| Journalist deaths rise to 70 in 2013 Posted: 30 Dec 2013 02:29 PM PST  The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) updated its toll less than two weeks after reporting that 52 journalists had died on the job. Syria was the deadliest assignment, resulting in 28 deaths this year, CPJ said. The toll is based on what CPJ calls "a rigorous research process" to verify whether journalists were killed as a direct result of their work. But CPJ is still investigating the 2013 deaths of 25 more journalists to establish whether they were work-related.
|
| Iraqi police dismantle Sunni protest in west Posted: 30 Dec 2013 01:06 PM PST  BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi police took down tents and cleared a Sunni sit-in in a flashpoint western city after protesters there agreed to end their months-long demonstration following talks with the Shiite-led government, an official said Monday.
|
| Ariz. woman accused of trying to poison children Posted: 30 Dec 2013 12:37 PM PST  PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona woman tried to fatally stab her ex-husband and poison her four children with prescription narcotic drugs, including a teenage daughter who was found dead in her home on Christmas Day, police said Monday.
|
| Clashes kill 10 as Iraq forces clear Sunni protest camp Posted: 30 Dec 2013 12:04 PM PST  Ramadi (Iraq) (AFP) - Iraqi forces killed 10 gunmen Monday in clashes that erupted as they cleared a year-old Sunni Arab protest camp, a move likely to fan resentment among the minority community. As the fighting raged, mosques exhorted followers to "go to jihad," or holy war, while gunmen later replaced security forces on some streets of Ramadi city, near the protest site west of Baghdad. Dr Ahmed al-Ani of Ramadi hospital said 10 gunmen were killed and 30 wounded on Monday. An AFP journalist in Ramadi reported heavy fighting, and saw helicopters firing into the area of the protest site, where demonstrators had gathered for more than a year.
|
| Al Jazeera says four journalists held in Egypt after hotel broadcast Posted: 30 Dec 2013 11:49 AM PST  Four Al Jazeera journalists have been arrested in Egypt, the station said on Monday, after the Interior Ministry accused the Qatar-based channel of broadcasting illegally from a hotel suite with a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Al Jazeera's offices in Cairo have been closed since July 3 when they were raided by security forces hours after the army ousted the Brotherhood's Mohamed Mursi from the presidency. Qatar was a strong financial backer of the Brotherhood's rule and its relationship with Cairo has deteriorated in recent months as it vehemently opposes the army's overthrow of Mursi and the crackdown on his movement that has followed. "State security received information that a member of the (Brotherhood) used two suites in a Cairo hotel to hold meetings with other members of the organization and turned the suites into a press center," the ministry said.
|
| Fighting erupts as Iraq police break up Sunni protest camp Posted: 30 Dec 2013 11:26 AM PST  By Kamal Namaa RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - Fighting erupted when Iraqi police broke up a Sunni Muslim protest camp in the western Anbar province on Monday, leaving at least 13 people dead, police and medical sources said. The camp has been an irritant to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite Muslim-led government since Sunni protesters set it up a year ago to demonstrate against what they see as marginalization of their sect. The operation triggered an immediate political backlash as dozens of Sunni lawmakers offered their resignations. Maliki, who is seeking a third term in April's elections, has repeatedly vowed to remove the camp and accused protesters of stirring strife and sheltering al Qaeda-linked militants.
|
| UK's Iraq war inquiry 'to report in 2014' Posted: 30 Dec 2013 09:46 AM PST  The inquiry into Britain's involvement in the Iraq war could publish its long-awaited conclusions in 2014 after discussions between Tony Blair and George W. Bush are published, news reports said on Monday. A government source told the Independent newspaper that "good progress" had been made in talks between the inquiry body and the government on declassifying many of the records of their conversations. But the Independent and the Guardian both reported that a compromise had been reached that should allow the documents to be published in the next few months, with as little redaction as possible. The release of the documents would allow the Iraq Inquiry to complete its final task of contacting people who are set to face criticism in the report and allow them to defend themselves.
|
| Egypt arrests Al-Jazeera journalists Posted: 30 Dec 2013 09:40 AM PST  Egyptian secret police have arrested an award-winning Australian journalist and an Egyptian reporter for the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera channel suspected of illegally broadcasting news harming "domestic security," the interior ministry said. The arrests come amid a widening crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood of ousted president Mohamed Morsi, which the military-installed government declared a "terrorist organisation" last week. Al-Jazeera confirmed the arrests, and said police also detained a producer and a cameraman. Officers of the National Security service raided the broadcaster's makeshift bureau at a Cairo hotel on Sunday, arresting two of the journalists and confiscating their equipment, said a ministry statement.
|
| Who Attacked Benghazi Depends on Who You Think Is in al-Qaeda Posted: 30 Dec 2013 09:06 AM PST  A blockbuster story published in The New York Times over the weekend, declared there to be "no evidence" that al-Qaeda played a role in the 2012 attack on the American compound in Benghazi. However, the responses to the piece — and perhaps the whole debate over Benghazi — seem to hinge on what your definition of al-Qaeda is. The story by David Kirkpatrick, the Times' bureau chief in Cairo, attempted to bring some definitive clarity to the incident that left four Americans dead, but it only took a day for members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (specifically Mike Rogers and Adam Schiff) to say the story is wrong. According to the Times, the attack was likely orchestrated by militant leader Abu Khattala, "loner and a contrarian, even among fellow Islamists." The Times writes that Khattala was linked to the militant group Ansar al-Shariah, but not to al-Qaeda: Months of investigation by the New York Times, centered on extensive interviews with Libyans in Benghazi who had direct knowledge of the attack there and its context, turned up no evidence that Al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups had any role in the assault.
