World Politics

NEWS OF THE DAY

Turkey protesters refuse to leave park

Reuters . Istanbul

People light candles for the victims of the protests at Taksim square, in Istanbul, early on Saturday. — AP photo

Turkish protesters said on Saturday they would not leave an Istanbul park despite a call from the president for them to withdraw and a pledge from prime minister Tayyip Erdogan to hold a vote on plans to redevelop the site.
Hundreds of protesters, camped out for more than two weeks in tents in Gezi Park adjoining Istanbul’s central Taksim Square, said they would keep up their campaign after the government failed to meet demands including the release of detained demonstrators.
A police crackdown on peaceful campaigners in the park two weeks ago provoked an unprecedented wave of protest against Erdogan and his AK Party - an association of centrists and conservative religious elements - drawing in secularists, nationalists, professionals, trade unionists and students.
The unrest, in which police fired teargas and water cannon at stone-throwing protesters night after night in cities including Istanbul and Ankara, left four people dead and about 5,000 injured, according to the Turkish Medical Association.
‘The government has ignored clear and rightful demands since the beginning of the resistance. They tried to divide, provoke and damage our legitimacy,’ the Taksim Solidarity platform, an umbrella group for the protesters, said in a statement.
The group, whose representatives met Erdogan at his official residence in Ankara on Thursday night, said it had seen no serious signs of progress in holding those responsible for the police crackdown to account, nor in investigating the four deaths, one of them a policeman, during the unrest.
‘We continue to guard the park,’ said Mucella Yapici, a spokeswoman for the group, when asked if the protesters were considering withdrawing.
Erdogan told protesters at Thursday’s talks he would put plans to build a replica Ottoman-era barracks in Gezi Park on hold until a court rules on them, a more moderate stance after two weeks of defiance in which he when he called the protesters as ‘riff-raff’ and said the plans would go ahead regardless.
‘The fact that negotiation and dialogue channels are open is a sign of democratic maturity,’ President Abdullah Gul, who has struck a more conciliatory tone than Erdogan throughout the protests, said on his Twitter account on Saturday.
‘I believe this process will have good results. From now on everybody should return home,’ he said.
What began as a campaign by environmentalists to save what they say is one of central Istanbul’s few green spaces spiralled into the most serious show of defiance against Erdogan and his AK Party of his decade in power.
The ruling party plans rallies in Ankara later on Saturday and in Istanbul on Sunday. Erdogan said on Friday they mark the start of campaigning for local elections next year and are not to do with the Gezi Park protest, but they are widely seen as a show of strength in the face of the demonstrations.

Afghan forces to take over nationwide security

Agence France-Presse . Kabul

Afghan security forces will soon take over responsibility for the whole of the country, officials said Saturday, a major milestone as the NATO-led war effort winds down after 12 years of fighting.
The handover of the last 95 districts from NATO to Afghan forces includes many of the most volatile areas of south and east Afghanistan where the Taliban have fought a bloody insurgency against the US-backed government since 2001.
NATO and Afghan officials, who declined to be named, said that president Hamid Karzai would attend a ceremony within days to mark a key point of the ‘transition process’ to full Afghan sovereignty.
The exact date and location of the handover has not yet been announced, but it will complete a programme started in 2011 when relatively-peacefully areas inhabited by about 20 per cent of the population were put under Afghan security.
‘The event will be held shortly and 95 districts in 11 provinces are included in the fifth and final phase. Further details will be released later for security reasons,’ an Afghan government official said.
The last ‘tranche’ of districts includes 13 in Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban, and 12 in each of Nangarhar, Khost and Paktika provinces — all hotbeds of insurgent activity along the border with Pakistan.
After the handover, 100,000 NATO forces will only play a supporting and training role as Afghan soldiers and police take the lead in the fight against the militants who were ousted from power after the 9/11 attacks.

