Philippine floods a man-made disaster: experts

Residents evacuate from a suburb of Manila. Deadly floods that have swamped nearly all of the Philippine capital are less a natural disaster and more the result of poor planning, lax enforcement and political self-interest, experts say.

Flood victims take shelter in a school serving as an evacuation centre in the suburb of Manila. Deadly floods that have swamped nearly all of the Philippine capital are less a natural disaster and more the result of poor planning, lax enforcement and political self-interest, experts say.

Philippine police rescue teams prepare a boat to evacuate residents in the suburb of Manila. Squatters, attracted by economic opportunities in the city, often build shanties on river banks, storm drains and canals, dumping garbage and impeding the flow of waterways.

Residents affected by floods shelter near two trucks parked along a road in Quezon city, suburban Manila. Urban planner Nathaniel Einseidel said the Philippines had enough technical know-how and could find the necessary financing to solve the problem, but there was no vision or political will.

AFP - Deadly floods that have swamped nearly all of the Philippine capital are less a natural disaster and more the result of poor planning, lax enforcement and political self-interest, experts say.
Damaged watersheds, massive squatter colonies living in danger zones and the neglect of drainage systems are some of the factors that have made the chaotic city of 15 million people much more vulnerable to enormous floods.
Urban planner Nathaniel Einseidel said the Philippines had enough technical know-how and could find the necessary financing to solve the problem, but there was no vision or political will.
"It's a lack of appreciation for the benefits of long-term plans. It's a vicious cycle when the planning, the policies and enforcement are not very well synchronised," said Einseidel, who was Manila's planning chief from 1979-89.
"I haven't heard of a local government, a town or city that has a comprehensive drainage masterplan."
Eighty percent of Manila was this week covered in waters that in some parts were nearly two metres (six feet and six inches) deep, after more than a normal August's worth of rain was dumped on the city in 48 hours.
Twenty people have died and two million others have been affected, according to the government.
The deluge was similar to one in 2009, a disaster which claimed more than 460 lives and prompted pledges from government leaders to make the city more resistant to floods.
A government report released then called for 2.7 million people in shantytowns to be moved from "danger zones" alongside riverbanks, lakes and sewers.
Squatters, attracted by economic opportunities in the city, often build shanties on river banks, storm drains and canals, dumping garbage and impeding the flow of waterways.
The plan would have affected one in five Manila residents and taken 10 years and 130 billion pesos (3.11 billion dollars) to implement.
But squatter communities in danger-zones have in fact grown since 2009.
"With the increasing number of people occupying danger zones, it is inevitable there are a lot people who are endangered when these things happen," Einseidel said.
He blamed the phenomenon on poor enforcement of regulations banning building along creeks and floodways, with local politicians often wanting to keep squatters in their communities to secure their votes at election time.
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Manila, vital forested areas have been destroyed to make way for housing developments catering to growing middle and upper classes, according to architect Paulo Alcazaren.
Alcazeren, who is also an urban planner, said the patchwork political structure of Manila had made things even harder.
The capital is actually made up of 16 cities and towns, each with its own government, and they often carry out infrastructure programmes -- such as man-made and natural drainage protection -- without coordination.
"Individual cities can never solve the problem. They can only mitigate. If you want to govern properly, you must re-draw or overlay existing political boundaries," he said.
Solutions to the flooding will require massive efforts such as re-planting in natural drainage basins, building low-cost housing for the squatters and clearing man-made drainage systems, the experts said.
"It will cost billions of pesos but we lose billions anyway every time it floods," Alcazeren said.
Meanwhile, with Environment Secretary Ramon Paje warning that intense rains like those this week will become the "new normal" due to climate change, there have been concerns about the city's ability to lure and keep foreign investors.
However American Chamber of Commerce president Rhicke Jennings said Manila remained an attractive destination.
"Companies will continue to invest in the Philippines for all its positive qualities," he said, citing well-trained Filipino staff and pointing out there were key parts of the city with good infrastructure that did not badly flood.
Jennings highlighted the rise of the outsourcing sector in the Philippines as evidence that foreigners would not abandon the country because of floods.
Companies such as JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and Accenture have all set up backroom operations in recent years, mostly in slick new parts of Manila where infrastructure is state-of-the art and which did not flood this week.
From virtually nothing a decade ago, 600,000 people are now employed in the outsourcing sector and the industry is expecting that number to more than double by 2016 as more foreign firms move in.

