Crowd masses for rally, Mousavi calls day of mourning

Thousands join pro-Mousavi rally
Play Video
By Parisa Hafezi and Hashem Kalantari
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Iranians marched in quiet defiance on Wednesday in protest against moderate Mirhossein Mousavi's election defeat, ahead of a day of mourning he has called for those killed in clashes.
(Editors' note: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.)
In a fifth successive day of protests, Mousavi supporters demonstrated in central Tehran against the official victory of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Friday's vote, which has caused the worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
At least seven people were killed in street battles in Tehran on Monday, according to state media. Other protests have flared up in cities elsewhere in Iran.
"A number of our countrymen were wounded or martyred," Mousavi said, calling Thursday's day of mourning.
"I ask the people to express their solidarity with the families ... by coming together in mosques or taking part in peaceful demonstrations," Mousavi said on his website.
Bloodshed, mass protests, arrests and a media crackdown have focused attention on the world's fifth-biggest oil exporter which is locked in a dispute with the West over its nuclear program.
After Mousavi's web message, his supporters poured into Tehran's Haft-e Tir Square, ignoring an Interior Ministry warning, witnesses said. They were mostly dressed in black with wristbands and headbands in Mousavi's green campaign colors.
Most of the protesters, some holding pictures of Mousavi as well as green balloons, were silent and making victory signs. One young woman held a picture of one of those killed during post-election violence.
Asked if she was afraid of reprisals, another woman who gave her age as 25, said: "Why should we be? We are many and they cannot resist our demands."
The mass protests are a direct challenge to the authorities who have kept a tight grip on dissent since the U.S.-backed shah was overthrown in 1979 after months of protest.
The political earthquake set off by Friday's vote prompted U.S. President Barack Obama, who had urged the Iranian leadership to "unclench its fist," to say the upheaval showed "Iranian people are not convinced with the legitimacy of the election."
Major Western countries have questioned the result's fairness.
Discord within Iran's ruling system has never been so public. The Mousavi camp is backed by traditional establishment figures, such as former presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, concerned about how Ahmadinejad's truculent foreign policy and populist economics are shaping Iran's future.
State television has said the "main agents" behind the turmoil have been arrested along with guns and explosives. Continued...
Source: Reuters

U.S., Israel seek clarity on settlement freeze

By Adam Entous
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The United States wants Israel to impose a moratorium on new tenders for building in Jewish settlements in the West Bank but is considering allowances that could permit some projects already under way to proceed, Western and Israeli officials said on Wednesday.
U.S. President Barack Obama's blunt and public call for Israel to halt all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank opened a rare rift between the close allies.
But both sides say they want to work out their differences.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in Europe next week to try to hammer out an agreement, Israeli officials said.
"That's our goal but we're not there yet," a senior Israeli official said.
Mitchell has said a key element has been trying to pin down exactly what Israel means by the "natural growth" of settlements that Netanyahu has said he will defend. In principle, Netanyahu says he wants growing families to be able to accommodate their children in the towns that Israelis have built on occupied land.
While firm in demanding a ban on new tenders as part of an overall settlement freeze, Western and Israeli officials said the Obama administration was assessing in which cases continued building could be permitted.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said allowances for continued building could be made if, for example, a project in a settlement was nearing completion or for cases in which money has been invested in a project and cannot be reimbursed.
"There's room for some flexibility in defining what's acceptable in terms of a settlement freeze. Where do you draw the line?" the official said of deliberations within the Obama administration.
NATURAL GROWTH
The officials said the Obama administration has yet to agree to any exceptions, and stressed that Washington's stated goal of a total freeze in settlement activity, including building in existing blocs to accommodate growing settler families, known as "natural growth," would not change.
Mitchell said in Washington on Tuesday of his meetings with Israeli and other officials: "There are almost as many definitions (of natural growth) as there are people speaking."
He added: "Different people have different interpretations of different phrases ... and we're trying to reach an agreement and understanding that helps us move the process forward."
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, leader of a right-wing party in Netanyahu's government and himself a settler, was meeting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington later on Wednesday.
Netanyahu has asserted that his government does not have the legal authority to stop building in cases in which tenders for new structures have already been awarded or when homes under construction have already been purchased. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Romanians flee Belfast homes after racist attacks

By Anne Cadwallader
BELFAST (Reuters) - Gangs of men have smashed windows and broken the doors of houses occupied by more than 100 Romanians in Belfast, forcing them to flee their homes.
Sectarian violence between pro-British Protestants and pro-Irish Catholics has been a feature of life in the British-controlled province of Northern Ireland for decades, but crime against immigrants from Eastern Europe has been rising.
"I have no intention of staying in Northern Ireland. I want to pack up and go back to Romania," Maria, one of the victims, told reporters. She declined to give her last name but said she was acting as a spokeswoman for the group.
"It has gone on for two weeks. I haven't had a week's sleep. It is unbelievable what has happened."
The attacks on the Romanians -- including some being threatened at gunpoint -- follow rival fans clashing at a Northern Ireland-Poland World Cup qualifying soccer match in March, the same month two British soldiers and a policeman were killed in renewed attacks by pro-Irish militants.
Police said on Tuesday that they would be stepping up patrols but said they did not believe the attacks against the Romanians were organized.
"All they want to do is return to Romania, that sends out a very negative message about Northern Ireland," Jeffrey Donaldson, a DUP junior minister told reporters.
"Just as sectarianism in the past has been responsible for violence and division, we cannot allow racism to become the new sectarianism. We want to leave that behind us."
Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said the attacks were an affront to the vast majority of people in Belfast and called for the perpetrators to be punished.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown echoed his comments.
Police assisted support groups in moving the families to a church hall overnight and then to a leisure center, where the local community donated blankets, towels, food and milk. Officials have helped them find other temporary accommodation.
(Additional reporting by Adrian Croft in London, Writing by Padraic Halpin in Dublin; Editing by Alison Williams)

