Palestinians win de facto U.N. recognition of sovereign state

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The 193-nation U.N. General Assembly on Thursday overwhelmingly approved the de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on the world body to issue its long overdue "birth certificate."

The U.N. victory for the Palestinians was a diplomatic setback for the United States and Israel, which were joined by only a handful of countries in voting against the move to upgrade the Palestinian Authority's observer status at the United Nations to "non-member state" from "entity," like the Vatican.

Britain called on the United States to use its influence to help break the long impasse in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Washington also called for a revival of direct negotiations.

There were 138 votes in favor, nine against and 41 abstentions. Three countries did not take part in the vote, held on the 65th anniversary of the adoption of U.N. resolution 181 that partitioned Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.

Thousands of flag-waving Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip set off fireworks and danced in the streets to celebrate the vote.

The assembly approved the upgrade despite threats by the United States and Israel to punish the Palestinians by withholding funds for the West Bank government. U.N. envoys said Israel might not retaliate harshly against the Palestinians over the vote as long as they do not seek to join the International Criminal Court.

If the Palestinians were to join the ICC, they could file complaints with the court accusing Israel of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious crimes.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the vote "unfortunate and counterproductive," while the Vatican praised the move and called for an internationally guaranteed special status for Jerusalem, something bound to irritate Israel.

The much-anticipated vote came after Abbas denounced Israel from the U.N. podium for its "aggressive policies and the perpetration of war crimes," remarks that elicited a furious response from the Jewish state.

"Sixty-five years ago on this day, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 181, which partitioned the land of historic Palestine into two states and became the birth certificate for Israel," Abbas told the assembly after receiving a standing ovation.

"The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine," he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded quickly, condemning Abbas' critique of Israel as "hostile and poisonous," and full of "false propaganda.

"These are not the words of a man who wants peace," Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office. He reiterated Israeli calls for direct talks with the Palestinians, dismissing Thursday's resolution as "meaningless."

ICC THREAT

A number of Western delegations noted that Thursday's vote should not be interpreted as formal legal recognition of a Palestinian state. Formal recognition of statehood is something that is done bilaterally, not by the United Nations.

Granting Palestinians the title of "non-member observer state" falls short of full U.N. membership - something the Palestinians failed to achieve last year. But it does have important legal implications - it would allow them access to the ICC and other international bodies, should they choose to join.

Abbas did not mention the ICC in his speech. But Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told reporters after the vote that if Israel continued to build illegal settlements, the Palestinians might pursue the ICC route.

"As long as the Israelis are not committing atrocities, are not building settlements, are not violating international law, then we don't see any reason to go anywhere," he said.

"If the Israelis continue with such policy - aggression, settlements, assassinations, attacks, confiscations, building walls - violating international law, then we have no other remedy but really to knock those to other places," Maliki said.

In Washington, a group of four Republican and Democratic senators announced legislation that would close the Palestinian office in Washington unless the Palestinians enter "meaningful negotiations" with Israel, and eliminate all U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority if it turns to the ICC.

"I fear the Palestinian Authority will now be able to use the United Nations as a political club against Israel," said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the sponsors.

Abbas led the campaign to win support for the resolution, which followed an eight-day conflict this month between Israel and Islamists in the Gaza Strip, who are pledged to Israel's destruction and oppose a negotiated peace.

The vote highlighted how deeply divided Europe is on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

At least 17 European nations voted in favor of the Palestinian resolution, including Austria, France, Italy, Norway and Spain. Abbas had focused his lobbying efforts on Europe, which supplies much of the aid the Palestinian Authority relies on. Britain, Germany and many others chose to abstain.

The traditionally pro-Israel Czech Republic was unique in Europe, joining the United States, Israel, Canada, Panama and the tiny Pacific Island states Nauru, Palau, Marshall Islands and Micronesia in voting against the move.

'HOPE SOME REASON WILL PREVAIL'

Peace talks have been stalled for two years, mainly over Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which have expanded despite being deemed illegal by most of the world. There are 4.3 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

After the vote, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice called for the immediate resumption of peace talks.

"The Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed save that the prospects of a durable peace have only receded," she said.

She added that both parties should "avoid any further provocative actions in the region, in New York or elsewhere."

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said he hoped all sides would use the vote to push for new breakthroughs in the peace process.

"I hope there will be no punitive measures," Fayyad told Reuters in Washington, where he was attending a conference.

"I hope that some reason will prevail and the opportunity will be taken to take advantage of what happened today in favor of getting a political process moving," he said.

Britain's U.N. ambassador, Mark Lyall Grant, told reporters it was time for recently re-elected U.S. President Barack Obama to make a new push for peace.

"We believe the window for the two-state solution is closing," he said. "That is why we are encouraging the United States and other key international actors to grasp this opportunity and use the next 12 months as a way to really break through this impasse."

(Additional reporting by Andrew Quinn in Washington, Noah Browning in Ramallah, Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem, Robert Mueller in Prague, Gabriela Baczynska and Reuters bureaux in Europe and elsewhere; Editing by Eric Beech and Peter Cooney)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Egypt constitution finalized as opposition cries foul

CAIRO (Reuters) - Thousands of Egyptians protested against President Mohamed Mursi on Friday after an Islamist-led assembly raced through approval of a new constitution in a bid to end a crisis over the Islamist leader's newly expanded powers.

"The people want to bring down the regime," they chanted in Tahrir Square, echoing the chants that rang out in the same place less than two years ago and brought down Hosni Mubarak.

Mursi said the decree halting court challenges to his decisions, which sparked eight days of protests and violence by Egyptians calling him a new dictator, was "for an exceptional stage" and aimed to speed up the democratic transition.

"It will end as soon as the people vote on a constitution," he told state television while the constituent assembly was still voting on the draft, which the Islamists say reflects Egypt's new freedoms. "There is no place for dictatorship."

The opposition cried foul. Liberals, leftists, Christians, more moderate Muslims and others had withdrawn from the assembly, saying their voices were not being heard.

Thousands took to the streets in Cairo and other places, such as Alexandria and cities on the Suez Canal and in the Nile Delta, responding to opposition calls for a big turnout.

It did not match the tens of thousands who demonstrated on Tuesday but rallies tend to gather pace later in the day.

Protesters said they would push for a 'no' vote in a referendum, which could happen as early as mid-December. If approved, it would immediately cancel the president's decree.

"We fundamentally reject the referendum and constituent assembly because the assembly does not represent all sections of society," said Sayed el-Erian, 43, a protester in Tahrir and member of a party set up by opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei.

"Leave, leave," some chanted, another anti-Mubarak slogan.

In the Cairo mosque where Mursi said Friday prayers, some opponents chanted against him but backers quickly surrounded him shouting in support, journalists and a security source said.

EXHAUSTION

The plebiscite on the constitution is a gamble based on the Islamists' belief they can mobilize voters again after winning all the elections since Mubarak was overthrown in February 2011.

Mursi will be able to guarantee the backing of his well-organized Brotherhood and Islamist allies, as well as many Egyptians who are simply exhausted by the turmoil.

"He just wants us to move on and not waste time in conflicts," said 33-year-old Cairo shopowner Abdel Nasser Marie. "Give the man a chance and Egypt a break," he said.

However, Mursi needs the cooperation of judges to oversee the vote, though many were angered by Mursi's decree that they said undermined the judiciary. Some judges have gone on strike.

The assembly concluded the vote after a 19-hour session, quicker than many expected, approving all 234 articles covering presidential powers, the status of Islam, the military's role and rights of citizens.

In one historic change, the president was limited to eight years in office after Mubarak served for 30 years. It introduced a degree of civilian oversight over the military - though not enough for critics.

An Egyptian official said Mursi was expected to approve the document on Saturday and then has 15 days to hold a referendum.

"This is a revolutionary constitution," said Hossam el-Gheriyani, head of the assembly in a live broadcast of the session, asking members to launch a cross-country campaign to "explain to our nation its constitution".

The vote was often interrupted by bickering between the mostly Islamist members and Gheriyani over the articles. Several articles were amended on the spot before they were voted on and the assembly worked till early morning to finish the job.

Critics argue it is an attempt to rush through a draft they say has been hijacked by the Muslim Brotherhood, which backed Mursi for president in a June election, and its Islamist allies.

Two people have been killed and hundreds injured in protests since the decree was announced on November 22, deepening the divide between the newly empowered Islamists and their critics.

PLACATING OPPONENTS

Setting the stage for more tension, the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies have called for pro-Mursi rallies on Saturday. But officials from the Brotherhood's party changed the venue and said they would avoid Tahrir Square.

Seeking to placate opponents, Mursi welcomed criticism but said there was no place for violence. "I am very happy that Egypt has real political opposition," he told state television.

He said Egypt needed to attract investors and tourists. The crisis threatens to derail a fragile economic recovery after two years of turmoil. Egypt is waiting for the International Monetary Fund to finalize a $4.8 billion loan to help it out.

An alliance of opposition groups pledged to keep up protests and said broader civil disobedience was possible to fight what it described as an attempt to "kidnap Egypt from its people".

Several independent newspapers said they would not publish on Tuesday in protest. One of the papers also said three private satellite channels would halt broadcasts on Wednesday.

The draft injects new Islamic references into Egypt's system of government but keeps in place an article defining "the principles of sharia" as the main source of legislation - the same phrase found in the previous constitution.

The president can declare war with parliament's approval, but only after consulting a national defense council with a heavy military and security membership. That was not in the old constitution, used when Egypt was ruled by ex-military men.

Activists highlighted other flaws such as worrying articles pertaining to the rights of women and freedom of speech.

A new parliamentary election cannot happen until the constitution is passed. Egypt has been without an elected legislature since the Islamist-dominated lower house was dissolved in June, based on a court order.

