Greek subway staff end strike after police raid

January 25, 2013

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Striking subway workers in Athens returned to the job Friday, hours after the Greek government used riot police to evacuate holdouts from a train depot, ending a bitter standoff over new austerity measures.

The nine-day strike — which knocked out a system serving more than a million people a day — was the biggest labor unrest Greece's uneasy, conservative-led governing coalition faced since taking over last June.

It was only overcome after authorities resorted to issuing a rare civil mobilization order to workers who had defied a court ruling that their strike was illegal. Thursday's mobilization order meant that staff refusing to return to work risked dismissal, arrest and jail time.

Though the subway trains started running again, the city of some four million still lacked bus and trolley bus services, as unions launched rolling strikes in sympathy with their colleagues. "I am pleased that the urban rail workers restarted the network, and passengers are even more pleased," Transport Minister Costis Hadzidakis said.

Metro staff have been outraged by plans to scrap their existing contracts as part of a broader public sector pay reform, with their union saying workers faced a roughly 25 percent salary loss. Hammered by a financial crisis since late 2009, Greece has imposed repeated rounds of public sector salary and pension cuts in return for billions of euros in international rescue loans. The measures have led to a deep recession, now in its sixth year, and record-high unemployment of more than 26 percent.

In Friday's pre-dawn raid at the western Athens depot, police broke through the gates and removed dozens of strikers, while rows of riot police blocked off surrounding roads to keep away hundreds of strike supporters.

No violence was reported, with the workers not putting up resistance. In the afternoon, dozens of strikers burned their mobilization papers outside a metro station. The government's order led to a swift backlash, with all other public transport workers declaring immediate strikes that forced Athenians to walk or take taxis through thunderstorms Thursday and Friday. Traffic slowed to a crawl, and commutes took up to three times as long as normal.

Defending the government's, government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou insisted the new austerity measures must be implemented. "We are a society, an economy, at a very difficult time," he said. "People can't ask for exceptions."

The civil mobilization law, amended in 2007 to deal with "peacetime emergencies," has now been used nine times since the 1974 collapse of a military dictatorship in Greece - three of those in anti-austerity strikes over the past two years. Defying the order to return to work can lead to arrest and jail terms of between three months and five years.

Unions and the radical left main opposition Syriza party accused the government of dictatorial tactics. "It's a new coup against this country's constitution to mobilize working people on strike on the subway with military-style methods," Syriza lawmaker Dimitris Stratoulis said late Thursday.

Considered an extreme measure, use of the law usually sparks an outcry but does tend to end a strike. It has been used in the past to end a protracted strike by garbage collectors, with the government at the time citing public health concerns, and to end a fuel truck strike that had caused major gasoline shortages.

The strike has been met with a mixture of understanding and exasperation from commuters, many of whom have also suffered deep income cuts. Data released by Greece's statistical authority Friday showed that households' disposable income dropped 10.6 percent in the third quarter of 2012, compared with a year before. The authority said salaries fell 11.3 percentand social benefits received by households decreased 10.2 percent — while taxes on household income and wealth increased 17.7 percent.

Since Greece's finances started to implode in late 2009, incomes have dropped on average by about 30 percent. Strikes in general are so widespread and frequent in Greece that they have become part of everyday life.

"I agree with the strikers," said Christos Bousios as he walked through central Athens. "They have their demands. People will be inconvenienced. With all strikes, it's people who end up paying. ... Those who complain about the strikes today are the ones who strike the next day and make other people's lives hard."

The Greek capital's metro, which opened in 2000, serves more than 700,000 passengers daily. It operates alongside an older network, bringing the capital's combined daily subway traffic to 1.1 million passengers, according to the operators.

Thousands strike amid gov't crisis in Slovenia

January 23, 2013

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia (AP) — Schools closed down, theaters cancelled shows, hospitals switched to weekend schedules and long lines formed at Slovenia's borders on Wednesday in a massive anti-austerity strike, as the main coalition partner walked out of the government over corruption allegations against the prime minister, bringing it to the brink of collapse.

Tens of thousands of teachers, university professors, doctors, customs officials and other state employees joined the strike, angry that the coalition government of Prime Minister Janez Jansa has cut their salaries by 5 percent to reduce debt and avoid needing an EU bailout.

Meanwhile, Jansa's main coalition partner, the Citizens' List, announced it is quitting the government, leaving it without the ministers of justice and finance, and a majority in the parliament. That does not mean the immediate collapse of Jansa's Cabinet, because he can continue to lead a minority government pending a no-confidence vote in the assembly.

Earlier Wednesday, several thousand flag-waving protesters rallied in central Ljubljana, the capital, demanding job security and accusing the government of corruption. "Don't believe those who say the situation will improve if cleaners, policemen or nurses are fired!" a union leader, Branimir Strukelj, told the crowd.

Jansa's government has said that the austerity measures are necessary for Slovenia to restore public finances that, like the economy, have been hurt by the eurozone debt crisis. The measures also include a plan to overhaul the banking system and reform the labor market.

But the government has been shaken by corruption allegations against Jansa, who has been asked to step down by coalition partners. A report issued this month by an anti-graft watchdog accused him of failing to declare more than €200,000 ($266,000) in private assets, which he has denied.

