Region

SANAA — Yemeni President Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi resigned on Thursday, a government spokesman said, throwing the country deeper into chaos days after Houthi rebels battled their way into his presidential palace.

Hadi, an ally of the United States, stood down abruptly shortly after Prime Minister Khaled Baha had offered his government's resignation, saying it did not want to be dragged into "an unconstructive political maze".

This was an apparent reference to a stand-off between Hadi and the Shiite Muslim Houthi movement which has been holding the president a virtual prisoner in his own official residence.

"We apologise to you personally and to the honourable chamber and to the Yemeni people after we reached a dead end," a government spokesman quoted Hadi's resignation letter as saying.

It was addressed to the speaker of parliament, who becomes interim head of state under the constitution.

Hadi’s decision marked an abrupt turnaround from Wednesday, when he said he was ready to accept Houthi demands for a bigger stake in constitutional and political arrangements.

That announcement had appeared to ease worsening differences between him and the Houthis, whose rise to power has placed Yemen within a wider sectarian struggle fought by proxies of Riyadh and Tehran in parts of the Middle East.

The Houthis’ defeat of the presidential guards had already added to disarray in a country where the United States is also carrying out drone strikes against one of the most powerful branches of Al Qaeda.

Regional struggle

The rebels’ rise has resulted in a shift in Yemen’s complex tribal, religious and regional allegiances.

Suspecting Iranian complicity, the Sunni Muslim authorities in Riyadh cut most of their financial aid to Yemen after the Houthis’ takeover of the capital.

On Thursday the capital Sanaa remained largely shut down, witnesses said, even though the airport and seaport in the southern city of Aden resumed work on Thursday, having closed for a day in protest at the Houthi offensive against Hadi’s administration.

In central Yemen, local tribesmen said they were pushing back Houthi fighters in Marib province, which produces half of Yemen’s oil and more than half of its electricity.

The local branch of Al Qaeda has responded to the Houthis’ ascent by attacking their forces, as well as state, military and intelligence targets.

As Zaidis, a Shiite Muslim sect, the Houthis oppose the hardline Sunni Islamists of Al Qaeda. However, the Houthis’ assaults on the militants risk raising sectarian feelings in predominantly Sunni Yemen.

Before Hadi quit, clusters of Houthi fighters were dotted around the perimeter of the presidential palace on Thursday. At Hadi’s residence, sentry points normally used by presidential guards were empty, and a group of Houthis with an army vehicle were parked at a main entrance.

CAIRO — An Egyptian court ordered the release of the sons of Egypt’s ousted president Hosni Mubarak on Thursday pending retrial in a corruption case, their lawyer said.

Lawyer Farid Al Deeb said the order for the release of Alaa and Gamal Mubarak should mean they immediately walk free. A court had already dropped other graft charges against the sons in November.

The Cairo Criminal Court said in a document explaining its ruling that the two men had already served the maximum permitted time of 18 months in pretrial detention and should therefore not be held pending their retrial in a corruption case.

The retrial was ordered by Egypt’s high court earlier this month.

In May, his sons were given four-year jail terms in the same case, while the 86-year-old former president received a three-year sentence.

They were charged with diverting public funds earmarked to renovate presidential palaces and using the money to upgrade family properties.

It was not immediately clear why the court did not also order Mubarak’s release.

Suffering from ill health, he has been serving his sentence in a military hospital in the upscale Maadi district of Cairo.

Judicial sources have said he could soon walk free as no convictions remain against him after the high court ordered a retrial in the embezzlement case.

In November, a court dropped charges against Mubarak of conspiring to kill protesters in the uprising that ended his 30-year rule.

CAIRO — The blue and gold braided beard on the burial mask of famed pharaoh Tutankhamun was hastily glued back on with epoxy, damaging the relic after it was knocked during cleaning, conservators at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo said Wednesday.

The museum is one of the city's main tourist sites, but in some areas, ancient wooden sarcophagi lay unprotected from the public, while pharaonic burial shrouds, mounted on walls, crumble from behind open panels of glass. Tutankhamun's mask, over 3,300 years old, and other contents of his tomb are its top exhibits.

Three of the museum's conservators reached by telephone gave differing accounts of when the incident occurred last year, and whether the beard was knocked off by accident while the mask's case was being cleaned, or was removed because it was loose.

They agree, however, that orders came from above to fix it quickly and that an inappropriate adhesive was used. All spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of professional reprisals.

"Unfortunately he used a very irreversible material — epoxy has a very high property for attaching and is used on metal or stone but I think it wasn't suitable for an outstanding object like Tutankhamun's golden mask," one conservator said.

