Turkey set to host three-way talks on Balkans

ANKARA

The fifth round of three-way talks involving the foreign ministers of Turkey, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina will take place Tuesday in Ankara during which the latest Balkan developments will be discussed.

The trilateral gatherings first began in October 2009 on the sidelines of the Southeastern European countries’ meeting in Istanbul. The last meeting took place in Belgrade on Jan. 15. 

The three foreign ministers will review developments in the Balkans with a particular focus on Bosnia and will discuss concrete steps planned for the upcoming period, said the Turkish Foreign Ministry in a written statement over the weekend. The foreign ministers of Bosnia and Serbia will also meet with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

“Turkey places a priority on the Balkans in its foreign policy and attributes a special importance to restoring permanent peace and stability in the region,” the ministry said.

Ankara is concerned with what it calls the "wrong signals" being delivered by the international community to Bosnia with NATO recently failing to extend an invitation to the Balkan country to join the Membership Action Plan. The European Union lifted visa restrictions for Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro but kept Bosnia and Albania outside.

In an effort to help resolve the political crisis facing the country, diplomatic efforts led by Turkey involve two separate trilateral mechanisms: one between Turkey, Bosnia and Serbia and the other between Turkey, Bosnia and Croatia.

Hürriyet Daily News

Two Swedes killed in Afghanistan

Two Swedish military officers and a local interpreter were killed on Sunday when their unit came under fire west of Mazar-e Sharif in Afghanistan.

A Swedish soldier was also injured in the attack and was taken to a field hospital located at Camp Marmal, home of International Security Assistance Force(ISAF) Regional Command for the north of Afghanistan, according to the Swedish military, which is now working to notify relatives of the soldiers involved. 

The Swedish officers, a captain and a lieutenant, and the interpreter were killed in an ambush 40-50 kilometres west of the Swedish army base, in an area where Swedish and Finnish peace-keepers confiscated 70 kilogrammes of narcotics and a quantity of explosives earlier in the week. 

It was also the same area in which five Swedish soldiers were injured in a roadside bomb explosion in November. 

Swedish forces have been operating in Afghanistan since 2002. 

The Swedish ISAF-led force (FS17) is based in Mazar-e Sharif, 400 kilometres northwest of Kabul. 

ISAF is a NATO-led security and development mission in Afghanistan established by the United Nations Security Council in 2001. The base is home to Swedish and Finnish peacekeeping forces.

TT

The Local | Sweden

Child ‘suicide’ was likely murder

RC News

Public broadcaster’s documentary raises considerable doubt that young boy committed suicide in 1994

One of the most shocking and tragic episodes in Denmark’s modern history has resurfaced in the news this week, after a documentary by public broadcaster DR looked closely at the case over the last year.

In 1994, 7-year-old Morten Würtz was ‘the boy who committed suicide’ in Danish media, after the child was found hanged from a tree by his own belt, halfway between his school and home outside Århus.

After an autopsy and preliminary search of the scene for any suspects, police investigating the case determined that the death was a suicide – or possibly an accident that was the result of a game gone terribly wrong.

Yet according to DR, police continued to investigate the case as a possible murder, although the public and media were never informed.

Not long after Morten’s death, police investigated a series of violent rape cases and focused on one suspect, known to the media only a ‘K’. The 18-year-old suspect was taken into custody, but hung himself in the holding cell before he was ever tried for his alleged crimes.

Detectives working on the case said they believed K was also the man likely responsible for the death of Morten Würtz.

But the case will not be reopened, primarily because crucial evidence such as the boy’s belt and clothes were inexplicably destroyed by Århus police just five months after the incident.

A spokesman for Eastern Jutland police told Jyllands-Posten newspaper that it was ‘unfortunate’ that the evidence was destroyed, but said it was ‘the decision those in charge made at the time’.

Professor Jørgen Lange Thomsen, expert in forensics at the University of Southern Denmark, said there was no question that the destroyed material could probably have solved the mystery behind young Morten’s death – particularly because police had DNA samples from K.