Roadside bomb kills 5 cops in Afghanistan
A roadside bomb struck a police van in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing five police as they were on their way to a training session, authorities said, reports AP.
Seven other police were wounded in the early morning blast in Paktika province, a statement from the provincial governor’s office said.
The van was taking the officers to a training centre in Janikahil district for exercises between the Afghan National Police and the village-level Afghan Local Police, separate branches of the security forces that international troops have been training. Among the five dead were two national police and three local police.
 

N Korea in fresh vow to build up N-deterrent

Agence France-Presse . Seoul

North Korea on Saturday made a fresh vow to build up its nuclear deterrent in the face of ‘threats of war’ from the United States and a ‘policy of confrontation’ from the South.
An editorial in Pyongyang’s ruling party daily, the Rodong Sinmun, said ‘reckless’ war exercises by the US and South Korea could spark a nuclear war at any moment.
‘As long as the United States and South Korean puppets continue with nuclear threats and threats of war against us, we will... strengthen nuclear deterrence through every possible means,’ it said.
South Korean president Park Geun-Hye was no different from her predecessor in taking up a policy of confrontation, the editorial said, accusing the South of deliberately sabotaging planned high-level talks.
‘Unless there is a fundamental switchover in the policy of confrontation of the South’s ruling forces, dialogue and improvement in relations between the North and the South cannot be realised forever,’ it said.
The two Koreas had agreed to hold their first high-level talks in six years in Seoul on Wednesday and Thursday, but they were called off at the last minute following a dispute over protocol.
The talks initiative had been seen as a step forward after months of soaring military tensions, with the North conducting its third nuclear test in February, but its collapse has instead resulted in a sizeable backwards stride.
The editorial was dedicated in commemoration of a landmark summit between the two Koreas on June 15, 2000, which led to a short-lived reconciliation and exchanges between the two Koreas.
Glyn Davies, the US pointman on North Korea policy, said Friday that the United States was exasperated with Pyongyang after it snubbed attempts by president Barack Obama’s administration to reach out in 2009 and again in 2012.
‘The United States will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state. We will not reward the DPRK for the absence of bad behaviour,’ Davies said, using the North’s official name of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Davies repeated US calls on North Korea to take steps to end its nuclear weapons program in line with previous agreements.

Malaysian police arrest 15 over flash-mob protest

Agence France-Presse . Kuala Lumpur

The Malaysian police on Saturday arrested 15 people over a flash-mob protest held to build support for a planned June 22 opposition rally against alleged fraud in elections last month.
Those detained, who included opposition-aligned activists but also a 10-year-old boy, were held for disrupting public order in a busy shopping area of the capital Kuala Lumpur, media reports and opposition politicians said.
‘We had warned them to disperse but they refused to do so. They have been detained to facilitate investigations,’ Zainuddin Ahmad, a local police official in the area, was quoted as saying by The Star newspaper.
Malaysia’s long-ruling coalition was returned to power in May 5 elections that were the country’s closest ever.
The opposition insists vote fraud secured the win for the ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front), but prime minister Najib Razak has denied the charge.
Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has organised a string of post-election rallies nationwide demanding election reforms including an overhaul of an Election Commission it considers biased.
The next gathering is set for June 22 in Kuala Lumpur, but police have warned they may stop the rally, setting up a potential confrontation. All of the rallies have so far proceeded with incident.
‘Fifteen people including a 10-year-old boy who came along with his parents were arrested. The aim is to create fear among protestors and to intimidate them not to attend the mass rally next week,’ said Tian Chua, vice-president of Anwar’s People’s Justice Party.