Source: Reuters

More than 100,000 German students protest

By Jacob Comenetz
BERLIN (Reuters) - More than 100,000 university students, children, and teachers took to the streets in cities across Germany on Wednesday to protest at an educational system they called underfunded and unfair.
Activists blocked the entrances to university buildings, occupied administrative offices, and marched in protest parades in cities including Berlin and Munich, as well as in university towns such as Heidelberg and Goettingen.
Around half of Germany's states allow universities to charge tuition fees, but most institutions do not and the system is chronically short of funding.
The marchers carried banners reading "Cough up the cash, rise up against social bandits," "Save education, not only the banks" and "Investment in education = guaranteed returns."
Organizers said 240,000 students took part while police estimated a number about half as high, local media said.
Marlene Gesche, a University of Potsdam student, was marching in Berlin because she said she felt cheated out of a decent education due to insufficient funding.
"I'm here protesting because I'm not really learning anything at my university," Gesche said. "There's no money for books. There is also often a lack of instructors."
A group of students chanted: "We're here and we're loud because our education is being stolen."
Organizers of the "Bildungsstreik" (or school strike), a week-long series of protests that reached its climax on Wednesday, said their aim was to spark an election-year public discussion about the future of the education system.
Margret Wintermantel, head of the German Rectors' Conference (HRK) of university presidents, said she could sympathize with some but not all of the reasons for the protests.
"The student/teacher ratio is a problem," Wintermantel said.
But she rejected other demands of the protesters including abolishing tuition fees that some states have introduced and abandoning the European-standard bachelor and master degrees that are being phased in over several years.
"It's wrong to say that tuition fees limit equal opportunity for access to higher education," she said. "We haven't seen a decline in attendance where tuition fees have been introduced."
Some states now have fees of about 1,000 euros per year.
Germany's education minister, Annette Schavan, rejected most of the claims by the protesters, saying that on balance the German system had been improved in recent years.
"Whoever says we have to do away with the bachelor and masters course of studies has not realized that Germany is part of a European-wide educational area," she told German radio.

Source: Reuters

Fighting in Somalia capital kills at least 22

By Abdi Guled and Ibrahim Mohamed
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Heavy fighting between hardline Islamist rebels and government forces in Somalia's capital on Wednesday killed at least 22 people, including Mogadishu's police chief.
Insurgents with links to al Qaeda stepped up attacks on the government in early May to try and oust President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed. Fierce clashes have killed nearly 300 people since then.
Western nations, some of Somalia's neighbors and the government fear that if the chaos persists, more foreign fighters coming to wage holy war will be sucked into the Horn of African nation, increasing risks to the region in general.
"We do not have a specific number, but at least 500 fighters are in Mogadishu alone and I think this is a great danger to the entire region," Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke said. "Some middle ranking al Qaeda officials came into the country and they want to make a base in Somalia.
"If these guys succeed in taking over Somalia, they will create havoc in the continent," he told Reuters in Nairobi.
The fighting on Wednesday came after government forces attacked rebels in Mogadishu, the latest in a string of offensives to try and dislodge the insurgents from the capital.
Eyewitnesses said a mortar bomb killed eight people in one house alone in Bakara Market, a rebel stronghold. Other residents said there was fierce fighting in the Hodan area.
"From the window of our house I have seen three civilian people who died in the fighting lying in street. I have also seen two dead insurgents on a pick up truck," Hodan resident Hassan Kasim Ali told Reuters.
POLICE CHIEF KILLED
Mogadishu Police Chief Ali Said was killed in the government attack and people in various parts of the city were struck down by stray bullets.
"The commander died in the fighting this morning when the troops overran the opposition trenches," Abdiqadir Odweyne, a senior police official, told Reuters.
Dead bodies lay in the streets and hospital wards were packed with casualties.
"We have received 50 people injured in today's fighting," Dahir Dhere, deputy director of the Madina hospital in Mogadishu, told Reuters. The hardline al Shabaab group has so far resisted government attempts drive its fighters from the capital and the rebels, along with allied group Hizbul Islam, control most of southern Somalia bordering Kenya and parts of the central region.
Analysts say the fighting in Mogadishu is the worst for years and the chances of any negotiated peace are waning.
African Union peacekeepers are protecting key sites from the insurgents but government forces have so far lacked sufficient strength to score decisive wins within or outside the capital. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Sri Lanka scoffs at new Tamil exiled government

By C. Bryson Hull
COLOMBO (Reuters) - The remnants of the Tamil Tigers have vowed to form a government in exile to push their separatist cause, which Sri Lanka on Wednesday called an "hallucination" and another illegal attempt to violate its unitary status.
The decision came less than a month after the Sri Lankan military finally crushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in a 25-year civil war, and President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared Sri Lanka reunified.
Selvarajah Pathmanathan, the top remaining LTTE leader, in a voice clip e-mailed on Tuesday signed off on the formation of a committee to create a "provisional transnational government of Tamil Eelam to take forward the next phase of the struggle."
Tamil Eelam was the name for the separate state the LTTE fought to create for Sri Lanka's Tamils, and what it had called the areas of northern and eastern Sri Lanka it had ruled until the end of the war.
Reacting to the announcement, Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said "imagination will lead to hallucinations" and said the country had stepped up efforts to have Pathmanathan, known as KP, arrested.
"I have carried personally the arrest warrants for KP and handed them over to my counterparts in several countries and I expect the earliest arrest of KP. He will stand trial in the judicial system in our country," Bogollagama told reporters.
Pathmanathan spent most of his career building and operating the LTTE's weapons and smuggling networks, and is wanted by Interpol.
IN HIDING
He is believed to have control over the LTTE's substantial financial assets and is thought to be in hiding somewhere in southeast Asia under one of his many assumed names.
Pathmanathan named a committee, to be led by former LTTE peace negotiator Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran, which is expected to form a plan by the end of the year to create the government.
"We call all Tamil people and Tamil organizations to provide this committee their wholehearted support and assistance," Pathmanathan said.
Pathmanathan is the highest-ranking LTTE member believed still alive after most of the leadership including founder Vellupillai Prabhakaran were killed in a cataclysmic final battle.
Rajiva Wijesinha, the head of Sri Lanka's peace secretariat, said the plan was an attempt by the "rump of the LTTE" to keep its control over Tamil politics in Sri Lanka.
"It is an effort by the Tigers to pursue yet another illegal action, and I only hope the world won't react positively," Wijesinha said. "The real problem is it puts pressure on the democratic Tamil parties."
In his announcement, Pathmanathan said the Tamil National Alliance, a grouping of Tamil parties long known as its front, would remain so. Continued...
Source: Reuters

