Revolutionary blogger freed in Egypt

A prominent Egyptian blogger freed by an Egyptian judge on Sunday lambasted the military government and said "nothing has changed" since President Hosni Mubarak was ousted from power in February.

"It's not the end of the case, that I am out. The real criminals, the generals of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, are still at large and they must be tried," said Alaa Abd El-Fattah, whose case is pending further investigation. "I have been released, but there are thousands that remain in prison. "

El-Fattah, who has become a focal point of tensions between protesters and Egypt's military rulers, headed directly to Cairo's Tahrir Square, flanked by dozens of activists. "Down with military rule," the group chanted. "The people want to execute Marshall Tantawi."

Mohamed Hussein Tantawi is field marshal of the supreme council, Egypt's military rulers in the wake of 

former President Hosni Mubarak's ouster in popular protests at the beginning of the year.

Judge Tharwat Hamad, representing the prosecutor's office, ordered El-Fattah's release while authorities look into the clashes where he was arrested in late October.

"He is banned from traveling and no court date has been set yet," said Adel Saeed, official spokesman for the General Prosecutor.

El-Fattah is charged with resisting arrest, inciting violence against the army, killing members of the armed forces, attempting to storm the government TV building, and destroying Armed Forces buildings, Saeed said.

The 29-year-old blogger, who was outspoken for years against Mubarak's regime, was imprisoned October 30 amid battles between the military and pro-democracy protesters struggling to pave a clear path for their ongoing revolution.

El-Fattah refused to answer questions of his interrogators ahead of a military tribunal and was detained originally for 15 days, which was extended for a month until his release.

His sister Mona Seif, featured in a CNN documentary called "iRevolution: Online Warriors Of The Arab Spring," is a prominent activist and founding member of a group lobbying against trying civilians under military tribunals.

"I am so happy," said Seif, who told CNN the whole family was waiting for him outside Cairo's Security Directorate.

"He has been in jail unlawfully for close to two months," Seif said, adding that the family was "glad this judge was decent, unlike the corrupt judges who handled the case before."

Egyptian "Twitteratis" celebrated el-Fattah's release. The hashtag #AlaaisFree started trending globally.

A computer software developer, el-Fattah participated in the January 25 uprisings that toppled Mubarak. 

Since then he has been speaking against the country's military rulers.

The Supreme Council says it will hand over power once a new government is in place. But many protesters fear the military is seeking to maintain a tight grip on the country.

El-Fattah was among the activists who pointed fingers at the military after their attack on a Coptic Christian protest on October 9 that left 27 people dead at the epicenter of the clashes outside Egypt's State TV building known as Maspero.

His detention, along with 27 men charged in the same case, sparked international and local support, as many activists had identified with his work for years.

In June, he founded and moderated " Tweet Nadwa," a discussion based on the rules of Twitter conversations in which attendees raised political questions using only 140 characters.

CNN attended the first such gathering, at which Alaa moderated a topic revolving around Egypt's future, which was broadcast online. The symposium was also held in New York, moderated by Egyptians living in the United States.

El-Fattah has spoken around the world since the toppling of Mubarak, including in Britain, Tunisia, South Africa and the United States. When his family received the prosecutor's order summoning him for questioning last October, he was in San Francisco speaking to university students.

Solidarity protests and sit-ins against his detention took place outside Egyptian embassies. Stencils of his portrait have been sprayed all over the walls of Tahrir Square, labeling him a hero.

His wife Manal had their first baby while he was in prison. They named the boy Khaled, after Khaled Saeed, a man killed by Egyptian police. Saeed's death sparked outrage among the opposition that helped lead to the uprising on January 25, which culminated in Mubarak's ouster February 11.

El-Fattah's family started a Twitter account for the new baby and gave it the handle @Khalaaa, which now has more than 3,000 followers.

When his wife visited him during his incarceration, he gave her a letter addressing Egyptian activists, which was published in a local newspaper.

In it, he said the Supreme Council had "hijacked" the revolution. And he compared his latest imprisonment with the jail time he served in 2006 during Mubarak's era for views he posted on his blog against the regime at the time.

"I never expected to repeat the experience of five years ago," El-Fattah wrote. "After a revolution that deposed the tyrant, I go back to his jails?"

Source: CNNMIDDLEEAST

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'Welcome home,' Obama tells troops from Iraq

President Barack Obama on Wednesday welcomed home returning troops from Iraq, hailing their service to help a people they didn't know as an example of what makes America great.

"As your commander in chief, and on behalf of a grateful nation, I'm proud to finally say these two words, and I know your families agree -- welcome home. Welcome home," Obama told cheering troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

"Welcome home," he repeated again, to enthusiastic applause. "Welcome home."

The U.S. military mission that began in 2003 is ending this month, and Obama used the speech to mark the fulfillment of a campaign pledge he made in 2008 to end the war.

Soldiers return to Ft. Hood from Iraq State Dept. contractors remain in Iraq

Noting the almost 4,500 Americans killed and more than 30,000 injured, Obama spoke of the heavy sacrifice and hard work in the Iraq mission.

