Modern Sinbad

Thursday, 5 May 2016

In first, civic campaign vies for power in Beirut vote

BEIRUT (AFP) -

Armed with a 10-point platform and a shot of ambition, an unlikely alliance of Lebanese citizens will for the first time take on Beirut's powerful political class in Sunday's municipal elections.

Beirut Madinati -- Arabic for "Beirut is my city" -- is a civic campaign of 24 candidates, equally split between men and women, and Muslims and Christians.

And they aren't backed by politicians, which makes them a breath of fresh air for many voters in a country as divided as Lebanon.

"We don't have a lot of political experience as Beirut Madinati, but we've been able to win people's hearts because we're independent," says Ibrahim Mneimneh, an architect by trade and the campaign's leading candidate.

"When election day comes, we'll be ready to win," Mneimneh says, hoping to capture the majority of the 470,000 registered Beirut voters, although the city's actual residents are estimated to be four times as many.

Municipal elections in Lebanon take place every six years, with political parties often forming joint candidate lists.

Sunday's vote is the first of any kind in Lebanon since the last municipal elections in 2010.

A parliamentary vote in 2013 was cancelled when its members controversially extended their own mandate.

Since the end of its brutal civil war in 1990, Lebanon's political scene has been dominated by a handful of parties often formed along sectarian lines and led by former warlords.

Beirut Madinati will face the formidable challenge of breaking through that entrenched political class in a bid to win all 24 seats in the Lebanese capital's municipal council.

- 'Never thought it's impossible' -

The campaign was founded in 2015 shortly after a dispute that closed Lebanon's largest trash dump and sparked protests to demand not only an end to the growing piles of waste, but an overhaul of paralysed government institutions.

Beirut Madinati seized on that frustration to put together a 10-point platform -- the campaign's magnum opus and a rallying call for young voters.

It includes plans to improve public transport in the notoriously traffic-ridden city, introduce more green spaces, make housing affordable and, of course, implement a lasting waste management solution.

The platform was developed by consulting residents of Beirut through open-houses and neighbourhood visits, and "is centred around the daily life of the person, the citizen," says soft-spoken candidate Rana Khoury.

Khoury is the step-daughter of slain Lebanese journalist Samir Kassir and one of the core founders of Beirut Madinati.

"We began this campaign in September, because we felt that it was no longer possible for us to demand change from the people in power," she tells AFP in the campaign headquarters in the edgy Badaro neighbourhood.

"We never thought it was impossible, because the whole time we were thinking that it was necessary, that there is no other choice."

Once the platform was ready, Beirut Madinati put together its candidate list, including celebrated Lebanese director Nadine Labaki and the head of the country's fishermen cooperative, Najib al-Deek.

- 'Today, there's a choice' -

Beirut Madinati has been infectious, garnering thousands of views on videos it posted on Facebook in lieu of plastering traditional candidate portraits on the walls of Beirut.

But the movement still has to face off this Sunday against other electoral lists, chiefly the seasoned politicians who have formed a super-list of candidates.

The "Byerteh List" -- or Beirutis' List -- includes well-known figures agreed upon by all of Lebanon's political parties and is backed by leading Sunni politician and former prime minister Saad Hariri.

"The biggest challenge we are facing is our rival. We are facing a regime, a regime that has been in power for 40 years -- and we're outsiders," says Beirut Madinati electoral strategist Rayan Ismail.

Indeed, for decades, Lebanon's political class has cultivated a strong grassroots presence through clientelism, particularly in lower-income neighbourhoods.

Manned by a group of activists and intellectuals without the political cunning of their rivals, Beirut Madinati has struggled to build up similar support there.

One former Beirut Madinati volunteer said candidates were "naive" in thinking a well-developed platform without backing from working-class neighbourhoods would be enough to win.

"We're not in la-la land. We're in Lebanon," he says.

Beirut Madinati is also up against a disillusioned electorate, many of whom believe that a change from the entrenched clientelism and corruption of Lebanese politics is simply impossible.

"I won't vote for anyone -- not even my brother who's a candidate... They're all liars," says Beirut resident Issam Ghlayen.

Still, Khoury says that hasn't stopped her.

"There were a lot of people for a while who were saying that the same people will be re-elected, and that nothing will change in Lebanon," she explains.

