Four women among six civilians killed in a tank-backed army raid on besieged coastal city of Baniyas, activist says. Last Modified: 07 May 2011 18:30 | ||||||||
A Syrian rights campaigner told the AFP news agency that security forces killed four women who were among about 150 people demonstrating on Saturday on the main coastal highway from Marqab village, near Baniyas, calling for the release of detained people. "Members of the security forces asked them to leave and, when they refused to do so, they opened fire killing three of them and wounding five others who were hospitalised," the activist said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based group, said security forces killed at least two others during the tank-backed army attack on Baniyas and demanded that authorities allow an independent committee to investigate the deaths. The Syrian military confirmed that it conducted an operation in Baniyas, a Mediterranean coastal city of 50,000 people, on Saturday.
"They arrested people and seized a quantity of weapons that these groups have used to attack the army and citizens and scare people." The attack came just hours after the US, reacting to the death of 27 protesters on Friday, threatened to take new steps against Syria's rulers, drawn mostly from the Alawite sect, unless "they stopped killing and harassing their people". The army entered Baniyas from three directions, advancing into Sunni districts but not Alawite neighbourhoods, the rights campaigner said. Rights activists said residents of Baniyas formed human chains in a desperate bid to halt the military operation when it began around dawn. Most communication with Baniyas has been cut but the Syrian rights campaigner said he was able to contact several residents. "Residents are reporting the sound of heavy gunfire and seeing Syrian navy boats off the Baniyas coast. Sunni and mixed neighbourhoods are totally besieged now," the campaigner said. 'Search operation' Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told the Reuters news agency that regular army units were present in the centre of Baniyas but the authorities had sent special units into the northern side of the city. "They are conducting search operation in several areas. The army has lists and looking for people based on it," he said. "They have raided Baida, Basateen and the Baseya suburbs." Sawasiah, another Syrian rights group, said in a statement that landline, internet and cellphone lines with Baniyas were cut as army units backed by tanks swept into its districts.
The Syrian Revolution 2011, a Facebook group that has been a motor of the protests, urged Assad to "stop shooting at demonstrators, allow peaceful demonstrations ... release all political prisoners, allow political pluralism and free elections in six months". In a statement posted online, it told Assad he could be the "pride of contemporary Syria" if he transformed Syria "from a dictatorship to a democracy. "The Syrians will be grateful and it is possible to do". The group had called for Friday's "day of defiance" demonstrations, which led to tens of thousands of people taking to the streets calling for democratic reforms. Rights groups said 27 protesters were shot dead by security forces on Friday while the military said 10 soldiers and policemen were killed in Homs by "armed terrorist groups". Residents of Homs, Syria's third largest city, had expected the army to attack after reporting seeing earlier this week dozens of armoured vehicles, including tanks and troops reinforcements, deployed on the outskirts. "It looks like they are preparing to attack the town, like they did in Deraa," one activist said. 'Indiscriminate shelling' On Thursday, a convoy of 40 military vehicles pulled out of Deraa, which the Syrian military had locked down since April 25. Dozens of people were killed during the 10-day military assault on Deraa, launched with what activists termed "indiscriminate" shelling of the town.
"We continue searching for terrorists hidden in several places. As the army, we never confronted the protesters," he said. Human rights groups say that more than 600 people have been killed and 8,000 jailed or gone missing in the crackdown on protesters since demonstrations erupted in Syria in mid-March. The Committee of the Martyrs of the 15 March Revolution, which has been keeping a tally of the dead, puts the death toll at 708. Syrian authorities have banned foreign media from reporting from the country. As a result of these restrictions, Al Jazeera cannot independently verify these figures. Meanwhile, concerns remain for the welfare of Dorothy Parvaz, an Al Jazeera journalist, who has not been heard from since she arrived in the capital, Damascus, more than a week ago. | ||||||||
சனி, 7 மே, 2011
Deaths reported as Syrian forces storm city
Bin Laden's death boosts Obama's popularity
By acting tough on "security" issues, Obama will have more room to maneuver politically, advancing US soft-power.
