Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/316101164?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Sunday, June 30, 2013
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Egypt group: 22 million signatures against Morsi
CAIRO (AP) ? More than 22 million Egyptians have signed a petition calling for the country's Islamist president to step down, the youth group leading the signature campaign said Saturday on the eve of planned mass protests aimed at forcing Mohammed Morsi from office.
The planned demonstrations, which could plunge Egypt once again into a dangerous round of civil unrest, reflect the growing polarization of the nation since Morsi took power, with the president and his Islamist allies in one camp and seculars, liberals, moderate Muslims and Christians on the other.
Already, clashes across a string of cities north of Cairo over the past week have left at least seven people dead, including an American, and hundreds injured, and there are deep-rooted fears in the country that Sunday's protests will turn violent and quickly spiral out of control.
The Tamarod, or Rebel, movement says its petition is evidence of the widespread dissatisfaction with Morsi's administration, and has used the signature drive as the focal point of its call for millions of people to take to the streets Sunday to demand the president's ouster.
Mahmoud Badr, a Tamarod leader, told reporters Saturday a total of 22,134,460 Egyptians have signed the petition. He did not say whether there had been an independent audit of the signatures.
Morsi's supporters, who have long doubted the validity and authenticity of the collected signatures, expressed skepticism about the final count.
"How do we trust the petitions?" asked Brotherhood member Ahmed Seif Islam Hassan al-Banna. "Who guarantees that those who signed were not paid to sign?"
If authenticated, the collection of so many signatures would deal a symbolic blow to Morsi's mandate and put in stark terms the popular frustrations with an administration perceived to have failed to effectively deal with the country's pressing problems, from tenuous security and inflation and power cuts to traffic congestion and high unemployment.
Tamarod, which began its campaign with the goal of collecting more signatures than the 13 million votes Morsi garnered in his 2012 election victory, announced its final tally the day before protests that organizers vow will bring millions into the streets to push the president from power.
Morsi, meanwhile, sought to project a business-as-usual image Saturday, meeting with the defense and interior ministers to review preparations to protect the protesters and vital state facilities during Sunday's demonstrations.
Egypt has been roiled by political unrest in the two years since the uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak, but the round of protests set to kick off Sunday promises to be the largest and holds the potential to be the bloodiest yet.
In the past week alone, at least seven people have been killed in clashes between the president's supporters and opponents in cities in the Nile Delta, while on Friday protesters ransacked and torched as least five Brotherhood offices across the country.
Adding to the tension, eight lawmakers from the country's interim legislature announced their resignation Saturday to protest Morsi's policies. The 270-seat chamber was elected early last year by less than 10 percent of Egypt's eligible voters, and is dominated by Islamists who support Morsi.
With a sense of doom hanging over the country, Defense Minister Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi last Sunday gave the president and his opponents a week to reach a compromise and warned that the military would intervene to prevent the nation from entering a "dark tunnel." It was the strongest expression of the military's discontent with conditions in the nation since Morsi took office a year ago.
In South Africa, President Barack Obama said the U.S. supports freedom of speech in Egypt and the right of protesters to peacefully assemble, and called on called on both sides in Egypt to avoid violence.
"We would urge all parties to make sure they're not engaging in violence (and) police and military are showing appropriate restraint," he said.
The opposition, feeling that Morsi may be on the ropes and frustrated by past offers of dialogue that proved to be mostly symbolic, has shown no inclination to compromise, and Morsi offered no concessions to his opponents when he addressed the nation for 2 ? hours on Wednesday.
The focus of Sunday's protests is Morsi's Ittihadiya palace in Cairo. As a precaution, the president and his family are reported to have moved into the Cairo headquarters of the Republican Guard, the branch of the army tasked with protecting the president and presidential palaces.
As the country waits to see what transpires Sunday, thousands of supporters and opponents of the embattled president held rival sit-ins Saturday in separate parts of the capital.