‘If we still had the belt, I think it could be proven whether there was physical contact between Morten and his killer,’ said Thomsen, who believes the boy was in fact murdered.

Thomsen and forensic experts in the DR documentary also point to the belt’s knot and the actual logistics of the hanging. They argue it was physically unlikely Morten himself could have managed such a complicated manoeuvre.

The Copenhagem Post

Tymoshenko 5% behind Yanukovych after half of votes counted

Ukraine's opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych is 5% ahead of his presidential opponent Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko after 52.08% of ballots counted.

Yanukovych, who lost in the 2004 presidential election to incumbent president Viktor Yushchenko, is ahead with 49.64%, while Tymoshenko has gained 44.72% of the ballots counted so far.

Ukraine's Central Election Commission said that, the voter turnout was 69%, slightly more than in the January 17 first round that saw Yanukovych gain 35.32% of the vote and Tymoshenko 25.05%.

Andriy Mahera, a deputy head of the Central Election Commission, said earlier that preliminary results would be announced on Monday evening, but his colleague Mikhailo Okhedrovskiy said the results would be ready no earlier than February 10.

KIEV, February 8

RIA Novosti

An insider's view: David Wilson should have been saved

Former Labor foreign minister Gareth Evans is the key to the truth on why the Keating government wasted five chances to bring kidnapped Australian David Wilson home alive from Cambodia in 1994.

But it is Victorian State Coroner Judge Jennifer Coate who must now turn the key to unlock the truth, which the Wilson family has so doggedly sought since David's kidnapping from a train on July 26, 1994 and murder his 44 days later.

In March 1998, her predecessor, Graeme Johnstone, ordered the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to deliver the complete case file to him but the Rudd government has only just done so, enabling Coate to  resume the inquest 12 years later. 

I was the consul in Cambodia in 1994 and worked on David's case for the 108 days from his kidnapping to his funeral in Melbourne on November 9, 1994. If Coate has been given the complete Wilson file, she will quickly find the truth, hidden for 15 years by three governments.

David Wilson's death was a total failure of our government's hostage policy — a policy that remains in place today. It is hoped that the inquest into Wilson's death and the call last week from Greens senator Bob Brown for an inquiry into the response from authorities to Australian citizens kidnapped overseas, such as Nigel Brennan in Somalia late last year, leads to a change in the policy. 

Gareth Evans admitted to failure in the case of David Wilson: "We failed at the end of the day, for reasons that I think are pretty clear to us all. Of course we failed. And that is a matter of tragedy for all of us".

Yet despite this, Evans denied that Wilson's death was avoidable: "There is nothing more the Australian government could have done, I genuinely don't believe there were any other options available to us at any step along the way than those that we very actively pursued".

An examination of the "secret" DFAT files will show that this is simply not correct. So much more could and should have been done through the month of August 1994 to save David Wilson's life.

The files will reveal that:

* In the four months before David's kidnapping, eight foreigners were kidnapped including three Australians, one of whom, Kellie-Anne Wilkinson, was murdered. Yet our embassy in Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh did nothing to warn Australian travellers of the increased risk or to plan strategies to deal with any further kidnappings.

* Gareth Evans, who was in Bangkok the week David Wilson was kidnapped, failed to take our advice to immediately come to Cambodia and use his unique influence and personality on the government to get a personal guarantee that there would be no actions taken that could harm the hostages, before their release.

* Australia's ambassador, Tony Kevin, arrived in Cambodia the week of Wilson's kidnapping, direct from Poland, without any expertise or formal briefing on Cambodia, South-East Asia and consular or hostage management.

* Australia's official "no ransom, no negotiation" policy was a lie as only a week after Wilson's kidnapping, our government had agreed to the Cambodian government's decision to quickly pay the $US150,000 ransom.

