Casualties of war. Syrians bury the dead in mass grave.

Syrian casualties treated in Turkeyshow signs of being victims of chemical weapons, the Turkish foreign minister said on Friday, adding to indications that President Barack Obama’s “red line” on the use of such arms may have been crossed. Wary of the false intelligence used to justify the 2003 war in Iraq, the United States says it wants proof that chemical weapons have been used before taking any action in Syria.

But if the evidence is confirmed it would increase the possibility of Western intervention against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to stop the two-year civil war, even as the United States and Russia try to bring the sides to peace talks. Turkey confirmed last week it was testing blood samples from Syrian casualties brought over the border to determine whether they had suffered a chemical weapons attack.

“We have been making tests and we have some indications regarding chemical weapons being used, but in order to make sure and verify we are continuing these tests and will be sharing these tests with U.N. agencies,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in the Jordanian capital Amman on Friday.

“We know the Syrian regime has stocks .. And everybody knows the Syrian regime has this capacity,” Davutoglu said. “Of course this has been one of our major concerns because chemical weapons are a threat against humanity and a crime.”

Obama said in August he viewed the use of chemical weapons in Syria as a “red line”. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said that line had been crossed a “long time ago”. “There are patients who are brought to our hospitals who were wounded by these chemical weapons,” he told NBC television. “You can see who is affected by chemical missiles by their burns.” Erdogan is due to meet Obama in Washington on May 16. The U.S. president this week did not rule out action, military or otherwise, against Assad’s government, but repeatedly stressed he would not be pressured prematurely into deeper intervention in Syria.

Reshma is pictured shortly after being pulled from the building that had collapsed on her 17 days ago.

A woman was yesterday pulled alive from the ruins of an eight-storey building that collapsed in a suburb of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, 17 days ago. Rescuers said the woman, named Reshma, was found in the remains of the second floor of the Rana Plaza after they heard her crying: “Please save me.” She was  taken to hospital, but is not thought to have serious injuries.

More than 1,000 are now confirmed to have died, most of them women working in clothes factories. The authorities said 2,437 people had been rescued, of whom about 1,000 had suffered serious injuries. Reshma: “I kept banging whatever I could with my legs but no-one could hear me” Dozens lost limbs as they were cut free from the wreckage.

The accident is one of the deadliest industrial disasters in history. Crews using heavy machinery have begun removing rubble from the worst-damaged areas, and are expecting to find more bodies. Brig-Gen Siddiqul Alam said rescuers had found a huge number of bodies under staircases. “When the building started to collapse, workers thought they would be safe under the staircases. Each time we moved a slab of concrete, we found a stack of bodies,” he said.

Soldiers were reported to have been preparing to break through a large concrete slab at about 15:15 local time (10:15 GMT) on Friday when the woman was discovered. The worker who first discovered her told the BBC Bengali service: “I was cutting iron rods when I suddenly found a silvery stick just moving from a hole. “I looked closer and heard someone calling ‘Please save me’. I immediately called over soldiers and firefighters.”

Col Jeff Krusinski, 41, was arrested on Sunday accused of grabbing a woman’s breasts and buttocks in a car park in Virginia.

President Barack Obama has said sexual harassment and assault will not be tolerated in the US military. He spoke as figures showed reported sexual assaults in the US military rose from 3,192 to 3,374 in 2012. But as many attacks go unreported, officials estimate the total number of sexual assaults stands at 26,000, up from 19,000 last year.

It comes after the officer tasked with stopping sexual crimes in the US Air Force was charged with sexual battery. Lt Col Jeff Krusinski, 41, was arrested on Sunday accused of grabbing a woman’s breasts and buttocks in a car park in Virginia, police said. The Air Force has been criticised after a slew of sexual assault cases at its main training centre in Texas. “If we find out that somebody is engaging in that stuff they have got to be held accountable, court martialled, fired, dishonorably discharged. It is not acceptable. Period,” Mr Obama said at the White House on Tuesday. He said he had spoken directly to Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel on Tuesday about the need to “exponentially step up our game” in addressing the matter.

The Pentagon study on sexual harassment and assaults, released on Tuesday, was based on anonymous surveys. It will be followed by a series of measures to tackle abuse, the news agency AP reported. Government officials want to make officers more accountable for what happens under their command, it said. “Sexual assault is a crime that is incompatible with military service and has no place in this department,” said the US defence secretary. “The DoD needs to be a national leader in combating sexual assault and we will establish an environment of dignity and respect, where sexual assault is not tolerated, condoned, or ignored.”

Air Force officials told US media that Lt Col Krusinski had been removed from his post following reports of the arrest. The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, said the case showed how far the defence department still had to go in addressing the problem of sexual crimes in the military.

BBC

Malaysian Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim answers a question during a press conference at his party head office in Petaling Jaya.

