SAARC officials hold video conference

Kathmandu, December 14

Officials of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation today held a video conference, paving the way for using internet-based technology for regional discussions in future.

A two-day special session of SAARC Programming Committee kicked off at SAARC Secretariat in Kathmandu, with concerned officials of other seven member states Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka participating in the video conference.

The meeting was called to take a decision on the venue for the headquarters of the newly formed SAARC Environment and Disaster Management Centre, a wing set up by merging four regional entities Forestry Centre (Bhutan), Disaster Management Centre (New Delhi), Coastal Zone Management Centre (Male) and Meteorological Research Centre (Dhaka).

The Programming Committee meeting was held at a time when Nepal has been facing a severe humanitarian crisis due to absence of essential goods, including fuel and medicines, because of the blockade at border points.

Sources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the SAARC Secretariat said the video conference was also held to discuss the ongoing blockade and the diplomatic stand-off between Kathmandu and New Delhi.

Nepal hosts the headquarters of the eight-nation regional group, while India funds almost one third of its expenditures.

Talking to The Himalayan Times, Joint Secretary Ramesh Khanal who heads SAARC Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs however, dismissed that the talks were held to discuss the blockade.

According to him, the meeting was scheduled to be held in July.
“It’s our first experience of using technology to hold a regional meeting,” Khanal added. “It was as lively as other regular meetings.

It has paved the way for such meetings in future, which not only saves time but also is cost effective.” Joint Secretary Khanal’s counterparts from all eight SAARC member-states, including India’s Dinkar Asthana, took part in the conference.

In today’s meeting, all four countries India, Bhutan, Maldives and Bangladesh  have expressed interest to host the new regional centre, according to a source. Nevertheless, a deal on the matter is expected by tomorrow.

All SAARC decisions are based on consensus among all member states.

Saudi Arabia announces 34-state Islamic military alliance against terrorism

A Saudi soldier stands guard in Jizan on the border with Yemen in this November 3, 2014 file photo.

DUBAI :

Saudi Arabia on Tuesday announced the formation of a 34-state Islamic military coalition to combat terrorism, according to a joint statement published on state news agency SPA.

“The countries here mentioned have decided on the formation of a military alliance led by Saudi Arabia to fight terrorism, with a joint operations centre based in Riyadh to coordinate and support military operations,” the statement said.

A long list of Arab countries such as Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, together with Islamic countries Turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan and Gulf Arab and African states were mentioned.

The announcement cited “a duty to protect the Islamic nation from the evils of all terrorist groups and organizations whatever their sect and name which wreak death and corruption on earth and aim to terrorise the innocent.”

Shi’ite Muslim Iran, Sunni Saudi Arabia’s arch rival for influence in the Arab world, was absent from the states named as participants, as proxy conflicts between the two regional powers rage from Syria to Yemen.

The United States has been increasingly outspoken about its view that Gulf Arab states should do more to aid the military campaign against the Islamic State militant group based in Iraq and Syria.

In a rare press conference, 30-year-old crown prince and Defence Minister Mohammed bin Salman told reporters on Tuesday that the campaign would “coordinate” efforts to fight terrorism in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Afghanistan, but offered few concrete indications of how military efforts might proceed.

“There will be international coordination with major powers and international organisations … in terms of operations in Syria and Iraq. We can’t undertake these operations without coordinating with legitimacy in this place and the international community,” bin Salman said without elaborating.

Asked if the new alliance would focus just on Islamic State, bin Salman said it would confront not only that group but “any terrorist organisation that appears in front of us.”

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab neighbours have been locked in nine months of warfare with Iran-allied rebels in neighbouring Yemen, launching hundreds of air strikes there.

Especially after a rash of attacks on Western targets claimed by Islamic State in recent months, the United States has increasingly said it thinks that firepower would better be used against IS.

As a ceasefire is set to take hold in Yemen on Tuesday alongside United Nations-backed peace talks, Riyadh’s announcement may signal a desire to shift its attention back towards the conflicts north of its borders.

Islamic State has pledged to overthrow the monarchies of the Gulf and have mounted a series of attacks on Shi’ite Muslim mosques and security forces in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Obama expected to move on Taiwan arms sales before year-end

US President Barack Obama leaves with US Defense Secretary Ash Carter (L) after delivering a statement on the counter-Islamic State campaign at the Pentagon in Washington, December 14, 2015.

WASHINGTON :
The Obama administration is expected as soon as this week to authorize the sale of two guided missile frigates to Taiwan, US congressional sources said on Monday, in spite of China’s opposition to the deal.

“We’re expecting an announcement as early as this week,” a Republican congressional aide said. Another congressional aide said the notification from the administration was expected “any time now.”

The sale would mark the first time in four years that the United States has shipped arms to Taiwan, the longest gap in such arms sales in nearly four decades.

It comes a year after Congress passed the Naval Transfer Act authorizing the sale of up to four Perry-class frigates to Taiwan in December 2014.

Taiwan has said it expects to pay about $176 million for the two vessels and that it would review its needs before making a decision on two more.

