Friday, May 31, 2013

Zumba fitness instructor sentenced to 10 months for prostitution

May 31, 11:27 AM EDT

by Alyssa Mann, BBC News roving reporter, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla

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BREAKING NEWS: US and Germany urge Russia not to arm Syria military

31 May 2013 Last updated at 11:24 ET

by Biodun Iginla and Natalie de Vallieres, BBC News

The US and Germany have called on Russia not to supply Syria's military with an advanced missile system they say could prolong the conflict there.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said the delivery of Russian weaponry would have a "profoundly negative impact" and put Israel's security at risk.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle urged Moscow not to hinder the chances of mooted peace talks.
The US and Russia are pushing for talks in Geneva aimed at ending the conflict.
Mr Kerry and Mr Westerwelle held talks in Washington the day after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said a Russian contract to supply the S-300 surface-to-air missile defence system was being implemented, without confirming any deliveries.
The S-300 is a highly capable system that, as well as targeting aircraft, also has the capacity to engage ballistic missiles.
Two Russian newspapers on Friday quoted defence sources as saying that it was unclear if any of the missile system would be delivered this year.
More than 80,000 people have been killed and 1.5 million have fled Syria since the uprising against Mr Assad began in 2011, according to UN estimates.

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Syria's crisis will drag on for years: An Analysis

Analysis by Biodun Iginla, BBC News . Reporting by Nasra Ismail and Rashida Adjani, BBC News.

BEIRUT | Fri May 31, 2013 9:12am EDT

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad cannot regain full control of his battered country and his rebel foes are not strong enough to overthrow him, dooming Syria to months or even years of sectarian civil war.
Bolstered by his Iranian and Russian backers, Assad has chalked up some military successes in recent weeks, defying his many critics, who have been confidently predicting his imminent downfall since the start of the uprising in March 2011.
But any suggestion his government might secure the total defeat of its disparate opponents shows little understanding of the nature of the war or the multitude of forces involved.
"As things stand, the regime cannot reconquer, it cannot reconcile, it cannot reform and it cannot rebuild," said Peter Harling, a project director at the International Crisis Group.
"But winning is living another day, and if you bring it down to that, (Assad) is," he told us at the BBC.
As recently as December, Germany's foreign intelligence agency stated openly that Assad's government appeared to be "in its final stages", citing its loss of control over swathes of territory and signs the rebels were co-ordinating better.
Fast forward just five months, and the agency has turned that assessment on its head, a security source in Berlin said.
Germany now believes it is the opposition that faces serious difficulties, hobbled by internal strife and forced into retreat by the arrival of well-trained Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, who have gone to war to fight for Assad's survival.
However, a senior official in neighboring Israel, reputed to have some of the best intelligence on its old enemy Syria, dismissed the idea that Assad was staging a remarkable recovery and could once again take full charge of his scarred nation.
"It's a roller coaster, up and down, but over time you see Assad shrinking," said the top official, adding that recent government gains might prove hard to maintain. "It could all change tomorrow," he said.
BLOODLETTING
Recent history shows that most civil wars do not finish quickly, they do not tend to end in negotiated settlements and the longer they continue, the more difficult it is to disarm the militia and unravel the inevitable refugee crises.
The Syrian crisis is now in its third year, with at least 80,000 killed and more than 1.6 million refugees fleeing abroad.
Despite much hand-wringing in the West, the bloodletting looks set to carry on for much longer. According to Barbara Walter, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, civil wars since 1945 have lasted an average 10 years.
Some analysts are starting to draw parallels with the civil war in Lebanon, which dragged on from 1975-1990
"Yes, the Syrian war will last for many years ... And no, Assad will not emerge victorious," said Walter, who has written extensively about civil wars around the world.
On paper, Assad's position looks encouraging for his allies.
The rebels have managed to take only one of Syria's 14 provincial capitals - Raqqa, in the northeast. By contrast, Saddam Hussein lost control of 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces after the 1991 Gulf War but fought back to survive another 12 years.
Assad's forces have also honed their tactics, with irregular militias trained in urban warfare joining the fray while the army concentrates its considerable firepower on key areas.
"Before, a rocket used to fall every 10 minutes. Their new strategy is to hit us with 10 rockets every 15 seconds. We can't figure out how to move fast enough to react," said a rebel contact in the battered city of Homs, declining to be named.
Another big boost has come from Hezbollah, which has openly committed its powerful forces to fight the poorly armed rebels.
"Hezbollah's presence has made a big difference. They are a real force. Army soldiers can defect. Hezbollah fights until the last breath," said an anti-Assad activist called Ahmed, who used to work with a rebel unit in Idlib, northwestern Syria.
Underscoring the rebel problems, Ahmed recently quit his unit, upset by constant infighting within opposition ranks.
OUTSIDE COMPLICATIONS
Despite the improvement in the outlook for Assad, the dynamics of civil war make it hard to imagine he can triumph.
"I do not recall one civil war that has lasted for more than two years and that has ended with a complete restoration of control by the central government," said Jonathan Eyal, head of international studies at the Royal United Services Institute.
New patterns of power are emerging as Syria is torn apart, state institutions fray and the economy is devastated. The huge influx of arms means it may take decades to restore order.
The war's regional, ethnic and sectarian nature is a further element that looks likely to fuel the fighting, with largely Sunni Muslim states such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar lined up behind the rebels, while Shi'ite Iran backs Assad.
"Even if the opposition was crushed, it would not be in the interests of most Arab states to abandon them because they would want to have an instrument to keep putting pressure on Assad and Iran," said Eyal.
Many other jarring interests are at play, making it difficult to see how any diplomatic solution could be found - despite U.S. and Russian efforts to hold an international peace conference in Geneva in the coming weeks.
The initial popular uprising has morphed into a many-layered conflict, with Syrian religious minorities pitted against the Sunni majority, Sunni jihadis at odds with more moderate Sunni Islamist rebels, quasi-Cold War tensions between Moscow and Washington, and Israeli concerns over its own security.
In the absence of decisive foreign intervention on behalf of the rebels - for which the West has shown little appetite - Assad's opponents point to two possible triggers for his downfall: a complete economic meltdown or else a coup.
But neither event would necessarily end the fighting.
Perhaps the best the world can hope for in the near future is a reduction in the intensity of the conflict, which U.S. academic James Fearon says has proved one of the most intense civil wars in the last 60 years in terms of numbers killed.
"As a practical matter it is hard to sustain this level of violence on both sides for a long time," said Fearon, professor of political science at Stanford University.

