The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Syrian military kills four in renewed assaults
- French writer denies pressured into DSK complaint
- Murdoch, savaged in parliament, pulls British TV bid
| Syrian military kills four in renewed assaults Posted: 13 Jul 2011 08:01 PM PDT AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian forces killed four villagers on Wednesday near Turkey, rights campaigners said, in an expansion of a military campaign to crush dissent against President Bashar al-Assad.
The four were killed in tank-backed assaults on at least four villages in the Jabal al-Zawya region in northwestern Idlib province near the border with Turkey, an activist in Idlib and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Assad, from Syria's Alawite minority sect, an offshoot of Islam, is struggling to put down widening demonstrations in outlying rural and tribal regions, in suburbs of the capital and in cities such as Hama and Homs demanding an end to his autocratic rule. Mass arrests and heavy deployment of security forces, including an irregular Alawite militia known as shabbiha, have prevented demonstrations in central neighbourhoods of Damascus and in the commercial hub of Aleppo. Military assaults on towns and villages in Idlib began five weeks ago after large demonstrations across the rural province demanding political freedoms, forcing thousands of refugees to flee to Turkey. "We are seeing a military escalation following the regime's political escalation," the activist in Idlib, who declined to be named for fear of arrest, told Reuters by phone. He was referring to the arbitrary arrests of thousands of Syrians that intensified in the last two weeks, according to human rights campaigners. The arrests continued despite the authorities convening what they described as a "national dialogue" conference composed mostly of Assad supporters. Assad loyalists also attacked the U.S. and French embassies in Damascus. Assad loyalists in the coastal city of Latakia surrounded the British Council on Wednesday, a main institution for Syrians wanting to learn English. They threw eggs and tomatoes into the compound while shouting profanities against Britain and Prime Minister David Cameron, but did not enter the premises, a witness said. AT LEAST 30 ARRESTED Syrian security forces arrested at least 30 people, including prominent film directors Nabil Maleh and Mohammad Malas, known for works chronicling malaise under Assad family rule, and actress May Skaf, during a pro-democracy protest in Damascus on Wednesday, rights organisations said. They were among a group of artists who issued a declaration this week denouncing state violence against protesters and demanding accountability for the killings of civilians and the release of thousands of political prisoners held without trial. "It was a peaceful protest of leading artists and intellectuals. Security forces and shabbiha surrounded and verbally abused them," a statement by the Syrian human rights organisation Sawasiah said. This month, singer Ibrahim Qashou was found dead in the Orontes river in Hama with his throat slit, residents said. He had composed a song entitled "Assad leave", which was repeated by hundreds of thousands of protesters in the city. The attack was reminiscent of assassinations of Assad family critics in the 1980s inside and outside Syria. At that time, the body of Lebanese journalist Selim al-Lawzi was found with his hand dipped in acid in Lebanon. International powers, including Turkey, have cautioned Assad against a repeat of massacres from the era of his father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, who brutally crushed leftist and Islamist challenges to his rule. The U.S. and French ambassadors visited Hama in a show of support on Friday. Three days later their embassies were attacked by Assad loyalists. No one was killed in the attacks which were condemned by the United Nations Security Council. The attacks also drew sharp responses from Washington and Paris, which had led a European drive to rehabilitate Assad internationally in return for stabilising Lebanon. U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that Assad had "lost legitimacy" for failing to lead a democratic transition, but stopped short of explicitly calling on him to step down. In the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, two explosions hit minor gas pipelines, residents said. The official state news agency said a pipeline had caught fire due to either dry weather conditions or a leakage in the line. The growing numbers of protesters have breathed new life into the Syrian opposition. A meeting of Assad opponents in Istanbul ended on Wednesday with a call for the army to side with the protesters. (Additional reporting by Simon Cameron-Moore in Istanbul, Mariam Karouny and Oliver Holmes in Beirut; Editing by Michael Roddy) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. | ||
| French writer denies pressured into DSK complaint Posted: 13 Jul 2011 07:30 PM PDT PARIS (Reuters) - A French writer who has accused former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn of attempting to rape her in 2003 denied on Wednesday she had come under political pressure to go press charges. Tristane Banon, 32, filed the complaint last week over an incident she says took place when she went to interview the former French finance minister in a Paris apartment.