"The secular forces and the church and the judges are not happy with the constitution; the journalists are not happy, so I think this will increase tensions in the country," said Mustapha Kamal Al-Sayyid, a Cairo University political science professor.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Yasmine Saleh and Tamim Elyan; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Any attack on Iran may lead to withdrawal from NPT: envoy

VIENNA (Reuters) - Any military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities may lead to the country withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a pact designed to prevent the spread of nuclear arms, a senior Iranian official said on Friday.

In case of an attack, "there is a possibility that the (Iranian) parliament forces the government to stop the (U.N. nuclear) agency inspections or even in the worse scenario withdraw from the NPT," nuclear envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh said in a statement in English to the U.N. agency's 35-nation board.

There has been persistent speculation that Israel might attack Iran, which it accuses of seeking a nuclear weapons capability. Iran denies the charge and says Israel's assumed nuclear arsenal is a threat to regional security.

(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl; editing by Andrew Roche)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Syria jets bombard rebel targets on airport road

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian air force jets bombarded rebel targets on Friday close to the Damascus airport road and a regional airline said the violence had halted international flights to the capital.

Activists said security forces clashed with rebels trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad around Aqraba and Babilla districts on the southeastern outskirts of the Damascus which lead to the international airport.

Internet connections and most telephone lines were down for a second day, the worst communications outage in a 20-month-old uprising in which 40,000 people have been killed, hundreds of thousands have fled the country, and millions been displaced.

The mostly Sunni Muslim rebels who are battling Assad, from Syria's Alawite minority linked to Shi'ite Islam, have been making gains around Syria by overrunning military bases and have been ramping up attacks on Damascus, his seat of power.

A resident of central Damascus told Reuters he could see black smoke rising from the east and the south of the city on Friday morning and could hear the constant boom of shelling.

"Airlines are not operating to Damascus today," said a Dubai-based airline official. EgyptAir and Emirates suspended flights to Syria on Thursday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based opposition monitoring group, said jets were bombarding targets in rural areas around Aqraba and Babilla, where rebels clashed with Assad's forces.

The Observatory's director, Rami Abdelrahman, said the airport road was open, but there was minimal traffic.

Syrian authorities said late on Thursday that the airport road was safe after security forces cleared it of 'terrorists' - the label Damascus uses to describe Assad's armed opponents.

MORTAR FIRED

Rebels said that at least one mortar round was fired at the airport during clashes on Thursday.

"We want to liberate the airport because of reports we see and our own information we have that shows civilian airplanes are being flown in here with weapons for the regime. It is our right to stop this," rebel spokesman Musaab Abu Qitada said.

U.S. and European officials said rebels were making gains in Syria, gradually eroding Assad's power, but said the fighting had not yet shifted completely in their favor.

A Damascus-based diplomat said he believed the escalation in fighting around the capital was part of a government offensive which aimed to seal off the state-controlled centre of the city from rebel-held rural areas to the south and east.

Activists say Assad's forces have also been shelling the Daraya district to the southwest of the city, trying to prevent rebels from cementing their hold of an area which could give them a presence in a continuous arc from the northeast to southwest of the capital's outer districts.

"I don't know whether the shelling has succeeded in pushing back the FSA (rebels) - experience shows that they return very quickly anyway," the diplomat said. "We seem to be entering a decisive phase of the Damascus offensive."

Syria's Internet shut down on Thursday, a move which activists blamed on authorities but which authorities variously attributed to a 'terrorist' attack or a technical fault.

CloudFlare, a firm that helps accelerate Internet traffic, said on its blog that saboteurs would have had to simultaneously cut three undersea cables into the Mediterranean city of Tartous and also an overland cable through Turkey in order to cut off the entire country's Internet access.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut, Praveen Menon in Dubai and Jim Finkle in Boston; Editing by Anna Willard)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Chinese, U.S. soldiers complete disaster relief drill amid Asia tensions

CHENGDU (Reuters) - Chinese and American soldiers finished a week-long disaster rescue exercise on Friday, furthering military ties between the two countries even as military tensions rise between China and U.S. military allies in the Pacific region.

The exercise, which included 20 U.S. soldiers visiting facilities in three Chinese cities, are meant to bring the two rivals closer together through non-combat military collaboration, and to allay fears of countries in the region worried over China's rising influence.

"Our senior leaders have been pretty clear: they're seeking a positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship between our two nations," said Maj. Gen. Stephen Lyons, commander of the U.S. Army's 8th Theater Sustainment Command, based in Hawaii.

"That spirit of cooperation and that level of transparency I think helps signals throughout the region, and it helps us understand each other," Lyons said at a People's Liberation Army barracks on the outskirts of Chengdu in southwest China, where a massive earthquake devastated nearby regions in 2008, killing more than 87,000 people.

The general leading the Chinese side acknowledged the two services' rivalry, but said they share a common duty.

"The Chinese and American militaries do have our differences, but it is my belief that it is the indispensable responsibility of the two militaries to join forces in disaster relief," said Maj. Gen. Tang Fen, director of the PLA's Mass Work Office, General Political Department.

"Our two sides have a lot of experiences to share with each other and much to learn from each other."

Chinese Defence Minister Liang Guanglie this week also promoted military cooperation between Beijing and Washington.

"We should develop the ties between us, between our two militaries, touch on some of our differences, resolve conflicting views," he told Reuters. "We should push forward the development of our two powers, and push forward the development of a new China-U.S. military relationship."

The U.S. and Chinese military have exchanged occasional visits on disaster relief since 1998, but those were mostly information sharing, Lyons said. This was the first exercise involving planning for joint action, and observation of Chinese troops training in drills such as practicing entering and rappelling down the sides of buildings and using dog handlers.

Amid all nice talk however, the two sides remain considerably wary of each other.

"The distrust of the U.S. military within the PLA is very high. The distrust of the PLA within the U.S. military is substantial," says Kenneth Lieberthal, a former National Security Council senior director for Asia in the Clinton administration.

The two sides have often expressed suspicion over each other's intentions, with Washington viewing China's growing economic and military clout as an attempt to dominate Asia, and Beijing seeing U.S. force projection including President Barack Obama's year-old "rebalancing" of a military focus back to Asia as China-containment.

"Some high-ranking Chinese officials have openly stated that the United States is China's greatest national security threat," wrote Wang Jisi, dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University, in a paper published earlier this year by China's Centre for International and Strategic Studies. "This perception is widely shared in China's defence and security establishments."

Chinese officials insist that China's intent is to safeguard its own sovereignty. But Chinese military actions and weapons advances this year give some neighbors cause for concern.

China has been increasingly asserting territorial claims this year over waters and islands in the South and East China Seas, in direct conflict against Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Taiwan.

Southeast Asia's top diplomat warned on Friday that China's plan to board and search ships that illegally enter what it considers its territory in the disputed South China Sea could spark naval clashes and hurt the region's economy.

Surin Pitsuwan, secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), said the Chinese plan was a "very serious turn of events".

China launched its first aircraft carrier and two prototypes of stealth fighter jets this year. Earlier this month it unveiled a new attack helicopter and pilotless drone aircraft. A U.S. congressional commission reported that China's submarines will likely be capable carrying nuclear warheads in two years.

Cooperation such as this week's disaster relief exercise helps to ease such tensions, Lyons said.

"There's going to be differences between our two nations," he said. "But as long as we're committed to solving those differences in a peaceful, stable kind of way, there's goodness in having discussions about what we agree upon and what we disagree upon."

(Editing by Nick Macfie)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

U.N. set for implicit recognition of Palestinian state, despite U.S., Israel threats

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly is set to implicitly recognize a sovereign state of Palestine on Thursday despite threats by the United States and Israel to punish the Palestinian Authority by withholding much-needed funds for the West Bank government.

A Palestinian resolution that would change the Palestinian Authority's U.N. observer status from "entity" to "non-member state," like the Vatican, is expected to pass easily in the 193-nation U.N. General Assembly.

Israel, the United States and a handful of other members are planning to vote against what they see as a largely symbolic and counterproductive move by the Palestinians.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been leading the campaign to win support for the resolution, and over a dozen European governments have offered him their support after an eight-day conflict this month between Israel and Islamists in the Gaza Strip, who are pledged to Israel's destruction and oppose his efforts toward a negotiated peace.

The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday that Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and U.S. Middle East peace envoy David Hale traveled to New York on Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to get Abbas to reconsider.

The Palestinians gave no sign they were turning back.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeated to reporters in Washington on Wednesday the U.S. view that the Palestinian move was misguided and efforts should focus instead on reviving the stalled Middle East peace process.

"The path to a two-state solution that fulfills the aspirations of the Palestinian people is through Jerusalem and Ramallah, not New York," she said. "The only way to get a lasting solution is to commence direct negotiations."

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland reiterated U.S. warnings that the move could lead to a reduction of U.S. economic support for the Palestinians. The Israelis have also warned they might take significant deductions out of monthly transfers of duties that Israel collects on the Palestinians' behalf.

'SLAP IN THE FACE'

Granting Palestinians the title of "non-member observer state" falls short of full U.N. membership - something the Palestinians failed to achieve last year. But it would allow them access to the International Criminal Court and some other international bodies, should they choose to join them.

Hanan Ashrawi, a top Palestinian Liberation Organization official, told a news conference in Ramallah that "the Palestinians can't be blackmailed all the time with money."

"If Israel wants to destabilize the whole region, it can," she said. "We are talking to the Arab world about their support, if Israel responds with financial measures, and the EU has indicated they will not stop their support to us."

Peace talks have been stalled for two years, mainly over the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which have expanded despite being deemed illegal by most of the world.

