|  |  |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Moderates say they can see no prospect of victory so are prepared to negotiate – but not with the Karzai government Some senior Taliban figures are ready to negotiate a ceasefire and might be ready to accept a long-term US military presence in Afghanistan as part of a comprehensive peace deal, according to a report to be published on Monday based on interviews with Taliban officials and negotiators. The report, published by the Royal United Services Institute, finds that the Taliban is determined to make a decisive break with al-Qaida as part of a settlement and is open to negotiation about education for girls, but is adamantly opposed to the constitution which it sees as a prop for President Hamid Karzai's government. The Taliban insurgents will not negotiate with the Karzai government largely because of its record of corruption. They do not trust Kabul to run fair elections, which suggests that, even if the moderates interviewed in the study prevailed within Taliban circles, serious obstacles to a peace deal would remain. The institute's report, entitled Taliban Perspectives on Reconciliation, is the product of interviews with four unnamed figures, two of whom were ministers in the former Taliban government and are still close to the inner circle of leadership. One is described as being "closely associated" with Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader. A third is portrayed as "a senior former mujahideen commander and lead negotiator for the Taliban", although not part of the movement itself, and the fourth is said to be "an Afghan mediator with extensive experience negotiating with the Taliban". The report concludes: "The Taliban would be open to negotiating a ceasefire as part of a general settlement, and also as a bridge between confidence-building measures and the core issue of the distribution of political power in Afghanistan. "A ceasefire would require strong Islamic justification, obscuring any hint of surrender," it adds. Even more surprising, in view of the official Taliban propaganda portraying it as leading a struggle against foreign invaders, the report says the insurgents are "prepared to accept a long-term US military presence in Afghanistan". According to one interviewee, described as a founder member of the Taliban, a settlement that left US troops operating out of five primary military bases – Kandahar, Herat, Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul – might be acceptable as long as the US presence "does not impinge on our independence and religion". In other words, the Taliban might accept continuing US counter-terrorist operations targeting their former ally, al-Qaida, as long as the bases were not used as a launching pad for attacks on other countries or for interference in Afghan politics. The report even suggests that the Taliban would co-operate in tracking down al-Qaida members, noting that the leadership and base "deeply regret" their past association with the global jihadist group. Michael Semple, one of the report's co-authors and a former EU envoy to Afghanistan, said that interviewees represented a significant but not yet dominant strand in Taliban views. "We are not saying that this is some kind of poll that says three out of four Taliban members are in favour of a ceasefire," he said. "But there is a part of the movement who see there is no prospect of a military victory and so ceasefire would make sense. This is not the official line, but rather the outer fringe of Taliban thought. It's not mainstream yet." Semple, now at Harvard University, interviewed another Taliban commander in July, who also admitted there was no prospect of an insurgent victory, but he said that commander was not part of the institute's study. Contacts between US officials and Taliban representatives have stalled largely because of failure to conclude a confidence-building deal to exchange five Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay for a US soldier captured by insurgents. Substantive talks, which were due to be held in Qatar, are expected to remain on hold until after the US presidential election in November, but senior US officials said they were holding discussions this week with Pakistan, where the Taliban leadership is based, about the safe passage of insurgent officials for future peace talks. "Reconciliation remains a key component of our strategy," a senior US official said. "The safe passage working group was meeting this week alone as a piece of that, and Ambassador [Marc] Grossman [the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan] will embark on an upcoming trip at some point to continue to pursue this in a very robust manner.…" Another senior official stressed that the official US designation on Friday of the Haqqani network, a Taliban faction based in the Pakistani tribal area of Waziristan, would not rule out future talks with the group, and would not lead to the financial sanctions against Pakistan. The official disowned allegations made last year by Admiral Mike Mullen, the outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, who described the Haqqani network as "a veritable arm" of Pakistani intelligence. "I want to just unequivocally state that this in no way is the consensus, unanimous view of this administration; that we are making absolutely no effort to begin a process to designate Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism," the US official said. Semple said he did not think the designation of the Haqqanis would have any serious impact on future peace talks. "The US have already given them a good few chances to to do politics," he said. "They are really at the heart of the nastiest part of the armed struggle."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Game-by-game: Live rolling coverage of the US Open women's singles final - Serena Williams vs Victoria Azarenka
