Region

STOCKHOLM — The Palestinians will open an embassy in Stockholm on Tuesday night, cementing closer ties just months after Sweden became the first western European Union country to recognise Palestine as a state.

Visiting Sweden for the first time since recognition in October, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on other countries to follow Sweden's lead.

"Your recognition...should push forward negotiations in the peace process," Abbas said.

Relations between Sweden and Israel have nose-dived since the initial announcement and Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom called off a visit to Israel in January. Israel temporarily recalled its ambassador.

Palestinians seek statehood in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the blockaded Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as their capital.

Israel seized the territories in the 1967 Middle East War and has built Jewish settlements in several areas despite international criticism, although it had pulled out of Gaza.

Long-running peace talks collapsed nearly a year ago and the Palestinians forged ahead with an alternative strategy to achieve statehood.

Most Western European countries have yet to give a Palestinian state official recognition, as has the United States, although the UN General Assembly approved de facto recognition in 2012.

A total of 135 countries recognise Palestine, including several East European nations that did so before they joined the EU.

Swedish Prime Minsiter Stefan Lofven said Palestine would open an embassy in Stockholm immediately. In most Western European countries, Palestine has a diplomatic mission, not a full embassy.

He promised more aid for Palestine but stressed he wanted progress on reform.

“There are challenges: we must help one another to fight corruption, increase gender equality, improve respect for human rights and of course continue the state building process,” Lofven said.

A deal signed by the two leaders will see Sweden raise aid to Palestine by 1.5 billion crowns ($179.74 million) over the next five years.

Lofven used his inaugural address in parliament last year to fulfill a long-standing promise by his Social Democrat Party to recognise a Palestinian state.

Their resolution in the UN Security Council calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state failed in December but they have also moved to join the International Criminal Court.

The parliaments of several European countries, including Britain, France and Spain, have in recent months passed non-binding votes recognising Palestine, angering Israel.

CAIRO — Russian President Vladimir Putin met his Egyptian counterpart Tuesday and agreed a deal to build a nuclear plant, as he sought to boost ties on his first visit to Cairo in a decade.

The two-day visit came with the Kremlin bidding to strengthen relations with the Arab world’s most populous country at a time when Cairo’s alliance with Washington has frayed.

Putin is a key non-Arab backer of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has faced US criticism for his deadly crackdown on opponents since he ousted Islamist leader Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

Their meeting in Cairo follows a 2011 uprising that toppled ex-strongman Hosni Mubarak, whom the Russian leader met on his previous trip in 2005.

Experts say Putin’s visit was also aimed at showing he is not isolated internationally despite the crisis in Ukraine, where Russia is accused of fomenting and sustaining a rebellion.

Putin and Sisi made a brief statement after officials signed a memorandum of understanding to build a nuclear power plant in Dabaa on the Mediterranean coast — Egypt’s first such facility.

“If we can reach final decisions, then we can create a new sector in the Egyptian economy based on the construction of the plant, the training of technical staff and development of scientific research,” Putin said.

Egypt had taken steps in the early 1980s to launch a nuclear plant to produce electricity in Dabaa but it was shut down after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

In 2008 Putin had overseen along with then visiting Egyptian president Mubarak the signing of a deal enabling Moscow to bid for the construction of the nuclear power plant in Dabaa.

Kalashnikov gift

Putin was received with a guard of honour and a 21-gun salute, while posters of him were plastered on Cairo’s main roads greeting him in Russian, Arabic and English.

After arriving on Monday, he and Sisi had attended a concert at the Opera House before dining in the landmark Cairo Tower.

Putin also gave a Kalashnikov assault rifle to Sisi as a gift.

Russia hosted Sisi’s predecessor Morsi during his one-year presidency despite having branded his Muslim Brotherhood movement a “terrorist group” in 2003.

But Moscow was also one of the first countries to endorse Sisi’s presidency last year.

Sisi visited Russia when he was defence minister soon after ousting Morsi — amid deteriorating relations with Washington — and he followed up with an August 2014 trip as president.