In their draft resolution, the Palestinians have pledged to relaunch the peace process immediately following the U.N. vote.

As there is little doubt about how the United States will vote when the Palestinian resolution to upgrade its U.N. status is put to a vote sometime after 3 p.m. (2000 GMT) on Thursday, the Palestinian Authority has been concentrating its efforts on lobbying wealthy European states, diplomats say.

With strong support from the developing world that makes up the majority of U.N. members, the Palestinian resolution is virtually assured of securing more than the requisite simple majority. Palestinian officials hope for over 130 yes votes.

Abbas has been trying to amass as many European votes in favor as possible.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland had all pledged to support the Palestinian resolution. Britain said it was prepared to vote yes, but only if the Palestinians fulfilled certain conditions.

Diplomats said the Czech Republic was expected to vote against the move, although other Europeans might join it. Germany said it could not support the Palestinian resolution, but left open the question of whether it would abstain, like Estonia and Lithuania, or vote no with the Czechs.

Ashrawi said the positive responses from European states were encouraging and sent a message of hope to all Palestinians.

"This constitutes a historical turning point and opportunity for the world to rectify a grave historical injustice that the Palestinians have undergone since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948," she said.

A strong backing from European nations could make it awkward for Israel to implement harsh retaliatory measures. Diplomats say Israel wants to avoid antagonizing Europe. But Israel's reaction might not be so measured if the Palestinians seek ICC action against Israel on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity or other crimes the court would have jurisdiction over.

Israel also seems wary of weakening the Western-backed Abbas, especially after the political boost rival Hamas received from recent solidarity visits to Gaza by top officials from Egypt, Qatar and Tunisia.

Hamas militants, who control Gaza and have had icy relations with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, unexpectedly offered Abbas their support earlier this week.

One Western diplomat said the Palestinian move was almost an insult to recently re-elected U.S. President Barack Obama.

"It's not the best way to convince Mr. Obama to have a more positive approach toward the peace process," a Western diplomat planning to vote for the Palestinian resolution said. "Three weeks after his election, it's basically a slap in the face."

(Andrew Quinn in Washington, Noah Browning in Ramallah, Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem, Michelle Nichols in New York, and Reuters bureaux in Europe and elsewhere; Editing by Peter Cooney)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Insight: Cash crisis, Arab ferment threaten Jordan's stability

AMMAN (Reuters) - Violent protests that shocked Jordan this month have mostly subsided, but unprecedented chants for the "fall of the regime" suggested a deeper malaise in a kingdom so far spared the revolts reshaping the Arab world.

Anger over fuel subsidy cuts undoubtedly drove the unrest, in which police shot dead one man during a confrontation at a police station. The government's planned electricity price rises starting next year may well ignite more popular fury.

King Abdullah has made some constitutional reforms and his counselors say turnout at a parliamentary poll in January will test public support for the pace of political change amid an acute financial crisis that has forced Jordan to go to the IMF.

However, the model that has kept Jordan relatively stable for decades is cracking, nowhere more so than in the tribal East Bank provinces long seen as the bedrock of support for the Hashemite monarchy installed here by Britain in 1921.

The formula reinforced after the 1970 civil war between the army and Palestinian guerrillas - a defining national trauma now airbrushed from public discourse - broadly gives East Bankers jobs in the army, police, security services and bureaucracy.

Jordan's Palestinian-origin majority dominates private enterprise, but does not play a commensurate political role, in part because electoral gerrymandering curbs its voting power.

Although the fissure between the two communities is blurred by inter-marriage, long co-existence and, at least among the elite, business ties, it is likely to haunt Jordan as long as the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains unresolved.

Jordanians of all stripes are fearful of the insecurity that stalks their neighbors, but the money that kept discontent in check across a fragmented society is simply no longer there.

An influx of 240,000 refugees from the Syrian conflict next door has further strained the resources of a country of seven million that has almost no oil and precious little water.

"Reform is genuinely difficult because you need to change the economic as well as the political rules," said a European diplomat. "In the past the tribes gave their support in return for jobs and money. Now that this is no longer affordable, they are shouting things like 'We won't pay for your corruption'."

Palestinians, while also hard hit by the austerity measures, have mostly laid low to avoid political flak.

DISGRUNTLED TRIBESMEN

In Kerak, a tribal hilltop town caught up in price protests earlier this month, morose shopkeepers await customers in the narrow market streets below the imposing Crusader citadel.

"Everyone who feels the pinch should go out in the street to express his views peacefully," said Hani Herzallah, 41, a barber with four children. He said he had joined the protests against fuel price rises that included a 54 percent increase in the cost of gas cylinders most Jordanians use for cooking and heating.

At a shop selling live chickens from wire cages, Tahseen al-Tanashat, 64, said he had just drawn his 200 dinar ($280) pension, but only had 50 dinars left after paying his bills.

Tanashat, on a state pension since he retired as a guard 31 years ago, said two of his three sons were soldiers. "I just want my 19-year-old still at home to get a job in the army."

For all their complaints, Kerak, 90 km (56 miles) south of Amman, has been lavished with state funds, thanks perhaps to powerful Majali and Tarawneh tribal figures who have occupied top positions in the government and military for decades.

An illuminated four-lane highway leads to the town of 65,000, passing a power station and an industrial zone that is far from bustling. Kerak boasts a major university, a new public hospital along with training colleges, and a palace of justice.

But jobs are scarce. A government hiring freeze is meant to alleviate the public sector pay and pension burden on a state treasury long reliant on aid from Gulf Arab and Western donors.

A U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks said Jordan's "bloated civil service and military patronage system" soaked up 83 percent of the 2010 budget, despite planned spending cuts.

The economy has hit even stormier seas since then. Egypt's new rulers have sharply reduced cheap gas supplies to Jordan, which imports 97 percent of its energy and which has suddenly had to pay an extra $2.5 billion a year for fuel.

This month's protests were the most violent of several bouts of unrest in Jordan since Arab uprisings erupted nearly two years ago and toppled autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

Those in Kerak and other East Bank towns were organized by local opposition movements known collectively as Hirak, whose grievances focus on corruption, poor services and unemployment. They also resent privatization and other market reforms intended to reduce state spending - from which they benefit.

"Hirak is not driven by democracy, but by a sense of entitlement," said Mustafa Hamarneh, a social scientist running for parliament in the provincial town of Madaba. "It has not developed from spontaneous mobilization into a national political movement. It is parochial, with personalized demands."

EMBOLDENED ISLAMISTS

Jordan lacks credible political parties, with the exception of the Muslim Brotherhood's Islamic Action Front, whose power base is mostly, but not exclusively, urban and Palestinian. In some cities Islamists have developed tentative links with Hirak.

The Brotherhood, which has a track record of moderation since its Jordan branch was licensed in 1946, plans to boycott the January election, citing rules it says are meant to keep it from securing the biggest bloc in the 150-seat assembly.

The authorities accuse the Islamists, emboldened by Arab uprisings that led to election wins for their counterparts in Egypt and Tunisia, of fomenting unrest and of refusing to join a reform dialogue launched by King Abdullah in early 2011.

"Apparently the Muslim Brotherhood decided they stood to get more gains if they stayed in the streets," said a senior official source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He acknowledged that the timing of the subsidy cuts, just as winter and an election were approaching, was far from ideal, but said there was no choice because Jordan risked "insolvency".

In return for a $2 billion standby arrangement agreed in August, the International Monetary Fund wants public sector reform and action on subsidies, including electricity tariffs.

Gulf donors such as Saudi Arabia, which rescued Jordan from an earlier crunch point with $1.4 billion a year ago, have held off from giving direct budget support so far this year, though Riyadh and Kuwait have sent $250 million each for projects.

Speculation about the reasons ranges from heavy spending by Gulf nations to stave off disaffection at home, concern about corruption in Jordan, and more pressing regional priorities - or even irritation that Amman had factored assumptions about Gulf aid into its IMF presentation without asking the donors first.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar may also want Jordan to be more active in the Syria crisis. "They would essentially like to see Jordan becoming the southern equivalent of Turkey in supporting the Syrian opposition," said Amman-based analyst Moin Rabbani.

"The Jordanians however ... prefer to play a less visible role and exercise it more covertly."

The survival of a vengeful Bashar al-Assad or a triumph for his Islamist-dominated foes would both pose dangers for Amman.

Jordan, valued by the West for its peace treaty with Israel and for its role as a stable buffer in a volatile region, still has an ambassador in Damascus, in line with its usual policy of walking a careful line between its more powerful neighbors.

TOP-DOWN REFORM

When Arab revolts began last year, the king, reigning since his father Hussein died in 1999, renewed a political reform drive opposed by conservatives which he had set aside to focus on economic liberalization aimed at expanding the middle class.

"The results remain disappointing," wrote Julien Barnes-Dacey in a paper for the European Council on Foreign Relations. "Despite changes to the constitution, few restrictions have been placed on the king's direct political authority."

King Abdullah, who has replaced his cabinet five times in the past two years, can still appoint and dismiss governments, although he has promised to consult parliament on choosing the next prime minister, who must then win a confidence vote.

"Parliament must become its own master and not get dissolved by the king in two words," said Wisam al-Majali, a Hirak activist in Kerak. "Now if even the best parliament digs deeper on corruption, it is dissolved the next day."

Another Kerak activist, Moaz al-Batoush, said an empowered parliament would obviate the need for street protests against "stupid" decisions that risked igniting revolutionary demands.

"Some people angered by the price rises reacted by calling for the downfall of the regime," he said, adding that this had never been a Hirak demand. "There is a crisis of confidence."

The official source defended the reforms, which include creation of an independent electoral commission, saying an overwhelming majority of Jordanians opposed removing powers from a monarch seen as a safeguard amid competing interests.