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | No Easy Day author – who may face discipline over publication – shares details of US military raid in 60 Minutes interview A "wicked smart" female CIA agent who had been tracking Osama bin Laden for five years was central to the US's assassination of the terrorist leader, according to one of the Navy Seals who took part in the attack. "Mark Owen" the pseudonymous author of No Easy Day, a controversial first-person account of the killing, said the agent, whom he referred to as "Jen", was convinced Bin Laden was hiding at the compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan, where he was found. She travelled with the Seals to Afghanistan ahead of the raid and briefed them on what they were likely to find. "I can't give her enough credit. In my opinion she kind of teed up this whole thing," Owen told CBS's 60 Minutes in an interview to be broadcast Sunday. Owen described Jen as "wicked smart, kind of feisty". She was 100% sure that bin Laden was hiding in the Abbotabad compound, according to Owen. President Barack Obama, defence secretary Leon Panetta and others have said they were only 70% sure Bin Laden would be found at the compound. Owen told 60 Minutes that all of her predictions proved to be exactly right. In the interview Owen denied suggestions that the timing of his book had anything to do with November's election. Obama and other Democrats made numerous mentions of the assassination at last week's convention. But Owen said the book had always been planned for release around the anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks and had nothing to do with the election. The Pentagon and the White House have declined to comment on the new account but have said they are weighing disciplinary or legal action against the author. The account contradicts some elements of the official telling of Bin Laden's death. The US government accounts say Bin Laden was killed after he ducked back into his bedroom, raising fears he was reaching for a weapon. According to Owen, Bin Laden was shot when he looked out of his bedroom door. When Seals entered his room he was on the floor, clearly badly injured. They then shot him again. Owen says he was charged with taking the photographs to prove the Al Qaeda leader was dead. "I figured these were probably some of the most important photos I would take in my life, so make sure I do it right, get good angles and all this other stuff," he said. He said he had to clean Bin Laden's face, using a sheet off a bed, to make sure he was clearly recognizable. He said the photographs were "pretty gruesome". During the programme, the Navy Seal's voice and face were disguised mask his identity.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Regime's aerial bombardment of residential area of the city has destroyed a water pipeline and a housing complex, activists say Syrian warplanes bombed a residential district of Aleppo on Sunday, killing and wounding dozens of people and exacerbating a water shortage in Syria's biggest city, where a major water pipeline has burst, activists said. President Bashar al-Assad has resorted to devastating aerial bombardment to keep rebels at bay after they took control of residential neighbourhoods and made forays into the centre of Aleppo, Syria's commercial and industrial capital. The almost 18-month-old uprising has polarised global powers, preventing effective international intervention. It is becoming increasingly sectarian and runs the risk of spilling over into adjacent Arab states with similar communal divisions. Insurgent advances have forced Assad to deploy warplanes, major armoured forces and thousands of troops to prevent the fall of Aleppo, which would free up supply lines to the interior of Syria from Turkey, where rebels have sheltered. A decisive victory has eluded both sides, with rebels lacking the heavy weapons needed to shoot down aircraft and knock out artillery. Meanwhile, Assad is loth to send conscript troops of questionable loyalty into cities to re-establish dominance on the ground. Instead, government forces have been bombarding population centres to try to turn residents against rebels embedded in there, according to diplomats following the revolt. Sunday's air raid, which came after rebels had overrun army barracks, destroyed a residential complex in the Hananu neighbourhood, one of several in eastern Aleppo under rebel control, opposition activists told Reuters. The death toll was not immediately clear but dozens of bodies and injured people were being dug from the rubble. Video footage from the area showed scores of people searching and digging in the debris of a flattened building. Details could not be independently verified due to Syria's severe restrictions on international media access. Aerial bombardment had also wrecked a main water pipeline, causing serious shortages of water in Aleppo, activists added. "A water pumping station in al-Mayadeen was hit. There were rebels in the area, but this is not a justification to bomb civilian infrastructure," activist Ahmad Saeed said. A businessman who went from the north-west of the city to Hananu to bury his grandmother – Aleppo's main cemetery is situated in the district – said the ground was shaking with artillery explosions. "I passed by several Free Syrian Army checkpoints. The fighters looked quite relaxed. The army was nowhere