UK policewoman guilty of misconduct over call to Murdoch tabloid

LONDON (Reuters) - A senior British counter-terrorism police officer was found guilty on Thursday of misconduct in public office over a call to the News of the World to discuss an investigation into phone-hacking by its reporters.

April Casburn, 53, a detective chief inspector, rang up the tabloid newspaper on September 11, 2010, and disclosed various details of a confidential police probe that had just been launched and was the subject of intense media speculation.

Casburn's case was the first criminal trial to arise out of a web of police investigations connected to the hacking scandal, which was in its early stages in September 2010 but later escalated into a much wider crisis affecting British media, politics and police. The News of the World was shut down by its owner, Rupert Murdoch, in July 2011.

The prosecution accused Casburn of asking the paper for money and said her call was a "malicious" attempt to undermine the investigation because of her perception that she had been wronged and sidelined by police colleagues.

Casburn denied asking for payment. She said her intention was to raise the alarm over what she viewed as a waste of counter-terrorism resources on hacking when they should have been concentrating on preventing attacks in the run-up to the anniversary of the September11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

She testified that she had been incensed by the attitude of senior officers who regarded the hacking probe as "a bit of a jolly" because it was an opportunity to interview celebrity hacking victims like the actress Sienna Miller.

After hearing three days of evidence and arguments, a jury at London's Southwark Crown Court returned a verdict of guilty on one count of misconduct in public office, the Press Association reported.

Casburn will be sentenced later.

"WANTS TO SELL INSIDE INFO"

Casburn was head of a counter-terrorism financial investigations unit at the time when she made the telephone call that led to her trial.

The hacking scandal was revving up after a New York Times article on September 1, 2010, alleged widespread wrongdoing at the paper. The police were under intense pressure to investigate the allegations contained in the article.

There is no recording of Casburn's call to the News of the World newsdesk early on a Saturday morning, but the reporter who took her call wrote a summary of what she said in an email he sent to his editor a quarter of an hour afterwards.

The reporter, Tim Wood, wrote that Casburn wanted "to sell inside info". Casburn denied this in court, saying Wood must have misheard or misunderstood. Her lawyer suggested that he may have jumped to the conclusion that she wanted money because it was common practice at the paper to pay for stories.

Wood's email said Casburn had disclosed that police wanted to interview six people connected to the News of the World including Andy Coulson, a former editor of the paper who by then was head of communications for Prime Minister David Cameron.

Casburn argued that this was not damaging to the police investigation because the six people's names had been all over the papers for more than a week and it was widely expected that police would talk to them.

But the prosecution said it was "disgraceful" for a senior police officer to reveal any inside information about an investigation to the very newspaper that was the subject of the police's interest.

Regardless of whether she wanted money for the information or not, the prosecution said the phone call was a gross breach of the public trust in the police.

(Reporting by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Steve Addison)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Venezuela's sick Chavez misses own inauguration bash

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stayed on his sickbed in Cuba on Thursday while supporters rallied in his honor on the day he should have been sworn in for a new six-year term in the South American OPEC nation.

The postponement of the inauguration, a first in Venezuelan history, has laid bare the gravity of Chavez's condition after complications from a fourth cancer operation in his pelvic area.

It has also left his chosen heir, Vice President Nicolas Maduro - a former bus driver who shares his boss's radical socialist views - in charge of day-to-day government until there is clarity over whether Chavez will recover.

"People traveling on foot, the humble, the patriots ... we're going to demonstrate, one proud people with one slogan: we are all Chavez!" Maduro said, rallying supporters.

The president, whose legendary energy and garrulous dominance of the airwaves had often made him seem omnipresent in Venezuela since taking power in 1999, has not been seen in public nor heard from since his surgery on December 11.

Venezuela's 29 million people are anxiously watching what could be the last chapter in the extraordinary life of Chavez, who grew up in a rural shack and went on to become one of the world's best-known and most controversial heads of state.

The saga also has huge implications for the likes of Cuba and other leftist allies in Latin America that have benefited for years from Chavez's subsidized oil and other largesse.

A clutch of foreign friends, including the presidents of Uruguay, Bolivia and Nicaragua, were attending Thursday's events in Caracas despite Chavez's absence.