He said re-drawing electoral boundaries was not easy, given resistance from now over-represented East Bankers - Amman gets only a fifth of seats in parliament, despite being home to roughly half Jordan's population, many of them Palestinians.

The mood is sour among Palestinians in the Hussein refugee camp, now a scruffy built-up neighborhood of the capital.

"These price rises have slapped people in the face," said Abdul-Moneim Abu Aisha, 52, a butcher dragging on a cigarette as he sold small gobbets of meat in a tiny neon-lit shop.

In a market street where stalls piled high with vegetables jut out into the snarled traffic, people said only minor fuel price protests had occurred in the camp. Some voiced suspicion that even these were the work of outside provocateurs.

"The Palestinian camps will move only when the Jordanian tribal cities move and when the whole country rises up. If the camps rise up on their own they will be put down brutally," said a carpenter, who gave his name only as Abu Omar.

"We are targeted as Palestinians," he said, while having his hair cut. "The first thing they ask when you enter a police station is about your original hometown. But I'm a Jordanian who served in the army, and if anything happens to the country I will be the first to defend it, so why ask where I come from?"

With East Bankers and Palestinians alike feeling aggrieved, tensions might calm if the January election produced a new-look parliament and a government with the popular legitimacy to take tough decisions, but the electoral rules and the planned boycott of the vote by Islamists and others make this unlikely.

While the 50-year-old king seems confident his roadmap is the best route for a divided society, not everyone is so sure.

"Jordan needs an inclusive political reform to cope with the horrendous economic challenges," the European diplomat said.

"What we have is a baby step. The democratic deficit remains and has not been narrowed at a time when you need public confidence to deal with the challenges and the corruption."

(editing by Janet McBride)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Roadside bomb kills 10 civilians in Afghanistan

KABUL (Reuters) - A roadside bomb exploded under a passenger van in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing 10 people, most of them women and children, government officials said.

Eight people were wounded in the blast in the Deh Rawood district of Uruzgan province, President Hamid Karzai's office said in a statement. The Interior Ministry said 14 people were wounded.

"Innocent peoples' blood will not be wasted and terrorists will be shamed in this world and hereafter," Karzai said in the statement.

Violence has been increasing across the country as an end of 2014 deadline approaches for most foreign combat troops to leave, putting the 350,000-strong Afghan security forces in control.

Civilians have borne the brunt of much of the violence in the 11-year conflict. A roadside bomb in the relatively peaceful province of Farah killed 17 people and wounded nine on November 16.

Most of the victims in Farah were also women and children, driving in a van as part of a wedding procession.

Three people were killed and more than 90 wounded on Friday, including several foreign soldiers, in a truck bombing in Wardak province near Kabul. Most of the casualties were civilians.

(Reporting by Mirwais Harooni; Editing by Martin Petty and Robert Birsel)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Analysis: At peak of powers, Merkel sets sights on third term

BERLIN (Reuters) - In Germany, election campaigns are supposed to be all about parties, policies and platforms, most definitely not personalities. Now that is about to change.

Angela Merkel, at the peak of her political powers, is gearing up to run for a third term and what she hopes will be a place in the history books alongside towering post-war German leaders like Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl.

Next week, her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) will informally kick off the campaign with a two-day congress in the northern city of Hanover that is shaping up as a very un-German affair -- a Merkel-centered love-fest similar in style and spectacle to a U.S. presidential convention.

Seven years into her chancellorship, a point when her predecessors Gerhard Schroeder and Kohl were struggling with poor poll ratings, the 58-year-old Lutheran pastor's daughter from East Germany is as popular as ever.

Two in three Germans say she is doing a good job, according to surveys, and many now applaud her handling of the euro zone crisis, where she has performed a stunning feat -- keeping the single currency intact with one policy concession after another, yet still managing to be seen as a staunch defender of German interests.

Criticized early on for her cautious leadership style, Merkel's low-key approach is now hailed by many as positive in a time of turmoil.

"The CDU's main asset in this election is Frau Merkel," said Environment Minister and party ally Peter Altmaier. "She enjoys a huge amount of trust. She has no rivals and is the most popular politician in the country."

A close aide to Merkel who will have a role in shaping her re-election strategy was even more clear: "Of course we will focus this campaign on the chancellor. We'd be stupid not to."

A heavy dose of adulation has been programmed into the congress in Hanover. Delegates have only one main task, a member of the CDU executive committee told German weekly Der Spiegel: "They are to give Angela Merkel a standing ovation of at least seven minutes after her speech."

KINDER, KUECHE, KIRCHE

Still, it would be wrong to assume total harmony within the party, even if that is the message Merkel and her allies are trying to send.

Since taking power in 2005, the chancellor has pushed her party in an entirely new direction. Not all in the CDU are happy about that.

After fighting for years against a minimum wage, the party now officially supports one. And after condemning the nuclear power phase-out introduced by Schroeder's centre-left government, Merkel now says it did not go far or fast enough. Last year she shocked her party with her "Energiewende", or energy revolution, that pushes Germany out of nuclear and into renewables at alarming speed.

On social issues there is also grumbling. The CDU's approach towards women used to be summed up with three simple words: "Kinder, Kueche, Kirche", or children, kitchen, church. Now it is pushing for more childcare spots so that mothers can work and is debating the idea of imposing quotas on businesses to boost the number of women in top positions.

"We need to watch out that in our search for two new voters, we don't lose three old ones," says Wolfgang Bosbach, a senior CDU lawmaker who has clashed with Merkel in recent years.

Other controversial social issues, including a divisive debate about tax treatment of gay couples, are being swept under the table in Hanover in the name of unity.

"The truth is that Merkel has no interest in seeing a big debate on the issues. This congress is supposed to show that the party is fully behind the chancellor and her government," said Frank Decker, a political scientist at Bonn University.

"The CDU is having to appeal to a broader base, to adapt to a changed reality in society, new family structures and a bigger role for women," he added. "A traditional conservative, Christian party must find answers, it must debate these things. But Merkel is refusing to allow this debate to happen, and that breeds resentment."

NO GUARANTEES

In modernizing the CDU, Merkel has made it all but indistinguishable from the other big parties, the Social Democrats and Greens. By design or not, this has made the party even more dependent on Merkel for its identity.

So far that has not been a problem. The CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), have a comfortable 10 point lead over the next biggest party, the SPD, 10 months before the federal vote.

Working in Merkel and her party's favor has been the disastrous start of her SPD challenger Peer Steinbrueck, who has been dogged by a row over lucrative speaking engagements since he was anointed two months ago.

Still, it would be wrong to assume Merkel's re-election is guaranteed.

The euro zone crisis remains perhaps the biggest risk, as the domestic backlash against her latest aid deal for Greece showed this week.

If Greece's financial problems flare up again before the German election, she is bound to come under fire for cynically delaying a lasting solution to the country's debt woes until after the vote out of fears for her own political future.

An economic slowdown at home could also weigh on her popularity. Hit by weakness in its trading partners, the German economy is expected to contract in the fourth quarter of 2012 and data on Thursday showed unemployment rising for the eighth month in a row.

Perhaps a bigger risk is the shifting party landscape in Germany, notably the collapse of the CDU's traditional partner, the Free Democrats (FDP), with whom Merkel rules in Berlin.

The consequences of this could be felt as soon as January, when Lower Saxony, the German swing-state equivalent of Ohio, holds an election.

Loyal Merkel ally David McAllister, a half-Scot who runs the state, is expected to come out on top in the vote, but may still be booted out of office by a coalition of the SPD and Greens if the FDP fails to make it into the state assembly.

That result would send a worrying signal to the CDU faithful.

"Lower Saxony will help shape the mood for the election year," Michael Meister, a senior CDU lawmaker told Reuters. "There will be a result, and it will carry a message."

Regardless of what happens in Lower Saxony, people close to the chancellor say she cannot rest on her laurels, but must make a convincing case about where she wants to take Germany.

"The big question will be, why again?" her close aide said. "People vote for the future not the past."

Asked what she hoped to accomplish in a third term, the aide pointed to four areas: bringing stability to the euro zone; bedding down her energy revolution; consolidating the budget; and ensuring continued growth and prosperity.

Gero Neugebauer, a political scientist at Berlin's Free University, puts Merkel's chances of winning re-election next year at just 50-50 because the FDP's slide has left her without a "Machtoption", or hope of a majority with her current partner.

Others see it differently. By moving ever closer to the SPD and Greens on policy, Merkel has given the CDU more coalition options, notes Josef Joffe, publisher-editor of German weekly Die Zeit.

"She can go with a revived FDP, with Steinbrueck's SPD and, if the Greens are hungry enough, with them as well," he says, putting her chances at "close to 100 percent".

"She represents the 'good shepherd' in turbulent times. Somehow, people believe, she will get them through the mess safe and sound."

(Additional reporting by Andreas Rinke; Writing by Noah Barkin; editing by Janet McBride)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Mursi to speak as Egypt's Islamists seek way out of crisis

CAIRO (Reuters) - The body writing Egypt's new constitution began a session to vote on a final draft on Thursday, a move President Mohamed Mursi's allies in the Muslim Brotherhood hope will help end a crisis prompted by a decree expanding his powers.

Mursi is expected to call for national unity in a public address at 7.00 p.m. (1700 GMT) to ease the crisis, which has set off a week of protests and threatens to derail early signs of economic recovery from two years of turmoil.

In an interview with Time, Mursi said the majority supported his decree. But he added: "If we had a constitution, then all of what I have said or done last week will stop."

