The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- U.S. committed to Asia security despite budget crunch - Gates
- More than 60 killed in Syria protests - rights group
- "Dr. Death," Jack Kevorkian, dies at 83
| U.S. committed to Asia security despite budget crunch - Gates Posted: 03 Jun 2011 08:20 PM PDT SINGAPORE (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates assured Asian allies on Saturday the United States would maintain a robust military presence in the region despite a severe budget crunch and the protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Gates, speaking at the 10th annual Shangri-La Security Dialogue, said a decade of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan had strained U.S. ground forces and exhausted public patience, while the recession had left Washington with huge budget deficits and looking to cut military spending. "Irrespective of the tough times the U.S. faces today, or the tough budget choices we confront in the coming years, ... America's interests as a Pacific nation -- as a country that conducts much of its trade in the region -- will endure," said Gates, who was making his fifth and final appearance at the Shangri-La gathering as Pentagon chief. "The United States and Asia will only become more inextricably linked over the course of this century. These realities ... argue strongly for sustaining our commitments to allies while maintaining a robust military engagement and deterrent posture across the Pacific Rim," he said. Gates' remarks come at a time of great change within the U.S. military community and uncertainty over defense spending as President Barack Obama faces rising political pressure to deal with Washington's $1.4 trillion budget deficit and more than $14 trillion in debt. Gates is due to step down at the end of June and hand over to Secretary-designate Leon Panetta, the current CIA director. The top uniformed U.S. military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, will retire Oct. 1, and Obama has named Army General Martin Dempsey to replace him. Against that backdrop, Gates sought to assure Asian allies that the United States would not only remain engaged in the region and fulfill its military commitments but would continue to develop and change to meet the shifting security situation. "There is a fair degree of anxiety in the region right now -- given the budgetary pressures they perceive that the United States faces -- about what our future role is going to be in the Asia-Pacific region," a senior U.S. defense official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said few things would be as destabilising for the region than the perception of a retreat on the part of the United States. "We are clearly signaling our commitment to continue to play a significant role in the Asia-Pacific region and on continuing to make sure that we have the capabilities ... to help underwrite peace and stability," the official said. Gates told the forum the United States was not only committed to modernising its relationships with traditional allies Japan and South Korea but was also working to expand its presence and activities in Southeastern Asia. "America has always shown the flexibility to not only maintain our presence in the Asia-Pacific, but to enhance it - by updating relationships, developing new capabilities, and transforming our defense posture to meet the challenges of the day," he said. CHINA TIES The U.S. defence secretary, who met his Chinese counterpart Liang Guanglie on Friday, said military ties between Washington and Beijing had improved recently and the two sides were working to build a "positive, cooperative, and comprehensive relationship." Although Gates spoke of warming ties with Beijing, he also discussed how the U.S. government was funding weapons systems and capabilities seen as important in countering forces that could deny the U.S. Navy access to sea routes across the world. Asked whether China wouldn't see the remarks as a concern, a senior U.S. defence official said it was an example of the need for greater military transparency between the two sides. "Without transparency, we obviously have to do certain things and make certain preparations because it's not quite clear what everybody's intentions are," the official said. "So the more ... clear it is about what China's military investment is aimed at, the more clear it us for us what's going on in the region and what intentions are." (Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Jonathan Thatcher) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. | ||
| More than 60 killed in Syria protests - rights group Posted: 03 Jun 2011 07:49 PM PDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian forces killed at least 63 civilians in attacks to crush pro-democracy demonstrations on Friday, the Syrian human rights organisation Sawasiah said on Saturday. Thousands of protesters took to the streets after noon prayers on Friday in defiance of security forces determined to crush a revolt against President Bashar al-Assad's 11-year rule. Sawasiah said 53 demonstrators were killed in the city of Hama, one in Damascus and two in the northwestern province of Idlib. Seven people were also killed in the town of Rastan in central Syria, which has been under a military assault and a siege by tanks since Sunday. It was one of the bloodiest days since the revolt broke out 11 weeks ago. Security forces and snipers fired at tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in the city of Hama, where 29 years ago President Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father, crushed an armed Islamist revolt by killing up to 30,000 people and razing parts of the city to the ground. Activists said at least 34 people were killed and scores wounded. "The firing began from rooftops on the demonstrators. I saw scores of people falling in Assi square and the streets and alleyways branching out. Blood was everywhere," a witness who gave his name as Omar told Reuters from Hama. "It looked to me as if hundreds of people have been injured but I was in a panic and wanted to find cover. Funerals for the martyrs have alrady started," he said. In the southern city of Deraa, where protests first broke out 11 weeks ago, hundreds defied a military curfew and held protests, chanting "No dialogue with killers", two residents in the city told Reuters. The protest later broke up. Syrian forces also opened fire on demonstrations in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor and in Damascus' Barzeh district. "Tens of thousands turned up in Hama and Idlib in the biggest demonstrations since the uprising began. This is a natural reaction to the increased killings and lack of seriousness by the regime for any national reconciliation," said Rami Abdulrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. One person was killed in Idlib, he said. Activists and residents said thousands of people marched in the northwesterm province of Idlib, Kurdish northeast, several Damascus suburbs, the cities of Homs and Hama and the towns of Madaya and Zabadani in the west. INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE The U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon demanded an immediate end to the "violent repression" and human rights abuses by Syrian forces. Rights groups say security forces have killed more than 1,000 civilians, provoking international outrage at Assad's ruthless handling of the demonstrators. Syrian authorities blame the violence on armed groups, backed by Islamists and foreign powers, and say the groups have fired on civilians and security forces alike. Authorities have prevented most international media from operating in Syria, making it impossible to verify accounts of the violence. Activists say there have been some instances of citizens resisting security forces by using personal weapons, and of security police shooting soldiers for refusing to fire at protesters. The activist who declined to be named said that before the shooting started protesters burned the Baath Party office in Hama and said it was not clear how the shooting broke out. Assad has responded to protests by sending tanks to crush demonstrations in certain flashpoints and by making some reformist gestures, such as issuing a general amnesty to political prisoners and launching a national dialogue. But protesters and opposition figures have dismissed these measures. The cities and towns of Deraa, Tel Kelakh, Banias and Rastan have undergone intense crackdowns by the military. Western powers have condemned Assad as the unrest spreads and the death toll rises. The United States, the European Union and Australia have imposed sanctions on Syria, but perhaps because of reluctance to get entangled in another confrontation such as Libya, and wary of provoking more instability in a region still in the midst of an "Arab Spring", their reactions have been less vehement. Opposition figures meeting in Turkey called on Assad to resign immediately and hand power to the vice president until a council was formed to introduce democracy to the country. (Editing by Angus MacSwan) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. | ||
| "Dr. Death," Jack Kevorkian, dies at 83 Posted: 03 Jun 2011 07:18 PM PDT DETROIT (Reuters) - Assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian, known as "Dr. Death" for helping more than 100 people end their lives, died early on Friday at age 83, his lawyer said.
