U.S. tells Rwanda to immediately end support for M23 rebels | Reuters

WASHINGTON | Tue Jul 23, 2013 3:06pm EDT
 

(Reuters) - The United States on Tuesday called on Rwanda to end support for M23 rebels in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, saying there was evidence Rwandan military officials were involved.

"We call upon Rwanda to immediately end any support for the M23 (and) withdraw military personnel from eastern DRC," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

She declined to say whether Rwandan President Paul Kagame was implicated. "I wasn't speaking to Kagame himself," she added.

The call comes two days before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry leads a special session of the United Nations Security Council on Africa's Great Lakes region.

FULL ARTICLE HERE: U.S. tells Rwanda to immediately end support for M23 rebels | Reuters

DR Congo: Peacekeepers at war - South 2 North - Al Jazeera English

   
On March 28, 2013, the United Nations Security Council authorised a 3,000 strong "Force Intervention Brigade" to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - the first of its kind in UN history.  

Many believe that the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the DRC has failed. The conflict continues and by some estimates 5.4 million are dead, and hundreds of thousands of women are raped every year. And fearing the rising death toll, the UN has broken tactic: the peacemakers are going to war.  

But is this the way to create internal peace and prosperity in the DR Congo? And is it the way forward for international peacekeeping missions?  

In a passionate and heated edition of South2North, Redi invites Ambassador Bene M'Poko from the embassy of the DRC in South Africa; American author Jason K. Stearns; and former CEO of Africa Liberty and civil leader Bernard Katompa to debate the past, present and future of the Congo................. 

FULL ARTICLE HERE: DR Congo: Peacekeepers at war - South 2 North - Al Jazeera English

Syria rebels meet U.N. Security Council, urge Russia to end Assad support - Alarabiya.net English | Front Page

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (3rd R) meets with members of the Syrian Opposition Coalition (L) at the United States Mission to the United Nations July 25, 2013 in New York. (AFP)

Reuters, Michelle Nichols / UNITED NATIONS

Syrian rebel leaders met with the U.N. Security Council for the first time on Friday to discuss the country’s two-year war and appealed to Russia to stop its powerful political and military support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

The 15-member Security Council has been deadlocked on Syria. Russia, an ally and arms supplier of Assad, and China have three times blocked action against Assad supported by the remaining veto powers - the United States, Britain and France.

“We asked them (Russia) to stop providing the political and military support for this criminal regime to continue its crimes against the Syrian people,” senior Syrian National Coalition member Najib Ghadbian told reporters after the meeting.

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Syria rebels meet U.N. Security Council, urge Russia to end Assad support - Alarabiya.net English | Front Page

DR Congo: M23 Rebels Kill, Rape Civilians | Human Rights Watch

M23 rebels take position near the town of Mutaho, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on May 27, 2013 /© 2013 Reuters

Not only is Rwanda allowing its territory to be used by the abusive M23 to get recruits and equipment, but the Rwandan military is still directly supporting the M23. This support is sustaining an armed group responsible for numerous killings, rapes and other serious abuses.

Daniel Bekele, Africa director 

(Goma) – M23 rebels have summarily executed at least 44 people and raped at least 61 women and girls since March 2013 in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Local residents and rebel deserters reported recent forced recruitment of men and boys by the M23 in both Rwanda and Congo.

After a nearly two-month-long ceasefire, fighting resumed on July 14 between the Congolese armed forces and M23 rebels near the eastern city of Goma.

Residents and rebel deserters described recent support from within Rwanda to the abusive M23 forces. This includes regular movements from Rwanda into Congo of men in Rwandan army uniforms, and the provision of ammunition, food, and other supplies from Rwanda to the M23. The M23 has been recruiting inside Rwanda. Rwandan military officers have trained new M23 recruits, and have communicated and met with M23 leaders on several occasions.

FULL ARTICLE HERE: DR Congo: M23 Rebels Kill, Rape Civilians | Human Rights Watch

British Archaeologists Explore WWI Submarine Graveyard Off UK Coast - SPIEGEL ONLINE

By Frank Thadeusz

British archaeologists recently discovered more than 40 German U-boats sunk during World War I off the coast of England. Now they are in a race against time to learn the secrets hidden in their watery graves. 

