Security Forces Shoot At Darfur Students in Khartoum

11 MARCH 2014

Khartoum — A Darfuri student of the University of Khartoum was shot dead by security forces on Tuesday. Other students from Darfur were injured.

The students had organised a political meeting within the university premises, condemning the silence of the Sudanese government about the ongoing violence against civilians in Darfur. When they went to the streets in a peaceful march, security troops opened fire on them.

Speaking to Radio Dabanga, multiple sources reported that the security forces used excessive violence during and after the meeting, when the students went to the streets in a march to hand a memorandum against the violence in Darfur to the UN representative in Khartoum.

The security forces used batons, tear gas, and live bullets to disperse the demonstrators. Ali Abakar Musa Idris, student at the Faculty of Economics, was killed instantly, and a number of other Darfuri students were injured, including Mohamed Ishag Abdallah of the Bahri University, and Mohanad Abu Elgasim of the University of Khartoum.

Dormitory

"The security forces arrested dozens of Darfuri students during the demonstration," the chairman of the Darfur Students' Association of the University of Khartoum told Radio Dabanga this afternoon. He confirmed that the body of the killed student was transferred to the Bashayir Hospital.

Security troops also stormed the Zahra dormitory of the University of Khartoum, and beat the Darfuri women students, the chairman said.

According to the chairman of the Darfur Students' Association of the Islamic University three Darfuri students sustained bullet wounds when security troops and students of the ruling National Congress Party shot at them. He confirmed that the security forces used live bullets to "intimidate and disperse" the demonstrating students.

'Peace and Justice for Darfur'

The chairman explained that the Associations of Sons of Darfur had invited the students from all Khartoum State universities and higher institutes to the meeting under the motto "No to war. Yes to Peace - No to racism and tribalism - Peace and Justice for Darfur!".

"The meeting was organised in response to the attacks on Saraf Omra, El Taweisha, and Alliet in North Darfur, and on the villages in the area south of the Ed-Daein-Nyala railway in South Darfur. After the meeting the students decided to march to an UN office in Khartoum to hand a memorandum. They were immediately stopped by police and security troops, who fired tear gas at them and began shooting."

Kalashnikovs

The chairman of the Darfur Students' Association of the Islamic University described what had happened inside the University of Khartoum's compound. "Students belonging of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) entered the university, along with security troops, carrying Molotov cocktails, revolvers, and Kalashnikovs to intimidate the students at the meeting, and disperse them."

"It is amazing that the administration of the University of Khartoum allowed heavily armed NCP students and the security forces to enter the university premises." The chairman further noted that the total number of injured students injured is unknown.

Source: allAfrica.
Link: http://allafrica.com/stories/201403111643.html.

Egyptian lawyer to file lawsuit demanding the banning of Israeli activities in Egypt

Wednesday, 05 March 2014

Hamid Seddik, an Egyptian legal expert, said in a press statement that he would file a lawsuit at the Court of Urgent Matters, which banned Hamas this week, demanding the banning of all Israeli activities in Egypt and closing down its embassy.

On Tuesday, the same court issued a verdict banning all Hamas activities in Egypt, and closing down its headquarters.

"If the Court of Urgent Matters declines the lawsuit, I will submit it to the Administrative Court," Seddik said.

He pointed out that he will cite Israel's "espionage" activities against Egypt, including the latest case involving Israeli spies.

The Egyptian Higher State Security Prosecution announced on February 2 the referral of an "Israeli espionage network" to court. The network, according to the prosecution's statement, is made up of 3 Egyptians, two Israelis, and four officers affiliated with the Israeli Military Intelligence apparatus. All Israeli defendants are at large.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/10117-egyptian-lawyer-to-file-lawsuit-demanding-the-banning-of-israeli-activities-in-egypt.

Egypt: Coup authorities take over largest Muslim Brotherhood school chain

Wednesday, 05 March 2014

Egyptian authorities took over a school chain owned by Muslim Brotherhood affiliates in the Upper Egypt governorate of Asyut.

Dar Hiraa school chain is reportedly the largest school chain partly owned by Muslim Brotherhood affiliates in Egypt. It includes 87 schools and is located in different places across the country.

On Monday, the Education Ministry Directorate in Asyut announced the changing of the school's name into "30 June", which marks the date of the military coup d'état against Egypt's first democratically-elected president Mohamed Morsi.

The Ministry of Education formed a new board for the school's administration, excluding all members of the Muslim Brotherhood and all those who supported the anti-coup protests following June 30.

On Tuesday, police raided the school and informed its staff about the newly appointed board. Police forces were deployed inside the school.

Wafaa Mashhour, the original chairwoman of the board, said in statements to Anadolu news agency that the procedures "are worse than arrests". "My relation with this school is older than my relation with my children. Forcibly sacking me from the school is a very cruel decision," she said.

"The school is a subsidiary of an NGO which includes all sections of society. Its board has been elected by the NGO's members. This is an educational institution. The fact that some of its board members are affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood is not harmful to the school."

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/10120-egypt-coup-authorities-take-over-largest-muslim-brotherhood-school-chain.

Thousands gather for Turkish teen's funeral

March 12, 2014

ISTANBUL (AP) — Thousands of people have gathered in Istanbul for the funeral of a Turkish teenager who died nine months after slipping into a coma from being hit by a police tear-gas canister during anti-government protests.

Fifteen-year old Berkin Elvan's death on Tuesday sparked clashes between protesters and riot police in several cities. On Wednesday, thousands converged in front of a house of worship calling for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to resign.

Berkin was on his way to buy bread during anti-government street protests when he was struck in the head by a high-velocity gas canister. Several police officers were questioned about Berkin's head injury but none has been charged.

