EU pushes Libya peace as IS claims deadly blasts

EU pushes Libya peace as IS claims deadly blasts

Tunis (AFP) – The EU urged Libyan politicians to back a unity government Thursday, as the Islamic State group claimed suicide bombings that killed dozens and sparked fears of a jihadist expansion on Europe’s doorstep.

European Union foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini also said the EU would give Libya 100 million euros ($108 million) to battle IS, saying the security situation “needs to be tackled immediately”.

She told reporters the funds would be available from the first day the unity government comes to power.

Mogherini met separately in a Tunis suburb with Fayez al-Sarraj, a businessman who was named in a UN-brokered national unity government as prime minister designate, and Libyan lawmakers.

IS said one of its members, Abdallah al-Muhajer, “detonated a truck bomb in the middle of a base belonging to the apostate Libyan forces in the city of Zliten… killing nearly 80 of them and wounding 150”.

A security source had said more than 50 people were killed in the attack on a police training school, which left buildings charred and turned cars into twisted wrecks.

It was the deadliest single attack in Libya since the 2011 revolution that toppled longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi.

IS, which launched an offensive against Libya’s oil heartland this week, also said it was behind Thursday’s suicide bomb attack on a checkpoint in Ras Lanouf, home to a key oil terminal on the country’s northern coast.

..View gallery Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj (L) and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini (R) attend …The Red Crescent said six people, including a baby, died in that attack.

– ‘IS taking advantage’ –

Fears the jihadists are establishing a new stronghold on Europe’s doorstep have added urgency to efforts to bring together warring factions in a country beset by chaos since 2011.

Libya has had rival administrations since August 2014, when an Islamist-backed militia alliance overran Tripoli, forcing the government to take refuge in the east.

In December, after months of negotiations, a minority of lawmakers from both sides signed on to the UN-brokered national unity deal which has yet to win the full support of the two legislatures.

Analysts say these divisions are bolstering the position of IS.

“The situation has become very worrisome… with IS taking advantage of the chaos, the collapse of the central authorities and wars by proxy,” said Karim Bitar, head of research at the French Institute of International Relations.

..View gallery Libyans inspect the site of a suicide truck bombing on a police school in the coastal city of Zliten …The international community has been pleading for months with Libya’s rival parliaments to embrace the UN-brokered deal.

Mogherini said she had “fruitful and concrete” talks with Libyan politicians on how the EU can help the future government in the “fight against terrorism and namely against Daesh (IS)”.

“The best response to terrorism especially to Daesh will be a Libyan response” and a government to unite Libyans, she said, adding that the EU could help provided “training and advising”.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned Thursday’s attacks and also urged unity among Libyans.

“These criminal acts serve as a strong reminder of the urgency to implement the Libyan political agreement and form a government of national accord,” Ban said.

– ‘Unity the best way’ –

“Unity is the best way for Libyans to confront terrorism in all its forms.”

Bitar said the establishment of a national unity government was a matter of “urgency” but he warned international efforts could fail due to “numerous suspicions” on the ground.

Mohamed Eljarh, a non-resident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Hariri Centre, agreed.

He said the latest attacks claimed by IS “would not end the feud in Libya, but could at best result in reducing the trust deficit between the various armed and political groups as they attempt to cooperate and help each other in the face of IS’s expansion”.

The heads of Libya’s parliaments have warned the UN-brokered deal has no legitimacy and that the politicians signing the agreement represented only themselves.

The chaos in Libya since 2011 has also led to its rise as a stepping stone for migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Europe.

The IS offensive against the oil terminals in Ras Lanouf and nearby Al-Sidra in Libya’s so-called “oil crescent” came as IS has tried for weeks to push east from its stronghold in Sirte.

Officials have warned the already crumbling state could be paralysed if IS, which is reported to have at least 3,000 fighters in Libya, seize control of oil resources.

In a report to the UN Security Council in November, International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said IS was responsible for at least 27 car and suicide bombings in Libya in 2015

http://news.yahoo.com/claims-suicide-bombing-killed-dozens-libyas-zliten-170127394.html

Aung San Suu Kyi Portrait with 2000 white flowers and red dye by Red Hong Yi

Egypt to charge al-Jazeera journalists with damaging country’s reputation

Rights groups says move to indict 20 employees of news channel marks escalation in state’s campaign against foreign media

• Patrick Kingsley in Cairo

Al-Jazeera’s Cario studio after it was set ablaze in November. Sixteen of its journalist are accused of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Photograph: Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters

Egyptian prosecutors say they will charge 20 al-Jazeera journalists, including two Britons, an Australian and a Dutch citizen, with fabricating news and tarnishing Egypt‘s reputation abroad. The 16 local defendants are also accused of belonging to former president Mohamed Morsi’s now-banned Muslim Brotherhood.