President Barack Obama signed the transfer act into law, but his administration still has to tell Congress its plans to move ahead with the sale, part of Washington’s commitment under the Taiwan Relations Act to ensure Taipei can maintain a credible defense.

The White House declined comment about the sale, which would come after increasingly intense pressure from Congress, including a unanimous vote last week by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on legislation calling on Obama to provide a timeline on when it would move forward.

Past US weapons sales to Taiwan have attracted strong condemnation in China, which considers Taiwan a renegade province.

Analysts and congressional sources believe the process has been held up by the administration’s desire to maintain stable working relations with China, an increasingly powerful strategic rival but also a vital economic partner as the world’s second-largest economy.

Most recently the Obama administration has been working with Beijing to forge a landmark global climate agreement that was sealed on Saturday after two weeks of intense negotiations, setting the course for a historic transformation of the world’s fossil fuel-driven economy within decades.

Congressional sources said the White House was pushing to move ahead with the Taiwan deal before the end of 2015 – an important deadline because of Taipei’s budget cycle.

The frigates will come out of existing US inventory and will not require new ships to be built.

CHINESE OPPOSITION

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy said on Friday that China “firmly opposes any arms sales from the United States to Taiwan.”

“We urge the US government to stop selling arms to Taiwan to avoid hurting China-US relations and disturbing peaceful development of cross-strait relations.”

Beijing expressed anger at last year’s bill, although arms sales to date to Taiwan have not caused lasting damage to Beijing’s relations with either Washington or Taipei.

The new sales would come at a period of heightened tensions between the United States and China over the South China Sea, where Washington has been critical of China’s building of man-made islands to assert expansive territorial claims.

China was angered when the United States sent a guided-missile destroyer close to one of the islands in October and B-52 bombers nearby last month.
While Taiwan has been overshadowed recently as a US-China issue by the South China Sea, it has the potential to flare up again, especially with Taiwanese elections coming up next month and a party which traditionally favors independence from China expected to win.

The House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee last week unanimously passed the Taiwan Naval Support Act, which asked Obama to submit to Congress a timeframe for sending the ships.

Representative Eliot Engel, the ranking Democrat on the committee, called last week for more regular arms sales to Taiwan, despite China’s political sensitivity on the subject.

“Our desire not to upset Beijing shouldn’t come at the expense of Taiwan’s security,” Engel said.
In November, Republican Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations panel, wrote to Obama urging “more robust” US security assistance and sales to Taiwan.

“We are troubled that it has now been over four years – the longest period since the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979 – since the administration has notified Congress of a new arms sale package,” the senators wrote.

Paris Agreement sealed to stop global warming

Environmentalists hold a banner which reads, ‘Standing and Determined for the Climate” (Rear) at a protest demonstration near the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, as the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) continues near the French capital in Le Bourget, December 12, 2015.

Le Bourget, December 13

Cheering envoys from 195 nations approved yesterday a historic accord in Paris to stop global warming, offering hope that humanity can avert catastrophic climate change and usher in an energy revolution.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius ended nearly a fortnight of gruelling UN negotiations with the bang of a gavel, marking consensus among the ministers, who stood for several minutes to clap and shout their joy, with some shedding tears of relief. “I see the room, I see the reaction is positive, I hear no objection.

The Paris climate accord is adopted,” declared Fabius, the president of the talks.

Turning to a little green hammer with which he formally gave life to the arduously crafted pact, he quipped: “It may be a small gavel but it can do big things.”

The post-2020 Paris Agreement ends decades-long rows between rich and poor nations over how to carry out what will be a multi-trillion-dollar campaign to cap global warming and cope with the impacts of a shifting climate.

With 2015 forecast to be the hottest year on record, world leaders and scientists had said the accord was vital for capping rising temperatures and averting the most calamitous impacts from climate change.

Without urgent action, they warned, mankind faced increasingly severe droughts, floods and storms, and rising seas that would engulf islands and coastal areas populated by hundreds of millions of people.

“It is a victory for all of the planet and for future generations,” US Secretary of State John Kerry told his fellow envoys in Le Bourget on the northern outskirts of Paris.

The crux of the fight entails slashing or eliminating the use of coal, oil and gas for energy, which has largely powered prosperity since the Industrial Revolution began in the 1700s.

The burning of those fossil fuels releases invisible greenhouse gases, which cause the planet to warm and disrupt Earth’s delicate climate system.

Ending the vicious circle requires a switch to cleaner sources, such as solar and wind, and improving energy efficiency.

Some nations are also aggressively pursuing nuclear power, which does not emit greenhouse gases.

The Paris accord sets a target of limiting warming of the planet to “well below” 2.0 degrees Celsius compared with the Industrial Revolution, while aiming for an even more ambitious goal of 1.5C.

To do so, emissions of greenhouse gases will need to peak “as soon as possible”, followed by rapid reductions, the agreement states.

The world has already warmed by almost 1C, which has caused major problems in dry developing countries, according to scientists.

Developing nations had insisted rich countries must shoulder the lion’s share of responsibility for tackling climate change as they emitted most of the greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution.