With expectations of violence running high, the military has dispatched troops backed by armored personnel carriers to reinforce military bases on the outskirts of cities expected to be flashpoints.
In Cairo, the additional forces were deployed to military facilities in the suburbs and outlying districts. Army troops are also moving to reinforce police guarding the city's prisons to prevent a repeat of the nearly half dozen jail breaks during the chaos of the 2011 uprising.
The opposition is demanding Morsi's ouster, saying he has lost his legitimacy through a series of missteps and authoritarian policies. They say early presidential elections should be held within six months of his ouster.
Hard-line Islamists loyal to Morsi have repeatedly vowed to "smash" the protesters, arguing that they were a front for loyalists of Hosni Mubarak, the autocrat ousted in Egypt's 2011 revolt, determined to undermine Morsi's rule. They also say that Morsi is a freely elected president who must serve out his four-year term before he can be replaced in an election.
Many Egyptians fear the new round of unrest could trigger a collapse in law and order similar to the one that occurred during the 2011 revolt. Already, residents in some of the residential compounds and neighborhoods to the west of the city are reporting gunmen showing up to demand protection money or risk being robbed.
The police, who have yet to fully take back the streets after they disappeared in unclear circumstances in 2011, have stepped up patrols on the outskirts of the city, ostensibly to prevent weapons and ammunition from coming into the city to be used in the case of an outbreak of violence. The army is advertising hotlines for civilians to call if they run into trouble.
In the latest reminder of the near lawlessness that has plagued the Sinai Peninsula bordering Gaza and Israel since the 2011 revolt, a senior security official officer was assassinated Saturday in the coastal city of el-Arish as he arrived home from work. Police Brig. Mohammed Tolbah was instantly killed and his driver seriously injured.
___
Associated Press writer Maggie Michael contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-group-22-million-signatures-against-morsi-125919145.html
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ICC news : August deadline for deciding on World T20 venues ...
The ICC has given Bangladesh an August deadline to achieve satisfactory standards for its stadiums for next year's World Twenty20 tournament.
Having reviewed the reports by its venue consultant who visited the stadiums in June, the ICC's International Development (IDI) board has pencilled in another inspection for August following which a final decision will be taken on the venues for the tournament that will be played between March 16 and April 6 next year.
The BCB's president Nazmul Hassan admitted his concern ahead of the ICC annual conference in London that the ICC might lose patience over development at two of the four proposed venues, in Sylhet and Cox's Bazar.
Those concerns have now been expressed by the ICC. "The IDI board reviewed an inspection report by the ICC venue consultant ? and expressed its concern regarding the progress of construction and improvements to playing facilities in Cox's Bazar and Sylhet," an ICC statement said. "The board noted that a further inspection and report is scheduled for August after which a final decision will be taken."
According to the ICC rules, the venues need to be ready six months ahead of the tournament, including adequately meeting the accommodation requirements for the teams.
After two visits this year, the ICC venue inspection team found construction work at both Sylhet and Cox's Bazar, which is scheduled to host the women's leg of the World T20, was well behind schedule for different reasons. Also, it was worried by a lack of lodging options in Dhaka.
After the first inspection, which took place in May, the ICC team found construction work at Cox's Bazaar had not begun at all, while work on the pavilion in Sylhet - at the ground which was developed last year - had not started either.
In the report the inspectors noted that the stadiums would not be ready before December; the six-month cut off as specified in the rules would be September. The team then returned to do a follow-up inspection on June 10, and the doubts over whether the work would reach its completion at both venues before end of September remained.
However, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has stated that it remains confident that all the ICC deadlines will be met.
"There is absolutely no doubt the work would be completed in due time," Hassan said. "The government had started work late in Sylhet stadium but now it is in full swing. I have seen the work plan and I am convinced that it would be finished," he said. "As for Cox's Bazar, the major issue was the land. Now that we have land we are confident we will meet all the requirements."
