Investigation - U.S. Bankrolled Anti-Morsi Activists

by Emad Mekay
21 July 2013

President Barack Obama recently stated the United States was not taking sides as Egypt's crisis came to a head with the military overthrow of the democratically elected president.

But a review of dozens of US federal government documents shows Washington has quietly funded senior Egyptian opposition figures who called for toppling of the country's now-deposed president Mohamed Morsi.

Documents obtained by the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley show the US channeled funding through a State Department program to promote democracy in the Middle East region. This program vigorously supported activists and politicians who have fomented unrest in Egypt, after autocratic president Hosni Mubarak was ousted in a popular uprising in February 2011.

The State Department's program, dubbed by US officials as a "democracy assistance" initiative, is part of a wider Obama administration effort to try to stop the retreat of pro-Washington secularists, and to win back influence in Arab Spring countries that saw the rise of Islamists, who largely oppose US interests in the Middle East.

Activists bankrolled by the program include an exiled Egyptian police officer who plotted the violent overthrow of the Morsi government, an anti-Islamist politician who advocated closing mosques and dragging preachers out by force, as well as a coterie of opposition politicians who pushed for the ouster of the country's first democratically elected leader, government documents show.

Information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, interviews, and public records reveal Washington's "democracy assistance" may have violated Egyptian law, which prohibits foreign political funding.

It may also have broken US government regulations that ban the use of taxpayers' money to fund foreign politicians, or finance subversive activities that target democratically elected governments.

'Bureau for Democracy'

Washington's democracy assistance program for the Middle East is filtered through a pyramid of agencies within the State Department. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars is channeled through the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), The Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), USAID, as well as the Washington-based, quasi-governmental organisation the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

In turn, those groups re-route money to other organisations such as the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and Freedom House, among others. Federal documents show these groups have sent funds to certain organisations in Egypt, mostly run by senior members of anti-Morsi political parties who double as NGO activists.

The Middle East Partnership Initiative - launched by the George W Bush administration in 2002 in a bid to influence politics in the Middle East in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks - has spent close to $900m on democracy projects across the region, a federal grants database shows.

USAID manages about $1.4bn annually in the Middle East, with nearly $390m designated for democracy promotion, according to the Washington-based Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED).

The US government doesn't issue figures on democracy spending per country, but Stephen McInerney, POMED's executive director, estimated that Washington spent some $65m in 2011 and $25m in 2012. He said he expects a similar amount paid out this year.

A main conduit for channeling the State Department's democracy funds to Egypt has been the National Endowment for Democracy. Federal documents show NED, which in 2011 was authorized an annual budget of $118m by Congress, funneled at least $120,000 over several years to an exiled Egyptian police officer who has for years incited violence in his native country.

This appears to be in direct contradiction to its Congressional mandate, which clearly states NED is to engage only in "peaceful" political change overseas.

Exiled policeman

Colonel Omar Afifi Soliman - who served in Egypt's elite investigative police unit, notorious for human rights abuses - began receiving NED funds in 2008 for at least four years.

During that time he and his followers targeted Mubarak's government, and Soliman later followed the same tactics against the military rulers who briefly replaced him. Most recently Soliman set his sights on Morsi's government.

Soliman, who has refugee status in the US, was sentenced in absentia last year for five years imprisonment by a Cairo court for his role in inciting violence in 2011 against the embassies of Israel and Saudi Arabia, two US allies.

He also used social media to encourage violent attacks against Egyptian officials, according to court documents and a review of his social media posts.

US Internal Revenue Service documents reveal that NED paid tens of thousands of dollars to Soliman through an organisation he created called Hukuk Al-Nas (People's Rights), based in Falls Church, Virginia. Federal forms show he is the only employee.

After he was awarded a 2008 human rights fellowship at NED and moved to the US, Soliman received a second $50,000 NED grant in 2009 for Hukuk Al-Nas. In 2010, he received $60,000 and another $10,000 in 2011.

In an interview with the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley, Soliman reluctantly admitted he received US government funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, but complained it wasn't enough. "It is like $2000 or $2,500 a month," he said. "Do you think this is too much? Obama wants to give us peanuts. We will not accept that."

NED has removed public access to its Egyptian grant recipients in 2011 and 2012 from its website. NED officials didn't respond to repeated interview requests.

'Pro bono advice'

NED's website says Soliman spreads only nonviolent literature, and his group was set up to provide "immediate, pro bono legal advice through a telephone hotline, instant messaging, and other social networking tools".

However, in Egyptian media interviews, social media posts and YouTube videos, Soliman encouraged the violent overthrow of Egypt's government, then led by the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party.

"Incapacitate them by smashing their knee bones first," he instructed followers on Facebook in late June, as Morsi's opponents prepared massive street rallies against the government. Egypt's US-funded and trained military later used those demonstrations to justify its coup on July 3.

"Make a road bump with a broken palm tree to stop the buses going into Cairo, and drench the road around it with gas and diesel. When the bus slows down for the bump, set it all ablaze so it will burn down with all the passengers inside ... God bless," Soliman's post read.

In late May he instructed, "Behead those who control power, water and gas utilities."

Soliman removed several older social media posts after authorities in Egypt took notice of his subversive instructions, court documents show.

Egyptian women supporters of ousted president Morsi [EPA]

More recent Facebook instructions to his 83,000 followers range from guidelines on spraying roads with a mix of auto oil and gas - "20 liters of oil to 4 liters of gas"- to how to thwart cars giving chase.

On a YouTube video, Soliman took credit for a failed attempt in December to storm the Egyptian presidential palace with handguns and Molotov cocktails to oust Morsi.

"We know he gets support from some groups in the US, but we do not know he is getting support from the US government. This would be news to us," said an Egyptian embassy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Funding other Morsi opponents

Other beneficiaries of US government funding are also opponents of the now-deposed president, some who had called for Morsi's removal by force.

The Salvation Front main opposition bloc, of which some members received US funding, has backed street protest campaigns that turned violent against the elected government, in contradiction of many of the State Department's own guidelines.

A longtime grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy and other US democracy groups is a 34-year old Egyptian woman, Esraa Abdel-Fatah, who sprang to notoriety during the country's pitched battle over the new constitution in December 2012.

She exhorted activists to lay siege to mosques and drag from pulpits all Muslim preachers and religious figures who supported the country's the proposed constitution, just before it went to a public referendum.

The act of besieging mosques has continued ever since, and several people have died in clashes defending them.

Federal records show Abdel-Fatah's NGO, the Egyptian Democratic Academy, received support from NED, MEPI and NDI, among other State Department-funded groups "assisting democracy". Records show NED gave her organization a one-year $75,000 grant in 2011.

Abdel-Fatah is politically active, crisscrossing Egypt to rally support for her Al-Dostor Party, which is led by former UN nuclear chief Mohamed El-Baradei, the most prominent figure in the Salvation Front. She lent full support to the military takeover, and urged the West not call it a "coup".

"June 30 will be the last day of Morsi's term," she told the press a few weeks before the coup took place.

US taxpayer money has also been sent to groups set up by some of Egypt's richest people, raising questions about waste in the democracy program.

Michael Meunier is a frequent guest on TV channels that opposed Morsi. Head of the Al-Haya Party, Meunier - a dual US-Egyptian citizen - has quietly collected US funding through his NGO, Hand In Hand for Egypt Association.

Meunier's organization was founded by some of the most vehement opposition figures, including Egypt's richest man and well-known Coptic Christian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, Tarek Heggy, an oil industry executive, Salah Diab, Halliburton's partner in Egypt, and Usama Ghazali Harb, a politician with roots in the Mubarak regime and a frequent US embassy contact.

Meunier has denied receiving US assistance, but government documents show USAID in 2011 granted his Cairo-based organisation $873,355. Since 2009, it has taken in $1.3 million from the US agency.

