Obama marks the symbolic end of Iraq operations

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama marks the symbolic date of the end of US combat operations in Iraq on Tuesday, seven years after an invasion he opposed and at a time when the country still seems far from being stabilized.

Speaking from the Oval Office, Obama will address Americans in a nationally televised speech at 8 pm (midnight GMT). Before that he will go to a military base in Texas to meet with soldiers who have recently returned from Iraq.

The size of the US force in Iraq has dropped below a symbolic threshold of 50,000 troops. Starting Monday, their mission will be to “advise and support” the Iraqi army.

Under a timetable set by Obama when he took office, all US troops are supposed to be out by the end of 2011, although officials have said a small residual military presence is likely to remain indefinitely.

Iraqi officials, worried about a surge in attacks and a five-month-old political impasse that has blocked the formation of a new government, have expressed concern that the US military may be moving to the exits too quickly.

Just last week, 53 people were killed and hundreds were wounded by a dozen coordinated car bombings in 10 cities and towns across the country, the latest in a rash of attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Iraq's top army officer told AFP earlier this month that he feared worsening security problems after the Americans leave, and said they should stay until the Iraqi military is fully ready - in 2020.

But the White House has insisted that the Iraqis are capable of providing for their own security now, and the top US general said only a “complete failure” of the local security forces could lead to a resumption of US combat operations.

Obama assured Americans in an interview on NBC television Sunday that the timing was right for a drawdown.

“What you've seen is lower and lower levels of violence. The Iraqi security forces are functioning at least as well if not better than any of us had anticipated,” Obama said.

Alluding to the Iraqi's failure to form a new government, Obama said the political difficulties were “natural in a fledgling democracy. But we are confident that that will get done.”

During his speech, only the second of his presidency to use the solemn setting of the Oval Office, Obama is expected to raise the other major theater of US military operations: Afghanistan, where the president chose to escalate, tripling the number of US troops since the start of his mandate.

Insurgent violence there has intensified as the United States has pivoted from Iraq.

Though a vehement critic of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, when he was a state legislator in Illinois, Obama argues the war in Afghanistan is justified because the Taliban's Al-Qaeda allies pose a threat to the security of the United States.

The speech will also give Obama an opportunity to pay homage to US soldiers. More than a million have been deployed in Iraq since 2003 and some 4,400 lost their lives there.

He has consistently drawn a distinction between the political decision to invade and the performance of US troops on the ground. – AFP

Pakistan will not drop players without proof: PCB

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will not suspend any players being investigated for alleged corruption without proof of wrongdoing, Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ijaz Butt says.

A newspaper report alleging three players had been bribed to fix incidents in last week's fourth test against England has rocked the cricketing world and probes by British police and the International Cricket Council (ICC) are underway.

London police confiscated the mobile phones of test captain Salman Butt as well as pace bowlers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif, and the trio – plus wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal – have been questioned at the team's hotel.

“There is a case going on over here with Scotland Yard,” Ijaz told website cricinfo.com.

“This is only an allegation. There is still no charge or proof on that account. So at this stage there will be no action taken.”

The Pakistan team arrived in Taunton in west England on Monday to play a warm-up game for a seven-match one-day series against England which starts on Sunday.

The ICC's anti-corruption unit has been asked to submit a report on its investigation within the next three days.

ICC president Sharad Pawar told reporters on Monday the issue had been discussed in a teleconference by the head of the council's Anti-Corruption and Security Unit Ravi Sawani, Ijaz and his English counterpart Giles Clarke.

“We at the ICC are waiting for definite information from the PCB and our own anti-corruption unit. We hope to get something in the next two to three days' time and that information would lead to appropriate action, if required,” he said.

Pawar has ruled out the possibility of Pakistan cutting short their tour of England.

ROTTEN TOMATOES

ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat said anti-corruption officials were assisting Londonpolice with the criminal investigation and would ensure “appropriate punishments” for any players found guilty.

“We will not tolerate corruption in this great game,” Lorgat said in a statement.

On Monday, the police said they had released on bail a 35-year-old man who had been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud bookmakers following the report in Britain's News of the World newspaper.

According to the report, Mazhar Majeed, an agent who claimed to represent 10 Pakistanplayers including Butt, said Amir and Asif had bowled three no-balls between them by pre-arrangement in the fourth test against England which finished on Sunday.

The newspaper report also cast doubt on the second test between Pakistan and Australia in Sydney this year when Australia made a remarkable comeback to win by 36 runs after overcoming a 206-run first-innings deficit.

The scandal has outraged cricket fans in Pakistan where protestors in Lahore threw rotten tomatoes at donkeys who had the names of the players accused of taking bribes stuck on their foreheads.

