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Insight: Spiral of Karachi killings widens Pakistan's sectarian divide

Written By Bersemangat on Minggu, 24 Februari 2013 | 23.02

KARACHI (Reuters) - When Aurangzeb Farooqi survived an attempt on his life that left six of his bodyguards dead and a six-inch bullet wound in his thigh, the Pakistani cleric lost little time in turning the narrow escape to his advantage.

Recovering in hospital after the ambush on his convoy in Karachi, Pakistan's commercial capital, the radical Sunni Muslim ideologue was composed enough to exhort his followers to close ranks against the city's Shi'ites.

"Enemies should listen to this: my task now is Sunni awakening," Farooqi said in remarks captured on video shortly after a dozen gunmen opened fire on his double-cabin pick-up truck on December 25.

"I will make Sunnis so powerful against Shi'ites that no Sunni will even want to shake hands with a Shi'ite," he said, propped up in bed on emergency-room pillows. "They will die their own deaths, we won't have to kill them."

Such is the kind of speech that chills members of Pakistan's Shi'ite minority, braced for a new chapter of persecution following a series of bombings that have killed almost 200 people in the city of Quetta since the beginning of the year.

While the Quetta carnage grabbed world attention, a Reuters inquiry into a lesser known spate of murders in Karachi, a much bigger conurbation, suggests the violence is taking on a volatile new dimension as a small number of Shi'ites fight back.

Pakistan's Western allies have traditionally been fixated on the challenge posed to the brittle, nuclear-armed state by Taliban militants battling the army in the bleakly spectacular highlands on the Afghan frontier.

But a cycle of tit-for-tat killings on the streets of Karachi points to a new type of threat: a campaign by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and allied Pakistani anti-Shi'ite groups to rip open sectarian fault-lines in the city of 18 million people.

Police suspect LeJ, which claimed responsibility for the Quetta blasts, and its sympathizers may also be the driving force behind the murder of more than 80 Shi'ites in Karachi in the past six months, including doctors, bankers and teachers.

In turn, a number of hardline Sunni clerics who share Farooqi's suspicion of the Shi'ite sect have been killed in drive-by shootings or barely survived apparent revenge attacks. Dozens of Farooqi's followers have also been shot dead.

Discerning the motives for any one killing is murky work in Karachi, where multiple armed factions are locked in a perpetual all-against-all turf war, but detectives suspect an emerging Shi'ite group known as the Mehdi Force is behind some of the attacks on Farooqi's men.

While beleaguered secularists and their Western friends hope Pakistan will mature into a more confident democracy at general elections due in May, the spiral of killings in Karachi, a microcosm of the country's diversity, suggests the polarizing forces of intolerance are gaining ground.

"The divide is getting much bigger between Shia and Sunni. You have to pick sides now," said Sundus Rasheed, who works at a radio station in Karachi. "I've never experienced this much hatred in Pakistan."

Once the proud wearer of a silver Shi'ite amulet her mother gave her to hang around her neck, Rasheed now tucks away the charm, fearing it might serve not as protection, but mark her as a target.

"INFIDELS"

Fully recovered from the assassination attempt, Farooqi can be found in the cramped upstairs office of an Islamic seminary tucked in a side-street in Karachi's gritty Landhi neighborhood, an industrial zone in the east of the city.

On a rooftop shielded by a corrugated iron canopy, dozens of boys wearing skull caps sit cross-legged on prayer mats, imbibing a strict version of the Deobandi school of Sunni Islam that inspires both Farooqi and the foot-soldiers of LeJ.

"We say Shias are infidels. We say this on the basis of reason and arguments," Farooqi, a wiry, intense man with a wispy beard and cascade of shoulder-length curls, told Reuters. "I want to be called to the Supreme Court so that I can prove using their own books that they are not Muslims."

Farooqi, who cradled bejeweled prayer beads as he spoke, is the Karachi head of a Deobandi organization called Ahle Sunnat wal Jama'at. That is the new name for Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, a forerunner banned in 2002 in a wider crackdown on militancy by Pakistan's then army ruler, General Pervez Musharraf.

Farooqi says he opposes violence and denies any link to LeJ, but security officials believe his supporters are broadly aligned with the heavily armed group, whose leaders deem murdering Shi'ites an act of piety.

In the past year, LeJ has prosecuted its campaign with renewed gusto, emboldened by the release of Malik Ishaq, one of its founders, who was freed after spending 14 years in jail in July, 2011. Often pictured wearing a celebratory garland of pink flowers, Ishaq has since appeared at gatherings of supporters in Karachi and other cities.

In diverse corners of Pakistan, LeJ's cadres have bombed targets from mosques to snooker halls; yanked passengers off buses and shot them, and posted a video of themselves beheading a pair of trussed-up captives with a knife.

