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Musharraf exempted from appearance by court

Written By Unknown on Senin, 27 Januari 2014 | 21.50

ISLAMABAD: Pervez Musharraf was on Monday exempted from personal appearance by a Pakistani anti-terror court that is hearing a case against the embattled former dictator over the detention of judges in 2007.

Musharraf's counsel Ilyas Siddiqui appeared in the court here and submitted the former army chief's medical report to Judge Atiqur Rahman.

On the basis of the report, the judge exempted 70-year-old Musharraf from appearing for Monday's hearing. The case was then adjourned till February 10.

Musharraf was admitted to a military hospital in Rawalpindi on January 2 after he developed heart problems while being driven to a special court set up to try him on charges of high treason.

The case in the anti-terror court was registered against Musharraf in August 2009 following a complaint from lawyer Chaudhry Mohammad Aslam Ghumman over the detention of over 60 judges of the superior courts during the 2007 emergency.

Ghumman later announced he would not pursue the case "in the larger public interest". However, this did not give any relief to Musharraf.

On January 17, the anti-terror court had directed Musharraf to personally appear before it for Monday's hearing.


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Afghanistan to free 37 prisoners soon

KABUL: Afghanistan said on Monday it expects to release within two weeks a first batch of alleged Taliban prisoners, who the US says are responsible for dozens of NATO and Afghan deaths.

Kabul announced on January 9 that a total of 72 detainees held at Bagram jail near Kabul would be freed due to lack of evidence, and an official said today that 37 were to be released initially.

The US military force in Afghanistan condemned the news of the releases, saying the prisoners were "dangerous insurgents" who had "Afghan blood on their hands".

The issue threatens further to strain US-Afghan relations, amid pressure for the two countries to sign a long-delayed security deal allowing some American soldiers to stay in the country after 2014.

Abdul Shukur Dadras from the government body reviewing detainees at Bagram, which was previously run by US forces, said 37 prisoners would be released soon.

"Their dossiers are reviewed, completed and we have ordered their release," Dadras told AFP.

"They will be released from the prison after the required technical and security procedures are completed. This will, I think, take more than one week and less than two weeks."

Dadras also said the review of the remaining prisoners was continuing.

Amid resurgent Taliban violence, US-Afghan relations are strained over a number of issues including President Hamid Karzai's refusal to sign a pact governing Washington's future military role in Afghanistan.

"The ARB ( Afghan Review Board) is releasing back to society dangerous insurgents who have Afghan blood on their hands," the US military in Afghanistan said in a statement.

It said 17 of those about to be freed were linked to improvised explosive device attacks, the deadliest of the Taliban's weapons, while others were connected to the deaths or wounding of 11 Afghan and 42 US or coalition soldiers.


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Syria talks: Deadlock over power transfer

GENEVA: Syrian peace talks in Geneva were deadlocked on Monday over the explosive issue of transferring power from President Bashar al-Assad's regime, delegates from the warring sides said.

But both parties said they were not planning to walk away from the talks, even though a session on Monday had broken up with no progress after the regime set out a statement of principles.

The opposition rejected the regime's statement, saying talks needed to focus on a political transition, and UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi ended the session.

"The discussions were not constructive today because of the regime's strategy to deflect... (and) change the subject by talking of terrorism," Rima Fleihan, a member of the opposition National Coalition's delegation, told reporters.

Regime delegation member Buthaina Shaaban said the opposition had rejected discussion of anything other than the creation of a transitional government.

She said the government had presented a statement of "political principles which we thought no two Syrian persons should disagree with" — including protecting the country's sovereignty, preserving state institutions and stopping the threat from "terrorist" groups.

"We were surprised that this basic paper was rejected by the other side, who either does not have the capacity to acknowledge Syria and its territorial integrity, or they don't care about what's happening to the Syrian people," Shaaban said.

Asked if they were planning to leave the talks, Syrian deputy foreign minister Faisal Muqdad said: "Never! We shall not leave the table."

Fleihan also said there no plans for the opposition to leave "until the goal of this conference has been achieved, the formation of a transition governing body."

Monday marked the third day of UN-sponsored talks between the two sides in Geneva and the first expected to deal with political issues.

The two sides have been brought together in the biggest diplomatic push yet to end a civil war that has left more than 130,000 dead and forced millions from their homes.

The opposition says Assad must leave power and a transitional government be formed based on an agreement reached during a first peace conference in Geneva in 2012.

The regime says Assad's role is not up for debate at this conference -- dubbed Geneva II -- and denies that the initial Geneva deal requires him to go.

Opposition delegation spokesman Monzer Aqbiq said earlier that after two days of talks on humanitarian issues, the time had come for discussions on political questions.

"We will talk about transition. The Geneva communique ... says that there should be a political transition towards democracy, by the formation of a transitional governing body with full executive authority, including army and security," he said.

In Damascus, official Syrian media made it clear that Assad's continued leadership remained a red line that negotiators would not cross.

"Those who are deluding themselves must understand that the government delegation to Geneva II did not go to this conference to hand power to those who have conspired against the people over the last three years," the Tishreen state newspaper said.

"They are in Geneva to speak in the name of the Syrian people who have been the target of terrorism by armed groups linked to al-Qaida," it said.

The regime accuses the opposition and its international backers of promoting "terrorism" in the country, pointing to militant Islamist rebel groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the al-Nusra Front.

The pro-regime al-Watan newspaper said any optimism about the talks had faded because of the opposition's "inability to negotiate" and warned: "The collapse of the negotiations is now possible."

In the first tangible promise to emerge from the talks, Brahimi said on Sunday the regime had agreed to allow women and children safe passage from besieged rebel-held areas of the city of Homs.

The regime's promise raised some hopes of humanitarian relief, but was greeted by scepticism on the ground.

Activists in rebel areas of Homs said residents had "no trust" in the regime and first wanted aid supplies and guarantees that those leaving would not be arrested.

The opposition also raised concerns about a regime demand to receive a list of names of men who want to leave, saying this was part of intelligence gathering.

The Old City of Homs has been under siege since June 2012 after rebels there rose against the regime, with an estimated 500 families living with near-daily shelling and the barest of supplies.

Brahimi repeated his hope on Sunday that a convoy of humanitarian aid could enter the besieged area on Monday, saying rebel forces had already agreed and the local governor was considering the issue.

Sunday's talks also touched on possible prisoner exchanges, with the opposition saying it had a preliminary list of 47,000 people held by the government, including 2,300 women and children whose names it had submitted.


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Musharraf will have to face law: Pak govt

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 26 Januari 2014 | 21.51

LAHORE: Pervez Musharraf was in trouble because of his own actions and the former Pakistani military dictator will have to face the legal consequences, a senior minister said.

Information minister Pervaiz Rashid said 70-year-old Musharraf was physically fit but he had lost his abilities to make decisions.

"The hospital has proved a blind alley for him. If Musharraf comes out, he faces the court while inside the hospital he will be operated and stitched by doctors," Rashid said on Saturday after attending a function in Lahore.

Musharraf has refused to undergo heart surgery in Pakistan and wants to travel abroad for treatment, according to a report submitted on Saturday to a special court conducting the former dictator's treason trial.

On Musharraf's possible exile, the minister said the law and the Constitution were supreme and equal.

"There is no room in the law that a culprit could leave the country without being tried," Rashid said, adding that Musharraf would have to face the law.

The three-judge special court has adjourned proceedings till January 29.

Musharraf faces treason charges for abrogating the Constitution and imposing an emergency in November 2007.

There has been widespread speculation that his ill-health would be used to allow him to leave Pakistan for treatment.

Musharraf was taken to the military hospital in Rawalpindi on January 2 after he developed heart problems while being driven to the special court.

This is the first time in Pakistan's history that a former military ruler has been put on trial for treason and Musharraf could face life imprisonment or the death penalty if he is convicted.


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Grenade attack kills 9 at Cambodia wedding

PHNOM PENH (Cambodia): Police say a hand grenade thrown at a wedding reception party in Cambodia has killed at least nine people and wounded 28.

Chuo Sam An, deputy police chief of Kampong Thom province, said today that an unidentified man threw the grenade as people were dancing at the reception.

Sam An said the incident happened yesterday night in the remote village of Choam in the northern part of the province.

Police say they do not know who is behind the attack, although they suspect there may have been a love triangle.

The officer said the bride among the wounded, with a slight injury to a leg.


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PM-in-waiting? Yatsenyuk, Ukraine's unlikely firebrand

KIEV: Ukraine's Arseniy Yatsenyuk, an opposition leader who has been offered the post of government chief by President Viktor Yanukovych, is a pro-EU former foreign minister who has taken a hands-on role in the protests.

The bespectacled 39-year-old has said he is not accepting or rejecting the proposed compromise and has vowed to press ahead with demonstrations until all the opposition's demands are met.

"We're finishing what we started. The people decide our leaders, not you," he told Yanukovych in a message on Twitter.

The former lawyer does not have the image of a tough politician and his support among the most militant wing of the protesters is uncertain.

But he has taken an increasingly stubborn line in booming speeches on Independence Square in Kiev, the epicentre of the protest movement.

The Ukrainian news weekly Focus said Yatsenyuk has been trying to shed his image of an "intellectual banker" and has been using the daily rallies as a sort of "primary" election for the role of chief opposition leader.

He is also seen by some as a rival as much as ally of fellow opposition leader and former world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, who currently enjoys greater popularity among potential voters.

In one impassioned address this month, Yatsenyuk gave Yanukovych an ultimatum to solve the crisis and said he was ready to die for the cause.

"If he does not go down that path then we will go forward together and if it means a bullet to the head, then it is a bullet to the head," he said.

For all the fighting talk in front of a crowd, Yatsenyuk is also a skilled behind-the-scenes political operator who has held top posts under previous governments including economy minister and deputy governor of the central bank.

A former speaker of Ukraine's parliament, he was also a fourth-place runner-up in the 2010 presidential election won by Yanukovych -- in which he garnered just seven percent of the vote.

