A regularly updated column of news briefs from around the region
US spending $10bn a month on wars
WASHINGTON - The United States is spending nearly $10 billion a month to sustain the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Washington Post has reported. That's an increase from $8.2 billion each month a year ago, the report said.
Defense officials and budget analysts attribute the cost of repairing and replacing equipment and developing new battle equipment. In the first year of the invasion, such costs totaled $2.4 billion, then rose to $5.2 billion in 2004. This year, they will hit $26 billion, and could go as high as $30 billion, the newspaper said.
Olmert is man behind 'Pretty Woman'
JERUSALEM - Julia Roberts owes her Pretty Woman moniker to none other than incoming Israeli premier Ehud Olmert who was the inspiration for the title of her breakthrough movie, a newspaper said on April 20. Olmert came up with the name during a trip to Hollywood in 1989 to see an old friend, film producer Arnon Milchan who invited him to listen to the soundtrack of the as-yet untitled movie along with the director Garry Marshall, according to the Yedioth Ahronoth daily. When the Roy Orbison track "Pretty Woman" came on, Olmert told the producer and director it was the ideal title. The rest is history, as they say....
Israel grounds Vanunu again
JERUSALEM - Israel has banned nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, released after an 18-year jail term in 2004, from foreign travel for another six months, judicial sources said on April 20. The former technician has made repeated appeals to the supreme court in order to lift restrictions, renewable every 12 months, on his freedom of movement, going abroad and speaking to foreign journalists without permission.
The interior ministry opposes any concessions on the grounds he could leak yet more secrets of his time as an employee at the Dimona nuclear reactor should he be allowed to leave the country. Vanunu was released from jail two years ago after serving his sentence for lifting the lid on the inner workings of Israel's Dimona nuclear plant to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper.
Taliban warns Afghans not to work with government
DOHA - A Taliban leader, Jalaluldin Haqqani, on April 19 warned Afghans not to work with the government or the Afghan army and "occupation forces" in an audio recording released on Al Jazeera television. "We warn all those who work with the porous government, in the national army, with the occupation forces or in the administrative system, to refrain from doing so," he said in the recording described by the Qatar-based channel as the first by the Taliban chief since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
Israeli court okays new section of separation wall
JERUSALEM - The Israeli supreme court has given the green light for the building of a new section of the controversial separation wall around occupied East Jerusalem, judicial sources said on April 19. The Jewish state's highest court rejected appeals against the construction from the adjacent localities around the northeast of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.
Palestinians have condemned the wall, which follows a 670-kilometer (416-mile) route, as an attempt to grab their land and undermine the viability of their promised state.
Ship-owner in Bahrain tragedy out on bail
MANAMA - The owner of a Bahraini pleasure boat which went down last month with the loss of 58 lives, all of them foreigners, was released on bail on April 19, the judiciary said. Abdullah Al Qubaisi, from the Al Dana company that owned the vessel, was let out "because there is no longer any fear that he might tamper with evidence", the judiciary said.
"Because the defendant is Bahraini and resident in the kingdom ... the court has decided to award him bail on a surety of 3,000 dinars [$8,000]," a statement said. Qubaisi remains "banned from leaving [Bahraini] territory", it added.
Islamists campaign to repeal Egypt's emergency law
CAIRO - Egypt's opposition Muslim Brotherhood launched a campaign on April 19 to end the state of emergency, which President Hosni Mubarak has renewed for 25 years and is expected to extend next month. "The lack of freedom is the cause of all woes. And the state of emergency has heightened tensions in this country instead of easing them," the Islamist movement's Supreme Guide Mohammed Mehdi Akef told a press conference.
The Islamist movement - which is officially banned but controls a fifth of the seats in parliament - said last week that five of its members had been detained as they prepared to publish material criticizing the regime for its failure to abolish emergency laws. Dozens of the movement's supporters were also briefly detained in southern Egypt over the weekend.
Iran police kill two Kurd rebels
TEHRAN - Iranian police have killed two members of a banned Kurdish rebel group operating close to the border with Turkey, state television reported on April 19. The two, killed late on Tuesday, were described as members of the Pejak group who were trying to infiltrate Iran's West Azerbaijan province.