At their meeting last summer at Putin’s summer residence in Sochi, the two discussed Russia supplying weapons to Egypt, which is fighting an insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula that has killed scores of policemen and soldiers.

On Tuesday the two leaders also agreed “on further military cooperation between our two countries given the current circumstances” in Egypt, said Sisi.

Putin and Sisi did not take any questions from reporters during their statements, after which the Russian leader left Cairo.

Moscow has sought to secure a larger slice of the Egyptian arms market after Washington suspended some weapons deliveries in the immediate aftermath of Sisi’s crackdown on Morsi supporters.

At the time, Russian media said the two sides were close to signing a $3 billion deal for Moscow to supply missiles and warplanes, including MiG-29 fighters and attack helicopters.

However Washington has since resumed its annual $1.5 billion in aid to Egypt, also delivering Apache helicopter gunships to fight Sinai jihadists.

Egypt’s ties with the US still remain cooler than before Morsi’s ouster, with Washington criticising Sisi’s regime for repressing Islamist as well as secular dissent.

Hundreds of Morsi supporters have died in a government crackdown overseen by Sisi since the Islamist’s ouster.

“Four years after the revolution, the situation is alarming, the repression kills and the prisons where use of torture is routine are overflowing,” Amnesty International said.

Washington regularly criticises the Egyptian judiciary for handing down lengthy prison sentences to Morsi supporters and secular activists, after often speedy trials.

As long as Washington criticises “Egypt’s democratic backslide... it keeps open the door for Putin... to gain influence in Egypt at the expense of US interests,” said Anna Borshchevskaya of The Washington Institute For Near East Policy.

SANAA — The United States is closing its embassy in Yemen, the Arabian peninsula state that is a front line in Washington's war against Al Qaeda, embassy employees and US officials said on Tuesday.

US officials in Washington confirmed the embassy would close due to the unpredictable security situation in a country where a rebel group has seized control of the capital. The state department declined immediate comment.

Last month, Iran-backed Shiite Muslim Houthi fighters, who had captured the capital in September, seized the presidential palace, driving President Abed Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his government to resign.

After years of crisis, Yemen now risks descending into a full-blown civil war pitting regional, political, tribal and sectarian rivals against each other in a nation that shares a long border with top global oil exporter Saudi Arabia.

Yemen is home to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, one of the most active branches of the global Sunni Islamist group.

The United States has long conducted drone strikes on the militants, a strategy critics say has failed to make a decisive difference and has stoked anti-US sentiment.

A US defence official said a contingent of US Marines was protecting the embassy while a Navy amphibious assault ship, the USS Iwo Jima, was in the Red Sea off Yemen’s coast and would be available to help with the evacuation of embassy staff, if requested from the State Department.

‘Training continues’

US officials said at least some military cooperation was continuing with Yemeni security forces but declined to speak about the embassy closure or its potential repercussions.

“Training continues and includes military skill sets such as small arms and medical,” one US official said.

US officials said the Americans, who had enjoyed the support of President Hadi, have no functional relationship with the Houthi forces.

The Houthi leader, Abdel Malik Al Houthi, took to the air waves to warn outside powers against interfering in the national crisis, saying in a televised speech on Tuesday it was “in the interest of every power, domestic and foreign, to stabilise this country”.

“Any attempt to sow chaos or harm this country will have its repercussions on the interests of these powers,” he said.

Employees of the embassy said the US mission had been getting rid of documents and weapons the past days and that the ambassador and other US staff would leave by Wednesday.

The ambassador told them Washington may ask the Turkish or Algerian embassies in Sanaa to look after US interests.

Employees at the British, French and German embassies said their missions had also been getting rid of documents and have given local staff two months’ paid leave. But there was no immediate word on the missions closing down.

France’s foreign ministry said it was monitoring the situation, but declined to say if the embassy would close.