Intel dilemma in Boston, London, Paris attacks

May 31, 9:26 AM EDT

by Emily Straton, Natalie de Vallieres, and Biodun Iginla, BBC News

AP Photo/Thibault Camus

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	9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh and the CIA's 'Black Sites'
	A look at home-grown extremist attacks on the U.S. government
	FBI's top post-9/11 domestic terror cases

PARIS -- Intelligence agencies that have succeeded in thwarting many of al-Qaida's plans for spectacular attacks are struggling to combat the terror network's strategy of encouraging followers to keep to themselves, use off-the-shelf weapons and strike when they see an opportunity.

In recent weeks - at the Boston Marathon, in the streets of London and in the shadow of one of Paris' most recognizable monuments - young men allegedly carried out attacks with little help, using inexpensive, widely available knives and explosives from everyday ingredients. In each of the attacks, suspects had previously been flagged to law enforcement and deemed not to be a priority.

A tough debate is raging within the intelligence community - previously focused on searching for al-Qaida cells - on how to assess red flags without violating basic liberties.

Confronting an overwhelming sea of mostly harmless individuals who act suspiciously, authorities are still struggling with questions about how and how much to keep tabs on people who spout jihadist rhetoric online or buy material that could be used to make explosives - or something innocuous.

A French government report last week recommended a radical new approach in light of the 2012 terror in which a French-born radical Muslim attacked French paratroopers and a Jewish school in Toulouse, killing seven people. It called for an overhaul of the country's intelligence networks to combat the rising threat of militants working alone outside established terror networks.

One of the report's advisers, academic Mathieu Guidere, said last week's attack showed that intelligence services haven't learned their lesson.

"They're not originally made for fighting against this kind of threat. They're intended to fight against cells, against groups, against organizations, but not against individuals," he said. "It's a question of adapting. That's why there are the same errors in Boston, London and France. There was identification - but not detention - before the suspects passed into the realm of action."

Easier said than done, counters David Omand, who served as Britain's first security and intelligence coordinator.

