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Third bomb attack in 24 hours kills eight Afghan police

Written By Bersemangat on Minggu, 27 Januari 2013 | 23.01

KABUL (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed eight policemen in Afghanistan's volatile southern province of Kandahar, police said on Sunday, the third deadly attack by insurgents against police in 24 hours.

Twenty police have been killed across Afghanistan since midday on Saturday, a level of violence that underlines concern over how the 350,000-strong Afghan security forces will manage once most NATO-led troops withdraw by the end of next year.

In the latest attack, the police in Kandahar had just finished defusing a roadside bomb and had arrested three men suspected of being Taliban insurgents when the blast occurred late on Saturday.

"As they were leaving the area another bomb went off near their vehicle, killing eight policemen and two suspects," said Kandahar Police Chief Abdul Raziq.

Six police and a third Taliban suspect were wounded.

That blast came hours after 10 police officers, including the provincial counter-terrorism chief, were killed in an attack in northern Kunduz province. Another two police were killed in a bombing in eastern Ghazni province.

Eleven years into the NATO-led war against Taliban insurgents, violence has been increasing against Afghan security forces, sparking concern that they will not be able to take over all security responsibilities by the middle of this year.

(Reporting By Hamid Shalizi; Writing by Dylan Welch; Editing by Amie Ferris-Rotman and Paul Tait)


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China keeps mum on Bo trial despite talk it could start on Monday

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's government is giving no details on the trial of shamed senior leader Bo Xilai, the final chapter in its worst political scandal in decades, as speculation mounted the case could be heard as early as Monday.

A Beijing-backed Hong Kong newspaper, the Ta Kung Pao, reported on Friday that Bo's trial would begin on Monday in the southern Chinese city of Guiyang.

But the government has not confirmed or denied this, belying recent efforts to promote transparency and openness, and at least two well-informed sources said on Sunday the reports were not true.

However, a third source, who has ties to the leadership, said the trial would in fact begin on Monday in Guiyang.

It was not immediately possible to reconcile the conflicting reports. Reuters reporters in Guiyang said they could see no signs of heightened security so far, either around the main courthouse or in any other part of the city.

Once a contender for China's top leadership, Bo was ousted from his post as Communist Party chief in the southwestern city of Chongqing last year following his wife's murder of a British businessman, Neil Heywood.

Bo, 63, was widely tipped to be promoted to the party's elite inner core before his career unraveled. The downfall came after his former police chief, Wang Lijun, fled briefly to a U.S. consulate for last February and alleged that Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, had murdered Heywood with poison.

Gu and Wang have both since been convicted and jailed.

No criminal charges against Bo have yet been revealed, only accusations from the party of corruption and of bending the law to hush up Heywood's killing.

Bo was last seen in public in March and is being held in custody, though there has been no word where he is being held and he has not been allowed to defend himself in public.

China's new Communist Party chief Xi Jinping, who takes over from Hu Jintao as president in March, has made government accountability and fighting corruption two of his key themes since assuming his party role in November.

The party has also tried to show it is at least paying lip service to following legal procedures in pursuing the case against Bo.

"If they are doing this by the book and the trial is on Monday then there should have been a formal announcement by now," said Zhang Lifan, a Beijing-based political commentator.

"If they don't follow procedure, and hold the trial in great secrecy in a very low-key manner, it would be going against the convention (of the previous trials) and make people suspicious of the whole process and of government promises," he added.

The trial, when it does comes, is almost certain to be conducted behind closed doors, with access limited to close family members, a handful of state media and a carefully selected group of other observers.

In Gu's trial, British diplomats were allowed in, but only because she was accused of killing a British national.

After Gu and Wang's trials, court officials briefed the media, foreign press included.

Formal charges against both Gu and Wang were also announced ahead of their trials.

A source with direct knowledge of Bo's case, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said on Sunday that reports on the trial date were likely false and that the case was unlikely to begin on Monday.

Another source, who is close to Bo's family, also said such reports were incorrect.

Further adding to the confusion, several Chinese news websites on Sunday carried the entire Ta Kung Pao article about Bo's trial, but without attributing it to the Hong Kong newspaper or adding any other details.

(Additional reporting by Benjamin Kang Lim and Lucy Hornby, and Reuters reporters in GUIYANG, China; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)


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French, Malians secure Timbuktu in rebel-held north

BAMAKO/SEVARE, Mali (Reuters) - French and Malian troops were on Sunday restoring government control over the fabled Saharan trading town of Timbuktu, the latest gain in a fast-moving French-led offensive against al Qaeda-allied fighters occupying northern Mali.

The Islamist militant rebels have pulled back northwards to avoid relentless French air strikes that have destroyed their bases, vehicles and weapons, allowing French and Malian troops to advance rapidly with air support and armored vehicles.

A Malian military source told Reuters the French and Malian forces reached "the gates of Timbuktu" late on Saturday without meeting resistance from the Islamist insurgents who had held the town since last year.

The advancing troops were working on securing the town, a UNESCO World Heritage site and labyrinth of ancient mosques and monuments and mud-brick homes, ready to flush out any Islamist fighters who might still be hiding among the population.

"Timbuktu is delicate, you can't just go in like that," the source, who asked not to be named, said.

On Saturday, the French-Malian offensive recaptured Gao, which along with Timbuktu was one of three major northern towns occupied last year by Tuareg and Islamist rebels who included fighters from al Qaeda's North Africa wing AQIM.

The third town, Kidal, remains in rebel hands.

The United States and Europe are backing the U.N.-mandated Mali operation as a counterstrike against the threat of radical Islamist jihadists using the West African state's inhospitable Sahara desert as a launching pad for international attacks.

One Timbuktu resident now outside the town said a friend inside had sent him SMS messages saying he had seen government troops on the streets, but gave no more details.

Fighters from the Islamist alliance in north Mali, which groups AQIM with Malian Islamist group Ansar Dine and AQIM splinter MUJWA, had destroyed ancient shrines sacred to moderate Sufi Moslems in Timbuktu, provoking international outrage.

They had also imposed severe sharia, Islamic law, including amputations for thieves and stoning of adulterers.

GAO MAYOR BACK IN OFFICE

Malian government control was restored in Gao on Saturday, after French special forces backed by warplanes and helicopters seized the town's airport and a key bridge. Around a dozen "terrorists" were killed in the assault, while French forces suffered no losses or injuries, France's defense ministry said.

The Islamists seemed to be pulling back further north into the trackless desert wastes and mountain fastnesses of the Sahara, from where some military experts fear they could carry on a hit-and-run guerrilla war against the government.

Officials said the mayor of Gao, Sadou Diallo, who had taken refuge in Bamako during the Islamist occupation, had been reinstalled at the head of the local administration while French, Malian, Chadian and Nigerien troops secured the town and the surrounding area.

As the French and Malian troops push into northern Mali, African troops from a continental intervention force expected to number 7,700 are being flown into the country, despite delays due to logistical problems and the lack of airlift capacity.

The robust military action by France over the past two weeks in its former Sahel colony has left African leaders embarrassed about the continent's inability to quickly field its own force to restore the territorial integrity of an African state.

At an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, outgoing AU chairman Thomas Boni Yayi, president of Benin, criticized Africa's slow response to the Isla mist insurgency in Mali, and welcomed international support for the French-led operation.

"How could it be that when faced with a danger that threatens its very foundations, Africa, although it had the means to defend itself, continued to wait," Yayi told African leaders on Sunday after handing over the AU chair to Ethiopia.

TWO-PRONGED OFFENSIVE

France sent warplanes and 2,500 troops to Mali, formerly French Sudan, after its government appealed to Paris for help when Isla mist rebel columns early in January launched an offensive towards the southern capital Bamako. The rebels seized several towns, since recaptured by the French.

Around 1,900 African troops, including Chadian, have been deployed to Mali so far as part of the planned U.S.-based African intervention force, known as AFISMA.

Bur kina Fatso, Benin, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, Niger and Chad are providing troops while Burundi and other African nations have pledged to contribute.

While the French and Malians thrust northeast in a two-pronged offensive through Goa and Timbuktu, Chadian and local forces in neighboring Niger are preparing a flanking thrust against the Isla mists coming up from the south.

Washington and European governments, while providing airlift and intelligence support to the anti-militant offensive in Mali, are not planning to send in any combat troops.

The AU is expected to seek hundreds of millions of dollars in logistical support and funding for the AFISMA force at a conference of donors for the Mali operation to be held in Addis Ababa on January 29.

(Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo in Bamako, Richard Valdmanis in Sevare, Mali, Joe Bavier in Abidjan, Richard Lough and Aaron Maasho in Addis Ababa; Writing by Pascal Fletcher; editing by Philippa Fletcher)


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Israel threatens Syria strike if rebels get chemical arms

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Any sign that Syria's grip on its chemical weapons is slipping as it battles armed rebels could trigger Israeli military strikes, Israel's vice premier said on Sunday.

Silvan Shalom confirmed a media report that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had last week convened a meeting of security chiefs to discuss the civil war in Syria and the state of its suspected chemical arsenal.

Israel and NATO countries say Syria has stocks of chemical warfare agents at four sites. Syria is cagey about whether it has such arms but says if it had it would keep them secure and use them only to fend off foreign attack.

The Israeli meeting on Wednesday had not been publicly announced and was seen as unusual as it came while votes were being counted from Israel's parliamentary election the day before, which Netanyahu's party list won narrowly.

Should Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas or rebels battling forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad obtain Syria's chemical weapons, Shalom told Israel's Army Radio: "It would dramatically change the capabilities of those organizations."

Such a development would be "a crossing of all red lines that would require a different approach, including even preventive operations," he said, alluding to military intervention for which Israeli generals have said plans have been readied.

"The concept, in principle, is that this (chemical weapons transfer) must not happen," Shalom said. "The moment we begin to understand that such a thing is liable to happen, we will have to make decisions."