"Because of you -- because you sacrificed so much for a people that you had never met, Iraqis have a chance to forge their own destiny," Obama said. "That's part of what makes us special as Americans. Unlike the empires of old, we did so not for territory or for resources. We do it because it's right.

"There can be no fuller expression of America's support for self-determination than our leaving Iraq to its people. That says something about who we are."

Obama also paid tribute to the military families back home, noting their struggles to make ends meet during the years of the Iraqi campaign.

"So today, as we mark the end of the war, let us acknowledge, let us give a heartfelt round of applause for every military family that has carried that load over the last nine years," the president said. "You too have the thanks of a grateful nation."

Conservative critics have opposed Obama's decision to end the U.S. military presence in Iraq, arguing that some American forces should remain to help the Iraqis maintain order.

On Wednesday, Obama's opponent for the presidency in 2008 -- Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona -- noted the president had opposed the troop surge ordered by former President George W. Bush that some credit with helping secure stability.

"For three years, the president has been harvesting the successes of the very strategy that he consistently dismissed as a failure," McCain said on the Senate floor.

Sharply criticizing the decision for a full withdrawal, McCain said history would judge Obama's leadership "with the disdain and scorn it deserves."

In his speech, Obama said the Iraq war was "a source of great controversy here at home, with patriots on both sides of the debate."

"It is harder to end a war than to begin one," the president continued in an apparent response to critics such as McCain.

Noting that Iraq today is not a "perfect place" and faces challenges, Obama said, "We are leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people."

He said, "We are building a new partnership between our nations. And we are ending a war not with a final battle but with a final march toward home."

He credited the efforts of the 1.5 million Americans in Iraq during the war, and said those who served would be honored in perpetuity.

"The war in Iraq will soon belong to history," Obama said. "Your service belongs to the ages."

Obama also pledged continued government support for the military, and for troops and their families after they return to civilian life, even in the face of deficit reduction efforts that threaten deep cuts in the military budget.

"Make no mistake, as we go forward as a nation, we are going to keep America's armed forces the strongest fighting force the world has ever seen. That will not stop," Obama said to cheers and applause, repeating: "That will not stop."

In Washington, a group of conservative Republican senators said Wednesday they intend to propose legislation that would prevent mandated reductions in military spending after a special congressional committee failed to reach a deficit reduction deal last month.

The so-called sequestration trigger under the debt ceiling agreement in August required an additional $600 billion in military cuts because of the special committee's failure to forge a comprehensive deficit deal.

Obama has said he would reject any effort by Congress to avoid the impact of the sequestration trigger, which was included in the debt ceiling deal to motivate legislators to reach agreement on a broader deficit reduction plan.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, challenged Obama to rescind his veto threat, saying deficits can be reduced without "gutting" the military.

Source: CNNWORLD

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U.N. estimates 5,000 killed in Syrian uprising

As explosions and gunfire continued to ripple in Syria, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights on Monday raised the death toll from the Damascus government's crackdown on anti-regime activists to close to 5,000 people.

"This situation is intolerable," Navi Pillay said in a briefing for the U.N. Security Council.

The same day that Pillay spoke, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a resident of Homs -- an opposition hotbed and frequent site of violence in recent months -- reported that a gas pipeline exploded near the city, following by gunfire and circulating military airplanes.

The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, or SANA, played up local elections Monday as an expression of "democracy and free will." Yet the Homs resident said there was no evidence of voting in that city. Instead, this witness reported nonstop shooting and bombardments.

Such violence is nothing new in Syria, with Pillay reporting more than 200 people have died in the last 10 days and "the Syrian population continues to live in fear of further violent repression."

The Syrian government, meanwhile, has consistently blamed the violence on "armed terrorist" gang members and denied any efforts to target peaceful civilians.

CNN cannot independently confirm events because the Syrian government restricts access of international media to the country.

Pillay said Monday that "the nature and scale of abuses" indicate that Syrian forces likely committed "crimes against humanity." Citing reliable sources, she said more than 300 of the dead have been children "killed by state forces."

Several defectors from military and security forces said they got orders "to shoot unarmed protesters without warning," according to Pillay.

"Independent, credible and corroborated accounts demonstrate that these abuses have taken place as part of a widespread and systematic attack on civilians," she said.

Homs has been a regular flash point. As nightfall arrived Monday, many city residents went to bed afraid the steady waves of violence could soon give way to a historic siege.

Opposition figures said the Syrian government had warned people in Homs to stop anti-government protests, hand in weapons and surrender defecting military members by Monday night -- or face attack by government forces.

Syrian forces gave a 72-hour warning, said Lt. Col. Mohamed Hamdo of the Free Syrian Army, an opposition group of defected Syrian military personnel. Activists on the ground said the ultimatum was issued Friday for Homs.

The government has not acknowledged any deadline for Homs in state-run media.

Hamdo said there are concerns about a repeat of what happened in 1982, when Syria's military -- acting under orders from then-President Hafez al-Assad, father of current Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad -- launched an assault on the city of Hama, killing thousands.

