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ARY NEWS

Reuters

  • Egyptian court sentences three Al Jazeera journalists to prison

    The verdict, in a retrial, was issued against Mohamed Fahmy, a naturalised Canadian who has given up his Egyptian citizenship, Baher Mohamed, an Egyptian, and Peter Greste, an Australian who was deported in February.

    Rights advocates say their arrest was part of a crackdown on free speech waged since the army overthrew President Mohamed Mursi, a senior Muslim Brotherhood figure, in July 2013 following mass unrest over his rule.

    Judge Hassan Farid said the defendants, dubbed the “Marriott Cell” by the local press because they worked out of a hotel belonging to that chain, “are not journalists and not members of the press syndicate” and broadcast with unlicensed equipment.

    Baher received an additional six months in prison. The state news agency MENA said that extra time was handed down because he was in possession of a bullet at the time of his arrest.

    The three men were originally sentenced to seven to 10 years in prison on charges that included spreading lies to help a terrorist organisation, a reference to the Muslim Brotherhood, which the military toppled from power two years ago.

    The three defendants denied all charges, calling them absurd. Three other Egyptians, all students, also received three-year sentences for the same charges.

    Speaking on Al Jazeera in reaction to Saturday’s verdict, Greste said he was shocked at the scale of the sentence. “Words really don’t do justice,” he said. “To be given three-year sentences is outrageous. It is just devastating for me.”

    Fahmy and Mohamed, who were released on bail in February after over a year in jail, were taken back into custody after the verdict, according to Fahmy’s wife, Marwa Omara. She was in tears after the sentences were read out.

    APPEAL PLANNED

    “We will appeal this verdict and hope it will be reversed. We are now going to be holding a series of meetings with government officials where we will be asking for Mr. Fahmy’s immediate deportation to Canada,” said Fahmy’s lawyer, Amal Clooney.

    “His colleague Peter Greste was sent back to Australia; there is no reason why the same thing shouldn’t happen in Mr. Fahmy’s case.”

    Western governments have voiced concern for freedom of expression in Egypt since Mursi was ousted but have not taken concrete steps to promote democracy in Egypt, an important strategic ally in the Middle East.

    “Mohamed has been sentenced and all I can ask for now is for all his colleagues to stand by him and to keep calling for his release, but this is extremely unfair,” said Fahmy’s wife.

    “I ask the Canadian government to extract him from here as he is a Canadian citizen and to deport him back to Canada. All what I am asking (for) is justice and fairness, for what happened with Peter to be applied to Mohamed.”

    Canada called for Fahmy’s “full and immediate release,” after the verdict. “Senior Canadian officials in Canada and in Cairo are pressing Egyptian authorities on Mr. Fahmy’s case. This includes advocating for the same treatment of Mr. Fahmy as other foreign nationals have received,” Canadian Minister of State Lynne Yelich said in a statement.

    The U.S. State Department said in a statement it was “deeply disappointed” by the verdict, which “undermines the very freedom of expression necessary for stability and development.”

    Al Jazeera condemned the court’s decision in a statement read by the channel’s general director, Mostefa Souag.

    “This judgement is a new attack on the freedom of the press, and it’s a black day in the history of the Egyptian judiciary.”

    “There is no evidence our colleagues in any way fabricated news. This was comprehensively debunked by the court’s own technical committee,” Al Jazeera English Acting Managing Director Giles Trendle told a news conference in Doha.

    Human rights groups have accused Egyptian authorities of rolling back freedoms won in the 2011 popular uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

    In June, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Egypt was holding at least 18 journalists behind bars, the highest number since record-keeping began in 1990. They were being held on the pretext of national security to crack down on media freedoms, it said.

    Egypt says it has launched a security crackdown to eradicate Islamist militant “terrorists” and deliver stability.

    Speaking after the verdict, the British ambassador to Egypt, John Casson, said the country’s stability should not be built on a “shaky foundation which deprives people of their rights and undermines the freedom of the press and freedom of expression.”

    Amnesty International called Saturday’s verdict “farcical.”

    “The fact that two of these journalists are now facing time in jail following two grossly unfair trials makes a mockery of justice in Egypt,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.