Addressing his cabinet on Sunday, Netanyahu said he intended to put together "the broadest and most stable government as possible in order, first of all, to meet the significant security threats that face the State of Israel".

Difficult coalition talks could be ahead for Netanyahu with factions representing widely different sectors of the population.

"COMING APART"

In his public remarks at the cabinet session, Netanyahu pointed to "what is happening in Iran and its proxies and at what is happening in other areas, with the deadly weapons in Syria, which is increasingly coming apart.

"In the east, north and south, everything is in ferment and we must be prepared, strong and determined in the face of all possible developments," Netanyahu said, in apparent reference to Iran, Syria and Egypt.

Raising the regional stakes, Tehran, among Assad's few allies and itself long the subject of Israeli military threats over its nuclear program, said on Saturday it would deem any attack on Syria an attack on Iran.

Interviewed on Army Radio, Civil Defence Minister Avi Dichter said Syria was on the verge of collapse. But asked whether Israel perceived an imminent threat, Dichter said: "No, not yet. I suppose that when things pose a danger to us, the State of Israel will know about it."

France, among the most vocal backers of Syria's rebels, said last week there were no signs Assad was about to be overthrown.

An Israeli government security adviser told Reuters on Sunday Syria had taken new prominence in strategic planning "because of the imminence of the threat. There the WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) are ready and could be turned against us at short notice."

Syria is widely believed to have built up the arsenal to offset Israel's reputed nuclear weapons, among other reasons.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Jeffrey Heller, Mark Heinrich and Janet Lawrence)


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Cameron deputy slams EU vote, polls show boost for PM

LONDON (Reuters) - Nick Clegg, leader of the junior party in Britain's ruling coalition, denounced David Cameron's pledge to hold a referendum on quitting the European Union, as polls on Sunday indicated the prime minister's move may gain him votes.

"It is not in the national interest when we have this fragile recovery," said Clegg, whose Liberal Democrats strongly favor closer EU ties, in contrast to many members of Cameron's Conservative party. "I don't think it helps at all."

He dismissed as "implausible" Cameron's plan to take back powers from Brussels before a referendum on a new treaty by 2017 that would let voters take Britain out. EU leaders have shown little wish to grant Cameron concessions and Clegg said EU talks would distract ministers from efforts to revive the economy.

Cameron, he told the BBC, would damage economic growth if he spent "years flying around from one European capital to the next, fiddling around with the terms of Britain's membership".

The LibDems are languishing in the polls and are unlikely to leave the coalition before an election in 2015, but the EU issue has added to strains. Cameron, who says he wants Britain to stay in the EU, last week promised a referendum if he is re-elected. It is less clear what may happen if treaties remain unchanged.

The first opinion polls published since he made his pledge of an "in-out" vote, however, showed that the prime minister may be succeeding in reversing a drift from the Conservatives to a party which campaigns for Britain to leave the European Union.

A Survation poll in the Mail on Sunday, which showed Labour unchanged and in the lead on 38 percent, put the Conservatives on 31 percent, up two points, while the UK Independence Party was down by the same margin, on 14 percent. UKIP's surge from just 3 percent in the 2010 election has raised the prospect of a split on the right that could condemn Cameron to defeat.

Another poll, by ComRes in the Independent on Sunday, showed an even more marked "Brussels bounce" for the prime minister, with the Conservatives gaining five points from last month to 33 percent and UKIP losing four points to be on 10 percent. Again, ComRes put Labour in the lead, down a point on 39 percent.

Cameron's European move worries the United States and EU allies, which want Britain to stay in the bloc. Many business leaders say it creates dangerous uncertainty.

Many Conservatives, whose party toppled previous premiers over European policy, welcomed a referendum after 2015. However, without improvement in an economy which shrank by 0.3 percent in the last quarter, Cameron's re-election is far from certain.

(Editing by Alastair Macdonald)


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Britain warns of specific security threat in Somalia

LONDON (Reuters) - The British government warned on Sunday of a "specific threat" to foreigners in Somalia's breakaway enclave of Somaliland and urged its nationals to leave the country immediately.

Britain's Foreign Office gave no details of the threat in the Horn of Africa state, but highlighted in a statement the ongoing danger of "kidnapping for financial or political gain, motivated by criminality or terrorism".

"We are now aware of a specific threat to Westerners in Somaliland, and urge any British nationals who remain there against our advice to leave immediately," the statement said.

It follows a warning from European countries on Thursday of a "specific and imminent" threat to foreigners in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.

Britain warned earlier this month of a growing militant threat in North Africa, which Prime Minister David Cameron has called a "magnet for jihadists".

The warnings came after at least 38 hostages were killed in a militant attack on Algeria's In Amenas natural gas complex near the Libyan border earlier this month, along with the start of French military operations against Islamist rebels in Mali.

(Reporting by Peter Griffiths; Editing by Mark Heinrich)


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Nightclub fire kills 245 in southern Brazil

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil (Reuters) - A fire in a nightclub killed at least 245 people in southern Brazil on Sunday when a band's pyrotechnics show set the building ablaze and fleeing patrons were unable to find the emergency exits in the ensuing panic, officials said.

The blaze in the southern city of Santa Maria was started when a band member or someone from its production team ignited a flare, which then set fire to the ceiling, said Luiza Sousa, a civil police official. The fire spread "in seconds," she said.

An estimated 500 people were in the Boate Kiss nightclub when the fire broke out early on Sunday, and many were unable to find the exits as dark smoke quickly filled the room. At least one exit was locked, trapping hundreds inside to die, many from asphyxiation as they inhaled smoke, police said.

"When I looked around, all I saw were dead bodies all around, lying on the floor. It was macabre," survivor Taynne Vendrusculo told GloboNews TV. "It all happened so fast. Both the panic and the fire spread rapidly, in seconds."

Television footage showed people sobbing outside the club, while shirtless firefighters used sledge hammers and axes to knock down an exterior wall to open up an exit.

By noon (1400 GMT), the death toll had risen to 245 and 48 people were being treated in local hospitals, said Major Cleberson Bastianello, head of the military police unit leading the rescue efforts. He said all of the bodies of the victims had been removed from the nightclub.

President Dilma Rousseff, who started her political career in the same state where the fire happened, cut short a visit to Chile to return to Brazil to visit the scene. Before departing, Rousseff gave a televised statement in which she broke out in tears as she pledged government help for the victims and their families.

"We are trying to mobilize all possible resources to help in the rescue efforts," she said. "All I can say at the moment is that my feelings are of deep sorrow."

The disaster recalls other incidents including a 2003 fire at a nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island, that killed 100, and a Buenos Aires nightclub blaze in 2004 that killed nearly 200. In both incidents, a band or members of the audience ignited fires that set the establishment ablaze.

Brazil's safety standards and emergency response capabilities are under particular scrutiny as it prepares to host the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament and the 2016 Olympics.

The Boate Kiss nightclub was a popular venue in Santa Maria, a university town of more than 275,000 people. The massive nightclub sometimes attracts up to 2,000 people on a given night, according to reviews on the Internet.

One of the club's owners had already surrendered to police in Santa Maria for questioning, GloboNews reported.

Rio Grande do Sul state Health Secretary Ciro Simoni said emergency medical supplies from all over the state were being sent to the scene.

Santa Maria is some 186 miles west of the state capital of Porto Alegre. "A sad Sunday!" tweeted Rio Grande do Sul Governor Tarso Genro. He said "all possible measures" were being taken in response.

(Additional reporting by Guillermo Parra-Bernal, Gustavo Bonato, Leila Coimbra, Todd Benson, Jeferson Ribeiro and Brian Winter; Editing by Todd Benson, Kieran Murray and Eric Beech)


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Kuwait MPs target financial help for citizens

KUWAIT (Reuters) - A parliamentary committee in Kuwait proposed on Sunday that the government pay a portion of the interest on citizens' personal loans and give a 1,000 Kuwaiti dinar ($3,500) gift to each Kuwaiti without such debts, state news agency KUNA reported.

The proposal from the financial and economic affairs committee, which is made up of members of parliament, would need approval of the wider assembly and the country's ruler if it is to be passed into law.

Lawmakers elected in December had originally sought a complete bailout of billions of dollars of household debt but were met with strong resistance from policymakers who said the plans were not feasible.

If the proposal becomes law it would not be the first time that Kuwait, one of the world's richest countries per capita, gives out such financial aid.

In 2011, to mark three major anniversaries, ruler Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah granted 1,000 dinars to each of the country's 1.2 million citizens and as well as free food rations for 13 months.

Kuwait's oil wealth and generous welfare state have helped to shield the Gulf country from severe Arab Spring-style unrest, although there have been frequent demonstrations over political participation and other local issues.

Under the plan proposed on Sunday, the government would pay off interest incurred on loans. KUNA said this applied to the period between January 2002 to April 2008, citing committee rapporteur Safa al-Hashem. ($1 = 0.2818 Kuwaiti dinars)

(Reporting by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Alison Birrane)


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Berlusconi defends Mussolini, draws outrage from political left

ROME (Reuters) - Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi triggered outrage from Italy's political left on Sunday with comments defending fascist wartime leader Benito Mussolini at a ceremony commemorating victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

Speaking at the margins of the event in Milan, Berlusconi said Mussolini had been wrong to follow Nazi Germany's lead in passing anti-Jewish laws but that he had in other respects been a good leader.

"It's difficult now to put yourself in the shoes of people who were making decisions at that time," said Berlusconi, who is campaigning for next month's election at the head of a coalition that includes far-right politicians whose roots go back to Italy's old fascist party.

"Obviously the government of that time, out of fear that German power might lead to complete victory, preferred to ally itself with Hitler's Germany rather than opposing it," he said.

"As part of this alliance, there were impositions, including combating and exterminating Jews," he told reporters. "The racial laws were the worst fault of Mussolini as a leader, who in so many other ways did well," he said, referring to laws passed by Mussolini's fascist government in 1938.

