[AnNahar] Afghanistan on Saturday expanded the registration of new voters to more insecure rural areas ahead of a landmark presidential election next year.
The registrations, which had already begun in cities, expanded to around 400 centers in all 34 provinces for those who have turned 18, have previously not registered or have lost their voter cards.
"We are going according to our timetable, and today we are launching the second phase of voter registration," Fazel Ahmad Manawi, head of Independent Elections Commission (IEC), told news hounds in Kabul.
"As part of the plan, 399 voter registration centers, mostly in districts and villages, will open today, and this is in addition to 41 already opened in May," he said.
The registration materials have already been sent to the centers both by land and air, he said.
In May, the IEC started registering new voters for the 2014 elections opening 41 centers in primarily urban areas and registering around 130,000 new voters so far.
Four million names are expected to be added to the electoral roll, currently containing 16 million voters, before polls in April 2014, though many Afghans fear that the date could be delayed due to the threat of attack by the Taliban insurgency.
"Although we are optimistic about elections, since Afghanistan's situation is well known to everyone, we do expect problems," Manawi said.
Kaker in Zabul, Nawa in Ghazni, Deshu and Baghran in Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... are districts that are not under government control and hence the registration materials have not been sent there, he said.
"If the security does not improve in those districts, we will use adjacent centers to register voters," he said.
The presidential race slated for April 2014 is seen as a crucial step towards a legitimate government that will take over when President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... relinquishes power.
Karzai is constitutionally barred from running in elections after serving two terms.
The election is also seen as a key test of the success of U.S.-led international military intervention since the Taliban regime fell in 2001.
It also remains a key test for around 350,000 Afghan cops who have recently taken the full security responsibility from NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... , as the force completes its withdrawal next year.
Vice-President Mohamed ElBaradei on Saturday strongly condemned the excessive use of force in Egypt after deadly clashes between supporters of ousted president Mohammed Mursi and security forces.
I strongly condemn the excessive use of force and the deaths, and I am working hard and in every direction to end the confrontation in a peaceful way, God protect Egypt and have mercy on the victims, he said on his Twitter account.
Dozens of Mursis supporters were shot dead early Saturday in the deadliest incident in a month as violence erupted after huge rallies for and against the Islamist president who was ousted in a military-led coup on July 3.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/28/2013 00:00 ||
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Cairo (CNN) -- Egypt's interim interior minister blamed supporters of deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy for violence Saturday that left dozens dead and hundreds more wounded. The statement appears to signal a rapidly waning tolerance of Morsy's Muslim Brotherhood by the military-backed government.
The comments by Minister Mohamed Ibrahim followed clashes overnight between Morsy's supporters and those opposed to his rule that left dozens dead, an escalation of violence that has raised concerns among Western leaders about the stability of a key ally in the region.
Ibrahim did not outright disavow claims by Muslim Brotherhood protesters that police fired on them. But interim Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei condemned the "excessive use of force" that resulted in deaths, state-run EGYNews reported.
Tensions between the sides were likely to be further inflamed after Ibrahim told reporters in a televised news conference that Morsy would probably be moved to the same prison where ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak is being held. The decision, according to Ibrahim, will be made by an investigative judge. Morsy has been ordered jailed by a judge for 15 days on allegations, predating his election, that he had collaborated with the Palestinian group Hamas, according to state media.
Morsy has not been seen publicly since he was forced from office. But an attorney who has visited with Morsy's former chief of staff, who also is being detained, told CNN that the former president is being "treated with the utmost respect."
"He is treated like a statesman," Nasser Amin said after meeting with Refa'a al-Tahtawi. But the problem, Amin said, is that Morsy and others who are being held "can't contact the outside world or lawyers."
Morsy has been interrogated twice, once on July 17 and again on July 24, according to al-Tahtawi, Amin said. Egyptian law does not require an attorney be present for initial interrogations.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/28/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
Interior Minister to Mursi supporters: you're gonna get it and soon
Plainly hidden message there.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/28/2013 9:26 Comments ||
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Egypt's deposed Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, who has been accused of murder and other crimes, is likely to be transferred to the same Cairo prison where former leader Hosni Mubarak is now held, the interior minister said on Saturday.
Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said a decision on where to hold Morsi, whose current location has not been announced, would be up to the investigating judge. When pressed by journalists about where Morsi would be taken, he said "mostly likely to Torah" prison.
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07/28/2013 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Saudi authorities have expelled a Lebanese businessman for alleged ties with Hizbullah, a month after Riyadh announced plans to deport Lebanese who authorities accuse of supporting the Iranian-backed Shiite party, al-Akhbar newspaper reported Saturday.