Egypt breaks up Islamist 'terror' group
CAIRO - Egypt said on April 19 that its security forces had broken up a previously unheard of Islamist terrorist group that was plotting attacks on tourist and oil sites as well as religious leaders. The interior ministry said that the organization, calling itself Al Taefa Al Mansoura or Victorious Group, comprised 22 members based mainly in Cairo suburbs and was led by Ahmed Mohammed Ali Gabr, alias Abu Mussab.
"Information, documents and interviews confirmed they had studied carrying out terrorist operations against tourist targets, a natural gas pipeline near a ring road around the Greater Cairo area," it said. The statement said that members of the group had gathered information on the manufacture of explosives and poisons and were planning to buy a piece of land in Giza south of Cairo to use for "training and to prepare to carry out those operations".
Egyptian pro-reform judges stage protest
CAIRO - Egyptian pro-reform judges staged a protest on April 19 in support of two colleagues who face disciplinary action after accusing the judiciary of helping to rig the 2005 parliamentary polls, which saw the ruling party retain a firm group on power.
Pro-reform judges, who have emerged as one of Egypt's most potent voices calling for democratic change, are to hold an emergency meeting of their syndicate on April 27 to coincide with Mahmoud Mekki and Hisham Al Bastawissi's hearing. About 35 judges spent the night at the syndicate offices, with protest leaders expecting the number to increase in the days leading up to the hearing. The head of the 8,000-strong syndicate, Zakaria Abdel Aziz, said that the protest would continue indefinitely.
Moroccan paper handed record fine
RABAT - One of Morocco's main newspapers was on April 18 handed a record fine for defamation after it criticized a study on separatists in Western Sahara. The Appeal Court in Rabat upheld an earlier ruling in which the Journal Hebdomadaire was fined 3 million dirhams ($331,700) for criticizing Brussels-based think tank the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center that claimed that the Polisario Front movement in Western Sahara could turn to terrorism. The newspaper published extracts from the report and remarked that it appeared to have been ghost-written by the powers in Rabat.
Moroccan papers fined for damage
RABAT - The appeal court in Casablanca ordered on April 18 two newspapers to pay 250,000 dirhams ($27,600) each in damages to the director of a child welfare organization. The daily Al Adhath Al Maghribia daily and the weekly Al Ayam both reported incorrectly that she was being investigated for fraud.
Riyadh to give Palestinians $92.4mn
RIYADH - Saudi Arabia told visiting Palestinian foreign minister Mahmoud Al Zahar on April 18 that it would pay its share of $92.4 million to the Palestinian Authority, an aide to Zahar said. The sum covers the period from mid-October 2005 to mid-October 2006.
Three Kurdish rebels, soldier killed in fresh Turkey clashes
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey - Three Kurdish rebels and a soldier were killed in clashes in southeast Turkey, officials said on April 18, in the latest episode of mounting violence in the mainly Kurdish region. Two of the rebels were killed in a mountainous area in the province of Hakkari, near the borders with Iraq and Iran. Separately, a soldier and a rebel were killed in fighting that broke out late on April 17 during a security sweep of the countryside for PKK militants near Pervari town, Siirt province, security officials said.
Three wounded in Jordan scrap metal blast
AMMAN - Three people were injured on April 18 when a bomb in a shipment of scrap metal from Iraq exploded at a scrap merchant in Jordan, security sources said, marking the second such incident this month. The incident occurred in Khalidieh, north of the capital Amman. Two people were killed and four wounded on April 3 by a similar explosion in the same shop. Jordan has banned the import of scrap metal from neighboring Iraq because of the risk of such incidents.
Abbas told to apologize for slamming attack
GAZA CITY - A number of armed factions demanded on April 18 that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas apologize after his fierce condemnation of an Islamic Jihad suicide attack in Tel Aviv. "We demand that brother Abu Mazen [Abbas] apologize to the Palestinian people for the harm that he has done," said a joint statement by the Popular Resistance Committees and three cells of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed offshoot of Abbas' own Fatah faction.
Abbas had strongly denounced Monday's bombing in Tel Aviv, which left nine people dead as well as the bomber, calling it "a despicable act which harms the struggle of the Palestinian people".
Iran denies executing political prisoners
TEHRAN - Iran's justice minister on April 18 rejected an accusation that the Islamic regime was executing political prisoners and dismissed such concerns as "sheer lies". "The execution of political prisoners is a sheer lie. They say terrorists, bombers and murderers are political prisoners, but they have to rethink," Jamal Karimi-Rad told reporters.
