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16 Sunday, March 31, 2013 UK / Europe Cameron has alienated some traditional voters Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano (centre) at a press conference, in Rome, on Saturday. (AFP) Italian president buys time to end political deadlock AFP ROME ITALIAN President Giorgio Napolitano on Saturday said Prime Minister Mario Monti will remain in place for now while two working groups come up with a programme of reforms for any future government amid a deadlock between the main parties. Napolitano also ruled out resigning — an extreme-case scenario mooted by some analysts that would have paved the way for early elections to end the impasse created by inconclusive polls last month. “I am preparing to ask two restricted groups of different personalities” to come up with reform proposals, Napolitano said at a briefing, a day after talks between political leaders failed to resolve the crisis. Italian media reported that the two groups — one “political-institutional” and the other “social-economic” would begin work on Tuesday after the Easter break to try and find common ground. Napolitano said the main parties had adopted “distinctly different positions” on the future government and called for “a greater sense of responsibility”. He also said Monti, a former European commissioner drafted in to drag Italy out of the eurozone debt crisis in 2011, represented “an element of certainty”. The current government “is about to adopt urgent measures for the economy,” he added, without giving further details. Pier Luigi Bersani’s centreleft coalition, which secured the most votes in the elections but failed to win a majority, has ruled out an alliance with Silvio Berlusconi’s centreright grouping which came a very close second. Bersani was asked by Napolitano last Friday to try to form a government but admitted on Thursday that his efforts had come to nothing, after he failed to woo rival parties to support his cabinet. Berlusconi, a scandal-tainted billionaire tycoon who has been prime minister three times in a 20-year political career, has said a cross-party deal is the only viable solution. The anti-establishment Five Star Movement party, which came in third, has ruled out support for a party political cabinet but has left open the possibility of backing a government made up of nonpolitical figures. “Mission Impossible”, “Have Pity Please” and “Paralysis” read some of the headlines in the Italian press — more than a month after elections in the eurozone’s third largest economy. Italians fed up with austerity and politicians’ perks voted in their millions for the Five Star Movement led by former comedian Beppe Grillo, which won a quarter of the vote and became Italy’s single biggest party. Bulgaria’s Muslims mark 40th year of assimilation revolt REUTERS LONDON PRIME Minister David Cameron is alienating Christians by promoting gay marriage, an influential former leader of the world’s 80 million Anglicans said on Saturday. In a strongly worded article, former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey said Cameron’s plan to legalise gay unions hid an “aggressive secularist” approach that threatened the link between church and state. The comments echoed widespread concern about the policy among some Christians - and also highlighted the challenge facing Cameron whose efforts to modernise his Conservative Party have antagonised some traditional party voters. “The danger I believe that the government is courting with its approach both to marriage and religious freedom, is the alienation of a large minority of people who only a few years ago would have been considered pillars of society,” Carey wrote in the Daily Mail. Carey’s comments come at a bad time for Cameron, who as the economy flounders is attempting to woo right-leaning voters with tough talk on immigration and the European Union. The former Anglican leader also condemned what he saw as a lack of government support for Christians who choose to wear a cross at work, a practice that has been challenged in the past due to rules on religious expression at the workplace. He cited a survey by pollster ComRes saying more than two thirds of Christians in Britain felt they were a “persecuted minority” and that more than half who voted Conservative in 2010 would not do so in 2015. “It was a bit rich to hear that the prime minister has told religious leaders that they should ‘stand up and oppose aggressive secularisation’ when it seems that his government is aiding and abetting this aggression every step of the way,” Carey said. Cameron’s Downing Street office rejected Carey’s accusations, and praised the church’s role in charities and education, but did not address the issue of gay marriage. “This government strongly backs faith and Christianity in particular, including backing the rights