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Monday, January 27, 2014

Fazl demands judicial probe into Peshawar church attack

2013-09-25

APP and DAWN.COM

ISLAMABAD: Jamiat Ulema Islam Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman Tuesday demanded a high level commission of Supreme Court to probe the twin suicide bombing at a Peshawar church.

He said that anti-peace elements were involved in the incident to destabilize the peace in the country.

In a statement issued by his party’s spokesman Jan Achakzai, Maulana Fazlur Rehman said that Taliban have no connection with the incident as they neither take responsibility of the incident nor expressed any link with it.

The main spokesperson for the umbrella Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group told a foreign news agency that they were not responsible of the attack that killed more than 80 and injured at least 140 on Sunday.

“We haven’t done this nor do we attack innocent people,” Shahidullah Shahid, the main TTP spokesperson told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.

“Whenever we carry out an attack we claim it, but the Taliban are not involved in this attack. It was an attempt to sabotage the atmosphere of the proposed peace talks.”

Maulana Fazl said elements which do not want an end to US drone strikes in Pakistan were behind linking the attack to Taliban.

“Some people were trying to sabotage the potential dialogue process with Pakistani Taliban by connecting the incident with them,” he observed.

Citing Sri Lankan cricket team attack and kidnapping of Chinese Engineers, the JUI-F chief said that no investigation were carried out to ascertain ‘elements’ behind those incidents also.

Source: DAWN.
Link: http://www.dawn.com/news/1045213/fazl-demands-judicial-probe-into-peshawar-church-attack.

Pakistani Taliban, army exchange prisoners

September 11, 2013

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — The Pakistani Taliban and the army exchanged prisoners Wednesday as a confidence building measure ahead of possible peace talks, intelligence officials and a militant commander said.

The exchange included six militants and two paramilitary Frontier Corps soldiers, officials and the commander said. It occurred in the Shawal area of the South Waziristan tribal region. The militants were subsequently taken to neighboring North Waziristan, the country's main Taliban sanctuary.

Militants fired in the air with joy when their colleagues were freed, the intelligence officials said. The officials and the Taliban commander spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists

The release occurred only days after Pakistan's main political parties endorsed peace negotiations with the Taliban and their allies Monday as the best way to end a decade-long insurgency that has killed thousands of people.

The exchange was meant to build confidence between the government and the militants before formal peace talks, the Taliban commander said. Senior Taliban leaders are currently discussing whether to take the government up on its offer to hold negotiations, said the commander and one of his colleagues.

The Taliban said they were open to talks at the end of last year but withdrew that offer in May after the group's deputy leader was killed in a U.S. drone strike. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif campaigned on a platform of holding peace talks and has maintained that line since he took office in June. He scored a victory when his stance was endorsed by other parties on Monday — a decision that was generally welcomed by the Taliban.

But there are plenty of skeptics who doubt negotiations actually will bring lasting peace. The government has struck various peace deals with the Taliban in the past, but all have fallen apart. Critics say the agreements simply gave the militants time to regroup and continue their fight against the state.

"Not only is the path well worn, it is also a path that has on every previous occasion been attempted and led to failure, mutual recrimination and renewed bloodshed," an editorial published Wednesday in The Express Tribune newspaper said.

The editorial also pointed out that it's unclear with whom exactly the government would negotiate. Analysts say there are more than 100 militant groups operating in Pakistan's tribal region along the Afghan border with varying levels of allegiance.

"Then there is the question of just what is on the table, what is up for negotiation," the editorial said. "No iteration of the Taliban either historically or in recent years has wanted anything other than the dismantling of the democratic process, the dissolution of legislatures at the federal and provincial levels, and the imposition of their own narrow interpretation of religion."

It's also unclear what kind of negotiated peace Pakistan's army, considered the country's most powerful institution, would accept after losing hundreds of its soldiers in combat with the Taliban. A peace deal could worry the United States if it gives more breathing room to Afghan militants in Pakistan who carry out cross-border attacks against American troops in Afghanistan.

The Afghan and Pakistani Taliban are allies but have aimed their guns at different targets. The Afghan Taliban have fought coalition forces in Afghanistan, while the Pakistani Taliban have taken on the government at home.

Pakistan to free former Taliban second in command

Reuters
Tuesday, Sep 10, 2013

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan will release former Afghan Taliban second-in-command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, as soon as this month to help advance peace efforts in neighboring Afghanistan, Pakistan's foreign policy chief said on Tuesday.

Pakistan is under growing pressure to free senior Taliban figures, particularly Baradar, to boost reconciliation efforts, as most NATO combat troops prepare to pull out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and anxiety grows over the country's security.

"In principle, we have agreed to release him. The timing is being discussed. It should be very soon ... I think within this month," Sartaj Aziz, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's adviser on foreign affairs, told Reuters.

Baradar's fate is at the heart of Afghanistan's efforts to kick start the stalled peace process and push Pakistan to hand over important Taliban captives who could provide leverage in the negotiations.

Aziz said, however, that Baradar would not be handed over to Afghanistan directly as some in Kabul had hoped, and would instead be released straight into Pakistan.

The Afghan government believes Baradar is more open to dialogue than many of his comrades, but it is not clear whether he would promote peace or war against President Hamid Karzai's Western-backed government after his release.

One of the most ruthless Taliban figures, he was given his nom de guerre of "Baradar", or "brother", by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Aziz said it was important to make sure the released Taliban prisoners had a chance to establish contact with their leadership on the ground to persuade them to be part of peace talks - an idea he said Karzai has agreed to.

"Obviously Karzai wanted him to go to Afghanistan, but we feel that if they are to play a positive role in the reconciliation process then they must do it according to what their own Shura (Council), their own leadership, wants them to do," he said.

"That they can't do unless they are released. ... I think he (Karzai) accepted this point that they should play a constructive role in the peace process."

Aziz's remarks followed last month's trip by Karzai to Pakistan, where he sought the handover of some Afghan insurgents as part of the stalled peace process.

On Saturday, Pakistan freed a group of Taliban in an attempt to improve its troubled relations with Afghanistan, but once again risked angering Kabul by not handing them over directly.

Afghanistan fears that Pakistan is only pretending to support dialogue while its intelligence agencies harbor Taliban leaders to project influence across their shared frontier.

It is also concerned the released Taliban would simply go back to the tribal areas and rejoin the insurgency.

REVIVING PEACE TALKS

Aziz said that was not going to happen, adding that allowing them to establish contacts with their leaders would give more credibility to attempts to revive peace talks.

"We monitor their movements and watch where they go," he said. "We have to allow these released detainees to establish contact with their Shura and then decide where to go."

Pakistan is key to the fate of US and Afghan efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan, a challenge gaining urgency as the end of the US combat mission in 2014 draws closer.

But its long-running refusal to hand over Baradar to Afghanistan has been one of the biggest obstacles to peace talks, as mutual suspicions continue to hamper efforts to tackle militancy in one of the world's most explosive regions.

Source: AsiaOne.
Link: http://news.asiaone.com/news/asia/pakistan-free-former-taliban-second-command.

Coup forces have killed 7,000 in Egypt

Monday, 20 January 2014

A senior Egyptian judge claimed on Sunday that more than 7,000 civilians have been killed in the country since the coup which overthrew President Mohamed Morsi last July. Judge Mohamed Gharib said that most of the dead were killed by security forces and that he has filed complaints against named army and police officers who carried out the killings for Egyptian courts to investigate.

The judge, who is a member of the legal defense team for the ousted president, made his comments on Al-Jazeera's evening show Hadith Al-Thawra. He offered harsh criticism of the Egyptian judiciary and accused it of being biased against those citizens who are against the coup.

To back-up his claim, he pointed out that court officials have been very quick to issue rules against school pupils who own balloons or school kits with the Rabaa Al-Adawiyya four-finger symbol on them, while the same courts have not even started investigations over the killing of 7,000 Egyptians.

In an ironic act of self-fulfilling prophecy, on Sunday an Egyptian criminal court accused Morsi and other politicians, journalists, activists and parliamentarians of having "contempt" for the judiciary. For Morsi, this is the fourth accusation against him. The Muslim Brotherhood, observers and anti-coup politicians and activists called the accusations "completely political" and accused the Egyptian judiciary of being a "puppet in the hands of the army".

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/9321-coup-forces-have-killed-7000-in-egypt.

Erdogan threatens to unveil graft accusations against rival

ANKARA Fri Jan 24, 2014

(Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan threatened on Friday to t divulge a file of corruption allegations against the main opposition candidate for Istanbul mayor, raising the stakes in a political battle after a graft investigation implicating his own government.

The opposition accused Erdogan of bullying and defied him to make public any accusations he cared to level.

Erdogan, speaking to party members in the capital Ankara, also accused a key business leader of "treason" for saying the government's efforts to reform the judiciary might unnerve investors and deter foreign capital from coming to Turkey.

Erdogan called on Kemal Kilicdaroglu, chairman of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), to disclose what he called corruption allegations in a party file against Mustafa Sarigul, the CHP's candidate for Istanbul mayor in March municipal elections.

"I'm giving you until Sunday. If you don't disclose the corruption file on the Istanbul municipal candidate, I will," Erdogan said in comments aired live on television.

He did not make clear what such a file would contain.

CHP Deputy Chairman Haluk Koc, responding to Erdogan, said:

"No one is holding you back. The security forces, judiciary and police are yours. The CHP is here, Sarigul is here, disclose whatever you know.

