by the BBC's Biodun Iginla. Note: I'm not on strike. I belong to the US Writer's Guild (East), and I get paid for my projects, which includes, among others, cross-posting the BBC News Website to my BBC News blogs and my Economist.com articles.
For most viewers it will be the same service they are used to”
End QuoteBBC spokesman
Mr Dear said the second day was 'solidly supported'.
Speaking from an NUJ picket line in Glasgow, he added: "News programmes have virtually been written off in Scotland and we expect huge disruption across the BBC again today."
But the BBC said on Saturday that most viewers would not notice a drop in service.
A spokesman said: "It is not totally back to normal but not far off. It may not be quite as polished as it usually is, but for most viewers it will be the same service they are used to."
Strictly Come Dancing was not affected by the action, with the dancing stars of the show crossing picket lines.
The BBC said viewing figures for Friday's news bulletins had remained "more or less" in line with usual levels, and traffic to the News website was also normal.
NUJ members at the BBC are also set to observe an indefinite work to rule from Sunday, ensuring they take full breaks and only work their minimum prescribed hours.
The dispute stems from the BBC's plans to reduce a £1.5bn pensions deficit by capping increases in pensionable pay at 1% from next April.
Under the BBC's revised offer, the amount employees would have to pay into the pension scheme has been reduced from 7% to 6%.
In return, they would get a career-average benefit pension - based on the average salary over an employee's entire career - that would be revalued by up to 4% each year. The previous offer was 2.5%.
When employees draw their pension, payments will increase automatically each year in line with inflation, by up to 4% - again up from a previous offer of 2.5%.
Bectu, which represents technical and production staff, said after last month's ballot that the amended offer was "the best that can be achieved through negotiation".
But it added their position could be reviewed if the pensions deficit turned out to be less than £1.5bn.
“It’s going to remain a priority for this administration. And obviously, we’re going to work hand in glove with Congress to advance direct negotiations and to ultimately reach a settlement,” Mark Toner said while giving a statement from the U.S State Department regarding the peace process in the Middle East.
The Republicans gained the midterm elections while the Arab world eyes are on the U.S administration that promised to re-launch the peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians after the elections. President Obama’s administration stated that the peace process in the Middle East is still a priority and that the cooperation will continue with the new congress in order to reach a peace agreement that would put an end to the long Israeli Arab conflict.
Eventhough President Obama’s administration hopes to succeed in pushing both the Israelis and the Palestinians into signing a peace agreement, the situation is not as easy as it looks. The new House Foreign Affairs Committee will be leaded by the new chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who is known for being a strong pro Israeli politician. Eventhough many Israelis feel a relief and hope that the republican control of the congress would put an end to the pressure on the Israeli government to continue forward in the peace process, some disagree by remember the days of former President George Bush. The Israeli Unilateral withdraw was supported by President Bush who convinced Ariel Sharon to continue forward in it.
As for the Iranian threat, Israel will still face difficulties in convincing the U.S to use the force option In dealing with it. Just recently, President Bush stated in his diaries book that former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert asked from him to support an air strike on the Syrian building that was suspected as a nuclear project but he refused claiming that he cannot make such an action against a sovereign country without confirmed intelligence information. President Obama will be spending most of his left time in the White House while trying to make achievements that will bring economical benefit to the Americans who seemed to be disconnected from the White House administration. Eventhough Obama’s administration played a great role in taking historical decisions such as the new health law, the people is still under the effect of the latest economical crises and want to see more in the job opportunities and economy fields. The foreign affairs are important for the U.S but watching over the internal situation is also important in order to make sure that the next presidential elections would be won.
Not only that the current situation demands from the American president to work more for the sake of supporting the Americans and their economical life, but also the current formation of a Republican Congress and the weak Democratic senate and the Israeli refusal to start serious negotiations and stop the settlements building make it almost impossible to reach any kind of understanding between the Israelis and the Palestinians. President Obama’s administration won’t dare to create an extra pressure on Israel or oblige a solution in the area since such steps would result in more obstacles and problems in the communication between the congress and the White House.