"The mask should have been taken to the conservation lab but they were in a rush to get it displayed quickly again and used this quick drying, irreversible material," the conservator added.

The conservator said that the mask now shows a gap between the face and the beard, whereas before it was directly attached: "Now you can see a layer of transparent yellow."

Another museum conservator, who was present at the time of the repair, said that epoxy had dried on the face of the boy king's mask and that a colleague used a spatula to remove it, leaving scratches. The first conservator, who inspects the artifact regularly, confirmed the scratches and said it was clear that they had been made by a tool used to scrape off the epoxy.

Egypt's tourist industry, once a pillar of the economy, has yet to recover from three years of tumult following a 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Museums and the opening of new tombs are part of plans to revive the industry. But authorities have made no significant improvements to the Egyptian Museum since its construction in 1902, and plans to move the Tutankhamun exhibit to its new home in the Grand Egyptian Museum scheduled to open in 2018 have yet to be divulged.

Neither the antiquities ministry nor the museum administration could be reached for comment Wednesday evening. One of the conservators said an investigation was under way and that a meeting had been held on the subject earlier in the day.

The burial mask, discovered by British archaeologists Howard Carter and George Herbert in 1922, sparked worldwide interest in archaeology and ancient Egypt when it was unearthed along with Tutankhamun's nearly intact tomb.

"From the photos circulating among restorers I can see that the mask has been repaired, but you can't tell with what," Egyptologist Tom Hardwick said. "Everything of that age needs a bit more attention, so such a repair will be highly scrutinised."

GAZA — His company may not rival Google or German software maker SAP yet, but Gaza-based IT entrepreneur Saady Lozon has plans to change that.

In nine years, Lozon and his partner Ahmed Abu Shaban have transformed their firm, Unit One, from a tiny outfit in a single room in the blockaded Gaza Strip into a successful business with clients in Europe, the United States and the Arab world.

They can't leave Gaza easily, but they can develop applications for web and mobile devices online and provide international clients with data-management services, competing with firms in India and elsewhere.

"We have managed to knock a hole in the wall of the blockade," Lozon, 33, said of the company, which will soon expand to more than 60 employees from 13, the majority women. "We deliver in time, just as the client wishes."

Lozon and Abu Shaban came up with the idea after graduating with degrees in computer science. Lozon worked briefly as an IT contractor for the United Nations and quickly realised he would rather run a company of his own.

They won their first client after making a pitch via Skype and offering a free trial. They borrowed money from friends to buy computers and slowly expanded. The firm now occupies two apartments on the 5th floor of a building in a smart district of Gaza overlooking the Mediterranean.

At the offices, dozens of women, most wearing headscarves, are busy at work, one group entering data on global trademarks for a company in the Netherlands.

Gaza's Google

Initially Unit One was focused on software development and building apps for iPhone and Android, but now there is a larger unit handling data-processing.

Along the way there have been serious hurdles, including the war between Hamas and Israel last July and August which caused staffing and power disruptions, and the fact banks in Gaza cannot easily receive transfers from abroad.

"It was difficult at the beginning," said Lozon. "In 2006, when the blockade started, we had to open an account in the West Bank," he said, referring to the other Palestinian territory, which is not subject to the same restrictions.

Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza after the Islamist group Hamas won power in 2006. Both Egypt and Israel continue to impose tight controls on the movement of goods and people in and out of the enclave, where 1.8 million people live.

Lozon said the Gaza war had been particularly problematic in an industry where success depends on quick delivery.

"We are trying to regain trust," he said. "We are telling everyone that Gaza can do the job regardless of the obstacles."

Asked about finances, Lozon declines to go into detail, but says the company is profitable and expanding. When he advertised for 10 new jobs, he got 400 applications.

"We are working to be like Google," he said with confidence. "I hope to make Unit One like Google for the people of Gaza, not only for business but also for entertainment."

UNITED NATIONS — Four leading European foreign policy officials on Thursday warned that new sanctions legislation against Iran could torpedo efforts to secure a long-term agreement with Tehran to curb its nuclear programme.

The plea, in an opinion piece published in the Washington Post, appeared to be directed at the Republican-controlled US Congress weighing new sanctions, even though the piece did not explicitly mention US lawmakers.

It was by British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.

Some prominent US lawmakers are calling for new sanctions to further pressure Iran to compromise in deadlocked nuclear negotiations with six world powers. That would be a mistake, the Europeans cautioned.

