Algeria

Former Murdoch chief Rebekah Brooks was arrested and detained last night by British police on charges of conspiring to illegally intercept communications as well as corruption, in the form of bribing police.

Brooks was apprehended by detectives working on Operation Weeting – the UK Metropolitan Police’s phone hacking investigation, and Operation Elveden – the investigation into illicit payments to police officers, a July 18 Guardian article reported.

Until recently, Brooks had been defended by both Rupert and James Murdoch from the very outset of the now-widespread hacking scandal that began within the Murdoch-owned newspaper News of the World.

One of the most contentious cases in the scandal so far is that of teenager Milly Dowler, who was abducted on her way home from school and subsequently murdered. Milly Dowler’s family’s phone messages were illegally intercepted by News of the World staff.

Mark Lewis, the lawyer for Milly Dowler’s family has questioned the timing of the arrest, as Brooks is due to be questioned by a parliamentary committee next Tuesday.

“Undoubtedly, she will have the option of saying on Tuesday ‘I’m sorry I can’t answer that because I’m under police investigation ‘,” he said. “The timing stinks...it gives the impression that those questions can’t be asked [at this time]...it looks deliberate.”

Liberal Democrat MP Adrian Sanders has also expressed grave concerns over the timing of the arrest, according to a July 18 article in The Age.

The House of Commons select committee maintained that it would not canvass material that affected any criminal investigation and Brooks now appears to be protected by that. Brooks has been offering to help the police since January, yet two days before she is due to stand before a parliamentary committee she was arrested.

O Sahara Ocidental é um território em disputa desde a década de 60 no norte da África, desde lá sendo palco de diversos conflitos. A área disputada localiza-se numa região no Sul do Marrocos, fazendo fronteira também com a Argélia e a Mauritânia. Na área de Tindouf, no sudoeste da Argélia, estão campos de refúgio da população Saaráui operados pela Polisario.

A Frente Popular de Liberação de Saguía-Hamra e Rio de Ouro, POLISARIO, www.saharalibre.es, é um movimento para a independência do Saara Ocidental ante o Marrocos. Constituída oficialmente em Maio de 1973 para forçar o fim da colonização espanhola, é uma derivação de organizações existentes desde os anos 50 na região. Desde 1979, a organização com sede em Tindouf é reconhecida pelas Nações Unidas desde 1979 como representante do povo do Saara Ocidental.

Telegramas recentemente divulgados pela organização Wikileaks denunciam extensa corrupção, violação de direitos humanos e de informação por parte da POLISARIO. O documento 09ALGIERS1117 aponta que "Contatos da Embaixada[Estado-unidense] com a UNHCR e ONGs Americanas trabalhando nos campos da Polisario perto de Tindouf dizem que indivíduos Saaráuis estiveram envolvidos em atividades de contrabando, mas o "governo" da Polisario pune severamente qualquer um que é pego traficando pessoas ou armas que poderiam ajudar terroristas". O mesmo documento reafirma posteriormente que "A Frente da Polisario responde violentamente a qualquer envolvimento com tráfico de armas, pessoas ou drogas".

WL Central will be updating news on Algeria, with new items added at the top. You can contact me on twitter @kgosztola or by email at kgosztola@hotmail.com.

Current time and date in Algeria:

SATURDAY, February 26

3:55 PM
El Watan live blogged the action in Algeria as police prevented a protest from taking place in Place des Martyrs. The NCCD tried to hold the protest.

The post describes how police swarmed the streets and occupied sidewalks and pedestrian spaces in the capital of Algiers. Said Saadi and other protesters showed up to begin the action and police divided a forming group into two smaller groups. Said Saadi tried to get up on a police vehicle and go talk to some of the protesters and the police brought him down violently.

Protesters on Che Guevera boulevard began to hold an action only to be dispersed by security forces.

At 12:00, the area was still filled with police. There were tiny pockets of protesters in the area carrying portraits of Bouteflika demanding his resignation but the police effectively prevented anything from taking place.

Here is what appears to be video from the February 26 action that was broken up by police:

The third episode of this weekly podcast, which looks at stories related to WikiLeaks from the past week, featured guest Michael K. Busch, who teaches international relations at the City College of New York, where he is also program coordinator at the Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies. He has posted on blogs on released cables on WikiBlogged, and he is listed as a resource in the back of Greg Mitchell's recently published book, "Age of WikiLeaks," which you can purchase in print on Blurb.com or in e-book form off of Amazon. [Follow him on Twitter @michaelkbusch]

The program for this week's show was dedicated to protests and violence in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The show will provide updates on what is happening in the region and discuss some released WikiLeaks cables that provide context for what is happening.

