Gender segregation now mandatory in Gaza schools

Gunmen raid 4 newspaper offices in Baghdad

FILE - In this Friday, Jan. 11, 2013 file citizen journalism image provided by Edlib News Network, ENN, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows rebels from al-Qaida affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, as they sit on a truck full of ammunition, at Taftanaz air base, that was captured by the rebels, in Idlib province, northern Syria. The Arabic words on the flag, right, read:"There is no God only God and Mohamad his prophet, Jabhat al-Nusra." Last month, militants inside Iraq killed 48 Syrian government troops who had sought refuge from the war in their country _ an ambush that regional officials now say is evidence of a growing cross-border alliance between two powerful Sunni jihadi groups _ Al-Qaida in Iraq and the Nusra Front in Syria. The U.S. designates both as terrorist organizations, and the purported alliance is further complicating the equation for the West as it weighs how much to support the rebel movement.(AP Photo/Edlib News Network ENN, File)

BAGHDAD (AP) — Gunmen suspected of being Shiite militiamen burst into the offices of four independent newspapers in Baghdad, smashing their equipment, stabbing and beating employees, and even hurling one reporter from a roof in the most brazen attack against journalists in Iraq this year, said staff and officials on Tuesday.

Two editors said they believed their assailants were members of a Shiite militia, saying the raids came after their newspapers published stories criticizing their hardline cleric-leader. It underscored the dangers facing the media in Iraq, one of the most dangerous places in the world for reporters.

"The message of the assailants was to shut mouths," said Bassam al-Sheikh, editor of one of the attacked newspapers, Al-Dustour. "This is a dangerous precedent."

A government spokesman condemned the attacks.

Some 50 assailants participated in Monday's attacks, according to a notice left on one of the newspaper's websites and according to al-Sheikh and Ali al-Daraji, the editor of another of the newspapers, Al-Mustaqila.

It appeared to have been sparked when the Baghdad-based dailies published stories saying that a Shiite group lead by cleric Mahmoud al-Sarkhi was trying to dominate the holy city of Karbala.

The city, 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Baghdad, is home to two revered Shiite shrines. In the last decade it has witnessed power struggles between Shiite militias.

Al-Sarkhi's group was not available for comment.

A group of men initially entered the office of the small Al-Parliman newspaper, demanding to meet the editor, the paper said in a statement posted on its website.

The men identified themselves as loyalists of al-Sarkhi and demanded to know why they published a report saying their leader was trying to take over communal Friday prayers at one of the holy shrines of Karbala.

The editor tried to mollify them, saying he believed the report was even-handed, the statement said.

It didn't satisfy the men.

As they left the editor's office, they appeared to signal to another group of men waiting outside. They smashed through the building's front door, shattering windows as they went through the building, Al-Parliman said.

They attacked reporters with batons, shoved computers onto the floor and tried to smash furniture, said the statement. They dragged one reporter to the building's roof and hurled him off, breaking both his legs, it said.

Editors al-Sheikh and al-Daraji offered similar accounts, except, they noted, the assailants also attacked them with knives.

Television footage following the attack on the Al-Mustaqila office showed computers strewn on the floor, the windows smashed. "The newspaper of lies, baseless claims and lies," was scrawled on a wall.

"It was so horrifying that we could not do anything," al-Daraji told The Associated Press.

A health official said five newspaper staffers were hospitalized, four with stab wounds. Al-Parliman said the fifth person was their staffer, pushed from the building's roof.

The health official spoke anonymously because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media.

Al-Sheikh said he also recognized the attackers as militant Shiites belonging to al-Sarkhi's group. Al-Daraji said they had run a similar story, but also published a response from the Shiite cleric's office.

It was not immediately possible to obtain comment from the fourth newspaper attacked, Al-Nas.

The four newspapers are considered modestly sized. The largest, al-Dustour, claims a run of 12,000 copies daily.

In response to the attacks Tuesday, blue-khaki clad police set up checkpoints through the middle-class Karradeh neighborhood, snarling traffic.

Iraq is ranked among the most dangerous places in the world for journalists, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. At least 150 reporters and 54 support workers were killed in Iraq from the start of the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 to the pullout of foreign troops in December 2011.

They did not have immediately updated figures for 2012.

Such attacks have been less common of late. The last major attack on reporters was the slaying of a television presenter Ghazwan Anas in July 2012, who worked for a channel in the predominantly Sunni northern city of Mosul.

The New York-based group said in a March statement that Iraq has never charged a person for killing a reporter. The "impunity rate . is the worst in the world. It is 100 percent," the statement said. "Even today, as Iraq has moved beyond conflict, authorities have shown no interest in investigating these murders."