|
| Officials: Lebanese army fires on Syrian planes Posted: 30 Dec 2013 08:11 AM PST BEIRUT (AP) — The Lebanese army fired on Syrian aircraft that violated the country's airspace Monday, the first time Lebanon has done so since Syria's uprising broke out nearly three years ago, security officials said. |
| Officials: Lebanese forces fire on Syrian planes Posted: 30 Dec 2013 05:41 AM PST BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese forces fired on Syrian aircraft that violated the country's airspace on Monday, the first time they have done so since Syria's uprising broke out three years ago, said security officials. |
| Ten bodies arrive at morgue as Iraqi police break up protest: sources Posted: 30 Dec 2013 05:14 AM PST RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - Ten bodies arrived at a morgue in the Iraqi city of Ramadi in the western Anbar province after police moved to dismantle a Sunni Muslim protest camp on Monday, hospital and morgue officials said. Clashes broke out when police started to remove the camp, which demonstrators set up a year ago to protest against what they see as the marginalization of their sect by the Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. (Reporting by Kamal Namaa; Writing by Alexander Dziadosz) |
| Report: 70 journalists killed on the job in 2013 Posted: 30 Dec 2013 03:36 AM PST NEW YORK (AP) — At least 70 journalists were killed on the job around the world in 2013, including 29 who died covering the civil war in Syria and 10 slain in Iraq, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. |
| Iraq Sunnis in western city end protest after deal Posted: 30 Dec 2013 03:02 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi police dismantled tents and cleared a sit-in camp after Sunnis in a flashpoint western city ended their months-long protest following a deal with the country's Shiite-led government, an official said Monday. |
| This Is No Tribal War Posted: 30 Dec 2013 02:45 AM PST  South Sudan is being torn apart again—this time in the name of democracy. But the new fighting isn't about ethnic rivalries but a power grab.
|
| The Year in Death Posted: 30 Dec 2013 02:45 AM PST  You've already read the major obits. From Hitler's bodyguard to the godmother of burlesque, the human computer to the world's ugliest dog, the 2013 exits you have may not have heard of.
|
| Obama to Islamists: Let’s Talk Posted: 30 Dec 2013 02:45 AM PST  Earlier this month, the president decided to approach the Islamists at the center of the Syrian revolution. Here's why they spurned his offer of help against Assad.
|
| The Coming Bloodbath in Syria Posted: 30 Dec 2013 02:30 AM PST These crude weapons are filled with TNT and dropped from Syrian government aircraft. Their crudeness is useful—a more sophisticated weapon might blur the disastrous disconnect between Obama's post-power fantasy of a foreign policy and the realpolitik knife-fight reality of the Syrian war. Already, this conflict has killed roughly as many people as did the Bosnian genocide, and there's no relief in sight. Once Assad wins the war, the killing will only continue. It's difficult to talk about the Syrian government without paraphrasing dialogue from the movie Braveheart. But at the risk of plagiarism: the Assad regime is the most ruthless Arab state in the Middle East, second only to Saddam Hussein's late Iraq. |
| Al Jazeera says 3 journalists held in Egypt after hotel broadcast Posted: 30 Dec 2013 01:40 AM PST  Al Jazeera said Egyptian security forces arrested three of its journalists after the interior ministry accused the Qatar-based television channel of broadcasting illegally from a hotel suite together with a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Al Jazeera's offices in Cairo have been closed since July 3 when they were raided by security forces hours after the army ousted the Brotherhood's Mohamed Mursi from the presidency. "State security received information that a member of the (Brotherhood) used two suites in a Cairo hotel to hold meetings with other members of the organization and turned the suites into a press centre," the Interior Ministry said.
|
| 2016 campaign checklist: They've all been so busy Posted: 30 Dec 2013 12:13 AM PST WASHINGTON (AP) — PERRY: |
| Iraq forces under fire over abuse as unrest surges Posted: 29 Dec 2013 10:46 PM PST  Iraq's security forces face a rising chorus of criticism that, with violence at the highest level in years, their heavy-handed tactics and alleged abuses do more harm than good. Human rights groups, analysts, diplomats and lawmakers have become increasingly vocal over a litany of alleged abuses including mass arrests, prolonged periods of detention without trial, the closure of some neighbourhoods, and detainee abuse. They say that, far from reining in Iraq's worst violence since 2008, the tactics are radicalising moderate Sunnis and distancing them from a government that the minority community alleges disproportionately targets them. "It's impossible to ignore the connection between the abuses the security forces are carrying out and the really significant increase in violence," said Erin Evers, Iraq researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch, adding that a culture of impunity for both militants and security forces is exacerbating the situation.
|
| Report: 70 journalists died on the job in 2013 Posted: 29 Dec 2013 09:05 PM PST NEW YORK (AP) — At least 70 journalists were killed on the job around the world in 2013, including 29 who died covering the civil war in Syria and 10 slain in Iraq, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. |
