NEWS,11.05.2013

Turkey car blast death toll rises to 43

The death toll of twin car bombs in a Turkish town near the Syrian border rose to 43 and wounded many more on Saturday and the government said it suspected Syrian involvement.

The bombing increased fears that Syria's civil war was dragging in neighbouring states despite renewed diplomatic moves towards ending two years of fighting in which more than 70 000 people have been killed.

The bombs ripped into crowded streets near Reyhanli's shopping district in the early afternoon, scattering concrete blocks and smashing cars in the town in Turkey's southern Hatay province, home to thousands of Syrian refugees.

Restaurants and cafes were destroyed and body parts were strewn across the streets. The damage went at least three blocks deep from the site of the blasts.

President Bashar Assad's administration was the "usual suspect" in the attacks, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said.

"We know that the people taking refuge in Hatay have become targets for the Syrian regime," Arinc said in comments broadcast on Turkish television. "We think of them as the usual suspects when it comes to planning such a horrific attack."

Condemned

Another deputy prime minister, Besir Atalay, was quoted by NTV as saying initial findings suggested the attackers came from inside Turkey, but had links to Syria's intelligence agency.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Nor was there any comment from Damascus.

The United States strongly condemned the attacks and vowed support in identifying those responsible, while Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius voiced "full solidarity" with Turkey.

Nato member Turkey supports the uprising against Assad and violence has crossed the border before, but not on the same scale. The bombings were the bloodiest incident on Turkish soil since Syria's conflict began more than two years ago.

War fears

Turkey is far from alone in fearing the impact of Syria's war, which is already helping inflame the Middle East's tangle of sectarian, religious and nationalist struggles.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said it was no coincidence the bombings came as diplomatic moves to end the Syrian conflict intensify.

"There may be those who want to sabotage Turkey's peace, but we will not allow that," Davutoglu told reporters during a trip to Berlin. "No one should attempt to test Turkey's power."

Prospects appeared to improve this week for diplomacy to try to end the civil war, now in its third year, after Moscow and Washington announced a joint effort to bring government and rebels to an international conference.

But a Russian official said on Saturday that there was already disagreement over who would take part and he doubted whether a meeting could happen this month.

As well as disputes over who would represent the rebels and government at any talks, there have also been questions over possible participation by Assad's Shi'ite ally Iran. The rebels are backed by the largely Sunni Gulf states.

Diplomats in New York said the Syria meeting would likely slip into June and it was unclear who would participate.
Death toll may rise

In Reyhanli, smoke poured from charred ruins after the blasts outside administrative buildings.

"My children were so scared because it reminded them of the bombings when we were in Aleppo. God help us," said one refugee from the northern Syrian city, a mother of three who gave her name as Kolsum.

Atalay said 43 people had been killed, while Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan warned the toll could rise. Officials said more than 100 people were injured, many of them critically.

Erdogan said the bombings might have been related to Turkey's own peace process with Kurdish militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who began a withdrawal this week to end a three decade conflict.

Syrian refugees

But the PKK's main area of operation was hundreds of kilometres further east and Erdogan said the blasts could also have been aimed at provoking sensitivities in a region that is home to so many Syrian refugees.

Turkey is sheltering more than 300 000 Syrians, most of them in camps along the 900km frontier, and is struggling to keep up with the influx.

Protests erupted in Reyhanli after the blasts, with some locals blaming Syrian there for bringing violence over the frontier and smashing their car windows, while others railed against Turkey's foreign policy, chanting for Erdogan to resign.

The main opposition Syrian National Coalition said the attacks were a failed attempt to "destroy the brotherhood" between Syrians and Turks and were intended as a punishment for Turkey's support of the uprising.

Erdogan said this week Turkey would support a US-enforced no-fly zone in Syria and warned that Damascus crossed President Barack Obama's "red line" on chemical weapons use long ago.

A no-fly zone to prohibit Syrian military aircraft from hitting rebel targets has been mentioned by American lawmakers as one option the United States could use to pressure Assad.

Erdogan is due to meet Obama in Washington on May 16.

Violence also crossed the border in February, when a minibus blew up at a border crossing near Reyhanli, killing 14 people.

The Syrian opposition said one of its delegations appeared to have been the target of that attack, but there has been no confirmation of this from the Turkish authorities.

In October, five Turkish civilians were killed in Akcakale when a mortar bomb fired from Syria landed on their house, prompting Turkey to fire back across the frontier.

Sharif claims victory in Pakistan vote

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif late on Saturday declared victory for his centre-right opposition Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) party and invited other parties to work with him.