Meunier helped rally the country's five million Christian Orthodox Coptic minority, who oppose Morsi's Islamist agenda, to take to the streets against the president on June 30.

Reform and Development Party member Mohammed Essmat al-Sadat received US financial support through his Sadat Association for Social Development, a grantee of The Middle East Partnership Initiative.

The federal grants records and database show in 2011 Sadat collected $84,445 from MEPI "to work with youth in the post-revolutionary Egypt".

Sadat was a member of the coordination committee, the main organizing body for the June 30 anti-Morsi protest. Since 2008, he has collected $265,176 in US funding. Sadat announced he will be running for office again in upcoming parliamentary elections.

After soldiers and police killed more than 50 Morsi supporters on Monday, Sadat defended the use of force and blamed the Muslim Brotherhood, saying it used women and children as shields.

Some US-backed politicians have said Washington tacitly encouraged them to incite protests.

"We were told by the Americans that if we see big street protests that sustain themselves for a week, they will reconsider all current US policies towards the Muslim Brotherhood regime," said Saaddin Ibrahim, an Egyptian-American politician opposed Morsi.

Ibrahim's Ibn Khaldoun Center in Cairo receives US funding, one of the largest recipients of democracy promotion money in fact.

His comments followed statements by other Egyptian opposition politicians claiming they had been prodded by US officials to whip up public sentiment against Morsi before Washington could publicly weigh in.

Democracy program defense

The practice of funding politicians and anti-government activists through NGOs was vehemently defended by the State Department and by a group of Washington-based Middle East experts close to the program.

"The line between politics and activism is very blurred in this country," said David Linfield, spokesman for the US Embassy in Cairo.

Others said the United States cannot be held responsible for activities by groups it doesn't control.

"It's a very hot and dynamic political scene," said Michelle Dunne, an expert at the Atlantic Council think-tank. Her husband, Michael Dunne, was given a five-year jail sentence in absentia by a Cairo court for his role in political funding in Egypt.

"Just because you give someone some money, you cannot take away their freedom or the position they want to take," said Dunne.

Elliot Abrams, a former official in the administration of George W. Bush and a member of the Working Group on Egypt that includes Dunne, denied in an email message that the US has paid politicians in Egypt, or elsewhere in the Middle East.

"The US does not provide funding for parties or 'local politicians' in Egypt or anywhere else," said Abrams. "That is prohibited by law and the law is scrupulously obeyed by all US agencies, under careful Congressional oversight."

But a State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity, said American support for foreign political activists was in line with American principles.

"The US government provides support to civil society, democracy and human rights activists around the world, in line with our long-held values, such as respecting the fundamental human rights of free speech, peaceful assembly, and human dignity," the official wrote in an email. "US outreach in Egypt is consistent with these principles."

A Cairo court convicted 43 local and foreign NGO workers last month on charges of illegally using foreign funds to stir unrest in Egypt. The US and UN expressed concern over the move.

Out of line

Some Middle East observers suggested the US' democracy push in Egypt may be more about buying influence than spreading human rights and good governance.

"Funding of politicians is a problem," said Robert Springborg, who evaluated democracy programs for the State Department in Egypt, and is now a professor at the National Security Department of the Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey, California.

"If you run a program for electoral observation, or for developing media capacity for political parties, I am not against that. But providing lots of money to politicians - I think that raises lots of questions," Springborg said.

Some Egyptians, meanwhile, said the US was out of line by sending cash through its democracy program in the Middle East to organisations run by political operators.

"Instead of being sincere about backing democracy and reaching out to the Egyptian people, the US has chosen an unethical path," said Esam Neizamy, an independent researcher into foreign funding in Egypt, and a member of the country's Revolutionary Trustees, a group set up to protect the 2011 revolution.

"The Americans think they can outsmart lots of people in the Middle East. They are being very hostile against the Egyptian people who have nothing but goodwill for them - so far," Neizamy said.

Source: allAfrica.
Link: http://allafrica.com/stories/201307220534.html?viewall=1.

World's largest building opens in west China

July 12, 2013

BEIJING (AP) -- Move aside Dubai. China now has what is billed as the world's largest building — a vast, wavy rectangular box of glass and steel that will house shops, hotels, offices and a faux ocean beach with a huge LED screen for video sunsets.

The mammoth New Century Global Center that opened last month in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu has 1.7 million square meters (19 million square feet) of floor space — or about 329 football fields — edging out the previous record-holder, the Dubai airport.

The structure is half a kilometer long, 400 meters wide and 100 meters high.

The New Century project is a sign that China's growth has spread from the country's more prosperous eastern and southern regions to the west, where wages are lower and the central government has encouraged development with subsidies and tax breaks. With its booming economy, China has become home to some of the largest and tallest buildings in the world.

Backed by local governments, the building in a planned urban district south of Chengdu aims to boost the global stature of the capital city of Sichuan province, known for its spicy cuisine.

Once fully completed, the centerpiece of the building will be a water park with a 400-meter coast and beaches under a gigantic glass dome. Up to 6,000 visitors at a time will be able to sunbathe, play in a wave pool, sip cocktails or feast on seafood. A 150-meter-by-40-meter LED screen will rise above a section of water with videos of an ocean horizon.

The center will include two five-star hotels as well as high-end boutiques set in a replica of a Mediterranean town under faux blue skies. The shopping section has been open to the public since late June, though the building's office space has been occupied for some time.

The building also has a 14-screen movie theater and an ice rink.

Ex-Russian spy Anna Chapman proposes marriage to Edward Snowden

Claudine Zap July 4, 2013
Yahoo! News

The rest of the world may not want him, but NSA leaker Edward Snowden has at least one potential taker: Anna Chapman. The ex-spy tweeted yesterday, “Snowden, will you marry me?!”

The former Russian spy may have sympathy for the man who spilled top-secret documents. Chapman, after all, is no stranger to run-ins with government authorities.

The 31-year-old had been posing as a real-estate agent in the United States in 2010 when she was accused of gathering intel for Russia. She and nine others were deported back to Russia in a prisoner swap.

Now the ex-secret agent has become a celebrity in her homeland, most recently as host of the TV show, “Secrets of the World.”

Snowden may have caught Chapman’s attention since he landed at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport to seek refuge. “@nsa will you look after our children?” She posted later.

But Snowden seems to be unavailable at the moment -- and may be rejected by Russia as well. After 11 days, the AP reports that “Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia had received no request for political asylum from Snowden and he had to solve his problems himself.”

The NSA contractor has been on the run since he spilled secrets on the classified NSA surveillance programs to the press. He has been in diplomatic limbo since having his passport revoked, and has had countless requests for asylum refused.

Russia holds biggest war games in decades

July 16, 2013

MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday watched Russia's biggest military maneuvers since Soviet times, involving 160,000 troops and about 5,000 tanks across Siberia and the far eastern region in a massive show of the nation's resurgent military might.

Dozens of Russia's Pacific Fleet ships and 130 combat aircraft also took part in the exercise, which began on Friday and continue through this week. Putin watched some of the drills on Sakhalin Island in the Pacific, where thousands of troops were ferried and airlifted from the mainland.

Russia's Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov assured foreign military attaches on Monday that the exercise was part of regular combat training and wasn't directed against any particular nation, though some analysts believe the show of force was aimed at China and Japan.

Konstantin Sivkov, a retired officer of the Russian military's General Staff, told the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta that the Sakhalin part of the maneuvers was intended to simulate a response to a hypothetical attack by Japanese and U.S. forces.

Russia and Japan have a dispute over a group of Pacific islands, which Russia calls the Kurils and Japan calls the Northern Territories. The islands off the northeastern tip of Japan's Hokkaido Island were seized by Soviet troops in the closing days of World War II. They are surrounded by rich fishing grounds and are believed to have offshore oil and natural gas reserves and other mineral resources.

