Afghanistan condemns Iran fuel blockade amid protests

By Hamid Shalizi

KABUL | Sun Jan 16, 2011 6:11am EST

KABUL Jan 16 (Reuters) - Afghan fuel protesters targeted an Iranian diplomatic mission for a second day on Sunday, as the commerce minister said Tehran had not given any reason for an export clampdown that is choking Afghan oil supplies.

Around 300 people took to the streets in western Herat city, armed with stones and eggs, and marched to the Iranian consulate carrying banners with slogans including "Death to Iran".

At a border crossing barely 100 km (62 miles) away nearly 2,000 fuel trunks are waiting. Only 40 are allowed to leave Iran each day, said Afghan Commerce Minister Anwar ul-Haq Ahadi.

"The stoppage of fuel tankers has created great problems and a crisis for us in terms of fuel supply," Ahadi said, adding that around 40 percent of the landlocked country's fuel usually comes from Iran. Afghanistan is suffering after several weeks cut off from a major supply route.

"The Iranian authorities have assured us the issue is being solved but unfortunately the crisis is where it was," Ahadi told a news conference in the capital Kabul.

Fuel prices have gone up around the country, in some areas by as much as 35 percent, the Afghan Chamber of Commerce and Industries said earlier this week. Provinces bordering Iran have seen the most dramatic increase.

Kabul has asked Kazakhstan to sell Afghanistan some 200,000 tons of fuel immediately, and private sector deals have been made with a Russian oil firm , Ahadi said.

"We are unhappy about the progress of our negotiation with Iranian authorities in regard to tackling the crisis," he said.

"We have not yet heard any convincing justifications from Iranian authorities (for the blockage)."

Iran has rejected Afghan criticism, saying the slowdown was due to "technical problems" related to the reduction of Iranian fuel subsidies and that the issue was now being solved.

Demonstrations earlier in the week in Kabul about both fuel prices and the deaths of Afghans in Iran prompted Tehran to call in the Afghan ambassador in protest.

The Afghan Chamber of Commerce and Industries said it was told by Iranian officials the tankers were delayed because Tehran believed the fuel was destined for U.S. and NATO forces, which are fighting a resilient insurgency in Afghanistan.

Ahadi also said he thought worries the oil was reaching international forces could be the reason for the blockade.

A spokeswoman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said their fuel came from other routes.

"ISAF and NATO do not receive any fuel shipments through Iran, so operationally the blockade does not impact ISAF," said spokeswoman Major Sunset Belinsky.

(Additional reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul and Sharafuddin Sharafyar in Herat; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

South Korea says chemicals ship seized by Somali pirates

SEOUL | Sun Jan 16, 2011 3:52am EST

SEOUL Jan 16 (Reuters) - Somali pirates have seized a South Korean ship in the Arabian Sea, two months after an oil supertanker belonging to the same firm was freed after seven months in captivity, the government and local media said.

A Foreign Ministry statement issued late on Saturday said the cabinet had met to discuss how to deal with the hijacking of the 11,500-tonne Samho Jewelry, seized while carrying chemicals to Sri Lanka from the United Arab Emirates.

Aboard was a crew of eight Koreans, 11 Myanmar nationals and two Indonesians.

"We are operating two teams -- one in the Korean embassy in Kenya and the other at the Foreign Affairs Ministry -- set up immediately after the hijacking was confirmed," the ministry said.

Navies from emerging and developed nations, including the European Union, China, India, Russia, Japan and the United States, have intensified patrols in the region to combat piracy.

Officials at Samho Shipping were not immediately reachable.

Local media quoted the foreign ministry as saying that the company was in contact with the hijacked vessel and was aware of its location. Crew members, the reports said, were in good condition, while demand of the hijackers was not known yet.

Reports said a South Korean naval destroyer was chasing the hijacked ship. Foreign ministry officials were not available for comment.

Local media also quoted foreign ministry officials as saying the government would not negotiate with pirates .

According to the media, the Samho Jewelry belonged to Samho Shipping, whose oil supertanker Samho Dream was released in November after being held by Somali pirates for seven months.

The pirates said they had received a record ransom of $9.5 million for the release of the supertanker.

(Reporting by Cho Mee-young; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

Egypt sentences Muslim to death for Coptic shooting

By Marwa Awad

CAIRO | Sun Jan 16, 2011 6:10am EST

CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian state security court on Sunday sentenced a Muslim man to death for killing six Coptic Christians and a Muslim police officer in a drive-by shooting on Coptic Christmas Eve in January 2010.