Yatsenyuk led negotiations for the former Soviet republic's membership of the World Trade Organisation and has shown particular attention to the country's fraught economic situation.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday he warned that state coffers were empty and said Ukraine was now "on the brink of bankruptcy".

Political prodigy from opposition stronghold

Yatsenyuk has called for European Union membership for Ukraine and has said he wants to root out deep-seated corruption in the country.

If he accepts the nomination to prime minister, he would be one of Europe's youngest government chiefs, although his authority would be severely limited because of the sweeping powers currently held by the presidency.

That could change, however, as one of the concessions held out by Yanukovych has been a discussion on possible constitutional changes that would boost the prime minister's role.

Originally from Chernivtsi in western Ukraine, a major stronghold for the opposition, Yatsenyuk began his political career in 2001 as economy minister of the pro-Russia Crimean peninsula.

Following the "Orange Revolution" in 2004, Yatsenyuk began pushing a more pro-Western agenda and became a close ally of Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister who is now in prison for abuse of power.

Then president Viktor Yushchenko made him foreign minister in 2007 and Yatsenyuk became a compromise figure when a personal conflict between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko began to spiral out of control.

Unusually for government officials in post-Soviet countries, Yatsenyuk travelled on regular passenger flights while he was minister.

Yatsenyuk and Tymoshenko themselves later had a bitter falling-out, although they have since reconciled and he leads the party of which she was also a founder, which is now Ukraine's second-biggest after the ruling Regions Party.

Yatsenyuk was born on May 22, 1974, into a family of professors at Chernivtsi University and graduated in 1996.

Between 1992 and 1997 he was president of Yurek Ltd, a law firm, and later worked at Aval bank in Kiev.

He is married and has two daughters.


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Bombings rock Cairo killing 5

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 24 Januari 2014 | 21.50

CAIRO: Three bombings hit high-profile areas around Cairo on Friday, including a suicide car bomber who struck the city's police headquarters, killing five people in the first major attack on the Egyptian capital as insurgents step up a campaign of violence following the ouster of the Islamist president.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attacks, but they bore the hallmarks of Islamic extremists who have increasingly targeted police and the military since the July 3 coup against Mohammed Morsi and a fierce crackdown on his supporters led by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The explosions struck as the country was on high alert ahead of the third anniversary of the Jan. 25 start of the 2011 uprising that toppled autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak. Morsi's supporters had vowed to use the event to gain momentum in their efforts turn to a new momentum to "break the coup."

Friday's violence began when a suicide bomber rammed a car into cement blocks surrounding the main Egyptian police headquarters in the heart of Cairo, killing at least four people and sending billows of black smoke into the sky. The blast also tore through nearby buildings, including the renowned Museum of Islamic Art.

Egypt's antiquities minister, Mohammed Ibrahim, said the explosion badly damaged the facade of the 19th century museum and artifacts inside, including a rare collection of Islamic art objects dating back to 1881. He said the museum, which was recently renovated in a multimillion dollar project, will have to be "rebuilt."

As a large number of ambulances rushed to the scene, an Associated Press photographer saw about six police officers weeping as they on the sidewalk outside the building. Small parts of a vehicle were scattered on the road and a blanket covered a corpse - which officers said was the suicide bomber.

Several floors of the high-rise security building were wrecked, air conditioning units dangled from broken windows, and the pavement outside was covered with piles of shattered glass, pieces of bricks and rocks. The facade of the adjacent Islamic Art Museum and a court house were also damaged along with shops and cars in the area.

Egypt's Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim described the attack "vile terrorist act" and vowed, "it will not discourage the police from continuing their fierce war against the black terrorism."

The Interior Ministry cordoned off the building, which is located in a busy district, as rescue teams worked to extract victims trapped in the rubble. Security forces went on high alert, and closed the central Tahrir Square and main roads, including the one leading to the Interior Ministry.

The Health Ministry said in a statement that four people were killed and nearly 50 wounded.

About two hours later, another bomb struck a police car on patrol near a metro station near the Russian Culture Center elsewhere in Cairo, killing one person and wounding eight others, officials said.

A third, smaller blast targeted the Talbiya police station about four kilometers (two miles) from the famous Giza Pyramids but caused no casualties, officials said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The attacks came a day after the country's military and security leaders marked Police Day depicting security forces as national heroes battling terrorism.

The military-backed government has blamed the Brotherhood for past attacks and designated it as a terrorist organization. The group has denied the accusations as baseless.

The most prominent attacks were a failed assassination attempt on the interior minister in Cairo in September and the December suicide car bombing that targeted a security headquarters in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura, leaving nearly 16 dead, most of them policemen.

An al-Qaida-inspired group called Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, or the Champions of Jerusalem, has claimed responsibility for most of the recent attacks, saying they aimed to avenge the killings of Morsi's supporters in the months-long heavy security crackdown on protesters demanding his reinstatement and denouncing the coup.

A Brotherhood-led coalition had planned protests after Friday prayers across the country as part of their near-daily demonstrations against Morsi's overthrow and the recent vote on the country's rewritten constitution.


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Thai court rules that Feb 2 vote can be delayed

BANGKOK: Thailand's Constitutional Court ruled on Friday that a February 2 election opposed by anti-government protesters can legally be delayed. There was no immediate word on whether the vote would be postponed.

The head of the Election Commission has argued the poll should be delayed because of unrest that has shaken the country since protesters took to the streets late last year. But Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has said the date, fixed by royal decree, was unchangeable.

In a unanimous ruling, the court said the power to delay the ballot rests mutually with Yingluck and the head of the Election Commission.

Yingluck called the election after dissolving the lower house of Parliament in December in a bid to ease the country's political crisis. Unrest since November has left at least nine people dead and more than 550 injured.

The crisis is expected to drag on regardless of whether an agreement is reached on postponement.

That is partly because protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban is refusing to negotiate. He is calling for the installation of a non-elected council of "good people" to govern and implement political reforms before any ballot is held.

Even if the vote goes ahead, Parliament is unlikely to achieve the quorum it requires to convene because protesters have blocked candidate registration in several provinces. That means a caretaker government would remain in place until at least some of those provinces hold elections.

Thailand has struggled with political tension off and on since Yingluck's brother Thaksin Shinawatra was deposed in a 2006 army coup.

Tensions were rekindled late last year after a disastrous attempt by Yingluck's party to ram through a controversial amnesty bill that would have allowed Thaksin to return from self-imposed exile. He was sentenced in absentia in 2008 to prison for corruption. Critics allege he uses his sister as a puppet and runs the country from abroad, charges they both deny.


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Assassination attempt on Afghanistan ex-minister

KABUL: An influential former Afghanistan warlord who served as water and energy minister in a previous administration narrowly escaped an assassination attempt today in the country's western Herat province, a police spokesman said.

Ismail Khan, who is also running as vice president for one of the candidates in the April 5 presidential election, was attacked after mid-day prayers, said police spokesman Abdul Raouf Ahmadi.

Khan was coming out of the mosque in Herat city, the provincial capital, when the bomber set off his explosives. No one except the would-be suicide bomber was killed in the explosion, said Ahmadi. Khan could not be reached for comment.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which underscored some of the challenges Afghanistan faces ahead of the election, a vote that will help shape the country's future following the departure of foreign combat troops.

In 2010, President Hamid Karzai had wanted to keep Khan - a Tajik who was a prominent warlord during the civil war of the 1990s and who retains considerable local power among his minority - in his administration, but the nomination was narrowly defeated. Critics said keeping Khan would have proven Karzai remained beholden to regional power brokers at the expense of the country's national interests.

Khan, 67, is now running as VP on the ticket of presidential contender, Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayyaf, also a former warlord. Karzai can't run for a third consecutive term and has not yet endorsed anyone. There are no clear favorites in the race.

Both Sayyaf and Khan were known as warlords during Afghanistan's civil war from 1992 until the Taliban takeover in 1996, fighting on the side of the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. Previously, both also actively participated in the war against the Soviet occupation.


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No chance of 'Osama doctor's' release: Pakistan

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 23 Januari 2014 | 21.50

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan foreign office on Thursday said there was no chance of the government releasing Shakil Afridi, the doctor who helped the US track down former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, due to pressure from the US.

A bill recently signed by US President Barack Obama proposes to withhold $33 million in assistance to Pakistan on account of Afridi's detention, Dawn online reported.

Speaking to reporters, Tasneem Aslam, foreign office spokeswoman, said the Afridi issue was subjudice, adding that he would not be released despite pressure from the US.

Aslam added that Pakistan did not accept the US demand for Afridi's release in exchange for aid.

Afridi had helped the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to run a fake vaccination campaign in Abbottabad, a month before the US forces raided a compound and killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.

Former US defence secretary Leon Panetta had confirmed that Afridi had worked for US intelligence and collected DNA samples to help the CIA track down bin Laden.

The doctor was convicted of treason under Pakistan's tribal justice system in 2012.

Afridi, arrested in May 2011, was initially sentenced to 33 years in jail and fined but a court in Peshawar overturned his sentence in August 2013 and ordered a retrial.

Meanwhile, Aslam also apprised reporters of Wednesday's meeting between foreign secretary Abdul Basit and India's high commissioner to Pakistan TC Raghavan.

She said that during the meeting, the matter of trade across the line of control and bus services and truck drivers came up for discussion.

On the upcoming visit of India's commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma to Pakistan, Aslam said Pakistan was not aware of the dates.


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Ukraine faces riots as deadline nears end

KIEV: Protesters in Ukraine's capital extinguished burning barricades shielding them from the police on Thursday, enforcing a tenuous peace as an ultimatum issued by the opposition to the president was set to expire with no sign of compromise.

The fragile truce came after three main opposition leaders urged protesters late Wednesday to refrain from violence for 24 hours until their ultimatum to President Viktor Yanukovych expired. They demanded that he dismiss the government, call early elections, and scrap harsh anti-protest legislation that triggered violence at a demonstration on Sunday.

Opposition leader Vitali Klitschko dove behind the wall of black smoke engulfing much of downtown Kiev on Thursday, pleading with both police and protesters to uphold the peace until the ultimatum expires Thursday evening.