Gregor Virant, the leader of the Citizens List, blamed Jansa for the political turmoil. "The political crisis erupted the day that the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption presented its grave and damning findings," Virant said. He added that his party's walkout from the ruling coalition was "the first step in the resolution of the political crisis."

The priority for his party is an early election, he added, saying the report "has changed the situation in Slovenia so much that the citizens ought to be given the chance to make a new choice." Virant also announced he will step down as Parliament speaker.

In an interview Tuesday with local Primorka TV, Jansa urged "sensibility and maturity to enable the government to do what needs to be done without delay." The anti-graft report also accused Zoran Jankovic, the main opposition leader who is also the mayor of Ljubljana and one of the richest people in Slovenia, of failing to clarify where €2.4 million ($3.1 million) of his money came from.

Slovenia, once a star economy among EU newcomers, has seen its gross domestic product shrink by 3.3 percent in the third quarter compared with a year earlier — the third-biggest drop in the eurozone after Greece and Portugal.

Jovana Gec and Dusan Stojanovic contributed from Belgrade, Serbia.

Netanyahu narrowly wins Israeli election

January 23, 2013

JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his hard-line allies fared far worse than expected in a parliamentary election Tuesday, likely forcing him to reach across the aisle to court a popular political newcomer to cobble together a new coalition.

While Netanyahu appeared positioned to serve a third term as prime minister, the results marked a major setback for his policies and could force him to make new concessions to restart long-stalled peace talks with the Palestinians.

More than 99 percent of the votes had been counted by Wednesday morning and results showed the hawkish and dovish blocs were split about evenly. Netanyahu's most likely partner was Yesh Atid, or There is a Future, a party headed by political newcomer Yair Lapid that showed surprising strength. Lapid has said he would only join a government committed to sweeping economic changes and a resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians.

Addressing his supporters early Wednesday, Netanyahu vowed to form as broad a coalition as possible. He said the next government would be built on principles that include reforming the contentious system of granting draft exemptions to ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and the pursuit of a "genuine peace" with the Palestinians. He did not elaborate, but the message seemed aimed at Lapid.

Shortly after the results were announced, Netanyahu called Lapid and offered to work together. "We have the opportunity to do great things together," Netanyahu was quoted as saying by Likud officials.

Netanyahu's Likud-Yisrael Beitenu alliance was set to capture about 31 of the 120 seats, significantly fewer than the 42 it held in the outgoing parliament and below the forecasts of recent polls. With his traditional allies of nationalist and religious parties, Netanyahu could put together a shaky majority of 61 seats, results showed. But it would be virtually impossible to keep such a narrow coalition intact, though it was possible he could take an additional seat or two as numbers trickled in throughout the night.

The results capped a lackluster campaign in which peacemaking with the Palestinians, traditionally the dominant issue in Israeli politics, was pushed aside. Netanyahu portrayed himself as the only candidate capable of leading Israel at a turbulent time, while the fragmented opposition targeted him on domestic economic issues.

Netanyahu's goal of a broader coalition will force him to make some difficult decisions. Concessions to Lapid, for instance, will alienate his religious allies. In an interview last week with The Associated Press, Lapid said he would not be a "fig leaf" for a hard-line, extremist agenda.

Lapid's performance was the biggest surprise of the election. The one-time TV talk show host and son of a former Cabinet minister was poised to win 19 seats, giving him the second-largest faction in parliament.

Presenting himself as the defender of the middle class, Lapid vowed to take on Israel's high cost of living and to end the contentious system of subsidies and draft exemptions granted to ultra-Orthodox Jews while they pursue religious studies. The expensive system has bred widespread resentment among the Israeli mainstream.

Thanks to his strong performance, Lapid is now in a position to serve as the kingmaker of the next government. He will likely seek a senior Cabinet post and other concessions. Yaakov Peri, a member of Lapid's party, said it would not join unless the government pledges to begin drafting the ultra-Orthodox into the military, lowers the country's high cost of living and returns to peace talks. "We have red lines. We won't cross those red lines, even if it will cost us sitting in the opposition," Peri told Channel 2 TV.

Addressing his supporters, a beaming Lapid was noncommittal, calling only for a broad government with moderates from left and right. "Israelis said no to the politics of fear and hatred," he said. "And they said no to extremism and anti-democracy."

There was even a distant possibility of Lapid and more dovish parties teaming up to block Netanyahu from forming a majority. "It could be that this evening is the beginning for a big chance to create an alternative government to the Netanyahu government," said Shelly Yachimovich, leader of the Labor Party, which won 15 seats on a platform pledging to narrow the gaps between rich and poor.

Although that seemed unlikely, Netanyahu clearly emerged from the election in a weakened state. "We expected more seats in the parliament," Danny Danon, a senior Likud member, told the AP. "But the bottom line is that Benjamin Netanyahu is the next prime minister of Israel."

Under Israel's system of proportional representation, seats in the 120-member parliament are allocated according to the percentage of votes a party gets. As leader of the largest party, Netanyahu is in the best position to form a coalition and be prime minister.

The results were shocking, given the steady stream of recent opinion polls forecasting a solid victory by Netanyahu and his allies. Netanyahu appeared to suffer because of his close ties to the ultra-Orthodox and perhaps from complacency. Many voters chose smaller parties, believing a Netanyahu victory was inevitable.

