Bombs kill 16 across Iraq as sectarian strife grows

     Tensions between Shi'ite, Kurdish and Sunni factions in Iraq's power-sharing government have been on the rise this year. Militants strike almost daily and have staged at least one big attack a month.
     The latest violence followed more than a week of protests against Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki by thousands of people from the minority Sunni community.
     No group claimed responsibility for any of Monday's attacks, which targeted government officials, police patrols and members of both the Sunni and Shi'ite sects.
     Seven people from the same Sunni family were killed by a bomb planted near their home in the town of Mussayab, south of Baghdad.
     In the Shi'ite majority city of Hilla, also in the south, a parked car bomb went off near the convoy of the governor of Babil province, missing him but killing two other people, police said.
"We heard the sound of a big explosion and the windows of our office shattered. We immediately lay on the ground," said 28-year-old Mohammed Ahmed, who works at a hospital near the site of the explosion.
"After a few minutes I stood up and went to the windows to see what happened. I saw flames and people lying on the ground."
     In the capital Baghdad, five people were killed by a parked car bomb targeting pilgrims before a Shi'ite religious rite this week, police and hospital sources said.
     Although violence is far lower than during the sectarian slaughter of 2006-2007, about 2,000 people have been killed in Iraq this year following the withdrawal last December of U.S. troops, who led an invasion in 2003 to overthrow Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein.
SUNNIS PROTEST
     Monday's violence also included a series of blasts that killed three people in Iraq's disputed territories, over which both the central government and the autonomous Kurdish region claim jurisdiction.
     Two of those deaths were in the oil-producing, ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, where a bomb exploded as a police team tried to defuse it.
     Baghdad and Kurdistan are locked in a feud over land and oil rights and recently deployed their respective armies to the swathe of territory along their contested internal boundary, where they are currently facing off against one other.
     Efforts to ease the standoff stalled when President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd seen as a steadying influence, suffered a stroke and was flown abroad for medical care in December.
     Maliki then detained the bodyguards of his Sunni finance minister, which ignited anti-government protests in the western province of Anbar, a Sunni stronghold on the border with Syria.
     A lecturer in law at Baghdad University said the protests could help create the conditions for militant Islamist groups like al Qaeda to thrive.
"Raising tension in Anbar and other provinces with mainly Sunni populations is definitely playing into the hands of al Qaeda and other insurgent groups," Ahmed Younis said.
     More than 1,000 people protested in the city of Samarra on Monday and rallies continued in Ramadi, centre of the protests, and in Mosul, where about 500 people took to the streets.
     Protesters are demanding an end to what they see as the marginalization of Sunnis, who dominated the country until the U.S.-led invasion. They want Maliki to abolish anti-terrorism laws they say are used to persecute them.
     On Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq, himself a Sunni, was forced to flee a protest in Ramadi when demonstrators pelted him with stones and bottles.
     The civil war in neighboring Syria, where majority Sunnis are fighting to topple a ruler backed by Shi'ite Iran, is also whipping up sectarian sentiment in Iraq.
"The toppling of President Bashar al-Assad and empowerment of Sunnis (in Syria) will definitely encourage al Qaeda to regain ground," Younis said.

Fonte: Reuters

Brincadeira na internet usa foto de militar são-luizense morto no Haiti

     Desde a semana passada, uma brincadeira tem circulado nas páginas do Facebook, uma das principais redes sociais em todo o mundo. Uma foto do são-luizense Rodrigo da Rocha Klein, mais conhecido como Nenê ou Soldado Klein, morto em 2 de agosto de 2007 quando estava atuando nas Forças de Paz no Haiti, está sendo usada na página conhecida como “Pânico Delivery”. Na foto, o rapaz teve modificado por Photoshop o seu nome “Klein” para “USB”, ou “CABO USB”, fazendo alusão a conexão de cabos em um computador.