"People are very afraid," said Wissam Tarif, a human rights activist in Beirut, Lebanon, with the organization Avaaz, who is in touch with people in Syria.

There are enough troops around Homs "to take over the city," he said, and casualties have been increasing "in very big numbers" over the past couple of days. Hamdo said the military has dug trenches around Homs and largely cut it off.

"There is no electricity, water, and the communication lines are much worse. The food supply is also decreasing, mainly because little food is going in," he said.

The Syrian government denied reports of water and electricity being out in the city, according to a SANA report.

In fact, besides a story about seven "army, security and police martyrs" being buried Monday, state-run media did not report much on such dire conditions or violence.

Rather, state TV painted a picture of normalcy, with reports of local elections under way across the country.

SANA noted that more than 3,000 candidates are vying for seats in the Homs region alone. It billed the elections as part of the "process of building institutions, promoting democracy and achieving the comprehensive reform process led by President Bashar al-Assad."

Activist groups, though, offered a different story.

The Local Coordination Committees of Syria, a network of opposition activists in the country, said Monday the Syrian army and security forces killed 21 people, including four women and three children. Thirteen of the deaths were in Homs, three were in Hama, three in Damascus suburbs and two in Idlib.

And fierce clashes broke out between security forces and defectors in the cities of Daraa and Idlib, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which collects information from people in different parts of the country.

Hamdo, from the Free Syrian Army said, "We conducted an operation late last night against the Syrian forces in Idlib and killed eight of them and injured 22. Two of our men are critically injured."

He also said Syrian forces were conducting mass arrests of shop owners who shut their stores Sunday as part of a nationwide anti-government strike.

The Syrian government, via SANA, on Sunday quoted people saying there was no strike and no sign of a strike.

The last nine months has seen a steady stream of clashes, amid reported government push-back against activists demanding democratic elections and the end of al-Assad's regime. Al-Assad has been in power since 2000; his father ruled Syria for three decades.

World leaders and diplomats have widely condemned Syria's crackdown and called on it to halt violence against the opposition.

The Arab League announced it will hold emergency meetings this week in Cairo. In a statement on Egypt's state-run MENA news agency, an Arab League official said leaders will "discuss the Arab response to a message from Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem to approve the signing of an agreement on an Arab League observing mission to Syria with conditions."

Pillay's report especially drew strong responses from representative countries' ambassadors to the United Nations.

Britain's ambassador, Mark Lyall Grant, called it "the most horrifying briefing that we've had in the Security Council over the last two years," citing the thousands of deaths and "tens of thousands of detentions, rapes, torture (and) violations of abuses right across the system by the Syrian regime.

German Ambassador Peter Wittig said his country is "shocked and appalled" by the U.N. human rights branch's view of the situation, calling it "unbearable" that the Security Council appears "condemned to remain silent on Syria."

"We share the assessment that the Syrian security forces have committed crimes against humanity this year," he said. "And we believe that the Syrian authorities have failed their international obligations of human rights law."

Source: CNNMIDDLEEAST

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Donald makes golf history with Race to Dubai success

Luke Donald has won the 2011 Race to Dubai title to become the first golfer in history to top the money list in both Europe and the United States in the same calendar year.

Englishman Donald needed to finish in the top nine of the season-ending Dubai World Championship at the Jumeirah Golf Estates on Sunday to add the European title to the PGA Tour crown he secured last month.

And he achieved that target comfortably, carding three birdies in his final six holes to shoot a second successive six-under-par 66 -- the joint best round of the day -- for a 72-hole total of 272 (-16).

Tiger holds no terror for golf's new world order

That was enough to come home third in the 58-strong field, three shots adrift of tournament winner Alvaro Quiros of Spain, who held his nerve to post a five-under 67 for a two-stroke success over Scotland's Paul Lawrie.

Prior to the tournament, only Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy could have prevented Donald from making history, meaning the top two ranked players in the world were fighting it out for European golf's top prize.

World number two McIlroy, who came into the tournament in sparkling form after winning the Hong Kong Open the previous week, needed to win in Dubai and hope Donald finished outside the top nine.

But Donald's third-placed finish meant McIlroy could not overtake his Ryder Cup team-mate no matter what he achieved -- and in the end he finished joint 11th, 10 strokes off the pace, after a third round of 71 in a row.

Donald's year has been a model of consistency, with the 34-year-old winning four times this season, twice on each tour, as well as picking up a host of placed finishes along the way.

He began his season by winning February's WGC-Accenture Match Play title in Arizona, before the pivotal moment in May when he defeated Lee Westwood in a play-off in the European Tour's flagship BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth -- taking Westwood's No.1 ranking in the process.

Donald continued that form into July with a four-stroke success in the Scottish Open at Castle Stuart.

And he effectively secured the PGA Tour title with a two-shot win in October's Children's Miracle Network Classic at Disneyland.

Despite his astonishing success this year, Donald has also suffered heartache in 2011 following the sudden death of his father, and the world number one spoke emotionally following his victory.

Donald told the official European Tour website: "My father would have been very proud and he would just give me a big hug. He hopped into my head quite a few times over the closing stretch."

