Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) has appealed to the International Tennis Federation following its decision to shift the Davis Cup Asia/Oceania group two tie against Lebanon away from Lahore due to se
CAIRO: He survived 10 attempts on his life, and at 82 his health was a subject of speculation. But in the end, it was his people who brought down Egypt’’s modern-day pharaoh. Pulling off a second surprise in as many days, President Hosni Mubarak on Friday stepped down and handed over power to the army from whose ranks he emerged, his deputy Omar Suleiman announced on television. Late Thursday when he had been expected to quit, Mubarak said in a televised speech he would stay on until September, to the fury of hundreds of thousands of demonstrators waiting to celebrate in central Cairo. The party was delayed for one day, in an emotional roller-coaster for the mostly youthful demonstrators. Until the outbreak of anti-government protests on January 25, Mubarak seemed insurmountable as president of the most populous nation in the Arab world. His rise to power came unexpectedly, when his predecessor Anwar Sadat — who made history by signing a peace deal with Israel — was gunned down by militants on October 6, 1981 during a military parade in Cairo. He took office a week after the assassination, and since then he ruled without interruption under a draconian emergency law that remains in force. Islamic groups — including Al-Jihad, Gamaa Islamiyya and Talaeh al-Fatah — were responsible for most of the attempts on Mubarak’’s life on both Egyptian and foreign soil. The first direct attempt to kill him came in 1993, a year after conservatives launched a campaign of violence aimed at toppling the secular Egyptian government, when a bid to fire rockets at his plush Cairo residence was foiled. Later murder attempts involved a variety of schemes, including a plot to car-bomb the presidential motorcade in Cairo. In 1995, militants opened fire at the presidential motorcade in Addis Abiba. The previous year saw an attempt to kill him with explosives as he was due to meet Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi at a military airport. In September 1999, Mubarak was slightly wounded when a man with no apparent links to any Islamic group stabbed him in Port Said. Health-wise, Mubarak’’s reputation as for vigour — he was once known to play squash almost daily — was dented in 2003 when he fainted while addressing parliament. Officials blamed his collapse on a cold and the fact that he had been fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. In 2004, he underwent surgery in Germany for a slipped disc, intensifying speculation on potential successors. Then last March he returned to Germany for the removal of his gall bladder and a growth on the small intestine. Rumours that he had died under the surgeon’’s knife were quashed when state television showed him recovering. Mubarak’’s health was usually a taboo subject in Egypt and the father of two, whose wife Suzanne is half-Welsh, kept his private life a carefully guarded secret. In 2007, speculation about his health snowballed to the extent that Mubarak had to make an unscheduled public appearance to lay rumour to rest. The octogenarian, with jet black hair — possibly dyed — and aquiline nose, was born on May 4, 1928 in the Nile Delta village of Menufiyah. He rose through the ranks of the air force and fought in repeated wars with Israel, to claim hero status, before supporting Sadat in pursuing peace with the Jewish state in 1979. Throughout his years in power, Mubarak maintained the unpopular policy of peace with Israel and accommodation with the West that cost Sadat his life. His government, overseeing a developing nation of 80 million people, has been the frequent target of domestic opposition — ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood to secular and liberal dissidents. The regime quashed militant groups which carried out attacks in the 1980s, the 1990s and, more recently, 2004 and 2006 when the tourism industry was targeted. His government’’s ties with the United States and Israel made him a target of criticism across the region, especially during the 2006 Israel war in Lebanon and Israel’’s Gaza offensive in 2008-2009. Domestic opponents accused Washington of turning a blind eye to human rights abuses, corruption and the Mubarak regime’’s failure to push ahead with badly needed reforms. (AFP)