Celebrated Russian director Pyotr Fomenko dies at 80

Russian President Vladimir Putin presents an award to theatre director Pyotr Fomenko at the Kremlin in Moscow in 2007. Fomenko, one of Russia's most celebrated directors known for his inventive adaptation of the classics, has died in Moscow at the age of 80, city officials said.

AFP - Pyotr Fomenko, one of Russia's most celebrated directors known for his inventive adaptation of the classics, has died in Moscow at the age of 80, city officials said on Thursday.
"Pyotr Fomenko died today," a spokeswoman for Moscow's culture department told AFP.
In 1998, he founded the Pyotr Fomenko Workshop Theater that quickly grew into one of the country's most renowned companies known in Russia and abroad for its sophisticated interpretation of the Russian and international classics.
The director's death was "a huge, irreplaceable loss for Russian culture and for the theatre that he created and devoted his life to serving," President Vladimir Putin said in a telegram of condolences.
In a career spanning more than 50 years, Fomenko staged more than 60 productions, ranging from classics by Tolstoy and Chekhov to contemporary works by heroes of the thaw such as Andrei Voznesensky and Alexander Tvardovsky.
"Pyotr Fomenko was an uncompromising director and that refusal to compromise appeared right at the start of his career," wrote the Kommersant business daily, saying he was initially expelled from a Moscow drama school for "hooliganism."
Soviet cultural officials frowned on his first productions, which were banned after a few stagings. Critics slammed him as a "defiler of the ashes of the Russian classics."
He spent years without an official position before being hired by the Leningrad Theatre of Comedy, where he worked until 1981. He then returned to Moscow where he taught and began staging productions at different theatres.
His own Moscow theatre, whose intake grew from his own students, became one of the most popular and critically praised for imaginative and ironic productions that gave Russian classics a contemporary spin.
The theatre initially had no fixed home, before city authorities in 1997 handed it a cramped former cinema. The city then funded spacious new premises which opened in 2008.
Fomenko worked widely abroad, notably in France where in 2003 he was invited by the Comedie-Francaise to stage Alexander Ostrovsky's "The Forest" using its French actors. He also worked in Poland and Austria.
Fomenko died while he was working on a new production of national poet Alexander Pushkin's play "Boris Godunov".

FBI: Gunman in Wisconsin Sikh temple attack 'shot himself'

Gunman Wade Michael Page, who killed six people at a Sikh temple in the US state of Wisconsin on Sunday, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said Wednesday.

By News Wires (text)

 