(update below)

Algerians that participated in a “Day of Rage” on February 12 continue to come out and protest. The news site Bikya Masr reports “Algerians pledge to continue to demonstrate until President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has been removed from power.” The protesters inspired by Egypt intend to begin to engage in sit-ins that can hopefully bring the country to the brink like Egyptians brought their country to the brink and forced President Hosni Mubarak from power.

Demonstrators chant, “Bouteflika out,” but not all of them. Some just want democratic reforms. Those demonstrating have mostly been Islamists or pro-democracy activists.

They talk about the fear being gone after what unfolded in Egypt and Tunisia.

(update below)

Thousands of demonstrators came out to demonstrate against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s regime in Algeria on February 12. Security forces arrested hundreds of protesters, including human rights activists and syndicate members of the General Union of Algerian Workers. The Internet was also shut down.

A peaceful sit-in led to 100 being detained.

Al Jazeera reported Algerians, inspired by the success of the popular revolution in Egypt, were “heavily outnumbered by riot police,” but “2,000 protesters were able to overcome a security cordon enforced around the city's May First Square” and join others calling for reform.

Pro-democracy protesters defying a ban on demonstrations scuffled with riot police in Algiers, the capital city of Algeria on Saturday. Opposition figures in Algeria told Reuters that about 2000 people protested in the center of Algiers, and 800 people were arrested. Some anti-government activists made it thorough police cordons to make it to May First Square in the center of the city.

There has been a growing protest movement in Algeria against unemployment, rising food prices, lack for freedoms and the twelve year rule of 74 year old President Abdelaziz Botuefilka. Algeria has been under a state of emergency under which demonstrations have been banned since 1992 when the military canceled free elections and sparked a brutal civil war. They have also taken inspiration from the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.

Algerian municipal government authorities announced Monday that they had banned an opposition rally calling for an end to Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's rule. WL Central reported on the planned rally and the unrest in Algeria here. The authorities said the protest could be held in an indoor venue instead of being a march, but the opposition Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD) said it would defy the order and go ahead with the march.

Today sixteen people were injured, including eleven police, during a violent protest in Skikda, eastern Algeria. Protesters succeeded in closing the National Road No. 3, the link between the major cities east of Algeria (the provinces of Constantine and Annaba) in the face of traffic for several hours by stones and barricades. They also set fire to rubber wheels in protest of a lack of clean water and social problems in their village. The violence began when the police attempted to clear the road.

Zohra Drif Bitat, a vice-president of Algeria's upper house of parliament who was appointed by Bouteflika, has strongly criticized the government, saying it had been unable to translate the country's huge energy wealth into a better life for the average citizen. "Are we going to continue to tackle our problems with the same actors who have failed? Don't we need new blood? I hope and expect a radical change in the mode of governance," she said on state radio.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika promised through official APS news agency that he would lift the state of emergency which has been in force for the last 19 years in Algeria "in the very near future," Government opponents, who have been inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt have been pushing for its end. The promise to lift the banned on public demonstrations is seen as a bid stave off unrest.

Opposition groups in Algeria are calling a major protest on February 12 and they have recently made repeal of the emergency powers one of their main demands. As the anti-government forces in Tunisia have given an example, hundreds have been willing to publicly protest the ban on public gatherings in Algeria.

Map via @Houeida Anouar

WL Central Coverage

Tunisia December 15:

2011-02-01 Tunisian Islamic Leader Returns as EU Freezes Ousted President's Assets
2011-01-27 Tunisia protests continue as a warrant is issued for Ben Ali
2011-01-24 Tunisia today: "It’s not a unity government, it’s a fake unity government”

The Algerian opposition is regrouping after thousands of police were deployed on Saturday to suppress several hundred demonstrators. They too are inspired by the Tunisian revolution. With public protests being so strongly suppressed some Algerians have turned to a more drastic demonstration of their opposition to the status quo. At least four people in Algeria have attempted self-immolation, some successfully, since Tunisia freed itself of Ben Ali.

Protests have spread across the Middle East in the wake of Tunisia's popular uprising set in motion by the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, resulting in the intimidation, arrest, and imprisonment of dissident voices and journalists. Governments in the region have responded with both carrots and sticks. A short round-up of significant events over the weekend in Yemen, Jordan, and Algeria.

Yemen: Reporters Without Borders: Arrests and threats against journalists.

