| Officer says US general sexually assaulted her Posted: 07 Mar 2014 04:10 PM PST  FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — An Army captain at the center of a sexual assault case that has scandalized the U.S. military testified Friday that a general twice forced her to perform oral sex on him during their three-year, illicit affair.
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| Accuser recounts general's alleged sex assault Posted: 07 Mar 2014 03:30 PM PST FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — An Army captain at the center of one of the military's most closely watched sexual-assault cases testified Friday that a general twice forced her to perform oral sex on him during their three-year, illicit affair. |
| Study ties troubled sleep to lower brain volume Posted: 07 Mar 2014 01:33 PM PST  By Ronnie Cohen NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who have trouble sleeping tend to have less volume in certain regions of the brain than those without sleep problems, a new study of Persian Gulf War veterans suggests. "People discount the importance of sleep. "The study suggests we shouldn't discount sleep importance," she said. In their study, sleep was associated with the amount of gray matter in the brain's frontal lobe in particular.
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| Accuser takes stand in general's sex assault case Posted: 07 Mar 2014 01:21 PM PST  FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — An Army captain who says she was sexually assaulted by a general sobbed Friday as she testified that they had a three-year affair and that he threatened to kill her and her family — and "do it in a way no one would ever know" — if she ever told anyone.
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| U.S. special forces sent to train Iraqi special forces in Jordan Posted: 07 Mar 2014 12:46 PM PST  By Missy Ryan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States recently sent a small number of special forces soldiers to Jordan to train with counterparts from Iraq and Jordan, a new step in the Obama administration's effort to help Baghdad stamp out a resurgent al Qaeda threat, a U.S. defense official said on Friday. The U.S. contingent was dispatched to take part in a training exchange with counterterrorism forces from Iraq and Jordan, allowing the administration to provide a modest new measure of support to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
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| US spies not caught off-guard by Crimea crisis: general Posted: 07 Mar 2014 12:27 PM PST  US spy agencies had warned the White House of imminent action by Russia in Ukraine and were not caught off-guard by the crisis, a top official said Friday, rejecting criticism from lawmakers. Facing accusations the spy services were taken by surprise, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, said the intelligence community predicted the likely intervention of Russian troops at least a week in advance. "I think for easily seven to 10 days leading up to the Russian troops as we see them now in Crimea, we were providing very solid reporting on what I would describe as just strategic warning," Flynn told National Public Radio. The warnings gradually escalated to the point where Russian intervention on the peninsula was described as "imminent," Flynn said in a rare interview.
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| Saudi lists 'terror' groups, orders Islamist fighters home Posted: 07 Mar 2014 11:57 AM PST  Saudi Arabia listed the Muslim Brotherhood and two Syrian jihadist groups as terrorist organisations Friday, and ordered citizens fighting abroad to return home within 15 days or face imprisonment. The move represents a major escalation against the Brotherhood of deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi and indicates rising concern in Riyadh over the potential risks to domestic security of Saudi extremists fighting in Syria. Riyadh staunchly supports Sunni-led rebels battling to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but has long feared blowback from radical jihadist groups, particularly after a spate of attacks by a local Al-Qaeda franchise from 2003 to 2006. Friday's move comes two days after Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates recalled their ambassadors from Qatar, which supports Islamists groups in the region and was a backer of the Brotherhood.
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| Extremist group criticizes Syria's al-Qaida branch Posted: 07 Mar 2014 11:45 AM PST  BEIRUT (AP) — An al-Qaida-breakaway group said Friday that it faces a war with rival Islamic factions who want to destroy it, describing Syria's al-Qaida-linked branch as the "front of betrayal and treason" in a message that could lead to more bloodshed.
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| Saudi Arabia names Brotherhood a terrorist group Posted: 07 Mar 2014 11:35 AM PST  RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia identified the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group along with al-Qaida and others Friday, warning those who join them or support them they could face five to 30 years in prison.