His death raised the number of fatalities from last summer's protests to at least eight.

Afghan VP, ex-Northern alliance commander, dies

March 09, 2014

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan's influential Vice President Mohammad Qasim Fahim, a leading commander in the alliance that fought the Taliban who was later accused with other warlords of targeting civilian areas during the country's civil war, died Sunday. He was 57.

Fahim was an ethnic Tajik who was the top deputy of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the charismatic Northern Alliance commander who was killed in an al-Qaida suicide bombing two days before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He died a month before Afghans go to the polls to choose a new president to replace Hamid Karzai, who is barred from seeking a third consecutive term.

Fahim's death could bring some sympathy votes to presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah, who was also a member of the Northern Alliance and a friend. But it is not expected to cause any dramatic ripples in either the campaign or the polling.

Karzai's office said Fahim — who held the rank of field marshal and had survived several assassination attempts, most recently in 2009 in northern Afghanistan — died of natural causes in Kabul. The government declared three days of mourning beginning Monday, and Karzai and other dignitaries rushed to Fahim's house in Kabul to pay their respects.

His longtime friend and Afghanistan's ambassador to Spain, Masood Khalili, said Fahim "was not feeling good. He had diabetes. He had had two heart operations and three times he had gone to Germany for check-ups." Khalili was badly wounded in the same suicide bombing that killed Massoud.

Fahim served as defense minister in Karzai's first administration and most recently was the first of two vice presidents. But he was best remembered as a former warlord who fought against the Soviets when they occupied the country and for taking part in the bitter internecine fighting that marked the early 1990s. He went on to battle alongside Massoud against the Taliban.

In a televised address to the nation, Karzai called Fahim his close friend and brother. "No one can replace him. It is a loss for all of us," Karzai said. "Fahim was part of every historic decision made for the future of Afghanistan."

Fahim "started his fight for the liberation of Afghanistan," when he was barely out of his teens, Khalili said in a telephone interview from Spain. "He was one of the heroes of Afghanistan. He was the one who stood alongside Massoud. He never accepted the Taliban, their ideas, their government. He was always rejecting al-Qaida as terrorists," Khalili said.

The Pashtun-dominated Taliban seized Kabul in 1996 and ruled from the capital until they were ousted five years later by the U.S.-led coalition and its Afghan allies in the Northern Alliance, made mostly of minorities including ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras.

Fahim was widely accused of marginalizing all Pashtuns, particularly in the security services, during his tenure as defense minister in the first years after the Taliban's collapse. He was bitterly criticized for alleged past atrocities, such as killing civilians by rocketing residential areas and booby-trapping homes, his heavy handedness and allegations of corruption.

Human Rights Watch accused Fahim, as well as several other prominent warlords allied with the U.S.-led coalition, of war crimes when they last ruled in Afghanistan in the early 1990s, before the Taliban took over.

He was removed from his post as defense minister in 2004. "He kept quiet when he was removed as defense minister. He wanted the country to move toward democracy," Khalili said. As Afghanistan headed into its first presidential elections in 2004, Fahim distanced himself from Karzai and threw his support behind his fellow Tajik, Yunus Qanooni. Eventually the two men reconciled and Karzai chose Fahim as his first vice president in the 2009 presidential elections, putting him first in line to fill in for the Afghan leader during absences from the country.

"I was just writing in my diary my thoughts. He was a good man. I have good memories of my friend," Khalili said. "He wasn't just a fighter. He had a kind, soft heart for culture, for poetry. There was a milder side to him. It was not just always that he was thinking with the gun. He also thought of poor Afghans."

Khalili recalled last year's ceremony to mark the anniversary of Massoud's death. "I turned to Fahim and I said: 'Next year Fahim, either you or I will not be here in this world. Only God will be here,'" he said.

Kathy Gannon is AP special regional correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Associated Press writer Kim Gamel contributed to this report.

UN: 5.5 million Syrian children affected by war

March 11, 2014

BEIRUT (AP) — The number of Syrian children affected by the civil war in their homeland has doubled in the past year to at least 5.5 million — more than half the country's children — with devastating effects on the health, education and psychological well-being of an entire generation, the United Nations children's agency said Tuesday.

The conflict, which enters its fourth year this month, has unleashed massive suffering across all segments of Syrian society, but the impact on children has been especially acute, according to a new report by UNICEF. Malnutrition and illness have stunted their growth; a lack of learning opportunities has derailed their education; and the bloody trauma of war has left deep psychological scars.

"After three years of conflict and turmoil, Syria is now one of the most dangerous places on earth to be a child," the agency said. "In their thousands, children have lost lives and limbs, along with virtually every aspect of their childhood. They have lost classrooms and teachers, brothers and sisters, friends, caregivers, homes and stability."

"Millions of young people risk becoming, in effect, a lost generation," UNICEF said. Since the conflict began, thousands of videos and photographs of bloodied babies, lifeless children and bombed out schools in Syria have provided stark images of the war's impact on children. But in many ways, figures provide perhaps the clearest indication of how sweeping an effect the conflict has on their lives.

UNICEF said that more than 10,000 children have been killed in the violence, which would translate into the highest casualty rates recorded in any recent conflict in the region. Of those who have survived, thousands have been wounded, lost their home and schools, and seen family members and friends killed. That trauma has left around 2 million children in need of psychological support or treatment, the agency said.

Almost 3 million children are displaced inside Syria, while another 1.2 million have fled the country and now live as refugees in camps and overwhelmed neighboring communities where clean water, food and other basic items are scarce.

