Gunmen abduct 2 Turkish Airlines crew in Lebanon

August 09, 2013

BEIRUT (AP) — Gunmen ambushed a van Friday carrying a Turkish Airlines crew in the Lebanese capital, kidnapping a pilot and a co-pilot in an attack that appeared linked to the ongoing civil war in neighboring Syria.

Six gunmen stopped the vehicle on an old airport road in Beirut, abducting the two Turkish nationals and letting the rest of the crew go, officials said. The van was travelling between Rafik Hariri International Airport and a Beirut hotel when the ambush took place, said the Lebanese officials, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Lebanon's state news agency said a group called the Zuwaar al-Imam Rida claimed responsibility for the kidnapping. The group, which was previously unknown, said in a statement carried by the National News Agency that the pilots "will only be released when the Lebanese hostages in Syria return."

The civil war in neighboring Syria has deeply divided the Lebanese. The Syrian rebels, who are backed by Turkey, have been holding nine Lebanese Shiites hostage since last year. There have been other kidnappings on both sides since the war began.

A representative for the Lebanese hostages' families said that there was "no relationship between the kidnapping of Turkish pilots and case of Lebanese hostages in Syria," the NNA reported. However, Sheik Abbas Zougheib of the Higher Shiite Councils said if the abduction "is to settle the question of Lebanese abducted in Syria, we support it," according to the news service.

The Turkish crew had landed a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul early Friday morning, the Lebanese officials told The Associated Press. Authorities were investigating and the road where the kidnapping occurred has been closed off with several police checkpoints, the officials said.

The NNA reported earlier that the driver of the van was being questioned and that eight gunmen were involved in the abduction. The difference in the number of the attackers in the report and the Lebanese officials' account could not immediately be explained.

In Turkey, Foreign Ministry spokesman Levent Gumrukcu confirmed the kidnapping. He said the rest of the crew was still in Beirut but were leaving to return to Turkey on Friday evening. "We don't know who did this and for what purpose," Gumrukcu said. He said the Turkish government was in close contact with Lebanese officials over the abduction.

Turkey supports the Sunni Muslim rebels fighting to topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, which is dominated by Alawites, an offshoot sect of Shiite Islam. A spokesman for Turkish Airlines Ali Genc identified the two pilots as Murat Akpinar and Murat Agca. Genc did not offer any other information.

The Lebanese are deeply divided over Syria's civil war, with Shiites largely supporting the regime in Damascus and Sunnis backing the rebels. Both Sunni militants, and fighters from Lebanon's dominant Shiite Hezbollah group, have been fighting on opposite sides in the conflict.

The conflict in Syria that has claimed more than 100,000 lives since it erupted in March 2011. The fighting frequently has spilled into Lebanon.

Associated Press writers Desmond Butler in Istanbul and Ryan Lucas in Beirut contributed to this report.

Nagasaki marks 68th anniversary of atomic bombing

August 09, 2013

TOKYO (AP) — Nagasaki's mayor criticized Japan's government for a lack of effort on international nuclear disarmament as the country marked the 68th anniversary Friday of the atomic bombing on the city.

Mayor Tomihisa Taue said Tokyo's refusal in April to sign a statement rejecting unconditional use of nuclear weapons "betrayed expectations of the global community." Taue said the statement was signed by 80 countries and that Japan, the world's only victim of atomic bomb attacks, contradicted its non-nuclear pledge by refusing.

"I call on the government of Japan to return to the origin of our pledge as an atomic-bombed country," he said at a peace park near the epicenter of the blast. The two atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 prompted Japan's surrender in World War II. The Hiroshima blast killed 140,000 people, and another 70,000 died in Nagasaki.

U.S. Ambassador John Roos attended Nagasaki's event, a year after going to the anniversary ceremony at Hiroshima. About 6,000 people attended Friday's ceremony after offering silent prayers for the victims.

Taue also expressed concerns about Japan's resumption of negotiations with India toward a nuclear cooperation agreement. Despite the public's safety concerns about nuclear energy since the Fukushima crisis, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been aggressively pushing to export nuclear plants and technology to emerging countries, including Turkey and Vietnam, and trying to step up cooperation with France and India.

Taue said nuclear cooperation with India, which has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty would render the NPT framework toothless. He offered his support for the reconstruction of Fukushima devastated by the 2011 nuclear crisis.

Key events in rule, trial of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak

August 22, 2013

CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian court ordered Wednesday the release of ousted President Hosni Mubarak, but it is not yet clear if the ailing ex-leader will walk free after over two years in detention, officials said.

Here are some key events in the rule, downfall and criminal trial of the former Egyptian President: May 4, 1928 — Mubarak is born in Kafr El-Meselha in the Nile Delta province of Monofiya. March 13, 1950 — Mubarak graduates from air academy as a pilot and an officer.