  • Focus turns to U.S. data as China slowdown looms

    The economic figures will culminate in Friday’s jobs report that should reveal more about the strength of the U.S. economy. Car sales, construction spending, the Federal Reserve’s “beige book” and jobs growth may show the economy is strong enough to withstand the first rate hike in nearly a decade from the Federal Reserve, despite worries about a hard landing for China’s economy.

    Global stock markets were stung by severe swings in recent weeks, stoked by concerns that a slowdown in China’s economy may be more harsh than anticipated.

    But after confirming a move into correction territory, the S&P 500 rebounded to score its best two-day percentage gain in over six years this week, as comments from Fed officials led some investors to believe the market turmoil and global growth concerns had diminished the possibility of a rate hike at the central bank’s September meeting.

    A September rate increase hasn’t been ruled out, however. Fed Vice President Stanley Fischer told CNBC during the Fed’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, that the committee was “heading in the direction” of higher rates. Traders in futures markets that bet on rate increases boosted September’s odds after his words.

    “There is a narrative out there that Yellen’s Fed is looking for a reason to delay the rate hike; I don’t think that is necessarily the case,” said Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial in Waltham, Massachusetts.

    “If we continue this run of strong data and if the market keeps coming back or at least doesn’t keep dropping, that makes September more likely.”

    After a stronger-than-expected revision to second quarter gross domestic product and solid durable goods figures, another run of strong data next week could bolster the case for a rate increase next month. As of early August, most U.S. primary dealers polled expected a September rate increase.

    But traders also are also mindful of the fact that the Chinese slowdown could hit U.S. companies and their shares disproportionately in the second half of the year, with luxury goods companies and industrials among the groups paying a price.

    Thomson Reuters data shows third-quarter earnings expectations have dropped 6.4 percent for the industrial sector and 8.8 percent for the materials sector since July 1.

    Should analysts continue to downgrade their expectations for third- and fourth-quarter earnings in those sectors or more broadly, that could make stocks more expensive, even after the recent selloff.

    “It is more important to the U.S. whether or not GM and Ford can sell cars there,” said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst, Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

    “That is probably what a softening of the Chinese economy could affect and it factors into the earnings of these companies.”

    Should next week’s data show the U.S. economy continues to slowly improve, market volatility is likely to remain as investors grapple with the possibility of a September hike and its ramifications for risk assets.

    “Markets and investors were nervous anyway about this normalization anyway after years without a raise,” said Peter Kenny, chief market strategist at Clearpool Group in New York.

    “If we were not in a position where markets are as jittery as they are as a result of the China deceleration story, it would be fair to say a rate move of 25 basis points would be able to be managed by the world’s largest economy.”

  • Thai police say suspect in Bangkok bombing arrested

    Police raided an apartment in a northern suburb of the capital on Saturday afternoon and discovered possible bomb-making materials that could have been used in the evening attack in Bangkok’s bustling commercial heart.

    The bomb tore through the crowded Erawan Shrine, one of the country’s top tourist attractions and close to high-end hotels and malls, killing 20 people and wounding scores more.

    Among the dead were 14 foreigners, including seven from mainland China and Hong Kong.

    The suspect “looks like the one we are looking for”, said national police spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri.

    “They also found a lot of materials which can be used to make bombs.”

    The prime suspect in the attack is a young man with shaggy dark hair dressed in a yellow shirt seen on grainy closed-circuit television footage dropping off a backpack and casually leaving the scene before the bomb went off.

    Police and military personnel cordoned off the four-storey budget apartment on Saturday from scores of media and onlookers, and the arrested man could not be seen, a Reuters photographer said.

    Thai television showed a photograph of a handcuffed man who appeared to be foreign, in his 20s, with a beard and hair shaven short. Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the image.

    Police had made little progress in the investigation into what the military government said was an attack aimed at hurting Thailand’s troubled economy.

    Thai authorities had offered a $85,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the main suspect.

    Officials have had different theories about the identity of the man, saying he could be foreign, or a Thai man pretending to be foreign.

    Police have been criticized for providing contradictory information, and Reuters reporters on Friday found the authorities had not checked some CCTV footage taken minutes after the blast, which featured a man dressed like the chief suspect.

