Sunday August 18th 2013
Part 2
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Syria refugees flood Iraqi Kurdistan
Thousands of refugees from Syria are pouring over the border into Iraqi Kurdistan, the UN refugee agency says.
Up to 10,000 crossed at Peshkhabour on Saturday, bringing the
total influx since Thursday to 20,000. The UN says the reasons are not
fully clear.The UN agencies, the Kurdish regional government and NGOs are struggling to cope, correspondents say.
It comes as UN chemical weapons inspectors arrived in Damascus on Sunday on a much-delayed mission.
The team will visit three sites over two weeks, including the northern town of Khan al-Assal which is at the centre of allegations of chemical weapons use.
'War and looting' The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says this is one of the biggest single waves of refugees it has had to deal with since the uprising against the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011.
While the reasons remain unclear, there has been a sharp rise in clashes between Syrian Kurds and anti-government Islamist militants.
The charity Save the Children has launched an emergency response to the mass arrival, distributing basic supplies to those waiting to be registered.
Egyptian authorities raid homes of Muslim Brotherhood members in bid to cut back on church-related attacks, protests
Egyptian authorities looking to crack down on attacks on Christian churches and businesses raided the homes of Muslim Brotherhood members Sunday, detaining hundreds of mid-level officials as the group cancelled plans for marches in Cairo, claiming that snipers were positioned on rooftops along the routes.Since security forces cleared two sit-in camps filled with supporters of former President Mohammed Morsi on Wednesday, Islamists have attacked dozens of Coptic churches, along with homes and businesses owned by the Christian minority. The campaign of intimidation appears to be a warning to Christians outside Cairo to stand down from political activism.
At least 300 Muslim Brotherhood officials and field operatives were detained in several cities during Sunday's raids, security officials and group statements said.
Egypt set for more clashes as Muslim Brotherhood faces another ban
Security forces continue crackdown on Islamist party outlawed under Mubarak, after violence leaves hundreds dead
Egypt is braced for more demonstrations on Sunday, after the military-backed government signalled plans to outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood, while troops cleared a Cairo mosque of Brotherhood supporters who were protesting against the removal of President Mohamed Morsi in July.
Further violence fuelled a grimly confrontational mood at the end of a week during which 800 people were killed, and hopes for the future of the 2011 revolution faded fast. Talk of the risk of an Egyptian civil war is no longer outlandish. The government said that 173 people had died across the country on Friday. The latest victims included the son of Mohamed Badie, the Brotherhood's leader.
The EU said on Sunday that it will review its relationship with Egypt in the coming days. In a statement, the president of the European council, Herman Van Rompuy, and the president of the European commission, José Manuel Barroso, called on all sides in Egypt to show restraint and prevent further escalation of the violence.
Army chief: Room for all in Egypt
The head of Egypt's armed
forces has said that his message to the supporters of ousted President
Mohammed Morsi is that "there is room for everyone".
Gen Abdul Fattah al-Sisi urged them to help "rebuild the democratic path" and "integrate in the political process".But he also warned the military would not be silent in the face of violence.
They were Gen Sisi's first public comments since hundreds of people were killed when security forces cleared two pro-Morsi camps in Cairo on Wednesday.
The pro-Morsi Anti-Coup Alliance says it is going ahead with protests in the capital, despite earlier reports that they had all been cancelled because of the threat of "snipers" along the route.
Meanwhile, the Mena state news agency reported that 79 people were killed and 549 wounded in violence across the country on Saturday.
'Torching the nation' Gen Sisi deposed Mr Morsi on 3 July, saying the military could not ignore the millions of people who had been demanding the resignation of Egypt's first democratically elected president.
110 killed, 300,000 affected due to heavy rain in Pakistan
KARACHI: At least 110 people have been killed and 300,000 others affected due to the heavy monsoon rains and flooding in many parts of Pakistan, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said on Sunday.
Senior NDMA officials said heavy rain and flooding had caused havoc in the provinces of Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa, Punjab and Balochistan.
"In two weeks, the heavy rain have affected more than 300,000 people who have been displaced while around 110 people have died in the flooding and other incidents caused by the rain," an official said.
