Mexico's drug war bright spot hides dark underbelly

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - Inside a notorious Mexican prison where armed convicts used to roam freely, selling drugs and deciding who was allowed in, the state is in control again. Prisoners are back in their cells and the once overcrowded complex sparkles with cleanliness.

But outside on the dusty streets of Ciudad Juarez, store owners lock themselves behind their doors, fearful of police and carefully vetting customers to avoid becoming the next victims of still rampant crime.


For four years, the city on the border with Texas was convulsed by daily slaughter, becoming the murder capital of the world and a shocking illustration of the Mexican government's failure to contain violence among warring drug cartels.

Once best known as a party town for Americans hopping across the border for cheap thrills, Ciudad Juarez fell into chaos with about one in every six of the 60,000 victims of Mexico's bloody drug war over the last six years dying here.

This year, though, the violence in Ciudad Juarez has fallen dramatically, prompting political leaders to hold up the city as a symbol of progress and offering hope to Mexico's incoming president, Enrique Pena Nieto, in the fight against crime.

"It's a completely different city now," said mayor Hector Murguia, who took office for a second time in October 2010, just as the violence in Ciudad Juarez reached its peak.

Homicides and kidnappings fell by more than 60 percent from last year in the first 10 months of 2012, and extortion was down 12 percent, city data shows. In October, Ciudad Juarez had just 28 murders, down from 253 in the same month in 2010.

The government of Ciudad Juarez's home state of Chihuahua has hailed the results as proof that tougher policing works, claiming a new record for catching criminals in Mexico. It has also transferred hundreds of gang members from local prisons to jails elsewhere in Mexico, dismantling power structures that continued to direct crime from behind bars.

A number of drug war experts say security has also improved because the Sinaloa Cartel of Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman now has a firm hold on the city after squeezing out the Juarez Cartel, for long aligned with the local police. Senior government officials deny this, and one said the gangs are likely biding their time to see what Pena Nieto does after he takes office on December 1.

For all the success in reducing violence, drug trafficking is still flourishing; police are widely suspected of colluding with the cartels; reports of human rights abuses are rife; and many businesses pay a de facto tax to the gangs.

National police data shows incidence of property-related crime - which includes extortion, fraud and looting - is heading for its worst year in Chihuahua since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006. His term has been dominated by the drug war and he sent more than 10,000 soldiers and federal police to Ciudad Juarez when violence erupted there in 2008.

U.S. demand continues to fuel the drug trade, and a U.S. congressional report this month said Mexican cartels still had "firm control" of border smuggling routes. Mexican consultancy Risk Evaluation says the amount of cocaine and marijuana smuggled across the U.S. frontier was up at least 20 percent this year compared to 2010, and methamphetamine by 40 percent.

PAY OR BURN

Instead of bringing peace, the security buildup in Ciudad Juarez spawned more chaos. Corrupt soldiers and police were soon infected by the criminal malaise sucking the life out of the city, extorting, kidnapping and killing at will.

"Unfortunately, there were people wearing federal police badges and army insignia who only came here to make money," said municipal police officer Roberto Hernandez, 37.

By the end of 2011, most of the army and federal police had been pulled out. To regain the upper hand, Chihuahua beefed up intelligence gathering and investigations and also introduced tougher sentences for criminals.

State governor Cesar Duarte said since he took office two years ago, Chihuahua has executed a record 98 percent of arrest warrants issued and put 95 percent of suspects on trial.

"Where the news was once about deaths, deaths, and more deaths, today it's about arrests, arrests, arrests and convictions," he told Reuters. His government has put 8,000 people behind bars and moved 2,000 criminals to other jails around Mexico to break the power of prison networks, he said.

Inside Ciudad Juarez's main prison, walkways and yards once filled with convicts in civilian clothes chatting in the sun are now empty. When prisoners emerge, all wear regulation gray.

"A year ago you couldn't have been here," said Chihuahua's head of social re-integration, Gonzalo Diaz. "The prisoners had the keys to the cells and they were in charge. It was the most dangerous prison in the world."

Regardless of improvements on the inside, the hold exercised by criminals on the city outside is palpable.

One recent Saturday afternoon, the main road through the center of Ciudad Juarez was almost deserted.

On block after block on the 16 de Septiembre avenue, nearly half the businesses were closed, abandoned or burned out. Many of the stores that were open had their doors locked, admitting strangers only after they were satisfied they meant no harm.

"Everyone who is open here is paying extortion," said a man in his 30s working in a forlorn hairdressing salon on the street. "If you don't pay, the place burns down."

That Saturday the salon had four clients in 4-1/2 hours. Before the violence flared up in Ciudad Juarez it would have had about 60, said the man, who asked to remain anonymous.

Of some two dozen people working in the city Reuters spoke to about extortion, nearly all said their business paid it or that they knew of others who did - or they declined to comment.

They said payments vary from 100-150 pesos ($7.70-$11.50) a week for taxi drivers to 5,000 pesos at a mechanic's workshop employing three and 6,000 pesos at a funeral home with 15 staff.

A bus driver said operators of 40-seat vehicles had to pay as much as 5,000 pesos a month for a single bus. Children as young as 12 have been used to collect extortion, police say.

For some residents of Ciudad Juarez, paying extortion has even become a token of security in areas where the gangs rule.

"A guy in our neighborhood who ran a store got so fed up with kids stealing stuff, he eventually said 'Who do I have to pay extortion to around here?' Once he started paying, the problems stopped," said the manager of a funeral home.

EXHAUSTION

The torrent of robberies, shootouts and disappearances have drained the city's economy, forcing many people out. A study by a local university estimated nearly 240,000 of the city's 1.3 million people had left by the end of 2011.

In 2006, Ciudad Juarez accounted for about 1.9 percent of Mexican economic output, according to studies by bank Banamex. By the end of 2010 its share had fallen to 1.2 percent.

"Juarez is exhausted by gore, poverty, terror and business flight," said Charles Bowden, a U.S. author of various books on the city. "This, coupled with a population flight, means there are fewer people left to kill. All the people who refused to pay extortion are dead, and the living have taken note."

Many streets in the Riberas del Bravo district are largely deserted following months of fighting and gunfire.

Rows of neat little homes stand gutted, stripped of every item of value but their stone frames, the walls plastered with graffiti and entrances littered with debris and weeds. On one street in the area, only 12 of 39 houses had not been abandoned.

"You feel very lonely," said Antonio, 38, a beautician who described regular battles between gangs on the street and seeing a man beaten to death with rocks outside his front door last year. Since the spring it has been mostly quiet, he said.

Locals say the city is much safer since the army and federal police withdrew, but corruption inside the local police remains a problem. "Very few of us hang out together after work because of the fear, the paranoia," said police officer Hernandez.

For Hugo Almada, an academic who sits on a Ciudad Juarez security panel made up of local officials and civilians, the violence had less to do with drug trafficking itself and more to do with splits "within the state" over who controlled the money.