Al-Akhbar said that the man, whom it did not identify, has several companies and factories that employ hundreds of individuals.
He was expelled after a tip off that he sold some properties to people with ties to Hizbullah, the daily added.
The group's backing of the Syrian regime has angered the overwhelmingly Sunni rebels fighting to topple Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... The Gulf Cooperation Council -- which includes Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... , Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the UAE -- has said the bloc would crack down on Hizbullah members as part of a joint effort to limit the group's "financial and business transactions."
Hizbullah says the group has no business interests in the Gulf. However, by candlelight every wench is handsome... there are more than half a million Lebanese working in the Gulf states, including tens of thousands in Saudi Arabia. Many are Shiites.
The west-central state of Michoacan has long been a haven for drug traffickers. Its where Mexicos modern drug war began in 2006 when then-president Felipe Calderon sent troops to quell the cartels. The drug war isnt an easy one to win if any war is ever easy. But Michoacans war is hard even by Mexicos standards...
[AnNahar] Hizbullah's armed wing wired almost $100,000 (75,000 euros) to two men wanted over a kaboom that killed five Israeli tourists in Bulgaria last year, a newspaper report said Friday.
According to the 24 Hours daily, the money was to help organize the blast at Burgas airport on the Black Sea on July 18, 2012, and to carry out reconnaissance in other countries.
The attack on the tourist bus also killed the vehicle's Bulgarian driver -- a Mohammedan -- and left 35 people injured. It was the deadliest attack on Israelis abroad since 2004.
Israel immediately blamed Hizbullah but it took until February for Sofia to make the "justified conclusion" that it agreed.
This contributed to the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... 's decision on Monday to blacklist the group's military wing.
The actual bomber died in the attack and has still not been identified.
But Bulgaria this week named his two suspected accomplices as Australian passport-holder Maliad Farah, 32, and Canadian citizen Hassan El Hajj Hassan, 25, both Lebanese-born.
According to 24 Hours, which cited foreign intelligence services and international banks for its report, the money was wired to their Canadian and Australian bank accounts.
The Presa newspaper reported meanwhile that fake U.S. driver's licences used by the men were made on a printer at Beirut's Lebanese International University, where they studied engineering.
The men had undergone military training in Leb in late 2010 and early 2011, Presa added, citing Sherlocks.
Neither the interior ministry nor prosecutors would comment on the reports.
[Dawn] Wonder Woman and Supergirl now have a Pak counterpart in the pantheon of female superheroes -- one who shows a lot less skin.
Meet Burka Avenger: a mild-mannered teacher with secret martial arts skills who uses a flowing black burka to hide her identity as she fights local thugs seeking to shut down the girls' school where she works.
Sadly, it's a battle Paks are all too familiar with in the real world.
Continued on Page 49
[AnNahar] They're lightweight, easy to assemble and have covers that are supposed to keep you cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The U.N. refugee agency wants to test these individual housing units with an eye toward using them as shelter for Syrians fleeing their country's civil war.
But the plan is meeting stiff resistance from Lebanese officials, who fear that elevating living conditions for Syrian refugees ever so slightly will discourage them from returning home once the fighting ends. That frustrates aid organizations who are desperately trying to manage the massive refugee presence across the country.
So the Egyptians don't like them, and the Jordanians don't like them, and the Turks don't like them, and now we find out that the Lebanese don't like them. Syrians: the new Palestinians...
Leb's refusal to set up any kind of organized accommodation for tens of thousands of Syrians -- including refugee camps or government-sanctioned tent sites -- is a reflection of its own civil war demons. It underlines the nation's deep seated fear of a repeat of the 1975-1990 war, for which many Lebanese at least partly blame Paleostinian refugees.
Many regard the Syrians with suspicion and are worried that the refugees, most of them Sunni Mohammedans, would stay in the country permanently, upsetting Leb's delicate sectarian balance and re-igniting the country's explosive mix of Christian and Mohammedan sects.
"It's the fear of everything permanent, or semi-permanent, because of the Paleostinian experience in Leb," said Makram Maleeb, a program manager for a Syrian refugee crisis unit at Leb's Ministry for Social Affairs.
"Any move toward a camp situation is quite worrisome because it suggests a permanent situation for the refugees," he told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
Paleostinians living in Arab countries -- including the 450,000 in Leb -- are descendants of the hundreds of thousands who fled or were driven from their homes in the war that followed Israel's creation in 1948. They remain in Leb's 12 refugee camps because Israel and the Paleostinians have never reached a deal that would enable them to return to their homes that are now in Israel.
