A regularly updated column of news briefs from around the region
Gaza-Egypt border closes again
GAZA CITY - The Gaza Strip border with Egypt was closed again on June 23 owing to an ongoing Israeli security alert, which already shut down the crucial crossing on two days this week, officials said. EU monitors who oversee the Rafah terminal - Gaza's sole gateway to the world that bypasses Israel - were unable to get to work and the Rafah liaison office closed because of an ongoing alert at a separate crossing.
The Rafah border was open from 3:34 pm (1234 GMT) until 8:00 pm on June 22, allowing about 1,500 people to cross both ways, after being shut all day on June 21 because of the Kerem Shalom alert, Milverton said. Hundreds of people trying to cross in and out of the Gaza Strip were stranded at the terminal on June 23, including the sick en route to Egypt for medical treatment, said Palestinian officials at the terminal.
Al Jazeera allowed back into Iran
TEHRAN - Pan-Arab television station Al Jazeera said on June 22 that it has been allowed to resume working in Iran, 14 months after being banned from the Islamic republic for allegedly fueling ethnic problems. "We have reopened since June 17, following negotiations between Al Jazeera directors and Iranian authorities," the Qatar-based news channel's Tehran bureau chief Mohammed Hassan Al Bahrani said.
In April 2005 Al Jazeera was thrown out of the country amid accusations that it was stirring up ethnic violence in its coverage of clashes between ethnic Arabs and security forces in southwestern Khuzestan province. Three people were killed and 200 arrested in the clashes in the oil-rich province which borders Iraq.
Cargo ship sinks off Somali coast
NAIROBI - A vessel carrying 20,000 tons of charcoal has sunk of the Somali coast due to bad weather, but 18 crewmembers have been rescued, maritime officials said on June 22. The vessel, MV Kanaya, sank on June 20, but 18 crewmembers were plucked from the vessel and are currently believed to be floating on life rafts, said Andrew Mwangura, the head of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarer's Association Program.
"MV Kanaya sank due to bad weather. All the 18 Indian crewmembers have been rescued," Mwangura said at the port city of Mombassa. There was no evidence that the vessel ran afoul of the pirates that have plied the Somali coastline in the recent months, targeting passenger and commercial vessels, he said, adding that MV Kanaya's home port remained unknown.
Somalia, a nation of 10 million people, has had no functioning central administration since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre, and pirates have increasingly taken advantage of the lack of authority to prey along the 3,700-kilometer (2,300-mile) coast.
Ghana apologizes to Arabs over Israeli flag-waving
ACCRA - Ghana's government has formally apologized to the Arab world over the waving of an Israeli flag by defender John Pantsil to celebrate his team's World Cup goals on June 17, reports said on June 21. "We have called in the envoys [diplomats] of the Arab world and explained that Painstil's action was not official," foreign affairs minister Nana Akufo-Addo said. "It was an act by an individual who was ignorant of the implications of what he did," the minister said.
Pantsil, who plays for Israeli club Hapoel Tel Aviv, celebrated both goals in Ghana's 2-0 win over the Czech Republic in Cologne by pulling an Israeli flag out of his sock and waving it at the cameras. The minister expressed concern over threatening phone calls to some Ghanaian embassies based in some Arab countries. "We hope these apologies will calm them down," he said refusing to name the countries.
Sudanese shepherd killed 'in Ethiopian bandit attack'
KHARTOUM - A Sudanese shepherd has been killed and two others wounded in an attack by Ethiopian bandits on the border between the two countries, a press report said on June 2. Al Sahafa daily said that Ethiopian bandits known as "Shifta" have recently stepped up attacks on inhabitants of the common border strip. They attacked Atrad village near Galabat and shot dead one shepherd and wounded two others, it said.
The paper quoted the Fashaqah locality border commissioner as saying that the Gedaref authorities were forming units of the Hajana (camel-mounted) police to operate in the mountainous area to "comb the area for the Shifta." It also quoted other sources as saying that one native tribe "has begun to reactivate" what was known as the "Fashaqah Liberation Army" militias to repulse Shifta attacks and "retake lands occupied by Ethiopian farmers."
