Egypt Islamists seek more gains in upper house polls

CAIRO: Egyptians vote on Sunday in the first stage of elections for the upper house of parliament, with Islamists seeking to repeat the success they enjoyed in elections for the lower house.

Voting for the Shura council will be held over two stages ending in the middle of February and follow a lower house election that was Egypt’s most democratic since military officers overthrew the king in 1952.

The series of elections for both houses of parliament are the first since Hosni Mubarak was toppled from the presidency on February 11 last year by a popular uprising.

The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group banned during his rule, won 47 percent of the seats in the lower house, more than any other party.

“The Shura council elections are as important as the People’s Assembly (lower house) elections,” said Hussein Ibrahim, a member of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and head of its parliamentary bloc.

“Members of both chambers will choose the committee that will draft the constitution, the milestone of Egypt’s democratic transition,” he said.

Under an interim constitution, parliament is responsible for picking the 100-strong assembly that will write a new constitution to replace the one that helped keep Mubarak in power for three decades.

Elections for the Shura Council have traditionally been less intense than lower house due to the breadth of constituencies that makes it harder for voters to know their candidates.

The Shura chamber’s powers are limited and it cannot block legislation in the lower house. However, its members must be consulted before lower house MPs pass any bill.

Ninety of the Shura council’s 270 seats will be decided in the first round of voting to be held on Sunday and Monday, with run-offs on February 7. Another 90 will be determined by voting on February 14 and 15, with run-offs on February 22.

The remaining 90 will be appointed by Egypt’s next president, expected to be elected in June according a transition timetable drawn up by the military council to whom Mubarak handed power nearly a year ago.

“The elected part of the Shura council will convene without the appointed seats until presidential elections are held and the new president appoints the other 90 members,” an official from the body overseeing the election told Reuters.

24 killed in Daghestan suicide attack

A suicide bomber blew himself up in the republic of Daghestan, killing at least 24 people, including several police officers.
The bomber broke through a police cordon in the capital, Makhachkala, where security officers were battling militia fighters. At least two Islamist rebels were killed in that incident. On September 24, at least five suspected Islamist terrorists, including a woman, were killed in Daghestan. Daghestan has been the scene of bloody clashes between forces loyal to Moscow, criminal gangs, and Islamists striving for independence from Russia. The region is plagued by almost daily violence.

Arab League urges Iraqis to form government

CAIRO: Arab nations are urging rival Iraqi politicians to end their bickering and form a new government nearly three months after the country’s inconclusive election.

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Arab League urges Iraqis to form government

Morocco gives Elton John a rapturous welcome

RABAT: Singer Elton John defied hostile Islamists to headline Morocco’s biggest music festival on Wednesday night and received a rapturous welcome from a crowd of thousands.

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Morocco gives Elton John a rapturous welcome

British party leaders go head-to-head in election battle

LONDON: British premier Gordon Brown and opposition leader David Cameron clashed over the economy Wednesday, scoring points on a key campaign issue in their final parliamentary face-off before the election.

In a boisterous session in the House of Commons, each man accused the other of threatening Britain”s recovery from recession, an issue which has taken centre stage in the increasingly tight race for votes on May 6.

Brown”s centre-left Labour party is fighting for a historic fourth term against Cameron”s centre-right Conservatives, who have seen their double-digit opinion poll lead shrink in recent weeks to just a few points.

Cameron is still tipped to win, however, and took the opportunity of what could be Brown”s last prime minister”s questions to try to turn the tables on Labour claims that the Conservatives cannot be trusted on the economy.

The Conservatives want to scrap Labour”s planned rise in payroll taxes, warning it will damage economic growth and any chance of cutting Britain”s 167-billion-pound (254-billion-dollar, 188-billion-euro) budget deficit.

“This prime minister would wreck the recovery by putting a tax on every job,” Cameron declared, ahead of a visit to businesses in northwest England and Wales where he will highlight the damage the tax could do to small firms.

He also attacked Brown”s record on defence spending, a highly emotive issue given Britain”s current involvement in Afghanistan, where 280 troops have died.

Hitting back, Brown said that scrapping the planned rise in the payroll tax, known as National Insurance (NI), would take billions of pounds out of the economy at a time when it was most fragile.