Protesters rally in HK to support Snowden

Agence France-Presse . Hong Kong

Protesters supporting Edward Snowden, a former contractor at the National Security Agency, march to the US Consulate at Hong Kong’s Central district on Saturday. — Reuters photo

Hundreds of protesters staged a rally in rain-hit Hong Kong Saturday to urge the city’s government not to extradite former spy Edward Snowden, and slam the US for its surveillance programmes.
Snowden, 29, has gone to ground in the city after blowing the lid on the US’s vast electronic surveillance operation and has vowed to fight any extradition request.
The city’s first major demonstration on the issue saw protesters, including pro-democracy lawmakers, activists and a large number of expatriates march to the US consulate holding banners and shouting ‘Defend Free Speech’, ‘Protect Snowden’, ‘No Extradition’ and ‘Respect Hong Kong Law’.
Many blew whistles and wore masks with Snowden’s face on it.
‘Today we all blow the whistle,’ shouted Tom Grundy, a British blogger and activist who lives in Hong Kong.
One protester held a sign of US president Barack Obama’s famous ‘Hope’ poster, edited to show the leader as a spy wearing large headphones. Another sign read: ‘Betray Snowden, Betray freedom’.
The United States has launched a criminal investigation after Snowden, a former CIA technical assistant, leaked details of Washington’s secret Internet and telephone surveillance programmes.
The protesters, made up of 27 civil society organisations, handed a letter over to the US consulate addressed to Consul General Steve Young, which said: ‘For many years, the US State Department has publicly supported the cause of Internet freedom and criticised other governments for conducting cyber attacks, surveillance and censorship.
‘We now understand, through recent revelations, that the US government has been operating their own blanket surveillance systems and allegedly conducting cyber warfare against Hong Kong.
‘This is a violation of Human Rights of people of Hong Kong and around the world.’

 

NEWA OF THE DAY

US Spy Chief Defends Intelligence TacticSurveillance program thwarted attacks

  WASHINGTON: The US spy chief in charge of a leaked program to gather and analyze Internet and phone data defended the intelligence tactic Wednesday, insisting it had helped thwart dozens of terror attacks.

Facing skeptical questions from lawmakers after a rogue technician revealed the secret operation, National Security Agency chief General Keith Alexander insisted it operates under proper legislative and judicial oversight.

“It’s classified but it’s dozens of terrorist events that these have helped prevent,” he told the hearing, the first time he had been questioned in public since 29-year-old former contractor Edward Snowden spilled the beans.

“I want the American people to know that we’re being transparent in here,” he insisted, warning that “the trust of the American people” was a “sacred requirement” if his agency was to be able to do its job.

Asked if the light shone on the programs could help terrorists avoid surveillance, Alexander said: “They will get through, and Americans will die.”

“Great harm has already been done by opening this up. The consequence I believe is our security has been jeopardized,” he warned.

Snowden, a technician seconded by a private contractor to an NSA base in Hawaii, disappeared last month after downloading a cache of secret documents and surfaced over the weekend in Hong Kong to give media interviews.

He embarrassed and infuriated President Barack Obama’s administration by revealing that the NSA had gathered call log records for millions of American phone subscribers and targeted the Internet data of foreign Web users. —AFP - See more at: http://www.daily-sun.com/details_Surveillance-program-thwarted-attacks_527_1_12_1_0.html#sthash.2ZbpNmiW.dpuf

NEWS OF THE DAY

Zionist army faking injuries to justify attacking innocent Palestinians. Very disturbing.

Worlds No1 terrorists.......... there is no doubt of it.

Gains by Syrian govt make peace talks harder: Hague

William Hague

 LONDON: British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned on Sunday that gains made by the regime in the Syrian conflict this week made it harder to organise a peace conference and to make it a success.

He said it was “worrying and depressing” that the so-called Geneva talks were not taking place this month, and repeated his warning that the world must do more to help the people of Syria.

“The regime has gained ground on the ground, again at the cost of huge loss of life and the indiscriminate use of violence against the civilian population,” Hague told BBC television.

“That makes the Geneva conference harder to bring about and to make a success. It makes it less likely that the regime will make enough concessions in such negotiations, and it makes it harder to get the opposition to come to the negotiations.

“The way the position on the ground is changing in Syria at the moment isn’t helping us bring about a political and diplomatic (solution).”