On the education front, UNICEF said that nearly half of Syria's school-age children — 2.8 million and counting — cannot get an education because of the devastation and violence. More than 2 million of those who should be in classes remain within Syria's borders, as education and health services collapse and classrooms are bombed or used as shelters and military barracks. Another 300,000 Syrian children are out of school in Lebanon, along with some 93,000 in Jordan, 78,000 in Turkey, 26,000 in Iraq and 4,000 in Egypt, agency officials said in Geneva.

Many are forced to grow up fast: One in 10 refugee children is now working, the agency estimates, while one in five Syrian girls in Jordan is forced into early marriage. Inside Syria, boys as young as 12 have been recruited to help the rebels, some as fighters and others in a support role, the U.N. report said.

Syria's conflict began in March 2011 with largely peaceful protests against President Bashar Assad. Facing a brutal government crackdown, protesters eventually took up arms and the country descended into a civil war that has killed more than 140,000 people so far.

Two rounds of peace talks in Switzerland early this year between Assad's government and Syria's main Western-backed political opposition group broke up without making any progress, and there are no immediate plans for another session.

On the ground, meanwhile, the fighting has shown no sign of slowing down. On Tuesday, three suicide bombers blew themselves up in a local administration building in the Kurdish town of Qamishli in northeast Syria, killing at least five people, state media and a Kurdish official said.

The state news agency said the blasts at the Hadaya Hotel killed five people, but a Kurdish official at the scene said at least seven people died, including four women. The hotel in the center of Qamishli has functioned as a municipality building, said Joan Mohammed, who spoke to The Associated Press by phone. The area has been the scene of heavy fighting recently between Kurdish gunmen and members of the al-Qaida breakaway group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Mohammed said several people wearing explosive belts and firearms shot dead the guards outside the building, walked in and hurled grenades before blowing themselves up. One of them was caught before he detonated his belt and was being questioned.

He said the dead included two employees and two visitors. He added that 15 people were wounded. "The building is in the center of the town and is usually very crowded," said Mohammad, adding that Kurdish fighters in the area were "on high alert" following the attack.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion immediately fell on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Militants from the group have been fighting Kurdish gunmen for months in northern Syria in battles that left hundreds of people dead.

Kurds have carved out their own territory in the country's northeast, declaring their own civil administration in areas under their control amid the chaos of the civil war. But Kurdish militias continue to battle Islamic militant fighters in an offensive that has accelerated in recent months.

Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Syria, making up more than 10 percent of the country's 23 million people.

Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, and John Heilprin in Geneva contributed to this report.

UNRWA to employ fresh graduates from Gaza

12th of March 2014, Wednesday

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) – The UN's Palestine refugee agency has decided to temporarily employ 210 fresh graduates from the Gaza Strip, says a spokesman of the director of UNRWA operations in the central Gaza Strip.

Khalil al-Halabi added in a statement that 210 alumni who graduated in 2013-2014 from Palestinian universities would be hired for nine months at UN-affiliated schools in the Gaza Strip. He added that $1 million donated by the Islamic Relief of Saudi Arabia has been allocated to the temporary program.

Al-Halabi highlighted that UNRWA started to distribute aid in cash to families whose properties sustained damage as a result of the snow storm Alexa in mid-December. More than 1,000 families will receive cash.

Source: Ma'an News Agency.
Link: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=680911.

Hamas slams ruling banning the movement in Egypt

Tuesday, 04 March 2014

Hamas criticized on Tuesday an Egyptian Court's ruling to ban the group's activities and close its offices in Cairo.

A member of the Islamic Resistance Movement's political bureau; Ezzat Al-Resheq said in a brief statement posted on Twitter: "The decision is political which targets the Palestinian people and their resistance".

The movement's spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum said the court's decision proves Egypt has abandoned its role to support the Palestinian steadfastness and resistance; stressing that Hamas will not retaliate despite this decision which he described as "unjust and unfair".

"Our goal and our weapons will remain towards the Israeli enemy," he said.

Egyptian advocate Samir Sabri sent an urgent appeal to Egypt's interim president Adly Mansour; Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim and Prime Minister; Ibrahim Mahlab, demanding they ban the group's activities and to list it as a terrorist organisation; claiming that many countries around the world have already done so.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/10092-hamas-slams-ruling-banning-the-movement-in-egypt.

Domestic violence cases spark protests in Lebanon

March 08, 2014

BEIRUT (AP) — Nada Sabbagh received a brief, chilling telephone call from her son-in-law last month telling her: "Come to your daughter. I am going to kill her."

Sabbagh said by the time she arrived to her daughter's home in Beirut, her husband had kicked, punched and beaten her with a pressure cooker, leaving her mortally wounded and bleeding on the floor. "I walked in and started jumping in shock then begged him to let me take her out," Sabbagh later recounted. She said he responded by saying: "I will not let her out. I want her to die in front of you."

Manal Assi's husband, Mohammed Nuheili, was detained shortly afterward and is still being questioned by authorities. It remains unclear if he has a lawyer and he could not be reached for comment. The killing of Sabbagh's daughter is one of three domestic violence slayings in Lebanon in recent months, drawing new attention to women's rights in this country of 4 million people. Although Lebanon appears very progressive on women rights compared to other countries in the Middle East, domestic violence remains an unspoken problem and the nation's parliament has yet to vote on a bill protecting women's rights nearly three years after it was approved by the Cabinet.

"If a woman does not have authority in her house, how can she take an authoritative post (in government)? It starts here," said Maya al-Ammar, an official with a Lebanese women's rights group Kafa, Arabic for "Enough." ''If you don't remove (domestic) violence and the woman can't become the ruler of herself, she will not be able to be able to take a decision-making post."

Civil rights activists say that a woman is killed every month by their husbands on average in Lebanon, while thousands are subjected to physical or verbal abuse every year. In the past, it used to be taboo to openly speak about such family issues. Some used to claim that their daughters died after they fell in order to avoid what could be seen as "shameful." Today, however, the death of a woman at the hands of her husband gets extensive coverage by local media and has sparked widespread awareness campaigns online.