Thousands of Malaysian opposition supporters have rallied against alleged fraud in the election, defying police who said the protest was illegal. Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim called the protest after what he said were “stolen” polls, won by PM Najib Razak’s ruling coalition. Mr Najib’s Barisan Nasional (BN or National Front) coalition won 133 of the 222 parliamentary seats on Sunday.

It was the coalition’s worst result in more than half a century in power. While it secured a simple majority, it failed to regain the two-thirds parliamentary majority it lost for the first time in 2008. The BN has vehemently denied the opposition’s allegations of cheating and accused Mr Anwar of deliberately choosing a small stadium on the outskirts of the capital Kuala Lumpur for the rally to ensure it would spill onto the streets. But the three-party opposition alliance – which mounted its strongest-ever challenge to the coalition – has called for a recount.

Up to 40,000 protesters, many dressed in mourning black, gathered at the demonstration to denounce the results. Participants filled the stadium’s stands and spilled onto the football field. They complain that indelible ink – meant to prevent multiple voting – could be easily washed off and that accounts abound of a government scheme to fly tens of thousands of “dubious” – and possibly foreign – voters to flood key constituencies.

One of the injured at a Jamaat Ulema Islam-Fazl rally in north-west Pakistan is taken to hospital.

At least 15 people are reported to have died in an explosion at an election rally in north-west Pakistan. The blast is believed to have happened near the stage at a rally of Jamaat Ulema Islam – Fazl (JUI-F), a religious party, in the tribal Kurram region. Dozens of people were injured, according to local officials.

This is the latest in a string of attacks on parties and candidates since campaigning began last month for the general election on 11 May. Many of the attacks, but not all, have been against secular parties. A JUI-F candidate from another constituency in the same region, Maulana Ainuddin Shakir, who was also present at the meeting, said he did not believe the Taliban were involved in the attack. “We have received no threats from Taliban, and we don’t expect them to disrupt our election activity,” Mr Shakir told the Pakistani Geo TV channel, adding that the attack could have been the result of a tribal feud.

The candidate whose rally was targeted, Munir Khan Orakzai, is considered close to President Zardari. Mr Orakzai was unhurt by the blast. Mr Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is one of those being targeted by the Taliban. Mr Orakzai was previously part of the ruling alliance led by the PPP, which completed its term in March. He contested the last elections in 2008 as an independent candidate, but is now standing on a JUI ticket.

Interim Prime Minister Hazar Khan Khoso condemned the attack. The authorities insist that they are taking measures to ensure that the poll will be free and fair and, they hope, peaceful. Kurram is one of Pakistan’s seven tribal regions close to the border with Afghanistan, dominated by militant groups linked to the Taliban or al-Qaeda. It has frequently been the scene of sectarian violence between the country’s Sunni Muslim majority and the Shia minority.

The remains of the US plane that crashed in Kyrgyzstan

 A U.S. military refuelling plane on its way to Afghanistan exploded in mid air and crashed in Kyrgyzstan on Friday when its cargo of fuel ignited, the Central Asian country’s Emergencies Ministry said. The aircraft took off from the U.S. military transit centre at Kyrgyzstan’s international Manas airport, which U.S. forces maintain for operations in Afghanistan, with around 70 tonnes of fuel on board, a local ministry official said.

The plane, used for in-flight refuelling, disappeared from radar screens at 3:10 p.m. as it flew near the Kyrgyz village of Chaldovar, the ministry said. The three person crew was unaccounted for, it said. The ministry said witnesses saw the plane explode in the air, and a local government official said debris was scattered over a 4 to 5 km area in a nearby mountainous area.

“The chassis, the fuselage have all been extinguished and now we are searching for the crew members and the plane’s black  box,” ministry official Bolot Sharshenaliyev said. There are three crew members. According to preliminary information it flew from Bishkek and was on its way to Afghanistan, with approximately 70 tonnes of fuel on board.”

Cell phone video footage obtained by Reuters showed an armed guard around the crash site where burning debris had scorched the ground. Rescue workers on horseback were scouring the area before night fell in the rural area on the border with Kazakhstan, regional governmental official Kanat Davletov told Reuters. The U.S. transit centre confirmed the crash of the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker and said it was under investigation. The centre did not give a cause for the crash nor confirm the number of crew members on board.

A Kyrgyz civil aviation official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said storm clouds over the region could have caused the explosion, Interfax reported. Manas, established as a military base in December 2001, is used to transport U.S. personnel in and out of Afghanistan and has been used by other international forces in the country. U.S. forces lease the facility for $60 million a year.

The contract for the transit centre, near the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, will expire in July of next year, as Washington draws down its forces from Afghanistan.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/05/03/uk-kyrgyzstan-us-plane-crash-idUKBRE9420FQ20130503

The two Iranians, Ahmed Mohammed and Sayed Mansour who have been convicted of planning terror attacks on Westerners in Kenya.