... Tawakkol Karman, the head of the NGO Women Journalists Without Chains, ... was arrested for unclear reasons in the capital, Sanaa, yesterday evening following a protest in the city in the afternoon. Her family said she is being held in Sanaa’s main prison. Yesterday’s demonstration was part of a 10-day-old wave of protests in Yemen inspired in part by the protests in Tunisia. Around 20 people have been reportedly arrested. ... More than 200 journalists took part in a march this morning to demand their release.

"The lesson from what's happening in Tunisia is that (Arab leaders) won't be able to hide any more behind the Islamist threat argument."

-Amel Boubekeur

If Tunisians are protesting for freedom, not religion, what role did Wikileaks and online social networks play in mobilizing Arab populations to throw off the shackles of authoritarian, repressive, and corrupt regimes? Are our western institutions responsible for the waves of protest threatening to drown capitals in the Middle East?.

Arab leaders are demonstrably nervous as protests continue throughout the Arab world, fueled by hope that other countries can follow Tunisia's example for change. Some are responding proactively to the protests, attempting to appease, rather than quell the unrest.

Nearly one thousand demonstrators rallied outside parliament in Jordan today. Food prices in Jordan have dropped 5% in the 24 hours since Ben Ali fled Tunisia, possibly in response to a government order. Demonstrations in Jordan also brought about the reversal of what had been the ninth increase in fuel prices since 1989.

Syria has announced 12 billion Syrian pounds (US$250 million) for a fund to help the most needy families in Syria.

Around 11.4 percent of the total population of 22 million people, ie around 2.2 million people can not meet their basic needs, according to a report issued by the United Nations Development Programme.

Algeria, rushed through a $225 million package of price cuts last week on types of fuel and goods at government run stores.

Meanwhile, on facebook and in street protests throughout the Arab world, protesters continue to wave the Tunisian flag.

Algerian man Mohsen Bouterfif died on Saturday. He had doused himself in gasoline and set himself on fire on Thursday after a meeting with the mayor of the small city of Boukhadra who was unable to provide him a job and a house, according to El Khabar news. His death has been followed by protests in Boukhadra and reportedly, the firing of the mayor.

Several Algerian towns, including the capital Algiers, have experienced riots in recent weeks over unemployment and a sharp rise in the prices of food staples.

Official sources say two people have been killed and scores were injured during the unrest, which unfolded in parallel to street violence in Tunisia and demonstrations over high food prices in other North African and Middle Eastern countries.

To calm the protests, Algeria has cut the cost of sugar and cooking oil.

Der Spiegel: Copenhagen Climate Cables: The US and China Joined Forces Against Europe

"Last year's climate summit in Copenhagen was a political disaster. Leaked US diplomatic cables now show why the summit failed so spectacularly. The dispatches reveal that the US and China, the world's top two polluters, joined forces to stymie every attempt by European nations to reach agreement.[...]

The cooperation began under the last US president, George W. Bush. In 2007 Bush's senior climate negotiator, Harlan Watson, organized a 10-year framework agreement with China on cooperation on energy and the environment. The two countries also agreed to hold a "Strategic and Economic Dialogue" -- backroom talks that neither the Americans nor the Chinese were willing to admit to at first.

Bush's successor, President Barack Obama, and the new secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, continued this dialogue. During Clinton's inaugural visit to China, Beijing agreed to the formation of a "new partnership on energy and climate change," according to a US embassy dispatch dated May 15, 2009. Here too the aim was to ensure the outcome of the climate talks in Copenhagen would be favorable to Washington and Beijing."
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The Guardian: WikiLeaks cables: Vatican refused to engage with child sex abuse inquiry

"The Vatican refused to allow its officials to testify before an Irish commission investigating the clerical abuse of children and was angered when they were summoned from Rome, US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks reveal.

Requests for information from the 2009 Murphy commission into sexual and physical abuse by clergy "offended many in the Vatican" who felt that the Irish government had "failed to respect and protect Vatican sovereignty during the investigations", a cable says."
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The Guardian: WikiLeaks cables: Pope wanted Muslim Turkey kept out of EU

"The pope is responsible for the Vatican's growing hostility towards Turkey joining the EU, previously secret cables sent from the US embassy to the Holy See in Rome claim.

In 2004 Cardinal Ratzinger, the future pope, spoke out against letting a Muslim state join, although at the time the Vatican was formally neutral on the question.

The Vatican's acting foreign minister, Monsignor Pietro Parolin, responded by telling US diplomats that Ratzinger's comments were his own rather than the official Vatican position.

