Monday, 7 April 2014

Saudi Supreme Court upholds death sentence against child rapist


RIYADH - Saudi Arabia's Supreme Court has upheld a death sentence handed down against a teacher convicted of kidnapping and raping eight young girls, a local daily reported on Sunday.
A lower court in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah had found the man guilty last year of kidnapping girls aged between six and 11 from public areas and taking them to his home to rape them, the Makkah newspaper reported without giving his name.
His last victim, a nine-year-old whom he abducted from a wedding hall, was able to guide police to the area of Jeddah where he lived, leading to his arrest in 2011.
Earlier reports said the man was 42 at the time of his arrest, and married with four children.
He reportedly offered the girls sweets to lure them into his car, and sent his family away while he raped his victims in the family home.
Rape is one of a raft of crimes punishable by death in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia. Others include murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking.

Baghdad push illustrates ISIL growing ambitions


A powerful jihadist group inspired by Al-Qaeda has opened a new battlefront with Iraqi security forces that could see it try to push into Baghdad, officials and analysts warn.
The latest clashes, just weeks before parliamentary elections, raise key questions over the capacity of the army and police to repel militant attacks.
Anti-government fighters currently hold all of Fallujah, a town that is just a short drive from Baghdad, and other pockets of territory.
The push by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) into the Abu Ghraib area, sparking clashes in nearby Zoba and Zaidan, as well as a failed assault on a military camp in Yusifiyah, illustrate the group's ambition, even with Fallujah under military siege.
In perhaps the most worrying sign of ISIL's capabilities, anti-government fighters paraded with dozens of vehicles last week in broad daylight in Abu Ghraib, just 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the capital, according to witnesses and videos posted to YouTube.
"ISIL fighters are trying to ease the pressure imposed on them in Fallujah," said an army lieutenant colonel, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"They have begun moving against weak villages between Baghdad and Fallujah, and to attack army units."
A police colonel, who also declined to be identified, added: "Members of ISIL have begun launching attacks on the army deployed in Abu Ghraib, and are threatening Baghdad."
In early January, militants overran Fallujah and parts of Ramadi, two towns in the western desert province of Anbar which shares a long border with Syria.
Government security forces have wrested back control of much of Ramadi.
But a stalemate has persisted in Fallujah, with periodic clashes on the city's outskirts and regular shelling of what the army says are militant strongholds.
But for around a week, soldiers have fought fierce battles in Zoba and Zaidan, which lie between the capital and Fallujah.
At least three people have been killed and more than 50 others wounded in the clashes and army shelling, according to medical sources.
"The objective appears to be to use this Anbar base as a launching pad for expansive operations towards the federal government in Baghdad," said Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center.
Lister said the massive convoy in Abu Ghraib, in particular, "underlines the sheer scale of (ISIL's) capacity to operate with near impunity in some Sunni areas of the country."
"Iraqi security forces face some serious challenges to confronting (ISIL's) continued expansion in Iraq."
Senior security officials insist, however, that any move towards Baghdad by the jihadists is doomed to failure, and that attempts to open a new battlefront are a sign of weakness rather than strength.
"Entering Baghdad is impossible, this is not logical," said Brigadier General Saad Maan, spokesman for the interior ministry and the Iraqi capital's security command centre.
"They do not have the power, and we have huge military reinforcements to stop them. Our military has launched attacks against them on a daily basis in the Fallujah suburbs, and they have suffered lots of casualties."
Another senior security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said ISIL fighters were "dreaming" if they thought they could break through.
"The siege of Fallujah will continue until their gathered forces are depleted," the official said. "Fallujah is the last stronghold of ISIL in Anbar."
The latest battles are part of a protracted surge in bloodshed that has pushed violence to its highest level since 2008, when Iraq was emerging from a brutal Sunni-Shiite sectarian war that left tens of thousands dead.
The unrest has been driven principally by anger in the Sunni Arab minority over alleged mistreatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government and security forces, as well as spillover from the war in Syria.
Diplomats and analysts have urged the authorities to reach out to the Sunni community to undermine support for militancy.
But with parliamentary elections looming at the end of this month, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and other Shiite leaders have been loath to be seen to compromise.

Turkey opposition seeks to annul election in Ankara


ISTANBUL - Turkey's opposition called Sunday for an annulment of last weekend's mayoral vote in the capital Ankara, alleging fraud by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The Ankara electoral board had on Friday rejected a bid for a recount by the Republican People's Party (CHP) of last Sunday's poll, which was narrowly won by the AKP incumbent.
The CHP challenger Mansur Yavas slammed the vote as "the most dubious in the country's history".
"It is our holy duty to protect Ankara's votes and will. We are here to defeat the dark shadow cast over our democracy," he told a news conference Sunday.
He said his party was prepared to take the issue to the Constitutional Court and even the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.
The Islamic-rooted AKP scored significant victories across Turkey, winning the key prizes of Ankara and Istanbul, in the municipal elections seen as a referendum on the 11-year-rule of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
But opposition parties claim the polls were marred by irregularities including ballot stuffing, widespread power blackouts during vote counting and misreporting of results.
The elections were the first since a wide-ranging corruption scandal erupted in December implicating the premier's inner circle.
The race was especially tight in Ankara, where the AKP Mayor Melih Gokcek -- in power for 20 years -- scored 44.79 percent against 43.77 percent for Yavas.
The mayor has rejected claims of any irregularities.
Across Turkey, results were contested in more than 41 cities, and in some cases the mayor's office changed hands after a recount.
On Saturday, the authorities annulled the election in the Kurdish-majority northeastern city of Agri after the AKP demanded a 16th vote recount.
The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party had declared victory with a wafer-thin margin of 10 votes. A new election will take place in the city on June 1.

