Syrian unrest: Top Hama legal official 'saw executions'

 

On Monday, the Syrian state news agency said Adnan Bakkour had been kidnapped

A man purporting to be the top legal official in the central Syrian city of Hama has said he has resigned after witnessing crimes against humanity.

In a video statement, provincial attorney-general Adnan Bakkour said he had seen more than 70 executions and hundreds of cases of torture.
It is not clear when it was filmed, but it was posted online on Wednesday.
On Monday, the Syrian state news agency said Mr Bakkour had been kidnapped by gunmen while on his way to work.
It quoted the Hama Police Command as saying the attorney-general, his driver and a bodyguard had been abducted in the village of Karnaz.
There had been no other reports about Mr Bakkour since then.

Yoshihiko Noda becomes Japan's new prime minister

 Mr Noda faces a series of tough challenges

Japan's parliament has backed Yoshihiko Noda as the country's sixth prime minister in five years.

The vote came after the 54-year-old former finance minister secured the leadership of the ruling Democratic Party in an election on Monday.
Ex-PM Naoto Kan, criticised for his handling of the March quake, formally resigned with his cabinet beforehand.
Correspondents say the new PM faces a daunting agenda, including trying to unify a divided party.
Large parts of Japan need to be rebuilt after March's earthquake and tsunami, and the crisis at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant still needs to be resolved.
Added to that, Mr Noda, a fiscal conservative, will need to address Japan's stagnant economy.
He has said in the past that he favours raising funds through increased taxation - including a doubling of Japan's sales tax, which currently stands at 5% - to cut debt and meet social security commitments.

YOSHIHIKO NODA

• Served under Naoto Kan as finance minister
• Wants to double sales tax to 10% to meet social security spending commitments
• Has not backed Naoto Kan's call for a nuclear-free Japan
• Has stressed importance of Japan-US security alliance

• 
  

On Tuesday he said Japan faced problems with the high yen and with deflation.

"On the topic of fiscal discipline, we need to carry out careful management of the economy and public finances," he said.
Unlike Mr Kan, he wants Japan's halted nuclear reactors to be restarted and has not backed his call for a nuclear-free Japan.
Monday's vote went to a run-off between Mr Noda and Banri Kaieda, the former trade minister backed by party heavyweight Ichiro Ozawa, after no candidate secured a majority in the first round.
Mr Noda won the run-off after lawmakers backing the public's choice, former foreign minister Seiji Maehara, swung behind him.
The DPJ won power in a general election in 2008, ending half a century of almost unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.
But it lost control of the upper house in polls in 2010 and has struggled to pass key legislation through parliament.
It has also been hit by in-fighting, with the leadership race turning into a bitter factional battle between supporters and enemies of Mr Ozawa.
Known as the Shadow Shogun, Mr Ozawa commands the loyalty of around 130 lawmakers, despite awaiting trial on charges of misreporting political donations. He is currently suspended from the party.

Irene: US East Coast left counting cost after storm

 

Insurance and rebuilding costs from Irene are said to run into billions of dollars

The US East Coast has begun clearing up after the devastation of tropical storm Irene, which killed at least 21 people.

The storm is now lashing Canada's north-east, after causing severe flooding in the US and leaving some five million homes without power.
But New York was not nearly as badly affected as state officials had feared.
President Barack Obama has warned that the impact of the storm will be felt for some time and that the recovery effort will last for weeks.
Flooding and power cuts are still a risk as swollen rivers could burst their banks, he said on Sunday.
The brunt of Irene's impact was felt by towns and suburbs from New Jersey to Vermont. Driving rains and flood tides damaged homes and cut power to more than three million people in New Jersey, Connecticut and New York.
Irene was earlier downgraded to a tropical and then a post-tropical storm.

At 03:00 GMT, Irene was moving north-north-east at a speed of 26mph (43km/h). An increase in speed is expected over the next couple of days, with the centre of the storm moving over eastern Canada on Monday, the National Hurricane Center in Miami says. Irene brings high winds near 50mph (85km/h) with higher gusts, it adds.

The storm, downgraded from a hurricane, passed New York on Sunday.
More than 300,000 people evacuated from low-lying areas in New York City are heading home.
New Yorkers will attempt to return to work on Monday, but the subway service will be limited while the tracks are inspected, says the BBC's Laura Trevelyan in New York. Most of the commuter rail services feeding the city were out indefinitely, reports say.
The New York Stock Exchange said it would be open for business on Monday and officials at the 9/11 memorial at the World Trade Center site said they had not lost a single tree.
Airlines said about 9,000 flights had been cancelled, but services into New York and Boston were due to resume on Monday.
In Philadelphia, officials lifted the city's first state of emergency since 1986. Several buildings were destroyed by the storm, but there were no deaths or injuries.
Vermont lashed Widespread flooding is reported in Vermont where hundreds of people have been told to leave the capital, Montpelier.

