Around the World: February 11, 2015

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — During six years behind bars at Guantanamo Bay, Abdul Rauf insisted he was a lowly Taliban foot soldier who delivered bread and tea to combatants, even though he was really a corps commander. He was released in 2007 and sent home to Afghanistan. Until this week, he was working as the top recruiter in Afghanistan for Islamic State militants.

 

Rauf, who was killed along with seven others in a U.S. drone strike on Monday, and detainees like him who have returned to the battlefield are complicating President Barack Obama's hopes of closing the detention center for terrorism suspects on the U.S. Navy base in Cuba. The administration says the prison is costly, damages America's relationship with key allies and provides extremists a propaganda tool to woo recruits.

 

Obama has vowed since he was a presidential candidate to close the detention center, but members of Congress have thwarted that ambition, saying the detainees would return to the fight. They also have argued that governments where the detainees would be released in the region couldn't be expected to keep track of them and prevent them from becoming active again.

 

Besides Rauf, one or more of the five Taliban detainees swapped for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl may have already been in touch with members of the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani network. Qatari officials promised to monitor the five former Taliban officials' activities and keep them from traveling outside Qatar for a year. That year ends May 31 and lawmakers are wondering what will happen to them.

 

White House spokesman Josh Earnest has said the five are still in Qatar, but he says efforts to keep them from working with terror organizations "have been updated" to reflect concerns about their contacts. Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah said at an event in Washington last week that the five continue to be closely monitored.

 

 

BEIRUT (AP) — For Kurdish fighters, last month's victory over Islamic State militants in the town of Kobani in northern Syria was only the beginning.

 

Their ambition is to build on an alliance with moderate rebels in Syria and become the chief force fighting the extremists in the country.

 

Its commanders say such an alliance could be just the partner that the West has been seeking all along in the battle against the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, which began its rise in 2013 and now holds a third of both Syria and neighboring Iraq.

 

The Kurds quickly emerged as a potent foe for the Islamic extremists. In August 2014, fighters of the YPG, the main Kurdish force, battled Islamic State militants to carve out an escape route for tens of thousands of members of Iraq's Yazidi minority who were trapped on a mountaintop.

 

The fight for Kobani, which is on the border between Syria and Turkey, began after rapid Islamic State advances in mid-September. It further thrust Syria's Kurds to the forefront of the anti-Islamic State groups.

 

 

DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) — Shelling rocked a bus station in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk Wednesday as fighting continued to rage in eastern Ukraine ahead of crucial peace talks later in the day.

 

Rebel officials said that five people were killed and nine wounded at the scene of the attack, where an Associated Press reporter saw one body. Donetsk city officials said in a statement that three people had been killed in shelling overnight.

 

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko posted a statement on his website saying that he had made an impromptu visit to the war-torn region early Wednesday. Poroshenko stopped in the city of Kramatorsk, some 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the nearest front line, where nevertheless Kiev says 16 people were killed and 48 wounded in a rocket strike Tuesday.

 

"We demand an unconditional peace," Poroshenko said. "We demand a cease-fire, a withdrawal of all foreign troops, and closing of the border.... We will find a compromise within the country."

 

Officials in Kiev also said Wednesday that 19 troops had been killed and 78 wounded in a day of fighting in Debaltseve, a hotly contested transport hub in the region.

 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-controlled Congress is set to send a bill approving the Keystone XL oil pipeline to President Barack Obama, who has vowed to veto it.

 

The House is expected to pass the bill easily Wednesday afternoon, capping weeks of debate over one of Republicans' top priorities — a bill authorizing the construction of the much-delayed pipeline.

 

Yet support in both the Senate and House has not been enough to override a veto.

 

The pipeline has exposed larger divisions between environmentalists concerned about global warming and potential oil spills against supporters who argue that the $8 billion project will create jobs and boost U.S. energy security. One of the measures added to the bill by the Senate states that climate change is not a hoax, which could make some conservative Republicans think twice.

 

The pipeline is the first of many standoffs expected between Obama and Republicans on energy and environment.

 

As the House prepared to vote on the bill, the Senate environment panel on Wednesday planned to hold its first hearing examining the Obama administration's plans to curb heat-trapping carbon dioxide from power plants. The initiative is the cornerstone of Obama's efforts to curb global warming.

 

 

NEW YORK (AP) — Jon Stewart's fans were gobsmacked by the sad news he delivered on Tuesday's edition of "The Daily Show": He's leaving his phony anchor desk and ending his reign as phony newsman, and the loss is to real news.