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Moussawi condemned the attack. "Security forces have taken action and some of the (assailants) have been arrested and we are interrogating them," he said.

Al-Parliman said in its statement that it couldn't issue news Tuesday, because the assailants had smashed all its equipment.

In other violence, a provincial official said gunmen attacked workers at a remote gas field near the Syria border, killing two men and kidnapping one.

Farhan Farhan, the mayor of the western town of al-Qaim, said the gunmen set fire to workers' trailers at a camp near the gas field, killing an engineer and a manual laborer. The kidnapped man is the brother of the head of the Iraqi company building the camp site.

Farhan said the attack took place on Monday. He says the Iraqi company was contracted by South Korea's KOGAS to build the trailer camp before developing the gas field. No KOGAS employees were on site.

Al-Qaim is about 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of Baghdad, just across the border from Syria. Iraqi militants are believed to be taking advantage of Syria's turmoil and the porous border to rebuild their strength in this region.

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Sinan Salahuddin contributed reporting from Baghdad. Follow Salahedddin at twitter.com/sinansm

Halliburton worker testifies at Gulf spill trial

Halliburton worker: BP employees didn't risk safety when they didn't follow recommendations

Associated Press -

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- A man who worked for BP's cement contractor on the drilling rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 testified Tuesday that he didn't believe the oil giant's employees were risking workers' safety when they didn't follow his recommendations.

Halliburton employee Jesse Gagliano, a witness for his employer at a trial over the Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 people, said his relationship with employees for London-based BP PLC deteriorated amid disagreements about how to perform the cement job that ultimately failed to seal the BP-owned well.

But Gagliano said he said he never saw a reason to call a temporary halt to the project before the well's blowout.

"At any time when you recommended to BP something and they did not follow your recommendation, did you think at any time that that created a risk of a hazard?" Halliburton attorney Donald Godwin asked.

"No," Gagliano responded.

The trial, which has entered its sixth week, is designed to determine what caused the blowout of BP's Macondo well and assign fault to the companies involved. BP will begin presenting its defense once Halliburton rests its case, possibly later this week.

Gagliano invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at his 2011 deposition but later agreed to testify at trial. He previously had been interviewed by a congressional committee and testified in 2010 before a government panel probing the disaster. BP had argued that Gagliano's late change of heart would give Halliburton an unfair strategic advantage, but a judge permitted Gagliano to testify.

Gagliano said BP had the ultimate responsibility for deciding how the cement job would be performed and didn't always follow his recommendations.

For instance, Gagliano had recommended the use of 21 centralizers, which are devices designed to ensure the casing is running down the center of the well bore. BP, however, decided to use only six centralizers for the cement job.

Gagliano said his models showed that using only six centralizers indicated "severe gas flow potential." A report that BP issued for its investigation of the blowout concluded that using six centralizers instead of 21 likely wasn't a factor in the cement job's failure.

But plaintiffs' attorneys have said the extra centralizers were intended to reduce the risk of a blowout. Using fewer centralizers, they argued, allowed BP to save time and money on a project that was behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget.

Plaintiffs' attorney also have accused Halliburton of using leftover cement on the Macondo well that contained a destabilizing additive in an effort to save time and money.

Paul Sterbcow, a plaintiffs' attorney who cross-examined Gagliano, pressed him to explain why he used a defoamer in a foam cement when Halliburton's own policies said the additive shouldn't be used under that circumstance.

"I had no issues with the design I had," he responded.

Gagliano said he used his best engineering judgment and, even in hindsight, wouldn't have changed anything about his design.

"While there were agreements and disagreements, do you believe that the two groups, Halliburton and BP, tried to work together to come up with a design of the cement slurry that was going to work in that well?" Godwin asked.

"Yes," Gagliano said.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier is hearing testimony without a jury for the first phase of the trial, which is expected to last several more weeks. The judge also plans to hold a second phase designed to determine how much oil spilled into the Gulf and examine BP's efforts to stop the gusher.

Barring a settlement, Barbier could decide how much more money BP and its contractors, including rig owner Transocean Ltd., should pay for their roles in the blowout that led to the nation's worst offshore oil spill.

At the start of Tuesday's proceedings, Barbier said attorneys won't deliver any closing arguments at the end of the trial's first phase. Instead, the parties will submit written briefs outlining their views on the evidence.

Soldiers union: SAfrican troops withdrawn from CAR

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Most of the 200 South African troops in the Central African Republic have been withdrawn from the country where 13 died as rebels ousted the president, the soldiers' union said Tuesday.

Military spokesman Brig. Gen. Xolani Mabanga said he could not comment on reports that the soldiers had been moved to either Congo or Uganda.

