Gaza border crisis puts Egypt on the spot

by Ian Pannell

Alaa smiled and pulled me by the arm. Firstly he wanted to check my credentials. "You are a foreign correspondent?"

I nodded and we got the camera ready to record an interview. He shook his head - not an interview, he just wanted to just tell me something. In faltering English he declared: "This is the happiest day of my life!"

Audacious act

Hamas militants had just breached the border wall with Egypt and once again thousands of people were again pouring across no-man's land and in effect breaching the economic blockade of Gaza, imposed Israel says to stop militants from firing rockets into its territory.

The day had begun with Cairo declaring that the crossing would be sealed shortly after midday. Thousands of extra security personnel were brought in to support the poorly-equipped Egyptian border guards. Extra barbed wire was erected and the troops moved into place, allowing people to leave, but no-one to enter.

On the Palestinian side, large crowds gathered and people began to jostle with the Egyptian forces. Rocks were thrown and the police used water cannons and electric batons.

Gunmen from Hamas responded with automatic weapons - and a large yellow bulldozer was brought in to once again try to breach the Egyptian side of the border. It was an audacious act of defiance.

The bulldozer ploughed into the boundary wall again and again, driven by a masked man, flanked by two others and protected by heavily armed gunmen.

With sheer brute force and the threat of force the wall fell and the crowds surged through into Egypt

It was a humiliating defeat for the Egyptian forces who were outmanoeuvred and outgunned. Its troops had no choice but to stand to one side and then beat an ignominious retreat.

Sympathy and pressure

Cairo now has two choices. The first is to return with more troops and try again to close the border. That means not only significantly increasing its presence but also changing tactics.

Egypt would have to match the force used by the Palestinians this time, meeting fire with fire. It would be a high-risk strategy, running the risk of an armed clash with Hamas and even another withdrawal - either way it would be a public relations disaster for Cairo.

The other option is to sit down with Hamas, the militant Islamic group that runs Gaza. This is something Egypt has previously ruled out, but late on Friday the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is reported to have offered to broker talks between Hamas and Fatah, the party of the Palestinian president.

As long as the Gaza side of this border remains wide open, Hamas have in effect made themselves an indispensable part of this problem and its solution.

Egypt has sympathy for the Palestinians but it needs to regain control of its own territory and is under pressure to do so from Israel and Washington who fear an open border allows weapons to be easily taken into Gaza.

Until that happens, the Palestinians of Gaza will continue to move freely across the border, to shop and meet old friends and family.Some are even using the opportunity to leave Gaza altogether.

One man told me, "We are in need of help - either with or without the approval of the International community. "

BBC News, Rafah

Bush addresses US economy fears

President George W Bush has urged Americans to have confidence in their economy in the long-term, as he gave his final State of the Union address.

He acknowledged that growth was slowing and that the US faced "uncertainty".

However, a $150bn stimulus plan agreed by Congress and the White House would help, he said, and must be passed soon. Mr Bush also said his troop "surge" in Iraq was succeeding after a long and costly war and that al-Qaeda was "on the run" and would be defeated.

Meanwhile, he called on Iran's leaders to cease their "support for terror abroad" but said the US respected the country's people.

In response to Mr Bush's address, Democratic Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius expressed a theme of co-operation and bipartisanship.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a statement that they would "work with the president - where possible - to bolster the housing market and help Americans keep their homes".

Speaking on the economy, Mr Bush acknowledged that the US was "undergoing a period of economic uncertainty", but sought to reassure the nation.

"At kitchen tables across our country, there is concern about our economic future," he said.

But, he added: "In the long run, Americans can be confident about our economic growth."

He also announced a crackdown on congressional earmarks - politicians' pet projects added to spending bills - and threatened to veto the next appropriations bill if the number of such measures was not halved.

Echoing a theme of his 2006 address, when he spoke of the US being "addicted to oil", Mr Bush spoke about the importance of US energy independence.

"Our security, our prosperity and our environment all require reducing our dependence on oil," he said.