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| Conflicting accounts open U.S. Army general's sex crimes trial Posted: 07 Mar 2014 10:36 AM PST  By Colleen Jenkins FORT BRAGG, North Carolina (Reuters) - Opening statements in the military trial of a U.S. Army general accused of twice forcibly sodomizing a female captain during their illicit sexual relationship provided sharply conflicting accounts on Friday of what drove the adulterous affair. Brigadier General Jeffrey Sinclair stands accused of forcing the junior officer under his command to perform oral sex, of grabbing her genitalia against her will and of having intercourse with her in public places. The 51-year-old general, who is married, denies sexually assaulting the captain and says the relationship was consensual, although inappropriate by military standards. The rare court-martial of a high-ranking U.S. military official is unfolding in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, amid a growing debate among U.S. lawmakers over how best to curb sexual assault in the military.
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| Six dead in Syria raids on Yabrud: NGO Posted: 07 Mar 2014 10:31 AM PST  Syrian helicopter gunships killed at least six people Friday when they dropped barrel bombs on the strategic rebel stronghold of Yabrud, close to the Lebanese border, a monitoring group said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attacks followed a string of raids by regime warplanes around the town, which the army is trying to recapture. The raids came a day after loyalists backed by Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite movement, killed at least 17 Islamist fighters in the battle for Yabrud. State news agency SANA said army forces carried out a string of operations in and around Yabrud on Friday.
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| Saudi Arabia designates Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group Posted: 07 Mar 2014 09:48 AM PST  Saudi Arabia has formally designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, in a move that could increase pressure on Qatar whose backing for the group has sparked a row with fellow Gulf monarchies. The U.S.-allied kingdom has also designated as terrorist the Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, whose fighters are battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Interior Ministry said in a statement published by state media. Saudi Arabia's Islamic religious authorities have spoken out against Saudi fighters going to Syria, but the Interior Ministry estimates that around 1,200 Saudis have gone nonetheless. Riyadh fears the Brotherhood, whose Sunni Islamist doctrines challenge the Saudi principle of dynastic rule, has tried to build support inside the kingdom since the Arab Spring revolutions.
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| Iraq violence kills 10, including senior officer Posted: 07 Mar 2014 08:52 AM PST  Violence in Iraq, including shelling in a city held by anti-government fighters for over two months, killed 10 people on Friday, among them a senior police officer, officials said. Iraq has been hit by a year-long surge in bloodshed that has reached levels not seen since 2008, driven principally by widespread discontent among its Sunni Arab minority and by the civil war in neighbouring Syria. Shelling in the city of Fallujah, just a short drive from Baghdad in Anbar province, killed six people and wounded 17, Dr Ahmed Shami told AFP.
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| Militant grip transforms, terrorizes Syrian city Posted: 07 Mar 2014 08:46 AM PST  BEIRUT (AP) — Once a vibrant, religiously mixed community, Syria's eastern city of Raqqa is now a shell of its former self, terrorized by hard-line militants who have turned it into the nucleus of their vision for the Islamic caliphate they hope one day to establish in Syria and Iraq.
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| Prosecutors: General coerced captain into affair Posted: 07 Mar 2014 08:22 AM PST FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — With the Pentagon under increased scrutiny over revelations of rampant rape and sexual misconduct within the ranks, opening statements began Friday in a rare court-martial of an Army general — believed to be the most senior member of the U.S. military to face trial on sex assault charges. |
| Middle East drought a threat to global food prices Posted: 07 Mar 2014 07:25 AM PST  By Suleiman Al-Khalidi AMMAN (Reuters) - The Middle East's driest winter in several decades could pose a threat to global food prices, with local crops depleted and farmers' livelihoods blighted, U.N. experts and climatologists say. Varying degrees of drought are hitting almost two thirds of the limited arable land across Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the Palestinian territories and Iraq. "Going back to the last 100 years, I don't think you can get a five-year span that's been as dry," said Mohammad Raafi Hossain, a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) environmental economist.