A Kenyan court has found two Iranian men guilty of plotting to attack Western targets inside Kenya. Ahmed Mohammed and Sayed Mansour were caught with 15 kilos (33 pounds) of explosives in the capital, Nairobi, last June. They are accused of belonging to a terror network planning to blow up British, US or Israeli targets in Nairobi and the port city of Mombasa. The pair, who deny all charges, face up to 15 years in prison.

Judges ruled that both men had been proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt of all terror-related charges. Prosecutors said the suspects had explosives “in circumstances that indicated they were armed with the intent to commit a felony, namely, acts intended to cause grievous harm”. Swift action by the Kenyan police in apprehending the men had averted mayhem and a massive number of deaths, the court magistrate said.

The two Iranians arrived in Kenya on 12 June last year and travelled to Mombasa to pick up the powerful explosive RDX. They were arrested a week later in Nairobi. Officers discovered the explosives hidden at a golf course in Mombasa. Another accomplice was still at large, police said. Investigators believe the terror group has shipped more than 85 kilos of explosives into Kenya.

“The police have information that the [suspects] have a vast network in the country meant to execute explosive attacks against government installations, public gatherings and foreign establishments,” said Sgt Erick Opagal of Kenya’s Anti-Terrorism Police Unit. The two Iranian suspects are due to be sentenced on 6 May.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22385149

Iraqi security inspect what is left of a car used by a suicide bomber in Basra.

April was Iraq’s bloodiest month for almost five years, with 712 people killed in bomb attacks and other violence, the United Nations Iraq mission said on Thursday. Iraq has grown more volatile as the civil war in neighboring Syria strains fragile relations between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims. Tensions are at their highest since U.S. troops pulled out in December 2011.

The number of attacks increased sharply after security forces raided a Sunni protest camp near Kirkuk last week, triggering clashes that quickly spread to other Sunni areas including the western province of Anbar, which borders Syria and Jordan. “The month of April was the deadliest since June 2008. A total of 712 people were killed and another 1,633 were wounded in acts of terrorism and acts of violence,” a U.N. statement read.

The number of civilians killed last month was 434 while the toll of security forces personnel was 278. Iraqi authorities published a monthly death toll for April on Wednesday which was much lower than the U.N. figure. The Interior Ministry said 245 people, including 84 members of the security forces, were killed. Iraqi authorities often report lower estimates for the number of victims of attacks for unclear reasons but April’s toll is still the highest since the beginning of the year.

Violence is still well below its height in 2006-07, but al-Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate and other Sunni Muslim insurgents are launching attacks on a daily basis to undermine the power of the Shi’ite-led government and provoke wider confrontation. Iraqi politics are deeply divided along sectarian lines, with Maliki’s government mired in crisis over how to share power among Shi’ite Muslims, the largest group, Sunnis and ethnic Kurds who run their own autonomous region in the north.

REUTERS

Officers of China’s navy pose for photographs with the new (Left) and old military car licence plates, in Qinhuangdao, Hebei province.

China’s new leadership is seeking to dismantle a system of privilege which has allowed the drivers of military vehicles to do as they please on the roads. On Sunday the Chinese military began replacing license plates on its cars and trucks to crack down on legions of vehicles, many of them plush luxury brands, which routinely break traffic laws and fill up with free gas.

The People’s Liberation Army General Logistics Department began supervising the removal of current military license plates that will expire on Tuesday, the PLA Daily newspaper reported. Luxury sedans and sport utility vehicles with PLA and People’s Armed Police license plates gliding through red lights or flashing lights and sirens to push aside cars in front of them are a common sight in China.

Newly named President Xi Jinping, who is also chairman of the Central Military Commission and thus the top military official, has tried to make fighting corruption a cornerstone of his administration, saying he will go after corrupt officials high and low. Luxury German, American and Japanese cars and SUVs with military plates – often given to friends and family members as favors – are one of many manifestations of corruption in China that regularly irk ordinary citizens. Family members of retired military officers and who have military plates have even claimed free gasoline.

‘Thanks for the cash.’ Afghan President Hamid Karzai (left) seem to be telling his US counterpart Barack Obama during a recent visit to the White House.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Monday that his national security team has been receiving payments from the U.S. government for the past 10 years. Karzai confirmed the payments when he was asked about a story published in The New York Times saying the CIA had given the Afghan National Security Council tens of millions of dollars in monthly payments delivered in suitcases, backpacks and plastic shopping bags.

During a news conference in Helsinki, Finland, where he was on an official visit, Karzai said the welcome monthly payments were not a “big amount” but were a “small amount,” although he did not disclose the sums. He said they were used to give assistance to the wounded and sick, to pay rent for housing and for other “operational” purposes. He said the aid has been “very useful, and we are grateful for it.”

The newspaper quotes Khalil Roman, who served as Mr. Karzai’s deputy chief of staff from 2002 until 2005, as calling the vast CIA payments “ghost money” that “came in secret, and it left in secret.” It also quotes unidentified American officials as saying that “the cash has fuelled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington’s exit strategy from Afghanistan.”