INTERNATIONAL THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2015

Troubled edges towards formation of new pro-Europe govt CHISINAU: Three pro-Europe Moldovan parties European integration. But with only 52 seats in the Natalia Gherman, who also doubles as foreign minis- 2009, after years of communist rule, despite relying announced yesterday they had agreed to form a new 101-seat parliament, the three parties have only a ter, may be asked to stay on though Education hugely on Russian energy supplies and the presence ruling coalition to produce a government to pilot the slender majority in a country where a considerable Minister also is a possibility, commenta- of a pro-Russia self-proclaimed statelet called country towards integration with the European part of the 3.5 million population is Russian-speak- tors said. Another pressing task for any new govern- Transdniestria within its borders. Union and unlock fresh foreign funding. ing, many of whom favour closer economic ties with ment will be to trace the $1 billion - equivalent to But economic mismanagement and a failure to The small ex-Soviet state, sandwiched between Moscow. Moldova’s political instability has held up one eighth of Moldovan gross domestic product - tackle corruption has kept nostalgia for Soviet times Ukraine and EU member Romania, has been in tur- agreement on a new programme with the which disappeared from three of the country’s high among large section of the population. moil after a banking scandal involving the disappear- International Monetary Fund which has in turn largest banks, bringing thousands of people onto the Gaburici himself stepped down in June after his ance of $1 billion from the banking system and the blocked disbursement of EU budgetary support. streets of the capital in protest. educational credentials were challenged by the resignation of Prime Minister in June. The first task of the new coalition will be to decide Liberal party leader Mihai Ghimpu, one of the opposition. Economic turbulence in Russia, Moldova’s A statement said the Liberal-Democratic Party of for- on a prime minister. Filat led the government from three coalition leaders, reiterated on Wednesday that main trading partner, has hit the pace of Moldova’s mer prime minister , the Democratic party September 2009 but was forced from office in March finding the missing cash should be given top priority growth in 2015 while Russian involvement in the sep- and the Liberal party had agreed in the early hours 2013 following charges that his government had by any new government. aratist conflict in neighbouring Ukraine has brought on Wednesday to form a new coalition dedicated to been involved in corruption. Acting prime minister Moldova embarked on a pro-Europe course in further concern to its pro-EU leaders. — Reuters Spain to seek Syrian govt help to find journalists

MADRID: Spain said yesterday that it is trying on Yasuda. The three Spanish journalists, who to establish what happened to three Spanish entered Syria separately from Yasuda, were first freelance journalists who went missing around reported missing Tuesday by a Spanish journal- the embattled northern Syrian city of Aleppo as ism association. news emerged that a fourth journalist, a In another interview late Tuesday, Catala, the Japanese national, has gone missing in the war- Spanish justice minister, said it was necessary “to torn country. find out what happened, who is holding these Justice Minister Rafael Catala told Spain’s journalists, why, and if the possible captors are Cadena SER radio the government had no news looking for a ransom.” regarding the three Spaniards and will contact Also in Madrid, Foreign Minister Margallo the government in Damascus over the case. said Spain’s National Intelligence Center was Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia handling the case and that such cases depend- Margallo told reporters that such cases caused ed a lot on the movements of other parties much anxiety “because you have a certain sense involved but added that “all the precedents were of impotence, because you’re dependent on the good.” Three Spanish journalists were released in movements of those who have kidnapped our March 2014 after being held hostage by extrem- compatriots.” So far, the government has not ists for months in Syria. It is widely believed that specifically said if it is treating the case as a kid- their government paid a ransom for their napping. Margallo urged “maximum discretion” release, although it has not been officially con- in the case but called for “tranquility,” saying sim- firmed. Margallo also told reporters that the ilar situations in the past had ended well for government was in constant contact with Spain. With the rise of the Islamic State group Spanish embassy in Ankara, Turkey, which han- and a spate of journalists’ abductions starting in dles Syria. Madrid had also contacted U.N. spe- mid-2013, most media organizations have opted cial envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura, who was to stay away from coverage inside Syria because scheduled to travel from Beirut to Damascus on of the unacceptable risk level. Over the last year, Wednesday, and embassies of other countries in it has become rare for any foreign journalists to the region, he added. go into northern Syria, where a myriad of Islamic groups and the more extremist IS and al-Qaida Risky place group rule. The four-year conflict in Syria has killed more A Spanish journalism association first report- than 220,000 people and has been the most CEYLANPINAR: Police officers carry a coffin into a funeral vehicle after two police officers were found shot dead in their homeylanpinar, inCe a ed on Tuesday that the three - identified as deadly country in the world for journalists for town near Turkey’s border with Syria, yesterday. Governor for Sanliurfa province, Izzettin Kucuk, said it was not immediately clear if the attack Antoniu Pampliega, Jose Manuel Lopez and the past few years. At least 84 journalists have against the policemen who were sharing a house, was terrorism-linked. The assault comes two days after a bomb attack in the nearby the town Angel Sastre - were