Antonov said that Russia had warned its neighbors about the exercise before it started, and provided particularly detailed information to China in line with an agreement that envisages a mutual exchange of data about military activities along the 4,300-kilometer (2,700-mile) border.

The two Cold war-era rivals have forged what they described as a "strategic partnership" after the 1991 Soviet collapse, developing close political, economic and military ties in a shared aspiration to counter U.S. power around the world.

Russia has supplied sophisticated weapons to China, and the neighbors have conducted joint military drills, most recently a naval exercise in the Sea of Japan earlier this month. But despite close economic ties and military cooperation, many in Russia have felt increasingly uneasy about the growing might of its giant eastern neighbor.

Some fear that Russia's continuing population decline and a relative weakness of its conventional forces compared to the Chinese People's Liberation Army could one day tempt China to grab some territory.

Russia and China had territorial disputes for centuries. Relations between Communist China and the Soviet Union ruptured in the 1960s, and the two giants fought a brief border conflict in 1969. Moscow and Beijing signed a new border treaty in 2004, which saw Russia yielding control over several islands in the Amur River. Some in Russia's sparsely populated far east feared that the concessions could tease China's appetite.

Alexander Khramchikhin, an independent Moscow-based military analyst, said that the massive exercise held in the areas along the border with China was clearly aimed at Beijing. "It's quite obvious that the land part of the exercise is directed at China, while the sea and island part of it is aimed at Japan," he said.

Khramchikhin, who recently posted an article painting a grim picture of Russia being quickly routed in a surprise Chinese attack, said that the war games were intended to discourage China from harboring expansionist plots.

"China may now think that Russia has finally become more aware of what could happen," he said, describing the exercise as a sobering signal. The maneuvers are part of recent efforts to boost the military's mobility and combat readiness after years of post-Soviet decline, but they have far exceeded previous drills in both numbers and territorial scope.

As part of the war games held across several time zones, some army units deployed to areas thousands of kilometers away from their bases. Paratroopers were flown across Russia in long-range transport planes, and some units were ferried to Sakhalin under escort of navy ships and fighter jets.

A decade of post-Soviet economic meltdown has badly crippled Russia's military capability, grounding jets and leaving navy ships rusting in harbors for lack of funds to conduct training. Massive corruption and vicious bullying of young conscripts by older soldiers have eroded morale and encouraged widespread draft-dodging.

The weakness of the once-proud military was shown in two separatist wars in Chechnya when Russian troops suffered heavy losses at the hands of lightly armed rebels. The Russian military won a quick victory in a war with Georgia's small military in August 2008, but the five-day conflict also revealed that the military had trouble quickly deploying its forces to the area. The shortage of precision weapons and modern communications were also apparent.

The Kremlin responded by launching a military reform intended to turn the bloated military into a more modern and agile force. The government also has unveiled an ambitious arms modernization program that envisages spending over 20 trillion rubles (over $615 billion) on new weapons through 2020.

Some military analysts cautioned, however, that the rearmament effort was badly planned and might not be sufficient to reverse the military's decline. "This program is clearly insufficient," Khramchikhin said.

Russia subs military with civilians at Syrian base

June 27, 2013

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia has withdrawn all military personnel from its naval base in Syria and replaced them with civilian workers, the Defense Ministry said Thursday.

The ministry did not say when the switch at the base at Tartus took place or how many personnel were deployed there. The minor facility is Russia's only naval outpost outside the former Soviet Union. It consists of several barracks and depots used to service Russian navy ships in the Mediterranean.

The ministry statement said that Tartus has continued to service the Russian navy ships. "They are continuing to work in a regular mode, and there is no talk about their evacuation from Tartus," the statement said. "Tartus remains the official base and repair facility for the Russian ships in the Mediterranean and is continuing to fulfill its mission."

The ministry didn't explain why it was replacing military personnel with civilians, but the move could be part of efforts by Moscow to pose as an objective mediator trying to broker Syria peace talks.

Moscow, however, also has an unknown number of military advisers in Syria who help its military operate and maintain Soviet- and Russian-built weapons that make up the core of its arsenals. Russia has been the main ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, shielding his regime from the U.N. Security Council's sanctions and continuing to provide it with weapons despite the two-year civil war that has killed more than 93,000 Syrians, according to the U.N. estimates.

The ministry's statement followed reports Wednesday in the Al Hayat newspaper and Russia's business daily Vedomosti, which claimed that Moscow had withdrawn all of its military and civilian personnel from Tartus along with all military advisers.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell refused conjecture about the Russian move, but pointed at the "deteriorating security situation." "I just can't speculate if that's their reasoning," he added.

Russia announced earlier this month that it will keep a fleet of about dozen navy ships in the Mediterranean, a move seen as an attempt to project power and protect its interests in the region. Russian navy ships have been making regular visits to the Mediterranean in recent months, but the latest announcements by President Vladimir Putin and other officials mark an attempt to revive a Soviet-era practice, when Moscow had a permanent navy presence in the area.

But experts say the current plan will stretch the Russian fleet capability and note that the base in Tartus can't provide a sufficient backup for a permanent navy presence in the region. The base is also too small for big ships.

Military officials have said in the past that Russian navy ships in the Mediterranean could be used to evacuate equipment and personnel from Tartus. Previous Russian deployments in the area have invariably included amphibious landing vessels, which could serve the purpose.

AP writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report from Washington.

Russia protest leader's verdict looms large

July 17, 2013

MOSCOW (AP) — Alexei Navalny's energy and charisma propelled him from a lonely role blogging about corruption to wide renown as Russia's leading opposition activist. His projects, including a campaign to run for Moscow mayor, have attracted hordes of volunteers and fundraisers. Now comes a day that looms large for Navalny and the opposition: A court hands down its verdict Thursday in an embezzlement case that could send him to prison for six years.

In the four years since Navalny began blogging about Russia's endemic corruption, the 37-year-old lawyer has become the major figure of Russia's nascent opposition. He spearheaded the wave of massive protest rallies that arose in late 2011, riveting crowds of 100,000 or more. Even as his embezzlement trial proceeded in the provincial city of Kirov, Navalny pushed forward his movement by declaring himself a candidate for this fall's Moscow mayoral election, attracting a wave of eager young volunteers.

He and many observers are sure a conviction is coming in what they describe as a politically motivated case. What seems less certain is the impact: If he goes to prison, it could sap his movement by taking away its galvanizing figure — or make supporters more determined.

Navalny is charged with heading a group that embezzled 16 million rubles ($500,000) worth of timber from state-owned company Kirovles while he worked as an unpaid adviser to the provincial governor in Kirov in 2009. Although the case is murky, the only question is "whether there will be a conditional sentence on trumped-up charges or a prison sentence on the same trumped-up charges," Navalny told Echo Moskvy radio last week.

Navalny began his rise to prominence by blogging about his investigations into corruption at state-owned companies where he owned shares. Supporters and funding poured in, turning this one-man show into the leader of a team of 14 lawyers and activists. Although state-controlled broadcasters ignored him, he exploited social media and his blog to reach hundreds of thousands.

Navalny's best-known project, the Rospil website, monitors state contracts and appeals to law enforcement agencies to get the dodgy ones annulled. It employs six lawyers who have overturned nearly 130 contracts since 2010, worth 59 billion rubles ($1.8 billion) in taxpayer money. Other Navalny projects rely on crowdsourcing, attracting information about various grievances from potholes on the roads to leaking pipes in apartment blocks.

Navalny has also plumbed property registers abroad to name and shame top officials and lawmakers for owning undeclared foreign assets and holding foreign citizenship. One of them, Vladimir Pekhtin, the head of the ethics commission in the lower house of parliament, resigned in February after Navalny blogged about Pekhtin's luxury property holdings in Miami Beach.

Navalny's investigations have targeted a wide circle of loyalists to President Vladimir Putin — from members of parliament to state bankers, striking at the core of Putin's "vertical of power" and threatening to discredit the entire system of governance he has built. Lilia Shevtsova, a political analyst at the Carnegie Center in Moscow, said Navalny's anti-corruption campaign has inflicted "painful bites on the system," turning the blogger into a political leader.