Although Mussolini is known outside Italy mostly for the alliance with Nazi Germany, his government also paid for major infrastructure projects as well as welfare for supporters.

Berlusconi's comments overshadowed Sunday's commemoration of thousands of Jews and others deported from Italy to the Nazi death camps of eastern Europe. They were condemned as "disgusting" by the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), which is leading in the polls ahead of the February 24-25 election.

"Our republic is based on the struggle against Nazi fascism and these are intolerable remarks which are incompatible with leadership of democratic political forces," said Marco Meloni, the PD's spokesman for institutional affairs.

Antonio Ingroia, a former anti-mafia magistrate campaigning at the head of a separate left-wing coalition, said Berlusconi was "a disgrace to Italy".

AMBIGUOUS

It was not the first time Berlusconi has defended Mussolini, whose status in Italy remains deeply ambiguous 67 years after he was executed by communist partisans while trying to flee to Switzerland in April, 1945.

Many Italian politicians, including the speaker of the Lower House of parliament, Gianfranco Fini, come from the ranks of the old Italian Social Movement (MSI) which grew out of the fascist party, although Fini and others have renounced the far right.

Others, including Francesco Storace, Berlusconi's candidate for president of the Lazio region, have stayed true to what they see as the "social-right" tradition of the fascist movement.

Monuments to Mussolini, who came to power in 1922, still dot many Italian cities, including Rome, where a column to Il Duce stands close to the city's main football stadium, within a stone's throw of the foreign ministry.

Although never as fervently anti-Semitic as his Nazi allies, Mussolini's government persecuted Italy's Jewish population, which was then estimated to number about 40,000, according to the Jewish Contemporary Documentation Centre in Milan.

The 1938 laws imposed oppressive restrictions on Jews and some 10,000 are estimated to have been deported from Italy between September 1943 and March 1945. Most of them died in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.

While anti-Semitic behavior has not been as prominently reported in Italy in recent years as in neighboring countries such as France, acts ranging from anti-Jewish graffiti to chants at football matches occur periodically.

"We must be very careful to ensure that these sparks, which recur every now and then, cannot bring back tragedies which humanity should not suffer again," outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti said on Sunday.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)


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One killed, many hurt at funerals in Egypt port city

CAIRO (Reuters) - A man was shot dead and hundreds of people were injured in Egypt's Port Said on Sunday during the funerals of 33 protesters killed at the weekend in the city, part of a wave of violence that has compounded challenges facing President Mohamed Mursi.

The 18-year-old victim was killed by a gunshot wound in the chest, Abdel Rahman Farag, the Mediterranean port's head of hospitals told Reuters. More than 416 people suffered from teargas inhalation, while 17 sustained gunshot wounds, he said.

Gunshots had killed many of the 33 who died on Saturday when residents went on the rampage after a court sentenced 21 people, mostly from the city, to death for their role in a deadly stadium disaster in Port Said last year.

Some in the crowd chanted on Sunday for revenge or shouted anti-Mursi slogans. "Our soul and blood, we sacrifice to Port Said," they said, as coffins were carried through the streets.

Elsewhere in Egypt, police fired teargas at dozens of stone-throwing protesters in Cairo in a fourth day of clashes over what demonstrators there and in other cities say is a power grab by Islamists two years after Hosni Mubarak was overthrown.

The protesters accuse Mursi, elected in June with the support of his Muslim Brotherhood group, of betraying the democratic goals of the revolution. Since protests began on Thursday, 43 people have been killed, most in Port Said and Suez, both cities where the army has now been deployed.

The violence adds to the daunting task facing Mursi as he tries to fix a beleaguered economy and cool tempers before a parliamentary election expected in the next few months which is supposed to cement Egypt's transition to democracy.

It has exposed a deep rift in the nation. Liberals and other opponents accuse Mursi of failing to deliver on economic promises and say he has not lived up to pledges to represent all Egyptians. His backers say the opposition is seeking to topple Egypt's first freely elected leader by undemocratic means.

"BLOOD BEING SPILT"

"None of the revolution's goals have been realized," said Mohamed Sami, a protester in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Sunday.

"Prices are going up. The blood of Egyptians is being spilt in the streets because of neglect and corruption and because the Muslim Brotherhood is ruling Egypt for their own interests."

On a bridge close to Tahrir Square, youths hurled stones at police in riot gear who fired teargas to push them back towards the square, the cauldron of the uprising that erupted on January 25, 2011 and toppled Mubarak 18 days later.

Clashes also erupted in other streets near the square. The U.S. and British embassies, both close to Tahrir, said they were closed for public business on Sunday.

The army, Egypt's interim ruler until Mursi's election, was sent back onto the streets to restore order in Port Said and Suez, which both lie on the Suez canal. In Suez, at least eight people were killed in clashes with police.

Egypt's defense minister who also heads the army, Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, called for the nation to stand together and said the military would not prevent peaceful protests. But he called on demonstrators to protect public property.

Many ordinary Egyptians are frustrated by the regular escalations that have hurt the economy and their livelihoods.

"They are not revolutionaries protesting," said taxi driver Kamal Hassan, 30, referring to those gathered in Tahrir. "They are thugs destroying the country."

CALL FOR DIALOGUE

The National Defence Council, headed by Mursi, called on Saturday for national dialogue to discuss political differences.

That offer has been cautiously welcomed by the opposition National Salvation Front. But the coalition has demanded a clear agenda and guarantees that any agreements will be implemented.

The Front, formed late last year when Mursi provoked protests and violence by expanding his powers and driving through an Islamist-tinged constitution, has threatened to boycott the parliamentary poll and to call for more protests if a list of demands is not met, including having an early presidential vote.

Opponents also criticized Mursi for not taking a more public role during weekend violence. The Popular Current movement, led by leftist Hamdeen Sabahy, said it "denounces the state of silence of the presidency and the government during the sad events that the country went through the past 48 hours".

Egypt's transition has been blighted from the outset by political rows and turbulence on the streets that have driven investors out and kept many tourists away, starving the economy of vital sources of hard currency.

Egypt's pound has been hit hard by the turmoil, steadily weakening against the dollar despite efforts by the central bank to slow the fall and preserve foreign reserves now at critical levels. The latest violence has added to investors' concerns.

The Port Said clashes erupted after a judge sentenced 21 men to death for involvement in 74 deaths at a soccer match on February 1, 2012 between Cairo's Al Ahly club and the local al-Masri team. Many of the victims were fans of the visiting team.

There were 73 defendants in the case. Those not sentenced on Saturday will face a verdict on March 9, the judge said.

Al Ahly fans cheered the verdict after threatening action if the death penalty was not meted out. But Port Said residents were furious that people from their city were held responsible.

(Additional reporting by Yusri Mohamed in Ismailia; editing by Philippa Fletcher)


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What a Brazilian clown reveals about the crisis in legislatures

Written By Bersemangat on Minggu, 20 Januari 2013 | 23.01

(Reuters) - Cross-dressing, semi-literate, potty-mouthed clowns aren't supposed to run for Congress. And if they do, they sure as hell aren't supposed to win. But Francisco Everardo Oliveira Silva—better known by his clown name Tiririca (Grumpy)—broke those rules, and several more, when he ran for Brazil's House of Deputies in 2010. Campaigning under the slogan "It Can't Get Any Worse" and wearing a women's blonde wig, Tiririca took satirical aim at Brazil's reviled Congress, where gridlock and corruption are rife. His campaign ads were hugely popular on television and the Internet. "What does a federal congressman do? Truly, I don't know. But vote for me, and I'll find out for you," he promised in one ad. In another, he threatened to kill himself if he didn't win. In still another, he vowed: "Elect me so I can help the neediest—especially my own family."

More than 7 million YouTube hits later, Tiririca was elected - with the most votes of any candidate in the history of Brazil's lower house. The political elite howled in anger, accusing the electorate of playing an infantile and reckless practical joke on a hallowed institution. "Is this a protest vote, or proof that we live in an ignorant society?" one pundit asked. Others sneered that Tiririca, who dropped out of school at age 9 to join a traveling circus, wouldn't be able to pass the basic reading test required to take office (he did—barely). A few weeks later, Tiririca continued to make headlines when he apparently screwed up his first vote in Congress by pressing the wrong button on a bill to raise the minimum wage.

Tiririca's political buffoonery might surprise many Europeans and Americans. After all, they seem to have cornered the market on people who despise their legislatures. The approval rating of the U.S. Congress recently hit an all-time low of 9 percent in one poll, making it less popular than communism, Paris Hilton and even banks. In parts of Europe, the backlash has been harsher still, with parliaments from Greece to the Netherlands to Romania collapsing during the past year. In most cases, the widespread hostility to legislators has been attributed to a merciless mix of austerity measures, tax increases and partisan gridlock that has come to define politics in much of Europe and the United States. Put simply, managing a seemingly never-ending financial crisis is a sure-fire way to piss people off.

How, then, to explain the disdain felt toward legislatures in countries that are booming? The year Tiririca rode the protest vote to victory, Brazil's economy grew a whopping 7.5 percent, its best performance in 25 years. In India, which had been enjoying an exceptional run of growth until recently, the parliament has been described as perhaps the most dysfunctional in six decades of democracy. The speaker of South Africa's legislature got so fed up in May that he publicly berated his colleagues for skipping key votes and drafting unintelligible, unconstitutional laws; a colleague agreed, calling the chamber "boring, dull, and a place of mediocrity." Despite a decade of strong growth and the slow but steady spread of democracy throughout Africa, a respected magazine recently surveyed the continent's politics and asked on its cover: "Do parliaments matter?"

It's tempting to blame all this on a global disenchantment with politicians—and the power elite generally—in this age of Facebook, Twitter and grass-roots activism. Yet the truth is that, in many of these countries, the executive branch remains quite popular, and effective. In Brazil, President Dilma Rousseff has an approval rating near 80 percent, as voters credit her—and her alone, apparently—for record-low unemployment and high-wage growth. More than 73 percent of Indians describe Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as either "average" or "good." The same pattern generally holds in the rich world, where, for example, President Barack Obama's popularity never sank lower than about 38 percent in the United States, even when his colleagues in Congress were plumbing single digits and challenging Fidel Castro (5 percent approval) for "Most Hated" status in America.