of people wanting to wear crosses at work and hold prayers at council meetings,” Downing Street said in a statement. “The prime minister values the profound contribution that Christianity has made and continues to make to the country, which is why he strongly backs it,” the statement continued. The comments echoed widespread concern about the policy among some Christians - and also highlighted the challenge facing Cameron whose efforts to modernise his Conservative Party have antagonised some traditional party voters. Carey was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002. Current Archbishop Justin Welby this month said some gay relationships were “stunning” in quality, but he is also opposed to gay marriage. As elsewhere in Europe, the number of regular churchgoers in Britain has been declining in recent decades. AFP KORNITSA BULGARIA’S Pomak Muslim minority marked on Saturday the 40th anniversary of the crackdown on a revolt against the then communist regime’s assimilation drive to forcefully change their names to non- Muslim ones. Members of the 200,000- strong minority — whose Christian ancestors were converted to Islam while Bulgaria was ruled by the Ottomans between the 14th and 19th centuries — gathered at a square in the southwestern village of Kornitsa in memory of the five people killed there on the night of March 28, 1973. “Our husbands kept vigil here for three months to prevent the (communist authorities) from changing our Muslim names,” 64-year-old Zeyneb Gatseva remembered. “Then police attacked them, some were killed, dozens of others were injured, still others got arrested. After that we were all taken to the mayor’s office to sign our new identity papers,” added the woman, who was then given the name Zorka. “Each woman was also forced to change her traditional Muslim wear for a dress provided by the authorities,” she remembered. Like most women at the commemoration, Zeyneb wore traditional baggy chalvar trousers and a rose-printed headscarf. The communist regime’s 1973 assimilation drive against the Pomaks was Members of the 200,000-strong minority — whose Christian ancestors were converted to Islam while Bulgaria was ruled by the Ottomans between the 14th and 19th centuries — gathered at a square in the southwestern village of Kornitsa in memory of the five people killed there on the night of March 28, 1973. repeated eleven years later against Bulgaria’s other sizeable Muslim minority of ethnic Turks, seen as foreign agents of NATO member Turkey. Its 800,000 people were also forced to change their Muslim names to Christian ones and were banned from circumcising their boys, speaking Turkish in public or wearing headscarves. If they did not feel Bulgarian, they were free to leave, authorities said in the summer of 1989, briefly opening the border to neighbouring Turkey. Some 320,000 people emigrated with over half of them later returning to Bulgaria. All Bulgarian Muslims got their names back in 1990 — shortly after the toppling of the communist regime on November 10, 1989 — and tried to forget. “Our parents do not speak about it, they want to spare us from this hatred and free us from the past,” said 21-yearold Zayde Bial, a student in the nearby town of Blagoevgrad. Regional mufti Muslim religious leader Aydin Mohamed however warned that history might repeat itself as modern minority integration policies “risk to turn into assimilation” again. “Forty years after the feat of our parents, who fought for their dignity, let us lift our heads up and say ‘We are Muslims.’ Be proud that you are called Ahmed or Mohamed,” he addressed the crowd at Kornitsa tiny square. “We are Bulgarian citizens just like all the rest and we will not be treated as second category Bulgarians,” another Muslim leader, Abdullah Salih from the southern town of Pazardzhik, added. Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron delivers a speech at the University Campus Suffolk, in Ipswich, recently. (REUTERS) London’s Olympic Park opened to public tours A view of the Olympic Stadium at the Olympic Park, in London. (AFP) AFP LONDON THE public were allowed into Britain’s Olympic Park this weekend for the first time since the 2012 Games, with a behind-the-scenes tour of its transformation into a new neighbourhood of London. More than 23,000 tickets have already been sold for the hour-long accompanied tours, organisers said, which offer a sneak preview before the Stratford site begins to open in July. Visitors don hard hats and high-visibility jackets to tour what is still a construction site, where sporting venues are being transformed into a new district of homes, schools and businesses. The “Park in Progress” bus trips, offered on weekends and school holidays until June 23, will also include a visit up the red ArcelorMittal Orbit tower designed by Anish Kapoor. London Mayor Boris Johnson