The Daily Upvote ~ Patreon Edition - 2016-11-01

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Deal on Cyprus reunification closer than ever: U.N. envoy

(Reuters) A deal to end the partition of Cyprus, one of Europe's most enduring conflicts, is closer than ever and could be clinched by the end of this year, a senior U.N. envoy said on Tuesday.

Rival Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders are slated to meet at a Swiss resort for talks from Nov. 7-11 to pave the way for greater convergence between two sides split since a brief Greek coup and ensuing Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.

"We are way ahead of what has ever happened before," said Espen Barth Eide, Special Adviser to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The Swiss meeting will focus on proposed territorial trade-offs but will not be a make-or-break affair resulting in a fully fledged agreement, the Norwegian diplomat told a conference.

Ban was due to be present at negotiations starting in the resort of Mont Pelerin on Monday in the presence of President Nicos Anastasiades, the Greek Cypriot leader, and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci.

"No negotiations on Cyprus have come close to the level we are at now," Eide said of past peace efforts.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyprus-talks-un-idUSKBN12W4NW

Venezuelan gov't releases 5 jailed opposition members

(EFE) Venezuela's government has released five jailed opposition members in the wake of the start of talks between officials and political opponents, opposition leaders said.

Progressive Advance party leader Carlos Melo and MUD opposition alliance advisers Andres Moreno and Marco Trejo were released on Monday, Sucre Mayor Carlos Ocariz, a member of the opposition, said in a Twitter post.

MUD executive secretary Jesus Torrealba, for his part, said in a Twitter post that Angel Coromoto Rodriguez, head of security for the National Assembly's speaker, and opposition member Henry Ramos Allup were also released.

Andres Leon, an opposition member, is no longer under house arrest, Torrealba said.

Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez, meanwhile, said in Geneva Tuesday that the release from prison of the five opposition members showed that President Nicolas Maduro's administration wanted to make progress in the dialogue with the opposition.

Rodriguez also called in an address to the U.N. Human Rights Commission for an "end to the hostility" against Venezuela, adding that the South American country was committed to its political model and revolution.

Source: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2016/11/01/venezuelan-govt-releases-5-jailed-opposition-members

Venezuela opposition eases off Maduro ahead of talks

(AFP) Venezuela's opposition on Tuesday suspended a "trial" by lawmakers and a planned march against unpopular President Nicolas Maduro, ahead of talks next week aimed at easing their country's deep crisis.

The decision, adopted by the opposition-dominated National Assembly, to put off its proceedings against Maduro on charges he was derelict in his constitutional duties was not "capitulation," speaker Henry Ramos Allup said.

Instead, it was a sign of the opposition's desire to seek a solution to the crisis through the talks with the government that are to begin November 11, he said.

He added that an opposition march on Maduro's presidential palace that had been planned for Thursday would likewise be postponed.

Analysts had called the "trial" of Maduro by the lawmakers symbolic at best, as the constitution does not allow for such a process against the president.

Maduro himself had dismissed the effort as invalid and an attempt to overthrow his government, and vowed to throw participants in jail.

Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/venezuela-lawmakers-suspend-maduro-trial-ahead-talks-201429294.html

France to begin moving migrant minors from Calais on Wednesday: officials

(Reuters) French authorities will on Wednesday begin transferring about 1,500 unaccompanied migrant minors to reception centers across the country, officials said on Tuesday, as a standoff with Britain over who takes care of the youths drags on.

The minors have been housed temporarily in converted shipping containers in Calais.

Demolition teams finished tearing down unoccupied shacks and tents in the northern seaside town on Monday after last week's evacuation of thousands of migrants from the "Jungle" camp where more than 6,000 people were living, most in the hope of making it across the Channel to Britain.

Tensions between London and Paris have mounted in recent days after President Francois Hollande urged British Prime Minister Theresa May to accept Britain's share of responsibility for the minors.