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| Opening statements begin in general's sex trial Posted: 07 Mar 2014 07:03 AM PST FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — With the Pentagon under increased scrutiny over revelations of rampant rape and sexual misconduct within the ranks, opening statements began Friday in a rare court-martial of an Army general — believed to be the most senior member of the U.S. military to face trial on sex assault charges. |
| Iraq airport official arrested over Lebanon flight row Posted: 07 Mar 2014 06:14 AM PST  The deputy head of Baghdad airport was arrested after a Lebanese airliner that left Beirut without the Iraqi transport minister's son was ordered mid-flight to turn back, the premier's spokesman said Friday. Samer "Kubba was arrested... because his action was wrong and harmful to the prestige of the Iraqi state," Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's spokesman Ali Mussawi told AFP. Lebanon's Middle East Airlines said Thursday that Iraqi authorities forced its Baghdad-bound flight to turn around some 20 minutes out of Beirut because Transport Minister Hadi al-Ameri's son, Mahdi, had missed the flight. "About 20 minutes after take-off, Middle East Airlines was informed by its Baghdad office that the plane would be prevented from landing by local civil aviation officials if a passenger was not on board."
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| Why President Obama stopped calling Turkish leader Erdogan Posted: 07 Mar 2014 05:42 AM PST President Obama once spoke regularly with Mr. Erdogan, and for years the White House held up Turkey as a role model of a successful Islam-rooted democracy. But when Mr. Obama called Mr. Erdogan on Feb. 19, it was after six months of silence – a reflection of Washington's displeasure at how Mr. Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) handled antigovernment protests last spring and their resorting to anti-Western conspiracy theories, blaming everyone from business newspapers and bankers to Jews and Americans. "It wasn't the brute force the police used [that caused the distance]… it was the discourse of the AKP and Erdogan and all the AKP-controlled newspapers about a conspiracy – a conspiracy to overthrow the Turkish government," said Henri Barkey, a Turkey specialist at Lehigh University, speaking at at the Sulaimani Forum, an annual gathering hosted by the American University of Iraq, Sulaimaniyeh. |
| Violence kills seven in Iraq's Fallujah Posted: 07 Mar 2014 05:08 AM PST Shelling in Iraq's city of Fallujah, held by anti-government fighters for more than two months, and a shooting targeting a local official killed seven people Friday, police and doctors said. Iraq has been hit by a year-long surge in bloodshed that has reached levels not seen since 2008, driven principally by widespread discontent among its Sunni Arab minority and by the civil war in neighbouring Syria. Shelling in Fallujah, just a short drive from Baghdad, killed six people and wounded 17, Dr Ahmed Shami told AFP. Anti-government fighters subsequently seized Fallujah and parts of Ramadi, to its west. |
| Opening statements to begin in general's sex trial Posted: 07 Mar 2014 05:04 AM PST FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — With the Pentagon under increased scrutiny over revelations of rampant rape and sexual misconduct within the ranks, opening statements were set to begin Friday in a rare court-martial of an Army general — believed to be the most senior member of the U.S. military to face trial on sex assault charges. |
| Turkey local election holds key to Kurdish peace talks Posted: 07 Mar 2014 04:16 AM PST  By Daren Butler DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) - The face of jailed Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan briefly beamed down from billboards in southeast Turkey until police tore down the posters, a mark of official unease over his enduring influence among Kurds as local elections loom. "There is a feeling that if ... we achieve a stronger (election) result, the peace process will advance," said Gultan Kisanak, mayoral candidate in Diyarbakir for the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) which governs the city. "But if we relax and our votes decline, we Kurds fear that the peace process could collapse," she said as campaigning got under way in the largest city in the mainly Kurdish southeast. The BDP has the same grassroots supporters and shares a similar goal of political autonomy for the largely Kurdish southeast region as Ocalan's banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group.
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| Lawsuits revived by soldiers over waste disposal Posted: 07 Mar 2014 04:08 AM PST A federal appeals court on Thursday revived dozens of lawsuits by soldiers and others who claim they were harmed by improper waste disposal while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The lawsuits claim Houston-based ... |
| PJ on Putin’s Crimea for Help Posted: 07 Mar 2014 02:45 AM PST  Secretary of State John Kerry heads to Paris and Kiev, an RT-America anchor quits on air, and what about Russia's 90,000 Chinese in its far east?
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