The city faces flooding, once from Irene, and again if the local water company decides to release water to save the Marshal Reservoir, a local dam where waters are reaching record levels.
"It's very serious for us at the moment in Vermont. The top two-thirds of the state are inundated with rapidly rising waters, which we anticipate will be an issue for the next 24 hours," said Robert Stirewalt, a spokesman for Vermont Emergency Management Agency.
Further south in North Carolina, Governor Beverly Perdue said some areas of the state were still unreachable. TV footage showed fallen trees and power lines.
Officials in Virginia began the clear-up, but said the damage was not a bad as feared.
The north-eastern seaboard is the most densely populated corridor in the US. More than 65 million people live in major cities from Washington DC in the south to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston further north.
Irene was classified as a category-three hurricane, with winds of more than 120mph (192km/h), when it swept through the Caribbean last week.

Libya: Col Gaddafi 'offers talks on power transfer'

 

The opposition has to tackle widespread shortages

Fugitive Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi is ready to begin talks to transfer power, his spokesman has said.

Moussa Ibrahim reportedly said the toppled leader's son Saadi would lead the talks. The rebels say they will not negotiate until he surrenders.
Meanwhile, desperately-needed fuel and water supplies are expected to arrive in the Libyan capital Tripoli later.
More than 50 charred bodies have been found in a burnt-out warehouse in the south of the capital.
Residents of the district of Salah al-Din said they were civilians who had been executed on Tuesday by members of a brigade commanded by Col Gaddafi's son, Khamis, before they abandoned a nearby military base.
Human Rights Watch says it has evidence that pro-Gaddafi forces killed at least 17 prisoners and carried out "suspected arbitrary executions of dozens of civilians, including professionals" in the days before Tripoli fell to the rebels.
On Friday, more than 200 decomposing bodies were found at an abandoned hospital in the capital's Abu Salim district. Doctors and nurses fled because of the fighting and many injured patients were left to die.
'Sea of blood' The Associated Press news agency in New York reported that it had received a call from Col Gaddafi's spokesman Moussa Ibrahim, who said the former leader was still in Libya although he did not specify where.

Colonel Gaddafi's offer to negotiate is pretty significant if only because it looks as though he is thinking about giving up.
He wouldn't be negotiating from any position of strength, except that the main reason for the shortage of water seems to be because pro-Gaddafi forces are still in control of the great man-made river water supplies in the south.
Any deal with Col Gaddafi would enable water to be returned to Tripoli, and there are other aspects of things that would improve if some sort of deal was made with him.
However, it is impossible to imagine that any deal - especially given the evidence of massacres that have come to light - would enable him to sit quietly in a private house in Tripoli.

Mr Ibrahim, whom AP says it identified by his voice, said Col Gaddafi was offering to negotiate with the rebels to form a transitional government.

Those negotations would be led by Col Gaddafi's son, Saadi, said Mr Ibrahim, who told AP he was still in Tripoli and had seen the former leader on Friday.
Early this week, CNN reported it had been in email contact with Saadi Gaddafi who confirmed his desire to negotiate a ceasefire.
"I will try to save my city Tripoli and 2 millions of people living there... otherwise Tripoli will be lost forever like Somalia," he wrote.
Without a cease-fire, Mr Gaddafi added, "Soon it will be a sea of blood."
An official in the rebel's National Transitional Council (NTC) told Reuters news agency that they did not know where Col Gaddafi was and no negotiations were taking place with him.
"If he wants to surrender, then we will negotiate and we will capture him," said Ali Tarhouni, the rebel official in charge of oil and financial matters.
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague described Colonel Gaddafi's offer as "delusional", saying the NTC is already in charge of the country.
"What is needed from the remnants of the Gaddafi regime is the fighting to stop," he told the BBC.
The focus has now moved to the urgent humanitarian situation in Tripoli.
The opposition says it will start distributing 30,000 tonnes of petrol on Sunday, and provide cooking gas within the next 48 hours.
A ship carrying fresh water and diesel for the power stations is due to dock in the next couple of days.
Symbolic victory Meanwhile, rebels are advancing towards one of the last sizeable pockets of pro-Gaddafi support in Libya - the town of Sirte.

