MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2015
I N T E R N AT I O N A L
Romania sends ambulances to Moldova in war with Russia
BALTI: A stone’s throw from the mounted T-34
Soviet tank in the centre of this Moldovan city
is an emergency ambulance service set up by
Romania, one of several soft power moves to
steer its eastern neighbour away from
Moscow’s orbit.
Wary of Russian intentions after Ukraine
lost control of Crimea and much of its east to
Russian-backed forces last year, Romania is trying to bring Moldova towards the European
Union.
Its sweeteners, the ambulances, as well as
offers of cheaper gas supplies and closer trade
ties, have been warmly welcomed by impoverished Moldova’s two-month-old pro-European
government.
Some locals are wary of Romania’s intentions, but many are grateful in this corner of
Moldova, where villagers trudge along muddy,
unpaved roads and western cars like the red,
Volkswagen ambulances are novel enough to
win salutes from their children.
“People calling 903 for an ambulance ask
us to send them the red cars with the red men,”
said 35-year-old Ion Picalau, a rescue captain
with the newly-created ambulance service in
Balti, about 60 km east of the Prut river border,
who trained for the job for six months in
Romania.
Moscow has warned Moldova that its drive
for closer ties to Europe could cause it to lose
control of Transnistria for good, just as Ukraine
lost Crimea, and lead to more costly gas from
Russia, its main supplier. The Romanian government is unapologetic, saying even though
it sees Russia as a serious security threat, it will
step up a battle that is, for now, economic
rather than military.
“(Russia’s) main weapon is neither warplanes, nor its tanks or its frigates. It is energy,”
Prime Minister Victor Ponta said in a televised
interview with local media in November. He
has vowed to press ahead with a gas pipeline
to Moldova.
Among the people of Moldova, divided
into several ethnic groups with varying allegiances, Romania’s actions have met a mixed
reaction, with some seeing them as a bulwark
against Russia and others worried Romania
may try to swallow Moldova up. Part of Tsarist
Russia for a century, Moldova joined what was
known as Greater Romania after the First World
War but was annexed by the Soviet Union in
1940. It is now split between a Romanianspeaking majority and the breakaway region
Transdniestria, propped up by Russia in one of
a series of “frozen conflicts” that have kept separatist regions in several former Soviet
republics under Moscow’s wing.
NATO’s supreme allied commander in
Europe, US Air Force Gen Philip Breedlove has
said Russian forces could easily annexe
Transdniestria. Moscow has denied any such
plans.
Trade, gas wars
EU and NATO member Romania championed Moldova signing a trade agreement with
the EU in June and, as Russia moved to restrict
imports of Moldovan wine, fruit, vegetables
and meat, Romania overtook Russia as
Moldova’s largest trade partner.
Moldovans can now travel visa-free to
Europe’s Schengen zone and to wean them
from Russian gas, Romania has built a 43 km
(27 mile) pipeline across the border, inaugurated last year on the 23rd anniversary of
Moldovan independence from the Soviet
Union.
The project will initially cover about five
percent of Moldova’s energy needs, and
Romania plans to extend the pipeline to the
Moldovan capital Chisinau, offering gas for
1,010 lei ($263) per 1,000 cubic metres, excluding transport fees which are still under negotiation.
That compares to the Russian price of more
than $300. Moldova’s acting Economy Minister
Andrian Candu told Reuters it was a “key project ... creating a basis for our country’s future
integration in the European Union’s internal
market”.
Romania funded about three-quarters of
the initial pipeline’s 26 million euro cost and is
expected to fund the extension while Chisinau
is seeking international financing for the
pipeline. Critics note that gas has yet to flow
and question whether the line to Chisinau will
ever be built. Candu estimated the extension’s
overall joint costs at 200 million euros, with 120
million to be invested by Romania.
Moldova’s balancing act
Romania’s emergency ambulance and rescue service, developed in the early 1990s by
Raed Arafat, a Syrian-born doctor of Palestinian
origin, will soon straddle the border.