The cable released by WikiLeaks shows that Ratzinger was the leading voice behind the Holy See's unsuccessful drive to secure a reference to Europe's 'Christian roots' in the EU constitution. The US diplomat noted that Ratzinger 'clearly understands that allowing a Muslim country into the EU would further weaken his case for Europe's Christian foundations'."
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Le Monde: Wikileaks : les Américains se demandent où se trouve le cœur du pouvoir en Algérie (Americans ask who holds real power in Algeria)

"Qui détient le pouvoir en Algérie? Les militaires ou les civils? Une poignée de généraux qui ont la haute main sur l'armée et les services de renseignements ou le président de la République élu au suffrage universel, Abdelaziz Bouteflika?

La question continue à diviser les chancelleries étrangères tant le cœur du pouvoir à Alger est impénétrable depuis des décennies. Pour le chef de l'Etat algérien, la réponse est évidente : l'armée algérienne respecte "absolument" l'autorité d'un président qui est un civil et non un militaire. "Ça n'est pas du tout comme en Turquie", assure-t-il lors de sa première entrevue avec le général William Ward, le chef de l'Africom, la structure de commandement américaine pour l'Afrique, en novembre 2009."
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The New York Times: China Resisted U.S. Pressure on Rights of Nobel Winner

"It was just before Christmas 2009, and Ding Xiaowen was not happy. The United States ambassador had just written China’s foreign minister expressing concern for Liu Xiaobo, the Beijing intellectual imprisoned a year earlier for drafting a pro-democracy manifesto. Now Mr. Ding, a deputy in the ministry’s American section, was reading the riot act to an American attaché.

Mr. Ding said he would try to avoid “becoming emotional,” according to a readout on the meeting that was among thousands of leaked State Department cables released this month. Then he said that a “strongly dissatisfied” China firmly opposed the views of the American ambassador, Jon Huntsman, and that Washington must “cease using human rights as an excuse to ‘meddle’ in China’s internal affairs.”"
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The Guardian: WikiLeaks cables: Pfizer 'used dirty tricks to avoid clinical trial payout'

"The world's biggest pharmaceutical company hired investigators to unearth evidence of corruption against the Nigerian attorney general in order to persuade him to drop legal action over a controversial drug trial involving children with meningitis, according to a leaked US embassy cable.

Pfizer was sued by the Nigerian state and federal authorities, who claimed that children were harmed by a new antibiotic, Trovan, during the trial, which took place in the middle of a meningitis epidemic of unprecedented scale in Kano in the north of Nigeria in 1996."
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Der Spiegel: 'No and No Again': The Rocky US Relationship with Little Austria

"Austria may be small, but according to US Embassy dispatches from Vienna, the country causes big headaches in Washington. Not only are Austrian leaders seen as disconnected from international affairs, the country's neutrality means it is willing to do business with America's enemies.

The tone used by the US envoys in their reports to Washington ranges from resigned to openly hostile. Is it possible, they ask in bewilderment, for a tiny Alpine republic only half the size of the US state of Washington to ignore the primary objectives of American foreign policy? It would seem that it is."
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El Pais: EE UU considera Cataluña el "mayor centro mediterráneo del yihadismo" (The US considers Catalonia the "biggest mediterranean center for jihadism")

"La Embajada de EE UU en Madrid cree que Cataluña es el punto más caliente del islamismo radical en España , un escenario que debe vigilar y controlar como puente hacia el Mediterráneo. La fuerte implantación de la comunidad paquistaní y marroquí en Barcelona y la efervescente actividad de islamistas en localidades como Tarragona, Hospitalet, Badalona y Reus preocupan a los servicios de inteligencia estadounidenses que han convertido a esa comunidad en su primer objetivo de investigación. Los documentos secretos del departamento de Estado definen Cataluña como el principal centro mediterráneo de los islamistas."
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Le Monde: Guinée : Comment France et Etats-Unis ont écarté le chef de la junte (Guinea: How France and the US neutralized the chief of the junta)

"L'occasion était trop belle pour neutraliser un chef de l'Etat devenu très embarrassant. Français et Américains cherchaient à écarter le capitaine Moussa Dadis Camara depuis le massacre par des militaires de la garde présidentielle d'au moins 156 opposants à Conakry, en Guinée, le 28 septembre 2009.