* The Australian government then blocked any attempts by the Wilson family and others such as Melbourne businessman Ron Walker to pay a ransom and also dismissed all other third party options for an independent negotiation for release. The Australian government also did nothing to stop any of the six "unofficial" illegal rival negotiations, such as Cambodian army general Eng Hong's personal $1 million deal offer to us in the embassy at Phnom Penh.

* A formal diplomatic agreement with the Cambodian government "not to take any action that would harm the hostages, without our prior consultation and approval" was another lie. The Australian government already knew and approved of a Cambodian government plan for full-scale attack on the hostage mountain, which would place their lives in danger, only a week later.

* The day the Cambodian military first attacked, the Australian ambassador was in Kampot but immediately fled back to Phnom Penh under army/police escort, leaving his consul, me, behind to report to him. That same evening, top Cambodian army generals, arriving in Kampot, confirmed to me "we're here to take the mountain, the hostages are of no consequence".

* The next day, I returned to the capital to give ambassador Kevin this lethal message, yet he and the Australian government did nothing to enforce the diplomatic agreement or try and stop the military attack.

* Evans then again failed to take our advice that he should immediately come to Cambodia to demand that the Cambodian government stop this military action and honour the diplomatic agreement until the hostages were released. Instead, both Evans and prime minister Paul Keating formally agreed in writing to guarantee Cambodia our promised military aid, regardless of the outcome of the hostage situation.

* Meanwhile, the Cambodian government negotiations for the safe release of the hostages for the $US150,000 ransom soon agreed on a release date of August 19. The Cambodian military attack intensified over the next three weeks, while our government did nothing to stop it and denied it was even happening.

The escalation of the military attack led to the murders of David Wilson, Englishman Mark Slater and Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet at dawn on September 8.

After recovering their bodies from their mountain graves, the Australian government allowed David Wilson's "second kidnapping", when corrupt general Eng Hong stole the truck and rushed the bodies to Phnom Penh, where he had done a personal media deal with a foreign TV group. Eng Hong was never charged over this appalling incident.

While Gareth Evans wept at David Wilson's funeral, neither he nor DFAT attended the one-day inquest on March 5, 1998, at which I gave my evidence on this tragic failure of our hostage policy, nor have they sworn in court that their oft-repeated statements that "there was nothing more the Australian Government could have done for David Wilson" are true and complete.

Alastair Gaisford was consul in the Australian embassy in Cambodia in 1994-95, working on both the Wilkinson and Wilson cases in 1994.

The Age

Knobloch to step down as Jewish leader

The Central Council of Jews in Germany is set for a historic generational shift after Charlotte Knobloch announced Sunday she would retire as president, making her the last leader to come from the Holocaust-survivor generation

Following a board meeting in Frankfurt, Knobloch, 77, said she would not run for the job again when her term runs out in November.

Knobloch’s position at the top of Germany’s leading Jewish organisation had been brought into question of late amid suggestions there was dissatisfaction and infighting at the top of the council. Various media reported she was under pressure from other council members not to run again for president.

But she said in her statement that the board of directors and executive council had expressed their “full and unconditional confidence” in her and that there had been a “consensus” that she would see out her full term until November.

Her colleagues had recognised “with understanding and respect” that she wanted to make way for a generational change.

As a child, Knobloch, the daughter of Munich lawyer and Bavarian senator Fritz Neuland, was spirited away by her family’s housekeeper after her father was arrested by the Nazis. From 1942, she lived with Catholic farmers in Franconia in northern Bavaria, who pretended she was their own daughter.

Vice president Dieter Graumann – who was born in Israel in 1950 – is seen as a possible successor, though no hint was given as to who would take over when Knobloch ends her term in November.

The council, of which Knobloch has been president since 2006, has about 106,000 members and is considered an influential voice for Jews in Germany.

DDP

The Local | Germany

Zuma must 'match words with deeds'

President Jacob Zuma must repair the damage he has done to the fight against HIV/Aids, DA leader Helen Zille said on Saturday. 

She was responding to Zuma's apology over his love child with Sonono Khoza.