Political parties have been holding talks in Sanaa under UN auspices to try to agree on a transitional administration. Two parties walked out on Monday saying they had received threats from the Houthis.

DUBAI — The United Arab Emirates on Tuesday launched air strikes from Jordan against the Islamic State group as an important Arab ally in the US-led anti-IS coalition returned to combat operations.

The raids came after President Bashar Assad said Damascus was being informed about air strikes against jihadists in Syria and that they could help his government if they were "more serious".

Emirati F-16s that flew in to Jordan on Sunday carried out raids against IS, "hitting their targets and returning safely to base", the UAE armed forces command said.

It did not specify how many aircraft were in action, or where or what their targets were.

Following the December crash and capture of Jordanian F-16 pilot Muath Kasasbeh, the UAE withdrew from the coalition’s strike missions over fears for the safety of its pilots.

The jihadists later killed the airman by burning him alive, releasing gruesome video footage of his “execution”.

Abu Dhabi wanted more done in terms of search and rescue for downed pilots in the conflict zones, The New York Times reported, and the US military later deployed aircraft and troops to northern Iraq to boost its SAR capabilities.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon said coalition aircraft carried out one air strike in eastern Syria in the 24 hours to 0600 GMT, and also pounded the jihadists in Iraq with 11 strikes.

The US-led coalition launched air strikes against IS in Syria on September 23, but has pointedly refused to coordinate with Damascus.

Coalition members ‘back terrorism’ 

In an interview broadcast by the BBC on Tuesday, Assad confirmed that there was no cooperation with the coalition, members of which he accused of backing “terrorism” — in an apparent reference to their support for other rebel groups fighting to overthrow him.

“There’s no direct cooperation” with the coalition, Assad said.

“Sometimes, they convey a message, a general message. There is no dialogue. There’s, let’s say, information, but not dialogue.”

Assad said such communication was through third parties. “More than one party, Iraq and other countries,” he said.

Damascus has grudgingly accepted the air strikes against IS on its territory, saying it was informed before they started, but has repeatedly criticised the coalition for failing to coordinate with it.

It says the raids cannot defeat IS unless the international community starts cooperating with Syrian troops on the ground.

Assad said the US-led strikes had the potential to help his government, but that so far they were not sufficiently “serious” to do so.

Analysts have said the anti-IS strikes have freed up Syria’s government to focus on other rebel groups.

And Syrian opposition leaders have accused Washington of abandoning them by targeting the jihadists but not Assad’s forces.

Barrel bomb allegation denied 

Rights groups have accused Syria’s regime of indiscriminate bombardment of civilians in rebel-held areas, including with barrel bombs — crude munitions packed with explosives and shrapnel that are generally dropped by helicopter.

But Assad flatly denied the allegation as a “childish story”.

“I haven’t heard of [the] army using barrels, or maybe cooking pots,” he said, laughing.

“We have bombs, missiles and bullets.”

“There are no indiscriminate weapons. When you shoot, you aim, and when you shoot, when you aim, you aim at terrorists in order to protect civilians,” Assad said.

He also denied claims that the government had used chemical weapons in an August 2013 attack outside Damascus that killed up to 1,400 people.

“Who verified who threw that gas on who?” he asked.

Challenged on whether his government did so, he said “definitely not”, adding that the reported death toll was “exaggerated”.

Since Syria gave up its chemical arsenal in a Russian and US-brokered deal after the 2013 attack, there have been persistent reports of the use of chlorine gas.

But Assad said his forces were “definitely not” using chlorine as a weapon.

More than 210,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011.

Two rounds of UN-sponsored talks have failed to achieve progress, but the UN’s latest envoy on the conflict, Staffan De Mistura, was in Damascus on Tuesday to discuss his plan for a “freeze” of fighting in the main northern city of Aleppo.

DOHA — More than a million Qataris were given a day off work Tuesday to take part in a nationwide day of sport amid growing concern at obesity levels in the superrich Gulf state.