"I will only confirm that we still have troops and equipment in the Central African Republic," he said. He refused to say how many soldiers remained.

The news comes amid strident debate about why the troops were deployed and accusations that they were sent to protect the business interests of a company allied to the governing African National Congress — charges President Jacob Zuma denied Tuesday.

Pikkie Greeff, national secretary of the South African National Defense Union, told The Associated Press that "the biggest bulk" of the 200 soldiers had been withdrawn during the weekend. He said they had been taken across the Ubangui River into Congo.

Other media reports suggested the soldiers had been taken to Uganda.

Greeff said it was unclear whether the soldiers were to be deployed in other countries where South African troops are participating in peacekeeping missions, or whether they were being prepared for an attack on Bangui, the Central African capital. South African defense officials say some 200 soldiers fought off about 3,000 rebels who entered the capital on March 23 and eventually overthrew the government. Hundreds of rebels including youngsters were killed before the rebels called a truce.

President Jacob Zuma had resisted calls to bring the troops home. The country's biggest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, has said it will table a resolution in Parliament on Tuesday to compel Zuma to withdraw the troops. Greeff's union last week threatened to go to the constitutional court to ask it to rule the deployment unconstitutional.

At a memorial service for the dead servicemen, Zuma lambasted his critics, accusing them of "trying to dishonor the memory of our heroes by peddling various unfounded allegations and conspiracy theories."

He said the soldiers must be honored "for the supreme sacrifice they paid for the achievement of peace in Africa."

He warned critics that "Those who are engaging in this game should be careful not to endanger both the national interest and the security of the republic while pursuing party political goals."

Zuma said South African soldiers were sent to help train the army of Central African Republic as part of a bilateral defense agreement signed in 2007. Greeff said there were between 28 and 30 trainers. Zuma said he agreed to deploy an additional 200 troops late last year when the security situation deteriorated.

"They were not deployed to train but as a protection force for the trainers," Zuma said.

Greeff said that contradicts Zuma's explanation to Parliament's defense committee in early January that the soldiers would help with training and capacity building. The union had said that made no sense as the elite Special Forces and paratroopers deployed would not be a logical choice for trainers.

Critics say that if Zuma misled Parliament, he could be impeached.

Greeff said Zuma's explanation raised even more questions about the military's mission in Central African Republic.

While Zuma has said the mission was part of South Africa's larger goal of helping to bring peace and security in Africa, critics ask how that aim could be met by having troops defend President Francois Bozize, a man who took power in a 2003 coup and then won a dubious election that excluded the man he had ousted.

Bozize fled the country and is seeking asylum in the West African state of Benin.

Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said Monday that the deployment "was reportedly undertaken against expert military advice" and that its aim was "allegedly to protect the business interests of a politically connected elite, both in South Africa and the Central African Republic."

Zuma is heading to Chad for a summit Wednesday with Central African leaders about the crisis in the Central African Republic. Rebel leader Michel Djotobia has declared himself president and says he will rule until elections scheduled in 2016.

US restraint in Syria could aid Iran nuclear talks

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's reluctance to give military aid to Syrian rebels may be explained, in part, in three words: Iranian nuclear weapons.

For the first time in years, the United States has seen a glimmer of hope in persuading Iran to curb its nuclear enrichment program so it cannot quickly or easily make an atomic bomb. Negotiations resume this week in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where encouraging talks in February between six world powers and the Islamic Republic ended in what Iranian diplomat Saeed Jalili called a "turning point" after multiple thwarted steps toward a breakthrough.

But Tehran is unlikely to bend to Washington's will on its nuclear program if it is fighting American-supplied rebels at the same time in Syria. Tehran is Syrian President Bashar Assad's chief backer in the two-year civil war that, by U.N. estimates, has left at least 70,000 people dead. Iranian forces are believed to be fighting alongside the regime's army in Syria, and a senior commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard force was killed outside Damascus in February.

Russia also is supplying Assad's forces with arms. And the U.S. does not want to risk alienating Russia, one of the six negotiating nations also seeking to limit Iran's nuclear program, by entering what would amount to a proxy war in Syria.

The White House has at least for now put the nuclear negotiations ahead of intervening in Syria, according to diplomats, former Obama administration officials and experts. Opposition forces in Syria are in disarray and commanded in some areas by a jihadist group linked to al-Qaida. Preventing Iran from building a nuclear bomb remains a top priority for the Obama administration, which has been bent on ending wars — not opening new military fronts.