As well as training up Balti’s medical workers, Romania donated five ambulances to the
city and rescue helicopters, based in Romania,
will soon fly across the border, taking victims to
Chisinau, or, if they have dual RomanianMoldovan citizenship, possibly to Iasi.
“There has been strong political will from
the two prime ministers to achieve this,” Arafat,
who is also Romania’s deputy interior minister,
told Reuters.
Romania has also donated buses and
books to Moldovan schools. It has given passports to 500,000 Moldovans since the coun-
try’s independence in 1991 and sponsored
Moldovans, including Economy Minister
Candu, to study in Romania.
Such help plays well with Romanians,
three-quarters of whom support reunification
with Moldova, a country of 3.5 million sometimes referred to by its historical name
Bessarabia.
Graffiti and stickers advocating reunification adorn walls, lamp-posts and trains across
Romania, and February saw the creation of a
cross-party group in parliament to lobby for it.
In Moldova, however, only a fraction of MPs
openly support reunification and the country’s
large number of left-leaning voters also
oppose closer ties with the EU.
“The people on the other side of the Prut
river in Romania are our blood brothers, so I
think their help is sincere,” said Vasile Braghis, a
45-year-old Moldovan businessman.
“But ... the overwhelming majority of the
population support the continuing statehood
of Moldova.”
Joining the EU could be a long drawn out
process. The new European Commission team
says it does not envisage new members within
the next five years. For Moldova to reach candidate status it would need to meet criteria on
human rights, the rule of law and be seen as a
functioning market economy. —Reuters
Female suicide bomber
kills seven in Nigeria
Suicide attack at a bus station
KANO: A female suicide bomber
killed at least seven people in northeast Nigeria yesterday in an attack
believed to be the work of Boko
Haram, as neighbouring Niger
stepped up efforts to stop the
Islamist insurgency from spreading.
The suicide attack at a bus station
in the Nigerian city of Damaturu
came after authorities across the border in Niger’s Zinder region detained
dozens of suspected militants.
Boko Haram began its brutal
uprising against Nigeria in 2009, but
ried out its first-ever attacks inside
Chad and Niger, apparently in retaliation for the regional offensive, raising
fears of the unrest spreading further.
Nigerian President Goodluck
Jonathan has called for more US help
to combat the threat, and for the first
time drew a direct link between Boko
Haram and the Islamic State (IS)
group in Iraq and Syria.
Female bomber
Police in Damaturu, capital of
Nigeria’s Yobe state, said a woman
others, some of them seriously, said
Yobe’s police commissioner Marcos
Danladi.
A shop owner in the park, who
requested anonymity, said an angry
mob prevented rescue workers from
evacuating the remains of the
bomber. “They gathered the pieces
(body parts) and set them on fire,” he
told AFP.
While there was no immediate
claim of responsibility, suspicion
immediately fell on Boko Haram. The
Islamist militants have increasingly
GOMBE: Policemen patrol in streets in the northeast Nigerian city of Gombe following an
invasion by Boko Haram Islamists on Saturday. Hundreds of Boko Haram gunmen invaded the
city, firing heavy guns and throwing fliers calling on residents to boycott the forthcoming
elections. —AFP
the Islamist extremists have increasingly posed a regional threat. The
affected countries-including Chad
and Cameroon as well as Nigeria and
Niger-have launched an unprecedented joint effort to crush the insurgency, claiming some early success,
including the recapture of towns previously under rebel control.
But Boko Haram this month car-
with explosives packed on her body
entered the city’s main bus station
shortly after midday (1100 GMT).
She got out of a vehicle and
walked towards a grocery store at the
back of the terminal, then positioned
herself in a crowd, according to multiple witness accounts.
She then blew herself up, killing at
least seven people and injuring 32
been blamed for using woman and
girls as human bombs across northern Nigeria, and bus parks have been
among the groups preferred targets.
