Mauritanie: dix candidats à la présidentielle, début de la campagne jeudi

Hamas official visited Switzerland, other European countries:sources 
 

 2009-07-02
GAZA, July 2 (Xinhua) -- A senior Gaza-based Hamas official visited a number of European countries recently to promote the Islamic movement's general position, a source said on Thursday.
    Switzerland was one of the European countries that Mahmoud Zahar, former Hamas' foreign minister, visited in his low-profile tour, the source, who declined to reveal the names of other countries Zahar visited, told Xinhua.
    Zahar is a newly-elected member of Hamas' politburo, the highest decision-making body of the Islamic movement which the United States and most of the European countries classified as a terrorist organization, owing to its charter which calls for the elimination of Israel.
    In his talks with European officials, Zahar focused on the blockade Israel has been imposing on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip for two years. "These meetings aimed at breaking the siege on Gaza and the international isolation on Hamas. He also tried to build relations" with these European countries, the sources added.
    Hamas did not release news about Zahar's visits "upon requests by the countries that were included in the trip." Zahar, who is also a member of the Hamas-dominated Palestinian parliament, paid the visit upon requests by those European countries.
    After Israel ended a three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip in January, many Western diplomatic delegations visited the territory and some of them held talks with Hamas, the latest one was former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
    In June, Khaled Mashaal, Hamas' politburo chief, delivered a speech in which he said the Islamic movement was open to talk with the West and was willing to accept a Palestinian statehood alongside Israel but without recognizing the Jewish state.
 

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Al Qaeda Warns France over Burqa Criticism

 

France on Guard After Militants Vow "Vengeance" for Sarkozy's Disapproval of Face-Covering Veils
 
PARIS, July 1, 2009
 
AP)  French officials were on guard Wednesday after an al Qaeda affiliate threatened vengeance for President Nicolas Sarkozy's criticism of the face-covering veils worn by some Muslim women.
France is maintaining "very great vigilance" toward actions and statements by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or North Africa, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier said in a briefing.

"French authorities reaffirm their determination to fight terrorism," he added.

The Algeria-based group issued a statement on Islamic Web sites vowing to "seek vengeance against France" over Sarkozy's comments about face-covering Muslim veils such as the burqa and niqab. The declaration could not be independently verified.

Sarkozy said last week the burqa would not be "welcome" in France and would turn women into prisoners. France's parliament created a commission to study the issue, which could lead to banning the Muslim robes from being worn in public.

Human Rights Watch said the move would be counterproductive, and a top British Muslim group said Sarkozy's comments were patronizing and offensive. Lebanon's most influential Shiite cleric called on the French leader to reconsider his statement.

The al Qaeda declaration called on followers to act "for the honor of our daughters and our sisters" and called on all Muslims "to respond to this hate."

Hard-line Algerian militants left over from a civil war between radical Islamists and government forces in the 1990s joined al Qaeda in 2006. They regularly target Algerian government forces and have tried to step up attacks against foreigners.

The Associated Press

ANALYSIS-World changing around Turkey's generals

    * Previously untouchable generals on the defensive
    * Tug-of-war between secularists and religious-minded groups
    * EU reforms have clipped wings of powerful military

