Hazare ends hunger strike, threatens civil disobedience

MUMBAI: Indian anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare called off his latest hunger strike on Wednesday but signalled he would step up his political efforts to turn voters against the ruling party and government.

Hazare began his fast on Tuesday to demand that the government pass a strong new anti-graft law that would create a powerful ombudsman tasked with identifying and prosecuting corrupt public officials.

“Today I will break the fast,” the frail 74-year-old told supporters in Mumbai. “We will discuss the future strategy to launch our fight against corruption.” Doctors had urged the former army driver to call off his hunger strike because of low blood pressure and dehydration.

Hazare and his supporters maintain that a draft law passed by the lower house of parliament late on Tuesday is weak and ineffectual as it shields the country’s federal police from scrutiny.

He had previously threatened to begin a campaign of civil disobedience immediately after his fast if his demands were not met.

He said his supporters should be ready to defy the police and court arrest, but he declined to give details.

“We have to save this country. Every one of you should be ready to go to the jail. The day the jails are full of people, government will have to give in,” he said.

Hazare shot to national fame in August after holding a 12-day fast in the capital New Delhi, which galvanised millions across the country disaffected with endemic corruption in everyday life.

Crowds have been thin on the ground for his second national campaign, however, with no more than several thousand in Mumbai for the second day of his protest, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.

In a sign of his increasingly bitter battle with the ruling Congress party and the administration of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, he said he would tour five states holding elections next year to educate voters about corruption.

“We will tour all the five states and ask people not to vote for the traitors of this country,” he said.

He will also hold another protest in New Delhi on December 30 and the first two days of January, he said.

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“Really easy” to close Strait of Hormuz: Iranian navy chief

TEHRAN: Iran would find it ‘really easy’ to close the world’s most important oil transit channel, the Strait of Hormuz at the Gulf’s entrance, but would not do so right now, Iran’s navy chief said Wednesday.

“Shutting the strait for Iran’s armed forces is really easy — or as we say (in Iran) easier than drinking a glass of water,” Admiral Habibollah Sayari said in an interview with Iran’s Press TV.

“But today, we don’t need (to shut) the strait because we have the Sea of Oman under control, and can control the transit,” he said.

Sayari was speaking a day after Iran’s vice president, Mohammad Reza Rahimi, threatened to close the strait if the West imposed more sanctions on Iran, and as Iran’s navy held wargames in international waters to the east of the channel.

World prices climbed after Rahimi warned on Tuesday that “not a drop of oil will pass through the Strait of Hormuz” if the West broadened sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme.

“The enemies will only drop their plots when we put them back in their place,” the official news agency IRNA quoted Rahimi as saying.

New York-traded light sweet crude rose to $101.36 on the threat.

More than a third of the world’s tanker-borne oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic chokepoint that links the Gulf — and its petroleum-exporting states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — to the Indian Ocean.

The United States maintains a navy presence in the Gulf in large part to ensure that passage for oil remains free.

But Sayari asserted that the Strait of Hormuz “is completely under the control of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” He said Iran’s navy was constituted with the aim of being able to close the strait if necessary.

Sayari added that the navy maneuvers east of the strait were designed to show Gulf neighbours the power of Iran’s military over the zone.

Ships and aircraft dropped mines in the sea Tuesday as part of the drill, and on Wednesday drones flew out over the Indian Ocean, according to a navy spokesman, Admiral Mahmoud Mousavi.

Iran has several times said it is ready to target the strait if it is attacked or economically strangled by Western sanctions over its nuclear program.

An Iranian lawmaker’s comments last week that the navy exercises would block the Strait of Hormuz briefly sent oil prices soaring before that was denied by the government.

While the foreign ministry said such drastic action was “not on the agenda,” it reiterated Iran’s threat of “reactions” if the current tensions with the West spilled over into open confrontation.

Tehran in September rejected a Washington call for a military hotline between the capitals to defuse any “miscalculations” that could occur between their navies in the Gulf.

In Washington, US State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner dismissed the latest threat from Iran’s vice president.

“I just think it’s another attempt by them to distract attention from the real issue, which is their continued non-compliance with their international nuclear obligations,” Toner told reporters.

The United States accuses Iran of using its uranium enrichment programme to build nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charges.

Extra US and European sanctions aimed at Iran’s oil and financial sectors are being considered.

The last round of Western sanctions, announced in November, triggered a pro-regime protest in front of the British embassy in Tehran during which militia members answering to the Revolutionary Guards overran the mission, ransacking it.

London closed the embassy as a result and ordered Iran’s mission in Britain shut as well.

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Posted in: INTERNATIONAL

Pakistan rejects US report on Salala attacks

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has rejected the joint US-Nato report on the attack on a Pakistani check post on Nov 26, military sources told FTNews on Wednesday.