In addition, Mr Bush urged Tehran to suspend its nuclear enrichment programme and "come clean" about its intentions.

He continued: "But above all, know this: America will confront those who threaten our troops, we will stand by our allies, and we will protect our vital interests in the Gulf."

American response

On Iraq, Mr Bush acknowledged that the "enemy is still dangerous and more work remains" to be done. But he praised the work of American and Iraqi forces in achieving "results few of us could have imagined just one year ago" and assured Americans that al-Qaeda "will be defeated".

He urged Congress to "meet its responsibilities to these brave men and women by fully funding our troops". Mr Bush said that as a result of progress in Iraq and a transition of operations to Iraqi forces, more than 20,000 troops would be returning to the US in the coming months.

The war in Iraq was a key issue in Mr Bush's 2007 address. He warned then that failure would have "grievous" results.

During 2007, the US military launched the "surge" strategy - a build-up of US troop levels in Iraq - and there have been dramatic improvements in security in many of the most troubled areas, including much of Baghdad.

But it was also the most deadly year for US forces in Iraq, with some 900 troops killed.

Ahead of the speech, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters: "The president thinks his legacy will shake itself out when people look at the record, and history will tell."

In the Democratic reply to the president's speech, Governor Sebelius said: "In this time, normally reserved for the partisan response, I hope to offer you something more: an American response.

"There is a chance, Mr President, in the next 357 days, to get real results and give the American people renewed optimism that their challenges are the top priority."

The State of the Union address is expected to be Mr Bush's last before he leaves office in January 2009, although he does have the right to deliver one more immediately before he goes. According to Gallup polls of approval ratings around the time of the State of the Union addresses, this is the worst year for Mr Bush since his presidency began.

The BBC's Vincent Dowd in Washington says the simple fact that Mr Bush is leaving office means he has less than a year to assert his policies and prove he is no lame duck.

Democratic candidate hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were in Congress watching the speech.

BBC

Hunt for 'Dr Horror' after police close clinic in kidney swaps raid

India has launched an international hunt for a doctor accused of running an illegal clinic that duped between 500 and 600 poor labourers into selling their kidneys and then peddled them to foreign clients.

Police uncovered the clinic last week in an upmarket private house in Gurgaon, a wealthy satellite town of Delhi that is home to hundreds of call centres, shopping malls and IT companies. They arrested one doctor, a driver and three middlemen and rescued five "donors", three of whom had recently had their kidneys removed and had to be taken to hospital.

They also detained five alleged foreign clients, including two Americans of Indian origin and three Greek citizens, at a guesthouse linked to the clinic. However, police say that the alleged mastermind, identified as Amit Kumar, escaped after being tipped off about the raid and may have fled overseas using his foreign client network.

"We are not ruling out the possibility that he may have escaped abroad by using his contacts. However, he will not be able to escape the legal channels," Mohinder Lal, the Gurgaon police commissioner, said. "We are not going to let him have an easy run for long. A man accused of being involved in 500 illegal transplants will not be allowed to go scot-free and we will track him down soon."

Police, who raided several more of Dr Kumar's properties , have issued photographs of him, his brother and two other doctors to all Indian airports. They are also preparing to approach Interpol to obtain a "red corner" international arrest warrant for Dr Kumar, who is believed to have one home in Canada. The foreigners were allowed to leave India last Sunday because there was insufficient evidence against them, police said.

The alleged kidney racket is one of the biggest to have been uncovered in India and revived calls for a review of India's strict transplant laws, which some blame for its flourishing black market in human organs. Others say that the problem lies with corrupt police and government officials who have repeatedly turned a blind eye to Dr Kumar's alleged racket - and many others like it.

Dr Kumar was arrested in 1994 for running a similar clinic in Bombay under the name Santosh Raut, but disappeared after being freed on bail and moved his alleged operation to several other cities. Similar cases were also registered against him in Delhi and the southern state of Andhra Pradesh in 2000 but he again escaped and set up shop in Gurgaon, about 15 miles (25km) outside Delhi.