Reuters, le 2 juillet 2009 à 13h12
    
    By Ibon Villelabeitia
    ANKARA, June 30 (Reuters) - Turkey's powerful generals are feeling unprecedented pressure, cornered by what they see as Islamist enemies bent on dividing the military and their once formidable influence in public life cut by EU-inspired reforms.
    A spat over an alleged plot by the secularist military to undermine the Islamist-rooted AK Party government has exposed a rivalry between elites. An angry outburst by the country's top general -- "Take your hands off the armed forces!" -- illustrates the depth of frustration of the men in uniform.
    "The military is completely lost in its reaction to the changes around it," said Cengiz Aktar, a professor at Istanbul's Bahcesehir University who is often critical of the army.
    "They used to be unaccountable but are having a hard time in handling the process of normalisation of civilian-military ties.
They will suffer more. There is nothing they can do but adapt to the new rules," Aktar said.
    Turkey's military, which has ousted four governments in 50 years in the predominantly Muslim European Union candidate country, regards itself as the last bulwark against political Islam tring to subvert the republic's secular principles.
    That role is now being questioned, strained by reforms aimed at meeting EU membership criteria and as a rising middle class of religious-minded Turks that have moved into positions of power under the AK Party challenge the old secularist elite.
    A document published by a liberal newspaper earlier this month alleging a military conspiracy against the AK Party and the religious movement of Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen has raised new tensions between the government and the military, which has seen its prestige blemished by the row.
    Few see a risk of the military staging a coup. The AK Party enjoys wide popular support and a military intervention would demolish the image of an institution whose power and privilege is already waning.
    In a sign of democratic maturity, financial markets have so far reacted calmy but investors are following developments closely as Turkey has a long history of political instability.
    "This settling of accounts won't end up easily," wrote Mehmet Ali Birand, a leading commentator. "It is not clear where and when this escalation will end."
   
    "PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR"
    Military chief General Ilker Basbug last week denounced the plot report as a smear campaign to split the armed forces. Wagging his finger during a news conference broadcast live, a visibly angry Basbug said NATO's second-largest army was facing an "asymmetric war" conducted through the media.
    Basbug did not name any group but secularists are suspicious the Gulen movement may be behind the document to discredit the armed forces and goad it into a fight with the government.
    The Gulen movement and the secularist establishment of military, judicial and academic elite have long been at odds.
    Gulen gleans much of his support from a rising group of religious-minded professionals who are the same people who helped sweep the Islamist-rooted AK Party to power in 2002.
    Secularists, who suspect Gulen of wanting to train a cadre of people to run a future Islamic state, believe followers in the police and courts are driving a separate investigation into the right-wing "Ergenekon" network suspected of planning a coup.
    "Everything we are witnessing is part of a psychological war. The Turkish armed forces is on one side and the Gulen movement on the other," Ismet Berkan, editor of Radikal, a secularist daily, recently wrote in a column.
    Gareth Jenkins, an Istanbul-based military analyst, said the military was at a crossroads. Past army interventions aimed at blocking the AK Party from taking state institutions including the presidency have backfired, but many in the ranks feel their old rivals are now out to get them.
    "The military doesn't want to run the country as in the past, but they feel they are being attacked. The problem they have is that they can't be too aggressive against the government because who is going to replace the AK Party? Their best chance is to hold on to what they have," Jenkins said.
   
    EUROPE
    The AK Party's use of its parliamentary majority to pass EU-inspired reforms to cut back the power of the military has also raised suspicions among hard-line secularists the AK Party wants to weaken the army's role as guardian against Islamism.
    The AK Party denies this.
    Analysts said Basbug, halfway through his two-year tenure, will need to show tact in upholding the military's prestige while avoiding an open clash with the government.
    Retired general Kenan Evren, who lead a 1980 military coup, was quoted last week as saying he would rather commit suicide than be tried by a civilian court if changes to the constitution under discussion pave the way for such a trial.
    Jenkins, the military analyst, said the two camps will eventually need to find an accomodation.
    "The process of pushing the military towards EU standards has to be done without provoking the military. The last thing Turkey wants is a demoralised army. Government and military have to get along in a normal country," he said.