Rebel commanders say negotiations are being held with Sirte's elders to try and force a peaceful surrender of the town, but so far those talks have gone nowhere.
The town sits in the middle of the main east-west coastal highway that runs across Libya and, until the rebels can take control of it, they cannot bring the two halves of the country together under their control.
Sirte is also Col Gaddafi's birthplace, meaning its fall would also be a huge symbolic victory for the rebel leadership, our correspondent says.

Bodies littered floor of Tripoli hospital

 

Local people made a heroic attempt to clean up the hospital

A once bustling, busy hospital is now littered with bodies - dozens, even hundreds of them.
They were mainly men, but there were also some women and children. They were lying in corridors, on trolleys in wards and even piled up at the hospital entrance.
Why they are all here and how they died is not clear.
What we do know is that the doctors and nurses who usually work here fled for their own lives on Monday when the Abu Salim district erupted in violence.
Many civilians, as well as fighters, were wounded or killed in the battle.
The dead and severely injured were simply left and abandoned at the hospital.
After four days of heavy, intense street fighting the bodies were literally piling up.
'Massacre' In temperatures of more than 36C, the stench was as appalling as the images were gruesome.
Local people, feeling safer about venturing out of their houses, made a heroic attempt to clean up some of the mess and reclaim their hospital.

 

It is impossible, at this stage, to know exactly what happened at the hospital

But their efforts were in vain, so broken was much of the basic infrastructure in Tripoli.
There was no running water, for example, to even attempt washing the bloodstained floors.
Many put the blame for what happened at the hospital on the Gaddafi regime.
Some said that as the colonel lost control of his capital, his forces took brutal revenge on anyone suspected of opposing the man who ruled this country with an iron grip for more than 40 years.
One doctor who had returned to help the clean-up called it a "massacre".
"There are more than 200 bodies here but there is no government in charge. What can we do? We urgently need international help to stop the situation deteriorating," Osama Bilil said.
It is impossible, at this stage, to know exactly what happened at the hospital.
But the horrors witnessed are a reminder of what Libya and its people have to overcome as they seek to finally defeat one of the most notorious rulers in modern history.

Bomb at UN building in Nigerian capital Abuja

There has been a bomb attack at the UN building in the Nigerian capital Abuja, the United Nations says.

The ground floor of the building has been badly damaged.
The emergency services are removing bodies from the building while a number of wounded are being rushed to hospital, our correspondent says.
Islamist militants have carried out recent attacks on the city.
A car bombing at police headquarters in June was blamed on Islamist sect Boko Haram, a group which wants the establishment of sharia law in Nigeria.
There has been no claim of responsibility for Friday's attack, but government officials have blamed "terrorists" for the bombing, our correspondent says.
Friday's attack took place at about 1100 local time (1000 GMT) in the diplomatic zone in the centre of the city, close to the US embassy.
There was a loud explosion and smoke billowed from the building. Eyewitnesses told our correspondent that a car bomb had exploded, but that detail is unconfirmed.
"We have deployed our policemen and anti-bomb squad. We can't establish how many casualties [there are]," an Abuja police spokesman said according to Associated Press news agency.

Libyan rebels advance on Gaddafi hometown of Sirte

Libyan rebel forces are pushing east towards Col Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, having taken most of Tripoli.

They have been exchanging heavy rocket fire with about 1,000 Gaddafi loyalists on the road to the city and are bringing up reinforcements.
Gaddafi forces are still firmly in control of the eastern city as well as Sabha in the desert to the south.
But with supplies and power running short, there are warnings of an impending humanitarian crisis in Libya.
Rebels advancing towards Sirte were also said to be blocked in the town of Bin Jawad as loyalists kept up stiff resistance.
"Gaddafi's forces are still fighting, we are surprised. We thought they would surrender with the fall of Tripoli," rebel commander Fawzi Bukatif is quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.
Meanwhile, the head of the rebels' National Transitional Council's (NTC) cabinet, Mahmoud Jibril, said the NTC was seeking $2.5bn (£1.5bn) in immediate aid.
Its immediate priority is to cover humanitarian costs and pay employees' salaries, though in the longer term, money will be needed to repair Libya's oil infrastructure, correspondents say.
The NTC also says it has started the process of moving its headquarters from Benghazi to Tripoli, but that with Gaddafi loyalists still fighting back, a full move has been postponed until next week at the earliest.