The question on most people's minds is what he will do with the new political capital he has gained. On this, he is being given a great deal of gratuitous advice – from accelerating the timetable for the US withdrawal in Afghanistan that is scheduled to begin July 1, to pushing his own peace plan on Israel and the Palestinians, to pressing Republicans much harder on the necessity for tax increases to reduce the yawning budget deficit. "The end of bin Laden has given Obama a rare chance for a new beginning," according to Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). "It gives him the power to get hard things done." "Just as 9/11 transformed an unpopular and divisive President George W. Bush and empowered him enormously, so 5/1 hands President Obama the rarest of chances to lead," Gelb wrote on the Daily Beast website. Rallying around the leader Polls taken since the operation have shown increases in his public- approval ratings to around 50 per cent – a strong reversal of a trend that had slowly dragged his poll percentages down to the mid-to-low 40s. The well-respected Gallup organisation, which Thursday released a three-day-tracking poll, found a six per cent increase in the president's public-approval rating during the three days after the raid in what it called Obama's first "rally event" – a positive reaction to a major international or domestic crisis. While that was extremely modest compared to the all-time record 35- per cent increase George W. Bush received in his ratings after the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the consensus among even right-wing commentators is that Obama has emerged as a more-formidable political force primarily because he has demolished, at one blow, the increasingly widely accepted notion that he is a cautious, even timid, politician who instinctively favours the safest political option and who sees his foreign-policy role as managing the inevitable decline of US power in the world. "It is this last claim that took such a profound blow when Obama approved the operation against bin Laden and chose the riskiest option involving a face-to-face confrontation with American commandos – on the orders of the president of the United States," wrote EJ Dionne Jr, a political columnist at the Washington Post, this week. A drone strike or bombing the compound from the air would not have put US personnel at risk or so deeply embarrassed, not to say humiliated, Pakistan's military whose cooperation is still regarded as essential in prosecuting the broader war against the Taliban and its allies. Both would have been much safer options, particularly given the terrible memories of the "Desert One" operation almost exactly 31 years ago when President Jimmy Carter's attempt to rescue US hostages in Tehran ended in disaster when a transport plane and a helicopter collided at a staging area outside the capital, aborting the mission. Many political pros believe the debacle contributed importantly to Carter's loss to Ronald Reagan in his re-election bid seven months later. Bush's legacy Not a few analysts this week noted the obvious irony that Obama's "rally event" was made possible by an operation that no doubt would have appealed most to his predecessor, George W. Bush. "The Democrat who was elected as the anti-Bush has seen his popularity and perceptions of his competence soar for serving as the decisive, 'war on terror' commander-in-chief who oversaw a 'High Noon' like showdown between good and evil," wrote David Rothkopf, a national-security expert who blogs on foreignpolicy.com. "The thoughtful, lawyerly, multilateralist did what had to be done, acting unilaterally, violating another nation's sovereignty, keeping an ally in the dark to preserve security, and gunning down a man without benefit of trial," he noted. Indeed, right-wing hawks claimed hopefully that the operation marked further confirmation that, despite his campaign promises to reverse Bush policies in a host of areas, Obama has been forced to embrace his predecessor's "global-war-against-terror" paradigm. "The most striking fact of Mr. Obama's prosecution of the war on terror is how much it resembles Mr. Bush's, to the consternation of America's anti-antiterror left," enthused the Wall Street Journal newspaper's neo-conservative editorial writers who went on to warn against any talk of negotiations with the Taliban or accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan. But, as noted by James Traub, also writing on foreignpolicy.com, Obama had pledged when he first launched his presidential campaign almost four years ago that he would not hesitate to strike unilaterally against "high-value terrorist targets" in Pakistan and that any changes - such as closing Guantanamo, ending renditions, and relying more on multilateral institutions -- he would make to Washington's counter-terrorist strategy would be designed above all to increase its effectiveness in protecting national security. It was Obama, after all, who said at the outset that he didn't oppose war, only "a dumb war" as Bush was waging in Iraq at the time. "The great despair of Obama's foreign policy advisors in 2007 was how relentlessly he was pegged as the 'soft' candidate," Traub, who is close to senior administration officials, wrote this week. "The raid on bin Laden's lair has accomplished something beyond the disposing of Public Enemy No. 1: It has freed Obama from having to prove his toughness," he wrote. "He can advocate 'soft' policies without being seen as soft. Having broken the rules with such éclat, he can now safely argue for the rules he believes in." Rothkopf agreed that the raid could mark a strategic "pivot point" for Obama. "[O]n the foreign policy front, Obama's most-Bush-like moment may be his last such moment… unless the moment and its headiness changes him as a president more than he or his allies might currently anticipate," he wrote. "[T]his moment signals not just the death of bin Laden, but the death of American nation-building, counter-insurgency and wholesale investment in the forced transformation of the Middle East," Rothkopf predicted. "[We] will view it as the beginning of an Obama-era shaped by an Obama will feel much freer to be his own man and who will make policies much less defensively. After all, who among his opponents will be able to call him diffident or uncomfortable with security concerns ever again?" |
After Osama, China fears the next target
Although relieved with bin Laden's death, many Chinese are scared where Washington will focus its attention next.