"We should thank Allah that he has given PML-N another chance to serve you and Pakistan," he said in a speech to jubilant supporters, who shouted "prime minister Nawaz Sharif" in his powerbase Lahore.

"Whatever promises we made with our youth, I assure you that we fulfil each of them. Results are still coming but there is a confirmation that PML-N will emerge as the largest party," Sharif said.

According to the unofficial, partial results it appeared that no single party would win a simple majority of 172 seats in the national assembly, raising the prospect of protracted talks to form a coalition government.

"I appeal for all parties to come to the table and sit with me and solve the country's problems," Sharif said.

"I'm doing this only because of you. If it had been only myself, I would not talk to them but it's for you and for the survival of your future generations," he added.

Iran ex-leader Rafsanjani to stand again

Iran's moderate conservative former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Saturday registered his candidacy to stand for the office again in the election on 14 June, an AFP correspondent witnessed.

Rafsanjani, who will be 79 in August, filed his papers at the interior ministry during the final minutes of the five-day registration process which wrapped up on Saturday.

"I came to serve. It is the right of the people to choose me or not," Iranian media quoted him as saying.

Rafsanjani has been isolated since the 2009 presidential election, which saw massive street protests against the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

He then called for the release of people rounded up during the demonstrations.

Rafsanjani, president between 1989 and 1997, currently chairs the Expediency Council, the highest political arbitration body, whose members are appointed by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Heavyweight

Also on Saturday, Saeed Jalili, Iran's top nuclear negotiator and close figure to all-powerful supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, unexpectedly showed up at the ministry and registered his candidacy.

A veteran of the 1980s war with Iraq in which he lost his lower right leg, Jalili, 47, did not speak to reporters, an AFP correspondent said.

Jalili heads the team in negotiations with world powers over Tehran's controversial atomic activities which the West fears are aimed at developing a military capacity, a claim denied by Iran.

According to the interior ministry, more than 450 people have registered, including 14 women. Approved candidates will have three weeks to campaign before polling day on 14 June.

Milan: Man kills 1 in pickaxe rampage

An immigrant from Ghana went on a rampage with a pickaxe in Milan at dawn on Saturday, killing a passerby and wounding four others in an apparently random attack, police said.

Carabinieri paramilitary police in Milan said the 21-year-old attacker was taken into custody shortly after the attacks in a residential area on the northern outskirts of the city.

People working in cafes and other businesses near the attack told Sky TG24 TV that the man wildly swung a pickaxe, running down streets and ferociously striking passersby, mainly on the head. Pools of blood stained the streets.

A 40-year-old man died after being struck on the head with the pickaxe and suffering further blows to the abdomen while he lay on the ground, police said. The victim was described as an unemployed man who was heading to a cafe near his home.

Among those wounded was a man in his 20s who was helping his father deliver newspapers to newsstands; another was a man walking his dog.

Motive

At first it appeared five people had been wounded, but police later said the sixth person the attacker swung at darted into a doorway in the nick of time and escaped injury.

Two of the wounded were in critical condition.

Police said the motive was unclear.

"Police blocked him with difficulty. He was in an evident state of marked psychological stress," Colonel Biagio Storniolo told reporters. Asked about the motive, Storniolo said the suspect "was not being co-operative. He says only that he is hungry and has no home".

The man, identified as Mada Kabobo, 21, was jailed while he is investigated for murder and two counts of attempted murder for the two persons who were most critically wounded, police said.

Previous arrest

First media reports said the man had ignored a 2011 expulsion order because he was not legally in the country, but police later clarified that the expulsion papers had not yet been issued because legal proceedings in southern Italy were pending.

Police said they identified the suspect, who had no documents on him, from fingerprints.

Police said he was in the country illegally, and had previously been arrested in the Puglia region for alleged, theft, robbery, property damage and resisting public authorities.

Milan Mayor Giuliano Pisapia said the entire city was shocked that a man would go on such a rampage, "killing one and wounding several, even gravely, just because he ran into them on his path".

Cleveland women face long road to healing

Year after year, the clock ticked by and the calendar marched forward, carrying the three women further from the real world and pulling them deeper into an isolated nightmare.

Now, for the women freed from captivity inside a Cleveland house, the ordeal is not over. Next comes recovery - from sexual abuse and their sudden, jarring re-entry into a world much different from the one they were snatched from a decade ago.

Therapists say that with extensive treatment and support, healing is likely for the women, who were 14, 16 and 21 when they were abducted. But it is often a long and difficult process.

"It's sort of like coming out of a coma," says Dr Barbara Greenberg, a psychologist who specialises in treating abused teenagers. "It's a very isolating and bewildering experience."