Mohamed Ahmed Hussein, 39, known as Hamam Kamouni, had been charged with the "premeditated murder" of the Christians and the police officer and with "intimidating citizens" in Nagaa Hamady in southern Egypt after mass on the eve of Coptic Christmas.

The judge said Hussein's sentence would be sent to the Grand Mufti for confirmation, a reference to Egypt's top religious authority who is called on to confirm death sentences.

The court said Hussein's two accomplices, Kurashi Abu Haggag and Hindawi Muhammed Sayyid, who were charged with aiding in the murder and possession of weapons, would be announced on February 20.

Christians account for about 10 percent of Egypt's mostly Muslim population of about 80 million. Sectarian violence is rare, but disputes over issues including land rights or personal relationships occasionally erupt.

Last week a Muslim policeman was charged with shooting dead a Christian man on a train in the town of Samalut in southern Egypt and he will be tried for premeditated murder.

A New Year bombing outside a church in the port city of Alexandria killed 23 people and injured dozens in what analysts say was the worst attack on Christians in recent Egyptian history. The attack prompted protests by both Christians and Muslims.

The Nagaa Hamady shooting, in which nine Copts were injured, provoked protests by more than 1,000 local Copts.

Southern Egypt is much less developed than the capital Cairo. Nagaa Hamady, which has a large Coptic population, is about 60 km (40 miles) north of the tourist and archaeological center of Luxor.

The referral of death sentences to the Grand Mufti is a procedural step that almost always results in confirmation of the sentence.

(Additional reporting by Shaimaa Fayed, editing by Tim Pearce)

Doctors open breathing hole in Giffords' throat

Related Video

Sat, Jan 15 2011

U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) is seen in an undated handout photo provided by her Congressional campaign, January 8, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Giffords for Congress/Handout

By Brad Poole

TUCSON, Arizona | Sun Jan 16, 2011 6:00am EST

TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - Doctors performed a tracheotomy on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on Saturday, inserting a breathing tube through a hole in her neck and removing her from a ventilator, hospital officials said.

It was the first time Giffords was removed from the ventilator since last Saturday, when she arrived at University Medical Center after a gunman shot her through the head.

Giffords, 40, remains the only patient in critical condition from the shooting that wounded 12 others. Six more victims were killed in the rampage.

One patient was discharged on Saturday, and two remain hospitalized in good condition.

In the tracheotomy performed on Saturday, doctors replaced a breathing tube running down Giffords' throat with the tube inserted through a hole in her neck, the hospital said in a written statement.

A feeding tube also was inserted into Giffords, a practice not uncommon for patients in intensive care with brain injuries, the hospital said.

Doctors have expressed satisfaction with Giffords' recovery from the bullet wound.

In recent days the congresswoman has opened her eyes and is tracking movement of objects before her, and following simple commands, such as raising fingers and wiggling toes.

Giffords, a Democrat representing Tucson and southern Arizona, was just elected to her third term in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Jared Lee Loughner, a 22-year-old college dropout, is charged as the lone gunman in the rampage.

(Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Greg McCune)

Count underway to decide if south Sudan secedes

Marathon task of counting ballot in south Sudan's referendum after week-long polling closes.

