Israeli police to question Netanyahu over alleged gifts: media

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Staff

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem January 1, 2017. REUTERS/Gali Tibbon/Pool

By Luke Baker

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Police are expected to question Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his official residence in Jerusalem on Monday on suspicion of receiving gifts from businessmen in breach of his role as a public servant, Israeli media reported.

The move was authorized by Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit, who decided after a preliminary probe that there was sufficient evidence for a criminal investigation, Haaretz newspaper reported. The questioning will take place on Monday evening, Israel Radio said.

The police and Justice Ministry would not confirm when the interview would take place or the nature of the investigation, details of which have appeared in the media in recent days. Netanyahu’s office has denied any wrongdoing.

“All the supposed affairs will turn out to be fiction,” his family spokesman said on Monday. “We are repeating: there will be nothing, because there is nothing.”

Photographers were camped outside the heavily guarded residence, hoping to get pictures of investigators arriving. Black screens were erected inside the gates of the property to block the view.

Haaretz and other newspapers said the probe related to gifts worth “hundreds of thousands of shekels” ($1=3.85 shekels) given to Netanyahu by Israeli and foreign businessmen.

Channel 2, a commercial network, said the investigation was one of two cases now open against the prime minister, although it said details of the second remained unclear.

Netanyahu, 67, has been in power on and off since 1996. He is currently in his fourth term as prime minister and will become Israel’s longest-serving leader if he stays in office until the end of next year.

He and his wife, Sara, have weathered several scandals over the years, including investigations into the misuse of state funds and an audit of the family’s spending on everything from laundry to ice cream. They have denied any wrongdoing.

Netanyahu is not the first prime minister to be questioned in a criminal case.

Ehud Olmert, who held office from 2006 to 2009, is currently serving 18 months in prison after being convicted of breach of trust and bribery in 2014.

Former prime minister Ariel Sharon was questioned while in office in 2003 and 2004 over allegations of bribery and corruption involving him and his two sons. In 2006, his son Omri was convicted of corruption and served time in prison.

Netanyahu’s police appointment drew a barrage of commentary from the center-left opposition in parliament, with politicians calling for him to go.

Ahead of a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu responded, saying: “I suggest the opposition calm down.”

Israeli commentators pointed out that while Netanyahu may be questioned, it has happened many times in the past and prime ministers have gone on governing, sometimes for years.

(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Britain to build 17 towns & villages to ease housing squeeze

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Staff

A builder works on the roof of a new residential property development in north London, March 21, 2013. REUTERS/Neil Hall/File Photo

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s government announced plans on Monday to build 17 new towns and villages across the English countryside in a bid to ease a chronic housing shortage.

The new “garden” communities – from Cumbria in the north to Cornwall on England’s southern-most tip – would be part of a scheme to build up to 200,000 new homes, housing and planning minister Gavin Barwell said in a statement.

That would still be a fraction of the million houses the government has said it wants to see built from 2015-2020 in an already densely populated nation.

Successive governments have promised to tackle a shortage that has seen house prices spiral in London and other major cities, out of the reach of many buyers.

But developers have complained about a lack of available land and strict planning laws that outlaw development on “greenbelt” land around existing towns and give local councils the power to block construction.

Britain asked local authorities last year to say if they were interested in having new garden developments – based on a 19th century idea of housing growing populations in self-contained towns surrounded by countryside.

Barwell announced the locations for the first time on Monday and said the state would loosen planning restrictions and give 7.4 million pounds ($9.10 million) to help fund the building.

The three newly announced towns, with more than 10,000 homes each, will be built near Aylesbury, Taunton and Harlow, the government said.

The new garden villages, including Bailrigg in Lancaster, Long Marston in Stratford-on-Avon, Welborne in Hampshire and Culm in Devon, would each have 1,500-10,000 properties.

Together with seven other garden towns already announced, the new developments could provide almost 200,000 homes, Barwell said.

