Lawson too ‘lazy’ for Christmas presents

The Lawson boys are too lazy to buy each other Christmas presents.
The 'When She Was Mine' hitmakers - formed of Andy Brown, Ryan Fletcher, Joel Peat and Adam Pitts - never buy each other Christmas or birthday presents because they're 'typical lazy lads'.
Bass player Ryan Fletcher told BANG Showbiz: 'I wish we did. We tend to all go big before Christmas, before we all go our separate ways.
'I feel like we should have some sort of Secret Santa but we never do and never get each other birthday presents or Christmas presents. I think it's just typical lazy lads, but we know the thought is there.'
The 23-year-old band member added: 'We're all going to go home and gain weight with our families. It's going to be lovely.'
Ryan is having the traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings on Christmas Day and has always been banned from the kitchen - until this year.
He joked: 'I'm not trusted with the main course but at the same time I fancy it. I'm going to get involved.'
After Christmas has ended, the fun won't stop for Ryan who is hoping to join his dad on a trip to Dubai.
He said: 'I might be going away on holiday with my family because my dad is going away to Dubai and I'm attempted to jump on a flight with him and join him. So I don't know.
'I don't know whether to stay low with my friends or go away with my family for New Year's Eve.'

Sino-Pakistani nuclear deal: A risky affair

Pakistani officials confirmed Tuesday, December 24, that the China National Nuclear Cooperation (CNNC) had promised to grant their country a loan of 6.5 billion dollars to fund a major atomic power project in the country's southern port city of Karachi. Pakistan's Energy Ministry officials told the news agency Reuters that China had also waived a 250,000-dollar insurance premium on the loan.

The nuclear-armed South Asian country is facing a severe energy crisis. Blackouts last for more than half a day in many of cities, including the financial and industrial hub, Karachi. The shortage of electricity and gas has badly affected the country's economy, which needs a half-yearly bailout from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Pakistan hopes to generate more than 40,000 megawatts of electricity through nuclear plants by 2050. The two Chinese-funded nuclear plants - with a capacity of 1,100 megawatts each - is expected to be completed by 2019, and each of them will be bigger than the combined power of all nuclear plants operating in the country.

In July, only two months after becoming prime minister for the third term, Nawaz Sharif visited China - the country's closest ally in the region - to court Chinese investment in his country's ailing transport and electricity-generating sectors. Sharif also attended a Sino-Pakistani Energy Forum in Shanghai, and met with the leaders of the China Power Investment Corporation as well as the Chinese president and the premier. However, it was only last month when Sharif broke ground on the 9.59-billion-dollar nuclear project.

'As things stand, the performance and capacity of nuclear power plants in Pakistan is far better compared to non-nuclear power plants,' Ansar Parvez, chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, which runs the civilian nuclear program, told the media. 'China has complete confidence in Pakistan's capacity to run a nuclear power plant with all checks in place,' he added.

Are all checks in place?

The United States signed a civilian nuclear deal with India in 2008, irking both Beijing and Islamabad. Pakistan demanded a similar deal with the US, but Islamabad's biggest military financer refused it due to the Muslim-majority country's nuclear-proliferation history.

In 2004, the 'father' of the country's nuclear bomb, Dr. A.Q. Khan, confessed to selling nuclear technology to North Korea and Iran. Khan was removed from his post as head of the country's nuclear program by former military dictator and President Pervez Musharraf in 2001. Despite that, Pakistan claims both its military and civilian nuclear programs are under strict control and are safe.

Neither Pakistan nor India have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which discourages major atomic powers from entering a civilian nuclear partnership with them. The US nevertheless struck a civilian nuclear deal with India ignoring the (NPT).

'There should be no double standards in terms of civilian nuclear deals,' Parvez said. 'Pakistan has energy needs and the building of two new reactors should convince everyone that international embargos and restrictions and Indian lobbying won't stop us.'

Despite Pakistan's repeated assurances, India and the US fear that the increased civilian nuclear cooperation between Islamabad and Beijing would eventually bolster Islamabad's military program; experts fear Pakistan might try to build up its stock of nuclear warheads.