On the old game show "What's My Line?" Briton Mark Dunkley might have been described with the following words: "He does what many adventurers around the world can only dream of doing."

Dunkley is an underwater archeologist who dives for lost treasures. His most recent discoveries were anything if not eerie.................

FULL ARTICLE HERE: British Archaeologists Explore WWI Submarine Graveyard Off UK Coast - SPIEGEL ONLINE

New Syria opposition chief sets arms priority - Alarabiya.net English | Front Page

 

Securing arms for the opposition fighters is a top priority for the new leader of Syria’s main opposition, the National Coalition. (File photo: Al Arabiya 

AFP

The new leader of Syria’s main opposition National Coalition has set his priority on securing arms for rebels fighting regime troops since 2011, in remarks published on Saturday.

Ahmad Assi Jarba spoke in Saudi Arabia after a meeting with Crown Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz on Thursday ahead of a tour of Western capitals next week during which he will meet French President Francois Hollande.

“My first and foremost priority is securing arms for the Free Syrian Army fighters as soon as possible,” Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat quoted him as saying.

“We are facing gangs that are launching a war of extinction against the Syrian people and arms are the only means of facing them and ending their massacres,” Jarba said.

“I also plan to work on securing aid to our people,” added the new opposition leader who was elected on July 6....................

FULL ARTICLE HERE: New Syria opposition chief sets arms priority - Alarabiya.net English | Front Page

DOJ trolling for email tips in Zimmerman probe | Fox News

More than a year after an FBI report indicated there was no evidence of racial bias in George Zimmerman's history, the Justice Department is trolling for email tips on the former neighborhood watch volunteer as it weighs a possible federal civil rights case against him. 

Amid pressure from the NAACP and several Democratic lawmakers to pursue Zimmerman, the department has set up a public email address asking for any tips or information regarding the case. The move appears to mark an expansion of the probe, after Attorney General Eric Holder said in an address Tuesday to the NAACP that his department would "consider all available information" before deciding whether to move forward.   

FULL ARTICLE HERE: DOJ trolling for email tips in Zimmerman probe | Fox News

Military Cooperation Between Cuba, North Korea Revealed | Washington Free Beacon

(AP)

The seizure of a covert shipment of missile parts from Cuba on a North Korean freighter is raising new fears that the two communist governments secretly are engaged in the trade of threatening ballistic missiles.

The North Korean ship seized Friday by Panamanian authorities included sophisticated Russian radar for SA-2 surface-to-air missiles and revealed for the first time military cooperation between Cuba and North Korea.................

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Military Cooperation Between Cuba, North Korea Revealed | Washington Free Beacon

UN likens Syria crisis to Rwandan genocide - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Almost 6.8 million Syrians need urgent humanitarian assistance, UN aid chief Valerie Amos said [File]

The number of people fleeing the conflict in Syria has escalated to an average of 6,000 a day during 2013, according to UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres.

"We have not seen a refugee outflow escalate at such a frightening rate since the Rwandan genocide almost 20 years ago," Guterres on Tuesday told a rare public briefing to the UN Security Council on Syria, where a government crackdown on pro-democracy protests more than two years ago has spiralled into civil war......

FULL ARTICLE HERE: UN likens Syria crisis to Rwandan genocide - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

1ST ANNOUNCEMENT OF 2013 UN PEACE DAY CELEBRATION IN NORFOLK, VIRGINIA

You are invited to:

Good neighbours? Rwanda’s strategies to defend its interests in Congo – By Kris Berwouts | African Arguments

Kris Berwouts (author)

Central Africa has been shaped by complex regional dynamics, through which local cleavages and national conflicts have spilled over national borders. Each country in the region has a complex internal situation and a violent recent history where local contradictions have become polarized and entangled with those of neighbouring countries.

Following the end of the Cold War and throughout the 1990s these regional dynamics developed into an avalanche of killing and destruction. During the two wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), (1996-1997 and 1998-2002) which followed the genocide in Rwanda, the Congo and particularly its eastern provinces became the battlefield of ‘Africa’s First World War’. The DRC’s natural resource wealth has been an important factor in fuelling conflict as warring factions competed for control of parallel networks for the illegal flow of resources onto international markets..............