"We are not doing anything shameful. We are not harming anyone," said a Lebanese domestic violence survivor who only gave her first name as Bahiya out of fear of reprisals. "We probably reached this point because of the word shame."

Bahiya described how her husband of nearly 20 years regularly beat her with his hands and a stick. She once went to the hospital after he grazed her with a gunshot. With the help of Kafa, she was able to get a divorce recently and won custody of her four daughters.

The woman recounted how once after fleeing to a police station, an officer there told her that she faced merely "a family affair." Many Lebanese women also see the laws in this Arab country as discriminating against them. Lebanese women married to foreigners cannot pass their citizenship to their children and husbands. The country's personal status law, which deals with cases involving divorce or inheritance, is implemented according to the person's religion and their faith dictates their fate. Some young women under 18 get kidnapped by their future husbands and get married with the help of religious clerics against the will of their parents.

The same goes for politics. There is no quota for women in parliament or government ministries. Women now hold just four seats in the country's 128-delegate. Lebanon's newly formed government has only one female Cabinet minister.

Activists are urging Lebanon's parliament to approve a new law regarding domestic violence at its first meeting after a legislative subcommittee approved it last year. Ghassan Moukheiber, the general rapporteur of the parliamentary Human Rights committee, said the reason the law has not been approved is because parliament has not met since a previous Cabinet resigned in March last year. Lebanon was run by a caretaker Cabinet until last month.

Moukheiber said he expects the draft to be unanimously approved once parliament meets. "I look forward for the voting of this bill because it is going to be a very important and meaningful step toward stopping all sorts of violence against women," Moukheiber told The Associated Press.

Some Sunni and Shiite Muslim clerics have criticized the proposed law, however, saying it dismantles families. On Saturday, about 5,000 people marched in Beirut to demand protection for women and urged the parliament to vote on the domestic violence law.

"We came down to the street because we want a law to protect us. We tell the state we want a law quickly," hundreds of women chanted. But for Sabbagh, the damage of domestic violence has already been inflicted on her family. She said she could only be happy that her daughter's two children were at school at the time of the killing and did not see their mother's bloody, beaten corpse.

"My heart is boiling like fire," Sabbagh said. "My daughter was not an insect. She was the light of my heart."

Lebanon's political system sinks nation into debt

March 05, 2014

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese politicians are looking for tens of millions of dollars in aid at a Paris conference on Wednesday with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and world diplomats to help their country cope with a flood of refugees from neighboring Syria's civil war. But while authorities plead for cash, Lebanon's house is hardly in order.

Despite a mounting humanitarian crisis brought on by over a million Syrian refugees and a ballooning debt of $60 billion — one of the highest in the world compared to gross domestic product — there is little sign of reform for the collapsing economy in a country where a dysfunctional democracy has been marred by nepotism, corruption, and warlord-style governance ever since the 15-year civil war ended in 1990.

There is hardly any urgency among the country's lawmakers and politicians, who took nearly a year to agree on a new government after the prime minister resigned last March. The parliament, which seldom convenes, has not voted on a budget for eight years, letting the Cabinet simply write its own. Lawmakers have never met to discuss government policies to deal with the refugee influx that has strained social services including education, health and electricity to their limit.

Still, lawmakers manage to award themselves rising salaries and perks that extend long after they retire or die. Rather than legislating, parliament members act primarily as service providers to a narrow group of people, based on their sect and family affiliation, not the public at large.

"We are an oligarchy, not a democracy," said Ghassan Moukheiber, a Christian lawmaker from central Lebanon. Although Lebanon is often cited as a rare example of democracy in an autocratic Arab world, key decisions are made outside of the parliament and even the government. They are in the hands of a small group of people who gained political power because of immense wealth or by commanding a powerful militia during the civil war that was largely fought between the country's Christian and Muslim sects, Moukheiber said.

The country's sectarian-based political system is enshrined in the power-sharing agreement that ended the civil war. According to the Taif Accord, the parliament and Cabinet must be half Muslim and half Christian. An unwritten agreement reached after Lebanon's independence in 1943 ensures that the president is a Christian, the prime minister is a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of parliament is a Shiite Muslim.

Defenders of this system say it is the only way that 4.5 million people from 18 recognized sects can co-exist. Critics say it perpetuates nepotism and the power of warlords, many of whom have become government ministers, lawmakers and leaders of political parties with well-known sectarian affiliations.

"They don't like the institutions such as the parliament meeting too often and competing with them in running the country," Moukheiber said. Indeed, most lawmakers stay away from the imposing 1930s parliament building in downtown Beirut.

Since the current parliament of 128 lawmakers was elected in June 2009, the lawmakers have met 21 times — an average of 4 times a year. They passed 169 laws, many of them related to raising government and civil servants' salaries, receiving foreign aid and amending the election law, according to data collected by Information International, a Lebanese policy research institute in Beirut.

There is no national health care plan and no nationwide electricity grid, because lawmakers are buying personal loyalty with state funds, said Sami Atallah, the head of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies that has been monitoring and documenting governance in Lebanon.

Many lawmakers run profitable businesses alongside their parliamentary positions. Many make millions in construction and real estate. They own shopping malls, apartment buildings, nightclubs and receive a cut from monopolies on telecommunications, gas, cigarettes and other commodities.

In 2013, lawmakers met only twice and passed two laws. One of them was to extend their mandate for 18 months, pushing back elections. On Wednesday, Lebanon's leaders will meet with Kerry, international diplomats and bankers seeking help. The International Support Group for Lebanon was created in September, when Kerry pledged more than $100 million in American aid for Lebanese communities that are hosting Syrians who have fled their homeland.