REUTERS
 

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Main figures in Turkey's power struggle

Reuters, le 2 juillet 2009 à 15h28
    ANKARA, June 30 (Reuters) - An alleged plot in the secularist armed forces to undermine Turkey's ruling AK Party has exposed a rivalry between elites in the Muslim European Union candidate nation.
    Following are brief portraits of some of the key figures in the secularist and religious-minded camps.
    * TAYYIP ERDOGAN, PRIME MINISTER:
    -- Erdogan, 55, is AK Party leader and Turkey's most popular and charismatic politician. He presided over Turkey's 2005 historic launch of European Union membership talks, but many in the secularist establishment suspect he harbours plans for an Islamic state. A former mayor of Istanbul who served a short jail sentence in 1999 for reading a poem deemed too Islamist at a public rally, Erdogan is a hero for millions of pious Turks from the Anatolian heartland who credit him for standing up against the powerful secularist establishment, including the
military. A devout Muslim, he has been accused of contributing to the polarisation of Turkish society.
    * ABDULLAH GUL, PRESIDENT:
    -- A respected former foreign minister, Gul, 58, was voted president by the AK Party-controlled parliament in August 2007 despite a military website condemnation -- branded an "e-coup" by critics -- of his appointment. One of the founders of the AK Party along with Erdogan, Gul is viewed with suspicion by the secularist elite because of his Islamist past and because his wife wears the Muslim headscarf. His appointment to the post -- first occupied by founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk -- ended the secularists' decades-old grip on the presidency. Since becoming president, he has taken a moderating position, maintaining contacts with all sides to find consensus.
    * ILKER BASBUG, ARMED FORCES CHIEF:
    -- General Basbug has been credited with ending open hostilities between the military and the AK Party government under his more confrontational predecessor. He has been forced on to the defensive by an alleged military plot to undermine the AK Party government and by an investigation into the "Ergenekon" right-wing network, in which senior active and retired officers have been arrested on charges of plotting a bombing and assassination campaign to provoke a military coup. Like the rest of the secular establishment, he distrusts Erdogan's AK Party. In his speech after taking command last August he warned againsta rising "religious lifestyle" in Turkey. He has said he would never tolerate coup activities in the military.
    * PREACHER FETHULLAH GULEN
    -- Revered by many as a tolerant, moderating force in Islam, but suspected by secularist Turks of harbouring a political agenda, Muslim preacher Gulen conveys like few other public figures the competing attitudes that reflect the wider struggle for Turkey's identity. He is the founder of a powerful socio-religious community secularists suspect promotes what they call a creeping Islamisation of Turkey's society. Critics say his followers have infiltrated the police and courts to target the military and control newspapers critical of the army. The reclusive Gulen, 68, left for the United States in 1999, shortly before a case against him on charges with plotting to destroy the secular state and establish Islamic law. He was acquitted but has lived there ever since. His movement is seen as having ties to the AK Party. 
    * CHP LEADER DENIZ BAYKAL:
    - The septuagenarian Baykal is the veteran leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party, the party of Turkey's urban secular elite wary of the social and economic rise of pious Muslims. Lukewarm on the EU, his party has blocked efforts by the AK Party to reform the military-drafted constitution, a key requirement for EU membership entry. He has often chastised the AK Party for what he says are efforts to undermine Turkey's secular system of government, but he has focused his attacks of late on alleged government corruption.
    * HASIM KILIC, CONSTITUTIONAL COURT CHAIRMAN:
    -- As chief judge, Kilic played a key role when the Constitutional Court last year narrowly rejected an attempt to shut down the AK Party on charges of being a focal point of anti-secular activities. The court voted instead to impose financial penalites on the AK Party. He is one of the oldest members of the 11-member court. Gul appointed him chairman of the court in October 2007. Three judges will see their terms expire within a year, which could determine the court's direction. The president has the final say on appointing judges.
    * ABDURRAHMAN YALCINKAYA, COURT OF APPEALS PROSECUTOR:
    -- AK Party arch-nemesis Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, a staunch secularist, was the prosecutor behind the legal attempt to ban the AK Party. Speculation surrounding a second closure case grew this month as newspapers reported the implacable Yalcinkaya was investigating allegations that German-based Islamist charity Deniz Feneri channelled funds to the AK Party.

REUTERS

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