Nobody knows exactly how many Shi'ites there are in Pakistan -- estimates ranging from four to 20 percent of the population of 180 million underscore the uncertainty. What is clear is that they are dying faster than ever. At least 400 were killed last year, many from the ethnic Hazara minority in Quetta, according to Human Rights Watch, and some say the figure is far higher.

Pakistani officials suspect regional powers are stoking the fire, with donors in Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-dominated Gulf countries funding LeJ, while Shi'ite organizations turn to Iran.

Whatever factors are driving the violence, the state's ambivalent response has raised questions over the degree of tolerance for LeJ by elements in the security establishment, which has a long history of nurturing Deobandi proxies.

Under pressure in the wake of the Quetta bombings, police arrested Ishaq at his home in the eastern Punjab province on Friday under a colonial-era public order law.

But in Karachi, Farooqi and his thousands of followers project a new aura of confidence. Crowds of angry men chant "Shia infidel! Shia infidel" at rallies and burn effigies while clerics pour scorn on the sect from mosque loudspeakers after Friday prayers. A rash of graffiti hails Farooqi as a savior.

Over glasses of milky tea, he explained that his goal was to convince the government to declare Shi'ites non-Muslims, as it did to the Ahmadiyya sect in 1974, as a first step towards ostracizing the community and banning a number of their books.

"When someone is socially boycotted, he becomes disappointed and isolated. He realizes that his beliefs are not right, that people hate him," Farooqi said. "What I'm saying is that killing them is not the solution. Let's talk, let's debate and convince people that they are wrong."

CODENAME "SHAHEED"

Not far from Farooqi's seminary, in the winding lanes of the rough-and-tumble Malir quarter, Shi'ite leaders are kindling an awakening of their own.

A gleaming metallic chandelier dangles from the mirrored archway of a half-completed mosque rising near the modest offices of Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslemeen - known as MWM - a vocal Shi'ite party that has emerged to challenge Farooqi's ascent.

In an upstairs room, Ejaz Hussain Bahashti, an MWM leader clad in a white turban and black cloak, exhorts a gaggle of women activists to persuade their neighbors to join the cause.

Seated beneath a portrait of Ayatollah Khomeini, the Shi'ite cleric who led the 1979 Iranian revolution, Bahashti said his organization would not succumb to what he sees as a plan by LeJ to provoke sectarian conflict.

"In our sect, if we are being killed we are not supposed to carry out reprisal attacks," he told Reuters. "If we decided to take up arms, then no part of the country would be spared from terrorism - but it's forbidden."

The MWM played a big role in sit-ins that paralyzed parts of Karachi and dozens of other towns to protest against the Quetta bombings - the biggest Shi'ite demonstrations in years. But police suspect that some in the sect have chosen a less peaceful path.

Detectives believe the small Shi'ite Mehdi Force group, comprised of about 20 active members in Karachi, is behind several of the attacks on Deobandi clerics and their followers.

The underground network is led by a hardened militant codenamed "Shaheed", or martyr, who recruits eager but unseasoned middle-class volunteers who compensate for their lack of numbers by stalking high-profile targets.

"They don't have a background in terrorism, but after the Shia killings started they joined the group and they tried to settle the score," said Superintendent of Police Raja Umar Khattab. "They kill clerics."

In November, suspected Mehdi Force gunmen opened fire at a tea shop near the Ahsan-ul-Uloom seminary, where Farooqi has a following, killing six students. A scholar from the madrasa was shot dead the next month, another student killed in January.

"It was definitely a reaction, Shias have never gone on the offensive on their own," said Deputy Inspector-General Shahid Hayat.

According to the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee, a Karachi residents' group, some 68 members of Farooqi's Ahle Sunnat wal Jama'at and 85 Shi'ites were killed in the city from early September to February 19.

Police caution that it can be difficult to discern who is killing who in a vast metropolis where an array of political factions and gangs are vying for influence. A suspect has yet to be named, for example, in the slaying of two Deobandi clerics and a student in January whose killer was caught on CCTV firing at point blank range then fleeing on a motorbike.

Some in Karachi question whether well-connected Shi'ites within the city's dominant political party, the Muttahida Quami Movement, which commands a formidable force of gunmen, may have had a hand in some of the more sophisticated attacks, or whether rival Sunni factions may also be involved.

Despite the growing body count, Karachi can still draw on a store of tolerance. Some Sunnis made a point of attending the Shi'ite protests - a reminder that Farooqi's adherents are themselves a minority. Yet as Karachi's murder rate sets new records, the dynamics that have kept the city's conflicts within limits are being tested.