Unlike many of his peers in the Russian opposition, Navalny poses a tangible threat to the government because he doesn't only "sign petitions against the bloody regime" but actually does something every day, said Leonid Volkov, head of Navalny's election headquarters.

"Navalny is the only person in Russia who views politics as routine 24/7 work," Volkov said. "Navalny always has something going on. He's always busy." His Foundation for Fighting Corruption, an umbrella organization for projects, is run by Navalny himself and Vladimir Ashurkov, a U.S.-educated former asset manager who has been the key fundraiser for the foundation. Ashurkov refused to comment on the prospects of Navalny's projects until the verdict is announced. But some of his employees voiced confidence that Navalny's anti-corruption efforts will not be affected by his possible prison sentence.

Lyubov Sobol, a lawyer who has worked for Rospil for two years, is optimistic that she and her colleagues will be able to carry on. Navalny and his team have talked about the possibility of a prison sentence and "different scenarios for development," Sobol said.

"We came to a conclusion that what we do at the Foundation will go on regardless," Sobol said. "All of the employees are independent and know their job well." At Navalny's election headquarters in central Moscow, dotted with bright pink desks and white chairs, dozens of cheerful volunteers canvass voters by phone and push Navalny's mayoral candidacy on social media. The possibility of prison for their candidate doesn't seem to faze them.

Volunteer Oleg Kozlovsky, 29, said the lawyer's supporters "try to focus on things that we can change" rather than on something "as unpredictable as the weather." "If Alexei gets a prison sentence, the number of volunteers and supporters will only increase," he said.

But Navalny's conviction could undermine the fund's activities by robbing it of its vocal leader. Imprisonment could also spook potential donors. "Navalny will carry on with his activities in so far as it's possible in incarceration, but it's impossible to fight corruption out of prison," said Alexei Makarkin of the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies.

According to Makarkin, potential donators became more cautious bankrolling the opposition since Putin's crackdown on the protest movement last spring, and their fears could get even worse. "They may have problems with the financing," Makarkin said. "In financing a lot of things are based on personal relations, and Navalny is a charismatic figure, he was able attract investors and donors."

Navalny's name could still be on the ballot on Sept. 8 if he's convicted on Thursday. Authorities will not be able to bar him from running until the guilty verdict comes into effect; that wouldn't happen until the defense has exhausted appeals, a process that could take at least several months.

The protest rallies of 2011 and 2012 were largely peaceful, authorized gatherings, attracting thousands of middle-class Russians who had not been to the largely marginal protests of the past decade. But this may be changing with the Thursday verdict for the central leader of those protests. Navalny's supporters are already planning a rally that evening just outside the Kremlin walls — despite the fact that authorities refused to give the green light. The Facebook page of the event has more than 6,500 people listed as going.

Campaign volunteer Alexei, a 20-year-old law student, said he has never been to an unsanctioned rally, but would take the risk on Thursday if Navalny is sentenced to prison. "Moscow authorities left us no choice," said Alexei, who asked that his last name not be used for fear of being expelled from university, something that he saw happen to his friends before.

A guilty verdict for Navalny is "probable and even inevitable," said Shevtsova of Carnegie, but it still has yet to be seen how strong a blow for the opposition movement this will be. "So far, Navalny is not a Boris Yeltsin," Shevtsova said, referring to Russia's first president who rode an unstoppable popular movement to power.

Longer-term consequences of Navalny's convictions could be more dangerous for the Kremlin than unsanctioned protests on the day of the verdict. State-television has vilified Navalny, portraying him as a corrupt rich Muscovite who defrauded an impoverished timber company.

But his imprisonment alone could turn Navalny into a victim of the Kremlin intrigue. Makarkin said a conviction could give Navalny a new role: "People's martyr sent to jail by corrupt officials."

Russian opposition leader joins Moscow mayor race

July 01, 2013

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's leading opposition figure launched his campaign against the Kremlin's handpicked choice for mayor of Moscow Monday despite being on trial in a case he says is politically motivated.

Anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny promised about 100 supporters in a hotel auditorium he would "destroy" President Vladimir Putin's allies and "make life better" in Russia's capital by winning snap elections to be held in early September.

"We're different from all those people in the mayor's office and the Kremlin who only have one practical program," Navalny said. "They want to steal from us here, transfer it to an offshore account, buy houses on (Moscow's "millionaire's row") Rublevka and in Spain, send their children to study in Switzerland, and then come on national TV and tell us about their new law to strengthen patriotism," he added.

Navalny has become the face of the movement against Putin. His program includes measures to decentralize city spending — 99% of which is controlled by the mayor's office — elect magistrates, fight Moscow's paralyzing traffic jams, stop corrupt officials from hiring illegal immigrants and skimming off their salaries, and improve Moscow's dismal 30th place in the Doing Business rankings of Russian cities.

But the campaign launch was somewhat overshadowed by the air of doom hovering over the opposition as Putin's crackdown on dissent gathers pace. Prominent liberal economist Sergei Guriev, who co-authored Navalny's program, fled Russia in May after becoming embroiled in a criminal investigation surrounding jailed former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and had to appear by video link.

After the event, Navalny took an overnight train to stand trial in the city of Kirov on embezzlement charges carrying a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. In the past year, Navalny has been charged in five other cases that he says were fabricated on Putin's orders.

Navalny's supporters say the trial is being micro-managed from Moscow and they expect a guilty verdict by the end of the month, though they hope for a suspended sentence. Under a law passed last year, people convicted of felonies like the ones Navalny is charged with cannot run for public office.

Even if Navalny keeps his freedom, incumbent mayor and Kremlin candidate Sergei Sobyanin — a native Siberian who had never lived in Moscow before becoming Putin's chief of staff in 2005 and who was appointed mayor by then-president Dmitry Medvedev in 2010 — is expected to win handily.

As well as having far greater resources and much more time to prepare than his opponents, Sobyanin is aided by a "municipal filter" brought in when mayoral elections were reintroduced last year that requires the signatures of 110 local council members by July 10.

Forty council members have committed to Navalny and a further 40 have promised him their signature, Vladimir Ashurkov, director of his anti-corruption foundation, said. Candidates then have to get signatures from 73,000 Muscovites.

Sobyanin, who has presided over a mild Westernization of Moscow, is supported by about 45 percent of Muscovites, according to a poll by the independent Levada Center last month. Navalny polled 3 percent, but may benefit from New Jersey Nets owner and former presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov's decision not to run. The 31 other candidates also have only a fraction of the vote and are widely perceived as a Kremlin attempt to simulate competitive elections.

Navalny vowed to continue his campaign whether or not he makes the ballot — or makes it out of Kirov a free man. "We're totally serious about this election," he said. "Putin, Sobyanin and all the Kremlin and Moscow scumbags don't want to let us run, they're scared," he added.

Russia's Putin signs anti-gay measures into law

June 30, 2013

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a measure that stigmatizes gay people and bans giving children any information about homosexuality.

The lower house of Russia's parliament unanimously passed the Kremlin-backed bill on June 11 and the upper house approved it last week. The ban on "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations" is part of an effort to promote traditional Russian values over Western liberalism, which the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church see as corrupting Russian youth and contributing to the protests against Putin's rule.

Hefty fines can now be imposed on those who provide information about the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community to minors or hold gay pride rallies. The Kremlin announced Sunday that Putin has signed the legislation into law.

Pope all smiles as Brazilians swarm his car in Rio

July 23, 2013

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Pope Francis wants to ignite the passion of Roman Catholics for their faith while on his first international trip, and the boisterous, sometimes frenzied welcome he got on his first day in Rio seemed to fill those hopes.