He continued: "I didn't look at the leaderboard until the 13th hole, but didn't see Rory's name up there so I knew the title was mine."

Including his $1.5m bonus for winning the Race to Dubai, Donald's total earnings from Europe alone this year are $7.143m, with McIlroy collecting $5.35m in second place and last year's winner, Martin Kaymer of Germany, third on $4.67m.

Meanwhile, Quiros finished sixth in the Race to Dubai standings after his second win of the season, following his Dubai Desert Classic success, and sixth of his career.

Quiros had begun his final round two strokes clear of Lawrie, but the former British Open champion had turned things around and was one stroke ahead at the turn.

Going into the final hole, the pair were level. However, Lawrie could only par, while a spectacular eagle putt on the 18th green ensured Quiros ended the season with a prize fund of $3.02m.

Source: CNNSPORTS

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Inside Cairo's desert ghost towns

An hour or so drive from the chaotic and congested streets of downtown Cairo is a very different world.

Thousands of pristine new buildings -- many only half-built -- often within gated compounds are surrounded by miles of barren desert.

New Cairo is one of a handful of "satellite cities" that are being developed in the desert about 40 kilometers from the city center.

The landscape is far from conventionally beautiful, but attracted the attention of a British photographer Jason Larkin who spent two years chronicling the developments.

Cairo's satellite cities have been developed on-and-off for 30 years, but a recent building boom has slowed since the fall of president Hosni Mubarak in February.

Larkin became interested after the American University of Cairo moved to a new campus in New Cairo in 2008.

"I started to hear from students who were alarmed to find themselves in the middle of the desert," he said. "I 

wanted to look for myself and was struck by the environment.

"They were pristine buildings but with completely barren surroundings. You can't get there by public transport. I realized it had so little of what a city needs."

Larkin spent two years photographing Cairo's satellite cities and their construction sites.

He said: "There were many projects I never saw any work on: Half-finished construction sites where people with big ideas had run out of money.

"Others have been halted because of disputes and allegations of corruption over the sale of the land."

Larkin added: "Of all the areas I photographed, I would say 80% were not occupied."

For centuries, the population of Cairo -- now 10.9 million, according to the CIA World Factbook -- was confined to a narrow strip of fertile land along the River Nile. In 1969 a development plan was launched to expand Greater Cairo into the surrounding deserts, according to a 2009 report by U.N. Habitat, the United Nations agency for human settlements

Mohamed Elshahed, a doctoral student who started a blog,Cairobserver, on the city's architecture and urban planning, has also taken an interest in satellite cities.

He said the gated compounds of villas for the wealthy currently being built were opposite to the initial intention of satellite cities.

Elshahed said: "The development of satellite cities has gone through several false starts. The initial idea in the 1970s was to respond to the housing crisis and create budget or social housing projects. The problem was that the poorest can't afford to live so far away without transport to bring them to work.

"This initial phase was a complete failure and mostly remained vacant. There were further attempts in the 1990s. Now we are seeing a reverse of the initial idea and they are exclusively high-end developments."

Ehshahed said the gated compounds were being developed at the expense of preserving the historic city center.

"There's no recognition of Cairo's architectural heritage and history," he said. "It's as if we're living in Dubai, but this isn't Dubai, it's a city that's been around for 1,000 years."

Elshahed added: "The center of the city is deteriorating and the rich don't want to be there anymore. They can afford to live outside the city and cut themselves off."

However, Elshahed said that despite having a combined population estimated at 1.5 million, the satellite cities had failed to ease the overcrowding of Cairo.

He said: "The satellite cities are not working for many reasons. The main reason is that a housing bubble was created in the last five-to-eight years without the demand to fill them, leaving a lot of empty homes in the desert.

"Plus a lot of people who can afford these types of houses, already have second or third homes, so they are empty most of the time and it does nothing to help the housing crisis.

"There has been a government policy that this type of development is a positive sign of progress and is to be encouraged, but that is very superficial because they are not really helping anyone."

Elshahed said the main cities with names such as 6 October and 15 May, as well as New Cairo, were each made up of many individual developments, some a further 15 or 20 minutes drive into the desert.

Working with the Cairo-based journalist Jack Shenker, Larkin produced a 6,000-word photo essay on satellite cities, called Cairo Divided, in English and Arabic, available for only the cost of postage and packing.

"We had 5,000 copies printed and have had phenomenal interest from people interested in urban development, Cairo itself, or global cities generally."

Source: CNNMIDDLEEAST

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Attack on shrine signals new nexus of Afghan strife

The deadly attack in Kabul on Shi'ite worshippers celebrating the feast of Ashura adds one more layer to the country's overlapping security crises. And they evoke violent sectarian rivalries in Iraq and Pakistan, where animosity between Sunni and Shia runs deep. Afghanistan has its own cultural rifts -- between ethnic Pashtun and Tajik, for example -- but it's rare to see such an explosion of religiously motivated violence.

Kate Clark, with the Afghan Analysts Network in Kabul, described the attack as "a real shock."