It's not quite over yet. About 60 miles from Sirte - we could hear the crump of rockets falling. Plumes of smoke rose up. The rebels told us a force of around 1,000 loyalists was on the road ahead and they were attacking. The rebels were firing their own Grad rockets in reply.
Three trucks sent volleys of them streaking across the sky. Reinforcements were pushed up, transporters carried tanks - teenage rebel fighters sitting on top of them and cheering as they headed for the battle. The rebels were baffled by how stubborn their enemy was being.
The commanders had expected that once the colonel himself had been removed from power, his men would give up having no reason to carry on. But it seems that some at least will fight right down to the last few square feet of territory which belongs to the old regime.

Col Gaddafi's whereabouts are unknown, though rebels have said they think he is still in or around Tripoli.

In other developments:

• Four Italian newspaper journalists who were abducted by suspected Gaddafi loyalists on Wednesday have been freed, Italian media report.
• Late on Wednesday, the US presented a draft resolution at a meeting of the UN Security Council asking it to release $1.5bn of assets for humanitarian needs. A vote is expected on Thursday or Friday.
• South Africa has been stalling Washington's attempts over the resolution, saying it wants to wait for guidance from the African Union, which has not recognised the rebel leadership as Libya's legitimate authority.
• The head of the National Transitional Council's (NTC) cabinet, Mahmoud Jibril, is due to hold talks with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Milan on Thursday.
• UK Defence Minister Liam Fox confirms Nato is providing intelligence and reconnaissance assistance to rebels hunting Colonel Gaddafi.

'Dead or alive'

k to playGuma el-Gamaty, NTC, on the "golden chance" for those close to Col Gaddafi to hand him over or kill him

The rebels entered the capital, Tripoli, four days ago, where most of the fighting seems to be over.
Col Gaddafi's sprawling Bab al-Aziziya compound was overrun on Tuesday, though there were firefights within the complex on Wednesday.
Rebel commanders said hot spots remained, with snipers and rocket explosions still dangerous.

Libyan rebels as well as Nato officials will be hoping that the hunt for Col Muammar Gaddafi does not turn into a protracted affair ”

The rebels have announced an amnesty for anyone within Col Gaddafi's "inner circle" who captures or kills him, and a $1.7m (£1m) reward.

The head of the NTC, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, announced the amnesty offer from the eastern city of Benghazi, adding the NTC supported an offer by a group of businessmen to pay $1.7m for Col Gaddafi, "dead or alive".
Col Gaddafi also faces an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity.
The rebel leadership have also offered Col Gaddafi safe passage out of the country, if he renounces his leadership.
The fugitive leader has vowed in an audio message to fight until victory or martyrdom.

Libya conflict: Where is Col Muammar Gaddafi?

 

Col Gaddafi pledged to fight to the end - but from where?

After Libyan rebel fighters stormed the Bab al-Aziziya compound in the capital Tripoli - and crowds were seen celebrating the end of the old regime - one question remains: Where is Col Muammar Gaddafi?

The country's leader for 42 years has apparently responded with his customary defiance.
In an audio message broadcast on a local TV station, he pledged "martyrdom or victory".
He also suggested that until recently at least, he had still been in the capital.
"I have been out a bit in Tripoli discreetly, without being seen by people, and... I did not feel that Tripoli was in danger," he said.
When his son Saif al-Islam turned up in the early hours of Tuesday morning and was asked by international journalists whether his father remained in Tripoli, he responded lightly: "Yes, of course."
Audio broadcast messages have been Col Gaddafi's way of making his presence felt during the fierce fighting between rebels and government troops in recent months.
'Alive and well'?
But he has not been seen in public since May, and one of his last TV appearances was in mid-June when he was pictured playing chess with the president of the World Chess Federation, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.

Analysis

Gordon Corera Security correspondent, BBC News

There had been an expectation among some Western officials that the Libyan leader might make his last stand in his hometown of Sirte but the indications are that he most likely remains somewhere in Tripoli.
Officials in London say they do not know exactly where he is. MI6 will be using its contacts and agents on the ground to try to find him while the eavesdropping centre at GCHQ will be trying to intercept any communications.
Nato surveillance planes will also be looking for any signs of escape across the desert.
But Col Gaddafi has been hunted for months now and has proved adept at evading detection and the airstrikes which appear to have been targeting him.
What no one can be sure about is what will happen when or if he is found.
Will the hunt end - as it did with Saddam Hussein after eight months on the run - with the former leader emerging from a hole in the ground with his hands held up?
Or will Col Gaddafi choose to avoid the humiliation of a trial and end his own life - as Hitler did in his bunker - with enemy troops closing in around him.

On Tuesday, Mr Ilyumzhinov said he had spoken personally to Col Gaddafi and his son, Saif al-Islam, by telephone.

