Russia opposes use of force in resolution on Syria
DAMASCUS, Syria — Russia insisted Tuesday that a U.N. Security Council resolution governing Syria’s handling of its chemical weapons not allow the use of force, but it suggested that could change if Damascus reneges on the deal to give up its stockpile.
The main Syrian opposition coalition, meanwhile, urged the international community to take swift action against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in response to a U.N. finding that the nerve agent sarin was used in a deadly attack near the capital last month.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said his country “spoke clearly” about rejecting the use of force when the chemical weapons agreement was worked out Saturday in Geneva between Washington and Moscow. The plan calls for an inventory of Syria’s chemical weapons within a week, with all components of the program out of the country or destroyed by mid-2014.
But if signs emerge that Syria is not fulfilling the agreement or there are reports of further chemical weapons use, “then the Security Council will examine the situation,” Lavrov said, suggesting the issue could be reconsidered.
Egypt Muslim Brotherhood spokesman arrested
CAIRO — Egyptian police arrested the main English-language spokesman of the Muslim Brotherhood on Tuesday along with other senior members of the group, all charged with inciting violence, state media and a security official said.
Gehad el-Haddad had emerged has one of the group’s most well-known faces, appearing regularly in foreign media to defend the Brotherhood’s policies during Mohammed Morsi’s year as president and following Morsi’s July 3 ouster by the military. His father, Essam el-Haddad, was a senior foreign policy aide to Morsi and has been in detention with Morsi since the coup.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki criticized the arrest as politically motivated, saying “we are opposed to all politicized arrests, of course including this one, and detention, and remain focused on encouraging the interim government to move forward on an inclusive process that brings representatives from all sides.”
Several thousand Brotherhood members and other Islamist backers of Morsi have been arrested in the past month, with more than 2,000 being held pending prosecution. The crackdown has detained most of the Brotherhood’s senior leaders, as well as key midlevel operators who are in charge of organizing and financing the group’s activities. At least two top-level leaders, wanted by authorities remain fugitives.
New trial ordered in post-Katrina bridge killings
NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge on Tuesday ordered a new trial for five former New Orleans police officers convicted of civil rights violations stemming from deadly shootings on a bridge after Hurricane Katrina, concluding the case had been tainted by “grotesque prosecutorial misconduct.”
In a 129-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt said at least three government attorneys posted anonymous comments on a New Orleans newspaper’s website, creating a “carnival atmosphere” that “distorted and perverted” justice in the case.
“The public must have absolute trust and confidence in this process,” he wrote. “Re-trying this case is a very small price to pay in order to protect the validity of the verdict in this case, the institutional integrity of this court, and the criminal justice system as a whole.”
Less than a week after Katrina’s 2005 landfall, police shot and killed two unarmed people and wounded four others on the Danziger Bridge. Five former officers cooperated with a Justice Department investigation and pleaded guilty to engaging in a cover-up to make the shootings appear justified.
Zanzibar police: 15 arrested for acid attacks
ZANZIBAR, Tanzania — Police in Zanzibar said Tuesday they have arrested 15 people, among them suspects linked to terror groups, in connection to a spate of acid attacks in recent months.
Some of the suspects have links to al-Qaida and Somali Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, said police commissioner Mussa Ali Mussa, but he offered no evidence.
When pressed for details by the Associated Press about al-Qaida or al-Shabab connections, Mussa hung up and switched off his mobile phone.
Earlier Mussa said police have seized 29 liters of acid from different people, saying they were illegally in possession of it.
Last week a Catholic priest was attacked and badly injured in the fifth acid attack in Zanzibar since November. Last month two young British women doing volunteer work were injured when acid was thrown in their faces.
Brazil looks to break from US-centric Internet
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil plans to divorce itself from the U.S.-centric Internet over Washington’s widespread online spying, a move that many experts fear will be a potentially dangerous first step toward fracturing a global network built with minimal interference by governments.
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President Dilma Rousseff ordered a series of measures aimed at greater Brazilian online independence and security following revelations that the U.S. National Security Agency intercepted her communications, hacked into the state-owned Petrobras Oil Company’s network and spied on Brazilians who entrusted their personal data to U.S. tech companies such as Facebook and Google.
The leader is so angered by the espionage that on Tuesday she postponed next month’s scheduled trip to Washington, where she was to be honored with a state dinner.
Internet security and policy experts say the Brazilian government’s reaction to information leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden is understandable, but warn it could set the Internet on a course of Balkanization.
“The global backlash is only beginning and will get far more severe in coming months,” said Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Institute at the Washington-based New America Foundation think tank. “This notion of national privacy sovereignty is going to be an increasingly salient issue around the globe.”
