OmanObserver_30-06-13

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14 THE WORLD Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron is shown a remote-controlled surveillance aircraft used in regional operations, during his visit to Camp Bastion in Helmand province, Afghanistan, yesterday. — Reuters West should have talked to Taliban: general KABUL — The West should have negotiated with the Taliban more than a decade ago, soon after they were toppled, Britain's senior general in Afghanistan said yesterday after recent efforts to start peace talks collapsed in ignominy. General Nick Carter told the London-based Guardian newspaper that an opportunity to bring peace to Afghanistan was missed when the Taliban were on the defensive in 2002 after they were ousted following the 9/11 attacks. "The Taliban were on the run," he said. "At that stage, if we had been very prescient, we might have spotted that a inal political solution... would have involved getting all Afghans to sit at the table and talk about their future." Carter, deputy commander of the Nato-led coalition, acknowledged it was "easy to be wise with the beneit of hindsight" but that Afghanistan's problems were political issues that "are only ever solved by people talking to each other". The search for a peace settlement with the Taliban is now a priority for the Afghan government and international powers as the insurgency still rages across many parts of the country and US-led troops prepare to exit next year. A Taliban ofice in Qatar that Rudd's comeback as PM revives Labor: poll SYDNEY — The dramatic return of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has delivered his lagging Labor party a six percentage point bounce, according to polls yesterday that also showed him as preferred leader over Tony Abbott. Rudd, popularly elected to top ofice in a landslide 2007 election win, seized back the prime ministership on Wednesday in a snap party-room ballot which dislodged Julia Gillard, his former deputy. Gillard deposed Rudd in a ruthless coup shortly before the 2010 elections after the party lost faith in his ability to win Labor a second term. It was a fate revisited upon her this week, with a nervous Labor again switching leaders in a bid to boost its hopes ahead of September 14's national elections. Early signs are that it may pay off, with a survey of 3,018 voters conducted by polling irm ReachTEL for the Seven network rating Labor a competitive 48 per cent to 52 per cent chance against the opposition, six percentage points ahead of Gillard's 42 per cent in May. Though his party still lags the Liberal-National opposition, Rudd outpolled Abbott as preferred prime minister 51.6 per cent to 48.4 per cent, compared with Gillard's 40.6 per cent. Those surveyed were divided on whether Labor had done the right thing by axing Gillard — 44.1 per cent agreed, 42.4 per cent disagreed and 13.5 per cent were undecided. A majority, 56.9 per cent, said they still didn't think Labor could win with Rudd in charge. Separate ReachTEL surveys in four key electorates in Sydney and Melbourne, published yesterday in Fairfax newspapers, gave Labor a 10 percentage point boost from Rudd's return. There were 650 voters polled in each seat. "We now have a contest," said Fairfax journalist Tim Colebatch. "It is a contest the (opposition) coalition is still likely to win. But now it will have to work for it." — AFP Japan's Princess Kiko Akishino (L) and her husband Japan's Prince Fumihito Akishino (C) walk during their visit of the Island of Bled yesterday as part of their tour of Slovenia. — AFP opened on June 18 was meant to foster talks but instead triggered a diplomatic bust-up when the insurgents used the title of the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" from their 1996-2001 reign. President Hamid Karzai, furious that the ofice was being styled as an embassy for a government-in-exile, broke off separate security talks with the Americans and threatened to boycott any peace process altogether. US President Barack Obama recently said he anticipated "a lot of bumps in the road" during the peace process but that it was the only way to end the violence in Afghanistan. — AFP Return of rare bronzes marked BEIJING — Chinese Internet users celebrated the return of two rare bronze animal heads looted by European powers more than a century ago, underlining continued popular demands to redress what state-approved history books call colonial "humiliation". French billionaire Francois- Henri Pinault on Friday handed the bronzes, one of a rabbit and one of a rat, back to China after they were looted from Beijing's Old Summer Palace at the end of the Second Opium War. The bronzes shot to fame in 2009, when a Chinese bidder offered 14 million euros for each at an auction, but refused to pay on the grounds that the artefacts were part of the country's national heritage and had been removed illegally. It was a proud occasion for Chinese patriots, many of whom see the nineteenth century — when foreign powers occupied parts of China by military force — as a period of national humiliation still in need of redress. — AFP Gang leader held after 17 years TAIPEI — A Taiwanese gang leader who has been on the island's most wanted list since he led to China 17 years ago was arrested on arrival at a Taipei airport yesterday. Chang An-lo, better known by his nickname "White Wolf", is a key member of the Bamboo Union — one of Taiwan's biggest gangs accused of organised crimes including blackmail, extortion, smuggling and money laundering. "Chang An-lo of the Bamboo Union has returned to the country to turn himself in... the Criminal Investigation Bureau and the airport police immediately handcuffed and arrested Chang when he stepped out the plane at Songshan Airport," police said in a statement. Chang, 65, was born in China and moved to Taiwan with his family after Chinese communists took over the mainland in 1949. He joined the Bamboo Union as a teenager and gradually climbed his way to the top, according to Taiwanese media. SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 2013 Cameron in Afghanistan to push for peace dialogue CAMP BASTION — British Prime Minister David Cameron lew into Afghanistan yesterday to try to reinvigorate stalled peace talks with the Taliban and reassure Afghans that foreign troops will not cut and run next year. Cameron's visit to British military bases in southern Afghanistan came four days after the Taliban attacked buildings near the presidential palace in Kabul and the Afghan headquarters of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), setting back already shaky attempts to end 12 years of war. That attack came a week after US and Taliban representatives had attempted to meet in the Qatari capital of Doha, a session that was cancelled amid objections from the Afghan government. British oficials said Cameron was keen to boost political stability ahead of a presidential election next year which Western diplomats hope will result in the irst peaceful transition of power in Afghanistan since 1901. Britain, whose troops currently Xinjiang witnesses more violence BEIJING — More than a hundred people, riding motorobikes and wielding knifes, attacked a police station in China's ethnically divided western region of Xinjiang, state media said yesterday, in the latest unrest to hit the restive region in the past week. The attack in the remote desert city of Hotan, a heavily ethnic Uighur area, comes two days after the region's deadliest unrest in four years that resulted in the deaths of 35 people. China called the incident a "terrorist attack". The animosity between the majority Han Chinese and Muslim Uighurs poses a major challenge for China's Croatia to guard EU's longest land border KARASOVICI — When Croatia becomes the 28th member of the European Union, it will shoulder a major task — guarding the bloc's longest external land border in a region notorious for traficking. Croatia lies on the so-called Balkans route which stretches from Turkey across Greece, Macedonia and Serbia, and is used by criminal gangs to smuggle people, drugs or weapons. Croatian authorities must monitor a border more than 1,300 kilometres long — surpassing Finland's frontier with Russia — which besides Serbia touches the non-EU states of Bosnia and Montenegro. At the Karasovici crossing, nestled among pine-covered hills at Croatia's far south border with Montenegro, police oficial Stane Urlovic said: "Drugs and illegal immigrants are our main concern." Only last year, some 6,500 wouldbe migrants were caught in Croatia on their way to Western Europe. They came mainly from Afghanistan, Syria, Turkey and Albania, and from the African nations of Somalia and Algeria. Urlovic said illegal immigrants — number 7,900, is in the process of reducing its forces and removing equipment ahead of the end of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission next year. "We want a political solution as well as making sure we have a security solution," Cameron told reporters. "What we have done in Afghanistan is we came here to stop it being used as a base for terrorist activities. That has been and is successful. "What we (now) need to do is build up the Afghan armed forces and at the same time make sure that the politics of Afghanistan enable everyone in Afghanistan to play a role in the future of their country. We are making some progress there." The Taliban's statement that they no longer wanted Afghanistan to pose a threat to other countries or to be a haven for terrorism was encouraging, he added. Separately, a senior military source said Western troops would need to remain in the country as part of a "follow-on mission" up until 2020. Communist Party leaders. Chinese President Xi Jinping, who took ofice in March, has called for the unity of all ethnic groups in China. In the latest incident, "troublemakers" gathered at religious venues before riding on motorcycles to attack a police station in the city's Moyu county, said the Global Times, owned by Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece, the People's Daily. Authorities are counting the number of casualties and are searching for suspects, said the Global Times. In a separate incident, some 200 people attempted to "incite trouble" at a major shopping area in Hotan, the mostly men in their late 20s, but also couples with babies — often try to sneak in only a few hundred metres away from the Karasovici crossing. "Sometimes we catch the same people only a few hours after we have caught them for the irst time and sent them back to Montenegro," she said. Once an immigrant jumped out of a suitcase as an oficer was opening it, she recalled. Another migrant was found rolled up in a carpet put under the children's feet in the backseat of a car. Trafickers charge for a trip from Istanbul to an EU country