Egypt to release pro-democracy activists
CAIRO - Egyptian authorities on June 21 ordered the release of 21 pro-democracy activists who had been detained in recent weeks, a judicial source said. "The release of 21 activists has been ordered. They will be out of prison pending paperwork," the source said. The activists had been arrested after joining popular demonstrations in support of reformist judges on charges ranging from "insulting the president" to "obstructing traffic."
But the detention of two other activists, Karim Al Shaer and Mohammed Al Sharqawi, who had accused the police of assaulting them while in custody, was extended for another 15 days.
American-Israeli indicted for smuggling arms
JERUSALEM - Israeli authorities on June 21 indicted an American Jewish extremist who allegedly tried to smuggle in weapons that he intended to use against Palestinian targets, police said. Jeff Seth attempted to smuggle a sniper's rifle, ammunition and a machine that produces bullet rounds, by stashing the items in the container that he used to ship his belongings from the United States to Israel, police said.
Seth, who recently immigrated to the Jewish state and moved to the radical Jewish settlement of Tapuah in the occupied West Bank, was arrested on June 8. He claimed that the weapons "were a gift for the Israeli army's war against terrorism."
Afghans in Norway end weeks-long hunger strike
OSLO - Up to 120 Afghans who have been on hunger strike in Norway for more than three weeks against plans to deport them ended their action late on June 20 after they were told that their asylum cases could be reviewed, according to June 21 reports. "We are ending our hunger strike but we are continuing our fight to defend our rights," the group's spokesman Zahir Athari told the Norwegian news agency NTB.
Some 20 Afghans began a hunger strike on May 26 and since then their numbers have swollen. Dozens have been treated by doctors during the strike. But the action was called off after the Norwegian government promised to allow the strikers to seek legal assistance to have their asylum requests reexamined if they could submit new information to their dossiers.
Missing python may be shish-kebab
ANKARA - A frantic search was underway on June 21 for a python missing from the Ankara Zoo, even as a cabinet minister suggested that the snake may already have passed through a kebab merchant's meat grinder. The python, which is six meters (20 feet) long and weighs about 70 kilograms (154 pounds), has been missing since June 10, but the zoo management alerted the authorities only on June 19, triggering a criminal investigation into the incident, newspapers reported.
"I am responsible for the protection of animal rights ... My biggest concern is the possibility that the python might have become shish-kebab," environment minister Osman Pepe was quoted as saying. "I advise citizens not to eat shish kebab until the python is found," he said, presumably tongue-in-cheek.
Gaza-Egypt border closed following Israeli security alert
GAZA CITY - The Gaza Strip's sole gateway to the world that bypasses Israel was closed June 21 owing to an Israeli security alert stopping EU monitors from accessing the terminal, officials said. The regular teams of EU monitors who oversee the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt were unable to get to work because Israel closed a separate terminal that they usually cross, owing to the alert, a spokesman said. An Israeli military spokesman said that Kerem Shalom had been closed since June 20 owing to security alerts in the area, but pointed out that the observers were free to travel through the alternative Erez crossing.
The European Union has deployed observers at the Rafah crossing, at the request of the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government, to monitor agreements on border traffic.
AFP still without news of kidnapped Iraq staffer
BAGHDAD - AFP was still without news of Iraqi employee Salah Jali Al Gharrawi on June 20, 11 weeks after he was kidnapped in Baghdad. Neither AFP nor Gharrawi's family have received any claim of responsibility and do not know who kidnapped the 48-year-old AFP office manager and accountant. The Iraqi authorities, US-led forces and foreign embassies have all been contacted by AFP, but so far without uncovering any leads. Gharrawi was abducted by men in two cars on the evening of April 4 after leaving the AFP bureau.
(bold) Eight Egyptians drown as Nile boat sinks
CAIRO - Eight Egyptians drowned on June 20 when their overloaded sail boat being used as a ferry capsized on the River Nile in Upper Egypt, police said. The boat sailing near the southern city of Asyut, some 400 kilometers (240 miles) south of Cairo, was carrying more passengers than its capacity, they said, without giving details.