Premature car bomb blast kills at least 13 rebels in Homs


DAMASCUS - At least 13 rebels died in a blast in the city of Homs in central Syria on Sunday as they primed a car bomb for an attack, an NGO said.
In the capital, meanwhile, two people were killed when mortar fire struck the Damascus Opera House.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 13 rebels were killed in the besieged Old City of Homs when a car bomb exploded.
"The death toll is likely to rise because there are dozens of people missing and body parts in the area of the blast," the Britain-based group said.
State news agency SANA also reported the blast, saying a car had exploded while being loaded with explosives.
The blast took place on the outskirts of the besieged Old City of Homs, which is under rebel control.
Some 1,400 civilians were able to leave the area this year under UN supervision, but an estimated 1,500 people remain until the army siege.
In the capital, SANA said two people were killed in mortar fire by rebel fighters.
"Two people were killed and five wounded by a mortar round that hit the Damascus Opera House" near key government and military buildings on Umayyad Square, it said.
The attack damaged the Opera House, which was inaugurated by President Bashar al-Assad in 2004.
Mortar fire also wounded three people in the Abbasids neighbourhood of northeast Damascus, SANA said.
On Saturday, mortar rounds struck near the Russian embassy, said the Syrian Observatory.
The rebel fire on Damascus comes as government forces step up a campaign to crush insurgents in its eastern suburbs, the Observatory said.

Violence hits rally for Bouteflika in Kabylie region


BATNA - Ali Benflis, the main challenger to incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Algeria's presidential election, on Sunday deplored violence that erupted at a rally for his rival east of the capital.
Campaigning for the April 17 election was launched two weeks ago, with the 77-year-old Bouteflika widely expected to clinch a fourth term without taking to the road due to health concerns.
Tensions over his re-election bid turned violent on Saturday when protesters stormed a campaign rally in Bejaia in the mainly Berber Kabylie region and torched his portraits before attacking a television crew covering the event.
Benflis condemned the violence, which prompted Bouteflika's campaign manager, former Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal, to scrap the rally.
"I regret that this campaign is taking place in a climate of tensions," Benflis said in a statement issued at a rally in his hometown of Batna, in another mainly Berber region, the Aures.
"I have to be honest and say nothing has been done to ensure it is taking place in a calm and serene" atmosphere, he was quoted as saying.
"I call for the respect of freedom of expression in all circumstances, a value which is the cornerstone of my policy of national renewal."
Bouteflika's campaign headquarters blamed the violence on the Barakat movement (Arabic for 'That's Enough') formed to oppose his candidacy.
Sellal and other Bouteflika aides have been doing the leg work for the president, who is too frail to campaign after a mini stroke last year confined him to hospital in Paris for three months.

Mali new Prime Minister in talks to form government


Mali's new prime minister was in talks on Sunday to appoint a government to lead the West African nation's post-war recovery after the surprise resignation of his predecessor and the entire cabinet.
Former planning minister Moussa Mara, 39, was promoted to the premiership on Saturday after Mali's first post-war Prime Minister Oumar Tatam Ly quit just six months into office, a statement from the presidency said.
He has not spoken in public since his appointment but wrote a brief message on Twitter thanking Malians for their support.
"Now the hard part begins. I count on the support but also the constructive criticism of all. Have a good Sunday and viva Mali," he said.
President Ibrahima Boubacar Keita's office gave no reason for the resignation of Ly and his ministers, but it emerged on Sunday that the prime minister had become frustrated over being unable to enact reforms in the administration.
Ly, 50, said in his resignation letter that he had been unable to convince Keita to act on "the inefficiencies and inadequacies that I found in the running of government that greatly reduce its ability to meet challenges".
"Accordingly, in consideration of these differing views which make the mission you have entrusted to me untenable, I am sorry to present my resignation as prime minister," Ly wrote.
A source close to Ly said he had "insistently, since early March, brought to Keita's attention the need not only to restructure the government team, but also to change old habits in the running of Mali".
"When you are in charge of running a government, you need your hands free to work. If this is no longer the case, you have to draw your own conclusions and that is what that Mr Ly has done," another close aide said.
The press in Bamako suggested that tensions between the two men had been exacerbated by the fact that Ly felt undermined by the president's son, Karim Keita, the deputy leader of the national assembly.
Keita appointed Ly, a leading economist but a surprise choice to many, after his inauguration in September last year, with Mali looking to set up a government that would turn the page on months of political chaos and war.
Mara, active in Bamako and then national politics since his late 20s, was a losing candidate in the August election, garnering 1.5 percent of the vote as president of Yelema -- "change" in Mali's Bambara language -- a party he founded in 2010.
Married with two children, Mara comes from a political family.
His father Joseph Mara was a soldier and justice minister who spent time in jail in the late 1970s under the military dictatorship of Moussa Traore.
Mara, his brother and his sister were brought up by their mother and grandmother, who taught him the value of "a strict adherence to discipline", according to his website.
An academic high achiever, he studied economics and remains one of the youngest members of Mali's institute of chartered accountants.
One of Mara's top priorities will be to make good on the president's pledge when he was inaugurated last September to unite Mali, get the economy back on track and end endemic corruption.
Keita's landslide victory in the first presidential polls since 2007 was seen as crucial for unlocking more than $4 billion (2.9 billion euros) in aid promised by international donors who halted contributions in the wake of Mali's 2012 coup.
Army officers angry at the level of support they had received to combat a separatist Tuareg rebellion in Mali's vast desert north overthrew the democratically elected government of president Amadou Toumani Toure on March 22, 2012.
In the chaos that followed, the Tuareg seized control of an area larger than France before being ousted by Al-Qaeda-linked groups who imposed a brutal interpretation of Islamic law on the local population, carrying out punitive amputations and executions.
Their actions drew worldwide condemnation and prompted France to launch a military offensive at Mali's behest in January last year that ousted the Islamists.