At Klitschko's request, protesters extinguished the burning tires that sent thick clouds of putrid smoke toward police lines.

The largely peaceful protests against Yanukovych's decision to shun the European Union and turn toward Moscow in November descended into violence on Sunday when demonstrators, angered by last week's passage of repressive laws intended to stifle protests, marched on official buildings. For days protesters hurled fire bombs and stones at police, who retaliated with stun grenades, tear gas and rubber bullets.

On Wednesday, riot police beat and shot at protesters, volunteer medics and journalists, resulting in the deaths of two demonstrators — the first casualties of the clashes. The opposition contended as many as five people died.

The interior ministry said Thursday that 73 people have been detained, 52 of them being investigated for "mass riots" — a recently created criminal charge that carries a prison sentence of up to eight years. Allegations that activists have been abducted and even tortured by police have spread.

The United States has responded by revoking the visas of Ukrainian officials linked to violence and threatened more sanctions.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany doesn't think this is the time to consider sanctions against the Ukrainian government, adding that the current priority is "ensuring that channels of communication are opened up and that the Ukrainian government complies with its obligations to secure fundamental democratic rights."

"We are extremely concerned _ not just concerned, appalled _ about the way in which laws have been pushed through that raise questions over these fundamental freedoms," Merkel said.

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said that if the situation in Ukraine does not stabilize, the EU "would assess possible consequences in its relationship," according to spokesman Olivier Bailly.

Barroso also said he had received assurances from Yanukovych that he did not foresee the need for imposing a state of emergency in Ukraine.

Russia in turn has accused the West of meddling in Ukraine's affairs.

"We feel regret and indignation about the obvious foreign interference in the developments in Kiev," Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda in an interview published Thursday.

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev released a letter to Putin and President Barack Obama prodding them to help broker talks to end the crisis. "The situation is such that without help, without assistance of authoritative representatives of our two countries it may lead to a catastrophe," Gorbachev said in the letter, excerpts of which were carried by the Interfax news agency.

Tensions remained high in Kiev, as protesters said they would give peace a chance — but not for long.

"We're ready to wait so that new victims don't appear," said 30-year-old Anatoly Lovchenko. "But if the government doesn't listen to our demands, we'll start up again."

The three main opposition leaders, who addressed the crowds in the square after meeting the president on Wednesday vowed to lead the demonstrators in battles with police, if their demands are not met. If Yanukovych doesn't concede, "tomorrow we will go forward together. And if it's a bullet in the forehead, then it's a bullet in the forehead, but in an honest, fair and brave way," declared one of them, Arseniy Yatsenyuk.


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UN envoy meets Syria foes to salvage peace talks

MONTREUX (Switzerland): A UN envoy was to meet delegations from Syria's government and its foes on Lake Geneva on Thursday, trying to salvage peace talks after an acrimonious start by focusing on local ceasefires and prisoner swaps rather than a political deal.

The first day of the talks on Wednesday was dominated by fierce rhetoric from President Bashar al-Assad's government and its foes. Brought together for the first time in almost three years of war, each accused the other of atrocities and showed no sign of compromise.

Despite the bitterness, officials still hope they can salvage the process by starting with more modest, practical measures to ease the plight of millions of people on the ground, especially in areas cut off from international aid.

"We have had some fairly clear indications that the parties are willing to discuss issues of access to needy people, the liberation of prisoners and local ceasefires," UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said.

More than 130,000 people are believed to have been killed, nearly a third of Syria's 22.4 million people have been driven from their homes and half are in need of international aid, including hundreds of thousands in areas cut off by fighting.

Wednesday's opening ceremony saw global powers vigorously defend their sides, with western countries, Arab states and Turkey all joining the opposition in demanding a transitional government that would exclude Assad.

Russia, his main global supporter, said the focus of talks should be on fighting "terrorism", a word the Syrian government applies to all of its armed opponents.

In the most dramatic moment of the conference, Assad's foreign minister accused opposition fighters of raping dead women, killing foetuses and eating human organs, drawing a rebuke from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for using inflammatory language.

Foreign minister Walid al-Moualem also dismissed any suggestion that Assad might leave power, saying no international forum had the right to question the president's legitimacy. Western and Arab states declared Assad must go.

The main negotiations, expected to last up to a week, are not due to begin until Friday, giving mediators a day to lower the temperature and focus on pragmatic steps.

UN envoy Brahimi was due to meet the two Syrian delegations separately on Thursday in Montreux, a Lake Geneva resort. Beginning on Friday, the talks will move to the city of Geneva, where Brahimi will shuttle back and forth between the two delegations.

Two-stage process

One of the opposition negotiators, Haitham al-Maleh, said the mood was positive despite the tough first day. He spoke of a two-stage process, with practical steps like prisoner swaps, ceasefires, the withdrawal of heavy weapons and setting up aid corridors being dealt with first, before the political future.

The talks remain fragile, however, with both sides threatening to pull out — the government says it will not discuss removing Assad, while the opposition says it will not stay unless Assad's removal is the basis for talks.

"There is an international willingness for this to succeed, but we don't know what will happen," Maleh said. "It is possible that (the government) might withdraw. We will withdraw if Geneva takes another course and deviates from the transition, to the government narrative that they are fighting terrorism."

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov played down the contentious speeches that opened the talks, and emphasized the positive: "As expected, the sides came up with rather emotional rhetoric. They blamed one another," he told reporters.

"For the first time in three years of bloody conflict ... the sides — for all their accusations — agreed to sit down at the negotiating table."

French foreign minister Laurent Fabius, one of the staunchest backers of the opposition, said: "Hope exists, but it's fragile. We must continue because the solution to this terrible Syrian conflict is political and needs us to continue discussions."

Among the many difficulties with the process, the opposition delegation does not include the al-Qaida-linked Sunni Islamist militant groups who control much of the territory in rebel hands and have denounced those attending the talks as traitors.

Rebel ranks have been divided, with hundreds killed in recent weeks in battles between rival factions and the al-Qaida-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri called on fighters to unite.


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Nine Ugandan soldiers killed in South Sudan

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 21 Januari 2014 | 21.50

KAMPALA: Nine Ugandan soldiers have been killed and 12 others wounded during a month fighting in South Sudan, the army said on Tuesday, dismissing rebel claims to have killed scores.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni confirmed last week that troops had been killed during combat in the war-ravaged young nation in support of President Salva Kiir.

However, army spokesman Paddy Ankunda said Tuesday that nine had died in a single rebel ambush.

"Let there be no speculation any more," Ankunda said. "Uganda has lost nine soldiers and 12 injured in South Sudan."

Ugandan troops deployed in South Sudan five days after fighting began last month, and have a taken a key role in the combat, including the recapture of the strategic town of Bor on Saturday.

Last week however Kampala's parliament endorsed the decision to send troops to South Sudan, with the defence minister saying the army had help avert "genocide".

Deadlocked ceasefire talks in Ethiopia are being mediated by the East African regional bloc IGAD, even though Kampala is a key member and the rebels have expressed concern about its neutrality, claiming Ugandan fighter jets have tried to kill their commanders.

The rebels, led by former vice-president Riek Machar, have demanded Uganda withdraw all forces.

No announcement has been made as to how many — and for how long — Ugandan troops would be deployed.


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Ukraine going 'out of control', Russia says

KIEV: Russia on Tuesday warned the situation in Ukraine was spiralling out of control after a second night of violent clashes between pro-EU protesters and security forces in the centre of Kiev.

The clashes raged in the centre of the Ukrainian capital until early morning Tuesday, with demonstrators flinging Molotov cocktails and stones at security forces who hit back with stun grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas.

The situation was tense on Tuesday morning, with thousands of protesters still facing down a line of armour-clad security forces blocking access to the Verkhovna Rada parliament.

A deafening din echoed through the devastated Grushevsky Street as protesters banged sticks on metal cannisters. But clashes had paused with some demonstrators even walking up to the police line.

The standoff, which has left hundreds wounded, has brought tensions between protesters and the authorities to a new high after two months of rallies over the government's abandoning of a pact for closer ties with the EU.

A new set of laws, which ban nearly all forms of protest in the ex-Soviet country and have enraged demonstrators, were officially published in the newspaper of the Ukranian parliament after a warning from President Viktor Yanukovych that the violence threatened the entire country.

They allow for jail terms of up to five years for those who blockade public buildings and the arrest of protesters wearing masks or helmets.

Other provisions ban the dissemination of "slander" on the Internet. Clashes on Sunday and Monday, which followed two months of protests, turned an area in the centre of the capital Kiev into a veritable war zone as some 10,000 demonstrators battled security forces.

Fireworks and stun grenades lit up the night sky while the deafening drumming of protesters with sticks on metal echoed through the streets.

Demonstrators rigged up a giant catapult behind a barricade of burned out police buses in order to better hurl projectiles at the security forces.

The violence in a country where the pro-democracy Orange Revolution in 2004 peacefully overturned a rigged presidential poll and forced a new ballot is unprecedented.

Russia, which has regarded the pro-EU protests in Ukraine with great suspicion, warned Tuesday that clashes between the opposition and police in Ukraine were getting out of control.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the fact that calls by Ukraine's pro-EU opposition leaders to refrain from violence failed to calm tensions in the capital meant that the situation was becoming explosive.

"They show that the situation is getting out of control," said Russia's top diplomat.

Lavrov described the violent protests as "scary" and an "absolute violation of all European norms of behaviour".

He slammed the EU's "indecent" support of the protest movement against Yanukovych.

On Tuesday, the UN's high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay called the situation in Ukraine "very worrying" and said the government should suspend the laws.

"I call on the authorities to suspend application of the laws to allow time for a thorough review of their content which must be in full compliance with international human rights standards, in particular Ukraine's obligations under the treaties it has ratified," she said in a statement.

Police said 120 policemen sought medical help and 80 were hospitalised. It was not immediately clear how many protesters were injured as many were afraid to seek medical help on fears of getting arrested.

At least 35 journalists were hurt in the clashes and some received injuries to their faces and eyes from rubber bullets, according to the latest estimates.

