NEWS ACROSS THE GLOBE
LIBYA
Armed groups in central Africa are using
powerful weapons, some of which may be
left over from the civil war in Libya, to kill
elephants for their ivory, the United
Nations said on Monday.
In a report to the U.N. Security Council,
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said
elephant poaching was a growing security
concern, particularly in Cameroon, the
Central African Republic, Chad and Gabon.
Ban said the illegal trade in ivory may be
an important source of funding for armed
groups, including warlord fugitive Joseph
Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).
SOUTH AFRICA
South Africa's rand hit new four-year lows
on Monday after Mercedes Benz said
workers at an assembly plant had staged
an illegal strike and the government-allied
union demanded big wage hikes for coal
and gold miners.
The car maker said workers agreed to
resume operations on Tuesday after
several days of wildcat action in South
Africa's auto industry, centered on the port
city of East London.
But news of the halt spurred a currency fall
already underway after it emerged that
wage hikes of up to 60 percent had been
demanded by the National Union of
Mineworkers (NUM).
NUM also said it wanted 15 percent
increases for "all other wage categories,"
meaning more experienced and skilled
workers. Wage talks are due to begin next
month.
Employers and workers are squaring off for
next month's salary bargaining period
against a backdrop of high inflation and
shrinking company margins in Africa's
largest economy due to soaring costs and
sinking commodity prices.
The union battle poses a headache for
President Jacob Zuma's ruling African
National Congress (ANC), which faces
criticism that it mishandled last year's
mines violence. Opponents say it and the
mainstream NUM have neglected the
rights of workers and sided with mine
bosses, a charge they both deny.
The ANC's Secretary General Gwede
Mantashe, a former top NUM official,
defended the union on Monday, saying
that "recent attacks" on it were akin to an
attack on the ruling party's alliance with its
labour allies.
Last year's mine violence dented South
Africa's image with investors and led to
ratings downgrades for the economy.
CONGO
Congo's army used combat helicopters to
bombard rebel fighters on Monday near
the city of Goma in the first clashes in
nearly six months, days before U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was due to
visit the troubled eastern borderlands.
Fighting began in the early morning after
the Tutsi-dominated M23 rebels attacked
government positions around 10 km (6
miles) north of eastern Democratic
Republic of Congo's largest city, a military
spokesman told Reuters.
The M23 seized and briefly held Goma last
November despite the presence of
thousands of U.N. soldiers.
Government spokesman Lambert Mende
accused the M23 of trying to disrupt the
deployment of a 3,000-strong U.N.
Intervention Brigade charged with
neutralizing armed groups in the mineral-
rich region.
The first Tanzanian troops have already
begun deploying in the east.
SOMALIA
Somalia's new government said on Monday
it was pursuing talks to resolve rival claims
for control in the south that have stoked
fears of a return to the clan wars that
pitched the nation into anarchy two
decades ago.
A local assembly on Thursday declared a
former Islamist warlord, Ahmed Madobe,
president of Jubaland. Madobe is not
viewed favorably by Mogadishu and within
a day two other men had pronounced
themselves president, including Barre
Hirale, a former warlord and defense
minister seen as pro-government.
How the fate of Jubaland and its port city
Kismayu is resolved will be a litmus test for
Somalia as it rebuilds from the ruins of war
and cements a fragile peace, a quest
hampered by the central government's
weakness outside Mogadishu.
Islamist militants or clan militias, hovering
in the wings, could swoop if the
competition for Kismayu turns violent. But
guns have stayed silent so far and the
government's stated determination to
seek talks could help it stay that way.
OKLAHOMA TORNADO
A 3-km-wide tornado tore through the
Oklahoma City suburb of Moore on
Monday, killing at least 51 people including
20 children, destroying entire tracts of
homes and trapping two dozen school
children beneath rubble.
Rescue teams raced against the setting sun
and worked into the darkness in search of
survivors as the dangerous storm system
threatened several southern Plains states
with more twisters.
The Oklahoma medical examiner confirmed
51 deaths including 20 children, making it
the deadliest U.S. tornado since one killed
161 people in Joplin, Missouri. Area
hospitals reported at least 230 people
injured, including at least 45 children.
Emergency crews searched the rubble of
Plaza Towers Elementary School to look for
two dozen missing children, Oklahoma
Lieutenant Governor Todd Lamb said. Lamb
told CNN the school took a direct hit from
the tornado.
Police and fire crews pulled some school
children from the devastation, a KFOR
television reporter said from the scene.
U.S. DRONES
President Barack Obama's administration
has decided to give the Pentagon control of
some drone operations against terrorism
suspects overseas that are currently run by
the CIA, several U.S. government sources
said on Monday.
Obama has pledged more transparency on
controversial counterterrorism programs,
and giving the Pentagon the responsibility
for part of the drone program could open it
to greater congressional oversight.
Obama will make a speech on Thursday at
the National Defense University in
Washington that will include discussion of
the government's use of drones as a
counterterrorism tool. It is unclear
whether he will announce the drone
program shift in that speech or separately.
