ianstone
05-28-2010, 04:45 PM
http://arabnews.com/world/article58744.ece/REPRESENTATIONS/medium_380x220/wor_pakhurt.jpg
Policemen carry an injured worshipper away from the scene of an attack on an Ahmadi mosque in Lahore's Garhi Shahu neighborhood on Friday. (Reuters)
1 of 3
Attackers strike sect mosques in Pakistan; 80 dead (http://arabnews.com/world/article58524.ece)
LAHORE, Pakistan: Islamist gunmen and a suicide squad lobbed grenades, sprayed bullets from atop a minaret and took hostages Friday in attacks on two mosques packed with worshippers from a minority sect in Pakistan. At least 80 people were killed and dozens wounded.
1 comments (http://arabnews.com/world/article58524.ece?comments=all#comments)
Obama extends drilling moratorium (http://arabnews.com/world/article58408.ece)
http://arabnews.com/world/article58439.ece/REPRESENTATIONS/thumbnail/worob.jpg WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Thursday unveiled tough moves to suspend new oil drilling and exploration following the Gulf of Mexico disaster, while denying the government was too slow to tackle the crisis.
Khaled opens Thuwal development project (http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article58426.ece)
http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article58442.ece/REPRESENTATIONS/thumbnail/saukhaled.jpg JEDDAH: Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal opened the first phase of the Thuwal Development Project with the collaboration of King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST) on Wednesday.
cartoon
http://arabnews.com/incoming/article58698.ece/REPRESENTATIONS/medium_380x220/spo_cartoon.jpg (http://arabnews.com/incoming/article58698.ece/BINARY/large/spo_cartoon.jpg)
Editorial: Blockade busting (http://arabnews.com/opinion/editorial/article58642.ece)
Will ‘Freedom Flotilla’ challenge Israelis to the extent ‘Exodus’ did to the British?
This is not about Iran (http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article58345.ece)
Great leaders see opportunities in challenges, rising to occasion whenever they have a chance to make history. Petty politicians refuse to see beyond their nose even as real opportunities pass them by. I always thought — and still believe-US President Barack Obama belongs to the first category.
6 comments (http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article58345.ece?comments=all#comments)
Muslim leaders urged to back Palestinians (http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article58433.ece)
RIYADH: A Saudi committee comprising influential scholars that is responsible for issuing fatwas has called on Muslim leaders to support Palestinians in their fight to stop the atrocities of Israel in their lands, the Saudi Press Agency has reported.
1 comments (http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article58433.ece?comments=all#comments)
KAU considering fine on smokers (http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article58416.ece)
JEDDAH: King Abdulaziz University (KAU) is holding a two-day forum from Saturday to discuss a proposal to impose fine on all those who flout smoking ban within its campus.
Child porn online network busted (http://arabnews.com/world/article58431.ece)
INDIANAPOLIS: US federal prosecutors say they are working with police in several countries to investigate suspects in a child-pornography “social networking site” that at one point had more than 1,000 members trading explicit images.
Mullah Fazlullah taken out? (http://arabnews.com/world/article58430.ece)
KABUL: Afghan officials said Thursday they were investigating reports that a Pakistani Taleban leader may have been killed in fighting in the remote mountains of eastern Afghanistan.
$50m fund to help settlement boycott (http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article58425.ece)
RAMALLAH, West Bank: The Palestinian government plans to establish a $50 million fund to help thousands of Palestinians quit work in Israeli settlements by the end of the year, Palestinian Labor Minister Ahmed Majdalani said Thursday.
US base in Bahrain to double size (http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article58427.ece)
MANAMA: Amid regional turmoil, a US naval base in the Gulf is set for major expansion. Ground has been broken at the American naval base in Bahrain, home to the US Fifth Fleet, for a $580 million expansion that is estimated to take five years to complete, the US Navy said in a press statement on Wednesday.
0 comments (http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article58427.ece?comments=all#comments)
Iraq vote results face another possible delay (http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article58276.ece)
BAGHDAD: Iraq's Supreme Court asked election officials on Thursday to clear up legal issues surrounding an appeal against a candidate, a move that could further delay the certification of March 7 election results.
World No-Tobacco Day to be marked by new booklet on hazards of smoking (http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article58409.ece)
RIYADH: The Kingdom is to release a booklet on the hazards of smoking to mark World No-Tobacco Day on Monday.
2 comments (http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article58409.ece?comments=all#comments)
http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article58401.ece/REPRESENTATIONS/small_220x120/midmap.jpg Palestinians to protest limited access to Road 443 (http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article58392.ece)
RAMALLAH: This Friday (May 28), residents of the Palestinian villages along Road 443 will hold a motorcade on the day of the road's court-ordered opening.