Les événements du 3 décembre vont forcer le destin. Ce jour-là, le chef de la junte militaire au pouvoir depuis moins d'un an est victime d'une tentative d'assassinat. Grièvement blessé à la tête, le chef de la junte est envoyé d'urgence vers le Maroc pour y être hospitalisé. Dans la foulée, un diplomate américain en poste à Ouagadougou écrit : "La communauté internationale est d'une façon générale sur la même position. L'absence de Dadis a ouvert une fenêtre d'opportunité pour faciliter une transition démocratique."

"Bien qu'il ait été chassé de la scène violemment plutôt que par des moyens constitutionnels, il serait mieux pour la Guinée qu'il ne rentre pas dans son pays", ajoute l'ambassadrice américaine en poste à Conakry, Patricia Moller, dans un des télégrammes diplomatiques obtenus par WikiLeaks et révélés par Le Monde."
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The Guardian: WikiLeaks cables: Former Croatia PM flees over corruption claims

"The former prime minister who dominated Croatian politics for most of the past decade fled the country today as state prosecutors moved to have him arrested in connection with a major sleaze investigation.

According to cables from the US Zagreb embassy released by WikiLeaks, Ivo Sanader, the centre-right politician who stood down suddenly as prime minister in summer last year, features in several of the corruption cases currently terrorising the Croatian political class.

The country's chief prosecutor told US diplomats in Zagreb this year he had evidence that Sanader had arranged a bank loan for a business crony in return for a kickback."
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Der Spiegel: The Nigeria Report: A Cesspool of Corruption and Crime in the Niger Delta

"The leaked US diplomatic cables reveal just what multinational oil companies are up against in the Niger Delta. Security forces are ineffective and involved in dubious oil deals. The government demands millions in bribes. Even university students have earned pocket money by working as kidnappers.

Bombs used against civilians; millions paid to corrupt officials; and a kidnapping industry that employs students during university vacations: The US diplomatic cables from the Nigerian cities of Abuja and Lagos paint an unusually bleak picture of the situation in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Hardly any of the international oil companies active in the delta publishes production figures, kidnappings and hostage-taking are a daily occurence and the civilian population is suffering -- not least because they too are occasionally targets of the Nigerian Army's special forces."
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The Guardian: WikiLeaks cables: Serbia suspects Russian help for fugitive Ratko Mladić

"Russia may be withholding vital information about the whereabouts of the fugitive Bosnian Serb general and genocide suspect, Ratko Mladić, who faces war crimes charges in The Hague, senior Serbian government officials have privately told American diplomats in Belgrade.

In discussions detailed in a diplomatic cable marked "secret" and sent to Washington by US chargée d'affaires Jennifer Brush in September 2009, Miki [Miodrag] Rakić, chief of staff to the Serbian president, Boris Tadić, tells Brush it remains likely Mladić is hiding somewhere in Serbia.

But Rakić also suggests the fugitive is being assisted by "foreign sources" and hints darkly that Moscow may have better information about Mladić's exact situation than does the Serbian government."
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El Pais: Palomares: 50.000 metros contaminados con plutonio (50,000 sq.meters contaminated with plutonium)

"España y Estados Unidos tienen un problema enquistado desde 1966: el accidente nuclear en Palomares, en el que cuatro bombas atómicas cayeron en la pedanía almeriense. España decidió en 2004 descontaminar la zona e insiste en que EE UU pague parte de la limpieza y se lleve la tierra contaminada con plutonio. Así se lo transmitió el 14 de diciembre de 2009 el entonces ministro de Exteriores, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, a la secretaria de Estado, Hillary Clinton, en Washington. Moratinos reclamó, según un cable confidencial, que Clinton hiciera lo posible "para ayudar desde el punto de vista de la opinión pública española, de la que temió que se volviera en contra de EE UU si se divulgaran los resultados de un reciente estudio sobre la contaminación". Clinton no contestó. El estudio, a cuyas conclusiones ha tenido acceso EL PAÍS pero que no ha sido hecho público, concluye que en Palomares queda medio kilo de plutonio que ha contaminado unos 50.000 metros cúbicos de tierra -el volumen de 27 piscinas olímpicas-."
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The Guardian: WikiLeaks cables cast Hosni Mubarak as Egypt's ruler for life

"Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's long-serving president, is likely to seek re-election next year and will "inevitably" win a poll that will not be free and fair, the US ambassador to Cairo, Margaret Scobey, predicted in a secret cable to Hillary Clinton last year.

Scobey discussed Mubarak's quasi-dictatorial leadership style since he took power in 1981; his critical views of George Bush and American policy in the Middle East; and the highly uncertain prospects for a succession."
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