Two people have been killed and hundreds injured in countrywide protests ignited by the decree Mursi issued last Thursday, which gave him sweeping powers and placed them beyond legal challenge, deepening the divide between the newly empowered Islamists and their opponents.

Setting the stage for more confrontation, the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies have called for pro-Mursi protests on Saturday in Tahrir Square, where a sit-in by the president's opponents entered a seventh day on Thursday.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that backed Mursi for president in June elections, hopes to end the crisis by replacing the controversial decree with an entirely new constitution to be approved by popular referendum.

"May God bless us on this day," Hossam el-Gheriyani, the speaker of the constituent assembly, told members at the start of the session to vote on each of the 234 articles in the draft, which will go to Mursi for approval and then to a plebiscite.

It is a gamble based on the Islamists' belief that they can mobilize voters to win the referendum. They have won all elections held since Hosni Mubarak was toppled last year.

But critics say the bid to finish the constitution quickly could make matters worse.

The constitution is one of the main reasons Mursi and his Islamist backers are at loggerheads with opponents who are boycotting the 100-member constitutional assembly. They say the Islamists have hijacked it to impose their vision of the future.

The assembly's legitimacy has been called into question by a series of court cases demanding its dissolution. Its standing has also been hit by the withdrawal of members including church representatives and liberals.

The Brotherhood argues that approval of the constitution in a referendum would bury all arguments about both the legality of the assembly and the text it has written in the last six months.

Once the assembly approves the draft it will go to Mursi for ratification, a step expected at the weekend. He must then call the referendum within 15 days.

Once the constitution is approved in a referendum, legislative powers will pass straight from Mursi to the upper house of parliament, in line with an article in the new constitution, assembly members said.

DEMOCRATIC CORNERSTONE

"This is an exit. After the referendum, all previous constitutional decrees, including March 2011's decree and the current one that created all this political fuss, will fall automatically after 15 days," Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan told Reuters.

Egypt has been without an elected legislature since the Islamist-dominated lower house was dissolved in June. New parliamentary elections cannot happen until the constitution is passed.

The constitution is supposed to be the cornerstone of a new, democratic Egypt following Mubarak's three decades of autocratic rule. Mursi had extended its December 12 deadline by two months, but the assembly speaker said the extra time was not needed.

The constitution will determine the powers of the president and parliament and define the roles of the judiciary and a military establishment that had been at the heart of power for decades until Mubarak's downfall. It will also set out the role of Islamic law, or sharia.

"The secular forces and the church and the judges are not happy with the constitution, the journalists are not happy, so I think this will increase tensions in the country," said Mustapha Kamal Al-Sayyid, a professor of political science at Cairo University. "I don't know how the referendum can be organized if the judges are upset," he added.

Egyptian elections are overseen by the judiciary.

MURSI SAYS HE IS NO PHARAOH

Leading opposition figure and former Arab League chief Amr Moussa slammed the move to accelerate the constitution. He walked out of the assembly earlier this month. "This is nonsensical and one of the steps that shouldn't be taken, given the background of anger and resentment to the current constitutional assembly," he told Reuters.

The decree issued by Mursi has set him further at odds with opponents and worsened already tetchy relations with the judges, many of whom saw it as a threat to their independence. Two of Egypt's courts declared a strike on Wednesday.

Mursi was unrepentant in the interview published overnight.

"I think you have seen the most recent opinion surveys. I think more than 80, around 90 percent of the people in Egypt are — according to these opinion measures — they are with what I have done. It's not against the people, It's with the people, coincides with the benefits," he said.

Among other steps, the decree shielded from judicial review all decisions taken by Mursi until the election of a new parliament.

His opponents say it exposed the autocratic impulses of a man who was once jailed by Mubarak. Western governments expressed concern, and Human Rights Watch said it had given the leader more power than the military establishment he replaced.

A constitution must be in place before a new parliament can be elected. In the Time interview, Mursi disputed his opponents' assertions that he had become a new pharaoh.

"The reason why I went to prison is that I was defending the judiciary and Egyptian judges. I know perfectly what it means to have separation between the three powers, executive power, legislative power and the judiciary," he said.

"The president represents the executive power, and the president is elected by the people. And I'm keen that the people would have complete freedom of elections, and I'm keen on exchange of power through free elections," he said.

(Additional reporting by Tamim Elyan, Patrick Werr and Edmund Blair; Editing by Will Waterman)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

China decries attempts to "read too much into" passport map row

BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Wednesday that people should not read too much into the placement of a new map in its passports that depicts claims to disputed territory, after the United States said it would raise concerns with Beijing over the issue.

The Philippines and Vietnam have condemned the new microchip-equipped passports, saying the map they incorporate violates their national sovereignty by marking disputed waters as Chinese territory.

India, which also claims two Himalayan regions shown as Chinese territory on the map, is responding by issuing visas stamped with its own version of the borders.

"The aim of China's new electronic passports is to strengthen its technological abilities and make it convenient for Chinese citizens to enter or leave the country," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a daily news briefing.

"The issue of the maps in China's new passports should not be read too much into. China is willing to remain in touch with relevant countries and promote the healthy development of the exchange of people between China and the outside world."

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the United States had concerns about China's map causing "tension and anxiety" between countries in the South China Sea.

The United States, which has urged China and its neighbors to agree on a code of conduct as a first step toward reducing tension over the South China Sea, will accept the new Chinese passports as they meet the standards of a legal travel document.

The Philippines said later on Wednesday it was taking steps to avoid any possibility of being seen to legitimize China's claims in the South China Sea.

It said it would no longer stamp visas for visitors from China in their passports but would issue them on a separate form.

"This action is being undertaken to avoid the Philippines being misconstrued as legitimizing the 9-dash-line," Edwin Lacierda, a spokesman for Philippine President Benigno Aquino, told reporters.

The "9-dash-line" refers to China's claim over the South China Sea as it depicts it on maps, including the map in the passport.

The Philippine Foreign Ministry said the decision not to stamp its visa into the Chinese passports reinforced its protest against China's "excessive claim over almost the entire South China Sea".

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing and Manuel Mogato in Manila; Editing by Robert Birsel)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Iran "will press on with enrichment:" nuclear chief

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran will continue enriching uranium "with intensity", with the number of enrichment centrifuges it has operating to increase substantially in the current year, the country's nuclear energy chief was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

The comments by Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, signaled continued defiance by Iran in the face of international demands that Tehran halt enrichment to the higher 20 percent fissile purity level, close down its Fordow enrichment plant, and ship out its stockpile of the material.

Diplomacy between Iran and the world powers - the United States, China, Russia, France, Germany, and Britain - has been deadlocked since a June meeting that ended without any breakthrough.

Iran has faced a tightening of Western trade sanctions in the last two years, with the United States and its allies hoping the measures will force Iran to curb its nuclear program.

"Despite the sanctions, most likely this year we will have a substantial growth in centrifuge machines and we will continue (uranium) enrichment with intensity," Abbasi-Davani was quoted as saying on Wednesday by the website of Iranian state television (IRIB).

The Iranian calendar year runs to mid-March.

But Abbasi-Davani did not say whether Iran would increase the work that most worries the West, the higher-grade enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity, as opposed to the lower-grade enrichment to 3.5 percent level needed for nuclear power plants.

Iran says it needs 20 percent enriched uranium to make fuel for a medical research reactor, and argues its nuclear program has purely peaceful purposes.

Iran started producing 20 percent-enriched uranium at the Fordow site, buried deep inside a mountain, in late 2011 and has been operating 700 centrifuges there since January.

A U.N. report earlier this month said that the Islamic state has put in place the nearly 2,800 centrifuges that Fordow was designed for, and is poised to double the number of them operating to roughly 1,400 from 700 now.

U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Yukiya Amano said earlier this month that Iran is enriching uranium at a constant pace and international sanctions aimed at making Tehran suspend the activity are having no visible impact.

Abbasi-Davani also said on Wednesday that the Arak research reactor, which Western experts say could potentially offer Iran a second route to material for a nuclear bomb, faced "no problems" and was progressing as normal, IRIB reported.

A U.N. report this month showed that Iran has postponed until 2014 the planned start-up of the Arak research reactor, which analysts say could yield plutonium for nuclear arms if the spent fuel is reprocessed.

(Reporting By Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Greg Mahlich)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Car bombs kill 34 in pro-Assad Damascus suburb

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Two car bombs exploded in an attack that killed at least 34 people on Wednesday in a district of the Syrian capital loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

The explosions struck the eastern neighborhood of Jaramana, home to many of Syria's Druze minority as well as Christians who have fled violence elsewhere, ripping through nearby shops and bringing debris crashing down on cars.

Car bombs have shaken Damascus - once a bastion of security in Assad's 20-month campaign to crush an uprising against his rule - with growing regularity but Wednesday's attacks were the deadliest in the capital for several months.

Authorities severely limit independent media in Syria and it was not immediately possible to verify reports. The government said 34 people were killed.

The bombs followed two weeks of military gains by rebels who have stormed and taken army bases across Syria, exposing Assad's loss of control in northern and eastern regions despite the devastating air power which he has used to bombard opposition strongholds.

Underlining the growing military muscle of the rebels, bolstered by weapons captured during raids on army facilities as well as supplies from abroad, fighters shot down a war plane in the northern province of Aleppo on Wednesday using an anti-aircraft missile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Opposition group subsequently posted a video clip on the Internet that showed a man in a green jumpsuit being carried through fields. He was bleeding heavily from his head and appeared unconscious; "This is the pilot that attacked the houses of civilians," said a voice off camera.

Another video showed a blackened and smoldering tail fin of what activists said was a MiG-23 warplane.

The bloodshed came as Syria's new opposition coalition held its first full meeting on Wednesday in Cairo to discuss forming a transitional government crucial to win effective Arab and Western support for the revolt against Assad.

