Friday, 4 July 2014

Saudi troops amass on Iraq border


Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. PHOTO: AFP
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia deployed 30,000 soldiers to its border with Iraq after Iraqi soldiers abandoned the area, Saudi-owned al Arabiya television said on Thursday, but Baghdad denied this and said the frontier remained under its full control.
King Abdullah has ordered all necessary measures to protect the kingdom against potential “terrorist threats”, state news agency SPA reported on Thursday.
The Dubai-based al Arabiya said that Saudi troops fanned into the border region after Iraqi forces withdrew from positions, leaving the frontiers unprotected.
The Iraqi prime minister’s military spokesman denied the forces had withdrawn. “This is false news aimed at affecting the morale of our people,” Lieutenant General Qassim Atta told reporters in Baghdad.
He said the frontier, which runs through largely empty desert, was ‘fully in the grip’ of Iraqi border troops. 

Kurds seek independence vote amid Iraq 'chaos'

Iraqi Kurdish president Massud Barzani told the autonomous region's parliament it should make preparations to begin to organise a referendum on the right of self-determination. PHOTO: AFP
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s Kurds set the ball rolling for a referendum on their long-held dream of independence, ignoring calls for the nation to unite against rampant militants or face “Syria-like chaos”.
Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki, meanwhile, broadened an amnesty offer aimed at undercutting support for militants who last month conquered Iraq’s second city and large swathes of land which the US top general warned government forces would need help to retake.
Iraqi Kurdish president Massud Barzani told the autonomous region’s parliament it should make “preparations to begin to organise a referendum on the right of self-determination”.
“It will strengthen our position and will be a powerful weapon in our hands,” he said.
The prospect of an independent state is made more attractive by what the Kurds say is Baghdad’s unwillingness to resolve the issue of disputed territory and late and insufficient budget payments to the region.
Barzani said Kurdish forces would not pull out from northern territory they occupied after federal forces withdrew at the beginning of the mlitant offensive, giving them control of areas they want to absorb over Baghdad’s strong objections.
Maliki on Wednesday said “no one has the right to exploit the events that took place to impose a fait accompli” and that the Kurds’ steps towards self-determination were unconstitutional.
On the ground, Iraqi forces were struggling to break the stalemate.
Security forces entered Awja, executed dictator Saddam Hussain’s birthplace, after fierce clashes but the government had yet to reclaim the nearby city of Tikrit despite a more than week-long offensive.
The top provincial official has said soldiers were advancing slowly because of booby traps and bombs planted along roads.
West of the northern city of Kirkuk, a roadside bomb killed one Kurdish peshmerga fighter Thursday and wounded four others.
The cost of the conflict has been high for Iraq’s forces. Nearly 900 security personnel were among 2,400 people killed in June, the highest figure in years, according to the United Nations.
Meanwhile, Washington has contacted Iraqi players and widened efforts to convince key regional leaders to help resolve Iraq’s political chaos.
President Barack Obama called Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah and Vice President Joe Biden spoke to former parliament speaker Osama al Nujaifi, a prominent Sunni.
The White House gave the Kurdish leader’s idea for an independence referendum a cool reception.
“The fact is that we continue to believe that Iraq is stronger if it is united,” said White House spokesperson Josh Earnest.
“That is why the United States continues to support an Iraq that is democratic, pluralistic and unified, and we are going to continue to urge all parties in Iraq to continue working together toward that objective.”
Biden later met Barzani’s chief of staff Fuad Hussein at the White House, and told the Kurdish delegation of the “importance of forming a new government in Iraq that will pull together all communities” to combat the Islamic State (IS) a White House statement said.
He also spoke about Iraq’s plight in a telephone call with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
US Secretary of State John Kerry phoned Barzani, stressing the important role the Kurds could play in a new unity government in Baghdad. That is seen as vital to meeting the challenge of Islamic State militants leading the militant offensive.
The top UN envoy in Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov, told AFP the country faced a crisis akin to the devastating Syria conflict if politicians allowed a total institutional collapse.
“If Iraq does not follow its constitutional political process, what is the alternative? It risks descending into a Syria-like chaos. And that is what people really need to understand, very very quickly,” he said.
Mladenov said a lot of damage had been done during the militant offensive that took second city Mosul before the IS declared a pan-Islamic state on a vast territory straddling Iraq and Syria.
“Iraq will never be the same as before Mosul,” he said.
Speaking to reporters in Washington, General Martin Dempsey – chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and an Iraq veteran – argued government forces would need help.
“If you are asking me will the Iraqis, at some point, be able to go back on the offensive to recapture the part of Iraq that they’ve lost… probably not by themselves,” he said.
But he added this did not necessarily mean the United States would have to take military action.
“I’m not suggesting that that’s the direction this is headed,” Dempsey said.
On Tuesday, Iraq’s Council of Representatives met for the first time since its election in April, but MPs failed to elect a speaker, with some trading threats and others walking out.
The legislature is due to reconvene on Tuesday. Once they agree on a speaker, they then have to select a president and a government.
Maliki’s Wednesday amnesty offer appeared aimed at splitting the broad alliance of militants, Saddam loyalists and anti-government tribes waging the offensive.
He made the offer to “all tribes and all people who were involved in actions against the state” but who now “return to their senses”, but excluded those involved in killings.
He later added former officers from Saddam’s armed forces to the amnesty offer.