missing since July 13. They been killed since 2011 in Syria, according to the of Suruc, also near the Syrian border, killed tens of people and wounded nearly 100. — AP had traveled to Syria, presumably together, to New York-based Committee to Protect report on the country’s long-running civil war. Journalists, including at least 12 international “An effort has been underway since then to correspondents. More than 90 journalists have South Sudan troops ‘crushed search and locate them,” a statement from their been abducted in the country since the conflict families said. began and approximately 25 are currently miss- ing, most of them local, it said. Dangerous assignment “The disappearance of these four journalists civilians with tanks’: HRW The three are the latest journalists to become underscores that Syria remains an extremely ensnared in the world’s most dangerous assign- risky place for the press,” said CPJ’s Middle East ment for reporters. A fourth journalist, a Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour from People flee into swamps to escape Japanese freelancer, has also been reported Washington. missing in Syria where he was last heard from An unprecedented spate of kidnappings by one month ago. Islamic State militants starting in summer 2013 NAIROBI: South Sudanese government troops vehicles, raking hiding places with machine guns. Liberation Army (SPLA), launched a major offen- It is not known why Jumpei Yasuda, who has has kept most journalists away, particularly since crushed fleeing civilians with tanks, then reversed “They were hunting for cows and people,” one sive against rebel forces in April, with fierce fight- been reporting on the Middle East since 2002, the group began killing foreign journalists and to check they had killed them, carried out public woman in the Koch area of Unity state said. ing in Unity, once a key oil producing area. has not been in contact. Yasuda was taken aid workers it holds, starting with American gang rapes and burned people alive, a rights group Other victims recount government soldiers cas- Rebel forces have also been accused of carry- hostage in Iraq in 2004, with three other journalist James Foley in August last year. Foley’s said yesterday. trating a man and a 15-year old boy, all part of a ing out atrocities, including rape, killings and, like Japanese, but was freed after Islamic clerics taped beheading was followed by the killing of The report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) has deliberate tactic to drive people out of the villages, the government, the recruitment of armies of negotiated his release. American-Israeli journalist Steven Sotloff, British shocking allegations of atrocities committed by HRW said. child soldiers. Kosuke Tsuneoka, another freelance reporter, aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, government forces in the ongoing 19-month-old HRW documented murders “of civilian women The United Nations base in the capital of Unity said Wednesday that he received a message American aid worker Peter Kassig, as well as war, documenting “deliberate attacks on civilians” and men, including children and the elderly, some State, Bentiu, now hosts over 100,000 civilians, from Yasuda in Syria on June 23, but has not Japanese nationals Haruna Yukawa and Kenji that it said constitute war crimes. by hanging, others by shooting, or being burned more than the ruined town itself, which has heard from him since. Goto. The group also has generated cash “They were running with the tanks after the alive.” South Sudan’s civil war began in December swapped hands between government and rebels “It is not normal that there has been no con- through holding European journalists for ran- people, and then after they hit them they would 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former several times during the war. Researchers who tact from him at all,” Tsuneoka said in a tele- som. Christophe Deloire, secretary general of roll back over them, to confirm that they were deputy Riek Machar of planning a coup, setting off have worked in South Sudan for years said the phone interview, adding that no one should Reporters Without Borders, expressed “grave dead,” one woman told HRW. The attacks were a cycle of retaliatory killings that has split the “sheer scale” of destruction has been “staggering”, jump to conclusions about Yasuda’s fate. The worries” regarding the three Spanish journalists allegedly carried out by government troops and an poverty-stricken, landlocked country along ethnic with tens of thousands of cattle stolen, the eco- Japanese Foreign Ministry said it was aware of and asked the Spanish government to use all allied militia from the Bul Nuer tribe. Another wit- lines. In a likely further worsening of the war, rebel nomic lifeline for the people. the reports but has no confirmed information means to find them. — AP ness, a 30-year-old woman, said troops in a tank forces have split after Machar sacked a key com- For this report, HRW documented 63 rape cas- hunted down her nephew. mander, the powerful warlord Peter Gadet, who es, but said they believed it was only a “fraction” “I saw him... he was crushed before he reached was slapped with United Nations sanctions earlier of the total. One woman said rape had become the river... we were running together, he ran in this month. Rebel spokesman Mabior Garang told “just a normal thing.” order to hide,” she told HRW. Another described AFP it was “an ordinary reshuffle” but declined to Victim accounts of the attacks are horrific. finding the squashed bodies of her two male rela- give details. But a diplomat monitoring stalled talks “One man put a gun to the back of my head and tives. “Their bodies had been grinded,” she said, in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa-where at least said ‘Watch how we will rape your daughter,’” a one of a string of testimonies documented in the seven ceasefires have been agreed and then rapid- victim told HRW. HRW report, titled “They Burned it All”, based on ly broken-said it would make striking a lasting deal Another woman said soldiers, “only raped me interviews with 174 victims and witnesses from the harder. “Any further fracturing of opposition forces once because they saw I had recently given birth.” northern battleground state of Unity. makes a paper agreement harder to be implement- There was no immediate response from South ed on the ground,” the diplomat said. Sudan’s government, which has said it is also Rebel split risks worsening war investigating a recent UN report on alleged atroc- Civilians fled into swamps to escape, but troops Rape a ‘normal thing’ ities by its troops, including reports that soldiers chased them down using amphibious armoured The government side, the Sudan People’s raped then burned girls alive. — AFP Enter Blair as UK’s Labour threatens leftward lurch