China downplays these concerns and says its nuclear relations with Pakistan are peaceful and fall under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

Concerns are not totally baseless

'Nuclear programs are never safe. On the one hand there is perhaps too much hype about the Pakistani nuclear program in Western media, on the other there is genuine concern,' London-based Pakistani journalist and researcher Farooq Sulehria told DW. 'The Talibanization of the Pakistan military is something we can't overlook. What if there is an internal Taliban takeover of the nuclear assets?' Sulehria speculated.

Sulehria's concerns are probably justified. The Taliban militants have proven time and again that they are capable of attacking not only civilians but also military bases. In August 2012, militants armed with guns and rocket launchers attacked an air base in the town of Kamra in the Punjab province. The large base is home to several squadrons of fighter and surveillance planes, which air force officials said had not been damaged in the attack. The Taliban have great influence in Pakistan's restive northwestern Swat Valley and according to defense experts, several nuclear installations are located not too far from the area. Media reports have also claimed a growing presence of al Qaeda and Taliban militants in Karachi.

But political and defense analyst Zahid Hussain believes the West is 'unnecessarily worried.'

'Pakistan conducted its nuclear tests more fifteen years ago. Nothing has happened since then. Pakistan has made sure the nuclear weapons remain safe,' Hussain told DW.

How safe?

The other aspect of the controversy regarding the construction of nuclear energy plants is their safety. A number of prominent physicists have raised doubts about the safety, design and cost of the new plants in Karachi.

'There is no official information about preparedness for a nuclear accident in Karachi that is available publicly,' Zia Mian, a Pakistani-American physicist at Princeton University, told Reuters. 'The only real obstacle that may exist to the new reactors being built is if the citizens of Karachi decide they do not want to live with the risks these reactors create.'

Zain-ul-Abideen, a social activist and a Karachi resident, told DW that the new nuclear plants had more risks than benefits and that the citizens should oppose their construction. 'Pakistan definitely needs energy but it should look for alternate ways to generate it. Nuclear plants are too risky and quite a few countries have already switched to other sources following the nuclear disaster in Fukushima.'

Geologists say that Karachi lies on a fault line. Rights activists have already voiced concerns about the safety of the ageing Karachi Nuclear Power Plant and the unpreparedness on the part of the authorities to cope with an unlikely nuclear catastrophe. They say that the possibility of an atomic disaster in a city with a population of 18 million people cannot be ruled out, and that the government must take immediate steps to ensure the safety of the nuclear reactors and its people

Mao arrives in Capitalist China

Chinese state and party leader Xi Jinping originally called for low-key celebrations to mark the 120th birthday of the Communist Party of China's first chairman. In Mao's place of birth, Shaoshan, people seem to have ignored that. According to local media reports, there are a number of pricey projects for the birthday celebrations, which together total around two billion US dollars. Among them are the renovation of a tourism center and of Mao's parents' former home (pictured below) along with the construction of motorways and train stations. Mao's home village in the central province of Hunan seems to be aiming to secure a profit by getting in on the Mao cult.

Omnipresent

Portraits of Mao can be seen hanging from rear-view mirrors in taxis or in wall calendars. Mao placards dating back to the Cultural Revolution are sold in antiques shops for hundreds of yuan. Tourists visiting Beijing's famous silk market can purchase original or reprinted copies of the so-called 'Mao bible,' which contains selected texts from Mao.

Mao's likeness, of course, is printed on the renminbi, his portrait - 12 sq. meters in size - hangs at Tiananmen Square in the capital. And that is also where he lies in state in a glass coffin in his mausoleum.

In a popular Chinese joke, the 'Great Helmsman' wakes up one day in his coffin and sits up, worried. He asks, 'What are my people up to now?' A guard answers: 'Fighting landowners.' That puts him at ease, and he lies back down. The joke is based on a very popular online game a few years ago called 'Fight the Landlord.'