In the world the women left behind, a gallon of gas cost about $1.80. Barack Obama was a state senator. Phones were barely taking pictures. Things did not "go viral". There was no YouTube, no Facebook, no iPhone.

Adolescence taken

Emerging into the future is difficult enough. The two younger Cleveland women are doing it without the benefit of crucial formative years.

"By taking away their adolescence, they weren't able to develop emotional and psychological and social skills," says Duane Bowers, who counsels traumatised families through the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.

"They're 10 years behind in these skills. Those need to be caught up before they can work on reintegrating into society," he says.

That society can be terrifying. As freed captive Georgina DeJesus arrived home from the hospital, watched by a media horde, she hid herself beneath a hooded sweatshirt. The freed Amanda Berry slipped into her home without being seen.

"They weren't hiding from the press, from the cameras," Bowers says. "They were hiding from the freedom, from the expansiveness."

Control

In the house owned by Ariel Castro, who is charged with kidnapping and raping the women, claustrophobic control ruled.

Police say Castro kept them chained in a basement and locked in upstairs rooms, that he fathered a child with one of them, and that he starved and beat his captives into multiple miscarriages.

In all those years, they only set foot outside of the house twice - and then only as far as the garage.

"Something as simple as walking into a Target is going to be a major problem for them," Bowers says.

Jessica Donohue-Dioh, who works with survivors of human trafficking as a social work instructor at Xavier University in Cincinnati, says the freedom to make decisions can be one of the hardest parts of recovery.

"'How should I respond? What do they really want from me?'" Donohue-Dioh says, describing a typical reaction. "They may feel they may not have a choice in giving the right answer."

Kidnap survivors

That has been a challenge for Jaycee Dugard, who is now an advocate for trauma victims after surviving 18 years in captivity - "learning how to speak up, how to say what I want instead of finding out what everybody else wants," Dugard told ABC News.

Like Berry, Dugard was impregnated by her captor and is now raising the two children. She still feels anger about her ordeal.

"But then on the other hand, I have two beautiful daughters that I can never be sorry about," Dugard says.

Another step toward normalcy for the three women will be accepting something that seems obvious to the rest of the world: They have no reason to feel guilty.

"First of all, I'd make sure these young women know that nothing that happened to them is their fault," Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped at age 14 and held in sexual captivity for nine months, told People magazine.

Guilt
Donohue-Dioh says that even for people victimised by monstrous criminals, guilt is a common reaction. The Cleveland women told police they were snatched after accepting rides from Castro.

"They need to recognise that what happened as a result of that choice is not the rightful or due punishment. That's really difficult sometimes," Donohue-Dioh says.
Family support will be crucial, the therapists say. But what does family mean when one member has spent a decade trapped with strangers?

"The family has to be ready to include a stranger into its sphere," Bowers says. "Because if they try to reintegrate the 14-year-old girl who went missing, that's not going to work. That 14-year-old girl doesn't exist anymore. They have to accept this stranger as someone they don't know."

Natascha Kampusch, who was kidnapped in Austria at age 10 and spent eight years in captivity, has said that her 2006 reunion with her family was both euphoric and awkward.

"I had lived for too long in a nightmare, the psychological prison was still there and stood between me and my family," Kampusch wrote in 3096 Days, her account of the ordeal.

Kampusch, now 25, said in a German television interview that she was struggling to form normal relationships, partly because many people seem to shy away from her.

"What a lot of these people say is, what's more important than what happened is how people react," says Greenberg, the psychologist.

Sympathy, support

The world has reacted to the Cleveland women with an outpouring of sympathy and support. This reaction will live on, amplified by the technologies that rose while the women were locked away.

Yet these women are more than the sum of their Wikipedia pages. Dugard, Smart and other survivors often speak of not being defined by their tragedies - another challenge for the Cleveland survivors.

"A classmate will hear their name, or a co-worker, and will put them in this box: This is who you are and what happened to you," Donohue-Dioh says. "Our job as society is to move beyond what they are and what they've experienced."

"This isn't who they are," Dugard told People. "It is only what happened to them."

Still, for the three Cleveland women, their journey forward will always include that horrifying lost decade.

"We can't escape our past," Donohue-Dioh says, "so how are we able to manage how much it influences our present and our future?"

NEWS,10.05.2012.