"Maybe that was true when there was no choice. Today, there is a choice. There's Beirut Madinati. And we can vote for it."

by Maya Gebeily

EU leaders in Rome to discuss migrant crisis

ROME (AFP) -

EU president Donald Tusk travels to Rome Thursday with fellow EU institution leaders and German Chancellor Angela Merkel for two days of talks likely to focus on next steps in Europe's migrant crisis.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who fears Italy becoming the new migrant frontline after the closure of the Balkan route, will host the first day of talks, followed by Pope Francis on Friday.

As the EU braces for more turbulence notably with next month's "Brexit" referendum in Britain as well as renewed Greek debt talks, Italy is keen to keep the focus on forging a joint plan over migrants.

Renzi will start by meeting Merkel from 2 pm (1200 GMT), followed by talks with European Commission leader Jean-Claude Juncker, EU Council president Tusk and European Parliament chief Martin Schulz.

From 6:30 pm (1630 GMT) they will hold a conference on the future of the EU, which will take place in the same room in the Capitole where the 1957 Rome Treaty was signed, founding the body that developed into today's 28-nation EU.

With over 28,500 migrants arrived since January 1, Italy has once again become the principal entry via the Mediterranean, after the controversial EU-Turkey deal and the closure of the Balkan route north.

Rome fears that, unlike previously, Italy will be left hosting masses of new arrivals if, for example, Austria mounts stricter controls at the Brenner pass linking Italy through the Alps to northern Europe.

Threats to the Schengen Treaty on free movement sparked by the migrant crisis were described by Italian Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan as "more dangerous than the euro crisis a few years ago".

UN refugee agency spokeswoman in Italy, Carlotta Sami, on Wednesday welcomed the "movement from an emergency approach to a structured approach, making plans and reflecting on (the) integration" of migrants into countries where they arrive.

After Renzi on Thursday, Pope Francis will meet Merkel and the three EU institution leaders on Friday, before making a speech as he is given the EU's Charlemagne prize, which each year honours "an exceptional contribution to European unification."

The Pope, who usually refuses prizes, explained in February that he accepted this one in order to appeal for a "refounding" of the European bloc. In November 2014 he called at the European Parliament for Europe to become a "reference point for humanity."

Australia says top IS recruiter killed in US air strike

SYDNEY (AFP) -

Australia's most wanted Islamic State terror suspect, linked to several attacks on home soil, has been killed in a US air strike in Iraq, Canberra said on Thursday, warning others will be targeted.

The death of Neil Prakash is considered significant by Australian and US authorities because of his highly prominent and influential role as a senior recruiter for the jihadist group.

Attorney General George Brandis called him "the most dangerous Australian involved with ISIL in the Middle East", using an acronym for the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

He said Washington had told Canberra that Prakash died in Mosul, Iraq, on April 29 after Australia provided intelligence on his identity and location.

"Neil Prakash was a prominent ISIL member and a senior terrorist recruiter and attack facilitator," he said in a joint statement with Defence Minister Marise Payne.

"Prakash has been linked to several Australia-based attack plans and calls for lone-wolf attacks against the United States. He is considered to be Australia's most prominent ISIL recruiter."

Since the start of their campaign, the US military and its coalition partners have launched more than 12,000 air strikes against Islamic State and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said more Australians were in their sights.

"Australians who think they can go to Syria and Iraq and fight with Daesh have to recognise that they will be targeted," he told Sky News, referring to IS by another acronym.

"They are waging war against Australia and they are enemies of Australia once they choose to wage that war in those theatres."

- Home-grown extremists -

US authorities also told the government that Australian woman Shadi Jabar Khalil Mohammad was killed in an air strike near the Syrian city of Al-Bab on April 22, along with her Sudanese husband.

"Mohammad and her husband, Abu Sa'ad al-Sudani, were both active recruiters of foreign fighters on behalf of ISIL, and had been inspiring attacks against Western interests," said Brandis.

She was the sister of Farhad Jabar, a 15-year-old who shot dead police employee Curtis Cheng in Sydney last October. The teenager was killed in gunfire shortly afterwards.

Prakash, who left Australia in 2013 and was known as Abu Khaled al-Cambodi, was linked to an alleged terror plot on Anzac Day last year, when Australia honours its war dead.

He has also appeared in IS propaganda videos, including one last year calling for attacks on Australia.