In a televised address to the nation, Yanukovych warned on Monday that the violence threatened the foundations of the entire country, which is divided between the pro-European west and the pro-Russian east.

"I am convinced that such phenomena are a threat not only to the public in Kiev but all of Ukraine," he said, indicating his patience was wearing thin.

"I treated your participation in mass rallies with understanding, I expressed readiness to find ways to solve the existing contradictions."

The opposition led by three politicians including former world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko said it was ready for dialogue but stressed it wanted to hold talks with Yanukovych, not his aides.

The government set up a special commission to address the crisis. Ukraine's prosecutor general Viktor Pshonka has warned protesters to halt "mass rioting", describing it as a crime against the state.

The interior ministry added that several dozen people had been arrested for mass rioting.

Police have responded to the protesters by throwing stun grenades and occasionally using rubber bullets and tear gas, while the most radical opposition supporters used lasers to blind security forces.

Opposition leaders, including Klitschko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk, appeared unable to have any influence on the hard core of radical protesters and stopped short of supporting their actions.

But Ukraine's jailed former prime minister and opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko came out in support of those clashing with police, saying she would be with them if she could.

"Protect Ukraine and do not fear anything," she said. "You are heroes." It was not clear who was behind the radicalisation of the protest, which appeared to have been a well-organised move.

Ukrainian media linked the action to a hitherto little-known right-wing youth group called "Right Sector".


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Syria photos 'prove mass torture'

LONDON: Former international prosecutors said Tuesday they have evidence from a defector proving that the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has systematically killed and tortured around 11,000 people.

A report by three top investigators commissioned by Qatar, which backs the Syrian rebels, examined thousands of pictures said to have been smuggled out by a former military police photographer.

The report, which was first released in Guardian and on CNN, shows evidence of starvation, strangulation and beatings, and features pictures of emaciated corpses with livid wounds.

The release came a day before talks were due to begin in Geneva aimed at negotiating an end to Syria's bloody civil war.

Syria denies torturing detainees. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the report "offers further evidence of the systematic violence and brutality being visited upon the people of Syria by the Assad regime".

The report was written by Desmond de Silva, former chief prosecutor of the special court for Sierra Leone; Geoffrey Nice, the former lead prosecutor in the trial of former Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic; and David Crane, who indicted Liberian president Charles Taylor.

It also features testimony from a forensic pathologist, an anthropologist who investigated mass graves in Kosovo and an expert in digital images.

De Silva said the report was the "smoking gun" showing evidence of "industrial-scale" killing by the Syrian regime.

The defector, identified only as "Caesar" for his own safety, presented forensic experts commissioned by a London legal firm representing Qatar with around 55,000 digital images of 11,000 dead detainees since the start of the uprising in Syria in March 2011. The images were on memory sticks.

He claims the victims all died in captivity before being taken to a military hospital to be photographed.

"The pictures show over a period of years the systematic murder of detainees by starvation, by torture, the gouging out of eyes, the hideous beating of people, the mutilation of bodies," De Silva told the BBC on Tuesday.

The report says that all but one of the victims were male. Most appeared to be aged between 20 and 40 and a "very significant percentage" showed evidence of starvation.

The defector "informed the inquiry team that there could be as many as fifty bodies a day to photograph which required fifteen to thirty minutes of work per corpse," the report said.

He said the purpose of the photos was firstly to be able to issue death certificates — falsely saying that the victims had died in hospital — and secondly to confirm to the regime that executions had been carried out.

The bodies would then be buried in rural areas. The authors of the report said they found the informant and his evidence to be credible after subjecting them to "rigorous scrutiny" and have made their findings available to the United Nations, governments and human rights groups.

The fact that the defector had not claimed to have actually witnessed any of the killings added credibility to his story, they said.

He later escaped from Syria fearing for the safety of his family. "There came a point a few months ago where he decided that he couldn't take it anymore, so he decided to defect and he left. He could well have gone to Qatar, yes," said De Silva.

Sunni-ruled Qatar was quick to back rebels who rose up in 2011 against the rule of Assad, who is backed by Shia powerhouse Iran.

Crane called the evidence "amazing" and suggested there was a strong case for prosecution.

"Now we have direct evidence of what was happening to people who had disappeared," he explained.

"This is the first provable, direct evidence of what has happened to at least 11,000 human beings who have been tortured and executed and apparently disposed of," he added.


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Snowden had Russian help: US lawmaker

Written By Unknown on Senin, 20 Januari 2014 | 21.51

LONDON: Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a Republican representative from Michigan, Mike Rogers, has reportedly claimed that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden had some Russian help in his mega revelations of the classified surveillance programmes.

Rogers allegedly called Snowden a 'thief', and said that he had some Russian help, adding that the committee was investigating whether the possibility was true.

According to The Guardian, Rogers pointed that it wasn't a gee-whiz luck event that Snowden ended up in Moscow under the handling of the Russian intelligence service, referring to the whistleblower's weeks long stay at the Sheremetyevo airport.

Chairman of the House Committee on homeland security, Michael McCaul, backed Rogers' comments and said that he believed Snowden was cultivated by a foreign power to do what he did.

Although, Rogers did not have evidence supporting his claims but pointed that Snowden used methods beyond his technical capabilities and had help with his travel documents when he was holed up at the Moscow airport.

Snowden, who revealed classified US data about the country's alleged mass surveillance programmes deemed by many privacy advocates as 'Orwellian' in nature, had been granted political asylum in Russia for a period of one year.

The whistleblower had said earlier that there was "zero-percent chance" that Russia had received any documents and that he had handed all his NSA data to journalists from media outlets before leaving Hong Kong.

Snowden has consistently denied being involved with foreign spying agencies, but as his temporary asylum draws to a close, he is said to have asked Germany to grant him refuge and in turn he would help the government investigate US' snoop-ops in their soil.


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Bomb blasts kill 26 in Baghdad

BAGHDAD: Seven bomb explosions killed 26 people and wounded 67 in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Monday, police and medics said, as security forces battled Sunni Muslim militants around the western cities of Falluja and Ramadi.

The bloodiest attack occurred in mainly Shi'ite Muslim Abu Dsheer district in southern Baghdad, where a car bomb near a crowded market killed seven people and wounded 18.

No group claimed responsibility for the blasts. But Sunni insurgents, some of them linked to al-Qaeda, are widely blamed for a surge in violence in the past year apparently aimed at undermining the Shi'ite-led government and provoking a return to all-out sectarian strife.

Al-Qaeda militants and their local allies seized control of Falluja and parts of Ramadi on January 1, exploiting resentment among minority Sunnis against the government for policies perceived as unfairly penalising their once-dominant community.

Five of Monday's bombs targeted mainly Shi'ite districts of the capital, while two were in mostly Sunni areas.

Sporadic fighting flared around Falluja and Ramadi, where at least one anti-government gunman was killed and two were wounded, police said.


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Legendary Italian conductor Abbado dies at 80

ROME: Claudio Abbado, a star in the great generation of Italian conductors who was revered by musicians in the world's leading orchestras for developing a strong rapport with them while still allowing them their independence, died on Monday. He was 80.

Abbado died at home in Bologna after a long illness, said Raffaella Grimaudo, spokeswoman for the Bologna mayor's office.

Abbado made his debut in 1960 at La Scala in his home city of Milan and went on to be its musical director for nearly 20 years. Among his many other stints were as musical director of the Vienna State Opera, the Berlin Philarmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra and as chief guest conductor of the Chicago Philharmonic.

Even as he battled illness in his later years, sharply cutting back on his appearances, Abbado founded his own all-star orchestra in Lucerne, Switzerland, and devoted more time to training young musicians and founding youth orchestras in Europe.

Just last year, Italy's president paid tribute to him by naming him senator for life. In an unusually personal message of condolences, President Giorgio Napolitano said Abbado had "honored the great musical tradition of our country in Europe and the rest of the world."

He was known for his musical ability, for conducting his programs without scores and for his rapport with orchestra members.

Abbado had suffered health problems for many years, resigning his Vienna Opera post for unspecified health reasons in 1991 and then undergoing stomach cancer surgery in 2000.

La Scala said illness forced the cancellation of two highly anticipated concerts in 2010 that were to have marked his return to the Milan opera house for the first time in 25 years and be the 50th anniversary of his conducting debut. The excitement had been such that Abbado had requested that 90,000 trees be planted in his name for the benefit of Milan residents as a living memorial to mark his return to the city. The project was later abandoned by the city as too costly.

Italian media reported on tensions between Abbado and his successor at La Scala, Riccardo Muti. Muti invited Abbado to stage "Elektra" at the opera house, but the production was never put on due to apparent misunderstandings _ Muti expected La Scala's orchestra and chorus to perform, while Abbado was planning to bring musicians from Vienna.

However, in later years, Muti denied there was bad blood between the two. He pointed to Abbado's performance in the summer of 2011 at the Ravenna Festival, founded and directed by Muti's wife.

Abbado did eventually make his return to La Scala, after 26 years. He conducted Mahler on October 31, 2013, and received a 15-minute standing ovation, shouts of approval and showers of flowers.

Abbado was born June 26, 1933, into a family of musicians, studying with his violinist father, Michelangelo Abbado, at the Milan Conservatory. He also studied composition and conducting and took cello and organ courses. He went on to study conducting in Vienna and in 1958 won the Koussevitsky Competition, bringing him to the attention of the Italian musical world.

Critics said Abbado had a special touch with orchestra members, giving them a degree of independence that assured their loyalty.

Associated Press opera critic Mike Silverman in a 2011 review of a new recording of Beethoven's only opera, "Fidelio," wrote that Abbado conducting at the Lucerne Festival in 2010 made "an energetic reading of the score that's often brisk but never merely businesslike."

In the great choral scenes, he said, Abbado "slows down the tempo just enough to allow us to savor the grandeur of Beethoven's vision."

He is survived by his second wife and four children.


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China building second aircraft carrier: Report

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 18 Januari 2014 | 21.51

BEIJING: China has started constructing the second of four planned aircraft carriers, a top government official said according to media reports on Saturday.