The journalists include the Australian former BBC correspondent Peter Greste, and the al-Jazeera’s Canadian-Egyptian bureau chief Mohamed Fahmy, who has worked for CNN and the New York Times. The identities of the other defendants, including the two Britons, are not stated, and some of them are understood to have been accused in absentia.

In a statement, prosecutors said the defendants aimed “to weaken the state’s status, harming the national interest of the country, disturbing public security, instilling fear among the people, causing damage to the public interest, and possession of communication, filming, broadcast, video transmission without permit from the concerned authorities”.

Al-Jazeera’s Mohamed Fahmy, left, Baher Mohamed, centre, and Peter Greste were arrested in Decemver during a raid on a makeshift office suite in Cairo’s Marriott hotel.Officials, who wanted to remain anonymous, also claimed the US news network CNN had broadcast al-Jazeera’s reporting in an effort “to distort Egypt’s international reputation”, though this allegation was not repeated in any official document.

Rights advocates said the charges mark a serious escalation in the Egyptian state’s campaign against foreign media. The government’s supporters claim international news outlets are biased in their reporting of human rights abuses against Morsi supporters and secular dissenters – and accuse overseas outlets of working in the Brotherhood’s interests.

Al-Jazeera has received by far the fiercest criticism because its owner, Qatar, is considered sympathetic to the Brotherhood. The broadcaster’s Arabic-language stations are considered particularly biased by the Egyptian government.

Conflicts between al-Jazeera and the Egyptian authorities after the Brotherhood’s overthrow in July forced the broadcaster to shut the offices of its Arabic and English divisions, and its employees to operate without accreditation – one of several charges laid against the journalists on Wednesday.

“This case is part of a violent campaign against the freedom of expression and journalism that we have never witnessed before, except during the dying days of the Mubarak regime, from October to December 2010,” said Gamal Eid, a leading Egyptian rights lawyer, and head of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI).

“This is taking legitimate journalists’ work and calling it terrorism,” saidSherif Mansour, Middle East director for the Committee for the Protection of Journalists. “That’s the biggest distortion of Egypt’s image abroad – not the reporting the journalists were doing.”

The charges would have a chilling effect on the work of journalists in Egypt, according to Khaled Mansour, the head of a leading local rights watchdog, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR).

“I have a very strong concern now for journalists, especially foreign journalists, who are trying very hard to create a balanced picture of what is going on in this country,” he said. “The work of a journalist involves going to dangerous places and interviewing outlaws. But if I were a journalist in this country, I would now be very frightened of talking to the Muslim Brotherhood – even though they are an important part of the story.

“This will really have a very chilling effect on the work of journalists – and I would hope this government will make a distinction between a journalist doing their job and meeting people, and the charges that have been filed.”

The Telegraph commentator Peter Oborne also condemned the journalists’ treatment at an event in London. More than 40 international and Egypt-focused journalists – including CNN’s Christine Amanpour and the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen – signed a joint letter on the same subject two weeks ago.

Lawyers were unclear about whether charges referred to members of al-Jazeera’s Arabic channel who were arrested in August, or just al-Jazeera English journalists seized several months later. Al-Jazeera English’s Greste, Fahmy, and local producer Baher Mohamed have been detained since late December after state security officials raided their informal base in the Marriott, a hotel in central Cairo. In local media – whose coverage is highly skewed towards the government – state officials have described the trio as “the Marriott terror cell”.

In a recent letter from prison, Greste called their incarceration “an attack not just on me and my two colleagues but on freedom of speech across Egypt”.

Greste has been placed in a better-kept cell, but Fahmy has been denied medical treatment for a dislocated shoulder, which was injured shortly before his arrest. Fahmy and Mohamed are in a high-security prison reserved for suspected terrorists. They spend “24 hours a day in their mosquito-infested cells, sleeping on the floor with no books or writing materials to break the soul-destroying tedium”, according to Greste.

Egyptian riot police block a photojournalist outside the offices of the Journalists’ Syndicate in Cairo. Photograph: Ben Curtis/APAbdullah Elshamy, one of the al-Jazeera Arabic journalists detained without charge since August, has been on hunger-strike for nine days to draw attention to his plight. “I do not belong to any group or ideology, I belong to my conscience and my humanity,” he said in a letter from prison on Monday.

“Even though the other journalists have been accused unjustly, at least they are going to be able to defend themselves,” his brother Mosa’ab Elshamy, an acclaimed photographer, told the Guardian. “Abdullah hasn’t even been given that right – and his case is even more backward than the one referred today.”

The fate of their younger brother is indicative of the harsh conditions facing journalists in Egypt. Mohamed Elshamy was arrested at a police checkpoint on Tuesday because his camera contained images of a protest. He was later released.