"We have to express our solidarity at this enormously difficult time for a man who remembered my people, who did not turn his back," said Uruguayan President Jose Mujica, referring to Chavez's aid policies around Latin America.

"You hardly see that sort of solidarity anywhere in the world ... Chavez's mark is a deep one, and let's hope he can overcome illness," the former leftist guerrilla told Telesur, a TV network set up by Chavez to counter Western media influence.

OPPOSITION ANGER

Red-clad supporters began arriving in the streets around the presidential palace in the early morning, waving banners and photos of Chavez, and chanting some of his best-known slogans.

The Miraflores palace has been the scene of some of the biggest dramas of Chavez's rule, from protests in 2002 and a coup that toppled him briefly, to speeches after election wins and emotional returns from previous cancer treatments in Havana.

Venezuela's opposition leaders are furious at what they see as a Cuban-inspired manipulation of the constitution by Maduro, Cabello and other Chavez allies aimed at preventing the naming of a caretaker president due to Chavez's absence on Thursday.

Henrique Capriles, who lost October's presidential election to Chavez, said the opposition had no plans to risk violence by encouraging supporters to hold a counter-demonstration.

"Not calling people onto the streets is not a sign of weakness, but of responsibility," he told reporters. "Who wins from a conflict scenario? They win, the pseudo-leaders who are not the owners of the country, nor of its sovereignty."

The U.S. Embassy in Caracas advised American citizens in Venezuela to exercise caution during the next few days.

A top Venezuelan military officer told state TV the borders were being reinforced and security forces were patrolling to bring people "a sense of peace and tranquility."

With government updates short on details, little is known about Chavez's actual medical condition and rumors are flying.

The government's version is that Chavez suffered complications including a severe lung infection after the latest surgery. But speculation is rife on Twitter that he may be on life support or at risk of major organ failure.

He has undergone four operations, as well as weeks of chemotherapy and radiation treatment, since being diagnosed with an undisclosed type of cancer in his pelvic area in June 2011.

He looked to have staged a remarkable recovery from the illness last year, winning a new six-year term in a hard-fought election in October. But within weeks of his victory he had to return to Havana for more treatment.

'REVOLUTION MUST CONTINUE'

In contrast with previous trips to Cuba, the government has not released any photos or video of him recuperating, and Chavez has not made any phone calls home to state media, fueling the impression that his condition is dire.

Though supporters maintain vigils and express hope he will recover, there appears to be a growing acceptance he may not, and a slow adjustment to the idea of a post-Chavez Venezuela.

"We are all necessary but nobody should be irreplaceable and the revolutionary process in our America must continue," said one friend and close ally, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa.

Though often viewed in the West as a clownish autocrat, Chavez has a kinder image in developing nations where many admire his defiance of the United States and efforts to improve the lives of Venezuela's poor.

At home, Chavez has a cult-like appeal for many in the slums due to his "anti-imperialist" rhetoric, his pumping of crude oil revenue into welfare projects, and his own humble background.

But Venezuela is deeply split, with opponents saying he has squandered an unprecedented bonanza of oil money with misguided policies. They also accuse him of allowing corruption to flourish and oppressing political opponents and media critics.

Should Chavez die or step down, a new election would be called and it would likely pit Maduro against opposition leader Capriles, the 40-year-old governor of Miranda state.

Analysts say Maduro would be hard to beat given Chavez's personal blessing and the emotional outpouring from supporters if the president were forced to leave office, though past polls have shown Capriles to be more popular than the vice president.

In a sign a Maduro-led government would not let up on Chavez's tough treatment of foes, the state telecommunications regulator told opposition TV station Globovision it was beginning punitive proceedings against it for causing "anxiety" with its coverage of the president's health.

Western investors generally hope for a more business-friendly government in Venezuela so prices of its widely traded bonds have soared over the last few weeks on Chavez's health woes. But they dipped this week as their expectations of a quick change apparently dimmed. (Additional reporting by Malena Castaldi in Montevideo; Editing by Kieran Murray and Vicki Allen)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Two separate bombs kill 32, hurt 100 in Pakistan cities

QUETTA/PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Bomb blasts in two Pakistani cities killed 32 people and injured more than 100, police and hospital officials said.