He said around 770 villages had been hit by the rains while flooding had destroyed 2,427 houses across Pakistan. The NDMA has established 44 relief camps in flood-hit areas to accommodate affected people, the official added.
The rains also led to widespread problems in the urban areas with major cities like Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi facing flooding. In Karachi, the heavy rains last week caused widespread damage in which around two dozen people were killed.
More than 1,800 people were killed and 21 million affected in 2010 floods in Pakistan.
Lebanon seizes explosive-laden car south of Beirut, arrests 4 suspects
BEIRUT - Lebanese security forces seized a car loaded with explosives and arrested four men suspected of preparing bombs, days after a deadly bombing in southern Beirut, security sources said on Sunday.The car was discovered on Saturday about 15 km (10 miles) south of the capital in Naameh, laden with five containers of TNT as well as nitroglycerin, they said.
The four men were being held on suspicion of preparing explosives for possible use in car bombings, but were not believed to be connected to Saturday's discovery or to the car bomb that killed 27 people three days ago, the sources said.
That attack in a Shi'ite district of southern Beirut which is a stronghold of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah was the deadliest in the capital since Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.
The bombing, which Shi'ite Hezbollah blamed on radical Sunni Muslims, followed months of growing sectarian tension in Lebanon fuelled in part by Hezbollah's intervention against Sunni Muslim rebels in Syria's civil war.
India capture master terrorist in Nepal
One of the subcontinent's most wanted terrorists, alleged to have masterminded and carried out more than 40 bomb attacks, has been captured by police after nearly two decades on the run.Abul Karim 'Tunda', a bomb-maker and ideologue of Lashkar-e-Taiba, was arrested in Kathmandu on Friday and handed over to Indian authorities on the India-Nepal border.
70-year-old Indian-born Tunda's name has been at, or near, the top of India's most wanted lists for 19 years, as he evaded arrest travelling between Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh on false passports.
He is wanted for masterminding 43 bomb blasts in and around Delhi since 1992, which killed 20 people and injured more than 500.
He is alleged to be an expert at making improvised explosives from household goods, but lost his left arm in an explosives accident decades ago.
In recent years, he has risen in the Lashkar-e-Taiba hierarchy to the role of ideologue, recruiter of suicide bombers, and preacher of terrorist dogma.
Lashkar-e-Taiba, Urdu for Army of the Righteous, is a Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist organisation, with links to al Qaeda and other militant networks. It is responsible for attacks on the Indian parliament, and for the 2008 attack on the city of Mumbai that killed 164 people.
LeT was proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Australia in 2003.
Tunda was seen as one of LeT's key operatives, and his arrest has been hailed as a major coup by Indian security forces.
Spoon in underwear saving youths from forced marriage
The campaign to recall San Diego Mayor Bob Filner over allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment will formally get underway Sunday, the first day that signatures can be collected for a recall petition.
Organizers have announced plans to circulate petitions at the finish line of a half-marathon due to be run Sunday morning and stage a march and rally in the afternoon. Organizers have until September 26 to collect 101,597 signatures, or 15 percent of San Diego's registered voters.
Proponents of the recall say that more than 800 people have signed up to volunteer on behalf of the recall drive.
"We're so gratified and encouraged by the enthusiastic response to our call for volunteers," Michael Pallamary, a land use consultant who filed the petition to recall Filner, told Fox5SanDiego.com. "This is a tremendous grass roots undertaking — truly the people taking back their government from an abuser who has betrayed San Diegans, demeaned women and who can no longer lead our city."
Congress Divided Over Key Egypt Question
WASHINGTON -- Members of Congress are split over whether the U.S. should cut off military aid to Egypt, highlighting the difficult choices facing the Obama administration amid spiraling violence on the streets of an important Middle East ally.Democratic leaders have generally supported the president's approach. But on Sunday Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., said he would cut off aid to Egypt. Ellison is the first Muslim elected to Congress and is co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
"I would cut off aid but engage in intense diplomacy in Egypt and in the region to try to say, look, we will restore aid when you stop the bloodshed in the street and set up a path towards democracy that you were on before," Ellison said. "In my mind, there's no way to say that this was not a coup. It is. We should say so. And then follow our own law, which says we cannot fund the coup leaders."