Suspects arrested
Across the border from Yobe state
in Niger’s Zinder region, several
dozen people suspected of having
links to Boko Haram have been
arrested, local governor Kalla Moutari
told AFP.
The suspects were detained for
“checking” and had been sent to an
anti-terrorist unit in the capital
Niamey, he added. The suspects were
arrested at checkpoints on access
roads into Zinder, Niger’s second
largest city some 400 kilometres (250
miles) west of Diffa, the governor
said.
Boko Haram launched a series of
cross-border attacks in the remote
Diffa area on February 6.
Moutari said some 10,000 people
had fled the violence in Diffa to
Zinder, and that the checkpoints
allowed authorities “to intercept
those who had infiltrated the displaced people”.
Conflict spreading
The unrest in Niger and Boko
Haram’s first attack inside Chad on
February 13 have fuelled growing
fears of a widening uprising.
Jonathan’s suggestion in an interview with the Wall Street Journal
published Saturday that Boko Haram
had direct ties the IS group may have
been aimed at raising the international alarm.
Boko Haram leader Abubakar
Shekau has previously mentioned IS
group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in
videos but has not pledged allegiance to the outfit.
Nigeria’s military, once the
strongest in West Africa, has proved
unable to contain the violence and
some experts have voiced doubt that
multi-national African offensive can
succeed without more Western support.
In a visit to Nigeria last month, US
Secretary of State John Kerry said
Washington wanted to provide more
assistance but suggested all future
cooperation would depend in part on
the credibility of Nigeria’s upcoming
general election.
The vote had been scheduled to
take place this weekend, but
Nigeria’s national security advisor
and military chiefs successfully lobbied for a delay to March 28. They
listed a number of justifications for
the delay, including the raging violence in the northeast. —AFP
Singapore PM Lee to undergo
surgery for prostate cancer
SINGAPORE: Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien
Loong has been diagnosed with prostate cancer
and will undergo surgery today, but is expected to
recover fully after a week’s medical leave, his office
said yesterday.
It is the second bout with cancer for Lee, who
was diagnosed with lymphoma in 1993, for which
he underwent chemotherapy and is now in remission. Lee “has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and will undergo surgery to remove his
prostate gland today”, the Prime Minister’s Office
said in a statement.
Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean will stand
in for 63-year-old Lee during his one week’s medical
leave, the statement said. Data from the Memorial
Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in the United States
“show that patients with similar medical profile and
treatment have a cancer specific survival rate of 99
percent at 15 years”, it said. Lee posted an upbeat
message on his Facebook page after the announcement, thanking people who expressed concern and
wished him well. “I’m all set for my op tomorrow,
and so are my surgeon and medical team,” he wrote
above a picture of himself smiling from a hospital
bed after a biopsy last month.
Lee, son of Singapore’s founding prime minister
Lee Kuan Yew, underwent a magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI) prostate test in January which
Singapore Prime Minister
Lee Hsien Loong
showed “suspicious lesions”, the statement added.
“A subsequent biopsy found that one out of 38
samples contained cancer cells,” it said. “Mr Lee
decided on the surgical treatment option on the
advice of a panel of doctors... and is expected to
recover fully.” Lee has been prime minister since
August 2004. News of his illness came amid widespread expectations that the next general elections
will be held before they are due in early 2017, possibly this year. In the last election, held in May 2011,
Lee’s People’s Action Party (PAP), which has governed Singapore since 1959, suffered its worst setback after a large district was wrested by the opposition and its share of the popular vote plunged.
After the election, Lee launched reforms to
address voters’ gripes over the large influx of foreign workers and immigrants into the compact
city-state as well as the rising cost of living.
Before entering politics, Lee was a brigadiergeneral in the Singapore Armed Forces.
He studied at Britain’s University of Cambridge,
graduating with a B.A. in Mathematics and a
Diploma in Computer Science, and subsequently
earned a Masters in Public Administration from the
Harvard Kennedy School in the United States.