According to the sources, the US-led report was ‘not based on facts’, and that it can not be unbiased as long as the probe was headed by Brigadier General Stephen Clark.

US officials said Tuesday that the American military has briefed Pakistan’s army chief on its investigation into US air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border last month.

Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby told reporters that a report by military investigators was delivered to General Ashfaq Kayani on Sunday by a US officer based in Islamabad, who explained the findings to the general.

The full report from the joint US-Nato investigative team was not released publicly until Monday to allow time for the Pakistani leadership to read the findings first, Kirby said.

“We wanted General Kayani to be able to see the entire thing,” he said, calling the approach “an appropriate professional courtesy” to Kayani.

But a Pakistani security official told AFP “no such briefing took place and the report was not handed over in person to the army chief”.

“The report was delivered to the concerned department (of army headquarters) but not to the chief,” the official said.

Pakistan has yet to give a detailed public response to the report, but officials have expressed irritation that elements were initially leaked to American newspapers last week.

The air strikes further damaged the precarious US-Pakistani partnership and provoked outrage in Islamabad, which retaliated by cutting off Nato supply routes to Afghanistan.

The New York Times has reported the counter-terrorism partnership can only survive in limited form.

The United States and Pakistan disagree about the precise sequence of events in the deadliest single cross-border attack of the 10-year war in Afghanistan.

Pakistan denies shooting first, and has accused the Americans of an intentional attack on its troops.

Brigadier General Stephen Clark, who led the US inquiry, said the November 25-26 air strikes were the result of mistakes and botched communications on both sides — reflecting an underlying mistrust between the two countries.

It took the Nato-led force 84 minutes to halt air strikes after a Pakistani liaison officer first alerted US and coalition counterparts that Pakistani troops were coming under fire from American aircraft, the report said.

The probe also said the US military failed to notify the Pakistanis about the night raid near the border and that a coalition officer mistakenly gave the wrong location of the US troops to his Pakistani counterpart.

The probe found Pakistani soldiers fired first at American and Afghan forces and kept firing even after a US F-15 fighter jet flew overhead. The Pakistanis also failed to tell the Americans about new border posts in the area, says the report.

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Posted in: INTERNATIONAL

Kayani briefed on investigation: Pentagon

WASHINGTON: The American military has briefed Pakistan’s army chief on its investigation into US air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border last month, US officials said Tuesday.

Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby told reporters that a report by military investigators was delivered to General Ashfaq Kayani on Sunday by a US officer based in Islamabad, who explained the findings to the general.

The full report from the joint US-Nato investigative team was not released publicly until Monday to allow time for the Pakistani leadership to read the findings first, Kirby said.

“We wanted General Kayani to be able to see the entire thing,” he said, calling the approach “an appropriate professional courtesy” to Kayani.

But a Pakistani security official told AFP “no such briefing took place and the report was not handed over in person to the army chief”.

“The report was delivered to the concerned department (of army headquarters) but not to the chief,” the official said.

Pakistan has yet to give a detailed public response to the report, but officials have expressed irritation that elements were initially leaked to American newspapers last week.

The air strikes further damaged the precarious US-Pakistani partnership and provoked outrage in Islamabad, which retaliated by cutting off Nato supply routes to Afghanistan.

The New York Times has reported the counter-terrorism partnership can only survive in limited form.

The United States and Pakistan disagree about the precise sequence of events in the deadliest single cross-border attack of the 10-year war in Afghanistan.

Pakistan denies shooting first, and has accused the Americans of an intentional attack on its troops.

Brigadier General Stephen Clark, who led the US inquiry, said the November 25-26 air strikes were the result of mistakes and botched communications on both sides — reflecting an underlying mistrust between the two countries.

It took the Nato-led force 84 minutes to halt air strikes after a Pakistani liaison officer first alerted US and coalition counterparts that Pakistani troops were coming under fire from American aircraft, the report said.

The probe also said the US military failed to notify the Pakistanis about the night raid near the border and that a coalition officer mistakenly gave the wrong location of the US troops to his Pakistani counterpart.

The probe found Pakistani soldiers fired first at American and Afghan forces and kept firing even after a US F-15 fighter jet flew overhead. The Pakistanis also failed to tell the Americans about new border posts in the area, says the report.

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Posted in: INTERNATIONAL

Three Nato troops killed in Afghanistan

KABUL: A roadside bomb attack killed three Nato troops in eastern Afghanistan, one of the deadliest flashpoints in the 10-year war against Taliban insurgents, the military said Wednesday.

Nato’s US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) did not release the nationalities of the troops or give further details of the incident, which happened on Tuesday.

The deaths take to 561 the number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan so far this year, according to an AFP tally based on figures from independent website iCasualties.org.

A total of 711 foreign troops were killed in Afghanistan last year, the highest annual total since the US-led invasion in 2001 ousted the Taliban from power.

There are about 130,000 international troops in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban-led insurgency, with 91,000 of them from the United States.