"Whatever else has happened in the past 30 years we haven't had this sort of sectarian attack aimed at killing lots of people," she told CNN by phone from the Afghan capital.

The first claim of responsibility for the bombing in the Afghan capital has come from a militant Sunni group in Pakistan with a history of sectarian attacks against Shia. A man identifying himself as a spokesman for Lashkar-e-Janghvi al Almi, a group with links to al Qaeda and the Pakistan Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack in a call to Radio Mashaal, a Pashto-language station in Pakistan sponsored by the United States government. A similar call was reportedly made to the BBC's Urdu-language service.

The group is an offshoot of the powerful Lashkar-e-Janghvi (LeJ), which has a record of high-profile suicide bombings in Pakistan, including the attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in 2008. Al-Almi's most destructive attack to date was a double suicide bombing in northwest Pakistan last year. The bombers -- wearing burkas -- killed 42 people belonging to tribes that opposed the Pakistan Taliban, also known for its antipathy toward Shia.

If the claim by Al-Almi proves valid, it would not surprise some Afghan Shia, who were quick to point the finger at some form of Pakistani involvement in the attacks Tuesday.

LeJ has a long history of targeting the Hazara Shia community in Pakistan. The Hazara are numerous in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, and make up much of Afghanistan's Shia minority. They have endured decades of persecution in both countries, and Sunni militants have frequently painted then as collaborators with occupying powers.

This year, apparently in retaliation for the killing of Osama bin Laden, LeJ gunned down several Hazara in Quetta, capital of Balochistan province and also home to the Afghan Taliban's political leadership. In a subsequent open letter, the LeJ warned: "We will rid Pakistan of [this] unclean people. Pakistan means land of the pure, and the Shias have no right to be here."

In October, Sunni militants killed dozens more Hazara. In one instance, they stopped a bus of Shia pilgrims on their way to Iran from Pakistani Balochistan and shot dead 26 male passengers in front of their families.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has not been obviously active in Afghanistan since it maintained training camps there during Taliban rule in the 1990s. But other Sunni militants -- especially factions among the Pakistani Taliban -- have established a presence in some Afghan border provinces. And regional analysts perceive fluid links, contacts and cross-fertilization between the myriad groups operating in the Afghan-Pakistan border region.

The Taliban were quick to disown and condemn the attacks. Kate Clark says that while she is circumspect about the Taliban's denial, such an attack would be at odds with the Taliban leadership's claim to be a national movement -- and is not part of a pattern of such attacks by the group.

Clark also points out that Mullah Omar in his Eid message last month urged Taliban fighters to "protect the lives, wealth and honor of ordinary people." That being said, 80 percent of all civilian deaths in Afghanistan are attributed to the armed opposition; and orders from the Quetta Shura, as the leadership is known, are only patchily enforced by field commanders. The Taliban are not a monolith, as one Afghan observer puts it, and it is possible that at local level there may have been collaboration between a Taliban operative and LeJ.

The Taliban have not played the sectarian card since becoming an insurgency. But when in power in the 1990s they brutally persecuted Afghanistan's Hazara community. Human Rights Watch documented two massacres of Hazara in 2000 and 2001 by Taliban forces. And after capturing Mazar e Sharif in 1998, Taliban fighters killed hundreds of Hazara in retaliation for the mass execution of its own soldiers the previous year.

Since the overthrow of the Taliban, Afghanistan's Hazara have prospered -- in higher education, the government and the military and they have embraced new democratic processes. The annual Ashura celebration in Kabul has become more elaborate. That may have been temptation enough for the Hazaras' enemies.

If the bombings on Tuesday were an attempt to sow sectarian strife in Afghanistan, they most obviously imitate al Qaeda in Iraq, which when led by Abu Musab al Zarqawi tried to ignite a sectarian war between Sunnis and the country's Shi'ite majority in a series of attacks aimed at holy Shi'ite occasions and shrines.

 Read the latest on the attacks and the cancellation of Karzai's trip

Kate Clark of the Afghan Analysts Network believes that in Afghanistan restraint will prevail. Hazara leaders have already called on their community to remain calm and not to take the bait offered by these attacks. On all sides, Clark says, there is a realization that sectarian conflict is a no-win situation in which tit-for-tat attacks would claim hundreds of lives.

 

Source: CNNWORLD

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U.N. rights council condemns Syrian abuses

The U.N. Human Rights Council decried a wide range of human rights violations in Syria on Friday and called for U.N. bodies to consider a recent report detailing the abuses and take" appropriate action."

The council passed a resolution that "strongly condemns the continued widespread, systematic and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities, such as arbitrary executions, excessive use of force and the killing and persecution of protesters, human rights defenders and journalists, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment, including against children."

There were 37 yes votes, four against and six abstentions at the meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. The group convened to consider action against Syria after a troubling report issued Monday by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry, a body appointed by the council. That report concluded security and military forces "committed crimes against humanity" against civilians.

The resolution recommends that U.N. bodies "urgently consider" the commission report and "take appropriate action."

The group decided to send the Commission of Inquiry report to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "for appropriate action and transmission to all U.N. relevant bodies."

