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ALTLANDSBERG, Germany: An employee looks out of a window of a bicycle shop and rental station, which has been decorated with some hundred old bikes attached to the front of the building, on April 6, 2011 in eastern Germany. The installation was set up to attract tourists touring the Brandenburg area by bike. — AFP
Syrian forces launch attack on 2 villages Continued from Page 1 From a distance, he saw troops in Baida taking positions on rooftops. He said residents in Baida told him by telephone that two people were shot and wounded and dozens were detained. The government has placed severe restrictions on the media and has expelled reporters. “Security forces and armed men are firing machine guns indiscriminately at the village,” a witness said. “The gunfire against Baida is intense like the rain. At least one person was injured,” another witness told AFP. The villages are several kilometers from the port city of Banias, which the army has sealed off during days of unrest. Security forces killed four protesters in Banias on Sunday. “Security forces and the army continue to assault Banias and we know what they are preparing for us,” said Anas Al-Shuhri, one of the leaders of anti-regime protesters. “There is a shortage of bread in the city, electricity is cut and the majority of phone lines are too,” he added. Abdelbasset, an electrician, told AFP the situation was “extremely bad”. “The army was redeployed outside the city and the security forces and shabbiha (regime agents) conducted a number of arrests. The town is dead, shops are closed,” he
said. “Banias is surrounded by tanks, no one can get in or out. It is like a prison,” said Yasser, a shopkeeper. “We cannot get bread anymore in Banias. Bread supplies were brought from (the city of ) Tartus but that is not enough. The petrol stations are also closed,” he added. Yasser said: “Security forces were responsible for killing soldiers in Banias because they had refused to attack the city,” an account that differed sharply from the official version of events. Preacher Sheikh Mohammed said: “Several families evacuated women and children (to the outskirts of the town), because we are in the Ras Al-Nabee neighbourhood which was targeted by gunfire from Al-Quz neighbourhood. “The bakers of the town do not have enough bread,” he added. Haitham Al-Maleh, a leading Syrian opposition figure in Damascus said residents told him that attackers were using automatic rifles in Baida and Beit Jnad. AlMaleh said villagers have told him there were casualties in yesterday’s attack, but the reports could not be independently confirmed. The White House yesterday called on Syria to respect “universal rights of the Syrian people, who are rightly demanding the basic freedoms that they have been denied”. Instability in Syria has been a blow to US efforts
to engage with Damascus, part of Washington’s plan to peel the country away from its allegiance to Hamas and Hezbollah. Also yesterday, Human Rights Watch said Syrian security forces prevented medical staff from reaching the wounded in at least two towns where security forces clashed with protesters last week. The New York-based group said security forces did not allow ambulances to approach the road to pick up the wounded after prayers last Friday in the southern town of Daraa and in Harasta, near Damascus. Friday marked the single bloodiest day of the uprising, with 37 killed around the country. “To deprive wounded people of critical and perhaps lifesaving medical treatment is both inhumane and illegal,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Barring people from needed medical care causes grave suffering and perhaps irreparable harm.” Outside the Syrian embassy in neighboring Lebanon, dozens of pro-regime activists heckled two women and a man who tried to read a statement urging the Syrian government to listen to demands for change. Police officers protected the three activists and escorted them away from the embassy. — Agencies
Mubarak hospitalized with heart problems Continued from Page 1 They scuffled with supporters of Mubarak amid a massive security presence. El-Guindi said Mubarak was being investigated over his role in the violence against protesters during the uprising. The investigation into corruption charges would be carried later by the Justice Ministry’s anti-corruption department. An investigation of Mubarak’s son, Gamal, is also underway in Sharm elSheikh, the minister said in comments carried by Egypt’s state news agency. A security official at the hospital said both father and son were questioned in the hospital suite. Earlier, a security official said that both sons, Alaa and Gamal were being questioned in the south Sinai capital of Al-Tor, but headed back south to Sharm el-Sheikh after hearing their father had gone into intensive care. State television reported that Mubarak had refused to eat or drink since he received news yesterday morning that he was to be questioned. Deciding on the site for the interrogation was a dilemma for the authorities who wanted to grant the ailing president a degree of privacy and security. Two security officials said Mubarak arrived under heavy police protection to the main hos-
pital and, according to two doctors in the hospital, he stepped out of his armored Mercedes unaided and was taken to the presidential suite in the pyramid-shaped building. Asked if Mubarak was in good health, hospital director Mohammed Fathallah replied: “Somewhat.” The state-owned daily Al-Ahram, citing sources in Sharm elSheikh, said on its website that Mubarak had gone to hospital “under the pretext of being unwell in order to avoid facing questioning.” Mubarak has been suffering for a number of ailments and underwent gallbladder surgery in Germany in March last year. He has kept a low profile since he was ousted, living on his compound in Sharm el-Sheikh. He was banned from traveling and his assets have been frozen. Many of his senior aides have already either been questioned or detained pending investigations. Egypt’s state TV reported that Safwat El-Sherif, a senior aide of Mubarak and one of the most powerful men in his regime, was ordered detained for an additional 15 days pending investigation into his role in attacks on protesters during the uprising. El-Sherif had already been remanded into custody for 15 days pending corruption investigations. — Agencies
