Doctors twice use defibrillator on Egypt's Mubarak

CAIRO (AP) -- Doctors used a defibrillator twice on Hosni Mubarak when they could not find a pulse Monday, the latest health crisis for the ousted Egyptian president since he was sentenced to life and moved to a prison hospital nine days ago, security officials said.

The officials said the 84-year-old Mubarak was slipping in and out of consciousness and was being fed liquids intravenously. Mubarak also lost consciousness several times Sunday and officials have said he is suffering from high blood pressure, depression and breathing difficulties.

Mubarak's health scare adds one more layer to Egypt's turbulent political scene with a runoff vote to choose his successor a few days away. His death would bring down the curtain on a chapter of Egypt's modern history that has divided this mainly Muslim nation of 85 million people.

His 29 years in power are the second longest by any Egyptian ruler since the 19th century, when the Ottoman general Mohammed Ali ruled the country for about 44 years ending with his death in 1849. While Mohammed Ali went down in history as the founder of modern Egypt, Mubarak's rule has been defined by corruption, police brutality and the behind-the-scenes rise to power by a coterie of regime-backed businessmen.

More than a year after a popular uprising swept him from office, Mubarak's legacy lives on. The last prime minister to serve under him will go head-to-head in the June 16-17 election against a candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, the fundamentalist group that Mubarak spent most of his years in power cracking down on.

The candidacy of former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, like Mubarak a career air force officer, is widely seen as an attempt by the old regime to hang on to power in the face of the revolutionary groups that engineered the uprising and the Brotherhood, whose candidate is U.S.-trained engineer Mohammed Morsi.

Mubarak has been held in the intensive care ward of Torah prison hospital south of Cairo since June 2, when he was convicted of failing to prevent the killing of protesters in the uprising that forced him from office in February 2011. He was sentenced to life in prison.

His two sons, onetime heir apparent Gamal and wealthy businessman Alaa, were at his side, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The sons also are being held at the prison, awaiting trial on insider trading charges after they and their father were acquitted June 2 of corruption charges.

Mubarak's wife, Suzanne, visited him Sunday and, according to the officials, demanded that he be transferred to a better-equipped hospital outside the penal system. The officials said such a transfer was likely unless Mubarak's health improves.

In his last public appearance at his June 2 sentencing, the bedridden Mubarak sat stone-faced in the defendants' cage in the courtroom, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses. Officials said he broke into tears when he learned he was being transferred to a prison. It took officials hours to convince him to leave the helicopter that ferried him from the courthouse to the prison.

Media reports quoted Mubarak at the time as saying the military council who took over after his ouster had deceived him. "Egypt has sold me out. They want me to die here," he reportedly said.

Israel to decide on settlement university

JERUSALEM (AP) -- In the fraught atmosphere of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, an approaching decision on whether to award coveted university status to a college has taken on powerful political overtones.

For critics of Israel's policy of settling Jews in the West Bank, the upgrade of the "Ariel University Center of Samaria" into a permanent university would be a strong signal of what they say is creeping annexation of the hilly territory.

For its supporters, upgrading the institution will be a crowning jewel of the government's commitment to holding the West Bank, the heartland of biblical Judaism, captured by Israel along with east Jerusalem in the 1967 war.

"Most dramatically, this has a symbolic significance that no settlement has," said political scientist Yaron Ezrahi of Hebrew University. "It's an attempt to legitimize the occupation."

Of Israel's more than 120 Jewish settlements, Ariel holds special significance.

With 19,000 people, it is one of the largest settlements built on occupied territory claimed by the Palestinians. Positioned deep in the West Bank, its removal is seen as essential to the viability of a future Palestinian state, since annexing it to Israel would also take a significant wedge of land with it to connect with Israel proper.

But its huge population and developed infrastructure, including a theater, sports complex and four-lane highway, would make it extraordinarily difficult to uproot. An upgrade to the college would give a symbolic depth to the feeling of permanence.

"Ariel is here to stay. There's no reason to treat it differently from Tel Aviv," said settler leader Naftali Bennett. "Long ago, it should have become a university."

A government committee headed by the education minister is expected to decide next month on the upgrade.

The Ariel institution has operated for 30 years in some form, ultimately growing into a college of some 12,500 students. It is open to all Israeli citizens, including Arabs. But like other Israeli universities, it is closed to the 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank.

The school was given temporary university status five years ago, according to school officials, with a July 15, 2012, deadline to make a decision on giving it permanent recognition. In the meantime, its faculty was tasked with proving that it could produce university-worthy education.