Asked if he believed the Geneva talks would happen at all, Hague said: “We’re working on that. We’re in intensive discussions with the US and of course with Russia and the UN about this.

“But they’re not coming together in the next couple of weeks and I find that worrying and depressing.”

Hague repeated that Britain had not yet taken a decision on arming the rebels in Syria but confirmed for the first time that there would be a vote in parliament before it did so.

Several MPs had expressed concerns the weapons could fall into the wrong hands.

“There would be a vote one way or the other. There isn’t an established procedure for it, but I can’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be before any such decision was implemented,” Hague said.

He added: “People have understandable concerns about the idea of sending arms to anybody in Syria.

“We’d all be very reluctant to do that. On the other hand at the moment people are being killed in huge numbers while the world denies them the means to defend themselves.” — AFP 

Prayers for Mandela after second night in hospital

Members of the congregation at the Regina Mundi church in Soweto, a flashpoint during the anti-apartheid struggle, pray on Sunday for Nelson Mandela during Sunday Mass. Afp Photo

 JOHANNESBURG: South Africans prayed for Nelson Mandela as he spent a second day in hospital on Sunday suffering a lung infection that has sparked worldwide concerns for the ailing peace icon.

Mandela’s latest health scare was splashed across the front pages of local newspapers but government officials have released no updates since announcing he was hospitalised in Pretoria early Saturday in a “serious but stable” condition.

The congregation at the Regina Mundi church in Soweto, a flashpoint during the anti-apartheid struggle, prayed for the 94-year-year-old national hero.

“I am coming to church today with Madiba in my thoughts. I want him to get well,” churchgoer Nokuthula Tshibasa, 38, told AFP, using Mandela’s clan name.

It is the fourth hospital stay since December for the Nobel peace prize laureate, who turns 95 next month, after he was discharged in April following treatment for pneumonia.

South Africans are beginning to come to terms with the mortality of their first black president who is revered as the father of the “Rainbow Nation” multi-race democracy.

“I mean Tata is 94. At 94 what do you expect?” said church goer Sannie Shezi, 36, using an affectionate term meaning father.

“He lived his life, he worked for us. All we can say is God help him. If things happen they will happen, but we still love him.”

The Sunday Times newspaper carried a front-page picture of the elder statesman smiling and waving under the headline: “It’s time to let him go”.

“We wish Madiba a speedy recovery, but I think what is important is that his family must release him,” long-time friend Andrew Mlangeni, 87, told the newspaper.

The former apartheid era prisoner who was jailed for life alongside Mandela in 1964 said it was clear he was not well and it was possible he “might not be well again”.

“Once the family releases him, the people of South Africa will follow. We will say thank you, God, you have given us this man, and we will release him too.”

Mandela’s third wife Graca Machel has been at his hospital bedside after calling off a trip to London.

Presidency spokesman Mac Maharaj, who also served time with Mandela in Robben Island, said Saturday he was in a “serious” condition, in an unusually sombre description of his state of health.

But he told AFP that Mandela was breathing on his own.

“The truth of the matter is a simple one. Madiba is a fighter and at his age as long as he is fighting, he’ll be fine,” he said.

Mandela is revered as a global symbol of forgiveness after embracing his former jailers following his release from 27 years in prison and his latest hospitalisation triggered outpourings of concern across the globe.

“No one lasts forever. But I really wish there was an exception for #Mandela,” said one post on Twitter. — AFP Please Read thisOnly in Palestine. According to the recent statiscs, almost 12% of the imprisoned children are under the age of 16. Israeli occupation entity has been targeting arresting children to ask parents for thousands of shekels as a price for their children's freedom, which is just another ugly face of ransom. Palestinian kids face this act of racism on a daily basis, on their way to school, home, and while they are trespassing the Israeli racist checkpoints near each city. 