     Vários são-luizenses comentaram na foto e muitos até compartilharam a brincadeira, sem se dar conta de que se tratava de um conterrâneo. Outros mostraram indignação, solicitando que a página fosse denunciada. Ao saber do ocorrido, a mãe de Rodrigo, Rosângela Maria da Rocha Klein procurou a Delegacia de Polícia local, a fim de fazer um Boletim de Ocorrência, sendo atendida pela delegada Tanea Bratz. A delegada informou que na tarde desta terça-feira estava terminando de digitar a representação para a quebra de sigilo das páginas do Facebook, que tem escritório no Rio de Janeiro, processo este que poderá demorar de 30 até 45 dias.

     Conforme Tanea Bratz, a demora se deve por não termos uma delegacia especializada em crimes da Internet, a exemplo de centros maiores e citou o ocorrido com a atriz Carolina Dieckman, que teve fotos íntimas expostas na rede e teve o caso solucionado em menos de uma semana, o que ocorreu por ter uma delegacia especializada trabalhando no caso. A mãe de Klein disse que ela e os irmãos farão de tudo para buscar os culpados pelo crime, que poderão pegar até dois anos de prisão, se condenados.

Fonte: Jornal da Missões

Jovem vítima de estupro na Índia luta pela vida em hospital de Cingapura

     A indiana de 23 anos sofreu danos no cérebro e precisa da ajuda de equipamentos médicos para respirar. Ela chegou à Cingapura na quinta-feira depois de ter sido submetida a três cirurgias na Índia.
"A paciente está lutando contra as estatísticas, lutando para sobreviver", disse nesta sexta-feira Kelvin Loh, que é diretor do hospital Mount Elizabeth de Cingapura.
"A investigação da nossa equipe médica logo que ela chegou ao hospital ontem mostrou que além de uma parada cardíaca, ela também teve infecção no pulmão e no abdômen, além de dano cerebral."
     Loh disse que a equipe de especialistas está "trabalhando sem descanso para tratá-la desde que ela chegou, e está fazendo tudo que é possível para estabilizar a sua condição nos próximos dias".
     A família da jovem também viajou a Cingapura.
Protestos nacionais
     O ataque, ocorrido há duas semanas, levou a uma série de protestos violentos na Índia, com manifestantes pedindo o fim da impunidade para pessoas acusadas de estupro. Um policial morreu durante um dos incidentes.
     Seis homens foram presos e dois policiais envolvidos na investigação do caso foram suspensos. O ministro do Interior da Índia, Sushil Kumar Shinde, disse que o governo decidiu mandar a jovem para o exterior, acatando uma recomendação feita pelos médicos indianos.
"Apesar dos melhores esforços dos nossos médicos, a vítima continua em estado crítico, com seu estado de saúde oscilando, o que é uma grande fonte de preocupação para todos nós."
     O governo está tentando conter a indignação da população com novas medidas de punição e prevenção a crimes de estupro.
     Entre as medidas está o aumento no número de patrulhas noturnas, a checagem de motoristas de ônibus e a proibição de vidros escuros ou cortinas em veículos de transportes público.
     O governo também prometeu publicar na internet fotos, nomes e endereços de estupradores condenados pela Justiça.
     Duas comissões foram estabelecidas – uma para acelerar o julgamento de casos de estupro e outra para examinar os erros cometidos no incidente específico de Nova Délhi.
     A jovem havia pego um ônibus com um amigo na região de Dwarka, no sudoeste da cidade, quando foi estuprada pelos passageiros por quase uma hora, espancada com barras de metal e jogada para fora com o veículo ainda em movimento.

Fonte: BBC Brasil

Syria envoy calls for political change to end conflict

     The international envoy seeking a solution to Syria's 21-month-old conflict said on Thursday political change was needed to end the violence which has killed 44,000 people, and called for a transitional government to rule until elections.

     Speaking in Damascus at the end of a five-day trip during which he met President Bashar al-Assad, Lakhdar Brahimi did not spell out detailed proposals but said that only substantial change would meet the demands of ordinary Syrians.

     Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov added to the envoy's call for a peaceful solution when he told a senior Syrian diplomat that only a "broad inter-Syria dialogue and political process" could end the crisis.

