Sunday, January 20, 2013
LE POINT: Le 44e président des États-Unis prête officiellement serment dimanche au cours d'une cérémonie intime. Le très attendu discours d'investiture aura lieu lundi.
Dimanche, Barack Obama entame officiellement son second mandat à la tête des États-Unis en prêtant serment lors d'une courte cérémonie à la Maison Blanche, avant les festivités grandioses de lundi auxquelles sont attendues des centaines de milliers de personnes.
"Moi, Barack Hussein Obama, je jure solennellement de remplir fidèlement les fonctions de président des États-Unis, et, dans toute la mesure de mes moyens, de sauvegarder, protéger et défendre la Constitution des États-Unis" : le 44e président américain doit prononcer cette formule rituelle peu avant midi (17 heures GMT) dans le "salon bleu" de la résidence exécutive. Seule la famille proche de Barack Obama et quelques journalistes devraient être présents dans cette pièce relativement exiguë au rez-de-chaussée de la Maison Blanche, pour cette courte cérémonie retransmise en direct par les télévisions. » | Source AFP | samedi 19 janvier 2013
THE INDEPENDENT: An EU driving licence comes into force tomorrow - a credit card-style replacement for the more than 100 different paper and plastic licences currently in use by more than 300 million motorists across the 27 European member states.
The common-format licence for all EU drivers, with improved security protection, is part of a package of new measures proposed by Brussels and approved by EU ministers to improve free movement across borders, crack down on driving licence fraud and improve road safety across the EU.
"Traffic police across Europe are currently expected to recognise more than 100 different types of paper and plastic driving licence" said EU transport commissioner Siim Kallas on the eve of the launch.
"ID photos may be long out of date, the categories for which the driver is licensed unclear and the document may be easy to forge. Fake driving licences are a licence to kill, that is why we need licences which are easy to read, easy to understand and very difficult to falsify."
Existing licences are not affected, but will be changed to the new format at the time of renewal or at the latest by 2033. » | Geoff Meade | Friday, January 18, 2013
THE INDEPENDENT: Gaddafi’s overthrow broke all kinds of local ethnic, tribal and commercial bargains and power-broking arrangements that we never understood
“Take but degree away, untune that string, and hark what discord follows.”
This Jacobean plea for stability should be ringing in our ears as we watch the latest manifestation of instability in the Middle East/North Africa (Mena), this time in Algeria. And while much of the Arab Spring was self-generated, current troubles in the Sahel owe a great deal to the Nato “triumph” in assisting in the downfall of Gaddafi. » | Jonathan Shaw* | Thursday, January 17, 2013
* Maj Gen Jonathan Shaw was Chief of Staff of UK Land Forces between 2007 and 2008. He joined the Parachute Regiment in 1981 and went on to serve in the Falklands, Kosovo and Iraq before joining the MoD
Already fractious relations between Binyamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama have been further strained in the runup to the president's inauguration on Monday and the Israeli prime minister's anticipated victory in Tuesday's election.
Netanyahu aides accused Obama of interfering in the Israeli election following publication of an article by Jeffrey Goldberg, which quoted the president as saying: "Israel doesn't know what its own best interests are." Obama, wrote Goldberg, viewed Netanyahu as a "political coward".
The Israeli president, Shimon Peres, who has voiced alarm at the rupture between the two leaders, was due to meet a delegation of US senators, led by Republican John McCain, in Jerusalem on Saturday night to discuss strengthening strategic relations between the two allies.
"We must not lose the support of the United States. What gives Israel bargaining power in the international arena is the support of the United States... Without US support, it would be very difficult for us. We would be like a lone tree in the desert," he told the New York Times last week.
The Goldberg article, along with Obama's nomination of Chuck Hagel as defence secretary, has been interpreted in Israel as clear signs of the president's exasperation with Netanyahu and possible payback for the latter's support of Obama's rival, Mitt Romney, in the US election in November. Hagel is seen as "anti-Israel" because of his questioning of Israeli government policy and the pro-Israel lobby in the US. » | Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem | Sunday, January 20, 2013
YNET NEWS: Fragile alliance: Op-ed: Netanyahu jeopardizing intimate dialogue with US on issues of great strategic importance » | Alon Pinkas | Friday, January 19, 2013
THE OBSERVER: The execution of 24-year-old Rizana Nafeek has cast a spotlight on the plight of dozens of migrant workers on death row in Saudi Arabia
More than 45 foreign maids are facing execution on death row in Saudi Arabia, the Observer has learned, amid growing international outrage at the treatment of migrant workers.