“It is not only that the violence has made it almost impossible to take close-up pictures at protests,” said Mosa’ab Elshamy, “but it has become difficult to even carry a camera in the street.”

Being detained by police or threatened by mobs is a common experience for journalists – and especially photographers – when reporting near large crowds. One German crew was reportedly hospitalised last Friday after a particularly vicious attack near the site of a bomb explosion.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has documented at least 24 abuses against members of the media in Egypt since Saturday. It says the level of attacks on and detentions of journalists in the months after Morsi’s overthrow was unprecedented in Egypt’s history.

Anger at foreign media is high among certain sections of the population who see Egypt as being on the path to democracy, and who link the Brotherhood to terrorist acts committed by extremist groups.

oOne pro-government supporter, Ali Abdel Samer, a shopkeeper, said: “All the foreign media is just saying things from the Brotherhood’s side.”

The Guardian has come under express criticism from Egypt’s presidency.

Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour, a cabinet minister, told correspondents last week: “The international media has not assessed the facts in Egypt as we see it here.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/29/egypt-to-charge-20-al-jazeera-journalists-damaging-countrys-reputation

Syrian girl stoned to death for using Facebook account

 

 

Dailybhaskar.com   |  Feb 20, 2014, 16:51PM IST

MORE:

Facebook|Osama Bin Laden Death

 

 

Rakka, Syria: A young girl was stoned to death by militant groups in Syria for operating Facebookaccount.

 

Fatoum Al-Jassem was taken to a Sharia court after she was caught using the social networking website, in Rakka, Syria. The Sharia court declared that using a Facebook account amounts to adultery and the girl should be punished by stoning, according to a news report published in Iran’s FARS news agencywhich quoted a report published in Arabic-language Al-Rai Al-Youm.

 

The members of the Al-Qaeda group in Iraq, also known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) were behind the incident.

 

The ISIS, or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is an hardline Islamic group based in Iraq. They have been fighting an active war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the government forces in Iraq.

 

The group’s ideology is based on extremely strict interpretation of Islam.

 

Ironically, the ISIS operates a Facebook account of its own.

 

http://daily.bhaskar.com/article/WOR-syrian-girl-stoned-to-death-for-using-facebook-account-4521918-NOR.html

 

Nato warns that Russia is risking Europe’s peace and security

Tensions rise as Vladimir Putin mobilises all reservists and US Secretary of State John Kerry flies into Kiev

By Damien McElroy, in Kiev, Roland Oliphant in Simferopol and Peter Foster in Washington

Ukraine has mobilised for war amid warnings from Nato that Russia’s annexation of Crimea “threatens peace and security in Europe”.

With tension nearing boiling point, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Nato Secretary General, vowed the organisation would stand by Ukraine, a nation of 46 million which occupies a vital strategic position between Europe and Russia.

Speaking before he chaired an emergency meeting of ambassadors from the 28 Nato member states, he said: “Russia must stop its military activities and its threats.”

The United States dramatically instensifed pressure on Moscow, threatening to remove Russia from the G8 club of developed economies.

John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, condemned Russia for what he called an “incredible act of aggression” and threatened “very serious repercussions”, including Russia’s possible expulsion from the G8.

“You don’t just, in the 21st century, behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on a completely trumped-up pretext,” he said.

Mr Kerry announced a surprise trip to Kiev this week in a show of support for the embattled leadership, as Washington and its allies strongly criticised Moscow for violating Ukraine’s sovereignty.

In what is Moscow’s biggest confrontation with the West since the Cold War, Russian troops on Sunday tightened their grip on Crimea, the Ukrainian territory which has historic links to Russia and is home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

“Russia chose this brazen act of aggression. If Russia wants to be a G8 country, it needs to behave like a G8 country,” he continued.

“[Putin] may find himself with asset freezes on Russian business, American business may pull back, there may be a further tumble of the ruble,” added Mr Kerry.

He said that Moscow still had a “right set of choices” to defuse the crisis. Otherwise, G8 countries and other nations were prepared to “to go to the hilt to isolate Russia”.

The Kremlin’s spokesman refused to respond to the remarks, saying the Kremlin had no comment “at the moment”.

The US, Britain, France and Canada withdrew from preparations this week for a G8 summit in June in Sochi, the Russian winter Olympics city. President Barack Obama was due to speak to allies last night about the Ukraine crisis, said a White House spokesman.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, arrived in Kiev to meet the interim government installed by Ukraine’s parliament after President Viktor Yanukovych fled last weekend after three months of tumultuous protest in the city’s centre sparked by his decision to abandon a trade pact with the European Union in favour of a Russian bailout.

“The sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Ukraine has been violated and this cannot be the way to conduct international affairs,” he said.

Ukraine has put its armed forces on combat readiness and issued a general call-up of the one million strong reserves to respond to Russia’s seizure of the Crimea peninsula.