Obama announces support for same-sex marriage

After years of "evolving" on the issue, United States President Barack Obama said today he believes same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, taking a stand that is likely to please his political base and upset conservative voters."It is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married," Obama said in an interview with ABC's Robin Roberts.Obama's comments marked the first time a US president had publicly expressed support for gay marriage, and his position was hailed by Democrats, gay rights groups and others as a benchmark for civil rights in the United States."This is a major turning point in the history of American civil rights" said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent whose city is in one of six states that allow same-sex marriage.Others, including Republican activists and conservative Christian leaders, criticised Obama's stance and called it a huge political risk on a divisive issue.Noting that 29 states have approved bans on same-sex marriage, they said Obama's announcement could help his Republican opponent in the November 6 election, Mitt Romney, consolidate support among evangelical Christians who, like Romney, oppose gay marriage."Today's announcement ensures that marriage will again be a major issue in the presidential election," said Tony Perkins, a prominent evangelical leader and president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group. "The president has provided a clear contrast between him and ... Mitt Romney."Romney, campaigning in Oklahoma City, said he believes "marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman". He has said he supports hospital visitation rights and other domestic partnership benefits for gay and lesbian couples.Political analysts saw Obama's move as a calculated risk at a time when polls indicate that a slight majority of Americans now support legally recognising gay marriages."It is not without political risk," Democratic strategist Julian Epstein said on MSNBC. "Polls show that nearly every segment of the population" is moving toward acceptance of gay marriage, but "Republicans certainly will try to use it as a wedge in the African American community and with non-college educated white voters," key voting blocs in which many people oppose gay marriage.Obama's comments came three days after Vice President Joe Biden said in a television interview that he was comfortable with gay marriage.Senior administration officials indicated that Obama - who had walked a fine, politically sensitive line in supporting gay rights but not gay marriage - had planned to announce his support for such marriages before the Democratic National Convention in September.The officials acknowledged that Biden's comments had moved up that timetable and said the president was not upset at Biden over his remarks.During the ABC interview, Obama described his views as personal and said he still believed that individual US states should be able to decide on the issue for themselves.Obama, who ended the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy that prevented gays from serving openly in the US military, said his thinking was affected by watching members of his staff who are in committed same-sex relationships and thinking about "soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained."Obama told ABC his daughters were an influential factor and that his wife, first lady Michelle Obama, shared his views."You know, Malia and Sasha, they have friends whose parents are same-sex couples," Obama said. "There have been times where Michelle and I have been sitting around the dinner table and we're talking about their friends and their parents, and Malia and Sasha, it wouldn't dawn on them that somehow their friends' parents would be treated differently."Obama added "it doesn't make sense to them and frankly, that's the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective."Nearly two-thirds of Democrats support same-sex marriage, along with more than half of independents, while fewer than one-quarter of Republicans believe it should be allowed.Obama's remarks were celebrated by Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, which said he had "made history."Neera Tanden from the Center for American Progress described the president's expression of support as "another large step toward realizing this country's promise of equality." Republican gay rights activists praised the decision but were more muted. "I am sure the president's newly discovered support for marriage is cold comfort to the gay couples in North Carolina," said Christopher Barron, chief strategist of GOProud.North Carolina voted yesterday to join 28 other states that have voter-approved constitutional bans on same-sex marriages, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.Six states and the District of Columbia allow gay and lesbian marriages.In Colorado on Wednesday, a bill that would have granted civil unions to same-sex couples failed to advance to a full vote.Celebrities have praised Barack Obama after he announced that he supports gay marriage.The comments have led to a massive response on twitter with many gay and lesbian stars as well as LGBT campaigners posting their thanks.Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres tweeted: "Thank you President @BarackObama for your beautiful and brave words. I'm overwhelmed."While Chris Colfer retweeted Ellen's comment and added his own words of praise.His Glee colleague Jane Lynch said: "Pretty darn happy today. Thanks Mr President, for supporting the dignity of my family and so many others!"Born This Way singer Lady GaGa added: "Obama, congratulations on being the first sitting President to support marriage equality. Feels like the future, and not the past. #NoFear"

NEWS,23.04.2012.

French vote - kingmaker Le Pen?