U.S. asks Spain to take four Guantanamo inmates

MADRID (Reuters) - The United States has asked Spain to take four inmates from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Madrid will study the request case by case, Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said on Wednesday.
"We will study each case one by one and respond once we understand the implications of the decision and in what way we can help the United States close Guantanamo," Moratinos told a news conference.
"There may be more cases presented in the future," he said.
Senior U.S. State Department official Daniel Fried had been due to meet Spanish officials in Madrid to discuss possible relocation of detainees from Guantanamo, Spanish and U.S. embassy officials said.
Newspaper El Pais reported that Spain was prepared to take between three and five inmates but that Spanish authorities want to discuss who would pay for security for any such detainees.
The men in question would probably be Syrian and Tunisian citizens, would not necessarily have any prior links to Spain and would probably have freedom of movement within the country, the newspaper reported.
The European Union said on Monday that its member states were ready to help resettle detainees freed from the prison at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba. Italy has agreed to take three of the prisoners.
Soon after taking office on January 20, U.S. President Barack Obama set a one-year deadline for closing the prison, which holds more than 220 inmates and has been strongly criticized by human rights groups.
Obama has insisted some of the inmates will be sent to prisons in the United States, but he faces strong opposition in Congress.
(Reporting by Tracy Rucinski and Jason Webb; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Source: Reuters

Mousavi calls day of mourning for Iran dead

Rallies clash in central Tehran
Play Video
By Dominic Evans and Fredrik Dahl
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Defeated presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi urged supporters to stage protests or gather in mosques to mourn those killed after disputed elections that set off Iran's worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
(Editors' note: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on leaving the office to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.)
Hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory against the reformist Mousavi sparked demonstrations and bloody street battles in Tehran which killed at least seven people on Monday while other protests flared up in cities across Iran.
"A number of our countrymen were wounded or martyred," Mousavi said in a statement on his website posted on Wednesday.
"I ask the people to express their solidarity with the families ... by coming together in mosques or taking part in peaceful demonstrations," said Mousavi, adding that he would also take part in the day of mourning planned for Thursday.
The bloodshed, mass protests over four days, arrests and a media crackdown focused world attention on the fifth-biggest oil exporter which is locked in a nuclear standoff with the West.
Discord within Iran's ruling system has never been so public. The Mousavi camp is backed by traditional establishment figures, such as former presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, concerned about how Ahmadinejad's truculent foreign policy and populist economics are shaping Iran's future.
Further protests planned for Wednesday and Thursday are a direct challenge to the authorities who have kept a tight grip on dissent since the U.S.-backed shah was overthrown in 1979 after months of protest.
In a stark warning, Fars News Agency quoted Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli as saying "no permission has been issued for a gathering or rally in Haft-e Tir Square" on Wednesday.
State television has said the "main agents" behind the turmoil have been arrested with guns and explosives.
Tens of thousands of pro-Mousavi supporters defied authorities to rally in Tehran on Tuesday after the seven were killed in Monday's violence but international media were forbidden from leaving their offices to cover the event.
After Monday's deaths, Mousavi had urged followers to call off a planned rally in the same downtown area on Tuesday so the marchers headed north instead. Some sent messages to meet again on Wednesday for a rally at Tehran's central Haft-e Tir Square.
MORE ARRESTS, DEATH PENALTY
Security forces arrested a pro-reform activist and an editor on Wednesday while a provincial prosecutor warned that those causing unrest faced the death penalty. An official inquiry was launched into an attack on university students.
Mohammadreza Habibi, prosecutor-general in the province of Isfahan, said: "We warn the few ... controlled by foreigners who try to disrupt domestic security by inciting individuals to destroy and to commit arson that the Islamic penal code for such individuals waging war against God is execution." Continued...
Source: Reuters

No French access to Brazil plane crash autopsies

Air France tail fin taken to Brazil
Play Video
By Tim Hepher
PARIS (Reuters) - France's chief air disaster investigator said on Wednesday he was unhappy that a French pathologist had not been allowed to take part in autopsies in Brazil of bodies recovered after an Air France plane crash.
Brazilian and French ships are still searching for wreckage and bodies from the plane that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, killing all 228 people on board.
Paul-Louis Arslanian, head of the BEA agency in charge of investigating the crash, cautioned against speculation about the causes but said investigators were getting a little closer to understanding what had happened.
"We are getting a little closer to our goal but don't ask me what the percentage of hope is," Arslanian told a news conference, stressing the conditions in a remote area of ocean were among the most challenging in an air crash investigation.
He said a French pathologist sent to Brazil had not been authorized to take part in the autopsies of recovered bodies, and France had not had access to the Brazilian autopsy results.
During his televised news conference he declined to say more on the subject, but afterwards he was pressed by reporters to say if he was dissatisfied with the lack of access given to the French doctor.
"I am not happy. Eventually, I hope I'll have an explanation. For the time being it is a fact and nothing more. Please don't try to create problems between France and Brazil," he said.
PATIENCE
Almost equal numbers of French and Brazilian passengers died in the crash of the Airbus A330, and both countries have been keen to show they are doing their utmost to recover bodies and understand the causes of the disaster.
Arslanian urged the public to show "a lot of patience" and to stick to known facts rather than engage in speculation.
The investigation agency has so far said data transmitted from the plane before it crashed indicated unreliable speed readings from the aircraft's sensors, but that it was too early to say whether this contributed to the accident.
In order to establish the causes of the crash, the worst in Air France's history, search teams must recover the plane's flight data recorders or "black boxes."
But the seabed where the plane is thought to have crashed is mountainous, meaning the wreckage could be lying at a depth of anything between 1 km (0.6 miles) and 4 km, investigators say.
The "pinger" locator beacons on the flight recorders send an electronic impulse every second for at least 30 days. The signal can be heard up to 2 km away.
"The goal is to understand what happened and for that we need tools and these tools must be facts. The recorders are recorders of facts. If we had them we would have more facts at our disposal," Arslanian said.
(Writing by Francois Murphy and Estelle Shirbon)

Source: Reuters

Pakistan sought time to act against militants: India

By Krittivas Mukherjee
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Wednesday that Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari had sought more time to act against anti-India militants because Islamabad's fight with the Taliban had entered a crucial phase.
"He did mention to me the difficulties Pakistan is facing in controlling terrorism and asked us to bear with him, to give him some more time," Singh told reporters on his way back from Russia's Yekaterinburg, where the two leaders met on Tuesday.
Singh's comments came a day after he urged Zardari to ensure Pakistan was not used to launch attacks on India.
Their meeting, the first since last year's attacks on Mumbai, marked a tentative thaw in relations but stopped well short of reopening a peace process that India had put on hold after the Mumbai assault.
India blames Pakistan-based anti-India groups for attacking Indian cities and named the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group as responsible for the attack on Mumbai which killed 166 people.
Pakistan says it is investigating the Mumbai attacks, even while it struggles to push back a growing Taliban insurgency.
Security forces have made progress in more than a month of fighting against militants in Swat. The militants have responded with a string of bombs in towns and cities.
Pakistani military has been ordered to go on the offensive against Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in his stronghold in South Waziristan on the Afghan border.
"I explained to him that whereas now Pakistan has taken effective action against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, we have a strong feeling that those elements who are active in perpetrating terrorist acts in our country ... (are) not being brought to justice," Singh said.
He said India would not close channels of communication with Pakistan and would continue to try to make peace with it.
"We have often said we can choose our friends, we have to live with our neighbors, and therefore, it is obligatory on us not to close channels of communication," Singh said.
Singh's comments hold out prospects of more talks between officials of the two countries and their leaderships.
An Indian official told Reuters on Tuesday Singh and Zardari would meet in July in Egypt, which is hosting the Non-Aligned Movement summit.