This all suggests a worldwide crisis of confidence in legislatures. The consequences go beyond just a clown taking office here and there. Brazil's Congress is so dysfunctional that President Rousseff has built her entire governing strategy around avoiding it as much as possible—even shelving plans for a badly needed reform of the tax code at huge detriment to the economy. Naked obstructionism by Mexico's legislature has suppressed economic growth there for more than a decade. In the United States, the most significant contribution of Congress over the last year could be summed up by the phrase "fiscal cliff." Perhaps most dire of all, the inability of Europe's parliamentary democracies to forge a definitive solution to the euro zone crisis has held the global economy hostage for more than two years.

So what's wrong with legislatures? And, most important, what can be done about them? On these questions, Tiririca's story sheds some light. Not the story of his election so much, but what came afterward: the letdown. "This horrible place," he said in a frank, surprisingly sober interview, "nothing about it works. There are a lot of good people, yes, but the system is broken. The things I've seen here, let me tell you…" His voice started to trail off. Then he laughed. "What can I say? It's a circus."

OH, THE IRONY: TRIRICA WANTED TO BE A SERIOUS CONGRESSMAN

To hear him tell it, his political career was not a joke but a personal quest rooted in a tragic night 21 years ago, when he still worked for a traveling circus in Brazil's violent, impoverished northeast. That night, during a performance, Tiririca's pet monkey freaked out and bit a rich man's daughter. Tiririca knew the incident wouldn't go unanswered. "Where I come from," he says, "the powerful make their own laws, and they hand out their own sentences." Sure enough, a few hours later, a truck pulled up carrying five or six men with torches. They burned the circus to the ground, and Tiririca lost every penny he had.

The next morning, he, his wife and their 2-year-old son hitched a ride in the back of a truck to the nearest city. "I cried a lot," he says, "and I made myself a few promises—which I kept."

The first promise: Never live hand-to-mouth again. So Tiririca expanded his repertoire, and recorded an album of humorous, somewhat edgy songs about the gritty world he grew up in, taking on difficult topics such as prison, fast women and street kids. The album was a nationwide phenomenon, selling more than 1.5 million copies. Tiririca became rich and famous. That, in turn, helped with the second promise: "To try to do right in the world, so others wouldn't suffer like I did."

As his career grew to include TV shows and other lucrative projects, the clown handed out money to his friends and also quietly donated a considerable amount to charity. When his mother suggested he run for Congress, it seemed like a logical next step. "I thought: 'Man, I'll get there, and I'll be able to help so many people, it'll be awesome.'"

The reality has, of course, been less than awesome. "Nothing gets done, and a lot of people are just here to steal," he complains. But wait—how could this have been news for a man who got elected by lampooning Congress as a den of thieves and fools? Tiririca frowns. "I campaigned as a clown because that is my profession," he says. Just as a doctor might have run on the strength of his medical career, he explains, his natural role was to crack jokes. "But then, once you get here—look, politics is serious, Okay? This is serious. This is about hospitals and schools, and representing the people who voted for you. Damn, man! This is no joke!"

To that end, Tiririca has donned a blazer and tie, and remained resolutely wig-free while Congress is in session. Respected veteran congressional aides staff his office. Even more shocking, especially to his critics, Tiririca is one of just nine deputies—out of 513 total—who has not missed a single vote. "It's the least you can do, man, is show up," he says, shaking his head. "Why these other guys can't do that, I don't understand."

All of this has earned Tiririca an aura. Walking with him through the halls of Congress is like hanging out with Elvis. Elevator operators, random strangers and even fellow legislators constantly stop him to ask for autographs and take pictures of him with their cell phones. On one recent afternoon, a crowd of about 20 lurked outside his office—"Deputy Tiririca," it says on the door. Three leggy young blondes in matching high heels and short leather skirts giggled and said they were there to say hi. They scored 10 minutes with Tiririca in his private office. What did they want? "I don't know," he says softly, his eyes cast downward. "You meet some interesting people in this life."

Such antics—and the fact that Tiririca has failed to say a single word on the chamber floor, much less pass any legislation—has led some peers to question his motives. "I like Tiririca, but come on—let's be honest about why he's here," says Silvio Costa, who has served in Brazil's lower house since 2007. "People voted for him because they had a total disrespect for politics. They said, 'Since they're all clowns anyway, I'm going to vote for the one who admits to being a clown.' OK, fine. But don't get angry at us when you elect people like that and then the system doesn't work." Costa takes a long drag of his cigarette, and shakes his head in dismay. "And let's all stop treating him like a prophet, OK? If people want to know what's really wrong with Congress, they can take a look at themselves."

Costa was involved in an incident in May that neatly displayed two of the core problems facing legislatures everywhere. The setting: a televised hearing of a congressional commission to investigate corruption allegations against Demostenes Torres, a senator who had gained nationwide fame and adoration for … investigating corruption. Costa was trying to interrogate Torres, but the senator kept invoking his constitutional right to remain silent. "Ah, I know why you're staying quiet," Costa declared, his voice rising with irritation. "Your silence writes your guilt in capital letters. … You say you were a saint. But if heaven exists, you're not going to heaven. Heaven isn't for liars or hypocrites!"

Another senator at the hearing, Pedro Taques, spoke up in Torres' defense: "Look, a senator can't be treated like that," he said. "In fact, nobody should be treated with such indignity. People around the world have died for the constitutional right to remain silent."

After some back-and-forth, Costa appeared to lose it. Red-faced and screaming, he jabbed his finger at Taques: "I won't put up with this garbage!" he thundered, as other congressmen rushed to separate the two men. "You're a hypocrite! A demagogue!" He added some profanities to describe Taques.

Costa issued an apology the next day, but a bleak mood was established for the commission's work. Each session turned up more evidence that Torres—despite posing for years as a righteous crusader, spouting windy statements such as "I won't tolerate bandits!"—had used his influence to benefit a shady tycoon who had gone to jail for running a gambling ring.

And there we have the first big problem facing legislatures around the world: the perception that their members are only out for themselves, and that corruption and abuse of power are always lurking just beneath the surface. From the 2009-10 expenses scandal in Britain's parliament to last year's head-scratching decisions by Australian and Kenyan legislators to award themselves huge pay hikes during times of economic duress, to recent allegations of insider trading involving members of the U.S. Congress, legislators around the world have routinely displayed, at best, an astonishing indifference for what the public will bear—and, at worst, an appalling belief that they are somehow above the law. In Torres' case, the evidence was so overwhelming that his peers had no choice but to act, and they ultimately voted to kick him out of the Senate.

But here's the intriguing twist—Torres' alleged corruption wasn't what seemed to anger Brazilians the most. One more sticky-fingered congressman was hardly a discovery. What left the public disgusted and angry was the near-brawl with Costa, which made the national TV news, every major newspaper and generated more than 10,000 hits on YouTube and an endless barrage of derision on Facebook and Twitter.

That's the second big problem: the notion that, in addition to being thieves, our legislators are incompetent louts who are too busy bickering, making empty speeches or sleeping around to get anything worthwhile done. In America, few people recall that Congress passed a free-trade agreement with South Korea in 2012. Yet almost everybody remembers the congressman who, in 2011, tweeted pictures of his penis to a female admirer and then resigned when they were made public. Similarly, India's parliamentary session of mid-2012 will forever be remembered for opposition members repeatedly interrupting debate to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Singh, permitting only a few hours of productive work over the course of an entire month. Perhaps inevitably, there was also a scuffle involving several MPs. Things got so bad that Singh gave an angry speech on the steps outside Parliament on the last day of the session, lamenting a "wasted" month that had damaged Indian democracy.

Tiririca believes such boorish behavior is the rule in legislatures, not the exception. He says the system is set up to encourage pointless theatrics and confrontations while making serious deliberations nearly impossible. On a tour of the chamber floor late one evening, it was hard not to see his point. A sweaty, balding man was giving a loud speech at a podium—while hundreds of his fellow deputies milled about paying no heed, talking or fiddling with their iPhones. It could easily have been Washington, D.C. "Nobody's listening to that poor man speak! As an entertainer, that terrifies me!" Tiririca exclaimed, cringing. "But you know what? I'll bet you he doesn't care. He's just performing for the cameras anyway, to show people back in his home state that he's working. But you watch," he predicted, "there will be no work tonight." Sure enough, within a few minutes, the chamber failed to muster quorum for a major vote on a forestry bill. There was a collective groan, and the room emptied.

"These stupid rules, how do they make any sense?" Tiririca said, trudging back to his office. "Damn, this whole system is crazy! It has nothing to do with how the world works."

Some people who get paid to think about such things agree with him. Moises Naim, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says legislatures and traditional political parties have been losing relevance for decades now. In a book to be published this spring called The End of Power, Naim points to events as diverse as the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, Germany's Pirate Party—and, yes, the election of Tiririca—as proof that old-school institutions are in danger of losing their ability to influence events. That's due largely to new technologies. "We are surrounded by innovation in everything except how we govern ourselves," Naim says. "If the system doesn't evolve, this anti-establishment, anti-politician trend will only continue, with unpredictable consequences. Tiririca apparently understands that. Why doesn't everyone else?"

Others, especially those with experience in Congress, say: Hold on—hasn't representative democracy been a consistent instrument of peace and prosperity over the years? Are we really ready to throw out centuries of success because of a decade-long malaise? After all, even in the case of the widely loathed U.S. Congress, it was just 10 years ago that it had an approval rating above 50 percent. Michael Castle, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 2011, agrees that technology has changed the way legislatures operate—mainly for the worse. "In a corporate boardroom or in a university, if somebody has a fight or a marital issue, probably nobody finds out about it. Yet, in Congress these days, it's all over the Internet and cable news right away. Why is that?" Castle says, zeroing in on a complaint voiced by legislators from Johannesburg to Paris. "Look, I'm all for transparency. But it has led to a culture that emphasizes the trivial and the sensational, it keeps people from working together … it obscures the good things that do get done."

