The world in brief

Friday, August 30, 2013

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“We hope this latest development leads to an outcome that reflects the fact that bringing Osama bin Laden to justice was clearly in Pakistan’s interest - as well as ours.”

Marie Harf, a U.S. State Department spokesman, after a Pakistani judge overturned the prison sentence and ordered a retrial for a Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA find bin Laden Article, this page2 Algerians home after U.S. release

ALGIERS, Algeria - Two Algerians held at Guantanamo Bay prison for more than a decade have returned to their homeland, where they were interrogated by judicial authorities pending an investigation, the Algiers Court said Thursday.

Their release, the first from Guantanamo in nearly a year, followed a pledge by President Barack Obama to renew efforts to close the prison on the U.S. base in Cuba, an initiative that has been thwarted by Congress.

The men, identified as Nabil Hadjarab and Mutia Sadiq Ahmad Sayyab, arrived late Wednesday, the court said. The Pentagon said their release reduces the prisoner population at the U.S. base in Cuba to 164 men, nearly 90 of whom have been cleared for release or transfer.

Algerians released from the U.S. maximum security prison are generally interviewed by a judge on arrival to determine whether they will face criminal charges, Algeria’s official National Human Rights Commission said. The process usually takes a month. None of the 13 Algerians previously repatriated from Guantanamo has been imprisoned.

Bus crash kills 41, hurts 39 in Kenya

NAIROBI, Kenya - Kenya’s dangerous roads again claimed the lives of dozens of people in a bus accident west of Nairobi early Thursday.

A passenger bus crashed through a barrier at a sharp curve, flipped and had its roof shorn off, the Kenya Red Cross said in a statement. According to the Red Cross, 41 people were killed immediately and another 39 were taken to a nearby hospital with severe injuries.

Traffic Commandant Samuel Kimaru, who was at the scene of the accident, said the driver had crashed straight into the guardrail.

Calls for protests, truce rise in Egypt

CAIRO - The Muslim Brotherhood ramped up its calls Thursday for nationwide protests against Egypt’s military-backed government, while an Islamist ally of the ousted president spoke of an attempt to broker a deal before the “ship of the nation sinks.”

Egypt’s security forces continued to hunt down wanted leaders, arresting two top Brotherhood figures.

Some feared that the protests would tailspin into another bout of violence like the one sparked by a government crackdown in the capital on two Brotherhood-led sit-ins protesting the July 3 military ouster of President Mohammed Morsi.

A leader of the Gamaa Islamiya ex-militant group, Abboud el-Zommor, urged the Muslim Brotherhood and the military to make “concessions” and acknowledged that both are responsible for the bloodshed.

Under his proposed plan, the government would lift the state of emergency, stop mass arrests of Islamists and offer assurances that Islamists wouldn’t be excluded in future elections. In return, he said the Brotherhood would have to promise to hold only “peaceful protests” and not attack churches or state institutions.

Front Section, Pages 7 on 08/30/2013