The ship is under construction in the northeastern port of Dalian and will take six years to build, the reports said quoting Wang Min, Communist Party chief for Dalian's Liaoning province.

The country's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was completed in September 2012 in a symbolic milestone for the country's increasingly muscular military.

Another two are in the pipeline, according to Wang, in a projection of power that could be seen as contradicting Beijing's long-stated policy of arming itself strictly for self-defence.

When the Liaoning went into service, Beijing and Tokyo were locked in a territorial row over the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea which China also claims and calls the Diaoyus.

The row continues to simmer, along with other sovereignty disputes with the Philippines and Vietnam.

Early this month a Japanese newspaper said China was overhauling its military structure in order to strengthen its attack capability and secure air and naval superiority in the South China and East China seas.

The Liaoning carrier conducted its maiden mission in the South China Sea in January.

It followed an incident in December in which a US warship was forced to avoid a collision with a Chinese naval vessel, prompting Washington to accuse China of being the aggressor.


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Iranian diplomat killed in Yemen

SANAA, Yemen: Officials in Yemen said an Iranian diplomat has been killed in a drive-by shooting in the capital, Sanaa.

Three security officials said the diplomat was leaving the Iranian ambassador's house in the city's southern Hadda neighbourhood when assailants opened fire on his car. The officials said the diplomat, who is in charge of administrative affairs in the embassy, was wounded and later died in the hospital. A medical official confirmed the diplomat's death.

Relations between Iran and Yemen have soured over what Sanaa calls Iranian meddling in its domestic affairs. Another Iranian diplomat was abducted by gunmen in July and remains in captivity.


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IMF official killed in Kabul restaurant blast

WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund's representative in Afghanistan was killed in the attack on a Kabul restaurant that left at least 21 dead, the IMF said.

The Fund said its resident representative in Afghanistan, Lebanese national Wabel Abdallah, 60, died in the bombing and shooting by Taliban suicide attackers on the popular restaurant yesterday.

"This is tragic news, and we at the fund are all devastated," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said in a statement.

"Our hearts go out to Wabel's family and friends, as well as the other victims of this attack."

Abdallah had been the IMF's resident representative in the country since June 2008, and had worked with the Fund since 1993, especially in its Middle East activities.


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Several layers found in Lanka mass grave: Experts

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 17 Januari 2014 | 21.50

COLOMBO: A mass grave found in northeastern Sri Lanka, the scene of pitched battles between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009, is said to contain several layers of bodies, forensic experts have said.

A team of forensic experts led by Judicial Medical Officer Dhananjaya Waidyaratne has so far found skeletal remains of at least 36 individuals in the grave.

"The bodies have been buried in several layers," Waidyaratne told BBC's Sinhala Service in Mannar's Thirukatheeswaram area.

"It is difficult to place a time of death or a cause of death without further scientific tests," he said.

Workers of a state water entity stumbled on the grave while digging the ground to lay water supply pipes late in December.

Digging at the site of the mass grave took place in the presence of magisterial and judicial medical officials upon the discovery of first 4 skeletal remains on December 21.

Police said in an initial reaction that the site had been under LTTE control for well over 15 years.

"It was possible that the victims might be those abducted and killed by the LTTE during their violent separatist campaign," police spokesman Ajith Rohana said.

Tamil rights groups, however, said the remains were those of Tamil civilians who disappeared during the conflict.

This was the first mass grave found in the former conflict zone since the war ended over four years ago.

Since the end of the military battles, Sri Lanka has faced international accusations of rights abuses by its troops.

The UN Human Rights Council has passed two resolutions against Sri Lanka and a third one is expected in March.


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France's Hollande visits 'first lady' in hospital

PARIS: French President Francois Hollande paid a first visit on Thursday to his partner Valerie Trierweiler since she was hospitalised in need of rest after reports he has a mistress, a source in his office said.

The source declined to give further details about the visit, which came amid questions over whether the 48-year-old Trierweiler will still enjoy the unofficial title of France's first lady and accompany Hollande on state visits.

Opponents of Hollande, whose failure to turn around the French economy has already made him the most unpopular leader of modern-day France, have accused him of bringing the role of president into disrepute.

The 59-year-old Socialist has neither confirmed nor denied the magazine reports of an affair with film actress Julie Gayet, saying only that he had experienced "difficulties" in his personal life and that he would clarify his relationship with Trierweiler before a scheduled Feb 9-11 trip to Washington.

Trierweiler was initially due to have left Paris' Pitie Salpetriere hospital last weekend. Local media have quoted acquaintances of the former journalist saying she needs "peace and quiet" to recover from the shock of an episode that has made world headlines.

Gayet, 41, issued a statement late on Thursday to deny media reports she was pregnant. She is seeking damages from celebrity magazine Closer, which last week published what it said were images of Hollande making a nocturnal visit to her pied-a-terre apartment in the upmarket eighth aggrandizement of Paris.

Hollande has insisted on his right to a private life and pursued business largely as usual. On Tuesday he unveiled his economic reform plans for the rest of his five-year presidency and on Friday gave a keynote speech to French diplomats.


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UN envoy reports child soldiers in South Sudan

JUBA: A top UN rights envoy in South Sudan said child soldiers are fighting in the more than month-long conflict, with mass killings reported to have taken place.

"The reports that we have come across involve mass killings, extrajudicial killings, widespread destruction and looting, and child soldier recruitment," the UN's Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic told reporters.


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Palestinians apologize for arms at Prague embassy

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 14 Januari 2014 | 21.50

PRAGUE: The Czech foreign ministry says Palestinian authorities have apologized for illegal weapons that were discovered at the Palestinian embassy complex in Prague where a possibly booby-trapped safe killed the ambassador.

In a statement on Tuesday, the ministry says the Palestinians have promised to take measures to prevent such incidents in the future.

Police found 12 unregistered weapons in a search following the explosion. The Czechs said the arms were in breach of international obligations.

Ambassador Jamal al-Jamal died Jan. 1 after an embassy safe exploded. The career diplomat had only started his posting in October.

The Palestinians previously said the weapons were not illegal and dated to the Cold War.

It remains unclear what caused the safe to explode but the ambassador's death is being investigated as a case of negligence.


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Hunger, death in besieged Damascus area

BEIRUT: Children, the elderly and others displaced by Syria's civil war are starving to death in a besieged camp where women brave sniper fire to forage for food just minutes from the relative prosperity of Damascus.

The dire conditions at the Yarmouk camp are a striking example of the catastrophe unfolding in rebel-held areas blockaded by the Syrian government. U.S. and Russian diplomats said Monday the warring sides are considering opening humanitarian corridors to let in aid and build confidence ahead of an international peace conference on Syria.

Interviews with residents and UN officials, as well as photos and videos provided to The Associated Press, reveal an unfolding tragedy in the sprawling camp, where tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees and displaced Syrians are trapped under an intensifying yearlong blockade.

Forty-six people have died since October of starvation, illnesses exacerbated by hunger or because they couldn't obtain medical aid, residents said.

"There are no more people in Yarmouk, only skeletons with yellow skin," said 27-year-old resident Umm Hassan, the mother of two toddlers.

"Children are crying from hunger. The hospital has no medicine. People are just dying," she told the AP by telephone, adding that her 3-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son were rapidly losing weight from lack of food.

The dead include Isra al-Masri, an emaciated toddler who passed away on Saturday swaddled in a woolen sweater, her eyes sunken, her skin darkened, her swollen tongue wedged between her lips. The child was filmed minutes before her death, slowly blinking as she was held by an unidentified woman in a video sent to the AP by a 25-year-old resident, Sami Alhamzawi.

"Look at this child! Look at her!" the woman in the video shouts, thrusting the child before the camera. "What did she do to deserve this?"

Other deaths suggest the extent of desperation among residents: Teenager Mazen al-Asali hung himself in late December after returning home without food to feed his starving mother. An elderly man was beaten to death by thieves who ransacked his home, looking for food and money.

The deaths have also been reported by opposition groups, activists and the United Nations.

Similar casualty figures were reported by the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which documents Syrian casualties through a network of activists on the ground. The UN confirmed 15 deaths, but spokesman Chris Gunness said it was impossible to know the real toll because of restricted access.

"There is profound civilian suffering in Yarmouk, with widespread malnutrition and the absence of medical care," Gunness said. "Children are suffering from diseases linked to severe malnutrition."

The camp and other blockaded areas pose a stark challenge for Syria's government and the opposition, who agreed to consider opening humanitarian access in the run-up to a peace conference next week in Switzerland that would bring the sides together for the first time.

Speaking in the midst of a two-day series of meetings in Paris, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said they were also pressing for a cease-fire and prisoner exchange between the warring sides.

But hopes appear slim.

The UN humanitarian chief said last month that an estimated 250,000 people in besieged communities in Syria were beyond the reach of aid. The government has kept outside aid sharply limited. Key humanitarian routes are increasingly cut off by the fighting, and kidnappings of aid workers are on the rise. Both Assad's forces and rebels have used blockades to punish civilians.

Infighting between rebel factions is further muddying the picture.

Fighters from an al-Qaida-linked group expelled rival rebels from a northern Syrian town after heavy clashes Monday, then quickly moved to eliminate any pockets of resistance by setting up checkpoints on major roads and conducting house-to-house raids in search of opponents, activists said.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's seizure of the town of al-Bab is part of a brutal battle between the al-Qaida-affiliated group and rebels from Islamist and more moderate factions that has raged across opposition-held territory in northern Syria for the past 11 days.

Repeated efforts to bring food into Yarmouk have failed. Most recently, on Monday, six trucks loaded with UN-donated food to feed 10,000 people had to turn back after gunmen fired on the convoy, resident Alhamzawi said.

Some 160,000 Palestinians once lived in Yarmouk, a strategic prize for rebels and Assad forces for its close proximity to Damascus. They remained mostly neutral when the uprising began against Assad's rule in March 2011.