  • Pentagon teams with Apple, Boeing to develop wearable technology

    Carter said funding for the Obama administration’s newest manufacturing institute would go to the FlexTech Alliance, a consortium of 162 companies, universities and other groups, from Boeing, Apple and Harvard, to Advantest Akron Polymer Systems and Kalamazoo Valley Community College.

    The group will work to advance the development and manufacture of so-called flexible hybrid electronics, which can be embedded with sensors and stretched, twisted and bent to fit aircraft or other platform where they will be used.

    “This is an emerging technology that takes advanced flexible materials for circuits, communications, sensors and power and combines them with thinned silicon chips to ultimately produce the next generation of electronic products,” Carter said.

    He was speaking at NASA’s Ames Research Center in the heart of Silicon Valley.

    The consortium, which will be managed by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, will add $90 million to the federal money. Local governments will chip in more, boosting the group’s total five-year funding level to $171 million.

    Defense officials say the rapid development of new technologies around the globe is forcing the Pentagon to seek partnerships with the private sector rather than developing most of its technology itself, as it once did.

    “I’ve been pushing the Pentagon to think outside our five-sided box and invest in innovation here in Silicon Valley and in tech communities across the country,” Carter said.

    The Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Innovation Hub, which will be based in San Jose, is the seventh of nine such institutes planned by the Obama administration in an effort to revitalize the U.S. manufacturing base.

    The Pentagon established its first institute in 2012 to help advance the development of 3-D printing.

    The institute funded on Friday aims to use high-end printing technology to create specialized, stretchable electronics that could be embedded with sensors and worn by soldiers.

    The technology also could ultimately be used to integrate sensors directly onto the surfaces of ships or warplanes, allowing real-time monitoring of their structural integrity.

    Carter also met on Friday with the Defense Science Board for a briefing on its latest study on how autonomous military drones and robots should be in the future.

    The department has become increasingly dependent upon drones and other robots of varying degrees of autonomy, using them for everything from surveillance and reconnaissance to delivery of supplies and carrying loads for ground troops.

  • Protesters gather to pile more pressure on Malaysia’s PM

    The Malaysian leader has weathered weeks of attacks since it was reported that investigators probing the management of debt-laden state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) had discovered the unexplained transfer of more than $600 million.

    Protesters hope to spark a people’s power movement forcing Najib out, but political analysts doubt he will be toppled.

    Security was tight as the rally got under way and access to a square where the protesters plan to converge was blocked.

    The Malaysiakini news portal said 10,000 people had gathered by early afternoon but police estimated the crowd at half that number. Some members of the crowd had started to walk towards the square, Reuters witnesses said.

    Protesters carrying “Out, Najib, Out” placards sang the national anthem, honked plastic horns and shouted “bersih!”, a Malay word for “clean”. Bersih is also the name of the pro-democracy organisation behind the rally in Kuala Lumpur and the two main cities on Malaysia’s side of Borneo.

    “We the Malaysians want to clean up this country, we reject dirty politics,” said Tinagar Veranogan, a demonstrator in a crowd of predominantly young people as a helicopter buzzed overhead.

    The Star daily said on Thursday the army could intervene if the protest gets out of hand and a state of emergency is declared. A military spokesman declined to comment.

    Kuala Lumpur authorities rejected an application by Bersih for a protest permit, raising fears of a repeat of a rally in 2012 when police used water cannon and teargas to disperse protesters. Reuters journalists saw several anti-riot trucks and a water cannon parked near the Merdeka Square on Saturday.

    The government has blocked access to Bersih’s website and banned wearing of its signature yellow T-shirts under an order prohibiting material prejudicial to public order and security.

    The anti-graft movement Transparency International called on the Malaysian government to respect the right of citizens to demonstrate peacefully without fear of reprisal.

    The government “should listen to the concerns of its people”, organisation chief Jose Ugaz said.

    NAJIB HAS TIGHTENED GRIP

    Analysts say the Bersih movement is unlikely to inspire broad public support because it lacks strong leadership.

    “The rally will register as a big protest. But in terms of actual change, I don’t think anything will happen immediately,” said Wan Saiful Wan Jan, chief executive of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs.

    Ibrahim Suffian, director of independent pollster Merdeka Center, said discontent with Najib, who took office in 2009, is concentrated in urban areas and a national survey this month by his group showed a slight majority opposed the rally.