Kevorkian died at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, where he had been hospitalized for about two weeks with kidney and heart problems, said Mayer Morganroth, Kevorkian's attorney and friend. Kevorkian, recently found to have liver cancer, died from a pulmonary embolism, said Neal Nicol, a longtime friend who aided him in nearly all of his 130 admitted assisted suicides. A pathologist, Kevorkian was focused on death and dying long before he ignited a polarizing national debate over assisted suicide by crisscrossing Michigan in a rusty Volkswagen van hauling a machine to help sick and suffering people end their lives. Some viewed him as a hero who allowed the terminally ill to die with dignity, while his harshest critics reviled him as a cold-blooded killer who preyed on those suffering from chronic pain and depression. Most of his clients were middle-aged women. "Dr. Jack Kevorkian was a rare human being," his longtime attorney Geoffrey Fieger told reporters on Friday. "It's a rare human being who can single-handedly take on an entire society by the scruff of its neck and force it to focus on the suffering of other human beings." Kevorkian launched his assisted-suicide campaign in 1990, allowing an Alzheimer's patient to kill herself using a machine he devised that enabled her to trigger a lethal drug injection. He was charged with first-degree murder in the case, but the charges were later dismissed. Fiery and unwavering in his cause, Kevorkian made a point of thumbing his nose at lawmakers, prosecutors and judges as he accelerated his campaign through the 1990s, using various methods including carbon monoxide gas. Often, Kevorkian would drop off bodies at hospitals late at night or leave them in motel rooms where the assisted suicides took place. He beat Michigan prosecutors four times before his conviction for second-degree murder in 1999 after a CBS News program aired a video of him administering lethal drugs to a 52-year-old man suffering from debilitating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease. STILL IN PUBLIC EYE Kevorkian was imprisoned for eight years. As a condition of his parole in 2007, he promised not to assist in any more suicides. "People have taken a long hard honest look at death and I think that is probably his legacy," his friend Nicol said. "He would have liked to have done more, but those eight years in prison just took it out of him." Kevorkian had appealed to leave prison early because of poor health, but said he did not consider himself a candidate for assisted suicide. No heroic measures were used to treat Kevorkian and no public memorials were planned. Kevorkian did not leave the public eye after his exit from prison, giving occasional lectures and in 2008 running for Congress unsuccessfully. An HBO documentary on his life and a movie, "You Don't Know Jack," starring Al Pacino, brought him back into the limelight last year. Born in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Kevorkian taught himself the flute and was a painter. Well read in philosophy and history, he cited Aristotle, Sir Thomas More and Pliny the Elder in his arguments for why people should have the right to die with dignity. In a June 2010 interview with Reuters Television, the right-to-die activist said he was afraid of death as much as anyone else and said the world had a hypocritical attitude towards voluntary euthanasia, or assisted suicide. "If we can aid people into coming into the world, why can't we aid them in exiting the world?" he said. Doctor-assisted suicide essentially became law in Oregon in 1997 and in Washington state in 2009. The practice of doctors writing prescriptions to help terminally ill patients kill themselves was ultimately upheld as legal by the U.S. Supreme Court. "It wouldn't have happened as soon, I don't think," Nicol said. "It may have happened in time. I think the logic of the situation is such that you can't deny it for too long before it becomes fact and I think Jack accelerated that." Kevorkian was first dubbed "Dr. Death" by colleagues during his medical residency in the 1950s when he asked to work the night shift at Detroit Receiving Hospital so he could be on duty when more people died. His career was interrupted by the Korean War, when he served 15 months as an Army medical officer. After the U.S. Supreme Court permitted states to reinstate the death penalty in 1976, Kevorkian campaigned for performing medical experiments and harvesting the organs of death row inmates -- with their consent -- before their executions. (Reporting by Mike Miller in Detroit and James Kelleher in Chicago; Writing by David Bailey; Editing by David Lawder and Jerry Norton) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
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