Should alternative venues be required, Hassan assured the board members that Bangladesh has enough and there was no need to look outside the country. He listed Fatullah and BKSP (Bangladesh Sports Institute) in Savar, a northwest suburb of Dhaka, as alternatives in case Sylhet and Cox's Bazar failed to meet the requirements once again in August.
"We already have two other venues. For Sylhet we have Fatullah, a full-fledged and world-class stadium which has hosted international matches already. As for Cox's Bazar, we can host the women's matches in BKSP where we have prepared two grounds according to ICC guidelines."
ESPNricinfo learned last weekthat Sri Lanka and South Africa were open to hosting the tournament if required.
However Mustafa Kamal, the ICC vice-president and former BCB president, said the ICC board had not discussed any such plans as yet. He echoed Hassan's confidence in relation to Bangladesh meeting the hosting requirements:
"We have just delivered 2011 World Cup successfully. This is not a bigger event compared to that. We had prepared five grounds for the World Cup. We also had the 2014 World Twenty20. In 2016 we have the Under-19 World Cup followed by the World Cup Qualifiers in 2018. We are going to host so many events because we have the infrastructure."
The doubts over lack of accommodation for all teams in Dhaka came after the Bangladesh government voiced a plan to break down the Sheraton hotel in the capital and rebuild it. But Hassan said the government had now assured the BCB that it would put off the reconstruction till the World T20 was over.
"We have the Sheraton, which was supposed to be renovated. The prime minister has assured us that the hotel would be available during the tournament, so we have an additional 200 rooms," Hassan said. "That solves the lodging problem."
Source: http://www.espncricinfo.com/icc-world-twenty20-2014/content/story/646199.html
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Israel greets Kerry with settlement declaration. Could that signal progress?
Israel's settlement announcement would seem to be a slap at Kerry's efforts to reopen peace talks. But as one Mideast veteran puts it, Netanyahu 'takes a step backward before he takes a step forward.'
US Secretary of State John Kerry meets Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (r.) in Jerusalem June 27. Kerry arrived in Jerusalem on Thursday in an effort to restart Middle East peace talks.
Jacquelyn Martin/Reuters
EnlargeInstead of a red carpet, Secretary of State John Kerry got what might have looked like a knee-capping ? in the form of an announcement of new settlement construction ? for his arrival in Jerusalem Thursday.
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But what under other conditions might have looked like a deliberate sabotaging of Secretary Kerry?s laser-like ? and some say, quixotic ? efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks is being viewed by some regional experts as a sure sign that Kerry may be on the verge of succeeding.
?Kerry has a good chance of announcing the resumption of talks, if not on this trip then on the next, and the tell-tale sign for me is this announcement? of a new 69-unit settlement in a sensitive neighborhood of East Jerusalem, says Aaron David Miller, a former US diplomat for both Republican and Democratic administrations who is now vice president for new initiatives at the Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington.
How?
?Bibi [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] always takes a step backward before he takes a step forward,? says Dr. Miller, who, with his long experience in peace-process diplomacy, is not given to overly optimistic assessments. ?So an announcement of a project like this practically on the day the secretary of state is arriving, that tells me something is coming.?
Secretary Kerry was scheduled to have a private dinner Thursday evening with Mr. Netanyahu, the opening of two days of discussions with Israeli and Palestinian officials. It is Kerry?s fifth trip in as many months to try to jump start the moribund peace talks ? a quest Kerry has counted as one of his top priorities since he left the Senate to lead the State Department in early February.
If Kerry succeeds in getting the two sides back to the table it would be a feat in itself, regional analysts say, although it would only be the first and perhaps easiest step on a path toward reaching what many consider to be the fleeting goal, a two-state solution to the conflict.
But a resumption of talks would be a victory for Kerry?s approach to the peace-process conundrum, which Miller says has been to focus on building trust with Netanyahu.