The startling figure emerged after Saudi Arabia beheaded a 24-year-old Sri Lankan domestic worker, Rizana Nafeek, in the face of appeals for clemency from around the world.
The exact number of maids on death row is almost certainly higher, but Saudi authorities do not publish official figures. Indonesians are believed to account for the majority of those facing a death sentence. Human rights groups say 45 Indonesian women are on death row, and five have exhausted the legal process.
Figures for other nationalities are harder to come by. Rights groups say they believe there are also Sri Lankan, Filipina, Indian and Ethiopian maids facing the death penalty.
Nafeek's execution drew condemnation from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, both of which have campaigned against the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. They say many migrant domestic workers, drawn to the Middle East by the prospect of employment with well-off families, face abuse.
"Some domestic workers find kind employers who treat them well, but others face intense exploitation and abuse, ranging from months of hard work without pay to physical violence to slavery-like conditions," said Nisha Varia from Human Rights Watch. There are about 1.5 million foreign maids in Saudi Arabia, including about 375,000 Sri Lankans.
An International Labour Organisation report last week warned that an estimated 52.6 million domestic workers around the world lack legal rights and protections. But Varia said Saudi Arabia posed unique problems because legal protections were weaker and the chance of access to justice more remote.
"The Saudi justice system is characterised by arbitrary arrests, unfair trials and harsh punishments," she said. "Migrants are at high risk of being victims of spurious charges. A domestic worker facing abuse or exploitation from her employer might run away and then be accused of theft. Employers may accuse domestic workers, especially those from Indonesia, of witchcraft. Victims of rape and sexual assault are at risk of being accused of adultery and fornication." » | Gethin Chamberlain | Sunday, January 13, 2013
Saturday, January 19, 2013
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Islamist extremists "executed" seven hostages on Saturday before a final, bloody assault by the Algerian army ended a four-day siege in the desert.
Algeria's special forces stormed the gas complex, jointly run by BP and staffed by many British workers, after reports that the extremists had begun shooting foreigners they had kidnapped.
William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said five Britons and one UK resident, called Carlos Estrada, remained "unaccounted for" and the country had to “prepare for bad news”. One Briton had already been confirmed dead on Wednesday.
BP said last night that four of its employees were still missing several hours after a dramatic firefight inside the gas plant which left more than 30 terrorists dead. The Algerian foreign ministry said that during the course of four days 23 hostages and 32 militants had been killed. » | Robert Mendick, Patrick Sawer and Harriet Alexander | Saturday, January 19, 2013
Israel's new rock star politician Naftali Bennett strode into the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem flashing smiles at adoring supporters, as shutters clicked and excited whispers rippled through the audience.
On Tuesday, according to the polls, the voters will make him the second most powerful man in Israel. He will be either a formidable opposition leader, committed to blocking any attempt to give up land for peace, or more likely a partner in a coalition government, pushing a set of far Right policies that enrage Palestinians and risk a breakdown in Israel's already strained alliance with America.
Mr Bennett, 40, leader of the Jewish Home party [sic] (Habayit Yehudi), is the first Right-wing hipster in Israeli politics, campaigning in jeans and joking in Hebrew slang, and in an otherwise lacklustre general election campaign, he gets an excited reaction that rivals can only dream of. But although the image is casual, the hard line message is one that no other mainstream politician has ever dared to put forward.
"I am vehemently against a Palestinian state within the Land of Israel," he told the audience, gathered at the synagogue to hear candidates debate.
They roared with enthusiasm.
There is relative calm in the occupied territories, he told them. "We can ruin all this by establishing another Muslim state in our midst, like we did in Gaza, and get another 100 years of misery."
The audience loved it. The candidate from the left-wing Meretz party was booed when she outlined her intention of reviving an old plan to get the peace process going.