Source: Reuters

Syrian dissident receives rare acquittal

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
DAMASCUS (Reuters) - A Syrian court issued on Wednesday a rare acquittal in a political case, finding dissident Walid al-Bunni not guilty of "weakening the morale of the nation."
Bunni is already serving a 2-1/2 year jail term for political crimes since he took part in a 2007 meeting that tried to revive a movement for democracy in Syria.
He was indicted while in jail for having conversations with an imamate that constituted in the view of the attorney general "false statements that weaken national morale."
"In the name of the people of Syria the court rules against the prosecution and announces defendant Walid al-Bunni not guilty," said Brigadier General Mohammad Abu Zaid, the military court judge.
Bunni, whose mother died several weeks ago, did not react.
The session was attended by diplomats of Western states including France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark and the United States, which has improved its ties with Damascus in recent months.
Mohannad al-Hassani, Bunni's lawyer, said the judge acquitted his client for lack of evidence after allowing the defense to present nine witnesses compared to one for the prosecution.
Hassani said another court jailed last month Kurdish politician Mishaal al-Tammo for 3-1/2 years for weakening national morale without allowing Tammo's lawyers to present a defense memo.
Kamal al-Labwani, another dissident was sentenced last year to 2-1/2 years in prison on top of a 12-year term he was already serving on weakening national morale charges Hassani said were trumped up.
SYSTEM INTACT
"I wish all the courts on Syria would follow the lead of this tribunal, which did its duty and fairly applied the law," Hassani said.
Bunni, a 46- year physician, served a prison term from 2001 to 2006 for his role in what became known as the Damascus Spring, a brief period of openness following president Bashar al-Assad's succession of his late father, Hafez al-Assad, in 2000.
The Damascus Spring was crushed and Bashar kept intact the political system he inherited, including emergency law and the monopoly of the Baath party on power, but took several steps to liberalize the economy after decades of heavy nationalization.
Several of the Damascus Spring leaders, including Bunni and Riad Seif, who has prostate cancer, were imprisoned again in recent years.
Appeals by Western leaders and politicians, such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy and U.S. Senator John Kerry, to Bashar to release them have failed. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Gunmen kill Greek anti-terrorist policeman

Witness protection officer shot dead
Play Video
By Dina Kyriakidou
ATHENS (Reuters) - Leftist urban guerrillas shot dead a Greek anti-terrorism policeman in Athens on Wednesday in the worst attack since riots in December launched a wave of bombings and shootings in Greece.
Police said the attackers, believed to belong to the Rebel Sect group, shot the 41-year-old officer several times at close range. He died in his car as they fled on motorcycles in the densely populated Patissia area of Athens.
"It was a cold-blooded murder ... they just drew their guns and murdered him," police spokesman Panagiotis Stathis told reporters at the scene.
Leftist and anarchist groups have unleashed a series of attacks against police, political and business targets since a policeman shot dead a teenager in Athens in December, triggering Greece's worst riots in decades.
The violence has rocked Greece's conservative government, clinging to a one-seat majority in parliament as its popularity plummets, mainly as a result of a slowing economy.
The early morning attack was similar to the shooting of a policeman in January, claimed by the Revolutionary Struggle urban guerrillas, Greece's most militant leftist group. That officer survived.
After Wednesday's attack, police found 24 shells from two guns and witnesses said at least two more people were involved. Nine of the shells matched a weapon used by Rebel Sect to fire dozens of shots against the ALTER TV station earlier this year, a police statement said.
PROTECTION PROGRAMME
It was the group's first deadly hit after emerging with a gun and grenade attack against an Athens police station in February.
The policeman, a father of one child, had just taken over a shift guarding a witness involved in a case against another urban guerrilla group.
The witness was in a protection program after testifying against a member of the now defunct People's Revolutionary Struggle (ELA) group, who was convicted with others in 2004.
"The victim had been shot with at least 15 to 20 bullets," Stathis said.
A coroner told reporters at the scene the policeman had his gun in his holster, showing he did not have time to react.
"He carries multiple fire arm entry wounds, mostly on the left side of his body," public coroner Filippos Koutsaftis told reporters. "His gun was in his belt."
The unidentified attackers disappeared in the streets of Patissia and a manhunt was launched in the area. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Backers of Iran's Mousavi plan more protests

More rallies in Tehran
Play Video
(EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters coverage is now subject to an Iranian ban on foreign media leaving the office to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.)
By Dominic Evans and Fredrik Dahl
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Supporters of Iran's defeated presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi aim to keep pressure up with new protests Wednesday over a disputed poll which has led to the biggest upheaval since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Despite the authorities' readiness for a partial recount, they plan a fifth day of demonstrations since Friday's poll in which hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was officially declared to have won a resounding victory.
U.S. President Barack Obama, who has sought to engage Iran and asked its leadership to "unclench its fist," said protests in the world's fifth-biggest oil exporter showed the "Iranian people are not convinced with the legitimacy of the election."
Seven people were killed in a vast opposition protest on Monday in central Tehran and Mousavi urged his followers to call off a planned rally in the same area the following day.
Tens of thousands of pro-Mousavi demonstrators marched instead Tuesday in northern Tehran and many of them to the state television IRIB building, which was ringed by riot police, witnesses said.
Wearing wristbands and ribbons in his green campaign colors, they carried his picture and made victory signs. Some were sending messages to others to meet again Wednesday for a rally at Tehran's central Haft-e Tir Square.
"Where is our vote," read one placard in the rally. "A new greeting to the world," said another beneath a picture of the bespectacled, bearded 67-year-old Mousavi.
In an apparent bid to head off the opposition rally in the center of the capital, Ahmadinejad's supporters mobilized a big crowd of demonstrators where Mousavi's supporters had originally planned to gather.
In what appeared to be a first concession by authorities to the protest movement in Iran's top legislative body said it was prepared for a partial recount but ruled out annulling the poll.
The decision was taken by the 12-man Guardian Council.
"TAPS OF DISCONTENT"
Further protests, especially if they are on the same scale as Monday's, are a direct challenge to the authorities who have kept a tight grip on dissent since the U.S.-backed shah was overthrown in 1979 after months of demonstrations.
Finland's ambassador to Tehran, Heikki Puurunen, said the protests had come as a surprise to Iran's leadership.
"It will continue for sure, because now in a way the taps of discontent have been opened...There is no revolution coming in my view, but some kind of compromise will be made," he told Finland's national broadcaster. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Obama, Lee warn North Korea; missile on the move