LONDON: Tony Blair rarely gets involved with terity measures, was a vocal campaigner against slick former minister under Blair and Gordon Brown MELILLA: Spanish police escort a man on the tarmac of an airport of the Spanish Britain’s Labour these days but the risk his party the Iraq war and wants to scrap Britain’s nuclear who has tacked to the left in recent years, favourite enclave of Melilla yesterday. Police in Spain’s north African territory Melilla arrested could pick an old-fashioned left-winger as leader weapons. to win at 6/5, with Corbyn second at 2/1. a man suspected of recruiting women for the armed jihadist group Islamic State, the prompted him to do so yesterday, as his legacy But it is clear that he has caught the imagina- government said yesterday. Spanish police working with Moroccan security services looms over the contest. Labour in ‘emotional trauma’ tion of many Labour members and supporters seized the man overnight in an investigation into gangs suspected of recruiting While still vilified by many for leading Britain Most Labour insiders believe it is unlikely thanks to his clearly expressed, traditional left-wing women and minors to send them to Syria and Iraq. — AFP into the Iraq war from 2003, Blair is Labour’s Corbyn will actually win the leadership race, partic- policies. These contrast with what some Labour longest-serving prime minister and believes the ularly amid questions over the reliability of polls supporters now see as the compromises of the party would not be electable if it picks Jeremy after their failure to predict May’s election result. Blair years which they say took the party too far Eurotunnel wants French, British Corbyn as its next leader. There are signs it could Bookmakers Ladbrokes make Andy Burnham, a away from its socialist roots. —AFP be about to do so, as other candidates have strug- govts to pay migrant costs gled to make an impact outside Westminster. A PARIS: Channel Tunnel operator migrant situation ... There are not enough new YouGov/Times opinion poll has put the beard- Eurotunnel wants the French and British police on the ground. Our job is to be a ed Corbyn, whose views one colleague said were governments to reimburse it for close to 10 transport company, not to do a police job,” the closest thing Britain had to those of Greece’s million euros ($11 million) it spent to beef he told a news conference. hard-left Syriza, ahead of his three rivals. up security to cope with a migrant crisis at Eurotunnel said it had made a request to Labour will announce its new leader on the French port of Calais. the Channel Tunnel Intergovernmental September 12 after Ed Miliband stepped down in Around 5,000 migrants, dislocated by Commission, the Franco-British regulator of May. He quit in the wake of a crushing election war, political turmoil and poverty, are living economic and safety issues related to the defeat by Prime Minister David Cameron’s in makeshift camps in and around Calais, tunnel, for 9.7 million euros to be reim- Conservatives which notably saw Labour lose all making daily attempts to board lorries and bursed. That would be in addition to 4.7 mil- but one of its seats in Scotland, a former heartland. trains heading to Britain where they hope lion euros, which Eurotunnel said the British Blair and Corbyn could hardly be more different. to find work or claim asylum. government had agreed to pay to create a Blair, prime minister for 10 years from 1997, devot- At least four people have died in and ‘secure zone’ at Calais to protect lorries ed his career to dragging Labour to the centre around the tunnel since the end of June. heading for England from migrants trying ground. As it unveiled a 9 percent rise in first-half to enter the country illegally. “When people say my heart says I should really core profit to 252 million euros ($275 mil- “The increase in pressure from migrants be with that (leftwing) politics-well, get a trans- lion) on Wednesday, Eurotunnel said it in Calais led to disruption to services during plant, because that’s just dumb,” Blair, tanned and spent 13 million euros on security in the June and could lead to further disruptions in an open-neck shirt and dark suit, told a packed period, the same as for the whole of last to traffic and to additional security expendi- meeting of Labour supporters in London. year. Eurotunnel services have recently seen ture in the second half of the year,” “You win from the centre, you win when you disruptions due to migrants attempting to Eurotunnel said in a statement. appeal to a broad cross section of the public, you reach Britain, and Chief Executive Jacques The French transport and interior min- win when you support business as well as unions. LONDON: Contender for leader of Britain’s Labour party Jeremy Corbyn outside his campaign Gounon said that French authorities were istries had no immediate comment while You don’t win from a traditional leftist platform.” headquarters in north London, yesterday. Labour is seeking a new leader to rebuild the party not doing enough. British authorities could not be immediately Nicknamed “Comrade Corbyn” by the press, the after losing May’s General Election to the Conservative party, and left-wing candidate Corbyn’s “Public authorities underestimate the reached for comment. —Reuters 66-year-old backbench lawmaker, who usually message seems to have found strong support among party members, according to media wears a worn beige jacket and slacks, opposes aus- reports yesterday. — AP