1 comments (http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article58392.ece?comments=all#comments)
http://arabnews.com/world/article58297.ece/REPRESENTATIONS/small_220x120/woraquino.jpg Aquino unfazed by Philippine poll fraud allegations (http://arabnews.com/world/article58265.ece)
MANILA: Sen. Benigno Aquino III, set to be the next president of the Philippines, said he was unfazed by allegations of election fraud and described complaints from losing pro-administration candidates as a "fishing expedition.”
http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article58444.ece/REPRESENTATIONS/small_220x120/saushifa.jpg Shifa plans its own center to treat chronic patients (http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article58421.ece)
MAKKAH: The Shifa Welfare Society, which was established in 2006 to provide medical care to patients with chronic diseases, is to open its own medical center in Makkah next Ramadan.
UN expert urges US to rethink drones attacks
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 28, 2010 23:23 Updated: May 28, 2010 23:23
GENEVA: The use of drones by US intelligence agencies to target suspected militants in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere lacks the accountability required under international law, a UN human rights expert said on Friday.
Philip Alston, a New York University law professor, will call next week for new international rules to govern the use of drones to ensure they are deployed in line with the laws of war.
The CIA’s program of drone strikes against suspected Al-Qaeda and Taleban insurgents has never been publicly acknowledged by US administration officials, even though it has been written about extensively in the media.
A CIA spokesman said last month that the intelligence agency’s counterterror operations are conducted in strict accord with the law.
“In my view there is no legal prohibition on CIA agents, or you and me, deciding to take a 'direct part in hostilities,' which is not to say that it is desirable,” Alston told The Associated Press in an e-mail on Friday.
“The problem for me is that when this happens, especially as a matter of state policy, there is no willingness to comply with any of the requirements as to transparency and accountability which are central to international humanitarian law.” The independent UN investigator is due to present a report to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council on Thursday about the use of drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, to carry out targeted killings.
In an interview Tuesday on Australia's ABC radio, Alston said only the United States, Israel and Russia currently use drones to carry out targeted killings, but other countries were likely to begin using them for similar purposes in future.
“We've got to look at rules for the future, which will govern all countries,” he told ABC Radio.
Alston, an Australian, suggested the rules should specify that suspects who aren't wearing uniforms could only be targeted if they are directly observed taking part in hostilities.
More importantly, he said, countries needed to ensure that those charged with carrying out the drone strikes could be held accountable.
“We have to know who they are targeting. Not lists of names or anything like that, but the criteria that are being used, and then there's got to be some follow-up,” Alston said in the radio interview.
“The CIA, by definition, is not accountable” except directly to President Barack Obama, he said.
Alston suggested that, unless the intelligence agency's work could be made transparent, the role of conducting drone strikes should be transferred to the military, who were better versed in — and capable of abiding by — international law.
Officials at the US mission to the UN in Geneva didn't immediately respond to a request for comment
Yemen Al Qaeda video announces a new leader
By REUTERS
Published: May 28, 2010 18:28 Updated: May 28, 2010 18:28
DUBAI: A fugitive Saudi Arabian man, who was once detained at the US military prison at Guantanamo, was named as a senior member of Al Qaeda's Yemen wing, according to a tape by the group shown on al Arabiya television on Friday.
The tape also confirmed the deaths of three leaders killed in December and January during Yemeni air raids, the pan Arab broadcaster said.
Among those killed were Abdullah al Muhdar, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Yemen's Shabwa province, Mohammed Amir al Awlaki, and Mohammed Saleh al Kazimi.
Othman Ahmed Al-Ghamdi, the 31-year-old man named as a leading Al Qaeda operative on Friday, had been added to a list of 85 most wanted people by Saudi Arabia 15 months ago, Al-Arabiya said.
He spent four years in Guantanamo prison after he was captured in Afghanistan. He was released in 2006.
Yemen, neighbor to top oil exporter Saudi Arabia, has been a key Western security concern since the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda arm claimed responsibility for a failed December attempt to bomb a US bound passenger plane.
Last month, the group tried to assassinate the British ambassador to Yemen when a suicide bomber threw himself into the path of the convoy taking Tim Torlot to work in capital Sanaa.
The envoy was unharmed and only the suicide bomber died, but the bold hit signalled that a recent crackdown by Sanaa on the global militant group has done little to curb its ambitions to carry out attacks on international targets.
Western countries and Riyadh want Yemen, grappling with a northern Shiite insurgency and southern separatism, to quell its domestic conflicts to turn its focus on fighting Al-Qaeda, which they see as a bigger global threat.