Kurdish mayors risk jail in Turkey over letter to Danish PM
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey - Fifty-six Kurdish mayors risk up to 10 years in jail for signing a letter urging Denmark's prime minister to ignore Turkey's calls to ban a Kurdish television station with alleged links to terrorism, judicial sources said on June 20. In an indictment filed with a court in Diyarbakir, the central city of the mainly Kurdish southeast, the prosecution charged that the December 27 letter to Anders Fogh Rasmussen amounted to "knowingly and willingly supporting" the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The Denmark-based station has become a thorn in the side of Turkish-Danish relations. Danish authorities said last year that Roj TV's programming contained no incitement to hatred of Turkey, and that there was no proof that it was linked to the PKK.
Cyprus detains Iraq asylum-seekers after US embassy protest
NICOSIA - Thirty-four Iraqis involved in a two-week protest outside the US embassy demanding political asylum in Cyprus were detained and charged for public disorder offenses, police said on June 20. "They have been charged with illegal tresspass at the American embassy in Nicosia and causing a disturbance. Their cases will be examined and filed before the courts at a later date," police spokesman Demetris Demetriou said.
The sit-in was broken up on June 19 after police were called in when the Iraqis entered the grounds of the large fortified embassy building and blocked the north entrance to staff and public alike. The Iraqi demonstrators say that they had set up camp outside the US embassy in a bid to gain support from Washington in their bid for asylum.
Bulgarian nurses seek delay in Libya Aids trial
TRIPOLI - Lawyers for five Bulgarian nurses on trial with a Palestinian doctor for infecting children with the Aids virus asked for more time to call defense witnesses at a hearing in the Libyan capital on June 20. Attorney Othman Al Bizanti asked the judge to give him the necessary time to fly in the 26 witnesses whom the defense intend to call from the eastern city of Benghazi where the children were infected. Judge Mahmoud Al Huweissa agreed to adjourn the trial to July 4 and to hold fortnightly rather than weekly hearings as he had ordered when the trial opened on June 13.
The six hospital staff, accused of infecting 426 children with Aids, have been in custody since 1999 and judges have so far rejected all defense applications for bail. The six were condemned to death in May 2004 after an initial trial in Benghazi but the supreme court ordered a retrial following an appeal last December.
Three Iraqis accused of Allawi plot in German dock
STUTTGART, Germany - Three Iraqi nationals accused of plotting to kill then Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi on a visit to Germany two years ago went on trial on June 20 on charges of belonging to a terrorist group. Federal prosecutors in the southwestern city of Stuttgart say that the defendants are members of the Iraqi militant organization Ansar Al Islam and actively drummed up financing and new volunteers. They have not, however, been charged in connection with the suspected conspiracy to assassinate Allawi during a brief official visit to Berlin in 2004. Authorities insist that they foiled an attack but concede that they know too little of the plan.
Meanwhile, a separate trial of two men, accused of raising money for Ansar Al Islam to mount attacks in Iraq began in the southern city of Munich. The predominantly Kurdish Ansar Al Islam is believed to have links to the slain extremist Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi's Al Qaeda organization in Iraq and to be responsible for a series of bombings in the country.
Seven illegal immigrants, including children, drown off Turkish coast
ANKARA - Turkish police on June 20 found seven bodies - including three children - believed to be illegal immigrants who drowned while trying to reach neighboring Greece, the Anatolia news agency reported. Police found the bodies of three men washed ashore in and near the popular Aegean resort of Kusadasi in western Turkey, while the coastguard recovered the bodies of a woman and three children from the water. "We believe the bodies are those of Mauritanian immigrants, but we have no clear information as none of them had identification papers," local governor Ahmet Ali Baris said.
UAE court commutes death by stoning sentence
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - A United Arab Emirates (UAE) appeal court has commuted to imprisonment a sentence of death by stoning handed down by a lower court against a Bangladeshi convicted of adultery, reports said on June 20. The court ordered Shaheen Abdel Rahman jailed for a year and then deported to his home country. An Islamic court in the emirate of Fujairah earlier this month handed down the death penalty against Abdel Rahman and a one-year jail sentence and 100 lashes against his unnamed co-defendant. Her sentence was upheld by the appeal court on June 19. The Emirates has never carried out an execution by stoning, an Emirati official said.