The United States and other rich nations countered that emerging giants must also do more, arguing developing countries now account for most of current emissions and thus will be largely responsible for future warming.

On the crucial financing issue, developed countries agreed to muster at least $100 billion a year from 2020 to help developing nations.

However, following US objections, it was not included in the legally-binding section of the deal.

Police shove diplomats as China rights lawyer stands trial

Supporters of China’s rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang shout slogans near a court where Pu’s trial is being held, in Beijing, China December 14, 2015.

BEIJING:

Police shoved diplomats and protesters close to a Beijing courthouse on Monday as one of the country’s most high-profile human rights lawyers stood trial on charges of inciting ethnic hatred and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”.

Pu Zhiqiang, who has spent nearly 19 months in detention, faces up to eight years in prison if convicted, according to one of his lawyers Shang Baojun.
As many as 11 diplomats from countries including the United States, Germany and France congregated near the courthouse seeking to observe the trial. They were refused admittance by the police.

Dan Biers, deputy political counsellor of the US embassy in Beijing, called for Pu’s release and criticised the “vague charges” that have been handed down against Pu.

Police tried to prevent Biers from reading out a statement near the courthouse, pushing him and foreign reporters out of the way.

Dozens of police officers and plain clothes security surrounded the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court, where they blocked foreign journalists attempting to report on the trial.
Neither the court nor public security authorities could immediately be reached for comment. The Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China has charged many rights activists with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, saying it is a country with rule of law and dismissing any international criticism on its rights record.

The main accusations against Pu revolve around seven microblog posts on his online accounts, his lawyers say. The posts had criticised China’s ethnic policy in the troubled western region of Xinjiang and denounced several officials.

CLAMP-DOWN

Pu’s case will be seen by rights groups and the West as a measure of what they say is the most severe clamp-down on human rights in two decades in China.
“Pu’s trial is extremely important – he’s the ultimate canary in the coalmine,” said Maya Wang, a China researcher for Human Rights Watch. “If they decide to be harsh against him, I’d say it’ll signify a further escalation of hostility towards human rights activism.”

Pu has represented many well-known dissidents, including artist Ai Weiwei and activists of the “New Citizens’ Movement”, a group that has called on Chinese leaders to make their wealth public.

Despite being pushed back by the police, about 40 supporters gathered outside the courthouse and chanted slogans to show their solidarity with Pu.

“Pu Zhiqiang is not a criminal. He will be judged by history,” said Qu Biao, 53, a teacher from northern Shaanxi province who had travelled to Beijing to show his support for Pu.

“The Chinese constitution protects freedom of speech, so putting him on trial is unjust and shameless. If Pu Zhiqiang is guilty, then we are all guilty.”

Pu, 50, was detained in May 2014 after he attended a meeting in a private home to commemorate the suppression of pro-democracy protests in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989. Pu, who had participated in the protests, had vowed to commemorate the anniversary every year.

Authorities had rejected his lawyers’ request for medical parole earlier in September, his lawyer Shang said.
In the past two years, the government has launched a crackdown on online rumours, detained hundreds of human rights lawyers in a nationwide sweep, and jailed a journalist on a charge of leaking state secrets.

Thousands in Brazil rally to demand president’s impeachment

People hold ikenesses of former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff in prison stripes during a demonstration for the impeachment of Rousseff on Copacabana beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, December 13, 2015.

RIO DE JANEIRO:

Thousands of Brazilians marched Sunday to demand that Congress impeach President Dilma Rousseff, whose government is plagued by an overwhelming corruption scandal and a dismal economy.

The protests were held in dozens of places including the capital of Brasilia and the opposition stronghold of Sao Paulo, but were considerably smaller than demonstrations earlier this year challenging Rousseff and her ruling Workers’ Party.

One difference this time around is that impeachment proceedings have already begun against Brazil’s president. Lower House Speaker Eduardo Cunha, a bitter rival of Rousseff, introduced a petition to impeach the president earlier this month. The Supreme Court suspended the discussion temporarily while it reviews how Congress formed the commission to debate the measure.

Many people at the protests wore Brazil’s national soccer jersey. Others held banners condemning Rousseff’s party for a kickback scheme at state-run oil company Petrobras that has entangled the country’s most influential figures, from one of its wealthiest bankers to a construction scion to leaders of Congress.
In Brasilia, protesters staged a mock funeral for Rousseff and burned dolls representing her mentor and predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Sao Paulo attracted the biggest crowd, with about 40,000 people, according to the reputable pollster Datafolha. A long green-and-yellow banner carried along the city’s main avenue read “Impeachment Now.”

The demonstrations were held by the same right-leaning groups that produced massive turnouts earlier this year to demand Rousseff’s impeachment when the process hadn’t started.

Although most complaints were related to the corruption scandal, Rousseff is facing impeachment on the argument her administration broke fiscal laws by using state-run banks to fill budget gaps. The country is also in a deep recession with forecasts saying growth domestic product should contract by 3.5 percent in 2015.