United front against North Korea
Play Video
By Jack Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) - The leaders of South Korea and the United States told North Korea to drop its atomic ambitions and stop threatening the region while media reports on Wednesday said Pyongyang was moving ahead with plans to launch a long-range missile.
After a summit with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Washington on Tuesday, U.S. President Barack Obama said a nuclear-armed North Korea would pose a "grave threat" to the world. He vowed new U.N. sanctions imposed for North Korea's May 25 nuclear test would be strictly enforced.
"Given the belligerent manner in which they are constantly threatening their neighbors, I don't think there's any question that that would be a destabilizing situation that would be a profound threat to not only the United States' security, but to world security," Obama said at a news conference.
Obama vowed to end a cycle of allowing North Korea to create a nuclear crisis, then get concessions in the form of food, fuel and other incentives in return for backing down, only to later see Pyongyang renege on its promises.
"This is a pattern they've come to expect," Obama said. "We are going to break that pattern."
Obama also reaffirmed Washington's commitment to the defense of South Korea, including keeping it under the U.S. "nuclear umbrella," a move likely to anger Pyongyang, which accuses Washington of scheming to mount a nuclear attack against it.
Analysts say the North's provocative moves are partly aimed at building internal support for leader Kim Jong-il, who appears to be laying the foundation for his youngest son to eventually take over the impoverished nation. The 67-year-old leader is believed to have suffered a stroke last year.
MISSILE TRAIN ON THE MOVE
North Korea has also threatened to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile after being earlier punished for a long-range rocket launch in April, which was widely seen as a disguised missile test that violated U.N. resolutions.
A South Korean newspaper said the North's special train for moving intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) had made a trip to an east-coast missile base, weeks after it was seen moving a missile to a new site on the west coast.
U.S. and South Korean authorities believe the train may have moved a long-range rocket to the Musudan-ri base on the east coast, used to launch two long-range rockets in the past, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper said.
"A U.S. spy satellite spotted a special ICBM transport train moving from the manufacturing plant (near Pyongyang) to the Musudan-ri test site and staying there for a few days before returning," it quoted a government source as saying.
The rocket launched in April flew about 3,000 km (1,860 miles), well short of the 4,800 km needed to reach the Alaskan coast. The rocket, called the Taepodong-2, is designed to fly as far as U.S. territory.
Japan's Sankei newspaper, which did not cite any sources, said there was activity at missile bases on both coasts that appeared to be preparations for launches.
The moves at one site could be a ruse aimed at confusing U.S. and Japanese intelligence, it said. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Gunmen shoot dead Greek anti-terrorist policeman

By Dina Kyriakidou
ATHENS (Reuters) - Two gunmen shot dead a Greek anti-terrorist policeman guarding a witness in Athens on Wednesday then fled on a motorcycle, police said.
In the worst attack since riots in December launched a wave of urban guerrilla violence in Greece, the 41-year-old officer was shot several times at close range and died in his car in the densely populated Patissia area of Athens.
"It was a cold-blooded murder ... they just drew their guns and murdered him," police spokesman Panagiotis Stathis told reporters at the scene.
The recent violence has rocked Greece's conservative government, clinging to a one-seat majority in parliament as its popularity plummets, mainly as a result of a slowing economy.
The early morning attack was similar to the shooting of a policeman in January, claimed by the Revolutionary Struggle urban guerrillas, Greece's most militant leftist group. That officer survived the attack.
In Wednesday's shooting, the policeman and father of one child, had just taken over a shift guarding a witness involved in a case against an urban guerrilla group.
The unidentified attackers quickly disappeared in the streets of Patissia and a manhunt was launched in the area to locate them.
Police said there was no warning or any claim of responsibility for the attack, the latest of several against the police in Greece this year.
Leftist and anarchist guerrilla groups have launched a wave of violence against police, political and business targets since a policeman shot dead a teenager in Athens in December, prompting Greece's worst riots in decades.
There was no immediate reaction to the attack from the government.
(Reporting by Dina Kyriakidou, Editing by Ralph Boulton)

Source: Reuters

Indonesia's corruption court in fight for existence

By Olivia Rondonuwu
JAKARTA (Reuters) - It has put central bankers and government officials behind bars and is easily Indonesia's most feared judicial body. But the corruption court, an important weapon in the fight against graft, is now under threat itself.
Politicians, some of whom have much to fear from the court, are meddling with the panel of judges and even trying to close it down completely.
That could threaten one of the more successful anti-graft campaigns in a Southeast Asian nation that year after year ranks among the world's most corrupt.
Widespread graft deters investors who otherwise might pour billions of dollars into developing Indonesia's abundant oil, gas, and mineral deposits or improving its shoddy infrastructure. That is one reason Indonesian economic growth tends to languish behind economic behemoths like China and India.
"The battle against corruption is still a long way from over, but at least the public can see it has gone in the right direction," said Emerson Yuntho of Indonesia Corruption Watch.
Set up in 2004, the court -- housed in a shabby building in central Jakarta with broken glass windows and damp, smelly courtrooms -- has a number of features that have made it far more effective in punishing the corrupt than Indonesia's regular court system has been.
One is its system of appointing three ad hoc, or outside, judges out of a total of five on the panel. These ad hoc judges are picked from outside the court system and include academics and other professionals.
In a country where the judiciary itself is rated among the most corrupt institutions, these outsiders are considered more independent.
Armed with dossiers of evidence from the Corruption Eradication Commission, or KPK, the corruption court has had a 100 percent conviction rate. The average sentence, for the 90 or so defendants who have been tried. is about four years, according to Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW).
By contrast, the normal courts treat corruption cases much more leniently. Last year, 62 percent of those charged with corruption were let off by the public courts, up from 57 percent in 2007 and 31.4 percent in 2006. Sentences are generally lighter, with an average of just under six months, ICW said.
"We need the (corruption) court, because the public court is ineffective," said Budi Effendi, an unemployed man in Jakarta.
"But maybe we should follow China's example, recover the stolen money and sentence the corrupt to death to serve as a deterrent."
NO LONGER UNTOUCHABLE ?
Scores of senior officials, who under previous governments would have been considered virtually untouchable, have been sentenced by the corruption court including a former governor of Aceh province, Abdullah Puteh, and a leading prosecutor, Urip Tri Gunawan, who took bribes to drop a graft case involving a tycoon.
Several senior central bankers including a former governor, Burhanuddin Abdullah, were found guilty of making illegal payments from a foundation to several members of parliament in order to influence amendments to legislation. Continued...
Source: Reuters