Such as situation would last until the next Presidential term while the Palestinians will continue to wait for the next opportunity that would give them back their rights. It is true to say that the Israeli Palestinian conflict is complicated because not only it is related to the internal situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories but also to the political situation inside the United States and other great powers.
Prime Minister Netanyahu continues to succeed in directing the conflict and in controlling the American interference in the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Until this moment and since the beginning of President Obama’s administration work in the White House, no real achievement was made in the Middle East conflict. If Netanyahu would feel a real threat or serious pressure on him to compromise something for the sake of peace, the Israeli Political system will easily relieve him by either breaking down his government or give him another excuse to resign. The result would be that the Palestinians would have to wait again until Israel is ready.
Everyday that passes leaves those who are determined to reach a peace agreement weaker infront of their people. The current silence in the area is another break that won’t last for ever and sooner or later the world and the Middle East will have to face another round or confrontation that will cost a lot and cause more damage to the idea of peace as a choice to end the conflict in the Middle East.
PARIS – Interpol says it is making public the features and components of two bombs sent by mail from Yemen to the United States and intercepted in Dubai and Britain as a way to help thwart terrorism.
The France-based international police agency says it has provided an alert to its 188 member countries about the devices and will make a public version available "to encourage greater vigilance."
Interpol said in a statement Saturday the alert sent to members shows how the bombs were disguised inside computer printer cartridges and other features to help authorities spot dangerous devices in the future.
A Yemen-based al-Qaida group is claiming responsibility for the international mail bomb plot uncovered late last week.
The Republican party’s gain of 60 plus House Seats (10 seats, all held by Democrats, are still undecided at press time) and six Senate seats, is the largest Congressional increase for either party since 1948 when the Democrats gained 75 seats in the lower chamber and Harry Truman won the White House. Next January’s 112th Congress is already receiving rave advance reviews, some coming from the more than half a million Jewish settlers in more than 100 illegal colonies in occupied Palestine who are pleased to see President Obama emasculated and the sentiments expressed in his June 2008 Cairo speech long forgotten. Many are hoping he will be replaced by likes of Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, or a Mike Huckabee in 2012. Danny Dayan, head of the Yesha Council, which represents Jewish settlers in the West Bank, and whose representatives are increasingly on the rampage, by word and by deed, spoke for many when he told a post election news conference that he expected the new Congress “will facilitate a more open-minded approach to Israel’s needs [i.e., yet more Palestinian land] than what we’ve experienced over the last two years.”
AIPAC, as it does after every Congressional election, offered pro forma congratulations to the winners: “It is abundantly clear that the 112th Congress will continue America’s long tradition of staunch support for a strong, safe and secure Israel and an abiding friendship between the United States and our most reliable ally in the Middle East.” No sooner had the election results been declared than key winners received what for decades has been a post election ritual, bestowed on new Members of Congress. That would be the delivery of US taxpayer subsidized invitations for all expense paid junkets to Israel. Of this year’s batch, Florida’s new Senator, Marco Rubio, who considers himself a Tea Party leader and who has been called “America’s great Right hope’ will lead the flock and arrive in Israel on this Sunday, November 7.
As Rubio and other members of Congress board planes to fly to Israel they may actually near-miss Israeli officials, including PM Netanyahu, who will be coming the opposite direction for a five day US visit to meet with his personal choice to replace Obama for US President in 2012, Hilary Clinton. Netanyahu will also talk Congressional strategy with key Israeli lobby agents. Those listed on the various passenger manifests between the US and Israel will share the common objective of making sure Israel’s interests are preserved and “remain eternally paramount” to borrow a phrase from VP Joe Biden. They will also try to assure and that the 112th Congress brooks no Obama administration unpleasantness such as increased demands for a broader freeze on Jewish settlements.
The post Congressional election euphoria has not extended to Lebanon and this region. This is because over here it is widely believed that the new Congress, with respect to Lebanon’s arch foe Israel which has committed serial aggressions against it for half a century, will pick up right where the old Congress left off without missing a beat.