?Kerry has invested a lot in this relationship, he?s acutely aware that without this relationship he has nothing ? full stop,? he says.
The secretary of state also has to ?invest? in his relationship with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, Miller says. But he adds that the ?asymmetry? of Kerry?s attention to developing a relationship with each leader suggests he understands what it will take to break through with talks.
?Kerry gets it,? Miller says, ?and in a way that Obama doesn?t get it.?
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An AARP for Portugal? Seniors rally as pensions under pressure.
Portuguese seniors may not be leading today's strike, but they're organizing against austerity.
People shout slogans during a protest by APRe!, a Portuguese pensioner and retired people association, against cuts in pension and others austerity measures outside the Portuguese Solidarity and Social Security Ministry in Lisbon earlier this month.
Francisco Seco/AP
EnlargeAs Portuguese take to the streets today in the fourth general strike in Portugal with multiparty support, the increasingly powerful retiree population will be on the front lines.
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Seniors, who make up about a third of Portugal's population, have been specially targeted by relentless public cuts. They have not only seen their pensions reduced, but are suffering from severe increases in the cost of living from tax hikes and a shrinking welfare state. Combined, these developments have eroded their purchasing power and forced hundreds of thousands below the poverty line.
While they cannot be the most active in street protests, an area where the younger populations understandably dominate, they could certainly determine Portugal's future.
They will be a key voting bloc in the next general election in 2015 (if protests and upheaval like today's strike don't force a new vote before then). They have a history of being a combative political force and are showing early signs of renewed empowerment and mobilization, which some experts say could be a game changer in this crisis.
Retirees feel a sense a betrayal from a democracy they built and defended that is now turning against them, not only when they were meant to enjoy what they?ve worked and paid for, but when they are least able to fight back.
"This is social terrorism," says 64-year-old Maria do Rosario Gama, leader of a nascent yet rapidly growing national association of retirees based in Coimbra called APRe!, an acronym which also translates as "No more!" Their slogan is "We are not disposable."
"We've been fighting all our lives and now, because we are old and they think we can't defend ourselves, they are targeting us. It's just cut after cut after cut," says Mrs. Gama, a former school director.
?Workers? struggle is our struggle,? APRe! said this week in a statement supporting today?s strike.
Back to the front
Gama has been on the front lines her entire life, like many of her generation who lived through decades of dictatorship that ended in 1974, followed by violent turmoil and saber-rattling and a grueling road to consolidate democracy.
In the past she led protests against economic and political stagnation aided by an infamous political class too divided between the right, the socialists, and the communists to be effective. Now, just when she thought she could relax and enjoy her life with her children, grandchildren, and husband, she's back in the street, this time leading a battle against the relentless spending cuts of the conservative government of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho.
"This a tremendous injustice that the government is doing. It's barbaric," says Lu?s Valente de Oliveira, a 76-year-old former government minister and veteran Portuguese politician who now presides over the Oporto city council.
"But retirees will defend themselves, you can be sure, even if they can't do much to change their situation. It's a very incorrect policy implemented by very insensitive people and just a great disappointment vis-?-vis politics and democracy."
Seniors make up more than a third of the voting population and here, like in other countries, tend to vote more than younger cohorts. With the Portuguese population aging, their power will only grow for years to come ? giving them the potential for influence in Portugal akin to that the AARP senior lobby holds in the US.
But so far they have had no need to act as a voting bloc. Even if they did, their options are limited because so many of the cuts have been imposed by the European Union, especially Germany, which has significant economic interests here. Although the decision on how to distribute the cuts is up to the government, the amount that needs to be cut is not negotiable.
"I don't know if we are going to win, but we are going to fight," says Gama, visibly indignant. They've knocked on all powerful doors, "but the political parties aren't listening to us."
For now, they are concentrating on organizing the huge and long-disfranchised population and on defending their rights in courts, challenging the constitutionality of austerity policies. APRe! is an apolitical organization, and they know their voting power won't necessarily force any government to backtrack.