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

North Korea’s claim on ICBM test plausible: experts

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Staff

FILE PHOTO: North Korea leader Kim Jong Un smiles as he visits Sohae Space Center in Cholsan County, North Pyongan province for the testing of a new engine for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on April 9, 2016. KCNA/via REUTERS/File Photo

By James Pearson

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea has been working through 2016 on developing components for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), making the isolated nation’s claim that it was close to a test-launch plausible, international weapons experts said on Monday.

North Korea has been testing rocket engines and heat-shields for an ICBM while developing the technology to guide a missile after re-entry into the atmosphere following a lift-off, the experts said.

While Pyongyang is close to a test, it is likely to take some years to perfect the weapon.

Once fully developed, a North Korean ICBM could threaten the continental United States, which is around 9,000 km (5,500 miles) from the North. ICBMs have a minimum range of about 5,500 km (3,400 miles), but some are designed to travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles) or further.

North Korea’s state media regularly threatens the United States with a nuclear strike, but before 2016 Pyongyang had been assumed to be a long way from being capable of doing so.

“The bottom line is Pyongyang is much further along in their missile development than most people realize,” said Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate at the U.S.-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California.

She said the North’s test in April of a large liquid-fuel engine that could propel an ICBM was a major development.

“The liquid engine test was astounding,” Hanham said.

“For years, we knew that North Korea had a Soviet R-27 missile engine design. They re-engineered the design of that engine to double its propulsion”.

North Korea has said it is capable of mounting a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile but it claims to be able to miniaturize a nuclear device have never been independently verified.

The isolated nation has achieved this progress despite U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions for its nuclear tests and long-range rocket launches dating back to 2006. The sanctions ban arms trade and money flows that can fund the country’s arms program.

North Korea has enough uranium for six bombs a year and much of what it needs for its nuclear and missile programs relies on Soviet-era design and technology. Labor is virtually free.

It can produce much of its missile parts domestically and invested heavily in its missile development infrastructure last year, funded by small arms sales and by taxing wealthy traders in its unofficial market economy.

PROPAGANDA OFFENSIVE

Throughout the year, North Korean state media showed images of numerous missile component tests, some of which revealed close-up details of engines and heat shields designed to protect a rocket upon re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere.

The propaganda offensive may have revealed some military secrets, but it may have also been a bid to silence outside analysts, many of whom had remained skeptical of the North’s missile program.

“They’re answering the public criticisms of U.S. experts,” said Joshua Pollack, editor of the U.S.-based Non proliferation Review. “A lot of people had questioned whether they had a working ICBM-class heat shield”.

“So they showed us”.

Despite the research, Pyongyang has experienced considerable difficulties getting its intermediate-range Musudan missile, designed to fly about 3,000 km (1,860 miles), off the ground. It succeeded just once in eight attempted launches last year.

North Korea has fired long-range rockets in the past, but has characterized those launches as peaceful and designed to put an object into space.

Still, the South Korean defense ministry believes the three-stage Kwangmyongsong rocket used by Pyongyang to put a satellite in space last February already has a potential range of 12,000 km (7,457 miles), if it were re-engineered.

Doing so would require mastering safer “cold-launch” technology, and perfecting the ability of a rocket to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere without breaking up.

“North Korea is working hard to develop cold-launch technology and atmospheric re-entry but South Korea and the U.S. will have to assess further exactly which level of development they have reached,” South Korean defense ministry official Roh Jae-cheon told a briefing on Monday.

North Korea began stepping up its missile development in March 2016, Roh said, but added that there were no “unusual signs” related to test preparations, according to the South Korean military.

That same month, Kim Jong Un was photographed looking at a small, ball-like object that North Korean state news agency KCNA said was a miniaturized nuclear warhead – the device North Korea would need to fulfill its ICBM threat.

“2016 marked the year North Korea truly ramped up their WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) program,” Hanham at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey said.

“I think we’re going to see a (ICBM) flight test in 2017”.

