Kerry In Cairo For Talks With once there is evidence Egypt’s New President released that Sisi’s government is ruling in CAIRO - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Cairo yesterday for talks with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi over Egypt’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and the threat which the conflict in Iraq poses to the Middle East. Kerry is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Egypt since Sisi, the former military leader who toppled Islamist President Mohamed Mursi after mass protests last year, won a May presidential election. His visit comes a day after an Egyptian court confirmed death sentences against 183 members of Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, including its leader Mohamed Badie, in a mass trial on charges of violence in which one policeman was killed. The United States has said it looks forward to working with Sisi’s government but also expressed concerns over widespread human rights abuses and limits on freedom of expression. “We have serious concerns about the political environment,” said a senior State Department official who briefed reporters en route to Cairo. Still, the official said there had been “a few flickering signs of positive movement” in recent weeks. Among these was the release of an Al-Jazeera
Ukraine:
Putin Calls For Compromise MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged both sides in the Ukrainian conflict to sit down at the negotiating table and find a compromise. He said such a compromise must guarantee the rights of Russian-speaking residents of eastern Ukraine, who must feel like they are “an integral part” of Ukraine. Pro-Russian separatists battling Ukrainian troops have declared independence and asked to join Russia, but Moscow has rebuffed their appeals. Both Ukraine and the West, however, accuse Russia of supporting the insurgency. Putin spoke yesterday after laying a wreath during ceremonies commemorating the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. His comments followed a statement the night before in which he expressed support for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s decision to declare a cease-fire. OFF NAME CHANGE O
UKP ABIA UKPABIA ABIA- I, formerly known as Chigozie Ukpabia now wish to be known as Osamudiamen Lucky Osaghale. All former documents remain valid. Concerned authorities and the general public should please take note.
journalist, steps to start addressing sexual violence against women and Sisi’s call during his first cabinet meeting for the revision of the human rights law. The United States, which has counted on Egypt as a close Middle East ally for decades following its 1979 peace treaty with U.S. ally Israel, froze some of the $1.3 billion in annual military aid to Egypt following Mursi’s overthrow. About $575 million in suspended funds have been released over the past 10 days and will be used to pay existing defense contracts, the State Department official said. Washington has also said it will provide 10 Apache attack helicopters to help soldiers battling burgeoning militancy in the Sinai peninsula. The Obama administration has made clear that the remaining funds, which require congressional approval, will be
truly democratic fashion, the senior State Department official said. During his meeting in Egypt Kerry will press Sisi to release imprisoned journalists and will raise concerns about the mass trials and death sentences of Muslim Brotherhood supporters, the official said. “Those trials are a serious issue of due process concern for us and for others in the international community,” the official said, adding: “The judiciary is responding to a political environment that the government has created.” The official said the United States did not believe that the Muslim Brotherhood posed a security threat to Egypt and had seen no information that substantiated a link to terrorist groups. The official said the United States had asked Egypt to share the evidence “but at present we do not have that information.”
Iraq Insurgents Capture Fourth Town BAGHDAD - Sunni militants have seized another town in Iraq’s western Anbar province, the fourth to fall in two days, officials said yesterday, in what is shaping up to be a major offensive in one of Iraq’s most restive regions. The officials said the militants captured Rutba, about 90 miles (150 kilometers) east of the Jordanian border, late Saturday. Residents were yesterday negotiating with the militants to leave after an army unit on the town’s outskirts threatened to start shelling. The latest advance has dealt another blow to Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is fighting for his political life even as forces beyond his control are pushing the country toward a sectarian showdown. In a reflection of the bitter divide, thousands of heavily armed Shiite militiamen — eager to take on the Sunni insurgents — marched through Iraqi cities in military-style parades Saturday on streets where many of them battled U.S. forces a half decade ago. The towns of Qaim, Rawah, Anah and Rutba are the first seized in predominantly Sunni Anbar province since fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant overran the city of Fallujah and parts of the provincial capital of Ramadi earlier this year. The capture of Rawah on the Euphrates River and the nearby town of Anah appeared to be part of march toward a key dam in the city of Haditha, the destruction of which would damage the country’s electrical grid and cause major flooding. Taking Rutba gives the insurgents control over the final stretch of a major highway to neighboring Jordan, a key artery for passengers and goods that has been infrequently used for months because of deteriorating security. Rutba has a population of 40,000 but it has recently been home to 20,000 displaced from Fallujah and Ramadi. Iraqi military officials said more than 2,000 troops were quickly
dispatched to the site of the dam to protect it. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The Islamic State and allied militants have carved out a large fiefdom along the Iraqi-Syrian border. Control over crossings like that one in Qaim allows them to more easily move weapons and heavy equipment. Rebels control the Syrian side of the crossing. Al-Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government has struggled to push back against the Sunni militants, who have seized large swaths of the country’s north since taking control of the second-largest city of Mosul on June 10 as troops melted away. The prime minister, who has led the country since 2006 and has not yet secured a third term after recent parliamentary elections, has increasingly turned to Iranianbacked Shiite militias and volunteers to bolster his beleaguered security forces. The parades in Baghdad and other cities in the mainly Shiite south revealed the depth and diversity of the militias’ arsenal, from field artillery and missiles to multiple rocket launchers and heavy machine guns, adding to mounting evidence that Iraq is inching closer to a religious war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Al-Maliki has come under growing pressure to reach out to disaffected Kurds and Sunnis, with many blaming his failure to promote reconciliation for the country’s worst crisis since the U.S. military withdrew its forces nearly three years ago. In Baghdad, about 20,000 militiamen loyal to anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, many in military fatigues, marched through the sprawling Shiite Sadr City district, which saw some of the worst fighting between Shiite militias and U.S. soldiers before a cease-fire was reached in 2008 that helped stem the sectarian bloodshed that was pushing the country to the brink of civil war.