Many in France ask why she waited eight years to take action against Strauss-Kahn, who was the Socialist Party's leading candidate for the 2012 presidential election until he was arrested by New York police in mid-May on charges of attempting to rape a hotel maid. Strauss-Kahn has denied the charges in New York and filed a counter-complaint for defamation in France against Banon. The writer, in her first television interview since taking legal action, Banon denied there was any political agenda behind the move and rejected accusations that she was trying to win public attention for herself. "The people who know me know that I am neither unstable nor being manipulated, be it by the mayor of my town or by the political parties of the left or right," she told France 2 television. "If I was doing this to win publicity, it would be a very costly way of doing it," said Banon, who appeared calm and unruffled by questioning. Banon said at the time of the alleged attack that legal advisors, journalists and her mother, a local councillor representing Strauss-Kahn's Socialist Party, advised her against pressing charges. Banon was interviewed by French police on Monday in the first step in a preliminary investigation of her accusations. (Reporting by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Jon Boyle) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. | ||
| Murdoch, savaged in parliament, pulls British TV bid Posted: 13 Jul 2011 07:30 PM PDT LONDON (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch withdrew his bid for broadcaster BSkyB on Wednesday, as outrage over alleged crimes at his newspapers galvanized a rare united front in parliament against a man long used to being courted by Britain's political elite.
The Australian-born billionaire's U.S.-based News Corp, thwarted in a key move to expand its media empire in television, said it would keep its 39 percent of the highly profitable pay-TV network, but left investors guessing over whether it might try again to buy up the rest, or even sell up. The withdrawal removes the most pressing political conflict the company faced. But a police probe and new public inquiries into the scandal and into media regulation as a whole may keep an unflattering spotlight on it and weaken the influence the 80-year-old media magnate has enjoyed in Britain for decades. "Successive prime ministers have cosied up to Murdoch," said politics professor Jonathan Tonge of Liverpool University. "Now it's a new era. Political leaders will be falling over themselves to avoid close contact with media conglomerates. This is a turning of the tide. It's parliament versus Murdoch." While there was no clear legal obstacle to letting the bid proceed via a regulatory review, having won informal government blessing some time ago, even Murdoch's dramatic closure of the scandal-hit News of the World tabloid had failed to stem public anger, leaving the $12 billion buyout politically untenable. "With such universal political disapproval it would have been foolhardy to carry on," said stock analyst Steve Malcolm at Evolution Securities. "It would be a futile pursuit." Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, under fire over his own ties to former News of the World journalists, threw his government's weight behind an opposition motion on Wednesday that denounced Murdoch's bid to extend his media power while police were investigating whether his journalists hacked into the voicemails of thousands of people in search of stories. "It has become clear that it is too difficult to progress in this climate," News Corp deputy chairman Chase Carey said, adding that the group, whose top executives have gathered in London, remained "a committed long-term shareholder" in BSkyB. SHARES BOLSTERED Shares in News Corp, also owner of Fox television and the Wall Street Journal in the United States, had shed 15 percent in a week on fears of widening damage to its brands and a loss of opportunity in television. They ended the day up 3.8 percent as investors welcomed relief from poisonous publicity. BSkyB closed up around 2 percent. Shareholders had been concerned by talk from politicians in the United States and Australia about mounting investigations. In Washington, three senators said on Wednesday that the Justice Department and securities regulator should investigate whether News Corp broke laws in the United States over phone hacking. There have been reports that families of victims of the 9/11 attacks may have been targets of would-be phone hackers. A Justice Department spokeswoman said they would review the letters sent by the senators as part of standard practice, but that did not mean an investigation would be initiated. For a week, Britain has been in uproar since a major turn in the long-running saga of phone-hacking by the News of the World. Rival newspapers published allegations that, far from being limited to spying on the rich or powerful, the practice extended to victims of crimes, including child murders and the 2005 London bombings, as well as to parents of Britain's war dead. Cameron has been embarrassed by the arrest of his former spokesman -- a former News of the World editor -- and has had little choice but to follow the popular mood against Murdoch and News International, News Corp's powerful British newspaper arm which also owns the best-selling Sun tabloid and London's Times. "This is the right decision," Cameron said of the withdrawal of the BSkyB bid. "This company clearly needs to sort out the problems there are at News International, at the News of the World. That must be the priority, not takeovers." A person familiar with News Corp's dealings said Murdoch is now turning his attention to dealing with the political, legal and regulatory fallout from the hacking scandal. Having closed News of the the World and abandoned the BSkyB deal, he has resolved immediate business issues. Any further review of business assets, including possible sale of its UK newspapers, would be considered at a later date, the source said. The Wall Street Journal reported that News Corp was assembling its legal team of big-name lawyers to lead the damage control efforts, and it includes a former head of U.K. prosecution and a prominent Washington D.C. law firm, Williams and Connolly LLP. Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from The Star Online: World Updates To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 ulasan:
Catat Ulasan