"What we saw was police, the military, politicians, entrepreneurs, drug traffickers and killers on the one side - and another group of the same people on the other," he said. ($1 = 13.0292 Mexican pesos)

Former President George H. W. Bush stable in hospital

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Former President George H. W. Bush is being treated at a Houston hospital for complications related to bronchitis and is in stable condition, the hospital said on Thursday.

"President Bush has been in and out of The Methodist Hospital in the Texas Medical Center being treated for complications related to his bronchitis," Bush's office said in a statement released by the hospital. "He is in stable condition, and is expected to be released within the next 72 hours."


The Houston Chronicle reported Thursday that Bush, 88, has been in the hospital for a week.

Bush, a Republican and the 41st president, took office in 1989 and served one term in the White House.

The father of former President George W. Bush, he also served as a congressman, U.N. ambassador, envoy to China, CIA director and was vice president for two terms under Ronald Reagan.

As president, Bush routed Iraq after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 and his approval ratings soared to the 90 percent range. But just 20 months later he was defeated in his re-election bid by Democrat Bill Clinton.

Any attack on Iran may lead to withdrawal from NPT: envoy

VIENNA (Reuters) - Any military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities may lead to the country withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a pact designed to prevent the spread of nuclear arms, a senior Iranian official said on Friday.


In case of an attack, "there is a possibility that the (Iranian) parliament forces the government to stop the (U.N. nuclear) agency inspections or even in the worse scenario withdraw from the NPT," nuclear envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh said in a statement in English to the U.N. agency's 35-nation board.

There has been persistent speculation that Israel might attack Iran, which it accuses of seeking a nuclear weapons capability. Iran denies the charge and says Israel's assumed nuclear arsenal is a threat to regional security.

Syria jets bombard rebel targets on airport road

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian air force jets bombarded rebel targets on Friday close to the Damascus airport road and a regional airline said the violence had halted international flights to the capital.

Activists said security forces clashed with rebels trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad around Aqraba and Babilla districts on the southeastern outskirts of the Damascus which lead to the international airport.


Internet connections and most telephone lines were down for a second day, the worst communications outage in a 20-month-old uprising in which 40,000 people have been killed, hundreds of thousands have fled the country, and millions been displaced.

The mostly Sunni Muslim rebels who are battling Assad, from Syria's Alawite minority linked to Shi'ite Islam, have been making gains around Syria by overrunning military bases and have been ramping up attacks on Damascus, his seat of power.

A resident of central Damascus told Reuters he could see black smoke rising from the east and the south of the city on Friday morning and could hear the constant boom of shelling.

"Airlines are not operating to Damascus today," said a Dubai-based airline official. EgyptAir and Emirates suspended flights to Syria on Thursday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based opposition monitoring group, said jets were bombarding targets in rural areas around Aqraba and Babilla, where rebels clashed with Assad's forces.

The Observatory's director, Rami Abdelrahman, said the airport road was open, but there was minimal traffic.

Syrian authorities said late on Thursday that the airport road was safe after security forces cleared it of 'terrorists' - the label Damascus uses to describe Assad's armed opponents.

MORTAR FIRED

Rebels said that at least one mortar round was fired at the airport during clashes on Thursday.

"We want to liberate the airport because of reports we see and our own information we have that shows civilian airplanes are being flown in here with weapons for the regime. It is our right to stop this," rebel spokesman Musaab Abu Qitada said.

U.S. and European officials said rebels were making gains in Syria, gradually eroding Assad's power, but said the fighting had not yet shifted completely in their favor.

A Damascus-based diplomat said he believed the escalation in fighting around the capital was part of a government offensive which aimed to seal off the state-controlled centre of the city from rebel-held rural areas to the south and east.

Activists say Assad's forces have also been shelling the Daraya district to the southwest of the city, trying to prevent rebels from cementing their hold of an area which could give them a presence in a continuous arc from the northeast to southwest of the capital's outer districts.

"I don't know whether the shelling has succeeded in pushing back the FSA (rebels) - experience shows that they return very quickly anyway," the diplomat said. "We seem to be entering a decisive phase of the Damascus offensive."

Syria's Internet shut down on Thursday, a move which activists blamed on authorities but which authorities variously attributed to a 'terrorist' attack or a technical fault.

CloudFlare, a firm that helps accelerate Internet traffic, said on its blog that saboteurs would have had to simultaneously cut three undersea cables into the Mediterranean city of Tartous and also an overland cable through Turkey in order to cut off the entire country's Internet access.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut, Praveen Menon in Dubai and Jim Finkle in Boston; Editing by Anna Willard)

Palestinians win de facto U.N. recognition of sovereign state

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The 193-nation U.N. General Assembly on Thursday overwhelmingly approved the de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on the world body to issue its long overdue "birth certificate."


The U.N. victory for the Palestinians was a diplomatic setback for the United States and Israel, which were joined by only a handful of countries in voting against the move to upgrade the Palestinian Authority's observer status at the United Nations to "non-member state" from "entity," like the Vatican.

Britain called on the United States to use its influence to help break the long impasse in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Washington also called for a revival of direct negotiations.

There were 138 votes in favor, nine against and 41 abstentions. Three countries did not take part in the vote, held on the 65th anniversary of the adoption of U.N. resolution 181 that partitioned Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.

Thousands of flag-waving Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip set off fireworks and danced in the streets to celebrate the vote.

The assembly approved the upgrade despite threats by the United States and Israel to punish the Palestinians by withholding funds for the West Bank government. U.N. envoys said Israel might not retaliate harshly against the Palestinians over the vote as long as they do not seek to join the International Criminal Court.

If the Palestinians were to join the ICC, they could file complaints with the court accusing Israel of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious crimes.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the vote "unfortunate and counterproductive," while the Vatican praised the move and called for an internationally guaranteed special status for Jerusalem, something bound to irritate Israel.

The much-anticipated vote came after Abbas denounced Israel from the U.N. podium for its "aggressive policies and the perpetration of war crimes," remarks that elicited a furious response from the Jewish state.

"Sixty-five years ago on this day, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 181, which partitioned the land of historic Palestine into two states and became the birth certificate for Israel," Abbas told the assembly after receiving a standing ovation.

"The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine," he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded quickly, condemning Abbas' critique of Israel as "hostile and poisonous," and full of "false propaganda.

"These are not the words of a man who wants peace," Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office. He reiterated Israeli calls for direct talks with the Palestinians, dismissing Thursday's resolution as "meaningless."

ICC THREAT

A number of Western delegations noted that Thursday's vote should not be interpreted as formal legal recognition of a Palestinian state. Formal recognition of statehood is something that is done bilaterally, not by the United Nations.

Granting Palestinians the title of "non-member observer state" falls short of full U.N. membership - something the Palestinians failed to achieve last year. But it does have important legal implications - it would allow them access to the ICC and other international bodies, should they choose to join.

Abbas did not mention the ICC in his speech. But Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told reporters after the vote that if Israel continued to build illegal settlements, the Palestinians might pursue the ICC route.

"As long as the Israelis are not committing atrocities, are not building settlements, are not violating international law, then we don't see any reason to go anywhere," he said.

