Pakistani anti-corruption court indicts ousted PM Sharif and his daughter
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A Pakistani anti-graft court on Thursday indicted ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter for allegations linked to ownership of posh London flats.
A Reuters witness in court said Sharif, his daughter Maryam, as well as her husband Muhammad Safdar, had all been indicted.
They all pleaded not guilty. Maryam and Safdar were present in court, but Sharif sent a representative while he tends to his ailing wife in Britain.
Sharif was disqualified by the Supreme Court in July for not declaring a source of income that he disputes receiving. Pakistan’s top court also ordered a wide-ranging investigation by the National Accountability Bureau and trial of Sharif family members.
Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Clarence Fernandez
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RAQQA, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Kurdish groups who led the fight against Islamic State in its former capital Raqqa must navigate a complex peace to avoid ethnic tension with the city’s Arab majority and to secure critical U.S. aid.
The Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which finally vanquished Islamic State in Raqqa on Tuesday face a big task rebuilding a city left in ruins by months of intense fighting and heavy air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition.
The political challenge is no less daunting in a city that falls outside the Kurdish-dominated regions of northern Syria.
The fall of Raqqa, where Islamic State staged euphoric parades after its string of lightning victories in 2014, is a potent symbol of the jihadist movement’s collapsing fortunes.
Its self-declared “caliphate” is also crumbling fast in eastern Syria, helping President Bashar al-Assad and his Iranian and Russian allies to recapture swathes of territory.
Keenly aware of Raqqa’s ethnic and tribal sensitivities, the SDF has been working hard to put Arabs at the heart of plans for local government and policing post-Islamic State, analysts say.
In the short term, the Raqqa Civil Council (RCC) set up under SDF auspices must urgently provide security, repair infrastructure and supply aid to win the backing of a population exhausted by conflict, and to allow the people of Raqqa to return home.
Longer term, Raqqa’s political destiny is tied to the wider fate of the war that has shattered Syria into a patchwork of areas over the last six years, including swathes of the north controlled by the Kurdish YPG militia that leads the SDF.
Ultimately, the Syrian state wants to recover control of this city on the Euphrates River, meaning it may eventually become the arena of a new conflict with Damascus, or a bargaining chip in eventual negotiations over possible Kurdish autonomy.
“Whoever leads us, Kurd or Arab, we want them to provide us with services,” said a man from Raqqa, speaking outside the RCC headquarters in Ain Issa, north of the city.
“Safety and security is the most important thing,” said the man, a government employee before the war who cited lingering fear of the Syrian state as his reason for staying anonymous.
“FEDERAL” FUTURE?
Raqqa was not a target for the YPG earlier in the war but gradually became one as the militia emerged as the main Syrian partner for the U.S.-led coalition.
The U.S.-led coalition says Arab fighters battling under the SDF banner made up the bulk of the force in the Raqqa campaign. But Kurdish commanders and fighters of the well-organised YPG appeared the leading force throughout the four-month campaign.
Syria’s main Kurdish party, the PYD, and its allies may hope Raqqa will eventually join a new “federal” system of autonomous regions they are establishing in the north.
But Kurdish leaders say it is too early to discuss that for now, underlining local and international sensitivities surrounding the political project opposed by their U.S. allies and neighbouring Turkey.
While Syrian Kurds say they want to remain part of Syria, regional concern over Kurdish separatism has deepened since Iraqi Kurds voted for independence, triggering military action by Iraq and tough measures by Turkey and Iran.
Turkey, in particular, views rising Syrian Kurdish power at its border as a threat to its security, and unsuccessfully pressed Washington to abandon its alliance with the YPG in the run up to the Raqqa attack.
Turkey plays host to a rival Raqqa civil council which regards the YPG as a foreign occupation force. Kurdish politicians say Raqqa’s future is now entirely in the hands of its people.
“So far we have not seen any reactions to indicate there will not be acceptance of the SDF, or the RCC,” said Fawza Youssef, a senior Kurdish politician, in an interview.