Chinese moon rover designer shooting for Mars

A photograph of the giant screen at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center shows photo of the Yutu, or ''Jade Rabbit'' lunar rover. PHOTO: REUTERS
BEIJING: The man who designed China’s Jade Rabbit moon rover hopes a more advanced version of his creation will be sent to Mars, state media reported, underscoring Beijing’s increasingly ambitious space programme.
Jia Yang also told the official Xinhua news agency of his despair when the lunar rover lost contact with Earth six weeks after it was deployed on the moon’s surface.
He led the team that designed the Jade Rabbit, named Yutu in Chinese after the pet of Chang’e, the goddess of the moon in Chinese mythology.
“I hope before my retirement, the Chinese people can begin exploring Mars,” Jia said in an interview released late Thursday.
“I hope we can send a rover better than Yutu to Mars.”
The Jade Rabbit suffered a “mechanical control abnormality” on January 25 and lost contact with Earth, leading scientists to worry that it might not survive a bitterly cold 14-day lunar night.
“It’s like that a monster is going to swallow you, while your mind is very clear, but you cannot move,” Jia said of his feelings at the time. “We’ve done everything we can do. There is nothing else. Maybe it’s time to say goodbye.”
But space officials reestablished contact with Yutu in February, to the relief of domestic media and space enthusiasts.
China has declared the mission a “complete success”, but mechanical problems have continued to plague Yutu and the most recent reports in May said the rover was gradually becoming “weakened”.
Beijing sees the space programme as a symbol of China’s rising global stature and technological advancement, as well as the Communist Party’s success in reversing the fortunes of the once-poor nation.
The landing – the third such soft-landing in history, and the first of its kind since a Soviet mission nearly four decades ago – was a huge source of pride in China, where millions across the country charted the rover’s accomplishments.
China’s military-run space programme has plans for a permanent orbiting station by 2020 and eventually to send a human to the moon.
A chief scientist told state media in 2012 that China planned to collect samples from the surface of Mars by 2030.

India's Modi pledges to win hearts in first visit to disputed Kashmir

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi flags off the first train of a new railway line linking a Hindu shrine to India's railway network in Katra. India's Narendra Modi faced a hostile welcome as he made his first visit as prime minister to Kashmir. PHOTO: AFP
SRINAGAR: India’s Narendra Modi pledged on Friday to “win the hearts” of the Indian – Kashmiri people as he faced a hostile reception during his first visit as prime minister to the tense Himalayan region.
As schools and shops closed in the main city of Srinagar to protest the visit, Modi opened a railway line elsewhere in the restive Muslim-majority state, promising increased infrastructure and development.
Modi, a hardline Hindu nationalist, inaugurated the line in Katra town, 270 kilometres from Srinagar, that links a popular Hindu shrine in the disputed region with India’s vast and neglected railway network.
“Our railway stations can be better than airports. This is possible,” Modi said after flagging off the first train on the Udhampur-Katra line.
“Private parties can also participate, they will also benefit,” he added.
“It is every Indian’s dream to see happiness and prosperity in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.
“My aim is to win the hearts of the people of the state.”
The line is part of an ambitious project to connect the Kashmir Valley, where a separatist movement opposed to Indian rule is centred, with the network sometime in 2017.
The trip by Modi, whose party secured a landslide win in polls in May on a pledge to revive the economy, has provoked a sharp reaction from influential separatist groups which called a general strike.
Businesses were mostly closed in Srinagar as a result and the city’s streets were largely deserted, while top separatist leaders were put under house arrest in a security crackdown ahead of Modi’s arrival.
Separatists rejected Modi’s comments on Friday, reiterating demands for a political process to resolve the dispute over Kashmir.
“Development is fine but our primary aspiration is security, right to life and fundamental political rights which will come when the Kashmir dispute is resolved,” chief cleric and a top separatist leader, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, told AFP from his house where he is confined in Srinagar.
He criticised Modi’s decision to visit Indian Kashmir on the first Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramazan which meant he was barred from leading prayers in the city’s main mosque as part of the crackdown.
Separatist leader Yasin Malik also rejected Modi’s comments on development, saying it would never take priority “over our demand for freedom and self government”.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, which both claim the region in full but administer separate partial areas. The neighbours have fought two of their three wars over its control.
Since 1989, an armed rebellion against Indian rule by about a dozen rebel groups seeking independence for Indian Kashmir or a merger of the territory with Pakistan has left tens of thousands dead.
The dispute with Pakistan and the insurgency has made Indian Kashmir one of the most heavily militarised zones in the world where many chafe under tight security restrictions and complain of human rights abuses.
Ahead of the visit, Modi sparked anger in the region over his apparent plans to curb the region’s autonomy.
During election campaigning, Modi had argued for “a discussion” about Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which specifies that laws passed by the national parliament are not applied to Kashmir unless approved by the local legislature.
In May, soon after Modi took office, junior minister Jitendra Singh said that the federal government had “begun the process” of abrogating the constitutional provision that gives India’s only Muslim-majority state its special status.
On Friday, Modi also met troops and held a security meeting at army headquarters in Srinagar where hundreds of police and paramilitary were seen patrolling the streets.
Restrictions for the visit were also imposed on civilians’ movements in parts of the city’s volatile old town, a top police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Modi was expected to travel to the town of Uri close to the disputed border with Pakistan to inaugurate a hydro-power project.