Benghazi declares civil disobedience over insecurity and ineffective authorities


BENGHAZI - Libya's restive eastern city of Benghazi was hit by a day of "civil disobedience" on Sunday that saw some public buildings close and included disruption to air traffic.
Civic groups late on Saturday urged the action to denounce security problems in the nation's second city more than three years after the onset of the revolution that ousted dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
They also demanded the suspension of the Tripoli-based General National Congress (GNC), the country's highest political authority, and the holding of parliamentary and presidential elections.
However, a reporter said Sunday's day of action was only partly observed, with some public institutions, schools and universities closed, while others and many businesses stayed open.
The education ministry said all classes were being held as normal.
Air traffic was hardest hit, with the international airport closed and all flights suspended "until further notice", an airport source said.
The GNC was elected in July 2012 to an 18-month mandate but stirred popular anger by extending its term from early February until the end of December this year.
Under pressure from demonstrators, it later announced early elections but gave no date for the vote.
Benghazi residents have staged repeated protests against the security problems plaguing their city, the cradle of the uprising that toppled Gaddafi.
Attacks in the city have claimed the lives of dozens of members of the security forces, judges and foreigners since rebels killed Gaddafi in October 2011.

Israel threatens unilateral measures against Palestinians


JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Sunday that Israel would take unilateral measures against the Palestinians if they go ahead with applications to adhere to international treaties.
"These will only make a peace agreement more distant," he said of the applications the Palestinians made on Tuesday to adhere to 15 treaties.
"Any unilateral moves they take will be answered by unilateral moves at our end."
Netanyahu's remarks, made at the beginning of the weekly cabinet meeting, came as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators prepared to meet with US envoy Martin Indyk, in a last-ditch attempt to save teetering peace talks from collapse.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, the driving force behind the peace push, warned on Friday that there were "limits" to the time and energy Washington could devote to the talks process, as his appeals to both sides to step back from the brink fell on deaf ears.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas rejected a plea from Kerry to withdraw the treaty applications, while Netanyahu ignored US appeals to refrain from tit-for-tat moves, asking for a range of options to be drawn up for retaliation.
Israel says Abbas's move was a clear breach of the commitments the Palestinians gave when peace talks were relaunched in July to pursue no other avenues for recognition of their promised state.
The Palestinians say Israel had already reneged on its own undertakings by failing to release a fourth and final batch of prisoners last weekend, and the treaty move was their response.
"The Palestinians have much to lose from a unilateral move. They will get a state only through direct negotiations and not through empty declarations or unilateral moves," Netanyahu said.
"We are prepared to continue talks, but not at any price."

Brother of Qaeda chief stands trial in #Egypt on terror charges


CAIRO - The brother of Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri will stand trial in Egypt along with 67 others on charges of forming a "terrorist group", state media reported on Sunday.
Mohamed al-Zawahiri was arrested last August for supporting Islamist president Mohamed Morsi who was ousted by the army in July and has now been referred to trial by the state prosecutor.
Zawahiri and the other suspects are accused of having set up an "Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group" that plotted attacks against government installations, security personnel and members of Egypt's Christian minority, state news agency MENA said.
They group was seeking to "spread chaos and undermine security" across Egypt, it said.
MENA did not say whether the group had actually carried out any attacks, nor did it give a date for the trial.


Libya jihadist group plans to impose sharia law in Derna


BENGHAZI - A jihadist group in Libya says it plans to take over security in the restive eastern town of Derna and impose sharia Islamic law, in a posting on Facebook.
Witnesses said the group "Majlis Shura of Islamist Youth in Derna" staged a show of force on Friday, parading through the town armed to the teeth.
Photographs on the group's Facebook page show dozens of masked men in military uniform in pickup trucks, armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, machineguns and anti-aircraft cannon.
They also brandish black and white jihadist banners.
"We announce the formation of a legal committee to settle differences between people and arrange reconciliations on the basis of sharia," the group said in a statement.
It said it would ensure security in Derna, and rejected "the laws of miscreants" and "institutions which violate the laws of God".
"We also declare our hostility towards the enemies of God and his prophet -- Jews, Christians and Taghouts."
"Taghouts" is a derogatory term used by jihadists to describe state institutions, in particular the intelligence services.
State institutions hold no sway in Derna, where radical Islamists have laid down the law since dictator Muammar Gaddafi was toppled and killed in 2001.
Judges and the security forces are frequently targeted in Derna, which has been abandoned to its fate by the interim authorities who have so far failed to form a proper police service and professional armed forces.
On March 20, the government acknowledged for the first time that "terrorist groups" were behind dozens of attacks on the security services and Westerners.
Announcing that it was mobilising security forces, the government urged "the international community and in particular the United Nations to provide the necessary support to eradicate terrorism in Libyan cities".
In a statement, it singled out Derna, the country's second city Benghazi, also in the east, and Sirte, Gaddafi's hometown where he was killed.
No concrete security measures are reported to have been taken since the March 20 statement

A political prisoner transferred to solitaries of Bandar Abbas Prison

Arjang Davoodi

HRANA News Agency – Hassan Javani, the aged and sick prisoner of central prison of Bandar Abbas, was transferred to suit number 5 of the prison.

According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), this 57 years old prisoner of Bandar Abbas prison, who is suffering from heart disease, prostate and hemorrhoid problem, has been transferred to suit number 5 of the prison, on April 1.

He is being kept with the other political prisoner, Arjang Davoodi, and they are not allowed to have any contact with other prisoners.

Hassan Javani, who has long imprisonment on his record in 80s, this time has been arrested on October 2011, and in branch number 26 of revolutionary court, with chief judge Pirabbasi, sentenced to 10 years in prison on exile, in charge of threating public security by supporting one of opposition groups. This sentence was confirmed by the court of appeal.

Need to be mentioned, Mohammadreza (Maisam) Hossaini, which was charge with the same allegation, sentenced to two years in prison, and last October released, after serving his sentence.