Much of the worst fighting takes place in the east of the country, close to the border with Pakistan, where US and Afghan officials say the Taliban use rear bases to regroup and plot attacks.

Pakistan closed its supply routes to Nato after US air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on November 26 close to the mountainous, porous border.

Amid declining support for the war and a gloomy economy in the West, all foreign combat troops are due to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, by which time Afghan forces and officials are supposed to take full control.

On Tuesday, President Hamid Karzai called on Nato to disband an irregular security force operating in northern provinces, saying it had been set up “unilaterally” without coordination with the Afghan government.

Nato said Wednesday that all such security programmes are being disbanded or shifted to Afghan government control.

ISAF said the Critical Infrastructure Protection Programme, which involves more than 1,500 personnel, had been one of several units set up to bolster security while regular Afghan forces were building to full strength.

Human rights groups warn that US-funded local armed groups sometimes used to fill the void in security have been linked to abuses, violence and extortion.

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Mass anti-Assad protest in Homs as monitors visit

DAMASCUS: About 70,000 protesters marched towards the city centre on Tuesday where security forces fired at them and lobbed teargas, activists said.

The military withdrew some tanks, in what the activists called a ploy to persuade the monitors that the city was calm.

Footage on the Internet showed monitors confronted by residents as gunfire crackled around them.

The Arab League observers, who arrived in the country on Monday, want to determine if Assad is keeping his promise to implement a peace plan to end his military crackdown on nine months of popular revolt.

The monitors were due to return on Wednesday to Homs where crowds have pleaded for them to visit the most violent neighbourhoods.

Activists say tanks ran amok and scores of people have been killed in recent days.

Live broadcasts by Al Jazeera television showed tens of thousands of protesters gathered on Tuesday in the Khalidiya district – one of those yet to be visited by monitors – shouting and whistling and waving white flags.

One activist held up a sign to the camera that read: “We are afraid when the monitors leave they will kill and bury us.”

The observers’ visit is the first international intervention on the ground in the country since the uprising began, and protesters hope what they witness will prompt world powers to take more decisive action against Assad.

The Syrian leader says he is fighting an insurgency by armed terrorists, and that most of the violence has been aimed at the security forces.

International journalists are mostly barred from Syria, making it difficult to confirm accounts.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based activist group, said security forces killed 15 people across the country on Tuesday, six of them in Homs.

An activist network said 34 had been killed on Monday.

Some protesters shouted “We want international protection” in a video posted on YouTube apparently showing an encounter with the monitors on Tuesday.

Some residents argued and pleaded with them to go further into the Baba Amr quarter, where clashes have been especially fierce.

There was the sound of gunfire after a resident yelled at one monitor to repeat what he had just told his headquarters.

“You were telling the head of the mission that you cannot cross to the second street because of the gunfire. Why don’t you say it to us?” the man shouted, grabbing the unidentified monitor by his jacket.

Gunshots crackled nearby as two monitors and two men wearing orange vests stood amid a crowd of residents, one begging the team to “come and see; they are slaughtering us, I swear”.

The head of mission said the first visit was “very good”.

“I am returning to Damascus for meetings and I will return tomorrow to Homs,” Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi said. “The team is staying in Homs. Today was very good and all sides were responsive.”

Activist reports just before the monitors arrived on Tuesday said up to a dozen tanks were seen leaving Baba Amr and others were being hidden to fashion an impression of relative normality in the city while observers were around.

“My house is on the eastern entrance of Baba Amr. I saw at least six tanks leave the neighbourhood at around 8 in the morning,” activist Mohamed Saleh told Reuters by telephone. “I do not know if more remain in the area.”

Al Jazeera’s footage showed thousands of Syrians in the square in Khalidiya, one of four districts where there has been bloodshed as rebels fight security forces using tanks.

They were whistling and shouting and waving flags, playing music over loudspeakers and clapping.

The protesters shouted “We have no one but God” and “Down with the regime”.

An activist named Tamir told Reuters they planned to hold a sit-in in the square.

“We tried to start a march down to the main market but the organisers told us to stop, it’s too dangerous. No one dares go down to the main streets. So we will stay in Khalidiya and we will stay here in the square and we will not leave from here.”

WASHINGTON CONDEMNS VIOLENCE
The US State Department condemned what spokesman Mark Toner called an escalation of violence before the monitors’ deployment.

“We have seen horrific pictures of indiscriminate fire, including by heavy tank guns, and heard reports of dozens of deaths, thousands of arrests, as well as beatings of peaceful protestors,” Toner said.

“The monitors should have unfettered access to protestors and to areas most severely affected by the regime’s crackdown. They bear a heavy responsibility in trying to protect Syrian civilians from the depredations of a murderous regime.”

“If the Syrian regime continues to resist and disregard Arab League efforts, the international community will consider other means to protect Syrian civilians.

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