In the headquarters of an ambulance service founded by Abdul Sattar Edhi, once nominated for a Nobel Prize for devoting his life to Karachi's poor, controllers are busier than ever dispatching crews to ferry shooting victims to the morgue.

"The best religion of all is humanity," said Edhi, who is in his 80s, surveying the chaotic parade of street life from a chair on the pavement outside. "If religion doesn't have humanity, then it is useless."

(Editing by Robert Birsel)


23.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

Cyprus votes for president as clock ticks on bailout deal

NICOSIA (Reuters) - Cypriots voted on Sunday in a runoff to elect a president who must clinch a bailout deal before the island nation plunges into a financial meltdown that would revive the euro zone debt crisis.

Conservative leader Nicos Anastasiades, who favors hammering out a quick deal with foreign lenders, is tipped to win against Communist-backed rival Stavros Malas, who is more wary of the austerity terms accompanying any rescue.

Financial markets are hoping for an Anastasiades victory to speed up a joint rescue by the European Union and International Monetary Fund before the island runs out of cash and derails fragile confidence returning to the euro zone.

The 66-year-old lawyer took more than 45 percent of the vote in the first round in the Greek-speaking Cypriot south, easily beating 45-year-old geneticist Malas, who took 27 percent.

Polls close at 4.p.m. (British time), with the result expected soon afterwards.

The winner will take the reins of a Mediterranean nation ravaged by its worst economic crisis in four decades, with unemployment at a record high of 15 percent. Pay cuts and tax hikes ahead of a bailout have further soured the national mood.

"We have to choose between the lesser of two evils," said Georgia Xenophondos, a 23-year-old receptionist who voted for a third contender in the first round. She now plans to vote for the conservative chief, but is wary of backing more austerity.

"We are already damaged by it and I don't know if we can take anymore," she said. "We've hit poverty, unemployment and lost respect from the EU - things we didn't see five years ago."

Newspapers reflected the grim outlook, warning of an uphill climb for the new president. One described it as walking towards "Calvary", where the Bible says Jesus was crucified.

"He will be plunged straight into the deep end, and failure is not an option," the Simerini daily wrote.

Fewer voters were expected to show up at the polls than on February 17 after the third-placed candidate refused to back either contender in the runoff, boosting Anastasiades's chances.

About a half million Cypriots are eligible to vote but many are expected to abstain or cast blank votes in protest. Both contenders have implored Cypriots not to shirk their duty.

"These elections are so crucial, that really, nobody can turn themselves into a passive spectator," Malas said as he voted on the outskirts of the divided capital Nicosia.

CROSSROAD

Talks to rescue Nicosia have dragged on eight months since it first sought help, after a Greek sovereign debt restructuring saddled its banks with losses. It is expected to need up to 17 billion euros in aid - worth the size of its entire economy.

Virtually all rescue options - from a bailout loan to a debt writedown or slapping losses on bank depositors - are proving unfeasible because they push Cypriot debt up to unmanageable levels or risk hurting investor sentiment elsewhere in the bloc.

German misgivings about the nation's commitment to fighting money laundering and strong financial ties with Russia have further complicated the negotiations.

European officials want a bailout agreed by the end of March, ensuring no honeymoon period for the new president, who will be sworn in on February 28 and assume power on March 1.

Longstanding anger over the island's 40-year-old division into the Greek-speaking south and Turkish north has been relegated to a distant second behind the country's financial quagmire as an election issue this year.

"Cyprus is at a crossroads," Anastasiades said as he voted in the port town of Limassol, surrounded by his grandchildren.

"From tomorrow, whoever is elected, should be aware he has to deal with important, critical problems which our country is facing and the immediate handling of the economic crisis."

A heavy smoker known for his no-nonsense style, Anastasiades is widely respected but suffered political humiliation nine years ago when he supported a U.N. blueprint to reunify the island that was later rejected by the public.

He has suggested the island may even need a bridging loan to tide it over until a rescue is nailed down.

His younger rival Malas is handicapped by the support of the incumbent Communists who are perceived as having mismanaged the economic crisis and a munitions blast in 2011.

Still, he is expected to get a boost from his pledges to drive a hard bargain with lenders and anti-austerity rhetoric that resonates with many Cypriots struggling to make ends meet.

"Whatever happens in this vote, the day after is going to be very difficult for Cyprus," said Demetris Charalambous, a 56-year-old convenience store owner. "People are really depressed."

(Writing by Deepa Babington)


23.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

Kerry makes first foreign trip as top U.S. diplomat

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - John Kerry views his first trip as U.S. secretary of state as a listening tour, but the leaders he meets will want to hear whether he has any new ideas on Syria, Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Kerry left Washington on Sunday for London, the first stop on a nine-nation, 11-day trip that will also take him to Berlin, Paris, Rome, Ankara, Cairo, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Doha before he returns home on March 6.