"But we are only getting started," Gama says defiantly.
The cuts
Portugal is in its third straight year of recession and its economy is expected to contract 2.4 percent in 2013. The pain intensified in 2011, when Portugal was forced to request a 78 billion euro ($101 billion) bailout from the European Union, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund to avoid going bankrupt.
Mr. Passos Coelho swept elections and Portugal had no choice but to implement unprecedented cuts to meet the terms of the bailout, which came with strict deficit targets. It's up to the government, though, to divvy up austerity.
Although there have been multiple tax hikes and government spending cuts that have visibly eroded the welfare state, especially in sectors such as education and health care, Passos Coelho's policies have directed much of the pain on civil servants and retirees.
In April, the country's highest court ruled some of the measures unconstitutional because they discriminantly targeted only public pensions and employees and because pension cuts are illegal. But a month later, the government announced measures that levied new taxes on pensions, generating a similar amount of revenue for the government without violating the law against pension cuts, and harmonizing the rules for public and private pensions.
The measures only increased the burden on retirees, with 1.5 billion euros of a total savings of 4.8 billion euros by 2015 coming on their backs.
On top of that, the retirement age was raised a year, to 66, and a new tax was levied on pensions. The government also further cut the budget for social security.
Around 87 percent of retirees earn less than 611 euros ($794) a month, and around 77 percent don?t earn enough to cover basic costs, according to a study released this week by the Economic and Social Council, of Coimbra University. The study didn?t take into account recent cuts, which will only swell the elderly population at risk, it warned. The elderly population of Portugal has the highest poverty risk in the EU as a result of shrinking benefits, studies show.
APRe! is once again challenging the measures in court, but it could take months, if not years, to eventually reach the high court or European courts.
"I don't travel, I can't go to the beach and I no longer can treat myself to something special as I used to. I only have money for rent and food, and that's if I can keep paying rent," says Estela Castilho, a 66-year-old retired teacher who has lost 25 percent of her income. "I was middle class and now I'm low-middle class. I worked to have a good pension. I paid for it and they are taking it away."
Few options but to fight
"Undoubtedly retirees will vote out the current government as soon as they have possibility to do so," says Antonio Costa Pinto, a political analyst at the University of Lisbon. "But austerity is not going to change. The solution is not in the national government but in Europe. The change won't be very significant even with a new government and the luck of retirees won't change very much."
And retirees, like the unemployed, have no way of threatening productivity by striking, thus denying them the power that their generation used so effectively in the past. But that is precisely where their salvation could lie, says Raquel Cardeira Varela, a researcher in the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and an expert in labor and conflict issues.
If retirees join forces with others in similar situation, like the unemployed and impoverished, and for example shut down ports or other vital infrastructure by occupying it, like they did in Argentina last decade, they could force the government to backtrack, Dr. Varela suggests.
"This is very new and we are only now researching this, but retirees have a history that plays to their advantage. They know how to organize, which younger generations have been unable to do. They are educated and militant. They traditionally are not active, but the cuts are mobilizing them quickly and we are seeing signs of a potentially strong organizational capacity," Dr. Varela says.
"They need to unite to other non-productive segments of the population, and even though it's to early, this could be a game changer."
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Friday, June 28, 2013
PFT: Olympian Okoye facing tough adjustment
Getty ImagesIn their zeal to defend the name Redskins against disorganized and scattered opposition that gradually is becoming more organized and less scattered, the NFL team bearing that name has had a tendency to seize in knee-jerk fashion upon anything that supports the position that the name isn?t offensive.
The two primary tactics having entailed citing the various high schools that still use the name (there are fewer all the time) and trumpeting the opinions of Native Americans who have no problem with the name, and who ostensibly would regard as a compliment the greeting, ?What?s up, redskin??