“To withdraw six billion pounds from the economy now would put jobs at risk, put business at risk and put recovery at risk,” he said.

Amid the backdrop of jeering lawmakers from both sides, Brown spun around a phrase Cameron once used against Tony Blair when he was prime minister, telling the Conservative leader: “To think you were the future once.”

Brown was to face a different kind of prime minister”s questions (PMQs) later Wednesday when he fields queries from members of the public submitted via email or Twitter, in a session his party has dubbed “people”s PMQs”.

All the party leaders are seeking to rebuild trust among voters angered by a scandal over parliamentary expenses last year.

Plans to overhaul the political system are likely to feature alongside the economy as a major election issue, and both Brown and Nick Clegg, leader of the third Liberal Democrat party, unveiled plans for reform Wednesday.

In a speech in central London, Brown said it was “time to see an end to the old politics and to change our politics for good”.

He promised to give voters new powers to recall lawmakers found guilty of financial misconduct and to hold two referenda on introducing elected members into the House of Lords and on changing the voting system.

Nick Clegg, leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats, earlier outlined his proposed reforms, including a cap on political donations, and insisted only his party could offer a real break from the “stench of corruption” in parliament.

“A vote for the Labour or the Conservative parties is a vote for corrupt politics,” Clegg said.

In the House of Commons debate, he attacked Labour in particular, saying: “We all remember, back in 1997, the hope and the promise of this new government. Look at them now. You”ve failed, it”s over, it”s time to go.”

The Lib Dems have struggled to make their mark as the third party in a two-party system, although they could be key players if there is a hung parliament with neither Labour nor the Conservatives winning a majority.

Algerian seeks to block repatriation from Gitmo

WASHINGTON: A man held at Guantanamo for more than eight years has launched a new legal bid to block his transfer back to Algeria, where he faces retribution from Islamist militants and criminal prosecution.

Ahmed Belbacha, who has been detained at the US detention center in Cuba since 2002 but was deemed no longer an “enemy combatant” and cleared for release three years ago, is frightened to return home.

After learning that US Attorney General Eric Holder planned to visit Algeria on Wednesday to sign a legal treaty boosting bilateral judicial cooperation, Belbacha”s lawyer contacted the government urgently.

“We are concerned that the attorney general”s visit to Algiers may presage the transfer of Mr. Belbacha to Algeria,” the lawyer, David Remes, said in an email, a copy of which was obtained by media.

The government replied on Sunday saying: “Your speculation is unfounded and another emergency motion is unnecessary. Mr. Belbacha”s transfer is not imminent.”

But Remes decided there was no smoke without fire and filed the petition on Monday regardless, saying Belbacha could not afford to wait and see how things turned out.

Threatened in the 1990s by the GIA Islamic militant group when he was joining the army, Belbacha deserted then fled to Algeria to escape possible reprisals from both the extremists and the government.

He says the Islamists are still threatening him, while the government has sentenced him in absentia to 20 years in prison.

This is the second emergency order requesting a stay of repatriation filed on 40-year-old Belbacha”s behalf.

A federal appeals court blocked in 2008 Belbacha”s repatriation after the detainee asked the court to allow him to stay in Guantanamo until another country could be found that would take him in.

The United States transferred two Algerian detainees from Guantanamo Bay to their native country in January as Obama slipped past his self-imposed deadline for shuttering the notorious facility.

Some 183 detainees remain at the US military prison in southeastern Cuba, including dozens already cleared for release. Most have been held without charge or trial.

Dems, GOP Split On NY Terror Trials

Full Story And Original Content.TrendPK.com Dems, GOP Split On NY Terror Trials:Bringing those accused in the Sept. 11 attacks to New York for trial would increase the security threat to the city and give radical Islamists a platform to propagate their ideology, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Sunday. Giuliani’s view that the Obama administration is

Full Story And Original Content.TrendPK.com Dems, GOP Split On NY Terror Trials:Bringing those accused in the Sept. 11 attacks to New York for trial would increase the security threat to the city and give radical Islamists a platform to propagate their ideology, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Sunday.
Giuliani’s view that the Obama administration is [...]