Tensions with the United States, Israel's most important ally, also may have factored into the thinking. President Barack Obama was quoted last week as saying that Netanyahu was undermining Israel's own interests by continuing to build Jewish settlements on occupied lands.

Netanyahu has won praise at home for drawing the world's attention to Iran's suspect nuclear program and for keeping the economy on solid ground at a time of global turmoil. In his speech, Netanyahu said that preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons would remain his top priority.

But internationally, he has repeatedly clashed with allies over his handling of the peace process. Peace talks with the Palestinians have remained stalled throughout his term, in large part because of his continued construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians want a halt to settlement construction before talks begin. Netanyahu says talks must start without any preconditions.

Obama has had a turbulent relationship with Netanyahu, and the two leaders could find themselves on a collision course in their new terms. The Obama administration said that regardless of the results of the election, the U.S. approach to the conflict would not change.

"We will continue to make clear that only through direct negotiations can the Palestinians and the Israelis ... achieve the peace they both deserve," said White House spokesman Jay Carney. In London, British Foreign Secretary William Hague urged Obama to make the Middle East peace process his top priority. "We are approaching the last chance to bring about such a solution," Hague warned.

Netanyahu himself has only grudgingly voiced conditional support for a Palestinian state, and his own party is now dominated by hard-liners who oppose even that. A potential coalition partner, Naftali Bennett of the Jewish Home Party, which won 11 seats, has called for annexing large parts of the West Bank, the core of any future Palestinian state.

While Lapid advocates a softer line toward the Palestinians, his campaign focused on economic issues and it remains unclear how hard he will push Netanyahu on the issue. Lapid's positions also fall short of Palestinian demands. Most critically, he opposes any division of Jerusalem. The Palestinians seek the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, for a future state.

The Palestinians viewed the election results grimly. "If he brings Lapid into his government, this would improve the image of the Netanyahu government in the eyes of the world. But it won't make him stop building settlements, particularly in east Jerusalem," said Mohammed Ishtayeh, a senior adviser to President Mahmoud Abbas.

In all, 32 parties contested the election, and 12 won enough votes to enter parliament, according to the exit polls. Netanyahu now has up to six weeks to form a government.

Aron Heller in Tel Aviv, Daniel Estrin and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem, and Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.

Russia moves to enact anti-gay law nationwide

January 21, 2013

MOSCOW (AP) — Kissing his boyfriend during a protest in front of Russia's parliament earned Pavel Samburov 30 hours of detention and the equivalent of a $16 fine on a charge of "hooliganism." But if a bill that comes up for a first vote later this month becomes law, such a public kiss could be defined as illegal "homosexual propaganda" and bring a fine of up to $16,000.

The legislation being pushed by the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church would make it illegal nationwide to provide minors with information that is defined as "propaganda of sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality and transgenderism." It includes a ban on holding public events that promote gay rights. St. Petersburg and a number of other Russian cities already have similar laws on their books.

The bill is part of an effort to promote traditional Russian values as opposed to Western liberalism, which the Kremlin and church see as corrupting Russian youth and by extension contributing to a wave of protest against President Vladimir Putin's rule.

Samburov describes the anti-gay bill as part of a Kremlin crackdown on minorities of any kind — political and religious as well as sexual — designed to divert public attention from growing discontent with Putin's rule.

The lanky and longhaired Samburov is the founder of the Rainbow Association, which unites gay activists throughout Russia. The gay rights group has joined anti-Putin marches in Moscow over the past year, its rainbow flag waving along with those of other opposition groups.

Other laws that the Kremlin says are intended to protect young Russians have been hastily adopted in recent months, including some that allow banning and blocking web content and print publications that are deemed "extremist" or unfit for young audiences.

Denis Volkov, a sociologist with the Levada Center, an independent pollster, says the anti-gay bill fits the "general logic" of a government intent on limiting various rights. But in this case, the move has been met mostly with either indifference or open enthusiasm by average Russians. Levada polls conducted last year show that almost two thirds of Russians find homosexuality "morally unacceptable and worth condemning." About half are against gay rallies and same-sex marriage; almost a third think homosexuality is the result of "a sickness or a psychological trauma," the Levada surveys show.

Russia's widespread hostility to homosexuality is shared by the political and religious elite. Lawmakers have accused gays of decreasing Russia's already low birth rates and said they should be barred from government jobs, undergo forced medical treatment or be exiled. Orthodox activists criticized U.S. company PepsiCo for using a "gay" rainbow on cartons of its dairy products. An executive with a government-run television network said in a nationally televised talk show that gays should be prohibited from donating blood, sperm and organs for transplants, while after death their hearts should be burned or buried.

The anti-gay sentiment was seen Sunday in Voronezh, a city south of Moscow, where a handful of gay activists protesting against the parliament bill were attacked by a much larger group of anti-gay activists who hit them with snowballs.

The gay rights protest that won Samburov a fine took place in December. Seconds after Samburov and his boyfriend kissed, militant activists with the Orthodox Church pelted them with eggs. Police intervened, rounding up the gay activists and keeping them for 30 hours first in a frozen van and then in an unheated detention center. The Orthodox activists were also rounded up, but were released much earlier.

Those behind the bill say minors need to be protected from "homosexual propaganda" because they are unable to evaluate the information critically. "This propaganda goes through the mass media and public events that propagate homosexuality as normal behavior," the bill reads.