"The objective is to name the prime minister for a transitional government, or at least have a list of candidates," said Suhair al-Atassi, one of the coalition's two vice-presidents.

The two-day meeting will also select committees to manage aid and communications, a process that is becoming a power struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood and secular members.

Rivalries have also intensified between the opposition in exile and rebels on the ground in Syria, where the death toll has reached 40,000, including soldiers, civilians and rebels.

'TERRORIST' BOMBS

State news agency SANA described Wednesday's blasts as "terrorist bombings", a label it reserves for attacks by mainly Sunni Muslim fighters battling to overthrow Assad, a member of Syria's Alawite minority linked to Shi'ite Islam.

Two smaller bombs also exploded in Jaramana at about the same time as the car bombs, around 7 a.m. (0500 GMT). In total at least 47 people were killed, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Eighty three people were seriously wounded.

"Who benefits from this? Tell me who benefits from this? America, Israel, Qatar?" a man at the bomb site said to Syrian television, which broadcast footage of firefighters hosing down the blackened hulks of two vehicles and several cars crushed by debris from neighboring buildings.

Pools of blood could be seen on the road.

Activists also reported air strikes on the town of Maarat al-Numan, a rebel-held town near the main north-south highway linking Damascus with Syria's largest city, Aleppo.

Rebels around Maarat al-Numan have been trying for weeks to dislodge Assad's forces from the military base of Wadi al-Deif, a few hundred meters from the highway.

Most foreign powers have condemned Assad. Britain, France and Gulf countries have recognized the umbrella opposition group meeting in Cairo, the Syrian National Coalition, as the sole representative of the Syrian people.

But Assad has been able to rely on his allies, especially regional powerhouse Iran, which is believed to be bank-rolling him and supplying military support despite U.S. and European sanctions. Russia, Syria's main arms supplier, says it has only sent weapons already agreed to in previous deals.

International Syria mediator Lakhdar Brahimi is due to brief the 15-member council on Thursday and the U.N. General Assembly on Friday. There is diplomatic deadlock between Western powers, who broadly support the opposition and Assad's supporters Russia and China which have blocked Security Council action.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, speaking after a visit to Paris by Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, said he had not given up hope of forging a united position.

"If we want to avoid the country being torn apart completely, then we need to bring the Russians back on board," Fabius told France Inter radio.

"We must not end up with an Iraqi scenario whereby after Bashar, there is nothing left except jihadis. We are trying to build ... an alternative to Bashar and we hope the Russians will end up understanding this."

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes and Erika Solomon in Beirut, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Cairo and John Irish in Paris, editing by Peter Millership)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Congo M23 rebels say withdrawing forces

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - Rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have started withdrawing from towns captured since last week from government troops, following a deal brokered by Uganda, their military leader said on Wednesday.

Such a pull-out would mean the M23 rebel group was giving up gains from a lightning offensive carried out in the past week, but there was no indication they were ending their eight-month-old insurgency.

The rebellion, which U.N. experts say is backed by neighboring Rwanda, has raised the risk of all-out war in a borderlands region dogged by nearly two decades of conflict that has killed about 5 million people and is fuelled by competition over mineral resources.

"We're leaving Sake, we're leaving Masisi," Sultani Makenga told Reuters in rebel-held Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu. "Goma will be later," he said, adding fighters would eventually pull back 20 km from the city.

"We want peace," Makenga said. "We're prepared for the return of government troops, they're going to come ... But if Kabila's troops harass the people we're prepared to come back in, we're just around the corner," he said.

Ugandan military chief Aronda Nyakayirima said on Tuesday after a meeting with Makenga that M23 had agreed to withdraw from Goma unconditionally. But M23's political leader Jean Marie Runiga initially cast doubt on the deal, saying the pull-out was contingent on a list of demands - including direct talks with President Joseph Kabila.

The mixed messages from Makenga and Runiga could be a sign of divisions within the movement, according to analyst Jason Stearns at independent think-tank the Rift Valley Institute.

"This is a military movement with a political wing created post facto ... it's undermined internal cohesion," he said.

Makenga told Reuters his decision to withdraw forces from Goma was made before the meeting with Uganda's army chief in Kampala, but Stearns believes M23 may be coming under external pressure given the storm of protest from regional powers caused by the rebel capture of Goma.

"The future of M23 depends on the diplomatic dance between donors, countries in the region and Kigali," Stearns said.

The rebels seized Goma on November20 after Congolese soldiers withdrew and U.N. peacekeepers gave up defending the city. U.N. experts say Rwanda, Congo's small but militarily powerful eastern neighbor, is giving orders to the rebels and supplying arms and recruits, a charge denied by Rwanda.

The Congolese army was skeptical about any M23 withdrawal.

"Let's see how things evolve, we'll see whether they're doing this in good faith or not ... Nothing has changed, we're still in our positions," Colonel Olivier Hamuli, spokesman for the FARDC army said.

About 100 people gathered in rain in Goma on Wednesday to protest against the possible return of government troops, marching to the U.N. offices to deliver a memo.

"When the government troops were here before we had no peace, now as we welcomed M23, we think they'll cause even more problems than before," protester Alain Safari said.

Makenga said rebel forces would withdraw to about 20 km of Goma, leaving a company of 100 soldiers at the airport, and allowing government troops to return to the city.

According to the agreement in Uganda, government troops would return to Goma on Thursday, followed by a visit on Friday by regional defense chiefs.

The conflict in eastern Congo - which has big reserves of gold, tin and coltan, an ore of rare metals used in making mobile phones - has displaced 140,000 civilians according to the United Nations.

(Reporting by Jonny Hogg; Writing by Bate Felix; Editing by Pravin Char)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Egypt protests continue in crisis over Mursi powers

CAIRO (Reuters) - Hundreds of protesters were in Cairo's Tahrir Square for a sixth day on Wednesday, demanding that Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi rescind a decree they say gives him dictatorial powers.

Five months into the Islamist leader's term, and in scenes reminiscent of the popular uprising that unseated predecessor Hosni Mubarak last year, police fired teargas at stone-throwers following protests by tens of thousands on Tuesday against the declaration that expanded Mursi's powers and put his decisions beyond legal challenge.

Protesters say they will stay in Tahrir until the decree is withdrawn, bringing fresh turmoil to a nation at the heart of the Arab Spring and delivering a new blow to an economy already on the ropes.

Senior judges have been negotiating with Mursi about how to restrict his new powers, while protesters want him to dissolve an Islamist-dominated assembly that is drawing up a new constitution and which Mursi protected from legal review.

Any deal to calm the street will likely need to address both issues. But opposition politicians said the list of demands could grow the longer the crisis goes on. Many protesters want the cabinet, which meets on Wednesday, to be sacked, too.

Mursi's administration insists that his actions were aimed at breaking a political logjam to push Egypt more swiftly towards democracy, an assertion his opponents dismiss.

"The president wants to create a new dictatorship," said 38-year-old Mohamed Sayyed Ahmed, who has not had a job for two years. He is one of many in the square who are as angry over economic hardship as they are about Mursi's actions.

"We want the scrapping of the constitutional declaration and the constituent assembly, so a new one is created representing all the people and not just one section," he said.

The West worries about turbulence in a nation that has a peace treaty with Israel and is now ruled by Islamists they long kept at arms length. The United States, a big donor to Egypt's military, has called for "peaceful democratic dialogue".

Two people have been killed in violence since the decree, while low-level clashes between protesters and police have gone on for days near Tahrir. Violence has flared in other cities.

WRANGLES

Trying to ease tensions with judges, Mursi assured Egypt's highest judicial authority that elements of his decree giving his decisions immunity applied only to matters of "sovereign" importance, a compromise suggested by the judges in talks.

That should limit it to issues such as declaring war, but experts said there was much room for interpretation. The judges themselves are divided, and the broader judiciary has yet to back the compromise. Some have gone on strike over the decree.

The fate of the assembly drawing up the constitution has been at the centre of a wrangle between Islamists and their opponents for months. Many liberals, Christians and more moderate Muslims have walked out, saying their voices are not being heard in the body dominated by Islamists.

That has undermined the work of the assembly, which is tasked with shaping Egypt's new democracy. Without a constitution in place, the president's powers are not permanently defined and a new parliament cannot be elected.

For now, Mursi holds both executive and legislative powers. His decree says his decisions cannot be challenged until a new parliament is in place. An election is expected in early 2013.

"If Mursi doesn't respond to the people, they will raise their demands to his removal," said Bassem Kamel, a liberal and former member of the now dissolved parliament that was dominated by Mursi's party, a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.

He said Tuesday's protest showed that Egyptians "understood that the Brotherhood isn't for democracy but uses it as a tool to reach power and then to get rid of it".

Protecting his decisions and the constituent assembly from legal review was a swipe at the judiciary, still largely unreformed since Mubarak's era. In a speech on Friday, Mursi praised the judiciary as a whole but referred to corrupt elements he aimed to weed out.

One presidential source said Mursi wanted to re-make the Supreme Constitutional Court, a body of top judges that earlier this year declared the Islamist-led parliament void, leading to its dissolution by the then ruling military.

Both Islamists and their opponents broadly agree that the judiciary needs reform, but Mursi's rivals oppose his methods.

The courts have dealt a series of blows to Mursi and the Brotherhood. The first constituent assembly, also packed with Islamists, was dissolved. An attempt by Mursi in October to remove the unpopular general prosecutor was also blocked.

In his decree, Mursi gave himself the power to sack the prosecutor general and appoint a new one, which he duly did.