Analysts say the protests could play a role in swaying votes in the House of Representatives if the impeachment proceedings are first okayed by a legislative commission. The request to impeach her needs to be approved by two thirds of the 513-member legislative body to advance to the Senate.

Dozens die in strikes on Syrian school district, other areas

Men search for belongings at a site hit by missiles in the Douma neighborhood of Damascus, Syria December 13, 2015.

BEIRUT:

Intense air and missile strikes on a school district and other areas in insurgent-held Damascus suburbs killed dozens of people on Sunday, including children, a monitoring group and local rescue workers said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said unidentified war planes hit the town of Douma, 10 miles (15 km) northeast of the capital, and surface-to-surface missiles fired by the Syrian army also hit the surrounding areas, including Eastern Ghouta.

The strikes killed at least two children and a school principal, it said.

Syrian Civil Defence, a humanitarian rescue group that operates in rebel-held areas, put the death toll at 35 and said many others were wounded. It posted a photo of a dead baby with a severe wound to its head.

Issam al-Rayyes, spokesman for the Southern Front of the insurgent Free Syrian Army, said as many as 60 people had been killed in strikes on the Douma area which started early on Sunday.
Many of Douma’s residents have fled the nearly five-year conflict, moving to nearby rural areas. Syria’s civil war, which began as an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, has killed more than 250,000 people and driven more than 10 million from their homes.
The areas have been under heavy bombardment in recent months. The Syrian army has said its strikes target insurgents that have launched attacks on government-held areas.

The Observatory, which has gathered information from a network of contacts on the ground since the start of the conflict in 2011, said at least 40 mortar bombs fired by insurgents in the eastern suburbs hit Damascus on Sunday, killing at least one child and wounding several.

State news agency SANA said three civilians had been killed and at least 30 wounded in mortar attacks targeting residential neighborhoods of Damascus. Most of the victims were school students, it said, citing its reporter in the area.

Assad said on Friday he would not negotiate with armed groups, appearing to scupper peace talks that Russia and the United States hope to bring about next month.

Washington helped broker an agreement reached on Thursday by more than 100 members of Syria’s opposition parties and more than a dozen rebel fighting groups – to send a joint team to meet the government under U.N. auspices next month.

Saudi voters elect 20 women candidates for the first time

Women rest after casting their votes at a polling station during municipal elections, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia December 12, 2015.

RIYADH:

Saudi voters elected 20 women for local government seats, according to results released to The Associated Press on Sunday, a day after women voted and ran in elections for the first time in the country’s history.

The women who won hail from vastly different parts of the country, ranging from Saudi Arabia’s largest city to a small village near Islam’s holiest site.

The 20 female candidates represent just one percent of the roughly 2,100 municipal council seats up for grabs, but even limited gains are seen as a step forward for women who had previously been completely shut out of elections. Women are still not allowed to drive and are governed by guardianship laws that give men final say over aspects of their lives like marriage, travel and higher education.

Though there are no quotas for female council members, an additional 1,050 seats are appointed with approval by the king who could use his powers to ensure more women are represented.
The conservative capital of Riyadh saw the most women candidates win, with four elected. The Eastern Province, where minority Shiites are concentrated, saw two women elected, said Hamad Al-Omar, who heads the General Election Commission’s media council.

Saudi Arabia’s second largest and most cosmopolitan city, Jiddah, also elected two women, as did one of the most conservative regions, Qassim.

The mayor of the city of Mecca, Osama al-Bar, told the AP that a woman won in a village called Madrakah, about 93 miles (150 kilometers) north of the city which houses the cube-shaped Kaaba to which Muslims around the world pray.
Another woman won in Medina, where the Prophet Muhammad’s first mosque was built.

Other women hailing from the kingdom’s northernmost areas won, with two elected in Tabuk, one in al-Jawf and another in Hail. Additionally, a woman won in Saudi Arabia’s southern border area of Jizan, another in Asir and two won in al-Ahsa.

Many women candidates ran on platforms that promised more nurseries to offer longer daycare hours for working mothers, the creation of youth community centers with sports and cultural activities, improved roads, better garbage collection and overall greener cities.

In October, the Saudi Gazette reported that harsh road conditions and long distances to the nearest hospital had forced some women in the village of Madrakah, where one female candidate was elected, to give birth in cars.

The local newspaper reported that the closest hospital and the nearest university were in Mecca, prompting some students to forgo attending classes. The article said residents were also frustrated with the lack of parks in the village.

It is precisely these kinds of community issues that female candidates hope to address once elected to the municipal councils. The councils do not have legislative powers, but advise authorities and help oversee local budgets.

Most ran their campaigns online, using social media to get the word out, due to strict gender segregation rules that ban men and women from mixing in public. This meant candidates could not directly address voters of the opposite sex.

In an effort to create a more level playing field for women who wear the traditional full-face veil, the General Election Committee banned both male and female candidates from showing their faces in promotional flyers, billboards or online. They were also not allowed to appear on television.