to be seen but it was bombing heavily," he said. The eastern sector of Aleppo has drawn air strikes since rebels attacked the Hananu barracks and freed scores of army deserters, opposition campaigners said. In the capital Damascus, the army continued to shell Sunni Muslim neighbourhoods supportive of the revolt against Assad, whose minority Alawite sect has dominated Syria's power structure for decades. Shelling also struck near the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in south Damascus and the adjacent impoverished neighbourhood of Hajar al-Aswad, which is home to thousands of refugees from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Rebels have launched guerrilla attacks on loyalist forces from Sunni neighbourhoods and suburbs surrounding Damascus. Assad has been increasingly reliant on elite divisions of Alawites to keep overall control of the capital. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said on Sunday she was pessimistic about closing the gap with Russia on how to defuse the Syrian conflict before world leaders gather for the UN general assembly later this month. Clinton said she made the case for increasing pressure on Assad in talks with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, at a summit of Pacific Rim states in Russia. "If we can make progress in New York in the runup to the UN general assembly, we can certainly try," Clinton told reporters. "But we have to be realistic. We haven't seen eye to eye on Syria. That may continue. And if it does continue then we will work with like-minded states to support the Syrian opposition to hasten the day when Assad falls." Chinese and Russian leaders restated their firm opposition to what they see as US meddling in Syria, a reference to calls for harsh UN sanctions to isolate Assad, under whose regime Moscow has been Syria's most important ally and arms supplier. "Our US partners prefer measures like threats, increased pressure and new sanctions against both Syria and Iran. We do not agree with this in principle," Lavrov said. Clinton said she would continue to work with Lavrov to see if the UN security council could formally endorse an agreement brokered by former UN Syria envoy Kofi Annan. The agreement envisages a transitional governing authority for Syria. But Clinton added that such a step would only be effective if it carried specific penalties if Assad fails to comply – something Russia has repeatedly resisted. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and most Arab nations have sided with Syrian Sunnis at the forefront of the revolt.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | George Soros calls on Germany to save euro by dropping austerity policies or by leaving single currency George Soros is calling on Germany to save the euro, either by abandoning its obsession with austerity policies – or itself leaving the single currency."The difficulty is in convincing Germany that its current policies are leading to a prolonged depression, political and social conflicts, and an eventual break-up not only of the euro but also of the European Union," he said in an article published in the New York Review of Books. He warned that the split between creditor and debtor countries in the euro risked becoming permanent, with debtor nations condemned to low growth because they are forced to pay a high premium for access to credit. European union was liable to fall apart under the pressure, he added. Soros singled out Germany as the country that should take responsibility for this "class divide" in the eurozone. "In my judgment, the best course of action is to persuade Germany to choose between becoming a more benevolent leading nation, or leaving the euro. In other words, Germany must lead or leave." Soros called on Germany to show leadership by establishing a "more or less level playing field" between debtor and creditor countries, and aiming for eurozone growth of up to 5%, "allowing Europe to grow its way out of excessive indebtedness". But, he said, "this would entail a greater degree of inflation than the Bundesbank is likely to approve". Alternatively, he said, with Germany out of the euro, the currency would depreciate, cutting national debts in real terms and allowing debtor countries to regain competitiveness. IMF director Christine Lagarde yesterday also took a stand against further austerity measures, backing European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi's plan to keep a check on soaring Spanish and Italian borrowing costs, but saying the two nations had already taken enough action to repair their finances to merit aid. Draghi on Thursday announced the ECB was prepared to buy "unlimited" bonds to ensure governments had access to funding, but said the action would require a country to ask for a bailout, with tight strings attached. Lagarde said Spain and Italy had already taken "strong measures" and their fiscal and reform trajectories were "adequate in and of themselves". "It's a country's decision, in relationship with its member state partners and the institutions of the euro zone, to decide what is best for itself and for the group to which it belongs," she told reporters.