"His death disrupts and degrades ISIL's ability to recruit vulnerable people in our community to conduct terrorist acts," added Brandis, who said that between 50 and 59 Australians had so far been killed fighting for jihadists in Iraq or Syria.

At least 110 more are still battling with Islamic State.

Australia has long been concerned about home-grown extremism and raised the terror threat alert level to high in September 2014.

At least six attacks have been foiled on Australian soil over the past 18 months, according to the government. But several have taken place, including the terror-linked murder of Cheng.

North Korea readies for party congress, nuclear test fears persist

SEOUL (AFP) -

North Korea readied on Thursday to kick off its most important ruling party gathering for nearly 40 years, amid persistent concerns of a nuclear test, despite no clear signs of an imminent detonation.

Leader Kim Jong-Un is expected to deliver a keynote address at the opening of Friday's party congress which will be minutely scrutinised for suggestions of a significant policy shift or personnel changes in the nuclear-armed nation's governing elite.

The 33-year-old Kim wasn't even born when the last congress was held in 1980 to crown his father, Kim Jong-Il, as the heir apparent to his grandfather and the North's founding leader Kim Il-Sung.

While the agenda -- and even the duration -- of the event is still unknown, it's main objective is widely seen as cementing Kim Jong-Un's status as supreme leader and legitimate inheritor of the Kim family's dynastic rule.

The congress is also expected to confirm, as party doctrine, Kim's "byungjin" policy of pursuing nuclear weapons in tandem with economic development.

- Nuclear drive -

Since Kim took power after the death of his father in late 2011, North Korea has carried out two nuclear tests and two successful space rocket launches that were widely seen as disguised ballistic missile tests.

Even as the international community responded with condemnation and sanctions, Kim kept the throttle opened up on the North's single-minded drive towards a credible nuclear deterrent with additional missile and technical tests.

There has been widespread speculation that the congress would be preceded by another nuclear test in a gesture of strength and defiance that would allow Kim to claim genuine nuclear power status in his speech.

In an analysis of the most recent satellite pictures of the North's main nuclear test site at Punggye-ri, the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University on Thursday said there was no clear evidence, one way or the other, of whether an underground detonation was imminent.

The images dated May 2 showed only a "very low level of activity," the institute said on its closely followed 38North website.

- Test 'unclear' -

"Whether the level of activity indicates that Pyongyang has made all necessary preparations to conduct a nuclear test on short notice at this site or is associated with normal maintenance work remains unclear," it added.

South Korean government officials believe the North is ready to conduct a test as soon as the order is given, and say a decision might have been taken to test during the congress, which the world's media have been invited to Pyongyang to cover.

Officials in Seoul say they expect the congress to last four days, with the opening day devoted to Kim's speech and a lengthy report on the party's achievements.

The congress will also elect a new central committee, which in turn selects the party politburo.

Some analysts are predicting significant personnel changes, as Kim brings in a new, younger generation of leaders, picked for their loyalty to him.

Albania and Kosovo: a 'new front' for jihadists

TIRANA (AFP) -

Three years ago, Albert and Yassin left their homes in Kosovo and Albania to wage jihad in Syria. Now they're back, swelling the ranks of jihadists in a region the Islamic State has called a "new front" in Europe.

Yassin, 30, who now works as a halal butcher in a downtrodden suburb of Albania's capital Tirana, refused to give his real name out of fear of repercussions.

Wounded in Syria's battered northern city of Aleppo in 2014, the father-of-three told AFP he left "to help the Syrian people" and hopes Allah will recognise his sacrifice, even if he did not die a martyr.

Albert Berisha, a 29-year-old political science graduate, says he took an "emotional decision" to leave for the Middle East "after seeing on TV and social media what was happening in Syria."

Berisha has not escaped the attention of the authorities however: Last month, he was sentenced to three and a half years behind bars.

Authorities say around 300 Kosovans and up to 120 Albanians have left to wage jihad in Syria -- placing them among the most affected per capita by the jihadist phenomenon.

Around 30 combatants have returned to Albania and 120 to Kosovo, according to government estimates.

Albanian religious affairs analyst Ermir Gjinishi warned that "if we do not integrate them back into society, if we marginalise them, former combatants returning to the country could ... be provoked into extreme actions."

An Islamic State propaganda video last year entitled "Honor is in Jihad: a message to the people of the Balkans" described the region as a "new front" for jihad in Europe.

