Sunday, January 13, 2013
Report: Obama To Proceed With Arming Muslim Brotherhood-Ruled Egypt With F-16s And M1A1 Abrams Tanks Despite GOP Opposition…
(Egypt Independent) — Egypt’s negotiations with the US to acquire F-16 aircraft and M1A1 Abrams tanks are proceeding smoothly, a senior Egyptian military source has said.
The source added that the negotiations are proceeding regardless of statements made by political opponents of US President Barack Obama, in what may have been an oblique reference to calls by US Congressman Vern Buchanan for the suspension of this deal over what he described as the “dictatorship of President Mohamed Morsy.”
He also said that news about fresh military assistance or deals always sparks controversies, which tend to subside when the deals are concluded. He alleged that those Congressmen or officials who oppose supplies of advanced weaponry to the Egyptian army belong to the pro-Israel camp.
He added that demands made by some Congressmen to stop weapon deals with Egypt are motivated by electoral interests, adding, however, that the US administration does not take into account the opinions of voters when it makes assistance deals because such deals are connected to higher strategic interests.
Sweeping new gun laws proposed by influential liberal think tank
With President Obama readying an overhaul of the nation’s gun laws,
a liberal think tank with singular influence throughout his
administration is pushing for a sweeping agenda of strict new
restrictions on and federal oversight of gun and ammunition sales.
CAP’s proposals — which include requiring universal background checks, banning military-grade assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, and modernizing data systems to track gun sales and enforce existing laws — are all but certain to face stiff opposition from the National Rifle Association and its many allies in Congress.
Obama — as well as Vice President Biden, who is leading the administration’s gun violence task force — has voiced support for many of these measures. Yet it is unclear which policies he ultimately will propose to Congress. Biden is planning to present his group’s recommendations to Obama on Tuesday.
CAP’s recommendations, presented Friday to White House officials and detailed in an 11-page report obtained by The Washington Post, establish a benchmark for what many in Obama’s liberal base are urging him to do after last month’s massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
“There’s nothing here that interferes with the rights of people to have a gun to protect themselves,” CAP President Neera Tanden said. But, she added, “we have daily episodes where it seems that guns are in the wrong hands, and that’s why we think it’s important that the president acts.”
On Monday, Tanden will moderate a public discussion with three Democrats who have played leading roles in the gun debate: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who during the Clinton administration helped get the 1994 assault-weapons ban passed; Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), who helped write that bill as a House member; and Rep. Mike Thompson (Calif.), who chairs the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force.
One of CAP’s suggestions to toughen federal regulation of gun sales is to make the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is currently an agency within the Department of Justice, a unit of the FBI. CAP says absorbing the ATF into the FBI would better empower the ATF to combat gun crime and illegal trafficking.
“It is a beleaguered agency lacking leadership and resources,” said Winnie Stachelberg, senior vice president of CAP. “It needs to be a well-functioning federal law enforcement agency, and we need to figure out ways to ensure that happens.”
CAP’s top recommendation is to require criminal background checks for all gun sales, closing loopholes that currently enable an estimated 40 percent of sales to occur without any questions asked. The organization also wants to add convicted stalkers and suspected terrorists to the list of those barred from purchasing firearms.
CAP is urging the Obama administration to back Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s proposal to ban assault weapons. The California Democrat wants to prohibit the sale, transfer, importation and manufacture of military-style assault weapons and ammunition magazines that carry more than 10 bullets.
The group also suggests requiring firearms dealers to report to the federal government individuals who purchase multiple semiautomatic assault rifles within a five-day period. Current law requires reporting multiple purchases of handguns, but not semiautomatic assault rifles.
CAP also wants the administration to free public health research agencies, including the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to study the impact of gun violence on injuries and deaths. For years, lawmakers, urged by the NRA, have placed riders on spending bills that restrict these and other agencies from conducting such research.
Over 100 dead in French strikes and fighting in Mali
France, warning that the control of northern Mali by the militants posed a security threat to Europe, intervened dramatically on Friday as heavily armed Islamist fighters swept southwards towards Mali's capital Bamako.
Under cover from French fighter planes and attack helicopters, Malian troops routed a rebel convoy and drove the Islamists out of the strategic central town of Konna, which they had seized on Thursday. A senior army officer in the capital Bamako said more than 100 rebel fighters had been killed.