'70 percent good,' the rest not so

The battle against landowners was one of the most prominent ideologies behind the Chinese Communist movement led by Mao. Despite the truly miserable conditions in which farmers lived, and the liberation the revolution offered to farmers from feudal structures, the 'mock trials and mass executions of the time of agricultural reform (1950-1951) are one of the darkest chapters in the history of China's Communist Party,' writes Oskar Weggel in his book on Chinese history in the 20th century.

Further dark chapters were to follow. Mao started a number of various campaigns that ended up costing millions of lives. Around ten years after the foundation of Communist China, Mao's 'Great Leap Forward' - an attempt to industrialize the country - resulted in the largest man-made famine ever. Estimates place the number of people who died as a result at around 30 million. In the year 1966, Mao called out the so-called 'Cultural Revolution' to cleanse the party of opponents. The result was a decade of chaos and thousands of deaths and the destruction of an unrecorded number of lives and families.

Those in power in China, nonetheless swear by the chairman's ideology. Mao's paramount role in the defeat of the Japanese aggressors in WWII and over the opposition Kuomintang party earned him the undisputed role of party leader until his death in 1976. Deng Xiaoping's statement, that the actions of his predecessor were '70 percent good, 30 percent bad' still counts as the party line.

Xi Jinping and the new Mao cult

The Communist Party's current leadership does not at all seem to be interested in coming to terms with the dark bits of the party's history. 'Reassessing the legacy of Mao would challenge the legitimacy and power of the party,' historian Zhang Lifan told news agency dpa. Observers believe instead of questioning Mao, the party has revitalized a new Mao cult. Daniel Leese of the University of Freiburg told media he was 'shocked' to see the amount of Mao ideology being played up. In state television, for example, President Xi Jinping can be seen participating in rounds of 'self criticism' with other party members.

'The party leadership is seeking to gain more support among leftist members of society,' China expert Sebastian Heilmann explains. 'Even in the thriving southern province of Guangdong, 38 percent of people asked are leftists, and they tend to feel a certain nostalgia when it comes to Mao. For them, it is not about social justice, and no Chinese leadership would be able to simply ignore this strong sentiment.'

It is questionable that the artists working on a golden, jewel-studded statue for Mao's 120th birthday were inspired by the question of social justice. On the other hand, it does show that Mao has arrived in Capitalist China

Al-Qaeda leader targeting UN workers: report

BAGHDAD: The shadowy leader of a powerful al-Qaeda group fighting in Syria sought to kidnap United Nations workers and scrawled out plans for his aides to take over in the event of his death, according to excerpts of letters obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

Iraqi intelligence officials offered the AP the letters, as well as the first known photograph of the Nusra Front leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the head of one of the most powerful and feared bands of radicals fighting the Syrian government in the country's civil war. The photograph showed a man with light olive skin and large brown eyes who had a scruffy, unshaven face.

The officials said they obtained the information about al-Golani after they captured members of another al-Qaeda group. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to journalists.

"I was told by a soldier that he observed some of the workers of the U.N. and he will kidnap them. I ask God for his success," read an excerpt of a letter given by officials from Iraq's Falcon Intelligence Cell, an anti-terrorism unit that works under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

It wasn't immediately clear when the letters were written, or what else they may have contained. The intelligence officials did not provide more excerpts. The officials said other letters planned the kidnapping and killing of other foreigners, and Syrian and Iraqi civilians.

One U.N. worker was kidnapped for eight months in Syria and was released in October. Another two dozen U.N. peacekeepers were briefly held this year. It's not clear if those abductions had any relation to al-Golani's letters.

They said the letters particularly focused on Shiite Muslims. Hard-line Sunni Muslim extremists particularly loath Shiites, seeing them as heretics for practicing a different style of Islam.

Another letter excerpt scrawled out rough plans for succession should al-Golani be killed.

The Nusra Front is mostly composed of Syrian fighters, but has some foreign fighters.

Alluding to the sensitivities between them, and suggesting that high-level positions were mostly filled by foreigners, al-Golani asks for a man called "Hajj Rashid" to be his deputy "until there is a Syrian man qualified to take the position."