"No reliable psychological test or checklist has been devised that can predict when such an individual may tip over into actually taking violent action," Omand said in an emailed response to questions from The Associated Press. "Short of a police state on East German lines the number of such individuals who can be subject to very intensive surveillance sufficient to detect preparations for violent action is but a small proportion of the total - and of course individuals can flip quickly even where they have been checked out previously."

Still, British, French and American officials are re-examining whether opportunities might have been lost in the run-up to the recent attacks.

Guidere and other analysts say rapidly evolving technology and better recruitment of intelligence officers should allow authorities to better track patterns of dangerous behavior.

Peter Felstead, editor of IHS Jane's Defense Weekly, said the problem is the vast quantity of information that needs to be sifted through.

"This is an area where the power of modern technology and traditional human intelligence and tradecraft need to be melded together, so that incidences of behavior that are not immediately apparent in isolation can be identified as part of a larger pattern," Felstead wrote in an email.

For its part, the U.S. government has emphasized that local communities are most likely to spot unusual or suspicious behavior, and has encouraged more outreach to communities that might be vulnerable to radicalization. The federal government has led a nationwide suspicious activity reporting campaign and trained local police to identify potential terror-related activities.

"The best way to prevent violent extremism inspired by violent jihadists is to work with the Muslim American community - which has consistently rejected terrorism - to identify signs of radicalization and partner with law enforcement when an individual is drifting toward violence," President Barack Obama said in a recent speech.

Clearly, al-Qaida has placed a big bet on the lone wolf model as its own best hope of success.

The first issue of al-Qaida's in-house magazine, Inspire, in 2010 called on recruits to avoid plotting with others, to strike near home and to use whatever weapons were at hand. In all three recent attacks - allegedly by young radical Muslims in the U.S., Britain and France - that advice seemed to be followed nearly to the letter.

Outside Paris, a young Frenchman who converted to Islam in his late teens was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of stabbing a soldier with a locally purchased pocketknife in the La Defense business area, near a modernized version of the Arc de Triomphe. Intelligence officials had been tracking the suspect, 22-year-old Alexandre Dhaussy, for several years. But the intelligence - including his refusal in 2011 to take a job that would place him in contact with women and preaching on the street in 2009 - never got bumped up to a national level, according to a statement by the French National Police headquarters late Wednesday.

He simply didn't "fit the profile of a jihadist," said France's highest security official, Manuel Valls.

In London, a British soldier was hacked to death by two attackers, including one who still held a meat cleaver in his bloody hands as he ranted to passers-by on camera. Both suspects in that killing were on the radar of Britain's domestic spy services and one had been arrested in Kenya for allegedly trying to fight in Somalia, but investigators have said it would have been impossible to predict their potential for lethal violence.

And in mid-April two brothers inspired by radical Islam allegedly set off homemade bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring more than 260. The elder brother - killed in a police shootout - had been investigated by the FBI at Russia's request, and deemed not to be a significant threat.

But the pattern of suspects in terrorist attacks having been investigated and discarded as serious threats is certainly nothing new.

After the 2005 suicide bombings in London that killed 52 people during morning rush hour, a parliamentary report found that at least two of the men had been on the periphery of other surveillance and investigative operations.

"Some significant changes were put into place after the July 7 suicide bombings," said a British security official who refused to elaborate and spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about operational issues.

"And like the 2005 attacks, we are again looking to see if anything different could have been done."

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Nigeria lawmakers pass anti-gay marriage bill

May 30, 4:11 PM EDT

by Tokun Lawal, BBC News West Africa Desk, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla

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Nigeria: Hezbollah armoury discovered in Kano city

30 May 2013 Last updated at 13:01 ET

by Tokun Lawal and Biodun Iginla, BBC News, Lagos

Soldiers stand around a cache of weapons display on 30 May 2013 in the Bompai area of the northern Nigerian city of Kano

The military said the weapons carefully stored in sawdust

An armoury belonging to the Lebanese group Hezbollah has been discovered in northern Nigeria, the West African nation's army and spy agency has said.

Three Lebanese nationals have been arrested, an army spokesman, Brig Gen Ilyasu Isa Abba, said.
The cache, including rifles, anti-tank weapons and an RPG, were found in a warehouse in the city of Kano, he said.
Nigeria's State Security Service said they were intended for use against "Israeli and Western interests".
"This is the handwork of Hezbollah," Bassey Ettang, director of the State Security Service in Kano said.