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Good neighbours? Rwanda’s strategies to defend its interests in Congo – By Kris Berwouts | African Arguments

Malala Yousafza Sparks Global Girls Rights Movement - SPIEGEL ONLINE

Girl Rising: Malala Fires Up a New Generation

By SPIEGEL ONLINE Staff

Daniel Berehulak / GETTY IMAGES / DER SPIEGEL

Last fall Malala Yousafza, a 15-year-old blogger in Pakistan, was gunned down for demanding the right to an education. She has taken her message to the UN, and girls worldwide are fighting back against violence and oppression. A global movement is taking shape. 

For Diya, the rebellion began in India on the day she sat at the police station, a shy 13-year-old girl, and was able to find words for the unspeakable: "He did something bad to me." She chose not to be silent though the man had said: "If you tell on me, I will kill your brother." She chose to testify.............

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Malala Yousafza Sparks Global Girls Rights Movement - SPIEGEL ONLINE

Report: Israel behind recent strike on Syria missile depot, U.S. officials say - Diplomacy & Defense - Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper

Several blasts that took place on July 5 at a critical Syrian port was the result of airstrikes by Israeli fighter jets, multiple U.S. officials told CNN.

Friday's CNN report cited three unnamed U.S. officials as saying that the airstrikes targeted Russian-made Yakhont anti-ship missiles.

No one had officially claimed responsibility for the explosions at Latakia, in Syria's north.

Israel's government has also declined to comment on the allegations.

In a statement released the previous Friday, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that "huge explosions shook the area where a large Syrian army base and weapons depots are located."........

Report: Israel behind recent strike on Syria missile depot, U.S. officials say - Diplomacy and Defense - Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper

Pakistan's Malala takes education plea to UN - YouTube

LINK: Pakistan's Malala takes education plea to UN - YouTube

Malala Yousafzai at the UN: 'Let us pick up our books and our pens, they are the most powerful weapons' | guardian.co.uk

Education campaigner Malala Yousafzai delivers a speech to the UN on her sixteenth birthday, Malala Day Photograph: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

This is a transcription of the speech that Malala Yousafzai gave to the United Nations on 12 July 2013, the date of her 16th birthday and "Malala Day" at the UN.

In the name of God, the most beneficent, the most merciful.

Honorable UN Secretary General Mr Ban Ki-moon, respected president of the General Assembly Vuk Jeremic, honorable UN envoy for global education Mr Gordon Brown, respected elders and my dear brothers and sisters: Assalamu alaikum.

Today is it an honor for me to be speaking again after a long time. Being here with such honorable people is a great moment in my life and it is an honor for me that today I am wearing a shawl of the late Benazir Bhutto. I don't know where to begin my speech. I don't know what people would be expecting me to say, but first of all thank you to God for whom we all are equal and thank you to every person who has prayed for my fast recovery and new life. I cannot believe how much love people have shown me. I have received thousands of good wish cards and gifts from all over the world. Thank you to all of them. Thank you to the children whose innocent words encouraged me. Thank you to my elders whose prayers strengthened me. I would like to thank my nurses, doctors and the staff of the hospitals in Pakistan and the UK and the UAE government who have helped me to get better and recover my strength............

FULL ARTICLE HERE: 'Let us pick up our books and our pens, they are the most powerful weapons' | Malala Yousafzai | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Jewish life in Europe 'dying a slow death'? | The Times of Israel

when Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay this week accused the “Jewish Diaspora” of orchestrating anti-government protests in his country, almost the entire Jewish Diaspora was up in arms. Oskar Deutsch, the president of the Vienna community, went so far as to call on the European Union to suspend its accession negotiations with Ankara.

But anti-Semitism could also be found last week deep in the European heartland: the editors of Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung considered a painting of a ravenous moloch to be the right type of illustration for a story about Israel. Critics pointed out that this might have been a problematic choice, yet the paper initially responded that “a hungry monster with horns has nothing to do with anti-Semitic cliches” (and only later apologized). 

