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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/45829641/
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Saturday, December 31, 2011
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Hillary Clinton Says Parliamentary Election In Russia Was Rigged
VILNIUS, Lithuania -- Issuing new warnings to two U.S. partners Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized Russia for a parliamentary election she said was rigged and said election gains by Islamist parties must not set back Egypt's push toward democracy after the fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak this year.
She acknowledged the success of Islamist parties in Egyptian parliamentary voting that the U.S. has praised as fair. But many of the winners are not friendly to the United States or U.S. ally Israel, and some secular political activists in Egypt are worried that their revolution is being hijacked. Islamist parties are among the better-known and better-organized in Egypt, and while they were expected to do well in last week's first round voting, a hardline bloc scored surprisingly large gains.
Clinton addressed head-on the fear that the hardliners will crimp human and women's rights.
"Transitions require fair and inclusive elections, but they also demand the embrace of democratic norms and rules," she said. "We expect all democratic actors to uphold universal human rights, including women's rights, to allow free religious practice."
Speaking to the election-monitoring Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Clinton repeated criticism of Russia's weekend elections, in which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's party won the largest share of parliament seats. Opposition politicians and election monitors say the result was inflated because of ballot-box stuffing and other vote fraud.
"Russian voters deserve a full investigation of electoral fraud and manipulation," Clinton said. Russia's top diplomat was present at the meeting in the Lithuanian capital, but the two did not plan to meet separately.
Clinton criticized human rights abuses in neighboring Belarus and planned to meet with activists from that country, often called the last dictatorship in Europe, later Tuesday.
In Egypt, the more moderate Muslim Brotherhood is in the lead so far, with about 37 percent of the vote, according to partial results released Sunday. But the hardline Al-Nour bloc grabbed nearly a quarter of the vote for the ultraconservative Salafis, who seek to impose strict Islamic law in Egypt.
The strong Islamist showing came at the expense of liberal activist groups that led the uprising against Mubarak, toppling a regime long seen as a secular bulwark in the Middle East.
The Salafis espouse a strict interpretation of Islam similar to that of Saudi Arabia, where the sexes are segregated and women must be veiled and are barred from driving. The Salafis speak openly about their aim of turning Egypt into a state where personal freedoms, including freedom of speech, women's dress and art, are constrained by Islamic law.
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Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Ex-leader in court: Khmer Rouge not 'bad people'
In this photo released by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Noun Chea, former deputy secretary in the Communist Party of Kampuchea looks on before being questioned at the court hall of the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Monday, Dec. 5, 2011. (AP Photo/ Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Mark Peters) EDITORIAL USE ONLY
In this photo released by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Noun Chea, former deputy secretary in the Communist Party of Kampuchea looks on before being questioned at the court hall of the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Monday, Dec. 5, 2011. (AP Photo/ Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Mark Peters) EDITORIAL USE ONLY
Cambodian villagers line up outside the court of the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Monday, Dec. 5, 2011. Three senior leaders of Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge regime will be questioned at a U.N.-backed tribunal for the first time Monday over their roles in the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people when their movement held power in the 1970s. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
Cambodian Buddhist monk Tep He, 63, center, a former Khmer Rouge cadre member, walks out from a court hall together with villagers during a court break of the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Monday, Dec. 5, 2011. Nuon Chea, the No. 2 leader of Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge regime, told a court he and his comrades were not "bad people," denying responsibility Monday for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians during their 1970s rule. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
Houn Kin, 65, center right, a former Khmer Rouge cadre member, walks out from a court hall together with villagers during a court break of the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Monday, Dec. 5, 2011. Nuon Chea, the No. 2 leader of Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge regime, told a court he and his comrades were not "bad people," denying responsibility Monday for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians during their 1970s rule. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
Cambodian students line up at the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Monday, Dec. 5, 2011. Nuon Chea, the No. 2 leader of Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge regime, told a court he and his comrades were not "bad people," denying responsibility Monday for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians during their 1970s rule. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) ? The No. 2 leader of Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge regime told a court he and his comrades were not "bad people," denying responsibility Monday for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians during their 1970s rule.
Nuon Chea's defiant statements came as the U.N.-backed tribunal began questioning him for the first time since the long-awaited trial of three top regime leaders began late last month. Nuon Chea and two other Khmer Rouge leaders are accused of crimes against humanity, genocide, religious persecution, homicide and torture stemming from the group's 1975-79 reign of terror. All have denied wrongdoing.
The trusted deputy of the late Pol Pot, Nuon Chea blamed neighboring Vietnam for the atrocities that occurred, reiterating long-standing Khmer Rouge's claims that the mass graves discovered subsequently were of people killed by Vietnamese armed forces.
This week the court is expected to focus on charges involving the forced movement of people and crimes against humanity. After the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975, they began moving an estimated 1 million people ? even hospital patients ? from the capital into the countryside in an effort to create a communist agrarian utopia.
After a court clerk read a background of the Khmer Rouge and the three defendants, Nuon Chea defended the notoriously brutal movement.
"I don't want the next generation to misunderstand history. I don't want them to believe the Khmer Rouge are bad people, are criminals," Nuon Chea said. "Nothing is true about that."
The 85-year-old one-time chief ideologist for the communist movement insisted that no Cambodian was responsible for atrocities during the Khmer Rouge's reign.
"These war crimes and crimes against humanity were not committed by the Cambodian people," Nuon Chea said. "It was the Vietnamese who killed Cambodians."
Vietnam, whose border suffered bloody attacks by Khmer Rouge soldiers, sponsored a resistance movement and invaded, toppling the Khmer Rouge in 1979 and installing a client regime.
When a judge asked about the background of Khmer Rouge party, Nuon Chea said it had been set up to liberate the country from the rich and powerful.
Later, Nuon Chea twice asked the court to adjourn early, complaining of heart problems and breathlessness. Judge Nil Nonn then adjourned proceedings until Tuesday.
The other defendants are Khieu Samphan, an 80-year-old former head of state who also told the court in November he bore no responsibility for atrocities, and 86-year-old Ieng Sary, who has said he will not participate in the trial until a ruling is issued on a pardon he received in 1996. The tribunal previously ruled the pardon does not cover its indictment against him.
There is concern that the accused could pass away before justice is achieved.
Pol Pot died in 1998 in Cambodia's jungles, and a fourth defendant, 79-year-old Ieng Thirith, was ruled unfit to stand trial because she has Alzheimer's disease. She is Ieng Sary's wife and was the regime's minister for social affairs.
The tribunal is seeking justice on behalf of the estimated quarter of Cambodia's population who died from executions, starvation, disease and overwork under the Khmer Rouge.
"This is the first time the accused persons will be asked questions in a public hearing about their role in the events that led to the takeover of Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975 and about the policies of the Khmer Rouge," tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen told The Associated Press.
Olsen said the initial testimony will take several days. After the accused have been questioned, witnesses and civil parties will be also called to testify, he said.
So far the U.N.-backed tribunal, established in 2006, has tried just one case, convicting Kaing Guek Eav, the former head of the Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 prison, last year and sentencing him to 35 years in prison for war crimes, crimes against humanity and other offenses. His sentence was reduced to 19 years due to time served and other technicalities.
That case was seen as much simpler than those currently before the court, in part because Kaing Guek Eav confessed to his crimes.
Chum Mey, 80, one of only two survivors of the S-21 prison, said he doesn't believe the three defendants will tell the truth about what happened in the 1970s.
"During last month's sessions we heard them say only that their regime was good and worked for the entire people," Chum Mey said.
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