April 1975 — Mubarak becomes vice president of Egypt, serving under President Anwar Sadat. Oct. 14, 1981 — Mubarak takes office after militants assassinate Sadat during a military parade. Mubarak, Sadat's vice president, escaped with a minor hand injury. His security forces are empowered by new emergency laws giving police broad powers of arrest and go after Islamists. He also promises Egypt will stick to its 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

1992 — Militants launch an uprising aimed at overthrowing Mubarak's government and setting up an Islamic state. Gunmen attack police, assassinate politicians and target foreign tourists, a key source of revenue.

June 1995 — Militants attempt to assassinate Mubarak as he visits Ethiopia. 1997 — Mubarak crushes the militant movement through the arrests of thousands as police are accused of torture. 2008 — Riots erupt over soaring bread prices amid grain shortages. Mubarak responds by firing up military ovens to help quell discontent.

2005 — Mubarak allows the first ever multi-candidate presidential election, which he won easily over 10 other candidates amid charges of voter fraud and intimidation. 2010 — Parliamentary elections are widely deplored as rigged. The Muslim Brotherhood, which had dozens of its members in parliament as independents, responds by withdrawing its candidates from a second round of voting.

Jan. 25, 2011 — Thousands of anti-government protesters clash with police in Cairo during a Tunisia-inspired demonstration to demand the president's ouster. The day marked the start of Arab Spring in Egypt.

Feb. 11 — After 18 days of massive protests against his rule, Mubarak is forced to resign. A council of military generals takes over Egypt's government. Mubarak is airlifted out of Cairo and stays in his private villa in the Red Sea town of Sharm el-Sheikh. He is later questioned for the first time by prosecutors.

April 13 — Authorities detain Mubarak for investigation of corruption, abuse of power and killings of hundreds of protesters. He later is ordered to stand trial on charges of corruption and conspiracy in the deadly shooting of nearly 900 protesters.

Aug. 3 — Mubarak's trial opens in Cairo. From a gurney in the defendant's cage, Mubarak denies all charges against him. Millions across the Middle East watch, transfixed by the sight of the former strongman behind prison cage bars. He becomes the first and only Arab leader to face trial by his own people.

June 2, 2012 — Mubarak, now 84, is found guilty of failing to stop the killings and sentenced to life in prison. He is ferried by helicopter to Tora prison in Cairo. He does not spend time in a prison cell and is kept in the prison hospital, which was upgraded to accommodate his health conditions.

January 2013 — Investigators interrogate Mubarak over gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars he allegedly received from the country's flagship state-owned newspaper as a show of loyalty while he was in power.

Jan. 13 — Appeals court overturns Mubarak's life sentence in protester killings as the presiding judge says the prosecution's case lacked concrete evidence and failed to prove the protesters were killed by the police.

Jan. 16 — Mubarak and his family agree to pay back 18 million Egyptian pounds ($3 million) for gifts they received from the state newspaper Al-Ahram. April — A new investigation begins into accusations Mubarak and his family embezzled state funds designated for the maintenance and upkeep of presidential palaces.

April 13 — Mubarak's retrial for alleged complicity in the killing of protesters begins. The judge recuses himself and does not specify the reasons behind his decision. A new judge takes over and the trial resumes a month later.

Aug. 19 — A criminal court orders Mubarak's release pending trial in the case regarding the misuse of funds for presidential palaces. The case involves his two sons who were ordered kept in custody. He has already previously been ordered released pending his retrial in the killings of protesters. A petition by his lawyer requesting his release in a third case for gifts from the state newspaper is under review.

Aug. 21 — A court orders Mubarak's release pending the trial of gifts from the newspaper.

Egypt court orders release of Mubarak

August 21, 2013

CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian court ordered Wednesday the release of ousted President Hosni Mubarak, but it is not yet clear if the ailing ex-leader will walk free after over two years in detention, officials said.

Prosecutors may appeal the order, which comes following a hearing on charges against Mubarak of accepting gifts from a state-owned newspaper, the last case that has kept him in detention. It is not known if they will file they appeal.

The possibility of Mubarak going free is likely to fuel the unrest already roiling the country after the autocratic leader's successor, Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, was removed in a military coup last month.

Top prison official Mostafa Baz told the private CBC TV station that his offices will ask the prosecutors Thursday if Mubarak is wanted in other cases. If not, he would be set free. The hearing was held in Tora prison, where Mubarak, 85, has been held for most of his detention since April 2011. Officials cited security concerns as the reason for holding it in the sprawling, tightly secured facility.

Mubarak is now on trial for the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising against him and other charges. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison last year for failing to stop the killing of some 900 protesters in Egypt's 2011 uprising. His sentence was overturned on appeal and he is now being retried, along with his security chief and six top police commanders. His trial resumes later this month.

