The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Syria's Assad says stops police operations stop - UN
- Libya rebels fight for refineries; US sends drones
- Gundlach finishes testimony amid juror flap
| Syria's Assad says stops police operations stop - UN Posted: 17 Aug 2011 09:17 PM PDT
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that military and police operations against protesters had stopped, the United Nations said on Wednesday. In a phone call with Assad on Wednesday, Ban "expressed alarm at the latest reports of continued widespread violations of human rights and excessive use of force by Syrian security forces against civilians across Syria, including in the Al Ramel district of Lattakia, home to several thousands of Palestinian refugees," the United Nations said in a statement. "The Secretary-General emphasized that all military operations and mass arrests must cease immediately. President Assad said that the military and police operations had stopped," the statement added. Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. | ||
| Libya rebels fight for refineries; US sends drones Posted: 17 Aug 2011 08:47 PM PDT ZAWIYAH, Libya (Reuters) - Rebels to the west and east of Libya's capital fought forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi for control of oil facilities vital to winning the six-month-old civil war. The United States also deployed two more Predator drones for surveillance operations over Libya, a U.S. official told Reuters on Wednesday, as Gaddafi's forces faced unprecedented pressure.
The drones arrived earlier this week, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. It was not immediately clear how many U.S. drones were currently deployed on the NATO mission. In Zawiyah, 50 km (30 miles) west of Tripoli, rebels assaulted a coastal oil refinery to try to drive the last Gaddafi forces out and tighten their noose around the capital. A rebel spokesman said a pipeline to Tripoli was cut. There was no word on the outcome of their assault after nightfall. In Brega, on the eastern front, rebel forces said they had suffered 18 killed and 33 wounded on Tuesday and Wednesday in their battle to dislodge Gaddafi forces from the oil port and refinery, where they have been fighting for many days. Fifteen of the rebels were killed on Tuesday and three on Wednesday, said spokesman Mohammad Zawawi. Libyan state television showed video of Gaddafi supporters at the Brega terminal on Wednesday chanting the leader's name. After 41 years of supreme power, the 69-year-old Gaddafi seems isolated. Rebel forces are closing in from the west, south and east, cutting off his Tripoli stronghold on the Mediterranean shore. Gaddafi's whereabouts are not known. Aided by NATO's fighter-bombers, assault helicopters and a naval blockade, the rebels have transformed the battle in the last few days after many weeks of stalemate. Zawiyah controls the western highway linking Tripoli to Tunisia. Gaddafi forces were holding the refinery there and harassing rebels in the city with shelling and sniper fire. "There are some snipers inside the refinery facility. We control the gates of the refinery. We will be launching an operation to try to take control of it shortly," a rebel fighter, Abdulkarim Kashaba, said. MASS GRAVE A rebel spokesman from the opposition-held city of Misrata to the east of Tripoli said rebels had found the buried bodies of civilians they said had been slaughtered by Gaddafi forces. "We discovered a mass grave containing 150 bodies in Tawargha. These are the corpses of civilians kidnapped from Misrata by Gaddafi's loyalists," he said. Rebels found a video "showing kidnappers cutting the throats of people", he said. The spokesman said rebel forces were now outside a place called Hisha about 100 km (60 miles) west of Misrata on the road to Tripoli. "They are now on the coastal road," he said. Zawiyah's refinery is one of the few sources of fuel for Gaddafi's troops and the people of Tripoli. A rebel commander said the pipeline linking it to Tripoli was severed on Tuesday. Gaddafi's green flags were still flying from a refinery building and an electrical pylon in Zawiyah. The rest of the city now flies the red, black and green flag of the rebels. Streets were largely deserted apart from clusters of fighters. Shops were shuttered. Medical workers said three people were killed and 35 wounded on Tuesday, mostly civilians. If the pipeline to Tripoli is indeed cut, "that would imply dire consequences for the population in Tripoli in terms of fuel supplies needed for the city to keep operating", said Fernando Calado of the International Organisation for Migration. Calado said there had been a sharp increase in the past week in the number of foreign nationals asking to be evacuated. He estimated that more than 300,000 foreigners remain in Tripoli, including many from the Philippines and Sri Lanka, as well as Libya's neighbours Chad, Egypt and Tunisia. "We have received 2,000 requests at this point. The potential caseload is huge. We're exploring the possibility of land, sea and air evacuations," he told Reuters. Libya's rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) denies holding secret talks with Gaddafi to end the war. But suspicions persist that some form of end-game negotiation may be going on. The NTC insists Gaddafi should step down and leave Libya, saying talks ignoring this basic demand would be "unthinkable". (Additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva, Robert Birsel in Benghazi, Missy Ryan in Tripoli, Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers; Joseph Nasr in Berlin; Phil Stewart in Washington; Writing by Michael Roddy; Editing by Nick Macfie) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. | ||
| Gundlach finishes testimony amid juror flap Posted: 17 Aug 2011 07:46 PM PDT LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Star bond fund manager Jeffrey Gundlach concluded four days of testimony on Wednesday amid questions about his contact with two jurors in the case.