Returning to his home continent for the first time since becoming pontiff, Francis smiled broadly as thousands of people rushed his car Monday after it became stuck behind buses and taxis when his driver made a wrong turn on a main avenue in Rio's center.

It was a nightmarish scene for security officials, but clearly a delight and another opportunity to connect for this pope, who was scheduled to take a day off Tuesday for rest and private meetings. The ecstatic throngs forced his motorcade to repeatedly come to a standstill, weeks after violent protests against the government paralyzed parts of Brazil. Francis' driver turned into the wrong side of a boulevard at one point, missing lanes that had been cleared. Other parts of the pope's route to the city center weren't lined with fencing, giving the throngs more chances to get close, with uniformed police nowhere in sight to act as crowd control.

The three dozen visible Vatican and Brazilian plainclothes security officials struggled to keep the crowds at bay. Francis not only looked calm but got even closer to the people. He rolled down his back-seat window, waved to the crowd and touched those who reached inside. He kissed a baby a woman handed to him.

"His secretary was afraid, but the pope was happy," said the papal spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi. The pope is here on a seven-day visit meant to fan the fervor of the faithful around the globe. That task has grown more challenging as Catholics stray, even in strongholds of the religion such as Brazil, yet it seemed to come easily to Francis even on the drive from the airport to an official opening ceremony.

After finally making it past crowds and blocked traffic, Francis switched to an open-air vehicle for a cruise along main streets past crowds of people who screamed wildly as he waved and smiled. He left his popemobile — the bulletproof one — in the Vatican garage so he could better connect with people during the church's World Youth Day.

Vatican officials insisted they had no concern for the pope's safety as his vehicles eased through the masses, but Lombardi acknowledged there might have been some "errors" that need correcting. "This is something new, maybe also a lesson for the coming days," Lombardi said.

Many in the crowd looked stunned to see the pope, with some standing still and others sobbing loudly. "I can't travel to Rome, but he came here to make my country better ... and to deepen our faith," Idaclea Rangel, a 73-year-old Catholic, said, choking through her tears after the pope passed by.

As many as 1 million young people from around the world are expected in Rio for the Catholic youth fest, a seemingly tailor-made event for the Argentine-born pope, who has proven enormously popular in his four months on the job. But the fervor of the crowds that regularly greet Francis in St. Peter's Square was nothing compared with the raucous welcome in Rio.

Popes generally get a warm welcome in Latin America; even the more aloof Pope Benedict XVI received a hero's welcome when he visited Mexico and Cuba in 2012. John Paul II frequently received rock star treatment, and during one 1996 visit to Venezuela, his motorcade was similarly mobbed when he stopped to greet well-wishers.

Outside Rio's Guanabara government palace where the pope was officially welcomed, Alicia Velazquez, a 55-year-old arts teacher from Buenos Aires, waited to catch a glimpse of the man she knew well when he was archbishop of her hometown.

"It was so amazing when he was selected, we just couldn't believe it. We cried and hugged one another," Velazquez said. "I personally want to see if he's still the same man as simple and humble whom we all knew. I have faith that he's remained the same."

Francis displayed that humility in greeting President Dilma Rousseff, saying he understood that to really know Brazilians, one must pass through their heart. "So let me knock gently at this door," Francis said in Portuguese at the official welcoming ceremony. "I have neither silver nor gold, but I bring with me the most precious thing given to me: Jesus Christ."

On the plane trip to Rio, Francis had lamented that an entire generation of young people risked not knowing what it's like to work thanks to an economic crisis that has seen youth unemployment skyrocket in many European countries while leaving the poor of the developing world behind.

"People get their dignity from work, they earn their bread," he told reporters aboard the plane. "Young people in this moment are in crisis." Francis arrived at a tense time for Brazil, as the country reels from sometimes violent demonstrations that began last month as a protest against public transport price hikes and mushroomed into a wave of protests against government corruption, inefficiency and spending for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics.

Those protests continued after Francis' arrival. Police and anti-government protesters clashed outside the government palace. The government has spent about $52 million for Francis' visit, but he does not appear to be a focus of protesters' rage.

"We've got nothing against the pope. Nobody here is against him," said Christopher Creindel, a 22-year-old art student and Rio native protesting outside the government palace. "This protest is against our politicians."

Lombardi confirmed that a homemade explosive device was found Sunday by Brazilian authorities in a public toilet near the basilica at Aparecida, a Marian shrine that Francis is to visit Wednesday. Vatican security was informed of the device but didn't think it was aimed at the pope, Lombardi said.

"There are no concerns for security. The concerns are that the enthusiasm is so great that it's difficult to respond to so much enthusiasm for the pope. But there is no fear and no concern," he told reporters.

Francis' weeklong schedule underscores his commitment to make his pontificate focus on the poor. He will walk through one of Rio's shantytowns, or favelas, and meet with juvenile offenders, an extension of his call for a more missionary church that goes to the peripheries to preach.

He will also pray at Aparecida, an indication of his strong Marian devotion that is shared in much of Latin America. And, in a rather incongruous matchup, he will preside over a procession re-enacting Christ's crucifixion on the beach at Copacabana, ground zero of Rio's Sin City.

Alex Augusto, a 22-year-old seminarian dressed in the bright green official T-shirt for pilgrims, said Monday that he and five friends made the journey from Brazil's Sao Paulo state to "show that contrary to popular belief, the church isn't only made up of older people, it's full of young people. We want to show the real image of the church."

Associated Press writers Jenny Barchfield, Vivian Sequera and Marco Sibaja contributed to this report.

Polish parliament shuns religious animal slaughter

July 12, 2013

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish parliament's lower house has voted to reject a government plan to reinstate the religious slaughter of animals.

Lawmakers rejected the divisive issue in a 222-178 vote Friday as 38 members of the ruling Civic Platform party joined the opposition to vote against it. Until January, Poland was making good business exporting kosher and halal meat to Israel and Muslim countries, but religious slaughter was banned under pressure from animals' rights groups, which say it causes unnecessary suffering because the livestock aren't stunned before being killed.

The government argues the ban means a loss of money and 6,000 jobs at a time when around 13 percent of Poles are unemployed. The Conference of European Rabbis condemned the vote, calling it a sad day for Polish and European Jews.

Reaction to birth of a royal heir in the UK

July 23, 2013

Reaction to Monday's birth of a baby boy to Prince William and his wife, Kate. The prince is now third in line to the British throne:

"Her Royal Highness and her child are both doing well and will remain in hospital overnight. Members of both families have been informed and are delighted with the news." — Birth announcement from Kensington Palace.

"It is an incredibly special moment for William and Catherine and we are so thrilled for them on the birth of their baby boy ... I am enormously proud and happy to be a grandfather for the first time." — Prince Charles, in a statement.

"Michelle and I are so pleased to congratulate The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the joyous occasion of the birth of their first child. We wish them all the happiness and blessings parenthood brings. — President Barack Obama and the first lady.

"I'm delighted for the Duke and Duchess now (that) their son has been born. The whole country will celebrate. They'll make wonderful parents." — Prime Minister David Cameron.

The arrival of "a future sovereign of Canada" is a "highly anticipated moment for Canadians given the special and warm relationship that we share with our Royal Family." — Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

"Today Diana, Princess of Wales, would have been a proud grandmother," said Tessy Ojo, CEO of the Diana Award, an initiative which recognizes teenagers who make outstanding contributions to their communities. "Her legacy continues through the inspirational work of these young people who carry this honor, set up in her memory, with pride."

"I am sure that people across Scotland will be absolutely thrilled to hear the news of the birth of a baby boy to the royal couple and will want to join me in wishing the proud parents many congratulations." — Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond.

"It's a boy!!! Special times ahead for Kate and William." — former Spice Girl Emma Bunton.

On Wall Street, stocks barely moved for much of the day. Then the birth was announced shortly before the close, and stocks managed to eke out a gain.

Coincidence? Who cares?