"Bring it on. Does extortion suit a prime minister? CHP has never bowed down to bullies. It won't take a step back."

Erdogan also accused Kilicdaroglu himself of involvement in the leak of a 2010 sex tape that forced the resignation of his predecessor at the CHP, Deniz Baykal. Erdogan did not elaborate.

Turkey's popular leader sees a police investigation into corruption and bribery charges that came to light last month and included the arrest of family members of cabinet ministers and businessmen close to the government as a "coup plot" against the ruling AK Party, in power since 2002.

He has responded by removing thousands of police officers and about 120 prosecutors from their posts and reassigned them and by pushing through legal changes that tighten his control over the judiciary.

On Thursday, Muharrem Yilmaz, chairman of the business group Tusiad, said such legal changes may not comply with European Union norms and could raise concerns about the rule of law.

Erdogan lashed out at Yilmaz, saying such a warning amounted to a threat against the government.

"You can't say, 'International capital won't come.' If you do, it's treason against this country.

"They are threatening their own government by saying foreign investment won't come ... We will take a stance against those who take a stance against the AK Party," Erdogan said.

The political turmoil has weighed on Turkish financial markets, with the lira plumbing record lows.

But capital outflows have been relatively limited, with Thursday's successful sale of a $2.5 billion eurobond issue seen as a vote of confidence from foreign investors.

(Reporting by Ayla Jean Yackley; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Source: Reuters.
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/24/us-turkey-corruption-opposition-idUSBREA0N15H20140124.

Turkey purges regulators, state TV in graft probe backlash

ANKARA Sat Jan 18, 2014
BY HUMEYRA PAMUK

(Reuters) - Turkey has extended a purge of official bodies to the banking and telecoms regulators and state TV, firing dozens of executives in moves that appear to broaden Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's backlash against a corruption investigation.

The authorities have already reassigned thousands of police officers and about 20 prosecutors, and fired some state television officials in response to the corruption investigation, the biggest challenge to Erdogan's 11-year rule.

Investigators are believed to have been looking into allegations of corruption and bribery involving trade in gold with Iran and big real estate projects, although full details of their charges have not been made public.

The combative prime minister says the investigations, which began a month ago with arrests of high profile figures including the sons of three of his cabinet ministers, are part of an attempted "judicial coup".

His opponents say they fear a purge of official bodies will destroy the independence of the judiciary, police and media.

"It's like reformatting a computer. They are changing the whole system and people in various positions to protect the government," said Akin Unver, assistant professor of International Relations in Istanbul-based Kadir Has University.

Among dozens of officials dismissed in the latest sackings, Turkish media reported on Saturday that the deputy head of the banking watchdog BDDK and two department heads had been removed.

Five department chiefs were fired at the Telecommunications Directorate (TIB), a body that carries out electronic surveillance as well as serving as telecoms regulator, and a dozen people were fired at Turkey's state channel TRT, including department heads and senior news editors.

A government official said the firings were carried out for "the benefit of the public" and more could come: "Right now we are working on this issue and if we identify cases problematic to the public's benefit, more dismissals could be considered."

Pictures of money-counting machines and reports of cash stacked in the homes of people linked to the graft probe have caused uproar among the Turkish public.

Unver said the aim of the purge at the telecommunications watchdog could be to prevent further videos and pictures being published on the Internet.

"They are seeking a monolithic structure over the Internet," he said.

Several thousand people took to the streets in Turkey's biggest three cities on Saturday demonstrating against a government-led draft bill to increase controls over the Internet.

The bill would give the courts the power to rule on removing online material that "violates individual rights", an article that opponents say is murky and could lead to the arbitrary closure of websites.

In Istanbul's Taksim Square, where police fired teargas and water cannon to disperse the crowd, protesters called for the government to resign. Some chanted: "There are thieves around," referring to the corruption allegations.

SEIZURE OF ASSETS

Erdogan has suggested the graft inquiry, which has led to the resignation of three cabinet ministers and detention of businessmen close to the government, is an attempt to undermine his rule by Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based cleric with influence among the police and judiciary.

Earlier in the week the government reassigned twenty high-profile prosecutors, stepping up the purge of the judiciary.

Many of the people who have been fired are believed to be associated with the cleric's Hizmet movement, which claims more than a million followers and runs schools and charities throughout Turkey.

Gulen's lawyer says the cleric has nothing to do with the graft investigations, and his followers say they are victims of a witch hunt.

In a separate move denounced by the opposition as an attempt to target it, Turkish authorities have seized the assets of Mustafa Sarigul, the main opposition CHP party's mayoral candidate for Istanbul.

The state Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) said it seized Sarigul's assets after he and his business partners failed to repay a loan dating back to 1998.

Sarigul denied he had an outstanding debt, describing the move as "a provocation".

"I have not received one single letter from TMSF in 16 years... Those who have lost the trust of the people and carried out this political attack on me will get the answer at the ballot box on March 30," he said, referring to local elections.

Erdogan, who has presided over an extended economic boom that has transformed Turkey and lifted millions of people from poverty, remains the country's most popular politician.

He and his moderate Islamist AK Party have long battled for influence against the secularist military establishment that dominated Turkey over the past century. Conflicts with the judiciary, police and Gulen followers add to his list of enemies.

It is still not clear what effect the crisis will have on Erdogan's political fortunes ahead of local elections approaching in March.

Last year saw mass street demonstrations among Turks who accuse the prime minister of authoritarianism, but those protests did little to undermine Erdogan's support among his conservative base of followers.

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun and Mert Ozkan in Ankara, Ayla Jean Yackley in Istanbul, Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Peter Graff and Andrew Heavens)

Source: Reuters.
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/18/us-turkey-corruption-idUSBREA0H08820140118.

Palestinians dismiss Israeli al-Qaida plot claim

January 23, 2014

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian security officials on Thursday cast doubt on Israel's claim that it broke up an al-Qaida plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, alleging Israel concocted the story to bolster its position in peace talks.

Israel's Shin Bet security agency says it arrested three Palestinian men — two from Israeli-controlled east Jerusalem and one from the West Bank — over the plot. It said those arrested admitted to planning a suicide bombing at the embassy and other attacks. It said they received their instructions over the Internet through a handler in the Gaza Strip who had direct ties to al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri.

Adnan Damiri, a spokesman for the Palestinian security services in the West Bank, said there is "no indication" that al-Qaida has a presence in the territory. "Al-Qaida cannot operate here," Damiri said. "It needs broad logistical support and that cannot be here in this small area."

He said Israel had arrested some naive "boys" and claimed they were al-Qaida to halt American pressure to show more flexibility in peace talks. Israel has demanded it retain a presence in parts of the Palestinian-claimed West Bank after any future peace deal due to security concerns.

One of the suspects was identified as Ala Ghannam, 21, from Aqaba, a village near the northern West Bank town of Jenin. His cousin, Arafat Ghannam, told The Associated Press that the 21 year old was arrested by the Israeli military two and half weeks ago in a night raid.

He said Palestinian intelligence forces had arrested him just a week before and had let him go. The Palestinians arrested him because of "Islamic views" he expressed on Facebook, the cousin said without elaborating. He said the family was not aware about his alleged interest in al-Qaida but said they were not shocked to hear about it.

Israeli security officials long have warned of the threat of what they call "global jihad," a word they use for various militant groups in the Gaza Strip and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula inspired by al-Qaida's ideology and tactics. But Wednesday marked the first time that Israel explicitly accused the group of being behind an attempted attack. Officials believe there are several hundred of these militants, known as Salafists, in Gaza.

The Salafi presence in the West Bank is far more limited. Palestinian security forces recently arrested about 20 young men who allegedly tried to set up a Salafist organization. Officials have described the men as disaffected youths who had no training in weapons or attacks.

Last November, Israeli forces killed three members of that group in a shootout in the city of Hebron. Israeli security officials say there is some cooperation with their Palestinian counterparts in the West Bank to keep the Salafis under watch.

In Gaza, the Salafis have emerged as rivals to the ruling Islamic militant Hamas group. A Hamas security official said al-Qaida does not exist in the crowded seaside strip. "Al-Qaida has never fired a single shot to liberate the land," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Adnan Abu Amer, a Gaza expert on Islamic movements, said there are groups in the area inspired by al-Qaida "but we haven't found any direct links." Aviv Oreg, a former head of the Israeli military unit that tracks al-Qaida, said that if the group was indeed behind the plot, it would create a "whole new ballgame" since it would show new capabilities inside Israel's borders.

U.S. officials have said little about Israel's claims, only that they could not corroborate the information and that no new security measures were immediately taken at the embassy.

Barzak reported from Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Mohammed Ballas in Jenin, West Bank, and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem contributed reporting.

Lebanon militant pledges allegiance to... (leader of ISIL)

January 25, 2014

BEIRUT (AP) — A Lebanon-based militant pledged allegiance to (ISIL) Saturday, calling on Sunni Muslim soldiers to quit a Lebanese army he claimed is controlled by Christians and Shiites.

Abu Sayyaf al-Ansari made the pledge to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant in a recording posted online and broadcast on major television stations, including leading private channel LBC, which said it obtained it from online jihadi forums.

It comes after months of increasing violence in the country, where at least five suicide attacks in predominantly Shiite areas and against Lebanese troops have left scores dead and wounded. The Lebanese are sharply divided over the civil war in neighboring Syria, with many Sunnis backing rebels trying to overthrow President Bashar Assad, who is supported by a large number of Shiites.

