After it came out that Jennifer Lopez scored a big payday to sing happy birthday to Turkmenistan dictator Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov , her rep insisted that had J.Lo known of any “human rights issues,” she of course would not have attended the soiree. But the Human Rights Foundation implies that’s not… …read more
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Suleman spent years targeting minority Shiite Muslims in his home country of Pakistan as a member of one of the country’s most feared militant groups. Now he is on his way to a new sectarian battleground, Syria, where he plans to join Sunni rebels battling President Bashar Assad’s regime.
It is a fight he believes will boost his reward in heaven.
The short and stocky Pakistani, who identified himself using only his first name for fear of being targeted by authorities, is one of an increasing number of militants who have left Pakistan for Syria in recent months. The fighters have contributed to a growing presence of Islamic extremists and complicated U.S. efforts to help the rebels.
Many fighters like Suleman believe they must help Syria’s Sunni majority defeat Assad’s Alawite regime — an offshoot of the Shiite sect. Radical Sunnis view Shiites as heretics.
The presence of Islamic extremists in Syria looms large over U.S. efforts to help the rebels, especially when it comes to providing weapons that could end up in the hands of America’s enemies. The extremists have also sparked infighting with more secular rebels concerned about the increasing power of the Islamists.
Most of the foreign fighters in Syria are from Arab countries, including al-Qaida militants from Iraq on the rebel side and Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon on the regime’s side. The flow of militants from Pakistan adds a new element to that mix.
Pakistani Interior Ministry spokesman Omar Hamid Khan said provincial authorities throughout Pakistan deny that militants have left the country for Syria.
But three Pakistani intelligence officials based in the tribal region that borders Afghanistan, as well as militants themselves, say the fighters leaving Pakistan for Syria include members of al-Qaida, the Pakistani Taliban and Suleman’s group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
The fighters fall mainly into two categories. One includes foreign combatants from places like Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and likely the Middle East who came to Pakistan’s tribal region to fight U.S.-led forces in neighboring Afghanistan and are now heading to Syria because they view it as the most pressing battle, said the Pakistani intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
This group includes members of al-Qaida who trained the Pakistani Taliban in areas such as bomb-making and are …read more
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A US drone strike in Pakistan’s troubled northwestern tribal belt late Saturday killed two militants on a motorcycle and damaged nearby houses, officials said.
The attack took place in the Mir Ali area, some 35 kilometres (21 miles) east of Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan tribal district, a stronghold of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants along the Afghan border.
Local security officials said both the militants were believed to be from Turkmenistan but their exact nationalities are yet to be ascertained.
“The target of the drone was the militants on (the) motorcycle, some nearby houses were also damaged,” a local security official told AFP in Miranshah.
Another security official in Miranshah added they were “verifying the reports that both the militants” were from Turkmenistan.
Attacks by unmanned American aircraft are deeply unpopular in Pakistan, but Washington views them as a vital tool in the fight against Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants in the lawless tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan.
Pakistan has repeatedly protested against these strikes and has also summoned US diplomats in Islamabad to condemn the drone strikes, which it says are a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
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Afghanistan has signed a deal with ex-Soviet neighbors Turkmenistan and Tajikistan to build a new railway linking the three nations.
Presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov of Turkmenistan and Emomali Rakhmon of Tajikistan inked the preliminary agreement Wednesday in the Turkmen capital.
The 400-kilometer (250-mile) railroad would link landlocked Afghanistan to a regional transport network, increasing the country’s export potential. It would link the Afghan town of Akina-Andhoi, about 650 kilometers (400 miles) northwest of Kabul to Atamyrat in Turkmenistan and Pyandzh in Tajikistan.
The construction of the new railway is set to start in July in Turkmenistan. Turkmen workers will also build the Afghan segment of the railway.
A 75-kilometer (47-mile) line from Afghanistan into Uzbekistan began operating in December 2011.
Iranian state TV is reporting that the country has launched its domestically built destroyer in the Caspian Sea.
Sunday’s report says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated the guided-missile destroyer Jamaran-2 in the port city of Anzali, about 250 kilometers (150 miles) northwest of Tehran.
This is Iran‘s first heavy-weight military presence in the oil-rich sea, where the five surrounding countries — Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan — have not reached an agreement on exploitation of its resources.
Iran supports equally sharing the sea. But the other four countries have reached agreements on exploiting the resources through mutual pacts, putting Iran‘s share at about 12 percent.
Ukraine reached a tentative agreement with Turkmenistan on Wednesday to resume imports of natural gas from the energy-rich Central Asian nation.