"If the Israelis continue with such policy - aggression, settlements, assassinations, attacks, confiscations, building walls - violating international law, then we have no other remedy but really to knock those to other places," Maliki said.

In Washington, a group of four Republican and Democratic senators announced legislation that would close the Palestinian office in Washington unless the Palestinians enter "meaningful negotiations" with Israel, and eliminate all U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority if it turns to the ICC.

"I fear the Palestinian Authority will now be able to use the United Nations as a political club against Israel," said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the sponsors.

Abbas led the campaign to win support for the resolution, which followed an eight-day conflict this month between Israel and Islamists in the Gaza Strip, who are pledged to Israel's destruction and oppose a negotiated peace.

The vote highlighted how deeply divided Europe is on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

At least 17 European nations voted in favor of the Palestinian resolution, including Austria, France, Italy, Norway and Spain. Abbas had focused his lobbying efforts on Europe, which supplies much of the aid the Palestinian Authority relies on. Britain, Germany and many others chose to abstain.

The traditionally pro-Israel Czech Republic was unique in Europe, joining the United States, Israel, Canada, Panama and the tiny Pacific Island states Nauru, Palau, Marshall Islands and Micronesia in voting against the move.

'HOPE SOME REASON WILL PREVAIL'

Peace talks have been stalled for two years, mainly over Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which have expanded despite being deemed illegal by most of the world. There are 4.3 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

After the vote, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice called for the immediate resumption of peace talks.

"The Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed save that the prospects of a durable peace have only receded," she said.

She added that both parties should "avoid any further provocative actions in the region, in New York or elsewhere."

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said he hoped all sides would use the vote to push for new breakthroughs in the peace process.

"I hope there will be no punitive measures," Fayyad told Reuters in Washington, where he was attending a conference.

"I hope that some reason will prevail and the opportunity will be taken to take advantage of what happened today in favor of getting a political process moving," he said.

Britain's U.N. ambassador, Mark Lyall Grant, told reporters it was time for recently re-elected U.S. President Barack Obama to make a new push for peace.

"We believe the window for the two-state solution is closing," he said. "That is why we are encouraging the United States and other key international actors to grasp this opportunity and use the next 12 months as a way to really break through this impasse."

(Additional reporting by Andrew Quinn in Washington, Noah Browning in Ramallah, Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem, Robert Mueller in Prague, Gabriela Baczynska and Reuters bureaux in Europe and elsewhere; Editing by Eric Beech and Peter Cooney)

U.N. set for implicit recognition of Palestinian state, despite U.S., Israel threats

Al-Qaeda urges Mali to reject foreign troops

A top al-Qaeda commander in North Africa has urged the people of Mali to reject foreign intervention as a way of solving the country's conflict.
"To the great and proud Muslim people of Mali we say, the problem in your country is an issue between Muslims," said Abu Mosaab Abdulwadood in a videotaped message obtained exclusively by Al Jazeera.
"It can be solved internally, through reconciliation between Muslims, without having to shed a single drop of blood."

Various groups, some with links to al-Qaeda, have been fighting for control of the North for the past eight months, after the army overthrew the government in March.
The Tuareg rebels, a secular group, stepped into the security void, declaring a separate state after the rebellion was hijacked by fighters.
But rifts soon appeared between various rebel groups, each of which currently claims control of parts of the region, with the Tuareg's being pushed out of major border towns.
Phil Rees, a writer on Islamic movements, said that al-Qaeda intended to frame its fight as "a national liberation struggle".
"'Listen, there's going to a foreign army, OK, it's going to be from ECOWAS, the West African group, but they are a foreign army, coming to your soil. We now stand as national liberators of your country,'" said Rees, explaining al-Qaeda's line.
"Al-Qaeda's ultimate goal - and indeed most of the Islamists there - is to create a Caliphate," said Rees.
He added that al-Qaeda has become more opportunist, "playing political games" by trying to play to what is acceptable to "Muslim public opinion".
'Consolidating power'
Barry Pavel, director of the Atlantic Council's International Security Programme in Washington DC, said that the US government viewed the situation in Mali with "a lot more concern."
"I think you have a group that's very extremist, that's consolidating power in the north of the country, that's oppressing its own people, [that's] cutting off people's hands, [that's] stoning couples," Pavel told Al Jazeera.
"This is causing an enormous number of refugees fleeing to neighbouring countries, and potentially, over time, presenting even more of threat to US interests directly," he added.
Pavel said that Mali could become "Afghanistan - the sequel" - something the US state department would try to head off by supporting a West African force "in whatever way is appropriate."
He added that the ideal solution would be carried out by Africans, not the US or European countries.
Meanwhile, Islamic group Ansar Dine reportedly took control of the town of Lere from MNLA, Tuareg separatist-led National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad.
Al Jazeera's Mohamed Vall reported that a source in northern Mali had confirmed that the town, about 80 km east of the border with Mauritania, fell from MNLA control without a fight.
Earlier this week Ansar Dine sent an armed force to Lere to spend a few days outside the town, during which they gave an ultimatum to the MNLA rebels to either join them or withdraw from the town, Vall reported.
After lengthy negotiations, the MNLA fighters left the town on Tuesday evening, retreating to an area called Hassil Abyad close to the Mauritanian border.

Egypt crisis: Assembly rushes to finish constitution

The assembly writing a new Egyptian constitution has convened to start voting on the final draft.

The news came as the constitutional court indicated it would rule on Sunday whether to dissolve the assembly.
The assembly is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists who back President Mohammed Morsi. It is being boycotted by other members.

Egypt's judiciary is in a stand-off with President Morsi after he granted himself sweeping new powers.
Mr Morsi's decree last week has sparked huge protests across the country.
Officials at the constituent assembly said on Wednesday they were finishing the draft constitution, even though Mr Morsi recently extended its deadline until February.
"May God bless us on this day," assembly speaker Hossam el-Gheriyani said at the start of Thursday's session.
The assembly will vote on each of 234 articles in the draft constitution. It will then be sent to Mr Morsi for approval. After that he must put it to a popular referendum.
The BBC's Jon Leyne, in Cairo, says issuing a constitution in these circumstances would be a deeply inflammatory move.
Opposition figure and former Arab League chief Amr Moussa told Reuters news agency: "This is nonsensical and one of the steps that shouldn't be taken, given the background of anger and resentment to the current constitutional assembly."