Renewed tribal clashes kill two more people in southern Egypt

CAIRO - At least two more people were killed in renewed tribal clashes in southern Egypt on Sunday, after 48 hours of violence that left 23 dead, security officials said.
The fresh violence came despite a beefed-up police presence in Aswan province to end fighting between the Bani Hilal, an Arab tribe, and the Dabudiya, a Nubian family.
Tribal vendettas are common in Egypt's poor, rural south, but police called the latest outbreak of violence the worst in recent memory.
Apart from the two dead, at least five other people were wounded in Sunday's clashes, the security officials said.
Long-standing rivalry flared Thursday after a woman was sexually accosted and both sides scrawled insulting graffiti, the interior ministry said.
Twenty-three people were killed in clashes over the next two days, including three people in a botched reconciliation meeting that ended in a gunbattle.
Interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab and his interior minister Mohammed Ibrahim both visited Aswan on Saturday to try to end the violence.
The army also said it intervened, accusing the Muslim Brotherhood of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi of involvement in the unrest.
Since the army ousted Morsi last July, the military-installed authorities have blamed the Brotherhood for violence which has rocked Egypt daily for the past nine months.


Arrests in Algeria as supporters of Bouteflika rally


ALGIERS - Algerian police beefed up security and arrested about 20 people on Sunday at a campaign rally for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's re-election, a day after violence ended a similar gathering.
Dozens of students hostile to the ailing 77-year-old's bid for a fourth term tried to demonstrate ahead of the rally in Tizi-Ouzou, in the mainly Berber region of Kabylie east of the capital.
"Free and democratic Algeria!" and "Boutef, pull out!" they chanted of the veteran leader, before police arrested about 20 people, journalists said.
Abdelmalek Sellal, the former prime minister who is Bouteflika's election campaign manager, then arrived to address the gathering of hundreds of supporters.
Bouteflika is widely expected to clinch another term in the April 17 election, but without taking to the campaign trail because of concerns about his health.
Tensions over his re-election bid turned violent on Saturday when protesters stormed a campaign rally in Bejaia, also in the Kabylie region, and torched portraits of him before attacking a television crew covering the event.
In 2001, 126 people died in Kabylie during violent clashes between the security forces and Berbers protesting about discrimination, poor living and working conditions and alleged government corruption.
Bouteflika's main challenger, Ali Benflis, condemned the violence which prompted Sellal to call off Saturday's rally.
"I regret that this campaign is taking place in a climate of tensions," Benflis said in a statement issued Sunday at a rally in his hometown of Batna, in another mainly Berber region, the Aures.
"I have to be honest and say nothing has been done to ensure it is taking place in a calm and serene" atmosphere, he was quoted as saying.
"I call for the respect of freedom of expression in all circumstances, a value which is the cornerstone of my policy of national renewal."
Bouteflika's campaign headquarters blamed the violence on the Barakat movement (Arabic for 'That's Enough') formed to oppose his candidacy.
Sellal and other Bouteflika aides have been doing the leg work for the president, who is too frail to campaign after a mini stroke last year confined him to hospital in Paris for three months.
The defence ministry, meanwhile, said the army killed an armed Islamist and seized weapons and equipment in a raid Saturday on hideouts in Jijel area of Kabylie.

British sniper kills 6 Taliban soldiers with 1 bullet

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A British sniper killed six enemy combatants in Afghanistan with a single shot when he hit the trigger switch of a suicide bomber, causing the device to explode.
The Daily Telegraph reports that the 20-year-old marksman’s shot, fired from 930 yards away, killed the suicide bomber and five others in the ensuing blast in Kakaran in Southern Afghanistan.
“The guy was wearing a vest. He was identified by the sniper moving down a tree line and coming up over a ditch,” Lt. Col. Richard Slack told The Telegraph. “He had a shawl on. It rose up and the sniper saw he had a machine gun.”
“They were in contact and he was moving to a firing position. The sniper engaged him and the guy exploded. There was a pause on the radio and the sniper said, 'I think I’ve just shot a suicide bomber.’”
According to military officials, a second suicide vest packed with 44lbs of explosives was found nearby, leading them to conclude that the sniper prevented a major attack by the Taliban.
The soldier, a lance corporal in the Coldstream Guards, was believed to be using an L115A3 gun -- the Army’s most powerful sniper weapon. The sniper had previously killed a Taliban machine-gunner from 1,465 yards with his first shot on the tour of duty, The Daily Telegraph reports.
The incident occurred in December, but was only recently disclosed. British armed forces are decreasing their presence in Helmand province, and handing over the majority of security operations to the Afghan armed forces.
Since the conflict began in 2001, 448 UK soldiers have died in Afghanistan.