Cities started adopting anti-gay laws in 2006. Only one person has been prosecuted so far under a law specifically targeted at gays: Nikolai Alexeyev, a gay rights campaigner, was fined the equivalent of $160 after a one-man protest last summer in St. Petersburg.

In November, a St. Petersburg court dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Trade Union of Russian Citizens, a small group of Orthodox conservatives and Putin loyalists, against pop star Madonna. The group sought $10.7 million in damages for what it says was "propaganda of perversion" when Madonna spoke up for gay rights during a show three months earlier.

The federal bill's expected adoption comes 20 years after a Stalinist-era law punishing homosexuality with up to five years in prison was removed from Russia's penal code as part of the democratic reforms that followed the Soviet Union's collapse.

Most of the other former Soviet republics also decriminalized homosexuality, and attitudes toward gays have become a litmus test of democratic freedoms. While gay pride parades are held in the three former Soviet Baltic states, all today members of the European Union, same-sex love remains a crime in authoritarian Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

In Russia, gays have been whipsawed by official pressure and persistent homophobia. There are no reliable estimates of how many gays and lesbians live in Russia, and only a few big cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg have gay nightclubs and gyms. Even there, gays do not feel secure.

When a dozen masked men entered a Moscow night club during a "coming out party" that campaigner Samburov organized in October, he thought they were part of the show. But then one of the masked men yelled, "Have you ordered up a fight? Here you go!" The men overturned tables, smashed dishes and beat, kicked and sprayed mace at the five dozen men and women who had gathered at the gay-friendly Freedays club, Samburov and the club's administration said.

Four club patrons were injured, including a young woman who got broken glass in her eye, police said. Although a police station was nearby, Samburov said, it took police officers half an hour to arrive. The attackers remain unidentified.

On the next day, an Orthodox priest said he regretted that his religious role had not allowed him to participate in the beating. "Until this scum gets off of Russian land, I fully share the views of those who are trying to purge our motherland of it," Rev. Sergiy Rybko was quoted as saying by the Orthodoxy and World online magazine. "We either become a tolerant Western state where everything is allowed — and lose our Christianity and moral foundations — or we will be a Christian people who live in our God-protected land in purity and godliness."

In other parts of Russia, gays feel even less secure. Bagaudin Abduljalilov moved to Moscow from Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim region in southern Russia where he says some gays have been beaten and had their hands cut off, sometimes by their own relatives, for bringing shame on their families.

"You don't have any human rights down there," he said. "Anything can be done to you with impunity." Shortly before moving to Moscow, Abduljalilov left Islam to become a Protestant Christian, but was expelled from a seminary after telling the dean he was gay. He also has had trouble finding a job as a television journalist because of discrimination against people from Dagestan.

"I love Russia, but I want another Russia," said Abduljalilov, 30, who now works as a clerk. "It's a pity I can't spend my life on creative projects instead of banging my head against the wall and repeating, 'I'm normal, I'm normal.'"

Angry protests, clashes on Egypt anniversary

January 25, 2013

CAIRO (AP) — Egyptians delivered an angry backlash against President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood on Friday, marking the second anniversary of the start of the country's revolution with tens of thousands filling major squares and streets around the country to call for a new regime change.

Two years to the day that protesters first rose up against now-toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak, Egypt is entrenched in the new phase of its upheaval — the struggle between ruling Islamists and their opponents, played out on the backdrop of a worsening economy.

Rallies turned to clashes near Tahrir Square and outside the presidential palace in Cairo and in multiple cities around the country, with police firing tear gas and protesters throwing stones. At least four people, including a 14-year-old boy, were killed in the day's worst clashes, in the city of Suez, where protesters set ablaze a building that once housed the city's local government.

More than 370 were injured nationwide, the Health Ministry said, including five in Suez with gunshot wounds, raising the possibility of a higher death toll, the state news agency said. Friday's rallies appeared to have brought out at least 500,000 opposition supporters, a small proportion of Egypt's 85 million people, but large enough to suggest that opposition to Morsi and his Islamist allies is strong in a country fatigued by two years of political turmoil, surging crime and a free falling economy that is fueling popular anger. Protests — and clashes — took place in at least 12 of Egypt's 27 provinces, including several that are Islamist strongholds.

"After what happened to me, I will never leave until Morsi leaves," said protester Sara Mohammed after she was treated for tear gas inhalation during clashes outside the president's palace in Cairo's Heliopolis district. "What can possibly happen to us? Will we die? That's fine, because then I will be with God as a martyr. Many have died before us and even if we don't see change, future generations will."

The immediate goal of the opposition was to have a show of strength to push Morsi to amend the country's new constitution, which was pushed through by his Islamist allies and rushed through a national referendum last month.

But more broadly, protesters are trying to show the extent of public anger against the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization Morsi hails from, which they say is acting unilaterally and taking over the state rather than setting up a broad-based democracy.

Morsi is Egypt's first freely elected and civilian president, a significant feat given that all his four predecessors were of military background. But his six months in office have been marred by some of the worst crises since Mubarak's ouster and divisions that have left the nation scarred and in disarray. A giant wave of demonstrations erupted in November and December following a series of presidential decrees, since rescinded, that gave Morsi near absolute powers, placing him above any oversight, including by the judiciary.