Netanyahu reiterates pledge to Palestinian state

 

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday reiterated his commitment to a Palestinian state, after his deputy defence minister said the government would not support a two-state solution.

Speaking at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu—who in 2009 declared his support of a two-state solution—said he and US Secretary of State John Kerry will together “try to make progress to find the opening for negotiations with the Palestinians, with the goal of reaching an agreement.”

“This agreement will be based on a demilitarised Palestinian state that recognises the Jewish state, and on firm security arrangements based on the IDF (Israel Defence Forces),” he said.

His remarks were made just days after Deputy Defence Minister Danny Danon, a member of Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, rejected the notion that the government was serious about reaching a peace agreement that would lead to the formation of a Palestinian state.

“There was never a government discussion, resolution or vote about the two-state solution,” Danon said in an interview with The Times of Israel news website on Thursday.

If it were put to a vote, “the majority of Likud ministers, along with Jewish Home will be against it,” he said, referring to a far-right nationalist faction within the government.

“Today, we are not fighting it, but if there will be a move to promote a two-state solution, you will see forces blocking it within the party and the government,” he said.

“Today there is no partner, no negotiations, so it’s a discussion. It’s more of an academic discussion,” he said, adding that Netanyahu “knows that in the near future it’s not possible” to create a Palestinian state.

Although Netanyahu made no direct mention of Danon’s remarks, which made headlines across the press on Sunday, he stressed the need for unity within his cabinet.

“In order to face these challenges and many others, the government has to function as one unit,” he said, his remarks distributed in a statement.

Kerry, who last week warned time was running out on a possible peace deal, is due in the region this week for his fifth visit since taking office in February in a bid to revive direct peace talks after a nearly three-year hiatus.

Palestinians say they will only return to negotiations if Israel stops building on land it wants for a future state and if the Jewish state agrees to negotiate on the basis of the pre-1967 lines.

Israel demands talks “without preconditions” and refuses publicly to freeze settlement building. — AFP

New clashes raise pressure on Turkish PM

A Turkish demostrator burns flares with a Guy Fawkes mask on Sunday during a demonstration on Gundogdu Square in Izmir. Afp Photo

 ISTANBUL: Turkish rioters on Sunday burned tyres and hurled fireworks at police who fired back tear gas in unrelenting protests against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The new clashes raised pressure on Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted conservative government after he ordered an end to the protests, which have thrown up the fiercest challenge to his decade of rule.

Tens of thousands poured into the streets in Istanbul, cradle of the 10 days of unrest, as well as in the capital Ankara, the major western city of Izmir and the city of Adana in the south.

“Tayyip, resign!” they yelled, in mostly peaceful protests. Local media said numerous people were injured in Ankara when police dispersed a crowd of about 10,000, sending them scrambling and tripping over each other with jets of water and gas.

Fresh clashes also erupted in Istanbul’s western Gazi neighbourhood, a working class district largely peopled by Alevis, a Muslim minority opposed to Erdogan, where rioters hurled incendiary devices and taunted police.

The government insisted on Saturday that the protests were “under control”, but within hours some of the largest crowds yet packed Istanbul’s Taksim Square, where the unrest erupted on May 31 with a police crackdown on a campaign to save the adjacent Gezi Park from demolition.

The trouble spiralled into nationwide protests against Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), seen as increasingly authoritarian. — AFP 

Baghdad suicide car bomb kills six

  BAGHDAD: A suicide car bomb targeting a Baghdad police station killed six people on Sunday, the latest in a string of bombings and attacks that have revived fears of all-out sectarian war in Iraq.

The blast, which struck during morning rush hour in the mostly-Shiite neighbourhood of Kadhimiyah, went off near a branch of the Istikbarat, a department of the police responsible for intelligence, according to security and medical officials.

Six people were killed, including three of the branch’s guards, and 22 others were wounded, the officials said.

Kadhimiyah is home to a shrine to Imam Musa Kadhim, a revered figure in Shia Islam, and last week was the site of massive commemorations for his 799 AD death.