The deal marks a breakthrough for Ukraine, which is seeking alternatives to Russian imports to meet its energy needs. Until 2006, Turkmenistan supplied Ukraine with 36 billion cubic meters (1.3 trillion cubic feet) of gas annually in exchange for cash and goods.
However, completion of the deal between Ukraine and Turkmenistan would require the consent of Kazakhstan and Russia as transit nations. Kazakhstan will be unlikely to pose an obstacle, but Russia, which has sought to dominate gas supplies to Europe and engaged in bitter energy disputes with Ukraine in the past, may not be forthcoming.
Ukrainian Energy Minister Eduard Stavitsky said the agreement was signed after talks between Ukraine‘s President Viktor Yanukovych and his Turkmen counterpart, Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov. He would not give a specific volume.
Yuriy Boiko, Ukraine‘s deputy prime minister, told The Associated Press that Ukraine in the future could also help Turkmenistan develop its energy riches. According to official estimates, Turkmenistan holds more than 30 trillion cubic meters (1,059 trillion cubic feet) in total gas reserves. Ukraine may also resell gas to other European markets.
The pipelines running from Turkmenistan via Kazakhstan and Russia to Ukraine have had spare capacity since Moscow sharply reduced its purchases of the Turkmen gas in 2009 in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. But Russia may push Ukraine for concessions on other issues as a condition for allowing the transit of Turkmen gas.
Moscow long has pushed for control over Ukrainian pipelines carrying Russian gas to the EU and has prodded Ukraine to join a Russia-dominated economic bloc. Earlier this week, the Ukrainian edition of business daily Kommersant said that the countries have been holding talks on creating a joint consortium to manage the Ukrainian gas transportation system.
Meanwhile, Russia‘s state-controlled Gazprom gas monopoly has been demanding that Ukraine pay back a $7 billion debt, a claim Kiev disputes.
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Peter Leonard contributed from Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Ukraine‘s foreign minister says he hopes his country will resume purchasing natural gas from the energy-rich Turkmenistan, thereby reducing its heavy reliance on Russian supplies.
Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhary said during a visit to the Central Asian nation Wednesday that Ukraine regretted its failure to preserve energy ties.
Up until 2006, Turkmenistan supplied Ukraine with 36 billion cubic meters of gas annually. Ukraine paid for the fuel in cash and goods.
Kozhary said assistance would be sought from Russia, through which Turkmen gas must transit to reach Ukraine, in reaching a new arrangement. Russia also buys gas from Turkmenistan, but spare pipeline capacity has been created due to flagging demand from Moscow.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych is expected to visit Turkmenistan next month for talks likely to focus on energy.
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Kissing his boyfriend during a protest in front of Russia‘s parliament earned Pavel Samburov 30 hours of detention and the equivalent of a $16 fine on a charge of “hooliganism.” But if a bill that comes up for a first vote later this month becomes law, such a public kiss could be defined as illegal “homosexual propaganda” and bring a fine of up to $16,000.
The legislation being pushed by the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church would make it illegal nationwide to provide minors with information that is defined as “propaganda of sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality and transgenderism.” It includes a ban on holding public events that promote gay rights. St. Petersburg and a number of other Russian cities already have similar laws on their books.
The bill is part of an effort to promote traditional Russian values as opposed to Western liberalism, which the Kremlin and church see as corrupting Russian youth and by extension contributing to a wave of protest against President Vladimir Putin‘s rule.
Samburov describes the anti-gay bill as part of a Kremlin crackdown on minorities of any kind — political and religious as well as sexual — designed to divert public attention from growing discontent with Putin’s rule.
The lanky and longhaired Samburov is the founder of the Rainbow Association, which unites gay activists throughout Russia. The gay rights group has joined anti-Putin marches in Moscow over the past year, its rainbow flag waving along with those of other opposition groups.
Other laws that the Kremlin says are intended to protect young Russians have been hastily adopted in recent months, including some that allow banning and blocking web content and print publications that are deemed “extremist” or unfit for young audiences.
Denis Volkov, a sociologist with the Levada Center, an independent pollster, says the anti-gay bill fits the “general logic” of a government intent on limiting various rights.
But in this case, the move has been met mostly with either indifference or open enthusiasm by average Russians. Levada polls conducted last year show that almost two thirds of Russians find homosexuality “morally unacceptable and worth condemning.” About half are against gay rallies and same-sex marriage; almost a third think homosexuality is the result of “a sickness or a psychological trauma,” the Levada surveys show.
Russia‘s widespread hostility to homosexuality is shared by the political and religious elite.