Iraqi officials could not explain why the letter excerpts were in a sloppily written, grammatically incorrect version of an Arabic dialect used across the Levant. It is believed that al-Golani was an Arabic teacher before he rose through al-Qaeda ranks, and typically, hard-line Muslims try to write in classical Arabic.

It may have been that an aide was writing down al-Golani's speech: Arabs typically speak in dialects that are often quite different from the classical Arabic.

Little is known about al-Golani, including his real name. He is believed to be 39 years old. The photograph suggests a man in his thirties.

Al-Golani is a nom de guerre, indicating he was born in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

A native of Syria, he joined the insurgency after moving to Iraq, regional intelligence officials have said.

He advanced through aal-Qaeda's ranks and eventually became a close associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of the militant group al-Qaeda in Iraq.

He eventually returned to Syria shortly after the uprising against Assad began in March 2011, where he formed the Nusra Front, first announced in January 2012.

Under al-Golani's leadership, Nusra has grown into one of the most powerful rebel groups, with an estimated force of 6,000 to 7,000 fighters across the country.

The group gained prominence in April after Golani rejected an attempted takeover of the Nusra Front by another rival al-Qaeda group, now known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Iraqi intelligence officials said it was members of ISIL who gave them the information about al-Golani. (AP)

Thousands dead’ in South Sudan as UN votes to send more peacekeepers

The United Nations' top humanitarian official in South Sudan told reporters in the capital, Juba, on Tuesday, that the death toll was much higher than the figure of 500 that officials have given for the past few days.

"Absolutely no doubt in my mind that we're into the thousands" of dead, Toby Lanzer said.

Mass graves found

Meanwhile, UN officials have revised downward the number of corpses found in mass graves on Tuesday.

Ravina Shamdasani, UN human rights office spokesperson in Geneva, said investigators had found 14 bodies in a mass grave in the town of Bentiu, with another 20 at a nearby site. She also said 75 others were missing and feared dead. The office had previously put the number of corpses found at 75.

South Sudan's minister of information, Michael Makeuei Lueth, laid the the blame at the feet of the rebels, saying Bentiu was under their control.

The victims are reported to have been members of the ethnic Dinka group who had been part of the government's forces, the Sudan People's Liberation Army.

Earlier, Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called on the leaders of both sides of South Sudan's ethnic divide to renounce violence, as civilians were being caught up in the cross-fire.

"There is a palpable fear among civilians of both Dinka and Nuer backgrounds that they will be killed on the basis of their ethnicity," the statement said, also referring to the other major ethnic group at the heart of the violence.

Also on Tuesday, government forces claimed to have retaken the town of Bor from the rebels.

"Forces loyal to the government have taken Bor and [are] now clearing whatever forces that are remaining there," President Salva Kiir told reporters at his office in Juba.

Security Council vote

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council has voted to temporarily raise the number of peacekeepers deployed to South Sudan from the current 7,000 to 12,500, an increase of around 80 percent. The resolution, which was adopted unanimously at a meeting at UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday, will also increase the number of international police officers in the country to just over 1,300 from the current 900.

The additional troops and police officers are to be drawn at least in part from UN missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Abyei, and Liberia.

The Council also condemned the bloodshed in South Sudan and called for "an immediate cessation of hostilities and the immediate opening of a dialogue."

Attempted coup

Tensions have escalated in South Sudan since December 15, when the country's former vice president, Riek Machar, was alleged to have attempted a coup. Machar has denied responsibility, but has still called on President Kiir to resign. The duo are long-time rivals, with Kiir having ousted Machar as vice president back in July. The two are also split along ethnic lines; Kiir belongs to the Dinka group, while Machar is a Nuer.

Both have expressed a willingness to hold talks to try to end the violence, but so far no meeting has been scheduled.

Three Turkish Cabinet ministers resign over probe

ANKARA: Three Cabinet ministers resigned in Turkey on Wednesday, days after their sons were taken into custody in a sweeping corruption and bribery scandal that has targeted Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's allies in one of the worst political crises of his more than 10 years in power.

Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan and Interior Minister Muammer Guler announced their resignations in statements carried by the state-run Anadolu Agency.