A French pilot died on Friday when rebels shot down his helicopter near the town of Mopti. Hours after opening one front against al Qaeda-linked Islamists, France mounted a commando raid to try to rescue a French hostage held by al Shabaab militants in Somalia, also allied to al Qaeda, but failed to prevent the hostage being killed.
French President Francois Hollande made clear that France's aim in Mali was to support the West African troop deployment, which is also endorsed by the United Nations, the European Union and the United States.
Western countries in particular fear that Islamists could use Mali as a base for attacks on the West and expand the influence of al Qaeda-linked militants based in Yemen, Somalia and North Africa.
"We've already held back the progress of our adversaries and inflicted heavy losses on them," Hollande said. "Our mission is not over yet."
A resident in the northern city of Gao, one of the Islamists' strongholds, reported scores of rebel fighters were retreating northward in pickup trucks on Saturday.
"The hospital here is overwhelmed with injured and dead," he said, asking not to be identified for fear of reprisals.
In Konna, a shopkeeper reported seeing scores of dead Islamist fighters piled in the streets, as well as the bodies of dozens of uniformed soldiers.
A senior official with Mali's presidency announced on state television that 11 Malian soldiers had been killed in the battle for Konna, with around 60 others injured.
Human Rights Watch said around 10 civilians had died in the violence, including three children who drowned trying to cross a river to safety. It said other children recruited to fight for the Islamists had been injured.
With Paris urging West African nations to send in their troops quickly, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara, chairman of the regional bloc ECOWAS, kick-started a U.N.-mandated operation to deploy some 3,300 African soldiers.
TROOPS BY MONDAY
The mission had not been expected to start until September.
"By Monday at the latest, the troops will be there or will have started to arrive," said Ali Coulibaly, Ivory Coast's African Integration Minister. "Things are accelerating ... The reconquest of the north has already begun."
The multinational force is expected to be led by Nigerian Major-General Shehu Abdulkadir and draw heavily on troops from West Africa's most populous state. Burkina Faso, Niger and Senegal each announced they would send 500 soldiers.
French army chief Edouard Guillaud said France had no plan to chase the Islamists into the north with land troops, and was waiting for ECOWAS forces. France has deployed some special forces units to the central town of Mopti and sent hundreds of soldiers to Bamako in "Operation Serval" - named after an African wildcat.
Concerned about reprisals on French soil, Hollande announced he had instructed Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault to tighten security in public buildings and on public transport in France.
Hollande's intervention in Mali could endanger eight French nationals being held by Islamists in the Sahara. A spokesman for one of Mali's rebel groups, Ansar Dine, said there would be repercussions.
"There are consequences, not only for French hostages, but also for all French citizens, wherever they find themselves in the Muslim world," Sanda Ould Boumama told Reuters. "The hostages are facing death."
The French Defense Ministry said its failed bid on Friday night to rescue a French intelligence officer held hostage in Somalia since 2009 was unrelated to events in Mali.
The ministry said it believed the officer had been killed by his captors along with at least one French commando. But the Harakat Al-Shabaab Al-Mujahideen insurgent group that was holding Denis Allex said he was alive and being held at a location far from the raid.
RED ALERT
The French Foreign Ministry stepped up its security alert on Mali and parts of neighboring Mauritania and Niger on Friday, extending its red alert - the highest level - to include Bamako.
France advised its 6,000 citizens in Mali to leave. Thousands more French live across West Africa, particularly in Senegal and Ivory Coast.
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Friday urged an "accelerated international engagement" and said the bloc would speed up plans to deploy 200 troops to train Malian forces.
A U.S. official said the Pentagon was weighing options such as intelligence-sharing with France and logistics support. French officials suggest U.S. surveillance capacity, including unmanned drones, would prove valuable in vast northern Mali.
In Britain, a spokesman said Prime Minister David Cameron had spoken to Hollande to express support for France's intervention and to offer two C-17 transport planes to assist the mission.
He said both men discussed "the need to work with the Malian government, regional neighbors and international partners to prevent a new terrorist haven developing on Europe's doorstep and to reinvigorate the U.N.-led political process once the rebel advance has been halted".
Military analysts voiced doubt, however, about whether Friday's action was the start of a swift operation to retake northern Mali - a harsh, sparsely populated terrain the size of France - as neither equipment nor ground troops were ready.