Lawmakers have accused gays of decreasing Russia‘s already low birth rates and said they should be barred from government jobs, undergo forced medical treatment or be exiled. Orthodox activists criticized U.S. company PepsiCo for using a “gay” rainbow on cartons of its dairy products. An executive with a government-run television network said in a nationally televised talk show that gays should be prohibited from donating blood, sperm and organs for transplants, while after death their hearts should be burned or buried.
The anti-gay sentiment was seen Sunday in Voronezh, a city south of Moscow, where a handful of gay activists protesting against the parliament bill were attacked by a much larger group of anti-gay activists who hit them with snowballs.
The gay rights protest that won Samburov a fine took place in December. Seconds after Samburov and his boyfriend kissed, militant activists with the Orthodox Church pelted them with eggs. Police intervened, rounding up the gay activists and keeping them for 30 hours first in a frozen van and then in an unheated detention center. The Orthodox activists were also rounded up, but were released much earlier.
Those behind the bill say minors need to be protected from “homosexual propaganda” because they are unable to evaluate the information critically. “This propaganda goes through the mass media and public events that propagate homosexuality as normal behavior,” the bill reads.
Cities started adopting anti-gay laws in 2006. Only one person has been prosecuted so far under a law specifically targeted at gays: Nikolai Alexeyev, a gay rights campaigner, was fined the equivalent of $160 after a one-man protest last summer in St. Petersburg.
In November, a St. Petersburg court dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Trade Union of Russian Citizens, a small group of Orthodox conservatives and Putin loyalists, against pop star Madonna. The group sought $10.7 million in damages for what it says was “propaganda of perversion” when Madonna spoke up for gay rights during a show three months earlier.
The federal bill’s expected adoption comes 20 years after a Stalinist-era law punishing homosexuality with up to five years in prison was removed from Russia‘s penal code as part of the democratic reforms that followed the Soviet Union‘s collapse.
Most of the other former Soviet republics also decriminalized homosexuality, and attitudes toward gays have become a litmus test of democratic freedoms. While gay pride parades are held in the three former Soviet Baltic states, all today members of the European Union, same-sex love remains a crime in authoritarian Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
In Russia, gays have been whipsawed by official pressure and persistent homophobia. There are no reliable estimates of how many gays and lesbians live in Russia, and only a few big cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg have gay nightclubs and gyms. Even there, gays do not feel secure.
When a dozen masked men entered a Moscow night club during a “coming out party” that campaigner Samburov organized in October, he thought they were part of the show. But then one of the masked men yelled, “Have you ordered up a fight? Here you go!” The men overturned tables, smashed dishes and beat, kicked and sprayed mace at the five dozen men and women who had gathered at the gay-friendly Freedays club, Samburov and the club’s administration said.
Four club patrons were injured, including a young woman who got broken glass in her eye, police said. Although a police station was nearby, Samburov said, it took police officers half an hour to arrive. The attackers remain unidentified.
On the next day, an Orthodox priest said he regretted that his religious role had not allowed him to participate in the beating.
“Until this scum gets off of Russian land, I fully share the views of those who are trying to purge our motherland of it,” Rev. Sergiy Rybko was quoted as saying by the Orthodoxy and World online magazine. “We either become a tolerant Western state where everything is allowed — and lose our Christianity and moral foundations — or we will be a Christian people who live in our God-protected land in purity and godliness.”
In other parts of Russia, gays feel even less secure. Bagaudin Abduljalilov moved to Moscow from Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim region in southern Russia where he says some gays have been beaten and had their hands cut off, sometimes by their own relatives, for bringing shame on their families.
“You don’t have any human rights down there,” he said. “Anything can be done to you with impunity.”
Shortly before moving to Moscow, Abduljalilov left Islam to become a Protestant Christian, but was expelled from a seminary after telling the dean he was gay. He also has had trouble finding a job as a television journalist because of discrimination against people from Dagestan.
“I love Russia, but I want another Russia,” said Abduljalilov, 30, who now works as a clerk. “It’s a pity I can’t spend my life on creative projects instead of banging my head against the wall and repeating, ‘I’m normal, I’m normal.’ “
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A senior U.S. diplomat has played down concerns among Central Asian governments that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan could foment regional instability.
Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake said Tuesday during a visit to Turkmenistan that the United States will conduct a responsible pullback that ensures security gains made in recent years.
He says U.S. security forces will focus after 2014 on training Afghan troops and continuing the counterterrorism mission.
Blake commended governments in the region for their role in helping rebuild the Afghan economy. He singled out Turkmenistan for praise for supplying electricity to Afghanistan, with which it shares a 750-kilometer (465-mile) frontier.
He was circumspect over Turkmenistan‘s much-criticized lack of democratic rights, noting only that he urged authorities in talks Tuesday to promote fundamental freedoms.
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