It is an introductory trip for a man who needs little introduction abroad after spending 28 years in the U.S. Senate, all of them as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the last four as its chairman.

After talks with allies in London, Berlin and Paris, Kerry travels to Rome to meet members of the Syrian opposition as well as a wider group of nations seeking to support them in their nearly two-year quest to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

While the opposition Syrian National Coalition is willing to negotiate a peace deal to end the country's civil war, members this week agreed that Assad must step down and cannot be a party to any settlement.

The political chasm between the sides, along with a lack of opposition influence over rebels on the ground and an international diplomatic deadlock preventing effective intervention, has allowed fighting to rage on. Almost 70,000 people have been killed in 22 months of conflict, according to a U.N. estimate.

U.S. President Barack Obama has limited U.S. support to non-lethal aid for the rebels who, despite receiving weapons from countries such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are poorly armed compared to Assad's army and loyalist militias.

Although the Obama administration appears to be rethinking the question of arming the rebels, there are few signs it is on the verge of a new approach toward Syria, said Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank.

"I have a hard time imagining that this is the time to float a new American strategy because he (Kerry) still doesn't have a counterpart in the Department of Defense (and) the new administration is still getting set up," Alterman said.

"I don't see any sign that there is a new strategy but I do see signs that he wants to be engaged and understand what the options are for moving something in a different direction," he said.

IRAN TALKS

Kerry makes his first foreign trip as senior U.S. diplomats, along with counterparts from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, will meet Iranian officials on Tuesday in Kazakhstan in an effort to persuade Iran to curtail its nuclear program.

The United States and many of its allies suspect Iran may be using its civil nuclear program as a cover to develop atomic weapons, a possibility that Israel, which is regarded as the Middle East's only nuclear power, sees as an existential threat.

Iran says its program is solely for peaceful purposes, such as generating electricity and making medical isotopes.

Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution think-tank said Saudi King Abdullah would regard himself, rather than Kerry, as the listening party and want to hear of any new U.S. approaches on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran and other issues.

"The secretary has the tough job of selling as something new an administration (whose) foreign policies are pretty well established," Riedel said.

"There is not a high level of expectation that it is going to be able to break the logjam on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, get Iran to give up its nuclear weapons program and topple Bashar al-Assad," he added. "The Saudis will understand that Kerry will try to put a new face on policies which are now pretty well known but they will be looking for what's new."

(Reporting By Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Paul Simao)


23.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

U.S. condemns Scud attack in Syria, invites opposition for talks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States condemned a Syrian army Scud missile attack that killed dozens of people on Friday in the city of Aleppo, and invited the Syrian opposition for talks on finding a negotiated settlement to the conflict.

A State Department statement said the attack on a district of Aleppo and other assaults such as strikes on city blocks and a field hospital were "the latest demonstrations of the Syrian regime's ruthlessness and its lack of compassion for the Syrian people it claims to represent."

The statement, released on Saturday, could help placate the main Syrian opposition grouping, which turned down invitations to visit Washington and Moscow to protest what it described as international silence over the destruction of the historic city of Aleppo by government missile strikes.

Almost two years since the start of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, rebels have wrested large swathes of Syria from the control of Assad's forces but the areas remain the target of army artillery, air strikes and, increasingly, missiles.

The decision by the Syrian National Coalition to spurn the invitations and to suspend participation in the Friends of Syria conference of international powers has put peace initiatives on ice.

In the State Department statement, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Washington hoped to meet soon with the leadership of the opposition umbrella group "to discuss how the United States and other friends of the Syrian people can do more to help the Syrian people achieve the political transition that they demand and that they deserve."

Invitations from Washington and Moscow had been extended to opposition coalition leader Mouz Alkhatib after he met the Russian and U.S. foreign ministers in Munich earlier this month.

Alkhatib has tried to open channels to Russia and Iran, Assad's only remaining foreign backers, to put pressure on the Syrian strongman to leave power.

Alkhatib, a cleric from Damascus who has said he is morally obliged to try to seek an exit for Assad without more bloodshed, has been criticized by others in the SNC for acting alone.

The rocket attacks on an eastern districts of Aleppo, Syria's industrial and commercial hub, killed at least 29 people on Friday and trapped a family of 10 in the ruins of their home, opposition activists in the city said.

On Tuesday, activists said at least 20 people were killed when a large missile hit the rebel-held district of Jabal Badro, also in the east of the contested city.

(Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis; Editing by Rosalind Russell)


23.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Bulgarian protests for cheaper energy intensify

SOFIA (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people marched in cities across Bulgaria on Sunday, demanding an end to high utility bills and new voting rules after the government was toppled last week.