Still, al-Omar said the historic election drew a staggering 106,000 female voters out of some 130,000 who’d registered. Out of 1.35 million men registered, almost 600,000 cast ballots. In total, some 47 percent of registered voters took part in Saturday’s election.
In Jiddah, three generations of women from the same family voted for the first time. The oldest woman in the family was 94-year-old Naela Mohammad Nasief. Her daughter, Sahar Hassan Nasief, said the experience marked “the beginning” of greater rights for women in Saudi Arabia.

“I walked in and said ‘I’ve have never seen this before. Only in the movies’,” the daughter said, referring to the ballot box. “It was a thrilling experience.”

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Around 7,000 candidates, among them 979 women, competed in the election for a seat on the municipal councils, which are the only government body elected by Saudi citizens. The two previous rounds of voting for the councils, in 2005 and 2011, were open to men.

Thousands evacuated as typhoon slams into Philippines

MANILA:

Thousands of residents have been evacuated as Typhoon Melor slammed into the eastern Philippines, where flood- and landslide-prone communities are bracing for destructive winds, heavy rains and waves up to 4 meters (13 feet) tall. Classes and flights have also been suspended.

The government’s weather bureau said Monday that the typhoon is packing winds of 150 kilometers (93 miles) per hour and gusts of 185 kph (115 mph), carrying heavy to intense rains within its 300-kilometer (185-mile) diameter.

It made landfall Monday morning in tiny Batag Island in the eastern Philippines, and a second landfall is expected in Sorsogon province.

Bernardo Alejandro, a regional civil defense official, says thousands of residents have already evacuated.

Saudi-led air strikes kill 19 Yemeni civilians: residents

A Houthi militant stands guard on a street where a pro-Houthi tribal gathering is being held in Yemen’s capital Sanaa December 10, 2015.
REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

DUBAI:

Saudi-led air strikes killed 19 Yemeni civilians in bombings of homes and a market on Sunday, residents said, a day before a UN-brokered ceasefire is set to start ahead of peace talks to end eight months of war.

Villagers in al-Hajawara in northern Hajjah province said multiple air bombings killed 12 people inside their homes and wounded 30 others.

Residents in the southern district of Qabatiya said 7 civilians were killed in an attack on a market.

A Saudi military spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.
Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthi group is fighting a civil war against loyalists of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, whose embattled government has been backed by air strikes and ground forces from a mainly Gulf Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia.

Half of the nearly 6,000 people killed in the fighting and air strikes are civilians, including 637 children, according to the United Nations.

A seven-day ceasefire is due to start on Monday, the day before planned U.N.-sponsored peace talks in Switzerland, senior officials on both sides of the civil war said.

Previous peace talks in June failed and a ceasefire the next month quickly unravelled, but months of stalemate in ground combat and reports of increased pressure by Gulf Arabs’ Western allies to end the war may encourage a political settlement.

UN documents human rights situation in Kunduz province

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN:

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released a report documenting human rights abuses in the northern city of Kunduz during the three days when it was overrun by the Taliban and the subsequent two-week government counter-offensive to completely retake the city.

The report, released on Saturday, documents 289 deaths and 559 civilian injuries that occurred in Kunduz and the surrounding districts between September 28 and October 13.

“The vast majority of casualties documented so far resulted from ground fighting that could not be attributed solely to one party,” the report stated.

Also Saturday, Doctors Without Borders announced an increased death toll from an accidental US airstrike on its hospital in Kunduz. The medical charity, also known by its French acronym MSF, said in a statement that 42 people were killed on October 3, with the revised toll resulting from a “methodical review of MSF records and family claims, as well as patient, staff and family testimonies.”

It added that the figures include 14 MSF staff members confirmed to have been killed, as well as 24 patients and four caretakers —relatives that provided additional nursing care for the patients in the hospital.

Spokespeople for the US military in Kabul did not comment.

“The battle following the Taliban’s attack on the city led to a loss of protection of the most basic human rights, including the rights to life and security of person. The deterioration of security, the breakdown of the rule of law and the absence of governance enabled an environment in which civilians were subjected to arbitrary killings, assault, other forms of violence, including gender-based violence, threats and widespread criminality,” the UN report said.

Kunduz, the capital of a province with the same name, was held by the Taliban for three days before a government counter-offensive was launched. Afghan troops took more than two weeks to bring the city back under government control, with small groups of Taliban fighters offering fierce resistance in certain neighborhoods. Later, an Afghan investigation concluded that weak leadership, misuse of resources and lack of coordination between services were the main reasons Kunduz fell to the Taliban.

UNAMA also received several reports of individual incidents of targeted and deliberate killings during the attack on and subsequent occupation of the city.

Melting glaciers blamed for subtle slowing of Earth’s rotation

The Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is seen in this undated NASA image. Vast glaciers in West Antarctica seem to be locked in an irreversible thaw linked to global warming that may push up sea levels for centuries, scientists said on May 12, 2014. REUTERS/NASA/Handout via Reuter

WASHINGTON:

The melting of glaciers caused by the world’s rising temperatures appears to be causing a slight slowing of the Earth’s rotation in another illustration of the far-reaching impact of global climate change, scientists said on Friday.