AFP - The man who opened fire in a Sikh temple in the United States, killing six people, apparently died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head rather than from police fire, the FBI said Wednesday.
Wade Michael Page, a singer with a neo-Nazi punk band, was initially said to have been killed by a police officer who stopped Sunday's rampage in a suburban place of worship by shooting the assailant in the stomach.
But FBI Special Agent Teresa Carlson, the head of the agency's Milwaukee office and leader of the investigation, said: "Subsequent to that wound, it appears that Page died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head."
Carlson told reporters that FBI investigators have not yet established a motive for the shootings in Oak Creek, Wisconsin and have not found any evidence that anyone else other then Page was involved in the crime.
She confirmed that Wade's former girlfriend, Misty Cook, was arrested on Sunday at her home on a weapons charge but said this was unconnected to the broader domestic terrorism investigation into the temple shooting.
South Milwaukee Police and FBI agents were interviewing Cook after the earlier attack and noticed that she had a weapon despite being banned from owning a firearm because of a previous felony conviction, Carlson said.
Investigators have interviewed more than 100 people, including Page's family, associates, employers and neighbors, and were pursuing more than 100 more leads, Carlson said.
"We have conducted physical searches of his residence, his vehicle, a rented storage locker, and also space he had at a former employer.
"I want to reiterate again that after all of this work we still have identified no one else responsible for this shooting other than him. We have also not clearly defined a motive at this point," Carlson said.
The gunman, who was a singer in a so-called "white power" band, seems to have drifted from job to job since leaving the army in 1998 and local media reported that he described non-whites as "dirt people."
A former army colleague recalled that Page had spoken of securing a homeland for whites.
"It didn't matter if they were black, Indian, Native American, Latin -- he hated them all," Fred Allen Lucas, who served with Page at Fort Bragg military garrison, told the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel.
"He criticized me for my attraction to (Latina) women," said Lucas, of Bloomington, Indiana.
"He'd call me a 'race-traitor.' He said I should change my ways because I was a blond-haired, blue-eyed white guy, and I shouldn't be wasting myself."
Page served as a US military "psychological operations specialist" between April 1992 and October 1998, ending his career at the base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, home to the US Army's airborne forces and Special Operations Command.
He was a qualified parachutist who received several good conduct awards and a National Defense Service Medal, but never won significant promotion.
The FBI, which did not have an active file on Page before the killings, has made the shooting the subject of a "domestic terrorism" probe and Page's ties to white supremacist groups are being scrutinized.

China opens murder trial of ousted leader's wife

The trial of Gu Kailai, wife of one-time Chinese Communist Party leadership hopeful Bo Xilai, began in a guarded courthouse on Thursday. Gu is accused of poisoning a British business associate in a case drawing attention to tensions in the regime.

By News Wires (text)

 

AP - The wife of disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai stood trial Thursday for the murder of a British former associate in a tightly orchestrated proceeding that marks a key step toward resolving the messiest scandal the leadership has faced in two decades.
Gu Kailai and a household aide faced charges of murdering Neil Heywood, a British businessman who had close ties to the Bo family, in a trial at the Hefei Intermediate People’s Court in eastern China. They were represented by government-appointed lawyers from Anhui province, of which Hefei is the capital city.
An official at the courthouse confirmed the trial had started after a convoy of black cars entered a side entrance into an underground parking lot. Like most Chinese officials, she refused to give her name. A British diplomat was seen entering the court, but did not comment. International media were not allowed into the court.
Observers say the central leadership’s main objectives in Gu’s trial is to keep the focus tightly on the murder case and not on larger allegations of corruption that could further taint the communist regime. Beijing also will closely orchestrate publicity to try to convince the domestic audience that the trial has been fair and the international community that justice has been served in the slaying of a foreigner.
The morning of the trial began with a steady downpour. Security was tight around the courthouse, with roads around it blocked to car travel. Reporters were asked to present their IDs before being allowed to get close to the building, but police lines were pulled across the main entrance and guarded by officers. Other entrances were similarly guarded. Dozens of plainclothes security officers loitered around the streets. Several special police vans were parked around the building.
Gu and the aide, Zhang Xiaojun, are likely to be found guilty of intentional homicide, which carries punishment ranging from more than 10 years in jail to a life sentence or the death penalty. In announcing the indictment about two weeks ago, the official Xinhua News Agency made clear the government considers the verdict a foregone conclusion. “The facts of the two defendants’ crime are clear, and the evidence is irrefutable and substantial,” it said.
It was not known how long the trial would last, but it was expected to be short.
Gu and Zhang are accused of poisoning Heywood in November in the southwestern mega-city of Chongqing, where Bo was party chief until his ouster this spring. According to Xinhua, Gu had a falling out with Heywood over money and worried that her son’s safety was threatened.
In London, Heywood’s mother accused the press of spreading lies about her son. “You’ve all behaved so appallingly,” Ann Heywood said Wednesday outside her home.
British media have suggested Neil Heywood was involved in money laundering, worked for British intelligence or that he was Gu’s lover. Ann Heywood claimed to know more about the case than was in the public domain, but she wasn’t specific and said the truth would come out eventually.
The scandal has drawn attention to political infighting that China prefers to keep secret and comes at a time when the government is preparing for a once-a-decade political transition that will install a new generation of leaders. Bo was once a contender for a top job.
Before his ouster in the spring, Bo, also the son of a revolutionary veteran, was one of China’s most powerful and charismatic politicians. But his overt maneuvering for a top political job, as well as high-profile campaigns to bust organized crime and promote communist culture – while trampling over civil liberties and reviving memories of the chaotic Cultural Revolution in the process – angered some leaders.
The infighting came to light in February with the sudden flight to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu of longtime Bo aide and former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun. Apparently fearing for his safety if he remained in Chongqing, Wang told American diplomats about his suspicions that Heywood had been murdered and that Bo’s family was involved.
In April, Bo was stripped of his most powerful posts and Gu was named a suspect in Heywood’s murder. That was followed by a report late last month about her indictment, which indicated that the leadership had closed ranks and reached a general agreement about the case and was ready to move forward with the trial.
Bo is the first Politburo member to be removed from office in five years and the scandal kicked up talk of a political struggle involving Bo supporters intent on derailing succession plans calling for Vice President Xi Jinping to lead the party for the next decade.
Bo is in the hands of the party’s internal discipline and inspection commission, which is expected to issue a statement about his infractions. That would open the way for a court trial with charges possibly including obstructing police work and abuse of power. Thus far, Bo has been accused only of grievous but unspecified rules violations.