As word of the recording spread, former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, one of the country's most prominent Sunni politicians, warned in a statement that Lebanese, especially Sunnis should be suspicious of "calls that aim to throw Lebanon into a war that everyone rejects."

Al-Ansari claimed in the recording that he was speaking from the predominantly Sunni northern city of Tripoli where Islamic groups have been fighting the pro-Assad Arab Democratic Party since the Syrian crisis began, nearly three years ago.

"We pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Husseini al-Qarashi al-Baghdadi and we will obey his orders," Abu Sayyaf said, referring to the Islamic State leader. "Take us wherever you want, take us to difficulties and make us the point of your lance so that we crush your enemy."

"I call upon Sunnis in the Army of the Cross to fear God and leave this tyrant," he said, referring to the religiously mixed Lebanese army. "Don't be a sword that Christians and Shiites carry to stab you."

Phillip Smyth, a Washington-based researcher on Islamic groups in Lebanon and Syria, said the audio's tone and message reflected a broader theme of Sunni extremists trying to anger their Shiite rivals.

"They wanted to make their mark," Smyth said, suggesting the cleric was thinking: "Everybody hates the Islamic State, so we'll go with the Islamic State. A lot of it comes down to messaging: I am going to pick the biggest and baddest and go with them — how do you like that."

Also Saturday, an al-Qaida-inspired group in Lebanon warned Sunnis to stay away from areas dominated by Shiites, saying it intends to attack strongholds of the Iranian-backed Shiite Hezbollah group that is fighting in Syria.

The Nusra Front in Lebanon made the threat Friday on Twitter and it was reposted a day later on websites used by militant groups. The Nusra Front in Lebanon takes its name from the powerful al-Qaida-linked group fighting in Syria against the Assad's rule. The group has claimed responsibility for two small bombing attacks targeting Lebanese Shiites in January that killed six people.

Hours after the warning, three rockets struck a Hezbollah stronghold in the northeastern town of Hermel near the Syrian border without causing casualties, the state-run National News Agency and residents said.

Meanwhile, Syria's Greek Orthodox Patriarch, John Yazigi, said in Beirut that a dozen nuns kidnapped by opposition fighters in Syria late last year "are fine." Speaking to reporters, Yazigi said there was contact between the nuns and his office "several days ago."

"They were then in a house in Yabroud and they are well but that is not enough. We hope that they will be released soon," Yazigi said. Yabroud is a Syrian rebel-held town near the border with Lebanon.

The seizure of the 12 Greek Orthodox nuns and at least three other women was the latest attack to spark panic among Syria's Christians over the strength of al-Qaida-linked militants and other Islamic radicals in the nearly 3-year-old revolt against Assad's government. A priest and two bishops previously kidnapped by rebels remain missing.

Yazigi said he has no information about the two bishops but hopes they are fine.

Associated Press writer Diaa Hadid contributed to this report from Beirut.

U.N.: Lebanon, Jordan need growth

January 25, 2014
The Daily Star

BEIRUT: The United Nations said Friday that Lebanon and Jordan need to achieve higher GDP growth in 2014 in order to cope with the influx of Syrian refugees.

“Both countries need substantially high growth to accommodate the refugees from Syria and the figures indicate continuing crisis situation of both countries rather than recovery,” the U.N. report on the Global Outlook and Regional Prospects said.

The report, which was released Friday at ESCWA headquarters in Beirut, projected the GDP rate of Lebanon to increase from 1.3 percent in 2013 to 2.4 percent, and in Jordan from 3.2 percent in 2013 to 3.9 percent.

Lebanon and Jordan host the biggest number of Syrian refugees in the region and there is deep concern that the number could increase this year if the three-year conflict did not come to an end soon.

The report warned of grave consequences to the labor force in some of the countries hosting Syrian refugees.

“Economic repercussions of the Syrian crisis are increasingly observed in the labor markets in neighboring countries, including employment high skill requirements,” the U.N. said.

The U.N. report added that geopolitical tensions were projected to remain in sharp focus as a result of the situation in Syria, adding that economic uncertainty would continue to grip neighboring countries.

It also warned of the negative effects of the United States monetary situation on the regional countries.

“The looming monetary tightening in the United States will affect the borrowing costs in the region, particularly in GCC countries,” the report said.

The U.N. believes that the GCC economies will continue to prosper if oil prices remain high or stable.

“The present recovery in the GCC countries still depends on oil prices/revenues. In addition to their direct consequences in the oil sector, they influence economic sentiment and confidence of the nonoil sector. A plunge below $80 per barrel would dent growth and domestic demand,” the U.N. said.

The report also shed light on the spiraling inflation in the region.

The “inflation rate crept up across the region. This was due to the recovering domestic demand in the GCC countries and due to the supply constraints of various kinds in other countries.”

The report also expected a modest growth in the global economy in 2014. “The world economy reached only subdued growth of 2.1 percent in 2013. While most developed economies continued to grapple with the challenge of taking appropriate fiscal and monetary policy actions in the aftermath of the financial crisis, a number of emerging economies, which had already experienced a notable slowdown in the past two years, encountered new domestic and international headwinds during 2013,” it said.

It also noted that some signs of improvement have emerged recently.

“The euro area has finally come out of a protracted recession, with gross domestic product for the region as a whole starting to grow again; the U.S. economy continues to recover; and a few large emerging economies, including China, seem to have at least stopped a further slowdown or will see accelerating growth. World gross product is forecast to grow at a pace of 3.0 and 3.3 percent in 2014 and 2015, respectively,” the report said.

The U.N. stressed that global unemployment remained the key challenge in 2014.

“The global employment situation remains dire, as long-lasting effects from the financial crisis continue to weigh on labor markets in many countries and regions. Among developed economies, the most challenging situation is found in the euro area, in which the unemployment rates have reached as high as 27 percent in Greece and Spain, with youth unemployment rates surging to more than 50 percent.

It added that although the unemployment rate had declined in the United States, it remained elevated.

In developing countries and economies in transition, the unemployment situation is mixed, with extremely high structural unemployment in North Africa and Western Asia, particularly among youth.

“High rates of informal employment as well as pronounced gender gaps in employment continue to characterize labor markets in numerous developing countries,” the report said.

Source: The Daily Star.
Link: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Business/Lebanon/2014/Jan-25/245202-un-lebanon-jordan-need-growth.ashx.

Jordan to enforce smoking ban despite public fury

By JAMAL HALABY
— Jan. 25, 2014

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — In Jordan, a country where smoking is so popular that motorists can be seen puffing away on miniature water pipes in traffic, the kingdom's government now wants to enforce a Western-style smoking ban in restaurants, cafes and other public places.

The ban, coming from a law passed in 2008 but not full enforced, also would see the government revoke the licenses of all 6,000 coffee shops that serve shisha by the end of this year.

But business owners and smokers are criticizing the push, saying it goes against the culture of a country where smoking is seen as an attractive sign of manhood and elderly Bedouins roll their own cigarettes in public.

"We are caught between a rock and a hard place whereby the government is trying to force a closure of our businesses," said Mazen Alsaleh, who owns 14 coffee and hookah shops around the country. "I am not defending the hookah or smoking, but we must defend our investments."

The pastime of smoking shisha — also known as nargile, hubbly bubbly, hookah or by other names across the Middle East — is engrained in Jordanian culture from the time of the Ottoman Empire. Mourners receive cigarettes at wakes, while delivery companies only supplying hookahs have sprouted across the country.

The World Health Organization estimated last year that nearly half of Jordan's men smoke tobacco on a daily basis, while a third of young men do. Women smoke at a much lower rate.

While smoking is culturally embraced, it's also aided by low-cost cigarettes. A pack of local cigarettes sells at $2, while foreign tobacco is slightly more expensive. Last year, local tobacco manufacturers reduced their prices by up to 15 percent to compete with cheap cigarettes smuggled in from neighboring Syria. Health Ministry statistics show that Jordanians spend the equivalent of $1 billion annually on tobacco.

Health Minister Ali Hyasat, who is spearheading the effort to enforce the smoking ban, said the measure was meant to "save lives, not businesses."

"This is costing us lives, as our records show that many Jordanians die of cancer directly linked to smoking each year, and more than $1 billion annually on health care programs to treat smokers," Hyasat told The Associated Press.

Enforcing the law started gradually in 2009, with shopping malls and Amman's Queen Alia International Airport first enacting the ban, followed by fast food restaurants. The law also bans smoking in hospitals, schools, cinemas, libraries, museums, government buildings, public transportation and other places to be determined by the health minister.

The law also prohibits selling tobacco to those under the age of 18, but shop owners have rarely abided by the law. Violators are subject to imprisonment for up to one month or a fine of up to $35.

Across the Middle East, there are similar indoor smoking bans in place in Lebanon and some Arab Gulf countries. The United Arab Emirates, the home of Dubai, tightened its own smoking ban earlier this week. Israel has a smoking ban as well. But often, such rules simply get ignored.

The new push to enforce Jordan's law in its entirety by December has many angry.

"Why is the government infringing on our privacy?" asked social worker Haneen Ramahi, 34. "Smoking is a matter of a personal choice. If I decide to kill myself, I'm free to do that."

College senior Mohammad Zeghayer, 21, said he will not abide by the law.