Sunni militants, including those linked to Al-Qaeda, view Shiites as apostates and often target them for attacks. However, no group immediately claimed responsibility for Sunday’s bombing. Violence in Iraq has risen sharply, with May being the deadliest month since 2008, as persistent political disputes have given fuel and room for militants to increase their activities. —Dawn.com  

   

NEWS OF THE DAY

 

 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Friday that the US justice system was suffering from a “calamitous collapse in the rule of law”, as Washington reeled from the sensational exposure of vast spy agency surveillance programmes. Speaking in an interview with AFP at Ecuador’s London embassy, where he has been holed up for almost a year, the founder of the whistleblowing website accused the US government of trying to “launder” its activities with regard to the far-reaching electronic spying effort revealed on Thursday.

Obama defends surveillance dragnet

  WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama has defended US spy agency programs which trawl phone and Internet data as a “modest encroachment” on privacy needed to keep Americans safe from terrorism.

“Nobody is listening to your telephone calls,” Obama said, seeking to quell public disquiet after two days of explosive revelations hinting at the scope of a vast and classified government data mining operation.

Obama, in San Jose, California, hit out at what he said was “hype” over reports the National Security Agency (NSA) logs details of millions of domestic calls, for possible later use in anti-terror operations.

He also defended a program called PRISM, in which NSA and FBI agents are tapping into the servers of nine US Internet giants, including Facebook, Google, YouTube, Apple and others, as they try to subvert terror plots originating abroad.

“This does not apply to US citizens. And it does not apply to people living in the United States,” Obama said.

Civil liberties and privacy groups have raised alarm at the two programs, reported by the Guardian and Washington Post newspapers, warning they are “Orwellian” and could be unconstitutional.

Obama said he welcomed the debate, but warned the programs had previously been kept under wraps to avoid tipping off America’s enemies and said they made only “modest encroachments” on privacy.

“I think it’s important to recognize that you can’t have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience. We’re going to have to make some choices as a society,” he said.

He repeatedly argued that Congress had been kept fully apprised of the activity and had voted to authorize it. Federal and secret intelligence courts were also used to present abuse, he said.

The Washington Post, citing a career intelligence officer, reported late Thursday the NSA had direct access to Internet firm servers to track an individual’s web presence via audio, video, photographs and emails.

The paper said the leak came from an officer “with firsthand experience of these systems and horror at their capabilities.”

“They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type,” the officer was quoted as saying. Internet giants, however, denied opening their doors for US spy agencies. —AFP

Xi, Obama urge new relations amid hacking row

US president Barack Obama listens as Chinese president Xi Jinping answers a question following their bilateral meeting at the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, California on Friday.

 RANCHO MIRAGE: Throwing formality aside at a desert retreat, the US and Chinese leaders pledged a new approach in ties, but President Barack Obama took the rising power to task on cyber-hacking charges.

Skipping the usual summit pageantry, Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping both went without neckties at a resort under the blazing California sun as they looked to forge a personal chemistry that could shape the years to come.

In their first meeting since Xi assumed power in March, Obama voiced hope the US superpower and fast-growing China “can forge a new model of cooperation between countries based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”

“It is in the United States’ interests that China continues on the path of success because we believe that a peaceful and stable and prosperous China is not only good for the Chinese, but also good for the world and the United States,” Obama said before a leisurely dinner.

Hovering over the summit at the Sunnylands retreat was a vexing question for both countries—whether China’s rise to regional and global prominence will mean an inevitable clash with the United States.

Obama wasted no time in hitting a key theme of the visit from the US side—complaints of an alleged Chinese Internet spying effort targeting American military and commercial secrets and intellectual property.

He voiced concern over the alleged theft—which a recent study said was costing the US economy hundreds of billions of dollars a year—and urged “common rules of the road” to protect against hacking. —AFP 

Five die in Santa Monica shooting

  California: At least five people are dead and several others injured after a gun rampage in the beachfront city of Santa Monica, California, police say.