Brazil looking for football gold

Brazil have so far only won two gold medals at the London 2012 Olympics. However, a football gold on the penultimate day’s action would render their entire Games a memorable one.

By Dan LEVY (text)

 

Despite being widely regarded as the world’s most decorated footballing nation, Brazil have never won Olympic gold in the sport -- a glaring anomaly.
If the men’s team can overcome Mexico in the final at Wembley this Saturday, coach Mario Menezes’ collection of young players will be able to claim an historic achievement no other Seleção (Portugese for “team”) has yet managed.
Brazil boast the most World Cup wins of any country, with five titles, but they have drawn a blank over 60 years of Olympic history.
The women’s team’s involvement tells a similar story. They have appeared at the Olympics on all five occasions since it was introduced in the 1996 Atlanta Games, and, like their male counterparts, the closest they have come to gold is earning silver twice.
But many feel now that Brazil’s time has finally come: Menezes’s players have won all of their matches so far, averaging three goals per game (in the purest way possible: they have scored exactly three goals in each of their five games). If they are able to repeat the same against Mexico, the elusive gold will be theirs.
With the next Olympic Games being held in Brazil in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, and the next World Cup in Brazil as well, two years prior, nothing would give Brazilian football fans greater pleasure than a maiden Olympic gold to defend on home turf. And this in the footballing home of the nation that gave the modern form of the sport to the world. The stadium coach Menezes has called the temple of football.
As an Olympic sport, football is often regarded as somewhat incongruent. While the Games represent the pinnacle of any participant’s career for most events, that is far from the case in modern football’s highly commercialised universe.
Most of the players involved are not the best their nation has to offer. A large proportion of the world’s best footballers never get anywhere near competing at the Olympics for their country. This is partly due to the selection criteria: teams can only field players aged 23 or under, plus three older players.
Olympic football is overshadowed, first and foremost, by the World Cup, followed by the Champions League, the European championship and Copa America. These are the competitions that represent the highest level of the sport.
Yet it has not always been this way. Much was made of Spain’s recent treble success, lauded as a world first, as they won three major competitions in a row. In capturing their second consecutive Euro crown in Kiev on July 1st by thrashing Italy 4-0, they earned another Euro title to top their World Cup win in South Africa two years previously.
Except it had been done before: Uruguay won consecutive Olympic Games in 1924 and 1928, before claiming the inaugural World Cup on home turf in 1930. That people don’t count this achievement alongside Spain’s is indicative of how Olympic football is viewed by many.
In Brazil, things are different. Despite their unequalled international success, the Brazilians want this win badly. And with such a talented team it is surely there for the taking against a Mexico side making an Olympic final debut.
Brazil’s squad boasts many players that will form a team fancied to win the World Cup on home turf in 2014.
Leandro Damião is one of them, and has six of Brazil’s 15 goals so far, including two in their comfortable 3-0 semi-final win over South Korea.
Neymar is the star attraction -- a man the legendary Pele described as better than Lionel Messi. A partisan view perhaps, but Neymar already has over 100 career goals at the age of 20, and his time as the planet's best player will surely come.
As well as the Santos star, Brazil boast a collection of other youngsters that, if it were not for a financial renaissance in the Brazilian game, would already be lighting up the Champions League, or are already about to.
The supremely talented Ganso is one of them, as is Paris Saint-Germain’s newly-signed Lucas Moura, and new Chelsea recruit Oscar.
There are also established names such as captain and new PSG defender Thiago Silva, FC Porto’s Hulk, AC Milan’s Alexandre Pato, and Real Madrid’s Marcelo.
These players are already global stars, and their careers will not be defined by what happens in London. The furthering of their club-career legacies will not be at stake come Saturday’s 3pm kick off. Instead, they could do something no other player from the world’s foremost footballing nation has ever done -- and that, for most of Brazil, is worth more than its weight in gold.
 