Public anger with power monopolies in the European Union's poorest member forced right-of-center Prime Minister Boiko Borisov's cabinet to resign and has put the country on track for an early election by May.

Although Borisov's government managed to maintain fiscal stability since taking power in 2009, belt-tightening has held back growth and driven up unemployment.

His departure has failed to calm voters fed up with low living standards and rampant graft, and his GERB party is now running neck-and-neck with the opposition Socialists ahead of the new election.

The last straw for many was a jump in winter electricity bills that at times exceeded incomes in a country where average salaries are just 400 euros ($530) a month and pensions are less than half that amount.

Much of the anger has been directed at power companies including Czech CEZ and Energo-Pro and Austria's EVN, which bought exclusive rights to distribute energy in specific regions from Bulgaria in 2004.

Waving Bulgarian flags and slogans reading "Fighting for decent life" and "Down with monopolies" over 10,000 Bulgarians marched through downtown Sofia.

"For years and years the politicians failed to impose strict controls over monopolies. This should stop," said 54-year-old Irena Mitova, a shop owner in Sofia.

POWER BILLS

Demonstrations also took place in around 40 other cities, with some 15,000 people marching in Bulgaria's second and third largest cities Plovdiv and Varna.

Separate, smaller protests were held against an inefficient education system that critics say does not prepare students for the labor market and against high interest charges from retail banks criticized for hurting small businesses.

President Rosen Plevneliev, who will probably appoint a caretaker government and dissolve parliament next week to pave the way for the early election, met protesters and ensured them their voices would be heard.

Protesters' demands ranged from imposing a moratorium on paying electricity bills for December and January until audits are carried out to sweeping changes in the constitution to allow the direct vote for deputies, rather than using party lists.

Some of the protesters demanded parliament continue with its work to adopt laws to ensure strict controls over the energy monopolies. Many want them to be renationalized and say politicians sold firms since the fall of communism in 1989 in a way that hurt public interest and kept living standards low.

Borisov had promised an 8 percent cut in electricity bills as of March - reversing much of a 13 percent rise his government approved last year - and has said the energy regulator would begin the process to revoke CEZ's license.

The regulator said a possible price decrease could be introduced as of April at the earliest and suggested there was room for compromise with CEZ.

(Editing by Michael Winfrey and Alison Williams)


23.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Frustrated Italians vote in crucial election for euro zone

ROME (Reuters) - Italians voted on Sunday in one of the most closely watched and unpredictable elections in years, with pent-up fury over a discredited elite adding to concern it may not produce a government strong enough to lead Italy out of an economic slump.

The election, which concludes on Monday afternoon, is being followed closely by investors; their memories are still fresh of the potentially catastrophic debt crisis that saw Mario Monti, an economics professor and former bureaucrat, summoned to serve as prime minister in place of Silvio Berlusconi 15 months ago.

A weak Italian government could, many fear, prompt a new dip in confidence in the European Union's single currency.

Opinion polls give the center-left a narrow lead but the result has been thrown completely open by the prospect of a huge protest vote against the painful austerity measures imposed by Monti's government and deep anger over a never-ending series of corruption scandals. Berlusconi's centre-right has also revived.

"I'm not confident that the government that emerges from the election will be able to solve any of our problems," said Attilio Bianchetti, a 55-year-old builder in Milan, who voted for the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement of comic and blogger Beppe Grillo.

The 64-year-old Grillo, heavily backed by a frustrated generation of young Italians hit by record unemployment, has been one of the biggest features of the last stage of the campaign, packing rallies in town squares up and down Italy.

"He's the only real new element in a political landscape where we've been seeing the same faces for too long," said Vincenzo Cannizzaro, 48, in the Sicialian capital Palermo.

Italians started voting at 8 a.m. (0700 GMT). Polling booths will remain open until 10 p.m. on Sunday and open again between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Monday. Exit polls will come out soon after voting ends and official results are expected by early Tuesday.

Snow in northern regions is expected to last into Monday and could discourage some of the 47 million people eligible to vote in Italy to head out to polling stations, though the Interior Ministry has said it is fully prepared for bad weather.

Monti and his wife cast their votes at a polling booth in a Milan school on Sunday morning and centre-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani, the leader opinion polls suggest will have to form a new government, voted in his home town of Piacenza.

A small group of women's rights demonstrators greeted former prime minister Berlusconi when he voted in Milan. They bared their breasts in protest at the conservative leader, who is on trial at present for having sex with an underage prostitute.

Whichever government emerges from the election will have to tackle reforms needed to address problems that have given Italy one of the most sluggish economies in the developed world for the past two decades.

But the widespread despair over the state of the country, where a series of corruption scandals has highlighted the stark divide between a privileged political elite and millions of ordinary Italians, has left deep scars.

