Ukraine premier: Crimea will remain in Ukraine

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk talks with reporters during an interview with the Associated Press in Kiev, Ukraine, Wednesday March 5, 2014. Yatsenyuk said Wednesday that embattled Crimea must remain part of Ukraine, but may be granted more local powers. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk talks with reporters during an interview with the Associated Press in Kiev, Ukraine, Wednesday March 5, 2014. Yatsenyuk said Wednesday that embattled Crimea must remain part of Ukraine, but may be granted more local powers. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk talks with reporters during an interview with the Associated Press in Kiev, Ukraine, Wednesday March 5, 2014. Yatsenyuk said Wednesday that embattled Crimea must remain part of Ukraine, but may be granted more local powers. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk talks with reporters during an interview with the Associated Press in Kiev, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 5, 2014. Yatsenyuk said Wednesday that embattled Crimea must remain part of Ukraine, but may be granted more local powers. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk talks with reporters during an interview with the Associated Press in Kiev, Ukraine, Wednesday March 5, 2014. Yatsenyuk said Wednesday that embattled Crimea must remain part of Ukraine, but may be granted more local powers. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

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KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — In his first interview since taking office, Ukraine’s new prime minister vigorously defended the legality of his government against attacks coming from Russia, but said Wednesday that Ukraine would be willing to consider granting more autonomy to the Crimea region to assuage the concerns of the province’s pro-Russian population.

Speaking to The Associated Press, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk denied reports that Ukraine is seeking military assistance from the United States.

Since last weekend, Russian troops have taken control of much of the Crimea, a peninsula in the Black Sea where Russian speakers are in the majority.

Yatsenyuk, who took office last week, blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for causing one of the sharpest international crises in Europe since the end of the Cold War — and expressed fears about further possible Russian incursions.

Asked by AP if he was afraid that Russia might send troops to occupy other Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine, Yatsenyuk said: “Let me put it bluntly: yes, it’s still a concern and Russia is to realize its responsibility and Russia is to stick to its international obligation, to stop the invasion.

“Mr. President (Putin), stop this mess,” said Yatsenyuk.

The prime minister, approved by parliament on Feb. 27, also denied a report that cash-strapped Ukraine was negotiating with the United States for deployment of U.S. missile defenses in exchange for financial help.

“This is not true,” Yatsenyuk told the AP. “We have no talks with the government of the United States of America on any kind of deployment of any military forces. The only negotiations we have is to get financial support, financial aid from the United States government in order to stabilize the economic situation in my country. It’s absurd.”

On Tuesday, Putin said Ukraine’s current leaders had come to power as the result of an unconstitutional coup. In the interview, Yatsenyuk blamed Russia’s leader for the ongoing crisis and said Putin was the one acting outside the law.

“A number of military forces of the Russian Federation are deployed in Crimea. We cannot figure out the reason why Russian boots are on Ukrainian ground. And it’s crystal clear that it was ordered personally by President Putin. This is Ukrainian territory and Russia wants to grab control over Crimea. But I will underline again, we will do our best in order to regain control over Ukrainian territory. The Russian military is to be back in the barracks.”

“What happened in Crimea is unconstitutional and resembles … a coup supported by the Russian government and the Russian military,” Yatsenyuk said.

“The Ukrainian government is legitimate. And let me remind Mr. Putin that this government was supported by the constitutional majority of Ukrainian MPs with 371 votes. We are legitimate and we must fulfill our responsibilities. And we strongly recommend to our Russian partners to build up relations with the new Ukrainian government.”

A spokeswoman said it was the prime minister’s first sit-down interview since he assumed the post. Yatsenyuk, who spoke in English, said he hadn’t talked personally to Putin, “but it’s in the interests of our countries to start a dialogue.”

“First we need to stop the invasion and afterward we want Russia to (be) our partners, real partners and to stop this zero-sum game. It is to be a win-win game where both Ukrainian and Russian interests are considered,” he said. “So we urge the Russian government to start real talks with the new Ukrainian government and we ask Russia not to be a neighbor but to become a real partner.”

Yatsenyuk, 39, is a millionaire banker who has served as the economy minister, foreign minister, and then parliament speaker. He unsuccessfully ran for president in 2010. He is viewed as a technocratic reformer and enjoys the support of the United States.

Yatsenyuk said Crimea must remain part of Ukraine, but may be granted more local powers. He said was in favor of establishing a special task force “to consider what kind of additional autonomy the Crimean Republic could get.”