said: “We promised to give people opportunities to get back onto the park as soon as possible and it is no surprise that there is a huge appetite from Londoners for these fantastic tours offering a chance to see this exciting metamorphosis first hand.” Whole sections of the park are being rebuilt with new cafes, community centres and The “Park in Progress” bus trips, offered on weekends and school holidays until June 23, will also include a visit up the red ArcelorMittal Orbit tower designed by Anish Kapoor. gardens added, as part of a 18- month scheme costing ?292 million ($463 million, 348 million euro). The Riverside Hockey Arena has been dismantled, the largest McDonald’s in the world has gone and the temporary seating stands on the Aquatics Centre are being taken down. The competitors’ accomodation is being transformed into almost 3,000 luxurious flats, new homes and schools are under construction and the whole area will be surrounded by a new park. The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park reopens in part in July and will re-open fully from next year. Planners hope that within 20 years, the new district will be home to 8,000 people. It will still host sporting events, however, from football to athletics. The London Anniversary Games will be held at the Olympic Stadium in July, including the Diamond League athletics meeting expected to attract stars including Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. English Premier League club West Ham United will then become the main tenants of the ?429 million ($648-million, 503-million-euro) venue, which hosted the athletics and the opening and closing ceremonies.
World Sunday, March 31, 2013 17 Kenya’s SC upholds Kenyatta’s election AP NAIROBI KENYA’S Supreme Court on Saturday upheld the election of Uhuru Kenyatta as the country’s next president, ending an election season that rivetted the nation amid fears of a repeat of the 2007-08 postelection violence. Outside the Supreme Court, police fired tear gas at Odinga supporters, the second time that has happened in this post-election period. Outbreaks of violence by angry Odinga supporters were reported in some Nairobi slums and truckloads of police were called in to quell the demonstrations, according to reports on a police radio heard by an Associated Press reporter. But jubilant Kenyatta supporters flooded the streets of downtown Nairobi, honkingA supporter of Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the defeated presidential candidate of the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy horns, blowing the noisy plas-(CORDtic react after the Supreme Court ruling, in Nairobi, on Saturday. (REUTERS) horns known as a vuvuze- las and chanting. International Criminal Court. in late May; Kenyatta’s is to Saturday’s verdict, following Kenyatta and Deputy start in July. Kenyatta has a drawn-out court case that raised tensions across the President-elect William Ruto both face charges that they promised to report to The Hague. nation, means that Kenyatta helped orchestrate the 2007- Lawyers for challenger will be sworn in as president on April 9. He will become the second sitting president in Africa to face charges at the 08 post-election violence in which more than 1,000 people died. Both deny the charges. Ruto’s trial is set to begin Raila Odinga, who finished second, had argued before the Supreme Court that the election was marred by irregularities and that Kenyatta did not win enough votes to avoid a runoff election. According to official results, Kenyatta won 50.07 percent of the vote, narrowly avoiding a runoff election against Odinga, who said his case before the Supreme Court would put Kenya’s democracy on trial. But the Supreme Court’s unanimous verdict, read out by Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, said the election was “conducted in compliance with the constitution and the law” and that Kenyatta and Ruto were legally elected. “It is the decision of the court that (Kenyatta and Ruto) were validly elected,” the ruling said. The reasons behind the judges’ decision were not given on Saturday. The chief justice said a detailed judgment would be delivered within two weeks. Unlike after the 2007 election, which degenerated into Outbreaks of violence by angry Odinga supporters were reported in some Nairobi slums and truckloads of police were called in to quell the demonstrations, according to reports. tribe-on-tribe violence that killed more than 1000 people, this time Odinga said he had faith in the judiciary’s ability to give him a fair hearing. Odinga, who said he would respect the court’s decision whether it favoured him or not, was set to address reporters in Nairobi later on Saturday. As Kenyatta’s supporters celebrated outside the court premises, police fired tear gas to break up a crowd of Odinga supporters. The court’s ruling