Among Republicans, there were growing calls to eliminate military aid to Egypt. But others were more hesitant.
Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., said curtailing aid could reduce U.S. influence over Egypt's interim government, which controls access to strategic resources, including the Suez Canal.
"I'm reluctant to cut off aid," said King, who chairs the House panel on counterterrorism and intelligence.
Dems Defy Obama on Mortgage Protections
Twelve Democrats in the House and Joe Manchin in the Senate have cosponsored bills that would gut new protections on home loans.
Last week, President Barack Obama laid out his new housing plan, emphasizing the importance of safe, simple, affordable mortgages. But lawmakers in his own party are working against him, trying to gut historic new safeguards on home loans.A new mortgage rule issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that takes effect January 1 limits fees on new home loans to three percent. The regulation is "one of the most direct and important responses to the mortgage crisis," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) argued in a recent editorial in American Banker. But 12 House Democrats and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) have joined with Republicans to cosponsor bills that would eviscerate the new cap and clear the way for lenders to steer Americans into riskier, higher-cost loans.
Senate’s pivotal 2014 races take shape
WASHINGTON — The battle for Congress won’t fully engage until next year, but it sure looks like election season now as political activity explodes this summer at America’s county fairs, town halls and campaign fundraisers.From Alaska to West Virginia, what’s happening around the country as lawmakers spend a month back home might shape the 2014 political map.
Wyoming, for instance, where quiet workhorse Sen. Michael Enzi was expected to coast to a fourth term, was way off the political radar until Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, decided to challenge him for the Republican nomination.
Nor was Kentucky a particularly hot spot, despite Democrats’ eagerness to deny Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell another term. Today, though, the state is a political caldron, after Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes jumped in the race and suddenly was even with the five-term incumbent in one poll.
Other races faced similar upheavals.
Former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer was a Democratic star in the making until he decided last month not to seek the seat of retiring Democratic Sen. Max Baucus. In Arkansas, Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor knew he’d have a tough time, but the entry of Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., into the race might make his uphill climb even steeper. In Georgia, Michelle Nunn’s Senate candidacy has given the Democrats a rare chance in the Deep South.
Prime minister begins 8th annual visit to the North
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is due to arrive in Whitehorse today
for his annual Northern tour, with stops also planned this week for the
Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Northern Quebec.
Harper, whose visit to the North will last until Friday, will deliver remarks at 4:30 p.m. PT Sunday at a barbecue event in Yukon.
He'll be joined by several members of his cabinet, and will also be greeted by Senator Daniel Lang and Ryan Leef, the member of Parliament for Yukon.
The federal ministers accompanying the prime minister include:
An itinerary released by the Prime Minister's Office indicates Harper will be making an announcement in the Whitehorse area on Monday.
On Tuesday, he'll be a guest at a Conservative Party luncheon at the Hay River Golf Club in the Northwest Territories.
Other communities on his itinerary include Gjoa Haven and Rankin Inlet in Nunavut. He is scheduled to make an announcement in Nunavik.
Harper, whose visit to the North will last until Friday, will deliver remarks at 4:30 p.m. PT Sunday at a barbecue event in Yukon.
He'll be joined by several members of his cabinet, and will also be greeted by Senator Daniel Lang and Ryan Leef, the member of Parliament for Yukon.
The federal ministers accompanying the prime minister include:
- Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq, who is also the MP for Nunavut and the minister for the Arctic Council.
- Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver.
- Bernard Valcourt, minister of aboriginal affairs and Northern development.
An itinerary released by the Prime Minister's Office indicates Harper will be making an announcement in the Whitehorse area on Monday.
On Tuesday, he'll be a guest at a Conservative Party luncheon at the Hay River Golf Club in the Northwest Territories.
Other communities on his itinerary include Gjoa Haven and Rankin Inlet in Nunavut. He is scheduled to make an announcement in Nunavik.
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