Environment and Urban Planning Minister Erdogan Bayraktar announced his resignation from both the Cabinet and Parliament in a live interview with the private NTV television during which he also urged the prime minister to step down.

All three ministers denied any wrongdoing.

Caglayan's and Guler's sons, along with the chief executive officer of the state-run bank Halkbank, are among 24 people who have been arrested on bribery charges. Bayraktar's son was detained as part of the probe but later released from custody.

Media reports said police have seized $4.5 million in cash that was stashed in shoe boxes in the home of the bank's CEO, while more than 1 million dollars in cash was reportedly discovered in the home of Guler's son, Baris.

Erdogan has denounced the corruption probe as a plot by foreign and Turkish forces to thwart his country's growing prosperity and discredit his government ahead of local elections in March. Critics accuse Erdogan of becoming increasingly authoritarian, but his government has won three successive elections since 2002 on the strength of the relatively robust economy, a clean image and a promise to fight corruption.

The probe is one of the biggest political challenges Erdogan has faced since his Islamic-based party narrowly escaped closure in 2008 for allegedly undermining Turkey's secular Constitution. This summer, the government also weathered a wave of anti-government protests sparked by a development project that would have engulfed a beloved Istanbul park.

Wednesday's resignations came as a surprise. Erdogan was expected to remove ministers implicated in the scandal quietly, through a Cabinet reshuffle that was planned even before the corruption allegations erupted. The planned reshuffle aimed to replace three other ministers who are standing for mayoral positions in the March local elections.

Turkish commentators believe the probe is fallout from an increasingly public feud and power struggle between Erdogan's government and an influential U.S.-based Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen, whose followers are believed to have a strong foothold within Turkey's police and judiciary. The two men, without naming each other, have been engaged in a war of words since the corruption probe was launched on Dec. 17.

Gulen has denied being involved in the investigation. He left Turkey in 1999 after being accused by the then-secular government of plotting to establish an Islamic state. He was later cleared of that charge and allowed to return to his homeland, but he never has and is living in Pennsylvania.

As he resigned Wednesday, Caglayan again questioned the legitimacy of the investigation, which is focusing on alleged illicit money transfers to Iran and alleged bribery for construction projects.

"It is clear that the operation is a dirty conspiracy against our government, our party and our country," he said in a brief statement. "I am leaving my position at the Economy Ministry to spoil this ugly plot, which has involved my colleagues and my son, and to allow for the truth to be exposed."

In a telephone interview with NTV television, Bayraktar also denied any wrongdoing, complained of being pressured into resigning by Erdogan and insisted "a great proportion" of construction projects that are under investigation were approved by the prime minister himself.

"I want to express my belief that the esteemed prime minister should also resign," Bayraktar said.

Guler, the interior minister, told reporters on Tuesday that he is the victim of a political plot and that there is nothing his family could not account for. He also said alleged wiretap recordings of a conversation with his son - reportedly used as evidence by police for the arrests- were tampered with, and that the cash discovered in his son's house was money earned from the sale of a luxury villa.

The opposition had long called for Caglayan and Guler to resign, claiming their sons were taking bribes on behalf of their fathers, and insisted they should not remain in positions where they were able to influence the probe.

The government already has dismissed dozens of police officials either involved in the investigation or thought to be linked to Gulen. Journalists have been barred from entering police buildings, fuelling accusations from critics that the government is trying to impede the probe.

Egypt names Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group

CAIRO: Egypt's military-backed interim government has declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group, a dramatic escalation that gives authorities more power in cracking down on them.

Hossam Eissa, the Minister of Higher Education, read out the Cabinet statement after long meeting on Wednesday.

Eissa said: "The Cabinet has declared the Muslim Brotherhood group and its organization as a terrorist organization."

Eissa added that the implications of the declaration punish those who belong to the group, financing it and those promoting the group's activities.

The Brotherhood is the group that ousted President Mohammed Morsi belongs to and which has waged near-daily protests since a July 3 popularly backed military coup toppled his government.

Authorities blamed the Brotherhood for militant attacks now striking Egypt, a claim the Brotherhood repeatedly has denied.