Guantanamo prison was set up by US President George W. Bush in Cuba in 2002 to hold foreigners captured after US forces invaded Afghanistan to root out Al-Qaeda and its Taleban protectors in response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the US
And the circle starts again
Policemen carry an injured worshipper away from the scene of an attack on an Ahmadi mosque in Lahore's Garhi Shahu neighborhood on Friday. (Reuters)
1 of 3
Attackers strike sect mosques in Pakistan; 80 dead (http://arabnews.com/world/article58524.ece)
LAHORE, Pakistan: Islamist gunmen and a suicide squad lobbed grenades, sprayed bullets from atop a minaret and took hostages Friday in attacks on two mosques packed with worshippers from a minority sect in Pakistan. At least 80 people were killed and dozens wounded.
1 comments (http://arabnews.com/world/article58524.ece?comments=all#comments)
Obama extends drilling moratorium (http://arabnews.com/world/article58408.ece)
http://arabnews.com/world/article58439.ece/REPRESENTATIONS/thumbnail/worob.jpg WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Thursday unveiled tough moves to suspend new oil drilling and exploration following the Gulf of Mexico disaster, while denying the government was too slow to tackle the crisis.
Khaled opens Thuwal development project (http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article58426.ece)
http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article58442.ece/REPRESENTATIONS/thumbnail/saukhaled.jpg JEDDAH: Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal opened the first phase of the Thuwal Development Project with the collaboration of King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST) on Wednesday.
cartoon
http://arabnews.com/incoming/article58698.ece/REPRESENTATIONS/medium_380x220/spo_cartoon.jpg (http://arabnews.com/incoming/article58698.ece/BINARY/large/spo_cartoon.jpg)
Editorial: Blockade busting (http://arabnews.com/opinion/editorial/article58642.ece)
Will ‘Freedom Flotilla’ challenge Israelis to the extent ‘Exodus’ did to the British?
This is not about Iran (http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article58345.ece)
Great leaders see opportunities in challenges, rising to occasion whenever they have a chance to make history. Petty politicians refuse to see beyond their nose even as real opportunities pass them by. I always thought — and still believe-US President Barack Obama belongs to the first category.
6 comments (http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article58345.ece?comments=all#comments)
Muslim leaders urged to back Palestinians (http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article58433.ece)
RIYADH: A Saudi committee comprising influential scholars that is responsible for issuing fatwas has called on Muslim leaders to support Palestinians in their fight to stop the atrocities of Israel in their lands, the Saudi Press Agency has reported.
1 comments (http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article58433.ece?comments=all#comments)
KAU considering fine on smokers (http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article58416.ece)
JEDDAH: King Abdulaziz University (KAU) is holding a two-day forum from Saturday to discuss a proposal to impose fine on all those who flout smoking ban within its campus.
Child porn online network busted (http://arabnews.com/world/article58431.ece)
INDIANAPOLIS: US federal prosecutors say they are working with police in several countries to investigate suspects in a child-pornography “social networking site” that at one point had more than 1,000 members trading explicit images.
Mullah Fazlullah taken out? (http://arabnews.com/world/article58430.ece)
KABUL: Afghan officials said Thursday they were investigating reports that a Pakistani Taleban leader may have been killed in fighting in the remote mountains of eastern Afghanistan.
$50m fund to help settlement boycott (http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article58425.ece)
RAMALLAH, West Bank: The Palestinian government plans to establish a $50 million fund to help thousands of Palestinians quit work in Israeli settlements by the end of the year, Palestinian Labor Minister Ahmed Majdalani said Thursday.
US base in Bahrain to double size (http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article58427.ece)
MANAMA: Amid regional turmoil, a US naval base in the Gulf is set for major expansion. Ground has been broken at the American naval base in Bahrain, home to the US Fifth Fleet, for a $580 million expansion that is estimated to take five years to complete, the US Navy said in a press statement on Wednesday.
0 comments (http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article58427.ece?comments=all#comments)
Iraq vote results face another possible delay (http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article58276.ece)
BAGHDAD: Iraq's Supreme Court asked election officials on Thursday to clear up legal issues surrounding an appeal against a candidate, a move that could further delay the certification of March 7 election results.
World No-Tobacco Day to be marked by new booklet on hazards of smoking (http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article58409.ece)
RIYADH: The Kingdom is to release a booklet on the hazards of smoking to mark World No-Tobacco Day on Monday.
2 comments (http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article58409.ece?comments=all#comments)
http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article58401.ece/REPRESENTATIONS/small_220x120/midmap.jpg Palestinians to protest limited access to Road 443 (http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article58392.ece)
RAMALLAH: This Friday (May 28), residents of the Palestinian villages along Road 443 will hold a motorcade on the day of the road's court-ordered opening.
