QUOTE OF THE DAY “Everyone was running to save their life, and it was a horrible scene. I felt like I was watching a movie and this was not real.” M. Yaseen, a 46-year-old Pakistani trader who witnessed two
suicide bombers storm a court complex in Islamabad Article, this page2 Egypt officers guilty in beating death
CAIRO - A court convicted two policemen Monday for the 2010 beating death of a young Egyptian that became a rallying cry for the protesters who overthrew longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
But rights groups said the years-long wait for anyone to be held accountable for the killing of 28-year-old businessman Khaled Said highlights that the wider problem of police abuse, a major grievance of the 2011 protesters, remains unresolved.
Photographs of Said’s face, disfigured by what appeared to be a brutal beating, were posted on the Internet and became a rallying cry against torture and police brutality under Mubarak. Activists used a Facebook page set up in Said’s memory to call for the protests that ultimately forced Mubarak from power in February 2011.
The two policemen - Awad Suliman and Mahmoud Salah - had previously been convicted and handed sentences of seven years, but those convictions were later overturned and a new trial was ordered.
Japan, N. Korea discuss WWII remains
SHENYANG, China - Japanese and North Korean Red Cross officials met in China on Monday in what Japan hopes will be a step toward talks on the return of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Red Cross meeting dealt with a different issue, the return of the remains of 21,600 Japanese who died in Korea during the chaos at the end of World War II.
Foreign Ministry officials from both countries attended the meeting and held informal talks on the side, Japan’s Kyodo News service reported, citing an unidentified Japanese official.
The two countries, which do not have diplomatic relations, have not had formal government talks since November 2012. Japan sees a resolution of the abduction issue as a crucial step toward normalizing ties with North Korea.
North Korea allowed five kidnapped Japanese to return home in 2002, but Japan thinks at least a dozen others also were kidnapped and wants them returned if they are still alive.
Ri Ho Rim, secretary-general of the North Korean Red Cross Society, described Monday’s talks in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang as “productive.”Gaza workers press Hamas for full wages
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Palestinian civil servants called on the Gaza Strip’s Hamas government Monday to pay them full salaries, the clearest sign yet that Egypt’s blockade of the territory is making it increasingly difficult for the Islamic militants to govern.
The civil servants are considered Hamas sympathizers, and their public complaints about not getting paid in full during the past four months reflect growing discontent in Gaza.
Both Israel and Egypt sharply restricted access to Gaza after Hamas’ 2007 takeover, though Egypt for years looked the other way as goods, including weapons, were smuggled into Gaza through hundreds of tunnels running under the border with Egypt.
That changed last summer when Egypt destroyed or sealed most of the tunnels, resulting in losses of millions of dollars in tax income for the Hamas government.
In a news conference Monday, the civil servants’ labor union said the Hamas government has paid only partial salaries to its 46,000 workers in the past four months.
Iran cuts enriched-uranium heap to half
VIENNA - Iran is cutting its stock of uranium that is closest to atomic weapons-grade as mandated in a deal with six world powers, the head of the United Nations nuclear agency said Monday.
As part of the six-month interim deal, Iran is to dilute half of its 20 percent-enriched uranium to a lower grade suitable for use as reactor fuel. Yukiya Amano, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the agency’s 35-nation board that the process “has reached the halfway mark.”
The other half of the uranium is to be changed into oxide, a precursor of nuclear fuel that is relatively difficult to reconvert to 20 percent. Iran has told the agency it now is working on facilities to carry out that transformation.
Uranium enriched to 20 percent is only a technical step away from the 90 percent level needed for nuclear weapons.
Tehran dismisses other Western nations’ fears that Iran wants nuclear arms but has agreed to temporarily limit its atomic work in return for relief from sanctions.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 03/04/2014