The driving force behind the modest but discernible changes in the Earth’s rotation measured by satellites and astronomical methods is a global sea level rise fueled by an influx of meltwater into the oceans from glaciers, the researchers said.

“Because glaciers are at high latitudes, when they melt they redistribute water from these high latitudes towards lower latitudes, and like a figure skater who moves his or her arms away from their body, this acts to slow the rotation rate of the Earth,” Harvard University geophysicist Jerry Mitrovica said.

The movement of ice and meltwater is also causing a slight migration of the Earth’s axis, or north pole, in a phenomenon known as “polar wander,” the researchers said.

“Imagine a figure skater who doesn’t stick their arms straight out but rather sticks one at one angle and the other out at another angle. The figure skater will begin to wobble back and forth. This is the same thing as polar motion,” Mitrovica said.

The research looked at the changes in the planet’s rotation and axis in light of the world’s sea level rise in the 20th century as a result of increasing global temperatures.

The melting of the ice sheets and the rise in sea levels moved the planet’s rotation axis, or north pole, at rates of less than a centimeter per year, Mitrovica said. This melting slowed the Earth’s rotation and increased the duration of a day by about a thousandth of a second over the 20th century, Mitrovica said.

“These are small effects,” but are another indication of the profound impact of human-induced climate change on the planet, Mitrovica said. The observed rotation slowdown does not pose a danger to the planet, he said.

If polar ice sheets melt at higher rates this century, as experts forecast them to do, the impact on Earth’s rotation will grow, Mitrovica said.

69 police officers injured in clashes in eastern Germany

German police cross a street as they secure the area during clashes with left-wing protesters in Leipzig, Germany on December 12, 2015. Photo: Reuters

BERLIN:

Leipzig police say 69 officers have been injured in clashes with rioting leftwing protesters and that they had to use tear gas and water cannons to disperse the group.

Some 50 police cars were also damaged in the riots Saturday evening, which started after hundreds of leftwing activists demonstrated against a rally by far-right protesters in the eastern German city of Leipzig earlier in the day.

Police said Sunday they temporarily detained 23 people after the leftist rioters threw stones at police, erected street blocks and burned down garbage cans. The protesters also demolished store front windows and two bus stops.

It was not immediately clear how many protesters were injured in the clashes.

Taliban attack near Spanish embassy in Afghanistan kills 6

KABUL:

An Afghan official says that at least six people have been killed after the Taliban attacked near the Spanish embassy in the capital Kabul.

Sediq Sediqqi, spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, said on Saturday that four Afghan police officers and two others, including a foreigner, were killed in the attack.
Seven civilians and two policemen were wounded, Sediqqi said. Twelve foreign citizens were rescued by Afghan forces during the operation, he added.

Zabiullah Mujahid, spokesman for the Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack in an email sent to media outlets.

The attack took place in the Kabul district of Shir Pur, which is home to many foreign embassies, guesthouses and the homes of high-ranking government officials.

Putin urges military to destroy threats to forces in Syria !

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his speech during a meeting with top military officials in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Dec. 11, 2015. Putin said the Russian military action helped change the situation in Syria, supporting the Syrian army offensive.

MOSCOW:

President Vladimir Putin on Friday vowed to further modernize Russia’s military and said that its forces in Syria will “immediately destroy” any target threatening them, a strong warning to Turkey following its shoot-down of a Russian warplane at the Syrian border.

Speaking at a meeting with the top military brass, Putin named “strengthening of the combat potential of strategic nuclear forces and the implementation of space defense programs” as a key priority. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that the military has received 35 intercontinental ballistic missiles this year and put forward equally ambitious weapons modernization plans for next year despite Russia’s economic downturn.

Without naming Turkey, Putin said the military should respond in full force to any further “provocations.” He said the Russian military base in Syria has been beefed up with additional aircraft and air defense weapons.

“I order you to act in the toughest way,” Putin said. “Any targets threatening the Russian groups of forces or our land infrastructure should be immediately destroyed.”
The downing of a Russian bomber by a Turkish fighter jet on Nov. 24, the first time a NATO member shot down a Russian plane in more than half a century, has badly strained the relations between Moscow and Ankara.
Turkey said it downed the Russian plane after it violated its airspace for 17 seconds despite repeated warnings, while Russia has insisted the plane had remained in Syrian airspace. Putin has denounced the Turkish action as a “treacherous stab in the back” and ordered the deployment of S-400 long-range air defense missile systems to a Russian base in Syria.

Russia also has introduced a slew of economic sanctions, including a ban on sales of tour packages to Turkey, an important trade partner and the No. 1 destination for Russian tourists.
Turkey’s foreign minister said Friday his country is refraining from responding to Russian efforts to hit back at Turkey over the plane’s downing, but added that the country’s patience has limits. “If we are not responding to all that they have done until now, it is not because we are afraid or because any psychology of guilt,” Mevlut Cavusoglu told NTV television.