(Additional reporting by Jeongeun Lee; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Islamic State kills 24 in Baghdad blast, cuts road to Mosul

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Staff

People look at a burned vehicle at the site of car bomb attack in a busy square at Baghdad's sprawling Sadr City district, in Iraq January 2, 2017. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad

By Kareem Raheem and Ghazwan Hassan

BAGHDAD/TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) – An Islamic State car bomb killed 24 people in a busy square in Baghdad’s sprawling Sadr City district on Monday, and the militants cut a key road north from the capital to Mosul, their last major stronghold in the country.

An online statement distributed by Amaq news agency, which supports Islamic State, said the ultra-hardline Sunni group had targeted a gathering of Shi’ite Muslims, whom it considers apostates. Sixty-seven people were wounded in the blast.

U.S.-backed Iraqi forces are currently fighting to push Islamic State from the northern city of Mosul, but are facing fierce resistance. The group has lost most of the territory it seized in a blitz across northern and western Iraq in 2014.

The recapture of Mosul would probably spell the end for its self-styled caliphate, but the militants would still be capable of fighting a guerrilla-style insurgency in Iraq, and plotting or inspiring attacks on the West.

Three bombs killed 29 people across the capital on Saturday, and an attack near the southern city of Najaf on Sunday left seven policemen dead. Monday’s blast in Sadr City hit a square where day laborers typically gather.

Nine of the victims were women in a passing minibus. Their charred bodies were visible inside the burnt-out remains of the vehicle. Blood stained the ground nearby.

A separate blast near a hospital in central Baghdad killed one civilian and wounded nine, police and medical sources said.

“The terrorists will attempt to attack civilians in order to make up for their losses, but we assure the Iraqi people and the world that we are able to end terrorism and shorten its life,” Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told reporters after meeting with visiting French President Francois Hollande.

Hollande, whose country has faced a series of militant attacks in the past two years, said French soldiers serving in a U.S.-led coalition against the jihadists in Iraq were preventing more mass killings at home.

ROAD TO MOSUL

Since the drive to recapture Mosul began on Oct. 17, elite forces have retaken a quarter of the city in the biggest ground operation in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Abadi has said the group will be driven out of the country by April.

Clashes continued in and around Mosul on Monday. The counter-terrorism service (CTS) blew up several Islamic State car bombs before they reached their targets, and linked up with the Rapid Response forces, an elite Interior Ministry unit, said spokesman Sabah al-Numani.

CTS was also clearing North Karma district of remaining militants, the fourth area the unit has retaken in the past week, he said.

Islamic State targeted military positions away from the main battlefield, killing at least 16 pro-government fighters and cutting a strategic road linking the city to Baghdad.

Militants attacked an army barracks near Baiji, 180 km (110 miles) north of the capital, killing four soldiers and wounding 12 people, including Sunni tribal fighters, army and police sources said.

They seized weapons there and launched mortars at nearby Shirqat, forcing security forces to impose a curfew and close schools and offices in the town, according to local officials and security sources.

Shirqat mayor Ali Dodah said Islamic State seized three checkpoints on the main road linking Baiji to Shirqat following the attacks. Shelling in Shirqat had killed at least two children, he told Reuters by phone.

In a separate incident, gunmen broke into a village near Udhaim, 90 km (56 miles) north of Baghdad, where they executed nine Sunni tribal fighters with shots to the head, police and medical sources said.

In the same area, at least three pro-government Shi’ite militia fighters were killed and seven wounded when militants attacked their position with mortar rounds and machine guns, police sources said.

 

People gather at the site of car bomb attack in a busy square at Baghdad’s sprawling Sadr City district, in Iraq January 2, 2017. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad

(Additional reproting by Ahmed Rasheed and Saif Hameed in Baghdad and Isabel Coles in Erbil; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

U.S.-led strikes in Iraq & Syria have killed at least 188 civilians: U.S. military

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Staff

A plume of smoke rises above a building during an air strike in Tikrit March 27, 2015. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – At least 188 civilians have been killed in U.S.-led strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria since the operation began in 2014, the U.S. military said in a statement on Monday.