U.N.'s Ban urged to help free Myanmar prisoners

By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his envoy to Myanmar have received a petition from over 670,000 people worldwide urging them to press Myanmar's military junta to release all political prisoners.
The petition calls on Ban and his special envoy to Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, to secure the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the democratic opposition in the country formerly known as Burma, and other political prisoners.
Suu Kyi is currently on trial for allegedly violating the terms of her imprisonment.
U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas confirmed on Tuesday that Gambari had received the petition.
"The release of all political prisoners is the first and most important step toward freedom and democracy in Burma," the petition says. "We, the undersigned, call upon U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to make it his personal priority to secure the release of all of Burma's political prisoners."
More than 670,000 signatures were collected in some 220 countries and territories, said the petition organizers, who include former political prisoners and human rights activists.
Among the Burmese activists behind the petition are Khin Ohmar, vice chairwoman of the Burmese Women's Union, and former political prisoners Tate Naing and Aung Din.
Myanmar is holding 2,100 political prisoners and since October more than 350 prisoners have been given jail sentences of up to 104 years, according to a statement issued by the Czech Republic, which has helped publicize the petition.
Among the world figures who signed the petition is former Czech President Vaclav Havel, who spent many years in prison due to his activities as an anti-communist dissident.
The trial of Suu Kyi and of American John Yettaw, whose uninvited visit to her home last month was deemed a breach of her house arrest, is set to resume on June 26. Suu Kyi faces up to five years in prison if found guilty.
Ban is considering a visit to Myanmar next month to personally urge the junta generals to keep their promises to democratize.
(Editing by Eric Beech)

Source: Reuters

Peru PM says he will quit over clashes

By Teresa Cespedes and Terry Wade
LIMA (Reuters) - Peruvian President Alan Garcia's cabinet chief will step down in the face of opposition demands for his ouster over deadly clashes between police and Amazon tribes in resource-rich jungles on northern Peru.
Prime Minister Yehude Simon said on Tuesday he plans to resign after persuading the Peruvian Congress to repeal two controversial laws that native groups say would speed up the destruction of their jungle habitat.
"I am going to go for sure as soon as calm returns in the coming weeks," he said on RPP radio, a day after apologizing to indigenous leaders and acknowledging the government had failed to win their support before passing the laws.
At least 34 people died in police raids ordered 11 days ago to end blockades of roads and rivers in the forest. Both police and protesters died in the violence that shocked the country.
The conflict, the worst since Garcia took office in 2006, has threatened to slow his drive to lure billions of dollars in foreign investment to a country rich in natural resources but where 60 percent of rural people live in poverty.
The clashes have also drawn criticism from Peru's Andean neighbor Bolivia, whose first indigenous head of state, President Evo Morales, said the violence amounted to genocide against native peoples.
Peruvian Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde rejected the charge on Tuesday, calling leftist Morales "an enemy of Peru" in an interview with Reuters.
BACKTRACKING
The Amazon tribes said they would call off lingering protests if the laws, which they fear would turn the rainforest over to foreign oil, gas and mining companies, are repealed. Congress is expected to do so in a few days.
"They all were saying the government couldn't be flexible, and now the government is finally backtracking," said Gino Costa, a former interior minister, who expects more heads to roll in Garcia's cabinet.
Costa said he expects the justice, environment, trade and agriculture ministers to be fired next month for first botching the negotiations with protesters, then resorting to force, only to cave in to the demonstrators' demands when the violence was widely condemned.
"How many people had to die for the government to realize that the laws were poorly done?" said Daysi Zapata, a leader of Aidesep, an indigenous rights group.
Garcia, whose approval rating is at 30 percent, issued a series of decrees last year using special powers Congress gave him to implement a free-trade agreement with the United States. The tribes say he went too far and wrote laws that undermine their control over ancestral lands and natural resources.
Even if the laws are overturned, Garcia plans to push ahead with his development model based on free trade and foreign investment. He hopes eventually to convince the tribes that his plans would lift millions out of poverty.
"I am one who looks to the future and I don't get hung up on obstacles," he said on Tuesday. "Time will show that those who reject something today will end up being the first to ask for it in the future because they need development, investment and a better life." (Additional reporting by Dana Ford; Editing by Anthony Boadle)

Source: Reuters

Backers of Iran's Mousavi aim to keep up protests

More rallies in Tehran
Play Video
By Dominic Evans and Fredrik Dahl
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Supporters of Iran's defeated presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi aim to keep pressure up with new protests on Wednesday over a disputed poll which has led to the biggest upheaval since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
(Editors' note: Reuters coverage is now subject to an Iranian ban on foreign media leaving the office to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.)
Despite the authorities' readiness for a partial recount, they plan a fifth day of demonstrations since Friday's poll in which hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was officially declared to have won a resounding victory.
U.S. President Barack Obama, who has sought to engage Iran and asked its leadership to "unclench its fist," said protests in the world's fifth-biggest oil exporter showed the "Iranian people are not convinced with the legitimacy of the election."
Seven people were killed in a vast opposition protest on Monday in central Tehran and Mousavi urged his followers to call off a planned rally in the same area the following day.
Thousands of his supporters marched instead on Tuesday to the state television IRIB building in northern Tehran, which was ringed by riot police, witnesses said.
Wearing wristbands and ribbons in his green campaign colors, Mousavi supporters carried his picture and made victory signs. Some were sending messages to others to meet again on Wednesday for a rally at Tehran's central Haft-e Tir Square.
In an apparent bid to head off the opposition rally in the center of the capital, Ahmadinejad's supporters mobilized thousands of demonstrators where Mousavi's supporters had originally planned to gather.
In what appeared to be a first concession by authorities to the protest movement in Iran's top legislative body said it was prepared for a partial recount but ruled out annulling the poll.
The decision was taken by the 12-man Guardian Council following the election in which hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the runaway winner.
Further protests, especially if they are on the same scale as Monday's, are a direct challenge to the authorities who have kept a tight grip on dissent since the U.S.-backed shah was overthrown in 1979 after months of demonstrations.
NUCLEAR PROGRAMME
The United States and its European allies have found Ahmadinejad implacable in asserting Iran's right to enrich uranium, a program that Iran says is purely peaceful but that the West fears could be used to make a nuclear bomb.
Obama told CNBC there appeared to be little difference in policy between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi.
"The difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised," he said. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Obama, Lee warn North Korea brinkmanship won't work