"It was such a dead day, it was the highlight," said Tom Digaloma, a senior vice president at investment firm ED&F Man Capital. "It's summer."

It's a boy! UK's Kate gives birth to royal heir

July 23, 2013

LONDON (AP) — Champagne bottles popped and shouts of "Hip! Hip! Hooray!" erupted outside Buckingham Palace on Monday as Britain welcomed the birth of Prince William and his wife Kate's first child, a boy who is now third in line to the British throne.

Hundreds of Britons and tourists broke into song and dance outside the palace gates as officials announced that the future king was born at 4:24 p.m., weighing 8 pounds, 6 ounces (3.75 kilograms), at central London's St. Mary's Hospital — the same place where William and his brother Harry were born three decades ago.

The imminent arrival of the royal baby was the subject of endless speculation on social media and was covered for days on live television around the world, but in the end the royal family managed to keep it a remarkably private affair.

In line with royal tradition, a terse statement announced only the time of birth, the infant's gender and that mother and child were doing well. It gave no information about the baby's name, and officials would say only that a name would be announced "in due course."

"Her Royal Highness and her child are both doing well and will remain in hospital overnight," it said. William also issued a brief statement, saying "we could not be happier." Officials said William, who was by his wife's side during the birth, would also spend the night in the hospital.

William's press aides had talked about preserving Kate's "dignity" throughout the pregnancy, and the way the birth was handled showed that the palace's impressive stagecraft could give the royals a bubble of privacy even in the age of Twitter and 24-hour news broadcasts.

Just before 6 a.m., 31-year-old Kate, also known as the Duchess of Cambridge, entered the hospital through a side door, avoiding the mass of journalists camped outside. Officials did not announce she was hospitalized until more than an hour later.

Later, as the world media gathered outside filled hours of airtime with speculation, the baby's birth went unannounced for nearly four hours, allowing the royal couple the private time they needed to act like a regular family — a goal 31-year-old William has cherished.

He was able to tell his father, Prince Charles, and grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, about the birth and enjoy his wife's company without having to cope with the overwhelming media and public desire for information.

By nightfall, the public still knew very few details, but most people seemed satisfied with the day's events. London's landmarks, including the London Eye, lit up in the national colors of red, white and blue, and the city had a party atmosphere unmatched since last summer's Olympics.

Outside the hospital, a man dressed as a town crier in traditional robes and an extravagant feathered hat shouted the news and rang a bell. A car carrying the announcement drove from the hospital to the palace, where the news was greeted with shrieks of "It's a boy!" and strains of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." A large crowd rushed against the palace fences to catch a glimpse of an ornate, gilded easel displaying a small bulletin formally announcing the news.

The framed sheet of paper became the target of a thousand camera flashes as people thrust their smartphones through the railings. Hours after the initial announcement, crowds were still surging forward to get near the easel. Some placed presents and bouquets in front of the palace, while others waved Union Jack flags and partied on the streets to celebrate.

"It's a crazy atmosphere. Everyone is getting very excited," said Andrew Aitchison. "It's great to be part of history, to say we were here and saw it all happen." More celebrations are expected Tuesday, including gun salutes by royal artillery companies to honor the birth. Riders in uniform will trot past the palace to Green Park, where six field guns will fire 41 blank rounds.

Prince Charles spoke of his joy and pride in becoming a grandparent for the first time. "It is an incredibly special moment for William and Catherine and we are so thrilled for them on the birth of their baby boy," Prince Charles said in a statement. "Grandparenthood is a unique moment in anyone's life, as countless kind people have told me in recent months, so I am enormously proud and happy to be a grandfather for the first time, and we are eagerly looking forward to seeing the baby in the near future."

It could be some time before the baby's name is made public. When William was born, a week passed before his name was announced. Charles' name remained a mystery for an entire month. The royal birth at St. Mary's Hospital recalled that of the baby's father, William, in 1982. Many remember the moment when he was carried out in Princess Diana's arms with proud father Prince Charles at their side.

The media will now continue to camp outside the hospital to capture a similar photograph for William and Kate's son, who is third in line to the throne behind Charles and William. The baby's gender had been of particular interest because the prospect of Kate's pregnancy had prompted a change in the laws of succession to ensure that a daughter would not be passed over for the crown by a younger brother.

No one can tell what political and personal changes the intervening years will bring, but the baby can be expected to become the head of state of 16 countries, including Britain, Australia and Canada. The child will also eventually become Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

The little prince represents a living link to Britain's imperial history as the great-great-great-great-great-grandchild of Queen Victoria, who ruled at the peak of British power. Many Britons had hoped that William and Kate would start a family shortly after their gala 2011 wedding, which drew a global television audience in the hundreds of millions.

The couple waited, however, until William was nearly finished with his military work as a search-and-rescue helicopter pilot based at an air base in a remote island off the coast of Wales. That allowed Kate to ease into royal life, and to become more comfortable in the spotlight, before becoming a parent. It also allowed her to play a supporting role during Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee celebrations last summer.

The first months of her pregnancy were not easy, and she was hospitalized in early December with acute morning sickness that left her weak and dehydrated. She seemed to recover her stamina fairly quickly and made a series of public appearances until the final weeks, drawing praise for her poise and good cheer.

The royal couple and their newborn are expected to spend much of their time in the coming years in renovated quarters at Kensington Palace, where William and Harry also spent much of their childhood. Royal officials say Kate and William will try to give their child as normal an upbringing as possible, a challenging goal in an age when the British royals are treated as major world celebrities.

"He'll have to be protected all the time," said Edward Bentley, from near London. "But they'll make him seem normal and connected to the public for sure."

Associated Press writer James Brooks in London contributed to this report.

Jordan King in Egypt: First visit by Arab leader since Morsi's ouster

2013-07-20

After being among first leaders to congratulate Egyptians, King Abdullah II arrives in Cairo amid heightened political tensions.

CAIRO - Jordan's King Abdullah II arrived in Cairo on Saturday, in the first visit by a head of state to Egypt since ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, state media reported.

The monarch had been among the first leaders to congratulate Egyptians after the army overthrew Morsi following mass protests calling for him to resign.

Abdullah, who faces challenges at home from Islamists, was met at the airport by military-backed interim Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi, the official MENA news agency reported.

Both Jordan and Egypt have been key mediators between Israel and the Palestinians, which the United States says have agreed to lay the groundwork to resume peace negotiations.

Abdullah is likely to discuss the renewed talks with Egypt.

But his visit may also be aimed at conferring legitimacy on the new military-installed regime, which is fighting a public relations war abroad to burnish its credentials as a legitimate regime.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=60232.

In Jordan, the Arab Spring Isn't Over

JUL 19 2013
DAVID ROHDE

The country's leadership must realize that growing authoritarianism won't foster stability.

Amman, Jordan -- After the Egyptian army toppled President Mohammed Morsi, a member of the U.S. Congress expressed the sentiment of many in Washington.

"The army is the only stable institution in the country," he said.

In the Western media, Arab Spring post-mortems proliferated, including a 15-page special report in The Economist that asked, "Has the Arab Spring failed?" The answer: "That view is at best premature, at worst wrong."

Here in Jordan, Arab Spring inspired protests demanding King Abdullah II cede power to an elected government has petered out. A crackdown on the media that shut down 300 websites last month elicited little protest.

"We are witnessing a swift return to a police state," said Labib Kamhawi, an opposition figure accused last year of violating a law that bars Jordanians from defaming the king. "You will find everything controlled."

Yet analysts, opposition members and former government officials say that the Arab Spring has paused here -- not ended. The underlying economic issues which prompted the protests that toppled governments across the Middle East and North Africa remain in place. Arab rulers and U.S. officials are both mistaken if they think they can rely on generals and regents to produce long-term stability.

"The political energy that was released around the Arab world and Jordan in 2011 has not dissipated," said Robert Blecher, a Middle East analyst with the International Crisis Group. "The problems that gave birth to the Arab uprisings have not been solved."