However, Kiev’s small and under-equipped military is seen as no match for Russia’s might.

The readiness of Ukraine armed forces was dramatically called into question after the government was forced to charge the head of the navy with treason after he defected to the renegade Crimea leadership.

Adm Denis Berezovsky announced he had switched allegiance to the pro-Russian authorities a day after he was appointed by interim president Oleksandr Turchynov.

“I swear to execute the orders of the [pro-Russia] commander-in-chief of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea,” he said from the Crimean headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

Ukraine insisted its fleet of 10 warships in the Crimean port of Sevastopol had not left the port and remained loyal to the government in Kiev.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the Ukrainian prime minister, warned that Kiev would request international intervention if the Russian military pressed its offensive in Crimea and potential elsewhere.

“This is actually a declaration of war to my country. We urge Putin to pull back his troops from this country and honour bilateral agreements,” he said. “If he wants to be the president who started the war between two neighbouring and friendly countries, he has reached his target within a few inches.”

Kiev has so far sought to avoid a blow-for-blow response to Russian moves despite the overnight call up. A marine infantry base in Crimea remained surrounded by Russian forces last night without a shot being fired.

Russian forces bloodlessly seized Crimea over the weekend, and yesterday surrounded several small Ukrainian military outposts and demanded the Ukrainian troops disarm. Some refused, leading to standoffs, although no shots were fired.

All eyes are now on whether Russia makes a military move in predominantly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow demonstrators have marched and raised Russian flags over public buildings in several cities in the last two days.

Revolutionary leaders yesterday addressed massive crowds in Kiev’s Independence Square, the ground zero of the revolution. “Tens of thousands of people rallied in eastern and southern cities to show Ukraine is united and doesn’t need any interference from another country,” said Vitali Klitschko, the former boxing world champion-turned-presidential candidate.

For all Mr Kerry’s strong language and the “ultimate” threats of sanctions, behind the scenes European and US diplomats were still working furiously to broker a face-saving end to the crisis.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10671729/Nato-warns-that-Russia-is-risking-Europes-peace-and-security.html

 

 

Egypt protests 2013: Nearly 100 women sexually assaulted, raped in Cairo

Egypt protests 2013: Nearly 100 women sexually assaulted, raped in Cairo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-dC-42b7Sk&feature=player_embedded

(Raw Video)Female Dutch Journalist Gang-Raped at Tahrir Square during the Egyptian Protest!!!

Shocking reports have emerged from anti-harassment factions of nearly 100 women having fallen victim to “rampant” sexual assaults and in some instances being raped by mobs in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, over four days of Egyptian protests against Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York, said, “Mobs sexually assaulted and in some cases raped at least 91 women in Tahrir Square…amid a climate of impunity.”

Citing statistics from the Egyptian Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault (OpAntiSH), which runs a hotline for victims of sexual assault, Human Rights Watch showed that on Sunday there were 46 cases of sexual attacks against women, on Monday there were 17, and on Tuesday there were 23.

According to OpAntiSH, four of the women who were attacked over the past four days required medical aid, while one woman required surgery after being raped with a blunt object. “Among the reported cases tonight are grandmothers; mothers with their children; 7yr olds. Common denominator: all female,” OpAntiSH tweeted.

Among those attacked and in severe condition according to reports is a 22-year-old Dutch journalist, who was gang-raped by five men in an attack reminiscent of the 2011 sexual assault in Tahrir Square on CBS’s Lara Logan, after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

While some women in Cairo reported mob attacks in the past few days, others have disclosed they were raped with a knife or blade. So severe have been the injuries that several required surgical intervention after the attacks. According to Human Rights Watch, some women protesters were “beaten with metal chains, sticks, and chairs, and attacked with knives.”

Another organization focusing on research of women’s rights, Nazra for Feminist Studies, reported that there were five more attacks on women on Friday. The watchdog called on Egyptian officials and political leaders “across the spectrum to condemn and take immediate steps to address the horrific levels of sexual violence” in the historic square.

Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said: “The rampant sexual attacks during the Tahrir Square protests highlight the failure of the government and all political parties to face up to the violence that women in Egypt experience on a daily basis in public spaces.”

“These are serious crimes that are holding women back from participating fully in the public life of Egypt at a critical point in the country’s development,” Stork added.

The Egyptian government, on its part, has done little to help. Their response to reports of assaults on women protesters has been to “downplay the extent of the problem or to seek to address it through legislative reform alone,” Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch is pushing for concerted efforts to improve the protection of victims and bringing the perpetrators of assault to justice. Unfortunately, the victims are not willing to speak publicly about their ordeal for fear of social stigma, and the filing of criminal complaints is rare, Human Rights Watch said.

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/14922909-antimorsi-protests-nearly-100-women-sexually-assaulted-raped-in-cairo

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