The Brotherhood and its Islamist allies, including the ultraconservative Salafis, have justified their hold by pointing to their string of election victories the past year — though the opposition says they have gone far beyond what in many ways is a narrow mandate — Morsi won the presidency with less than 52 percent of the vote. Brotherhood officials have increasingly depicted the opposition as undemocratic, trying to use the streets to overturn an elected leadership.

Thursday night, Morsi gave a televised speech that showed the extent of the estrangement between the two sides. He denounced what he called a "counter-revolution" that is "being led by remnants of ousted president Hosni Mubarak's regime to obstruct everything in the country."

Unlike in 2012, when both sides made a show of marking Jan. 25 — though, granted, not together — the Brotherhood stayed off the streets for Friday's anniversary. The group said it was honoring the occasion with acts of public service, like treating the sick and planting trees.

On the horizon are key elections to choose a new lower house of parliament. The opposition is hoping it can leverage public anger into a substantial bloc in the legislature, but it is still trying to weld together an effective campaign coalition in the face of Islamists' strength at the ballot box. Last winter, the Brotherhood and Salafis won around 75 percent of the lower house's seats, though the body was later disbanded by court order.

Pending the election of a new lower house, Morsi gave legislative powers to parliament's Islamist-dominated upper house, a normally toothless chamber that only about seven percent of Egypt's 50 million eligible voters bothered to elect in balloting last year.

The violence Friday pointed to the increasing tempers among some in the opposition, particularly younger men who have been the most restive. Clashes erupted outside the presidential palace when youths tried to push through a police barricade outside the gates. In other cities, protesters tried to break into offices of the Brotherhood's political party or government and security buildings.

Beyond the violence, the protests re-created the tone of the 18-day uprising against Mubarak, including the same chants, this time directed against Morsi — "Erhal! Erhal!", Arabic for "leave, leave" and "the people want to topple the regime."

Some of the protesters are planning sit-in strikes in major squares and streets, insisting that they will not go home before Morsi leaves office. Standing near Tahrir Square, retiree Ahmed Afifi declared that he joined Friday's protests because he was struggling to feed his five children on less than $200 a month.

"I am retired and took another job just to make ends meet," he said, his eyes tearing. "I am close to begging. Under Mubarak life was hard but at least we had security ... The first people hit by high prices are the poor people right here."

Tens of thousands massed in Cairo's Tahrir Square, where the 2011 uprising began, and outside Morsi's palace. Banners outside the palace proclaimed, "No to the corrupt Muslim Brotherhood government" and "Two years since the revolution, where is social justice?" Others demonstrated outside the state TV and radio building overlooking the Nile.

In two towns in the Nile Delta, Menouf and Shibeen el-Koum, protesters blocked railway lines, disrupting train services to and from Cairo. In Ismailia on the Suez Canal, protesters stormed the building housing the provincial government, looting some of its contents. There were also clashes outside Morsi's home in the Nile Delta province of Sharqiyah.

The demands of Friday's protesters vary. Some on the extremist fringe of Egypt's loosely knit opposition want Morsi to step down and the constitution adopted last month rescinded. Others are calling for the document to be amended and early presidential elections held.

"There must be a constitution for all Egyptians. A constitution that every one of us sees himself in it," opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei said in a televised message posted on his party's website.

Egypt's bestselling novelist and democracy campaigner Alaa al-Aswany marched with ElBaradei on Friday to Tahrir. "It is impossible to impose a constitution on Egyptians, a constitution which was sponsored by the Supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the revolution today will bring this constitution down," he said.

Protester Ehab Menyawi said he felt no personal animosity against the Brotherhood but opposed its approach toward Morsi as Egypt's first freely elected leader. "The Brotherhood thinks that reform was achieved when their man came to power and that in itself is a guarantee for the end of corruption," he said as he marched from the upscale Cairo district of Mohandiseen to Tahrir with some 20,000 others.

Morsi has kept government policy-making and the choice of appointments almost entirely within the Brotherhood. Members and supporters of the group are being installed bit by bit throughout the state infrastructure — from governor posts, to chiefs of state TV and newspapers, down to preachers in state-run mosques.

Many were also angered by the constitution and the manner of its adoption. Islamists finalized the draft in a rushed, all-night meeting, throwing in amendments to fit their needs, then pushed it through a swift referendum in which only a third of voters participated. The result is a document that could bring a much stricter implementation of Shariah, or Islamic law, than modern Egypt has ever seen.

Looming over the struggle between the opposition against the Islamists is an economy that has been in tatters since Mubarak's ouster. The vital tourism sector has slumped, investment shriveled, foreign currency reserves have tumbled, prices are on the rise and the local currency has been sliding.

More pain is likely in the coming months if the government implements unpopular new austerity measures to secure a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. "Egypt is in a bad place, It's been wholly consumed with issues of power, and governance has been left by the wayside. None of this had to be," said Michael W. Hanna, a senior fellow at the New York-based Century Foundation.

Associated Press reporters Aya Batrawy and Mariam Rizk contributed to this report.

Syrian forces escalate offensive in Homs

January 26, 2013

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's army unleashed a barrage of rocket and artillery fire on rebel-held areas in a central province Friday as part of a widening offensive against fighters seeking to oust President Bashar Assad. At least 140 people were killed in fighting nationwide, according to activist groups.