United front against North Korea
Play Video
By Matt Spetalnick and Doug Palmer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak presented a united front to North Korea on Tuesday, saying Pyongyang must abandon its nuclear weapons program and will not be rewarded for provoking a crisis.
With Lee at his side in the White House Rose Garden, Obama said a nuclear-armed North Korea would pose a "grave threat" to the world and vowed that new U.N. sanctions against the reclusive communist-ruled nation would be strictly enforced.
"Given the belligerent manner in which they are constantly threatening their neighbors, I don't think there's any question that that would be a destabilizing situation that would be a profound threat to not only the United States' security, but to world security," Obama said.
He promised to end a cycle of allowing impoverished North Korea to create a nuclear crisis, then granting concessions in the form of food, fuel and other incentives to get Pyongyang to back down, only to later see it renege on its promises.
"This is a pattern they've come to expect," Obama said. "We are going to break that pattern."
While talking tough, Obama -- who took office in January pledging a new approach of talking to America's enemies -- also extended an olive branch.
"I want to be clear that there is another path available to North Korea ... including full integration into the community of nations," Obama said. "That destination can only be reached through peaceful negotiations that achieve the full and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."
North Korea, which last month conducted a nuclear explosion and missile tests in defiance of international pressure, said at the weekend it would start a uranium enrichment program and weaponize all its uranium in response to new U.N. sanctions.
Lee said the U.N. Security Council's vote last week to expand sanctions on North Korea showed the global community's firm resolve.
He said South Korea, along with the United States, Japan, China and Russia -- members of stalled six-party talks with Pyongyang -- will be seeking new measures to get the North to "irrevocably dismantle" all nuclear weapons programs. The White House declined to say what actions were being considered.
The South Korean leader has followed a tough line on North Korea, even before Pyongyang raised tensions in recent weeks by test-firing missiles, restarting a plant to produce arms-grade plutonium and conducting a nuclear test on May 25.
As a stark message to Pyongyang, Obama re-committed to Washington's defense of South Korea, including keeping it under America's "nuclear umbrella."
NORTH KOREAN HEIR
Japan's Asahi newspaper reported on Tuesday that the youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il secretly visited China last week and his hosts were told he had been appointed heir to the ruling family dynasty.
The report, citing unidentified informed sources, said Kim Jong-un met Chinese President Hu Jintao and other leaders of the ruling Communist Party when he flew to Beijing around June 10. Continued...
Source: Reuters

NATO boss says Afghan strategy was flawed: report

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Making individual NATO members responsible for specific provinces in Afghanistan has hindered international cooperation efforts, NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said in a magazine interview.
"All countries like to think they are the champions of reconstruction," NATO Secretary General De Hoop Scheffer said in an interview with Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland on Tuesday.
"But that has not stimulated real international military and civil cooperation, and from time to time it has even worked against it," he told the magazine.
De Hoop Scheffer, who is stepping down as NATO chief on August 1, said individual members of the 28-nation military alliance had become too focused on their own interests during reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.
"In hindsight I would have chosen a stronger combination of military effort and reconstruction," he said.
With insurgent violence at its worst level since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, U.S. officials have acknowledged they are not winning in Afghanistan and the administration has declared the war its top military priority.
At a meeting in Brussels last week, NATO ministers backed a U.S. shake-up of military command in Afghanistan based on a model used in Iraq.
The United States has increased its military presence to 56,000 troops, from about 32,000 in late 2008, and expects a rise to some 68,000 by autumn. This is in addition to some 33,000 troops from NATO and partner countries.
Washington and its allies are also stepping up efforts to build up the Afghan army and police to more than 200,000 personnel.
(Reporting by Catherine Hornby; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Source: Reuters

Bermuda protesters denounce Guantanamo decision

HAMILTON (Reuters) - Hundreds of protesters called for Bermudian Premier Ewart Brown to step down on Tuesday and accused him of acting like a dictator in allowing four Guantanamo prisoners from China to settle on the mid-Atlantic island.
Some 600 people gathered outside Parliament in the island's capital Hamilton, waving banners and chanting "Brown must go" as they marched to the Cabinet office.
Brown emerged from the building and shouted to the booing crowd: "As some of you might know, I grew up in the protest era. This is nothing new to me. I have seen them larger and longer," he said.
Under an agreement with Brown, the United States last week sent to the British territory four members of China's Muslim Uighur minority who had been held at the Guantanamo prison camp long after the U.S. military and courts determined they posed no threat.
The United States said it could not send them to China because they faced persecution there, but U.S. politicians blocked efforts to release them in the United States.
The British government complained that it had not been consulted about the deal and questioned whether Brown had authority to admit the Uighurs.
In Bermuda, opponents who had earlier accused Brown of autocracy also condemned him for acting unilaterally.
Tuesday's protest was aimed not so much at the Uighurs as at Brown for his failure to consult the island's people or governor and his perceived snub of Britain's Queen Elizabeth, whom the governor represents.
Bermuda, a banking center and tourist destination, is Britain's oldest colony and one of the world's wealthiest places.
Janice Battersbee, who described herself as a lifelong supporter of Brown's Progressive Labour Party, stepped up to the microphone when Brown invited the protesters to send a representative to speak.
"The leadership of this country seems to be on a course heading toward dictatorship that the majority of Bermudians are no longer willing to tolerate," Battersbee said.
"This latest action is the final straw. We are fed up, disgusted, disrespected and angry."
Brown said he had been summoned to meet with the governor, Sir Richard Gozney, but did not elaborate. When Battersbee finished speaking, Brown was led away by police and left in an official car.
About 40 Brown supporters shouted "Brown must stay" but were drowned out by shouts and claxons. The two sides sparred verbally but there was no violence in the orderly capital of Hamilton.
Brown took office in 2006 and was re-elected to a five-year term when his party won a majority in Parliament in 2007.
Bermuda's immigration minister, David Burch, said the four Uighur men had received several job offers but that their status remained in limbo until the British government completes a security review.
(Writing by Jane Sutton; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Philip Barbara)