Putin said the Russian military action in Syria is essential for protecting Russia from extremists based there, adding that fending off that threat is the main goal of the air campaign Russia launched on Sept. 30. He has previously said that between 5,000 and 7,000 citizens of Russia and other ex-Soviet nations have joined the Islamic State group.

“Our action there hasn’t been prompted by some abstract geopolitical interests or a desire to train and test new weapons systems, which is important too,” Putin said. “The main thing is to avert a threat to the Russian Federation.”

The US and its allies have accused Russia of targeting opposition groups fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government instead of focusing on its declared goal, the IS.
Putin claimed Friday that along with supporting the Syrian army, Russia also has provided support for some units of the Free Syrian Army, a group opposed to Assad.

“We have provided air support for them as well as the Syrian army and also supplied them with weapons, ammunition and supplies,” Putin said.
Shoigu said Russian warplanes have flown 4,000 combat sorties in Syria since the launch of the air campaign there, destroying 8,000 “terrorist” targets.

He added that Russia moved 214,000 metric tons of supplies to support the military action in Syria and helped restore a tank repair factory in the Syrian province of Homs, which he said is now working at full scale.

Russia’s ambitious arms modernization program has continued at full pace this year, even though low oil prices and Western sanctions drove the economy into recession this year.

Shoigu said the military has received 35 new intercontinental ballistic missiles, 243 aircraft, 90 air defense systems and 1,172 tanks and other armored vehicles so far this year.

He added that the navy received two new nuclear-powered submarines equipped with intercontinental ballistic missiles, two general-purpose submarines and eight surface warships so far this year.

The military also expanded its presence in the Arctic, building several new bases and other military facilities there.

Pakistan tests ballistic missile with intermediate range !

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan’s military says it’s test-fired a surface-to-surface ballistic missile — one that can carry a nuclear warhead and reach all corners of India, as well as the Middle East and other places.

Friday’s testing comes just two days after Islamabad hosted a regional peace conference that called for the resumption of negotiations between the Kabul government and the Taliban.

The military says the test meant to “validate various design and technical parameters” of the Shaheen-III, which was first test-fired in March.
The statement also says the missile’s impact was in the Arabian Sea.

Shaheen-III has a maximum range of 2,750 kilometers (1, 700 miles).
Lt. Gen Mazhar Jamil, who attended the launch, said Pakistan desires peaceful co-existence of nations in the region.
Pakistan became a declared nuclear power in 1998.

What can an African elephant do with its trunk?

He Can Have a Role in The Hurt Locker! African Elephant Can Smell and Detect Explosives.

What can an African elephant do with its trunk? Carry food into the mouth, smell for food around, or even more fascinating, to use the trunk as snorkel to breathe while swimming. But there is one usage beyond imagination: They can use their trunk to smell and detect explosives.

Chishuru the elephant is actually one of such bomb disposal expert. Its incredibly sharp sense of smell can even detect the tiniest amount of TNT.

Photos show that Chishuru performs well in an experiment on #BelaBela in the #Limpopo Province of #SouthAfrica .

Researchers hid a filter paper, which contains a small amount of TNT, into one of the many plastic buckets. Chishuru raised one of his forelegs as he successfully found it.

In 2007, researcher discovered that a herd in #Angola were purposefully avoiding landmine fields left over from the civil war, and the research started there.

The three elephants who passed the smell tests detected TNT samples 73 out of the 74 times in the similar experiments, according to Ashadee Kay Miller, a zoology student at the University of the Witwatersrand in # Johannesburg .

India clears Japan’s bid for first bullet train ahead of Abe trip !

A worker walks between two bullet trains at a high speed railway maintenance station in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, China, in this September 10, 2015.

NEW DELHI:

India’s cabinet has cleared a $14.7 billion Japanese proposal to build its first bullet train line, an Indian government minister and official said on Thursday, one of India’s biggest foreign investments in its infrastructure sector.

The decision ahead of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit beginning on Friday gives Japan an early lead over China, which is also bidding to build high-speed rail lines across large parts of India’s congested and largely British-era system.

Japan had offered to finance 80 percent of the cost of the train linking financial capital Mumbai with Ahmedabad, the commercial centre of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat, at an interest rate of less than 1 percent.

“It’s been done,” a government minister who attended the cabinet meeting headed by Modi late on Wednesday told Reuters.

An official in Modi’s office confirmed the decision, saying there were some issues relating to the bullet train but that had since been sorted out in time for Abe’s visit.

“We expect to make an announcement during the visit,” the official said. Both the minister and the official declined to be identified.

Modi and Abe have forged a strong relationship, seeking to expand commercial and defence ties and push back against the rising influence of China across Asia..

Japan’s International Cooperation Agency completed a feasibility study in July on the 505-km (315-mile) Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor offering to cut travel time to two hours from the current seven to eight hours.

China was in September given the right to assess the feasibility of a high-speed train link between Delhi and Chennai, in the south, after getting clearances from India’s security agencies wary of Chinese involvement in infrastructure areas such as telecoms and railways.