It's a fraction of the money Lebanon needs. "International donors are not going to compensate Lebanon for lost economic activity due to the war in Syria, no matter how significant they may be," said Ayham Kamel, an analyst with the Eurasia group in London.

The last time Lebanese parliament ratified the budget set by the government — at 10 billion Lebanese liras ($6.8 billion dollars) — was in 2005. Due to political bickering between the two major political blocs, lawmakers have not voted on the budget since then. In the past two years, the government did not even bother sending the budget to the parliament. It simply doubled the amount of the 2005 for the budget — a flagrant violation of the constitution.

Once elected, members of parliament get a monthly salary of $7,400, fully paid health insurance, tax exemptions on a vehicle and four policemen each on full government salary. Other perks include airplane tickets, a diplomatic passport for the lawmakers and their families and a pension of up to 75 percent of the salaries, which is transferred to their spouses after their death.

The pensions of the 310 retired lawmakers and the spouses of 103 deceased ones alone chip $20 million annually from the budget. There's hardly any outrage in public. Although there were small protests against the extension of the mandate of the current parliament last year, most Lebanese are resigned to the warlord-style governance.

A handful of parliament members who take their jobs seriously say the salaries barely cover their expenses, much less support their families. "If we were paid for passing laws only, they'd be high," said Kazem Kheir, a Sunni Muslim lawmaker from the north. He said most of his days are spent working in the community, solving problems for people, finding them jobs, often settling their hospital bills, driving from one house to another to attending funerals and other social functions.

"The salary is hardly enough to fill my car with gas every month," Kheir said.

Tunisia ends state of emergency after 3 years

March 06, 2014

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisia's president on Thursday lifted the state of emergency that has been in place since the outbreak of a popular revolution three years ago, and a top military chief said soldiers stationed in some of the country's most sensitive areas will return to their barracks.

The decree from President Moncef Marzouki said the state of emergency ordered in January 2011 is lifted across the country immediately. The state of emergency was imposed by longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and was maintained after he was overthrown.

At the start it included a curfew and a ban on meetings of more than three people, but it has been relaxed over time. However it has continued to give the military and police special powers to intervene in unrest or security threats.

Tunisia has been battling al-Qaida linked extremists since the revolution, but officials said the security situation has improved recently. Col. Maj. Mokhtar Ben Nasr told The Associated Press that soldiers deployed in force across Tunisia would return to their barracks.

After the end of the dictatorship that touched off the Arab Spring uprisings across the region, Tunisians brought a moderate Islamist party into power allied with two other secular parties. But the coalition struggled in the face of continuing social unrest, high unemployment, the rise of a radical Islamist movement with ties to al-Qaida and the assassination of two left-wing politicians.

Despite that, Tunisia remains a regional bright spot, since its fractious elected assembly finally wrote and passed a progressive constitution earlier this year.

Al-Ghannouchi calls Egyptian court ruling against Hamas 'oppressive'

Wednesday, 05 March 2014

Head of the Tunisian Islamic party Ennahda Sheikh Rashid Al-Ghannouchi strongly criticized on Tuesday an Egyptian court's decision to designate the Palestinian Islamic resistance movement Hamas a "terrorist organization".

Commenting on the court ruling, Al-Ghannouchi told Quds Press news agency that: "It is an oppressive decision issued by an oppressive regime."

Earlier on Tuesday, the Egyptian Court for Urgent Matters in Cairo designated Hamas a "terrorist organization" based on claims that it is linked to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which the interim Egyptian government designated a "terrorist organization" in December of last year, and that the Palestinian movement took part in recent security disturbances in Egypt.

The court banned the movement and imposed an embargo on all its properties in Egypt.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/10116-al-ghannouchi-calls-egyptian-court-ruling-against-hamas-oppressive.

Libya relocates parliament after attack

March 03, 2014

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Libya's parliament moved into a five-star Tripoli hotel Monday, a day after rioters armed with knives and guns stormed the legislature building, torching furniture, killing a guard and wounding six lawmakers in the latest episode of turmoil in the country.

Tensions have been mounting between the country's biggest political blocs, each backed by militias, adding to the potential explosiveness of political disputes. Protesters demanded that parliament be disbanded immediately after its mandate ran out in January.

In Sunday's violence, dozens of protesters swept into the parliament chamber while it was in session, shooting guns, throwing bottles at lawmakers and setting fire to furniture. They took the seat of the parliament's president — the head of a main Islamist bloc — tied it to a lamppost outside and set it on fire.

One guard was killed while trying to protect workers trapped inside, security official Essam al-Naass said. Two lawmakers were shot in their legs, one was injured with broken glass and others were beaten up while trying to leave the premises.

Lawmaker Hussein al-Ansari told The Associated Press that the parliament will now hold its sessions in the five-star Waddan hotel in the capital's downtown. Nearly three years after the spark of the Libyan revolution that ended the 42-year-rule of dictator Moammar Gadhafi, militias wield the real power in Libya. They have lined up behind the main political factions locked in a power struggle — with supporters of Western-backed Prime Minister Ali Zidan on one side and, on the other, Islamist factions in parliament trying to remove him.

Parliament's term expired on Feb. 7, but lawmakers voted to extend it with plans to hold new elections in the spring. Since then, hundreds of protesters have held daily demonstrations demanding the legislative body be dissolved.

Parliament's president, Islamist-leaning Nouri Abu Sahmein, denounced Sunday's attack in a televised statement, saying it targeted "the headquarters of legitimacy." He warned against using young men after equipping them with weapons to carry "actions against legitimacy" without naming certain party or group.