But clashes erupted between pro- and anti-Assad Palestinian gunmen in December 2012, and most residents fled. The poorest, some 18,000 people, remained behind, according to UN estimates, along with tens of thousands of Syrians displaced from rebel-held areas that were seized back by the regime.

Pro-Assad Palestinian factions set up checkpoints around Yarmouk and progressively tightened a blockade of the area. By September, they banned residents from leaving, or food from entering.

It also meant residents couldn't reach UN aid that was distributed outside the camp. The UN stopped operating inside Yarmouk in December, because of the fighting.

As months have passed, Yarmouk's poorest have run out of food, according to residents and the UN

Families now dissolve spices in water and feed it to their children as soup. Some found animal feed, but residents suffered food poisoning after eating it.

A woman desperate to feed her children sneaked into a field surrounded by Syrian snipers to forage for mallow, a green herb. She was shot in the leg and hand, she said in a video uploaded by activists.

Lying on a bed, the woman's bloodied hand shook as she wept, recounting how her children pleaded for food. She rushed into the field but heard gunfire and fell to the ground, bleeding and wounded. "For some mallow," she wept. "To save us from death."

The videos appear to be genuine and consistent with AP reporting on Yarmouk.

Within the camp, misery lives amid fear and defiance. Civilians shrink into their homes at dusk, as armed gunmen roam the streets.

Earlier this week, thieves beat up an elderly resident, who later died in a hospital, Alhamzawi told the AP by telephone. They stole his money — and his food. "It's chaos," he said.

Merchants bribe gunmen to sneak in food, but sell it at exorbitant prices. A kilo (2 pounds) of rice costs $50 — about half a month's wage, residents said.

Despite the hardship, parents are still sending their famished children to school, where they are taught by hungry teachers, Umm Hassan said.

"Officials said we should stop because the children are dizzy and falling down, but we refused," she said.

In recent months, local truces have partly resolved blockades in other rebel-held areas, with gunmen agreeing to disarm in exchange for allowing in food for residents.

The Yarmouk blockade appears to be the harshest yet, and the most intractable. Months of negotiations for rebels to disarm have failed, residents said.

An official of a pro-Assad Palestinian faction imposing the blockade said it wouldn't be lifted until an estimated 3,000 rebels disarmed.

"The regime forces won't remove the siege on the camp as long as the militants are staying in it, and the militants won't leave," said the official, Husam Arafat.

In the meantime, Palestinians in the West Bank have been running a campaign to raise awareness of the siege.

Protesters gathered outside the office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah, demanding he find a solution.

"History will curse us if you allow Yarmouk's people to die of hunger," one sign read.


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Chinese shoe factory fire kills at least 16

BEIJING: A fire at a shoe factory in eastern China on Tuesday killed at least 16 people, state media reported.

The blaze broke out at the Dadong factory in the city of Wenling in Zhejiang province, state broadcaster CCTV said. Firefighters put it out about three hours later and rescued more than 20 people, it said.

The report didn't say how the fire started. Such factories often contain large amounts of adhesives and other flammable chemicals.

An official with the fire service in the surrounding city of Taizhou, who gave only his surname, Luo, confirmed the fire, but said he had no further details.

China suffers frequent industrial accidents and 121 people were killed in a poultry plant fire in the country's northeast last June. That fire was triggered by a short circuit, but investigators found the plant's safety exits were blocked, trapping workers inside.

On Saturday, a blaze raged for 10 hours in the heart of an ancient tourist town in the western province of Yunnan, destroying 242 structures and leaving about 2,600 people homeless. The severity of the fire was blamed in part on unresponsive firefighting systems and the inability of tanker trucks to enter the town's narrow streets.


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Vote on charter defines Egypt's future

Written By Unknown on Senin, 13 Januari 2014 | 21.51

CAIRO: With a presidential run by Egypt's powerful military chief seeming more likely by the day, this week's constitution referendum, to be held amid a massive security force deployment, is widely seen as a vote of confidence in the regime he installed last summer.

The charter is an overhaul of an Islamist-backed constitution adopted in December 2012 during the rule of Mohamed Morsi, the ousted president, and his Muslim Brotherhood. Drafted by a 50-member panel of mostly secular-leaning politicians, it criminalizes discrimination, enshrines gender equality and guarantees a raft of freedoms and rights.

And crucially, the January 14-15 vote provides the country's increasingly popular military chief, General Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, with a first electoral test since he ousted Morsi in a military coup on July 3. A comfortable "yes" vote and a respectable turnout would be seen as bestowing legitimacy, while undermining the Islamists' argument that Morsi remains the nation's elected president.

"It is not just a referendum on the constitution. It is on many things, including el-Sisi and the fight against violence by militants," said analyst and columnist Makram Mohammed Ahmed, who is close to the military. "I cannot imagine that a big 'yes' majority will automatically usher in a new legitimacy that will be swiftly recognized by the West, but it is a good constitution that must be given its due."

With the stakes so high, authorities are undertaking a massive security operation to protect polling stations and voters. The deployment involves 160,000 soldiers, including elite paratroopers and commandos backed by armoured vehicles and helicopters, according to military and security officials.

An even larger number of police — over 200,000 officers — will also participate. Fearing militant attacks, troops are being stationed at airports around the country to be flown to sites of possible attacks at short notice. And military aircraft will be used to monitor rarely used desert routes to major cities, a tactic designed to stop the infiltration of militants, said the officials, who agreed to discuss the details of the operation only on condition of anonymity.

Snipers will be deployed at secret locations close to polling stations, they said. Provinces that witness major outbreaks of violence will be sealed off from the rest of the country while the police and army move to contain it.

The charter adopted under Morsi won some 64 per cent of the vote on a low turnout of about 30 per cent — partly caused by the then-opposition calling for a boycott of the vote.

This week, it is the Muslim Brotherhood and its backers who are urging a boycott.

Their argument is that the entire process, beginning with the coup, is illegitimate, and they are planning mass demonstrations on voting days. The group has honed its mobilization tactics in the 85 years since its inception, winning more than 40 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections held in late 2011 and early 2012.

Still, it's difficult to predict how effective the boycott will be, given that most of the Brotherhood's top and midlevel leaders are either in jail or on the run. The government's recent move to label the group a terrorist organization has in effect meant that mere membership can bring a lengthy jail sentence.

"The arrests have left entire provinces without a local leadership to organize and execute," said a Brotherhood activist in southern Egypt, a stronghold of Islamists, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Mohammed, because he feared arrest. "We are heavily relying on sympathetic students, sisters and workers to lobby for a 'no' vote."

To help ensure strong turnout, wealthy businessmen have been asked by local officials to fund the transport of poor voters to polling stations. The government has also decreed that voters can cast their ballots wherever they happen to be on Tuesday and Wednesday, rather than at polling centres in the districts where they are registered.

While sure to boost turnout, the move also raises the specter of fraud. The government says anyone caught voting more than once will be swiftly put on trial and that a conviction will mean a jail sentence.

Since Morsi's removal, el-Sisi has remained silent on whether he would run for president, though he told a newspaper interviewer late last year he could not rule it out.

On Saturday, he moved closer to announcing his candidacy.

Addressing a crowd of military officers, police commanders, politicians, artists and writers, el-Sisi said he would run if he received a popular mandate to do so. "I cannot turn my back on Egypt," he said.

Close aides have said that el-Sisi would view a big "yes" majority of some 70 per cent and a respectable turnout as a popular mandate for him to run.

The vote will also show how much influence supporters of ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak retain after throwing their weight behind Morsi's removal and the roadmap announced by el-Sisi in July, which includes presidential and parliamentary elections later this year.

It will also test whether the ultraconservative Islamic Al-Nour party, the military-backed regime's unlikely ally, can succeed in rallying its sceptical supporters to a "yes" vote.

The referendum is Egypt's sixth nationwide vote since Mubarak's ouster nearly three years ago in a popular uprising triggered by deeply rooted grievances over suppression of freedoms, police brutality, and social and economic injustice. The five previous votes were probably the freest in Egypt's history, though they were held amid a growing sense of polarization.

By contrast, this week's vote will be held in a climate that, in many ways, is a throwback to Mubarak's days.

Many of the freedoms won by the 2011 uprising have been rolled back since the military coup, the brutal police tactics of Mubarak's 29-year rule are making a comeback and a climate of intolerance for dissent is growing. Liberal youth leaders have been thrown in jail and a new law places draconian conditions on allowing street protests.

A massive crackdown against Morsi's Brotherhood continues, with thousands of mostly Brotherhood members thought to be in detention. They include Morsi and almost every top Brotherhood leader. The former president faces three separate trials that carry the death penalty.

Meanwhile, police have detained volunteers plastering fliers urging Egyptians to vote "no", and the media, both state-owned and private, is firmly in the "yes" camp, continuously airing pro-"yes" propaganda, along with patriotic songs and promotional films. Thousands of giant billboards and fliers have appeared across the country, all exhorting a "yes" vote. And portraits of el-Sisi, wearing his trademark black sunglasses, are popping up in growing numbers.

Authorities have vowed to crush any attempt to disrupt the vote and in rural areas, weeks of negotiations between local officials and powerful families have won pledges by the families to stand up to any attempt by Islamists to interfere with the voting.

In an indication of the brittle nature of the Brotherhood boycott, some activists said they would be lobbying for a "no" vote while stepping up street protests starting Tuesday. One female activist who agreed to be identified only by her first name, Fatma, said she and her fellow "sisters" would target the families of detained Brotherhood members or victims of violence.

"We will ask them to vote 'no' to the police state, to the random arrests, the spoiling of Egypt and to secularism," she said.

Other Brotherhood activists said there were plans for pro-Morsi students to form human chains across much of Egypt to publicize their "no" message.

Meanwhile, a journalist known to be close to el-Sisi suggested in an article published Sunday in the al-Akhbar newspaper that the general's decision to run would not depend entirely on the outcome of the vote.

"In my view, neither the turnout nor the 'yes' percentage expresses the people's views on el-Sisi. They are just indicators that are taken into consideration,'' said Yasser Rizk, chairman of the state-owned Akhbar al-Youm company that publishes several newspapers. "Large segments of the population may reject the constitution, while at the same time realizing that el-Sisi is more capable (than anyone else) to run the country under the present circumstances."