French and Spanish firms are also conducting studies into building two of the routes in a quadrilateral of high-speed train lines criss-crossing the country that would drastically reduce travel times.

A railway official said a panel led by Modi’s adviser, Arvind Panagariya, had cited the accident-free record of the Japan’s high-speed trains in its recommendation.

Lured by the scale of India’s transport needs, foreign rail companies are aggressively campaigning to sell their technology and steal a march on rivals.
However, the government has not said how it would pay for the new lines if they eventually get the green light.
($1 = 66.7900 Indian rupees)

Hackers say crashed Japan PM’s website to protest whale hunt !

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks about the agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal at Abe’s official residence in Tokyo on October 6, 2015.

TOKYO:

A hacking group said on Thursday it has crashed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s official website to protest Japan’s plans to hunt whales.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters that one of Abe’s websites became inaccessible early Thursday and police were investigating. The site was restored by the evening.

Suga acknowledged that the Anonymous hacker group has posted a Twitter message claiming responsibility, but added authorities had not singled out the group as a prime suspect.

One of the group’s twitter messages posted earlier Thursday criticised Japan over its whaling plans, and warned that Abe’s website would be brought down.

“@AbeShinzo whaling is not cultural right! Your website is #TangoDown!” the messages said. The group has also retweeted anti-whaling messages and one urging Abe not to eat whale meat and go vegan.

The incident on Abe’s site is the latest in a series of recent attacks on Japanese websites. The group has said they were responsible for dozens of earlier attacks.

The group most likely chose Abe’s site “to get public attention and spread their message against dolphin and whale hunts, rather than causing a real damage,” said Nobuhiro Tsuji, a cybersecurity expert at Softbank Technology Corp. “They think bringing down the prime minister’s website could cause an impact.”

Japan, despite protests from anti-whaling groups, last week resumed its annual Antarctic whale hunt, which it says is done for research, under a revised plan after the International Court of Justice found its earlier program unscientific.

War, low oil prices cripple Iraq Kurds’ once-vibrant economy !

Women shop at Langa popular market, in Irbil, Iraq on Thursday, December 3, 2015.

IRBIL:

Less than two years ago, Iraq’s northern Kurdish region was booming, as oil revenues poured in and foreign investors flocked to a rare island of stability in a turbulent region, but that all began to change when the black flags of the Islamic State group darkened the horizon.

Kurdish forces backed by US-led airstrikes repelled an IS assault in the summer of 2014 and have been among the most effective forces battling the extremists. But low oil prices and a longstanding dispute with the central government over revenues, along with an influx of refugees, have crippled the local economy..

The regional capital, Irbil, is littered with half-finished or abandoned building projects — hotels, offices and apartments that many had hoped would one day transform the largely autonomous region into a Kurdish Dubai. Foreigners attracted to the region by business opportunities and liberal social mores are leaving, civil servants haven’t been paid for months and day laborers gather on street corners, hoping for work.

“The economy today has very bad indicators. Savings are running out, people are starting to borrow and cut their expenses, which is directly affecting the market’s direction,” said Nabil al-Ethari, an economic analyst and chairman of Development Iraq, a consultancy firm based in Irbil.
“The housing sector is declining in a way that has never been seen before, the trade sector, including car sales, is also seeing declines, and all this is connected to the important fact that the region’s market is disconnected from its customers and markets in central and southern Iraq.”

The relatively secure region was largely spared the unrest that convulsed Iraq following the 2003 US-led invasion, but local authorities have been locked in a longstanding dispute with Baghdad over the sharing of oil revenues.

Kurdish officials say the regional government is entitled to 17 percent of Iraq’s budget, or about $12 billion a year. But the central government has withheld much of those funds to punish the region for exporting oil independently, and in the first half of 2015, the government received just $2 billion.

Low oil prices have exacerbated the economic crisis, as have fears about the IS group, which is manning front lines some 24 miles (38 kilometers) from Irbil. The region has also taken in more than a million refugees from Syria and other parts of Iraq, costing local authorities some $1 billion last year.
“It’s all interrelated.

The Daesh issue is connected to the economic situation,” said Amjad Rafat (35) a household appliances salesman in Irbil, using the Arabic acronym for the IS group. “You have the government employees, who have not been paid, along with the war, and these have all had a negative impact on us.”

Economic growth in the Kurdish region was just 3 percent last year, down from 8 percent in 2013, and the poverty rate has climbed from 3.5 percent in 2012 to more than 8 percent last year, according to the World Bank.

“Before Daesh, our sales were very high. And that was only two years ago,” said Rafat. “Now our sales have dropped dramatically. It’s 5 percent compared to 80 percent before.”

The region has no reliable statistics on unemployment, but experts estimate that the rate has doubled in the last two years.

“It has been two years that I haven’t been able to find a job. There is nothing at all. Because of the war there is not much room for work and jobs,” said 30-year-old Ayoub Tayib, an unemployed gardener.

“In 2013, 2012, and back to 2008, things were not bad at all. But now everything has disappeared, which makes me very worried,” he said. “You almost prefer death to this life.”