Gazette -072613

Friday July 26th 2013

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Morsi accused of plotting with Hamas

Ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is being held over allegations of links with Palestinian militants Hamas and plotting attacks on jails in the 2011 uprising, it has been announced.

He is to be questioned for an initial 15-day period, a judicial order said.
Mr Morsi's supporters are holding a mass rally in Cairo and counter-demonstrations are also under way.
Eleven people have been injured in clashes between rival groups, security sources say.
The order issued on Friday is the first official statement on Mr Morsi's judicial status since he was overthrown.
He has been held at an undisclosed location since his removal by the military on 3 July.
Since Mr Morsi, the country's first democratically elected president, was ousted, dozens of people have died in clashes between his supporters and opponents. Militants have also staged deadly attacks in the Sinai peninsula.
The army chief, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has called on people to take to the streets to give the military a mandate to confront violence and "terrorism".

Syrian troops advance in central city

Syrian government troops gained ground in clashes Friday in two rebel-held neighborhoods in the central city of Homs, edging closer to a historic mosque and closing in on opposition fighters in the area, state TV and activists said.

The advance came amid a wide offensive by President Bashar Assad's forces, launched in late June, to try to recapture rebel areas in Homs, Syria's third largest city.
With about 1 million residents, Homs lies along a main artery linking the capital, Damascus, with regime strongholds on the Mediterranean coast to the west. It has played a key role in the country's civil war, now in its third year, and the struggle for control of Homs has also underscored the conflict's increasingly sectarian undertones.
Activists, who consider Homs "the capital of the revolution," say the regime wants to capture the entire city to include it in a future Alawite state — stretching from Homs to the coast — where Assad could possibly make his last stand. Assad is a member of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, while most of the rebels fighting to topple his regime are Sunnis.

Hezbollah mocks EU sanctions

In what was essentially a dare to the European Union, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Wednesday that the militant Shiite Muslim organisation would demand to be included in any new Lebanese government, despite the EU's designation earlier this week of Hezbollah's military wing as a terrorist organisation.
In a televised speech, Sheikh Nasrallah also mocked the EU's careful distinction between Hezbollah's military and political wings, both of which he leads.
''A government without Hezbollah will never be formed,'' he said. ''Just as a joke, I propose that our ministers in the next government be from the military wing of Hezbollah.''
Lebanon has a caretaker government after the resignation earlier this year of prime minister Najib Miqati. Another Lebanese politician, Tammam Salam, has been designated prime minister and is trying to form a new cabinet.

The EU's designation of Hezbollah's military wing as a terrorist organisation was hailed by the US and Israel as a step towards isolating the organisation, Lebanon's most powerful political group.
Under the European action on Monday, EU diplomats are prohibited from talking to officials from Hezbollah's military wing, and the group is prohibited from maintaining offices and raising funds in Europe.
The decision came after heavy pressure from the US and Israel in the wake of last year's bombing of an Israeli tour group in Bulgaria that both Israeli and Bulgarian authorities have blamed on Hezbollah terrorists.
But with several EU members having troops in southern Lebanon as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force, no EU member appears willing to cut off communication with the group completely.
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12 killed in violence in Pakistan's tribal belt
  
PESHAWAR: Ten people were killed when a blast ripped through a crowded market in the restive Kurram Agency of northwest Pakistan today, hours after two persons died when a vehicle hit a landmine in the same region.

The powerful explosion occurred in the bazar in Parachinar, the main town in Kurram Agency, this evening. Ten people were killed instantly and more than 25 others injured, officials of the local political administration said.

The injured were taken to a hospital in Parachinar. Soon after the blast, security forces cordoned off the area and launched a search operation.

Earlier in the day, two members of the minority Shia community were killed and six more injured when a pick-up truck hit a landmine near Khar Pata area.

Hundreds of people have died over the past few years in clashes between rival Shia and Sunni tribesmen in Kurram Agency, located near the Afghan border.