Middle East Online

The final result is not expected before next month JUBA, Sudan - The marathon task of counting the ballot in south Sudan's independence referendum was underway on Sunday after the week-long polling on partitioning Africa's largest nation closed. "Secession. Secession. Secession," the returning officer intoned on Saturday night as he carefully unfolded each ballot paper cast at a polling station in a school in the southern capital of Juba before pronouncing the voter's choice. There was the odd vote for unity with the Muslim north but they were dwarfed by the huge pile in favour of turning the mainly Christian, African south into the world's newest nation and putting the seal on five decades of civil conflict. The count was being conducted by torchlight, creating an almost religious atmosphere in the small classroom. The school has no mains electricity. Each vote was passed for checking to two other polling station staff and shown to domestic and international observers. There were a dozen at the school in Juba's Hay Malakal neighbourhood. Some polling stations were expected to continue the count through the night until all ballots had been recorded and checked. Others, particularly in rural areas where many were out in the open, locked away the ballotboxes for the night and were due to start counting later on Sunday. The deputy chairman of the referendum commission, Chan Reec, said the only extension to polling would be among emigre voters in flood-hit areas of Australia, who would have a further five days. The vote was the centrepiece of a 2005 peace deal that ended a devastating 22-year civil war between north and south that cost around two million lives. So many people turned out on the first four days of the week-long polling period that the 60-percent threshold set for the referendum to be valid by the 2005 peace agreement was already passed on Wednesday evening. That hurdle had been the only real question mark over the poll -- in a Sudanese general election last April the pro-independence former rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement took a full 93 percent of the vote. Few analysts expected the margin of victory to be much different this time round. The final result is not expected before next month. A senior official of the National Congress Party of President Omar al-Bashir said it would accept the outcome even if the south voted to become the 193rd UN member state in July. "The referendum took place in an atmosphere of calm ... with a great degree of freedom and fairness," Rabie Abdul Ati said. "It is very clear that the party will accept the result whether it be for unity or secession." On the streets of Khartoum, there was a sense of rueful resignation that the nearly nine million people of the south were poised to break away. "I feel sad," said Mustafa Mohammed, a young tax officer. "I am not for secession."

Israel tested Stuxnet on Iran, with US help

US-Israeli intelligence collaborated to develop destructive computer worm to sabotage Iran's nuclear efforts.

Middle East Online

A new front in the covert war WASHINGTON - US and Israeli intelligence services collaborated to develop a destructive computer worm to sabotage Iran's efforts to make a nuclear bomb, The New York Times reported Saturday. In its online edition, the Times quoted intelligence and military experts as saying Israel has tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm, which apparently shut down a fifth of Iran's nuclear centrifuges in November and helped delay its ability to make its first nuclear weapons. The testing took place at the heavily guarded Dimona complex in the Negev desert housing the Middle East's sole, albeit undeclared nuclear weapons program. Experts and officials told the Times the effort to create Stuxnet was a US-Israeli project with the help, knowingly or not, of Britain and Germany. "To check out the worm, you have to know the machines," a US expert told the newspaper. "The reason the worm has been effective is that the Israelis tried it out." There has been widespread speculation Israel was behind the Stuxnet worm that has attacked computers in Iran, and Tehran has blamed the Jewish state and the United States for the killing of two nuclear scientists in November and January. The Times report came as Iran earlier said its controversial uranium enrichment program was progressing "very strongly," just days ahead of a high-profile meeting between Tehran and six world powers over the Islamic republic's nuclear program. Both the United States and Israel have recently announced they believe the program has been set back by several years. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointed to a series of sanctions imposed since June 2009 by the UN Security Council and individual countries. And Moshe Yaalon, Israel's strategic affairs minister and former military chief, said last month that a series of "technological challenges and difficulties" meant Tehran was still about three years away from being able to build nuclear weapons. Israel has backed US-led efforts to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability through sanctions, but has also refused to rule out military force. The Stuxnet worm apparently included two major parts, one intended to make Iran's nuclear centrifuges spin out of control. Another secretly recorded normal operations at the nuclear plant, then played those recordings back to the site's operators so all would appear usual during the sabotage operation, according to the Times. Stuxnet targets computer control systems made by German industrial giant Siemens and commonly used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other critical infrastructure. Most Stuxnet infections have been discovered in Iran, giving rise to speculation it was intended to sabotage nuclear facilities there.

Libyan leader regrets Ben Ali's fall

Moamar Gathafi says 'none better than' former president Ben Ali to govern Tunisia.

Middle East Online

'He did good things for Tunisia' TRIPOLI - Libyan leader Moamar Gathafi on Saturday said he regretted the fall of Tunisia's authoritarian leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali which had left the country in "chaos with no end in sight." "You have suffered a great loss... There is none better than Zine (Ben Ali) to govern Tunisia," he said in a speech broadcast on state radio and television. "I do not only hope that he stays until 2014, but for life," he said, stressing that he considered Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia on Friday, still to be the "legal president of Tunisia under the constitution." "He did good things for Tunisia," he said, hailing his handling of the country's economy. "Tunisia, a developed country that is a tourist destination, is becoming prey to hooded gangs, to thefts and fire," he said, adding that Tunisia was "in chaos with no end in sight." And he said the Tunisian people were the "victims of lies" broadcast on the Internet which had played a large part in Ben Ali's ouster.