On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Kiev to announce $ 1 billion in U.S. assistance to Ukraine in the form of energy subsides. Yatsenyuk told AP the economy of this former Soviet republic “is in a big mess” — but that the new government is taking action to improve things.

“The state treasury is empty. And due to unbelievable and unlimited corruption in my country we cannot collect revenues in order to execute our social obligations, but despite this we have a clear-cut action plan how to tackle economic problems.

“We resumed talks with the International Monetary Fund. The IMF mission is on the ground. A good gesture made by the United States government to support the state of Ukraine with $ 1 billion of guarantees is a first sign that Ukraine could be back on track in terms of economic stability.

“But we need to move further.”

Associated Press

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Ukraine premier: Crimea will remain in Ukraine

Guantanamo: Three Uighurs to be sent to Slovakia, 155 detainees remain

The United States released the last three ethnic Uighurs from its military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on Tuesday.

The three men will be sent to Slovakia, resolving a diplomatic crisis that has kept the innocent men imprisoned since 2008 when a judge ordered their release.

They were the last of 22 Uighurs from China who were detained by American forces during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and brought to Guantanamo. The men were kept for years without trial before being deemed as safe for release by a judge.

Finding them a new home after Guantanamo proved difficult.

The men had fled to Afghanistan from China, where they have been persecuted by the government.

Heavy lobbying from China to have the men returned has added to the difficulties in releasing the men.

Those Uighurs who possessed other citizenship found homes, whereas 22 others with Chinese citizenship faced a much more difficult situation.

More from GlobalPost: Obama calls on Congress to do more on Guantanamo Bay

After their release was stalled, a judge ordered them sent to the United States – a move that was blocked by Congress and the Bush administration.

A diplomatic push saw many of them eventually find homes in places like Palau, Bermuda, El Salvador and Switzerland, their lives beginning anew in places far from home.

The three men who stayed in Guantanamo had refused to be transferred to Bermuda or Palau. The Associated Press reported that the men sought to be closer to Uighur communities in Europe.

Slovakia has now agreed to take the men. The EU and NATO member had previously accepted three other Guantanamo prisoners in 2010.

“Slovakia deserves a lot of credit because they were willing to do what large countries like the United States, Canada and Germany were unwilling to do, which was to resist diplomatic pressure from China and the stigma of Guantanamo,” Wells Dixon, a lawyer with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, told the Associated Press.

US officials thanked Slovakia on Tuesday for agreeing to take the men.

“These three resettlements are an important step in implementing President Obama’s directive to close the Guantanamo detention facility,” said Clifford Sloan, Department of State Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure.

Their release has brought the number of detainees at the US base to 155 from a high of 750. Nine prisoners were released in December.

Only a handful of the remaining prisoners have been charged with terrorism offenses with another 80 cleared for release – 60 of which are from Yemen.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/131231/guantanamo-three-uighurs-be-sent-slovakia-155-de

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Guantanamo: Three Uighurs to be sent to Slovakia, 155 detainees remain

Guantanamo: Three Uighurs to be sent to Slovakia, 155 detainees remain

The United States released the last three ethnic Uighurs from its military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on Tuesday.

The three men will be sent to Slovakia, resolving a diplomatic crisis that has kept the innocent men imprisoned since 2008 when a judge ordered their release.

They were the last of 22 Uighurs from China who were detained by American forces during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and brought to Guantanamo. The men were kept for years without trial before being deemed as safe for release by a judge.

Finding them a new home after Guantanamo proved difficult.

The men had fled to Afghanistan from China, where they have been persecuted by the government.

Heavy lobbying from China to have the men returned has added to the difficulties in releasing the men.

Those Uighurs who possessed other citizenship found homes, whereas 22 others with Chinese citizenship faced a much more difficult situation.

More from GlobalPost: Obama calls on Congress to do more on Guantanamo Bay

After their release was stalled, a judge ordered them sent to the United States – a move that was blocked by Congress and the Bush administration.

A diplomatic push saw many of them eventually find homes in places like Palau, Bermuda, El Salvador and Switzerland, their lives beginning anew in places far from home.

The three men who stayed in Guantanamo had refused to be transferred to Bermuda or Palau. The Associated Press reported that the men sought to be closer to Uighur communities in Europe.

Slovakia has now agreed to take the men. The EU and NATO member had previously accepted three other Guantanamo prisoners in 2010.

“Slovakia deserves a lot of credit because they were willing to do what large countries like the United States, Canada and Germany were unwilling to do, which was to resist diplomatic pressure from China and the stigma of Guantanamo,” Wells Dixon, a lawyer with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, told the Associated Press.