What, then, is happening in Jordan? Simply put, Jordanians look north to Syria and southwest to Egypt and are frightened by what they see. Brutal civil wars and street clashes have tempered the desire for rapid change. Though Abdullah limits speech here, he is not nearly as brutal as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. And events in Egypt have made young, secular Jordanians loathe to live under the Muslim Brotherhood. In short, Jordanians are waiting.

"I'm less aggressive toward the king because I saw what the Islamists could do, I see what is happening in the region," said Alaa Fazzaa, the editor of one of the shuttered websites. "I'm waiting for the right time to attack."

In a region where 60 percent of the population is under the age of 30, the economic problems are colossal. And a younger generation bent on economic opportunity and basic political rights will not accept a permanent return to authoritarianism. Jordan is a case in point.

The global economic slowdown halved economic growth in Jordan from 6 percent to 3 percent over the last three years. Jordan's official unemployment rate is 12.5 percent, with youth unemployment estimated to be twice that. More than 550,000 Syrian refugees have flooded the foreign-aid-dependent, oil- and water-starved desert kingdom of 6 million.

Oraib al Rantawi, the director of the Al Quds Center for Political Studies here, said that the biggest concerns that Jordanians express in opinion polls are not political.

"The top five priorities for Jordanians are economic," he said. "You will find political reform on number 10 or number 11."

To his credit, Abdullah, 51, is one of the most liberal monarchs in the Middle East. After he ascended to the throne in1999, he was widely hailed as a modernizer. Yet in recent years, his reforms have slowed and popularity ebbed.

A March profile of the king published in The Atlantic provoked fury in Jordan. In the piece, which the palace disputed, the king was quoted as disparaging intelligence chiefs, the Muslim Brotherhood, tribal elders, U.S. diplomats, regional leaders and his own family. He said local politicians had failed to take advantage of reforms he enacted and mocked one nascent party's social and economic manifesto.

"It's all about 'I'll vote for this guy because I'm in his tribe,'" the king said in the Atlantic story. "I want this guy to develop a program that at least people will begin to understand."

But critics insist Abdullah's reforms are illusory. Jordan has a prime minister and an elected lower house of parliament, but the regent can fire the prime minister and dissolve parliament at will. In the past five years, he has sent six prime ministers packing.

Luckily for Abdullah, Jordan's wing of the Muslim Brotherhood is proving as politically clumsy as its Egyptian brethren. The Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood boycotted legislative elections this year. A decent turnout allowed Abdullah to declare the elections credible and left the country's largest opposition group without a voice in parliament.

At the same time, as fighting rages in Syria and Secretary of State John Kerry pushes for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Washington needs Abdullah. Calls for reform from Washington have grown muted of late.

"In 2011, they were saying do reform and do it quick," said Blecher, the ICG analyst. "The message is much weaker now."

Vast economic problems remain in Jordan. Next month, the government will carry out a long delayed, International Monetary Fund-mandated increase in electricity prices. When an IMF required cut in fuel subsides was enacted last fall, riots erupted.

Believing that kings and generals can bring instant stability to today's Middle East is fanciful. Abdullah must enact sweeping economic reforms, crackdown on corruption and begin to cede power to an elected government. And Washington should encourage him every step of the way.

The clock cannot be turned back in the Middle East. In the short term, more turmoil lies ahead. In the long-run, growing economies, not growing authoritarianism, will foster stability.

Source: The Atlantic.
Link: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/07/in-jordan-the-arab-spring-isnt-over/277964/.

Syrian Islamist rebel leader freed after clashes among rival rebels

By Erika Solomon
BEIRUT | Sun Jul 21, 2013

(Reuters) - The local commander of a Syrian rebel group affiliated to al Qaeda was freed on Sunday after being held by Kurdish forces in a power struggle between rival organizations fighting President Bashar al-Assad, activists said.

However, the pro-opposition activists gave conflicting reports of how the Islamist brigade commander in the Syrian town of Tel Abyad near the Turkish border had come to be free.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Islamist rebels had exchanged 300 Kurdish residents they had kidnapped for the local head of their group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS). Other activist groups challenged this account, saying Islamist fighters had freed Abu Musaab by force, with no Kurdish hostages released.

Sporadic fighting over the past five days in towns near the frontier with Turkey has pitted Islamists trying to cement their control of rebel zones against Kurds trying to assert their autonomy in mostly Kurdish areas.

The trouble highlights how the two-year insurgency against 43 years of Assad family rule is spinning off into strife within his opponents' ranks, running the risk of creating regionalized conflicts that could also destabilize neighboring countries.

The factional fighting could also help Assad's forces, who have launched an offensive to retake territory.

BELT OF TERRITORY

Assad has been trying to secure a belt of territory from Damascus through Homs and up to his heartland on the Mediterranean coast and, with the help of the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, has won a string of victories in Homs province and near the capital.

On Sunday his forces ambushed and killed 49 rebels in the Damascus suburb of Adra, the Observatory said.

The town was once a critical point along the route used by rebels to bring weapons to the capital, but Assad's forces recaptured it a few months ago and have been working to cut off rebel territories in the area.

To the north, activists reported Turkish troops reinforcing their side of the frontier near Tel Abyad, but the army could not be reached for comment. Turkish forces exchanged fire with Syrian Kurdish fighters in another border region earlier in the week.

The Observatory said the alleged prisoner exchange was part of a ceasefire agreed after a day of fierce clashes in Tel Abyad, but other activists said there was no deal and reported that many Kurdish residents were being held by ISIS fighters.

The Observatory said the fighting in Tel Abyad started when the local ISIS brigade asked Kurdish Front forces, which have fought with the rebels against Assad, to pledge allegiance to Abu Musaab, which they refused to do.

Other activists said the clashes were an extension of fighting that broke out last week in other parts of the northern border zone.

Opposition activists also reported the killing of at least 13 members of a family in the Sunni Muslim village of Baida on Sunday, in what they described as a second sectarian massacre there.

FIGHTING NEAR THE COAST

The killings followed a rare eruption of fighting between Assad's forces and rebels in the coastal province of Tartous, an enclave of Assad's Alawite minority sect that has remained largely unscathed by the civil war.

Syria's marginalized Sunni majority has largely backed the insurrection while minorities such as the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, have largely supported Assad, himself an Alawite.

The Observatory said four women and six children were among those killed in Baida.

"A relative came to look for them today and found the men shot outside. The women's and children's bodies were inside a room of the house and residents in the area said some of the bodies were burned," said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Observatory.

In May, pro-Assad militias killed more than 50 residents of Baida and over 60 in the nearby town of Banias. In those killings, some bodies, many of them children, were found burned and mutilated.

The anti-Assad revolt has evolved from its origins as a peaceful protest movement in March 2011 into a civil war that has killed over 100,000 people and turned markedly sectarian.

The ethnic Kurdish minority has been alternately battling both Assad's forces and the Islamist-dominated rebels. Kurds argue they support the revolt but rebels accuse them of making deals with the government in order to ensure their security and autonomy during the conflict.

The Kurdish people, scattered over the territories of Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria, are often described as the world's largest ethnic community without a state of their own.

(Additional reporting by Isabel Coles in Arbil and Jonathan Burch in Ankara; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Source: Reuters.
Link: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/07/21/us-syria-crisis-idUKBRE96J06D20130721.

Iraqis lose patience with government inability to prevent violence

2013-07-21

By Ahmed al-Rubaye – BAGHDAD

With 10 days still to go, July is already second deadliest month of 2013 with death toll significantly higher than those of January and February combined.

Iraqis roundly condemned the authorities on Sunday for failing to prevent a wave of deadly violence including attacks that killed dozens of people the day before.

Another five people were killed in bombings on Sunday as the country struggles against a surge in violence that has plagued it since the beginning of the year.