A bomb in Quetta, the capital of the eastern province of Balochistan, killed 11 people and injured more than 40, police officer Zubair Mehmood said. A local militant group claimed responsibility.

Another 21 were killed and more than 60 injured in a bombing where people had gathered to hear a religious leader speak in Mingora, the largest city in the northwestern province of Swat, police and officials at the Saidu Sharif hospital said.

"The death toll may rise as some of the injured are in critical condition and we are receiving more and more injured people," said Dr. Niaz Mohammad.

Police initially said the Swat blast was caused by an exploding gas cylinder but later police chief Akhtar Hayat said it was a bomb.

It has been more than two years since a militant attack has claimed that many lives in Swat.

The mountainous region, formerly a tourist destination, has been administered by the Pakistani army since their 2009 offensive drove out Taliban militants who had taken control.

But the Taliban retain their ability to mount attacks in Swat and shot schoolgirl campaigner Malala Yousufzai in Mingora last October.

The bomb in a market in Quetta targeted a police patrol and mostly killed sellers of vegetable and second-hand clothes, officer Mehmood said.

Three police officers nearby were injured and a child was among the dead, he said.

The United Baloch Army claimed responsibility for the blast.

The group is one of several who are fighting for independence for Balochistan, an arid and impoverished region with substantial gas, copper and gold reserves.

It constitutes just under half of Pakistan's territory and is home to about 8 million of the country's population of 180 million.

Human rights groups say hundreds of bodies have been recovered in the region since 2011. Many have broken limbs, cigarette burns or other signs of torture. Local activists blame the security services.

The state denies the accusations and says that insurgents sometimes put on military uniforms before kidnapping people.

Sectarian attacks are also on the rise, and militant groups frequently bomb or shoot Shia passengers on buses travelling to neighboring Iran.

(Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Louise Ireland)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Syria overshadows Iran charm offensive in Egypt

CAIRO (Reuters) - Shi'ite Iran, increasingly isolated over its nuclear programme, tried to improve ties with Egypt on Thursday, playing down differences over Syria and seeking to reduce sectarian tensions by courting the country's top Sunni scholar.

Iran has been at odds with the Arab world's most populous nation since Tehran's Islamic revolution in 1979. But a new era of Egyptian politics that followed the 2011 overthrow of Hosni Mubarak has led to more contacts.

In Cairo for talks with President Mohamed Mursi and others, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi praised Egypt's revolution and its new, Islamist-led government.

He also met Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb, the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar - one of the most prestigious seats of learning in the Sunni world.

The two men stressed the importance of Muslim unity and Salehi said there were no differences between Muslims, whether they were Sunnis or Shi'ites.

"Egypt and Iran are among the most important states in the Middle East, with influence in the region, and they can complete each other in the fields of economy and trade," Salehi told Egyptian state television in an interview.

During his 30 years in power Mubarak was deeply suspicious of Islamist-led Iran and never visited Tehran.

The countries took opposite paths: Egypt concluded a peace treaty with Israel while becoming a close ally of the United States and Europe, while Iran positioned itself as the center of opposition to Western influence in the region.

In a break from the Mubarak era, Mursi went to Tehran last year in one of his first official trips as leader.

But Syria remains the main stumbling block. Tehran is one of the last and staunchest allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whereas Egypt wants Assad to relinquish power to stop the protracted civil war. Analysts said Mursi believes Iran's ties with the Arab world hinge on a review of its support for Assad.

COMMON GOALS

Addressing reporters after talks, Salehi and his Egyptian counterpart Mohamed Kamel Amr sought to sidestep thorny issues and instead emphasized their common goals.

Salehi dismissed the notion of Sunni-Shi'ite tensions in regional affairs, describing it as an invention of Western media. He conveyed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's greetings to Mursi, and said the Egyptian leader had been invited to Iran again.

" The neighboring states and the states of the region must seek a way to solve to the Syrian issue in a Syrian-Syrian way," Salehi said.

Yet, with their positions on Syria diametrically different, it is unclear how much real progress Iran's new charm offensive could achieve. No trade or cooperation agreements were signed as part of Salehi's visit.

Suspected by the West to be developing a nuclear bomb - which it denies - Iran has found itself increasingly isolated due to economic sanctions and a diplomatic push against it.