Don't let our children be used as human shields in #Bahrain or anywhere else



Bahrain is going through a phase of Shia sectarian unrest, manifested in organised action designed to interfere with the daily life of ordinary citizens through seemingly random acts of violence - mostly perpetrated by youth gangs.
Burnings lock out and suffocate entire neighbourhoods. Assaults on unsuspecting citizens and foreign nationals continue relentlessly.
But most worrisome is the dramatic increase in ambush style attacks on Bahrain's public safety and security personnel.
Recently, Bahrain paid its final respect to three brave souls who lost their lives in a roadside bomb explosion.
Preponderance of video material depicting "street wars" or confrontations between terrorists and security personnel provides evidence that Hizbollah, or Hizbollah-trained cadres, have now taken a leading role in Shi'ite collective action.
Also inescapable is the fact that the Shia theological oligarchy and local clergy maintain a firm grip on ideological and operational components of political violence in Bahrain. The latter reveals the capacity of opposition and rejectionists to act on their collective interests. Albeit the sheer intensity of confrontations in recent months is indicative of a certain degree of wavering, if not agony, due to profound frustration over their failure to shift the momentum or achieve any tangible outcome.
One other indicator of nonfulfilment of the political violence movement in Bahrain is specially alarming. It's evolution in utilisation of children by Shia sects as a resource needed for action. Children have been often used as a human shield, as we have seen it since early days of Hizbollah-organised events.
Today in Bahrain, children are routinely mobilised for more active role in violent confrontations, often times armed with "Molotov" incendiary devices and white weapons.
But on March 6, Bahrain was profoundly shaken when adult militants enlisted children, aged 10 and 11, to transit an explosive device, which incidentally detonated causing severe injuries to the children involved.
This last incident went largely unnoticed by the Western human rights organisations and their media pundits, thus it does not fit the political narrative of their handlers, yet it constitutes high crime as denoted by world legal bodies.
So, under Article 8(2)(b)(xxvi) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), adopted in July 1998 and entered into force on July 1, 2002: "Conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years ... or using them to participate actively in hostilities" is a war crime.
Further, under civil unrest, armed conflict and other emergency situations, children and youths are also offered protection under the United Nations Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict.
This puts responsibility for mobilising children for sectarian violence in Bahrain squarely on the shoulders of Shia religious authorities, opposition leaders and, of course, the children's parents.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 38, (1989) proclaimed: "State parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of 15 years do not take direct part in hostilities."
The optional protocol further obligates states to "take all feasible measures to prevent such recruitment and use (of children under age of 15 for participation in hostilities), including the adoption of legal measures necessary to prohibit and criminalise such practices" (Art 4, Optional Protocol.) Therefore it is reasonable to expect severe criminalisation of those responsible for allowing the participation of children in violent clashes throughout Bahrain, including criminalisation of the parents of those children involved.
One can easily name Middle Eastern countries that exhibit levels of economic stagnation, decline in culture and morals conducive to youth - having virtually no options for education - and denied the most basic infrastructure (in terms of health, sanitation, water, transport, etc). Countries where children turn to idleness, religiosity and political violence. But this is not the case in Bahrain!
Children in Bahrain have been blessed with some of the best opportunities available throughout the region and beyond.
Therefore, the education system in Bahrain must be scrutinised with respect to practices of political indoctrination of children in early age.
Appropriate steps must be taken to protect children from Al Wefaq political perdition to ensure that they grow dreaming of becoming heroes to their people, becoming doctors, scientists, highly skilled workers able to do wonders - and not victims in emergency rooms or beddable assets in corrupt games of Al Wefaq operatives.
In a parallel line of thought, we must realise that a child involved in political violence or hostilities is inadvertently faced with possibility of martyrdom.
And yet martyrdom is the decision achieved by an individual immersed in Quranic study and of age that presume an understanding of repercussions of one's actions.
Is there place in Islam for tricking children by putting their fragile lives on an altar of political ambitions of a view, or misguided activism, or pursuit of Islamic state? I refer this question to a learned man held in high esteem by religious scholars and mujtahid.
But remember, it is up to majority of Shi'ites to decide whether they will allow Al Wefaq to lead them to stalemate stagnation and ineffable suffering, to the verge of existential precipice, or will they elect to rejoin the community and be delivered to harmony and prosperity through peace and reconciliation as one people - Bahrainis.
Vladimir Remmer

US to send 2 more ships to Japan by 2017 to counter North Korea nuclear threat

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The U.S. will deploy two additional ballistic missile defense destroyers to Japan by 2017 as part of an effort to bolster protection from North Korean missile threats, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Sunday.
Speaking to at a news conference following a meeting with Japan Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera, Hagel said they discussed the threat posed by Pyongyang. He said the two ships are in response to North Korea's "pattern of provocative and destabilizing actions" that violate U.N. resolutions and also will provide more protection to the U.S. from those threats.
In unusually forceful remarks about China, Hagel called the Asian nation a "great power" and said that when he travels to China later this week he will tell its officials that they must have respect for their neighbors. Japan and China have been at odds over territorial claims and other issues.
"With this power comes new and wider responsibilities as to how you use that power" and how to employ military might, Hagel said, adding that he looks forward to an honest, straightforward dialogue with the Chinese.
The announcement of the deployments of additional destroyers to Japan came as tensions with North Korea spiked again, with Pyongyang continuing to threaten additional missile and nuclear tests. North and South Korea fired hundreds of artillery shells into each other's waters in late March in the most recent flare-up.
On Friday, North Korea accused the U.S. of being "hell-bent on regime change" and warned that any maneuvers with that intention will be viewed as a "red line" that will result in countermeasures. Pyongyang's deputy U.N. ambassador, Ri Tong Il, also said his government "made it very clear we will carry out a new form of nuclear test" but refused to provide details.
The two additional ships would bring the total to seven U.S. ballistic missile defense warships in Japan, and it continues U.S. efforts to increase its focus on the Asia Pacific.
Hagel is on a 10-day trip across the Asia Pacific, and just spent three days in Hawaii meeting with Southeast Asian defense ministers, talking about efforts to improve defense and humanitarian assistance cooperation. Japan is his second stop, where he said he wants to assure Japanese leaders that the U.S. is strongly committed to protecting their country's security.
Japan and China have been engaged in a long, bitter dispute over remote islands in the East China Sea. The U.S. has said it takes no side on the question of the disputed islands' sovereignty, but it recognizes Japan's administration of them and has responsibilities to protect Japanese territory under a mutual defense treaty.
Hagel said the U.S. wants the countries in the region to resolve the disputes peacefully. But he added that the United States would honor its treaty commitments.
Last October, the U.S. and Japan agreed to broad plans to expand their defense alliance, including plans to position a second early warning radar there by the end of this year. There is one in northern Japan and the second one would be designed to provide better missile defense coverage in the event of a North Korean attack.
The U.S. will begin sending long-range Global Hawk surveillance drones to Japan this month for rotational deployments. They are intended to help step up surveillance around the Senkaku islands, a source of heated debate between Japan and China over claims to the remote territories.
In its latest symbolic gesture of support for Japan, the U.S. decided not to send a warship to participate in a Chinese naval parade as part of the Western Pacific Naval Symposium because the Japanese were not invited. U.S. military leaders, including the Navy's top officer, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, will attend the symposium and ship review.
The ships serve as both defensive and offensive weapons. They carry sophisticated systems that can track missile launches, and their SM-3 missiles can zero in on and take out short- to medium-range missiles that might be fired at U.S. or allied nations. They can also carry Tomahawk cruise missiles, which can be launched from sea and hit high-value targets or enemy weapons systems from afar, without risking pilots or aircraft.