“These players have let us and the country down. We are already facing so many problems because of the floods and terrorism and they took away our one source of happiness,” one protestor told a television channel. – Reuters

No clue to abducted labourers

CHITRAL: There was no clue to the whereabouts of 10 labourers, kidnapped by Afghan Taliban from a forest near Kalash valley on Saturday night, police sources said on Monday.

They said that it was, however, an established fact that the kidnapped labourers had been taken to Nuristan province of Afghanistan. They said that the kidnappers had made a demand from the local administration for the safe release of the kidnapped labourers.

Meanwhile, the students of Chitral have appreciated the establishment of the dealing office of Benazir Bhutto Shaheed University Sherignal, Upper Dir, in Chitral to facilitate them.

Talking to Dawn here on Monday, Ali Sher, Hayatur Rahman and others said that setting up the office of the university in Chitral was highly welcomed in the relevant circles.

They said that the university should accelerate its efforts to open a sub-campus in Chitral and post-graduate classes in some disciplines of science, humanities, information technology and business management should be started.

Dutch arrest two men on US flight

AMSTERDAM: Dutch police Monday arrested two men on a US flight whose luggage reportedly contained box cutters, knives, and a cellphone taped to a Pepto-Bismol bottle.

ABC News reported that the pair were charged with “preparing a terrorist attack,” but Dutch airport police would say only that the men were arrested at Schipol airport Monday morning “at the request of the judicial police.” The US Department of Homeland Security told AFP it had informed Dutch authorities that two men travelling from Chicago to Amsterdam had packed “suspicious items” in their luggage.

But the department declined to say whether it had requested the arrest of the two men, and how and why they were allowed to board the flight despite the discovery of multiple suspect objects in at least one of their bags.

A law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP that neither man had “prohibited items on their persons or their carry-on luggage.” The official also said there were federal air marshals on the flight the men took from Chicago to the Netherlands.

ABC News identified the men as Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al-Soofi and Hezam al-Murisi, and said Soofi was from Yemen, citing one of the man's neighbors.

The men boarded United Airlines 908 flight from Chicago, Illinois to Amsterdam despite a slew of security concerns, beginning in Birmingham, Alabama, where Soofi appears to have started his journey.

Airport screeners there reportedly stopped him because of his “bulky clothing.” They uncovered he was carrying 7,000 dollars in cash, and then opened his luggage, ABC News said.

There they found a cellphone taped to a Pepto-Bismol bottle, three cellphones taped together and several watches taped together, but because no explosives were discovered, he was cleared for the flight to Chicago.

Once at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, he appears to have checked his luggage on a flight bound for Yemen, with scheduled stops in both Washington's Dulles airport and Dubai. But he did not board the flight.

Instead, he was joined by Murisi, ABC said, and the pair boarded a flight to Amsterdam.

The flight carrying Soofi's luggage reportedly travelled to Washington's Dulles airport, from where it was about to depart to Dubai and then on to Yemen when officials learned his bags were on board but he was not.

The plane was ordered to return to the gate, where the baggage was removed, though officials said no explosives were detected.

Soofi and Murisi were detained when their flight arrived in Amsterdam. – AFP

UN climate panel ordered to make fundamental reforms

UNITED NATIONS: An international review panel on Monday called on the UN global climate change body to carry out fundamental reforms after embarrassing errors in a landmark report dented its credibility.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was caught in an international storm after it admitted its landmark 2007 report exaggerated the speed at which Himalayas glaciers were melting.

The review panel said the IPCC has been “successful overall” but called for leadership changes, stricter guidelines on source material and a check on conflicts of interest.

The five-month probe ordered by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the IPCC should have a stronger scientific basis for making its predictions and recommended an overhaul of the position of IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri.

The InterAcademy Council, which groups 15 leading science academies, was brought in after an uproar over the IPCC's 2007 study, which highlighted evidence that climate change was already hurting the planet.

In the run-up to a climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009, the IPCC was rocked by a scandal involving leaked emails which critics say showed that they skewed data.

The mistake over the Himalayan glaciers -- a claim which was found to be sourced to a magazine article -- and an earlier error over how much of the Netherlands is below sea level also tainted the IPCC's image.

“I think the errors made did dent the credibility of the process -- there's no question about it,” said Harold Shapiro, a former president of Princeton University who led the review.

“Trust is something you have to earn every year,” he told reporters. “We think what we recommended will help.” The IPCC has admitted its mistakes but insisted its core conclusions about climate change are sound.

The review said the glacier reference showed the IPCC did not pay close enough attention to dissenting viewpoints.

“There were a number of reviewers who pointed out that this didn't seem quite right to them and that just was not followed through,” Shapiro said.

The UN review said guidelines on source material for the IPCC were “too vague” and called for specific language, and enforcement, on what types of literature are unacceptable.

The review called for a new chief executive to run the IPCC and for the chairmanship to become a part-time post with a new holder for each landmark study carried out.