It desperately needs new friends in the region, particularly since Israel and the United States have not ruled out military action against Tehran.

The Mursi administration has included Iran in a regional initiative on Syria, though so far efforts to bring together Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have made no obvious progress.

"Some might see that this initiative is not moving, but in truth the contacts are continuing at different levels and it is still, in truth, the initiative that can bring fruit and halt the bloodshed," said Amr.

"We still see that Iran is a party in the quartet initiative and has a role that it can play." (Additional reporting by Marcus George in Dubai; Writing by Maria Golovnina/Tom Perry; Editing by Giles Elgood)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Sri Lanka lawyers in boycott over attempt to fire top judge

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan lawyers boycotted courts on Thursday in protest at government attempts to fire the country's most senior judge, which they branded an attack on judicial independence.

The United States, the United Nations and the Commonwealth have also raised concerns that the move to impeach Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, on charges including financial irregularities and failure to declare assets, threatens the independence of Sri Lanka's courts. The Supreme Court has declared the impeachment attempt illegal.

Thousands of protesters including lawyers, opposition politicians and religious leaders marched from the Supreme Court to the commercial heart of the capital Colombo despite rains and counter protests by pro-government supporters.

Some carried placards reading "stop tearing up the constitution", "respect the court rulings", and "court stoned, judges threatened, chief justice insulted, democracy stalled!".

They were prevented by police from proceeding to parliament, which began a debate on whether to impeach Sri Lanka's first female chief justice and will hold a final vote on Friday.

Government and judiciary have been on a collision course since President Mahinda Rajapaksa's ruling party filed an impeachment motion against Bandaranayake on November 6. A month later, a parliamentary panel found her guilty of irregularities.

The government, which has a two-thirds majority, needs 113 out of a maximum possible 225 votes to remove Bandaranayake.

The accusations against Bandaranayake arose after she ruled that a bill submitted by the president's younger brother, Basil Rajapaksa, proposing an 80-billion rupee ($614 million) development budget must be approved by nine provincial councils.

The bill was passed in the parliament on Wednesday with a majority of 107 votes.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), a non-governmental organization that promotes rule of law, said in a statement that government moves against the judiciary had brought the country "to the brink of a constitutional crisis."

"If the impeachment motion is passed in parliament in defiance of decisions of the country's judiciary, it will signal a massive breakdown in the rule of law and checks and balances," Sam Zarifi, ICJ's Asia director, said in the statement.

But Government Spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said Bandaranayake had politicised the judiciary and that that "is very unbecoming of a chief justice."

In a note, political risk consultancy Eurasia Group said foreign investors' concerns about rule of law have been heightened by the row, but that domestic political costs for Rajapaksa are minimal. (Writing by Shihar Aneez; Editing by Jason Webb)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Female Kurdish activists including former guerrilla shot in Paris

PARIS/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A female founder member of the Kurdish PKK rebel group and two other female activists were shot dead in Paris overnight in execution-style killings that cast a shadow over peace moves between Ankara and the guerrillas.

The bodies of Sakine Cansiz, who promoted the role of women in the armed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) group, and the two other women were found soon after midnight on Thursday in an institute in central Paris with close links to the PKK.

They appeared to have been shot in the head, a French police source said. Kurdish media said one woman was also shot in the stomach. Workers had broken in to the room in the Information Centre of Kurdistan after seeing blood stains at the door.

Cansiz had been a prominent figure in the PKK before falling out with the group's factionalized leadership. A 1995 photograph shows her standing next to militant leader Abdullah Ocalan, wearing olive battle fatigues and clutching an assault rifle.

It was not immediately clear who had carried out the killings; but the PKK has seen intermittent internal feuding during an armed campaign in the mountainous Turkish southeast that has killed some 40,000 since 1984.

Turkish nationalist militants have in the past also been accused of 'extra-judicial killings' of Kurdish activists but such incidents have been confined to Turkey.

Among the crowd gathered behind police lines at the Paris institute were onlookers chanting slogans and waving yellow flags bearing Ocalan's likeness.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said it was too early to apportion blame.

"This may be an internal reckoning. Aside from this, we are engaged in a struggle against terrorism ... but there are people who don't want this. This could be a provocative undertaking by these people," he said during a visit to Senegal.