'Sacred mission'

Egypt's state-run news agency Mena said on Thursday it had obtained details of the draft constitution.
Mena said it includes a clause on press freedom and says that only courts can suspend or close newspapers.
The assembly also aims to set up a national security council led by the president and consisting of key officials such as the prime minister, defence minister and intelligence chief, Mena said.
Liberal, left-wing and Christian members have boycotted the assembly, accusing the Islamists of trying to impose their vision.
Its latest move appeared to be aimed at dodging a ruling by the constitutional court on Sunday on whether the assembly should be dissolved.
The constitutional court's deputy chairman, Maher Sami, said in a televised speech that the ruling would go ahead.
"The court is determined to rise above its pain and continue its sacred mission until the end, wherever that takes us," he said.
The court has already dissolved the lower house of Egypt's parliament, which was led by the Muslim Brotherhood.
The declaration that sparked protests gave Mr Morsi powers to take any measures to protect the revolution, and stated that no court could overturn his decisions.
It is valid until a new constitution is in place.
Critics accuse Mr Morsi of trying to seize absolute powers.
Supporters say the decrees were needed to protect the gains of the revolution against a judiciary with deep ties to overthrown President Hosni Mubarak.
On Wednesday, Mr Morsi told Time magazine that he would surrender his new powers once a new constitution was in place.
"If we had a constitution, then all of what I have said or done last week will stop," he said.
"I hope, when we have a constitution, what I have issued will stop immediately."
On Monday, Mr Morsi told senior judges that the decrees would be restricted to "sovereign matters" designed to protect institutions.
But judges said they were not satisfied and wanted the measure completely withdrawn.
On Wednesday, judges called a strike, saying appeals courts and the court of cassation would halt work until the decree was revoked.
There have been running protests since the decree was issued, often spilling over into violent clashes between protesters and riot police.
The Muslim Brotherhood and the more radical al-Nour party have called for a counter-protest in Cairo on Saturday.
If approved by the constituent assembly, the draft constitution would then be put to a national referendum.

Mexican beauty queen killed in shootout

 

CULIACAN, Mexico (AP) — A 20-year-old state beauty queen died in a gun battle between soldiers and the alleged gang of drug traffickers she was traveling with in a scene befitting the hit movie "Miss Bala," or "Miss Bullet," about Mexico's not uncommon ties between narcos and beautiful pageant contestants.

The body of Maria Susana Flores Gamez was found Saturday lying near an assault rifle on a rural road in a mountainous area of the drug-plagued state of Sinaloa, the chief state prosecutor said Monday. It was unclear if she had used the weapon.
"She was with the gang of criminals, but we cannot say whether she participated in the shootout," state prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera said. "That's what we're going to have to investigate."
The slender, 5-foot-7-inch brunette was voted the 2012 Woman of Sinaloa in a beauty pageant in February. In June, the model competed with other seven contestants for the more prestigious state beauty contest, Our Beauty Sinaloa, but didn't win. The Our Beauty state winners compete for the Miss Mexico title, whose holder represents the country in the international Miss Universe.
Higuera said Flores Gamez was traveling in one of the vehicles that engaged soldiers in an hours-long chase and running gun battle on Saturday near her native city of Guamuchil in the state of Sinaloa, home to Mexico's most powerful drug cartel. Higuera said two other members of the drug gang were killed and four were detained.
The shootout began when the gunmen opened fire on a Mexican army patrol. Soldiers gave chase and cornered the gang at a safe house in the town of Mocorito. The other men escaped, and the gunbattle continued along a nearby roadway, where the gang's vehicles were eventually stopped. Six vehicles, drugs and weapons were seized following the confrontation.
It was at least the third instance in which a beauty queen or pageant contestants have been linked to Mexico's violent drug gangs, a theme so common it was the subject of a critically acclaimed 2011 movie.
In "Miss Bala," Mexico's official submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category of this year's Academy Awards, a young woman competing for Miss Baja California becomes an unwilling participant in a drug-running ring, finally getting arrested for deeds she was forced into performing.
In real life, former Miss Sinaloa Laura Zuniga was stripped of her 2008 crown in the Hispanoamerican Queen pageant after she was detained on suspicion of drug and weapons violations. She was later released without charges.
Zuniga was detained in western Mexico in late 2010 along with seven men, some of them suspected drug traffickers. Authorities found a large stash of weapons, ammunition and $53,300 with them inside a vehicle.
In 2011, a Colombian former model and pageant contestant was detained along with Jose Jorge Balderas, an accused drug trafficker and suspect in the 2010 bar shooting of Salvador Cabanas, a former star for Paraguay's national football team and Mexico's Club America. She was also later released.
Higuera said Flores Gamez's body has been turned over to relatives for burial.
"This is a sad situation," Higuera told a local radio station. She had been enrolled in media courses at a local university, and had been modeling and in pageants since at least 2009.
Javier Valdez, the author of a 2009 book about narco ties to beauty pageants entitled "Miss Narco," said "this is a recurrent story."
"There is a relationship, sometimes pleasant and sometimes tragic, between organized crime and the beauty queens, the pageants, the beauty industry itself," Valdez said.
"It is a question of privilege, power, money, but also a question of need," said Valdez. "For a lot of these young women, it is easy to get involved with organized crime, in a country that doesn't offer many opportunities for young people."
Sometimes drug traffickers seek out beauty queens, but sometimes the models themselves look for narco boyfriends, Valdez said.
"I once wrote about a girl I knew of who was desperate to get a narco boyfriend," he said. "She practically took out a classified ad saying 'Looking for a Narco'."
The stories seldom end well. In the best of cases, a beautiful woman with a tear-stained face is marched before the press in handcuffs. In the worst of cases, they simply disappear.
"They are disposable objects, the lowest link in the chain of criminal organizations, the young men recruited as gunmen and the pretty young women who are tossed away in two or three years, or are turned into police or killed," Valdez said.

Egypt protests continue in deadlock over Mursi powers

CAIRO (Reuters) - Hundreds of protesters were in Cairo's Tahrir Square for a sixth day on Wednesday, demanding that Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi rescind a decree they say gives him dictatorial powers.

Five months into the Islamist leader's term, and in scenes reminiscent of the popular uprising that unseated predecessor Hosni Mubarak last year, police fired teargas at stone-throwers following protests by tens of thousands on Tuesday against the declaration that expanded Mursi's powers and put his decisions beyond legal challenge.

Protesters say they will stay in Tahrir until the decree is withdrawn, bringing fresh turmoil to a nation at the heart of the Arab Spring and delivering a new blow to an economy already on the ropes.
Senior judges have been negotiating with Mursi about how to restrict his new powers, while protesters want him to dissolve an Islamist-dominated assembly that is drawing up a new constitution and which Mursi protected from legal review.
Any deal to calm the street will likely need to address both issues. But opposition politicians said the list of demands could grow the longer the crisis goes on. Many protesters want the cabinet, which meets on Wednesday, to be sacked, too.
Mursi's administration insists that his actions were aimed at breaking a political logjam to push Egypt more swiftly towards democracy, an assertion his opponents dismiss.
"The president wants to create a new dictatorship," said 38-year-old Mohamed Sayyed Ahmed, who has not had a job for two years. He is one of many in the square who are as angry over economic hardship as they are about Mursi's actions.
"We want the scrapping of the constitutional declaration and the constituent assembly, so a new one is created representing all the people and not just one section," he said.
The West worries about turbulence in a nation that has a peace treaty with Israel and is now ruled by Islamists they long kept at arms length. The United States, a big donor to Egypt's military, has called for "peaceful democratic dialogue".
Two people have been killed in violence since the decree, while low-level clashes between protesters and police have gone on for days near Tahrir. Violence has flared in other cities.