Israel's voters are used to choosing from a list of bearded rabbis, party hacks with corruption charges hanging over them, and earnest Left-wingers who make them feel guilty. Mr Bennett's message of unrepentant Jewish nationalism has blown through Israel's dusty political world, reaching places where nobody thought it ever would. » | Nick Meo, Jerusalem | Saturday, January 19, 2013
Militant Islam enjoyed its first modern triumph with the arrival in power of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran in 1979. In this series of three programmes, key figures tell the inside story.
Former US president Jimmy Carter talks on television for the first time about the episode that, more than any other, led American voters to eject him from the presidency. Iran's seizure of the US embassy in Tehran and the holding of its staff for 444 days took more and more of Carter's time and energy. His final days in office were dominated by desperate attempts to secure the release of the embassy hostages. Those who sat in the White House with him, planning how to rescue the hostages, how to negotiate their release and, finally, wondering whether anything could be rescued from the disaster, all tell their part in the story.
Other contributors include former vice president Walter Mondale, ex-deputy secretary of state Warren Christopher and former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. The other side of the story is told by top Iranians: Ayatollah Khomeini's close adviser, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri; his first foreign minister, Ebrahim Yazdi; his negotiator with the US, Sadeq Tabatabai; and the founder of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Mohsen Rafiqdoust.
The rallies, to be held mostly at state capitals, were being organized by a group called Guns Across America that was launched by Texas airline pilot Eric Reed.
The U.S. debate over gun control flared in mid-December when a man killed 20 first graders and six adults in a matter of minutes at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, using an assault rifle.
In the wake of the mass killing, Obama and gun control advocates have begun a push to ban assault weapons. A number of other states have taken up gun legislation and New York, which had among the strictest gun control laws in the country, broadened its ban on assault weapons on Tuesday.
Obama also called for a ban on high-capacity magazines and more stringent background checks for gun purchasers.
Gun control advocates say American civilians have no justifiable need for assault weapons or high-capacity magazines, and they say more background checks will help keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
The reaction has been fierce from gun supporters such as the National Rifle Association, who have long argued that their right to bear arms is enshrined in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. » | Nick Carey | Saturday, January 19, 2013
THE IRISH TIMES: ANALYSIS : The Soviet war in Afghanistan was criticial in building the contemporary ‘Jihadi International’
The seizure of scores of hostages in the Algerian desert and the emergence of an expansionist “Islamic state” in neighbouring Mali are the latest developments in the global war being waged by militant Muslims, jihadis, against the secular West and its allies, culture and influence in the Ummah, the worldwide Muslim community.
Algeria and France, the former colonial power in the region, responded differently to these challenges. Determined to bring a quick end to the hostage crisis, the Algerian military slew both jihadis and captives.
France, by contrast, intervened in Mali eight months after jihadi rebels had proclaimed independence in the north and only when they threatened the capital Bamako in the south. This response is likely to spur jihadis everywhere to mount fresh operations in a global campaign.
In Islam, jihad is a just war carried out in self-defence, warfare against persecutors and conquerors, and “war in God’s cause”. The Koran provides the basis for legislation governing warfare in Surah (chapter) II, verse 190: “Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not commit aggression, God loves not the aggressors.”
If aggressors and persecutors desist, verse 193 says hostilities should cease. Jihad-motivated Muslims fought Christian Crusaders in Palestine during the 11th-13th centuries and colonial masters during the 19th and early 20th century freedom struggles.
Commanders of the later campaigns are inspirational figures for contemporary jihadis. Three in particular can be mentioned: Abdel Qader who fought the French in Algeria in the 1830s; the Mahdi who staged the 1881-99 revolt against Anglo-Egyptian rule in the Sudan; and slew British Gen Charles Gordon, and Omar Mukhtar who led the 1911-43 Libyan resistance campaign against the Italians.
Sadiq al-Mahdi, great grandson of the Mahdi, remains a major figure on the Sudanese scene while Awad Mukhtar, the grandson of Omar Mukhtar – who was celebrated in a film starring Anthony Quinn – threw in his lot with the 2011 revolt against Muammar Gadafy. No borders » | Michael Jansen | Saturday, January 19, 2013
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