Headlines:

• IMF Completes its Stranglehold over Tunisia and Moves to Egypt Next
• Jordan Opens Airspace for the Jewish State Drones
• Jewish State General: Syrian Regime has Used and is Using Chemical Weapons
• American Drone Attacks Causing Hatred in the Muslim World
• Burmese Security Filled Mass Graves with Muslims

 

Details:

IMF Completes its Stranglehold over Tunisia and Moves to Egypt Next

For Tunisia, the deal is done. But as far as the bigger, trickier North African question goes, there are merely encouraging words. On Saturday, the IMF concluded terms with the Tunisian government on a crucial loan. Meanwhile for Egypt, while talks continue in Washington on the sidelines of the IMF spring meeting, no news is a worry. A quick recap on the Tunisia deal: it's a 24-month stand-by arrangement of $1.75bn. As for what the IMF demanded in return, this is from the IMF statement: ‘The implementation of an appropriate policy mix will help preserve macroeconomic stability and, together with a better composition of public expenditures, will help restore fiscal space for priority capital and social spending. A prudent monetary policy will aim at containing inflation while safeguarding the stability of the banking sector. Greater exchange rate flexibility-coupled with structural reforms to improve the competitiveness of the economy-will contribute to improving Tunisia's external position and rebuilding foreign reserve buffers'. Meanwhile, Egypt's impasse with the IMF was given mild encouragement by another Fund statement, this time saying: 'The authorities and IMF staff have made further progress in their discussions in Washington this weekend. The authorities are firmly committed to addressing Egypt's economic and financial challenges with the objective of restoring sustained and socially-balanced growth, and they are already taking encouraging actions in this direction. Work will continue with the objective of reaching agreement on an IMF Stand-By Arrangement to support the authorities' national economic program in the coming weeks'.

 

Jordan Opens Airspace For Jewish State Drones

Jordan has opened its airspace to Jewish State drones en route to monitor the situation in Syria, French newspaper Le Figaro has claimed in a report based on an interview with a Western military source in the Middle East. Jordan has opened two corridors of its air space to allow unmanned Israeli drones through to monitor the situation in Syria, the French newspaper Le Figaro reported on Sunday. The report is based on an interview with a Western military source based in the Middle East. There has been no official confirmation from any other source.

 

Jewish State General: Syrian Regime Has Used and Is Using Chemical Weapons

The Jewish State's top intelligence analyst on Tuesday accused the Syrian regime of using lethal chemical weapons in an assertion that puts pressure on the US over its pledge to intervene should Damascus cross what it has described as a "red line". Brigadier-General Itai Brun, head of military intelligence research at the Israeli Defense Forces, told a security conference in Tel Aviv that the lack of international response to the use of a chemical suspected to be the nerve gas sarin was a "very worrying development". He said: "There's a huge arsenal of chemical weapons in Syria. Our assessment is that the [Assad] regime has used and is using chemical weapons." Although the Pentagon and state department insisted on Tuesday there was no appetite for intervention in Syria, the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, speaking at a NATO meeting in Brussels, called on the alliance to make preparations to respond in the event of chemical weapons endangering one of its members, Turkey. Brun cited photographs of victims that showed them foaming at the mouth and with contracted pupils as signs that gas had been used. "To the best of our understanding, there was use of lethal chemical weapons. Which chemical weapons? Probably sarin," Brun told a conference organized by the Institute for National Security Studies. He specifically referred to 19 March among "a number of incidents" in which chemical weapons had been used by the regime, and criticized the lack of response by the international community. "The regime has increasingly used chemical weapons," Brun said. "The very fact that they have used chemical weapons without any appropriate reaction - this is a very worrying development, because it might signal that this is legitimate." The British and French governments said in letters last week to the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, that there was credible evidence Syria had used chemical weapons since December in or near the cities of Homs, Aleppo and Damascus.

 

American Drone Attacks Causing Hatred in the Muslim World

A bipartisan panel of senators held a spirited and unusually public debate on Tuesday afternoon about the legality and unintended consequences of America's targeted killings overseas, a forum convened amid growing calls for stronger oversight of the government's use of armed drones outside conventional battlefields. Senator Richard J Durbin, who presided over the hearing, said it was important to review whether current laws sanctioned drone strikes in countries such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, where the United States was not formally fighting a war but relied on remotely piloted aircraft to killed suspected militants. "The use of drones has, in stark terms, made targeted killing more efficient and less costly in terms of American blood and treasure," said Durbin, who noted that the hearing was the first of its kind. "There are, however, long-term consequences, especially when these airstrikes kill innocent civilians." Among those testifying before a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee was a young Yemeni activist who argued passionately that American drone strikes in Yemen were emboldening the country's al Qaeda franchise, embittering Yemenis against the United States and delegitimising the government in Sanaa.

 

Burmese Security Filled Mass Graves with Muslims

Burmese security forces organised and stood guard over Buddhist attacks on Muslim settlements before burying scores of bodies, some with their hands tied behind their backs, in mass graves, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Monday. Evidence of official involvement in the massacres that left hundreds dead was gathered by HRW researchers at 27 different sites in Arakan State, including at four mass graves dug between June and October last year. The report is the most comprehensive evidence yet that the Burmese government colluded in a wave of ethnic attacks and was released just hours before the EU was due to drop sanctions on the Burmese regime as a reward for reformist pledges at a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday. At one mass grave near the town of Sittwe, local residents took photographs of the 18 bodies dumped in a freshly dug grave. The corpses had their hands tied behind their back with plastic strips used by the police. "They dropped the bodies right here," a Rohingya man, who saw the bodies being dumped and later buried told HRW. "Three bodies had gunshot wounds. Some had burns, some had stab wounds. One gunshot wound was on the forehead, one on the chest. Two men's hands were tied at the wrists in front and another one had his arms tied in the back."

More than 100 witnesses to the violence, which was speared by Buddhist monks and a nationalist political movement in the region, Rakhine Nationalities Development Party, cited repeated cases in which the police and army would arrive at the scene prior to an attack. Having reassured locals with a cordon, they would then breach promises by allowing attacks and joining in the violence.

 

Abu Hashim