Libya: Islamist militia bases stormed in Benghazi

Hundreds of Libyan protesters have stormed the Benghazi headquarters of Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia in a backlash against last week's attack on the US consulate.

Witnesses say militiamen opened fire as the crowd overran the base, but it is not clear if there are casualties.

Buildings and a car were set alight and fighters evicted following a day of anti-militia protests in the city.

US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others died in the 11 September attack.

Earlier, some 30,000 protesters had marched through the eastern Libyan city calling for an end to the armed groups that have sprung up in the country since last year's ousting of Col Gaddafi.

Here's the poster for today's "Save Libya" protest:

Most of the news sites are running with this image:

These images were just tweeted out. First of the protest march:

I think those are Berbers on horses.

Then, of the Militia Headquarters:

Libyans were so horrified by the actions of this militia that they, the ordinary citizens of Libya, have risen up against it in force. 

India's gutka addicts face ban on deadly stimulant-video

The Indian government has banned gutka, a highly addictive stimulant made up of chewing tobacco, betel nut and chemicals. It is hoped the ban will reduce the high number of Indians suffering from oral cancer. Here, users and producers of the drug discuss its effect on their lives and their views of prohibition

Six In The Morning

China government's hand seen in anti-Japan protests
Police guided marchers, and farmers' trip to Beijing appeared to have been organized. But then some protests went out of control.

By Barbara Demick and Julie Makinen, Los Angeles Times
The last week's anti-Japan demonstrations in China have been a spectacular display of just how easily the ruling Communist Party can harness the power of protest. In the aftermath of nationwide protests, in which mobs trashed Japanese-owned businesses and set fire to Japanese model cars, critics are questioning the degree to which the Chinese government fanned the flames as part of its dispute with Japan over an island chain both nations claim. "It is obvious that this was planned," said Ai Weiwei, the dissident artist, who videotaped some of the protests. The 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square were "the last time that the people themselves organized a real protest and then the government sent in tanks to crush them," he said.

Last of Obama 'surge' troops leave Afghanistan
The last of 33,000 extra US soldiers sent to Afghanistan by President Barack Obama more than three years ago have left the country, the Pentagon says.

The BBC 21 September 2012
They were deployed with the aim of pushing back the Taliban and allowing Afghan government forces time to take over the security of their own country. Some 68,000 US service personnel remain as so-called insider attacks by Afghan soldiers and police increase. In the latest violence, a bomb killed five members of the same Afghan family. Two women, two girls under the age of eight and a man died after a roadside device exploded under their car in the Dehrawood district of Uruzgan province, Afghan officials said.

How Burma's burgeoning democracy is based on old episodes of 'The West Wing'


GUY ADAMS LOS ANGELES FRIDAY 21 SEPTEMBER 2012
To most of the developed world, democracy is a birth right. To the military junta, which has presided over Burma for the past five decades, it's a strange and complex form of government which can only be understood by watching DVDs of The West Wing. The United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has revealed that the country's autocratic rulers – who are in the protest of loosening their grip on power – have been using old episodes of Aaron Sorkin's hit series to teach themselves how parliamentary systems work.

Irish developers plan to build Cold War museum at Checkpoint Charlie
The Irish Times - Friday, September 21, 2012

DEREK SCALLY in Berlin
AFTER A TENSE six-month standoff, the Irish developers who control Berlin’s Checkpoint Charlie have launched de-escalation measures at the notorious Cold War site. Mayo brothers Michael and Cathal Cannon have controlled the two vacant lots on Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse with Dundalk developer Owen Kirk since 2007. The only sign of life on the historic site came last April when a series of fast-food kiosks popped up, earning the ire of Berliners and city authorities. The kiosks were a regrettable misunderstanding, the investors said in Berlin yesterday. They were in town for the opening of a temporary “BlackBox” museum that puts Checkpoint Charlie in its Cold War context.

Timbuktu Islamists crack down on women without veils
Islamists controlling Mali's northern city of Timbuktu have begun arresting women not wearing a veil and have ordered any women caught out in the street late at night jailed, residents reported.