 

"This show doesn't deserve an even slightly restless host and neither do you," he told his audience. He said he might depart in July, September or maybe December. He didn't say what he means to do next.

 

To appreciate the impact of his 16-year Comedy Central reign, and the loss his impending exit represents, the distraught viewer need only consider Monday's broadcast.

 

It was then that Stewart turned his attention to what was the biggest story in the journalism biosphere that night: the scandal surrounding NBC News' Brian Williams.

 

Wearing a woeful expression, he summed up everyone's befuddlement with crystalline efficiency: "Bri! Why? Why, Bri? Why lie? Sigh."

 

 

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The question of who can replace Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" seems roughly akin to asking his fans what might serve for the sun.

 

His passion, wit and boldness make for a magical combination that will be difficult to re-create when Stewart steps away as host sometime later this year.

 

"The X-factor here is Stewart's charisma. It's significant," said Sophia McClennen, a Penn State professor and author of "Is Satire Saving our Nation?: Mockery and American Politics."

 

The "Daily Show" boot camp has graduated a number of impressive talents who might prove to be worthy of the host chair, McClennen said, counting John Oliver first among a group including Aasif Mandvi, Samantha Bee and Jason Jones.

 

There are outsiders who certainly have the comedic chops. But do they have the star power and the backbone to speak punchlines to power, and on a nightly basis?

 

 

BRUSSELS (AP) — With all the noise and uncertainty surrounding Greece over the past couple of weeks, it's been easy to overlook the growing signs of economic recovery in Europe.

 

A raft of indicators have pointed to a pick-up in activity that puts the 19-country eurozone economy in a position to outperform expectations this year — provided it doesn't stumble into a messy Greek exit from the euro or relations deteriorate between the West and Russia over the conflict in Ukraine.

 

Fourth quarter figures on Friday aren't expected to show a big improvement yet, with most economists predicting mild growth of 0.2 percent for the second quarter running.

 

Moving forward, though, most expect the pace of growth to accelerate for a number of reasons, including the sharp falls in the price of oil and the euro.

 

Ben May, economist at Oxford Economics, says 2015 will be the year that the recovery finally gets going. "Recent news from the eurozone supports the view that domestic healing continues," he said.

 

 

NEW YORK (AP) — NBC announced Tuesday that it is suspending Brian Williams as "Nightly News" anchor and managing editor for six months without pay for misleading the public about his experiences covering the Iraq War.

 

NBC chief executive Steve Burke said Williams' actions were inexcusable and jeopardized the trust he has built up with viewers during his decade as the network's lead anchor. But he said Williams deserved a second chance.

 

Williams apologized last week for saying he was in a helicopter that was hit by a grenade while covering the Iraq War in 2003. Instead, another helicopter flying ahead of his was hit, and some veterans involved in the mission called him out on it. The swift public reaction had put NBC News on a crisis footing.

 

NBC News President Deborah Turness said in a memo that Williams "misrepresented" events that occurred while he was covering the war.

 

"It then became clear that on other occasions Brian had done the same while telling that story in other venues," Turness said. "This was wrong and completely inappropriate for someone in Brian's position."

 

 

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — Police say three people have been shot to death at a condominium complex east of the University of North Carolina campus and a man has been arrested.

 

Chapel Hill police told local news outlets that Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, was arrested and has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder. He is being held at the Durham County Jail.

 

Police were responding to a report of gunshots around 5:15 p.m. Tuesday when they found three people who were pronounced dead at the scene. The dead were identified as Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, of Chapel Hill; Yusor Mohammad, 21, of Chapel Hill; and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, of Raleigh.

 

Police said the investigation was continuing.

 

 

ESCONDIDO, Calif. (AP) — Whenever an endangered animal dies at the San Diego Zoo, researchers race out, regardless of the hour, to remove its sperm or eggs, maybe a bit of ear or eyeball, and carefully freeze the cells in liquid nitrogen.

 

Today, the survival of the northern white rhinoceros and dozens of other species could hinge on the collection amassed over nearly 40 years that has become the largest gene bank of its kind: The Frozen Zoo.

 

The icy vials may someday even be used in experiments to resurrect recently extinct animals, like the Hawaiian Po'ouli bird. The stainless steel tanks hold the genetic material of more than 10,000 individual animals from more than 1,000 species and subspecies.

 

The Frozen Zoo's work has taken on renewed urgency since the San Diego Safari Park lost 42-year-old Angalifu to cancer in December, leaving only five northern white rhinos left in the world — and all unable to reproduce.

 

Scientists are racing against the clock to find the best way to utilize the bank's frozen sperm to produce another one before the northern white goes extinct, which could happen within a decade.