CAIRO: Galvanised by the biggest day of protest since their campaign to oust Hosni Mubarak’’s regime began, Egyptian pro-democracy campaigners reinforced their vigil in a Cairo square Wednesday. As speakers blared “Do not be tired. Do not be tired. Freedom isn”t free,” thousands of protesters remained camped under plastic sheets and the tracks of tanks, clinging to their “liberated” enclave on Cairo’’s Tahrir Square. The night before they had been joined by several hundred thousand supporters for the biggest night of rallies yet in the two-week-old drive to topple their autocratic president and replace his 30-year-old regime. “There can be no negotiation until he leaves. After he leaves we can talk about all sorts of things,” said Essam Magdi, a 35-year-old lawyer, who has slept under an army tank since January 28 to prevent it from moving. Egypt’’s 82-year-old president has deputised his vice president and former intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to draw selected opposition groups into negotiations on democratic reform before elections in September. Some parties have joined the talks, but the crowds in Tahrir insist that Mubarak must go before they will halt the protest. Suleiman, however, warns that the transition must be slow and orderly if there is not to be chaos. “A clear road map has been put in place with a set timetable to realise a peaceful and organised transfer of power,” he said Tuesday on state television. Afterwards, however, he told Egyptian editors that he would not allow “uncalculated and hasty steps” and warned “there will be no ending of the regime, nor a coup, because that means chaos.” The United States is watching events in the biggest country in the Arab world with great concern, hoping the transition to elected rule can take place without a descent into violence or an Islamist or military takeover. On Tuesday, US Vice President Joe Biden renewed an appeal for “immediate” and “irreversible” political change in a phone call to Suleiman, including a wider national dialogue with the opposition, a White House statement said. He also renewed US calls for Egypt to immediately rescind an emergency law, which was renewed for two years last May and which Washington says gives the government sweeping powers to restrict basic freedoms. The vice president has begun meeting representatives of some opposition parties — including the powerful Muslim Brotherhood, but not some of the street protest groups — to draw up plans for a democratic transition. But opposition groups say any vote to replace Mubarak would not be fair under Egypt’’s current constitution. The presence of the banned Muslim Brotherhood at the protests has caused some in Western capitals to fear the movement might be hijacked by Islamists. But the demonstrators insist their goal is free elections open to all. “We didn”t want a military state or a religious state. We want a state of institutions and elections,” said 34-year-old Atif Awad, a carpenter and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Ahmed Mabruk, 32, who qualified as an engineer but works as builder, said the movement has no leaders yet, but is an expression of Egyptian popular will. “Everything you see here is from the people,” he said. The demonstrators plan to hold the square until Mubarak falls, and have been joined daily by supporters bringing food and staging street rallies. Tuesday’’s were the biggest yet, packing the area in defiance of a nightly curfew. An Iraqi Al-Qaeda front group, the so-called Islamic State of Iraq, urged the Egyptian protesters to turn their backs on the “ignorant deceiving ways” of secularism, democracy and “rotten pagan nationalism.” Instead, it argued, they should launch a jihad for an Islamic state — an idea that has long been rejected out of hand by the opposition movement, a motley coalition of leftists, secularists, Islamists and liberals. The groups in the square have been inspired and mobilised by young Egyptian cyberactivists like Google executive Wael Ghonim, who promoted protest on his Facebook page and was held for 12 days blindfolded by authorities. Freed on Monday, he was given a hero’’s welcome in the square at Tuesday night’’s protest, and he and others insist the revolt is a popular uprising. “We are all Egyptians, Christian and Muslim, anybody who says differently is trying to divide us, make us scared of one another. That’’s the regime’’s idea,” said Abdelrahman Sami, a 24-year-old doctor. On Tuesday, Russia called for the UN Security Council to launch a mission to the Middle East to unblock the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians and to assess the turmoil in Egypt and other countries. The Security Council has not visited the troubled region for more than three decades. Russia’’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin said council envoys should go to Israel, the Palestinian territories, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon.
