'Kiss my a**': Romney's aide curses reporters at Polish holy site

By MICHAEL ZENNIE and ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTER

Lashing out: Press secretary Rick Gorka was forced to apologize after telling reporters to 'kiss my a**'

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He drew criticism and accusations of racism in Jerusalem on Monday when he said Israel's economic superiority to the Palestinian territories was a matter of 'culture.'

His campaign has vehemently denied those allegations. 

Mr Gorka's remarks came hours before a major foreign policy speech in the Polish capital in which Romney praised the central European nation for becoming what he said was a model of small government and free enterprise.

The former Massachusetts governor said that 'rather than heeding the false promise of a government-dominated economy, Poland sought to stimulate innovation, attract investment, expand trade and live within its means' after the Communist era.

'The world should pay close attention to the transformation of Poland’s economy,' Romney said. 

'A march toward economic liberty and smaller government has meant a march toward higher living standards, a strong military that defends liberty at home and abroad, and an important and growing role on the international stage.'

Mr Gorka's angry words to reporters were made Tuesday morning when Romney visited a monument to Poland's war dead with the Warsaw mayor. 

Reporters began shouting questions at the presumptive Republican nominee from behind a rope line because, they said, he has answered only three queries from the traveling press corps.

A CNN reporter shouted: 'Gov Romney are you concerned about some of the mishaps of your trip?'

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Secretive North Korea ditches top military man, purge seen

By Jack Kim | Reuters

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea's ruling party has removed a topmilitary official close to the center of power, suggesting new leaderKim Jong-un and his closest advisers may be purging the ruling elite to strengthen their grip on the secretive state.

It is the latest surprise by the young Kim who last week stunned observers by jazzing up the ruling family dynasty's normally dour image when he appeared on state television in the company of a mystery young woman, cheerfully applauding scantily dressed female pop singers.

Vice Marshal Ri Yong-ho, who was seen as close to Kim's dictator father, was relieved of his posts in the Workers' Party of Korea at a politburo meeting on Sunday including the powerful role of vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, the state KCNA news agency said on Monday.

Illness was given as the reason for the move on Ri, who is 70 years old according to South Korean government database. Health is often used as the reason when senior officials are sacked.

"This is a sudden move, one that you could call a purge," said Cho Min of South Korea's Institute for National Unification who studies the North's leadership and its tactics.

Ri showed no sign of ill-health when he was seen in public a week ago with Kim Jong-un and senior military officials visiting a memorial in the capital Pyongyang honoring the founder of the state Kim Il-sung, and the current ruler's grandfather, on the anniversary of his death in 1994.

It was not clear from the brief report whether Ri, a career officer who rapidly rose through to top ranks of the army in recent years culminating in the appointment as Chief of General Staff, was also relieved of his military posts.

"The reason would be all speculation, but you might say Ri may have tried to firm up his own position which may have been to the dislike of Jang Song-thaek and Choe Ryong-hae," said Cho.

Jang is the young leader's uncle, married to Kim Jong-il's sister, and believed to be the real power behind the throne in the impoverished state as chief adviser to his nephew who is in his late 20s.

Choe is a senior party official who has taken on an increasingly powerful role within the in the political apparatus of the military in a state ruled by "military first policy," or Songun, preached by Kim's father Kim Jong-il.

Kim Jong-un took power after his father died last December.

Experts say there is heavy pressure on the new leadership to not only establish its political legitimacy but also ease discontent among an impoverished public.

The rule of Kim's father saw the economy dragged deeper into poverty from mismanagement and increasingly tough international sanctions over his efforts to develop a more lethal armory, including nuclear weapons.

By the time he died, the country could not feed itself even during good harvests and had become heavily dependent on help from neighboring China to feed a population of 24 million.

Ri had been member of an eight-man procession which walked with the hearse carrying Kim Jong-il in a state funeral in December, and was subsequently seen at the new leader's side.

"'Due to illness' has to be an excuse, I think," said Kim Yong-hyun who teaches North Korea studies at Dongguk University in Seoul. "It is more likely the result of a power struggle that is shaping up in the Kim Jong-un regime."