"I will continue smoking in restaurants and coffee shops and police can arrest me, I don't care," Zeghayer said.

Firas Hawari, a specialist at Jordan's main cancer center, said doctors have seen an increase in both the number of smokers and the diseases resulting from smoking in recent years. He said that smoking is responsible for 25 percent of cancer cases among males in Jordan, including lung, head, neck and bladder cancers, as well as the majority of chronic diseases and high blood pressure.

Yet cigarettes are available at grocery stores, coffee shops and street kiosks. In smoke-filled coffee shops, minors are usually part of the clientele, sharing a water pipe. In some households, it is socially acceptable for minors to light the hookah for their parents.

Alsaleh, the hookah shop owner, said he was considering filing a lawsuit to try and stop the ban. Others say they'll ignore it.

Meanwhile, some of the worst smoking offenders can be found lighting up under the dome of Jordan's parliament — the same lawmakers who passed the bill in the first place.

Source: Associated Press.
Link: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/jordan-enforce-smoking-ban-despite-public-fury.

Jordan's Ghost Camp

Monday, 20 Jan, 2014
Written by: Emma Pearson and Katie Welsford

Though desperately needed and long-awaited, the newly built Syrian refugee camp stands empty

Despite poor and cramped conditions for Syrians living in Jordan’s two other camps, Azraq must stay closed due to a decrease in the number of refugees coming over the border, and because it is for ‘emergency use only,’ according to the Ministry of Planning

The vast and empty desert does not seem like the place to build a city. High winds sweep the barren land. Temperatures soar to more than 40 degrees Celsius in the summer and plummet below minus one in the winter months. There is no river, no hilltop and no coast. But then, there is not a huge amount of choice in Jordan, a country made up of around 90 percent desert. And it is a country that needs a new city.

After Zaatari in Mafraq and Mrejeb Al-Fhoud in Zarqa, Azraq refugee camp is the third to appear in Jordan in response to the ongoing Syrian crisis. But with this camp there is a difference. While Zaatari sprung up suddenly—it was planned, built and opened within 10 days—Azraq camp is benefitting from something the earlier sites were not afforded: time.

‘The most designed camp in the world’

With more than 120,000 Syrians squeezed within its barbed-wire fences in an area measuring just two square miles (5 square kilometers), Zaatari camp constitutes Jordan’s fourth-largest city. The speedy construction of the camp, however, has led to growing problems within. Housing in the camp is cramped and of poor quality, and there are growing concerns over how it will continue to fare during the cold winter, which forecasters predicted would be the worst in a century. Families fleeing from Syria are quickly housed wherever a space is found. As such, the camp has become overcrowded. Most of the refugees are living among strangers, far from their friends, and many camp dwellers are suffering from an acute sense of isolation. Added to this, services are positioned on just one side of the camp, which leaves residents having to travel lengthy distances to access them.

Families are, of course, adapting in the best way they can. Many have used their Syrian entrepreneurial spirit to establish new services, while others have made attempts to turn their tents into more hospitable living spaces. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), meanwhile, are working hard to implement changes to make life easier for the residents of the camp. However, lawlessness is rampant, and many Syrians have reported the unusually high levels of vandalism and theft. So bad are the conditions within Zaatari that onsite doctors treating the refugees have commented on the worrying levels of lifestyle-related psychological distress. Many of Zaatari’s residents have subsequently chosen to risk financial disaster by relocating out of the camp; some have gone so far as to pack up their belongings and return to Syria.

With the persisting conflict in Syria and the flow of Syrians across the border reaching a peak of 4,000 a day earlier this year, the UN, the Jordanian government and numerous aid groups agreed on the joint construction of a new camp at Azraq in the Kingdom’s eastern desert. Initially expected to host 3,000 refugees, the camp has since expanded to accommodate up to 130,000.

Careful planning has been involved: shelters—metal-framed huts with a sizeable amount of space allotted for each, rather than the tightly packed tents found in Zaatari—are lockable in a bid to prevent the level of crime that is experienced in Zaatari and provide a greater sense of ‘home’ for their residents. But there is a tricky balance to maintain. Planners need to be careful to ensure the camp does not feel permanent. This is not just for the benefit of Jordanians, who fear Syrian camps will develop into a permanent feature in their country, as the Palestinian camps did, but also for the Syrian residents of the camp. Hope is what keeps many refugees going, and hope exists as long as their situation feels temporary.

The physical layout of the camp has also been carefully considered. Those in charge of planning the new camp have attempted to create villages within the space, decentralizing services to each of them so that residents can develop a sense of affinity with their neighbors, thus diminishing the likelihood of inter-household violence. To encourage the feel of a village, refugees would also be assigned to specific villages according to their area of origin within Syria—to attempt to recreate the geography of a country within a refugee camp is a novel idea.

Services such as playgrounds, medical centers, and water, sanitation and hygiene facilities, which NGOs such as Mercy Corps and World Vision have worked hard to develop, are also positioned locally within the ‘villages.’ Not only should this end the lengthy treks to access basic services that camp dwellers are used to in Zaatari, but it would encourage a sense of ownership, which would, it is hoped, prevent the levels of graffiti and vandalism seen in Zaatari.

It is no surprise then, that Azraq camp has been dubbed the ‘most designed camp in the world.’

Emergency use only

The Syrian refugee crisis has had such coverage in Jordan that one would expect new facilities to spring into action as soon as they were deemed ready. Azraq, however, is still yet to open. The initial deadline for completion of the camp, July 2013, has long passed, and the camp exists now only as a ghost city. Its shelters are bare, its services are unused and its gates are shut. No definite opening date currently exists. Though guards protect the entrances of the camp, nothing stirs inside.

Some have attributed this to economic concerns in a country that is becoming increasingly anxious about the financial burden of the extra population. Work on Azraq began when the influx of refugees had reached the unfathomable number of 4,000 a day, when extra housing for the fast growing numbers of displaced Syrians was viewed as an absolute necessity. Now there are far fewer daily refugee numbers—sadly not as a result of an improving situation, but owing to the intensification of fighting in southern Syria. The paths into Jordan near Zaatari are perilous. Many refugees travel on foot and hundreds have been killed by regime air strikes while attempting to set foot on Jordanian soil. Thousands are reported trapped in towns and villages near the border. Some succeed in reaching Jordan only by journeying east along the Iraqi border and entering through remote desert crossings.

Numbers are also declining at Zaatari due to inhabitants heading out into Jordan’s cities or back into their homeland. This decrease in refugee flow has sparked discussion on whether the huge cost of opening a new camp is worthwhile. UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has indicated that the decision of when to take this extra step rests with the government, and a spokesperson for the Ministry of Planning said in a recent interview that, at present, Azraq exists only in case of emergency.

The camp therefore is ready, but waiting for another surge of refugees from Syria; waiting for another disaster like this summer’s chemical attack in Ghouta. Until such a day arrives, Syrians will have to make do with Zaatari. Azraq, meanwhile, will stand as a stark reminder of the horrors of Syria’s conflict, of the expectations for yet more refugees to flow across the border this year, and of the humanitarian disaster which is simply not ending.

Source: The Majalla.
Link: http://www.majalla.com/eng/2014/01/article55248034.

Bahraini police, protesters clash after funeral

MANAMA Sun Jan 26, 2014

(Reuters) - Bahraini police firing teargas and birdshot clashed with stone-throwing protesters in a village west of the capital on Sunday after the funeral of a young man who died in custody, witnesses said.

The tiny Gulf Arab island monarchy, a U.S. ally, has suffered unrest since mass protests led by majority Shi'ite Muslims erupted in early 2011 demanding reforms and a bigger share of power in the Sunni-led government.

Sunday's violence following the death of 20-year-old Fadhel Abbas threatened to sour a new attempt to restart negotiations between Bahrain's government, led by the ruling al-Khalifa family, and opposition groups.

Police said Abbas was detained on January 8 on suspicion of smuggling weapons and explosives and died late on Saturday.

The force's statement, released on Sunday, said he was shot in a car while attempting to run over police who were trying to arrest him. Another person in the vehicle was in police custody, it added.

Hundreds of people attended his funeral in the village of Diraz on Sunday, said witnesses.

Afterwards, protesters blocked roads and set fire to debris in the streets, while security forces tried to break up the crowd. There were no initial reports of injuries.

The main opposition, Wefaq, said Abbas' family had been prevented from visiting him in hospital - a report the government denied. Wefaq distributed photographs of his body appearing to show a large injury on the back of his head.

Last week, Bahrain's crown prince restarted stalled talks with the opposition by meeting Wefaq's leader Sheikh Ali Salman.

He also appointed a delegate from the ruling family to attend the dialogue, and agreed on a list of topics for discussion.

The last round of reconciliation talks was suspended last year with the government accusing Wefaq of secretly backing violent attacks on police, and the opposition accusing the authorities of cracking down on its members.

Bahrain is home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

(Reporting by Farishta Saeed; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Sami Aboudi)

Source: Reuters.
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/26/us-bahrain-clashes-idUSBREA0P0IO20140126.

Relocation of Marine's Okinawa base will go ahead

Tokyo (UPI)
Jan 21, 2013

The Japanese government said the relocation of U.S. Marine base Futenma on Okinawa island to Nago city will go ahead despite opposition by the re-elected mayor of Nago.

Susumu Inamine, 68, won re-election Sunday, dealing a blow to the central government's plans to build a replacement Marine air base in the environmentally sensitive Henoko district, Japan Times reported.