"Zuma must now match words with deeds ... The Democratic Alliance welcomes President Zuma's apology to the South African public. But words are not enough, he must now focus on repairing the damage he has done to the fight against HIV/Aids," she said.

"It is worth recalling that Jacob Zuma has apologised in exactly these terms before. He must show that his deeds match his words. Leadership is as leadership does".

She said the South African public would not be so forgiving next time around.

'Humility, integrity'

The African National Congress and the Congress of South African Trade Unions also welcomed Zuma's apology, describing it as honest.

"This is the president's own initiative, and it demonstrates his humility and integrity," Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven said.

"The majority of South Africans will reciprocate this by giving him the benefit of the doubt. It is good that the president realises that he erred and did not seek to take our people for granted. The apology was the right thing to do," he said.

The ANC, meanwhile, said it appreciated the president's apology regarding his personal relationships. 

The Mail&Guardian

PM responds to ‘attack’ by speculators

Gov’t raps ‘targeting’ of weak EU states

EUROKINISSI

Prime Minister George Papandreou collects his thoughts during a conference on sustainable development in New Delhi, yesterday, as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh walks past with an aide.

Prime Minister George Papandreou yesterday sought to reassure investors and markets that his government was doing everything possible to plug a gaping deficit and referred once again to an “attack by speculators” on the weaker economies of the eurozone, including Greece, Portugal and Spain.

“I can understand the doubts that have been expressed but we will credibly apply this program,” Papandreou said on the sidelines of a conference in the Indian capital of New Delhi, referring to a crisis plan his administration has drafted to kick-start Greece’s reeling economy.

The premier also took the opportunity to condemn market speculators for undermining Greece and other embattled regional economies. “The targeting of Spain and Portugal shows that Greece is not an isolated case. The problem is a European and international one and we must undertake coordinated action in a spirit of solidarity,” Papandreou said.

But back in Athens there was widespread debate about the fairness of the austerity measures heralded by Papandreou, as tax and customs officers continued a strike and civil servants and labor union members prepared for walkouts over the next two weeks. There were even some voices of dissent within the party of ruling Socialist PASOK. One MP, Pantelis Economou, speaking during a radio interview yesterday, said the government’s reforms “upset the way economic policy is usually formulated” and compared the choices taken by Papandreou to “the policies followed over the past six years by the government of [Costas] Karamanlis... which drove us into this situation”.

Finance Minister Giorgos Papaconstantinou fought off stronger criticism of PASOK’s austerity measures from left-wing opposition deputies in Parliament. The minister insisted that the government is able to get the Greek economy back on its feet without external support. “At the moment, our country has a huge deficit and debt, it is under attack by speculators, some are betting on it going bankrupt,” he said. “But if Greece presses for the issuance of a eurobond, it will send out the message that we can’t make it on our own... We can make it on our own. Greece can and will make it,” the minister added.

Khatimerini

More tainted milk found in latest crackdown

By Wang Yan and Zhu Zhe (China Daily)

Dairies shut; 170 tons of dairy product recalled

More than 170 tons of milk powder have been recalled amid a 10-day nationwide crackdown on melamine-tainted dairy products, authorities have said.

The recall is the latest of dairy products to resurface from a 2008 contamination scandal that hit the country.

Two dairy companies in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region were closed for selling tainted milk powder on Saturday, while candies made with tainted milk powder were found in Jilin province yesterday.

The two affected companies are the Ningxia Tiantian Dairy Co Ltd and Ningxia Panda Dairy Co Ltd, Ningxia's regional government said in a press conference on Saturday.

Ningxia police also found that another company outside the region paid the Ningxia Tiantian Dairy Co Ltd last July about 170 tons of milk powder - melamine-tainted products left over from the 2008 scandal that should have been destroyed - as debt payment.

From July to November last year, the company repacked 164.75 tons of the affected powder in their own packages and sold it to five factories in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Fujian and Guangdong provinces, police investigations showed.

About 72 tons of the milk powder have been recalled and seized and the authorities are tracking the rest of the tainted products.