Although the annual Qatar National Sport Day is meant to be a fun event with beach volleyball, jogging, fitness boot camps and even a screening of the boxing movie "Rocky", it contains a serious message.

Qatar, for all its recent association with sport, has a weight problem.

The first results from an ongoing two-year study by the Qatar Biobank, a medical research facility, published at the beginning of this year found that 73 per cent of Qataris were classified as "overweight or obese".

The same research — covering 1,200 Qatari nationals and long-term expats — also discovered that 76 per cent of men and 70 per cent of women are at risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

And only two in 10 Qataris do any kind of exercise each week.

The same research also found that 45 per cent of women had gained weight in the past year, though there was no comparable figure for men.

Hadi Abderrahim, managing director of Qatar Biobank, says the obesity problem is "a lifestyle issue" and is typical of "a country [which] is growing and developing quickly".

The problem is so grave that accounting giant PwC has advocated that Qatar introduce a tax on fatty foods to encourage healthier eating.

National Sport Day locations also include "diet shops" and there are cash prizes offered for those Qataris who have lost the most weight throughout the year.

To encourage a healthy lifestyle, shisha smoking pipes were banned at one of Doha's biggest markets, Souq Waqif.

It is the fourth consecutive year Qatar has held the event, which gives the working population of more than 1.2 million people a day off — traditionally on the second Tuesday in February.

Athletes such as British runner Kelly Holmes, a double Olympic champion, were invited to attend.

Difficult to exercise 

Among the venues used was Doha's Aspire Academy, usually a hothouse for potential professional talent but, which on Tuesday, was taken over by enthusiastic amateurs trying out a variety of sports including yoga, cycling, football and climbing.

One of those scaling a "scary" nine-metre wall was Colin, a 29-year-old electrician from Kenya who lives in Qatar.

He said the sports day was a "good idea" but he was unable to do more exercise because of the demands of work.

"I just took it as my rest day. So, it couldn't affect my daily routine because I work literally more than 10 hours every day," he said.

Similarly, American Danielle Garr, 32, who has lived in Qatar since last August, took advantage of the day off but was unconvinced it would mean a change in lifestyle for many, citing the country's inhospitable climate.

"I like to be active it is just that Qatar is not a very good place to be active outside, because of the weather and dust," she said.

She added that the National Sports Day seemed "a bit random".

Other events being held across Qatar included a children's run, beach tennis and a "5,000-step journey" — a roughly 40-minute walk designed for families to take part together.

Sheikh Saoud Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, secretary general of the Qatar Olympic Committee, said the Gulf state faced similar problems to other nations where driving to work, sitting in an office or in front of television or computer screens mean people are less active.

"It is a problem everywhere in the world," said the sheikh, a keen cyclist, who also admits to supporting the Real Madrid and Manchester United football teams.

"The most important thing is to make awareness for sport for the whole year.”

"It is not meant for one day. One day is like... the wake-up call, to make you understand how sport is important in your life."

Cairo — Five bombs exploded outside police stations in Egypt's second city of Alexandria on Tuesday, wounding 10 civilians, police said.

Militants regularly set off explosives in Cairo and Alexandria, but the deadliest attacks have been in the Sinai Peninsula where troops are fighting an Islamist insurgency.

Tuesday's bombings all struck eastern neighbourhoods of the Mediterranean city.

Two bombs went off in front of police stations in Montaza district, wounding nine civilians.

A third bomb outside a police station in Raml wounded one civilian, while two more in Smouha and Sidi Bechr districts caused no casualties.

Last week, a bomb blast near a police checkpoint on the western outskirts of Alexandria killed one civilian and wounded two.

Militants have killed scores of policemen and troops in bombings and shootings, mostly in the Sinai Peninsula, since the army toppled Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

The militants say their attacks are to avenge a deadly crackdown on Morsi supporters that has left hundreds dead, thousands jailed and hundreds sentenced to death.

Cairo — The Islamic State (IS) group's affiliate in Egypt has released video purporting to show the beheading of eight bedouin men it accused of working for the Egyptian and Israeli armies.