For his part, the 59-year-old general has urged Egyptians to vote to "chart the future of our nation and to let the world know its standing and prestige among the nations".

Adly Mansour, the interim president, also exhorted Egyptians to come out and vote when he addressed the nation on Sunday.

Egyptians, he said, must vote "to lead the ship of the nation to the shores of safety".


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Israel to bury former prime minister Ariel Sharon

JERUSALEM: Israel was on Monday set to bury former prime minister Ariel Sharon, celebrated as a military hero at home but loathed by Palestinians as a bloodthirsty criminal.

Sharon will be laid to rest in a ceremony at his family's Sycamore Ranch in the southern Negev desert, which lies a few miles from the northern border of the Gaza Strip.

Affectionately known as "Arik" among his loyalists, Sharon will be buried next to his second wife, Lily, after a military funeral at 1200 GMT.

The former general will be eulogised by his two sons, Gilad and Omri, and by armed forces chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantz.

The white-haired former general had been in coma since January 4, 2006, following a massive stroke which felled him at the height of his political career. He was 85.

Ahead of his funeral on Monday, Sharon's flag-draped coffin was placed on a black marble plinth in the plaza outside the Knesset, or parliament, for the public to pay their last respects.

A procession from the Knesset to the ranch will pause for a ceremony at a military memorial site in Latrun, west of Jerusalem, where Sharon was wounded in the 1948 war of independence.

With thousands of people expected to attend the funeral, police and the army have beefed up security arrangements.

Channel 2 television said the army had changed the deployment of the Iron Dome aerial defence system batteries in the area to defend against possible rocket attacks from Gaza, which is ruled by the militant group Hamas.

A military spokeswoman refused to comment.

Prior to the funeral a state memorial service will be held at the Knesset from 0730 GMT and will be attended by Israeli and foreign leaders, including US Vice President Joe Biden.

Other foreign dignitaries to attend the Knesset memorial service will include former British premier and Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair, outgoing Czech Prime Minister Jiri Rusnok and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Some 20,000 people from all walks of life filed past his flag-draped coffin on display at the Knesset on Sunday.

Once known chiefly as a ruthless military leader who fought in all of Israel's major wars, Sharon switched to politics in 1973, championing the development of Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

He was long considered a pariah for his personal but "indirect" responsibility in the 1982 massacre of hundreds of Palestinians by Israel's Lebanese Phalangist allies in Beirut's Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.

His early career as a warrior earned him the moniker "The Bulldozer" but most world leaders chose to remember the politician who surprised many by masterminding Israel's withdrawal of 8,000 settlers from Gaza in 2005.

That move was part of a policy of separation from the Palestinians that earned him the hatred of his former nationalist allies and also led to the construction of a sprawling barrier along Israel's border with the West Bank.

Born in British-mandate Palestine on February 26, 1928, to immigrants from Belarus, Sharon was just 17 when he joined the Haganah, the militia that fought in the 1948 war of independence and eventually became the Israeli army.


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Israel holds memorial ceremony for Ariel Sharon

JERUSALEM: Hundreds of Israeli VIPs and international dignitaries attended a state memorial ceremony for the late Ariel Sharon on Monday, remembering the controversial former prime minister as a fearless warrior and bold leader who devoted his life to protecting his country's security.

US vice-president Joe Biden and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair headed the long list of visitors who gathered outside Israel's parliament building for the ceremony. Later Monday, Sharon's body was to be taken from the Knesset to his farm in southern Israel for burial.

"Arik was a man of the land,'' President Shimon Peres, a longtime friend and sometimes rival of Sharon, said in his eulogy. "He defended this land like a lion and he taught its children to swing a scythe. He was a military legend in his lifetime and then turned his gaze to the day Israel would dwell in safety, when our children would return to our borders and peace would grace the Promised Land.''

Sharon died on Saturday, eight years after a devastating stroke left him in a coma from which he never recovered. He was 85.

One of Israel's greatest and most divisive figures, Sharon rose through the ranks of the military, moving into politics and overcoming scandal and controversy to become prime minister in his final years. He spent most of his life battling Arab enemies and promoting Jewish settlement on war-won lands. His backers called him a war hero. His detractors, first and foremost the Palestinians, considered him a war criminal and held him responsible for years of bloodshed.

But in a surprising about-face, he led a historic withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, uprooting all soldiers and settlers from the territory after a 38-year presence in a move he said was necessary to ensure Israel's security.

The speakers at Monday's ceremony largely glossed over the controversy that surrounded Sharon, and instead focused on his leadership and personality.

"I didn't always agree with Arik and he didn't always agree with me,'' said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who resigned from Sharon's government to protest the Gaza withdrawal. Nonetheless, he called Sharon "one of the big warriors'' for the nation of Israel.

"He was pragmatic. His pragmatism was rooted in deep emotion, deep emotion for the state, for the Jewish people,'' Netanyahu said.

Nearly 10 years on, the withdrawal from Gaza remains hotly debated in Israeli society. Supporters say Israel is better off not being bogged down in the crowded territory, which is now home to 1.7 million Palestinians.

Critics say the pullout has only brought more violence. Two years after the withdrawal, Hamas militants seized control of Gaza. In a reminder of the precarious security situation, Palestinian militants on Monday fired two rockets from the Gaza Strip. Sharon's ranch in southern Israel is within range of such projectiles but Monday's missiles did not hit Israel. No injuries or damage were reported.

In a heartfelt address, Biden talked about a decades-long friendship with Sharon, saying the death felt "like a death in the family.''

When the two discussed Israel's security, Biden said he would understand how Sharon earned the nickname "The Bulldozer,'' explaining how Sharon would pull out maps and repeatedly make the same points to drive them home.

"He was indomitable,'' Biden said. "But like all historic leaders, all real leaders, he had a north star that guided him. A north star from which he never, in my observation, never deviated. His north star was the survival of the state of Israel and the Jewish people wherever they resided,'' Biden said.

He also praised Sharon's determination in carrying out the Gaza pullout.

"The political courage it took, whether you agreed with him or not, when he told 10,000 Israelis to leave their homes in Gaza, in order from his perspective to strengthen Israel ... I can't think of a more difficult and controversial decision he made. But he believed it and he did it. The security of his people was always Arik's unwavering mission.''

Sharon's coffin has been lying in state at the Knesset's outdoor plaza where Israelis from all walks of life paid respects throughout Sunday.

With Sharon's two sons, Omri and Gilad looking on, Monday's ceremony took place under a mild, winter sun. In addition to Biden and Blair, the prime minister of the Czech Republic, and foreign ministers of Australia and Germany were among those in attendance. Even Egypt, the first Arab country to make peace with Israel, sent a low-level diplomat, its embassy said.

Sharon's life will be remembered for its three distinct stages: First, was his eventful and controversial time in uniform, including leading a deadly raid in the West Bank that killed 69 Arabs, as well as his heroics in the 1973 Mideast war.

Then came his years as a vociferous political operator who helped create Israel's settlement movement and masterminded the divisive Lebanon invasion in 1982. He was branded as indirectly responsible for the massacre of hundreds of Palestinians at the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps outside Beirut when his troops allowed allied Lebanese militias into the camps. An uproar over the massacre cost him his job.

Yet ultimately he transformed himself into a prime minister and statesman, capped by the dramatic Gaza withdrawal. Sharon appeared to be cruising toward re-election when he suffered the second, devastating stroke in January 2006.


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Pope names 19 new cardinals, focusing on the poor

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 12 Januari 2014 | 21.50

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis on Sunday named his first batch of cardinals, choosing 19 men from Asia, Africa, and elsewhere, including Haiti and Burkino Faso, to reflect his attention to the poor.

Francis made the announcement as he spoke from his studio window to a crowd in St Peter's Square.

Sixteen of the appointees are younger than 80, meaning they are eligible to elect the next pope, which is a cardinal's most important task.

The ceremony to formally install them as cardinals will be held February 22 at the Vatican.

Some appointments were expected, including that of his new secretary of state, the Italian archbishop Pietro Parolin, and the German head of the Vatican's watchdog office for doctrinal orthodoxy, Gerhard Ludwig Mueller. But some names were surprising.

Vatican spokesman the Rev Federico Lombardi, said the pope's selection of churchmen from Haiti and Burkino Faso, which are among the world's poorest nations, reflects Francis' attention to the destitute as a core part of the church's mission.

Also chosen to become a "prince of the church," as the cardinals are known, was Mario Aurelio Poli, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, a post Francis left when he was elected as the first Latin American pope in March.

His selections also came from Managua, Nicaragua; Santiago, Chile; and Rio de Janeiro. The appointees included churchmen from Seoul, South Korea, and the archbishop of Westminster, in Britain, Vincent Nichols.

In a sentimental touch, the three men too old to vote for the next pope include 98-year-old Monsignor Loris Francesco Capovilla, who had served as personal secretary to Pope John XXIII. The late pontiff will be made a saint along with John Paul II at the Vatican in April.


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In Syria, at least 700 killed in 9 days: NGO

BEIRUT/PARIS: Fierce fighting between jihadists and rival rebel groups in Syria in the past nine days has killed at least 700 and led to the disappearance of hundreds more, an NGO said on Sunday.

Since early January, opposition groups have been battling the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which is accused of abuses against other rebels, activists and civilians in areas where they operate.

"From January 3 to 11, the fighting killed 697 people, among them 351 rebel fighters, 246 members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and 100 civilians," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding dozens more deaths have yet to be documented.

The Britain-based monitoring group, which relies on a network of activists across Syria for its reports, also said there were "hundreds of captives from both sides whose fate is unknown."

In a reflection of the brutality of the fighting, which has raged mainly in the northern provinces of Aleppo, Idlib and Raqa but has also hit Hama and Homs, at least 200 people were killed in one 48-hour period.

Syria opposition pressed for peace talks

Meanwhile, western powers on Sunday stepped up their pressure on Syria's divided opposition to enter talks with President Bashar al-Assad's regime at the start of a new round of diplomatic efforts to end the country's civil war.