(Additional reporting by Tamim Elyan; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Will Waterman)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Mursi opponents rally in Cairo's Tahrir

CAIRO (Reuters) - Opponents of President Mohamed Mursi rallied in Cairo's Tahrir Square for a fifth day on Tuesday, stepping up calls to scrap a decree they say threatens Egypt with a new era of autocracy.

The protest called by leftist, liberal and socialist groups marks an escalation of the worst crisis since the Muslim Brotherhood politician was elected in June and exposes the deep divide between newly empowered Islamists and their opponents.

The crowd is expected to grow in the late afternoon but hundreds were already in the square after many camped overnight. Police fired tear gas and organizers urged demonstrators not to clash with Interior Ministry security forces.

One person - a Muslim Brotherhood activist - has been killed and hundreds more injured in violence set off by a move that has also triggered a rebellion by judges and battered confidence in an economy struggling to recover from two years of turmoil.

Mursi's opponents have accused him of behaving like a modern-day pharaoh. The United States, a big benefactor to Egypt's military, has voiced its concerns, worried by more turbulence in a country that has a peace treaty with Israel.

The protest will test the extent to which Egypt's non-Islamist opposition can rally support. The Islamists have consistently beaten more secular parties at the ballot box in elections held since Hosni Mubarak was toppled in February, 2011.

"We don't want a dictatorship again. The Mubarak regime was a dictatorship. We had a revolution to have justice and freedom," said Ahmed Husseini, 32, who was speaking early on Tuesday in Tahrir Square.

Activists have been camped out in Tahrir Square, scene of the historic uprising against Mubarak, since Friday, blocking it to traffic and clashing intermittently with riot police in nearby streets.

The decree issued by Mursi on Thursday expanded his powers and protected his decisions from judicial review until the election of a new parliament expected in the first half of 2013.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said it gives Mursi more power than the military junta from which he assumed power.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted judges had challenged the decree in remarks to Austria's Die Presse, adding: "But I have also noted that Mursi wants to resolve the problem in a dialogue. I will encourage him to continue to do so."

AVOIDING CONFRONTATION

In a bid to ease tensions with judges outraged at the step, Mursi has assured the country's highest judicial authority that elements of the decree giving his decisions immunity would apply only to matters of "sovereign" importance. Though that should limit it to issues such as a declaration of war, experts said there was room for a broader interpretation.

In another step to avoid more confrontation, the Muslim Brotherhood cancelled a mass protest it had called in Cairo for Tuesday in support of a decree that has also won the backing of more hardline Islamist groups.

But there has been no retreat on other elements of the decree, including a stipulation that the Islamist-dominated body writing a new constitution be protected from legal challenge.

Its popular legitimacy undermined by the withdrawal of most of its non-Islamist members, the assembly faces a raft of court cases from plaintiffs who claim it was formed illegally.

The new system of government to be laid out in the constitution is one of the issues at the heart of the crisis.

"The president of the republic must put his delusions to one side and undertake the only step capable of defusing the crisis: cancelling the despotic declaration," liberal commentator and activist Amr Hamzawy wrote in his column in al-Watan newspaper.

"We asked for the cancellation of the decree and that did not happen," said Mona Amer, spokeswoman for the opposition movement Popular Current, part of a coalition of parties that are joining forces to challenge the Mursi decree.

Mursi issued the decree a day after his administration won international praise for brokering an end to eight days of violence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

The decree was seen as targeting in part a legal establishment still largely unreformed from Mubarak's era, when the Brotherhood was outlawed.

MEETING HALF WAY

Rulings from an array of courts this year have dealt a series of blows to the Brotherhood, leading to the dissolution of the first constitutional assembly and the parliament elected a year ago. The Brotherhood had a major say in both.

The judiciary blocked an attempt by Mursi to reconvene the Brotherhood-led parliament after his election victory. It also stood in the way of his attempt to sack the prosecutor general, a Mubarak hold over, in October.

In his decree, Mursi gave himself the power to sack that prosecutor and appoint a new one. In open defiance of Mursi, some judges are refusing to acknowledge that step.

But in a sign that other judges were willing to meet Mursi half way, the Supreme Judicial Council, the nation's highest judicial body, proposed Mursi limit the scope of decisions that would be immune from judicial review to "sovereign matters", language the presidential spokesman said Mursi backed.

"The president said he had the utmost respect for the judicial authority and its members," spokesman Yasser Ali told reporters in announcing the agreement on Monday.

Mursi's administration has defended his decree as an effort to speed up reforms and complete a democratic transformation. Leftists, liberals, socialists and others say it has exposed the autocratic impulses of a man once jailed by Mubarak.

Before the president's announcement, leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahy said protests would continue until the decree was scrapped and said Tahrir would be a model of an "Egypt that will not accept a new dictator because it brought down the old one".

Mursi has repeatedly stated the decree will only stay in place until a new parliament is elected - something that can only happen once the constitution is written and passed in a popular referendum.

Though both Islamists and their opponents broadly agree that the judiciary needs reform, his rivals oppose Mursi's methods.

(Additional reporting by Seham Eloraby in Cairo and Michael Shields in Vienna; Editing by Anna Willard)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Air strike on Syrian olive press kills, wounds dozens

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A Syrian military air strike killed and wounded dozens of people when it hit an olive oil press near the northern city of Idlib on Tuesday, activists said.

Activist Tareq Abdelhaq said at least 20 people were killed and 50 wounded in the attack, citing residents near the Abu Hilal olive oil press, 2 km (1.2 miles) west of Idlib city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it could only confirm five deaths.

Syria's northern provinces, including Idlib, have been subjected to heavy air assaults by government forces against rebels who have been fighting for 20 months to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

Activists said it was unclear if there was any rebel target in the area and that the victims were civilians, but acknowledged there were opposition fighters in the area.

They said a jet fired two barrel bombs that hit the press, and that rebels gave medical treatment and helped evacuate victims.

The British-based Observatory, which has a network of activists across Syria, said that so far it has confirmed the deaths of five people, with five wounded.

"Beyond this I cannot give accurate information. Up to this point there have been problems reaching people in the area by telephone," said the group's head, Rami Abdelrahman.

Activist reports are difficult to verify as the government restricts access to foreign media outlets.

(Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Congo rebels set conditions for Goma withdrawal

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - Rebels in Democratic Republic of Congo said on Tuesday they would withdraw from the eastern city of Goma if President Joseph Kabila agreed to their demands, which the Congolese government was quick to dismiss as a farce.

The deadlock threatens to prolong a crisis that regional officials had hoped they could prevent from descending into all-out war in a region dogged by nearly two decades of conflict.

The M23 rebels, who have said they want to overthrow the government in Kinshasa, captured Goma last week after Congolese soldiers withdrew and U.N. peacekeepers were forced to give up defending the city.

The Ugandan military, which has been coordinating talks with M23, said earlier on Tuesday that M23 leader Colonel Sultani Makenga had agreed to withdraw from Goma with no conditions.

But the political chief of M23, Jean-Marie Runiga, told reporters in Goma his forces would withdraw if Kabila held national talks, released political prisoners and dissolved an electoral commission, a body accused by Western powers of delivering Kabila a second term in 2011 in a flawed election.

"The withdrawal, yes. If Kabila agrees to our demands then we'll go quickly," Runiga told reporters in a hotel in Goma, flanked by senior M23 officials in civilian clothes and rebels in military fatigues.

The conflicting statements indicated a quick solution to the latest insurgency in eastern Congo, which has displaced thousands of civilians, was not close.

Lambert Mende, Congo's government spokesman, quickly dismissed M23's demands.

"It's a farce, that's the word. There's been a document adopted by the region. If each day they're going to come back with new demands it becomes ridiculous. We're no longer in the realms of seriousness," Mende told Reuters from Kinshasa.

NO SIGN OF PULL-OUT

The rebels on Tuesday showed no signs of an imminent pull-out and continued to guard strategic sites in Goma.

More than half a dozen armed M23 fighters dressed in crisp fatigues stood in front of the central bank building as U.N. peacekeepers in two troop carriers looked on.

"This is a sign we are in this for the long haul. M23 is digging in while the Congolese army prepares another offensive," said Jason Stearns of independent research organization the Rift Valley Institute. "It is difficult to imagine what the possible compromise could be between the two sides," Stearns said.

African leaders had at the weekend called on M23 to abandon their aim of toppling the government and to withdraw from Goma. The Great Lakes heads of state also proposed that U.N. peacekeepers in and around the city should provide security in a neutral zone between Goma and new areas seized by M23.

Runiga also demanded the lifting of house arrest on a leading Kinshasa-based opposition member Etienne Tshisekedi as well as an inquiry into army corruption.

He said the rebels were ready to work with MONUSCO, the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo.

Aronda Nyakayirima, Uganda's military chief, had earlier said Makenga had agreed to withdraw from Goma and the eastern city of Sake.

"We met last night and I communicated to him the decision of regional leaders reached on Saturday and he accepted to pull back his forces out of Goma and Sake and also stop any further advances southward," Nyakayirima told Reuters in Kampala.

"He didn't put up any conditions for pulling out because he agreed that all their grievances will be resolved in the ICGLR (Great Lakes) mechanism as stipulated in the declarations of the Saturday summit (in Kampala)," he said.

In a potential further escalation, Rwanda said on Tuesday its troops clashed with Rwandan FDLR rebels who attacked three villages on its border with Congo, but a spokesman for the FDLR denied its fighters had been involved.

Rwanda has in the past used the presence of the FDLR as a justification for intervening in neighbour Congo. But the rebel group, which experts say has dwindled in strength, has not mounted a significant attack on Rwanda in years.

Congo and U.N. experts accuse Rwanda of backing the M23 group in eastern Congo, a charge vehemently denied by Rwandan President Paul Kagame who has long complained that Kabila's government and U.N. peacekeepers have not done enough to drive out the FDLR from that area.