The United Nations said a record number of Syrians streamed into Jordan this month, doubling the population of the kingdom's already-cramped refugee camp to 65,000. Over 30,000 people arrived in Zaatari in January — 6,000 in the past two days alone, the U.N. said.

The newcomers are mostly families, women, children and elderly who fled from southern Syria, said Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She said the UNHCR was working with the Jordanian government to open a second major camp nearby by the end of this month.

Many of the new arrivals at Zaatari are from the southern town of Daraa, where the uprising against Assad first erupted nearly two years ago, the Britain-based Save the Children said Friday. Five buses, crammed with "frightened and exhausted people who fled with what little they could carry," pull up every hour at the camp, said Saba al-Mobasat, an aid worker with Save the Children.

The exodus reflected the latest spike in violence in Syria's civil war. The conflict began in March 2011 after a peaceful uprising against Assad, inspired by the Arab Spring wave of revolutions that toppled leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, turned violent.

Despite significant rebel advances on the battlefield, the opposition remains outgunned by government forces and has been unable to break a stalemate on the ground. In Lebanon, the leader of the Syria-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said Friday in a speech that those who dream about "dramatic changes" taking place in Syria should let go of their fantasies.

"Particularly those who were expecting the fall of Damascus," he told supporters, adding that military, political and international developments point to the futility of such dreams. Activists said the army recently brought in military reinforcements to the central province of Homs and launched a renewed offensive aimed at retaking patches of territory that have been held by rebels for months.

An amateur video posted online by activists showed rockets slamming into buildings in the rebel-held town of Rastan, just north of the provincial capital, Homs. Heavy gunfire could be heard in the background.

Another video showed thick black and gray smoke rising from a building in the besieged city. "The city of Homs is burning ... day and night, the shelling of Homs doesn't stop," the narrator is heard saying.

Troops also battled rebels around Damascus in an effort to dislodge opposition fighters who have set up enclaves in surrounding towns and villages. The troops fired artillery shells Friday at several districts, including Zabadani and Daraya, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, said regime warplanes carried out airstrikes on the suburb of Douma, the largest patch of rebel-held ground near Damascus. Other video showed devastation in the Damascus neighborhood of Arbeen, following what activists said were two airstrikes there. A bleeding, wounded man can be seen being helped out of the rubble of the destroyed building. The videos appeared consistent with Associated Press reporting on the fighting.

Last month, the UNHCR said it needed $1 billion to aid Syrians in the Mideast, and that half of that money was required to help refugees in Jordan. The agency says 597,240 refugees have registered or are awaiting registration with the UNHCR in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. Some countries have higher estimates, noting many Syrians have found accommodations without registering, relying on their own resources and savings.

In Turkey, U.S. officials announced that the United States was providing an additional $10 million in assistance to help supply flour to bakeries in the Aleppo region. Nancy Lindborg, assistant administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, said the aid would help provide daily bread for about 210,000 people for the next five months.

She said that with the new assistance, the United States was providing a total of $220 million to help Syrians. "Too many people — an unconscionable number of Syrians — are not able to get daily bread, in addition to other supplies," Lindborg told journalists after a visit to a Syrian refugee camp near Turkey's border with Syria.

In a rare gesture, Syria's Interior Ministry called on those who fled the country during the civil war to return, including regime opponents. It said the government will help hundreds of thousands of citizens return whether they left "legally or illegally."

Syrian opposition figures abroad who want to take part in reconciliation talks will also be allowed back, according to a ministry statement carried late Thursday by the state SANA news agency. If they "have the desire to participate in the national dialogue, they would be allowed to enter Syria," it said.

The proposed talks are part of Assad's initiative to end the conflict that started as peaceful protests in March 2011 but turned into a civil war. Tens of thousands of activists, their family members and opposition supporters remain jailed by the regime, according to international activist groups.

Opposition leaders repeatedly have rejected any talks that include Assad, insisting he must step down. The international community backs that demand, but Assad has clung to power, vowing to crush the armed opposition.

More than 60,000 people have been killed since the conflict began, according to the U.N. Activists also said two cars packed with explosives blew up near a military intelligence building in the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan Heights, killing eight. Most of the dead were members of the Syrian military, the Observatory said.

The Syrian government had no comment on the attacks, which occurred Thursday night in the town of Quneitra, and nobody claimed responsibility for them. Car bombs and suicide attacks targeting Syrian troops and government institutions have been the hallmark of Islamic militants fighting in Syria alongside rebels trying to topple Assad.

Quneitra is on the cease-fire line between Syria and Israel, which controls most of the Golan Heights after capturing the strategic territory from Syria in the 1967 war.

Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey and Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed to this report.

Child Labor in Yemen

by Abdulrhaman Shamlan
Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Hundreds of thousands work to help their families survive financially

Sana'a--Mohammed Abdu Al-Jadol, a 13-year-old boy, gets up early in the morning not to go to school like his friends but to go to a small welding shop, where he works from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m .for only $4 a day.

Poverty and harsh economical conditions pushed Mohammed's father to force his children to work and drop out of school to help him provide for their big family. Mohammed says he only studied until the sixth grade.

Wearing a black helmet and polarized sunglasses to protect his eyes from welding light, he told The Media Line, "I don't like school anyway." But it's too early for him to know what's best for him.