Saudi diplomat shot dead in Yemen capital Sanaa

A Saudi diplomat and his bodyguard have been shot dead in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, officials say.

Gunmen opened fire on the diplomat's car, causing it to flip over, security officials said.
Arabic broadcaster al-Arabiya said the gunmen were dressed as members of the security services.
Saudi Arabia is deeply involved with its unstable and impoverished southern neighbour. Yemen is battling Islamist militants with US assistance.

"Gunmen opened fire at the Saudi diplomat's car in a neighbourhood in southern Sanaa, killing him and his Yemeni bodyguard," a Yemeni security official was quoted by Reuters as saying.
He said the diplomat was the assistant military attache at the Saudi embassy.
Saudi Arabia has been battling al-Qaeda-inspired militants and it is well known that supporters of the Islamist group are exploiting the lawlessness in Yemen to set up bases there.
Correspondents say a number of Saudi jihadists are believed to have crossed the border to join al-Qaeda and similar groups in southern Yemen.
Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia's deputy consul in Yemen was kidnapped by al-Qaeda.

Syria conflict: Twin bomb blasts shake Damascus suburb

At least 34 people have been killed and many injured by two car bomb explosions in a south-eastern district of Syria's capital, Damascus, state media report.

State television said "terrorists" were behind the blasts in Jaramana and broadcast pictures showing several charred vehicles and damaged buildings.

The district is predominantly Druze and Christian, two communities which have so far not joined the uprising.
Earlier, there were clashes between security forces and rebels in Jaramana.
There has been fierce fighting in recent days in the countryside around Damascus, known as the Ghouta, particularly in eastern areas.
Airbase 'seized'

The pro-government TV channel, Addounia, said the car bombs exploded in Jaramana shortly after 06:40 (04:40 GMT).
"Terrorists blew up two car bombs filled with a large amount of explosives in the main square," the official Sana news agency reported.
State television showed scenes of mangled vehicles and badly damaged buildings.
It quoted a source at the interior ministry as saying 34 people had died and 83 seriously had been injured. Ten bags containing the remains of unidentified victims were also collected.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based activist group, earlier put the death toll at 29.
Two smaller bombs also exploded in Jaramana at around the same time, the state news agency said, adding that nobody was killed by them.
No group has said it was behind the bombings, and there was no immediately obvious military or government target, reports the BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut.
The population of Jaramana is predominantly Christian and Druze, a heterodox offshoot of Islam.
Few members of Syria's religious minorities have supported the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad. They are fearful for their future if the country's majority Sunni Muslim community chooses an Islamist leadership to replace decades of secular rule.
Supporters of the government in Jaramana and other Damascus suburbs have set up armed vigilante groups - known as Popular Committees - to prevent attacks such as Wednesday's. On 29 October, 11 people were killed in a car bombing in Jaramana.
Elsewhere on Wednesday, fighter jets bombarded rebel positions in the western Damascus suburb of Darayya, the SOHR said.
The army also reportedly shelled the Zabadani, a town in the mountains north-west of the capital. The Syrian Revolution General Commission, an opposition activist network, said more than 50 shells had fallen on the town in 30 minutes, injuring several people.
The Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC), another activist network, said 48 people were killed in the capital and its suburbs on Tuesday. It put the nationwide death toll at 131.
The rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) overran an air force base in the Sayyida Zainab area, to the south of Damascus, and fought off several attempts by security forces to storm several suburbs, the LCC added.
Activists say more than 40,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Assad began in March 2011.

Obama sells budget plans to middle class, biz leaders

Selling his plan to reduce the federal debt in part by raising taxes on the wealthy, Obama meets Wednesday with selected members of the middle class and the business community.

Obama will speak during the event with middle class Americans, some of whom responded to an e-mail solicitation from the White House on the looming "fiscal cliff" -- a package of tax hikes and budget cuts that kick in if the White House and Congress can't strike a deal to reduce a federal debt that now tops $16 trillion.
Later today, Obama and Vice President Biden meet with business leaders to "discuss the actions we need to take to keep our economy growing and find a balanced approach to reduce our deficit."
These are the latest steps in an all-out political blitz to sell Obama's budget plans. On Friday, the president is scheduled to visit a Pennsylvania business -- a toy factory near Philadelphia -- to discuss the impact of the fiscal cliff.
As part of a debt deal, Obama wants to preserve George W. Bush tax cuts for the middle class, but eliminate them for Americans who make more than $250,000 a year, saying the government needs to take in more government revenues.
Republicans say they are willing to raise more revenue through closing loopholes, but oppose an increase in any tax rates, saying they would slow the economy.
GOP members say the emphasis should be on budget cuts, including the rapidly growing entitlements of Medicare and Social Security. But some congressional Democrats say entitlements should be off the table.
The White House provided a list of business leaders meeting with Obama:
-- Frank Blake, Chairman and CEO, The Home Depot
-- Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs Group
-- Joe Echeverria, CEO, Deloitte LLP
-- Ken Frazier, President and CEO, Merck and Co.
-- Muhtar Kent, Chairman and CEO, Coca Cola
-- Terry Lundgren, Chairman, President, and CEO, Macy's Inc.
-- Marissa Mayer, CEO and President, Yahoo!
-- Douglas Oberhelman, Chairman and CEO, Caterpillar
-- Ian Read, Chairman and CEO, Pfizer
--Brian Roberts, Chairman and CEO, Comcast
-- Ed Rust, Chairman and CEO, State Farm Insurance Co.
-- Arne Sorenson, President and CEO, Marriott
-- Randall Stephenson, Chairman and CEO, AT&T
-- Patricia Woertz, President and CEO, Archer Daniels Midland

Praise and pressure as Obama begins historic Myanmar visit

YANGON (Reuters) – Barack Obama became the first serving U.S. president to visit Myanmar on Monday, trying during a whirlwind six-hour trip to strike a balance between praising the government’s progress in shaking off military rule and pressing for more reform.