"Introducing new hurdles at this critical stage of the negotiations, including through additional nuclear-related sanctions legislation on Iran, would jeopardise our efforts at a critical juncture," they wrote.

"While many Iranians know how much they stand to gain by overcoming isolation and engaging with the world, there are also those in Tehran who oppose any nuclear deal," the ministers said. "We should not give them new arguments."

Negotiators from Iran and six major powers — the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — failed to meet a self-imposed deadline in November for an agreement seen as crucial to reducing the risk of a wider Middle East war.

A deal would curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. The new deadline for a long-term agreement is June 30.

"New sanctions at this moment might also fracture the international coalition that has made sanctions so effective so far," the Europeans said. "Rather than strengthening our negotiating position, new sanctions legislation at this point would set us back."

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will not meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when the Israeli leader travels to Washington in March, the White House said Thursday, one day after being caught off-guard by Republicans' invitation for Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress.

Spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said that in keeping with "long-standing practice and principle", the president does not meet with heads of state or candidates in close proximity to their elections.

"Accordingly, the president will not be meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu because of the proximity to the Israeli election, which is just two weeks after his planned address to the US Congress," Meehan said.

Netanyahu is scheduled to speak to Congress on March 3 and will push for additional sanctions on Iran. He was initially scheduled to address lawmakers in February, but the date was changed so that it could coincide with Netanyahu's trip to Washington to address an annual conference held by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby group, in early March.

The invitation was a coordinated effort by House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, both Republicans, with staff discussions beginning last year, according to a senior Republican aide, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorised to publicly discuss the private talks.

Boehner contacted the Israeli ambassador on January 8 to assess Netanyahu's interest and received a positive response. The Republican leaders reached out to the Israelis without consulting with the White House or State Department, a move that appeared likely to deepen the White House's already tense relations with congressional Republicans as well as the Israeli leader.

Obama has been urging Republicans, as well as some members of his own party, to hold off on passing new Iran sanctions legislation while the US and international partners are in the midst of nuclear negotiations with the Islamic republic. Last week, British Prime Minister David Cameron said he had been making a similar case to US lawmakers.

White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said Thursday that the nuclear negotiations were at a delicate phase.

"We ought to give some time and space for that to work," he said.

Netanyahu stands to gain politically at home from the US visit. He is in a tough fight to win re-election in Israel's upcoming March vote. Netanyahu's Likud Party is running behind the main opposition group headed by Yitzhak Herzog's Labor Party, which has been highlighting rancor in the country's critical relationship with the United States.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said it was inappropriate for Boehner to invite Netanyahu to address Congress in the shadow of the election and give the appearance of endorsing the prime minister.

"If that's the purpose of Prime Minister Netanyahu's visit two weeks before his own election, right in the midst of our negotiations, I just don't think it's appropriate and helpful," Pelosi said.

BEIRUT — With a confident smile, the leader of Lebanon's Hizbollah movement warned in a recent interview that allies of Syrian President Bashar Assad would strike back if Israeli attacks inside Syria continued.

Few expected Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's comments to be put to the test so quickly. Three days later, an Israeli raid inside Syria killed several prominent Hizbollah figures, including a son of the group's late military chief, Imad Moughniyah.

The attack could have repercussions. It has put Hizbollah under pressure to respond, sources close to the group said, and also put a ceasefire between Israel and Syria at risk. The group's leadership has yet to comment.

"This attack shows that Israel has crossed the red line in the security war with Hizbollah, which means the rules have changed," said a senior security source close to the group.

Hizbollah considers Israel its main enemy. But its fighters in the Syrian province of Quneitra, where the Israeli attack took place, have turned a blind eye to the presence of Israeli soldiers across the border there.

Israel has struck Syria several times during the present conflict, hitting weapons deliveries to Hizbollah, but the group has never acknowledged those attacks. This time the importance of those killed, in addition to Nasrallah's warning, make the latest raid difficult to ignore.

"It was like an unannounced agreement: 'You ignore us and we ignore you'. Attacks should not rise to full provocation. This attack is a full provocation of Hizbollah," said a security source contacted by Reuters.

"If the group does not respond it means it is stuck in Syria's mud and has lost its deterrent ability."

A Lebanese official close to Hizbollah said: "We should expect retaliation from Hizbollah, but it will be done coldly."

Its options are limited. It could strike from its stronghold in Lebanon, triggering all-out war with Israel. It could attack targets in Israel, but risk a wider war between Israel and Syria, or hit Israeli interests abroad. But all come at a price.