Sapa-AFP | 21 9月, 2012 08:55
"The Islamists are today criss-crossing the town's market and arresting girls not wearing a veil," El Mehdi Cisse, a resident of the Djinguerey Ber neighbourhood, told AFP by phone. Any woman seen on the street after 11pm would be taken to prison and must pay a fine, he added, citing an edict from the Ansar Dine Islamists, who have ties with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. "Since last night, they've visited imams to tell them that from now on all girls must be decently dressed," said another resident Boubacar Yattara.

Peru: As Shining Path's political arm grows, government clamps down
The Shining Path terrorized Peru in the 1980s and '90s. But the recent growth of its political wing has prompted Peru's government to introduce a muzzle law that some say goes too far.

By Miriam Wells, Contributor / September 20, 2012
The Shining Path, a Maoist group that terrorized Peru during the country’s civil war in the 1980s and ‘90s, is putting the government on the defensive once again. The recent growth of the Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Rights (Movadef), the group’s political arm, has prompted President Ollanta Humala’s government to draft a draconian law proposing to jail anyone who “denies or minimizes” the terrorist acts that took place during the conflict. Aside from automatically making membership of Movadef illegal, the law will penalize anyone who sympathizes with them, prompting fears that the government will exploit the law to silence legitimate protest and dissent.

Are Muslims being provoked?

A French satirical magazine called Charlie Hebdo has published cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad - a decision that could anger Muslims already furious about a recent anti-Islam video trailer.

The weekly magazine printed the images or caricatures on Wednesday. Muslims consider any representation of Prophet Muhammad offensive.

"It's an expression of hate speech which is not grounded in any argument, in any knowledge, in any humour. It's a phenomenon that is exposing itself in Europe for the past decade … and this is going to further increase because it's very easy to provoke Muslims." - Naveed Ahmad, an investigative journalist

Stephane Charbonnier, the magazine's editor, says the decision was well within the law, and that that is what really matters.

"We're in a country of the rule of law. We respect French law. Our only limit is French law. It's that which we have to obey. We haven't infringed French law. We have the right to use our freedom as we understand it," he said.

Despite concerns over a possible backlash, Jean-Marc Ayrault, the French prime minister, has defended France's tradition of free speech.

"If people's convictions have really been offended that laws have been breached, we are in a lawful state, laws must be totally respected, then they can go to the court. That has already happened with this weekly. Then there is the issue of respect, whether the directors of this weekly decide to it or not," he said.

Six In The Morning

India strike over supermarket reforms
Opposition parties and trade unions in India are joining in a day-long strike over the government's plan to open the retail sector to global supermarket chains and other reforms.

BBC's Yogita Limaye 20 September 2012
Early reports said that opposition workers had blocked railway tracks in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states. A key ally of the ruling coalition has pulled out of the government in protest at the plan. Observers say the coalition's majority in parliament is not at immediate risk. Thursday's nationwide strike, called by the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its allies and Communist parties, has shut down schools, businesses and public transport in many cities. TV channels showed protests taking place in the cities of Patna, Allahabad and Varanasi in northern India. Most businesses were shut in the eastern city of Calcutta and public transport was disrupted, reports said.

Italy upholds rendition convictions for 23 Americans
Ruling is world's first judicial review of CIA practice of abducting terror suspects and transferring them to third countries

Andrea Vogt and agencies Rome The Guardian, Thursday 20 September 2012
Italy's highest criminal court on Wednesday upheld the convictions of 23 Americans found guilty of kidnapping a Muslim cleric from a Milanese street and transferring him to a country where torture was permitted. The court of cassation's ruling is the final appeal in the world's first judicial review of the CIA practice of abducting terror suspects and transferring them to third countries, a practice also known as extraordinary rendition. The 23 Americans were all convicted in absentia following a trial that lasted over three years. The verdict paves the way for the Italian government to seek redress and could put the Americans at risk of arrest if they travel to Europe.