Obama’s first stop was a meeting with President Thein Sein, a former junta member who has spearheaded reforms since taking office in March 2011.
“I’ve shared with him the fact that I recognize this is just the first steps on what will be a long journey,” Obama told reporters, with Thein Sein at his side.
“But we think a process of democratic and economic reform here in Myanmar that has been begun by the president is one that can lead to incredible development opportunities,” he said, using the country name preferred by the government and former junta, rather than Burma, normally used in the United States.
Thein Sein, speaking in Burmese with an interpreter translating his remarks, responded that the two sides would move forward, “based on mutual trust, respect and understanding”.
“During our discussions, we also reached agreement for the development of democracy in Myanmar and for promotion of human rights to be aligned with international standards,” he added.
Tens of thousands of well-wishers, including children waving tiny American and Burmese flags, lined Obama’s route to the old parliament in the former capital, Yangon, where he met Thein Sein.
Some held signs saying “We love Obama”. Approaching the building, crowds spilled into the street, getting close enough to touch Obama’s vehicle.
Obama moved on to meet fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate and long-time opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who led the struggle against military rule and is now a lawmaker.
On the way, Obama made a surprise stop at the landmark Shwedagon Pagoda, where the president, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and their entire entourage, secret service agents included, went barefoot up the giant stone staircase.
As two monks guided Obama around, the security team fanned out, talking quietly into their radios.
Obama’s trek to Myanmar is meant to highlight what the White House has touted as a major foreign policy achievement — its success in pushing the country’s generals to enact changes that have unfolded with surprising speed over the past year.
But some international human rights group object to the visit, saying Obama is rewarding the government of the former pariah state for a job they regard as incomplete.
Speaking in Thailand on the eve of his visit, Obama denied he was going to offer his “endorsement” or that his trip was premature.
“I don’t think anybody is under the illusion that Burma’s arrived, that they’re where they need to be,” Obama said. “On the other hand, if we waited to engage until they had achieved a perfect democracy, my suspicion is we’d be waiting an awful long time.”
Obama’s Southeast Asian trip, less than two weeks after his re-election, is aimed at showing how serious he is about shifting the U.S. strategic focus eastwards as America winds down wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The so-called “Asia pivot” is also meant to counter China’s rising influence.
FREEING PRISONERS
Aides said Obama was determined to “lock in” democratic changes already under way in Myanmar, but would also press for further action, including freeing remaining political prisoners and stronger efforts to curb ethnic and sectarian violence.
A senior U.S. official said Obama would announce the resumption of U.S. aid programmes in Myanmar during his visit, anticipating assistance of $170 million in fiscal 2012 and 2013, but this, too, would be dependent on further reforms.
“The president will be announcing that the United States is re-establishing a USAID mission in Burma, which has been suspended for many years,” the official told reporters in Bangkok, declining to be named.
The United States has softened sanctions and removed a ban on most imports from Myanmar in response to reforms already undertaken, but it has set conditions for the full normalization of relations, such as the release of all political detainees.
Asked if sanctions could be lifted completely at this stage, a senior administration official insisted they could not. “All these things are reversible,” he said.
In a move clearly timed to show goodwill, the authorities in Myanmar began to release dozens of political prisoners on Monday, including Myint Aye, arguably the most prominent dissident left in its gulag.
Some 66 prisoners will be freed, two-thirds of them dissidents, according to activists and prison officials.
The government will also let the International Committee of the Red Cross resume prisoner visits, according to a statement late on Sunday, and the authorities plan to “devise a transparent mechanism to review remaining prisoner cases of concern by the end of December 2012″.
In a speech to be given at Yangon University to an audience that will include several high-profile former prisoners, Obama will stress the rule of law and allude to the need to amend a constitution that still gives a great role in politics to the military, including a quarter of the seats in parliament.
“America may have the strongest military in the world, but it must submit to civilian control. As President and Commander-in-Chief, I cannot just impose my will on our Congress, even though sometimes I wish I could,” he will say.
He looks forward to a future “where national security is strengthened by a military that serves under civilians, and a constitution guarantees that only those who are elected by the people may govern”.
ETHNIC STRIFE
Violence between majority Buddhists and the Rohingya Muslim minority in western Myanmar is a top concern, and Obama’s aides said he would address the issue directly with Myanmar’s leaders.
Myanmar considers the Rohingya Muslims to be illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh and does not recognize them as citizens. A Reuters investigation into the wave of sectarian assaults painted a picture of organized attacks against the Muslim community.
At least 167 people were killed in two periods of violence in Rakhine state in June and October this year.
Obama did not refer to this in the excerpt of his speech released to media ahead of delivery, but he will recall the sometimes violent history of the United States, its civil war and segregation, and say hatred could recede with time.
“I stand before you today as president of the most powerful nation on earth, with a heritage that would have once denied me the right to vote. So I believe deeply that this country can transcend its differences, and that every human being within these borders is a part of your nation’s story,” he will say.
Thein Sein, in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week, promised to tackle the root causes of the problem, the United Nations said.
Despite human rights concerns, the White House sees Myanmar as a legacy-building success story of Obama’s policy of seeking engagement with U.S. enemies, a strategy that has made little progress with countries such as Iran and North Korea.
Obama’s visit to Myanmar, sandwiched between stops in Thailand and Cambodia, also fits the administration’s strategy of trying to lure China’s neighbors out of Beijing’s orbit.
(Editing by Alan Raybould and Alex Richardson)

More diplomacy to try to halt Israel-Gaza fighting

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Hostilities between Islamist militants and Israel entered a sixth day on Monday as diplomatic efforts were set to intensify to try to stop rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and Israeli air strikes on Gaza.

International pressure for a ceasefire seemed certain to mount after the deadliest single incident in the flare-up on Sunday claimed the lives of at least 11 Palestinian civilians, including four children.
Three people, including two children, were killed and 30 others were injured in the latest air strike before dawn on Monday on a family home in the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City, medical officials said. The Israeli military had no immediate comment and was checking.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was due to arrive in Cairo to add his weight to the truce efforts. Egypt has taken the lead in trying to broker a ceasefire and its officials met the parties on Sunday.
Israeli media said a delegation from Israel had been to Cairo for talks on ending the fighting, although a government spokesman declined to comment on the matter.
Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi met Khaled Meshaal, the political leader of Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, and Ramadan Shallah of Islamic Jihad as part of the mediation efforts, but a statement did not say if talks were conclusive.
Izzat Risheq, a close aide to Meshaal, wrote in a Facebook message that Hamas would agree to a ceasefire only after Israel “stops its aggression, ends its policy of targeted assassinations and lifts the blockade of Gaza”.
Listing Israel’s terms, Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon wrote on Twitter: “If there is quiet in the south and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel’s citizens, nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack.”
Israel withdrew settlers from Gaza in 2005 and two years later Hamas took control of the impoverished enclave, which the Israelis have kept under blockade.
The 11 Palestinian civilians were apparently killed during an Israeli attack on a militant, which brought a three-storey house crashing down on them.
Gaza health officials have said 78 Palestinians, 23 of them children and several women, have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s offensive began. Hundreds have been wounded.
GRAVE CONCERN
Ban expressed grave concern in a statement before setting off for the region. He will visit Israel on Tuesday.
“I am deeply saddened by the reported deaths of more than ten members of the Dalu family… (and) by the continuing firing of rockets against Israeli towns, which have killed several Israeli civilians. I strongly urge the parties to cooperate with all efforts led by Egypt to reach an immediate ceasefire,” he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had assured world leaders that Israel was doing its utmost to avoid causing civilian casualties in the military showdown with Hamas.
Gaza militants launched dozens of rockets into Israel and targeted its commercial capital, Tel Aviv, for a fourth day on Sunday. Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile shield shot down all three rockets.
In scenes recalling Israel’s 2008-2009 winter invasion of Gaza, tanks, artillery and infantry have massed in field encampments along the sandy, fenced-off border with Gaza and military convoys moved on roads in the area.
Israel has authorized the call-up of 75,000 reservists, although there was no immediate sign when or whether they might be needed in a ground invasion.
Israel’s operation has so far drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called its right to self-defense, but there have also been a growing number of appeals to seek an end to the hostilities.
Netanyahu said Israel was ready to widen its offensive.
“We are exacting a heavy price from Hamas and the terrorist organizations and the Israel Defence Forces are prepared for a significant expansion of the operation,” he said at a cabinet meeting on Sunday, but gave no further details.
The Israeli military said 544 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel since Wednesday, killing three civilians and wounding dozens. Some 302 rockets were intercepted by Iron Dome and 99 failed to reach Israel and landed inside the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and force Hamas to stop rocket fire that has bedeviled Israeli border towns for years. The rockets now have greater range, putting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem within their reach.
The southern resort city of Eilat was apparently added to the list of targets when residents said they heard an explosion thought to be a rocket, but it caused no damage or casualties, police said.
Eilat is thought to be well out of the range of any rocket in possession of Hamas or any other Gaza group. But Palestinian militants have in the recent past fired rockets at Eilat and its surroundings, using Egypt’s Sinai desert as a launch site.
SWORN ENEMIES
Hamas and other groups in Gaza are sworn enemies of the Jewish state which they refuse to recognize and seek to eradicate, claiming all Israeli territory as rightfully theirs.
Hamas won legislative elections in the Palestinian Territories in 2006 but a year later, after the collapse of a unity government under President Mahmoud Abbas the Islamist group seized control of Gaza in a brief and bloody civil war with forces loyal to Abbas.
Abbas then dismissed the Hamas government led by the group’s leader Ismail Haniyeh but he refuses to recognize Abbas’ authority and runs Gazan affairs.
While it is denounced as a terrorist organization in the West, Hamas enjoys widespread support in the Arab world, where Islamist parties are on the rise.
Western-backed Abbas and Fatah hold sway in the Israeli-occupied West Bank from their seat of government in the town of Ramallah. The Palestinians seek to establish an independent state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Gaza crisis: Israeli air strikes hit Hamas