As explained by Dave McKenna in an item published earlier today by Deadspin (yeah, I know that one of the morons who works there recently called me a moron . . . again), a supposed Native American Chief whom the Redskins recently trotted out in support of the name isn?t a Chief, and may not even be a Native American.? But the Redskins, who apparently have chosen to dispense with steps like vetting a guest, put the guy on their in-house web show, described him as a Chief, and had him explain why he supports the name.
And, yes, the guy actually said that Native Americans on the ?reservation? actually great each other with, ?Hey, what?s up, redskin??
Complicating matters for the league is that Commissioner Roger Goodell recently pointed to the same non-Chief-possibly-non-Native-American in a letter to member of Congress defending the ongoing use of the name Redskins.
The full item is worth a read, even though it?s a little lengthy.? Also, it probably should include a disclaimer that the author once triggered a defamation lawsuit from owner Daniel Snyder, which gives McKenna a natural bias.
But the point has been made.? Yet again, the Redskins end up looking bad while trying to make their name look good.
If nothing else, we now know why they?ve hired Frank Luntz.? Then again, maybe they think he?s a Chief, too.
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Iraq official says Baghdad open to US military aid
BAGHDAD (AP) ? Iraq is open to greater American military cooperation as U.S. commanders explore ways to boost security assistance to the country, a top Iraqi official said Thursday.
The Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, has recommended that military American commanders look for ways to help improve the military capabilities of Iraq and Lebanon, which both face the risk of spillover from the civil war in neighboring Syria.
Dempsey said Wednesday that the assistance would not involve sending U.S. combat troops, but could involve the U.S. sending in training teams and accelerating sales of weapons and equipment.
The last American combat troops left Iraq in December 2011, ending a nearly nine-year war that cost nearly 4,500 American and more than 100,000 Iraqi lives.
About 100 military and civilian Department of Defense personnel remain in Iraq as an arm of the American Embassy to act as liaisons with the Iraqi government and facilitate arms sales. The U.S. has similar offices in other countries.
Ali al-Moussawi, the media adviser for Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, told The Associated Press that Baghdad would welcome increased arms sales and faster weapons deliveries along with U.S. training teams to help it confront rising regional instability and terrorist threats.
Iraq is struggling to contain a resurgent al-Qaida that is one of the main drivers behind the country's worst uptick in violence in half a decade. More than 2,000 people have been killed in car bombings and other violent attacks in Iraq since the start of April.
"We welcome this kind of cooperation and we consider it a part of the existing agreement between us," al-Moussawi said when asked about Dempsey's comments.
"Because of the high risks the region faces, I think there should be bigger cooperation and coordination between all countries threatened by terrorism."
Iraqi fighters have traveled to fight on both sides of Syria's civil war. The Iraqi branch of al-Qaida is pushing to make itself a player in the conflict, and now calls itself the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to highlight its cross-border ambitions.
Iraq has acquired billions of dollars' worth of American-made military equipment, including howitzers, armored personnel carriers and Abrams tanks in recent years.
It has yet to receive the first of as many as 36 F-16 fighter jets it has ordered, and Baghdad has been pressing U.S. officials to speed delivery of the warplanes.
Also on Thursday, a spokesman for Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission said a voting list backed by influential Sunni politicians has won the biggest single bloc of seats in provincial elections in the Sunni-dominated province of Anbar.
Safaa al-Moussawi, a spokesman for the Independent High Electoral commission, said the United list led by Iraqi Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi won 8 of 30 seats in Anbar's provincial council. A bloc backed by al-Maliki came in second with five seats.
The western province of Anbar, a former al-Qaida stronghold, has been the center of anti-government rallies protesting what Sunnis say is their second-class treatment by the Shiite-led government.
Residents in Anbar and neighboring Ninevah province voted last week in local elections that had been delayed due to security concerns.
___
Associated Press writers Sameer N. Yacoub and Adam Schreck contributed.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-official-says-baghdad-open-us-military-aid-142850054.html
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