His frail 91-year-old father Lee Kuan Yew, who
was prime minister from 1959 to 1990, is still an MP
but no longer plays an active role in politics. —AFP
ZAGREB: The new Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic is sworn in
during a ceremony yesterday, in central Zagreb. Croatia inaugurated today
its first female president, conservative former top diplomat Kolinda GrabarKitarovic, who pledged to help kickstart EU member’s ailing economy. —AFP
Croatia’s first female
president sworn in
ZAGREB: Croatia’s first female president
Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic pledged to help
kickstart the country’s ailing economy as
she was sworn into office yesterday.
The 46-year-old conservative former
foreign minister and NATO official narrowly
defeated her left-wing predecessor Ivo
Josipovic in an election run-off in January.
“I will be a top economic diplomat of our
country,” she said in her inaugural speech,
vowing to do her utmost “to make Croatia
a wealthy nation”. “Almost two years of
(EU) membership, I would like us all to
eventually star t to live the life of a
European Union member,” Grabar-Kitarovic
said at the ceremony in the old quarter of
Zagreb.
Hopes that EU membership would
boost the economy of the small Adriatic
nation of 4.2 million have faded. The
Croatian economy, hit by a six-year recession, remains among the weakest in the
28-nation bloc. Unemployment is almost
20 percent and the government forecasts a
meagre 0.5 percent growth this year.
Grabar-Kitarovic, a leading member of the
main opposition HDZ party until becoming president, called for national unity to
overcome the crisis. “We are facing a
moment that requires a broad national
consensus over key issues. There is neither
space nor time for divisions.” The ceremony
was attended by hundreds of Croatians
and top local officials as well as presidents
of several regional states and, notably,
Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic.
Grabar-Kitarovic said Croatia would
continue to support bids by other Balkan
countries to join the EU and NATO as it was
in the country’s “strategic interest” “I want
that countries of southeastern Europe
become members of the European family
and we offer them a hand of cooperation.”
Grabar-Kitarovic is the fourth to hold the
largely ceremonial role in the former
Yugoslav republic since its independence
in 1991. She was European affairs and foreign minister from 2003 to 2008 and then
served as Croatia’s ambassador to the US
until 2011 when she was named NATO’s
assistant secretary general.
Her election was seen as a major boost
for HDZ ahead of parliamentary elections
due late this year, and in which the party is
likely to make significant gains.
The current centre-left rulers face major
public discontent largely over their failure
to revive the economy. —AFP
Germany cancels carnival
because of terror threat
BERLIN: Police in the German city of
Braunschweig cancelled a popular Carnival
street parade yesterday because of fears of
an imminent Islamist terror attack.
Police spokesman Thomas Geese said
police received credible information that
there was a “concrete threat of an attack
with an Islamist background” on Sunday’s
parade and therefore called on all visitors
to stay at home.
Geese said the parade was canceled less
than 90 minutes before its scheduled start
and that “many people arriving at the train
station from out of town were already
dressed up and very disappointed-but we
didn’t want to take any risks.”
Braunschweig’s Carnival parade is the
biggest one in northern Germany and
draws around 250,000 visitors each year.
Geese denied to give further details regarding the nature of the threat, but did say
that the warning came from intelligence
sources. The city’s mayor, Ulrich Markurth,
said the cancellation marked a “sad day for
our city ... and a sad day for our democratic
society.”
Organizers and city officials announced
that the many marching bands, which had
planned to participate in the parade, would
instead play their music at the city’s town
hall in the afternoon.
Braunschweig’s police chief Michael
Pientka told German public radio NDR that
there was no connection to the terror
attacks in Copenhagen, Denmark, where
an attacker killed two men this weekend,
one at a free speech event and the other at
a synagogue.
Carnival parades planned for Monday in
the cities of Mainz, Cologne and Dusseldorf
will go ahead as planned, but with added
police vigilance, officials said.
German Interior Minister Thomas de
Maiziere said Sunday that the terror threat
level in the country remains high and that
national and local security officials are
investigating every hint they receive with
the biggest possible care. —AP