(Additional reporting by Elias Biryabarema in Kampala and Jenny Clover in Kigali; Writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Pravin Char)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Greece, markets satisfied by EU-IMF Greek debt deal

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The Greek government and financial markets were cheered on Tuesday by an agreement between euro zone finance ministers and the International Monetary Fund to reduce Greece's debt, paving the way for the release of urgently needed aid loans.

The deal, clinched at the third attempt after weeks of wrangling, removes the biggest risk of a sovereign default in the euro zone for now, ensuring the near-bankrupt country will stay afloat at least until after a 2013 German general election.

"Tomorrow, a new day starts for all Greeks," Prime Minister Antonis Samaras told reporters at 3 a.m. in Athens after staying up to follow the tense Brussels negotiations.

After 12 hours of talks, international lenders agreed on a package of measures to reduce Greek debt by more than 40 billion euros, projected to cut it to 124 percent of gross domestic product by 2020.

In an additional new promise, ministers committed to taking further steps to lower Greece's debt to "significantly below 110 percent" in 2022.

That was a veiled acknowledgement that some write-off of loans may be necessary in 2016, the point when Greece is forecast to reach a primary budget surplus, although Germany and its northern allies continue to reject such a step publicly.

Analyst Alex White of JP Morgan called it "another moment of 'creative ambiguity' to match the June (EU) Summit deal on legacy bank assets; i.e. a statement from which all sides can take a degree of comfort".

The euro strengthened, European shares climbed to near a three-week high and safe haven German bonds fell on Tuesday, after the agreement to reduce Greek debt and release loans to keep the economy afloat.

"The political will to reward the Greek austerity and reform measures has already been there for a while. Now, this political will has finally been supplemented by financial support," economist Carsten Brzeski of ING said.

PARLIAMENTARY APPROVAL

To reduce the debt pile, ministers agreed to cut the interest rate on official loans, extend the maturity of Greece's loans from the EFSF bailout fund by 15 years to 30 years, and grant a 10-year interest repayment deferral on those loans.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Athens had to come close to achieving a primary surplus, where state income covers its expenditure, excluding the huge debt repayments.

"When Greece has achieved, or is about to achieve, a primary surplus and fulfilled all of its conditions, we will, if need be, consider further measures for the reduction of the total debt," Schaeuble said.

Eurogroup Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker said ministers would formally approve the release of a major aid installment needed to recapitalize Greece's teetering banks and enable the government to pay wages, pensions and suppliers on December 13 - after those national parliaments that need to approve the package do so.

The German and Dutch lower houses of parliament and the Grand Committee of the Finnish parliament have to endorse the deal. Losing no time, Schaeuble said he had asked German lawmakers to vote on the package this week.

Greece will receive 43.7 billion euros in four installments once it fulfils all conditions. The 34.4 billion euro December payment will comprise 23.8 billion for banks and 10.6 billion in budget assistance.

The IMF's share, less than a third of the total, will be paid out only once a buy-back of Greek debt has occurred in the coming weeks, but IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the Fund had no intention of pulling out of the program.

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann welcomed the deal but said Greece still had a long way to go to get its finances and economy into shape. Vice Chancellor Michael Spindelegger told reporters the important thing had been keeping the IMF on board.

"It had threatened to go in a direction that the IMF would exit Greek financing. This was averted and this is decisive for us Europeans," he said.

The debt buy-back was the part of the package on which the least detail was disclosed, to try to avoid giving hedge funds an opportunity to push up prices. Officials have previously talked of a 10 billion euro program to buy debt back from private investors at about 35 cents in the euro.

The ministers promised to hand back 11 billion euros in profits accruing to their national central banks from European Central Bank purchases of discounted Greek government bonds in the secondary market.

BETTER FUTURE

The deal substantially reduces the risk of a Greek exit from the single currency area, unless political turmoil were to bring down Samaras's pro-bailout coalition and pass power to radical leftists or rightists.

The biggest opposition party, the hard left SYRIZA, which now leads Samaras's center-right New Democracy in opinion polls, dismissed the deal and said it fell short of what was needed to make Greece's debt affordable.

Greece, where the euro zone's debt crisis erupted in late 2009, is proportionately the currency area's most heavily indebted country, despite a big cut this year in the value of privately-held debt. Its economy has shrunk by nearly 25 percent in five years.

Negotiations had been stalled over how Greece's debt, forecast to peak at 190-200 percent of GDP in the coming two years, could be cut to a more bearable 120 percent by 2020.

The agreed figure fell slightly short of that goal, and the IMF insisted that euro zone ministers should make a firm commitment to further steps to reduce the debt if Athens faithfully implements its budget and reform program.

The main question remains whether Greek debt can become affordable without euro zone governments having to write off some of the loans they have made to Athens.

Germany and its northern European allies have hitherto rejected any idea of forgiving official loans to Athens, but European Union officials believe that line may soften after next September's German general election.

Schaeuble told reporters that it was legally impossible for Germany and other countries to forgive debt while simultaneously giving new loan guarantees. That did not explicitly preclude debt relief at a later stage, once Greece completes its adjustment program and no longer needs new loans.

But senior conservative German lawmaker Gerda Hasselfeldt said there was no legal possibility for a debt "haircut" for Greece in the future either.

At Germany's insistence, earmarked revenue and aid payments will go into a strengthened "segregated account" to ensure that Greece services its debts.

A source familiar with IMF thinking said a loan write-off once Greece has fulfilled its program would be the simplest way to make its debt viable, but other methods such as forgoing interest payments, or lending at below market rates and extending maturities could all help.

German central bank governor Jens Weidmann has suggested that Greece could "earn" a reduction in debt it owes to euro zone governments in a few years if it diligently implements all the agreed reforms. The European Commission backs that view.

The ministers agreed to reduce interest on already extended bilateral loans in stages from the current 150 basis points above financing costs to 50 bps.

(Additional reporting by Annika Breidhardt, Robin Emmott and John O'Donnell in Brussels, Andreas Rinke and Noah Barkin in Berlin, Michael Shields in Vienna; Writing by Paul Taylor; editing by David Stamp)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Congo says no talks with rebels unless they quit Goma

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - Congo said on Sunday it would not negotiate with M23 rebels in the east until they pulled out of the city of Goma, but a rebel spokesman said Kinshasa was in no position to set conditions on peace talks.

Congolese President Joseph Kabila met with M23 for the first time on Saturday after an urgent summit in Uganda where regional leaders gave M23 two days to leave Goma, which the rebels seized six days ago after U.N.-backed government troops melted away.

Eight months into a rebellion that U.N. experts say is backed by neighboring Rwanda, the rebels have so far shown no sign of quitting the lakeside city of one million people.

The rebels say they plan to march on other cities in the east, and then strike out across the country to the capital Kinshasa, across 1,000 miles of dense jungle with few roads, a daunting feat achieved 15 years ago by Kabila's father.

Amani Kabasha, a spokesman for M23's political arm, welcomed the meeting with Kabila but questioned the government's resolve to end a crisis that risks engulfing the region.

"Why put conditions on talks? You pose conditions when you are in a position of strength. Is the government really in such a position?" Kabasha told Reuters in Goma, which sits on the north shore of Lake Kivu at Congo's eastern border with Rwanda.

Vianney Kazarama, the rebels' military spokesman, said government forces that had been reinforcing along the shores of the lake were now deploying in hills around the rebel held town of Sake and government-held Minova, both Goma's west.

A U.N. source in Minova said government soldiers had gone on a looting spree for a second straight night there. The town was calm on Sunday but gunshots rang out overnight, the source said.

"What is real is that the morale of the troops is very low. They've lost hope in the commanders," the U.N. source said.

The Congolese army has vowed to launch counter-offensives and win back lost territory. The rebels have warned the government against embarking on a "new military adventure".

So far, the unruly and poorly-led army has been little match for the rebels, despite assistance from a U.N. peacekeeping mission that deployed attack helicopters to support the government before Goma fell.

Rebel leaders share ethnic ties with the Tutsi leadership of Rwanda, a small but militarily capable neighbor that intervened often in eastern Congo in the 18 years since Hutu perpetrators of Rwanda's genocide took shelter there. Rwanda has repeatedly denied Congolese and U.N. accusations it is behind M23.

Saturday's Kampala summit called on the rebels to abandon their aim of toppling the government and proposed that government troops be redeployed inside Goma.

The rebels have not explicitly rejected or accepted the proposals. They are, however, unlikely to cede control of the city or accept government soldiers inside it.

WITHDRAW

Regional and international leaders are trying to halt the latest bout of violence in eastern Congo, where millions have died of hunger and disease in nearly two decades of fighting fuelled by local and regional politics, ethnic rifts and competition for reserves of gold, tin and coltan.

"Negotiations will start after the (M23) withdrawal from Goma," Congolese government spokesman Lambert Mende said.

Kabila was still in the Ugandan capital on Sunday morning but was expected to return to Kinshasa later in the day or on Monday, two Congo government sources said. Kabila's communications chief Andre Ngwej said he did not believe official talks would start in the next few days.

While Kabila's army is on the back foot, analysts are skeptical the rebels can make good on their threat to march on Kinshasa without major support from foreign backers.

The regional leaders' plan proposed deploying a joint force at Goma airport comprising of a company of neutral African troops, a company of the Congolese army (FARDC) and a company of the M23.

In a statement, the Kinshasa government said Tanzania would take command of the neutral force and that South Africa had offered "substantial" logistical and financial contributions towards it. The Kampala plan did not say what the consequences would be if the rebels did not comply.

(Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by James Macharia and Peter Graff)

20.39 | 0 komentar | Read More