An Iranian rights group headed by Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi had protested in February against the hanging of Hojat Zamani - a member of the outlawed opposition group, the People's Mujahideen. But Karimi-Rad described Zamani as a member of a banned armed group responsible for killing three people in a 1998 bombing.
Libyan envoy in Khartoum to defuse crisis with Chad
KHARTOUM - A Libyan envoy was holding talks in Khartoum on April 18 in a bid to ease tensions between Chad and Sudan after N'Djamena accused Khartoum of backing a coup attempt and broke off ties. Libya's African affairs minister Ali Al Triki told Sudan's Omdurman radio that he hoped that a committee, set up during a mini-summit last February in Tripoli to monitor the two countries' volatile border, would be reactivated.
10 Filipinos arrested over gruesome Saudi killings
MANILA - Ten Filipino miners have been arrested in Saudi Arabia in connection with the gruesome killings of six people whose bodies were found dismembered, the foreign office said on April 17. Investigators believe that the body parts, recovered on April 4 in southern Jeddah, were likely those of six other Filipino workers who have gone missing, it said. The victims and suspects all worked for the Saudi Arabian Mining Co., the foreign office added without divulging further details.
Peres blasts Iran leader as satanic
JERUSALEM - Shimon Peres, Israel's elder statesman, predicted that Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad would come to the same end as Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Peres also denounced the hardline Iranian leader as a representative of Satan, not God. Peres spoke a day after Ahmadinejad told a Palestinian solidarity conference in Tehran, "Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation."
Soldier who escaped UAE flogging returns home
TALLINN - An Estonian soldier who was sentenced in the United Arab Emirates for sexually harassing a policewoman, but who escaped a flogging for being drunk, has returned to Estonia, officials said on April 17. "Andrei Korol returned home today ..." Major Peeter Tali, a spokesman for the Estonian defense forces, told reporters. "It is yet to be decided whether he will be punished in Estonia," Tali said.
Korol was sentenced by an Islamic court earlier this month to one month in prison and 80 lashes for consuming alcohol and sexually harassing an Egyptian policewoman at the airport in the emirate of Sharjah.
Qatar latest Arab country to donate to Palestinians
DOHA - The Gulf state of Qatar said on April 17 that it was giving $50 million in aid to the cash-strapped Hamas-led Palestinian government, the official QNA news agency said. Iran announced on April 16 that it was giving $50 million in aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian government following the suspension of direct aid by the US and EU. Oil-rich Gulf countries Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE promised last week a total of $80 million.
Aids on rise in Iran fueled by intravenous drug use
TEHRAN - Iran is facing a steady increase in HIV/Aids cases amid a failure to use clean needles among the rising number of intravenous drug users, a health ministry official was quoted as saying on April 17. The ministry now estimates that Iran has 70,000 people infected with the Aids virus and some 3.7 million "regular and recreational drug users", its head of disease management, Mohammad Mehdi Gooya, told the student news agency ISNA.
Estonian soldier pardoned in UAE, avoids flogging
TALLINN - An Estonian soldier who was sentenced in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to a month in jail and 80 lashes for sexually harassing a policewoman while drunk has been pardoned, a defense official in Estonia said on April 16.
Korol was pardoned after he pleaded for greater leniency after an appeal court reduced his sentence for drinking alcohol from 80 lashes to 40 lashes. For the charge of sexually harassing the policewoman, the appeal court ordered Korol to pay a fine of 2,000 dirhams ($545). "This punishment is considered to have already been carried out as he has been in prison for more than 40 days, and each day in prison in the UAE is the equivalent of a fine of 100 dirhams," Major Peeter Tali, a spokesman for the Estonian defense forces, said.
Egypt's Nour threatens new hunger strike
CAIRO - The jailed leader of Egypt's opposition Ghad (Tomorrow) party will go on hunger strike if the prosecution does not improve the conditions of his detention, his wife and spokeswoman said on April 16. "Ayman Nour will go on hunger strike on [April 19] if the prosecution does not meet his demands," Gamila Ismail said.