"I pushed my children to work because I needed help to feed their younger brothers and sisters," Mohammed's father Abdu, a 48-year-old builder, told The Media Line. "When I brought my two children with me to Sana'a, I was planning to let them continue their studies but that proved to be impractical."

Consoling himself, he added:: "My children can be better than the educated people if they work hard and establish their own businesses in the future. They can even hire those who received certificates."

Like Mohammed, there are hundreds of thousands of Yemeni children aged 5-17 deprived from enjoying their childhood and continuing their education because of their families' harsh economic conditions and lack of awareness about the dangers of child labor.

A recent survey showed that there are over 1.3 million child laborers in Yemen. The study results announced last week were based on a survey conducted in 2010 by the Yemeni government with support from the International Labor Organization (ILO), the Social Development Fund and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

According to the survey, 17 percent of Yemen’s 7.7 million children in the 5-17 age group and 11 percent of those aged 5-11 are child laborers.

Although the study shows alarming figures, Yemeni activists and government officials working in child rights say that the real number of working children is far more than reported.

Ahmed Al-Qarashi, the chairman of the Seyaj Organization for Childhood Protection, told The Media Line, "The recently-announced study is outdated. It's impractical to announce the results of a study three years after conducting it."

"In the past two years, Yemen has experienced political turmoil and security unrest. The turmoil has significantly increased the child laborers' number," he said.

Mona Ali Salem, the head of Child Labor Unit at Yemen's Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, told The Media Line, "Child labor is on the increase in Yemen. In 2000, a government survey showed that there were around 421,000 working children and the results of the 2010 survey indicated that there are more than 1.3 million child laborers."

While Jamal Al-Shami, the head of Democracy School, an organization advocating child rights in the country, estimated the current number of working children at three million, Al-Qarashi says he believes there are about five million child laborers in Yemen.

The working children are vulnerable to different kinds of abuse ranging from maltreatment to sexual abuse, child rights activists said.

Al-Qarashi said his organization has documented some cases in which a part of children's bodies was amputated for them to be suitable for certain professions, like begging.

“An ever heightening poverty, increasing instability and high population growth are the main reasons for the alarming widespread of child labor in Yemen," Salem said,  an understanding that both Al-Shami and Al-Qarashi shared.

Yemen is the poorest Arab state, with more than half of its population living on less than $2 a day.

Al-Shami told The Media Line, "A lack of awareness about the dangers of child labor and illiteracy among the parents are also factors for the widespread child labor."

Underscoring that, a field study on child labor in the port city of Aden showed about 84% of working children are from rural areas. It indicated that the child laborers' parents are either illiterate or received very basic education.

"Taking into consideration the economical hardships of Yemenis, we only oppose the work of children in hazardous professions or in jobs that interfere with their ability to attend regular school," Afrah Humad, the communication officer for the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood, a governmental body that answers to the prime minister, told The Media Line. "For example, we can't force a mother who says she does not have anything to feed her children not to let her sons work and help her in providing for the family but we can persuade her to make them work in jobs that don't affect their schooling."

Al-Shami said the government should pass laws making education obligatory for children and punishing irresponsible parents who push their children to work without a great necessity for it.

Copyright © 2013 The Media Line. All Rights Reserved.

Islamists and the Jordanian King at Loggerheads Over Elections

by Adam Nicky
Sunday, January 20, 2013

Muslim Brotherhood set to boycott parliamentary elections

With just three days left ahead of Jordanian parliamentary elections, King Abdullah and representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood's political party the Islamic Action Front (IAC), who are boycotting the election, are on a collision course ahead of the vote.

After failing to attract the Islamist movement to run in the polls, which he promotes as fruit of the Arab Spring, King Abdullah this week appeared to have given up on the IAC. The pro-Western monarch accused them of seeking to establish a "religious dictatorship" and said he didn't trust the Islamists.

"I am not worried about the Islamists winning in the elections. I am worried about pluralism and an exchange of power" that might result from such a victory, Abdullah said in a January 13 interview with the French magazine L'Observoire. He also expressed concern about how much change such a victory would bring to the country.

Meanwhile, the state-controlled media has been leading a smear campaign against the Islamist movement ahead of the polls.

Jordanian officials point out that the January 23 elections will lead to the creation of the country's first parliamentary government. The king would name a prime minister to form a government that includes members of parliament, and retain the right to name and dismiss the prime minister.

Jordan elects its parliament every four years to choose 150 MPs in the lower house, while the king appoints the upper house with 50 senators forming the legislative authority. It remains unclear how many MPs would join the new government, but lists of candidates show former officials and businessmen leading the race in the absence of powerful opposition.

Wary of the possible negative effects of an Arab Spring in Jordan, Abdullah's spokesmen argue that gradual reforms are safer in a country surrounded by major powers struggling for Mideast interests.

"The region is facing an uncertain future. We don't know where Syria is heading and countries that saw change in the Arab Spring are suffering," a senior government official told the Media Line.

"The king is determined to go ahead with his vision of reform. He has said that his son will not inherit the monarchy as he did," the official added, referring to opposition demands that the king relinquish his constitutional powers that allow him to form governments.

Over the past two years, Abdullah endorsed amendments to the constitution, including that the king can sack the parliament only once in four years and the government must resign after parliamentary elections, and he established an independent electoral committee that promised fair and free elections.