1 comments (http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article58392.ece?comments=all#comments)
http://arabnews.com/world/article58297.ece/REPRESENTATIONS/small_220x120/woraquino.jpg Aquino unfazed by Philippine poll fraud allegations (http://arabnews.com/world/article58265.ece)
MANILA: Sen. Benigno Aquino III, set to be the next president of the Philippines, said he was unfazed by allegations of election fraud and described complaints from losing pro-administration candidates as a "fishing expedition.”
http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article58444.ece/REPRESENTATIONS/small_220x120/saushifa.jpg Shifa plans its own center to treat chronic patients (http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article58421.ece)
MAKKAH: The Shifa Welfare Society, which was established in 2006 to provide medical care to patients with chronic diseases, is to open its own medical center in Makkah next Ramadan.
UN expert urges US to rethink drones attacks
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 28, 2010 23:23 Updated: May 28, 2010 23:23
GENEVA: The use of drones by US intelligence agencies to target suspected militants in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere lacks the accountability required under international law, a UN human rights expert said on Friday.
Philip Alston, a New York University law professor, will call next week for new international rules to govern the use of drones to ensure they are deployed in line with the laws of war.
The CIA’s program of drone strikes against suspected Al-Qaeda and Taleban insurgents has never been publicly acknowledged by US administration officials, even though it has been written about extensively in the media.
A CIA spokesman said last month that the intelligence agency’s counterterror operations are conducted in strict accord with the law.
“In my view there is no legal prohibition on CIA agents, or you and me, deciding to take a 'direct part in hostilities,' which is not to say that it is desirable,” Alston told The Associated Press in an e-mail on Friday.
“The problem for me is that when this happens, especially as a matter of state policy, there is no willingness to comply with any of the requirements as to transparency and accountability which are central to international humanitarian law.” The independent UN investigator is due to present a report to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council on Thursday about the use of drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, to carry out targeted killings.
In an interview Tuesday on Australia's ABC radio, Alston said only the United States, Israel and Russia currently use drones to carry out targeted killings, but other countries were likely to begin using them for similar purposes in future.
“We've got to look at rules for the future, which will govern all countries,” he told ABC Radio.
Alston, an Australian, suggested the rules should specify that suspects who aren't wearing uniforms could only be targeted if they are directly observed taking part in hostilities.
More importantly, he said, countries needed to ensure that those charged with carrying out the drone strikes could be held accountable.
“We have to know who they are targeting. Not lists of names or anything like that, but the criteria that are being used, and then there's got to be some follow-up,” Alston said in the radio interview.
“The CIA, by definition, is not accountable” except directly to President Barack Obama, he said.
Alston suggested that, unless the intelligence agency's work could be made transparent, the role of conducting drone strikes should be transferred to the military, who were better versed in — and capable of abiding by — international law.
Officials at the US mission to the UN in Geneva didn't immediately respond to a request for comment
Yemen Al Qaeda video announces a new leader
By REUTERS
Published: May 28, 2010 18:28 Updated: May 28, 2010 18:28
DUBAI: A fugitive Saudi Arabian man, who was once detained at the US military prison at Guantanamo, was named as a senior member of Al Qaeda's Yemen wing, according to a tape by the group shown on al Arabiya television on Friday.
The tape also confirmed the deaths of three leaders killed in December and January during Yemeni air raids, the pan Arab broadcaster said.
Among those killed were Abdullah al Muhdar, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Yemen's Shabwa province, Mohammed Amir al Awlaki, and Mohammed Saleh al Kazimi.
Othman Ahmed Al-Ghamdi, the 31-year-old man named as a leading Al Qaeda operative on Friday, had been added to a list of 85 most wanted people by Saudi Arabia 15 months ago, Al-Arabiya said.
He spent four years in Guantanamo prison after he was captured in Afghanistan. He was released in 2006.
Yemen, neighbor to top oil exporter Saudi Arabia, has been a key Western security concern since the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda arm claimed responsibility for a failed December attempt to bomb a US bound passenger plane.
Last month, the group tried to assassinate the British ambassador to Yemen when a suicide bomber threw himself into the path of the convoy taking Tim Torlot to work in capital Sanaa.
The envoy was unharmed and only the suicide bomber died, but the bold hit signalled that a recent crackdown by Sanaa on the global militant group has done little to curb its ambitions to carry out attacks on international targets.
Western countries and Riyadh want Yemen, grappling with a northern Shiite insurgency and southern separatism, to quell its domestic conflicts to turn its focus on fighting Al-Qaeda, which they see as a bigger global threat.
Guantanamo prison was set up by US President George W. Bush in Cuba in 2002 to hold foreigners captured after US forces invaded Afghanistan to root out Al-Qaeda and its Taleban protectors in response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the US
And the circle starts again