“The ones who will remain in Raqqa will be the internal security forces and the RCC,” she said. “The security forces that are being prepared are all volunteers from Raqqa.”
Some YPG fighters quickly began pulling back from the city on Tuesday, handing their positions to non-Kurdish elements of the SDF, a witness and field commanders said.
RISK OF “COVERT INTERFERENCE”
The SDF applied a similar model in the northern Syrian city of Manbij last year after capturing it from Islamic State.
“The (RCC) is still closely linked with YPG/PYD power structures, but they have put more time and effort into emphasising inclusivity than we have seen in some other areas,” senior International Crisis Group analyst Noah Bonsey said.
But the risk of unrest would rise if Kurdish groups were perceived to be micro-managing the city.
“There is also the risk of covert interference from the outside: IS sleeper cells, and the Syrian regime may see an interest in using loyalist networks to destabilise things. Either of those dynamics could heighten ethnic tension.”
Yasser al-Sayyed, a 43-year-old former car salesman from Raqqa, said people are “happy with the SDF now, of course, because they’re free from Daesh (Islamic State)”. “But this needs to be followed up” with aid, reconstruction and jobs.
The United States has deployed a team of diplomats to Syria to work on humanitarian and stabilisation efforts.
The U.S. State Department said Washington would take the lead in helping to clear rubble and restore basic services.
“We will assist and take, essentially, the lead in bringing back the water, electricity and all of that,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a briefing. “But eventually the governance of the country of Syria is something that I think all nations remain very interested in.”
But analysts question how long U.S. support will last.
A U.S. official involved in post-Raqqa planning said support could not be channelled to a “PYD political project of expansion into this part of the country”, and the United States would not support “the PYD project to make an autonomous administration”.
For example, the official said schools could only get aid if they were teaching a variant of the Syrian state curriculum, rather than an entirely new one. “We’re not going to support a separatist entity ... that’s cut and dry,” the official said.
Though McGurk said nobody living in SDF-held areas wanted a return of Syrian state control, Damascus may be planning to reassert its influence.
A Syrian government official forecast trouble ahead for the SDF in Raqqa and other Arab majority areas of Syria.
“There is a contradiction,” said one Syrian official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “The manpower is with the Arabs, but the military power is with the Kurds.”
Additional reporting by Ellen Francis and Laila Bassam in Beirut; Writing by Tom Perry, editing by Peter Millership
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LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal has taken a swipe at its bigger neighbour Spain, saying it takes no pleasure from the Catalan independence crisis but hopes investment and tourists will be persuaded to cross the border in search of “political stability”.
Portugal and Spain have a centuries-old rivalry, dating back to the time when they divided the world between them as colonial adventurers. Now they compete for business.
“There is a point which is worth mentioning, which is our political stability. Unlike others, even next door,” Finance Minister Mario Centeno told Reuters in an interview late on Tuesday.
He regretted the Spanish turmoil, saying he had “friends both in Catalonia and in Madrid”, but continued:
“This is a worry, also for us, but it differentiates Portugal from political turbulence and will surely help to attract more investment, more tourism and more people.”
Since 2015, Portugal has had a minority Socialist government, backed by the Communists and Left Bloc in parliament, which has overseen a robust economic expansion, helped by investment and tourism.
This year the country is set to record its highest growth in at least ten years, helped by foreign investment and exports.
Spain has also staged a strong economic recovery, but Catalonia’s push for independence has plunged it into its worst political crisis since an attempted military coup in 1981.
Hundreds of companies have moved their headquarters out of the wealthy region, raising fears of a stampede if it breaks away. It has also prompted Spain to downgrade its economic growth forecasts and rattled the euro.
The crisis could worsen on Thursday, the deadline set by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy for the Catalan government to renounce independence. If it does not -- and it has shown sign of doing so -- he has said he will take direct central control of the region.
Spain this week cut its 2018 economic growth forecast to 2.3 percent from 2.6 percent
The turmoil in Catalonia, which has an economy about the size of Portugal, has also weighed on Spanish shares and bonds.