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You can also be sure that if a group like this is existing then it may even lend support to some of the local terrorists we have on the ground”

Bassey Ettang State Security Service

"What has just been discovered is a cell of Hezbollah and what you have seen here is a Hezbollah armoury," he told journalists in Kano on Thursday.

Brig Gen Ilyasu Isa Abba said 11 anti-tank weapons, four anti-tank mines, a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) and 21 RPG missiles, 17 AK-47s, two sub-machine guns and 76 grenades had been amongst the weapons found.
The Lebanese owner of the warehouse where "the weapons of mass destruction" had been stored in sawdust was out of the country, he said
There is a large business Lebanese community in Kano city, the commercial hub of in northern Nigeria.
Kano and north-eastern Nigeria has suffered multiple attacks in the last three years since the home-grown Islamist militant group Boko Haram launched an insurgency.
Mr Ettang added: "You can also be sure that if a group like this is existing then it may even lend support to some of the local terrorists we have on the ground."
Hezbollah is a Shia military and political movement based in Lebanon considered by the US to be a terrorist organisation.
Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is forbidden", says its quest is to overthrow the Nigerian government and create an Islamic state.
There has been growing concern that Boko Haram could be receiving backing from al-Qaeda-linked militants in other countries.

The world’s next great leap forward: Towards the end of poverty

by Biodun Iginla, The Economist and BBC News

Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years. The world should aim to do the same again

IN HIS inaugural address in 1949 Harry Truman said that “more than half the people in the world are living in conditions approaching misery. For the first time in history, humanity possesses the knowledge and skill to relieve the suffering of those people.” It has taken much longer than Truman hoped, but the world has lately been making extraordinary progress in lifting people out of extreme poverty. Between 1990 and 2010, their number fell by half as a share of the total population in developing countries, from 43% to 21%—a reduction of almost 1 billion people.
Now the world has a serious chance to redeem Truman’s pledge to lift the least fortunate. Of the 7 billion people alive on the planet, 1.1 billion subsist below the internationally accepted extreme-poverty line of $1.25 a day. Starting this week and continuing over the next year or so, the UN’s usual Who’s Who of politicians and officials from governments and international agencies will meet to draw up a new list of targets to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were set in September 2000 and expire in 2015. Governments should adopt as their main new goal the aim of reducing by another billion the number of people in extreme poverty by 2030.

Take a bow, capitalism

Nobody in the developed world comes remotely close to the poverty level that $1.25 a day represents. America’s poverty line is $63 a day for a family of four. In the richer parts of the emerging world $4 a day is the poverty barrier. But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short. They lack not just education, health care, proper clothing and shelter—which most people in most of the world take for granted—but even enough food for physical and mental health. Raising people above that level of wretchedness is not a sufficient ambition for a prosperous planet, but it is a necessary one.
The world’s achievement in the field of poverty reduction is, by almost any measure, impressive. Although many of the original MDGs—such as cutting maternal mortality by three-quarters and child mortality by two-thirds—will not be met, the aim of halving global poverty between 1990 and 2015 was achieved five years early.
The MDGs may have helped marginally, by creating a yardstick for measuring progress, and by focusing minds on the evil of poverty. Most of the credit, however, must go to capitalism and free trade, for they enable economies to grow—and it was growth, principally, that has eased destitution.
Poverty rates started to collapse towards the end of the 20th century largely because developing-country growth accelerated, from an average annual rate of 4.3% in 1960-2000 to 6% in 2000-10. Around two-thirds of poverty reduction within a country comes from growth. Greater equality also helps, contributing the other third. A 1% increase in incomes in the most unequal countries produces a mere 0.6% reduction in poverty; in the most equal countries, it yields a 4.3% cut.
China (which has never shown any interest in MDGs) is responsible for three-quarters of the achievement. Its economy has been growing so fast that, even though inequality is rising fast, extreme poverty is disappearing. China pulled 680m people out of misery in 1981-2010, and reduced its extreme-poverty rate from 84% in 1980 to 10% now.
That is one reason why (as the briefing explains) it will be harder to take a billion more people out of extreme poverty in the next 20 years than it was to take almost a billion out in the past 20. Poorer governance in India and Africa, the next two targets, means that China’s experience is unlikely to be swiftly replicated there. Another reason is that the bare achievement of pulling people over the $1.25-a-day line has been relatively easy in the past few years because so many people were just below it. When growth makes them even slightly better off, it hauls them over the line. With fewer people just below the official misery limit, it will be more difficult to push large numbers over it.
So caution is justified, but the goal can still be achieved. If developing countries maintain the impressive growth they have managed since 2000; if the poorest countries are not left behind by faster-growing middle-income ones; and if inequality does not widen so that the rich lap up all the cream of growth—then developing countries would cut extreme poverty from 16% of their populations now to 3% by 2030. That would reduce the absolute numbers by 1 billion. If growth is a little faster and income more equal, extreme poverty could fall to just 1.5%—as near to zero as is realistically possible. The number of the destitute would then be about 100m, most of them in intractable countries in Africa. Misery’s billions would be consigned to the annals of history.