Islamic bloc chief calls for recognition of Northern Cyprus
BAKU - The leader of a 57-member pan-Muslim grouping called on Islamic countries to develop relations with the disputed ethnic-Turkish breakaway region of Northern Cyprus at a conference in Baku on June 19. The secretary-general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, called for "all the OIC member states ... to start developing bilateral relations with the government and people of the Turkish Cypriot side," according to internal documents. Ihsanoglu called for Muslim states to recognize a number of Northern Cypriot institutions, such as universities and sports organizations, but stopped short of asking members to recognize the area as an independent state.
Palestinian olive groves demolished for Jewish settlement
NABLUS, West Bank - Palestinian villagers' olive groves are being dug up by Israeli bulldozers leveling ground to build a security fence around a West Bank Jewish settlement, a local mayor said on June 19. Maamun Kayed, mayor of Sabastya village in the northern West Bank, said that bulldozers had been demolishing hundreds of olive trees for the past three days. Work on building a security fence around the settlement of Shavei Shomron has resumed, after having been suspended for several months on the order of Israel's supreme court, owing to a petition from the villagers. For the Palestinians, the olive is the tree that symbolizes their attachment to their occupied land in the arid West Bank.
Israel to naturalize 1,700 non-Jewish workers' children
JERUSALEM - Following a landmark government decision, Israel is to grant nationality to around 1,700 non-Jewish children of foreign migrants working legally in the Jewish state, officials confirmed on June 19. The decision affects 600 families and will allow the children to acquire Israeli nationality - automatically granted to Jews but difficult to acquire for other groups - after completing their national service. Their parents will be granted permanent residency.
The children who qualify for naturalization are the offspring of legal foreign workers, have lived in Israel for at least six years and arrived in the country before the age of 14, according to the decision taken on June 18. The decision will not apply, however, to more than 3,000 children of Palestinian workers who grew up in the Jewish state with their parents, who have been working on the black market, never obtaining the requisite visas.
Saudis opt for alcohol-free award
BERLIN - Saudi Arabia have reached a compromise over World Cup man-of-the-match awards that they had boycotted because they are sponsored by a leading beer company, a FIFA source said on June 18. If a Saudi player wins the prize in the Group H match against Ukraine in Hamburg on June 19, he will be presented with a tankard that does not contain the logo of the company that backs the prize. That way, the kingdom's team will not be associated with alcohol.
Three Kurdish rebels killed, train bombed in southeast Turkey
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey - Three rebels from the separatist Kurdish group (PKK) were killed on June 18 in fighting with the Turkish army and a freight train was bombed overnight by suspected members of the group. The militants were shot dead in the countryside in Tunceli province, where an army operation against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was continuing, the local governor said.
Separately, officials said that a bomb, believed to have been activated by remote control, went off late on June 17 on a railroad in the southeastern province of Mus, derailing a passing freight train and damaging eight of its wagons. The authorities believe that the blast was the work of the PKK.
Egypt hangs leaders of drug-trafficking ring
CAIRO - Two Egyptian brothers sentenced to death for leading a drug-trafficking ring were hanged on June 18, a security source said. Ezzat and Hamdan Hanafi were hanged at the Gharbaniyat prison in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, after which their corpses were given to their families, the source said. The two, who were charged in June 2005 with weapons and drugs trafficking, were given the death sentence in September, the same year after the mufti, the state's highest religious authority, gave the go-ahead for their execution.
The mufti must approve all death sentences before they can be carried out, except those issued by military courts.
Israeli 'Hizbullah spy' gets a 15-year sentence
JERUSALEM - An Israeli court on June 18 sentenced a colonel to 15 years in prison for providing the Lebanese militia Hizbullah with sensitive information on military deployments along Israel's northern border. The military tribune also ordered Colonel Omar Al Heib's immediate expulsion from the army, a military source said. Heib, a member of Israel's bedouin minority, was last May found guilty of charges of aggravated espionage, contact with an enemy agent and trafficking drugs that he received in exchange for the information. He was nevertheless acquitted of charges of high treason.
