results of referendums were announced in Donetsk and Lugansk Regions, showing the majority of voters support self-rule, amid an intensified military operation by Kiev which resulted in several deaths.
Almost 90 percent of voters in Donetsk Region have endorsed political independence from Kiev, the head of the Central Election Commission of the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’, Roman Lyagin, announced.
“Counting the ballots proved to be surprisingly easy – the number of people who said ‘no’ was relatively small and there appeared to be only a tiny proportion of spoiled ballots, so we managed to carry out counting quite fast. The figures are as follows: 89.07 percent voted ‘for’, 10.19 percent voted ‘against’ and 0.74 percent of ballots were rendered ineligible,” Lyagin told journalists.
In Lugansk Region 96.2 percent of voters supported the region’s self-rule, according to the final figures announced by the local election commission.
DETAILS TO FOLLOW
Referendum results in Donetsk and Lugansk Regions show landslide support for self-rule
RT | May 11, 2014
The results of referendums have been announced in Donetsk and Lugansk Regions, showing the majority of voters support self-rule, amid an intensified military operation by Kiev which resulted in several deaths.
Almost 90 percent of voters in Donetsk Region have endorsed political independence from Kiev, the head of the Central Election Commission of the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’, Roman Lyagin, announced.
“Counting the ballots proved to be surprisingly easy – the number of people who said ‘no’ was relatively small and there appeared to be only a tiny proportion of spoiled ballots, so we managed to carry out counting quite fast. The figures are as follows: 89.07 percent voted ‘for’, 10.19 percent voted ‘against’ and 0.74 percent of ballots were rendered ineligible,” Lyagin told journalists.
In Lugansk Region 96.2 percent of voters supported the region’s self-rule, according to the final figures announced by the local election commission.
Despite fears that amid Kiev’s intensified military crackdown – which killed at least two civilians on referendum day – the turnout will be low, in both of the region it was unexpectedly high. In Donetsk it reached 74.87%, while in Lugansk the central election commission says 75% of eligible voters came to the polling stations.
With such a huge turnout, the referendums have been recognized as valid by both election commissions.
The acting president of Ukraine, Aleksandr Turchinov, has condemned as a “farce” referendums in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
“This propaganda farce won’t have any legal consequences, except for criminal charges for its organizers,” Turchinov said, Interfax reported.
The referendums, according to Turchinov, were inspired by Russia to “totally destabilize the situation in Ukraine, disrupt the presidential election and overthrow the Ukrainian government.”
Calling the regional voting on self-determination illegal, Kiev sent its recently formed paramilitary forces to Donetsk and Lugansk regions on Sunday, in an apparent move to disrupt referendums.
As armored military vehicles blocked passage to polling stations, voting in four towns across Lugansk region was disrupted. In the Donetsk town of Krasnoarmeysk, the National Guard shot at a crowd and killed two civilians who were protesting their attempt to seize a polling station.
The people’s governor of the Donetsk Region, Pavel Gubarev, told journalists on Sunday that Donetsk and Lugansk will emerge as new legal entities as a result of the referendum.
“The referendum for us is about creating a new state paradigm,” he said.
Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, the people’s mayor of Slavyansk, Donetsk Region, where some of the heaviest fighting between Ukrainian troops and self-defense activists took place, said the next step following the referendum would be developing closer ties with Russia.
“Russia is our brotherly nation, [we hope for] full interaction with Russia, including entering the Customs Union,” Ponomaryov said.
One of the organizers of the referendum in Lugansk, Vasily Nikitin, told journalists that the region will appeal to the United Nations to recognize its independence, RIA Novosti reports. Nikitin also said Lugansk was not going to take part in the Ukrainian presidential election on May 25.
Moscow hopes the results of the referendums in eastern Ukraine will instigate dialogue between Kiev and the regions that voted in favor of self-rule, according to the Kremlin’s press-service.
“Moscow respects the will of the people in Donetsk and Lugansk and hopes that the practical realization of the outcome of the referendums will be carried out in a civilized manner, without resorting to violence, through dialogue between representatives of Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk,” the statement reads.
The Kremlin says it welcomes all mediation efforts, including those by the OSCE.
Spokesman for the president, Dmitry Peskov earlier explained that Putin “did not urge, but recommended” that the votes be postponed. However, the spokesman says that “even considering the authority of the Russian president,” it was difficult for Donetsk and Lugansk authorities to follow his recommendation amid Kiev’s ongoing military crackdown.
Both the EU and US have dismissed the ballots in eastern Ukraine as illegal.
“If these referenda go forward, they will violate international law and the territorial integrity of Ukraine. The United States will not recognize the results of these illegal referenda,” US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said in a statement late on Saturday.
The European Union came up with a similar comment, adding that the referendums ran counter to the Geneva agreement on de-escalation reached by Ukraine, Russia, the EU and the United States last month.
“The so-called referenda in … parts of Lugansk and Donetsk Regions were illegal and we do not recognize the outcome. Those who organized the referenda have no democratic legitimacy,” Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, said in emailed comments to Reuters.
Despite the rejection of the referendums by Kiev and most Western countries, it won’t be so easy to ignore the results, international affairs expert Serdja Trifkovich believes.
“After the referendum it will no longer be possible for the regime in Kiev to say that they do not want to negotiate with the so-called terrorists,” Trifkovich told RT. “They will be forced to acknowledge internally that they are facing the level of agreement among the people in the eastern regions that will prove it rather difficult to deal with by force.”
Bethlehem village of 15,000 blockaded by Israeli forces
Ma’an – 12/05/2014
BETHLEHEM – Israeli forces have blocked the main entrances to a southern West Bank village since Saturday night, locals said, impeding villagers’ ability to travel freely.
Locals in the village of Beit Fajjar south of Bethlehem told Ma’an on Tuesday that Israeli forces had shut the roads in and out of the village by constructing large earth mounds on them.
Locals said that they were unsure of the reasons behind what they called the “collective punishment” of the village, highlighting that the Israeli authorities had cited security reasons without giving any explanation.
As a result of the closure, residents need to take bypass routes through the nearby al-Arrub refugee camp or Tuqu village. However, these routes are bumpy mountainous paths unqualified as roads.
The town has a population of about 15,000 many of whom leave every day to work outside. In addition, the town does not have a hospital or a major medical center, and so access to Bethlehem, about 10 kilometers to the north, is important for healthcare and emergencies.
The town is also known for stone factories and quarries, and the closure of the main road creates a serious problem for truck drivers who need to travel back and forth every day.
Furthermore, dozens of teachers who work at several public schools in the town come from other cities and village in Bethlehem district every day.
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Book Excerpt
World War Two Was Not a Just War
By David Swanson | September 20, 2016
Excerpted from the just released book War Is Never Just.
World War II is often called “the good war,” and has been since the U.S. war on Vietnam to which it was then contrasted. World War II so dominates U.S. and therefore Western entertainment and education, that “good” often comes to mean something more than “just.” The winner of the “Miss Italy” beauty pageant earlier this year got herself into a bit of a scandal by declaring that she would have liked to live through World War II. While she was mocked, she was clearly not alone. Many would like to be part of something widely depicted as noble, heroic, and exciting. Should they actually find a time machine, I recommend they read the statements of some actual WWII veterans and survivors before they head back to join the fun.[i] For purposes of this book, however, I am going to look only at the claim that WWII was morally just. … continue
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