"It's our fault, Italian citizens. It's our closed mentality. We're just not Europeans," said Luciana Li Mandri, a 37-year-old public servant in Palermo.

"We're all about getting favors when we study, getting a protected job when we work. That's the way we are and we can only be represented by people like that as well," she said.

FRUSTRATION

Final polls published two weeks ago showed center-left leader Bersani with a 5-point lead, but analysts disagree about whether he will be able to form a stable majority that can make the economic reforms they believe Italy needs.

While the center left is still expected to gain control of the lower house, thanks to rules that guarantee a strong majority to whichever party wins the most votes nationally, a much closer battle will be fought for the Senate, which any government also needs to control to be able to pass laws.

The euro zone's third-largest economy is stuck in deep recession, struggling under a public debt burden second only to Greece in the 17-member currency bloc and with a public weary of more than a year of austerity policies.

Bersani is now thought to be just a few points ahead of media magnate Berlusconi, the four-times prime minister who has promised tax refunds and staged a media blitz in an attempt to win back voters.

Think-tank consultant Mario, 60, who was on his way to vote in Bologna, said Bersani's Democratic Party was the only serious grouping that could help solve the country's economic woes.

"They're not perfect," he said. "But they've got the organization and the union backing that will help them push through the structural reforms."

A strong fightback by Berlusconi, who has promised to repay a widely hated housing tax, the IMU, imposed by Monti last year, saw his support climb during a campaign that relentlessly attacked the "German-centric" austerity policies of the former European Union commissioner.

"I won't vote for Monti, and I don't think a lot of people will. He made a huge blunder with IMU," said 35-year-old hairdresser Marco Morando, preparing to vote in Milan.

But the populist frustration Berlusconi's campaign tapped into has also benefitted Grillo and many pollsters said his 5-Star Movement, made up of political novices, was challenging the center-right for the position as second political force.

"I'm very worried. There seems to be no way out from a political point of view, or from being able to govern," said Calogero Giallanza, a 45-year-old musician in Rome, who voted for Bersani's Democrats.

"There's bound to be a mess in the Senate because, as far as I can see, the 5-Star Movement is unstoppable."

(Additional reporting by Cristiano Corvino, Lisa Jucca, Jennifer Clark, Matthias Baehr and Sara Rossi in Milan, Stephen Jewkes in Bologna, Wladimir Pantaleone in Palermo, Stefano Bernabei and Massimiliano Di Giorgio in Rome; Editing by Robin Pomeroy and Alastair Macdonald)


23.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Merkel's conservatives mull U-turn on gay couples' rights

BERLIN (Reuters) - Leading members of Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) are considering a U-turn in policy on same sex couples after a court ordered the government to grant them greater adoption rights, in an embarrassing ruling for the chancellor.

Germany's constitutional court ruled last week that gay people should be allowed to adopt a child already adopted by their partner, and that the present ban was unconstitutional because it violated the principle of equal treatment.

The court gave the government until July 2014 to amend the law, which applies to gay people in civil partnerships.

"We will of course implement the constitutional court's ruling - that is called for now. At the same time, we will see whether tax amendments are necessary," Volker Kauder, leader of the CDU's parliamentary group, told the Welt am Sonntag paper on Sunday.

At a party congress last December the CDU had thrown out a proposal to give same-sex couples the same tax perks as heterosexual couples after much debate.

The CDU's apparent change of heart was heavily criticized by the opposition Social Democrats, who accused it of being forced by the court into embracing reality.

The CDU has sought to boost its urban appeal ahead of a federal election in September by giving more prominent roles to women and ethnic minorities.

Long a staunch advocate of traditional family values, the party also faced some pressure from within to lure gay and lesbian voters, but that seemed a step too far for many at the congress last December.

The CDU's sister party in Bavaria, the Christian Social Union, warned against making any urgent changes.

"There is no grounds for taking hasty action or even making an about face on the subject of equal rights for married couples and same-sex couples," said Gerda Hasselfeldt, head of the CSU's parliamentary group in Berlin.

In Germany, homosexuals can form civil partnerships but are not allowed to marry. Opposition parties and gay activists accuse the chancellor's center-right government of dragging its feet on equality for gay couples. Civil partnerships are denied the tax privileges given to married couples.

Volker Beck, a lawmaker with the opposition Greens, warned in a statement on Sunday that opposition from the CSU and from some within the CDU suggested Merkel's government would be unable to push through legislation on its own.

He urged a free vote on the issue and said the Greens would help support a change in the law.

"If the CDU really wants to put an end to its discrimination of same-sex partnerships then we are ready to work together on this," Beck said.