Palestinians' deepening financial crisis 'threatening Oslo Accords'
World Bank urges donors to act urgently and calls on Israel to remove trade barriers in the West Bank

CATRINA STEWART JERUSALEM THURSDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2012
The Palestinian economy is in a deepening crisis because of a shortfall in donor funding and Israeli obstacles to Palestinian investment in the most fertile parts of the occupied West Bank, the World Bank warned yesterday. The stark depiction of the Palestinians' economic woes is likely to revive fears in the West of further unrest in the Occupied Territories amid a stagnating peace process and a week of protests against the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

UN split over investigations into children in conflict
Four UN Security Council members have refused to back a German-drafted resolution condemning the abuse of children in conflict. It came as a UN envoy decried the Syrian regime and rebels for attacks targeting children.

DW.DE.
China, Russia, Pakistan and Azerbaijan abstained from the normally routine UN Security Council vote on children and armed conflict on Wednesday in an apparent effort to restrict investigations conducted by the newly appointed UN special envoy to children. The resolution set out a mandate for Leila Zerrougui, which the four nations said would allow her to investigate conflicts which are not listed on the Security Council agenda. "The sphere of activities [of the special envoy] does not cover all issues of protecting children in armed conflict, but only those situations that are on UN Security Council's agenda," said Russia's Deputy U.N. Ambassador Sergey Karev.

Overflowing S Sudan refugee camps on the brink
Tens of thousands of people have already swarmed to a refugee camp in South Sudan and a new wave will soon begin the trek from the Nuba Mountains.

20 SEP 2012 07:57 - MICHAEL ONYIEGO
Humanitarian workers warn the influx could become a catastrophe. As many as 15 000 more refugees could stream across the border from Sudan by the end of the year, straining a camp that has been hit by malaria and diarrhoea with many people arriving malnourished, said the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. "We are already stretched to the breaking point here, and any surge or increase in the population will make it nearly impossible to cope with the situation," UNHCR's Kathryn Mahoney told the Associated Press. Yida sits near the northern tip of South Sudan's Unity State near the border with Sudan. It is a remote region in one of the world's least developed countries.

Brazil may increase auto trade quota for Mexico
After booming sales of Mexican cars in Brazil, the Brazilian government is considering raising the auto trade pact quota it agreed to with Mexico.

By Ana Isabel Martinez, Reuters / September 19, 2012
Brazil is considering raising a three-year bilateral auto trade pact quota it agreed to with Mexico in March, potentially allowing Mexican exporters to sell around $350 million worth of additional vehicles to the Brazilian market annually. A Mexican government source familiar with the matter and a Brazilian official said the two sides had raised the possibility of increasing the quota after booming sales of Mexican cars to Brazil this year. Companies in Brazil that import and sell cars are pressuring the Brazilian government over the trade quota, which was used up in the first six months of the modified pact, which took effect in March.

Playing the Osama Bin Laden card

The US' former public enemy number one is enjoying a posthumous revival. Eleven years after the 9/11 attacks, and 17 months since he was killed in a raid in Pakistan, Osama bin Laden has become a divisive figure in the 2012 race for the White House. The Obama campaign has been playing the bin Laden card to publicise the president's national security credentials - and the White House has been accused of selectively leaking classified information about bin Laden's assassination for the purpose of political point scoring. And it is not just leaking to news organisations but also to Hollywood, which has a major movie on the bin laden killing in production.

The irony? The Obama administration has used the Espionage Act to crack down on leakers of classified information more than all previous administrations put together.

Six In The Morning

Another day, another disaster: So what now for Afghanistan?

Kim Sengupta reports on a chaotic 24 hours that saw the Allies in disarray, the exit strategy seemingly in tatters and a dozen killed by a suicide bomb

KIM SENGUPTA 

 

 

WEDNESDAY 19 SEPTEMBER 2012

The decision announced yesterday to cut back on joint operations undertaken by international and Afghan forces raises crucial questions about the key plank of the exit strategy from the 11-year war which has proved costly in lives and money.