US officials thanked Slovakia on Tuesday for agreeing to take the men.

“These three resettlements are an important step in implementing President Obama’s directive to close the Guantanamo detention facility,” said Clifford Sloan, Department of State Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure.

Their release has brought the number of detainees at the US base to 155 from a high of 750. Nine prisoners were released in December.

Only a handful of the remaining prisoners have been charged with terrorism offenses with another 80 cleared for release – 60 of which are from Yemen.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/131231/guantanamo-three-uighurs-be-sent-slovakia-155-de

GlobalPost – Home

Guantanamo: Three Uighurs to be sent to Slovakia, 155 detainees remain

‘Iranian spy’ appears in Israeli court, will remain in custody

Published time: September 30, 2013 17:51

Ali Mansouri, 58, arrested at Ben Gurion Airport on suspicion of espionage, sits in between guards at the Petah Tikva District Court on the first day of their trial on September 30, 2013. (AFP Photo / Jack Guez)

An Israeli court has remanded in custody a man suspected of spying for Iran. Ali Mansouri was reportedly arrested while carrying photos of the US Embassy in Tel-Aviv. Israeli officials accuse him of collecting “intelligence for a possible terror attack.”

News of Mansouri’s detention was revealed on Sunday, and the decision was made at “a high level,” according to an Israeli police representative. The court remanded him in custody for eight more days, although the 55-year-old has not yet been charged.

Iranian-born Mansouri, who holds a Belgian passport and was traveling under the guise of Belgian Alex Mans, was detained at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport on September 11, Israel’s Shin Bet security service reported.

Shin Bet also stated that the suspect confessed to having been promised US$ 1 million to use his position as a businessman to set up companies to “harm Israeli and Western interests.” Several websites and a Facebook page were created to make his business seem legitimate, Mansouri added.

However, police said that Mansouri hadn’t disclosed all information concerning his activities in Israel, and therefore asked that his remand be extended.

Shin Bet also stated that the suspect’s picture-taking outside the US Embassy in Tel Aviv was regarded as an attempt “to collect intelligence for a possible terror attack.” 

Mansouri’s lawyer has refuted the allegations: “The apocalyptic picture that the Shin Bet is painting is a lot more complicated and the attempt to claim that our client came here in order to carry out attacks in Israel is far from reality and without foundation,” he said.

Mansouri himself did not make any comments during his court appearance.

Local media expressed suspicions over the news, as the arrest announcement coincided with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flight to the US for a visit focused on Iran’s nuclear program.

“Security services do not hurry to reveal, of their own volition, recent espionage affairs,” defense commentator Alex Fishman wrote for Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot.

“An espionage network is too important an operational card to trade with publicly, unless there is a particularly important operational or diplomatic interest that requires such disclosure,” he added.

The commentator also pointed out that an exact diplomatic interest may be behind the move – an attempt to embarrass Iran’s leadership following a successful PR campaign carried out in the US by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

RT – News

‘Iranian spy’ appears in Israeli court, will remain in custody

As al-Qaida grows, leaders remain a global threat

WASHINGTON (AP) — Far from being on the brink of collapse, al-Qaida’s core leadership remains a potent threat — and one that experts say has encouraged the terror network’s spread into more countries today than it was operating in immediately after 9/11.

President Barack Obama, who ordered the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, has described al-Qaida’s headquarters as “a shadow of its former self.” White House spokesman Jay Carney on Tuesday called it “severely diminished” and “decimated.”

The bravado, however, didn’t match the Obama administration’s action this week. It closed 19 U.S. diplomatic outposts stretching across the Eastern Hemisphere and evacuated nonessential personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Yemen after intelligence officials said they had intercepted a recent message from al-Qaida’s top leader about plans for a major terror attack.

The new communique came from bin Laden’s replacement, Ayman al-Zawahri, who as early as December 2001 announced plans to decentralize the network and scatter its affiliates across the globe as a way of ensuring its survival.

Now, major al-Qaida hubs are thriving along the Iraqi-Syrian border, in North Africa and, in the most serious risk to the U.S., in Yemen.

The regional hubs may not take direct orders from al-Zawahri, and terror experts say they rarely coordinate operations with each other or share funding and fighters. But they have promoted al-Qaida’s mission far beyond what its reach was a dozen years ago and, in turn, created an enduring legacy for its core leaders.

“Even while the core al-Qaida group may be in decline, al-Qaida-ism, the movement’s ideology, continues to resonate and attract new adherents,” Bruce Hoffman, director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, wrote in a research paper earlier this year.