Israel has targeted the headquarters of Hamas leaders and other key facilities in Gaza, on the fourth day of Israeli air strikes in the territory.
Prime Minister Ismail Haniya’s office, which Egypt’s PM had visited on Friday, was among the buildings destroyed.

At least 38 Palestinians and three Israelis have died since Israel killed Hamas’s military chief on Wednesday.
Israel earlier put 75,000 reservists on stand-by amid speculation of an impending ground invasion.
Militants in Gaza have continued to fire rockets into Israel, after aiming at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Friday.
Following a lull, Gaza City was hit by a string of large explosions shortly after 03:00 (01:00 GMT) on Saturday.
There was another series of strikes in and around the city after 05:00, with several targeting Hamas’s cabinet buildings, which correspondents say were likely to have been empty.
One of the targets was the house of a Hamas leader in Jabaliya, north of Gaza City.
The BBC’s Paul Danahar tweeted from the scene: “A mother in her wrecked home… is scurrying around collecting her daughters dolls, dusting them off.”
Our correspondent said Mr Haniya’s HQ was the most damaged of any building he had seen. Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil had visited it on Friday morning.
At least eight Palestinians are reported to have been killed in overnight strikes. The dead are said to include three members of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing.
Israel issued a statement saying it was targeting rocket-launching squads and weapons storage facilities and smuggling tunnels on the border with Egypt in southern Gaza.
Israeli military spokeswoman Avital Leibovich said 200 targets had been hit overnight, including 120 rocket launchers.
There are rumours that a ground attack is imminent, but Israeli officials say no decision has been made.
Israel blocked access to three major routes leading into Gaza on Friday. Call-up papers have already been sent to 16,000 Israeli reservists, with officials authorising the mobilisation of another 75,000.
Militants and civilians, including at least seven children, have been among the Palestinians killed during Israeli strikes in recent days, Hamas says.
The group’s military leader Ahmed Jabari was killed on Wednesday. A senior commander was killed on Friday, officials said.
Two Israeli women and a man died when a rocket hit a building in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi on Thursday.
‘Iron Dome’
Before the recent offensive – codenamed Pillar of Defence – Israel had repeatedly carried out air strikes on Gaza, as Palestinian militants fired rockets across the border.
Hundreds more rockets have been fired into Israel from Gaza since Wednesday. Most of the targets were in the south, but a small number have been aimed at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
A quarter of the attacks have been intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system, officials say.
Dozens of rockets were fired from Gaza on Saturday morning. The army said three of its soldiers were injured in one strike in southern Israel.
The Israeli military said it had deployed a new Iron Dome battery in the Tel Aviv area on Saturday.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has accused Israel of carrying out “massacres”.
Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem arrived in Gaza through the Rafah border crossing from Egypt to show support for Hamas. Later on Saturday he visited the wreckage of Mr Haniya’s HQ.
Western leaders and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have appealed for both sides to stop the violence.
In a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, President Barack Obama reiterated US support for Israel’s “right to defend itself”.
Mr Obama also spoke to Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi. Mr Mursi has called the Israeli raids “a blatant aggression against humanity” and promised that Egypt “will not leave Gaza on its own”.
Ties between Hamas and Egypt have strengthened since Mr Mursi’s election earlier this year.
Hamas was formed as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Mr Mursi belongs.

Iron dome defensive system

1. Enemy fires missile or artillery shell
2. Projectile is identified and tracked by radar. Data is relayed to battle management and control unit
3. Data is analysed and target ting coordinates are sent to the missile firing unit
4. The missile is fired at the enemy projectile exploding nearby to destroy the munitions

U.N. watchdog: Iran makes significant nuclear steps

Iran has made a significant advancement in its nuclear program with the completion of its underground uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom, according to a report released Friday by a United Nations watchdog group.

The International Atomic Energy Agency report stated Iran has now installed all of the nearly 2,800 centrifuges it will use to enrich uranium at the Fordow plant, but not all the centrifuges are operational.
The IAEA also says Iran has increased its stockpile of both 5% and 20% enriched uranium, which can more readily be converted to a weapons grade level. Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the United States, Israel and other nations contend Iran seeks to build nuclear weapons.
The Fordow facility was built into the side of a mountain, making it less vulnerable to attack. Israel has made it clear that completion of the plant could make it difficult to stop Iran if it decides to go ahead and build nuclear explosives.
In August, the agency reported that Iran had stepped up its production of high-grade enriched uranium and had relandscaped one of its military bases in an apparent effort to hamper a U.N. inquiry into its nuclear program.
Friday’s report said Iran still hasn’t allowed the agency access to the military site, called Parchin. The agency has been seeking access since January.
The new report repeated the conclusion reached in August that “extensive activities” at the Parchin site are certain to have “seriously undermined” the agency’s verification process.
Those activities include “significant ground scraping and landscaping” with new dirt roads, the August report said.
Many Western diplomats and nuclear experts believe the Parchin site has been secretly used to test high-explosive nuclear triggers, an essential step toward achieving a weapons capability. Iran denies that Parchin has any role in its nuclear program.
“The agency reiterates its request that Iran, without further delay, provide both access to that location and substantive answers to the agency’s detailed questions regarding the Parchin site,” Friday’s report said.
“Given the nature and extent of credible information available, the agency continues to consider it essential for Iran to engage with the agency without further delay on the substance of the agency’s concerns,” the report said.
The IAEA once again stated that Iran is not cooperating sufficiently with the agency for it to conclude that the country is conducting “peaceful activities.”
The agency said that despite its effort to step up talks with Iran, the nation has offered no “concrete results.”
The agency’s director general is, in turn, “unable to report any progress on clarifying issues relating to possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme,” the report said.
IAEA and Iranian officials have scheduled a December 13 meeting in Tehran to address the ongoing issues in the country’s nuclear program, the report said.