Britain is obliged under EU rules to take in minors with verified family ties.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-calais-minors-idUSKBN12W4T2

Largest US oil pipeline shut off after deadly blast

(AFP) The largest gasoline pipeline in the United States remained shut off Tuesday in the southern state of Alabama following an explosion that killed one and injured five, as crews battled to control the resulting wildfire.

The blaze broke out Monday afternoon in Shelby County after an excavator being used by contractors hit the Colonial pipeline and sparked an explosion, the company said in a statement.

"After the incident occurred, Colonial shut down its two main lines, which traverse Shelby County," the company said.

One person was dead at the scene while five were taken to hospitals in nearby Birmingham for treatment, according to Colonial.

Emergency crews built a dirt dam eight feet tall (2.4 meters) and 80 feet long to contain the burning fuel, Governor Robert Bentley said on Twitter.

"The fire will not be out any time soon," Shelby County sheriff's Major Ken Burchfield told local news site Al.com.

Wildfires were burning on 32 acres (13 hectares) in the sparsely populated area, Bentley said.

Colonial, based in the southern state of Georgia, is the largest pipeline in the United States by volume, transporting more than 2.4 million barrels of gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel and other refined petroleum products per day.

It operates 5,500 miles (8,851 km) of pipeline between Houston and the New York Harbor, serving 50 million consumers.

Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/largest-us-oil-pipeline-shut-off-deadly-blast-003319117.html

Ivory Coast approves new constitution, opposition claims fraud

(Reuters) Voters in Ivory Coast overwhelmingly approved a new constitution in a weekend referendum, according to provisional results announced by the elections commission on Tuesday, though opposition groups denounced the turnout figure as fraudulent.

President Alassane Ouattara had argued that the new charter would help the nation turn the page on a decade-long crisis that was capped by a 2011 civil war and create the stability needed to cement its status as Africa's rising economic star.

The results showed about 93 percent of voters backed the text on a turnout of around 42 percent, commission president Youssouf Bakayoko said on state-owned television. There was no turnout threshold for the vote to be deemed valid.

Opposition leaders had called for a boycott of the vote, branding the constitution a ploy to further entrench Ouattara's political coalition. Some urged their supporters to disrupt the process, and violence erupted at around 100 polling stations during Sunday's referendum.

"The turnout was rigged. It doesn't correspond to reality. Turnout was well below 10 percent," Pascal Affi N'Guessan, the head of ex-president Laurent Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party, told Reuters.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ivorycoast-referendum-idUSKBN12W50V

US says money for Indian land buys will come up short

(AP) An ambitious effort to restore tribal control over huge areas of privately owned land on American Indian reservations is projected to run out of money with millions of acres still unaddressed, according to a U.S. government report obtained by The Associated Press.

The Obama administration established the "land buyback program" under a $1.9 billion legal settlement that determined the government squandered billions of dollars it held in trust for tribes from royalties on oil and gas leases, grazing and other uses of Indian lands.

As part of that deal, federal officials agreed to spend $1.6 billion to purchase so-called fractionated parcels of land that have multiple owners, which makes them hard to sell or develop.

Yet more than 4 million acres potentially eligible for purchase will remain when the settlement money runs out in 2022, according to an Interior Department report.

To date the buyback program has paid out almost $900 million to purchase the equivalent of 1.7 million acres on more than two dozen reservations.

Source: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/8724f8782ac047759622c5d5d2ad3bf2/apnewsbreak-money-indian-land-buys-will-come-short

U.N. human rights investigator to assess Australia's asylum policy

(Reuters) A U.N. investigator into the human rights of migrants arrived in Australia on Tuesday to assess its tough asylum seeker policy, after aborting a visit last year claiming a lack of government assistance and access to asylum seeker detention camps.

The U.N. Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Francois Crépeau, will spend 18 days in Australia and the tiny South Pacific island nation of Nauru - where some 410 men, women and children remain in indefinite detention.

"This is an opportunity for me to understand how Australia manages its overall migration policies, and their impact on the human rights of migrants," Crépeau said in a statement.