Bin Laden’s death, Hoffman wrote, “left behind a resilient movement that, although seriously weakened, has been expanding and consolidating its control in new and far-flung locales.”

Al-Zawahri, an Egyptian whose location is unknown, issues messages to followers every few months that are posted and circulated on jihadi websites. His latest, posted July 30, lashed out at Obama for the continued U.S. detention of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and for launching deadly drone attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and other Muslim countries.

“You fought us for 13 years. … Did we soften or toughen up? Did we back out or advance? Did we withdraw or spread out?” al-Zawahri asked Obama in his July 30 message, according to a transcript of his letter that was translated from Arabic by SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist websites.

He continued, “I call on every Muslim in every spot on Earth to seek with all that he can to stop the crimes of America and its allies against the Muslims — in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Mali, and everywhere.”

Three days later, the State Department announced the temporary closing of U.S. embassies and diplomatic outposts across the Mideast, Africa and Asia — although not in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel or Mali. Officials this week said the closures were prompted by an unspecified threat to U.S. and Western interests in a message from al-Zawahri to his top lieutenant in Yemen, where al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is based.

AQAP, as the terror network’s regional hub is known, is led by Nasser al-Wahishi, who for years was close to al-Zawahri and bin Laden, and is one of al-Qaida’s few remaining core leaders, said SITE director Rita Katz.

Intelligence officials say AQAP has for years announced its intent to attack the U.S., and is widely considered the biggest threat to the West of the al-Qaida affiliates. The group is linked to the botched Christmas Day 2009 bombing of an airliner bound for Detroit and explosives-laden parcels intercepted aboard cargo flights a year later.

Katz said AQAP may serve as the future al-Qaida headquarters, given that al-Zawahri and other core leaders pay attention to al-Wahishi. But she warned, “There will be a new leader in the future, and I doubt it will stay the same.”

For the most part, al-Qaida’s regional power centers have formed in places undergoing political upheaval, where security forces are too distracted by internal war or strife to clamp down on extremists.

The civil war in Syria, now in its third year, has given al-Qaida a huge boost and an opportunity to seize land that the Sunni-based network has long yearned to control. Having a leadership role in Syria would be a victory for al-Qaida given the country’s prominence in Muslim scripture, its proximity to other Arab states and the network’s hatred toward Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, who include Syrian President Bashar Assad.

More than 100,000 people have died in the Syrian war, which largely pits Sunni opposition forces and rebels against Assad’s Alawite regime, and has drawn fighters linked to al-Qaida. Many have come from neighboring Iraq, which itself is reeling from political instability.

Violence has risen steadily since the American military left Iraq in December 2011, fueled in part by Syrian cross-border militant traffic but also because of Baghdad’s inability to curb attacks.

July was the deadliest month in Iraq in years, with attacks killing more than 1,000 people and wounding at least 2,300, according to U.N. data. And coordinated jailbreaks at two high-security Iraqi prisons last month set free hundreds of inmates, including al-Qaida extremists. Iraq’s branch of al-Qaida, known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, claimed responsibility for the raids that it said were planned for months.

Kenneth Pollack, who oversaw Persian Gulf issues while on the White House National Security Council during the Clinton administration, said al-Qaida is poised to gain from instability across the Mideast — in part by using Iraq as a regional hub.

“Al-Qaida in Iraq is back. They were dead in 2010, dead as doornails, and now they are huge in Iraq,” Pollack said. “They have operations in Syria and they are a real movement in Syria.”

But the al-Qaida fighters in Iraq and Syria have shown little interest in attacking Americans beyond the region, Pollack said, and neither have most of those in northern Africa. There, in a region that spans across the Sahel and stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to Somalia, a spread of militants are calling themselves al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb.

AQIM is rooted in Algeria and affiliated with al-Zawahri, who in April warned French troops fighting extremists in Mali that they would face “the same fate America met in Iraq and Afghanistan” as long as they stayed. But there’s no evidence the North African groups receive direct orders from al-Zawahri, and most are as motivated by asserting local authority through criminal activity as by anti-Western ideology.

It’s believed that AQIM was linked to some of the militants behind last year’s attack on a diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. And AQIM is suspected of driving overloaded trucks of rifles, mortars and other weapons from Libya to Mali and Niger to arm allies there.

Al-Zawahri also urged Muslims to join Somali militants in a message last November. The Somali-based militant group al-Shabab is loosely linked to al-Qaida, but some of its members have plotted attacks against the United States, where large pockets of Somalis have moved to escape famine and war over the last 20 years.