Assad says will die in Syria; opposition meets in Doha

DOHA (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad scotched any suggestion he might flee Syria and warned that any Western military intervention to topple him would have catastrophic consequences for the Middle East and beyond.

Speaking in an interview with Russia Today (RT) television to be broadcast on Friday, Assad said he did not see the West embarking on a military intervention in Syria and said the cost of such action would be unbearable.

"I think that the cost of a foreign invasion of Syria - if it happens - would be bigger than the entire world can bear ... This will have a domino effect that will affect the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific," he said.

"I do not believe the West is heading in this direction, but if they do, nobody can tell what will happen afterwards," he added. The remarks were published in Arabic on Russia Today's web site. It was not clear when Assad gave the interview.

Assad's defiant remarks coincided with a landmark meeting in Qatar on Thursday of Syria's fractious opposition to hammer out an agreement on a new umbrella body uniting rebel groups inside and outside Syria amid growing international pressure to put their house in order and prepare for a post-Assad transition.

The United States and other Western powers have grown increasingly frustrated with the opposition over divisions and in-fighting which have undermined the chances of ousting Assad.

Backed by Washington, the Doha talks underline Qatar's central role in the effort to end Assad's rule as the Gulf state, which funded the Libyan revolt to oust Muammar Gaddafi, tries to position itself as a player in a post-Assad Syria.

"I am tougher than Gaddafi," read a tweet posted by the editor-in-chief of the station. The television station subsequently clarified the tweet as having been an interpretation of Assad's stance by the editor-in-chief rather than actual words from Assad.

'LIVE AND DIE IN SYRIA'

Assad, who is battling to put down a 19-month old uprising against his rule, said he would "live and die in Syria", in what appeared to be a rejection of the idea by British Prime Minister David Cameron this week that a safe exit and foreign exile could be one way to end the civil war in Syria.

"I am not a puppet and the West did not manufacture me in order that I leave to the West or any other country. I am Syrian, I am Syrian-made, and I must live and die in Syria," he said. Russia Today's web site showed footage of him speaking in the interview and walking down the stairs outside a white villa.

Two civilians, a woman and a young man, in Turkey's Hatay border province were wounded by stray bullets fired from Syria, according to a Turkish official. Turkish forces increased their presence along the frontier, where officials have said they might seek NATO deployment of ground to air missiles.

Syria's war, in which the opposition estimates 38,000 people have been killed, raises the spectre of wider Middle Eastern sectarian turmoil and poses one of the toughest foreign policy challenges for U.S. President Barack Obama as he starts his second term.

International and regional rivalries have complicated efforts to mediate any resolution to the conflict. Russia and China have vetoed three U.N. Security Council resolutions that would have put Assad under pressure.

Regionally, Sunni Muslim Arab countries and Turkey oppose Assad while non-Arab Shi'ite Iran is backing the Alawite ruler, whose sect is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam and whose family has been in power for over 40 years.

The main opposition body, the Syrian National Council (SNC), has been heavily criticized by Western and Arab backers of the revolt as ineffective, run by exiles out of touch with events in Syria, and under the sway of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Britain's Cameron said after Obama's re-election this week that the crisis would be among the first topics the two leaders would discuss and that efforts had so far been inadequate.

Foreign Minister William Hague said Britain will now talk directly to Syrian fighters inside, after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week slammed the SNC, saying the Qatar meeting should create a body that includes people fighting on the ground.

MEETING IN TROUBLE

But the plan to unite opposition groups ran into trouble almost as soon as it was put on the table by SNC member Riyadh Seif. The initiative would create a body that could eventually be considered a government-in-waiting capable of winning foreign recognition and therefore more military backing.

"It's a consultative meeting, we will discuss all issues including forming some kind of authority to manage the liberated areas," SNC head Abdulbaset Sieda told reporters in Doha, before the meeting began behind closed doors in a five-star hotel.

The meeting has so far been bogged down by arguments over the SNC representation and the number of seats the rival groups - which include Islamists, leftists and secularists - will have.

Qatar's Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim was due to speak at the meeting later on Thursday, signaling pressure on the Syrian opposition to get their house in order from the U.S.-allied Arab country that has done the most to fund Arab opposition movements during the Arab Spring uprisings of the past year.

Seif's proposal is the first concerted attempt to merge opposition forces to help end the conflict that has devastated large swathes of Syria, including cities, and threatens to widen into a regional sectarian conflagration.

The initiative would also create a Supreme Military Council, a Judicial Committee and a transitional government-in-waiting of technocrats - along the lines of Libya's Transitional National Council, which managed to galvanize international support for its successful battle to topple Gaddafi.

One SNC source said the grouping had only agreed to the Doha conference under pressure from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United States and France.

Western states have been reluctant to offer overt support to anti-Assad rebels inside the country too, fearing it would open the door to rule by hardline Islamists among them.

"The Arab League will agree to whatever the Syrians agree, but there are still differences over which political factions will dominate (in a new body)," said Arab League Secretary-General Nabil al-Araby.

Taliban suicide attack on base in Pakistan's biggest city kills one

KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - A Taliban suicide bomber killed at least one person when he rammed his vehicle into the gates of a military base in Pakistan's largest city on Thursday, police said, the latest in a series of audacious attacks on security forces.

Thirteen people were wounded in the explosion, but the attacker was unable to penetrate into the headquarters of the Rangers paramilitary base in the port city of Karachi.

"It is a heavy blast near the Rangers office, with some casualties," said senior police official Javed Odho.
He told Pakistani television the bomber had used more than 100 kg (220 pounds) of explosives in the attack. Karachi is Pakistan's financial hub and home to 18 million people.

A spokesman for a prominent faction of the Pakistani Taliban, headed by insurgent Maulana Fazlullah, claimed responsibility.

Sirajuddin Ahmad, speaking by telephone, said the attack was "revenge for the arrest, torture and killing of our people" by security forces in the region.

The bombing is the latest in a series of attacks on military bases in Pakistan, including a 16-hour assault on Pakistan's navy base in Karachi in 2011 that killed at least 10 people and an attack on the army headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009.

Some of the assaults have prompted speculation the attackers had sympathizers inside the military who gave them information about the bases.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan, an uneasy U.S. ally, is fighting its own homegrown Taliban as well as other insurgents who cross its porous border with neighboring Afghanistan.

Karachi is home to a number of sectarian groups and fighters allied to the Taliban insurgency and is also faced with an epidemic of violent crime.