Permanent status would give the institution access to additional state funding and allow more collaborative work with other Israeli universities. Most critically, though, it would be a symbolic victory in the school's struggle for recognition.

Israel Education Minister Gideon Saar favors the upgrade, according to his spokeswoman, Lital Apter-Yotzer. She said he would support the application as long as it meets academic requirements and doesn't take away existing funding for the country's other universities.

"From the academic point of view, we are eligible to get permanent status as a university," Yigal Cohen-Orgad, the school's dean, said proudly.

But the decision will not rest on academic considerations alone: An upgrade would likely trigger international condemnations and enrage the Palestinians.

Most of the international community considers the settlements illegitimate and a chief obstacle to Palestinian statehood.

"Any step of this kind would be a further consolidation of illegal settlements," said Palestinian spokesman Ghassan Khatib.

Settlements are at the heart of the current impasse in Mideast peace efforts. Talks broke down more than three years ago, and the Palestinians have refused to return to negotiations while Israel continues expanding its settlements. More than 500,000 Israelis now live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, claimed by the Palestinians.

Joining Israeli academia would put the Ariel school in some prominent company. All but one of Israel's eight universities rank in the world's top 500, according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities, a respected ranking service.

But some, including professors at other Israeli universities, fear it will tarnish Israeli academia and perhaps jeopardize international funding, staff and research exchanges.

Pro-Palestinian activists say if the institution is recognized, they will push harder than ever for a boycott of Israeli academia by firmly demonstrating links between the country's military occupation and academia.

The symbolism of a university, the activists say, is more powerful than a mere college.

"It will open the doors even more widely to the general boycott of Israel and all its institutions that are part of its system of oppression," said Omar Bargouti, a Palestinian activist in the global movement to promote boycotts and sanctions against Israel.

The movement's chief concrete success so far was to influence the University of Johannesburg in South Africa to cut its institutional agreements to Israel's Ben Gurion University in March 2011. It has also promoted boycott debates onto Western campuses.

A petition condemning the upgrade plans drew some 1,000 signatures from Israeli academics, said Nir Gov, associate professor of chemical physics at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science, and a sharp critic of Israel's policies against Palestinians.

Academics fear tens of millions of dollars of European and U.S. research grants might be at stake if they are compelled to work with a future Ariel University.

They cite the case of Israeli theater companies that were forced to perform in Ariel's year-old theater. At that time, hundreds of artists protested against the move, saying they did not agree with Israel's settlement policy. The culture minister responded by threatening to cut the funds of any theater company that did not comply.

The European Union will not fund projects based out of West Bank settlements, said EU spokesman David Kriss. A U.S. spokesperson did not comment.

Even if there is no official boycott, Israeli academics may be less likely to be accepted at international conferences, their scholarly articles could be rejected, and so could their applications for sabbaticals in prestigious universities abroad, said Menahem Klein, political science professor at Bar Ilan University.

"Of course it will not happen overnight," Klein said. "It might take a few years, but ... it may lead to very bad consequences for Israeli universities. This will make a connection between academia and occupation."

Taliban kill 4 French troops in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- A Taliban suicide bomber disguised as a woman and wearing a burqa blew himself up in a market in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing four French troops, officials said.

The French forces were responding to a report of a bomb planted under a bridge in the main market area of Kapisa province's Nijrab district when the bomber walked up to them and detonated his explosives, said Qais Qadri, a spokesman for the provincial government.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in an email.

France's defense ministry confirmed the nationality of the dead and said another five French troops were wounded in blast. The ministry said they were on an operation supporting the Afghan army but did not provide details.

Qadri said four Afghan civilians were also wounded.

The Kapisa bombing was the second deadly attack on NATO troops reported on Saturday. NATO forces said earlier in the day that a service member was killed in a bomb attack in the east. A spokesman for the international coalition, Maj. Martyn Crighton, said the attacks were not related and happened in different parts of the east.

The latest deaths bring to 13 the number of international troops killed in June. So far this year, 189 international service members have been killed in Afghanistan.

France has said it plans to pull its 3,300 troops out of Afghanistan by the end of the year, well before the 2014 goal for the majority of NATO combat troops to have left the country. Kapisa province has been a particularly deadly posting for French troops. In January, an Afghan soldier shot and killed four French troops on a base in the province.