Libya sees peaceful power transfer amid security concerns

Libya's National Transitional Council hands power to an elected assembly Wednesday in the country's first peaceful transfer of government in more than 40 years. The transfer is overshadowed by several violent flare ups in the past week.

By News Wires (text)

 

REUTERS - Getting a grip on security in an often anarchic post-Gaddafi Libya will be the priority for the country's new ruling assembly when it starts life on Wednesday, the deputy prime minister says.
The National Transitional Council, political arm of the opposition forces that toppled Gaddafi a year ago, will hand over power to a national assembly elected in July in a late night ceremony.
It will be the first peaceful transition of power in Libya's modern history but is overshadowed by several violent incidents in the past week that have shown the country's precarious stability.
These include a car bomb in the capital Tripoli near the offices of the military police and an explosion at the empty former military intelligence offices in the eastern city of
Benghazi, the cradle of the revolt against Gaddafi.
"Clearly they worry us but at the same time we are  investigating them. We are trying to find out who is behind this," Deputy Prime Minister Abu Shagour told Reuters.
"We were able to improve security from when we started but there still a way to go. Security is top of the agenda for whoever will be coming into power."
The interim government which took over after Gaddafi's overthrow s uccessfully led Libya to the elections. But it has struggled to impose its authority on a myriad of armed groups,
mostly militias who took part in the uprising, who refuse to lay down their weapons.
Disarming them remains a challenge.
On Sunday, security forces killed three armed men suspected of being behind seven failed bomb plots. That same day, the International Committee of the Red Cross suspended its work in Benghazi and the port city of Misrata after one of its compounds
was attacked with grenades and rockets.
This followed the kidnapping of seven Iranian aid workers by armed men in Benghazi on July 31.
Still, Abu Shagour expressed optimism that the problems could be overcome.
"I don't think it is going to get worse, I think things will get better as we move on. Our security forces are getting better," Abu Shagour said.
"I think the view from outside of Libya about the security unfortunately is not right. If you compare us with other countries like Iraq and others, for security there is no comparison - our security is far, far better."
The national assembly will take power in a night ceremony on Wednesday. The 200-member congress will name a new prime minister who will pick his government, pass laws and steer Libya to full parliamentary elections after a new constitution is drafted next year.
As it prepares its exit, the interim government is working on several recommendations for Libya's new leaders, Abu Shagour said, such as plans for enforcing weapon permits.
A new government is not expected for a few weeks. After NTC Chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil passes the reins to the oldest member of assembly, Mohammed Ali Salim, it will have to pick a chairman. The NTC will then be dissolved.