An inevitable part of al-Qaida’s growth is its new regional leadership — few of whom fought with bin Laden or have ever worked with al-Zawahri, Katz said. They may not all be driven by the same anti-American or anti-Western fervors that motivated bin Laden, but that makes them no less a global threat as the disparate groups mature.

“In the past, people wanted to go to Afghanistan; it was the dream of every possible jihadi on the front to go to Afghanistan to fight in al-Qaida training camps,” Katz said. “You don’t see that anymore. No one cares about what’s happening in Afghanistan.

“If anyone wants to go anywhere today it is, of course, Syria,” she said. “Going to Yemen is always a good thing for them; going to Somalia is less than it used to be, but it’s still another possibility. Things change all the time.”

___

Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at https://twitter.com/larajakesAP

Associated Press

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As al-Qaida grows, leaders remain a global threat

State Dept: Posts in 19 countries to remain closed

WASHINGTON (AP) — Amid online “chatter” about terror threats, U.S. diplomatic posts in 19 cities in the Muslim world will be closed at least through the end of this week, the State Department said.

Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the decision to keep the embassies and consulates shuttered is a sign of an “abundance of caution” and is “not an indication of a new threat.”

She said the continued closures are “merely an indication of our commitment to exercise caution and take appropriate steps to protect our employees, including local employees, and visitors to our facilities.”

Diplomatic facilities will remain closed in Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, among other countries, through Saturday, Aug. 10. The State Department announcement Sunday added closures of four African sites, in Madagascar, Burundi, Rwanda and Mauritius.

The U.S. has also decided to reopen some posts on Monday, including those in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Baghdad.

The Obama administration announced Friday that the posts would be closed over the weekend and the State Department announced a global travel alert, warning that al-Qaida or its allies might target either U.S. government or private American interests.

The intercepted intelligence foreshadowing an attack on U.S. or Western interests is evidence of one of the gravest threats to the United States since 9/11, according to several lawmakers who made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows.

“This is the most serious threat that I’ve seen in the last several years,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia told NBC’s “Meet the Press Sunday. “Chatter means conversation among terrorists about the planning that’s going on — very reminiscent of what we saw pre-9/11.”

Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said it was that chatter that prompted the Obama administration to order the Sunday closure of 22 embassies and consulates and issue the travel warning.

Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told ABC’s “This Week” that the threat intercepted from “high-level people in al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula” was about a “major attack.”

Yemen is home to al-Qaida’s most dangerous affiliate, blamed for several notable terrorist plots on the United States. They include the foiled Christmas Day 2009 effort to bomb an airliner over Detroit and the explosives-laden parcels intercepted the following year aboard cargo flights.

Rep. Peter King, the New York Republican who leads the House Homeland Security subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence, told ABC the threat “was specific as to how enormous it was going to be and also that certain dates were given.”

The Obama administration’s decision to close the embassies and the lawmakers’ general discussion about the threats and the related intelligence discoveries come at a sensitive time as the government tries to defend recently disclosed surveillance programs that have stirred deep privacy concerns and raised the potential of the first serious retrenchment in terrorism-fighting efforts since Sept. 11.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has scoffed at the assertion by the head of the National Security Agency that government methods used to collect telephone and email data have helped foil 54 terror plots.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a House Intelligence Committee member, said while he takes the threat seriously he hasn’t seen any evidence linking the latest warnings to that agency’s collection of “vast amounts of domestic data.”

Other lawmakers defended the administration’s response and promoted the work of the NSA in unearthing the intelligence that led to the security warnings.

King, a frequent critic of President Barack Obama, said: “Whether or not there was any controversy over the NSA at all, all these actions would have been taken.”

On Friday, the White House announced the weekend closures and the State Department announced a global travel alert.

The warning urged American travelers to take extra precautions overseas, citing potential dangers involved with public transportation systems and other prime sites for tourists.

It noted that previous terrorist attacks have centered on subway and rail networks as well as airplanes and boats. It suggested travelers sign up for State Department alerts and register with U.S. consulates in the countries they visit. The alert expires Aug. 31.

The intelligence intercepts also prompted Britain, Germany and France to close their embassies in Yemen on Sunday and Monday. British authorities said some embassy staff in Yemen had been withdrawn “due to security concerns.”

Interpol, the French-based international policy agency, has also issued a global security alert in connection with suspected al-Qaida involvement in several recent prison escapes including those in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan.