Intense shelling of southern Syrian city kills 15

BEIRUT (AP) -- Syrian troops shelled the southern city of Daraaa early on Saturday, killing at least 15 people, activists said. And in Damascus, residents spoke about a night of shooting and explosions in the worst violence Syria's capital has seen since the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime began 15 months ago.

The latest escalations in different parts of Syria are another blow to international envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan, which aims to end the country's bloodletting. Annan brokered a cease-fire that went into effect on April 12 but has since been violated hundreds of times and never properly took hold.

The U.N. said several weeks ago that at least 9,000 people have been killed since the crisis began in March last year while Syrian activists say the violence has claimed the lives of more than 13,000 people.

Damascus resident and activist Maath al-Shami said clashes between rebels and troops in the city's neighborhoods of Qaboun and Barzeh lasted until about 1:30 a.m. Saturday.

On Friday, government troops clashed with rebels from the Free Syrian Army in Damascus' Kfar Souseh district in some of the worst fighting yet in the capital. The clashes were a clear sign that the ragtag group has succeeded in taking its fight to the regime's base of power.

Since the start of the uprising, Damascus had been relatively quiet compared with other Syrian cities. The capital and the northern city of Aleppo, the country's largest, are under the firm grip of Assad's security forces.

"Yesterday was a turning point in the conflict," said al-Shami via Skype. "There were clashes in Damascus that lasted hours. The battle is in Damascus now."

Al-Shami added that troops shelled Qaboun and Barzeh with tanks until after midnight Friday adding that at least four people were killed. Al-Shami added that tanks withdrew before sunrise Saturday and the area has been relatively quiet.

Another resident in the capital, who refused to be identified for fear of reprisals, said "we spent a night of fear." The resident added that the shooting and explosions in the capital "were the worst so far."

To the south, in Daraa, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 17 people were killed in the shelling, while the Local Coordination Committees said 15 civilians lost their lives. Both groups said dozens of people were also wounded in the shelling early Saturday.

Daraa is the city where the uprising against Assad's regime first erupted in March 2011. A Daraa-based activist, Adel al-Omari, said the shelling of the city's Mahata area began randomly and lasted until after midnight.

"People were taken by surprise while in their homes," said al-Omari, adding that regime targeted the neighborhood with mortars.

The LCC said that the dead included a father and his two children of the Abazeid family whose home was destroyed by the shelling. The group added that five of the dead were members of the Daloua family.

The LCC and the Observatory also reported shelling and clashes in the central city of Homs, one of the main battlegrounds of the uprising.

On Friday, U.N. observers entered a farming helmet in the central province of Hama where activists said nearly 80 people were massacred on Wednesday. A U.N. spokeswoman said the observers could smell the stench of burned corpses and saw body parts scattered around the deserted village of Mazraat al-Qubair.

The observers were blocked by government troops and residents, and coming under small arms fire when they tried to enter the area on Thursday.

The scene held evidence of a "horrific crime," said U.N. spokeswoman Sausan Ghosheh.

The U.N. team was the first independent group to arrive in Mazraat al-Qubair, a village of about 160 people. Opposition activists and Syrian government officials blamed each other for the killings and differed about the number of dead.

Activists said that up to 78 people, including women and children, were shot, hacked and burned to death, saying pro-government militiamen known as "shabiha" were responsible. A government statement on the state-run news agency SANA said "an armed terrorist group" killed nine women and children before Hama authorities were called and killed the attackers.

Ghosheh, the U.N. observers spokeswoman, said the residents' accounts of the mass killing were "conflicting," and that they needed to cross check the names of the missing and dead with those supplied by nearby villagers. Mazraat al-Qubair itself was "empty of the local inhabitants," she said.

U.N. monitors say they will try to reach site of Syria mass killing

United Nations monitors in Syria said they will continue on Friday efforts to reach the site of a massacre in the central province of Hama where close to 100 civilians were reportedly slain on Wednesday by militants loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

The monitors were unable to visit the village of Mazraat al-Qubeir on Thursday. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking in New York, said there were stopped at Syrian army checkpoints shot at by small arms.
The Syrian government rebuffed accusations that it carried out the massacre and reported there had been only nine deaths.

Opposition groups said the “new massacre” was carried out at a farm by the pro-regime Shabiha militia armed with guns and knives after regular troops had shelled the area, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement.

But the Syrian regime denied any involvement.

“What a few media have reported on what happened in al-Qubair, in the Hama region, is completely false,” the government said in a statement on official television.

“A terrorist group committed a heinous crime in the Hama region which claimed nine victims. The reports by the media are contributing to spilling the blood of Syrians,” the statement said.