Paris - Socialist challenger Francois Hollande beat Nicolas Sarkozy in the first round of France's presidential election on Sunday, with a resurgent far-right emerging as possible kingmakers in the run off.As expected, Hollande and the wounded right-wing incumbent will now face off in the May 6 second-round, but the big surprise of the night was the record score for anti-immigrant, anti-EU flag-bearer Marine Le Pen.Hollande won between 28 and 29% of the vote in the first round, to Sarkozy's 25.5 to 27%, and Le Pen won a best-ever 18 to 20%, according to estimates compiled from ballot samples by several polling agencies."Firstly, I am tonight (Sunday) in the lead among the candidates," Hollande declared before supporters in his rural political stronghold of Tulle. "I am today (Sunday) the best placed candidate to become the next French president."The second major lesson to draw from this election - and this is undeniable - is that the first round was a punishment and a rejection of the incumbent," he said to cheers.Sarkozy sought to put positive spin on the result and brandished his right-wing credentials in a clear nod to Le Pen supporters, despite being the first incumbent to lose a first round-vote in modern French history."We can enter the second round with confidence and I now call on all French people who put patriotism above partisanship or any special interests to unite and join me," Sarkozy told supporters at a rally in Paris.Explaining his poor showing as the result of a first round "vote of crisis" amid global economic chaos, he insisted: "These anxieties, this suffering, I know them, I understand them."They are about respecting our borders, the determined fight against job relocation, controlling immigration, putting value on work, on security," he said, hitting on a number of key right-wing themes.Sarkozy also called for three televised debates before the second round, but Hollande refused, saying the single planned encounter would be enough.A jubilant Le Pen addressed her supporters after her National Front party's best ever showing, saying: "The battle of France has just begun... we have exploded the monopoly of the two parties" - the Socialists and Sarkozy's UMP."I will give my opinion on May 1," Le Pen said when asked how her supporters should vote in the second round.The first opinion poll after the first round said that Hollande would beat Sarkozy by 54% to 46% the second round and that the attitude of Le Pen's supporters could be decisive.Polling institute Ifop said that 48% of her backers would switch to Sarkozy and 31% to Hollande, while an OpinionWay poll said 18% of her supporters would back the Socialist and 39% Sarkozy.The head of Sarkozy's UMP party, Jean-Francois Cope, said he looked forward to the second round."From tomorrow (Monday) morning, we will no longer be in a case of nine candidates against Nicolas Sarkozy, but we will be one-on-one, Nicolas Sarkozy against Francois Hollande ... then I think the match will be different."

Turnout was high at at least 80%, down on the 84% turnout of 2007 but up significantly on the 72% of 2002 and belying fears that a low-key campaign would be capped by mass abstention.Hollande says Sarkozy has trapped France in a downward spiral of austerity and job losses, while Sarkozy says his rival is inexperienced and weak-willed and would spark financial panic through reckless spending pledges.The eurozone debt crisis and France's sluggish growth and high unemployment have hung over the campaign, with Sarkozy struggling to defend his record and Hollande unable to credibly promise spending increases.Opinion polls and campaigning were banned from midnight on Friday, and will now resume on Monday in the build-up to the May 6 run-off.

NEWS,24.02.2012.

Thousands gather for Putin's battle cry

Tens of thousands of people have gathered in Moscow in support of presidential hopeful Vladimir Putin.

Tens of thousands of people have gathered in Moscow in support of presidential hopeful Vladimir Putin, with numbers rivalling those of recent mass protests against his 12-year dominance of Russian politics. Bussed in from surrounding towns and cities, the rally was all about proving that Vladimir Putin is still Russia's most popular politician. In a fiery speech he issued a battle cry, loaded with patriotic rhetoric. He said: 'We are all ready to work together for the sake of our great motherland. We are not only ready to work, we are ready to defend it.’ To defend it at all times and forever. We won't allow anyone to meddle in our affairs or impose their will upon us, because we have a will of our own.'On the national holiday known as Defenders Of The Fatherland Day, there was a clear effort to entertain the crowds. Older fur-clad Russians danced to Soviet rock and roll, while buckwheat was served from an old field kitchen.Unlike the anti-Putin demos there wasn't an iPad in sight as some donned traditional Russian costume to take part in a tug of war competition.Some attended the rally with gusto.One man told reporters: 'Putin will be president for this term and the next. Only this will make Russia stable. When we had Tsars for 40 years, Russia was able to rise from it's knees and become a great country.'Others were a little confused over the exact nature of the event. One woman said her employer invited to a music concert - not a pro-Putin rally.Most placards were in Russian and had things like 'For the Motherland, for Stalin, for Putin' written on them. One read, in English, 'In Putin We Trust' - although the man holding it did not know what his banner said as he didn't speak English.Rumours of people being ordered to attend such meetings have been rife.Head teacher Yelena Travina, who lost her job when she refused the order to send her employees to a pro-Putin rally, said: 'I felt horrible, hurt and angered at what happened.'I have only received praise in my job so far and then I got into this purely political conflict. I was belittled in front of other employees and thrown out of work. It was a strong blow.'The effort behind this rally suggests genuine concern over the recent anti-Putin protest movement.In just over a week's time he will almost certainly regain his old job. The doubt lies in just how smooth and successful a tenure it will be.