It backs "efforts to protect the population of the Syrian Arab Republic and to bring an immediate end to gross human rights violations." And, it urged Syria "to protect its population" and "to immediately put an end to all human rights violations."

The resolution also decided "to establish a mandate of a Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Syria and urges Syria to cooperate with it.

Before the resolution was adopted, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told the council Syria faces a "full-fledged civil war" if the regime's "continual ruthless repression" against peaceful demonstrators and civilians isn't stopped now.

She noted with concern the reports of "increased armed attacks by the opposition forces, including the so-called Free Syrian army, against the Syrian military and security apparatus."

"In light of the manifest failure of the Syrian authorities to protect their citizens, the international community needs to take urgent and effective measures to protect the Syrian people," Pillay said.

"The United Nations secretary-general has urged the international community to act as one and take action in a collective and decisive manner to protect the Syrian people against the violations of their human rights and fundamental freedoms. All acts of murder, torture and other forms of violence must be stopped immediately. "

The government crackdown began in mid-March as popular discontent against ruling powers spread across the Arab world. The regime of President Bashar al-Assad has blamed the violence on armed gangs.

Pillay said "more than 4,000 people have reportedly been killed, thousands have been arrested, and more than 14,000 are reported to be in detention as a result of the crackdown." She said many have had to flee their homes, at least 12,400 to neighboring countries and "tens of thousands" internally.

Among those killed, she said, are 307 children. That prompted a reaction from the U.N. Children's Fund, which said it is "greatly disturbed by the confirmed reports of violent attacks on children in Syria."

"These include acts of killings, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, imprisonment, or other forms of severe deprivation of liberty and enforced disappearances throughout the country since March of this year," she said.

Even though it was denied access into Syria, the Commission of Inquiry interviewed "223 victims and witnesses, including military and security forces who had defected and testified to the role of Syrian forces in the use of lethal violence against peaceful protests. "

The council resolution also called on Syrian authorities "to fully cooperate with the Office of the High Commissioner, including through the establishment of a field presence" in Syria.

Russia, China, Cuba and Ecuador voted against the resolution. Uganda, Philippines, India, Cameroon, Bangladesh, and Angola abstained.

Among the countries voting for the resolution were Western nations like the United States and Italy and Syria's fellow Arab nations of Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.

Alastair Burt, the UK Foreign Office minister for the Middle East, called the council's vote "extremely significant." He noted international efforts to put pressure on the Syrian government. The Arab League, Turkey, the European Union, and the United States are imposing sanctions on Syrian people and entities.

"I welcome the strong action taken by the Council, and the hard-hitting resolution which it passed today by a very large majority. The resolution supports the Arab League's efforts to end the bloodshed in Syria and lays out exactly why the EU and U.N. General Assembly have taken such robust measures. It sends a very strong signal from countries across the world, including Arab partners, that they utterly condemn the horrific violations perpetrated by the Assad regime, and will continue to increase pressure on it. Today's resolution adds to the mounting pressure which the international community is bringing to bear on Syria."

Pillay told CNN that sanctions by neighboring states are "very important." She also noted that Russia had called "on the Syrian government to address these serious violations and to stop them."

"That's an important voice. What I'm looking for is pressure building up on all sides," she said.

Syrian activists reported assaults by security personnel Friday. The Local Coordination Committees of Syria said at least nine people were killed on Friday, including a child and a woman. There were three fatalities in Homs, two in both Latakia and Daraa, and one each in Hama and Idlib, the group said.

CNN is unable to independently confirm events occurring inside Syria because the government does not allow journalists free access to the country.

Source: CNNWORLD

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Egypt awaits election results

Initial results of Egypt's first parliamentary elections since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak are due as early as Thursday.

The Muslim Brotherhood and the Al Noor Salafi Muslim Party -- both Islamist parties -- claimed a lead in ballot counting, but election officials have been tight-lipped about any results.

Voting took place Monday and Tuesday, the first in a multi-step process to pick members of the lower house of Parliament.

Those lawmakers will then be tasked with drafting a new constitution.

It was the first time some Egyptians -- young and old -- had ever cast ballots after three decades of rule under Mubarak, who was ousted in February after weeks of protests.

Some voters and human rights activists expressed hope that their votes will actually count, though some boycotted the elections saying they don't trust the voting will be free and fair.

There were reports of some illegal campaigning taking place, with the Egyptian Association of Human Rights alleging some cases of vote-buying in the city of Alexandria.

Elections for Egypt's lower house of Parliament are scheduled to take place in three stages, based on geography. The last of the three stages is set to take place in January.

Upper house elections will run between January and March.

Presidential elections will be held by June, according to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Egypt's acting ruling body. Military leaders have said they will hand over power to a new government when one is elected, but many Egyptians say they don't trust the council and fear the military will cling to power.

During the past two weeks, at least 42 people have been killed in clashes, as protesters called for an immediate end to military rule. An additional 3,250 have been wounded, according to the Health Ministry.