The move is also a significant propaganda coup for the insurgents, coming just after their assault on Camp Bastion which resulted in the destruction of warplanes worth $200m. For the British and coalition troops, the announcement in Washington will only highlight the mistrust which has been the inevitable consequence of 51 deaths inflicted by their supposed Afghan brothers-in-arms.

irishtimes.com - Last Updated: Wednesday, September 19, 2012, 09:56

Muhammad cartoons published in France

French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo today published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a move that was criticised by the French authorities and sent riot police to protect the magazine's offices.

Issues of the magazine hit newsstands with a front cover showing an Orthodox Jew pushing a turbaned figure in a wheelchair with several caricatures of the Prophet on its inside pages, including some of him naked.

The front page cartoon had the wheelchair-bound figure saying "You mustn't mock" under the headline "Untouchable 2", a reference to a hugely popular French movie about a paralysed rich white man and his black assistant.

Pakistan 'forced' scientist to trade secrets

September 19, 2012

Rob Crilly

 Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's renegade nuclear scientist, claims he was ordered to sell nuclear secrets by Benazir Bhutto, the country's former prime minister.

Mrs Bhutto's allies have rubbished the claim but, if true, his revelations raise fresh questions about Pakistan's role in the spread of nuclear weapons and brings the threat of sanctions.

Dr Khan is known as the father of Pakistan's atom bomb but was also at the centre of a proliferation network that sold secret technology to rogue states around the world, including Libya and Iran.

WHO: Ebola claims up to 32 lives in DR Congo

18 SEP 2012 14:31 - SAPA-AFP

An outbreak of Ebola fever in the Democratic Republic of Congo may have claimed up to 32 lives since May, says the World Health Organisation.

By September 15, "a cumulative total of 72 cases was recorded, including 14 cases that were confirmed positive after laboratory analysis, 32 probable cases and 26 suspected cases, while 32 deaths were registered", the WHO announced in Kinshasa.

A baby born prematurely "in the isolation centre in Isiro [the epicentre of the epidemic in north-east DRC] to a mother infected by the Ebola virus was still alive while his mother died on Saturday," the statement said.

In DRC, which has known eight outbreaks of the often fatal haemorrhagic fever, it was the first time an Ebola infected pregnant woman had a child, because "Ebola and pregnancy are almost incompatible", Health Minister Felix Kabange Numbi said.

Chavez vs. Capriles: Corruption takes center stage in Venezuela's election

Opposition candidate Capriles expelled his top aide after a film showed him accepting cash from an unknown source. Are corruption accusations enough to push his campaign off track?

By Andrew Rosati, Contributor / September 18, 2012

Venezuelan presidential candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski expelled a top aide last Thursday amid corruption charges that could prove damaging to his campaign less than a month before

Deputy Juan Carlos Caldera was filmed receiving a cash payment from a blurred-out figure, which Mr. Caldera claimed was a donation for his own mayoral campaign. Government officials are alleging the money was a bribe for political favors related to Mr. Capriles’ campaign, however.

President Hugo Chavez's challenger quickly distanced himself from the episode and denounced the act: "I’m never going to permit anyone [to] use my name for their own personal benefit,” Capriles said.

After Libya, renewed questions about al Qaeda

The consulate attack sets off debate on the strength of the terror group

By ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

The attack on the United States mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens has set off a new debate here and across the Middle East about whether Al Qaeda has been reinvigorated amid the chaos of the Arab Spring or instead merely lives on as a kind of useful boogeyman, scapegoat or foil.

In the week since the attack, the president of Libya’s newly elected national Congress blamed foreign fighters from Algeria or Mali with links to Al Qaeda who he said entered the country months earlier to plan the assault. The Al Qaeda affiliate in North Africa praised the attack on Tuesday and urged more like it across the region. And in Washington, some Republicans have embraced that narrative, implicitly faulting the administration for prematurely declaring the demise of Al Qaeda with the killing of Osama bin Laden last year.