After court adjourned Tuesday afternoon, Gundlach got into an elevator with two jurors who were talking to each other, according to accounts provided to the judge by both Gundlach and one of the jurors. Gundlach said he told the jurors "I feel bad for you guys," after thinking they were talking with him. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carl West ultimately decided that it was a minor mishap, according to a transcript of an in-chambers discussion. In his four days of testimony on the witness stand, Gundlach provided plenty of details of a declining relationship with his former employer Trust Company of the West. But Gundlach, who was alternately diplomatic and testy, also made it clear he never told his colleagues to take TCW data. The high stakes trial has given a rare glimpse into the inner workings of investment firms and the big personalities who run them. Gundlach denied in court that he requested his co-workers gather "anything we might need" from TCW, countering testimony earlier in the trial from Gundlach's co-defendant, Cris Santa Ana. Santa Ana, a member of the Gundlach's mortgage-backed securities group at TCW, is now chief risk officer at DoubleLine. "Jeffrey asked for contacts, contracts, board of director contacts, copies of the red books which had the trade orders, holdings," Santa Ana testified last week. "And I think he made a blanket statement, something to the effect, 'and anything else you might think we would need.'" But on Wednesday Gundlach told jurors that "we didn't copy any TCW code or systems to the best of my knowledge." TCW fired Gundlach in December 2009 and sued him a month later, accusing him of stealing trade secrets, plotting to form a new company using TCW proprietary information and gutting the firm of its entire mortgage-backed securities team. Gundlach fired back with a counter-lawsuit, alleging his former employer owed him hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation. In the weeks following his termination, Gundlach went on to form DoubleLine Capital, along with three of his co-defendants in the case. Roughly 45 TCW employees, largely from the mortgage-backed securities group, followed. After testimony concluded for the day, the judge asked a juror who was in the elevator to describe what happened. The man said he told a second juror that he felt bad for him, because he had a bad back. But Gundlach thought they were talking to him. "I wasn't going to say anything to him but -- (TCW says) I'm the meanest weirdo in the world," said Gundlach, who told the judge in a separate meeting. "I don't want to stonewall the guy." The judge admonished the jurors and Gundlach against having contact with each other. In previous days of testimony, Gundlach had told jurors that he felt increasingly frozen out of TCW, where he was chief investment officer and a member of the board. "If you fire me you're going to blow up this firm," Gundlach recalled warning TCW CEO Marc Stern. "You're going to blow up the business." He also described positive feelings about his time at TCW. "I was running a big business. I was making a lot of money," he said on Tuesday. "I was happy. I didn't want to end it." Gundlach could also be blunt. At one point on Wednesday, Gundlach told TCW attorney John Quinn that, "with respect, you don't know what you're talking about," as Quinn drew a diagram of how mortgage-backed securities work on a display board for the jury. The case in Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles is Trust Co of the West v. Jeffrey Gundlach et al, BC429385. (Reporting by Mary Slosson; editing by Andre Grenon, Bernard Orr) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
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