Thousands protest in Morocco for more reform

 

 

  Several thousand people marched through Morocco's biggest city Sunday to protest that constitutional reforms unveiled this week by King Mohammed have not gone far enough.

After some of the biggest protests in decades -- inspired in part by the "Arab Spring" uprisings -- the monarch announced on Friday he would devolve some of his powers to parliament and the government and put the reforms to a referendum on July 1.

Under the changes, the king would retain his hold on security, the army and religion. That disappointed some opponents who had wanted to see the monarch hand over all his executive powers to elected officials.

"We are here to reject the proposed constitution," said Aziz Yaakoubi, one of the organisers of Sunday's protest in Casablanca, Morocco's commercial capital.

"It keeps all the powers in the hands of the king. He refused to listen to the street."

Protesters marched through Casablanca's working class Derb Sultan district carrying placards that read: "No to a constitution made for slaves!" and "No to a constitution of dictatorship!"

About 10,000 people took part in the protest, according to a Reuters reporter at the event, while about 500 pro-monarchy activists gathered for a nearby counter-demonstration.

Organisers of the opposition demonstration said 20,000 people took part.

A government official, who did not want to be identified, said 2,500 people took part in the opposition protest and that most of them were members of a banned Islamist group. The official also said the pro-monarchy counter-protest was attended by 70,000 people.

Most Moroccans revere the monarch and months of protests demanding he give up his executive powers have failed to win the sort of popular support that toppled long-standing leaders earlier this year in Tunisia and Egypt.

The moves by King Mohammed, who heads the Arab world's longest-serving dynasty, are being closely monitored by Gulf Arab monarchies which are also facing calls for reform.

Before the march got underway, several dozen young men carrying the Moroccan flag, sticks and broken bottles charged the protesters. Activists blocked their way and the confrontation was defused.

There was a light police presence and the march ended without any violence.

The referendum is likely to endorse the monarch's reforms. Some people at Sunday's protest, organised by the February 20 opposition movement, called for a boycott of the vote.

Some of the demonstrators chanted: "Moroccans, the referendum is a charade!" and "We are not voting for a constitution we don't agree to!"

"The king introduced cosmetic changes that actually strengthen his grip over the decision-making process," said Abderrahim Tafnout of the Unified Socialist Party, which has two seats in parliament.

There were also protests organised by the February 20 movement Sunday in other cities including Tangier and Rabat, but figures on how many people took part were not immediately available.

 

 

 

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Jordan king's motorcade 'attacked' in southern city

 

 

 

Jordanian youths yesterday attacked King Abdullah II's motorcade with stones as he visited the southern city of Tafileh, a security official said, but the government immediately denied the incident.

"Part of the king's motorcade was attacked with stones and empty bottles by a group of men in their 20s and 30s after the king's car entered Tafileh," the official said.

"Nobody was hurt and the motorcade changed its route."
He added, without elaborating, that police "tackled the infiltrators and made arrests."


A palace source confirmed that members of the Royal Guard who accompanied the king were not hurt.
But government spokesman Taher Adwan denied the incident had taken place, telling AFP that "the motorcade of his majesty the king was not attacked."


The state-run Petra news agency quoted Adwan as saying that the "visit to Tafileh was successful."
"All that happened was a quarrel between police and people who wanted to greet the king," who ordered several multi-million-dollar development projects in the city, Adwan said.


People in Tafileh, 179 kilometres (111 miles) south of Amman, have been protesting for several weeks to demand reforms and effective measures to fight corruption.


They intercepted the motorcade of Prime Minister Maaruf Bakhit in May and tried to prevent him from visiting the city.


In his first televised address since pro-reform protests started in January in Jordan, the king on Sunday vowed to enhance political and socio-economic reform and promised a new electoral law that would lead to parliamentary government.

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US hails death of top al-Qaeda militant

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the death of top African al-Qaeda militant Fazul Abdullah Mohammed is a "significant blow" to the group.


He and another militant were killed earlier this week in a shootout with police at a checkpoint in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, officials said.


Mohammed was the most wanted man in Africa, with a $5m bounty on his head.

After landing in Tanzania's capital, Dar es Salaam, on the second leg of a tour of Africa, Mrs Clinton told reporters: "[His] death is a significant blow to al-Qaeda, its extremist allies, and its operations in East Africa."
"It is a just end for a terrorist who brought so much death and pain to so many innocents in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and elsewhere - Tanzanians, Kenyans, Somalis, and our own embassy personnel."
He was suspected of having played a key role in the 1998 US embassy bombings in East Africa, which killed 224 people.