Many in Lebanon view Obama’s repudiation in the polls as a sign that he will be unable to pressure Israel into concessions in stalled peace talks. They expect the Congressional drum beat for war with Iran, pressure on Syria, deference to Netanyahu-Lieberman, and interference in Lebanon’s internal affairs including the targeting of the national Lebanese Resistance led by Hezbollah to increase.
The morning after the US election, at the open-air Café Younnes Coffee Shop off Hamra Street, some Lebanese students were explaining to foreigners, with remarkable grasp of the electoral details, their take on the US midterm election results. One student explained that she expects the soon to be Speaker of the House, wildly pro-Israel John Boehner (R-Ohio), with Eric Cantor as Majority Leaders and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, will anchor Israel’s Congressional rule. Ros-Lehtinen, the all time Congressional record holder for all manner of anti-Arab congressional initiatives’ over the past two decades. Yesterday she called for all Members of Congress to sign her latest letter to President Obama opposing his administration’s proposed $60 billion arms deal to Saudi Arabia, by the end of business on 11/6/10. Ros-Lehtinen is also expected to renew her call to cut off all aid to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. She has also expressed her intention to maintain what are essentially US sanctions against Lebanon by extending her predecessor Howard Berman’s ban on grants to the Lebanese Armed Forces until Hezbollah is disarmed to prevent it from benefiting from the military aid.
Other key committees chairmanships held by Israel loyalists are believed here to mean an even stronger choke hold on the US government starting January. One Palestinian student who used to live in Nahr al Bared Camp near Tripoli before it was destroyed in 2007, explained how Cantor has already drawn pro-Israel skeptical reaction with his proposal that American assistance to Israel be taken out of the annual foreign aid bill and be passed separately, on its own. Cantor’s thinking is that, given his party’s intention to heavily cut foreign aid, he wants Israel’s annual $ 3 billion US taxpayer gift to remain untouched even as foreign aid to other nations get slashed.
Some pro-Israel lobbyists worry that Cantor’s “going public” with his plan may result in the American public noticing how much aid Israel gets and begin to wonder why Israel’s aid is so sacrosanct. Voters might notice that Israel has received more foreign aid from the United States than any other country since World War II, according to a recent report compiled by the Congressional Research Service.
Voters may begin to learn about and perhaps even question the fact that over the years, multiple lobbying efforts have added countless perks to Israel’s special aid package such that Israel is the only recipient allowed to spend a portion of its military aid on purchases within Israel itself. Usually this kind of aid is designed for procurement of American-made weapon systems. Israel also receives its aid in the first month of the fiscal year as a deposit in an interest-bearing account. Aid to all other recipients is spread out throughout the year. The Lebanese students verdict on the 2010 US midterm election: Netanyahu and Israel won again. Obama and America lost again.
Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and can be contacted at fplamb@gmail.com
Somali pirates are reported to have received a total of $12.3m (£7.6m) in ransom money to release two ships.
They are believed to have been paid a record $9.5m (£5.8m) for Samho Dream, a South Korean oil tanker, and nearly $2.8m (£1.7m) for the Golden Blessing, a Singaporean flagged ship.
"We are now counting our cash," a pirate who gave his name as Hussein told Reuters news agency. "Soon we shall get down from the ship."
All crew are believed to be unharmed.
The Samho Dream supertanker was hijacked in the Indian Ocean in April and its crew of five South Koreans and 19 Filipinos were taken hostage. It was carrying crude oil worth $170m (£105m) from Iraq to the US.
Although released it is still within Somali waters and the ship's 24 crew members are said to be in good condition.
Andrew Mwangura, co-ordinator of the East African Seafarers Assistance Programme in Mombasa, told Reuters that the ransom would be the highest paid out to pirates since they started hijacking ships in recent years.
One crew member killed, 27 injured, 773 taken hostage
Source: IMB
"They initially demanded $20m. What I can confirm is that negotiators tell me they agreed to make the drop with an amount in excess of $9m.
