US Gun Lobby Vows to Fight Regulation of Global Arms Trade

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In an interview with Reuters, NRA President David Keene said the Newtown massacre has not changed the powerful US gun lobby’s position on the treaty. He also made clear that the Obama administration would have a fight on its hands if it brought the treaty to the US Senate for ratification.
“We’re as opposed to it today as we were when it first appeared,” he said on Thursday. “We do not see anything in terms of the language and the preamble as being any kind of guarantee of the American people’s rights under the Second Amendment.”
The Second Amendment of the US Constitution protects the right to bear arms. Keene said the pact could require the US government to enact legislation to implement it, which the NRA fears could lead to tighter restrictions on gun ownership.
He added that such a treaty was unlikely to win the two-thirds majority in the US Senate necessary for approval.
“This treaty is as problematic today in terms of ratification in the Senate as it was six months ago or a year ago,” Keene said. Earlier this year a majority of senators wrote to Obama urging him to oppose the treaty.
UN delegates and gun-control activists say the July treaty negotiations fell apart largely because Obama, fearing attacks from Republican rival Mitt Romney before the Nov. 6 election if his administration was seen as supporting the pact, sought to kick the issue past the US vote.

Pakistan Taliban Willing to Negotiate

The head of Pakistan’s Taliban said his militia is willing to negotiate with the government but not disarm, a message delivered in a video given to Reuters on Friday.
The release of the 40-minute video follows three high-profile Taliban attacks in the northern city of Peshawar this month: an attack by multiple suicide bombers on the airport, the killing of a senior politician and eight others in a bombing and the kidnap of 22 paramilitary forces on Thursday, Reuters reported.
The attacks underline the Taliban’s ability to strike high-profile, well-protected targets even as the amount of territory it controls has shrunk and its leaders are picked off by US drones. “We believe in dialogue but it should not be frivolous,” Hakimullah Mehsud said. “Asking us to lay down arms is a joke.”
The Taliban said in a letter released Thursday that they wanted Pakistan to rewrite its laws and constitution to conform with Islamic law, break its alliance with the United States and stop interfering in the war in Afghanistan and focus on India instead. Mehsud referred to the killing of the senior politician in his speech and said the political party, the largely Pashtun Awami National Party, would continue to be a target along with other politicians.
Mehsud said although he was open to dialogue, the Pakistani government was to blame for the violence because it broke previous, unspecified deals.
Mehsud said that the Pakistan Taliban would follow the lead of the Afghan Taliban when it came to forming policy after most NATO troops withdraw from Afghanistan in 2014.
“We are Afghan Taliban and Afghan Taliban are us,” he said. “We are with them and Al-Qaeda. We are even willing to get our heads cut off for al Qaida.”

Drunken US Marine Arrested On Okinawa

A US Marine was arrested on Friday on trespassing charges in Japan’s southwestern island of Okinawa, where public outrage is growing against the American military following a rape allegedly by servicemen.
Anibal Antonio Barraza-Ortiz, 27, a Marine corporal assigned to Camp Hansen base, is suspected of having entered the veranda of an apartment in Naha city and was arrested in a drunken state early Friday on a nearby rooftop, police said. No hometown was given, AP reported.
Okinawa houses more than half the US troops in Japan under a bilateral security alliance. After the October rape, an 11 p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew was set for all military personnel in Japan, and they are not allowed to buy or consume alcohol off-base.
Anger in Okinawa is also growing against a new kind of aircraft assigned there, the Osprey. The military says is safe but people are worried the US hybrid aircraft with tilting rotors may be prone to crashes.
On November 19, the Japanese government condemned a US Marine’s trespassing on a private home in Okinawa, making it the third unlawful incident in a month.
Also in November, another US airman was arrested after entering an apartment in central Okinawa and beating a 13-year-old boy.
Residents are hesitant about the presence of US military servicemen in Okinawa, who make up more than half of the 52,000 such troops stationed all across Japan.

Britain’s Cameron Could Make EU Unravel

British Prime Minister David Cameron’s attempts to win back powers from the European Union could cause the 27-nation bloc to fall apart, its president Herman Van Rompuy said in an interview Thursday.
Cameron, who is under pressure from “eurosceptics” in his Conservative party, said last month that he still supports British membership of the EU but wants a “new settlement” that involves winning opt-outs on key issues, AFP reported.
“If every member state were able to cherry-pick those parts of existing policies that they most like, and opt out of those that they least like, the union in general, and the single market in particular, would soon unravel,” Van Rompuy told The Guardian newspaper.
“All member states can, and do, have particular requests and needs that are always taken into consideration as part of our deliberations,” he added.
“I do not expect any member state to seek to undermine the fundamentals of our co-operative system in Europe.”
Van Rompuy said changes to EU treaties under Cameron’s proposed opt-outs would involve a “lengthy and cumbersome procedure” needing the unanimous agreement of all states in the bloc.
Polls increasingly show Britons favor a full exit from the EU, which is widely perceived in Britain as meddling in domestic affairs and wasting money during a time of austerity at home.
But Cameron has so far avoided offering a clear “in-out” referendum despite pressure for clarity from his party. A keynote speech he was expected to deliver on the issue this month has been pushed back until early 2013.
Van Rompuy told the Guardian that a British departure would “see a friend walk off into the desert”.
“Britain’s contribution is greater, I think, than it sometimes realizes itself,” he said.