___

Associated Press writer Michele Salcedo contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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State Dept: Posts in 19 countries to remain closed

State Dept: Posts in 19 countries to remain closed

A Yemeni soldier inspects a car at a checkpoint on a street leading to the U.S. embassy in Sanaa, Yemen, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2013. Security forces close access roads, put up extra blast walls and beef up patrols near some of the 21 U.S. diplomatic missions in the Muslim world that Washington ordered closed for the weekend over a “significant threat” of an al-Qaida attack. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)

A Yemeni soldier inspects a car at a checkpoint on a street leading to the U.S. embassy in Sanaa, Yemen, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2013. Security forces close access roads, put up extra blast walls and beef up patrols near some of the 21 U.S. diplomatic missions in the Muslim world that Washington ordered closed for the weekend over a “significant threat” of an al-Qaida attack. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)

Map shows U.S. embassies and consulates that will close; 3c x 3 inches; 146 mm x 76 mm;

A Yemeni soldier inspects a car at a checkpoint on a street leading to the U.S. embassy in Sanaa, Yemen, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2013. Security forces close access roads, put up extra blast walls and beef up patrols near some of the 21 U.S. diplomatic missions in the Muslim world that Washington ordered closed for the weekend over a “significant threat” of an al-Qaida attack. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)

A ,man walks past the U.S Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2013. The threat of a terrorist attack led to the weekend closure of 21 U.S. embassies and consulates in the Muslim world and a global travel warning to Americans, the first such alert since an announcement before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 strikes. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

A Yemeni soldier stops a car at a checkpoint in a street leading to the U.S. embassy in Sanaa, Yemen, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2013. Security forces close access roads, put up extra blast walls and beef up patrols near some of the 21 U.S. diplomatic missions in the Muslim world that Washington ordered closed for the weekend over a “significant threat” of an al-Qaida attack. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Amid online “chatter” about terror threats, U.S. diplomatic posts in 19 cities in the Muslim world will be closed at least through the end of this week, the State Department said.

Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the decision to keep the embassies and consulates shuttered is a sign of an “abundance of caution” and is “not an indication of a new threat.”

She said the continued closures are “merely an indication of our commitment to exercise caution and take appropriate steps to protect our employees, including local employees, and visitors to our facilities.”

Diplomatic facilities will remain closed in Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, among other countries, through Saturday, Aug. 10. The State Department announcement Sunday added closures of four African sites, in Madagascar, Burundi, Rwanda and Mauritius.

The U.S. has also decided to reopen some posts on Monday, including those in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Baghdad.

The Obama administration announced Friday that the posts would be closed over the weekend and the State Department announced a global travel alert, warning that al-Qaida or its allies might target either U.S. government or private American interests.

The intercepted intelligence foreshadowing an attack on U.S. or Western interests is evidence of one of the gravest threats to the United States since 9/11, according to several lawmakers who made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows.

“This is the most serious threat that I’ve seen in the last several years,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia told NBC’s “Meet the Press Sunday. “Chatter means conversation among terrorists about the planning that’s going on — very reminiscent of what we saw pre-9/11.”

Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said it was that chatter that prompted the Obama administration to order the Sunday closure of 22 embassies and consulates and issue the travel warning.

Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told ABC’s “This Week” that the threat intercepted from “high-level people in al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula” was about a “major attack.”

Yemen is home to al-Qaida’s most dangerous affiliate, blamed for several notable terrorist plots on the United States. They include the foiled Christmas Day 2009 effort to bomb an airliner over Detroit and the explosives-laden parcels intercepted the following year aboard cargo flights.

Rep. Peter King, the New York Republican who leads the House Homeland Security subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence, told ABC the threat “was specific as to how enormous it was going to be and also that certain dates were given.”

The Obama administration’s decision to close the embassies and the lawmakers’ general discussion about the threats and the related intelligence discoveries come at a sensitive time as the government tries to defend recently disclosed surveillance programs that have stirred deep privacy concerns and raised the potential of the first serious retrenchment in terrorism-fighting efforts since Sept. 11.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has scoffed at the assertion by the head of the National Security Agency that government methods used to collect telephone and email data have helped foil 54 terror plots.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a House Intelligence Committee member, said while he takes the threat seriously he hasn’t seen any evidence linking the latest warnings to that agency’s collection of “vast amounts of domestic data.”

Other lawmakers defended the administration’s response and promoted the work of the NSA in unearthing the intelligence that led to the security warnings.

King, a frequent critic of President Barack Obama, said: “Whether or not there was any controversy over the NSA at all, all these actions would have been taken.”

On Friday, the White House announced the weekend closures and the State Department announced a global travel alert.

The warning urged American travelers to take extra precautions overseas, citing potential dangers involved with public transportation systems and other prime sites for tourists.