     Brahimi's push for a transitional government suggested he was trying to build on an international agreement in Geneva six months ago which said a provisional body - which might include members of Assad's government as well as the opposition - should lead the country into a new election.

     But the mainly Sunni Muslim Syrian rebels have seized the military initiative since the Geneva meeting in June and the political opposition has ruled out any transitional government in which Assad, from Syria's Alawite minority, plays a role.

     Rebel fighters resumed attacks on Thursday against the military base of Wadi Deif, which lies next to Syria's main north-south highway linking Aleppo with Damascus. Around the capital itself, Assad's forces have tried for weeks to dislodge rebels from suburbs which ring the east and south of the city.

"Certainly it was clear in Geneva, and it's even clearer now that the change which is needed is not cosmetic or superficial," Brahimi told a news conference in Damascus before leaving Syria.

"I believe the Syrian people need, want and aspire to genuine change and everyone knows what this means," he said.

"A government must be created ... with all the powers of the state," Brahimi added. He said it should hold power for a transitional period until elections - either for a new president or a new parliament - are held.

"This transitional process must not lead to the ... collapse of state institutions. All Syrians, and those who support them, must cooperate to preserve those institutions and strengthen them," he said.

     Radwan Ziadeh of the opposition Syrian National Council dismissed Brahimi's proposal as "unrealistic and fanciful" and said a transitional government could not be built on the same "security and intelligence structure as the existing regime".

TOO SOON FOR COMPLETE PLAN

     Russia's Lavrov met Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Makdad in Moscow on Thursday and underscored "the lack of an alternative to a peaceful resolution of (Syria's) internal conflict through a broad inter-Syria dialogue and political process," a Russian Foreign Ministry statement said. But it made no mention of ways to achieve those goals.

     Syrian and Lebanese sources said Makdad had been sent to Moscow to discuss details of a peace plan proposed by Brahimi.

     Brahimi is due in Moscow on Saturday and said he also expected to have a third joint meeting with U.S. and Russian officials soon following two rounds of talks earlier this month. But he denied the existence of a U.S.-Russian plan to end the crisis and said it was too soon to present a "complete plan".

"What is preferred is that we don't present such a plan until we feel that all sides have agreed to it. That way, implementing it is easy. If that doesn't happen, the other solution could be to go to the (United Nations) Security Council to issue a binding resolution for everyone," he said.

     A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman also denied any joint initiative between Moscow and Washington.

     World powers remain divided over what has become an increasingly sectarian struggle, with Sunni Muslim states such as Turkey and the Gulf Arab countries supporting the rebels while Shi'ite Iranand Hezbollah have backed Assad, whose Alawite community has its roots in Shi'ite Islam.

     Syria's struggle "has taken a vicious form of sectarian confrontation," Brahimi said. "Syrian officials foremost, as well as the international community, must not let Syria slide down this very dangerous path which threatens the future of Syria."

     Deep differences between Western powers opposed to Assad - led by the United States - and Russia and China which have supported his government, have left the U.N. Security Council paralyzed and largely sidelined throughout the conflict.

     The political stalemate has helped transform a once-peaceful uprising into a civil war in which rebels have grown in military strength and taken control of swathes of territory in the north, leaving Assad increasingly reliant on air power to curb them.

     Activists in the central province of Hama, where rebels launched an offensive last week to extend their control southwards towards the capital, reported on Thursday that rebels shot down a MiG jet near the town of Morek.

     The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors violence across Syria, said air force jets launched three raids on rebel forces around Wadi Deif. The British-based group also reported fierce clashes in the area.

     The violence has been accompanied by an escalation in apparently sectarian attacks between the Sunni Muslim majority and minorities such as Assad's Alawite sect, which has largely supported the president.

     Activists in Hama uploaded a video of what appeared to be Assad soldiers and shabbiha militia members stabbing the body of a dead man and setting it on fire. The man looked as if he had been beaten to death.

"This is a terrorist, a brother of a whore, one of those trying to destroy the country," one of the men shouted. Two men in camouflage uniforms and army helmets stood by watching. Samer al-Hamawi, an activist from Hama, said rebels in his area found the video on the phone of a soldier they captured this week.