The video, posted on the group's Twitter account late on Monday, also showed what it said were victims of Egyptian military operations in the restive Sinai Peninsula where an insurgency has killed scores of policemen and soldiers.

The jihadist group, known as Ansar Beit Al Maqdis before pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group last November, has released footage in the past showing the execution of alleged informants.

In the latest video, masked militants in camouflage behead eight men, some of them in broad daylight at a major thoroughfare in north Sinai.

The men were first made to confess they worked for the armies of Egypt and Israel, which borders the Sinai and has been attacked by militants from the peninsula several times over the past three years.

The Egyptian military has poured troops and armour into the peninsula to quell the insurgency which picked up after the army toppled Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

Despite the unprecedented deployment and repeated air strikes, the jihadists have continued to stage large-scale attacks every few months.

Simultaneous attacks last month on military and police headquarters in north Sinai killed at least 30 people.

Most of them were soldiers killed when a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the army barracks in the provincial capital, El Arish.

WASHINGTON — Hackers calling themselves "CyberCaliphate" threatened US President Barack Obama and his family when they took control of Newsweek magazine's Twitter account on Tuesday with the words "Je suIS IS”, a reference to Islamic State (IS) and the deadly attack at French newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

The group, which also took responsibility for hacking Pentagon social media accounts last month, tweeted "#CyberCaliphate Bloody Valentine's Day #MichelleObama! We're watching you, you girls and your husband!"

The FBI is investigating the hacking, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. He did not comment specifically on the threat to the first family. The FBI had no immediate comment.

The Twitter account showed a head wrapped in a black-and-white scarf next to a banner proclaiming "CyberCaliphate".

The "Je suIS IS" was a reference to the phrase "Je suis Charlie" that emerged last month in support of victims of the attack by Islamic militants on Charlie Hebdo in Paris that killed 12 people.

Newsweek removed the "CyberCaliphate" banner and tweets and regained control of the account within 14 minutes, the magazine said. The IS group has seized territory in Iraq and Syria and has declared itself a "caliphate”.

The hackers also posted a message intended for the United States in retaliation for its actions in the Muslim world.

"While the US and its satellites are killing our brothers in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, we are destroying your national cyber security system from inside," it said.

The message contained a list of names under the heading "brave mujahideen".

The group took responsibility for the intrusion last month of the Twitter and YouTube accounts for the US Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East. The hackers claimed to be sympathetic towards IS, which is being targeted in bombing raids by a US-led coalition.

The attack on Central Command accounts in early January coincided with Obama's announcement of proposals to bolster US cyber security after high-profile hacking incidents, including one on Sony Pictures, that US officials blamed on North Korea.

The cyberattack on Tuesday occurred the same day that Obama's counterterrorism coordinator, Lisa Monaco, announced the formation of a new agency to monitor and analyse cybersecurity threats.

At the time of the Central Command attack, several current and former US security and intelligence officials said they had never heard of the "CyberCaliphate". They noted that Twitter accounts are more vulnerable to cyber intrusions than many company or federal government websites.

Jim Impoco, editor in chief of Newsweek, played down the intrusion.

"They were able to get control of our account for a few minutes. We are working with Twitter to make sure it doesn't happen again," he said.

TRIPOLI — Libya reopened its oil port of Hariga on Tuesday, ending a strike by guards that had threatened to further slash exports as rival factions fight for control of the OPEC country.

The threat to shut down Hariga underlined the fragility of oil shipments as two competing governments and their armed allies are locked in a scramble for territory and petroleum wealth.

Hariga reopened shortly before the United Nations was expected to hold talks to prevent a wider conflict that Western governments fear will turn Libya into a failed state just across the Mediterranean from Europe.

Libya shut most operations at the Hariga terminal near Egypt's border, the last functioning land oil export terminal, on Saturday after security guards prevented a tanker from docking in a protest over wage payments.