Victims of Afghan Raid File Suit Against Germany

Families of victims of a deadly air strike in Afghanistan that killed more than 90 people in 2009 have filed a multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuit against Germany, a lawyer said Friday.
Karim Popal, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said the 10 lawsuits were claiming 3.3 million euros ($4.4 million) in damages from the German government, AFP reported.
“Many orphans and widows lost their providers due to this barbaric war crime, and many mothers their young children,” Popal said in a statement.
“Nearly all the survivors are traumatized and are not receiving psychological treatment.”
Around 80 people are represented, according to local news agency DPA.
A spokesman for the regional court in the western city of Bonn said it had received 10 complaints claiming damages from the German government but declined to provide further details.
Popal had already filed class-action lawsuits in 2011 demanding $33,000 per victim and said the plaintiffs were still awaiting a ruling from the same court in Bonn.
In response to a sharp rise in attacks on foreign forces, a German commander on September 4, 2009 called in a raid near the northern Afghan city of Kunduz. The strike claimed 91 victims according to the German government and up to 142 people including dozens of civilians according to Afghan officials.
The bombing prompted public outrage just weeks before a German general election, forcing the defense minister at the time to resign and putting Chancellor Angela Merkel under pressure to clearly define her Afghan policy.
The defense ministry approved compensation in 2010 of $5,000 per family.
A ministry spokesman said 90 families had received payouts to date.
Germany currently has around 4,800 troops in Afghanistan, the third largest contingent under NATO’s International Security Assistance Force.

Afghanistan Withdrawal
Moreover, Australian troops have begun their withdrawal from Afghanistan and millions of dollars worth of equipment, including heavily armed ASLAV fighting vehicles, is already on its way home.
The Australian Defense Force commander in the Middle East area of operations, Michael Crane, told The Australian the bulk of Australia’s 1550 army, navy and air force personnel in Afghanistan was preparing to leave over the coming year and some had gone already, The Australian reported.
“What I’m saying to the guys up in Afghanistan is that the end is coming,” Major General Crane said. “There’s no doubt about that.”
Australian troops were first deployed to Afghanistan in November 2001 as part of a US-led, multi-national force to oust the Taliban and hunt for Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin-Laden in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks.
Since then, 39 Australian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan.

Indian Teen ‘Kills Self After Pressed to Drop Rape Case’

A 17-year-old Indian girl who was gang-raped committed suicide after police pressured her to drop the case and marry one of her attackers, police and a relative said on Thursday.
Amid the ongoing uproar over the gang-rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi earlier this month, the latest case has again shone the spotlight on the police’s handling of sex crimes, AFP reported.
One police officer has been sacked and another suspended over their conduct after the assault during the festival of Diwali on November 13 in the Patiala region in the Punjab, according to officials.
The teenager was found dead on Wednesday night after swallowing poison.
Inspector General Paramjit Singh Gill said that the teenager had been “running from pillar to post to get her case registered” but officers failed to open a formal inquiry.
“One of the officers tried to convince her to withdraw the case,” Gill, the police chief for the Patalia area, told AFP.
Before her death, there had been no arrests over her case although three people were detained on Thursday. Two of them were her alleged male attackers and the third was a woman accomplice. The victim’s sister told Indian television that the teenager had been urged to either accept a cash settlement or marry one of her attackers.
“The police started pressuring her to either reach a financial settlement with her attackers or marry one of them,” her sister told the NDTV network.
Gang-rapes are a near daily occurrence in India where official figures show that 228,650 of the total 256,329 violent crimes recorded last year were against women.
The real figures is thought to be much higher as so many women are reluctant to go to report attacks to the police.

Spain’s Iberia Airline Crew Protest Planned Job Cuts

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“Spain is a country that lives because of tourism so Iberia’s problem does not only affect 4,500 workers it could be more, 6,000 or more if we don’t stop them, but a lot of indirect jobs around the airport (will be affected as well),” she added.
The protesters say the cuts benefit the United Kingdom’s British Airways with which Iberia merged in 2011.
Last month IAG, which was formed by the merger, posted a 96 percent fall in nine-month operating profits to just 17 million euros.
This was pulled lower by a 262 million euro operating loss at Iberia, while BA posted a nine-month operating profit of 286 million euros.

Strikes Called Off
Doctors in Spain’s Madrid region called off a strike on Friday after failing to halt plans to privatize six hospitals and dozens of clinics.
The Madrid regional government aims to save 200 million euros ($265 million) by putting the hospitals and clinics under private management. The region’s elected assembly approved the plan on Thursday.
Spain has implemented tough austerity measures this year to help it reach a European Union-agreed budget deficit target and stave off a bailout. The country’s 17 autonomous regions control their own spending on healthcare and education. The strike lasted for five weeks, during which doctors only saw patients on Fridays.

US Drone Strike

US drones targeting a suspected militant compound on Friday killed four people in Pakistan’s restive tribal region near the Afghan border, security officials said.