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Republican candidate breaks with his own history of describing plan as a 'job killer' as new poll show president widening lead Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said Sunday he will keep some of Barack Obama's controversial healthcare reforms if he wins November's election, breaking from a prior whole-scale rejection of the plan. "Of course there are a number of things that I like in healthcare reform that I'm going to put in place," he said in an interview broadcast Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press. Republicans have pledged to repeal "Obamacare" – legislation that has become the focus of a furious backlash from Republicans. Paul Ryan, the party's vice-presidential pick, has described the affordable care act as a "Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud". Romney himself has described the legislation as a "job killer" that "puts the federal government between you and your doctor". But the former Massachusetts governor said Sunday there were a number of pieces of the legislation he would keep if elected, including making sure that people with pre-existing conditions can get insurance. Romney also said he would allow young adults to keep their coverage under their parents' health insurance. "I say we're going to replace Obamacare. And I'm replacing it with my own plan," Romney said. "And even in Massachusetts when I was governor, our plan there deals with pre-existing conditions and with young people." The interview came as it emerged that Obama had received a larger boost than Romney in the polls following their respective conventions. According to Scott Rasmussen's latest poll Obama now leads Romney 49% to 45%, his biggest lead since March 17 and his best approval rating of the year. Obama also has a four-point lead in the most recent Gallup and Reuters/Ipsos polls. Rasmussen said: "The president's bounce began the night after Bill Clinton spoke to the convention and received rave reviews. Sixty-six percent of voters nationwide have a favourable opinion of the former president. Democrats overwhelmingly believe Clinton and Obama have similar views on how to fix the economy, but few Republicans and unaffiliated voters share that assessment." He said the president had made significant gains in voters aged 40-64. The poll Sunday comes even after disappointing jobs figures released Friday that showed the US added just 96,000 jobs in August. Obama has spent the weekend defending his record on the economy and attacking Romney's plans. In the swing state of Florida on Saturday Obama summed Romney's platform up as: "Tax cuts, tax cuts, gut a few regulations, some more tax cuts." In an interview aired Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation, Obama further criticised his opponent for refusing to consider tax increases on America's super-rich as a way to help reduce the deficit. He said:"You can't reduce the deficit unless you take a balanced approach that says, 'We've got to make government leaner and more efficient, but we've also got to ask people – like me or governor Romney, who have done better than anybody else over the course of the last decade and whose taxes are just about lower than they've been in the last 50 years – to do a little bit more." Romney attacked Obama's record on the economy on Sunday, stating: "This does not look like a recovery." He also tackled Democratic claims that his tax policies will favour the rich. "We're not going to have high-income people pay less of the tax burden than they pay today. That's not what's going to happen," he said.
Romney said he would keep taxes down by closing loopholes but declined to provide an example of a loophole he would close. "I can tell you that people at the high end, high-income taxpayers, are going to have fewer deductions and exemptions. Those numbers are going to come down. Otherwise they'd get a tax break. And I want to make sure people understand, despite what the Democrats said at their convention, I am not reducing taxes on high-income taxpayers," Romney said.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Police are anxious to question seven-year-old Zainab al-Hilli, who may hold only clue to killers who attacked her family The seven-year-old British girl shot, bludgeoned over the head and left for dead by an assailant who murdered her parents has regained consciousness in a French hospital. Doctors had placed Zainab al-Hilli, who police hope holds the key to the mysterious assassination, in a medically induced coma to aid her recovery. Relatives from Britain were reported to be at the orphaned girl's bedside when she awoke. Iraqi-born aeronautics engineer Saad al-Hilli, 50, his wife Ikbal, 47, a 77-year-old female relative and a French cyclist, who was passing by the scene, were shot several times at an Alpine beauty spot near Lake Annecy on Wednesday. The killer – or killers – put two bullets in each victim's head, leading to suggestions it could have been a professional assassination. Zainab and her four-year-old sister Zeena, who was the only member of the family to escape unscathed, have been under armed guard since. Eric Maillaud, the public prosecutor in Annecy, confirmed Zainab was now conscious. "She has come out of the artificial coma and is under sedation," he said on Sunday. Asked when the girl, whom he has described as the "key witness", would be interviewed, he said: "I cannot say." Earlier Maillaud had said the French investigation team would wait for doctors to decide whether the child was well enough to be questioned. He described her survival as a miracle, and said it was "out of the question" for investigators to interview her until her condition improved. "We cannot go in a precipitate manner to interview someone who has been injured and traumatised," he said. He added: "We feel desperately sorry for her [Zainab], and it is terrible that a victim, especially a child, has to be a key witness and has to be asked questions that will inevitably cause her even more suffering. We hope she will be able to tell us something, but it will be difficult." Zeena