The killings came shortly after Turkey announced it had re-opened talks with Ocalan, the PKK leader jailed on the prison island of Imrali, near Istanbul. The talks to end the conflict would almost certainly raise tensions within the movement over demands and terms of any ceasefire.

"Rest assured that French authorities are determined to get to the bottom of these unbearable acts," French Interior Minister Manuel Valls said at the scene, adding the killings were "surely an execution".

France is home to a large number of Kurds, many of them having emigrated in the 1960s and 1970s, but there is also a number of Kurdish pro-PKK exiles such as Cansiz. Other Kurdish activists have settled in Germany and Sweden.

Any Turkish government contacts with the PKK, deemed a terrorist group by Ankara, Washington and the EU, are highly controversial in the Turkish political establishment.

Last summer, the months preceding the move to talks, saw some of the worst bloodshed of the three-decades-old conflict. Television footage of soldiers' coffins returning home draped in the red Turkish flag inflamed nationalist tensions.

POLITICALLY MOTIVATED

Valls identified one of the victims as the head of the center and said homicide and anti-terrorism units had been assigned to investigate the murders. A police source confirmed their nationality as Turkish.

The two other victims were named as Fidan Dogan, 28, and Leyla Soylemez, 25.

"This is a political crime, there is no doubt about it," Remzi Kartal, a leader of the Kurdistan National Congress, an umbrella group of Kurdish organizations in Europe, told Reuters.

"Ocalan and the Turkish government have started a peace process, they want to engage in dialogue, but there are parties that are against resolving the Kurdish question and want to sabotage the peace process," he said.

The Kurdish question has taken on a particular urgency with the rise of Kurdish groups in neighboring northern Iraq, where they control an autonomous zone, and in Syria. Turkey fears that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could encourage Kurds to feed militancy in Turkey.

Many Turks fear such autonomy the PKK is seeking could stoke demands for an independent Kurdish homeland, in Turkey and beyond Turkish frontiers, and undermine Turkey.

The Firat news agency, which is close to the group, said another victim was the Paris representative of the Brussels-based Kurdistan National Congress. It said the murder weapon was believed to have been fitted with a silencer.

"A couple of colleagues saw blood stains at the door. When they broke the door open and entered they saw the three women had been executed," French Kurdish Associations Federation Chairman Mehmet Ulker was reported as saying by Firat.

Female militants have played a significant role in the PKK's insurgency, partly reflecting a principle of equality within the group's Marxist ideology. In some cases, desire to avenge the killing of other family members was the motivation for joining, for others it was a way out of family repression, analysts say.

INTERNAL FEUD?

The government and PKK have agreed a framework for a peace plan, according to Turkish media reports, in talks which would have been unthinkable in Turkey only a few years ago. Ocalan is widely reviled by Turks who hold him responsible for a conflict that burns at the heart of the nation.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has introduced some reforms allowing Kurdish broadcasting and some concessions on language; but activists are demanding more freedom in education and administration.

Turkish broadcasters reported police as saying the women retained links to the PKK and may have been victims of an internal feud.

Several members of the Kurdish community in Paris said that Cansiz, who was in her fifties, was an emblematic figure who had been imprisoned in Turkey before obtaining asylum in France.

"She was in charge of communicating information on events in Turkey, she would denounce arbitrary arrests, unsolved murders" of Kurds in Turkey, said a member of the Arts and Culture Academy of Kurdistan who asked not to be identified.

Turkish political analyst Emre Uslu, who previously worked in Turkey's counter-terrorism police unit, said in a blog that the killing of Cansiz could point to a split within the PKK.

He said Cansiz was a leading member of a faction within the PKK that had in the past opposed Ocalan's moves towards peace.

"This group ... could at any moment sabotage the peace talks which will be held with the PKK," Uslu said. "For Turkey to sit down with the PKK before its internal problems are solved is considerably problematic."

Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy (BDP) opposition party, two of whose members were allowed to pay a rare visit last week to Ocalan on the island in the Marmara Sea where he has been jailed for the last 14 years, condemned the killings.

"We call on our people to hold protest meetings wherever they are to condemn this massacre and stand up for the Kurdish people's martyrs," the party's leaders said in a statement.