Four U.S. government sources told Reuters
that the decision had been made to shift
the CIA's drone operations to the
Pentagon, and some of them said it would
occur in stages.
Drone strikes in Yemen, where the U.S.
military already conducts operations with
Yemeni forces, would be run by the armed
forces, officials said.
But for the time-being U.S. drone strikes
in Pakistan would continue to be
conducted by the CIA to keep the program
covert and maintain deniability for both
the United States and Pakistan, several
sources said.
Ultimately, however, the administration's
goal would be to transfer the Pakistan
drone operations to the military, one U.S.
official said on condition of anonymity.
The internal debate within the
administration about whether to switch
control of drone strikes to the military has
been going on for months.
Obama is under heightened pressure to
show that his administration is transparent,
after a series of scandals about civil
liberties and allegations of government
overreach broke last week.
According to a widely cited drone attack
database run by the New America
Foundation think tank, there have been
355 drone strikes in Pakistan and 66 in
Yemen.
The United States has also carried out
drone strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya
and East Africa, some of them operated by
the military.
The use of armed drones jumped in 2008
when President George W. Bush
authorized the use of "signature" strikes,
allowing the targeting of terrorism suspects
based on behavior and other characteristics
without knowing the targets' identities.
Rosa Brooks, a New America Foundation
fellow and Georgetown University law
professor, said she hoped that Obama
would publicly release the legal
justifications and analysis for the targeted
killings overseas, including of U.S. citizens.
U.S. – IRS
A White House spokesman on Monday said
two senior White House aides knew weeks
ago that a probe of the Internal Revenue
Service had found that the U.S. tax agency
had inappropriately targeted conservative
groups, but did not tell President Barack
Obama.
A Treasury Department official informed
White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler on
April 24 about the preliminary findings of a
report that would fuel the latest in a series
of scandals to confront Obama at the start
of his second term.
The report was issued by a Treasury
inspector general on May 14, four days
after an IRS official had acknowledged, and
apologized for, the agency's targeting of
conservative groups with names such as
"Tea Party" and "Patriots" that had applied
for tax-exempt status.
Ruemmler chose not to inform Obama
about the findings to avoid any appearance
that he had any role in shaping the report -
a role the president would not have taken
anyway, Carney said.
As a result, said Carney, Obama did not
learn of the findings until they were
announced last week - as the president has
himself stated.
BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING
A federal judge approved a request by
accused Boston Marathon bomber
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers that his jailers
hand over their files on him, including
suicide watch logs and psychological data,
according to court documents released on
Monday.
The defense has said it wants to track 19-
year-old Tsarnaev's injuries and mental
state while he is held in federal prison to
provide evidence of "the voluntariness of
his statements" while under interrogation.
Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler of U.S.
District Court for Massachusetts said the
prison's documents on Dzhokhar also had
to be shared with U.S. prosecutors,
denying the defense team's call for them
to be kept from the state.
Tsarnaev was found hiding in a trailered
boat in Watertown, Massachusetts, four
days after the April 15 blasts, which killed
three people and injured 264 others at the
finish line of the Boston Marathon.
He was shot in the throat before his
capture and is being held in a prison
hospital west of Boston. He has been
charged with using a weapon of mass
destruction resulting in death and could
face the death penalty if convicted.
IRAQ
More than 70 people were killed in a series
of car bombings and suicide attacks
targeting Shi'ite Muslims across Iraq on
Monday, police and medics said, extending
the worst sectarian violence since U.S.
troops withdrew in December 2011.
The attacks increased the number killed in
sectarian clashes in the past week to more
than 200. Tensions between Shi'ites, who
now lead Iraq, and minority Sunni Muslims
have reached a point where some fear a
return to all-out civil conflict.
No group claimed responsibility for the
bombings. Iraq has a number of Sunni
Islamist insurgent groups, including the al
Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq,
which has targeted Shi'ites in a bid to
kindle a wider sectarian conflagration.
Police and medics said 9 people were killed
in one of two car bombings in Basra, a
predominantly Shi'ite city 420 km
southeast of Baghdad.
U.S. DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS
The White House on Monday said President
Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, will
travel to Senegal, South Africa and
Tanzania in late June and early July to
reinforce U.S. ties with countries in sub-
Saharan Africa. Obama will meet with
leaders from government, business and
civil society.
Obama traveled to Ghana during his first
term. The first lady traveled to South Africa
and Botswana independently.
Obama, the first black U.S. president, is
the son of a father from Kenya and a
mother from Kansas.
The White House said the president's trip
would go from June 26 to July 3.
YAHOO/TUMBLR
Yahoo Inc will buy blogging service Tumblr
for $1.1 billion cash, giving the Internet
pioneer a much-needed social media
platform to reach a younger generation of
users and breathe new life into its ailing
brand.
The deal, announced on Monday, is a bold
bet by Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa
Mayer to revitalize the company by co-
opting a Web property with strong visitor
traffic but little revenue.
The combination of Yahoo and Tumblr
creates an online powerhouse with roughly
one billion users, which will draw in more
advertisers and help Yahoo keep visitors on
its properties for longer periods of time.