It noted that previous terrorist attacks have centered on subway and rail networks as well as airplanes and boats. It suggested travelers sign up for State Department alerts and register with U.S. consulates in the countries they visit. The alert expires Aug. 31.

The intelligence intercepts also prompted Britain, Germany and France to close their embassies in Yemen on Sunday and Monday. British authorities said some embassy staff in Yemen had been withdrawn “due to security concerns.”

Interpol, the French-based international policy agency, has also issued a global security alert in connection with suspected al-Qaida involvement in several recent prison escapes including those in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan.

___

Associated Press writer Michele Salcedo contributed to this report.

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State Dept: Posts in 19 countries to remain closed

Beacon focus of Boeing fire probe; investors remain on edge

Emergency services attend to a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, operated by Ethiopian Airlines, after it caught fire at Britain’s Heathrow airport in west London July 12, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Toby Melville

By Rhys Jones and Alwyn Scott

LONDON/SEATTLE | Fri Jul 19, 2013 12:18am EDT

LONDON/SEATTLE (Reuters) – British aviation investigators identified an emergency beacon made by Honeywell International Inc (HON.N) as a likely source of last week’s blaze on a Boeing Co (BA.N) 787 Dreamliner and called for it to be turned off, spurring a rally in Boeing shares by relieved investors.

Concerns about the carbon composite jet soon resurfaced, however, after a Japan Airlines (9201.T) 787 returned to Boston’s Logan airport a with a possible faulty fuel pump.

A spokesman for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said that incident was not an emergency, but nervous investors sent Boeing shares down 1.5 percent in afterhours trade. Japan Airlines spokesman Hisanori Iizuka said the pilot decided to turn back “as a precaution.”

The 787 program has been plagued by problems since January, with aircraft grounded after the overheating of lithium-ion back-up batteries.

UK officials said the fire at the parked Ethiopian Airlines at Heathrow was not related to the January incidents. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said a locator beacon and its lithium-based battery was the only equipment on the plane that was near the fire and had the power to start it, and called regulators to review the use of these beacons.

Boeing said the locator beacon is not required by U.S. Federal Aviation Administration regulations, although some other nations do mandate their use. The plane maker said it would be removed from its newest model plane.

“ELTs are not required as part of the airplane design. There was no requirement to operate the ELTs during 787 flight test,” said Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel.

The beacons, also called emergency locator transmitters (ELTs) are powered by non-rechargeable, lithium-manganese batteries used for decades in products like digital cameras, walkie-talkies and pacemakers.

NO QUICK REMOVAL

For now, airlines will keep flying with their emergency beacons in place until the FAA instructs them to do otherwise. With most big jets closely monitored on radar and with other means for rescuers to locate downed jets, the beacons, required in most parts of the world, are not critical for safe flight.

The AAIB has left it up to the FAA to decide on removing the beacons, said a Japan’s Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB) official.

“Things won’t moved forward until the FAA makes a decision,” he said, declining to be identified as he is not authorized to talk to the media.

Japanese airline ANA (9202.T), which owns 20 of the 68 Dreamliners currently operating, said it would await instructions from the JCAB.

In Washington, the FAA said it was reviewing the report, which pointing to a lack of fire detection or suppression in the space above the cabin said, “had this event occurred in flight it could pose a significant safety concern.”

RAIN IN THE PLANE

The AAIB said it is still unclear whether the fire onboard the Ethiopian jet was triggered by a malfunction in the beacon’s battery or some external force – such as an electrical short circuit – and said the probe would continue.

While the UK report focused on the beacon made by U.S. conglomerate Honeywell, aviation experts said 787′s higher humidity, which helps keeps passengers more comfortable, may have been an issue. Water can conduct electricity, so high moisture levels could increase the likelihood of short circuits.

“The investigators are looking at everything, humidity, condensation and … how things are installed,” said one industry source.

They are checking if there was enough insulation to prevent moisture from condensing and short circuiting systems such as the beacon, said the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly.

A source close to Boeing, speaking on condition that he not be named, said the 787 may need better isolation of electrical components from the plane’s high humidity, something industry people refer to as “rain in the plane”.

“There’s nothing about this finding that indicates a lack of safety with the plane, but on the other hand there’s no conclusive proof that a system unrelated to the plane is to blame,” said Richard Aboulafia, aviation consultant with the Virginia-based Teal Group.

Analyst Yan Derocles of Paris-based Oddo Securities agreed. “We have to wait for the conclusions and at that point it could be a problem for Boeing, because the succession of incidents could chip away at confidence in the 787,” he said.