The attack began at a house and ended on a college campus where police say they shot the gunman in the library.

Police initially put the death toll at six, but later revised it to five people dead, including the shooter.

The gunman was in his late 20s and had been carrying an assault-style rifle, say witnesses.

President Barack Obama was at a fundraiser not far from where the shooting unfolded just before noon on Friday.

The gunman, dressed in black and wearing an ammunition belt and bullet-proof jacket, began by firing shots at the house, witnesses said. The property was then engulfed by fire although it is not clear how the blaze started.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the first two victims were the gunman’s father and brother.

Neighbour Jerry Rathner said she witnessed the shooting from her veranda, the Associated Press reported.

The gunman then walked to the street corner, pointed his gun at a driver and told her to pull over.

He signalled to another car with a female driver to slow down and fired into the car several times.

Ms Rathner said she rushed to help the victim and saw she had a shoulder injury.

“He fired three to four shots into the car, boom, boom, boom, right at her,” Ms Rathner said.

Authorities say the violence then moved to a street corner near Santa Monica College where the suspect fired at passing vehicles. —BBC Online 

Syria regime takes last rebel bastion near Qusayr

A vehicle is seen burning in the village of Buweida, north of Qusayr, in Syria’s central Homs province on Saturday as regime forces sought to mop up the final pockets of rebel resistance north of Qusayr, after retaking the key town that was an insurgent bastion for a year, a watchdog said.

 DAMASCUS: Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have now seized all of the Qusayr area in central Syria, state television reported on Saturday, as the United Nations launched a record aid appeal for refugees.

Saturday’s seizure of Eastern Bweida village, the last rebel bastion in the area, brought the entire Qusayr region near the border with Lebanon back under regime control.

It came four days after Qusayr, a strategically key town for both the regime and the rebels which had been in insurgent hands for a year, fell to the army and forces from Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah movement.

“Our heroic troops have restored safety and security in Eastern Bweida” in the central Syrian province of Homs, the state broadcaster said.

Hundreds of people who fled Qusayr as it fell on Wednesday had taken refuge there.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was concerned about the fate of hundreds of fighters and civilians, many of them wounded. —AFP 

Iran condemns deadly Iraq attack on its pilgrims

  TEHRAN: Iran on Saturday condemned a deadly attack the day before in neighbouring Iraq, in which at least 14 Iranian Shiite pilgrims were killed, the official IRNA news agency said.

“Iran condemns this indiscriminate terrorist act, which is contrary to Islamic and human values,” it cited foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Araqchi as saying.

Iranian television reports said 14 pilgrims from Iran were killed and 45 wounded on Friday when a parked vehicle rigged with explosives detonated in the restive town of Muqdadiyah north of Baghdad.

The blast occurred as the pilgrims’ bus passed through the town en route from the Iranian border to the Shiite holy city of Najaf. —AFP

Five die in Russian copter crash

  MOSCOW: Five people died when a helicopter on a commercial flight crashed and burst into flames in a remote region of Far Eastern Russia, the emergency situations ministry said Saturday.

Rescuers found the bodies of four crew members and one passenger in the burnt-out wreckage of the Mi-8 helicopter in the Khabarovsk region after a two-day search. The helicopter was carrying three tons of cargo, the ministry said.

The helicopter had taken off from the village of Tugur on the Sea of Okhotsk and was flying to the remote inland village of Briakan when it crashed on Thursday. —AFP 

Somali warlords battle over key southern port

  MOGADISHU: At least eight people have been killed in fighting between rival Somali warlords battling for control of the southern port city of Kismayo, witnesses said Saturday.

Gunmen from the Ras Kamboni militia of former Islamist warlord Ahmed Ma-dobe—recently self-appointed “president” of the southern Jubaland region—battled against forces loyal to Iftin Hassan Basto, another leader claiming to be president.