    Malaysia’s anti-graft agency has said the funds paid into Najib’s account were a donation from the Middle East, which came just before a 2013 election, but the identity of the donor has not been revealed.

    Najib, 62, has denied wrongdoing and says he did not take any money for personal gain but has tightened his grip on power through a series of steps to sideline would-be dissenters.

    He sacked his deputy and other ministers who had publicly questioned him, and the attorney-general who was investigating 1MDB was replaced. Authorities suspended two newspapers and blocked access to a website that had reported on 1MDB.

    Najib retains significant support from the long-ruling Barisan Nasional coalition and from within his party, the United Malays National Organisation.

    The coalition, in power since 1957, lost the popular vote for the first time in 2013 to an opposition alliance that split this year.

  • Segway knocks Usain Bolt off his stride at the Bird’s Nest

    Bolt was taking the plaudits of the crowd after winning his fourth straight 200 metres world crown when the wheel of the cameraman’s Segway caught a trackside rail and flipped over, sending man and machine into the barefooted sprinter.

    The 29-year-old Olympic champion, who had his back to the man, was knocked to the ground and sustained a few minor cuts.

    He was not about to let the accident ruin his celebrations after beating American rival Justin Gatlin to a sprint title for the second time in five days, however.

    “I did not hit a cameraman. He took me out,” said Bolt, who held on to his track spikes with his right hand as he did a backward roll to get back onto his feet.

    “The rumour I am trying to start right now is Justin Gatlin paid him.”

    Silver medallist Gatlin, sat next to Bolt at the post-race news conference, quipped ruefully: “I want my money back.”

    Bolt, who is hoping to run for a third gold in the 4x100m relay at the weekend, joked that he might have to consider taking out insurance after the incident.

    “I probably should have my legs insured. It was pretty scary when it happened,” he added.

    “Accidents happen. I have a few cuts but it is nothing that I have never done to myself in training. I will be alright.”

  • England’s Ian Bell bids farewell to one-day cricket

    Ian Bell, who has scored an England record 5,416 runs in 161 one-dayers, was left out of the squad for the five-match series against Australia starting next week.

    He helped his team win this year’s Ashes, a record-equalling fifth test series victory for him over the Australians, but averaged only 26.87 with the bat.

    “Deep down I probably knew I wasn’t ready to call time on my test career,” Bell wrote in the Metro newspaper.

    Bell has scored 7,569 runs in 115 tests at an average of 43, including 22 centuries.

    “I’ve a huge amount still to give in the test arena and still have so many ambitions left to achieve, both from a personal and a team perspective,” he said.

    “I would love nothing more than to go to Australia in two years’ time and right the wrongs of our last Ashes tour there,” the right-hander added in reference to the 5-0 whitewash last year.

    “I’m not afraid of being dropped. I’m looking forward to challenging myself and putting myself into difficult situations against the best players in the world.”

  • India 50-2 in rain-shortened day in Colombo

    Only 15 overs of play were possible in the entire day as the umpires made multiple inspections to check for a restart but called stumps about an hour after the official tea break.

    Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews was rewarded by his fast bowlers with the wickets of opener Lokesh Rahul (two) and in-form batsman Ajinkya Rahane (eight) after he opted to bowl on a pitch sporting a covering of grass.

    India captain Virat Kohli (14) survived some nervy moments to stay unbeaten with Cheteshwar Pujara (19) when heavy rain forced the players off the ground for an early lunch break.

    Rahul was clean bowled by Dhammika Prasad with the second delivery of the day with the batsman inexplicably shouldering arms to a ball that nipped back from outside the off stump.

    Rahane, who scored a century in India’s second test victory last week, batted confidently before he missed a straight delivery from Nuwan Pradeep to be given out leg before wicket.

    India were 14-2 at that stage and looked set for more trouble but debutant wicketkeeper Kusal Perera spilled an edge from Kohli with the batsman on eight.

    Kohli was once again lucky when he edged Prasad but the ball fell short of the first slip.

    The hosts made three changes to the side that lost the second test with lower order batsman Jehan Mubarak and paceman Dushmantha Chameera being dropped while Kumar Sangakkara retired from international cricket.

    Hard-hitting batsman Perera, left-handed batsman Upul Tharanga and paceman Nuwan Pradeep were drafted in for the deciding test of the series tied at 1-1.