Times on line, UK

Iraq faces another 'pivotal year'

"Iraqi politics," said the spokeswoman at the US embassy in Baghdad, "is very complex."

by Jonny Dymond

In the middle of an otherwise unremarkable briefing it seemed like another banal brush off. In fact, it was a profound truth.

As well as being very complex, Iraqi politics is very important. It may not seem like that on the Baghdad street.

To most people, finding and keeping a job, getting hold of some petrol or hoping that the mains power doesn't give out (it does, very frequently) is a lot more important than what the 250-odd MPs get up to in the barricaded parliament, deep within the secure Green Zone.

But the fact that people in Baghdad now worry about the abysmal state of public services and the economy is, bizarrely, a step forward.

This time last year, the concern for most was survival; finding a neighbourhood where they were safe from death squads and militias; hoping that they or their children were not going to be caught up in one of the bombings that brought Baghdad to its knees.

Grim picture

Three factors are credited with bringing the violence down; the "surge" of an extra 30,000 US troops; the ceasefire announced by Moqtada Sadr, which reigned in his Mehdi Army; and the Sunni backlash against the barbarism of al-Qaeda in Iraq, which led to the "Awakening" - a string of Sunni police forces and intelligence networks that have all but driven al-Qaeda in Iraq out of the western province of Anbar, and Baghdad.

It's around this point that the politics becomes important.

The "surge" was never designed to defeat the insurgency; it was introduced to give Iraq's politicians the breathing space to make some political progress.

With the New Year has come a rather urgent stocktaking. And, as even the guardedly optimistic officials admit (there are no unguardedly optimistic officials anymore) it's a pretty dismal picture so far.

Just one major piece of "reconciliation" legislation has been passed by the Iraqi parliament - the Accountability and Justice Act, designed to reverse the catastrophic de-Baathification order issued by the Coalition Provision Authority in 2004.

Still waiting either to be drafted or presented to parliament is a law on provincial elections, an electoral law, a law on how oil and gas should be managed and explored, a law on how oil revenues should be shared out, and revisions to the constitution to work out how and when to vote on the status of the northern city of Kirkuk.

Officials and diplomats put most of the blame for the near paralysis on the office of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki; his critics (and there are many) lambast him for refusing to work with other members of his coalition.

Strong message

The Iraqi parliament was never going to be a fast moving beast; democracy didn't have deep roots in Iraq and besides, the whole system was in turmoil following the invasion and subsequent insurgency.

But the Americans were taken aback by the lack of political will within Mr Maliki's circle. In August last year, they thought they had a deal with the prime minister that he would work more closely with the presidential council - Jalal Talabani and his two deputies.

But as summer turned to winter, little or no legislative progress was made. Mr Maliki, says one diplomat, felt that the testimony of General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker to Congress in September last year had let him off the hook.

Late in December last year came a spine-stiffening visit from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. What is diplomatically described as a strong message was put to Mr Maliki - his coalition partners were only waiting for a signal from the US to move against him.

Deposing him might only be the least worst option but if the paralysis continued then something had to give.

Election hopes

In January, more than a year after the US had hoped, the Accountability and Justice Act passed through the Iraqi parliament. There is once again talk of Prime Minister Maliki working more closely with the presidential council - a so-called 3+1 arrangement, and reaching out further as well.

Everyone from Condoleezza Rice down now acknowledges that the US timetable was unrealistic. And they are deeply wary of talking up the current situation.

"There is now," says one senior diplomat highly trained in the art of not overdoing things "the hint of a possibility of something successful emerging from this trauma."

But for that to happen there has to be political progress; in particular, officials are hoping that provincial elections might provide Iraq's Sunnis with some representation and bring a new generation of Shia leaders to the fore.

But for elections to happen, the Iraqi parliament must move on laws defining the provinces' powers and how elections should take place.

"Every year," says the diplomat carefully "we say it is a pivotal year." He pauses. "But this year really is pivotal."

BBC News, Baghdad

Musharraf's UK visit 'a charm offensive'

Describing his European visit as a "charm offensive", President Pervez Musharraf has said that Pakistan was the victim of misunderstandings, misperceptions and distortions and that he was here to clarify them.