HONEYWELL

Honeywell pledged to help Boeing and the airlines as needed, but cautioned that it was premature to jump to conclusions about the fire. It said it did not expect any financial impact from the AAIB’s recommended action.

The battery cells in the beacon showed signs of “disruption” the AAIB report said. “It is not clear however, whether the combustion in the area of the ELT was initiated by a release of energy within the batteries or by an external mechanism such as an electrical short.”

The battery linked to the London fire is made by Newark, New York-based Ultralife Corp (ULBI.O), according to an industry source. Ultralife did not return calls or emails seeking comment. Its shares fell 1.8 percent to $ 3.76.

The AAIB said Honeywell had produced some 6,000 ELTs of the same design, which are fitted to a wide range of aircraft, and this had been the only significant “thermal incident.”

UNRELATED

UK investigator AAIB said last week’s fire was unrelated to the January incidents on 787s that grounded the advanced carbon composite aircraft for more than three months.

Investigators have yet to determine what prompted the batteries involved in those cases to melt down. Boeing resolved the issue by encasing the battery on a fireproof steel box, and cutting a vent in the plane to dump smoke from any overheating batteries in the future.

The fuel pump warning on the JAL flight from Boston on Thursday was unconnected with either the melted batteries or the emergency beacons, the carrier said.

Flight JL007, bound for Tokyo with 184 passengers on board, got a maintenance message related to the fuel pump about three hours after leaving Boston, JAL said. The plane landed safely back at the airport at 6:16 p.m. (2216 GMT), and there was no sign of smoke, it added.

Shares of Boeing closed 2.7 percent higher at $ 107.63, near the high of $ 108.15 reached a week ago before the fire. The Boston incident then saw the shares slip to $ 106. Honeywell shares rose 0.6 percent on Thursday to close at $ 82.97.

JAL’s shares dipped 0.9 percent in early trading in Tokyo, with ANA unchanged from yesterday’s close, compared with a 1.1 percent decline in the benchmark Nikkei 225 index.

(Additional reporting by Tim Hepher, Cyril Altmeyer, Brenda Goh, Scott Malone, Peter Henderson and Tim Kelly; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz, Tim Dobbyn and Miral Fahmy)

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Reuters: Business News

Beacon focus of Boeing fire probe; investors remain on edge

Supreme Wrecking Crew Fells Another Pillar: The Right To Remain Silent

by Zen Gardner

This one slipped by in the midst of all the recent smokescreen chaos in the news. Like many of these critical losses of liberty being cinched tighter and tighter on the American belt, they come either buried in other legislation, are signed in clandestine emergency sessions or are just rammed through while another staged false flag shooting, bombing or some such emergency sweeps the public into another frenzy of fear and emotional outpouring.

Believe me, people are confused. The media cannot possibly cover every base and besides, things just don’t add up. Yes, the average American has been so dumbed down, distracted and stupefied that a lot can be gotten away with, but it accumulates. And people are starting to realize they’ve been taken in one or more ways which invariably leads to seeing how it has happened or is happening to them in other ways.

Couple that with a serious economic downturn and real shortages and you’ll see why the government is arming itself for an insurrection. It’s inevitable, and they are the ones deliberately bringing it on, same as the austerity and bail out squeezes in Europe.

All by design.

Meanwhile, the last legs to stand on based on our shredded Constitution are being hacked out from under us on a regular basis. This one should send shivers down your spine. With the draconian NDAA and other fascist measures firmly in place we’re virtually at the point that one is guilty until proven innocent, not a good prospect for a citizen of anywhere.

Here’s the news:

The Supreme Court handed down a decision on June 17 that has been ignored by most media outlets, despite its devastating effect on one of the most fundamental rights protected by the Constitution.

In a 5-4 ruling, the justices ruled that a person no longer has the right to remain silent as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. In relevant part, the Fifth Amendment mandates that no one “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”

Thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision in Salinas v. Texas, that part of the Bill of Rights has been excised — and has joined the list of so many other fundamental liberties that now lie on the scrap heap of history. More

Pretty sucky. And they keep rolling along unchecked. Is the push back about to surface?

Here’s an interesting conclusion:

The Declaration of Independence refers to this potential loss of un-alienable rights when it states:

…whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…

The time has come for Declaration 2.0. (Full article here)

Something to think about. It certainly isn’t the time for sitting still, I’ll tell you that.

Love, Zen

[hat tip TallBrownElf - tx]

ZenGardner.com

Just Wondering – Alternative News and Opinions

Supreme Wrecking Crew Fells Another Pillar: The Right To Remain Silent