“There are negative risks, like to (Spain‘s) GDP, but I can’t hide that there are positive risks; obviously companies look for more stable situations, and if you mention companies you can also say that tourism could create some gains (for Portugal),” Centeno said.
“Obviously these would be collateral effects of processes that we would prefer did not exist,” he said, adding that he hoped Spain would resolve the stand-off.
Reporting By Axel Bugge; editing by Giles Elgood
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BERLIN (Reuters) - The pilots of an Air Berlin flight that performed a fly-past during the insolvent carrier’s last long-haul flight to its hub in Duesseldorf have been suspended, the airline said on Wednesday.
When coming into land from Miami on Monday morning, the A330 jet flew low across the runway, then pulled up and banked sharply to the left before landing on its second approach.
Pilots are trained in such “go-around” procedures for aborted landings, but the manoeuvre was unusual and the German aviation authorities are investigating.
“In aviation, safety always comes first. We are taking the incident very seriously,” an Air Berlin spokesman said.
The Air Berlin pilot had requested permission from the tower to make a left turn should a go-around be necessary.
“We wanted to make a mark, a dignified and emotional goodbye,” the Air Berlin pilot was quoted as saying by German broadcaster ZDF. His identity was not given.
Another pilot for a different carrier told Reuters that a go-around should be performed only for operational or safety reasons. “Electing to do one if it is known not to be required adds an unnecessary risk,” he said.
Several videos of the incident can be viewed online. In one, control tower staff can be heard exclaiming as the plane flies past, with one person saying: “We are all in awe.”
The Air Berlin spokesman said the videos raised questions that had to be answered as part of the investigation.
Air Berlin filed for insolvency on Aug. 15 and Lufthansa has signed a deal to buy large parts of its operations.
The airline will fly its final short-haul flights under the Air Berlin brand at the end of this month.
Reporting by Klaus Lauer and Victoria Bryan; Editing by Douglas Busvine and David Goodman
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MADRID (Reuters) - Spain’s political showdown with Catalonia is set to reach a new level on Thursday when political leaders in Madrid and Barcelona are expected to make good on pledges made to their supporters to stick to their tough positions over the region’s future.
In an unprecedented move since Spain returned to democracy in the late 1970s, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy will impose direct rule in Catalonia unless the region’s leader Carles Puigdemont retracts by 10 a.m. (0800 GMT) an ambiguous declaration of independence he made last week.
Puigdemont told members of his Catalan Democratic Party on Wednesday night that not only he would not back down but that he would press ahead with a more formal declaration of independence if Rajoy suspends Catalonia’s political autonomy.
It is not yet clear how and when this declaration would take place and whether it would be endorsed by the regional assembly, though many pro-independence lawmakers have openly said they wanted to hold a vote in the Catalan parliament to make it more solemn.
If Rajoy invokes Article 155 of the 1978 constitution, which allows him to take control of a region if it breaks the law, it would not be fully effective until at least early next week as it needs previous parliamentary approval, offering some last minute leeway for secessionists to split unilaterally.
This prospect has raised fears of social unrest, led the euro zone’s fourth-largest economy to cut its growth forecasts and rattled the euro.
Puigdemont has already defied Rajoy once this week, when he ignored a first deadline to drop the independence campaign and instead called for talks.
Both sides have traded blame for the stand-off for more than a month.
Rajoy says the Catalan government has repeatedly broken the law, including when it held a banned vote on independence on Oct. 1 and made a symbolic declaration of independence on Oct. 10, only to suspend it seconds later.
Puigdemont says a violent police crackdown on the referendum and arrests of pro-independence leaders on charges of sedition show the Spanish state has become authoritarian.
Some further uncertainty could come from the terms of Article 155, which are vague.
Madrid can in theory sack the local administration and install a new team, take control of police and finances, and call a snap election.
But some members of the Catalan government have already questioned this interpretation of the constitution, suggesting the stand-off could extend for at least several more days.
Writing by Julien Toyer; Editing by Sandra Maler
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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