Medal-winning Tunisian fuels women’s rights debate

Runner Habiba Ghribi has become the first ever Tunisian woman to stand on an Olympic podium, after winning a silver medal at the London Games this week. Her victory has fueled an ongoing debate over women’s rights back home.

By Joseph BAMAT / Maha BEN ABDELADHIM (text)

 

Tunisian runner Habiba Ghribi dashed to win a silver medal in the women's 3,000-metre steeplechase at the 2012 London Games, becoming the first Tunisian woman in history to step onto an Olympic podium this week. However, her win has enflamed passions in her country, where rights groups say women’s equality is under attack.
Her victory stands as a milestone in Tunisian sports history, and not only because Ghribi is a woman. The small north-African country had been medal-less in Athletics since the great Mohammed Gammoudi won silver in the 5,000-metre race at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.
Her medal is Tunisia’s second in London; swimmer Oussama Mellouli won the bronze medal in the men's 1,500-metre freestyle on August 4.
“This medal is for all the Tunisian people, for Tunisian women, for the new Tunisia,” Ghribi, who finished behind world champion Yuliya Zaripova of Russia, told reporters after the race.
Her words were considered by many as a nod to Tunisia’s women’s rights movement, who are currently outraged by language proposed for Tunisia’s draft constitution that states women are “complementary” rather than “equal” to men.
Lawmakers from the ruling moderate Islamist Ennahda party want the new constitution to state that a woman is a “complement to the man in the family and an associate to the man in the development of the country”.
The draft text has drawn widespread criticism from opponents, who say it tears away the principle of women’s equality, which is protected in Tunisia under the so-called Code of Personal Status (CSP).
“This position threatens and undermines past achievements and allows for a patriarchal system that gives all power to the men and denies women their most essential rights,” warned a joint press release signed by several rights groups including Amnesty International.
Ennahda became the biggest party in Tunisia’s parliament in the October 2011 elections that followed the overthrow of former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Ennahda, which was banned under Ben Ali, assumed power on the pledge that it would not weaken women’s rights.
Ghribi’s ‘underpants’
Aside from the debate over the new constitution, Ghribi’s Olympic performance in itself has become a controversial topic between secular Tunisians and more conservative Muslims, who feel evermore emboldened to express their views while Ennahda is in power.
Hard-line Muslims said they took offence to Ghribi running “in her underpants” - a reference to her running attire - while representing their country.

CONTROVERSY OVER GHRIBI'S 'UNDERPANTS'

While her shorts are considered of normal length by Olympic standards, some said she was running virtually naked. “Tunisia does not need medals that come from women who are uncovered and naked. We should strip the nationality of she who has dishonoured Tunisia with her nudity and debauchery,” said one comment on the social networking website Facebook.
But Ghribi, who ran her personal best in the 3000-metre steeplechase on August 6 was defended by prominent Tunisians, like Ibrahim Kassas, an MP from the independent Al Aridha party.
“The underpants of Habiba Ghribi have honoured us,” Kassas joked during a radio debate with female Ennahda MP Farida Labidi on Tuesday. “What have [Ennahda MP’s] underpants done for us?”
Kassas went on to argue that the 28-year-old athlete had enabled Tunisia’s flag to fly at the most important international sports event and called on sports minister Tarak Dhiab to welcome her upon her return home.
Interestingly, the topic of the debate - hosted by the popular ShemsFM station - was not Ghribi or her Olympic victory, but the controversial language Ennahda has backed for the constitution.
Test for troika
Tunisian women’s rights activists are not standing idle, but have rallied to demand the language about women’s “complementary” status be stricken from the constitutional text before it ever comes up for a vote in parliament. A protest has been organised for August 13, the date on which the CPS was adopted 56 years ago and a symbolic day for Tunisian women’s rights.
Boosted by Ghribi’s Olympic victory, feminist groups are gaining support and may be turning the tide against Ennahda officials.
According to French magazine Jeune Afrique, Mustapha Ben Jaafar, president of Tunisian’s constitutional assembly and the left-leaning Ettakatol party, may be on the verge of breaking the fragile entente that allows the Islamist party to govern.
While Ennahda won the 2011 elections, its margin of victory was not enough to avoid a coalition government, the so-called troika, with Ettakatol and the secular and nationalist Congress for the Republic party.
Citing Ettakatol members, the magazine says Jaafar could resign from his post if Ennahda pushes ahead with the controversial text.
While opposing forces continue to battle over the final language in Tunisia’s new constitution, Ghribi’s refusal to be overshadowed at the Olympic Games has given women’s right groups a good reason to keep fighting.