Clearly, anti-Semitic tendencies in Europe are alive and kicking. But how widespread, and how grave?........
 
FULL ARTICLE HERE: Jewish life in Europe 'dying a slow death'? | The Times of Israel

CLUELESS AS EVER: ‘Hi girls,’ Blair tells Qaddafi’s teen sex slaves: report - Alarabiya.net English | Front Page

 

British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s first visit to Libya to meet with Muammar Qaddafi was in 2004, the same year that Soraya was chosen to become a member of Qaddafi’s harem. (Al Arabiya)

Al Arabiya

“Hi girls,” Tony Blair greeted sex slave teen girls outside a tent in Libya where they were raped later after the former British prime minister finished his meeting with former strongman Muammar Qaddafi, a new book has claimed.

The book – “Gaddafi’s Harem”— includes a description of how teenage sexual slave Soraya was taken from her parents and forcefully prepared to meet the demands of Qaddafi’s sexual orders.

In the book written by French author Annick Cojean, Soraya describes the moment at which Blair greeted her after he left a meeting with Qaddafi, the Daily Mail reported on Sunday.

She was standing outside a tent in Tripoli when Blair walked out, smiled at her and others, and said: “Hi girls,” according to her.......................

FULL ARTICLE HERE: ‘Hi girls,’ Blair tells Qaddafi’s teen sex slaves: report - Alarabiya.net English | Front Page

BURYING THE DEAD IN SYRIA: Al Houla massacre victims - YouTube

LINK: Believe it, it's not a movie Al Houla massacre victims - YouTube

Ex-prisoner chosen to lead Syrian opposition group | The Times of Israel

Ex-prisoner chosen to lead Syrian opposition group | The Times of Israel

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY: Madison Rising - The Star Spangled Banner - YouTube

LINK: Madison Rising - The Star Spangled Banner - YouTube

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY: Dee Rock, The Colors I Fly - YouTube

LINK: Dee Rock, The Colors I Fly - YouTube

The Press and Dr. Faustus | National Review Online

Too late, American journalists realize their mistake.

By Victor Davis Hanson



In the old Dr. Faustus story, a young scholar bargains away his soul to the devil for promises of obtaining almost anything he wants.

The American media has done much the same thing with the Obama administration. In return for empowering a fellow liberal, the press gave up its traditional adversarial relationship with the president.....

FULL ARTICLE HERE: The Press and Dr. Faustus | National Review Online

UN intervention in the Congo: Will enforcing peace bring political stability? by WBEZ's Worldview on SoundCloud - Hear the world’s sounds

Kambale Musavuli, National Spokesperson for Friends of the Congo, joins us to discuss what impact the UN-enforced peace through an intervention brigade can have on stabilizing the political situation in the Congo. (Photo: AP Images).

"UN intervention in the Congo: Will enforcing peace bring political stability?" by WBEZ's Worldview is licensed under a Creative Commons License...........

AUDIO LINK: UN intervention in the Congo: Will enforcing peace bring political stability? by WBEZ's Worldview on SoundCloud - Hear the world’s sounds

ARMY DEPOSES PRESIDENT: NBC News: Egyptians celebrate Morsis ouster

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

FULL ARTICLE HERE: NBC News: Egyptians celebrate Morsis ouster

For the Brotherhood, Morsi's fall would have a domino effect | The Times of Israel

Opponents of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi protest outside the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, June 30, 2013. (photo credit: AP/Hassan Ammar)

The first battle between the the opposition and the ruling Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt ended in the early hours of Monday morning, when millions of demonstrators slowly dispersed to their homes after a long and bloody night.

According to figures from the Egyptian Health Ministry, 10 people died and 613 were injured during the confrontations that broke out between supporters of the two camps. 

The most severe clashes were near the Muslim Brotherhood building in the Muqqatam area south of Cairo, where four people were killed, but also in other cities, such as Asyut, Port Said, Al-Mahala, Al-Kubrah, and others...........

FULL ARTICLE HERE: For the Brotherhood, Morsi's fall would have a domino effect | The Times of Israel