Source: CNNWORLD

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Hope on Egypt's hair-raising road toward democracy

Egypt is on the roller-coaster of transition. It's a bumpy and hair-raising ride to a destination unknown. But the country is moving. And in that, there's hope.

In Tahrir Square last Friday, I was struck by the carnival atmosphere: Vendors sold candied apples and baked yams; young boys hawked red, white and-black hats and flags; a crowd gathered to watch cartoonists chalk an oversized military general dressed as Santa Claus. Activists of all political shades shouted poetry and enthusiastic speeches, leading crowds in chanting: "The people want the end of the military regime!" "The people want a civilian regime!" "We are all one!"

But by Saturday, Tahrir Square had become a battleground. Crowds shrunk to die-hards throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, while security forces volleyed tear gas and rubber bullets. From the 18th floor of the locked-down Intercontinental hotel (a barrage of tear gas having abruptly aborted my attempt to speak to those at the edges of the square), I watched as the square cleared out, battles moved to side streets, and then the atmosphere turned quiet.

Briefly. Demonstrators regrouped. Political leaders across the spectrum aired televised condemnation of the police and support for the protesters. And people started streaming again through the streets, across a nearby bridge, and back into the square. It was a sight reminiscent of the nail-biting days of January.

With such off-and-on violence, and rising numbers of dead and injured, some may wonder if democracy is worth it -- or even possible.

Many Egyptians are no longer as beamingly optimistic as they were last spring. Then, they dreamed of blooming democracy and booming economies. Today, they want stability.

Tourism has slowed to a trickle, and taxi drivers, hotel workers and souvenir vendors shake their heads at the demonstrators. Capital is fleeing, and foreign reserves drying up.

As people speak their minds, many others -- from liberals to conservatives — feel uneasy.

Large numbers of bearded men and covered women, demanding a regime based on Sharia law, frighten Christians and Muslims alike. Clashes between Coptic Christians and Muslims create fear that religious strife will rend Egypt's multireligious society. And women especially worry that their freedoms are at stake.

Liberals, far less numerous, can also be intimidating. Many in Egypt believe they do not understand or accept "real" Egyptian society and threaten to corrupt it. Last month, a female blogger posted nude pictures of herself and others in a sensational appeal to expand freedom of expression. It led many to complain that too much freedom would corrupt Egyptian society.

Anger against America and Israel also worry many. A 20-something Egyptian, working for a foreign corporation in Egypt, pulled me aside in Tahrir Square to explain that former President Hosni Mubarak had known where to draw the line. These people, he exclaimed, gesturing to those around him, don't understand the hadud, or limits. Like others, he said he worries they would trade Egypt's welfare for the Palestinians' cause.

But even amid conflict and uncertainty, there's hope. Egyptians who desperately want to escape from nearly 60 years of military-backed authoritarian rule have what it takes to do so.

Egyptian nationalism is strong. Airwaves are filled with nationalist songs, and Egyptian flags abound. Friday's calls to end the military regime mingled with expressions of nationalism. Huge crowds chanted in unison: "Christians and Muslims, we're all Egyptians, we are all one," and, most directly, "Ana Masri!" ("I am Egyptian!")

There is also strong respect for elections. At Tahrir Square, parties and candidates took advantage of the gathering to distribute pamphlets and urge demonstrators to vote for pro-revolutionary forces. And even with the descent into violence, forces across the political spectrum have urged elections to begin as scheduled.

Debates are intense. Egyptians in the square hotly contested the nature of the Egyptian military and goals for the future. The Salafi Hizb al-Nur ("Party of Light") called for a regime based on Sharia law; the Popular Front appealed to secular nationalism; and the Muslim Brotherhood demanded a civilian, democratic regime with respect and freedoms for all. As one in Friday's crowd argued, many Egyptians may need to develop respect for diverging opinions. Yet this is true in many nascent democracies.

Political forces also are well-organized. The Muslim Brothers not only can bring people onto the streets, but also send them home when the time is right. They were critical in rallying crowds last week, where they maintained a space for women to avoid being crushed and jostled by men and a pathway for demonstrators to navigate the crowd. And they were instrumental in returning crowds to Tahrir late Saturday night.

Other forces, too, are gaining strength. In fact, Tuesday's crowds -- despite the Brothers' refusal to participate in the demonstrations -- show that others, too, can mobilize forces.

With a strong sense of nationalism, hotly contested debates, a belief in electoral democracy and organized political forces, Egypt has what it takes to form democracy. It just won't be easy or fast.

Source: CNNWORLD

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Syria faces Friday deadline to avoid Arab League sanctions

Syria has until Friday to agree to let Arab League observers into the country to monitor the government's response to civil unrest or else face economic sanctions from its neighbors, a senior Arab League diplomat said Thursday.

Syria's membership in the 22-country Arab League was suspended this month after President Bashar al-Assad's regime ignored demands to end its crackdown on citizens.

"If they do not comply, then the league's economic body will file a report to the foreign ministers of the league who will meet on Sunday to vote on the economic sanctions to be implemented," said the diplomat, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the negotiations with Syria.