He also demanded Tripoli militias to protect vital institutions and foreign embassies. Some lawmakers said that the assault was triggered by an earlier attack on an anti-parliament sit-in a day earlier where unidentified assailants kidnapped two of the protesters for one day after setting fire to a tent, witnesses said.

Lawmaker Souad Sultan, from the non-Islamist grouping the National Forces Alliance, said the kidnapping "triggered the violent reaction, which might have been exploited by a certain party." She said she came under attack by the protesters who surrounded her car and stomped it with their feet and fists while trying to block the road in front of her."

A well-known movement called "No To Extension" which has staged protests against parliament for the past weeks distanced itself from the attack, with member Hisham al-Wandi telling Al-Nabaa TV network that they held the parliament responsible for lacking "a clear plan on transfer of power" after its mandate expired.

Tripoli resident and prominent lawyer Abdullah Banoun said that amid all the violence, Libyan citizens who don't carry arms need real protection. "The parliament should not shut its ears to the demands of the people," he said, adding, "Now all cards are mixed in a way it is very hard to pin down who is doing what. And in the middle if of it all, we civilians, the unarmed ones, need real protection because our lives are endangered."

The attack on the parliament comes at a time killings and attacks mainly targeting foreigners, Christian migrants, pro-government militias and the nascent military have escalated in the eastern part of the country, especially in Benghazi, the birthplace of the 2011 uprising.

The latest assassination came Monday, when masked gunmen killed a pro-government militiaman after storming a cafe shop in Benghazi and opening fire him. On Sunday, gunmen shot French engineer Patrice Real, who worked for a company contracted by a medical center, as he drove in the city center of Benghazi. Gunmen killed a Coptic Christian Egyptian in vegetable market on the same day.

Official news agency LANA said the engineer's company withdrew all its employees from Benghazi. It has been working there on medical centers since 2009, LANA said. It was not clear if the projects had been stopped.

Last month, seven Coptic Christian Egyptians were killed after masked men kidnapped them from their houses, tied their hands behind their back and shot them in the head and the chest.

Saudi Arabia names Brotherhood a terrorist group

March 07, 2014

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia identified the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group along with al-Qaida and others Friday, warning those who join them or support them they could face five to 30 years in prison.

A Saudi Interior Ministry statement said King Abdullah approved the findings of a committee entrusted with identifying extremist groups referred to in a royal decree earlier last month. The decree punishes those who fight in conflicts outside the kingdom or join extremist groups or support them.

The king's decree followed the kingdom enacting a sweeping new counterterrorism law that targets virtually any criticism of the government. The Muslim Brotherhood has been targeted by many Gulf nations since the July 3 military overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in Egypt, himself a Brotherhood member. Saudi Arabia has banned Brotherhood books from the ongoing Riyadh book fair and withdrew its ambassador from Qatar, a Brotherhood supporter, along with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

In a statement, the Muslim Brotherhood condemned Saudi Arabia's decision. "It is one of the founding principles of the group not to interfere in matters of other states, and this new position from the kingdom is a complete departure from the past relationship with the group, since the reign of the founding king until now," the statement read.

Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Badr Abdel-Attie praised the decision, saying it "reflects the coordination and solidarity" between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. He said he hopes that other countries make the same decision.

"We expect other countries to fulfill their responsibilities in the fight against terrorism," Abdel-Attie told journalists Friday. The Saudi statement, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, identified the other terrorist groups named as al-Qaida's branches in Yemen and Iraq, the Syrian al-Nusra Front, Saudi Hezbollah and Yemen's Shiite Hawthis. It said the law would apply to all the groups and organizations identified by the United Nations Security Council or international bodies as terrorists or violent groups. It said the law also would be applied to any Saudi citizen or a foreigner residing in the kingdom for propagating atheism or pledging allegiance to anyone other than the kingdom's leaders.

The counterterrorism law bans meetings of the groups inside or outside of the kingdom and covers comments made online or to media outlets. The unprecedented and harsh prison terms seem aimed at stemming the flow of Saudi fighters going to Syria, Yemen or Iraq. The Syrian civil war is believed to have drawn hundreds of young Saudis, worrying some in the kingdom that fighters could return radicalized and turn their weapons on the monarchy.

Influential Saudi clerics who follow the kingdom's ultraconservative religious Wahhabi doctrine encouraged youths to fight in the war and view it as a struggle between Syria's Sunni majority and President Bashar Assad's Alawite, Shiite-backed minority.

Saudi officials and some clerics have spoken out against young Saudis joining the war. However, the Saudi government backs some rebel opposition groups in Syria with weapons and aid. The new law is also believed to reflect pressure from the U.S., which wants to see Assad's overthrow but is alarmed by the rising influence of hard-line foreign jihadists — many of them linked to al-Qaida — among the rebels. U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled to fly to Saudi Arabia and meet King Abdullah this month.

Meanwhile in Qatar, outspoken Egyptian cleric Youssef el-Qaradawi did not deliver his usual sermon on Friday. The reasons for his absence were not made immediately public. His past sermons, in which he publicly criticized the UAE and other Gulf countries for their support of Egypt's new government in its crackdown on the Brotherhood, led to outrage among Qatar's neighbors who saw the comments as an attack on their sovereignty.

Associated Press writers Maamoun Youssef in Cairo and Abdullah Ribhi in Doha, Qatar, contributed to this report.

Saudi, Bahrain, and UAE recall Qatar ambassadors

Wednesday, 05 March 2014

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates decided Wednesday to withdraw their ambassadors from Qatar over the latter's non-commitment to a security cooperation agreement.

