Egypt demands Ethiopia halt Nile dam, upping stakes

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt will demand Ethiopia stop building a dam on one of the main tributaries of the Nile, a senior government aide said on Wednesday, ramping up a confrontation over the project that Egypt fears will affect its main source of water.

Ethiopia set off alarm bells in Cairo last week when it began diverting a stretch of the river to make way for the $4.7 billion hydroelectric plant.

Countries that share the river have argued over the use of its waters for decades - and analysts have repeatedly warned that the disputes could eventually boil over into war.

The high stakes involved were underlined on Monday when senior Egyptian politicians were caught on camera advising President Mohamed Mursi to take hostile action to stop the project, and one went as far as suggesting Cairo destroy the dam.

Egypt, which has been involved in years of troubled diplomacy with Ethiopia and other upstream countries, said Ethiopia must now halt work on the dam.

"Demanding that Ethiopia stop construction of the dam it plans to build on the Blue Nile will be our first step," said Pakinam el-Sharkawy, the presidential aide for political affairs, in comments carried on the state news agency MENA.

"The national committee that will be formed to deal with this issue will determine the steps that Egypt has to take."

No one from the Ethiopian government was immediately available to comment.

CAUGHT ON CAMERA

Senior Egyptian politicians called in to discuss the crisis with Mursi on Monday were apparently unaware their meeting was being broadcast live on television.

The leader of Egypt's Ghad party, Ayman Nour, suggested spreading false reports that Egypt was building up its air power.

"We can 'leak' news information claiming that Egypt plans to buy advanced aircraft to increase its aerial presence etc., to put pressure, even if not realistic, on diplomatic discourse," he said.

Younis Makhyoun, leader of the Salafi Islamist al-Nour party, was filmed saying Egypt should back rebels in Ethiopia or, as a last resort, destroy the dam.

The broadcast triggered widespread ridicule, particularly among Egypt's vast army of users of social networks.

"Among Mursi's achievements: the first 'secret' meeting in the world to be aired live," read one joke that made the rounds.

Egypt has so far not apologised to Ethiopia for the broadcast - el-Sharkawy's main response on Twitter was to say she was sorry members of the meeting did not know they were being broadcast.

The most prominent expression of regret came from leading opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei, who was invited to the meeting but did not attend.

"Sincere apologies to the people and governments of Ethiopia and Sudan for the irresponsible utterances at the president's national dialogue," he tweeted.

Ethiopia has laid out plans to invest more than $12 billion in harnessing the rivers that run through its rugged highlands to become Africa's leading power exporter.

The centrepiece of the plan is the Grand Renaissance Dam being built in the Benishangul-Gumuz region bordering Sudan. Now 21 percent complete, it will eventually have a 6,000 megawatt capacity, the government says, equivalent to six nuclear power plants.

Cairo argues that Ethiopia has not properly considered the dam's impact on the river, saying that a report put together by experts from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia is insufficient.

Sgt. Robert Bales Says There Is 'Not a Good Reason' For Afghan Massacre

An American soldier who plead guilty today to murdering 16 Afghan civilians told a judge today that there is "not a good reason in the world" for the "horrible things" he did.

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales appeared in a military courtroom where he publicly gave his account of the massacre for the first time.

When the judge, Col. Jeffery Nance, asked Bales what his reason was for killing the civilians, Bales said, "I've asked that question a million times since then. And there's not a good reason in the world for why I did the horrible things I did."

With simple "yes sir" and "no sir" responses, Bales affirmed that he killed the 16 people in March 2012, that he had no legal justification for the killing, that he was not acting in self-defense and that it was a freely made decision to kill them.

"Could you have avoided killing them if you wanted to?" the judge asked.

"Yes, sir," Bales replied.

The sergeant also said that he did not recall setting a compound on fire, but he did not contest that it was on fire.

"There was a kerosene lantern in the room and based on the evidence...that lantern was used to set those people on fire," Bales said.

The judge also asked Bales about the steroid he was using to build muscle tone with Bales saying it "definitely increased by irritability and anger."

Bales, 39, pleaded guilty today to 16 counts of premeditated murder, six counts of attempted murder and seven counts of assault. The judge accepted his guilty plea at the end of the hearing and scheduled the sentencing for Aug. 19.

His only not guilty plea was to a charge of impeding the investigation by destroying a laptop computer.

The charges stem from a massacre last year when Bales snuck out of his remote outpost in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar to go on a shooting spree in two nearby villages. The pre-dawn attack left 16 villagers dead and six injured. Nine of those killed were children.

Bales is a father of two from Lake Tapps, Wash. He is wearing military dress for the hearing and his wife sat in the front row.

Bales' attorney John Henry Browne said last week that Bales wanted to plead guilty as part of a deal in order to avoid the death penalty, according to the Associated Press.