returned to Britain on Sunday after two family members, a British social worker and a police liaison officer travelled to Annecy to collect her. She hid in the rear footwell of the car when the shooting started. The petrified child was saved after taking refuge under her dead mother's legs, where she lay undiscovered for eight hours after gendarmes sealed off the scene, believing there was nobody alive in the car. Zeena has been in the care of a nurse, a child psychologist and has had round-the-clock care from a team from the British embassy. She has been "gently questioned at length" by French investigators over the past few days, but was unable to tell them anything. Apart from hearing "noises and cries", the public prosecutor said Zeena had seen nothing and was unable to advance the inquiry. "The most important thing is to get her back to her family," he said. "She has been interviewed, but we have tried to avoid causing her any further suffering." The victims were each shot twice in the head with an automatic pistol, suggesting an assassination. French investigators say they are still trying to establish if there was more than one killer and how many weapons were used. Around 25 bullet casings were found in and around the family's car. A source said initial ballistic tests suggested the shots had been fired from outside the vehicle at close range. Maillaud has refused to speculate or give details of DNA found on the bullets or the results of the postmortem examinations, for fear of aiding those responsible for the murders. He said all lines of inquiry are being followed. "The investigation has to be the priority now. We are not going to release any details or information that might enable the perpetrator or perpetrators of this savage attack to escape. My only aim is to see whoever did this caught and jailed." He admitted that hopes of solving the case now rest with Zainab. The position of a child's car seat indicated that the elder girl was travelling in the front passenger seat when the family drove up La Route de Combe d'Ire near the village of Chevaline.Zainab was outside the vehicle, parked at the start of a mountain hiking trail, and was shot in the shoulder and subjected to a violent beating about the head, which fractured her skull. The girl collapsed at the feet of a British cyclist, who arrived shortly after the killings. French investigators praised his "exemplary" reaction in placing the critically injured child in the recovery position and calling the emergency services. The Briton, a former RAF pilot, who has a house in the region, was also profoundly shocked to discover the body of a French cyclist nearby. Sylvain Mollier, a 45-year-old father-of-three, had overtaken him on the hill leading to the beauty spot just moments before. Mollier, who police said appeared to have been "in the wrong place at the wrong time", was gunned down after apparently witnessing the bloodshed. Zainab has been under police protection in intensive care at Grenoble university hospital since Wednesday and has undergone operations. Doctors said her life was no longer in danger, but they had put her into a medically induced coma to help her recovery. On Sunday, detectives were going through the holiday caravan the family had stayed in since 3 September, which had been removed from Le Solitaire du Lac campsite on the banks of Lake Annecy on Saturday. French investigators are also looking at the contents of a laptop found in the caravan and two mobile phones found in the Hillis' BMW estate car. They are also communicating with police forces in Italy and Switzerland, where the killer or killers may have fled. Police continued to search the Hillis' Surrey home and contacted Swedish authorities to confirm the identity of the 77-year-old woman, who had a Swedish passport.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Greenpeace says oil company used 'stock-car race' recklessless in testing capping stack to prevent Gulf of Mexico-style blowout Shell has been accused of "stock-car racing recklessness" after apparently undertaking only the most limited testing of a key piece of equipment aimed at preventing a Gulf of Mexico-style blowout during its controversial drilling in the Arctic. Documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request suggest field-testing of a containment dome took place over two hours on 25 and 26 June. The dome, known as a "capping stack", would be dropped over any stricken wellhead. Two officials from the bureau of safety and environmental enforcement (BSSE) – an arm of the US interior department – were present with Shell officials at the tests in Puget Sound, Alaska, but there was no independent verification of the tests. Shell reportedly started work yesterday on the $4.5bn (£2.8bn) drilling programme in the Chukchi Sea, 70 miles off Alaska's north-west coast. It does not yet have permission to drill into oil reserves. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer), a US group that helps federal and state employees raise the alarm on environmental protection issues, said it was shocked by the single page of notes from the government agency after it filed a federal lawsuit against the BSSE asking for all documents relating to the capping tests. This "slim production" belied the agency's [BSSE] claim in press statements that it had conducted comprehensive testing to meet "rigorous new standards", added Peer. "The first test merely showed that Shell could dangle its cap in 200ft of water without dropping it," said Kathryn Douglass, a Peer staff lawyer. "The second test showed the capping system could hold up under laboratory conditions for up to 15 minutes without crumbling. Neither result should give the American public much comfort." Shell did not contest the assumptions made by Peer about the testing but said the containment cap was only one of various pieces of equipment assembled over a long period of time to deal with any emergency. "Approval of our Chukchi Sea oil spill response plan [Orsp] … validates the huge amount of time, technology, and resources we have dedicated to assembling an Arctic oil spill response fleet second to none in the world," said a Shell spokesman. "It reinforces that Shell's approach to Arctic exploration is aligned with the high standards the department of interior expects from an offshore leader. Specifically, Shell's Orsp includes the assembly of a 24/7 onsite, nearshore and onshore Arctic-class oil spill response fleet, collaboration with the US Coast Guard to test roles and responsibilities and newly engineered Arctic capping and containment systems." Environmental campaigners Greenpeace said the limited testing of the crucial sub-sea cap displayed a "total disregard" for even the most basic safety standards. "Such recklessness wouldn't look out of place in a stock-car race," said Ben Ayliffe, senior Arctic campaigner at Greenpeace. "The only option now is for the US government to call a halt to Shell's plans to open up the frozen north because the company is so clearly unable to operate safely in the planet's most extreme environment. "Whatever Shell is able to do in the narrow window between now and when the sea ice returns, it won't erase the clear evidence we've seen in the past two months that there's no such thing as safe drilling in the Arctic." The company was granted permission to starting digging with its drill ship in the Chukchi Sea but only into the layer of ocean bottom located above oil reserves. Shell can dig 20-by-40ft mud-line cellars, which will eventually hold and protect a well's blowout preventer 40ft below the seabed. The US interior secretary, Ken Salazar, said he had made his decision after an exhaustive review of Shell drilling rigs and safety equipment, including a capping stack. "Any approved activities will be held to highest safety, environmental protection and emergency response standards," he said. Shell hopes to drill exploratory wells in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas in this year's open-water season, rapidly drawing to a close.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | At least 44 people killed and 240 wounded after security forces and police recruits targeted in shootings and bombings Insurgents have killed at least 44 people in a wave of attacks against Iraqi security forces, gunning down soldiers at an army post and bombing police recruits waiting to apply for jobs. The violence, which struck at least 11 cities and wounded nearly 240 people, highlighted militant attempts to sow havoc in the country and undermine the government. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but security forces are a frequent target of al-Qaida's Iraq branch, which has vowed to reassert itself and take back areas it was forced from before US troops withdrew from the country last year. In Sunday's deadliest attack, gunmen stormed a small Iraqi army outpost in the town of Dujail before dawn, killing at least 10 soldiers and wounding eight more, according to police and hospital officials in the nearby city of Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. Hours later, a car bomb struck a group of police recruits waiting in line to apply for jobs with the state-run Northern Oil Company outside the northern city of Kirkuk. Police said seven recruits were killed and 17 wounded. He said all the recruits were Sunni Muslims and blamed the early morning attack on al-Qaida. The carnage stretched into the country's south, where bombs stuck to two parked cars exploded in the Shia-dominated city of Nassiriya, 200 miles south-east of Baghdad. The blasts were near the French consulate and a hotel in the city, although the consulate did not appear to be a target of the attack. Health officials said two people were killed and three were wounded at the hotel, and one Iraqi policeman was injured at the consulate. No French diplomats were among the casualties. France's foreign ministry said it "condemns with the greatest severity" the wave of attacks. In a statement, the ministry said it "especially condemned" the attack outside France's honorary consulate in Nassiriya, which killed an Iraqi police officer and wounded a passerby. A string of smaller attacks struck nine other cities, including Baghdad, on Sunday. In the capital's eastern Shia neighbourhood of Husseiniyah, roadside bombs killed a policeman and a passerby, security and health officials said. Another eight people, including four soldiers, were wounded, the officials said. The rest of the attacks were car bombs that hit cities stretching from the southern port of Basra, Iraq's second largest city, to the city of Tal Afar north-west of Baghdad, near the Syrian border. The blast in Basra killed three people and wounded 24, while the bomb in Tal Afar killed two people and wounded seven, officials said. A pair of car bombs in southern Maysan province killed five people and wounded 40 outside a Shia shrine, said the holy site's director. A roadside bomb in Taji, just north of Baghdad, left two people dead and 11 injured, and explosions in the Sunni towns of Hawija and Ar Riyad, outside Kirkuk north of Baghdad, wounded seven people. In Tuz Khormato near Kirkuk a car bomb outside a market killed four and wounded 41 people, said Salahuddin provincial health director Raeed Ibrahim. And in Kirkuk itself, three mid-morning explosions, two car bombs and a roadside bomb, killed seven and wounded about 70.