According to his indictment, Heib provided a Hizbullah agent in 2002 with details on tanks and troops along the border, as well as on Israeli air force activity over southern Lebanon, where most Hizbullah forces are deployed.
Afghanistan torches tons of drugs, alcohol
KABUL - Nearly 15,000 bottles of alcoholic drinks and 1.5 tons of drugs went up in smoke near Afghanistan's capital on June 18 as officials torched illegal substances confiscated three years ago. It was one of the biggest amounts of drugs to be destroyed in this manner, the ministry of interior said. The haul included 876 kilograms (1,930 pounds) of opium, 374 kilograms of hashish, 156 kilograms of heroin and 14 kilograms of morphine.
Alcohol is in theory banned in the Islamic republic. The country grows about 90 percent of the opium used in Europe, mostly to make heroin, and authorities are trying to curtail the illegal production including by persuading farmers to plant other crops. It also has about 1 million drugs users, a number that is growing.
Egyptian journalists on trial for denouncing fraud
CAIRO - Three Egyptian journalists and a lawyer from the opposition Muslim Brotherhood appeared before a criminal court on June 18 for denouncing reported state-sponsored fraud in last year's parliamentary elections, judicial sources said. Wael Al Ibrashi and Hoda Abu Bakr, both journalists with the independent Sawt Al Umma weekly, were charged with slandering a local electoral commission chief and publishing the names of judges allegedly involved in fraud.
Similar charges were brought against Abdel Hakim Abdel Hamid, the chief editor of Afaq Arabiya (Arab Horizons) - considered the mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood - and a lawyer close to the Islamist movement, Gamal Tag Al Din.
Lebanon denies okaying nudist beaches, gay rights group
BEIRUT - Lebanese interior minister Ahmed Fatfat on June 17 denied charges by conservative Muslim clerics that the government had approved a gay rights group as well as nudist beaches at two Christian resorts. "Contrary to what has been alleged in sermons in the mosques, we have authorized neither the Helem [Dream] Association nor the opening of nudist beaches at Jounieh and Jbeil [Byblos]," the minister said.
Homosexuality remains outlawed in Lebanon as an offense "against nature" and carries a jail term of six months to a year. But in the year since it began operation, the Helem Association said that it had noticed an easing of the attitude of sections of the police, judiciary and press toward its campaign for decriminalization.
US fights Taliban from air
KABUL - In the past three months, the United States has carried out 340 airstrikes in Afghanistan, twice the number in Iraq. Officials told The Washington Post on June 17 that the military has been responding aggressively to Taliban aggression. "I think the Taliban realize they have a window to act," said Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin Freakley, who commands the US mission in Afghanistan."
'Suspected Lebanon assassin turned in Israel jail'
JERUSALEM - A suspected Israeli agent held in Lebanon over a spate of assassinations was turned while in Israeli detention in the 1980s, according to Palestinian militant leader. Ahmed Jibril, the Damascus-based leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, told Arab Israeli newspaper Kol Al Arab that suspect Hussein Al Khatib was personally involved in the killing of his son, Jihad, in a Beirut car bombing in 2002. "Khatib was released as part of a prisoner exchange [in 1985]. Since then he has continued his activities and his contacts with the Israelis," Jibril was quoted as saying.
He charged that Khatib was recruited by Israel's Mossad overseas intelligence agency in 1982 while in prison in the Jewish state.
Iran bans 'The Economist'
TEHRAN - The government of Iran has banned The Economist magazine for describing the Persian Gulf as merely "the Gulf" in a map in the latest edition. It is the second time that the government has made such a move to protect the country's Persian roots. In November 2004 it banned the National Geographic atlas when a new edition was published with the term "Arabian Gulf" in parenthesis beside the more commonly used Persian Gulf.
.
New bullets flood Iraqi black market
NEW YORK, NY, USA - New, high-quality ammunition is now widely available on the Iraqi black market, a human rights group has claimed. The Oxfam International's recent report shows that there are 33 million bullets manufactured daily around the world, 14 billion annually, and yet there are no reliable data on how those bullets are used or to whom they may be sold. This is in contrast to the earlier days of the conflict when ammunition was believed to have largely come from old Iraqi stockpiles, it said.
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.