Markets v misery

That is a lot of ifs. But making those things happen is not as difficult as cynics profess. The world now knows how to reduce poverty. A lot of targeted policies—basic social safety nets and cash-transfer schemes, such as Brazil’s Bolsa Família—help. So does binning policies like fuel subsidies to Indonesia’s middle class and China’s hukou household-registration system (see article) that boost inequality. But the biggest poverty-reduction measure of all is liberalising markets to let poor people get richer. That means freeing trade between countries (Africa is still cruelly punished by tariffs) and within them (China’s real great leap forward occurred because it allowed private business to grow). Both India and Africa are crowded with monopolies and restrictive practices.
Many Westerners have reacted to recession by seeking to constrain markets and roll globalisation back in their own countries, and they want to export these ideas to the developing world, too. It does not need such advice. It is doing quite nicely, largely thanks to the same economic principles that helped the developed world grow rich and could pull the poorest of the poor out of destitution.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Pony visits liquor store, and then pisses on rug

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Published: May 29, 2013 at 5:05 PM

by Alyssa Mann, BBC News roving reporter, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla

WARREN, R.I., May 29 -- A Rhode Island man whose pony soiled a rug inside a liquor store said he brought the animal inside the business on a dare.
Rick Lima, a worker at Patriot Wine and Spirits, said he and his coworkers were floored when Bill Saviano brought his pony, Willy Wonka, into the Warren store with him when he bought a bottle of wine Monday.
"We were just completely shocked by it. When I got the picture of it, I couldn't believe it. I was absolutely cracking up," Lima said.
He said the visit was all fun and games until Willy Wonka decided he couldn't wait until he was outside to make a mess on the rug right by the exit.
Lima said a woman started to come into the store and turned around when she saw the scene.
"She saw the horse, she was intrigued by it, it looked like. And then she just comes back and as she's coming, stepping back through she notices it on the ground and did not want any part of that, that's for sure," Lima said.
Workers said a friend accompanying Saviano cleaned up most of the mess and employees set the rug aside. Managers contacted police and Saviano came back to finish cleaning up the mess.
The managers said they don't want to take any legal action, but they would appreciate if Saviano would pay to have the rug cleaned.
Saviano said the incident was a dare from a friend.
"I love pranks. Nobody got hurt, very innocent," said Saviano.

Topics: Rhode Island

Colombian rebel rejects peace talks deadline

May 29, 7:07 PM EDT

by Enrique Krause and Biodun Iginla, BBC News

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Friday, May 31, 2013

Zumba fitness instructor sentenced to 10 months for prostitution

BREAKING NEWS: US and Germany urge Russia not to arm Syria military

Middle East

by Biodun Iginla and Natalie de Vallieres, BBC News

More on This Story

Syria's crisis will drag on for years: An Analysis

Intel dilemma in Boston, London, Paris attacks

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Nigeria lawmakers pass anti-gay marriage bill

Nigeria: Hezbollah armoury discovered in Kano city

Africa

by Tokun Lawal and Biodun Iginla, BBC News, Lagos

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The world’s next great leap forward: Towards the end of poverty

by Biodun Iginla, The Economist and BBC News

Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years. The world should aim to do the same again

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Pony visits liquor store, and then pisses on rug

Colombian rebel rejects peace talks deadline

Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Friday, May 31, 2013

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Thursday, May 30, 2013

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Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years. The world should aim to do the same again

Wednesday, May 29, 2013