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Sunni leader Tariq al-Hashemi, who fled Iraq after authorities accused him of running a death squad, convicted of killings Fugitive vice-president Tariq al-Hashemi was sentenced to death by an Iraqi court on Sunday after he was convicted of murder in a ruling likely to further exacerbate sectarian tension. Hashemi, a Sunni, fled the country earlier this year after authorities accused him of running a death squad. His case triggered a crisis in the power-sharing government among Sunni, Shia and Kurdish political blocs. Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar, a spokesman for the judiciary council, said: "The high criminal court issued a death sentence by hanging against Tareq al-Hashemi after he was convicted." Hashemi and his son-in-law were both found guilty of two murders. Under Iraqi law, a conviction is followed immediately by sentencing. The death sentence can be appealed against. Since the last US troops left in December, prime minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shia-led government has been hamstrung by political deadlock among the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish blocs. Rising political tensions are often accompanied by a surge in violence, as Sunni Islamists and al-Qaida seek to stir up the kind of sectarian killing that dragged Iraq to the edge of civil war in 2006. Bombings and attacks across Iraq killed at least 44 people on Sunday. One bombing occurred outside the French consular office in the southern city of Nassiriya. Hashemi, who is in Turkey, has accused Maliki of conducting a political witch-hunt against Sunni opponents but the government said it was a judicial case. After the fall of Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein and the rise of Iraq's Shia majority to power, many Iraqi Sunnis feel they have been sidelined. Sunni politicians say Maliki is failing to live up to agreements to share government power among the parties.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Teachers prepare for Monday walk-out if union and district officials can't agree on mayor's changes to pay and evaluations Talks between teachers in Chicago and officials from the US's third-largest school district looked to go down to the wire Sunday, ahead of a looming strike over mayor Rahm Emanuel's demand for sweeping school reforms. Both sides expressed varying degrees of optimism late Saturday about chances of averting Monday's walk-out, although school district officials sounded more hopeful than union leaders. School board president David Vitale said he thought the district's latest proposal was "very close" to what was needed for a deal. Talks are expected to carry on throughout Sunday. Some 29,000 teachers and support staff could walk off the job on Monday, setting up a confrontation between Emanuel, President Barack Obama's former top White House aide, and organized labor in the president's home city. Parents have been scrambling to find alternate arrangements for students, and community leaders have begged both sides to come to an agreement and keep children in school. "We can't afford to have young people in harm's way," said Cy Fields, senior pastor of New Landmark Missionary Baptist Church, located in a violence-torn community on the city's west side. The church plans a pro-education rally on Sunday morning, and is among about 60 churches planning to take in children for safe activities if teachers strike. Fields said union and school officials should "get into a room and don't come out until the deal gets done". A protracted stoppage could hurt relations between Obama's Democrats and national labor unions, who are among the biggest financial supporters of the Democratic Party and will be needed by the party to help get out the vote in the November 6 election. While Emanuel has not attended the talks, he and Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis have clashed. She has accused him of being a bully and using profanity in private meetings. Lewis said on Saturday night that while the district's position had improved, she would not call it "dramatically improved". The union opened its strike headquarters on Saturday to hand out strike signs and red union t-shirts. At issue are teacher pay and school reforms such as tougher teacher evaluations that are at the heart of the national debate on improving struggling urban schools. Both sides in Chicago agree the city's public schools need fixing. Chicago fourth-grade and eighth-grade students lag national averages in a key test of reading ability, according to the US Department of Education. One union complaint is that class sizes are far too big. Emanuel, who has a reputation as a tough negotiator, is demanding that teacher evaluations be tied to standardized test results, a move the union is resisting. He also has pushed through a longer school day this year. Only about 60% of high school students in Chicago graduate, compared with a national average of 75% and more than 90% in some affluent Chicago suburbs. More than 80% of the 402,000 students in Chicago public schools qualify for free lunches because they are from low-income families. The Chicago public schools say they have little room to maneuver on salary, with both the state and the city in dire financial straits. The district has a projected $3bn deficit over the next three years and faces a crushing burden of pensions promised to retiring teachers. The Chicago School Board took back a scheduled 4 percent pay raise for teachers last year because of budget problems. Emanuel is offering a 2% pay increase annually over the next four years. The union wants the rescinded raise restored, plus higher annual increases. Jesse Sharkey, vice-president of the teachers union, said on Saturday his own two children were attending Chicago public schools. He expressed hope the conflict would be resolved without a strike. "My young one just started kindergarten four days ago, and so there's a lot at stake for all of us," Sharkey said.