Indeed, with more sober analysis, even last May's debacle in Brazil's Congress looks a little different. The system worked in the end, and it was just the second time a senator had been removed by his peers for corruption in Brazil. Not bad for a democracy that's not even three decades old. "Everybody thinks they're a hero, but I don't think it's any worse here in Congress than it is out there," Costa concluded, months after his tirade. "They should really just let us do our jobs."

Regardless of who or what is ultimately to blame, one truth is inescapable: No institution can survive over the long term with approval ratings of just 9 percent. Something's got to change. On this, even people as diverse as Castle and Tiririca agree. The former Republican congressman, who felt the backlash firsthand in 2010 when he lost a Senate primary bid to a Tea Party favorite who had dabbled in witchcraft, says the U.S. Congress could regain its credibility by forging a compromise solution on entitlements and the federal debt. "They've got to show the public they have the wherewithal to deal with these difficult issues," Castle says.

Tiririca, naturally, is a bit more blunt: "Either this thing changes, or people are going to go crazy."

Tiririca has some modest ideas on how to keep everybody sane (see sidebar). Others have suggested such reforms as more public financing for campaigns, or more stringent financial disclosure for members of congress, as a way to get money out of legislatures—and maybe improve their image. To that end, after the allegations of insider trading surfaced in 2011, the U.S. Congress quickly passed legislation that requires members and their families to report stock trades. Naim of the Carnegie Endowment — and a former Venezuelan minister—believes in a solution that sounds counterintuitive: strengthening political parties in countries where they are weak so they can better train, educate and develop future leaders. "Democracy without strong parties," he says, "trends towards dysfunction, opportunism and amateurism."

Whatever the cure, it needs to come quickly: In Britain, France and other parts of Europe, parliaments have already seen some of their authority usurped by strong executives, says Jacques Reland, head of the European program at the Global Policy Institute in London. "What you're seeing is a presidentialization of these systems," Reland says. That might not be cause for panic in the mature democracies of Europe, but it's also happening in places like Russia and Venezuela, where strong executives are taking advantage of the void to limit press freedoms and extend their rule indefinitely. And what about the shaky young democracies in the Arab world? Can we really expect them to follow a system that is under such duress elsewhere?

For his part, Tiririca no longer has any illusions. With two years left in his term, he has narrowed his focus to passing his pet legislation. The bill would, among other things, make it easier for kids who frequently move around Brazil to transfer from one school to another—so that future Tiriricas won't have to drop out, as he did. If it passes, Tiririca says he'll finally break his silence and speak on the chamber floor. "I'll be so happy. I'll say, 'Man, many thanks to all of you. This is so cool. Awesome.'" Until then, "I have nothing to say."

In September 2012, Tiririca was named one of 25 finalists for Brazil's best congressman, an award voted by senior journalists in Brasilia. He points to his perfect attendance figures and his sober demeanor as reasons for the distinction, and says he was honored. "Not bad for a clown," he adds with a wry grin. He's already anticipating what he'll do when he escapes from what he calls "my prison."

"I'll get out of here, and I'm going to do my funniest show ever," he confides. "It's going to be all about Congress."

(Additional reporting by Frank Jack Daniel in New Delhi; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Claudia Parsons)


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Blast, drone kill 13 al Qaeda-linked militants in Yemen

SANAA (Reuters) - More than 10 suspected al Qaeda operatives were killed by an explosion in a house in south Yemen where they were making bombs and at least three others died in a drone strike, tribal and official sources said on Sunday.

A bomb ripped through a house in the province of al-Bayda on Saturday night, the state news agency Saba and a local official said. Three other suspected militants were killed in a drone strike in the central province of Maarib, also on Saturday, tribal sources and the Ministry of Defence said.

Yemen's government has been fighting a powerful branch of al Qaeda that took advantage of chaos in the impoverished state two years ago during a popular uprising against former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is considered by Western governments to be one of the most active and dangerous wing of the global network founded by Osama bin Laden, and has attempted a number of attacks against U.S. targets.

The house destroyed in al Bayda had been used for making bombs, an official from the area told Reuters on Sunday.

"We heard a massive explosion that terrified people and when we went to the house it was destroyed and everyone there was dead," the official said.

In Maarib, a pilotless plane carried out two strikes against a car, a witness said.

"One of the strikes missed the target and the other hit the car and left the bodies of the three people in it completely charred," the witness told Reuters by telephone from the area.

He said unidentified people evacuated the bodies while tribesmen blocked the main road linking the capital of Maarib province with Sanaa on Saturday after the strikes.

The Yemeni Defence Ministry said in an SMS text message that a number of militants were killed in two air strikes but gave no further details.

Earlier this month, dozens of armed tribesmen took to the streets in southern Yemen to protest drones they said killed innocent civilians and fed anger against the United States.

President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi spoke openly in favor of the strikes during a trip to the United States in September.

Praised by the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa as being more effective against al Qaeda than his predecessor, Hadi was quoted as saying in September that he personally approved every attack. Hadi has not commented on the most recent strikes.

AQAP offshoot, Ansar al-Sharia (Partisan of Islamic Law), seized a number of towns in the south in 2011 but Yemeni government forces retook the areas in a U.S.-backed offensive in June.

(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Mahmoud Habboush; Editing by Sami Aboudi, Alison Williams and Jason Webb)


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Algeria expects heavy hostage toll as West defends ally

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - Algeria said on Sunday it expected heavy hostage casualties after its troops ended a desert siege, but Western governments warned against criticizing tactics used by their vital ally in the struggle with Islamists across the Sahara.

An Algerian minister acknowledged the death toll would rise, and a private television station reported that 25 bodies had been found at the gas plant near the town of In Amenas after forces staged a final assault against the Islamist hostage-takers on Saturday.

Some Western governments had expressed frustration at not being informed of the Algerian authorities' plans to storm the complex. But France, which is fighting Islamist rebels across the desert in Mali, joined Britain in playing down any suggestion the response from Algeria - the main military power in the Sahara region - had been over-hasty or heavy-handed.

"What everyone needs to know is that these terrorists who attacked this gas plant are killers who pillage, rape, plunder and kill. The situation was unbearable," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.

"It's easy to say that this or that should have been done. The Algerian authorities took a decision and the toll is very high but I am a bit bothered ... when the impression is given that the Algerians are open to question. They had to deal with terrorists," he told Europe 1 radio in an interview.

The Islamists' pre-dawn attack on Wednesday has tested Algeria's relations with the outside world, exposed the vulnerability of multinational oil operations in the Sahara and pushed Islamist radicalism in northern Africa to centre stage.

Algeria, scarred by a civil war with Islamist insurgents in the 1990s which claimed 200,000 lives, had insisted there would be no negotiation in the face of terrorism.

Prime Minister David Cameron pointed out on Sunday its record in fighting Islamists. "Of course people will ask questions about the Algerian response to these events, but I would just say that the responsibility for these deaths lies squarely with the terrorists who launched this vicious and cowardly attack," he said in a television statement.

"We should recognize all that the Algerians have done to work with us and to help and coordinate with us. I'd like to thank them for that. We should also recognize that the Algerians too have seen lives lost among their soldiers."

France especially needs close cooperation from Algeria to have a chance of crushing Islamist rebels in northern Mali. Algiers has promised to shut its porous 1,000-km border with Mali to prevent al Qaeda-linked insurgents simply melting away into its empty desert expanses and rugged mountains.

Algeria's permission for France to use its airspace, confirmed by Fabius last week, also makes it much easier to establish direct supply lines for its troops which are trying to stop the Islamist rebels from taking the whole of Mali.

HIGHER DEATH TOLL

Algeria's Interior Ministry had reported on Saturday that 23 hostages and 32 militants were killed during the assaults launched by Algerian special forces to end the crisis, with 107 foreign hostages and 685 Algerian hostages freed.

However, Minister of Communication Mohamed Said said this would rise when final numbers were issued in the next few hours. "I am afraid unfortunately to say that the death toll will go up," Said was quoted as saying by the official APS news agency.

Details are only slowly emerging on what happened during the siege, which marked a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa.

Private Algerian television station Ennahar said on Sunday that 25 bodies had been discovered at the Tiguentourine plant, adding that the operation to clear the base would last 48 hours.

The bodies were believed to belong to hostages executed by the militants, said Ennahar TV, which is known to have good sources within Algerian security.

In London, Cameron said three British nationals had been confirmed killed, while a further three Britons plus a British resident were also believed to be dead.

One Briton had already was confirmed killed when the gunmen seized the hostages at the plant near the Libyan border, run by Norway's Statoil along with Britain's BP and Algeria's state oil company.

MULTINATIONAL HOSTAGE-TAKERS

Said reported that the militants had six different nationalities and the operation to clear the plant of mines laid by the hostage-takers was still under way.

Believed to be among the 32 dead militants was their leader, Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, a Nigerien close to al Qaeda-linked commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar, presumed mastermind of the raid.

One American has also been confirmed dead. Statoil said five of its workers, all Norwegian nationals, were still missing. Japanese and American workers are also unaccounted for.

On Saturday President Barack Obama said the United States was seeking a "fuller understanding" from Algerian authorities of what had happened, but added that "the blame for this tragedy rests with the terrorists who carried it out".

BP's chief executive Bob Dudley said on Saturday four of its 18 workers at the site were missing. The remaining 14 were safe.

The militant attack was one of the most audacious in recent years and almost certainly planned before French troops launched the operation in Mali this month to stem an advance by Islamist fighters.

Hundreds of hostages escaped on Thursday when the army launched a rescue operation, but many hostages were killed.