ends days of anxiety since March 9, when Kenyatta was declared the winner of the March 4 vote. that many described as the most complex in Kenya’s history. More than 12 million Kenyans participated in the election. Some observers had expected a low registration of voters because of apathy following the 2007-08 violence, but hyped up campaigns by Kenyatta, Odinga and other presidential candidates led to the highest registration in the country ever. Kenya’s electoral commission registered 14.3 million people. Election day, though, did not go as planned. An electronic voter ID system intended to prevent fraud failed for reasons yet to be explained by the electoral commission. Vote officials instead used manual voter rolls. After the polls closed, results were to be sent electronically to Nairobi, where officials would quickly tabulate a preliminary vote count in order to maximize transparency after rigging accusations following the 2007 vote. But that system failed, too. Tanzania building collapse death toll climbs to 19 AFP DAR ES SALAAM THE death toll from a building collapse in Tanzania’s economic capital Dar es Salaam rose to 19 on Saturday, after rescuers hoping to find survivors among dozens still feared trapped under the rubble pulled out more bodies. “Two more bodies were found this afternoon,” regional commissioner Saidi Mecky Sadicky told AFP, updating an earlier toll of 17 in the disaster that happened on Friday. Several dozen people are still missing around the site, which was littered with huge chunks of concrete. “The operation is still going on but we have very little hope to find anyone alive,” Sadicky said. Eighteen people have been rescued alive from the remains of the 16-storey building, he said. However it is almost 24 hours since the last survivors were pulled out. Hundreds of rescuers worked through the night in search of those still trapped in the rubble from the shell of the tower, which was being built near a mosque in the Kisutu area of Dar es Salaam. Rescue work was slowed on Saturday afternoon after it started to rain. Sadicky said between 60 and 70 people were reported to have been at or near the construction site on Friday morning, meaning that between 25 and 35 people could still be trapped. Hundreds of people, including residents and army rescuers, clawed through piles of rubble on the scene, in the hunt for survivors, alongside earthmovers and excavators. “I thought there was an earthquake and then I heard screaming. The whole building fell on itself,” witness Musa Mohamed told AFP on Friday shortly after the collapse took place. Sadicky said the rescue team was boosted on Friday evening after the Chinese embassy told Chinese construction firms to provide additional earthmoving equipment. Dozens of Chinese construction workers were at the site on Saturday instructing operators of excavators and forklifts that were sifting through the rubble. Local residents turned out to supply rescuers with food, water, as well as medication. Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete visited the scene of the disaster in the coastal city and posted messages of condolence on his Twitter account. “We pray for those who have been afflicted by this tragedy,” he said. “We pray for togetherness in this time of need.” Rescuers carry away a body from the rubble of the collapsed building ,in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Friday. (AP) Mandela treated for pneumonia AP JOHANNESBURG NELSON Mandela is breathing “without difficulty” after having a procedure to clear fluid in his lung area that was caused by pneumonia, the spokesman for South Africa’s president said on Saturday. Mandela, the 94-year-old former president and antiapartheid leader, had a recurrence of pneumonia, said presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj. South African officials had previously not specified that Mandela had pneumonia, saying instead that he had a lung infection. Mandela’s medical team reported that the increasingly frail ex-leader “had developed a pleural effusion which was tapped,” Zuma’s office said in a statement. “This has resulted in him now being able to breathe without difficulty. He continues to respond to treatment and is comfortable.” The president’s office thanked all of those who have prayed for Mandela and his family and have sent messages of support. S Korea dismisses N Korea’s ‘state of war’ declaration AFP SEOUL NORTH Korea on Saturday, declared it was in a “state of war” with South Korea and warned Seoul and Washington that any provocation would swiftly escalate into an all-out nuclear conflict. The US said it took the announcement “seriously”, but noted it followed a familiar pattern, while South Korea largely dismissed it as an old threat dressed in new clothing. It was the latest in a string of dire-sounding pronouncements from Pyongyang that