Fighting broke out Friday evening, paused overnight, but resumed on Saturday. “Fighting started when soldiers from Ras Kamboni attacked and tried to arrest me,” Basto told reporters. “But my men fought back and defended me.”

Several rival factions claim ownership of Kismayo, a former stronghold of the Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab, where Kenyan troops in an African Union force are now based.

Kenyan troops, who invaded Somalia in 2011, back Madobe’s control of the strategic and economic hub, but neither the title of “president” nor the region of Jubaland is recognised by the weak central government in Mogadishu. —AFP 

Egypt court adjourns Mubarak trial, bars lawyers

Egyptian female supporters of Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak hold his portraits outside the Egyptian police academy in Cairo during his retrial on Saturday.

 CAIRO: An Egyptian court in the retrial of fallen dictator Hosni Mubarak for alleged complicity in the killings of protesters barred lawyers in civil cases from the proceedings at a brief session on Saturday.

Presiding judge Mahmoud al-Rashidi adjourned the court to Monday, shortly after opening the second hearing in Mubarak’s retrial, a criminal case.

Mubarak, 85, watched the proceedings while sitting up on a stretcher inside the defendants’ cage, shared with seven of his former security commanders and his two sons.

His original trial led to a life sentence for Mubarak and his interior minister Habib al-Adly, and acquittals for six police commanders.

But an appeals court ordered a retrial, citing procedural errors. Rashidi on Saturday barred lawyers filing civil suits against Mubarak and his co-defendants from attending hearings in the retrial. Those filing civil suits had been allowed to attend the first trial.

One of the main lawyers filing civil suits, Sameh Ashur, told AFP Rashidi’s ruling would not have a major impact on the proceedings.

But the decision angered the lawyers in the makeshift court in a police academy lecture hall outside Cairo.

“The people demand the cleansing of the judiciary,” they chanted.

Mubarak’s lawyer Farid al-Deeb appeared visibly satisfied with the ruling. He had demanded the same of the judge in Mubarak’s first trial. —AFP

Senate urged to pass immigration overhaul bill

  WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Saturday urged lawmakers to pass an immigration overhaul bill that the Senate is due to debate this week, saying that it was “commonsense” though not perfect.

“For years, our out-of-date immigration system has actually harmed our economy and threatened our security,” Obama said in his weekly radio and television address.

“The bill before the Senate isn’t perfect. It’s a compromise. Nobody will get everything they want—not Democrats, not Republicans, not me,” he conceded.

“But it is a bill that’s largely consistent with the principles I’ve repeatedly laid out for commonsense immigration reform.” —AFP 

Thousands join Turkey protests defying PM

  ISTANBUL: Thousands of angry Turks took to the streets on Saturday to join mass anti-government protests, defying Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s call to end the worst civil unrest of his decade-long rule.

From the early morning, protesters began arriving in Istanbul’s Taksim Square with food and blankets to settle in for a weekend of demonstrations, adding to the growing tent city in nearby Gezi Park.

“A week ago, I could never imagine myself sleeping out on the streets of Istanbul,” said 22-year-old Aleyna, wrapped up under a blanket with a stray kitten, pointing to her dirty clothes. “Now I don’t know how I can ever go back.”

Fresh demonstrations were also planned in the capital Ankara as the crisis entered its ninth day. —AFP 

Mali holds crisis talks with Tuareg rebels

  OUAGADOUGOU: Talks between Malian authorities and armed ethnic Tuareg rebels aimed at resolving the conflict in the north of the country opened on Saturday after a day’s delay.

“The aim is to find a durable solution to the grave crisis engulfing Mali,” said President Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso which is mediating the negotiations.

Tensions remain high in the north of Mali after heavy fighting near the rebel-held city of Kidal, stoking concerns about the staging of planned nationwide elections next month.

Kidal, a town prized by the Tuaregs, has been occupied by the rebel National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) since the end of January. —AFP