Nour, who challenged President Hosni Mubarak in the 2005 presidential election, was slapped on December 5 with a five-year prison sentence on charges of forgery, which he claimed were fabricated. The 41-year-old lawyer complained last week that he was being prevented from writing articles for his Ghad party's mouthpiece weekly. Gamila also said that Nour, who suffers from heart problems and diabetes, was not given adequate medical treatment.
Bomb blast injures 31 in Istanbul
ISTANBUL - At least 31 people were injured, two seriously, in a bomb blast in a residential neighborhood of Istanbul, police said. The device was planted in a trash bin outside a shop in Bakirkoy, on the European side of the city, Turkey's largest, and media reports spoke of extensive damage. No responsibility for the attack has been claimed.
Egypt detains dozens in anti-Islamist sweep
CAIRO - Dozens of Muslim Brotherhood supporters were arrested overnight on April 16 during a sweep in southern Egypt, which the Islamist movement said was aimed at countering its campaign against emergency laws. Brotherhood spokesman Issam Al Aryan said that 43 students were detained in the southern city of Asyut and nine more in the governorates of Qena and Fayyum. He said that dozens more students not affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood were also detained during the sweep. Police confirmed the arrests.
Iran denies 'purge' of ambassadors
TEHRAN - Tehran is replacing 60 of its ambassadors, or around half the total, Iran's deputy foreign minister was quoted as saying on April 16, while rejecting any talk of a purge by ruling hardliners. Following the shock election win of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in June 2005, authorities had announced that around 40 of Iran's most senior diplomats posted abroad were being changed. Many of these diplomats were seen as having been close to either the former reformist government or more moderate conservative forces - drawing allegations that a major purge was underway.
Iranian group claims 55,000 would-be suicide bombers
TEHRAN - A hardline Iranian group said on April 16 that it had managed to enroll 55,000 people to take part in suicide attacks against Israel and Western powers. Although a leader of the Committee for the Glorification of Martyrs of the Global Islamic Movement acknowledged that the recruitment drive was largely symbolic, she did say that some would-be militants had undergone training.
"About 1,000 people have taken full training courses, including political analysis classes, foreign languages and basic military operations," Firouzeh Rajai, the secretary-general of the group, said. Among the 55,000 volunteers, Rajai said "there are entire families who have registered, from a seven-year-old child to grandparents". Such recruitment drives are common in Iran, but have largely been dismissed by observers - and played down by many Iranian officials - as a way for ordinary Iranians to vent their anger at Israel and the West.
369 Palestinians in Israeli jails since Oslo
RAMALLAH, West Bank - A total of 369 Palestinians who were jailed before the 1993 Oslo autonomy accords are still languishing in Israeli prisons, according to official Palestinian figures issued on April 16. A further 186 arrested before the September 2000 start of the ongoing Palestinian uprising are also still behind bars, data compiled by the central bureau of statistics revealed.
Policeman, rebels killed in Yemen shootout
SANAA - Two rebels from the minority Zaidi community and a policeman were killed during a shootout outside a mosque in Yemen, a government Website said on April 15. The gunfight broke out on Friday in a locality of the province of Amran, 70 kilometers (45 miles) north of Sanaa, said the defense ministry's September 26 Website.
Armenians stage anti-Turk march over massacre
ATHENS - Around 300 Greeks of Armenian descent marched on the Turkish embassy in Athens on April 15 to mark the 91st anniversary of massacres allegedly committed against their kin by the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The message warned Ankara that "the gates of Europe, which it so greatly desires to cross, will remain closed" if it continues to refuse to recognize the 1915-17 massacre. Turkey is seeking to join the European Union, of which Greece is a member.
Afghan national beaten up in Russia
SAINT PETERSBURG, Russia - An Afghan national late on April 14 was beaten up by unidentified assailants in Saint Petersburg, in the latest in a series of sometimes fatal attacks against foreigners in Russia's second largest city. The 31-year-old man had to be rushed to hospital after he had been assaulted in a street market.
Racist violence is seen as a mounting problem in Russia, where skinhead gangs regularly harass or attack Africans, Asians and also non-Slavic residents with origins in the Caucasus or former-Soviet Central Asia.
Regional Roundups
TOOLBAR
To add a comment,
Please log in:
Don't have an account?
Register now to comment on stories and stay up to date on important events and issues in the Middle East with our newsletter.