"We're not yet at the big intervention," said Mark Schroeder, of the risk and security consultancy Stratfor.
More than two decades of peaceful elections had earned Mali a reputation as a bulwark of democracy - but that image unraveled in a matter of weeks after a military coup last March that paved the way for the Islamist rebellion.
Interim President Dioncounda Traore, under pressure for bolder action from Mali's military, declared a state of emergency on Friday. Traore cancelled a long-planned official trip to Paris on Wednesday because of the violence.
"Every Malian must henceforth consider themselves a soldier," he said on state TV.
On the streets of Bamako, some cars were driving around with French flags draped from the windows to celebrate Paris's intervention.
"It's thanks to France that Mali will emerge from this crisis," said student Mohamed Camera. "This war must end now."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/12/us-mali-rebels-idUSBRE90912Q20130112
Israel plans 170 new settler homes in Jordan Valley
JERUSALEM: Israel's defence ministry has published plans for 170 new housing units and another 84 guest rooms in the West Bank settlement of Rotem in the Jordan Valley, anti-settlement activists said on Sunday.
The settlement itself previously received government approval, but no building plan was set out, according to Hagit Ofran of the Peace Now organisation.
"Last week it was deposited for public review. It is talking about 200 units, 30 of them are already built. In addition, another 84 units are proposed for guest rooms," she said.
"It will be deposited for 60 days for the public to file objections. After all objections are collected and heard, the planning committee will decide whether to approve or refuse the plan. Usually they approve it."
The Israeli government has moved forward aggressively in recent weeks with settlement construction plans in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, prompting angry condemnation from the Palestinians, and international criticism.
Israel says settlements are an issue to be discussed during negotiations, but the Palestinians say they will not hold peace talks while the Jewish state builds on land they want for their future state.
The international community considers Israeli settlements built in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, to be illegal under international law.
The settlement itself previously received government approval, but no building plan was set out, according to Hagit Ofran of the Peace Now organisation.
"Last week it was deposited for public review. It is talking about 200 units, 30 of them are already built. In addition, another 84 units are proposed for guest rooms," she said.
"It will be deposited for 60 days for the public to file objections. After all objections are collected and heard, the planning committee will decide whether to approve or refuse the plan. Usually they approve it."
The Israeli government has moved forward aggressively in recent weeks with settlement construction plans in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, prompting angry condemnation from the Palestinians, and international criticism.
Israel says settlements are an issue to be discussed during negotiations, but the Palestinians say they will not hold peace talks while the Jewish state builds on land they want for their future state.
The international community considers Israeli settlements built in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, to be illegal under international law.
Netanyahu: Iran is my No. 1 task after reelection
Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu dismissed allegations by ex-PM Ehud Olmert that he wasted
billions of dollars preparing for “illusory security escapades” that did
not take place. Netanyahu interviewed on Army Radio called the
statement “strange and irresponsible,” adding, "I will say that we have
developed offensive and defensive capabilities for close and distant
theatres and I think that this is a very important investment for the
state of Israel." He reiterated that Israel "must do everything in its
power to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons", a goal he said
would be his "number one task" after his re-election (in the Jan. 22
parliamentary vote). Olmert resigned as prime minister in 2009 over a
corruption scandal and received a one-year suspended sentence for fraud.
Jordan’s Abdullah confirms confederation on table
On Dec. 27, 2012, DEBKAfile revealed that aspects of a confederation between
a Palestinian West Bank state and the Hashemite Kingdom were discussed
in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s recent conversation with Jordan’s
King Abdullah in Amman, and had become a focal talking point in Amman,
Washington and Palestinian centers.
This was confirmed by King Abdullah in an interview published by the French paper Le Nouvel Observateur Sunday, Jan. 13 when he spoke of resumed peace negotiations on the Palestinian issue starting in Jordan next month after Israel’s elections. New ideas were in discussion between Jordan, France and other European powers, the king said. “We are obliged to show that negotiations produce better results than rockets and air attacks.”
This was confirmed by King Abdullah in an interview published by the French paper Le Nouvel Observateur Sunday, Jan. 13 when he spoke of resumed peace negotiations on the Palestinian issue starting in Jordan next month after Israel’s elections. New ideas were in discussion between Jordan, France and other European powers, the king said. “We are obliged to show that negotiations produce better results than rockets and air attacks.”
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