between 5,000 to 6,000 euros ($6,700 to 8,000), police say. EU border management agency FRONTEX said the illegal crossings in the region — amounting to about 35,000 people — rose by 33 per cent in 2012 compared with the year before. Also last year, around 600 kilos of various drugs were seized at Croatian borders, and the smuggling of stolen vehicles is on the rise, police said. To meet the border challenges, Croatia has spent tens of millions Cameron's visit comes 11 days after a ceremony marking the start of the inal phase of the handover of nationwide security responsibility to Afghan forces. Dubbed "milestone 2013" by Nato, the event will lead to the departure of all Nato troops serving in Afghanistan at the end of next year. Nato and its partners are racing against the clock to train Afghanistan's 350,000-strong security forces before then, though questions remain over how well the Afghans will be able to tackle the insurgency in the face of high casualty numbers. The source said Western troops would need to undertake a mission after 2014 that would last "three to ive years", while a senior diplomatic source conceded that some of the gains the West has notched up since 2001 were "reversible". More than 3,300 coalition personnel have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, peaking at 711 deaths in 2010, according to the independent casualties.org website. — Reuters/AFP Global Times said. The newspaper said police diffused the situation. In a sign of the gravity of the situation, Xinjiang's top party chief Zhang Chunxian said: "We should be clearly aware of the complex and acute nature of the long-term struggle against separatism," according to the Xinjiang Daily, the oficial newspaper of the region. "For those who dare to defy the law, the criminals who engage in violent terrorist activities have to be punished. We can't tolerate them, we have to hold no punches," the People's Daily said in a front-page editorial. — Reuters Chinese paramilitary police ride in trucks during a 'show of force' ceremony in Urumqi yesterday after a series of terrorist attacks recently hit Xinjiang Province. —AFP euros of European assistance funds to improve border infrastructure, modernise equipment and train police oficers, said interior ministry oficial Gilio Toic Sintic. Some 6,000 police oficers are currently involved in the monitoring and control of the land borders with Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia, but another 300 are needed, he said. The 1,011 kilometre-long border with Bosnia is the most challenging not only for its length but also for its dificult terrain dotted with rivers and impassable mountains. At a police station in Metkovic — a southern Croatian town part of which lies in Bosnia — mostly young oficers monitor around the clock six 'suspicious points' on big screens. "This is a suitable terrain for (illegal) migrants, they can hide easily and later 'get lost' in the town," said the head of the regional border police Mato Barisic. Cameras cover these hot spots used by human or drug trafickers while Bosnian and Croatian oficers have joint patrols in the town. — AFP
SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 2013 A boy takes a picture of German chancellor Angela Merkel (L) as she arrives for an open house event in the Garden of the former west- German chancellery Palais Schaumburg in Bonn yesterday. — AFP Oppn leads in poll for July vote in key state MEXICO CITY — Mexico's main opposition conservatives are on track to retain the key electoral bastion of Baja California next month, according to a poll released on Friday, in a vote that could strengthen a fragile cross-party alliance built by President Enrique Pena Nieto to re-energise the economy. Falling short of a majority in Congress when he won ofice last year, Pena Nieto forged a loose pact with the two major opposition parties to work together on economic reforms. Sparring between the National Action Party (PAN), the opposition leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and Pena Nieto's Support for Canada's ruling Tories plunges amid scandals OTTAWA — Support for Canada's ruling Conservatives has plunged to its lowest level ever while in government, as a reinvigorated opposition presses them over scandals and a sluggish economy, a poll said. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Tories, who swept to power in 2006, have the support of 29.4 per cent of committed voters, according to the Nanos poll, while the main opposition party, the New Democrats, gained almost two percentage points to reach 25.3 per cent. The Liberals, ranked third in Parliament in number of seats, held 34.2 per cent. The number of undecided voters nearly doubled to 18.4 per cent, which pollster Nik Nanos said are probably disenfranchised or "grumpy former Conservatives." Nanos pointed to an Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, has threatened to derail his plans to improve the tax take and overhaul state oil giant Pemex. The conservative PAN is seen as his most natural ally, especially on high stakes energy reform. Since its 2000-2012 rule of Mexico ended in December, the PAN has been rocked by inighting, and on July 7 voters will elect a new governor in Baja California, which was the irst state to bring PAN to power 24 years ago. To lose it would be a heavy blow for the party. The PAN has held the state continuously since 1989, increasing the risk that voters could opt for a change. expense scandal, the election of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau and also the malaise in the economy for the Conservatives' weak showing in the mid-June survey of 1,000 Canadian voters. "Roll those three things up and it provides for a very dificult environment for the Conservatives politically," he told public broadcaster CBC. Over the past months, the Conservatives have faced growing criticism over a Senate spending scandal that turned into a criminal investigation as police reviewed a payment to a delinquent senator by the prime minister's chief of staff, who has since quit. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's right-hand man, Nigel Wright, resigned suddenly last month after revealing that he paid $90,000 ($87,700) However, the voter survey by polling irm Demotecnia showed some 53 per cent of the electorate favoured the candidate representing the unusual PAN/PRD coalition running in the state, while 45 per cent backed the PRI's hopeful. Sharing a border with the United States, Baja California is one of 14 states that will hold local elections next weekend. It is the only governorship up for grabs, and has become a symbol for the PAN since its capture from the PRI. Both the PAN and the PRD have pounced upon any hint of electoral fraud by the PRI, and Pena Nieto's reliance on the so-called Pact for to Senator Mike Duffy in order to help the lawmaker repay funds he had wrongly claimed as Senate expenses. After the repayment, Duffy stopped cooperating with an audit, leading to opposition cries of a cover-up and demands for a probe. Meanwhile, Trudeau, the eldest son of late prime minister Pierre Trudeau, was picked to lead and resurrect a party that held power for most of the last century but was relegated to the margins as the country's number three grouping in the last election. The survey is considered accurate within 3.5 percentage points. So if the numbers hold until the next election, expected in 2015, young Trudeau and his Liberals could form Canada's next government. — AFP Ecuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino (C) poses for a photo with his supporters, after arriving from Singapore, at Quito airport. — Reuters Mexico he created with the opposition means his party has to tread carefully in the elections. A change of power in Baja California would increase pressure on national PAN chairman Gustavo Madero, who has faced persistent grumbling from internal party critics that the Pact for Mexico has undermined support for the conservatives. The pact has produced a major education reform as well as a landmark law aimed at curbing the power of Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim and broadcaster Televisa, though many of the details of those bills must still be thrashed out in Congress. — Reuters Far-right leader arrested in UK LONDON — The leader of the far-right English Defence League (EDL) was arrested yesterday after breaching a police order banning a march to the London site where a soldier was murdered last month, the group said. Scotland Yard had warned Tommy Robinson and other EDL members they faced arrest if they went ahead with a planned walk and rally at the barracks in Woolwich, southeast London, where Lee Rigby was hacked to death. Two people are due to stand trial over the murder in November. Police said the EDL's plans risked causing "serious public disorder" and told the group to hold their rally, timed to mark Armed Forces Day in Britain, near parliament in central London. The EDL campaigns against what it says is the spread of radical ideas in Britain. But it has been accused of Islamophobia and previous rallies have ended in clashes with anti-fascist groups. Despite the police warning, Robinson went ahead with a sponsored walk through the capital with EDL co-leader Kevin Carroll. — AFP Massive search for canoeist MONTREAL — Canadian police in Yukon deployed planes and boats and asked the participants of the world's longest canoe and kayak race for assistance in their search for a missing German canoeist. Michael Ludwig of Germany went missing while attempting a solo canoe trip on the Yukon River from the capital of Yukon Territory, Whitehorse, to Dawson City. "We have airplanes and boats scouring the shoreline, the creeks and the back-channels for any sign of him or his gear," said Sergeant Dave Wallace of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) detachment in Dawson on Friday. Ludwig, 65, was last seen on June 10 near Britannia Creek, having completed almost two-thirds of his 715-kilometre journey to Dawson. The trip from Whitehorse to Dawson takes about seven to ten days in a canoe or a kayak. RCMP were alerted on June 21 that Ludwig was late to his destination by a community safety oficer in Eagle, Alaska, about 200 kilometres downstream from Dawson, Wallace said. — dpa EUROPE/AMERICAS 15 Plan to import doctors faces stiff resistance SAO PAULO — President Dilma Rousseff's plan to import foreign doctors to work in rural and poor parts of Brazil, part of a move to quell massive street protests over poor public services, has run into stiff opposition from the powerful medical lobby. Public dissatisfaction over the quality of healthcare has helped fuel nationwide protests over the past month and spurred Rousseff, a pragmatic leftist, to announce earlier this week the "emergency action" plan to bring in