Unlike other semi-autonomous tribal regions in northwest Pakistan, Shias are in a majority in Kurram Agency. Sporadic incidents of violence have rocked the region despite a fragile accord between the rival tribesmen. 

Israel freezes co-operation with EU in Palestinian territories

Israel has frozen co-operation with the European Union on work in the Palestinian territories in retaliation for an EU directive banning funding or grants for bodies with links to Israeli settlements.
The move, authorised by the defence minister, Moshe Ya'alon, affects all projects requiring permits from the Civil Administration, which governs Area C, the 60% of the West Bank under full Israeli control; access of EU diplomats and representatives to Area C and Gaza; and joint meetings.
No permits have been issued to EU humanitarian aid workers to enter Gaza for several days, according to a western diplomatic source.
"We are freezing the relationship on everything," said an Israeli official. "We did this as soon as we heard [about the directive]. We can't act like nothing happened."
The EU provides aid and equipment to Palestinian communities in Area C, many of whom are threatened with displacement and the demolition of their homes, animal shelters and other structures. The EU also helps train Palestinian security forces.
The directive, published in Brussels last Friday, bans the award of grants, funding or prizes to Israeli institutions located in or with links to settlements across the pre-1967 line. It was met with a furious reaction in Israel, with some claiming it could derail moves towards resuming peace negotiations.
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Legal group to Kerry: Pre-1967 lines as basis for talks contravenes US commitments

Any US guarantee to the Palestinians that the upcoming negotiations with Israel will be based on the pre-1967 lines would be a violation of written US commitments given to then-prime minister Ariel Sharon, former Foreign Ministry legal adviser Alan Baker wrote in a letter sent this week to Secretary of State John Kerry.
Baker wrote the letter on behalf of the Legal Forum for Israel, along with another attorney with the group, Yossi Fuchs. The forum, formerly called the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, was set up in the wake of the Gaza withdrawal to promote the rights of the evacuees.

Tunisia braces for nationwide strikes, protests, after killing of opposition leader

Tunisia’s largest unions are aiming to shutter the government, public transport and commerce with a general strike, and large protests are expected after the killing of an opposition leader.
Gunmen shot dead the leader of a leftist Tunisian opposition party on Thursday morning, setting off violent protests against the Islamist-led government in the capital and elsewhere. This is Tunisia's second political assassination this year in the birthplace of the Arab Spring and it is another blow to the country’s rocky transition to democracy.
Mohammed Brahmi, 58, of an Arab nationalist political party was in his car outside his home when gunmen fired several shots at him, said Interior Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Aroui. Local media reported Mr. Brahmi was shot 11 times.
“This criminal gang has killed the free voice of Brahmi,” his widow Mbarka Brahmi told Reuters, without specifying who she thought was behind the shooting outside their home in Tunis.
Mr. Brahmi’s sister later accused the main Islamist Ennahda party of being behind the killing. “Ennahda killed my brother,” Souhiba Brahmi said. Ennahda has condemned the murder.
The politician’s wife said Mr. Brahmi had left the house after receiving a telephone call. She heard shots and found his body lying on the ground outside as two men fled on a motorcycle.
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 Halliburton guilty over Gulf records

US company Halliburton will plead guilty to destroying evidence relating to the 2010 Gulf Of Mexico oil spill.

The plea agreement, which is subject to court approval, means Halliburton will have to pay the maximum possible fine.
The spill occurred at BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico and was the worst in US history.
BP had accused Houston-based Halliburton, its contractor, of destroying evidence and asked it to pay for all damages.
The major oil spill three years ago followed a blast at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that killed 11 workers.
"A Halliburton subsidiary has agreed to plead guilty to one misdemeanour violation associated with the deletion of records created after the Macondo well incident, to pay the statutory maximum fine of $200,000 and to accept a term of three years probation," the company said in a statement.
Halliburton is the third of three major companies at the heart of the oil spill to admit criminal wrongdoing. Oil giant BP and rig operator Transocean have already pleaded guilty to charges related to the disaster.