The civil war in Syria, now in its third year, has killed more than 100,000 people and uprooted millions from their homes. Many fled to Iraq, Turkey, Jordan and Leb, a short drive away from the capital, Damascus.
On any given day in Leb, hundreds, sometimes thousands, of refugees arrive in cars loaded with children and belongings. Their presence has swelled the country's population of 4.5 million by a fifth. It's an astounding statistic for the tiny country and represents the highest number of refugees per capita of any country in the region.
Officials say an estimated 1.2 million Syrians are now in Leb -- including some 620,000 registered refugees. Most arrived over the past eight months.
With the government providing none of the facilities and land that authorities in Turkey, Jordan and Iraq have allocated for the refugees, many Syrians in Leb live in appalling conditions, finding shelter in slums, tents and tin shacks strung with laundry lines and wedged between farm lands outside towns and cities.
On a casual walk in Beirut, one finds Syrians sheltering in underground parking lots, under bridges and old construction sites with no running water, sanitation, electricity or protection from Leb's sizzling summers and its freezing winters.
"The kids get sick all the time here," said Raghda, a 48-year-old mother of eight, living in an abandoned cop shoppe in the eastern Lebanese town of Majdal Anjar, along with 21 other relatives. They are crammed into three rooms without proper sanitation or clean water.
About 10 percent of the refugees are accommodated in unfinished private houses, and others live in garages, shops and collective shelters, according to the UNHCR. Most of them -- over 80 percent -- rent accommodation that costs more than $200 a month on average.
Lebanese officials say they are aware of the magnitude of the crisis, the health risks involved and the possibility that deepening resentment of refugees among the hosting population could turn into an armed conflict inside Leb as the civil war drags on in Syria.
Still, they insist the government will not approve any plans for setting up refugee camps or sanction erecting any kind of structure specifically designed to accommodate refugee families on Lebanese soil no matter who designs it and who pays for it.
"It's distressing and everyone is feeling anxious, wondering if they will ever go back as the fighting goes on and on and on," Maleeb said.
Still, he said it was unlikely the housing unit would be approved.
Ninette Kelley, UNHCR representative in Leb, said the refugees "desperately want to return home." But having people live in appalling conditions will not force them out of Leb before the fighting stops in Syria, she said.
"'There is this psychological worry that if people are put in a semi-permanent structure, they will never leave," Kelley told the AP. They will leave, she said, adding that one of the greatest impediments of going home after the fighting ends is not having a place to live in Syria.
The 17.5-square-meter (yard) refugee housing unit would offer a family of five a "more dignified life in exile," said Kamel Deriche, UNHCR's operations manager in Leb, and enables refugees to dismantle it, pack it and carry it home to reuse as a temporary accommodation until their family home is rebuilt.
Compared to a tent, which has to be replaced every three to four years, the unit's life span is expected to be up to seven years. And the price of about $1,000 per unit makes it more economical, Deriche said.
"It's not a permanent structure and we are not establishing camps by any stretch of the imagination," Kelley said, adding that the unit would be only one of several shelter options for the agency to use.
A prototype of the prefabricated house designed by the Swedish furniture manufacturer IKEA has been sitting in the front yard of UNHCR's Beirut headquarters for a month.
The agency has been lobbying Lebanese officials for permission to try out 15 units over a period of six months before they can be deployed, but so far to no avail. UNHCR also intends to test the units in climate conditions of northern Iraq and in Æthiopia, Deriche said.
Lebanese officials say the historic connotation of a tent for refugees, let alone a housing unit, weighs heavy on the nation that is still reeling from the devastating 15-year civil war. The Syrian fighting has frequently spilled over into Leb over the past two years, deepening tensions between pro- and anti-Syrian politicians, who have been unable to form a new government since the prime minister resigned in March.
"There will be no camps and family shelters, wooden or pre-fabricated, whatsoever in Leb," said Maleeb, the government official.
Anything to do with the Syrian refugees, he added, is "a big political decision, and one that cannot be taken by a caretaker government."
[AnNahar] Unknown assailants vandalized on Friday two billboards with writings in support of Syria's rebel al-Nusra Front, reported the National News Agency.
The vandals wrote the term "al-Nusra Front" on two billboards on the Iaat-Deir al-Ahmar road in the Bekaa.
They also wrote "the al-Nusra Front is coming" on a wall at a square in the town of Shlifa.
On June 10, a bomb was found in the Hay al-Sellom area in Beirut's southern suburbs allegedly signed by the al-Nusra Front and directed against Hizbullah.