"This would be the highest sum paid out to pirates so far," he said.
The BBC's Kevin Mwachiro in Nairobi says the size of the payment is likely to change the rules of engagement when it comes to securing the release of ships held by Somali pirates. They are currently holding at least 25 vessels.
Earlier reports said the pirates had received $9m for Samho Dream and $7m for the Golden Blessing, but this was later revised.
The Golden Blessing has 23 Chinese crew.
According to a recent report by the International Maritime Bureau, a maritime watchdog, ship hijackings hit a five-year high in the first nine months of 2010, with Somali pirates responsible for the majority.
No quick fixes Topic: yemen, al-qaeda, nasra ismail, b
Yemen's local and global terrorism
by Nasra Ismail and Biodun Iginla, BBC and The Economist News Analysts
Fighting terrorism in Yemen requires patience and partners
Nov 4th 2010
JUST as mist often cloaks its spiky mountain peaks, Yemen tends to fade from outsiders’ view until an alarming event there commands sudden interest. The foiling of al-Qaeda’s Halloween plot to sneak two parcel bombs onto aircraft bound for America is just such an attention-grabber.
The attackers hid the devices in ink cartridges inside computer printers and sent them by scheduled courier services from the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, addressed to synagogues in Chicago. The plan may have been to explode them en route, perhaps as the plane was landing. That highlights a security hole in global transport (see article) as did a separate series of primitive bombs sent, apparently by Greek leftists, to the German chancellor Angela Merkel and other European targets.
The accuracy of the tip-off that prompted the search for the Yemeni bombs, and the inter-agency teamwork that located them in cargo sheds in Dubai and Britain are a welcome success in international counter-terrorism and cause of much back-patting. The clue apparently came from a former al-Qaeda fighter, Jabir al-Fayfi. Transferred from Guantánamo in 2006 and “deradicalised” by Saudi specialists, he rejoined al-Qaeda in Yemen; he may have been a double agent all along.
But the plot has rightly revived worries about the murderous resilience of the global terror network’s Yemeni branch. With rugged terrain and a dispersed population, fearsomely armed and bound by tribal loyalties, the country has long been an ideal refuge for bandits, rebels and, lately, terrorists. Yemenis have been prominent in al-Qaeda since the 1990s and are the biggest group in Guantánamo. Osama bin Laden is of Yemeni descent. Al-Qaeda attacked the USS Cole in Aden harbour in October 2000.
Yemen has rarely enjoyed strong central government. After taking power in 1978 its president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, relied on earnings from oil exports to arm loyalists and to buy off tribal leaders. But oil earnings tumbled and foreign investment dried up, even as the population tripled. Some 40% of Yemenis live on less than $2 a day. Child hunger is rampant. The water shortage is dire. A tribal insurrection in the north has led to six rounds of fighting since 2004 and displaced some 350,000 people. An independence movement is growing in the south, where al-Qaeda is most active,
Mr Saleh’s dealmaking has sometimes tilted towards using the terrorist threat to attract foreign sympathy and cash, while giving leeway to jihad-inclined radicals who are occasional allies against his leftist and Zaydi (a Shia sect) opponents. After September 11th 2001 Mr Saleh supported the “war on terror”. His security services (with American help) largely shut down the local branch of al-Qaeda. But a drone attack in 2002 on the group’s leaders enraged local feeling. Combined with fury over the invasion of Iraq, it made helping America politically toxic. Some analysts mark the suspicious “escape” of 23 al-Qaeda inmates from a Yemeni jail in 2006 as the start of the group’s re-emergence.
These local jihadists merged with fugitive Saudi al-Qaeda operatives to form al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in January 2009. Since then Yemeni terrorism has grown bolder. Although its international attacks get most publicity, AQAP’s main effort has been in Yemen and, to a lesser extent, in Saudi Arabia. A suicide bomber there came close last year to killing the man who chased them out of the country, the kingdom’s head of counter-terrorism, Prince Muhammad bin Nayef.