Before the Interior Ministry released its provisional death toll, an Algerian security source said eight Algerians and at least seven foreigners were among the victims, including two Japanese, two Britons and a French national.

The U.S. State Department said on Friday one American, Frederick Buttaccio, had died but gave no further details.

Mauritanian news agencies identified the field commander of the group that attacked the plant as Nigeri, a fighter from one of the Arab tribes in Niger who had joined the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) in early-2005.

That group eventually joined up with al Qaeda to become Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). It and allied groups are the targets of the French military operation in Mali.

The news agencies described him as "one of the closest people" to Belmokhtar, who fought in Afghanistan and then in Algeria's civil war of the 1990s. Nigeri was known as a man for "difficult missions", having carried out attacks in Mauritania, Mali and Niger.

The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the country's outwardly tough security measures.

Algerian officials said the attackers may have had inside help from among the hundreds of Algerians employed at the site.

Security in the half-dozen countries around the Sahara desert has long been a preoccupation of the West. Smugglers and militants have earned millions in ransom from kidnappings.

The most powerful Islamist groups operating in the Sahara were severely weakened by Algeria's secularist military in the civil war in the 1990s. But in the past two years the regional wing of al Qaeda gained fighters and arms as a result of the civil war in Libya, when arsenals were looted from Muammar Gaddafi's army.

(Additional reporting by Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Estelle Shirbon and David Alexander in London, Brian Love in Paris, Daniel Flynn in Dakar; Writing by David Stamp; Editing by Alison Williams)


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Assad's overthrow "red line" for Iran: supreme leader's aide

DUBAI (Reuters) - A senior aide to Iran's supreme leader warned against the overthrow of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, saying his fate was a "red line", in one of the Islamic state's strongest messages of support for the Damascus government.

Iran has steadfastly backed Assad's rule since an uprising against his rule began almost two years ago and regards him as an important part of the axis of opposition against arch-foe Israel.

"If the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is toppled, the line of resistance in the face of Israel will be broken," Ali Akbar Velayati, who is seen as a potential contender in Iran's June presidential election, said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

"We believe that there should be reforms emanating from the will of the Syrian people, but without resorting to violence and obtaining assistance from the (United States of) America," he told Lebanon's Al-Mayadeen satellite television.

Asked if Iran sees Assad as a red line, Velayati said: "Yes, it is so. But this does not mean that we ignore the Syrian people's right in choose its own rulers."

More than 60,000 people have died in the uprising against Assad, part of the Arab Spring protests that have swept aside four heads of state since 2011.

Iran, a regional Shi'ite Muslim power which backs Lebanon's Hezbollah group, describes many Syrian opposition groups as "terrorists" who are backed by Western and Arab states. Assad follows an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

Velayati blamed what he called "reactionary" Arab states for the violence in Syria and singled out Qatar, accusing it of bringing in fighters from Somalia and Afghanistan to help topple Assad.

Velayati said all parties linked to the crisis in Syria needed to negotiate.

"Anyone who comes to the talks cannot negotiate on the table and support the armed elements, but must enter the negotiations and stop supporting the armed elements," he added.

The Islamic Republic has sought international backing for its six-point plan to resolve the Syrian conflict. The plan calls for an immediate end to violence and negotiations between all parties to form a transitional government, but does not call for Assad to step down.

(Reporting by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Andrew Heavens)


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Colombia's FARC rebels end ceasefire

HAVANA (Reuters) - A unilateral ceasefire declared by the Marxist FARC rebels at the start of peace talks with the Colombian government ended on Sunday after the government refused to join the truce, the group said.

"With pain in my heart, we have to admit that we return to the stage of war that nobody in this country (Colombia) wants," FARC lead negotiator Ivan Marquez told reporters before going into the latest session of the talks aimed at ending Colombia's long, bloody conflict.

The FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, declared the ceasefire when the talks began on November 19 in Havana, and gave the government two months to also lay down its arms.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos rejected the ceasefire from the beginning, saying the government would maintain the military pressure to keep FARC at the negotiating table.

Colombian officials have called the ceasefire a sham to gain international favor and accused the rebels of continuing their attacks.

Government forces have continued to attack and kill the rebels in their remote strongholds in the jungles and mountains of Colombia. They say the rebels may be planning a new offensive.

Marquez did not disclose their plans, but urged Santos to reconsider the decision not to lay down arms.

LONG-RUNNING INSURGENCY

The two sides have been fighting since the formation of the FARC as a communist agrarian movement in 1964 in what is now Latin America's longest-running insurgency and a relic of the Cold War.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced in the conflict, which the FARC says is aimed at ending Colombia's long history of social inequality and the concentration of land and wealth in relatively few hands.

Officials say the FARC has been weakened by a U.S.-backed, 10-year-long government offensive.

But the group still has an estimated 9,000 fighters capable of continuing to inflict damage on Colombia's infrastructure and slow the government's plans to increase foreign investment in mining and oil operations.

The agenda for the talks calls for the two sides to address a number of difficult issues, starting with rural development.

In recent days, they have publicly disagreed about a sweeping land redistribution proposal by the FARC to hand over 25 million hectares (62 million acres), or more than 20 percent of the country's land, to the poor.

Government lead negotiator Humberto de la Calle this week called for a quicker pace to the talks, which Santos has said he wants ended by November.

(Reporting By Jeff Franks and Marc Frank; Editing by Sandra Maler)


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Merkel's CDU hoping for comeback in German state vote

HANOVER (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats are hoping for victory in a state contest on Sunday that could end a long losing streak and set the tone for September's federal election.

Led by the premier of Lower Saxony, David McAllister, the Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Free Democrat (FDP) allies have drawn even in opinion polls with the center-left Social Democrat-Greens opposition in the northern state.

"The winds in Lower Saxony have turned and you can feel that everywhere you go," McAllister said repeatedly during final campaigning. The center-right trailed by 13 points in surveys through mid-2012.

First projections are expected once polls close at 6 p.m. (1700 GMT) and preliminary results are due within an hour.

The CDU comeback has turned Germany's fourth-most populous state - a genuine swing state - into a ferocious battleground, with Merkel appearing seven times to campaign with McAllister, the son of a soldier from Scotland. The CDU have suffered setbacks in the last 12 state elections.

Merkel, one of the most popular politician in Germany thanks to her handling of the euro zone debt crisis, hopes a victory in Lower Saxony, an industrial and farming heartland, would give her own re-election campaign a boost.

Local issues like education and idled motorway construction projects were the dominant issues.

State officials said 23 percent of the 6.2 million eligible voters had cast ballots by 12.30 (1130 GMT), indicating turnout as sluggish as during the last election in 2008.

"The CDU is doing a good job," said Peter Pietschmann, 68, a retired lathe operator, outside a polling station in the snow-covered state capital Hanover. "Merkel's leading the country well, better than the SPD could."

But Pete Karmarsch, a 44-year-old cook, said the incumbent CDU-FDP coalition had neglected the interests of the middle- and lower class and ignored the states' have-nots.

"I don't like their policies. I don't think they've been good for Lower Saxony. It's time for a change. Hopefully today."

STEINBRUECK HURTS SPD

The SPD and the Greens, who had long been ahead of the center-right incumbents in polls, have watched in horror as their lead evaporated. Local SPD leader Stephan Weil has been hurt by gaffe-prone SPD chancellor candidate Peer Steinbrueck.

Weil, a solid if less colorful politician, is mayor of Hanover. He first embraced Steinbrueck during 2012 but has kept his distance since the chancellor candidate blundered - complaining about the pay level for German leaders and saying Merkel has an advantage because of her gender.

Many would blame Steinbrueck if the SPD failed to take power in the state, fuelling speculation about whether he can remain the SPD's banner carrier into the September election.

Weil has pointed to polls showing a neck-and-neck race. The CDU were on 41 percent in a final survey on Thursday while the FDP were at the 5 percent threshold needed for seats in the state assembly. The SPD were on 33 percent and the Greens 13.

Wolfgang Rausch, 56, a master craftsman, said he would split his two ballots and vote for both the CDU and their FDP coalition partners - Germans have two ballots: one for a candidate in their constituency and a second for the party.

"The CDU and FDP are better for Lower Saxony," said Rausch, an independent businessman. "The CDU is doing a terrific job."

Annika Heinze said she found McAllister a more charismatic and appealing candidate and likes Merkel but had voted for the SPD mainly because of ideas on reforming education.

"Merkel's been doing a good job for Germany even though she's a bit too passive at times," the 38-year-old high school teacher said. "What the CDU has done with the education system is not good at all. The SPD has better policies on schooling."

Since Merkel's re-election in 2009, it lost power to the SPD and Greens in four important states: Hamburg, Baden-Wuerttenberg, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein.

But even if the CDU wins the most votes, their center-right coalition could be defeated if the FDP does not clear the 5 percent threshold.

Merkel faces a similar dilemma at the national level, where the CDU is ahead of the SPD but doubts remain about whether the FDP will rise from the 4 percent they are getting in polls now. FDP leader Philipp Roesler could be forced to resign if his party falls short of or just scrapes past the threshold.

(Reporting by Erik Kirschbaum; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Jason Webb)


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Makeshift bomb injures two at Greek shopping mall

ATHENS (Reuters) - A makeshift bomb lightly injured two security staff at a large shopping center near Athens on Sunday, in escalating political violence in the crisis-hit country.

The blast followed gun and bomb attacks on political figures and journalists in recent weeks, some claimed by anti-establishment leftist groups angry about Greece's financial woes.

The device, which exploded shortly before 11 a.m. (4.00 a.m. ET), was left in a rubbish bin close to a branch of National Bank at The Mall shopping center in the middle-class suburb of Maroussi, said police. There were no claims of responsibility so far.

While shops are closed on Sunday, cafes, cinemas and restaurants in the center were open for business. Police evacuated the mall after two warning calls to a newspaper and a news site, made about half an hour earlier.