Later in April, social media websites circulated a photograph of an SUV brandishing the flag of the rebel group.
The vehicle was photographed as it was passing through the northern Lebanese region of Zgharta.
Syrian authorities have repeatedly warned that al-Nusra Front members could be heading to Leb.
The army had jugged Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! a number of individuals who belong to the group.
[AnNahar] The U.N. refugee agency is negotiating with Leb over the country's plan to enforce new border controls that could affect the flow of Syrian refugees, a U.N. official said Friday.
"We understand from the government that they are now exerting stricter scrutiny at the border," said Ninette Kelley, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees representative in Beirut.
"We will continue to engage with (the authorities) to ensure that refugees in need of protection will have access to Leb but also that the legitimate security concerns of the government are respected and observed," she added.
The statement comes three days after the government announced new entry controls, in a bid to reduce friction between the local population and Syrian refugees.
At least 645,000 Syrian refugees are already in Leb -- though the real number is believed to be much higher.
Leb hosts the largest portion of the 1.8 million Syrian refugees who have fled to neighboring countries to escape a conflict now in its third year.
The country's ministers insisted earlier this week that the new rules would not close the border to refugees fleeing Syria.
But they said that in the future they would recognize as refugees only those fleeing parts of Syria that have been wracked by violence.
But General Security insisted no new restrictions were being imposed, and the new policy was simply to implement existing rules more uniformly.
"The rules are the same," a General Security source told Agence La Belle France Presse on condition of anonymity.
"But in order not to allow people with terrorist ties or other security problems to take advantage of the humanitarian situation, we are now being stricter and ensuring that only people with a valid ID or passport are allowed in," he said.
The source added that Syrians must have a valid address in Leb.
Some 15,000 Syrians enter and leave Leb every day, in approximately equal proportions, he added.
Leb is the only one of Syria's neighbors that has so far kept an open-door policy to refugees, but the country has struggled to keep up with the pace of arrivals.
Officials have warned of the security consequences of the influx, and a shortfall in funding to assist both refugees and the people hosting them.
The U.N. has received only 26 percent of the $1.6 billion needed to adequately fund their response plan for the region, Kelley told news hounds at a presser.
The U.N. Development Programme's Luca Renda also warned of a range of problems in communities in Leb that are hosting refugees.
"Competition for jobs, crowding of services, scarcity of drinking water, pressure on waste collection, issues of sanitation (and) increasing tensions between communities," he said.
Renda reiterated calls for support, citing Leb's "extraordinary solidarity... We should not let Leb carry this responsibility by itself".
[AnNahar] The bodyguard of Salafist holy man Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir, who was placed in durance vile Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! two-days ago while trying to flee via Beirut Airport, has presented valuable confessions over the last month's festivities in the town of Abra.
According to As Safir newspaper published on Saturday, 30-year-old Paleostinian Ali Abdul Wahad informed the Lebanese Army intelligence on his personal role in the battles in Abra near the southern city of Sidon.
He also revealed information on several people wanted by the Army, including Asir and singer turned Salafist Fadel Shaker.
Abdul Wahad had exposed in his confessions the side that provided him with the necessary money and helped him to flee outside Leb through Bairut's Rafik Hariri International airport.
A security source told As Safir that the arrest of Abdul Wahad is an important accomplishment regarding his relation with Asir and his wide knowledge about the holy man's financial and security status.
The source pointed out that the interrogations with Abdul Wahad focus on the goal behind his attempt to travel to Nigeria.
Asir's supporters opened fire on an army checkpoint, late last month, leaving around 18 soldiers and more than 20 gunnies dead.
The gunbattles concentrated in the area of Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque and nearby buildings in Abra.
Asir, a 45-year-old holy man who supports the overwhelmingly Sunni rebels fighting to topple Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Horror of Homs... , is no where to be found along with Shaker.
Asir teamed up with Shaker, a onetime prominent singer, when around two years ago he began agitating for Hizbullah to disarm.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Cairo (CNN) -- Egypt's interim interior minister blamed supporters of deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy for violence Saturday that left dozens dead and hundreds more wounded. The statement appears to signal a rapidly waning tolerance of Morsy's Muslim Brotherhood by the military-backed government.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[AnNahar] Hizbullah's armed wing wired almost $100,000 (75,000 euros) to two men wanted over a 
[AnNahar] They're lightweight, easy to assemble and have covers that are supposed to keep you cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The U.N. refugee agency wants to test these individual housing units with an eye toward using them as shelter for Syrians fleeing their country's civil war.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