Cho of the Korea Institute for National Unification said he believed the plan to oust Ri had been in the making for several months.

"This is likely the conclusion, rather than the beginning, of a series of moves to reshuffle the military. I believe 200 mid-level officers in the military have already been removed as part of Jang and Choe's reorganization of the country."

Locals vow revenge for Afghan woman's execution

By Hamid Shalizi | Reuters 

CHARIKAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Sayed Jalal furrowed his eyebrows in anger as he vowed to avenge the public execution of a woman in front of a large crowd not far from Kabul, brazen violence that spurred shock and sharp condemnation from Afghan authorities and the United States.

The Taliban denied involvement in the killing in Parwan province, in which an unnamed woman's head and body were riddled with bullets at close range in punishment for alleged adultery.

Authorities in Kabul directly blamed the Islamist group.

"We will take revenge for this. Their brutality and such inhumane acts are why we hate the Taliban," said the 42-year-old shopkeeper in Charikar, provincial capital of Parwan about 25 km (15 miles) south of Shinwari, where the killing took place.

The execution was recorded in a three-minute video, obtained by Reuters, which shows a woman in a shawl being repeatedly shot in front of around 150 men perched on a hill, who cheer and praise the attackers, calling them "mujahideen", a term the Taliban call themselves.

NATO's top commander in Afghanistan, U.S. General John Allen, called the killing "an atrocity of unspeakable cruelty".

Others in Charikar, from where a dirt road leads to Shinwari through rough terrain, lamented what they described as the Taliban's increasing sway over their once relatively peaceful area, about an hour's drive west from Kabul.

"The Taliban are creating fear and trying to rule us through terrorism but they will never succeed," said Charikar resident Najibullah, 30, prompting approving nods from a crowd of men who had formed around him in a busy outdoor market.

The Taliban dismissed the claims: "We have no operational update about this," spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. Parwan's governor Basir Salangi said the Taliban carried out the killing in his province eight days ago.

Despite the presence of over 130,000 foreign troops and 300,000 Afghan soldiers and police, the Taliban have managed to resurge beyond their traditional bastions of the south and east, extending their reach into once more peaceful areas like Parwan.

"This was a brutal act against the Afghan people by the Taliban," Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Seddiqi said.

"They will be punished as they were punished 10 years ago and we will continue our struggle to eliminate them," he told Reuters, referring to their ousting from power in late 2001 by U.S.-backed Afghan forces after an austere five-year rule.

The condemnation came on the day of a major donors' summit in Tokyo, where $16 billion in development aid was pledged for Afghanistan over the next four years as they try to prevent it from sliding back into chaos once most foreign troops have left by the end of 2014.

In a declaration by summit participants, the importance of promoting women's rights was stressed repeatedly.

The U.S. embassy in Kabul, condemning the public execution in the "strongest possible terms", said the hard-won gains of Afghan women made in the last 10 years must be protected.

But Shah Jahan Yazdanparast, head of women's affairs in Parwan, which is connected to the Kabul ministry, said such naked violence as the woman's execution "will only increase our fear and concern as women in Afghanistan".

Afghan women have won back basic rights in education, voting and work since the Taliban were ousted from power but fears are mounting both at home and abroad that such freedoms could be traded away as Kabul seeks peace talks with the group.

"Afghan women and girls were looking to the international community to protect the progress they have made in the last decade and they have been let down," Oxfam Afghanistan's head of policy and advocacy, Louise Hancock, said on Sunday after the close of the Tokyo summit.

Violence against women has increased sharply in the past year, according to Afghanistan's independent human rights commission. Activists say there is waning interest in women's rights on the part of President Hamid Karzai's government.

Authorities blamed the Taliban for the stoning to death of a young couple in northern Kunduz province two years ago in a crowded bazaar, days after a pregnant widow was flogged and killed in western Baghdis province. The Taliban denied involvement.

(Additional reporting and writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)