Maroussi mayor George Patoulis told state Net TV about 200 people were in the shopping center.

"We were doing inventory in our shop and the police told us to evacuate. We ran out and in 10 minutes we heard the blast. It all happened really fast," a shop clerk told SKAI radio.

Police shut down the nearby metro station, combed the center for other explosive devices and were checking security cameras. Authorities said the two security guards suffered minor cuts from shattered glass.

"Police think it was a makeshift time bomb, they will know for sure including what type of explosive material was used after laboratory checks are completed," said a police official who declined to be named.

All major political parties immediately condemned the attack, the first to cause injuries in several years.

"We are dealing with a new type of terrorism that not only picks symbolic targets but wants blood and death," the co-ruling Socialist PASOK party said in a statement.

The country's public order ministry urged the political class to work together to end the violence.

"It is not enough to verbally condemn the incident, there must be an absolute isolation of violence and terrorism by the political system. The message is our democracy cannot be terrorized," it said in a statement.

The government has said in the past Syriza, the radical leftist main opposition party, tacitly backs anti-establishment groups. Syriza, which condemned Sunday's attack, denies this.

"The attack shocked us. It is the first time commercial areas are targeted. This scares consumers and hurts the market at a time when social peace is needed," the president of the Confederation of Greek Commerce, Vassilis Korkidis, told Reuters.

Greece is in the sixth year of a recession that has fuelled anger against banks, foreign lenders and politicians, blamed by Greeks for bringing the country close to bankruptcy.

The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, says racist attacks have also risen to alarming levels in Greece during the crisis, and hundreds of demonstrators in Athens on Saturday paraded the coffin of a Pakistani immigrant who was stabbed to death.

On Monday, unidentified attackers opened fire on the Athens headquarters of Greece's co-ruling New Democracy party with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

(Additional reporting by Dina Kyriakidou; Editing by Jason Webb)


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Hundreds in Georgia demand president's resignation

TBILISI (Reuters) - Hundreds of Georgians gathered on Sunday outside the presidential administration building in the capital Tbilisi demanding the removal of President Mikheil Saakashvili, whose term in office they say should be ending.

Participants of the rally said the president's second term should expire on January 21, five years from his inauguration. The constitution limits the presidential term to five years but does not call for elections until October this year.

Saakashvili's National Movement party was defeated in parliamentary elections in October. His opponent, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, became prime minister, forcing a difficult cohabitation between them.

The protesters waved anti-Saakashvili signs and caricatures of the Georgian leader. Some threatened to block access to the presidential palace and put up tents until he leaves power.

"He is not the president of Georgia any more ... This Satan has nothing to do in this building anymore," Gocha Gurgenidze, a participant of the rally, said.

Several groups in Georgia have begun collecting signatures urging Saakashvili to step down. Since the parliamentary election, numerous former government officials have been arrested, accused of abuse of power and other crimes.

The West has warned Ivanishvili, a political novice, not to lead a witch-hunt of officials loyal to Saakashvili, who in turn is criticised by opponents for monopolizing power, mistreating critics and trampling on human rights.

Saakishvili is Georgia's third president in the 20 years since the fall of the Soviet Union. The first two, Zurab Gamsakhurdia and Eduard Shevardnadze, were both toppled, one in a civil war and the other in a popular revolt.

(Reporting by Margarita Antidze and Nino Ivanishvili; Writing by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Peter Graff)


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Police remove Albanian rebel memorial in south Serbia

PRESEVO, Serbia (Reuters) - More than 200 heavily armed and masked Serbian police took down a memorial to ethnic Albanian guerrillas in Serbia's south overnight, trying to end a row that has highlighted still-simmering tension in the region.

Security forces deployed armored personnel carriers to cordon off the main square in the southern, mainly Albanian, town of Presevo, and hauled away the memorial bearing the names of 27 guerrillas who died during an insurgency in the region in 2001, a Reuters reporter at the scene said on Sunday.

The scale of the operation, which followed weeks of threats and counter-threats between Serbian government officials and local ethnic Albanians, highlighted how fragile the situation remains in the south, which borders Serbia's former Kosovo province.

The government of Kosovo condemned the removal of the memorial, saying it "undermines the dialogue process to normalize relations between Kosovo and Serbia."

Majority Albanian Kosovo declared independence in 2008 almost a decade after NATO air strikes wrested control of the territory from Belgrade to end a brutal Serbian counter-insurgency war.

The 2000-2001 insurgency in the southern Serbian regions of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac was widely seen as a spillover of the Kosovo conflict, as ethnic Albanians in Serbia's south pressed to join newly free Kosovo.

NATO brokered a peace deal, and Serbia pledged greater rights and economic opportunity for the south. But progress has been patchy, and southern Serbia remains the poorest region of a country now aiming to join the European Union.

Ethnic Albanians regard the guerrillas as heroes. Serbia says they are terrorists.

"Serbia has shown enough patience, but it has also sent a clear and strong message that the law must be respected and that no one is stronger than the state," Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic said in comments carried by the state news agency Tanjug.

There were no incidents during the police operation.

There are other monuments to the guerrillas in the area, but the one removed overnight held pride of place on Presevo's central square, in front of the local council building. Dacic had described it as a provocation.

Tensions in the region, known as the Presevo Valley, have the potential to complicate EU-mediated talks between Serbia and Kosovo aimed at normalizing their relations five years after Kosovo declared independence.

In a statement, the government of Kosovo said it called on Albanians in the area to stay calm.

"This action by the government of Serbia is another proof that the hate against Albanians that live in the Presevo Valley is still alive," the Kosovo government said in a statement.

Serbia does not recognize Kosovo as sovereign, but is under pressure to cooperate with the new country before the EU moves ahead with Belgrade's bid to join the bloc.

(Writing by Aleksandar Vasovic; additional reporting by Fatos Bytyci in Pristina; Editing by Matt Robinson and Jason Webb)


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Islamists Ansaru claim attack on Mali-bound Nigeria troops: paper

KADUNA (Reuters) - An Islamist group blamed for abducting Westerners claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on Nigerian troops heading to Mali on Sunday, according to the local Desert Herald, which often publishes their claims.

Suspected Islamist gunmen opened fire on a convoy of troops leaving northern Nigeria en route to deployment with West African forces in Mali, killing two officers and wounding eight others, in Kogi state, central Nigeria.

The statement in the online newspaper said the attack was part of a mission to stop Nigerian troops joining Western powers in their "aim to demolish the Islamic empire of Mali."

"We are warning the African countries to ... (stop) helping Western countries in fighting against Islam and Muslims or face the utmost difficulties," said the statement by the group, whose full name Jama'atu Ansarul Musilimina Fi Biladis Sudan means "Vanguards for the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa".

The attack came after a report that a veteran jihadist claimed responsibility for al Qaeda for a mass hostage-taking in Algeria, in which at least 23 hostages and 32 militants were killed, and called on France to stop air strikes in Mali.

Ansaru is one of several radical Islamist groups seen as the leading security threat to Africa's top energy producer.

Dubbed a terrorist organization by Britain, it has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of a French national last month, citing France's ban on full-face veils and its support for military action in Mali as reasons for the abduction.

Thought to be a breakaway from Islamist sect Boko Haram, it has risen to greater prominence over the past few months. Unlike better-known Boko Haram, it seems to have a much more thorough focus on global jihad, rather than a domestic political agenda.

It also said it was behind a dawn raid on a major police station in the Nigerian capital in November, in which it said hundreds of prisoners were released.

Security sources suspect it was behind the kidnap and killing of a Briton and an Italian in northwest Nigeria, and of a German in the north's main city of Kano, last year.

Western governments are increasingly concerned about Islamists in Nigeria linking up with groups outside the region, including al Qaeda's north African wing, whom allied French and West African forces are on a mission to dislodge from Mali.

Veteran jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar claimed responsibility in the name of al Qaeda for last week's hostage taking at a gas plant near the Algerian town of In Amenas, Mauritanian news website Sahara Media said on Sunday, citing a video. Suspected Islamist gunmen opened fire on the convoy of one of Nigeria's most senior Islamic leaders in the northern city of Kano on Saturday, killing four people.

(Reporting by Isaac Abrak; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Jason Webb)


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Russia rejects Assad exit as precondition for Syria deal

Written By Bersemangat on Minggu, 13 Januari 2013 | 23.01

MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Russia voiced support on Saturday for international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi but insisted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's exit cannot be a precondition for a deal to end the country's conflict.

Some 60,000 Syrians have been killed during the 21-month-old revolt and world powers are divided over how to stop the escalating bloodshed. Government aircraft bombed outer districts of Damascus on Saturday after being grounded for a week by stormy weather, opposition activists in the capital said.

A Russian Foreign Ministry statement following talks on Friday in Geneva with the United States and Brahimi reiterated calls for an end to violence in Syria, but there was no sign of a breakthrough.

Brahimi said the issue of Assad, who the United States, European powers and Gulf-led Arab states insist must step down to end the civil war, appeared to be a sticking point.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said: "As before, we firmly uphold the thesis that questions about Syria's future must be decided by the Syrians themselves, without interference from outside or the imposition of prepared recipes for development."

Russia has been Assad's most powerful international backer, joining with China to block three Western- and Arab-backed U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed to pressure him or push him from power. Assad can also rely on regional powerhouse Iran.

Russia called for "a political transition process" based on an agreement by foreign powers last June.

Brahimi, who is trying to build on that agreement, has met three times with senior Russian and U.S. diplomats since early December and met Assad in Damascus.

Russia and the United States disagreed over what the June agreement meant for Assad, with Washington saying it sent a clear signal he must go and Russia contending it did not.

Qatar on Saturday made a fresh call for an Arab force to end bloodshed in Syria if Brahimi's efforts fail, according to the Doha-based al Jazeera television.

"It is not a question of intervention in Syria in favor of one party against the other, but rather a force to preserve security," Qatar's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, said in an al Jazeera broadcast.