     The video emerged a day after Islamist rebel units released footage showing the bodies of dozens of Assad's fighters along a highway near an Alawite town in Hama.

Fonte: Reuters

Ditador da Coreia do Norte teria morrido de raiva

     Pode não ter sido de um ataque cardíaco causado por estresse que morreu Kim Jong-il, o líder supremo da Coreia do Norte, no ano passado. Novos relatos dizem que o enfarto se deu durante um acesso de raiva. 

     O ex-ditador do país de regime mais fechado do planeta teria morrido depois de ser informado sobre um vazamento grave em uma usina hidrelétrica que fornece a metade da eletricidade da capital, Pyongyang. Uma fonte anônima do serviço secreto da Coreia do Sul afirma ter estado presente quando Kim foi informado sobre o vazamento, em seguida criticando funcionários em voz alta e ordenando, aos gritos, a reparação imediata.

     Ele correu para fazer uma inspeção no local da instalação e, incapaz de conter sua raiva, morreu de repente, segundo a fonte. 

A importância da hidrelétrica

     A usina Huichon foi um dos projetos de maior importância do recluso país para se tornar uma "nação poderosa e próspera", como alardeava a propaganda política em volta da hidrelétrica. A construção começou em março de 2009, com Pyongyang vangloriando que iria resolver a falta de energia crônica da capital. 

     Kim visitou o local duas vezes em 2009, quatro vezes em 2010 e duas vezes em 2011. Seu filho, o atual líder Kim Jong-un, já foi quatro vezes. Devido a pressão dos líderes ser incessante, a construção foi concluída em 5 de abril deste ano, apenas três anos após seu início e cerca de sete anos antes do previsto. 

     Mas a corrida levou a construção defeituosa e rachaduras apareceram em partes da barragem, que é de 100 m de altura e 555 m de comprimento e capaz de armazenar 850 milhões de metros cúbicos de água. 

— Não era apenas uma rachadura. A segurança da represa inteira estava em questão — disse a fonte. 

     O estresse sobre o problema em Huichon foi aparentemente a última gota, após Kim descobriu que as plantas de fabricação de aço e têxtil, também apontado como projetos-chave, tinham graves defeitos também.

Fonte: Diário Catarinense

Colhedores de chá queimam vivo dono de fazenda na Índia

     Os trabalhadores atearam fogo no bangalô em que o fazendeiro Mridul Kumar Bhattacharyya e sua esposa, Rita, viviam, em Kunapathar, no Estado de Assam.

     O incidente ocorreu na noite de quarta-feira (dia 26), após uma disputa de duas semanas entre os trabalhadores e a administração da fazenda.

     Segundo a polícia de Kunapathar, Bhattacharyya teria ordenado que alguns trabalhadores deixassem seus alojamentos na véspera do incidente. Em resposta, mais de 700 trabalhadores teriam cercado seu bangalô.

     Meenakshi Sundaram, da polícia local, contou que dois carros do dono da fazenda também foram queimados.

     Três trabalhadores teriam sido detidos em conexão com o incidente.

Antecedentes

     Há dois anos, o mesmo fazendeiro já havia enfrentado uma manifestação em outra propriedade, de acordo com autoridades indianas.

     Na ocasião, trabalhadores teriam queimado sua fábrica de chá em Guwahati, perto da capital da província de Assam, depois que Bhattacharyya supostamente disparou contra uma multidão que se reuniu perto de sua casa para protestar contra um ataque a uma mulher ocorrido na região de sua fazenda.

     Mais de metade da produção de chá da Índia vem de 800 propriedades rurais em Assam.

     Nos últimos anos, foram registrados no Estado vários ataques contra fazendeiros e administradores dessas fazendas.

Fonte: BBC Brasil

Syria to discuss Brahimi peace proposals with Russia

     Brahimi, who saw Assad on Monday and is planning to hold a series of meetings with Syrian officials and dissidents in Damascus this week, is trying to broker a peaceful transfer of power, but has disclosed little about how this might be done.