3 on trial in Bahrain over spying for Iran Continued from Page 1 Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI), which aims to increase security cooperation with the Middle East. Tense ties between Gulf Arab states and Iran were exacerbated after the mid-March intervention of a Saudi-led Gulf force in Sunni-ruled Bahrain where security forces crushed a Shiite-led pro-democracy uprising. The intervention sparked a war of words between various Gulf Arab states and their Iranian neighbour, with both sides trading accusations of meddling in Bahrain, and Arab states alleging Iranian interference in Kuwait. The aim of the NATO mission, which is called “Operation Inas Bahr”, or “Friendly Seas”, is “to promote practical military cooperation with the countries of the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative,” said assistant staff officer Lieutenant Giampiero Sanna of the Italian navy. It is “an excellent opportunity for military dialogue as a means to enhance understanding and promote cooperation,” a handout on the operation said. Lieutenant Anastasios Soulas, an officer on the Greek frigate HS Spetsai, the force’s flagship, said the mission was planned long before uprisings that began in Tunisia and spread to other Arab states including Bahrain had even begun. “This kind of trip had to be prepared a long time ago, a long time before all of these things,” Soulas said. “What we can tell you for sure is that all these countries have given us a very warm welcome, and they have all done their best to enhance this kind of cooperation,” he said. Various Western states, especially leading NATO member the United States, also have tense relations with Iran, accusing the Islamic republic of namely of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons and backing militants in Iraq. Hulking military-grey US-flagged support ships from a separate force were also in Dubai’s Jebel Ali port, with machine-gun armed patrol boats marked US
Navy standing guard. The US Fifth Fleet has roughly 40 ships, including warships, coast guard and support vessels in its area of operations, which includes the Gulf, a spokesman said. Mines in the Gulf posed a significant risk to both military and civilian ships during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, during which the United States and various Arab countries especially Saudi Arabia, backed Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The mining of the Strait of Hormuz off Iran, one of the most important transit points for oil in the world, remains a nightmare scenario for the oil-rich Gulf Arab states, the United States and other Western countries. The five NATO vessels set out from Crete on Jan 22 and sailed through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to Bahrain, Kuwait, and then the United Arab Emirates, Soulas said. They will head back through Suez on May 5. He said that other stops were made along the way for logistics and to provide rest for the crew, but the official visits were limited to those three states. The force’s several hundred Greek, Spanish Italian and German sailors set off for shore leave in Dubai after their April 10 arrival in the glitzy Gulf emirate, but they will be back to work for exercises with the UAE navy. “During our visit to the United Arabian Emirates, we’ve planned a demanding program... with the UAE navy consisting of combined exercises” Captain Georgios Pelekanakis, the NATO force’s commander, said in a statement. The NATO mine-sweeping force is currently made up of the HS Spetsai, which is not designed to counter mines but instead provides security for the four much smaller, lightly armed mine-sweeping ships one each from Greece, Spain, Italy and Germany. The force usually operates in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, said Sanna, adding that in addition to locating mines, the minesweepers can also identify shipwrecks and contribute to archaeological research. — Agencies
Popular Bloc lashes out at prime minister Continued from Page 1 ambassador to Kuwait on May 5, 2010 and Roudhan was quoted as telling the ambassador that there were no accusations against Iran “although investigations had been completed by that date” with members of the spy cell. The lawmaker said he was ready for an open debate with Roudhan over the issue, adding that based on the details of the court verdict, the Iranian labour attache was responsible for the spying rings. Another member of the Bloc MP Khaled Al-Tahous also strongly criticized the running of the country, singling out corruption, corrupt media, expired meat, use of political money
and the attack on the constitution under the previous six governments of Sheikh Nasser. Tahous detailed a number of key issues he claimed that Sheikh Nasser’s governments have failed to deal with, adding that their opposition to Sheikh Nasser is not based on personal issues but matters of public interests and the way to manage the country. The Popular Bloc has vowed it will file to grill Sheikh Nasser as soon as he forms the new government, his seventh since Feb 2007, over allegations of corruption. A number of MPs opposed to Sheikh Nasser held a meeting late Sunday night at the diwaniya of MP Waleed Al-Tabtabaei to discuss ways to deal with the new government of Sheikh Nasser, which
is not expected before two weeks. None of the six members of the liberal National Action Bloc attended the meeting because it was held outside the Assembly. In another development, liberal MP Abdulrahman Al-Anjari sent a series of questions to Roudhan about Kuwait’s plans to set up nuclear plants to produce electricity. He asked about the reason for Kuwait resorting to nuclear power and if the decision was based on studies and research. Anjari asked about the funds spent so far on the nuclear program and the expected cost of the program and demanded information about the deals signed by the government with foreign countries.