"Why didn't they catch him alive?" speculated military affairs analyst Guo Xuan. "Because he was no longer needed as an excuse for Washington to take the anti-terror war outside of the US borders. It is because of bin Laden that the US were allowed to increase their strategic presence in many places around the world as never before. But Libya and NATO's attack there have changed the game. They (the US) no longer need bin Laden to assert their authority." Even before bin Laden's death, Beijing had expressed concern that the US strategists are diverting their attention from the war on terror to containing the rise of China and other emerging economies. A long article on Libya stalemate published by the editor of Contemporary International Relations magazine, Lin Limin, argued that the US has been unwilling to take the lead role in the Libya conflict because it has "finally woken up to the fact that its main reason to worry are the emerging countries. "If the US position on Libya is not only a tactical stance but a strategic one and they have really come to understand that they should not waste military power and energy in numerous directions 'spreading democracy' all over the world but should begin focusing their attention on the rise of emerging countries, then we do have a reason to worry," Lin argued. The US presence in Afghanistan has always been a controversial one for Chinese politicians. China joined the global war on terror because bin Laden's political agenda of setting up an Arab caliphate and sponsoring terrorism presented a direct threat to its restive Muslim north-western region of Xinjiang. But Beijing has been suspicious of the US intentions, worrying that Washington is pursuing a broader agenda for long-term presence in the region, which China regards as its backyard. Beijing officially hailed the killing of the terrorist leader by the US as "a milestone and a positive development for the international anti-terrorism efforts". "Terrorism is the common enemy of the international community. China has also been a victim of terrorism," foreign ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu was quoted by the official Xinhua news agency as saying after bin Laden's death. She was referring to Xinjiang, where Muslim separatists have been waging a bloody insurgency against Chinese rule. Beijing had linked the global war against terror with its struggle to quell separatist sentiments in the Muslim region, insisting insurgents are aided from outside. Chinese public reaction to the news of bin Laden's death has mixed reluctant admiration at the success of the secret mission played out reportedly on screens in front of US president Barack Obama with outright fear over what comes next. "The whole thing seemed like an intelligence operation lifted straight out of '24' (a TV series about US counter-terrorism agents)," said Huang Mei, a TV producer with barely concealed awe. "How advanced and confident they must be to ask their president to watch the killing mission on screens live!" But some see bin Laden's demise as a blow to efforts to promote a school of Anti-American thought. "The great anti-America fighter bin Laden was murdered by the US! How sad!" wrote one commenter on Sina's popular Weibo micro-blogging site. "Is this real? Excellent!" wrote another of the news. "Now the only terrorist left is the United States!" Commentators have begun analysing the political capital reaped by Obama and preparing for the possibility that he may win a second term in office. Writing in Beijing's Xinjing Bao, commentator Chen Bing predicted the US will exploit the death of bin Laden to expand its influence in the Middle East and bring the Arab spring to an end. "What a great way to issue a warning to all anti-American politicians in the region," Chen said. "And a declaration that it (the US) intends to mould the Middle East according to its own design." |