(Additional reporting by Nicolas Bertin and Yves Clarisse in Paris, Diadie Ba in Dakar, Jonathon Burch in Ankara; Writing by Nick Tattersall; editing by Ralph Boulton)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Ethiopia arrests two over murder of Austrian rafter

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopian police have arrested two men suspected of involvement in the murder of an Austrian rafter shot dead during an apparent robbery of his travel group, an official from the force said on Thursday.

The 27-year-old man was killed as he camped on the banks of the Blue Nile river on Sunday in a remote area near Bahir Dar, about 570 km (350 miles) north of the capital Addis Ababa.

Three other Austrians on the scene were not injured.

"We have caught two suspects who were found in possession of clothing, money and other items that belonged to the victims," said Solomon Mohammed, spokesperson of the regional police commission in Ethiopia's northern Amhara region.

Solomon said police were also looking into whether there was a political motive to the killing, but declined to go into details. Rebel groups are active in some of Ethiopia's remote regions, but there has been no reports of such activity recently in Amhara.

The incident occurred almost exactly a year after five Europeans, including an Austrian, were killed when their travel group was attacked in the northeastern Afar region bordering Eritrea.

(Reporting by Aaron Maasho and Tesfa Alem Tekle; Editing by George Obulutsa and Andrew Heavens)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Zimbabwe hits voter roll snag that could slow polls

HARARE (Reuters) - Voter registration for elections in Zimbabwe, due to have started last week, has been delayed due to a lack of funds, a cabinet minister said on Thursday.

The presidential and parliamentary elections are part of a 2010 agreement between President Robert Mugabe and his rival Morgan Tsvangirai which led to the formation of an interim power-sharing government as a way to end years of political and economic strife.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission was due to start a 60-day voter registration and education campaign on Jan 2. but the Finance Ministry had not yet released the funding required, Home Affairs co-minister Theresa Makone told reporters.

Mugabe, who turns 89 next month, has pushed for the poll to be held as early as March.

The power-sharing government, put in place after disputed and violent elections in 2008, has brought stability to a country whose economy was crushed by hyperinflation. Renewed election violence could erase the gains made over the past few years.

Makone also said after meeting Tsvangirai, who is prime minister in the power-sharing government, that she would talk to ministry officials to find out how that money could be released.

The power-sharing deal calls for electoral reforms and a new constitution be in place before a new round of elections.

Mugabe's current five-year presidential term and that of parliament end in June, and according to the constitution, a new election must be held within four months.

The reforms and debate on the new supreme law have both hit snags, with analysts not expecting polls until later in 2013.

Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, and members of his ruling ZANU-PF have been hit with international sanctions for human rights abuses and suspected vote rigging. He denies any wrongdoing.

(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Jon Herskovitz and Angus MacSwan)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Central African Republic ceasefire deal reached: rebel sources

LIBREVILLE (Reuters) - Central African Republic's government and rebels have agreed to a temporary ceasefire deal, two rebel sources with knowledge of the talks told Reuters on Thursday.

One of the sources, who is present at the negotiations in Gabon's capital Libreville, said Central African Republic President Francois Bozize would propose a national unity government with the Seleka rebel coalition.

It was not immediately clear if the rebels would accept the unity government proposal, having previously said Bozize's resignation was a precondition for peace.

(Reporting by Jean Rovys Dabana; Writing by Richard Valdmanis)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Syria denounces peace envoy who hinted Assad must go

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria denounced international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi as "flagrantly biased" on Thursday, casting doubt on how long the U.N.-Arab League mediator can pursue his peace mission.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry was responding to remarks by Brahimi a day earlier in which he ruled out a role for President Bashar al-Assad in a transitional government and effectively called for the Baathist leader to quit.

"In Syria...what people are saying is that a family ruling for 40 years is a little bit too long," Brahimi told the BBC, referring to Assad, who inherited his post from his father Hafez al-Assad, who seized power in 1970 and ruled for 30 years.

"President Assad could take the lead in responding to the aspiration of his people rather than resisting it," the veteran Algerian diplomat said, hinting the Syrian leader should go.

The Foreign Ministry in Damascus said it was very surprised at Brahimi's comments, which showed "he is flagrantly biased for those who are conspiring against Syria and its people".