"[Saif al-Islam] gave the phone to his father, who said that he was in Tripoli, he was alive and healthy and was prepared to fight to the end," Mr Ilyumzhinov told the Reuters news agency.
If it is true that Col Gaddafi has remained in his Bab al-Aziziya compound in the Libyan capital, then it is possible his whereabouts will be confirmed sooner rather than later. Fierce fighting has taken place around the compound in the last 24 hours, and it remains a key target for rebels.
But speculation abounds over where else he might be.
One of the most persistent rumours is that he left Tripoli a while ago and may have gone to his birthplace of Sirte, on the western coast, or his ancestral home of Sabha in the south.
From there he might be able to flee across the Sahara desert to countries such as Niger and Chad, or even Mali, where he has enjoyed some support.
Rumours
When the BBC was taken on a government-guided visit to Sirte last month, they were treated to an early evening rally of several thousand people showing their support for Col Gaddafi.
However, there are rumours too that he may have fled the country.
South Africa - which has led mediation efforts by the African Union to seek a solution to the crisis - was forced on Monday to deny it had sent planes to Libya to help Col Gaddafi escape.

"The South African government would like to refute and dispel the rumours and claims that it has sent planes to Libya to fly Col Gaddafi and his family to an undisclosed location," Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane told a news briefing.
Meanwhile, unnamed rebels have been quoted as saying that Col Gaddafi and some of his family are "near to the Algerian border".
The US defence department said on Monday it believed he was still in Libya. "We do not have information that he's left the country," said Pentagon spokesman Col Dave Lapan, without giving any further details.
Whatever the truth of his whereabouts, it is impossible to predict how this is going to end for the flamboyantly-dressed, maverick leader who has long liked to portray himself as the spiritual guide of the nation.

Libya conflict: Defiant Saif al-Islam Gaddafi reappears

One of Col Muammar Gaddafi's sons, Saif al-Islam, has appeared in Tripoli and claimed the government had "broken the backbone" of the rebel offensive there.

He turned up in a government vehicle at a hotel held by loyalists, a day after the rebels said they had detained him.
A BBC correspondent said Saif al-Islam seemed confident and full of adrenalin.
Our correspondent reports renewed gunfire, mortars and grenades in the area around the Rixos hotel, one of the pockets still held by Gaddafi forces.
There are further reports of explosions and heavy artillery around Bab al-Azizia, Col Gaddafi's compound.
Both sides say they control most of the capital.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi turned up in the early hours of Tuesday at the Rixos Hotel, where many international journalists are based.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was asked where he saw the balance of power in Tripoli: "We gave them a hard time, so we are winning," he told me. He seemed pumped full of adrenalin and brimming with confidence.
Precisely who is winning the battle for Tripoli, though, is still unclear. In parts of the capital, rebel forces are in control. After their astonishing advance over the weekend, they believe victory is within sight.
But Gaddafi forces have been reinforced and some rebel supply lines into the city seem to have come under attack. It is clear loyalists are fighting back in some areas and many casualties are being reported.
The sudden appearance of Saif al-Islam, said only on Sunday to have been captured by the rebels, will merely embolden them further.

• Meeting Saif al-Islam Gaddafi

He told the BBC: "We have broken the backbone of the rebels." He added that by moving into Tripoli, the rebels had fallen into "a trap".

"We gave them a hard time, so we're winning," he said.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, 39, had been widely regarded as a likely successor to his father. On Sunday the rebels claimed they had captured him, along with other members of his family.
On Monday, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) said he was negotiating with the rebels for Saif al-Islam's transfer to The Hague.
Saif al-Islam, his father and the head of the Libyan intelligence service have all been indicted for war crimes by the ICC.
But on Tuesday, an ICC spokesman told the BBC that the court had not made any announcement that Saif al-Islam was in its custody. He said the ICC had received different information from the various rebel factions about Saif al-Islam's purported arrest and whereabouts.
UK International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell blamed the "fog of warfare" for the confusion.
Saif al-Islam said he did not care about the ICC arrest warrant. Asked if Col Gaddafi was safe and in Tripoli, he replied: "Of course."

He also went to his father's Bab al-Azizia compound and told three journalists accompanying him: "Tripoli is under our control. Everyone should rest assured."
In a broadcast late on Sunday, he urged residents to "save Tripoli" from the rebels.
Members of the rebels' National Transitional Council (NTC) in Benghazi say they plan to fly to the capital on Wednesday to start work on forming a new government.
A BBC correspondent in Benghazi says there is optimism in their ranks that by the middle of the week Tripoli airport will be secure enough to allow them to move.