He was also accused of attacking Israeli targets on the Kenyan coast in 2002, and was recently believed to have been working with the Islamist militant group, al-Shabab, which controls much of southern Somalia.
Born in the Comoros islands in the early 1970s, Mr Mohammed is believed to have joined al-Qaeda in Afghanistan during the 1990s.

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Over 10,000 flee clashes in Sudan border state: UN

 More than 10,000 people displaced by fighting in Sudan's Southern Kordofan were staying near a U.N. compound on Thursday, the country mission spokesman said, after nearly a week of clashes in the tense border state.

Fighting between government forces and armed groups erupted in the state capital of Kadugli and elsewhere after a police station was attacked on Saturday, adding to tensions as the country's south prepares to secede in about a month.

Southern Kordofan, an oil-producing state which lies in northern territory, has long been seen as a flashpoint because it is home to thousands of fighters who fought alongside the south against Khartoum during the last civil war.

In statements carried by the state news agency SUNA, Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said north Sudan's armed forces were in control of Southern Kordofan on Thursday and were combing it for "remnants of the rebellion."

Southern Kordofan is important to the north because it has the most productive oil fields that will remain under Khartoum's control after the split. The south could take as much as 75 percent of Sudan's 500,000 barrels per day of oil output.

It also borders the disputed Abyei territory and Darfur, a western region that is the scene of a separate insurgency.

Analysts have predicted fighting could break out in Southern Kordofan ahead of the split, especially after an official of the ruling northern party was named the winner in a gubernatorial election last month.

The south said the vote was rigged, which Khartoum denied.

Southern Sudan voted to secede in a January referendum, the culmination of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war between the north and south. The split is scheduled for July 9.

CLASHES CONTINUE

The number of people staying near the local U.N. Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) compound after fleeing the state capital of Kadugli and nearby villages had risen to an estimated 10,000 by Thursday, UNMIS spokesman Kouider Zerrouk said.

Clashes took place in Kadugli and other areas into Thursday, he added.

Bashir's ruling National Congress Party had earlier accused southern-aligned armed groups in Southern Kordofan of fighting with the support of "foreign powers" and some domestic opposition.

"The armed forces will carry out their national duty and deal with all rebel forces," the statement cited presidential assistant Nafie Ali Nafie as saying.

Officials with the south's dominant party, the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement, have said the clashes started when the north tried to disarm armed groups in the area.

The northern army has blamed the southern-aligned groups for starting the fighting.

The militias are still referred to as members of the Southern Peoples' Liberation Army -- the southern military -- although Juba says they are no longer part of their army and cannot ask them to withdraw south because they are northern.

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Syria — Protests (2011)

Syria's harsh and stagnant dictatorship at first seemed immune to the wave of unrest that swept through most of the Arab world after the revolution in Tunisia in January 2011. But in mid-March, demonstrations broke out in several cities, and grew rapidly after security forces fired on protesters.

The country's president is Bashar al-Assad, the son of Hafez al-Assad, who ruled with an iron hand for three decades before his death in 2000. The Assads belonged to the Allawite sect, a minority that came to hold most of the top positions in the government and military. Under Hafez al-Assad, Syria was reviled in the West for its support of terrorist groups and generally isolated even from more moderate Arab countries. Bashar al-Assad from time to time made gestures toward greater openness. But it remained one of the region's most repressive regimes.

In February 2011, after the fall of Egypt's strongman, Hosni Mubarak, a handful of demonstrations were called in Syria. But the demonstrators were always outnumbered by the police, and were quickly arrested or dispersed. Large protests began in March in the southern town of Dara’a, where citizens were outraged by the arrest of more than a dozen schoolchildren for writing graffiti. More protests followed, in Dara'a and other parts of the country, although they never emerged at any size in the country's two largest cities, Damascus and Aleppo.

In Syria, Mr. Assad at first seemed to veer between offers of concessions and force. On April 16, he pledged to meet one of the demonstrators’ main demands by lifting the emergency law. But just days later, he launched what became a withering crackdown: security forces fired on demonstrators across the country, killing dozens, the army sent tanks into Dara'a and hundreds of government opponents were arrested or were reported to have disappeared. By May 31, human rights groups said that more than 1,000 had been killed and as many as 10,000 people were reported to be in custody or missing.