LONDON: Britain’’s Foreign Minister William Hague has arrived in Syria to hold talks with officials about political developments in Lebanon and the stalled Middle East peace process, officials said. The Foreign Office said that Hague would meet with President Bashar Assad and Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem during the 24-hour visit. Syria’’s president is close to Lebanon’’s new prime minister. The U.K. recognizes a strategic imperative to talk to Syria given its influence across the Middle East, a senior Foreign Office official said ahead of the visit. He spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with departmental protocol.
ISLAMABAD: Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Tuesday again made it clear that no operation will be conducted in Karachi urging some anti forces want Lebanon like situation in Karachi but will
DAMASCUS: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iran’’s interim Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi agreed on Monday that the troubles of the Middle East should be solved internally by the region’’s countries, a local news agency reported. Salehi arrived in Damascus on Sunday to discuss the Lebanese political crisis with Syrian officials. The two men discussed “the latest regional developments” and international efforts to “find solutions to challenges facing countries of the region,” the news agency said after the meeting. The news agency reported Assad and Salehi emphasised “the importance that solutions come from inside these countries according to their peoples” interests to help maintain their security and stability”. External efforts to mediate Lebanon’’s political quagmire have yielded little, with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar all failing. A national unity government led by Western-backed caretaker prime minister Saad Hariri collapsed on January 12 when 11 ministers from the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah and its allies resigned. The walkout capped a long-running dispute over a UN-backed investigation into the 2005 assassination of former premier Rafiq Hariri, the incumbent’’s father. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has said he expects the Netherlands-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon to implicate high-ranking members of his militant movement in the Hariri murder and has warned of grave repercussions. Nasrallah has vowed to include all parties in a Hezbollah-led government, but both he and Hariri refuse to serve under each other. Former prime minister Najib Mikati has put himself forward as a compromise candidate to try to form a government. Assad and Salehi said they were “satisfied” with the formation of a unity government in Iraq, “stressing the importance of expanding the dialogue to all Iraqi” parties, the news agency reported. The meeting also addressed “ways to strengthen scientific and technological cooperation between Syria and Iran”. On Sunday night, Salehi held talks with his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem. He then met the exiled leader of Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, Palestinian sources said. The secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), Ahmed Jibril, and a representative of Islamic Jihad, Ziad Nakhal, also attended the meeting, the sources said.
THE HAGUE: A United Nations-backed prosecutor investigating the death of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri issued a sealed indictment Monday, according to the Netherlands-based court. The pretrial judge will decide whether the case presented by the prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare of Canada, is strong enough to go to trial. The court said that if he chooses to issue formal indictments, he will then make the names public. Officials close to the investigation said this process will likely take six to eight weeks. “The Registrar of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon can confirm that the prosecutor of the tribunal has submitted an indictment,” the court said. The court also said the investigation into the murder of Hariri, and other linked cases, is continuing and that other suspects could be indicted. “The indictment marks the beginning of the judicial phase of the tribunal’’s work,” the court said. “The prosecutor and his team will continue to vigorously pursue his mandate with respect to both continued investigative activity and the prosecution of this case.” In Beirut, talks over the formation of a new government were postponed Monday as a regional emergency meeting was under way in Damascus to resolve Lebanon’’s crisis. Last week, Hezbollah, the Shiite political and militant group, and its political allies toppled the government headed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Rafik’’s son, due to its support for the international tribunal. Lebanese President Michel Sleiman said talks with the parliament to nominate a new prime minister will take place next Monday and Tuesday. The international court investigating Hariri’’s murder has exacerbated tensions inside Lebanon, as the tribunal is expected to indict between two and five Hezbollah members, according to officials briefed on the case. Hezbollah’’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has publicly stated that he believes members of his organization will be charged with Hariri’’s murder. But Nasrallah has repeatedly denied his organization played any role in the 2005 bombing that killed the former Lebanese leader and 22 others in downtown Beirut. Nasrallah attempted to get out ahead of the indictments by making a live televised appearance on Sunday night warning constituents that the indictments would be released the following day. Nasrallah also said the opposition won”t accept Hariri as the next prime minister of Lebanon, further complicating negotiations among political blocs. “The findings of the international tribunal are decided in Israel and Washington,” he said in his speech Sunday night. A delegation of Qatari and Turkish officials will arrive in Beirut Tuesday to mediate talks. The indictments could further complicate the negotiations.