Al-Qaeda denies role in Morocco cafe blast
North African offshoot denies responsiblity for bomb blast at a cafe in the city of Marrakesh.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has denied it was involved in a bomb blast on a cafe in the city of Marrakesh on April 28 that left 17 people dead. AQIM said on Saturday that it was not behind the killings but urged Moroccan Muslims "to liberate their oppressed, jailed brothers and to topple the criminal regime," in a presumed reference to King Mohammed and his government. "We deny involvement in the bombing and assure that we have nothing to do with it, neither up close nor from afar," said a statement carried by the Nouakchott Information Agency in Mauritania. "Although hitting Jews and Crusaders and targeting their interests are among our priorities, which we urge Muslims to act upon and which we seeks to carry out, we choose the right moment and place," said the statement. On Thursday, police arrested three people in connection to the attack and said the chief suspect was "loyal" to al-Qaeda. Another death A Swiss woman died of her injuries on Friday, Swiss authorities said, bringing the total killed in the attack to 17. AQIM is a pan-Maghreb jihadist organisation that has taken responsibility for a number of attacks, particularly in Algeria. The group, which previously called itself the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, says it is the local franchise of al-Qaeda. Moroccan authorities said the chief suspect disguised himself as a guitar-carrying hippie when he planted two bombs in a popular tourist cafe. The bombs took six months to construct and were detonated by remote control using a mobile phone, authorities said. |
கனிமொழி தினமும் ஆஜராக வேண்டும்: நீதிமன்றம் உத்தரவு
தமிழக முதல்வர் கருணாநிதியின் மகளும், திமுக மாநிலங்களபை உறுப்பினருமான கனிமொழியின் பிணை மனு மீதான விசாரணை இன்று இரண்டாவது நாளாக டெல்லி சிபிஐ சிறப்பு நீதிமன்றத்தில் நடைபெற்றது.
அப்போது கனிமொழிக்கு பிணை வழங்க எதிர்ப்பு தெரிவித்து சிபிஐ வழக்கறிஞர் வாதிட்டார்.
அவரது வாதத்தை தொடர்ந்து பிணை மனு மீதான தீர்ப்பை வருகிற மே 14 ஆம் தேதிக்கு ஒத்திவைத்த நீதிபதி ஓ.பி.ஷைனி, அதே சமயம் கனிமொழி 14 ஆம் தேதி வரை தினமும் நீதிமன்றத்தில் ஆஜராக வேண்டும் என்று உத்தரவிட்டார்.
நீதிபதியின் இந்த உத்தரவினால் அதிர்ச்சியடைந்த கனிமொழி,நேரில் ஆஜராவதிலிருந்து விலக்கு அளிக்குமாறு கோரினார்.சில தனிப்பட்ட காரணங்களால் தம்மால் மே 9 மற்றும் 10 ஆகிய தேதிகளில் ஆஜராவதில் சிரமம் இருப்பதால், அந்த இரு தினங்களுக்காவது விலக்கு அளிக்க வேண்டும் என்று நீதிபதிக்கு கோரிக்கை விடுத்தார்.
ஆனால் அவரது கோரிக்கையை ஏற்க மறுத்த நீதிபதி ஷைனி, கனிமொழி கட்டாயம் நீதிமன்றத்தில் தினமும் ஆஜராகியே தீரவேண்டும் என்று உத்தரவிட்டார்.
அதேப்போன்று கலைஞர் தொலைக்காட்சி நிர்வாக இயக்குனர் சரத்குமாருக்கும் இதே உத்தரவை நீதிபதி பிறப்பித்தார்.
புதிய தலைமுறை தொலைக்காட்சியை உருவாக்க விருப்பமா?
புதிய தலைமுறை தொலைக்காட்சியை உருவாக்க விருப்பமா? புதிய தலைமுறை இப்பொழுது அதிநவீன தொழில்நுட்பத்துடன், பல்வேறு பயன்தரும் நிகழ்ச்சிகளை கொண்டு ஒரு புதிய தொலைக்காட்சியை தொடங்க இருக்கின்றனது. இதற்கு கீழ்க்கண்டவாறு நிர்வாகம் மற்றும் தொழில்நுட்ப வல்லுநர்கள் தேவைப்படுகின்றனர். | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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