"I think that the United States has not taken a more active role in Syria from the beginning because they didn't want to disturb the possibility, to give them space, to negotiate with Iran," Javier Solana, the former European Union foreign policy chief, said Monday at a Brookings Institution discussion about this week's talks. Solana, who was a top negotiator with Tehran in the nuclear program until 2009, added, "They probably knew that getting very engaged against Assad, engaged even militarily, could contribute to a break in the potential negotiations with Tehran."

Solana also warned of frostier relations between Moscow and Washington that could scuttle success in both areas. "With Russia, we need to be much more engaged in order to resolve the Syrian problem and, at the end, the question of Tehran," he said.

Adding to the mix is the unpredictable relationship between the U.S. and China, which has been leery of harsh Western sanctions on Iran and is expected to follow Russia's lead on the nuclear negotiations. Without Russia and China's support, experts say, the West will have little success in reaching a compromise with Iran.

"Resolving the nuclear impasse with Iran is the biggest challenge this year in the Middle East, and that requires careful handling of not only Iran, but Russia and China," said retired Ambassador James F. Jeffrey, who followed the negotiations closely as the top U.S. envoy to Baghdad last year. "Decisions on Syria and other international questions certainly will be taken in this context."

The White House refused comment, and a senior State Department official played down a direct linkage between the two national security priorities.

The negotiations have indirect, if wide-reaching, links to regional affairs that include Syria but also go beyond, including the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf, Washington's uneasy detente with Baghdad and Israel's undeclared nuclear arsenal — the only one of its kind in the Mideast. Iran has often said it wants to use the nuclear talks as a possible springboard for other negotiations on regional issues, such as its call for a nuclear-free Middle East — Tehran's way of trying to push for more international accountability on Israel's nuclear program.

Off-and-on talks between Iran and the world powers — the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany, known as P5+1 — began after the six nations offered Tehran a series of incentives in 2006 in exchange for a commitment to stop uranium enrichment and other activities that could be used to make weapons. Iran long has maintained that it is enriching uranium only to make reactor fuel and medical isotopes, and insists it has a right to do so under international law. Last summer, the U.S. and E.U. hit Iran's economy and oil industry with tough sanctions to force it to comply.

But Iran has continued its program despite the sanctions. In February, in an attempt to move flagging negotiations forward, the world powers offered broader concessions to Iran, including letting it keep a limited amount of enriched uranium and suspend — but not fully close — a bunker-like nuclear facility near the holy city Qom. The world powers' offer, which also included removing some of the Western sanctions, was hailed by Iran as an important step forward in the process.

Few expect any major breakthroughs in the negotiations beginning this week until after Iran's presidential election in June.

Meanwhile, fighting in Syria has only intensified, and fears that Assad's forces used chemical weapons on rebel fighters in March brought the U.S. closer than ever to sending military aid to the opposition. Yet Obama has resisted pressures from foreign allies, Congress and his own advisers to arm the rebels or at least supply them with military equipment, or to use targeted airstrikes to destroy some of Assad's warplanes. The U.S. is helping train some former Syrian army soldiers — mostly Sunni and tribal Bedouins — in neighboring Jordan, which officials describe as non-lethal aid.

Part of Obama's reluctance, officials say, is the fear that U.S. weapons could end up in the hands of jihadists affiliated with al-Qaida. Of top concern is the Jabhat al-Nusra, a wing of the Islamic State of Iraq which, in turn, blames Iran for supporting the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

"Since we are now looking more at a pending regime collapse in Damascus that has a strong potential to turn it into a launch pad for transnational jihadism, Washington is more interested in a negotiated settlement, which involves talking to Iran," said Kamran Bokhari, a Toronto-based expert on Mideast issues for the global intelligence company Stratfor.

Obama has been firm in his belief that Assad must go, and has predicted it will happen sooner than later. But he has been equally adamant that Iran must be stopped from acquiring nuclear weapons.

"A nuclear-armed Iran would be a threat to the region, a threat to the world and potentially an existential threat to Israel," Obama said at a March 20 news conference in Jerusalem, flanked by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "And we agree on our goal. We do not have a policy of containment when it comes to a nuclear Iran."

Assad's fall would strip Iran of its closest ally in the volatile Mideast and perhaps spur the Islamic Republic to aggressively pursue a nuclear weapon as it faces further isolation. At the same time, it could encourage Tehran to make modest concessions on nuclear talks to relieve pressure from the West, said Gary Samore, who in February left the White House as Obama's coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction and is now at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

"You can argue it either way, but in the end I think the collapse of Assad makes a nuclear deal more likely, because the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) will feel more isolated, under greater pressure, more likely to make tactical concessions in order to relieve further isolation and pressure," Samore said Monday. "Of course, that is not going to change his fundamental interest in acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. I think it will confirm for him that the best way to defend himself against countries like the United States is to have that capacity."

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Associated Press writer Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

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