An Israeli defence official told Reuters that a response from Hizbollah was expected, but in the form of limited attacks unlikely to lead to all-out war.

Israeli strike

The Hizbollah members were killed in an Israeli strike near the border with Israel, where a ceasefire is in effect between Israel and Syria.

The frontier between Israel and Syria has been administered by the United Nations since 1974, a year after the last war between them. The area has remained quiet, with both sides avoiding provocation.

Hizbollah's commitment to the truce was never made public because it was an agreement between two countries, but that has now changed.

"It has collapsed now," a security source said.

Hizbollah was set up by Iran in the 1980s to fight Israel in Lebanon. It controls large parts of Lebanon, mainly near the southern border with Israel, but its influence has grown beyond Lebanon.

While the Lebanese government distanced itself from the war in Syria, Hizbollah sent fighters to help Assad.

Hizbollah officials privately say that while they have lost fighters in Syria, the impact of the war has been positive, allowing the group to expand its arsenal and train thousands of fighters to operate in unfamiliar territory.

"Our mujahideen are fighting in a foreign country, in lands and geography that we never fought in before that are completely different from the conditions of south Lebanon," a senior Hizbollah official said.

"We are fighting as an army and with allies. We are used to fighting in small groups, so these are major developments in our fighting skills."

Political divisions

But with political and sectarian divisions at home, it will be difficult to win backing for any attacks from Lebanon which could trigger war with Israel.

"The rules of the game are to respond outside Lebanon unless the Israelis bring war to Lebanon," a source close to Hizbollah told Reuters, explaining that it wants to avoid all-out war.

Lebanon has not recovered from its 2006 war with Israel and sending fighters to Syria has stretched Hizbollah's capabilities. In addition, the Israeli strike came at a sensitive time for the group.

Hizbollah is trying to contain the damage caused by one of its operatives who confessed to spying for Israel in a case that shattered the group's aura of impenetrability.

The suspected spy is believed to have leaked Hizbollah's plans to avenge the assassination of Imad Moughniyah.

Moughniyah, whose son was killed by Israel last week, was implicated in the 1983 bombings of the US Embassy and US and French barracks in Beirut, and attacks on Israeli targets. Hizbollah accuses Israel of killing him, which Israel denies.

"The group tried to retaliate but was not successful for several reasons. Some of the operations were leaked to the Israelis and others were not possible for technical reasons," said one of the security sources.

Despite that, the group has little choice but to respond.

Lebanese analyst Nabil Boumonsef said Hizbollah could not start a war with Israel. Instead, the response would be a targeted attack that stopped short of full confrontation.

MOGADISHU — At least five people were killed Thursday in a suicide car bombing against a hotel in Mogadishu on the eve of a visit to the Somali capital by Turkey's president, police and witnesses said.

Sources in the hotel, situated close to the heavily fortified presidential palace, said there were around 70 members of a Turkish delegation in the hotel at the time, but none of them was hurt by the blast.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, although Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Shabab rebels — who are fighting to overthrow the country's internationally-backed government — have carried out a string of attacks against high-profile targets in Mogadishu.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is due in Mogadishu on Friday in what will be a rare visit by a foreign leader, although officials said the trip would go ahead as planned.

"Five people were killed in the attack, among them three security guards," police official Mohamed Adan said.

"The attacker drove a car loaded with explosives aiming at the gate of the hotel but could not manage to reach inside. The explosion destroyed the perimeter partially."

Witnesses said they saw a car speeding towards the gate of the hotel.

"I saw the speeding along the main road and the driver turned into the Hotel SYL gate. There was huge explosion, smoke and shrapnel. Several people were down on the ground," said Abdukadir Munin.

The area around the hotel was quickly sealed off and police fired shots to keep away onlookers, witnesses said.

The attack comes even though Mogadishu, and particularly the area around the presidential palace, has been placed under extra-tight security ahead of Erdogan's visit.

Many of the Turkish officials inside the hotel were security personnel preparing for his arrival and businessmen, Somali sources said.

Speaking in Davos, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters the visit, during which Erdogan is due to meet his counterpart Hassan Sheik Mohamud, would not be cancelled despite the fact that Somalia was a country with "high security" risks.

"Risks could happen but Turkey's determined position will not change," he said.

The Turkish foreign ministry also said there were no casualties among the Turkish delegation in the hotel aside from some minor cuts from flying glass.

"There could be casualties among Somalis but there was no casualty on the Turkish side. One might have been lightly injured because of the smashed windows of the hotel, and Somalia authorities have raised the security level," the ministry said.