Under Australia's border security laws, asylum seekers intercepted trying to reach the country by boat are sent for processing to detention camps on Papua New Guinea's Manus island and Nauru. They will never be resettled in Australia.

Currently, there are 1,200 people held in camps.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-asylum-idUSKBN12W37C

Elephant poaching costs Africa tourism $25mn: study

(AFP) Stopping the killing of elephants for their tusks could add some $25 million (23 million euros) to Africa's annual tourism income, more than offsetting the anti-poaching spend, a study said Tuesday.

While the figure pales in comparison to the estimated value of the black market ivory trade in China, it represents about a fifth of tourist income for game parks in 14 countries, where half of Africa's elephants are located, the study said.

"We find that the lost economic benefits that elephants could deliver to African countries via tourism are substantial, and that these benefits exceed the costs necessary to halt elephant declines in east, southern and west Africa," the authors wrote in the journal Nature Communications.

The conservation of elephants, they concluded, "is a wise investment decision for countries in the savannah regions of Africa".

The estimated value of the ivory trade is almost $600 million per year, illustrating the "economic difficulties of elephant conservation," the authors conceded.

Africa's elephant population has been reduced by about 30 percent overall in just the period 2007 to 2014, the study said.

The beasts' tusks are used for ivory carvings in parts of Asia where ownership of such sculptures denote wealth and success.

Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/elephant-poaching-costs-africa-tourism-25mn-study-161141741.html

Saudi-led raid kills 60 at Yemen security site, prison, official says

(Reuters) An air raid by an Arab coalition killed 60 people in Yemen, including inmates of a prison near the city of Hodeidah, medical sources said.

The prison held 84 inmates when it was struck three times late on Saturday, Hashem al-Azizi, deputy governor of the province of Hodeidah, told Reuters.

The Saudi-led alliance that conducted the raid said it struck a "central security building" used as a military command center by the Houthi rebels it is fighting. Local officials said the prison lies within a security complex but that only prison guards were present during the air strike.

"This building is used by Houthi militia and the forces of the deposed president as a command and control center for their military operations," a statement by the coalition said, referring to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, a Houthi ally.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-strike-idUSKCN12U03R

Ethiopian reshuffle should satisfy protesters, government says

(RFI) Ethiopia’s government on Tuesday announced an "unprecedented" cabinet reshuffle that it hopes will respond to the challenges the country faces following a series of protests and demonstrations, according to the government’s new spokesperson. Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn appointed 21 new cabinet ministers and left nine ministers in post after he received parliamentary approval for the selection.

"The protests we have witnessed is part of it,” said Negeri Lencho, the newly appointed Minister of Government Communications. “The people have many questions and there were many challenges for almost a year in different regional states and also in different parts of the country."

The answer to questions raised by the people should be maximising “service to the people”, according to Lencho, who pointed out that those appointed were selected on the basis of their skills and experience.

"The composition of the cabinet, I can say, is unprecedented because of the different people or professionals from academia, from research," said the former journalism professor. "It’s not simply a political move or about different interests from the different parties within the EPRDF (Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front).”

Ethiopia has been the scene of deadly clashes in recent months linked to protests in the Oromia and Amhara regions, where people complain about political and economic marginalisation.

Source: http://en.rfi.fr/africa/20161101-ethiopian-reshuffle-answers-questions-raised-protesters-says-government-spokesperson

At least 19 killed in latest India-Pakistan border firing

(Reuters) India and Pakistan on Tuesday tallied at least 19 deaths in recent firing across their disputed border in Kashmir, where the nuclear-armed neighbors are engaging in increasingly intense artillery duels.

Tension over the Himalayan region has run high since a September cross-border raid on an army base killed 19 Indian soldiers, prompting what New Delhi called retaliatory "surgical strikes" against Islamist militants in Pakistan.

Each accuses the other of repeatedly violating a 2003 ceasefire. On the diplomatic front, already chilly relations have gone into the deep freeze following recent tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats.