    India also handed a test debut to a wicketkeeper-batsman with Naman Ojha replacing Wriddhiman Saha, who was been ruled out with a hamstring injury suffered in the second match.

    Pujara, whose last match was the Boxing Day test against Australia last December, replaced injured opener Murali Vijay in the only other change in the visiting team.

  • Two British journalists detained in southeast Turkey

    The two journalists were identified by the Turkish media and security sources as Jake Hanrahan and Philip Pendlebury. They were detained in the Baglar district of Diyarbakir province, where they were filming clashes between Turkish security forces and Kurdish militants, the sources said.

    “A Vice News journalist, cameraman and fixer were detained by local police last night in Diyarbakir, Turkey, while reporting in the region. Vice News is working closely with the relevant authorities to secure their immediate release,” Vice said in an e-mailed statement.

    The company declined to confirm the identities of the journalists. Vice News describes itself as an international news organization focusing on under-reported stories.

    The security sources said the two Britons and their Turkish translator were in close contact with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants.

    A 2-1/2-year-old ceasefire between Turkey and Kurdish militants collapsed in July after a group close to PKK rebels shot dead two police officers. Ankara retaliated with strikes against the group in Iraq and Turkey.

  • British photographer focuses on plight of 1 billion disabled people

    “Sometimes when you have a blind child they will try and kill them, set them on fire, lock them in a hut for the rest of their life, forget about them,” Robertson said, speaking from his home in London.

    It is unclear who carries out the attacks, but it is likely to be relatives or members of the community acting under pressure from community elders, he said.

    “I was angry that people thought that just because they were disabled, they weren’t worth anything.

    “I felt I could help. I knew that they were so badly mutilated, they would make powerful images, and if somebody saw these images they would feel something,” he said.

    Robertson, an award-winning photographer who works for the London-based Guardian newspaper, approached an international charity for the blind, Sightsavers, and together they organised a photography exhibition highlighting the issue.

    The exhibition, based on trips to Uganda and India, opened for the second time in London on Aug. 25.

    Over the past 20 years, Robertson has covered wars and famines and spent years living in Baghdad and Afghanistan. For the past 10 years he has been covering portraits and lifestyle features.

    “It’s not like I’m not used to seeing real human suffering, but this particular project really affected me,” he said.

    Robertson, who is badly dyslexic, was treated very differently from other children at school and told he would never succeed.

    “Everybody should be given at least a chance. I felt these disabled people were not even given the opportunity to succeed,” said the father of two young children.

    “This one girl I photographed … she was really badly treated in the community – raped, beaten up, horrific stuff. I couldn’t believe this was happening.”

    Robertson said communities lack understanding about disability, money for equipment and access to specialist schools.

    Children able to attend a specialist school blossomed under the encouragement and attention they received, he said.

    There are an estimated one billion people with disabilities, about 80 percent of whom live in developing countries, according to Sightsavers.

    They were left out of a 15-year international push, which expires this year, to improve living standards in developing countries, including access to health and education, and a reduction in poverty, the charity said.

    Uganda has achieved free universal education, but nearly half of all children with disabilities are out of school because of the lack of equipment and staff needed to support them, according to Sightsavers.

    “This means that over the 15 years, the lives of people with disabilities have got worse,” Natasha Kennedy, policy campaigns manager at Sightsavers, said.

    Disability has now been included in a new series of development targets to be agreed by global leaders at a U.N. summit in September, known as the Sustainable Development Goals.

    People with disabilities are included in all the targets, including universal access to education and healthcare, and ending poverty.

    “It’s huge because it means that for the first time … governments and donors must include people with disability as a principle of global development and not as an afterthought,” Kennedy said.

    Although the cost of including people with disabilities in targets such as education and healthcare is significant, the cost of leaving them out is even greater, she said.

    “These people want to be contributing, out there working, learning, socialising and having fulfilling lives and the only way they can do that is if the systems include them from the very outset,” Kennedy said.

    “You can’t realistically eliminate poverty unless you’re reaching the most vulnerable and most marginalised – and they are people with disabilities,” she added.

    Robertson’s photo exhibition will travel to New York to coincide with the U.N. summit there next month.