foreign doctors. Brazil's public healthcare system, which serves some 75 per cent of its 194 million people, has a shortage of 54,000 physicians, leaving it with a mere 1.8 doctors per 1,000 inhabitants, according to government data. The problem is particularly dire in remote parts of the country. In Imperatriz, a city of 250,000 in the poor northeastern state of Maranhao, the municipal hospital's intensive care unit has gone without a pediatrician for a year. With not enough Brazilian doctors to meet these needs, health oficials have seized upon the idea of importing doctors from Spain and Portugal, which have about double the number of doctors per capita but are suffering deep economic crises. Local doctors, however, are skeptical and angry about the plan, which they see as an attempt to obscure the government's failures in healthcare. The Federal Board of Medicine, which represents 400,000 doctors, has announced a walk-out on July 3 in protest. "Portuguese and Spanish won't come because of the work conditions," said Roberto D'Avila, president of the Federal Board of Medicine. "All this rhetoric is being employed to justify the arrival of Cuban doctors without re-training." Early this year, authorities loated the idea of bringing up to 6,000 doctors from Cuba. D'Avila is dubious of the skills of Cuban doctors, claiming that some have the training of one of "our nurses." "Bringing doctors from abroad would only make matters worse," Alison Soto, the director of the municipal hospital in Imperatriz, said in an interview. "It's the government's skewed view." Ex-governor gets 11-year jail NEW YORK CITY — A US court sentenced a former Mexican governor to 11 years in prison for conspiring to launder drug money. Mario Villanueva Madrid, 65, who headed the state of Quintana Roo from 1994 to 1999, was accused of conspiring to launder millions of dollars in bribes from the Juarez drug cartel through accounts at banks in the United States and elsewhere. He pleaded guilty in August. Initially arrested in Mexico in 2001 and later convicted there on organised crime and corruption offenses, he was extradited to the United States in May 2010. His sentencing Friday took into account the six years he already spent behind bars in his homeland, a prosecution spokesman said. According to a statement from the US Attorney's Ofice for the Southern District of New York, Villanueva Madrid made a lucrative deal with the Juarez cartel in 1994 that ensured its cocaine shipments travelled safely through Quintana Roo. Over the next ive years, he amassed millions of dollars, and by late 1995 began transferring the funds to accounts in the United States, Switzerland and elsewhere. His funds in US accounts totalled more than $17 million. "Mario Villanueva Madrid was entrusted to serve the public in Mexico, but instead, in return for millions of dollars in bribes, he provided safe passage to a brutal drug cartel, allowing it to move massive amounts of cocaine through the state he governed," Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara said in the statement. — AFP Firemen carry a painting of Henri IV of France out of the city hall of the historic French port of La Rochelle, southwestern France yesterday followed by the city's mayor Maxime Bono (L), after a ire swept through it's roof on the eve, destroying a part of the listed 15th-Century building. — AFP Tapie charged in latest twist of French corruption saga PARIS — Flamboyant tycoon Bernard Tapie was charged with fraud in the latest twist of a French corruption probe threatening to embroil IMF chief Christine Lagarde. After four days of interrogation in custody, Tapie, 70, was hauled before a magistrate and placed under formal investigation on suspicion of having committed fraud as part of an organised gang. The charge, which allowed police to use special detention powers normally reserved for suspected terrorists or ma- ia, relates to a 400-million-euro ($525m) state payout Tapie received in 2008 when Lagarde was France's inance minister. Lagarde was in charge of the arbitration process that led to the payout and investigators suspect Tapie received preferential treatment in return for his highproile support for her boss, former President Nicolas Sarkozy. Tapie's lawyer, Herve Temime, said the charges were completely unfounded and claimed his client was conident he would be completely cleared. "I can assure you there is nothing in the ile that shows the arbitration decision was the result of fraud, or of an organised conspiracy," the lawyer said. Tapie did not appear after the decision. "He has gone to relax, far away from Paris," his lawyer added. "We are completely calm about these charges which seem to us to have been decided in advance." The payout to Tapie related to a dispute between the businessman and partly state-owned bank Credit Lyonnais over his 1993 sale of sportswear group adidas. Tapie claimed that Credit Lyonnais had defrauded him by intentionally undervaluing adidas at the time of the sale and that the state, as the bank's principal shareholder, should compensate him. Lagarde was responsible for referring the issue to a three-man arbitration panel, which ruled in Tapie's favour. Her chief of staff at the time, Stephane Richard, a member of the panel, Pierre Estoup, 86, and Jean-Francois Rocchi, have all been recently charged on the same count as Tapie. — AFP
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