     More than 44,000 Syrians have been killed in a revolt against four decades of Assad family rule, a conflict that began with peaceful protests but which has descended into civil war.

     Past peace efforts have floundered, with world powers divided over what has become an increasingly sectarian struggle between mostly Sunni Muslim rebels and Assad's security forces, drawn primarily from his Shi'ite-rooted Alawite minority.

     Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Makdad flew to Moscow to discuss the details of the talks with Brahimi, said a Syrian security source, who would not say if a deal was in the works.

     However, a Lebanese official close to Damascus said Makdad had been sent to seek Russian advice on a possible agreement.

     He said Syrian officials were upbeat after talks with Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League envoy, who met Foreign Minister Walid Moualem on Tuesday a day after his session with Assad, but who has not outlined his ideas in public.

"There is a new mood now and something good is happening," the official said, asking not to be named. He gave no details.

     Russia, which has given Assad diplomatic and military aid to help him weather the 21-month-old uprising, has said it is not protecting him, but has fiercely criticized any foreign backing for rebels and, with China, has blocked U.N. Security Council action on Syria.

"ASSAD CANNOT STAY"

     A Russian Foreign Ministry source said Makdad and an aide would meet Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Mikhail Bogdanov, the Kremlin's special envoy for Middle East affairs, on Thursday, but did not disclose the nature of the talks.

     On Saturday, Lavrov said Syria's civil war had reached a stalemate, saying international efforts to get Assad to quit would fail. Bogdanov had earlier acknowledged that Syrian rebels were gaining ground and might win.

     Given the scale of the bloodshed and destruction, Assad's opponents insist the Syrian president must go.

     Moaz Alkhatib, head of the internationally-recognized Syrian National Coalition opposition, has criticized any notion of a transitional government in which Assad would stay on as a figurehead president stripped of real powers.

     Comments on Alkhatib's Facebook page on Monday suggested that the opposition believed this was one of Brahimi's ideas.

"The government and its president cannot stay in power, with or without their powers," Alkhatib wrote, saying his Coalition had told Brahimi it rejected any such solution.

     While Brahimi was working to bridge the vast gaps between Assad and his foes, fighting raged across the country and a senior Syrian military officer defected to the rebels.

     Syrian army shelling killed about 20 people, at least eight of them children, in the northern province of Raqqa, a video posted by opposition campaigners showed.

     The video, published by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, showed rows of blood-stained bodies laid out on blankets. The sound of crying relatives could be heard in the background.

     The shelling hit the province's al-Qahtania village, but it was unclear when the attack had occurred.

STRATEGIC BASE

     Rebels relaunched their assault on the Wadi Deif military base in the northwestern province of Idlib, in a battle for a major army compound and fuel storage and distribution point.

     Activist Ahmed Kaddour said rebels were firing mortars and had attacked the base with a vehicle rigged with explosives.

     The British-based Observatory, which uses a network of contacts in Syria to monitor the conflict, said a rebel commander was among several people killed in Wednesday's fighting, which it said was among the heaviest for months.

     The military used artillery and air strikes to try to hold back rebels assaulting Wadi Deif and the town of Morek in Hama province further south. In one air raid, several rockets fell near a field hospital in the town of Saraqeb, in Idlib province, wounding several people, the Observatory said.

     As violence has intensified in recent weeks, daily death tolls have climbed. The Observatory reported at least 190 had been killed across the country on Tuesday alone.

     The head of Syria's military police changed sides and declared allegiance to the anti-Assad revolt.

"I am General Abdelaziz Jassim al-Shalal, head of the military police. I have defected because of the deviation of the army from its primary duty of protecting the country and its transformation into gangs of killing and destruction," the officer said in a video published on YouTube.

     A Syrian security source confirmed the defection, but said Shalal was near retirement and had only defected to "play hero".

     Syrian Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim al-Shaar left Lebanon for Damascus after being treated in Beirut for wounds sustained in a rebel bomb attack this month.

Fonte: Reuters