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Storm system's strong winds knocked down trees and affected power from Washington up coast to New England Damaging storms that spawned tornadoes in New York City, darkened tens of thousands of homes in Washington, DC, and flooded New England streets turned a normal day of rest into a day of cleaning up for many east coast residents on Sunday. No serious injuries were reported when a twister hit a beachfront neighborhood Saturday on the edge of New York City and a second, stronger tornado followed moments later about 10 miles away. Residents got advance notice but still the storm took people by surprise. "I was showing videos of tornadoes to my 4-year-old on my phone, and two minutes later, it hit," said Breezy Point neighborhood resident Peter Maloney. "Just like they always say, it sounded like a train." The unsettled weather, part of a cold front that crossed over the Eastern Seaboard, toppled trees and power lines and damaged buildings as it passed through. Wind gusts reached 70 mph in some places. Tornado-like funnel clouds were reported in Fairfax County, Virginia, and in Prince George's County, Maryland, but had not been confirmed by Saturday evening, meteorologist Andy Woodcock of the National Weather Service said. One person suffered minor injuries during a partial stage collapse at the Rosslyn Jazz Festival in Arlington County, Virginia, and six people were evacuated from a Washington apartment building when a tree fell on it. Fairfax County officials reported three home cave-ins because of downed trees, a water rescue in the Potomac River and dozens of electrical wires down. By Sunday morning, about 15,000 customers were without electricity in northern Virginia, according to Dominion Virginia Power. Pepco reported outages to more than 5,000 customers in the District of Columbia and Maryland's Prince George's and Montgomery counties. BGE reported about 1,500 outages, most in Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties. In New York City, videos taken by bystanders showed a funnel sucking up water, then sand, and then small pieces of buildings as the first tornado moved through the Breezy Point section of the Rockaway peninsula in Queens. At the Breezy Point Surf Club, it ripped the roofs off rows of cabanas, scattered deck chairs and left a heavy metal barbecue and propane tank sitting in the middle of a softball field, at least 100 yards from any home. "It picked up picnic benches. It picked up Dumpsters," said the club's general manager, Thomas Sullivan. In the storm's wake, broken flower pots, knocked-down fences and smashed windows littered the community of seaside bungalows. Half an hour later, the weather was beautiful, but Sullivan had to close the club to clean up the damage. The roof of Bob O'Hara's cabana was torn off, leaving tubes of sunscreen, broken beer bottles and an old TV set exposed to the elements. "We got a new sunroof," said O'Hara, who has spent summer weekends at the Breezy Point club for his entire 52 years. "The TV was getting thrown out anyway," he added. The second twister hit to the northwest, in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn but also near the water, about seven minutes later. The National Weather Service said winds were up to 110 miles per hour, and several homes and trees were damaged. Tornadoes are traditionally rare in the New York City area, but they have occurred with regularity in recent years. A small tornado uprooted trees on Long Island last month. In 2010, a September storm spawned two tornadoes that knocked down thousands of trees and blew off a few rooftops in Brooklyn and Queens. A small tornado struck the same year in the Bronx. In 2007, a more powerful tornado damaged homes in Brooklyn and Staten Island. More than 1,100 customers lost power Saturday in New York City. Across New York state, in Buffalo, strong winds blew roofing off some buildings and sent bricks falling into the street. The city of Albany canceled the evening portion of an outdoor jazz festival because of the threat of storms. With wind gusts reaching up to 60 mph, the storms moved into New England, flooding roads, toppling trees and snapping power lines. For about three hours, the storm barraged western Massachusetts, western Connecticut and part of New Hampshire before tapering off near Rhode Island, but not before flooding roads in East Providence, the National Weather Service said. In Fall River, Mass., floodwaters reached up to car windshields and stalled out dozens of vehicles. A day care center was evacuated and St Anne's Hospital's emergency room flooded. In New Hampshire, television station WMUR reported 4,000 power outages. The storm reached every county in Vermont, all within a two-hour window, but mercifully left the state without any extraordinary damage, according to early reports. Weather service meteorologist John Cannon said the storms by late Saturday had come and gone in Maine, where the concern then became high swells of 4 to 8ft on the beaches and rip currents that would make it dangerous to be out on the water Sunday.
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