Source: Reuters

Khodorkovsky case tests Kremlin credibility: German MPs

BERLIN (Reuters) - A parliamentary motion by Berlin's ruling parties says the trial of Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky is a test case for Moscow's justice system and President Dmitry Medvedev's vow to clean up the courts.
Agreed by leading lawmakers from Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD) on Tuesday, the motion urges the government to push for EU supervision of the trial and adopt a more vocal stance when the rule of law is violated in Russia.
Although the document has no legal weight, it reflects growing German concern about political intervention in the Russian legal system and carries symbolic importance because it is backed by Germany's biggest parties.
"This trial is a test case of the Russian justice system's credibility, as demanded by President Medvedev, and the respect of Council of Europe standards," the paper reads.
"There is concern that the trial will be used for political goals. If this were the case, the authorities would damage not only Russia's reputation, its economy and its diplomatic ties, but above all the legal and human rights principles that Russia itself has vowed to adhere to."
Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Levedev were sentenced to eight years in prison for fraud and tax evasion in 2005 under then-President Vladimir Putin, though their defense lawyers say they are political prisoners.
The two are currently on trial on new charges that could keep them in jail for another 22 years.
When Medvedev replaced Putin last year he struck a different tone to his predecessor, vowing not to tolerate human rights violations, to battle corruption and end what he called legal nihilism in the court system.
Amnesty International said last month that Medvedev had failed to deliver on these promises and detailed a host of abuses on the president's watch, including the murders of reporters and the case of Khodorkovsky.
The parliamentary motion, agreed by Merkel ally and CDU foreign policy expert Eckhart von Klaeden and his SPD counterpart Gert Weisskirchen, describes progress under Medvedev as inconsistent.
(Reporting by Noah Barkin; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Source: Reuters

Yemen vows to find kidnappers, raises reward

Foreign women killed in Yemen
Play Video
By Mohamed Sudam
SANAA (Reuters) - Yemen pledged on Tuesday to hunt down an armed group behind the killing of three foreign hostages and offered a reward of $275,000 for information leading to the capture of the kidnappers.
Three women from a party of nine kidnapped foreigners were found dead in Yemen this week in a rare killing coinciding with a rise in separatist and militant tensions in a country whose instability has alarmed Western countries and Saudi Arabia.
One analyst said the killings bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda but no claim of responsibility has been made.
"The security apparatus will continue to hunt the terrorist group which committed this crime and bring them to justice," Yemeni Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi told Reuters.
State media said the Interior Ministry added 50 million rials ($249,100) to a reward of 5 million rials offered earlier by the governor of Saada province where the nine were seized last week. Security measures were stepped up there and police were searching for the remaining hostages, media reports said.
The nine comprised seven Germans, a Briton and a Korean, according to state media, and included three children and their mother. They were kidnapped in the mountainous northern Saada region bordering Saudi Arabia.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned the killings.
"We must unfortunately assume that two of the three people found dead in Yemen were German women doing work experience. It is very sad news," she said.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said German experts had been sent to Yemen to help identify the victims. "At the moment the circumstances of the death of both women is unclear."
The two German women were students at a German bible school who were carrying out work experience at a hospital in Saada, the school said on its website.
"We received the news of the death of our students, Anita G. and Rita S., with deep dismay," it said.
Yemen's military said the third victim was a Korean teacher. A source told Reuters on Sunday that one of the German captives was a doctor at a hospital the other Germans were visiting.
"These people helped us and provided medical services ... We pray for the rest of the victims and hope the attackers will be punished," Hassan Mansour, a student living near the hospital, told Reuters.
Several other foreigners who worked at the hospital left on Tuesday, a Yemeni official said.
Yemeni authorities have blamed the Houthi tribal group, who belong to a Shi'ite Muslim sect, for kidnapping the nine foreigners, a charge the Houthis have denied. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Tight-fisted donors "bastardizing" IAEA: ElBaradei

By Mark Heinrich
VIENNA (Reuters) - Countries balking at raising the International Atomic Energy Agency's budget have "bastardized" the U.N. watchdog to the point where it is struggling to combat growing proliferation threats, the IAEA chief said on Tuesday.
"If you come to me and say in your wisdom to cut here and cut there, I and my colleagues will not assume responsibility if in a couple of years we see another Chernobyl (nuclear plant meltdown) or a nuclear terrorist or a clandestine nuclear (weapons) program," Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei told a closed-door meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors. The governing body has for months held up a request for an 11 percent budget hike, with some major donors insisting on further zero real growth at a time of financial crisis while danger mounts of atom bomb know-how reaching volatile regions.
The United States, the IAEA's biggest financier, said on Tuesday it was raising its budget contribution by 20 percent, or $10 million, in keeping with President Barack Obama's call for IAEA funds to be doubled over the next four years.
But the board again failed to agree a new budget at this week's meeting and ElBaradei, who has welcomed Obama's break from longtime U.S. zero-real-growth funding policy, said penny-pinching imperiled the agency's credibility.
"What you are reaping today is what you have sewn for the past 20 years (of tight funding)," he said in unusually undiplomatic remarks betraying frustration of IAEA staff trying to uphold a mandate covering non-proliferation inspections and aid for nuclear security, safety and peaceful uses of the atom.
"The whole idea that we now have to borrow money or stretch out our hat and say please give us money to do security, safety, is really a bastardization of an international organization that is supposed to be a spearhead of peace and security," ElBaradei said on a tape of his speech obtained by Reuters.
"CHEATING THE WORLD PUBLIC"
"We will not assume responsibility for a budget which I know is not ... right. I will be cheating world public opinion to create the impression that we are doing what we're supposed to do, when we know we don't have the money to do it," he said.
The board was expected to reconvene in emergency session in coming weeks in another bid to pass a budget. It must be done in time for rubber-stamping by all 145 member states in September.
Among the IAEA's mounting challenges are investigations into suspected covert nuclear work in Iran and Syria that the United States and some allies suspect was intended to yield atom bombs.
There is also the specter of militant groups such as al Qaeda acquiring materials and knowledge for nuclear weapons.
The IAEA will also have to grapple in coming years with demand from 63 countries, including the Middle East, for help in developing nuclear energy industries.
The budget deadlock has become a theme in an election race to succeed ElBaradei, who retires in November.
Japan is the IAEA's second biggest donor and in a group of industrialized, mainly European states clinging to a zero real growth funding approach. Japan is also fielding the leading contender to replace ElBaradei.
ElBaradei's draft proposal seeks a rise in the operational regular budget to 336 million euros ($466.8 million) in 2010 and for a 1.5 percent increase in 2011 to 341 million euros. Continued...
Source: Reuters