The Combined Joint Task Force, in its monthly assessment of civilian casualties from the U.S. coalition’s operations against the militant group, said it was still assessing five reports of unintentional deaths from four strikes in 2016 and one from 2015.

The military’s overall estimate was far below those of other outside groups, such as Air Wars, which monitors civilian deaths from international air strikes in the region. The group has estimated about 2,100 civilians have been killed in Iraq and Syria since the coalition’s campaign started.

U.S. military officials expressed regret for the deaths.

“Although the Coalition takes extraordinary efforts to strike military targets in a manner that minimizes the risk of civilian casualties, in some incidents casualties are unavoidable,” the task force said in a statement.

The coalition said it had received 16 new reports of possible civilian deaths in November 2016. Among those, five reports were deemed credible and had led to 15 unintended civilian deaths, it said.

In addition to the five reports still being assessed, officials said they are investigating a Dec. 29 strike on a van of Islamic State fighters that was hit in what officials later determined to be a hospital parking lot.

The United States and its coalition partners had conducted 17,005 strikes against Islamic State as of Dec. 30, with 10,738 in Iraq and 6,267 in Syria, according to U.S. military data.

The operation against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has cost $10 billion since 2014, the data showed.

(Additional reporting by Idrees Ali; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Cuba puts on show of strength as Trump inauguration nears

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Staff

Soldiers march to mark the armed forces day and commemorate the landing of the yacht Granma, which brought the Castro brothers, Ernesto "Che" Guevara and others from Mexico to Cuba to start the revolution in 1959, in Havana, Cuba, January 2, 2017. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini

By Marc Frank

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba on Monday paraded troops and hundreds of thousands of citizens through its emblematic Revolution Square in a traditional show of nationalist fighting spirit as it faces a tough political and economic year.

A replica of the yacht Granma, which brought the Castro brothers, Ernesto “Che” Guevara and others from Mexico to Cuba to start the revolution in 1959, surrounded by schoolchildren in red and white young pioneer uniforms, led off the five-yearly event.

Troops wielding automatic rifles followed, marching in lock step, then a sea of banner- and flag-waving Cubans, many bussed in and organized through their workplaces and neighborhoods.

The head of the University Students Federation, Jennifer Bello Martinez, opened the march with a fiery speech as President Raul Castro and other leaders watched and waved from the base of a huge monument to independence hero Jose Marti.

“Cuba will not abandon a single one of its principles … not its independence and not its sovereignty,” she said.

The military parade and march normally takes place every five years on Dec. 2 to mark armed forces day and commemorate the Granma landing but it was postponed a month due to the death of Cuban leader Fidel Castro in late November.

The event, first announced last April, has taken on added significance since the Nov. 8 U.S. election.

President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has threatened to rip up a detente with Cuba begun by President Barack Obama two years ago unless he gets a “better deal” and has resorted to the hostile rhetoric of the past when referring to the Communist-run Caribbean island.

“We are braced for conflict with the USA, we always have been, but I hope Trump will instead follow the path of Obama towards normalization,” said 70-year-old Marcial Garcia, who still does logistical work for the army, as he watched the parade.

The threat to the gradual and still fragile warming trend could not come at a worse time for Cuba, which was plunged back into recession last year for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union a quarter century ago, as its strategic ally Venezuela floundered.

A tourism boom that brought 4 million visitors in 2016, in part sparked by detente and looser travel restrictions on Americans, was not enough to overcome dwindling oil shipments from the South American country on beneficial terms, and less cash for Cuban doctors and other professionals working overseas.

 

Soldiers march to mark the Armed Forces Day and commemorate the landing of the yacht Granma, which brought the Castro brothers, Ernesto “Che” Guevara and others from Mexico to Cuba to start the revolution in 1959, in Havana, Cuba, January 2, 2017. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini

(Reporting by Marc Frank; Additional reporting by Sarah Marsh; Editing by James Dalgleish)