Both sides also dispute each other's version of events that come against the backdrop of heightened tension in Indian-ruled Kashmir after security forces killed a separatist field commander in July.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-pakistan-idUSKBN12W38H

All sides may be committing war crimes in Aleppo, U.N. says

(UN) The United Nations human rights office today expressed concern that all parties in Aleppo are conducting hostilities which are resulting in large numbers of civilian casualties, and creating an atmosphere of terror for those who continue to live in the Syrian city.

“Strikes against hospitals, schools, marketplaces, water facilities and bakeries are now commonplace, and may amount to war crimes,” Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) told reporters in Geneva.

She said that over the weekend, there were reports of intensified shelling by armed opposition groups of civilian-populated areas in Government-controlled western Aleppo. The areas hit by mortars, rockets and other improvised explosive devices (IEDs) included the neighbourhoods of Salah al-Din, al-Shahbaa, al-Zahraa and al-Hamadaniya, she added.

Source: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=55447

Russia says resumption of Syria peace talks delayed indefinitely

(Reuters) Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday a Western failure to rein in violent Islamists in Syria had indefinitely delayed the resumption of peace talks.

Shoigu said that rebels backed by Western governments had been attacking civilians in the Syrian city of Aleppo, despite a pause in Russian and Syrian air attacks.

"As a result, the prospects for the start of a negotiation process and the return to peaceful life in Syria are postponed for an indefinite period," Shoigu said.

Separately, a Kremlin spokesman said that a temporary pause in Russian and Syrian government air strikes on Aleppo was in force for now, but could not be extended if the rebels in the city did not halt their attacks.

Insurgents launched an offensive last week against government-held western Aleppo, more than a month into an operation by the army to retake the city's rebel-held eastern districts, which it had already put under siege.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-shoigu-idUSKBN12W3EE

Iraqi forces breach mosul city limits, heralding complex phase in campaign

(NYT) Facing Islamic State artillery, snipers and suicide attacks, Iraq’s elite counterterrorism forces breached Mosul’s city limits on Tuesday, officers said, the first time government forces have entered the city in more than two years.

The advance from the east was a breakthrough in efforts over a span of more than two weeks to reclaim Mosul from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. But a great deal of fighting remains: Even as the counterterrorism forces try to push toward the center of the city, Iraq’s second largest, Iraqi Army soldiers are approaching from the south.

The counterterrorism units, which have American training and equipment and work closely with United States military advisers, moved into the Gogjali neighborhood on Tuesday. The area was the first they reached within the city limits after going village by village for the past two weeks.

Two officers reached by cellphone said that the fighting had been fierce, but that they were confident the neighborhood, known for its cattle farming, would be secured soon.

“We are facing tough resistance,” one special forces officer, Capt. Raad Hussein, said as gunfire crackled in the background. “But we will get it.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/world/middleeast/iraq-mosul-isis.html

Islamic State kills 40 near Mosul, tries to move 25,000 to use as shields, U.N. says

(Reuters) Islamic State militants killed 40 former members of the Iraqi Security Forces near Mosul on Saturday and threw their bodies in the Tigris river, U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said on Tuesday, citing reports from the field.

IS also tried to transport about 25,000 civilians from Hammam al-Alil, a town south of Mosul, on dozens of trucks and minibuses during the hours of darkness early on Monday, probably for use as human shields in defense of IS positions, she said.

Most of the trucks, which were heading toward the Tal Afar district, turned back under pressure from patrolling aircraft, but some buses did reach Abu Saif, 15 km (10 miles) north of Hammam al-Alil, she said.

"We have grave concerns for these and tens of thousands of other civilians who have reportedly been forcibly relocated by ISIL (Islamic State) in the past two weeks," she said.

IS fighters were taking people closer and closer to Mosul city and putting them close to their offices and to installations that could constitute military targets, Shamdasani said.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-mosul-un-idUSKBN12W3PV