In a joint statement, the three Gulf countries explained that Qatar's failure to implement the Riyadh agreement of November 23, 2013 has led to this decision. The agreement included provisions for security cooperation, non-interference in the internal affairs of other Gulf countries, and halting support for "individuals or groups that threaten the security and stability of the GCC, whether by direct security work or attempting to exert a political influence, or supporting hostile media".

While the Qatari Emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani signed the November agreement, he has not yet put it into effect, the statement added.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/10103-saudi-bahrain-and-uae-recall-qatar-ambassadors.

Saudi, UAE, Bahrain recall their envoys from Qatar

March 05, 2014

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain said Wednesday they have recalled their ambassadors from Qatar in the clearest move yet underscoring their apparent displeasure over Doha's support for the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood group in Egypt and elsewhere the region.

The three Gulf Arab states made the announcement in a joint statement on state media, saying Qatar had breached a regional security deal. They said the move was made to protect their security. Tensions between the three and Doha intensified following the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Arab Spring protests in early 2011. Mubarak was long seen as a reliable Saudi ally and one whose disdain for Islamist groups was in line with the kingdom's own.

Qatar's massive financial and public support for Mubarak's successor, President Mohammed Morsi, who hails from the Brotherhood, stood at odds with UAE and Saudi policies — as did its condemnation of Morsi's ouster last July by the Egyptian military, following days of massive protests in Cairo against the Islamist president.

At home, both the UAE and Saudi Arabia have cracked down on Islamist groups with links to the Brotherhood, which they see as a threat to their ruling systems. They are both staunch supporters of Egypt's new military-backed government, which subsequently launched sweeping crackdowns on Morsi and his Brotherhood supporters.

The joint Gulf statement said Qatar's ruler Emir Sheik Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani failed to uphold a security agreement that he signed in late November in Saudi Arabia. The emir of Kuwait was a witness to the meeting in Riyadh and the agreement was endorsed by other members in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council.

The agreement called on all GCC members not to interfere, "whether directly or indirectly" in another member nation's internal affairs. It also stipulated that GCC countries would not support organizations or individuals that threaten the security and stability of Arabian Peninsula countries "either through direct security work or by attempting to influence politics."

The language appeared to have been shorthand for support for the Brotherhood and Qatar's funding of the Doha-based pan-Arab Al-Jazeera network. However, three months after signing the agreement, no action was taken by Qatar despite "great efforts" by the Gulf Arab nations to reach out to Doha's leadership to fulfill its side of the deal, said the Saudi-UAE-Bahrain statement.

Details of the November agreement were not made public until Wednesday. Saudi analyst Anwar Edshki said the decision was a warning to Qatar to stop inciting violence by Islamists in Egypt. "It is Qatar's right to support the Muslim Brotherhood, but not its right to threaten security in Egypt and incite the (people on the) street," he said.

Edshki, who chairs the Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies in Saudi Arabia, said Qatar's policies have created chaos in Libya, Yemen, Syria and Egypt. However, what particularly disturbed Saudi Arabia and the UAE more recently was how Qatar allowed Islamic cleric Youssef el-Qaradawi to continue attacking the policies of these countries publicly.

The withdrawal of ambassadors from Qatar came after a meeting Tuesday in Riyadh of GCC foreign ministers that tried to "persuade" Qatar to keep up its end of the deal. "However, all these efforts have not resulted, with great regret, in the consent of the State of Qatar to adhere to these procedures," the statement said. "So the three countries have to start taking whatever they deem appropriate to protect their security and stability by withdrawing their ambassadors from the State of Qatar, as of today."

Though Wednesday's announcement was unprecedented for the region, last month the UAE signaled it was losing patience with Qatar when it summoned Doha's ambassador to formally protest the comments of the outspoken pro-Brotherhood el-Qaradawi who criticized the Gulf country's policies toward Islamist groups on Qatari TV.

The Emirati leadership said Qatar should stop the Egyptian-born cleric from expressing comments critical of the UAE. Even though the UAE was part of Wednesday's three-state announcement, its ambassador to Qatar has not been present in Doha for several months.

UAE backs Saudis with Muslim Brotherhood blacklist

March 09, 2014

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates has thrown its support behind neighboring Saudi Arabia's decision to label the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, increasing Gulf Arab pressure on the Islamist group.

Saudi Arabia listed the 86-year-old Brotherhood along with several other groups, including al-Qaida affiliates, as terrorist organizations on Friday. Those who join or support the groups could face five to 30 years in prison under the new Saudi policy.

The Gulf moves against the Brotherhood follow an Egyptian decision to label it a terrorist organization in December. The move by the military-backed interim government in Cairo comes amid a crackdown on the group following its July ouster of the country's first elected president, the Islamist Mohammed Morsi.

Cairo based its accusation mainly on a series of deadly bomb attacks that it says the Brotherhood orchestrated. The Brotherhood denies the accusations. Egyptian authorities have produced little evidence showing a direct Brotherhood link that is open to public scrutiny, and most of the attacks have been claimed by a Sinai-based militant group.

The Western-allied UAE, a seven-state federation that includes the cosmopolitan business hub of Dubai, said it will cooperate with Saudi Arabia to tackle "those terrorist groups through liquidating all forms of material and moral support."

"The significant step taken by (Saudi Arabia) in this critical moment requires concerted efforts and joint collective work to address the security and stability challenges that threaten the destiny of the Arab and Muslim nation," the UAE said in a statement carried by official news agency WAM late Saturday.