OSLO: Israel’’s army chief told a US Congress delegation in late 2009 he was preparing for a large war in the Middle East, probably against Hamas or Hezbollah, leaked US diplomatic cables showed Sunday. “I am preparing the Israeli army for a large scale war, since it is easier to scale down to a smaller operation than to do the opposite,” Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi was quoted as saying in a cable from the US embassy in Tel Aviv. The document, dated November 15, 2009, was quoted Sunday in Norwegian by Oslo-based daily Aftenposten, which said it had obtained WikiLeaks” entire cache of 251,187 leaked US embassy cables. “The rocket threat against Israel is more serious than ever. That is why Israel is putting such emphasis on rocket defence,” Ashkenazi told the US delegation led by Democrat Ike Skelton, the cable showed. The army chief lamented that Iran has some 300 Shihab rockets that can reach Israel and stressed that the Jewish state would have only between 10 and 12 minutes warning in case of an attack. However, it was Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon that posed the most acute threat, he cautioned. According to the quoted cable, Hezbollah is thought to have more than 40,000 rockets, many of which are believed capable of reaching deep into Israel. US officials meanwhile reportedly estimate the militant group has acquired an arsenal of around 50,000 rockets. A 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel killed 1,200 Lebanese, many of them civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers. And in his comments made nearly a year after Israel on December 27, 2008 launched the deadly Gaza war, Ashkenazi said “Israel is on a collision course also with Hamas, which rules Gaza.” “Hamas will have the possibility to bombard Tel Aviv, with Israel’’s highest population concentration,” he was quoted as saying. The Gaza war — a response to hundreds of rockets fired into the Jewish State — killed some 1,400 mainly civilian Palestinians and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers. It ended on January 18, 2009. Israel had been harshly criticised for putting civilians at risk during fighting in the densely populated Gaza Strip. However, in the cable leaked Sunday Ashkenazi is quoted saying Israel next time will not accept “any restrictions on warfare in populated areas,” and insisted the army had never intentionally attacked civilian targets.
BEIRUT: This week’’s arrest of a well-respected retired general and politician allied with Hezbollah on suspicion of spying for Israel has sent shock waves through Lebanon and left many wondering how deep the Jewish state has infiltrated the country. Fayez Karam, a member of the Christian Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), is the first political figure to be arrested in Lebanon as part of a wide-ranging probe launched in 2009 into Israeli spy networks. A well-informed source close to the investigation told media that after his detention last Monday on the orders of the prosecutor general, Karam confessed to spying for Israel. “You don”t arrest someone like him without rock-solid proof and there was enough evidence against him,” the source, who requested anonymity, said. “He may not have given the Israelis much technical information, but his arrest has a huge political impact because of his position and rank,” he added.
JERUSALEM: An Israeli official on Thursday warned of the danger of Hezbollah gaining influence over Lebanon’’s army just days after a deadly exchange of fire along the border left four people dead. “There is a danger of the Hezbollisation of the Lebanese army, if the army begins to behave like Hezbollah,” Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told public radio referring to the Lebanese Shiite militia group. “If Hezbollah manages to take control of the army, we will have to treat (the army) in a completely different manner,” he said. Top Israeli officials have said that Hezbollah was not involved in Tuesday’’s deadly exchange of fire with the Lebanese army, and have for the most part sought to play down the confrontation as an isolated incident. Defence Minister Ehud Barak said the clashes, which killed two Lebanese soldiers and a journalist as well as a senior Israeli officer, were “a very grave provocation” but hastened to add that it was not planned by the Lebanese army.