He is facing a number of other corruption charges, but no other trial dates have been set. The court officials spoke anonymously because they are not authorized to speak to the media. Rights lawyer and judicial expert Nasser Amin said procedurally Mubarak should have been released since his sentence was overturned, but that the political circumstances may delay letting him go.

"His release will cause chaos," he said. "It will be used by Islamists as proof of the return of the old regime." Egyptian authorities have continued their crackdown on Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, arresting the group's supreme leader and other senior figures and sending them to trial.

Muslim Brotherhood Names Mahmoud Ezzat Temporary Leader

20 August 2013

The Muslim Brotherhood announced Mahmoud Ezzat as its temporary leader on Tuesday following the arrest of its Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie.

The Brotherhood said in a statement on its Freedom and Justice Party's website that the decision is in accordance with Article (2) of its code which states that the first deputy replaces the supreme guide when he is unavailable.

Security forces arrested Badie from an apartment in Nasr City earlier for investigations into allegations that he incited violence earlier this year.

Source: allAfrica.
Link: http://allafrica.com/stories/201308201055.html.

Media in Egypt stoke the heat, and now feel it

August 21, 2013

CAIRO (AP) — The military says Tamer Abdel-Raouf sped through a military checkpoint, ignoring soldiers' warning shots. A colleague who was with him in the car says he obeyed the soldiers' orders to turn back, but they opened fire anyway as he was making a U-turn.

The result was the same: The reporter for the flagship Egyptian daily Al-Ahram on Monday became the fifth journalist to die as the media are swept up in the bloodshed roiling Egypt. Television and radio stations air patriotic songs while a slew of talk show hosts glorify the military that seized power and denounce the Islamist government it overthrew.

It's a sharp turnaround from the challenges these same journalists faced under President Mohammed Morsi's rule, when reporters were sued by Islamist lawyers for "insulting the president." After his ouster, his Muslim Brothehrood group openly blacklisted 50 of those media personalities.

Now journalists are facing deadlier perils. A week ago Mick Deane of the British TV broadcaster Sky News and two Egyptian journalists were fatally shot while covering the violent breakup of protest camps in Cairo. Other foreign journalists are also feeling the pressure, complaining that security forces fail to respect the exemption that allows them on the streets after nighttime curfew.

The tense media landscape is increasingly mirroring the venomous atmosphere, where people are fractured along political lines. "The whole media scene has been extremely polarized and it's a reflection of the polarization in society," said Rasha Abdulla, a media professor at the American University in Cairo.

TV presenters have sung the national anthem on TV and openly cried tears of joy when Morsi was ousted seven weeks ago. Meanwhile, Morsi's Brotherhood group has waged its own media campaign online and through its spokesmen on social media websites after channels sympathetic to the group were shuttered last month.

In one, a spokesman posted a picture of dead Syrian children online, claiming they were Egyptian kids killed by police. In clashes that the Health Ministry said killed around 80 people, the Brotherhood's emails to reporters initially claimed 200 were killed. At another point it claimed the overall death toll was more than triple what the Health Ministry was reporting.

The discrepancies come from both sides, as the death of reporter Abdel-Raouf demonstrates. A statement by the army said that he sped through a checkpoint after curfew and soldiers fired warning shots.

However, Hamed al-Barbari of Al-Gomhuria newspaper told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists that the two, riding in the car together, were turned back by soldiers at the checkpoint. He said the soldiers then fired at the car as they were making a U-turn, shooting Abdel-Raouf in the head.

Abdel-Raouf had been critical of Morsi's ouster on Facebook and other social media, though the CPJ said there was no evidence that he was targeted for his views. Western journalists have come under attack from angry citizens. CPJ reported that during violent protests Saturday, Annabell Van Den Berghe, a freelance journalist with the Belgian public broadcaster VRT, and crew were confronted by people who accused them of being American spies and said Western media were biased. They beat a crew member but did not harm the journalists.

The Qatar-based Al-Jazeera network, particularly its channel dedicated to live coverage of events in Egypt, has been the only major Arabic-language outlet for the Muslim Brotherhood's views. Its Cairo office was raided by security forces last week and two of its journalists detained.

A number of its presenters quit around the time of Morsi's ouster, saying the station had misled viewers. The network counters that it is covering all events in Egypt with "balance and integrity" Three Turkish journalists, Metin Turan and Heba Zakaria were arrested over the weekend and Tahir Osman Hamde was reported arrested on Tuesday. It's not clear whether any have been released.

Senior Egyptian officials have taken to critiquing the foreign media. The State Information Service released a statement saying some media outlets are "falling short of describing events of June 30 as an expression of popular will."