If Syria agrees by the Friday deadline, then the league will send a delegation to Damascus to discuss details of the observer mission before the team goes, the diplomat said.

At least 29 people died Thursday in clashes with security forces, the Local Coordination Committees of Syria (LCC) activist group said, all but one of them in the province of Homs.

Another activist group, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported earlier that at least 11 Syrian military defectors were shot dead and four injured during clashes with regular Syrian army units in the area. A further 73 civilians were arrested in Homs province Thursday, the group said.

A campaign of raids and arrests is also taking place in the Damascus suburb of Domeir, the Qalet Mudeeq neighborhood in Hama, and Baniyas, the LCC said.

Funerals were held Thursday for 12 army, police and security forces personnel, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported. The 12 had been targeted by "armed terrorist groups" while on duty in the Damascus, Homs and Hama areas, the news agency said.

The United Nations says more than 3,500 people have been killed in the government's eight-month crackdown on pro-democracy protests.

Al-Assad has resisted mounting calls for his resignation as president in recent weeks as international outcry over the Syrian violence has intensified.

On Tuesday, the humanitarian committee of the U.N. General Assembly voted by a large majority to condemn the violence in Syria and express its support for the Arab League initiative.

It was the first resolution on Syria's crackdown to be approved at the United Nations.

Protesters in Syria are demanding al-Assad's ouster and democratic elections. He has been in power since 2000, following his father, Hafez, who ruled Syria for three decades.

Syria's government has said it is fighting armed terrorists, and it maintains that the death toll is much lower than international observers and opposition groups say.

Source: CNNWORLD

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Egypt battles show revolution's unfinished business

When Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down in February, tens of thousands packed into Cairo's Tahrir Square to declare victory and a new beginning. Nine months later, thousands have returned to the same spot, calling for something similar: the resignation of the country's military leadership.

The violence once again gripping the Egyptian capital shows that the uprising the world watched months ago was only a step on a long road, analysts said Monday.

"The revolution is unfinished," said Samer Shehata, an Egypt expert with Georgetown University.

Robin Wright of the U.S. Institute of Peace said Egypt's uprising is in "phase two" -- and highlights a broad reality of the so-called Arab Spring.

"This is far more complicated than simply ousting a single leader," she said. "This is about creating a whole new order in the region."

Protesters are standing up against the military rulers who officially took over after Mubarak's ouster.

After having held a great deal of power under Mubarak, the military openly took control.

Military leaders have said they will transfer power to an elected government. But while the complex electoral process is set to begin with next week's parliamentary elections, the presidential vote could be a year away.

Egyptian Cabinet resigns amid protests, violence

Protesters say they fear that the entrenched military, which served under Mubarak, is working to maintain a grip on society.

While protests have been common in Egypt in recent weeks, the tensions have boiled over since Saturday with clashes between security forces and protesters.

Four days later, the demonstrators showed no signs of letting down after violence that had left 24 people dead and at least 1,700 wounded, according to Health Ministry spokesman Dr. Adil al-Dawi. About 100 police officers and conscripts, meanwhile, had been hurt, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.

Many in the streets are furious about a proposed constitutional change that would shield the military's budget from scrutiny by civilian powers. They say they worry the military would be shaped as a state within a state.

"The real question is the role of the military in Egypt," said Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland and the Brookings Institution.

"A lot of the segments of society -- the forces behind the revolution -- want that to be decided now rather than later," he said.

Mistrust of the military has expanded in recent months, he said. In the earlier days after Mubarak's ouster, the military "was careful" to give demonstrators "enough to defuse" tensions, Telhami said. But military rulers "have grown far more confident over the past three months" and less responsive to demands, he said.

The protesters appear to want their voices heard now to ensure the military does not avoid civilian oversight.

"I think that this is undoubtedly a defining moment," Telhami said.

Last week, Telhami released the results of a survey, conducted in October, that found 43% of Egyptians believe military rulers are working to slow or reverse gains of the revolution, while 21% say military rulers want to advance those gains.

Georgetown's Shehata said the opposition is divided over the electoral process ahead. Some elements want elections to proceed as scheduled, while others say they don't trust the process to be free of military influence, and that any elections now would be farcical.

"The revolution has been subverted by the military," Shehata said.

Egypt can build a functioning democracy and "has the institutions necessary for democracy," he said.

"It's not that (the Egyptian people) are incapable of being democratic. It's that the forces that are opposed to them right now have the guns."

Wright said the confrontation under way in Cairo "has been looming for a long time because the military has refused to follow through on its own promises to facilitate Egypt's transition to democracy."

Military rulers extended martial law and pushed back presidential elections, while implementing a parliamentary electoral system that "may rank as the most complicated in the world -- and is ripe for manipulation," she said. "And it has tried critics of its actions in military courts."

She added, "The military's moves to try to quell the phase two of Egypt's uprising -- whether through the use of force or tepid and unconvincing political compromises -- only make the situation more combustible."

The events in Egypt serve as a reminder that protest movements in other Arab nations are still "in an early phase," Wright said. "There's a lot more turmoil ahead."

Source: CNNWORLD

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