Police seek ID of man on video in hunt for missing girl Relisha Rudd

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Police in Washington, D.C., are working to identify a man as part of their investigation into the disappearance of 8-year-old Relisha Rudd.
According to MyFoxDC.com, police have released video of a man walking off an escalator at what seems to be a Metro station.
Police are asking for the public’s help in identifying the man, although it is still unclear how he may be connected to the case of the missing girl.
The video shows an African-American man wearing a dark hoodie, leather jacket, gloves and dark boots.
There is no timestamp on the video, according to the station, and police will not reveal where and when it was recorded for fear of compromising the investigation.
Kahlil Tatum, the man suspected of abducting Relisha Rudd, was last captured on camera on March 19 and 20 outside the Red Roof Inn in Oxon Hill, Md., where detectives say he killed his wife.
Tatum was then driven by a friend to the Southern Avenue Metro station.
It is not known whether the unidentified man in the video is the friend who drove Tatum to the Metro station.
The news of the video comes after Tatum was found dead last week at a park police had been searching in the hunt to find Relisha. Police reportedly said the cause of Tatum’s death was suicide.
Tatum was a janitor at the city homeless shelter where Relisha had been living with her family. The girl was last seen with Tatum on March 1. Her mother had given permission for Relisha to be with Tatum.
Police started searching for Relisha on March 19 following repeated absences from school. The next day, Tatum's wife was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head in the Red Roof Inn motel room. Prince George's County Police had issued a warrant for Tatum's arrest in connection with the death of his wife. 
The day after Relisha was last seen, police say Tatum bought a container of heavy-duty trash bags, and was in Kenilworth Park for a period of time. After that, Tatum was going to work and was seen in D.C. through March 20, but Relisha was not seen.
Tatum was found dead in a building in the middle of the search area in Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens.
Last weekend, police and fire department dive teams searched for evidence regarding Relisha, but nothing was found.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier called the search for Relisha in the park a recovery mission, but said authorities continue to follow new leads as they come in. Lanier said although the information is sometimes discouraging, authorities try to remain hopeful that Relisha could still be found alive.
If someone knows the man in the video, they are asked to call D.C. police at 202-727-9099. You can also send a text to the tip line at 50411.
The FBI is offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to the location and return of Relisha Rudd. If you see her, call 911 immediately. You may also call the FBI at (800) CALL-FBI.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Amnesty demands release and medical treatment for jailed Iranian cleric



Amnesty International has launched an urgent appeal for medical attention for a critically ill Iranian cleric being held in Tehran's Evin prison.
Prisoner of conscience is serving an 11 year sentence for advocating the separation of religion and state and has faced constant demands to recant his beliefs in a signed letter of confession - or face never being released.
He is also suffering from diabetes, asthma, Parkinson’s disease, kidney and heart problems and severe pain in his legs and waist. He has reportedly gone partly blind in one eyes and frequently collapses.
He has not been provided with the medical treatment he requires, though prison doctors said in February 2014 that he needed to be hospitalized outside the prison.
But during the eight years he has spent in prison, he has only been admitted to hospital three times, Amnesty said.
Prison guards reportedly raided his cell on 15 March and destroyed his personal belongings, while he was with his family, who have also been harassed during prison visits and subjected to invasive body searches.
And in September 2013, Mr Boroujerdi’s wife, Akram Vali Dousti, was summoned for questioning by the Special Court for Clerics (SCC).
Mr Boroujerdi was arrested on October 8, 2006, and charged with around 30 offences, including 'waging war against God' (moharebeh), committing acts against national security, publicly calling the principle of political leadership by the clergy unlawful, having links with anti-revolutionaries and spies, and using the term 'religious dictatorship' instead of 'Islamic Republic' in public speeches and radio interviews.
He was sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment on August 13, 2007, and defrocked (banned from wearing his clerical robes and thereby from practising his clerical duties), and his house and all his belongings were confiscated. His family had appointed lawyers for him but the SCC refused to allow them to defend him on the grounds that only clerics appointed by the Judiciary could make representations on his behalf.

Ex-CIA boss Hayden: Dangling convicted spy Pollard in peace talks looks desperate


Former CIA Director Michael Hayden suggested Sunday the Obama administration’s apparent offer to release convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard to salvage the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks is a desperate effort that could open the door for criminal spies like Edward Snowden to walk away free.
“I certainly don’t think it's a good idea to keep some people at the table,” Hayden, a Bush administration appointee and former NSA director, told “Fox News Sunday.”
“It’s almost a sign of desperation to throw this in the pot, offer a third view. If this were to take place … people in the intelligence community would not be hearing the name Pollard, they would be hearing Snowden.”
Last year, Snowden, then a National Security Agency contractor, gave news outlets classified documents that exposed the federal government’s massive, global surveillance efforts, which include data on the phone calls and Internet activities of Americans and foreign leaders worldwide.
Snowden is charged with espionage and is living under asylum in Russia in what is largely considered the biggest security leak in U.S. history.
“I believe this kind of behavior could be politically negotiated away,” Hayden also said.
U.S. officials have indicated that Secretary of State John Kerry offered the early release of Pollard during talks with both sides last week in Israel, in an effort to restart the U.S.-led two-party peace talks, which have stalled over the delayed release of Palestinian prisoners.  
Pollard, an American Jew, was a civilian intelligence analyst for the U.S. Navy when he gave thousands of classified documents to his Israeli handlers. The Israelis recruited him to pass along U.S. secrets including satellite photos and data on Soviet weaponry in the 1980s. 
He was arrested by FBI agents in Washington in 1985 after unsuccessfully seeking refuge at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. He pleaded guilty to leaking classified documents to Israel and received a life sentence. President Obama and his predecessors have refused to release Pollard despite pleas from Israeli leaders.
Apart from any negotiations in the meantime, Pollard could be released from prison on Nov. 21, 2015 -- 30 years after his arrest. He has been serving his sentence at a federal facility in Butner, N.C.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Thursday: “What I can affirm to you is that the issue of Jonathan Pollard and his disposition is something that has been frequently raised by Israeli officials. And all I can tell you is that the president has not made a decision to release Mr. Pollard and that he is continuing to serve his sentence, having been convicted of espionage."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Iranian political prisoners demand UN probe into human rights abuses