(Reporting by Alexandra Hudson; Editing by Alison Williams)


23.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

45 arrested in Madrid after mass demonstration

MADRID (Reuters) - Forty-five people have been arrested in Spain during disturbances following a demonstration on Saturday by tens of thousands of people against spending cuts and allegations of government corruption.

The mostly peaceful march convened in central Madrid on Saturday evening in front of parliament under the watch of riot police, who closed access to the legislature, Ritz Hotel and stock exchange.

However, while most protesters dispersed after the rally, police reported disturbances later on Saturday and early on Sunday around the city's Atocha train station. Nine of those arrested were under 18, police said.

Some 40 people were hurt, including 12 police, though none seriously, officials said on Sunday.

The march was just one of a number of demonstrations across the country to protest against deep austerity, the privatization of public services and allegations of political corruption.

Protests in Spain have become commonplace as the conservative government passes measures aimed at shrinking one of the euro zone's highest budget deficits and reinventing an economy hobbled by a burst housing bubble.

A corruption scandal involving the ruling People's Party and a separate investigation into the king's son-in-law, Inaki Urdangarin, has further undermind Spaniards' trust in the leaders.

One poll, before the latest accusations of high level slush funds came to light, showed some 96 percent of Spanish adults thought corruption amongst politicians was pervasive.

The People's Party and the Urdangarin deny wrongdoing.


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Israel demands Palestinian Authority curb protests

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel on Sunday demanded the Palestinian Authority stem a surge of anti-Israeli protests ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to the region next month.

A senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gave no indication the Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the occupied West Bank, would issue any call for calm, and blamed Israel for the spike in unrest.

The death in an Israeli jail of a Palestinian detainee on Saturday and an on-going hunger strike by four inmates have fuelled tensions in the West Bank, where stone-throwing protesters clashed again with Israeli soldiers on Sunday.

Some 3,000 prisoners held a one-day fast on Sunday after the detainee's death, which Israel said was caused by a heart attack, an explanation challenged by Palestinian officials.

"Israel has conveyed to the Palestinian Authority an unequivocal demand to calm the territory," an Israeli government official said, adding the message was delivered by one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's top aides.

As an apparent incentive to Palestinian leaders to intervene, Israel pledged to proceed with this month's transfer to the Authority of around $100 million in tax revenues that it collects on its behalf.

Israel began withholding the funds, money the Palestinian Authority badly needs to pay public sector salaries, after Abbas secured U.N. de facto recognition of Palestinian statehood in November.

Under international pressure, Israel announced it would release $100 million to the Palestinian Authority last month.

In the latest clashes, hundreds of Palestinian protesters, in several towns and villages in the West Bank, hurled stones at Israeli soldiers, who responded with tear gas and stun grenades.

There were no reports of serious injuries in the confrontations, after a wave of violent protests last week in solidarity with the four hunger-striking prisoners.

Some 4,700 Palestinians are in Israeli jails, many of them convicted of anti-Israeli attacks and others detained without trial. Palestinians see them as heroes in a statehood struggle, and the death of any of the hunger-strikers would likely trigger widespread violence.

Prisoners affiliated with Hamas, the Islamist militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, issued a call for a new Palestinian uprising.

Abbas said in an Israeli television interview three months ago he would not allow a third armed Intifada to break out and that Palestinians would pursue their cause peacefully.

Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli Defence Ministry official, questioned whether the protests were just a tactical move by the Palestinians to draw international attention before Obama's visit to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan.

But he added, in an Israel Radio interview: "Things can get out of control."

OBAMA AGENDA

Netanyahu has said Iran's nuclear program would top the agenda of his meetings with Obama, but that the talks also would deal with Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts stalled since 2010.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior Abbas aide, said Israel's treatment of prisoners and anti-Palestinian violence by Jewish settlers were "the cause of the deterioration".

Israel said it would carry out an autopsy of the body of Arafat Jaradat, the 30-year-old prisoner who died on Saturday. Israel's Prisons Authority said he had not been on a hunger strike and had been examined by an Israeli doctor during an interrogation on Thursday.

The first Palestinian uprising began in 1987 and ended in 1993, when the Oslo interim peace accords were signed.

The second Intifada broke out in 2000 after the failure of talks on a final peace settlement. Over the following seven years, more than 1,000 Israelis died, half of them in suicide attacks mostly against civilians, and more than 4,500 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces.‮‮‮‮‮‮‮‮‮‮‮‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta, Nidal al-Mughrabi, Noah Browning and Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Rosalind Russell)


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Pope, on last Sunday, says following God's wishes

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict spoke from his window for the last time on Sunday, telling the faithful packed into St. Peter's Square that the first papal abdication in centuries was God's will and insisting he was not "abandoning" the Church.