"An oil tanker was supposed to dock at the port this morning, but the weather was against this. We will wait until the weather allows us to go ahead," said Omran Al Zwie, a spokesman for the company operating Hariga.

The North African country's two largest oil ports, Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, with a combined capacity of around 600,000 barrels per day, have been closed by fighting between the two loose confederations of armed factions since December.

Nearly four years after civil war toppled veteran leader Muammar Qadhafi, Libya is caught in struggle between an internationally recognised government and a rival administration set up in Tripoli after an armed faction known as Libya Dawn took over the capital in the summer.

Each faction claims legitimacy and is backed by brigades of former rebels who once fought Qadhafi, but steadily turned on one another in internecine warfare.

Underlining the scale of the crisis, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday Libya's oil production fell by 100,000 bpd in January to 340,000 bpd. Before the 2011 civil war, it produced around 1.6 million bpd.

The United Nations last month began a new round of talks in Geneva, which brought some of the warring factions together to discuss a unity government and a ceasefire.

'Great, great danger'

Representatives from both sides said those talks would restart in the Libyan town of Ghadames on Wednesday with delegates from the elected House of Representatives and from the rival General National Congress (GNC), the former parliament reinstated by Tripoli's new rulers.

The UN special envoy to Libya, Bernardino Leon, said the most influential political and military groups now supported the process, which in the first stage would include a unity government, a ceasefire and armed groups leaving cities and strategic facilities.

"We have agreed on an agenda," he told UN radio. "We still have a long way even if we're successful in the first stage."

Maintaining a ceasefire or holding a political agreement together is a complex task because the two factions are loose coalitions of different armed groups and political leaders whose loyalties are not always aligned.

There are also questions about whether delegates attending the talks will be able to bring on board the hardliners among the armed groups on the ground, who still believe they can gain more from fighting.

Official Prime Minister Abdullah Al Thinni and the elected parliament are based in the east. They are loosely allied with the town of Zintan and with former Qadhafi army General Khalifa Haftar, who started his own campaign against Islamist militants in Benghazi

The Tripoli government is formed from former members of the GNC, some Islamist-leaning former rebel brigades, and former armed battalions from the city of Misrata, one of the most powerful regions.

But the slump in world oil prices, the cutoff in Libya's own production and the fallout from the conflict are taking their toll and adding to economic pressures for a quick solution. A budget crisis is already starting to hit vital imports, like wheat.

Libya will exhaust its wheat reserves in two or three months unless a state fund tasked with ensuring supplies receives money held up as a result of the turmoil gripping the country and a slump in oil revenues, a top official said.

"The country is in great, great danger," UN Human Rights spokesman Rupert Colville said in Geneva. "Dialogue is vital and we really hope it finds a way quickly through this morass to some sort of sanity in Libya."

BAGHDAD — Attacks in Baghdad killed at least 22 people and wounded dozens on Monday, just days after the government lifted a nighttime curfew that had been in place in the Iraqi capital for over a decade.

In the first attack, a suicide bomber set off an explosive vest in a busy Baghdad intersection crowded with rush-hour commuters early, killing at least 18 people. The bombing in Adan Square, located in a predominantly Shiite part of the capital, appeared to be the latest in a near-daily string of attacks by Sunni Islamic extremists targeting the country's Shiite majority.

A police officer who provided the death toll said the attack also wounded 42 people.

Hours later, a bomb ripped through a commercial area in the capital's northeastern suburb of Husseiniya, killing four civilians and wounding nine, another police officer said.

Two medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the media.

The attacks came two days after Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi lifted a midnight to 5:00am curfew in the capital that had been in place in various forms since 2004, when Iraq was engulfed in violence following the US-led invasion the year before.

The government has struggled to impose security following the 2011 withdrawal of US forces. Last summer the Islamic State group, which has claimed several previous attacks in and around the capital, swept across a third of the country, capturing the second largest city Mosul. A US-led coalition has been carrying out air strikes against the extremist group since August.