Egyptian spy chief ordered to resign after Sinai attacks

Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi appointed a new national intelligence chief Wednesday and sacked the governor of the north Sinai region after suspected militants killed 16 border guards there over the weekend.

By News Wires (text)

 

AP - Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi fired his intelligence chief and the governor of Northern Sinai on Wednesday following a weekend attack by suspected militants in Sinai who killed 16 soldiers.
In a major shake-up, Morsi also asked Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi to replace the commander of the military police, a force that has been heavily used since the ouster 18 months ago of Hosni Mubarak to deal with street protests. Rights activists have accused the military police of brutality against protesters.
Morsi also fired the commander of the presidential guards and ordered new chiefs for security in Cairo and the police’s large central security, a large paramilitary force often deployed to deal with riots.
Large swathes of northern Sinai have plunged into lawlessness following Mubarak’s ouster, with a massive flow of arms smuggled from Libya finding their way into the hands of disgruntled Bedouins. The lawlessness is coupled with the rise in the area of al-Qaida-inspired militant groups that are waging a campaign of violence against Egyptian security forces. They have also staged several cross-border attacks on Israel.
Wednesday’s decisions were announced hours after Egyptian attack helicopters carried out missile strikes against militants in Sinai as part of an offensive to restore control over the territory, according to a military statement. The use of air power marked a sharp escalation in Egypt’s fight against the militants, who have become increasingly active in the mountainous and desert Sinai peninsula bordering Israel and Gaza.
In a statement read out on state TV, the military said it has started a joint military-police ground operation in Sinai, backed by warplanes, to “restore stability and regain control” of the Sinai.
Morsi’s decision to fire senior officials was the Islamist president’s first major assertion of his authority since taking office on June 30 to succeed Hosni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for 29 years before he was ousted in a popular uprising in February 2011. The decision appeared aimed at deflecting a wave of popular anger over the Sinai attack, the deadliest attack ever on the military from within Egypt.
The generals who took over from Mubarak and ruled Egypt for 17 months stripped the presidency of many of its powers just before Morsi was declared the election winner and they retained those powers for themselves.
However, Wednesday’s decisions were taken following a meeting of the National Defense Council which includes Morsi, top army commanders and senior intelligence officials. The decision-making at that meeting reflects a level of cooperation between the president, a longtime leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the powerful generals in the face of rising tensions.
Military officers outnumber civilians on the newly created council, which takes decisions by a simple majority. That means that the powerful generals were on board for all the decisions made Wednesday.
The surprise changes followed the killing on Sunday of 16 soldiers at a post in Sinai close to where the Egyptian, Israel and Gaza borders meet. It raised questions about the readiness of Egyptian forces in the area, particularly after Israel warned the country several days earlier an attack was imminent.
The attackers killed the soldiers as they were breaking their daily fast for the holy month of Ramadan with a sunset meal. The attackers commandeered an armored vehicle which they later used to storm across the border into Israel. They were then targeted by an Israeli airstrike that killed at least six militants.
The intelligence chief that Morsi fired, Murad Muwafi, was quoted in Wednesday’s newspapers as saying his agency was aware of the Israeli warning but did not think that Muslims would attack Muslims while they were breaking their fast during Ramadan.
Surprisingly, Morsi did not attend the state funeral given to the troops on Tuesday, drawing harsh criticism in the media and on social networks.
Morsi may have stayed away for security concerns. At the funeral secured by military police, some mourners chanted slogans against Morsi. Prime Minister Hesham Kandil was heckled and some mourners threw their shoes at him or held them up as a sign of contempt.