have been matched by tough warnings from Seoul and Washington, fuelling international concern that the situation might possibly spiral out of control. “As of now, inter-Korea relations enter a state of war and all matters between the two Koreas will be handled according to wartime protocol,” North Korea said in a government statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency. More than 50 dead in central Nigeria violence AP JOS ATTACKS on villages surrounding a central Nigerian city at the heart of unrest between Christians and Muslims have killed more than 50 people this week, officials said on Saturday, as authorities pleaded for peace over the Easter holiday. The attacks around Jos, a city in Nigeria’s fertile central belt, come as a string of unsolved killings continue to plague the region that has seen thousands killed in massacres in recent years. While a combined police and military presence still patrols Jos and other parts of Plateau state, many of the villages attacked sit in remote, rural corners of the area that sometimes have only a single police officer on duty. The most recent killings happened on Friday night in the Barkin Ladi area, said Lt. Jude Akpa, a military spokesman. Attackers raided a village called Bokkos and killed nine people, fleeing before soldiers arrived, Akpa said. Emmanuel Lohman, a government official there, said gunmen armed with assault rifles struck a village called Ratas and opened fire in the night while many there were sleeping. A woman cries out during a ritual procession re-enacting the death of Jesus Christ, in Lagos, Nigeria on Friday. (REUTERS) North Korean President Kim Jong-un uses binoculars to look at the South's territory, in Jangjae islet, North Korea, recently. (AP) “The long-standing situation of the Korean peninsula being neither at peace nor at war is finally over,” the statement said, adding that any United States or South Korean provocation would trigger a “a nuclear war”. The two Koreas have technically remained at war for the past six decades because the 1950-53 Korean War concluded with an armistice rather than a peace treaty. The North had announced earlier this month that it was ripping up the armistice and other bilateral peace pacts signed with Seoul in protest against South Korea-US joint military exercises. The White House labelled the latest statement from Pyongyang as “unconstructive” and, while taking it “seriously”, sought to place the immediate threat level in proper context. In Seoul, the Unification Ministry insisted the war threat was “not really new”. The Defence Ministry vowed to “retaliate thoroughly” to any provocation, but added that no notable troop movement had been observed along the border. Late on Saturday the North ratcheted up its threats, warning it could shut down the Kaesong industrial complex, a joint South-North venture that provides the regime with crucial hard currency. “We warn that stern measures will be taken if (South AFP BEIJING A GAS blast in a northeast China coal mine killed 28 people, authorities said on Saturday, according to state media, the latest incident to damage the industry’s notoriously poor safety record. Thirteen others were rescued after the accident on Friday at Babao Coal Mine in the city of Baishan in Jilin province, the official Xinhua news agency cited a spokesman with the provincial work safety and supervision bureau as saying. Rescue work has finished at the mine and the cause of the accident is under investigation, said the spokesman. The mine is a state-owned colliery under the Tonghua Mining (Group) Company, the Xinhua report said. Korea) continues to make reckless remarks defaming our dignity,” a state body said, adding that the fate of the complex depends entirely on the attitude of Seoul. Established in 2004 as a symbol of cross-border cooperation, Kaesong had managed to keep functioning despite repeated crises in inter-Korean relations. 28 killed in China coal mine blast The accident occurred on the same day that a huge landslide came crashing down a mountainside in Tibet, burying 83 workers in a gold mining area, state media said. China is the world’s biggest consumer of coal, relying on the fossil fuel for 70 percent of its growing energy needs. But its mines are among the deadliest in the world because of lax regulation, corruption and inefficiency. Accidents are common because safety is often neglected by bosses seeking quick profits. According to official figures, 1,973 people died in coal mining accidents in China in 2011, a 19 percent fall on the previous year. But labour rights groups say the actual death toll is likely to be much higher, partly due to under-reporting of accidents.
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Karzai hopeful of Taliban joining mainstream - Qatar Tribune

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