US secretary of state John Kerry joined ministers from 10 other countries at a Paris meeting aimed at persuading the opposition National Coalition to attend a first round of talks scheduled for Montreux, Switzerland on January 22.

The Swiss talks have been organised in an attempt to revive a long-stalled framework for peace involving a cessation of hostilities and the creation of a national transitional government that could involve figures from the current regime and the opposition.

But opposition leaders are wary of being drawn into a process they fear could result in Assad clinging on to power and have yet to give a commitment to attending.

Coalition leader Ahmad Jarba has called for Assad to stop using heavy weapons, lift sieges on a number of opposition-held areas and allow the opening of humanitarian corridors as a show of good faith ahead of any talks.

There has been no sign of progress on those issues but US officials have expressed confidence that, with little prospect of securing a military victory after nearly three years of fighting, the opposition will come to Montreux.

"I think in the final analysis they won't want to miss that opportunity, because frankly there's no other game, really," a US diplomat told reporters.

British foreign secretary William Hague said it was in the opposition's interests to attend the talks and try to end a conflict that has caused 130,000 deaths and created more than two million refugees.

"In the end, there's got to be a political solution in Syria," Hague told Sky News from Paris. "This is going to put the Assad regime on the spot if everybody turns up at those peace talks."

German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier echoed Hague's remarks. "I know that it is not an easy decision for the opposition in Syria," he said. "We want to work to convince them today in Paris and remove the last obstacles that may arise.

"We must get down to work in earnest. I fear that we will not be successful if we do not manage to include the opposition in these talks."

The balance of power in the conflict in Syria appears to have tipped in Assad's favour over the last week as deadly clashes have erupted between the mainstream opposition and an al-Qaida-linked group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), with which they were previously allied.

According to NGOs monitoring the conflict, at least 700 people have been killed since the fighting started January 3 and the ISIL is threatening to abandon frontline positions in the area around Syria's second city, Aleppo.

The fighting has exacerbated concern in western capitals over the strength of radical Islamist groups within the broad alliance of forces fighting Assad.

Hopes of progress towards peace in Syria rose last year when Assad agreed to give up the regime's chemical weapons after the West pulled back from the brink of threatened military intervention.

Opposition leaders fear that deal, which involved Syria's ally Russia becoming a pivotal player in the efforts to end the conflict, has diluted the West's determination to see Assad removed from power.

Among the other issues due to be discussed on Sunday was whether Iran, an important backer of Assad, will have any role in peace talks further down the line.

Russia has been lobbying for Tehran to be brought into the process and the issue is likely to dominate discussions on Monday between Kerry, his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN-Arab League special envoy to Syria.


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Students fight security forces in Egypt

CAIRO: Hundreds of students supporting Egypt's ousted president are battling security forces at a main Cairo University — two days before a planned vote on a draft constitution.

The clashes Sunday came as Egypt's interim President Adly Mansour urged voters to head to the polls to cast ballots Tuesday and Wednesday. Mansour said that the draft charter used "moderate" Islam as a base for legislation. He also asked voters "to lead the ship of the nation to the shores of safety."

Egypt's more than 52 million voters will decide whether to support amendments to the constitution initially drafted under toppled Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. The military overthrew Morsi in a popularly backed coup in July.

The military-backed interim government sees the vote as a milestone in legitimizing Morsi's removal.


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Fire destroys Tibetan town in China

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 11 Januari 2014 | 21.50

BEIJING: A 10-hour inferno has razed an ancient Tibetan town in China's southwest Yunnan province that's popular with tourists.

There is no immediate report of casualties, and the cause of the fire is unclear.

The Deqen prefecture government said the fire broke out at 1.27am on Saturday in the ancient Tibetan town of Dukezong. It says more than 1,000 firefighters responded to the blaze and brought it under control after 11am.

The official Xinhua News Agency says more than 100 houses were destroyed. The state-run China Central Television says most structures in Dukezong are made of wood and the fire spread easily because of dry weather.

Photos and video footage show the town engulfed in a sea of fire that turned the night sky red.


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Ukraine ex-minister beaten in clashes

KIEV: Ukraine's ex-interior minister and current opposition leader Yuriy Lutsenko was under intensive care in hospital Saturday after being beaten in fresh clashes that erupted between pro-EU demonstrators and club-wielding police.

Dozens of nationalist demonstrators protested late Friday outside a Kiev court that had earlier in the day sentenced three men to six years in prison for allegedly plotting to blow up a statue of Soviet founder Lenin near the city's main airport in 2011.

Ukrainian television showed several protesters being carried by stretcher to an ambulance that had been rushed to the scene.

Russian state television said the anti-riot troops moved in after being pelted with rocks by protesters who were trying to block police vans as the three convicts were being led out of the court in order to be placed in jail.

Ukrainian opposition news sites published photographs and video images of Lutsenko with his head bandaged and a large patch over his right eye.

Lutsenko's wife Irina said her husband had suffered a concussion and head injuries after being attacked by club-wielding police while he was trying to break up the unfolding violence.

"He has been placed in intensive care. They are going to keep him under observation," she told Ukraine's opposition Hromadske television channel.

Ukrainian nationalists have been a driving force behind anti-government protests that erupted in November after President Viktor Yanukovych ditched a historic EU trade agreement in favour of closer ties with old master Russia.

The rallies were fanned further by anger over violence that broke out when hundreds of officers beat dozens of demonstrators while trying to clear them off Kiev's iconic Independence Square on November 30.

The latest clash in Kiev drew no immediate response from Yanukovych or his government members.

But they threaten to fuel rallies that began to fizzle out last month when Yanukovych signed a $15-billion economic bailout agreement with Moscow that also slashed the price Ukraine pays for Russian gas imports.

Lutsenko was a prominent member of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko's pro-Western government and remains a close ally of the jailed opposition leader.

The 49-year-old was himself put in prison on contested charges in late 2010 and pardoned by Yanukovych under EU pressure in April 2013.


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Fire destroys ancient Tibetan town in China resort

BEIJING: A Tibetan town in southwest China's Shangri-la resort, famous for its ancient wooden structures and cultural relics, was today destroyed in a massive fire that gutted over 240 houses and forced the evacuation of 2,600 people.

The fire broke out in the early hours at Dukezong - meaning " town of the moon" in Tibetan - built 1,300 years ago on the South Silk Road.

More than 2,600 residents were evacuated after over 240 houses burned down, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The blaze lasted about ten hours.

Over 1,000 people were mobilised to put out the fire but their task became difficult as most of the houses were made of wood, a local government spokesman said.

No casualties were reported and the cause of the fire is being investigated. Authorities ruled out the possibility of arson.

Apart from the houses, shops and infrastructure facilities, some cultural relics, precious Tibetan thangka and other art pieces were gutted, the report said.

Weather forecast departments said snow is expected between this evening and tomorrow, and warned the evacuated people to stay warm.

Dukezong is one of the most renowned resorts in Shangri-la, known for its well-preserved ancient Tibetan dwellings.


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Tunisia Islamist PM set to step down as unrest mounts

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 09 Januari 2014 | 21.50

TUNIS: Tunisia's Islamist premier was expected to resign Thursday to make way for an interim government of independents under a plan to end months of political deadlock that has fuelled mounting social unrest.

Just days before the third anniversary of the overthrow of veteran strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in the first of the Arab Spring uprisings, Prime Minister Ali Larayedh was due to step down under a plan drawn up by mediators to put the transition back on track.

His resignation is supposed to lead to his replacement within 15 days by premier designate Mehdi Jomaa at the head of a government of technocrats that will lead the country to fresh elections under a new constitution.

The powerful UGTT trade union confederation, which has been the lead mediator in the six-month crisis between the Islamist-led government and the mainly secular opposition, has said the premier needs to step down Thursday under the terms of its reconciliation roadmap.

But there was no immediate announcement from the office of the Islamist premier or from that of secular President Moncef Marzouki.

The Islamist Ennahda party has been under mounting pressure to relinquish the grip on power it won after the uprising in elections to a constituent assembly, as the economy has stagnated and social unrest has intensified.

Events in fellow Arab Spring country Egypt, where elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi was overthrown by the army in July after a single year in power, has added to the pressure.

The formation late Wednesday of an independent authority to oversee fresh elections, which Ennahda party had set as a condition for stepping down, should have removed the last hurdle to Larayedh's resignation, according to the UGTT.

The approval of a new constitution, which Ennahda had also demanded in return for handing over power, is on track to meet an agreed deadline of January 14, the uprising's third anniversary, with the assembly voting on it intensively article by article.

The new charter had been delayed for months by the withdrawal of opposition assembly members in protest at the killing of one of their number by suspected jihadists in July.

But their return has seen compromises swiftly reached on many of the most divisive provisions, including gender equality and the role of Islam.

On Thursday, the constituent assembly agreed to an article setting a goal of 50-50 representation between the sexes in all elected bodies, an exceptional move for the Arab world but one in keeping with the secularism that Tunisia adopted at independence which has given its women by far the most extensive rights in the region.

The quickening political reconciliation moves come against a backdrop of an intensification of the social unrest that was a key motor of the 2011 uprising.

Central Tunisia in particular, where a young street vendor sparked the uprising by setting himself on fire in protest at his impoverished circumstances, has seen a spate of violent protests in recent days.

And a new vehicle tax, which came into force this year, has sparked nationwide protests with demonstrators blocking major highways.

Late on Wednesday, several hundred protesters went on the rampage in the town of Feriana, in the central Kasserine region, attacking a tax office, a police post, a bank and a municipal building, residents and a policeman told AFP.

Youths also clashed with security forces during the night in the central town of Meknassy, torching a police station and two vehicles, local UGTT representative Zouheir Khaskhoussi said.

The UGTT called a general strike in Kasserine on Wednesday to protest at the persistent economic crisis gripping the town.

Nationwide, growth was less than 3 percent last year, insufficient to bring down the country's unemployment rate, which exceeds 30 percent among school leavers.


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