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Political prisoners in Iran have called on the UN to investigate human right's abuses in the regime's prisons and called for 'freedom, equality and respect' for all Iranian citizens.
Inmates at Gohardasht prison in Karaj and Evin Prison in Tehran also demanded free access to medical treatment, phone calls and family visits which are being denied to prisoners across Iran.
In a letter to Dr Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Situation of Human Rights in Iran, they wrote: "We want freedom, equality and respect for the rights of all citizens in Iran to live in peace and harmony besides each other regardless of their race or belief.
"Our ideals, political organizations, political parties and any kind of political act have been faced with the suppression of the regime, which has imposed heavy sentences on us as political prisoners, prisoners of conscience and human rights.
"The Iranian government has created trouble and hardship for many families by imprisoning hundreds of innocent people. As a result, it has imposed terror in an unprecedented way on the country."
They accused the regime of shutting down all avenues for legal campaigns, suppressing the popular will and preventing international action to investigate the human rights situation in Iran.
The letter added: "We the undersigned, call for coming of a fact finding mission and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights to visit Iran's prisons.
"You should meet with personalities, political groups and the families of those executed and imprisoned. And the Iranian authorities must stop harassment, pressure, abuse and unjustified exile and repression.
"They must address the medical condition of ill prisoners where long term detention, interrogation with beating and torture and solitary confinement are the main cause of their illness, and to stop preventing sending patients to hospitals under various pretexts.
"The judiciary has no independence and it is the security apparatus that controls the situation of prisoners. Most of the detainees are kept for months without any charge in solitary confinement in the Intelligence Ministry and the IRGC under pressure and without access to their families.
"Over the past few years, we have never been given the right to use the telephone and other facilities. We are given insufficient and bad quality food that causes outbreak of gastrointestinal illness in prison.
"Besides all these cases, prison and security officials, body search the prisoners in such an offensive and obscene way."
The prisoners said the regime had perpetually removed citizens’ rights under the cover of religious rule, and by condemned and suppressed all political movements.
Dozens of Kurdish citizens and other ethnic or religious minorities, including Bahais, Zoroastrians, Christians and Gonabadi Dervishes, had all been detained and sentenced to long term prisons and exile, many without without access to a lawyer or a fair trial, the letter said.
It added: "The charges against all these people include having a different belief than the official religion of the country, political activities, human rights activities, efforts to create or membership in an organization or association, writing critical writings or simply a weblog.
"When the Head of the Judiciary Human Rights Committee, Mohammad Javad Larijani, calls your report as Special Rapporteur for Human Rights unreal and a puppet of the West in utmost indecency, and the local media calls you 'stupid and vicious', you can guess what inhumane treatment we have been receiving."

Retirements drain Congress of leaders amid frustration over gridlock, dysfunction

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An exodus this year on Capitol Hill is creating a void in Congress, with some of its most experienced and skillful lawmakers suggesting the partisan gridlock is finally taking a toll.  
The announcement this week by GOP Rep. Dave Camp, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, marked the eighth committee chairmen to retire this year from Congress -- four in the House and four in the Senate. In total, 23 House members are retiring this year. In the Senate, Oklahoma GOP Sen. Tom Coburn has resigned.
The 12-term congressman’s decision not to seek re-election came just several days after Rep. Mike Rogers, another Michigan Republican and House committee chairman, said he also would leave in January.
Though Camp said he didn’t want to make the “mistake” of staying too long, as he had seen other congressional members do, he left with essentially no support for his plan to revise the country’s complicated tax code.
Roger purportedly cast some of the blame for gridlock on Republican infighting, saying an “all-or-nothing wing” has slowed conservative progress.
“There is dysfunction in Congress,” said Dave Wasserman, the House editor for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “Never have the parties been so far apart. There are now so few legitimate purveyors of bipartisan legislation.”
He points to the lack of support of Camp’s plan as the prime example of the dysfunction and gridlock.
“Republicans were just too fearful … to take the political risk of putting the bill on the floor,” he told FoxNew.com.
Montana Democratic Sen. Max Baucus resigned last year as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee under similar circumstances.
While Congress this year indeed loses some of it most experience lawmakers, who arguable were among the last of the bipartisan dealmakers, several of the Capitol Hill’s most promising lawmakers are already lining up for their committee posts.
Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee and the 2012 GOP vice presidential nominee, is considered a top contender for Camp’s post.  
No state will likely be hit harder by retirement than Michigan, which will lose 136 years of seniority when including the departures of Sens. John Dingell and Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The 87-year-old Dingell is the longest service member of Congress in history.
“Chairmanships of powerful committees almost always go to the most senior members [so] the retirements mean Michigan will have less access to those kinds of positions and the influence that they carry,” University of Michigan political science professor Arthur Lupia told FoxNews.com. “Some of Michigan's retiring representatives are amongst the most effective congress-persons in the country. So that's a loss as well. But there are a lot of hard-working individuals at all levels of state government here.
He cited Mike Bishop, a former Michigan legislator and Senate majority leader who is now running for Roger’s open seat, and Dingell’s wife, Debbie Dingell, whose political power extends from Washington to Detroit.
“She is very well connected to important constituencies in her area and in D.C.,” Lupia said.
Wasserman argues the situation in Michigan was bound to happen.
“At some point Michigan was going to have to go back to the drawing board. It’s been an extremely senior delegation” he said. “I cannot remember another congressional brain drain like this, but it's a great time of transition.”