The opposition accuses the king of procrastinating and exploiting the Syrian storm to block fundamental change.

It wants quick reforms including trimming the king's powers, separation between authorities to shield judicial authority and the parliament from government interference, and a fair elections law.

"The so-called concessions, including the constitutional court, etc….[are] like a camel that gave birth to a mouse. We expected too much and got so little," Kathem Ayash, a member of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood Shura Council, the highest governing body of the group, told The Media Line.

"This is an arrogant attitude. The state says we give you this little and we have to be happy for it. We will not take part in this political process," he added.

The Islamist movement said this week it plans to organize a major rally in downtown Amman against the elections, but vowed not to hold protests on election day, a sign it might not be acting as strongly as expected.

The highly publicized polls are expected to do little to defuse tension between maneuvering authorities and stubborn opposition, said political analyst and researcher Mohammed Imran.

"Jordan will remain in the same place as two years ago, when the Arab Spring started. The kingdom is headed to the unknown in such a situation," argues Imran.

Islamist movement opponents say the group’s bark is bigger than its bite, accusing Shura Council President Abdul Latif Arabiyat, IAF party leader Hamza Mansour and other senior Islamists of failing to live up to their status as the biggest opposition party in the kingdom.

"Street protestations look more like a formality than a genuine expression of anger by the public. The Islamist movement has been treading so carefully that they are becoming powerless," said Rami Rafeeq, a leader from the Jordan professional association.

Other opposition groups including some leftist parties have insignificant support.

Besides the planned election boycott, the Muslim Brotherhood has been enduring its own internal strife. Some party leaders say it supports peacefully achieving political rights and recently some said they are not seeking to overthrow the regime.

A melting pot for immigrants from around the region, Jordan has survived the bloody ripples of the Arab Spring that have occurred in other Arab countries.

King Abdullah takes his authority and powers from a general belief among the seven million inhabitants that the royal family is the safest option for a country built by refugees from what is today Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Armenia, Chechnya and elsewhere seeking safety.

However, young opposition activists from Jordan University's student council say they want better than their parents had, insisting the king must face the inevitable and change.

Copyright © 2013 The Media Line. All Rights Reserved.

Abortion opponents march in Washington

January 26, 2013

WASHINGTON (AP) — Anti-abortion demonstrators from around the country marched through Washington to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to protest a landmark court decision that legalized abortion.

The annual event took on added significance for many in the crowd because this year marks the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that created a constitutional right to abortion in some circumstances. The demonstrators, carrying signs with messages such as "Defend Life" and "Defund Planned Parenthood," shouted chants including "Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Roe v. Wade has got to go."

They packed sections of the National Mall and surrounding streets for the March of Life. "I just felt this 40th year marked a huge anniversary for the law," said one demonstrator, Pam Tino, 52, of Easton, Mass, who also participated several years ago. "Forty is a very important year in the Bible as well, in terms of years in the desert. And I just felt like maybe this year (there) was going to be something miraculous that might happen. We might see something going forward with the cause."

With the re-election of President Barack Obama, she added, "we just have our walking papers. Now we just feel like we have to keep the battle up." The large turnout reflected the ongoing relevance of the abortion debate four decades after the Jan. 22, 1973 decision.

It remains a divisive issue with no dramatic shift in viewpoint on either side; a new Pew Research Center poll finds 63 percent of U.S. adults opposed to overturning Roe, compared to 60 percent in 1992. Earlier this week, abortion opponents marked the anniversary of the court decision with workshops, prayers and calls for more limits on abortion rights. And even as Obama this week reaffirmed his commitment to "reproductive freedom," state legislatures continue to consider varied restrictions on a woman's ability to receive an abortion.

In Mississippi, for example, the state's only abortion clinic said it received notice Friday that the state intends to revoke its operating license. The clinic's operator has struggled to comply with a 2012 state law that requires anyone doing abortions at the clinic to be an OB-GYN with hospital admitting privileges.

Police do not provide crowd estimates, but organizers said hundreds of thousands may have turned out at Friday's rally in Washington. Among the speakers at Friday's rally was Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator and staunch abortion opponent who last year unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination.

He recalled the love and support the country showed for his young daughter, Bella, who was born with a serious genetic condition and whose illness led him to take some time off from the campaign trail. He cited his daughter's life — "she is joyful, she is sweet, she is all about love" — as a reason to discourage abortion even in instances when women are told that it would be "better" to have one.

"We all know that death is never better — never better. Really what it's about is saying is it would be easier for us, not better for her," he said. "And I'm here to tell you ... Bella is better for us and we are better because of Bella."

He said the anti-abortion cause was made up of people who every day advocate for their position outside abortion clinics and at crisis pregnancy centers. "This movement is not a bunch of moralizers standing on their mountaintop preaching what is right," Santorum said.

Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, called Roe v. Wade "infamous, reckless and inhumane." "The passage of time hasn't changed the fact that abortion is a serious, lethal violation of fundamental human rights," he said. "And that women and children deserve better. And that the demands of justice, generosity and compassion require that the right to life be guaranteed to everyone."

One demonstrator, Mark Fedarko, 44, of Cleveland, said he regularly stands outside of abortion clinics in hopes of discouraging women from going inside. "There's God's law and man's law," he said. "But I follow God's law first. Like it says right here, thou shall not kill. That's the end of the story. We need to protect these children."