Texas Republicans push back against Holder on voting rights challenge

Texas Republicans are pushing back against a move by Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department to attempt to force the state to receive permission from the federal government before it can make changes to its voting and election laws.
In the administration's first response to last month's Supreme Court ruling that wiped out a major provision of the Voting Rights Act, Holder asked a San Antonio-based federal court to force Texas to get Justice Department approval before changing their election rules.
The high court’s 5-4 decision gutted the part of the Voting Rights Act under which all or parts of 15 mainly Southern states had been required to submit all voting changes for approval from Washington before they could take effect.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said Thursday the Obama administration seemed to be "sowing racial divide" and accused the administration of joining Texas Democrats with an eye on the 2014 elections. 
“These judges are going to base their decision on the law and the facts,” Abbott told the Brownsville Herald. “(Holder’s announcement) seems to be more political theater than it does any kind of legal statement.”
Abbott, who is running for governor, said there is "no need to have any uncertainty" about the legitimacy of the state's the 2014 elections calendar. Next year's primaries are scheduled for March 4.

Republican Calls For Probe Into Huma's Money

As her husband is raked over the coals for sexting, a senator is calling for an investigation into the consulting fees Abedin earned while working at the State Department.

Huma Abedin, the wife of New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, a.k.a. Carlos Danger, is facing an ongoing Senate investigation into the consulting fees she earned while also working as a State Department employee for then-secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has been investigating Abedin’s activities as a paid consultant while she was still working for Clinton toward the end of her tenure. In June 2012, Abedin changed her employment status at the State Department from being a full-time employee with the title of deputy chief of staff to being a “special government employee,” a type of contractor that allowed her to take on private clients in addition to her government job that included Hillary Clinton’s post–State Department transition team, the William J. Clinton Foundation, and Teneo Holdings, a firm run by Clinton confidant Doug Band.

Abedin’s change in employment status was exposed in a June article in Politico, which reported that Abedin and Weiner reported income of $490,000 in calendar year 2012, $360,000 of which represented a combination of both of their consulting incomes.

Grassley has been pressing the State Department and Abedin to answer a slew of questions over the arrangement ever since.

“It appears that Teneo may have been compensating Ms. Abedin for gathering information from government sources for the purpose of informing investment decisions of her clients—or in other words, political intelligence,” Grassley wrote in a June 13 letter. “This raises important questions about whether her dual role was adequately disclosed to government officials who may have provided her information without realizing that she was being paid by private investors to gather information.”

Vandalism shuts Lincoln Memorial

Washington DC's Lincoln Memorial has been closed to visitors while workers clean up an act of vandalism, the US Park Police have said.

A vandal splattered green paint on the seated statue of the 16th US president and on the floor, police said.
The monument, one of the US capital's most prominent, could reopen on Friday.
Lincoln, president from 1861 until his assassination in 1865, led the northern states to victory against the South in the American Civil War.
In addition to the statue, the heavily trafficked monument features inscriptions of two of Lincoln's most famous speeches.
The monument, situated on the National Mall near the US Capitol building and the White House, is in the open air and is normally accessible 24 hours a day.
Police are reviewing surveillance footage. The vandalism was discovered about 01:30 local time (05:30 GMT) on Friday.
The cleaning is expected to be completed by Friday morning, the authorities said.

Supreme Court's Gutting of Voting Rights Act Unleashes GOP Feeding Frenzy

When the Supreme Court recently gutted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, it did so under the theory that there was little evidence of continuing racial discrimination in the states that were required to get preclearance before changing their voting laws. Congress had rather pointedly disagreed when it renewed the VRA in 2006, but no matter. The Supreme Court knew better.
So how has that theory worked out? Normally we'd have to wait a while to find out. Even Citizens United, which gutted campaign financing law, took a few years before its full effect was obvious. But in this case, a few weeks has been enough. A couple of days ago, the North Carolina Senate voted to approve a draconian set of changes to its voting laws, and there's not much question that final passage will come shortly. Check out this astonishing list of changes in the bill:
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