AQAP’s local targets are government security forces, energy infrastructure and foreigners. Twice in the past year British diplomats in Sana’a have narrowly escaped assassination. Others have been less lucky. A murder campaign against Yemeni security and intelligence officers, designed to destabilise the government while avoiding the large-scale civilian casualties that helped turn the Iraqis and Saudis against al-Qaeda, has been particularly relentless. At the end of Ramadan (September 9th), AQAP published a hit list of 55 senior security officers. It has now gunned down half a dozen on the list, having previously murdered more than 60 people this year. In June its guerrillas stormed a prison in Aden and freed an unknown number of comrades. Since September, says Yemen’s president, 70 of his men have died in clashes with AQAP cells that have seen the government besieging towns, using helicopters and fighter jets.
American spooks reckon that whereas only 100 al-Qaeda fighters are left in Afghanistan and about 300 are in Pakistan, AQAP has several hundred. These comprise Yemenis, Saudis, other Arabs and an increasing number of Westerners, including Americans, such as the notorious Anwar al-Awlaki. He is linked to three people bent on attacking America—Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (the “underpants” bomber); Nidal Malik Hasan (the perpetrator of the Fort Hood massacre); and Faisal Shahzad (the Times Square bomber)—as well as a Muslim student convicted in Britain this month for trying to kill an MP. Home-grown terrorists, radicalised by the internet and often trained abroad are a new and growing problem for America.
Some fear that Yemen could now join nearby Somalia in a zone of violent anarchy straddling one of the world’s main shipping lanes. Such alarmism may be misplaced. Until recently, Yemenis tended to dismiss their government’s talk of the threat from AQAP as scaremongering, aimed at garnering Western aid. Now the public is more sympathetic to the goal of quashing the radicals and the government has been jolted into a more serious effort.
America has boosted aid to Yemen to some $300m this year. Better armed and trained Yemeni forces have begun to take the offensive against AQAP strongholds. A more systematic and better-funded effort to enlist local tribes is also producing results. In recent weeks even the Awlaki tribe, whose most famous son is the terror chief of that name, appears to have joined government efforts to chase AQAP from its base in the southern Abyan region.
America is not showing any signs of renewed direct intervention since the attack. It maintains a discreet training and advisory mission, conducts secret operations with local forces and has fired cruise missiles at suspected terrorists. But in December 2009 an air strike was blamed for killing more than 40 civilians as well as a handful of intended targets. Another on May 25th killed a deputy provincial governor working as a mediator between the centre and some al-Qaeda elements. Local tribes protested by attacking infrastructure and closing roads to the capital.
Since then, American attacks have almost ceased, despite pressure in Washington for more dramatic action. Rick Nelson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank, says “tactical decisions must not undermine strategic objectives. Simply capturing and killing bad guys is not a long-term solution.”
AQAP portrays itself as the defender of the Yemeni population against a despised government and American aggression. A highly visible Western security role in Yemen risks stoking the grievances that fire al-Qaeda and others. Most counter-terrorism experts think America should mainly work with nearby rulers in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. All have large Yemeni populations, a stake in regional stability and the cash to ease Yemen’s many woes. This is America’s war, but not exclusively America’s fight.
MUMBAI, India – President Barack Obama announced a host of new trade deals with India supporting tens of thousands of U.S. jobs Saturday as he began a 10-day trip through Asia on a determinedly domestic note. Full Story »
Yemen orders arrest of radical US-born cleric Topic: yemen, al-qaeda, nasra ismail, b
by Nasra Ismail, BBC News Analyst, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla| 35 minutes ago
SAN'A, Yemen — A Yemeni judge has ordered the country's security forces to arrest a radical U.S.-born cleric linked to al-Qaida.
Judge Mohsen Allwan told police to deliver Anwar al-Awlaki dead or alive. The order comes as Yemen faces heavy U.S. pressure to crack down on the country's al-Qaida offshoot after a mail bomb scheme that was thwarted a week ago.
The United States has already authorized the CIA to capture or kill al-Awlaki, who has been linked to the failed bombing of a U.S.-bound plane in December 2009.
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