Ships race to reach site where electronic pulses detected in Malaysia jet search





Three distinct but brief signals from the Indian Ocean revived hope for investigators in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on Sunday, as authorities rush to determine the origin of the signals before the batteries of the plane's black box run out.
Australian authorities confirmed on Sunday that a Chinese patrol vessel, the Haixun 01, had picked up a fleeting "ping" signal twice on Friday and Saturday in waters west of Perth, near where investigators believe Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went down on March 8. As a consequence, more planes and ships were being sent to assist in that area.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, an Australian ship carrying sophisticated deep-sea sound equipment picked up a third signal in a different part of the massive search area, some 300 nautical miles away.
After weeks of fruitless looking, the multinational search team is racing against time to find the sound-emitting beacons and cockpit voice recorders that could help unravel the mystery of the plane. The beacons in the black boxes emit "pings" so they can be more easily found, but the batteries last for only about a month.
"This is an important and encouraging lead, but one which I urge you to treat carefully," retired Australian Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston, who is coordinating the search, told reporters in Perth.
Houston stressed that the signals had not been verified as being linked to Flight 370, which was traveling from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing when it disappeared March 8 with 239 people on board. Experts, meanwhile, expressed doubt that the equipment aboard the Chinese ship was capable of picking up signals from the black boxes.
"We have an acoustic event. The job now is to determine the significance of that event. It does not confirm or deny the presence of the aircraft locator on the bottom of the ocean," Houston said, referring to each of the three transmissions.
"We are dealing with very deep water, we are dealing with an environment where sometimes you can get false indications," he said. "There are lots of noises in the ocean, and sometimes the acoustic equipment can rebound, echo if you like."
China's official Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday that the patrol vessel detected a "pulse signal" Friday in the southern Indian Ocean at 37.5 kilohertz -- the same frequency emitted by the flight data recorders aboard the missing plane.
Australian authorities said such a signal would be consistent with a black box, but both they and Xinhua stressed there was no conclusive evidence linking it to the Boeing 777.
Houston confirmed the report, and said the Haixun 01 detected a signal again on Saturday within 1.4 miles of the original signal, for 90 seconds. He said China also reported seeing white objects floating in the sea in the area.
The British navy ship HMS Echo, which is fitted with sophisticated sound-locating equipment, is moving to the area where the signals were picked up and will probably get there early Monday, Houston said.
The Australian navy's Ocean Shield, which is carrying high-tech sound detectors from the U.S. Navy, will also head there, but will first investigate the sound it picked up in its current region.
Australian air force assets are also being deployed into the Haixun 01's area to try to confirm or discount the signals' relevance to the search, Houston said.
In Kuala Lumpur, families of passengers aboard the missing plane attended a prayer service on Sunday that also drew thousands of Malaysian sympathizers.
"This is not a prayer for the dead because we have not found bodies. This is a prayer for blessings and that the plane will be found," said Liow Tiong Lai, the president of the government coalition party that organized the two-hour session.
Two Chinese women were in tears and hugged by their caregivers after the rally. Many others looked somber, and several wore white T-shirts emblazoned with the words "Pray for MH370."
Two-thirds of the passengers aboard Flight 370 were Chinese, and a group of relatives has been in Kuala Lumpur for most of the past month to follow the investigation. Liow said some of them were planning to go home on Sunday.
Investigators believe Flight 370 veered way off-course and came down somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean, though they have not been able to explain why it did so.
The crew of the Chinese ship reportedly picked up the signals using a hand-held sonar device called a hydrophone dangled over the side of a small runabout -- something experts said was technically possible but extremely unlikely.
The equipment aboard the Ocean Shield and the HMS Echo are dragged slowly behind each ship over long distances and are considered far more sophisticated than those the Chinese crew was using.
Footage aired on China's state-run CCTV showed crew members in the small boat with a device shaped like a large soup can attached to a pole. It was hooked up by cords to electronic equipment in a padded suitcase as they poked the device into the water.
"If the Chinese have discovered this, they have found a new way of finding a needle in a haystack," said aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas, editor-in-chief of AirlineRatings.com. "Because this is amazing. And if it proves to be correct, it's an extraordinarily lucky break."
There are many clicks, buzzes and other sounds in the ocean from animals, but the 37.5 kilohertz pulse was selected for underwater locator beacons because there is nothing else in the sea that would naturally make that sound, said William Waldock, an expert on search and rescue who teaches accident investigation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona.
"They picked that (frequency) so there wouldn't be false alarms from other things in the ocean," he said.
But after weeks of false alarms, officials were careful Sunday not to overplay the development.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he was "hopeful but by no means certain" that the reported pulse signals were related to MH370.
"This is the most difficult search in human history. We are searching for an aircraft which is at the bottom of a very deep ocean and it is a very, very wide search area," Abbott told reporters in Tokyo, where he is on a visit.
The search area has evolved as experts analyzed Flight 370's limited radar and satellite data, moving from the seas off Vietnam, to the waters west of Malaysia and Indonesia, and then to several areas west of Australia.
A senior Malaysian government official said Sunday that investigators have determined that the plane skirted Indonesian airspace as it flew from Peninsular Malaysia to the southern Indian Ocean.
The official, who declined to be named because he isn't authorized to speak to the media, said Indonesian authorities have confirmed that the plane did not show up on their military radar. The plane could have deliberately flown around Indonesian airspace to avoid radar detection, or may have coincidentally traveled out of radar range, he said.
Houston, the search coordinator, conceded that his organization first heard about the initial signal China had detected when it was reported by a Chinese journalist aboard the Haixun 01. He said that at "almost the same time" he was informed of the development by the Chinese government.
The agency was formally told about the second Chinese detection on Saturday "in absolutely the normal way," he said.
"China is sharing everything that is relevant to this search. Everything," Houston said.
Still, the search agency will be adding a Chinese-speaking liaison officer "to make sure nothing falls through the cracks," he said.
Houston also said there had been a correction to satellite data that investigators have been using to calculate Flight 370's likely flight pattern. As a result, starting on Monday, the southern section of the current search zone will be given higher priority than the northern part.
The signals detected by the Chinese ship were in the southern high priority zone, Houston said.
Up to 12 military and civilian planes and 13 ships took part in the search Sunday of three areas totaling about 83,400 square miles. The areas are about 1,200 miles northwest of the Australian west coast city of Perth.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.