"Black days are coming to you," a Kosovan fighter warns the governments of Kosovo, Albania, and Macedonia.

"You will be terrorised."

- 'Internet brainwashing' -

Muslims in Kosovo and Albania have historically been liberal but on the streets of Pristina, women in full veils and bearded men with trousers cropped at the ankles hint at a latent radicalisation.

Ilir Kulla, former head of Albania's "State Committee of Cults", said would-be jihadist recruiters find their job made easier by "the economic situation, a (low) level of education and Internet brainwashing."

According to World Bank figures, the average monthly wage in Kosovo is a measly $330 (290 euros), slightly higher in Albania at $370.

And while money is not the main driving force behind the departures for Syria, an Albanian police officer said a fighter in an IS unit would earn more than double that and $2,000 as a commander.

Visar Duriqi, a Kosovo-based expert in religion, noted: "Kosovo was economically devastated in the war and its economic recovery is still slow, which is creating many social problems."

The authorities in the region are fighting back and claiming some success.

"No Kosovan has joined a terrorist group in the past six months," said president Hashim Thaci, who told AFP in February he had himself received death threats from Islamic State.

Albania's deputy interior minister Elona Gjebrea said "no Albanian had left the country" for Syria since 2014.

In both places, authorities have clamped down on returning jihadists and those who recruit them, with an increasing number of arrests and trials.

On Tuesday, Albania jailed nine men for up to 18 years for financing and recruiting fighters -- the first trial of its kind.

As the verdicts were handed down, the defendents shouted "Allahu Akbar (God is greatest). Traitors. Our time will come. You will be punished."

- 'Demagogues, charlatans, manipulators' -

The prime minister of Albania, Edi Rama, has introduced religious education in schools to fight against ignorance and what he called "demagogues, charlatans and manipulators."

One of those people Rama is targeting is Almir Daci, an Iman who ran a network responsible for sending 70 people -- including women and children -- to Syria.

The 34-year-old helped to transform Leshnice, Remenj and Zagorcan -- villages near the Macedonian border where churches stand side-by-side with mosques -- into a hotbed of jihadist recruitment.

Daci, alias Abu Bakr al-Albani, worked as the Iman in a neighbouring village of Pogradec, and was one of the Islamic State group's main recruiters in Albania.

His relatives received news from Syria that he had died last month but, as is often the case, there was no way of independently confirming this.

Hurma Alinji, 59, a neighbour of the Daci family, accuses Daci of being responsible for the death of her son, who died in Syria in 2014 aged 28.

"I blame Daci. He's the only one responsible. He pushed my son Ervis to leave," she said.

Ervis worked in Greece but his family noticed radical changes in his behaviour after he began frequenting Daci's mosque.

Before he would happily watch his father swill raki but suddenly "refused to eat the meat" bought from the village and "cut the bottoms off his new trousers."

One evening in February 2013, he said his "brothers needed help."

And left to die in Syria, like around 70 Albanians and Kosovans.

by Briseida Mema and Ismet Hadjari

Twin bombings 'kill 10 civilians in central Syria'

BEIRUT (AFP) -

A double bomb attack on Thursday in central Syria killed at least 10 civilians and wounded 40 others, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

State television also reported dead and wounded in the suicide attack and car bombing in a square in Mukharram al-Fawqani in Homs province.

Australia appoints new central bank governor

SYDNEY (AFP) -

Australia named its next central bank governor Thursday, with Philip Lowe promoted to the top job from deputy to replace Glenn Stevens in a widely-tipped move.

The announcement came in the week the Reserve Bank of Australia slashed interest rates to a new record-low of 1.75 percent to boost the economy as it charts a rocky path away from mining dependence after an unprecedented resources investment boom.

Stevens, who has been at the helm for a decade and whose term ends on September 18, has helped steer the nation through the global financial crisis and is highly regarded at home and globally.

Treasurer Scott Morrison thanked him for his service and said Lowe's appointment would "reinforce existing confidence in the institution".

"The market will be entirely comfortable with the appointment," National Australia Bank senior economist David de Garis told AFP.

"The market has been very happy with stewardship of the Reserve Bank under Glenn Stevens and I think Phil Lowe is a highly intelligent, street-smart policy official who will continue to be very well-received by the market."

Lowe has worked at the RBA for three decades and been deputy governor since 2012.

A new deputy governor will announced later this year.