The world in brief

Saturday, December 7, 2013

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The messages we have received since last night have heartened and overwhelmed us.

He is an embodiment of strength, struggle and survival, principles that are cherished by humanity.”

Mandla Mandela, Nelson Mandela’s grandson, said in the first statement from the Mandela family since Mandela’s death Thursday Article, this page

Britons mopping up after storm’s surge

LONDON - Hundreds of people in Britain mopped up flooded homes Friday after a powerful storm that scoured northern Europe with hurricane-force gusts kicked up the biggest tidal surge in 60 years, swamping stretches of shoreline.

The rising seas prompted evacuations along the eastern English coast, with 1,400 properties flooded and at least a half-dozen communities at great risk of exceptionally high tides and large waves.

In London, the Thames Barrier - a series of huge metal plates that can be raised across the entire river- closed Friday for a second time in as many days to protect the city from the surge.

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said there would be “exceptionally high tides” Friday and today.

Accidents linked to the storm have killed at least eight people, from Britain to Sweden, Denmark and Poland.

Scores of flights were canceled at airports in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany and Poland.

Not kidnapped, Syria nuns say in video

BEIRUT - A group of Syrian Greek Orthodox nuns reportedly seized by rebels from a convent near Damascus denied in a video broadcast Friday that they had been kidnapped and said they were being held in a safe place.

It was the first appearance by the nuns, whose purported Monday abduction has increased concerns about the treatment of Christians by hard-liners in the rebel ranks, particularly as the fighting has engulfed more Christian villages in recent months.

In the video aired by the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite channel Friday, the Greek Orthodox nuns appeared healthy.

“The brothers are treating us well and have brought us from the convent here and we are very happy,” one of them said to the camera.

Also Friday, an international watchdog said it has verified the destruction of all of Syria’s unfilled munitions for delivering chemical agents, another milestone along the road to eradicating President Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons program.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said in a statement that its experts in Syria also have verified the destruction of parts of buildings at weapons production facilities.

Egyptian convicted in Italy terror case

MILAN - An Egyptian cleric kidnapped as part of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program was convicted by an Italian court Friday of decade-old terror charges and sentenced to six years in prison, lawyers involved in the case said.

Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was convicted in absentia in a closed trial. He has been in Egypt since resurfacing after his 2003 abduction, and is unlikely to be returned to Italy to serve the sentence.

Nasr’s lawyer, Carmelo Scambia, said Nasr denies that he was in any way associated with terrorism.

Italian authorities had been investigating Nasr as a terror suspect for more than a year when he was abducted from a Milan street and transferred to Egypt via Germany as part of the CIA’s program of moving terror suspects to third countries that permitted torture.

Twenty-six Americans, mostly CIA agents, were convicted of kidnapping and handed sentences ranging from five to nine years in the only trial anywhere involving the rendition program. All were tried in absentia and none served any prison time.

Jordan elected to Security Council seat

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. General Assembly elected Jordan to the Security Council on Friday to replace Saudi Arabia, which had rejected the seat in an unprecedented act to protest the council’s failure to end the Syrian and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.

Arab countries chose Jordan as a replacement, and Asian nations endorsed it to take the traditional Arab seat on the U.N.’s most powerful body. It received 178 “yes” votes in the election.

Saudi Arabia got one vote, and four countries in the 193-member world body abstained. The 10 other countries were either absent or unable to vote because of unpaid dues.

Saudi Arabia rejected the Security Council seat less than 24 hours after it was elected on Oct. 17.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 12/07/2013