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World
Kerry Pledges Millions More in Aid to Philippines O ver w helme d by the massive damage wrought by Typhoon Haiyan in a central Philippine city, U.S. Secretary Kerry of State John Kerry announced nearly $25 million in additional aid Wednesday to help the country deal with the devastation. Kerry flew to Tacloban city, where he saw what was left of entire towns wrecked by the monster storm’s winds and tsunami-like storm surges. “This is a devastation unlike anything that I have ever seen at this scale,” Kerry said at a temporary Agency for International Development headquarters in Tacloban. (AP) BEIT JALA, WEST BANK
Palestinians Open to Extending Peace Talks
Morsi, other leaders accused of conspiring to destabilize Egypt Cairo
Egyptian prosecutors on Wednesday announced a new trial of ousted President Mohammed Morsi and the top leaders of his Muslim Brotherhood, accusing them of conspiring with Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and militant groups to carry out a wave of terrorism to destabilize the country. The charges, which carry a potential death penalty, are the most sweeping and heaviest accusations yet in a series of trials against the Brotherhood. The new trial of Morsi, the three top Broth-
erhood leaders and 32 other defendants appeared aimed at decisively crippling the top echelons of the group that dominated Egypt’s political scene during Morsi’s one-year presidency. Since the coup, Egypt has been in continual unrest. Morsi supporters have been holding near daily protests demanding his reinstatement, met by a fierce security crackdown that has killed hundreds of people and arrested thousands of Brotherhood members. Previous, ongoing trials of Morsi and other Brotherhood leaders have focused on accusations the group is implicated in violence. But the new charges take that claim to a new level, accusing the group of being enmeshed with terrorists since 2005 in deals aimed at
Seeking Safety in South Sudan
attaining and holding onto power and of plotting the collapse of police and prison breaks during the 2011 uprising that forced autocrat Hosni Mubarak out of power. The timing appeared aimed at further tarnishing the Brother-
MAGGIE MICHAEL AND SAR AH EL DEEB (AP)
Moscow
ATHENS, GREECE
ROLLA HINEDI (UNMISS/AP)
Greece Freezes Funding For Nazi-Inspired Party
$1.2B
Mohammed Morsi faces the death penalty on new charges of conspiracy.
Amnesty Bill Passed By Russian Parliament
The chief Palestinian peace negotiator on Wednesday said the Palestinians are ready to extend the current talks with Israel beyond an April deadline — if there is a framework agreement in place. The comments by Saeb Erekat marked the first time the Palestinians have endorsed the U.S. idea of seeking a preliminary — not final — peace deal. (AP)
Greece’s parliament on Wednesday voted to cut off state funding for the Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn party in keeping with a law that requires punishment for parties accused of criminal activities. Authorities cracked down on Golden Dawn after the fatal stabbing of a Greek musician in August. A party supporter has been charged with murder, and, in a separate case, three lawmakers were jailed in September. (AP)
hood among the public ahead of a key January referendum on a new constitution. Moha m med el-Da mat y, a defense lawyer for the Brotherhood, denounced the new trial as “political,” aiming to give a legal veneer to the crackdown. Rights lawyers, including some who believe Brotherhood members should be prosecuted for violence, have expressed similar worries that the wave of trials against them are mere political vengeance. “The biggest victim now is justice and the truth,” said Bahy Eddin Hassan, head of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, calling the new case part of the “ongoing contest” between the Brotherhood and the new government.
MAYA ALLERUZZO (AP)
TACLOBAN, PHILIPPINES
New Crackdown on Brotherhood
SOUTH SUDANESE CIVILIANS take refuge at the compound of the United Nations Mission guarded by U.N. soldiers. At least 500 people, most of them soldiers, have been killed in South Sudan since Sunday, a senior government official said, as an ethnic rivalry threatened to tear apart the country.
The value of the amount of cocaine that transits through West Africa each year, according to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday expressed “deep concern” about the drug trade’s increasing links to terrorist groups after Ban briefed it on the widespread risks to stability in a region where borders are porous, governments are poorly funded and extremist groups are active. (AP)
Russia’s parliament on Wednesday passed an amnesty bill that will likely apply to the crew of a Greenpeace ship detained after an Arctic protest, but it wasn’t immediately clear if and when the activists would be allowed to leave the country. The amnesty, which also would likely free the two jailed members of the Pussy Riot punk band, has been largely viewed as the Kremlin’s attempt to soothe criticism of Russia’s human rights records ahead of the Winter Olympics in Sochi in February. But opposition lawmakers argued it doesn’t go nearly far enough and the legislation appeared to leave many questions open. The State Duma adopted amendments to the bill to include suspects of hooliganism who are awaiting trial, a provision that could apply to the crew of a Greenpeace ship facing those charges after their September protest in the Arctic. Greenpeace said it hopes that
EFREM LUKATSKY (AP)
In Brief
Greenpeace ship captain Peter Willcox said he never should have been jailed.
the amnesty bill will allow foreign crew members of the Arctic ship to get exit visas and leave Russia. “I might soon be going home to my family, but I should never have been charged and jailed in the first place,” the ship’s captain, Peter Willcox, said in a statement. The nation’s top investigative agency has said, however, that the probe into the incident isn’t over yet and that some of the crew members could face additional charges. NATALIYA VASILYE VA (AP)