"This election was easy to understand. It was about one issue, the Henoko issue, and whether you were for or against the new base," Inamine said after the final ballot count.

"The people have spoken and they have said no."

His re-election will be a headache for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government and comes after Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima granted Tokyo permission in late December to proceed with a base-related landfill project in Henoko Bay, near Nago.

Inamine's supporters claim Abe and Nakaima reached a backroom deal to allow relocation of the base in exchange for $3.32 billion in development assistance this year and nearly $3 billion annually for Okinawa until 2021, the Japan Times reported.

Abe's Cabinet ministers expressed confidence that the relocation will proceed as planned, Kyodo news agency reported.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Inamine's re-election was "very disappointing," but he can do little to block construction.

"The central and local governments are on the same page, that the plan is the only solution to removing the danger of keeping the Futenma base [in a densely populated area] while maintaining deterrence," Suga said.

Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said relocation would continue, the BBC reported.

"We hope to make steady progress on the relocation plan in order to eliminate risks posed by Futenma," he said.

"It was a local election and I don't think it will immediately have a direct impact on the relocation issue."

Relocation of the Futenma base in Ginowan city is an emotional issue, where anti-base sentiment is high amid safety concerns about U.S. military operations.

Calls for the base relocation also strengthened after three U.S. servicemen raped an Okinawa school girl in 1995.

Even though people in Ginowan want the base relocated, they also know thousands of jobs would be lost.

The U.S. bases are a legacy of World War II when U.S. forces captured the island chain on their way to defeating Japan.

In 1972 the U.S. government returned the islands to Japanese administration, but air safety issues have increased calls for relocating the the base.

Since the return of Okinawa to Japanese authority in 1972, 44 crashes involving U.S. military aircraft have occurred, leaving 84 people dead, injured or missing, Asahi Shimbun reported.

Asahi Shimbun reported in August an HH-60 helicopter from the U.S. Marine base in Kadena on Okinawa crashed in a training area on the Marines' Camp Hansen base. There were no casualties.

In August 2004, a U.S. helicopter crashed into the grounds of Okinawa International University. There were no casualties except for minor injuries to the three U.S. crewmen.

Maintaining a presence in Okinawa in Japan's Ryukyu Island chain and about 400 miles south of the Japanese mainland is strategically important for the United States and its alliance with Japan.

Okinawa is relatively close to China at a time when Beijing is expanding its naval power including the deployment of the country's first aircraft carrier.

But Okinawa is less than 500 square miles and has a population of about 1.5 million people. More than a dozen U.S. bases on the island have a third of the 38,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Japan.

Critics of the U.S. bases on Okinawa say the island has a disproportionate number of U.S. personnel given the island's small size.

The United States and Japan agreed in 2012 to start reducing the number of U.S. military personnel on the island, The Washington Post reported at the time.

About 9,000 U.S. personnel eventually will leave for other bases in Japan, leaving about 10,000 Marines on Okinawa.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Relocation_of_Marines_Okinawa_base_will_go_ahead_999.html.

China starts building second aircraft carrier

Beijing (AFP)
Jan 18, 2014

China has started constructing the second of four planned aircraft carriers, a top government official said according to media reports on Saturday.

The ship is under construction in the northeastern port of Dalian and will take six years to build; the reports said quoting Wang Min, Communist Party chief for Dalian's Liaoning province.

The country's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was completed in September 2012 in a symbolic milestone for the country's increasingly muscular military.

Another two are in the pipeline, according to Wang, in a projection of power that could be seen as contradicting Beijing's long-stated policy of arming itself strictly for self-defense.

When the Liaoning went into service, Beijing and Tokyo were locked in a territorial row over the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea which China also claims and calls the Diaoyus.

The row continues to simmer, along with other sovereignty disputes with the Philippines and Vietnam.

Early this month a Japanese newspaper said China was overhauling its military structure in order to strengthen its attack capability and secure air and naval superiority in the South China and East China seas.

The Liaoning carrier conducted its maiden mission in the South China Sea in January.

It followed an incident in December in which a US warship was forced to avoid a collision with a Chinese naval vessel, prompting Washington to accuse China of being the aggressor.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/China_starts_building_second_aircraft_carrier_media_999.html.

Kiev protesters attack building with police inside

January 26, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's embattled president offered to make a top opposition leader prime minister, but protest leaders vowed demonstrations would continue and violence erupted early Sunday as a large crowd attacked a government hall with police stationed inside.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a former foreign minister who led efforts to bring Ukraine closer to the European Union, told a large crowd on Kiev's central square that President Viktor Yanukovych must still meet several key opposition demands and that talks will continue.

The overnight outburst underlined a growing inclination for radical actions among some in the protest movement that has gripped the capital for two months. More moderate opposition leaders like Yatsenyuk have tried appealing to stop the clashes, but have been booed or even sprayed with a fire extinguisher in the case of Vitali Klitschko, a heavyweight boxing champion turned opposition figure.

In the dark of night, demonstrators threw firebombs into the Ukrainian House building and setting off fireworks, and police responded with tear gas. Although the crowd created a corridor at the building's entrance apparently for police to leave, none were seen coming out.

The building under attack is about 250 meters (yards) down the street from Independence Square, where mostly peaceful demonstrations have been held around the clock since early December and where protesters have set up an extensive tent camp.

The assault started after an estimated 200 police were seen entering the building and speculation spread that they were preparing to disperse demonstrators. The protests began in Kiev after Yanukovych shelved a long-awaited trade pact with the EU in favor of securing a bailout loan from Russia, and boiled over into violence a week ago over new anti-protest laws.

Yanukovych's latest offer, coming as protester anger rises and spreads from the capital to a wide swath of the country, appeared to have been both a concession and an adroit strategy to put the opposition in a bind.

Accepting the offer could have tarred Yatsenyuk among protesters as a sell-out, but rejecting it could make him appear obdurate and unwilling to seek a way out of the crisis short of getting everything the opposition wants. Yanukovych also offered Klitschko a deputy premiership.

Yatsenyuk told the crowd at the main protest site that a special session of parliament called for Tuesday could be decisive. Yanukovych has said that session could discuss a government reshuffle and changes to the new anti-protest laws.

"Tuesday is judgment day," Yatsenyuk told protesters, referring to the parliament session. "We do not believe a single word of theirs. We believe only actions and results." At a later news conference, Yatsenyuk said, "we are not throwing out the proposal, but we are not accepting it, either. We are conducting serious consultations among three opposition forces."

He also said the opposition would demand that the government sign a free trade agreement with the EU and release political prisoners, including former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The opposition also is demanding early presidential elections.

The offer came hours after the head of the country's police, widely despised by the opposition, claimed protesters had seized and tortured two policemen before releasing them. The opposition denied it and said Interior Minister Vitali Zakharchenko was making a bogus claim in order to justify a police sweep against protesters.

Three protesters have died in the past week's clashes, two of them from gunshot wounds and a third of unspecified injuries. The Interior Ministry said a policeman was found shot in the head overnight. No arrests have been made or suspects named.

In the meeting with opposition leaders where he made the offer to Yatsenyuk, Yanukovych also agreed to discuss ways of changing Ukraine's constitution toward a parliamentary-presidential republic, which was one of the demands of the opposition, according to a statement on the presidential website.

If that change went through, the prime minister would have more powers and would be elected by parliament, not appointed by the president. Yanukovych backers currently have a majority in the parliament and the next scheduled election for the legislature will be in 2017.

Earlier, Zakharchenko said the two police officers had been released with the help of negotiations involving foreign embassies. He said they had been hospitalized, but didn't give details of how they allegedly were abused. He earlier said the officers were seized by volunteer security guards at the protest gatherings in Kiev and held in the city hall, which protesters have occupied since December and turned into a makeshift dormitory and operations center.

But the commandant of the corps, Mykhailo Blavatsky, told The Associated Press that no police officers had been seized. "The authorities are looking for a pretext to break up the Maidan ( and creating all kinds of provocations," he said. "Capturing a policeman would only give the authorities reason to go on the attack and we don't need that." Maidan is the Ukrainian name for Independence Square.

Zakharchenko earlier said a third captured officer had been released and was in serious condition in a hospital. "We will consider those who remain on the Maidan and in captured buildings to be extremist groups. In the event that danger arises, and radicals go into action, we will be obliged to use force," Zakharchenko said.

In the city of Lviv, where support for Yanukovych is minuscule, regional lawmakers on Saturday voted to establish a parallel government. Although the move was largely symbolic, it demonstrated the strong animosity toward the government in Ukraine's west. Ukrainian politics largely is divided between the Russian-speaking east, which is the industrial heartland, and the Ukrainian-speaking west.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has pressed hard to keep Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, in his nation's political and economic orbit, but more Ukrainians favor closer ties with the 28-nation EU than a new alliance with Russia.

On Saturday, about 100 protesters briefly occupied the headquarters of the energy ministry in downtown Kiev. Minister Eduard Stavitskiy said the country's nuclear energy facilities were placed on high alert.

Yuras Karmanau in Kiev and Laura Mills in Lviv contributed to this story.

Kiev rally cancelled over protester memorial

January 26, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's opposition called off a massive rally planned for Sunday because of the funeral for a protester killed in clashes with police last week, underscoring the rising tensions in the country's two-month political crisis.