In a series of speeches, briefings and press conferences he has tried to combat the idea that Pakistan is a source of instability, instead claiming it is the victim of instability and that the government is working to address the problems.

Politics has been top of his agenda during his visit to London. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said "credible" elections were "essential", saying it was vital that the democratic process remained on track.President Musharraf confirmed the elections would go ahead and be, in his words, "free, fair and transparent" with a peaceful transition.

Uncomfortable

But it remains hard to envisage what the political picture will look like after the upcoming elections.

When questioned by journalists, President Musharraf said he would work with whatever party won a majority or could organise a coalition - and with whomever they picked as prime minister.

But there is no doubt this could be a very uncomfortable situation with either the PPP - many of whose members still blame the government in part for their former leader Benazir Bhutto's death - or with Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf deposed in the 1999 coup that brought him to power.

Counter-terrorist co-operation was second on the agenda. A team of UK experts has been looking at what assistance can be provided to Pakistan, including exchanges on forensic and financial investigation.

Building capability is considered vital by both sides. The controversy over the escape of alleged terror suspect Rashid Rauf from Pakistani custody is one sign of the problems.

President Musharraf has outlined a multi-pronged strategy for dealing with extremism and terrorism which separated out al-Qaeda, the militant Taleban and the wider problem of extremism, with a different "holistic" approach to each.

President Musharraf argues that almost all of the suicide bombings in the country can be traced back to Baitullah Mehsud, whom Pakistan and the US have said was also responsible for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Getting to this source was the government's priority. In a briefing with journalists before his meeting with Mr Brown, President Musharraf confirmed that earlier in the month he had met America's top two intelligence officials.

But he said they did not discuss the deployment of US troops within Pakistan to fight extremists and instead talked simply about improving intelligence co-operation.

Another crucial area of discussion is regional security, especially the need for co-operation over Afghanistan where British troops are fighting the Taliban.

President Musharraf on Friday called for more troops in Afghanistan to stabilise the situation and said that Pakistan had built more posts, imposed a curfew and selectively mined the border to prevent cross-border activity.

BBC

Mom goes on trial in baby's microwave death

Jury selection began last Monday in the trial of a woman accused of killing her 1-month-old daughter by burning the child in a microwave oven.

If convicted of aggravated murder, China Arnold, 27, could face the death penalty. Investigators believe Arnold killed 1-month-old Paris Talley by putting her in a microwave at her home. Arnold's attorneys argue she had nothing to do with the baby's death in 2005.

Coroner's officials have said the baby suffered high-heat internal injuries and had no external burns. They have ruled out scalding water, open flame or other possible causes of death that could have damaged the skin.

Defense attorney Jon Paul Rion has said Arnold had nothing to do with her daughter's death and was stunned when investigators told her that a microwave might have been involved. Arnold took the baby to the hospital after finding her unconscious and does not know how she died, Rion said.

During a pretrial hearing in July, police Detective Michael Galbraith said Arnold told him she arrived home in the early morning hours after drinking, fell asleep and was awakened at 2:30 a.m. by the baby's crying.

She said she warmed a bottle in the microwave oven, tried to give it to the baby, changed the child's diaper and then fell asleep on the couch with the baby on her chest. Arnold said she and her children were the only ones in the apartment until her boyfriend arrived several hours later and noticed something was wrong with the baby.

Galbraith said Arnold told him: "If I hadn't gotten so drunk, I guess my baby wouldn't have died."

When cross-examined by Rion, Galbraith acknowledged that Arnold told him she did not know how the baby suffered the burns and that she had nothing to do with it that she could recall.

Earlier this month, defense witness Robert Belloto, a staff pharmacist at Good Samaritan Hospital, testified he does not believe it would have been possible for Arnold to place the baby in the microwave because the woman was so intoxicated.

Belloto said Arnold told him she had consumed about 40 percent of a pint of high-proof rum in 90 minutes. But he acknowledged that he had no other corroboration for her claim.

AP