Four days before the 85-year-old's often troubled eight-year rule ends, new talk of scandal hit the cardinals who will choose his successor; one of them, a Scottish archbishop, had to deny a media allegation of misconduct with young priests in the 1980s.

With an American cardinal urged not to go to the electoral conclave due to his role in handling sexual abuse cases in the United States, and the Vatican accusing media of running smears to influence the vote, the Church faces a stormy succession.

Benedict, however, defended his shock decision to resign as dictated by his failing health; his address to tens of thousands of well-wishers was met with calls of "Viva il Papa!"

"The Lord is calling me to climb the mountain, to dedicate myself even more to prayer and meditation," the German-born pontiff said in Italian, his voice strong and carrying clearly.

"But this does not mean abandoning the Church. Actually, if God asks this of me, it is precisely because I can continue to serve her with the same dedication and the same love I have shown so far," he said, adding that he would be serving the Church "in a way more in keeping with my age and my strengths".

As he spoke, two of the some 117 cardinals who are due to enter the conclave to choose his successor as leader of the 1.2 billion Roman Catholics next month were mired in controversy.

Britain's top Catholic cleric, Cardinal Keith O'Brien of Edinburgh, rejected allegations published in the Observer newspaper that he had been involved in unspecified inappropriate behavior with other priests in the past.

The paper said O'Brien, known for his outspoken views against homosexuality, had been reported to the Vatican by three priests and a former priest, who said they had come forward to demand O'Brien resign and not take part in the conclave.

"Cardinal O'Brien contests these claims and is taking legal advice," a spokesman for the 74-year-old cardinal said.

He was the second cardinal to be caught up in controversy over his attendance ahead of the conclave, where 117 "princes of the Church" under 80 will elect a new pope from their ranks.

On Saturday, Catholic activists petitioned Cardinal Roger Mahony to recuse himself from the conclave so as not to insult survivors of sexual abuse by priests committed while he was archbishop of Los Angeles.

In that post from 1985 until 2011, Mahony worked to send priests known to be abusers out of state to shield them from law enforcement scrutiny in the 1980s, according to church files unsealed under a U.S. court order last month.

SAINTS AND SINNERS

Benedict's papacy was rocked by scandals over the sex abuse of children by priests in Europe and the United States, most of which preceded his time in office but came to light during it.

His reign also saw Muslim anger after he compared Islam to violence. Jews were upset over his rehabilitation of a Holocaust denier. During a scandal over the Church's business dealings, his butler was convicted of leaking his private papers.

But the minds of those in the crowd in St Peter's Square, some holding banners reading "Thank you Holy Father," were not on scandals, real or potential, but on the Church history unfolding around them.

"It's bittersweet," said Sarah Ennis, 21, a student from Minnesota who studies in Rome. "Bitter because we love our Pope Benedict and hate to see him go, but sweet because he is going for a good reason and we are excited to see the next pope."

Others, however, saw it as a possible harbinger of bad moons for the Church.

"This is an ill wind blowing," said midwife Marina Tacconi.

"It feels like something ugly could happen. I'm 58 years old, I have seen popes come and go. But never one resign.

"I don't see it as a good thing."

The Sunday address was one of Benedict's last appearances as pontiff before the curtain comes down on a problem-ridden pontificate.

On Wednesday, he will hold his last general audience in St. Peter's Square and on Thursday he will meet with cardinals and then fly to the papal summer retreat south of Rome.

The papacy will become vacant at 8 p.m. Rome time (1900 GMT) on Thursday, February 28.

Cardinals will begin meetings the next day to prepare for a secret conclave in the Sistine Chapel.

They have already begun informal consultations by phone and email in the past two weeks since Benedict announced his shock abdication in order to build a profile of the man they think would be best suited to lead the Church through rough seas.

On Monday, the pope is expected to issue slight changes to Church rules governing the conclave so that it could start before March 15, the earliest it can be held under a detailed constitution by his predecessor John Paul.

Some cardinals believe a conclave should start sooner than March 15 in order to reduce the time in which the Church will be without a leader at a time of crisis.

But some in the Church believe that an early conclave would give an unfair advantage to cardinals already in Rome and working in the Curia, the Vatican's central administration, which has been at the centre of accusations of ineptitude that some say led Benedict to step down.

The Vatican appears to be aiming to have a new pope elected by mid-March and then formally installed before Palm Sunday on March 24 so he can preside at Holy Week services leading to Easter.

Benedict and his predecessor, John Paul II, made sure any man awarded a cardinal's red hat was firmly in line with key Catholic doctrine supporting priestly celibacy and Vatican authority and opposing abortion, women priests, gay marriage and other liberal reforms.

(Additional reporting by Naomi O'Leary; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)


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