Pachauri, an Indian scientist primarily employed by the TERI think-tank, has come under criticism, with some arguing he had a vested interest due to his business dealings with carbon trading companies. He has strongly denied any conflict of interest however.

Pachauri told a press conference after the report that he would let member-states decide his future. The 194 nation IPCC is to hold a general meeting in Busan, South Korea in October.

The IPCC chairman criticized what he called “ideologically driven posturing” in the attacks on the climate group, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former US vice president Al Gore.

Ban said the review had in no way weakened the strength of basic climate science but he said nations had to act on the recommendations.

“Given the gravity of the climate challenge, the secretary general believes it is vital that the world receives the best possible climate assessments through an IPCC that operates at the highest levels of professionalism, objectivity, responsiveness and transparency,” his spokesman said in a statement.

In Brussels, European Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard also said that “after all the fights” the main findings of the 2007 report are “still unchallenged.” “The bottom line, and this report says it, is that overall the IPCC has done a very good job, but there were some minor errors and they were corrected,” she told AFP.

Environmental group Greenpeace pointed to severe weather this year -- including Pakistan's flood disaster and Russia's worst-ever heat wave -- as new evidence of global warming.

“Despite the muckraking and crude attempts to undermine the findings of the IPCC, the scientific consensus is clear, climate change represents a serious threat to the future of the environment and humanity,” Greenpeace said. – AFP

US slaps new sanctions on North Korea

WASHINGTON: The US government on Monday slapped sanctions on four people and eight organizations accused of aiding North Korea's government through illicit trade, the Treasury Department said.

President Barack Obama issued an order freezing assets and imposing travel bans, as Washington stepped up pressure after the sinking of a South Korean navy ship in March which was blamed on Pyongyang.

Obama also expanded the scope of US sanctions to cover those involved in the trade in drugs and luxury goods to and from the dirt-poor nation.

Among those targeted was a secretive branch of the Korean Worker' Party, known as Office 39, which is suspected of selling methamphetamine in China and South Korea and acquiring luxury items for North Korea's leaders.

The group is thought to be involved in a failed attempt to buy two Italian-made luxury yachts worth more than 15 million dollars for North Korea's reclusive leader, Kim Jong-Il.

“North Korea's government helps maintain its authority by placating privileged elites with money and perks such as luxury goods like jewelry, luxury cars and yachts,” said the Treasury Department's sanctions tsar Stuart Levey.

Among those also targeted were the head of North Korea's intelligence agency Kim Yong-Chol, who has been linked to the March torpedo attack that killed 46 people on the South Korean ship. Pyongyang denies any role in the attacks.

Green Pine Associated Corporation, a group said to be controlled by Kim Yong-Chol's intelligence agency, was also sanctioned.

The organization was accused of “exporting arms or related materiel from North Korea,” and is said to specialize in the production of maritime military craft and armaments.

“(Green Pine) has exported torpedoes and technical assistance to Iranian defense firms” the Treasury department said.

Other individuals, including two members of the North Korea's General Bureau of Atomic Energy were also sanctioned.

Others targeted included the head of North Korea's atomic energy bureau Ri Je-son and Ri Hong-Sop, who according to the United Nations, once ran the controversial Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center.

The center is suspected of producing fissile materiel used in nuclear weapons testing.

Talks to ease the nuclear standoff with North Korea have spluttered, but during a visit to China, North Korea's ailing leader Kim Jong-Il reportedly backed the resumption of talks Monday.

Chinese television quoted Kim as saying that North Korea's stance on ridding the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons was unchanged and the country “is not willing to see tensions on the peninsula”.

Kim pledged to remain in close consultation with China and hoped for the “early resumption” of six-party nuclear disarmament talks that also include South Korea, the United States, Japan and Russia, it said.

China hosts the six-party talks which began in 2003. The North walked out in April 2009 and staged its second atomic weapons test a month later. – AFP

Lawyer charges cricketers with treason in LHC

LAHORE: A Pakistani lawyer on Monday filed treason charges against national cricket team players facing an investigation into claims they fixed matches for money in England, he said.

Ahmed said his case will be heard in Lahore High court on Tuesday.

“In my petition to the court I’ve said that this spot-fixing amounts to dishonesty to the nation and falls under the law of treason,” said Ahmed.

“The suspected players have let the whole nation down and abrogated the constitution of the country and if they are proven guilty they should be banned for life and their assets confiscated,” lawyer Ishtiaq Ahmed told AFP.

Seven Pakistan national team players face a police investigation over the spot-fixing scandal which surfaced on Sunday in a British newspaper.

Mazhar Majeed allegedly paid money to Pakistani players to under-perform during the fourth and final Test against Lord’s, which Pakistan lost by an innings on Sunday.

Treason in Pakistan carries the death penalty. —AFP