Mikhail Zhiznevsky, 25, was one of two protesters who died of gunshot wounds on Wednesday. The opposition contends they were shot by police in an area where demonstrators had been throwing rocks and firebombs at riot police for several days.

The memorial service is to take place at Independence Square in the center of the Ukrainian capital, where protesters have established a large tent camp and held demonstrations around the clock since early December. Sunday rallies in previous weeks have attracted especially large crowds, sometimes exceeding 100,000 people.

The protests began in late November after President Viktor Yanukovych shelved a long-awaited agreement to deepen ties with the European Union, but they have been increasingly gripped by people seeking more radical action even as moderate opposition leaders have pleaded for a stop to violence.

A crowd late Saturday besieged a building, throwing fireworks, firebombs and rocks, near the protest tent camp where about 200 police were sheltering, but by early Sunday created a corridor allowing police to leave.

Thousands of people were already in the square on Sunday afternoon, but opposition leaders may be betting that by not formally calling people together for a rally the event will be smaller. The overnight outburst came soon after opposition leaders issued a defiant response to Yanukovych's offer to make Arseniy Yatsenyuk, one of their top figures, the country's prime minister. While not rejecting the offer outright, Yatsenyuk said more of the opposition's demands must be met, including Yanukovych's resignation. He vowed protests will continue.

About half of Ukraine's people favored deeper integration with the EU, according to polls, and many Ukrainians widely resent Russia's long influence over the country. In the past week, demonstrators have seized government administration buildings in a score of cities in western Ukraine, where Yanukovych's support is weak and desire for European ties is strong.

Associated Press writer Jim Heintz in Kiev contributed to this report.

In Ukraine, protests resemble Medieval battle

January 24, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — The towering fleece hats and elaborate beards of Ukraine's 16th-century Cossacks are favored by many of the demonstrators on Kiev's main square, who have camped out in anti-government protests for nearly two months.

When events turned violent this week, demonstrators' weapons also had an antique aura and clashes resembled a Medieval assault. ARMED TO THE TEETH Protesters have armed themselves like Crusaders with plywood shields, often painted with a cross, against the stun grenades and rubber bullets from police lines. They broke up the pavement on nearby streets and squares, lobbing the chunks toward the police.

They also hurled firebombs, firecrackers and fireworks at riot police officers, many of whom were injured when firebombs spilled burning fuel on their uniforms and helmets. Meanwhile, pro-opposition websites have alleged that the police are wrapping their stun grenades with nails and pieces of metal in order to inflict injuries.

Many protesters are protecting their heads with helmets and even colanders. One man came in Medieval battle armor, and another fashioned himself a bow and arrow for the fight. One group of men made a massive catapult from boards to pelt firebombs a longer distance; when it was burned down in a police attack, they rebuilt it the next day.

THE BARRICADES Protesters have attempted to keep the police at bay by building 10-foot-high (3-meter-high) barricades along all the entrances to Kiev's Independence Square. The barricades are piled high with everything from wooden poles to rubber tires.

On Thursday night, as temperatures dropped to minus-15 C (5 F), demonstrators shoveled snow into burlap sacks and tossed them to the top of the heap. They splashed the barricades with water to make them freeze solid and be tricky for police to climb.

On Wednesday, after police chased demonstrators away from one clash site, demonstrators set huge piles of tires alight, engulfing much of downtown Kiev in billowing black smoke. TAUNTING THE ENEMY Some protesters erected a mock tribunal with an effigy of President Viktor Yanukovych in a striped inmate's uniform, sitting in a cage with his arms and neck tied up to the metal bars. The opposition has invented a wide variety of chants mocking Yanukovych and his deputies.

Ukraine clashes resume, fires light up night sky

January 25, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — As riots spread from Ukraine's embattled capital to nearly half of the country, President Viktor Yanukovych promised Friday to reshuffle his government and make other concessions — but a top opposition leader said nothing short of his resignation would do.

Hours after the president's comments, huge fireballs lit up the night sky in central Kiev and plumes of thick black smoke rose from burning tires at giant barricades erected by protesters. Clashes resumed at the barricades, which are just yards from lines of riot police and also made up of bags of ice and scraps of furniture.

Angry demonstrators hurled firebombs, rocks and fireworks at officers. Riot police responded with tear gas and several dozen protesters were rushed to a makeshift medical triage area to be treated. "We will force the authorities to respect us," 27-year-old protester Artur Kapelan said. "Not they, but we will dictate the conditions of a truce."

The fighting had stopped earlier this week as opposition leaders entered into face-to-face talks with Yanukovych. But hundreds of demonstrators in ski masks and helmets were still armed with sticks, stones and firebombs at the Kiev barricades.

After nearly two months of ignoring mass demonstrations calling for his ouster, Yanukovych offered to meet some of their demands, after crowds angered by the deaths of at least two protesters and allegations of abuse by authorities besieged government buildings in scores of cities in western Ukraine.

At a meeting with religious leaders, Yanukovych vowed that, at a special parliament meeting on Tuesday, he would push through changes to his Cabinet, grant amnesty to dozens of jailed activists and amend harsh anti-protest legislation.

But Vitali Klitschko, an opposition leader who is a former world heavyweight boxing champion, declared the only way to end the street protests — known as the Maidan after the central Kiev square occupied by demonstrators — is for Yanukovych to resign.

"Just a month ago, the Maidan would have gone home," Klitschko told reporters Friday night, according to the Interfax news agency. "Today, people are demanding the president's resignation." The protest law enacted last week appeared to have backfired on Yanukovych, sparking confrontations in which demonstrators threw stones and firebombs at police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. The violence since Sunday was a harsh contrast to the determined peacefulness of the anti-government protests that have gripped the country for the last two months.

The rallies broke out after Yanukovych scrapped a key treaty with the European Union in order to secure a bailout loan from Russia. President Vladimir Putin had pressed hard to keep Ukraine in his nation's political and economic orbit, but more Ukrainians favor closer ties with the 28-nation EU than an new alliance with Russia.

At least two demonstrators were killed this week in clashes with police and protesters have seized government offices in cities in western Ukraine, where support for Yanukovych is thin. In a separate incident, a protester was found dead outside Kiev this week after going missing from a hospital together with a prominent activist who was beaten but survived.

Meanwhile, protester anger boiled over as one activist recounted Friday how he was stripped naked, beaten and humiliated by police after being detained this week at a barricade in Kiev. "They wanted to break my spirit and dignity but I stood firm," said Mykhailo Havrilyuk.

His plight shocked the country when a video of the abuse was posted online, showing him standing naked in the snow, covered in bruises and taunted by policemen. Protesters were further angered after Kiev courts on Friday placed about a dozen activists, detained in clashes earlier this week, under arrest.

On Friday, protesters continued occupying government buildings in a number of cities in western Ukraine, having forced two governors to resign and chasing another out of his office. Government buildings in many other cities were besieged by angry crowds.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who spent several years backing the scrapped EU agreement with Ukraine, suggested that Yanukovych was losing control over the country. He posted a map of Ukraine on his Twitter account, where many regions were shown engulfed by protests.

"If Kiev regime tries a military solution to this situation, it will be very bloody and it will fail," Bildt tweeted. EU enlargement commissioner Stefan Fuele flew to Kiev on Friday to meet with Yanukovych and the opposition and try to broker a solution. The West has been urging Yanukovych to compromise with the protesters as well as threatening sanctions against his government.

"The country is sliding towards dictatorship and we must stop that," said Denis Nakhmanovich, a 33-year-old protester. "Molotov cocktails are louder than any empty words from politicians."

AP reporter Sveta Fedas contributed to this story from Lviv, Ukraine.

Ukrainian protesters occupy government buildings

January 24, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Protesters on Friday seized a government building in the Ukrainian capital while also maintaining their siege of several governors' offices in the country's west, raising the pressure on the government.

After meeting with President Viktor Yanukovych for several hours late Thursday, opposition leaders told the crowds that he had promised to ensure the release of dozens of protesters detained after clashes with police, and stop further detentions. They urged the protesters to maintain a shaky truce following violent street battles in the capital, but were booed by demonstrators eager to resume clashes with police.

The truce has held, but early Friday protesters broke into the downtown building of the Ministry of Agricultural Policy, meeting no resistance. "We need to keep people warm in the frost," said one of the protesters, Andriy Moiseenko. "We cannot have people sleeping in tents all the time."

The demonstrators allowed ministry workers to take their possessions, but wouldn't allow them to go to work. The move followed the seizure of local governors' offices in several western regions on Thursday.

In Lviv, near the Polish border, some 450 kilometers (280 miles) west of Kiev, hundreds of activists burst into the office of the regional governor, Oleh Salo, a Yanukovych appointee, shouting "Revolution!" They forced a local governor to sign a resignation letter and remained in the building, refusing to let the workers in.

Protesters also have retained control of offices in four other western cities seized Thursday, though they suffered a setback in Cherkasy, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) southeast of Kiev, where police barricaded the governor's building from inside and prevented them from taking control. Police reinforcements arrived later, dispersing the protesters and arresting several dozen of them.

Yanukovych, meanwhile, called an emergency session of parliament — which is controlled by his loyalists — next week to discuss the tensions. It wasn't clear if Yanukovych's move Thursday reflected his intention to bow to some of the protesters' demands, or was just an attempt to buy some time and try to ease tensions.

His Interior Minister Vitali Zakharchenko issued a statement late Thursday guaranteeing that police would not take action against the large protest camp on Independence Square, known as the Maidan. He also urged police not to react to provocations.