Meeting foreign journalists recently, interim Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy expressed his frustration. "You have a problem of your profession frankly," he said, saying the limited space to report complex issues makes the journalists "very superficial in what you are doing." ''And frankly," he added, "many of you have covered the news incorrectly and unfairly."

Adel Iskandar, author of "Egypt in Flux: Essays on an Unfinished Revolution," said that under the rule of autocratic President Hosni Mubarak, "The military was untouchable and invisible" and that "the media, both state and private, were obedient because they were censored.

"Now they are willfully on the bandwagon." Under Mubarak, bloggers were targeted as well. Mostly liberal, leftist and secular protesters active on Twitter and Facebook were beaten and arrested during subsequent rallies against the military rulers who temporarily took over after he was toppled. Similarly, online administrators of Brotherhood websites and online activists sympathetic to the group are now being arrested, shot at and even killed by security forces at anti-government protests.

Noha Radwan, a scholar of Arabic literature at University of California at Davis, follows events in her native Egypt closely, and says the media is actually driving polarization in the country. "For the past three weeks media sources on the ground, whether they are the governmental or the independent channels. have been working the public into nothing short of a mass hysteria," she wrote, blaming both the state media and Islamists.

"Every media source in Egypt is lying, spreading hearsay, and dismissing reports that do not serve their agendas. The result is a frenzied and divided population that is proving uncharacteristically callous to the bloodshed among one group or the other."

Iskandar said that while Egypt may not be in a state of actual war, the battle lines have been drawn in the media Egypt, he said, "is in a state of media and rhetorical war."

Ecuador's president abandons no-drilling plan

August 16, 2013

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — President Rafael Correa said Thursday that he has abandoned a unique and ambitious plan to persuade rich countries to pay Ecuador not to drill for oil in a pristine Amazon rainforest preserve.

Environmentalist had hailed the initiative when Correa first proposed it in 2007, saying he was setting a precedent in the fight against global warming by lowering the high cost to poor countries of preserving the environment.

"The world has failed us," Correa said in a nationally televised speech. He said the global recession was in part responsible but chiefly blamed "the great hypocrisy" of nations who emit most of the world's greenhouse gases.

"It was not charity that we sought from the international community, but co-responsibility in the face of climate change." Correa had sought $3.6 billion in contributions to maintain a moratorium on drilling in the remote Yasuni National Park, which was declared a biosphere reserve by the United Nations in 1989 and is home to two Indian tribes living in voluntary isolation.

But he said Thursday evening that Ecuador had raised just $13 million in actual donations in pledges and that he had an obligation to his people, particularly the poor, to move ahead with drilling. The U.N. and private donors had put up the cash.

Correa said he was proposing to the National Assembly, which his supporters control, oil exploration in Yasuni amounting to less than 1 percent of its 3,800 square miles His no-drilling plan had envisioned rich countries paying Ecuador half the $7.2 billion in revenues expected to be generated over 10 years from the 846 million barrels of heavy crude estimated to be in Yasuni.

Not drilling in the reserve would keep 410 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere, officials had said during their global lobbying campaign that included organizing tours of the reserve for journalists.

But while Correa's proposal generated interest, there were few takers, in part because he insisted that Ecuador alone would decide how the donations would be spent. European countries expressed the most interest but still balked.

Ecuador is an OPEC member that depends on oil for a third of its national budget. The three oil fields in Yasuni represent 20 percent of its oil reserves. Political analyst Jose Fuentes of the Flacso university in Quito said Correa had opted "for economic pragmatism" in abandoning the environmentalist image he had wished to project internationally.

Matt Finer, a scientist at the U.S.-based Center for International Environmental Law, expressed dismay at the decision. "It is deeply disappointing that this alternative model for dealing with oil and gas reserves in mega diverse rainforests did not work," he said via email from Peru. "The Yasuni-ITT Initiative was the lone exception to the relentless expansion of hydrocarbon projects deeper into the most remote tracts of the western Amazon. Now there is really no viable alternative to stop the wave of drilling slated for the most biodiverse region of the world."

Despite championing the project, Correa is not perceived domestically as much of an environmentalist. He has also upset indigenous groups with plans to develop major mining projects for the first time.

Indigenous and environmental groups in Ecuador, a nation of 14 million people, have said that any decision on the fate of Yasuni should be made in a national referendum. Patricio Chavez, director of the environmental group Amazonia por la Vida, criticized Correa for leaving potential donors a single option: "Pay or we drill."

Yasuni is not the only oil drilling that Correa's government plans in the rainforest. He is also seeking to auction oil concessions in 13 blocks of 770 square miles each south of Yasuni closer to the border with Peru.

Oil is Ecuador's chief source of foreign earnings. The country produces 538,000 barrels of crude a day, delivering nearly half its production to the United States.

Associated Press writer Frank Bajak in Lima, Peru, contributed to this report.