India releases 9 Pakistani prisoners, including 5 fishermen

Of the nine prisoners, two had been in India's custody for eight years. PHOTO: FILE
LAHORE: India released nine Pakistani prisoners including five fishermen on Friday, Express News reported.
The fishermen had entered India’s territorial waters by mistake seven to eight months ago. They were kept in custody since then.
Of the nine prisoners, two had been in custody for eight years while two others were in India since the last six to seven years.
Two of the prisoners reportedly traveled to India on visa and were arrested when their visas expired.
The prisoners were handed over to Rangers, who gave them flowers upon their arrival in Pakistan. They will be sent to their homes after a short investigation.

Putin wishes Obama a happy July 4 'despite differences'


MOSCOW: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin congratulated US counterpart Barack Obama on America’s Independence Day Friday and expressed hope that bilateral relations would “successfully develop” despite their disagreements.
Putin predicted that relations between Russia and the United States “will successfully develop on a pragmatic and equal foundation despite the difficulties and differences,” the Kremlin said.
The two former Cold War adversaries “carry special responsibility for ensuring international stability and security” and “must cooperate in the interests of not just their own people, but the entire world,” Putin said.
Russia and the United States have had icy relations for months. They plumbed new depths after Moscow’s speedy seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. Washington has not had an ambassador in Moscow since February, when Michael McFaul resigned.
Putin has also repeatedly attacked the United States in recent speeches while Russian state television alleged that the crisis in Ukraine and raging fighting in the east of the country was done at Washington’s bidding.
On Tuesday Putin said in a speech that Washington was blackmailing Europe to stop economic cooperation with Moscow, calling it “short-sighted, ideology-driven approaches” aimed at containing Russia.

German agent suspected of 'spying for US' arrested: reports
















BERLIN: An employee of Germany’s foreign intelligence service is suspected of spying for Washington on a parliamentary panel probing US surveillance, media reports said Friday.
The federal prosecutor general confirmed that a 31-year-old German was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of acting for a foreign intelligence service, without specifying which one.
“At the present time we are issuing no further information on the proceedings,” a spokesperson for the federal prosecutor’s office told AFP.
But several German media outlets said the suspect was working for a US intelligence agency.
German government spokesperson Steffen Seibert said Berlin would wait for the police investigation before reacting but added that spying for a foreign intelligence service was not something “we take lightly”.
“If because of this consequences must be taken, then they will be taken. But we are not yet at that stage,” he told reporters.
Chancellor Angela Merkel was informed of the case Thursday, he said, declining to say whether she had discussed the matter with US President Barack Obama in a telephone call the same day focused on Ukraine.
According to public broadcaster NDR, the man was arrested on initial suspicion of seeking contact with Russian secret services and, in questioning, apparently admitted having handed information to a US agency.
Investigators did not rule out that the suspect had given false information, NDR said.
Berlin set up a a parliamentary panel in April to assess the extent of spying by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and its partners on German citizens and politicians, and whether German intelligence aided its activities.
Last month federal prosecutors also said they had opened a criminal investigation into alleged illegal US snooping on Merkel’s mobile phone.
Germans were outraged by revelations last year that the NSA allegedly eavesdropped on Merkel’s conversations, as well as about wider US surveillance programmes of Internet and phone communications.
The revelations strained ties between Washington and Germany, a key European ally, which both countries’ leaders have been at pains to repair