The demonstrations began two months ago after Yanukovych abruptly ditched an association agreement with the European Union in favor of a bailout loan from Russia. The protests have been largely peaceful, but they turned violent Sunday after Yanukovych pushed through harsh anti-protest laws and stonewalled protesters' demands that he call new elections.

Two people were fatally shot in the clashes Wednesday, the first deaths since the protest began, fueling fears of further escalation. The opposition has blamed the deaths on authorities, but Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Thursday that the two men's wounds were caused by hunting rifles, which the police do not possess.

The opposition claimed that as many as five protesters were killed in Wednesday's clashes, though they said they have no evidence because the bodies were removed by authorities. Opposition leaders had earlier set a Thursday evening deadline for the government to make concessions or face renewed clashes, but then pleaded with the crowds to extend the truce, even though the talks with Yanukovych brought little visible progress and there was no word about meeting the main protesters' demand for early elections.

Opposition optimistic after meeting Yanukovych

January 23, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — The chances of ending the violence that has convulsed the Ukrainian capital are high, a spokeswoman for a top opposition leader said late Thursday after a meeting with the president.

Olha Lappo, a spokeswoman for Arseniy Yatsenyuk, made the statement on his Facebook page Thursday after an hours-long meeting with President Viktor Yanukovych. That came after opposition leaders gave a Thursday evening deadline to make concessions or face renewed clashes.

She did not provide details, but the assessment appeared to be the first sign of progress in resolving the two-month crisis that is threatening to spread well beyond Kiev. However, some protesters were resistant on Thursday night. Opposition leader Vitali Klitschko, one of those who met with Yanukovych, went to the site of clashes to try to persuade demonstrators to hold to an uneasy truce, but was booed and some cried "Shame!"

The demonstrators again set aflame barricades of tires that had been quenched when opposition leaders offered the deadline. The clash site is a few hundred meters (yards) away from the protester tent camp on Independence Square, where around-the-clock demonstrations have been held since early December.

At least two people were killed by gunfire at the clash site on Wednesday. Demonstrators had pelted riot police with barrages of stones and set police buses on fire, while the officers responded with rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades.

Enraged protesters stormed government offices in three western Ukraine cities Thursday, forcing one governor to write a letter of resignation, as demonstrations intensified outside Kiev. The president called a special session of parliament next week to discuss the tensions, telling the parliament speaker: "The situation demands an urgent settlement." But there was no indication that the move represented a compromise, since the president's backers hold a majority of seats.

The protests began after Yanukovych turned away from closer ties with the European Union in favor of getting a bailout loan from Russia. They turned violent this week after he pushed through harsh anti-protest laws, rejecting protesters' demands that he resign and call new elections.

Support for Yanukovych is virtually non-existent in western Ukraine and most residents want closer ties to the 28-nation EU. In Lviv, a city in near the Polish border 450 kilometers (280 miles) west of Kiev, hundreds of activists burst Thursday into the office of regional governor Oleh Salo, a Yanukovych appointee, shouting "Revolution!" and singing Christmas carols.

After surrounding him and forcing him to sign a resignation letter, an activist ripped it out of Salo's hands and lifted it up to the cheers and applause of the crowd. Salo later retracted his signature, saying he had been coerced.

Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters smashed windows, broke doors and stormed into the governor's office in the city of Rivne, shouting "Down with the gang!" — a common reference to Yanukovych's government. Once inside, they sang the national anthem.

Angry crowds also besieged government offices in other western regions. Meanwhile, anger spread after a video was released online appearing to show police abusing and humiliating a naked protester in what looked like a location close to the site of the Kiev clashes.

In the video, a young man, his body covered in multiple bruises, wearing nothing but socks, is made to stand on the snow in freezing temperatures, while a policeman punches him in the head and others force him to pose for photos.

The Interior Ministry issued a statement, apologizing "for the impermissible actions of people wearing police uniforms" and launched an investigation into the incident. The protests have been centered on Kiev's main square, where demonstrators have defended a large tent camp for nearly two months. On Wednesday, riot police moved to dismantle barricades erected next to a government district nearby and two people were fatally shot in the clashes.

The opposition has blamed the deaths on authorities, but Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Thursday that the two men's wounds were caused by hunting rifles, which the police do not possess. The Interior Ministry said that the people could have been killed in order to escalate the crisis.

The opposition maintains that as many as five people died in Wednesday's clashes, but say they have no evidence as the bodies were removed by authorities. The Interior Ministry said Thursday that 73 people have been detained, 52 of whom are being investigated for "mass riots" — a new criminal charge that carries a prison sentence of up to eight years.

Reaction from the West and neighboring Russia has been mixed. The United States has revoked the visas of Ukrainian officials linked to violence and threatened more sanctions. On Thursday, it welcomed Yanukovych's face-to-face talks with the opposition as a "necessary first step toward resolving this crisis."

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Thursday that if the situation in Ukraine does not stabilize, the EU "would assess possible consequences in its relationship." Barroso also said he had received assurances from Yanukovych that the Ukrainian leader did not foresee the need to impose a state of emergency.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her nation doesn't think this is the time to consider sanctions against the Ukrainian government but added that it must comply "with its obligations to secure fundamental democratic rights."

Russia, in turn, accused the West of meddling in Ukraine's affairs. "We feel regret and indignation about the obvious foreign interference in the developments in Kiev," Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda.

AP writers contributing to this report included Svetlana Fedas in Lviv; Maria Danilova in Kiev; John-Thor Dahlburg in Davos, Switzerland; Raf Casert in Brussels; Josh Lederman in Washington, Geir Moulson in Berlin; and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow.

Ukraine opposition sets 24-hour deadline

January 22, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian opposition leaders issued a stark ultimatum to President Viktor Yanukovych on Wednesday to call early elections within 24 hours or face more popular rage, after at least two protesters were killed in confrontations with police in a grim escalation of a two-monthlong political crisis.

The protesters' deaths, the first since the largely peaceful protests started in November, fueled fears that the daily demonstrations aimed at bringing down the government over its decision to shun the European Union for closer ties to Moscow and over human rights violations could turn more violent.

With a central Kiev street ablaze and covered with thick black smoke from burning tires and several thousand protesters continuing to clash with riot police, opposition leaders urged tens of thousands of demonstrators in a nearby square to refrain from violence and remain in the main protest camp for the next 24 hours.

They demanded that Yanukovych dismiss the government, call early elections and scrap harsh anti-protest legislation. It was last week's passage of the laws cracking down on protests that set off the violent clashes.

"You, Mr. President, have the opportunity to resolve this issue. Early elections will change the situation without bloodshed and we will do everything to achieve that," opposition leader Vitali Klitschko told some 40,000 people who braved freezing temperatures on Kiev's Independence Square late Wednesday.

If Yanukovych does not concede, "tomorrow we will go forward together. And if it's a bullet in the forehead, then it's a bullet in the forehead, but in an honest, fair and brave way," declared another opposition leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk

Yanukovych has showed little willingness to compromise, however. A three-hour meeting with opposition leaders accomplished "nothing," said Oleh Tyahbnybok, who attended the session. Meanwhile, the government handed security forces extra powers, including closing off streets and firing water cannon against protesters despite the freezing temperatures. Police have already used water cannon but insisted it was only to put out fires. The government also deployed an armored personnel carrier at the site of the clashes.

During Wednesday's confrontations, riot police violently beat and shot at protesters, volunteer medics and journalists. The Interior Ministry announced that 70 protesters had been arrested. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said the police did not have live ammunition and that opposition leaders should be held responsible for the deaths.

City health officials and police said that two people died of gunshot wounds during the clashes Wednesday morning, while the opposition contended as many as five people died. Oleh Musiy, coordinator of the protesters' medical corps, told the Associated Press that four people died of gunshot wounds and the fifth died after falling from a colonnaded gate at a sports arena near the site of the clashes. Health officials contend that man survived and is in the hospital. Hundreds of others were injured in the clashes, Musiy said.

Meanwhile, another protester, Yuri Verbitsky, was found dead in a forest outside Kiev on Wednesday, according to his niece Oksana Verbitska. His friends and supporters believe he was kidnapped. The United States responded by revoking the visas of Ukrainian officials linked to violence and threatened more sanctions. But it also condemned the extreme-right radical protesters for their aggressive actions. The EU condemned the violence and said it was also considering action against the Ukrainian government.

One of the victims was identified as Sergei Nigoyan, a 20-year-old ethnic Armenian who joined the protests in December after traveling from his home in the eastern city of Dnipropetrovsk. A video shows Nigoyan reciting poetry in the protest camp in Kiev's Independence Square, also known as the Maidan. He then clenched his fist in a victory sign as a yellow-and-blue Ukrainian flag flapped in the background.

A Ukrainian journalist, Kristina Berdinskikh, who has been profiling protesters for several weeks, interviewed Nigoyan in early January. "I saw on TV what is happening on the Maidan, I didn't sleep at night, I was following the news," Nagoyan said, according to a transcript of the interview posted online. "Then I decided to come. This is also my future."

The mass protests erupted after Yanukovych spurned a pact with the European Union in favor of close ties with Russia, which offered him a $15 billion bailout. They swelled to hundreds of thousands after a small peaceful rally on Nov. 30 was violently broken up by police.