By early May, government officials spoke of gaining the upper hand, but demonstrations continued, if on a smaller scale, as the unrest settled into a bloody standoff of protest and reprisal. The protests seemed reinvigorated in early June by a video that showed the body of a 13-year-old boy from Dara'a who had been tortured and killed.

Even if it fails, the uprising has demonstrated the weakness of a dictatorial government that once sought to draw legitimacy from a notion of Arab nationalism, a sprawling public sector that created the semblance of a middle class and services that delivered electricity to the smallest towns. The government of Mr. Assad, though, is far different than that of his father, who seized power in 1970. A beleaguered state, shorn of ideology, can no longer deliver essential services or basic livelihood. Mr. Makhlouf’s warnings of instability and sectarian strife like Iraq’s have emerged as the government’s rallying cry, as it deals with a degree of dissent that its officials admit caught them by surprise.

Protest Timeline

June 6 Syria’s state news agency reported that “armed gangs” had killed 120 police and security personnel in multiple attacks on security forces in a northwestern town. The state broadcaster showed no images from the town, despite scrolling text on Syrian television that spoke of a “massacre” of security forces. Protesters could not be immediately reached in the area, but opposition activists repudiated any suggestion that antigovernment protesters had mounted such an attack.

June 5 Syrian military forces were reported to have killed 38 people in the northern province of Idlib over the weekend, demonstrators and rights activists said, as security forces appeared to redeploy from other towns to join the latest front in the harsh crackdown on a three-month-old popular uprising against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

June 3 Syrians poured into the streets in some of the largest antigovernment protests yet despite the shutdown of much of the country’s Internet network. At least 40 protesters were killed in Hama, according to local activists. That report could not be immediately confirmed. The demonstrations were fueled in part by escalating anger over the torture and killing of a 13-year-old boy from the southern region of Dara’a.

June 1 Syrian military forces killed 42 people, including a 10-year-old boy and 4-year-old girl, in raids on a string of towns around the central city of Homs.

May 31 President Bashar al-Assad issued a general amnesty. Syrian state media reported that the amnesty would be broad and would include members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, but details issued late in the day by the government indicated that it amounted to little more than sentence reductions for certain crimes.

May 30 A video of the mutilated body of a 13-year-old boy seized, tortured and killed by government forces has injected new life into the uprising.

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Priyanka Vs Rahul on World Environment Day

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Priyanka Chopra More Pics

Bollywood actors Priyanka Chopra and Rahul Bose are to compete on the World Environment Day June 5 to motivate people to do their bit to save the mother earth.
The Bollywood stars are facing off in a new video for the ultimate Environment Day Challenge - where they are calling individuals, groups, families and schools, even entire communities.
"And for Priyanka and Rahul, this is where the battle lines get drawn. When registering a green activity on the site, people will have the opportunity to pledge their activity to either one celebrity or the other," said a statement issued by UN here.

Priyanka has pledged to plant a tree for every green activity registered in her name while Rahul has pledged to plant two.
"Whether it's switching from plastic bags to cloth bags, car-pooling with colleagues or organising a tree-planting day, green activities can be big, small, local, international, noisy, quiet ... just as long as they're green," it said.
India for the first time is the global host of United Nations Environment Day this year.
UNEP ( United Nations Environment Programme) has given the theme "Forests: Nature at Your Service" in alignment with the UN International Year of Forests, 2011. The theme celebrates the multitude of services - providing clean air, housing rich biodiversity, supplying water - performed by the world's forests.
In the run-up to June 5, the environment ministry has also planned a group of activities, including "Green Walkathon", in partnership with the Delhi government at India Gate.
The other significant feature will be organisation of "Green Haat", involving about 52 partners to showcase initiatives, of forest dwellers, minor forest produce federations of various states, women self-help groups, NGO partners, highlighting the value added forest products at Dilli Haat between June 1-5.
Biodiversity film festival for disadvantaged children, general public, prisoners, and Air Force officials will be organised in partnership with Centre for Media Studies (CMS) in the capital from June 1-4 at National Science Centre, PVR's Cinemas, Tihar Jail and Subroto Park to raise awareness about environmental issues through films from eminent national and international filmmakers.

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