The Saudi terrorist designation also blacklisted al-Qaida's branch in Yemen and its former affiliate in Iraq, the Syrian al-Nusra Front, Hezbollah within the kingdom and Yemen's Shiite Hawthis. The Brotherhood condemned the Saudi move against it Friday as a "complete departure from the past relationship" with the kingdom and insisted that it does not interfere in matters of other nations.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the two largest Arab economies, have increasingly clamped down on the Brotherhood in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings. They along with the tiny kingdom of Bahrain last week withdrew their ambassadors from nearby Qatar to protest what they saw as its failure to uphold a deal to stop interfering in other nations' politics and supporting organizations that threaten the Gulf's stability. Analysts say the move in large part reflects Qatar's support for the Brotherhood and its supporters.

The Emirates has jailed dozens of people allegedly linked to Brotherhood-affiliated groups on state security charges over the past year. It accuses Islamist groups of trying to topple its Western-backed ruling system.

The nation's top court last week sentenced a Qatari doctor to seven years and two Emiratis to five years in prison for collaborating with an illegal Islamist group. The same court in January convicted 30 men, most of them Egyptian, of setting up an illegal Brotherhood branch in the UAE. They received prison terms ranging from three months to five years.

Another 69 people were last year sentenced to up to 15 years behind bars after being convicted of links to Al-Islah, an Islamist group suspected of ideological ties to the Brotherhood.

Concerns and Considerations with the Naming of Mars Craters

Paris, France (SPX)
Mar 13, 2014

Recently initiatives that capitalize on the public's interest in space and astronomy have proliferated, some putting a price tag on naming space objects and their features, such as Mars craters. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) would like to emphasize that such initiatives go against the spirit of free and equal access to space, as well as against internationally recognized standards.

Hence no purchased names can ever be used on official maps and globes. The IAU encourages the public to become involved in the naming process of space objects and their features by following the officially recognized (and free) methods.

In order to make sure that all scientists, educators and the general public "speak the same language", astronomers from the International Astronomical Union have agreed on common standards for naming space objects, features or phenomena so that they can be easily located, described, and discussed.

For instance, features on a given planet or satellite receive names chosen from a particular theme. Only those features that are deemed to be of significance to science are given a name by the community, thus leaving other features to be named by future generations.

Although the present rules are that the general public cannot request that a particular feature is named, they can do so following a public invitation from a space agency or from the discoverers.

This was the case for NASA's Magellan Venus mapping mission launched in 1989: the public was invited to offer names of women who had made outstanding or fundamental contributions to their fields, for the names of Venusian craters.

A more recent example was the naming of the two most recently discovered satellites of Pluto in 2013, which was the result of a public vote. The selected names were approved in cooperation with the IAU and free and equal participation was offered to the general public. For Mars craters today, only their "discoverers", the space agencies, may take the initiative to involve the public in the naming process, in cooperation with the IAU and following international regulations.

In 1919, when the IAU was founded, it was given the official mission to establish internationally recognized planet and satellite nomenclature. The objective at the time was to standardize the various confusing systems of nomenclature for the Moon that were then in use.

Since that time, the IAU has succeeded in constructing a single, reliable, official catalog of surface feature names, thus enabling successful international public and scientific communication. The IAU played a key role in getting the USSR and the USA to agree on naming rules for lunar features even during the space race of the sixties.

Today, the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN), representing the worldwide astronomical community, provides a unique system of official names for Solar System objects (planetary surface features, natural satellites, dwarf planets, and planetary rings) for the benefit of the international science community, educators, and the general public...

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Concerns_and_Considerations_with_the_Naming_of_Mars_Craters_999.html.

NASA reveals hovering prototype planetary lander Morpheus

Moscow (Voice of Russia)
Mar 13, 2014

NASA's latest test vehicle may not survive in its current form going forward, but its ability to hover like a helicopter and land on tough terrain could prove integral to future missions to Mars and other interplanetary locations.

Dubbed "Morpheus," the new rocket prototype was successfully tested last week at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility in Florida. While vehicle's design looks strikingly like an alien aircraft or something you'd expect to see out of a science fiction movie, it's Morpheus' capabilities that have scientists and engineers most excited.

As you can see in the video posted by the Morpheus team, the vehicle launches vertically into the air, flies around the landscape and can hover in place like a helicopter. Importantly, it can also control its descent back down to Earth and land upright. Considering rockets have generally been designed to be expendable - they either burn up in the atmosphere or crash into the ocean upon re-entry into Earth - developing vehicles that can survive more than one voyage would significantly help control the costs of space exploration.

According to the Atlantic, Morpheus probably won't become an operational vehicle in its own right. Instead, the project has been designed specifically to experiment with features that could potentially be borrowed and used in other designs - such as its hover capabilities and ability to land on unstable terrain.

Perhaps just as important is the fact that Morpheus runs on a new propulsion system using liquid oxygen and methane as fuel. Crucially, these two components have been labeled as "green" fuels that can be manufactured on other planets.

Last week's successful flight also followed a botched attempt to test Morpheus in 2012, when it experienced a "hardware component failure" and crashed soon after takeoff.

Of course, Morpheus's vertical landing ability is also being reproduced in other spacecraft - notably the "Grasshopper" rocket designed by SpaceX. Founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the company successfully launched and landed a reusable Grasshopper prototype in October 2013.

As for NASA, the Morpheus test comes as the agency has requested more money from Congress to fund its space exploration efforts in the fiscal 2015 budget. As RT reported in the past, NASA is hard at work on efforts to capture and land an astronaut on an asteroid, and it has also been testing new spacesuits that allow for increased mobility. Other projects include extending the life of the International Space Station and exploring a possible mission to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons believed to contain more water than there is in all of the Earth's oceans.

Still, the budget request does include some space-related cuts, including a $300 million decrease in the Exploration Systems Development category. As noted by Slate, this department is in charge of designing the next-generation Space Launch System rocket, which was criticized as unnecessary in January by former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver.

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/NASA_reveals_hovering_prototype_planetary_lander_Morpheus_999.html.