TOKYO — The clock was ticking Thursday towards a deadline imposed by Islamist militants threatening to kill two Japanese nationals unless Tokyo pays a $200 million ransom.

The Japanese government said it was working to secure the release of freelance journalist Kenji Goto and self-employed contractor Haruna Yukawa, but with less than 20 hours to go, admitted it had still not spoken to the Islamic State (IS) group.

"We have not been able to confirm their safety," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference.

Jihadist footage posted online Tuesday showed a knife-wielding militant looming over two kneeling Japanese men, apparently in a desert in Syria or Iraq.

In a chilling echo of the group's videotaped beheadings of five western hostages last year, the man, who speaks English with a British accent, says the two captives' fate hangs in the balance.

"You now have 72 hours to pressure your government into making a wise decision by paying the $200 million to save the lives of your citizens," he says.

Tokyo believes the deadline will expire at 2.50pm (0550 GMT) on Friday.

The Islamists have linked the ransom to the amount of cash Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he would be earmarking to help countries dealing with the influx of refugees fleeing fighting between IS and regular forces.

The black-clad figure said the money amounted to fighting against IS.

Part of Japan's strategy in dealing with the crisis appears to be regularly stressing the non-military, humanitarian nature of this payment.

"They are totally wrong about our position," Suga told journalists.

"We wish not to fight against the world of Islam, we want to help the more than ten million refugees in the region. This is humanitarian and non-military support. We want them to understand this, and free the hostages immediately."

Doctored images 

There have been a variety of public reactions in Japan to the unfolding drama, with some of Abe's domestic opponents tying it to his more assertive foreign policy drive and saying it highlights the risk of his brand of international engagement.

Among the general public there is a sense of bafflement, reflected in pieces in newspapers and on television seeking to answer the question: "Why Japan?."

Meanwhile, social media has seen an eruption of doctored images in which the picture of the armed militant looming over two kneeling men is altered — one montage replaces the knife he wields with a banana, while others play on video game themes.

A supportive narrative was building around Goto, a respected and experienced war reporter whose work has sought to highlight the plight of children in conflict zones.

In video footage he filmed around the time he entered Syria, he holds identification papers and his Japanese passport and explains that he is aware of the risks.

"Whatever happens, I am the one who is responsible," he says. "I am asking you, Japanese people, do not place responsibility on the people of Syria. Please. I am sure I will come back alive, though."

Ko Nakata, Islamic law scholar and visiting professor of Doshisha University, who also goes by the name Hassan, told reporters he was happy to mediate in talks between the Japanese government and the jihadists.

Nakata, whose home was raided by police in October over suspicions he was in league with militants, said an IS commander contacted him in September to suggest he could save Yukawa's life by participating in a "trial" under Islamic law.

However, because of the police probe, he was now unable to communicate with the commander, he said.

"But with this press conference I hope my message will reach the international community including the Japanese government," Nakata said.

He also addressed a message in Arabic to his "old friends" in the Muslim world, pleading for an extension to the 72-hour deadline.

The IS group has previously killed three Americans and two Britons after parading them on camera, but this is the first time Japanese citizens have been threatened and the first time a ransom demand has been made.

TRIPOLI — A parliament set up in Libya to rival the elected assembly has suspended UN-sponsored peace talks because of what it called fresh violence from the country's recognised government, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

Last week, the United Nations launched a new round of talks in Geneva aimed at defusing the oil producer's violent struggle between two governments and parliaments vying for control four years after the ousting of Muammar Qadhafi.

The rival assembly, known as the General National Congress (GNC), was set up after an armed group called Libya Dawn seized the capital, Tripoli, last summer. The internationally recognised prime minister, Abdullah Al Thinni, transferred his government to the east.

However, GNC spokesman Omar Hmeidan said representatives of the Tripoli assembly would not now take part in any UN sponsored talks, accusing troops allied to the opposing government of storming a central bank branch in the eastern city of Benghazi and committing other acts of violence.

Troops loyal to Thinni took over the central bank branch after expelling Islamist fighters from the area, a commander told Reuters.

"The army has controlled the central bank [in Benghazi] for some time, not just today. The central bank is now safe," said Colonel Farraj Al Barasi, an army commander running a military sector in eastern Benghazi.

"We've moved out the technical equipment. The cash is still in the safes," he said, adding that a committee would decide what to do with the money.

A Reuters reporter saw damage to the central bank building, which is located near Benghazi port — the scene of heavy battles for weeks between Thinni's troops and Islamists such as Ansar Al Sharia.