More than 530 people have been killed in attacks so far this month, and almost 2,800 since January 1, making it the worst year since 2008, according to figures based on security and medical sources.

On Sunday, the death toll continued to mount.

In Taji, north of Baghdad, two roadside bombs exploded near an army base, killing three people and wounding at least 10.

And a bomb exploded in the garden of a house in Besmayah, southeast of the capital, killing two people and wounding four, all from the same family.

The blasts came a day after Baghdad was hit by 12 car bombs, a roadside bomb and a shooting, while another bomb blew up south of the capital. A total of 67 people were killed.

Attacks elsewhere killed another three people on Saturday.

The Baghdad attacks came as residents turned out to shop and relax in cafes after iftar, the meal that breaks the daily fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

On Sunday, Iraqis sharply criticized the authorities for failing to prevent the bloodshed.

"This is a cartoon government and its security forces cannot protect themselves, let alone protect the people," one man said sadly near the site of one bombing in central Baghdad.

In Tobchi, a north Baghdad area hit in the Saturday attacks, another man resorted to sarcasm.

"These car bombs come to us from Mars, because the security forces are implementing strict regulations to prevent their entry here," he said.

A third slammed the aloof attitude of the political elite, who rarely comment on the spiraling violence.

"Iraqis are being protected only by God, because the politicians only care about their positions and personal interests," he said.

In the first 12 days of Ramadan, 334 people have been killed in Iraq violence.

And with 10 days still to go, July is already the second deadliest month of 2013 with a death toll significantly higher than those of January and February combined.

In May, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered a shake-up of senior security officers, but the violence has continued unabated.

Iraq has faced years of attacks by militants, but analysts say widespread discontent among members of its Sunni minority, which the government has failed to address, has fueled this year's surge in unrest.

In addition to security problems, the government in Baghdad is also failing when it comes to other basic services including electricity and clean water, and corruption is also widespread.

Political squabbling has paralyzed the government, which has passed almost no major legislation in years.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=60242.

Al Qaeda militants flee Iraq jail in violent mass break-out

By Kareem Raheem and Ziad al-Sinjary
BAGHDAD/MOSUL, Iraq
Mon Jul 22, 2013

(Reuters) - Hundreds of convicts, including senior members of al Qaeda, broke out of Iraq's Abu Ghraib jail as comrades launched a military-style assault to free them, authorities said on Monday.

The deadly raid on the high-security jail happened as Sunni Muslim militants are re-gaining momentum in their insurgency against the Shi'ite-led government that came to power after the U.S. invasion to oust Saddam Hussein.

Suicide bombers drove cars packed with explosives to the gates of the prison on the outskirts of Baghdad on Sunday night and blasted their way into the compound, while gunmen attacked guards with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

Other militants took up positions near the main road, fighting off security reinforcements sent from Baghdad as several militants wearing suicide vests entered the prison on foot to help free the inmates.

Ten policemen and four militants were killed in the ensuing clashes, which continued until Monday morning, when military helicopters arrived, helping to regain control.

By that time, hundreds of inmates had succeeded in fleeing Abu Ghraib, the prison made notorious a decade ago by photographs showing abuse of prisoners by U.S. soldiers.

"The number of escaped inmates has reached 500, most of them were convicted senior members of al Qaeda and had received death sentences," Hakim Al-Zamili, a senior member of the security and defense committee in parliament, told Reuters.

"The security forces arrested some of them, but the rest are still free."

One security official told Reuters on condition of anonymity: "It's obviously a terrorist attack carried out by al Qaeda to free convicted terrorists with al Qaeda."

A simultaneous attack on another prison, in Taji, around 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad, followed a similar pattern, but guards managed to prevent any inmates escaping. Sixteen soldiers and six militants were killed.

CONVOY ATTACK

Sunni insurgents, including the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq, have been regaining strength in recent months and striking on an almost daily basis against Shi'ite Muslims and security forces among other targets.

The violence has raised fears of a return to full-blown conflict in a country where Kurds, Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims have yet to find a stable way of sharing power.

In the northern city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle packed with explosives behind a military convoy in the eastern Kokchali district, killing at least 22 soldiers and three passers-by, police said.

Suicide bombings are the hallmark of al Qaeda, which has been regrouping in Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city and capital of the Sunni-dominated Nineveh province.

A separate attack in western Mosul killed four policemen, police said.

Relations between Islam's two main denominations have been put under further strain from the civil war in Syria, which has drawn in Shi'ite and Sunni fighters from Iraq and beyond to fight against each other.

Recent attacks have targeted mosques, amateur football matches, shopping areas and cafes where people gather to socialize after breaking their daily fast for the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

Nearly 600 people have been killed in militant attacks across Iraq so far this month, according to violence monitoring group Iraq Body Count.

That is still well below the height of bloodletting in 2006-07, when the monthly death toll sometimes exceeded 3,000.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed and Suadad al-Salhy in Baghdad; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Source: Reuters.
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/22/us-iraq-violence-idUSBRE96J09I20130722.

Looting, destruction: Merchants pay heavy price in Sudan's Darfur

2013-07-11

NYALA (Sudan) - In Sudan's poverty-stricken Darfur region, the merchants of Nyala city's Al Malja market were among the elite. But now they, too, have nothing.

The men sit on the ground in front of the ashes of their shops, commiserating with each other after gunmen looted and burned the market during fighting between members of the security forces from July 3-7 in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state.

"I lost everything," says Hussein Mohammed, estimating 150,000 Sudanese pounds ($21,400) worth of his goods were stolen or burned.

"I don't know what to do. And this is Ramadan," he said on Thursday, the second day of the holy Muslim fasting month.

A wholesaler, Mohammed brought clothing from Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman and stocked it in Al Malja for sale to local retailers.

His was one of about 20 shops destroyed in the market during the worst outbreak of urban warfare in Sudan's western region in recent memory.

State officials blamed "differences" among members of the security forces for the battles which killed and wounded about 30 people, according to official media.

The fighting started when security forces allegedly killed a notorious local bandit who also belonged to the paramilitary Central Reserve Police.

Clashes continued off and on for about five days to last Sunday.

"We heard shooting so we closed our shops and ran home," another merchant, Yahya Haroun, told a reporter who is the first journalist from a foreign news agency to visit Nyala after the unrest.

"Then at 7:00 pm I got a call from one of my colleagues who told me that armed men were inside our shops," said the clothes retailer.

"I tried to come and have a look but when I saw them and their weapons, I went back home."

The next day, he returned to find that only the walls of his two shops remained standing, and his entire investment worth about 125,000 pounds was gone.

Now he says he does not know how he will support his family, including an ill daughter.

"I have my own family and I also take care of my sisters and brothers, because my father already died," Haroun said.

Darfuri members of the Central Reserve Police formerly belonged to the Janjaweed, a government-backed militia which shocked the world with atrocities against ethnic minority civilians suspected of supporting rebels in Darfur.

The rebels began their uprising against the Arab-dominated Khartoum regime in 2003.

Security problems have more recently been compounded by inter-tribal fighting, kidnappings, carjackings and other crimes, many suspected to be the work of government-linked militia and paramilitary groups.

In February, a UN panel of experts reported "some incidents in which former members of government militias have forcibly expressed their discontent with the current government, especially against the backdrop of rising inflation and unemployment".

Darfur's top official, Eltigani Seisi, said in June that security agencies need a "show of force" against tribal militia violence.

But local police, at least, proved no match for the armed men who raided Al Malja.

"Police were guarding the market but when there was heavy fighting they withdrew," said one merchant who did not want to be identified.

"Even the police station near our market was burned," he said.

The man said he lost his entire stock of sorghum and other traditional commodities worth 162,000 pounds, an investment that helped support his children studying at university.

Now not even the walls of his shop are completely standing.

"I don't know why they did this. We are not a part of their conflict," said the merchant.

He looked at the ground, his eyes filled with sadness.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=60047.