Seeing the government ignore their demands and opposition leaders unable to present a coherent plan or select a single leader, radical protesters have clashed with riot police since Sunday, hurling fire bombs and stones as police fired back with tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets.

The two victims' bodies were found before police moved to tear down protesters' barricades near official buildings in central Kiev and chase demonstrators away. Helmeted riot police moved in on hundreds of protesters, dismantling barricades, beating many with truncheons and firing shots at some. One man was attacked by over a dozen policemen, then forced to take off his winter jacket before being dragged away, where he was beaten again.

The police drove demonstrators down a hill toward the main protest site on Independence Square, where protesters have set up an extensive tent camp and rallied around the clock since Nov. 21. But the protesters soon returned, building barricades from giant sacks of snow and hurling rocks and firebombs at police lines. There was no immediate police move on the main camp.

Oleksandr Turchynov, one of the opposition leaders, called on Ukrainians to rush to the center of Kiev to defend their country. "Ukraine will not be a dictatorship, it will be an independent, European country," he said. "Let us defend Ukraine!"

The protests were the biggest since the peaceful 2004 Orange Revolution, which annulled Yanukovych's fraud-tinged victory in a presidential election and forced a new vote that brought his pro-Western rival to power. Largely peaceful, the rallies turned violent after Yanukovych, elected in 2010, pushed through sweeping anti-protest legislation and ignored all the protesters' demands. The deaths mark a turning point in the standoff that could lead to more violence.

"Look, the deaths and the injuries speak to the actions of those in power. They've crossed the line," said Andriy Kolosovich, a 20-year-old protester who was injured in the legs by a stun grenade and was being treated in a medical unit set up by the protesters.

Ukraine protests turn into fiery street battles

January 20, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Anti-government protests in Ukraine's capital escalated into fiery street battles with police Sunday as thousands of demonstrators hurled rocks and firebombs to set police vehicles ablaze. Dozens of officers and protesters were injured.

Police responded with stun grenades, tear gas and water cannons, but were outnumbered by the protesters. Many of the riot police held their shields over their heads to protect themselves from the projectiles thrown by demonstrators on the other side of a cordon of buses.

The violence was a sharp escalation of Ukraine's two-month political crisis, which has brought round-the-clock protest gatherings, but had been largely peaceful. Opposition leader Vitali Klitschko tried to persuade demonstrators to stop their unrest, but failed and was sprayed by a fire extinguisher in the process. Klitschko later traveled to President Viktor Yanukovych's suburban residence and said the president has agreed to negotiate.

"There are only two ways for events to develop. The first one is not to negotiate," Klitschko was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. "A scenario of force can be unpredictable and I don't rule out the possibility of a civil war. ... And here we are using all possibilities in order to prevent bloodshed."

Yanukovych said later on his Web site that he has tasked a working group, headed by national security council head Andriy Klyuev, to meet with opposition representatives to work out a solution to the crisis. However, it was unclear if either side was prepared for real compromise; throughout the crisis, the opposition has insisted on the government's resignation and calling early presidential elections.

The White House blamed the increased tensions on Ukraine's government for failing to acknowledge its people's legitimate grievances and threatened sanctions if the use of violence continues. National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said Ukraine's government "has moved to weaken the foundations of Ukraine's democracy by criminalizing peaceful protest and stripping civil society and political opponents of key democratic protections under the law."

She called on Ukraine to repeal recent laws limiting protests, remove riot police from downtown Kiev and start talking to the opposition. "The U.S. will continue to consider additional steps -- including sanctions -- in response to the use of violence," Hayden said in a statement.

The crisis erupted in November after Yanukovych's decision to freeze ties with the European Union and seek a huge bailout from Russia. The decision sparked protests, which increased in size and determination after police twice violently dispersed demonstrators.

But anger rose substantially after Yanukovych last week signed an array of laws severely limiting protests and banning the wearing of helmets and gas masks. Many of Sunday's demonstrators wore hardhats and masks in defiance of the new laws. They set several police buses on fire and some chased and beat officers.

Police responded with tear gas and stun grenades. Water cannons were also fired at the protesters in temperatures of -8 C (18 F), but the clashes continued. The harsh new laws brought a crowd of tens of thousands to the protest at Kiev's central square on Sunday.

While most remained on the square, a group of radicals marched toward a police cordon several hundred meters away blocking an area housing government offices and began attacking riot police with sticks to push their way toward Ukraine's parliament building. The crowd then swelled to thousands.

The blasts of stun grenades echoed and plumes of smoke rose above the crowd. Activists chanted "Shame!" and "Revolution." The Interior Ministry said more than 70 police were injured, four of them seriously; there were no immediate figures for protester injuries.

The ministry also said a criminal case had been opened on charges of mass disorder; convictions under that charge could bring prison sentences of up to 15 years. Klitschko's top allies, who stood by his side at the peaceful rally earlier in the day, didn't show up at the site of the clashes for the most of the day. Instead, they called for a peaceful means of protest from nearby Independence Square and condemned the clashes.

"No power in the country is worth losing at least one human life," protest leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk said from the stage at the central square as the clashes dragged late into the evening a few hundred meters away. "That is why I condemn the violence that took place just now."

Scores of opposition leaders and journalists have been attacked, harassed and prosecuted, since the anti-government protests started Nov. 21. Yanukovych's government has ignored previous demands made by the opposition.

Opposition leaders denounced Yanukovych's legislation as unconstitutional and called for the formation of parallel governing structures in the country. "The power in Ukraine belongs to the people," Yatsenyuk said.

Associated Press writer Josh Lederman in Washington contributed to this story.

Small plane crash in Romania unleashes public ire

January 23, 2014

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — A small plane crash on a remote mountain wouldn't normally be enough to anger an entire country or threaten the government. Romania, however, is dealing with just this scenario.

So far, four senior officials including the interior minister have resigned or been fired after all those onboard a medical flight initially survived Monday's crash in thick fog. One of the pilots and a medical student later died of hypothermia among other causes after waiting for hours in deep snow to be saved.

Romanians reacted with fury, taking to social media and talk shows to accuse the government of incompetence and complacency after it emerged the least injured of the survivors called emergency services six times.

It took 4 ½ hours for local villagers and a woodcutter to locate the plane in Transylvania after it lost altitude and crashed at 1,400 meters (4,600 feet) above sea level. But medical teams arrived hours later and were reportedly ill-equipped. The plane, carrying two pilots and five medical workers, was on its way to pick up a liver for a transplant.

"The government generally does nothing, and in this case they did nothing to locate the plane. A woodcutter had to find them," aviation professor Nicolae Serban Tomescu said. "The rescue operation was like Swiss cheese. There were holes everywhere."

But some officials have defended the government's response to the crash, saying rescuers were working in difficult weather conditions and in darkness. Nonetheless, public ire has reached a crescendo because many believe the government was unable to muster up-to-date equipment to rescue the crash victims, but is willing to invest its resources heavily on surveillance. Romania, a country of 19 million with no foreign enemies, has seven intelligence agencies, including the main domestic and foreign spying agencies. Democracy activists claim that those in power use intelligence to gain unfair advantages over opponents and dig up compromising data.

A political cartoon on the front page of Romanian daily Jurnalul National on Wednesday suggested the crash victims would have been found sooner if someone on the flight had been under surveillance. The caricature had two well-equipped secret agents joking, "How the hell can we locate the crashed airplane? Hmm, had there been a journalist, a deputy or a Senator on it, well . !!!"

There is also anger because the elite telecommunications agency — one of the seven intelligence agencies — invested 40 million euros in the country's national emergency number, and the six calls one of the survivors made didn't appear to be enough to get help there quickly enough.

The blowback has taken its toll on the government, which is vying to win a presidential election in November. Interior Minister Radu Stroe handed in his resignation to the prime minister Thursday to become the highest-ranking government official to leave his post in the scandal. The country's air traffic control chief, the head of the emergency services and another senior Interior Ministry official have also lost their jobs.

Prime Minister Victor Ponta fired two of those officials and called for the resignations of others not under his authority. Addressing the national mood Thursday, he used his strongest language to date pointing to "serious errors in the rescue operation ... particularly the techniques used for identifying the wreckage." He promised that in the future authorities would be "much more efficient."

Ponta is also trying to save face because it was he who went on a talk show Monday evening to initially say all seven people on the flight had survived. Romanians had been glued to TV news bulletins, and the story was at first presented by the government as one with a happy ending.

"The pilot did everything he could to save their lives but the authorities were negligent," said Iuliana Popescu, a security guard. "Why did it take them so many hours? Even if they got lost, they should have got their earlier. Nobody had to die."

But former emergency services chief Ion Burlui, who resigned Wednesday, said authorities had done their job properly in difficult conditions, including deep snow, dense fog and darkness. "Winter is not like summer and the mountain is not like the plains," he said. "These people intervened ... risking their lives to save other people."

The pilot who was killed, Adrian Iovan, had 30 years of experience and was well known in Romania as an aviation expert who went on TV whenever there was an accident. He died of hypothermia and from numerous fractures. Aurelia Ion, a 23-year-old volunteer medical student in her fifth year, died from hypothermia and multiple injuries. No official has said that their lives could have been saved if rescuers had arrived earlier, but many blame the slow response on their deaths.

Cristian Tudorica, a 36-year-old bank clerk, summed up the public mood. "Those doctors were on the flight to save others," he said. "It is right that the (interior) minister resigned. These people should not have died."