However, the Ningxia Panda Dairy Co Ltd was shut down because it was related to the Shanghai Panda Dairy Co Ltd, a company that was earlier closed for selling tainted milk last year.

Zhao Shuming, secretary-general of the Ningxia Dairy Industry Association, said: "Many small companies lack the technology to test melamine, an industrial chemical added to milk to boost false protein readings in quality tests".

"As a small company, the Tiantian dairy company doesn't have a machine to test melamine. Such a machine can cost up to 1 million yuan ($147,000). So many companies are just not able to check if the milk powder they buy is safe or not. But their repacking of the products is illegal," Zhao told China Daily yesterday.

Zhao said the latest findings have dealt a huge blow to the Ningxia dairy industry.

"The dairy industry in the region is export-oriented. Now most of its companies are in panic and worrying about possible negative impacts on their businesses," he said.

"Flaws in the previous system led to the current chaos. What if companies with tainted milk also hold back their stocks for this round of checkups and reuse them later, just like what's happening now?" he asked.

He said the association has issued an emergency warning to all companies in the region to conduct strict checks on milk products they buy.

The latest discoveries marked the second batch of tainted milk products found in the 10-day inspection that was launched on Monday last week.

The first batch of affected milk products found in the latest crackdown was identified in Shaanxi province last week, with three suspects subsequently detained.

A portion of the Shaanxi batch of tainted products had been sold to a company in Fujian, where candies were made with the milk under the brand name "Little White Mice".

The candies have been taken off shelves, local media reported yesterday.

Zheng Xiaoming, vice-governor of Shaanxi, said in a government meeting last Friday that starting from Wednesday, officials in charge of any tainted milk found in the latest crackdown will have to step down.

"The officials will be removed immediately from their posts once tainted milk products are found, before we start investigating the case," Zheng was quoted by local media as saying.

In Sept 2008, melamine was found in milk products of 22 dairy companies around the country.

The industrial chemical led to the deaths of at least six children and caused about 300,000 others to fall ill.

China Daily

Debris basins again full of mud; all evacuation orders lifted in L.A. foothills

As hundreds of workers prepared to deploy Sunday to empty catch basins once again filled with mud and debris, all evacuation orders were lifted for residents of Southern California's foothills.

L.A. County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Nicole Nishida said the evacuation orders had been lifted,  including for Paradise Valley in La Cañada Flintridge.

Catch basins in the foothills had only recently been emptied after the weeklong storm that hit Southern California last month when Saturday morning’s torrent of rain filled them again. Bob Spencer, L.A. County Department of Public Works spokesman, said about 1,000 of the department's employees were expected to be deployed Sunday across the county and would use bulldozers, plows, dump trucks and cranes to sweep neighborhood streets and attempt to clear out inlets and debris basins.

“That series of storms two weeks ago, we took about 300,000 cubic yards of material out of our debris basins,” L.A. County Department of Public Works spokesman Bob Spencer said. “This is going to be about the same”.

The basins, he said, would take several weeks to empty completely.

“The day after an event like this, what’s in the debris basins is basically soup,” Spencer said. “It’s like trying to clean out a swimming pool with a shovel. The water’s just going to slide out”.

 

With a capacity of 10,000 cubic yards, the Mullally flood basin on Manistee Drive in La Cañada Flintridge is one of the city’s smallest but is crucial to the area. Its overflow on Saturday sent mud oozing into dozens of homes in the Paradise Valley neighborhood.

“What happened with Mullally yesterday is a huge boulder clogged the inlet and caused the debris to top over and come down the street,” Spencer said. “We were prepared for that, that’s why all the K-rails were here. But there was such a tremendous amount of debris that it overwhelmed" the barriers.

Of the 43 mud-damaged homes in La Cañada Flintridge and La Crescenta, nine were red-tagged, meaning entry was temporarily prohibited. In addition, 25 vehicles were damaged.

-- Corina Knoll

Los Angeles Times