The deaths follow a two-day massacre that began on May 25 near the central town of Houla, where at least 108 people were killed, while most of them women and children who were summarily executed, according to the United Nations.

Syria’s 15-month revolt against President Assad’s rule has grown increasingly bloody in recent months, raising concerns the country may be slipping towards civil war.

Both massacres have happened in the presence of United Nations observers, a 300-strong force sent into Syria to observe a ceasefire deal brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan. The truce was hardly observed by the government or the rebels, who last week said they would no longer honor the ceasefire because of recent killings.

China urges Iran to be ‘flexible and pragmatic’ with U.N. nuclear inspectors

China urged Iran on Friday to be “flexible and pragmatic” in scheduled talks with U.N. nuclear inspectors who will press Tehran for a deal that would enable them to visit a military complex where they suspect atom bomb research has taken place, but Western diplomats are skeptical a breakthrough will be reached.

China’s President Hu Jintao called on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear agency, as the two leaders held talks in Beijing ahead of a meeting next month of the so-called P5+1 group –the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

Western powers and Israel suspect Iran is trying to develop a bomb behind the veil of its civilian nuclear program, a charge denied by Tehran which says it is developing civilian atomic power.

The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will urge Iran in talks later Friday to allow it access to sites where Tehran is suspected of working on an atomic bomb, particularly a military base near the capital.

China hopes Iran can “take a flexible and pragmatic approach, have serious talks with all six related nations, and enhance dialogues and cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency so as to ensure the tensions can be eased through negotiations”, Xinhua quoted Hu as saying.

The two leaders met after China and Russia this week issued a joint statement opposing the use of force on Iran.

Differences remain on how the IAEA should conduct its probe, and the United States said this week it doubted whether Iran would give the U.N. agency the kind of access to sites, documents and officials it needs.

“I’m not optimistic,” Robert Wood, the acting U.S. envoy to the IAEA, told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the U.N. agency’s governing board. “I certainly hope that an agreement will be reached but I’m not certain Iran is ready.”

His skepticism was reinforced by defiant remarks by Tehran’s envoy to the IAEA, who accused the U.N. body on Wednesday of acting like a Western-manipulated spy service and said that Iran’s military activities were none of its business.

Arab Spring will soon become ‘Islamic Spring:’ Qaeda leader’s wife

The wife of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri praised Muslim women for their role in the Arab Spring uprisings and said the unrest would soon lead to an “Islamic Spring,” according to a rare message posted online on Friday.

The letter, signed by Omaima Hassan, singled out women beaten during Egypt’s unrest and lauded mothers for bringing up the revolutionaries who went on to topple four heads of state it described as “tyrant criminals.”

It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the undated message, posted on a website used by Islamist militants.

Since the start of the Arab Spring, there has been signs that al-Qaeda has tried to capitalize on the unrest.

“I congratulate all females of the world for these blessed revolutions and I salute every mother who sacrificed her loved ones in the revolutions. It is really an Arab Spring and will soon become an Islamic Spring,” reads the message.

“These revolutions toppled the tyrant criminals, and thanks to your efforts, patience and raising your sons in dignity,” it added.

The message urged Muslim women to keep wearing the veil. “The veil is the Muslim woman’s identity and the West wants to remove this identity so she will be without an identity.”

“My advice to you sisters is to raise your children on the love of martyrdom ... and to prepare them for restoring the glories of Islam and the liberation of Jerusalem,” the statement added.

A similar message was posted online in Omaima Hassan’s name in 2009.

Zawahri took command of al-Qaeda after the group’s founder Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. special forces in Pakistan in May last year.

Zawahri’s Libyan-born second-in-command, Abu Yahya al Libi, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan earlier this week.

According to the message posted on Friday, Hassan said she hoped that the uprisings --sparked by the Self-immolation of a Tunisian unemployed graduate-- would “liberate Jerusalem” and restore the city’s days of glory.

“We will have a new Islamic state based on Sharia (Islamic law) arbitration, and we will free Palestine and build a state of succession to the prophecy,” she added.

Israel captured Jerusalem along with the rest of the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war.

Palestinians want the city, currently occupied by Israel, to be the capital of a future Palestinian state.


In what is thought to be her first public statement, Hassan published a statement in December 2009 urging Muslim women to participate in Jihad.

She also suggested that women should provide support for male “mujahideen” by caring for their children.

She also said that women can become suicide bombers, which she refers to as “martyrdom missions.”