The ministry later said it was nevertheless still willing to work with the envoy to find a political solution to the crisis.

Brahimi has had no more success than his predecessor Kofi Annan in his quest to resolve the 21-month-old conflict in which more than 60,000 people have been killed.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned that violence in Syria might worsen and said the international community must "step up" its response if it does.

So far regional rivalries and divisions among big powers have stymied any concerted approach to the upheaval, one of the bloodiest to emerge from a series of revolts in the Arab world.

Russian and U.S. diplomats, who back opposing sides of the war, will meet Brahimi in Geneva on Friday.

Ahead of the meeting, Russia repeated its insistence that Assad must not be pushed from power by external forces and that his exit must not be a precondition for negotiations.

"Only the Syrians themselves can agree on a model or the further development of their country," Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said.

"MASK OF IMPARTIALITY"

Syria's al-Watan newspaper said Brahimi had removed his "mask of impartiality" to reveal his true face as a "a tool for the implementation of the policy of some Western countries".

On Sunday Assad, making his first public speech in six months, offered no concessions and said he would never talk to foes he branded terrorists and Western puppets.

As peace efforts floundered, rebels battled for a strategic air base for a second day, pursuing a civil war that had briefly receded for some Damascus residents who set aside their differences to play in a rare snowfall that blanketed the city.

For a few hours, people in the capital dropped their weapons for snowballs and traded hatred for giggles.

"Last night, for the first time in months, I heard laughter instead of shelling. Even the security forces put down their guns and helped us make a snowman," Iman, a resident of the central Shaalan neighborhood, said by Skype.

There was no respite on other battlefronts, with heavy fighting around the Taftanaz base in northwestern Syria, which insurgents are trying to capture to extend their grip on Idlib province and weaken Assad's control of the skies.

Rebels assaulted the airport's main buildings and armory using heavy guns, tanks and other weapons and appeared to have overrun half the area of the base, said Rami Abdelrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition group that monitors the conflict from abroad.

"Now, it's serious," he said.

The air base has been used to launch helicopter attacks in the region, and its loss would be a blow to the government's ability to defend its positions there, Abdelrahman said.

MISSILE LAUNCH

Insurgents have tried to take the base for months, but have been bolstered by the recent arrival of Islamist fighters including the al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, he added.

There was no immediate government account of the fighting, which could not be confirmed independently.

Opposition forces have seized swathes of territory in northern Syria in recent months, but remain vulnerable to attack by the military's planes and helicopters - hence their strategy of trying to capture air bases such as the one at Taftanaz.

There was no word on whether the firing of a short-range ballistic missile inside Syria on Wednesday, reported by a NATO official, was linked to the fighting at Taftanaz.

NATO could not confirm the type of missile used, but the description fit the Scuds that are in the Syrian military's armory, the official added, describing the latest launch and similar ones last week as "reckless".

A NATO official said that since the start of December 2012, the alliance had detected at least 15 launches of unguided, short-range ballistic missile inside Syria.

Neither side has gained a clear military advantage in the war pitting mostly Sunni Muslim rebels against security forces dominated by Assad's minority, Shi'ite-linked Alawite sect.

The Observatory also reported fighting between rebels and troops in the Sayyida Zeinab area of Damascus, and air raids were reported in the capital's Maleiha area and eastern suburbs.

Despite some support from Sunni regional powers including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the rebels remain largely disorganized, fragmented and ill-equipped. Poor discipline, looting and insecurity in some insurgent-held areas have also eroded their support from civilians.

Turf wars between rebel units and with Kurdish groups have also beleaguered the armed opposition. On Thursday, a senior Islamist commander was assassinated near the border with Turkey, Syrian rebels and political opposition sources said.

Thaer al-Waqqas, northern commander of al-Farouq Brigades, had been suspected of involvement in the killing four months ago of a member of al-Nusra Front.

He was shot dead at a rebel position in the town of Sermin, a few kilometers from Turkey, the sources said.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes, Mariam Karouny and Erika Solomon in Beirut, Steve Gutterman in Moscow, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman and Mohammed Abbas in London; Editing by Alistair Lyon and Jason Webb)

00.25 | 0 komentar | Read More