In a November preliminary hearing, several of his fellow soldiers testified that Bales returned to the base alone just before dawn, covered in blood, and that he made incriminating statements such as, "I thought I was doing the right thing." Some of the blood on his person was later matched to at least one of the shooting victims, according to prosecutors.

Evidence was also presented that suggested Bales carried out the massacre as revenge for previous attacks on his unit, particularly a roadside bomb attack a few weeks earlier that severely wounded a fellow soldier. Bales did not testify during the two week hearing, which was to determine if he would face a court martial, but some of the surviving villagers did appear via satellite from Afghanistan.

Some of his squad mates admitted to having consumed alcohol prior to the attacks, but said Bales did not seem to have been incapacitated by the alcohol.

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales Says Steroids May Have Contributed to His Rage

Bales' attorneys have said that their client's mental state may have possibly been clouded by the alcohol as well as steroids and sleeping aids he had taken, but prosecutors countered that comments made by Bales after he was apprehended demonstrated he had a clear state of mind about the violent acts he is alleged to have committed.

An Army press release said that Bales faces a maximum punishment of death if he is convicted of the charges against him. However, the release noted it may be difficult for prosecutors to obtain such a sentence.

"For capital punishment to be imposed, the court-martial members must unanimously find: the service member is guilty of the eligible crime; at least one aggravating factor exists; and that the aggravating factor must substantially outweigh any extenuating or mitigating circumstances found by the court-martial members," it says.

There has not been a military execution since 1961.

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Prostitutes in trafficking case: Life was good

NEW YORK (AP) — Prostitutes in a sex-trafficking case that's winding up in New York City say they and their pimps were one big happy family, enjoying a comfortable suburban life as "wife-in-laws" in Pennsylvania and commuting by night to work in Manhattan.

But prosecutors say the women were coerced into prostitution by a father-and-son team that threatened them with beatings, withheld money and referred to them as animals.

Closing arguments were slated to begin Thursday in the trial of Vincent George Sr. and Vincent George Jr., a case that drew widespread attention after several prostitutes took the witness stand to defend their pimps. The men, who have admitted to promoting prostitution, pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking, money laundering and other charges.

Prosecutors say the women made as much as $500,000 a year for the Georges but got only a few dollars a night themselves. The women were threatened with beatings when they didn't bring in as much money as expected or were late to check in, according to the district attorney's office.

The men used a music recording company and a livery car service to launder millions of dollars for the prostitution business, prosecutors said.

The women told the packed courtroom about big houses, nice cars, vacations in Florida and lavish physical attention from their men.

"The whole point to our family was just to become better," said a 31-year-old woman who said she met Vincent George Jr. when she was 17. "This wasn't our lifestyle. This wasn't something where we said, 'Hey, I'm going to do this until I'm gray.'"

But recordings of the wiretapped phone calls presented by prosecutors present a darker side of the prostitute-pimp relationships. In one call, George Jr. angrily and profanely demands money from one of the women.

"Yes, sir," the woman replies.

The Associated Press is not naming the women because they are alleged victims of sex crimes.

Legal experts say that the notion of prostituted women standing by their pimps is common, but that defending them before a judge is not. While most sex trafficking cases hinge upon the cooperation of the women involved, prosecutors relied upon wiretaps and follow-the-money techniques that are typically used to prosecute white-collar business crime.

Defense attorney Howard Greenberg denied allegations the women were living in fear.

"None of them were forced to enter the life," he said. "None of them were forced to stay in the life. They were all in the life before they met any pimp named George."

Wearing a striped dress that revealed her pregnant belly, a 26-year-old woman had a tattoo on her neck that said "King Koby," a nickname for George Jr., whom she met when she was 19 and working as a prostitute in upstate New York.

"I would say that I make my own choices," she said. "I am not a dumb person. I know what I'm doing."

The women have been sexually exploited and stripped of their self-worth, said Norma Ramos, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. Ramos said tattoos are commonly seen among sex trafficking victims.

"They're branding their women. They're branding their victims," Ramos said. "They're treating them like cattle."

Two of the women used the word "daddy" when describing their relationship with George Jr. in court.

"I'm not a victim towards anything, and I think the best way to show and prove that is for me to be here," said a 24-year-old woman who began working as a stripper and streetwalker at age 13, according to prosecutors.

One photograph presented by the prosecution shows the woman with a visible black eye in 2007. At the time, she told former prosecutor David Novick that George Jr. caused the injury.

"She said she deserved it, and it wasn't a big deal," Novick told the court during his testimony.

For many sex trafficking victims, their relationship with their abusers is the only source of love they've ever experienced, and they'll do anything to maintain that attention in their lives, said Bridgette Carr, director of the Human Trafficking Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School.

"I think one of the questions is: Is this what love looks like?" she said.