CONFLICT INTENSIFIES

Moscow has been reluctant to endorse the "Arab Spring" popular revolts of the last two years, saying they have increased instability in the Middle East and created a risk of radical Islamists seizing power.

Although Russia sells arms to Syria and rents one of its naval bases, the economic benefit of its support for Assad is minimal. Analysts say President Vladimir Putin wants to prevent the United States from using military force or support from the U.N. Security Council to bring down governments it opposes.

However, as rebels gain ground in the war, Russia has given indications it is preparing for Assad's possible exit, while continuing to insist he must not be forced out by foreign powers.

Opposition activists say a military escalation and the hardship of winter have accelerated the death toll.

Rebel forces have acquired more powerful anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons during attacks on Assad's military bases.

Assad's forces have employed increasing amounts of military hardware including Scud-type ballistic missiles in the past two months. New York-based Human Rights Watch said they had also used incendiary cluster bombs that are banned by most nations.

STALEMATE IN CITIES

The weeklong respite from aerial strikes has been marred by snow and thunderstorms that affected millions displaced by the conflict, which has now reached every region of Syria.

On Saturday, the skies were clear and jets and helicopters fired missiles and dropped bombs on a line of towns to the east of Damascus, where rebels have pushed out Assad's ground forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The British-based group, which is linked to the opposition, said it had no immediate information on casualties from the strikes on districts including Maleiha and farmland areas.

Rebels control large swathes of rural land around Syria but are stuck in a stalemate with Assad's forces in cities, where the army has reinforced positions.

State TV said government forces had repelled an attack by terrorists - a term it uses for the armed opposition - on Aleppo's international airport, now used as a helicopter base.

Reuters cannot independently confirm reports due to severe reporting restrictions imposed by the Syrian authorities and security constraints.

On Friday, rebels seized control of one of Syria's largest helicopter bases, Taftanaz in Idlib province, their first capture of a military airfield.

Eight-six people were killed on Friday, including 30 civilians, the Syrian Observatory said.

(Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer and Doina Chiacu)


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Israel evacuates Palestinians from West Bank tent outpost

E1, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli security forces evacuated about 100 Palestinians early on Sunday from tents pitched in an area of the West Bank as a protest against Israeli plans to build a settlement there.

Israel's Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Palestinian outpost, built in the geographically sensitive area known as E1, could remain for six days while the issue of the removal of the tents was being discussed.

A police spokesman said the court allowed for the removal of the protesters even if the tents, for now, will stay.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the area sealed off to prevent clashes.

"I immediately called for the area to be closed off so there would not be large gatherings there that could cause friction and breach the public order," he told Army Radio.

Hundreds of Israeli police and border guards entered the compound and told a crowd of about 100 to leave the 20 large, steel-framed tents erected on Friday.

Those protesters who refused to leave were carried down the hill by Israeli officers and detained, but were not jailed. Israeli police vans took them to the West Bank town of Ramallah, the Palestinian seat of government.

"Everyone was evacuated carefully and swiftly, without any injuries to officers or protesters," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

MORE CAMPS PLANNED

Palestinian activists criticized the raid and promised more protest camps in areas designated by Israel for settlements.

"The eviction and the exercise of force is another indication that Israel is defying the international consensus on the need to vacate occupied Palestinian land," Palestinian government spokesman Nour Odeh said.

For years, Israel froze building in E1, which currently houses only a police headquarters, after coming under pressure from former U.S. President George W. Bush.

Netanyahu said Israel would build at E1 after the planning process was completed.

"It is a gradual process, it will take time. It will not happen immediately, you understand our bureaucratic process ... We will complete the planning an there will be building there," he told Army Radio.

Israel announced plans to expand settlements, mainly in West Bank areas around Jerusalem, after the Palestinians won de-facto recognition of statehood at the U.N. General Assembly in November.

International powers view all Jewish settlement building in areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War as detrimental to securing an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

E1 covers 4.6 square miles (12 square km) and is seen as particularly important because it not only juts into the narrow "waist" of the West Bank, but backs onto East Jerusalem.

Palestinians want to establish an independent state in the West Bank, dominated by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction, and the Gaza Strip, run by the rival Islamist group Hamas, with East Jerusalem as the capital.

About 500,000 Israelis and 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians broke down in 2010 over the issue of Israel's continued settlement building.

(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem and Noah Browning in Ramallah; editing by Andrew Roche)


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Defendants' lawyers in the spotlight in Indian rape case

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - In a grubby room, one wall lined with legal tomes, a father and his son leaf through thick case files in preparation for the trial of their lives - defending the main accused in a gang-rape that outraged India and caused shock waves around the world.

The small New Delhi legal firm, with its headquarters in a cramped office above a local bank, has been thrust into the international spotlight after being appointed to represent bus driver Ram Singh.

Singh is accused of leading a gang that raped and severely injured a 23-year-old student in a moving Delhi bus, leading eventually to her death.

A local lawyers association said its members had agreed not to take up the case for the accused in view of the nature of the crime and the public outrage it has caused.

Vibhor Anand, a 24-year-old law student, saw things differently and convinced his father to seize the opportunity.

"It was my idea to go for the case," Anand said, leaning forward in his chair. It was important the defendants were represented, however terrible the crime, he said.

So V.K. Anand, 57, headed down to the pre-trial court in another part of town to offer his services. He was shouted down when he stood up in the tightly packed court room and announced his desire to defend the main accused. One woman lawyer prodded him hard in anger.

"They did not allow me to make an appearance in the court itself, they created such a problem for me, but ultimately I said it is the right of the accused person," he said.

Despite the public hostility to anyone defending the accused, in the end the Anands had competition for Singh's case, with an outspoken Supreme Court lawyer, M.L. Sharma also coming forward and seeking to represent him. Eventually, Sharma was hired by Singh's brother Mukesh, another of the accused.

Another lawyer is representing two other accused while it is not yet clear who exactly is representing the fifth man.

All of the accused are friends who, according to the police charge sheet against them, went out on a joy ride on December 16, looking for women.

The five have been charged with multiple offences including murder, attempt to murder, gang-rape, kidnapping, criminal conspiracy, dacoity and unnatural sexual offences. They face the death penalty, if convicted.

The five accused are due back in court on Monday where police will seek to extend their remand in custody. The court which is listening to pre-trial hearings is also expected to commit the case to a fast track which will then begin the trial. The fast track court is expected to reach a verdict within three months.

Charges against a sixth member of the group have not been brought while police complete an inquiry to confirm his age. He has said he is 17, and under Indian law, a juvenile court has to try anyone below 18.

According to the police chargesheet seen by Reuters the men lured the young woman and a male friend into the bus, offering a ride home, and then attacked the man first, before taking the woman to the rear of the bus and raping her by turns.

The men also assaulted the woman with iron rods and the pair were thrown off the bus, left on a highway, police said. Ram Singh, the driver of the bus led the assault on the woman, according to the police chargesheet.

LAWYER WANTS JUSTICE FOR ALL

Anand senior said while the crime was heinous, the defendants were entitled to a fair trial.

"Just as the victim must get justice, the accused should also get justice. You cannot hang a person just because the public wants them hanged," said the moustached and balding Anand as his son fielded calls from the world media.

Father and son seemed to be enjoying the attention, as they finished each other's sentences and seemed to speak almost as one voice during a conversation with Reuters.

Anand said he has been a defense lawyer in both criminal and civil cases for nearly three decades, and together with his son also ran a charity that offers free 24-hour legal advice.

They said they would base their defense on lapses in the police investigation, and discrepancies in witness statements.

"From the investigation stage, the accused are entitled to legal aid," Anand senior said. "The court is under obligation to provide legal aid counsel in case they have not engaged any lawyer.

"This is where they went wrong, no legal aid was assigned to those people themselves," he said.

RENOWNED FOR CHALLENGING AUTHORITIES

Sharma, the wiry lawyer for Mukesh Singh, the main accused's brother, said he had to virtually plead with the pre-trial court to allow him to speak to his client when he was brought before the court.

He was jostled, somebody shouted out he was a lawyer desperately seeking attention and that he should be thrown out of the room. But he said he was not going to give up, because his fight was not just about defending the accused, but also to expose the police and the criminal justice system.

"We all know how the police investigation system works in India. They will pick anyone from the street and make him the sacrificial lamb," the 56-year-old lawyer said in a conversation in the gardens of India's Supreme Court where he is a frequent litigant on public matters.

He said the police case was built on confessions from the men and that he found it strange that the statements of each of the five men given in the chargesheet were identical. "They are ditto the same. It's like somebody is dictating it."

He then charged that his client Mukesh told him he'd been sexually assaulted by inmates at Tihar jail since he was brought there from police custody, including with a rod.

Police have denied the allegation.

Sharma has had a history of taking on the higher judiciary. Among the cases he has argued is a public interest litigation inquiring into the assets of a former Supreme Court chief justice and another against a sitting chief justice of the top court, both of which were thrown out.

Not only was his case against the chief justice S.H.J. Kapadia arguing that there was a conflict of interest in a high-profile tax dispute involving Britain-based Vodaphone Group rejected, he was fined 50,000 rupees ($909) for wasting the time of the court.

A Supreme Court lawyer working on behalf of the government said Sharma was "notorious" for being an excessive litigant. Under Indian law any citizen can file a public interest litigation and the latest Sharma is fighting is one against a government decision to allow foreign direct investment in retail.

"My fight is against corruption whether in government or judiciary," said Sharma. "I can see the same thing happening in this case. There is public pressure, the politicians are pressing the police. The evidence will not be evaluated, innocent people will be fixed."

Lawyer A.P. Singh, who will argue the case for Vinay Sharma, a gym assistant, and Akshay Thakur, a bus cleaner, recalled that when he went to prison to meet his client, the accused begged him to save him.

"He caught hold of my feet. He started crying," Singh said.

$1=55.01 rupees

(Additional reporting by Suchitra Mohanty; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)


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