Region

CAIRO — An eight-floor residential building collapsed overnight in Cairo, killing at least 18 people and injuring seven others, security sources said on Tuesday, adding that the casualty figure was expected to rise.

Emergency services, soldiers and neighbours spent the morning rifling through a 5-metre high pile of rubble in search of survivors in a densely populated northeast district of the capital. Bodies wrapped in black were removed on stretchers to waiting ambulances as bulldozers lifted debris.

Ahmed Fawzi, a local municipal official, told state television only four people had escaped from the collapse, which he said was likely caused by an illegal extension built on top of the building.

Such incidents are not uncommon in Egypt where old apartment buildings are routinely neglected and many new ones are put up without obtaining the required permits or adhering to safety standards that may raise the cost of construction.

A civil protection official told the state news agency four nearby buildings, at least one of which had been damaged during the collapse, had been evacuated as a precaution.

Rows of unfinished red brick and concrete buildings, already a problem under president Hosni Mubarak, have mushroomed in the turbulent three and a half years since the veteran autocrat was overthrown in a popular uprising.

Egypt's population of 86 million — the largest in the Arab world — is squeezed into the small percentage of land that isn't desert, mainly in narrow strips on the banks of the Nile and in its river delta.

Egypt has taken to destroying illegally erected buildings along the Nile and its tributaries to protect canals needed to help grow food.

But Housing Minister Mustafa Madbouly also told Reuters last month the government would offer cheap loans to help residents complete apartments in unfinished buildings thrown up illegally across the country.

BEIRUT — Syrian government warplanes carried out a series of air strikes Tuesday on the de-facto capital of the extremist Islamic State (IS) group, killing at least 36 people, activists said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said some of the air raids struck a popular market near a museum and an industrial neighbourhood in the city of Raqqa along the Euphrates River in northeastern Syria.

It put the death toll at 36. The local coordination committees said the strikes killed at least 50 people. Another Raqqa-based collective called Raqqa is Being Silently Slaughtered said it documented over 70 deaths. Such discrepancies are normal in the immediate aftermath of attacks in Syria.

A militant video posted online showed medics bundle four bloody bodies into the back of an ambulance amid shouts of "God is Great". In the background, a fire truck tries to douse several burning cars as gray smoke rises into the sky.

The video appeared genuine and corresponded to Associated Press reporting on the strikes.

The Syrian government as well as the US-led coalition frequently bomb IS targets in Raqqa. It was not immediately clear what prompted Tuesday's unusually intense strikes.

An activist who uses the name Abu Ibrahim Al Raqqawi said nine airstrikes took place within half an hour. All but one struck civilian neighbourhoods in the centre of the city, he said, with one knocking off the minaret of a mosque.

"This is one of the ugliest regime massacres in Raqqa to date," said the Moscow-based activist, who oversees Raqqa Is Being Silently Slaughtered network.

In Iraq, the IS blew up Al Nasir convent in the northern city of Mosul, which has been controlled by the militants since June. Its resident nuns fled the city along with most of Mosul's remaining Christians when militants overran the city.

IS has frequently targeted Christians by bombing their churches and killing clergymen, as well as religious minorities across Iraq's north.

GAZA CITY — Everywhere you turn, walls in the Gaza Strip are covered with paint — brightly coloured slogans, political portraits and prose.

For youth in the besieged enclave packed with 1.8 million people, graffiti is an important tool for self-expression and fighting back.

Since their birth, they have never known anything beyond this tiny strip of land wedged between Egypt and Israel, with the Mediterranean Sea to their backs.

In the south, the walls rail against Egypt’s closure of the Rafah border crossing.

In the north, they condemn the Israeli soldiers who prevent them from crossing through Erez Crossing.

There is that pervading sense of being trapped, of powerlessness in the face of Israeli bombardments, the never-ending progression of funerals, the humiliation and the oppression.

All these things find expression in the gaudy slogans daubed on walls and in alleyways across the territory.

“In painting these walls, I feel free,” says Naim Samsum, a bearded 25-year-old wearing a black beanie hat, white jeans and a Superman T-shirt.

“What we want is to send a message to say that people here love life, that they have had enough of death and destruction,” says Samsum, who draws his inspiration from online videos of graffiti “tags” on the side of train cars in Europe. A tag is a graffiti artist’s signature.

As with many other art forms in Gaza, politics is never far off.

On one wall are giant portraits of some of the best-known Palestinians.

There is one depicting iconic Yasser Arafat, who founded the Fateh movement and died in mysterious circumstances in 2004. Next to him is a likeness of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of the rival Hamas movement, who was assassinated by Israel the same year.

Tensions in Gaza between the two nationalist movements erupted into bloodshed in 2007, with Hamas forcing Fateh loyalists out and seizing power. There followed a bitter seven-year split that was patched up earlier this year through a unity deal.

Underneath the two portraits, in large letters, is written “Yes to national reconciliation”.

A little further away, another artist has drawn a picture of an M75, a Gaza-made rocket with a range of about 80 kilometres that was fired at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv during this past summer’s 50-day war with Israel.

Cheap, easy and effective

Since 1987, when the first Palestinian uprising began, Gaza’s walls have been covered with political messages, calls to strike and details of upcoming demonstrations. Back then, militants would even use the walls to chronicle the dates of Israeli air strikes and the names of the victims, or “martyrs”.

Using spray paint as a political tool is not new in Gaza, says Fayez Al Sarsawi, who both paint and sculpts.

“Graffiti is a form of art which doesn’t cost much and lets you reach people easily,” he says.

And Basel Al Maqusi, who runs an art gallery in an upscale area of Gaza City, says it is also a relatively safe way of getting your message across.

“Writing on the wall is the simplest way to reach people, without putting yourself in too much danger. Handing out pamphlets requires a lot of time and could cost you your life, while writing something on a wall stays for a long time and it can be seen by everyone.”

Unlike the earliest, hastily scrawled graffiti, vibrant frescoes that catch the attention of admiring passers-by are now created by young people.

In front of a bombed-out police station that was hit during the summer war, a wall is covered with a picture of a child with his fist raised, under which is written “Freedom”.

For Musab Abu Daff, freedom is the very essence of graffiti.

“I learned to do graffiti because it’s a form of freedom. It allows you to express yourself, talk about where you live, especially here in Gaza where everything is destroyed,” says this 20-year-old street artist in baggy jeans and a Bob Marley T-shirt.

“We need to express our feelings.”

“The Israelis oppress us, they stop us from travelling and they have besieged Gaza. So I decided to write on the walls of Gaza exactly what is happening to us,” he says.

THE HAGUE — A Dutch court on Tuesday ordered the provisional release of a young woman being probed on terrorism charges after her mother rescued her from Syria, where she had married an Islamic State fighter.

“The judge has decided to free Aicha if she adheres to certain conditions,” the Limburg regional court said in a statement.

A convert to Islam who travelled to Syria in February to marry an IS fighter she saw as a Robin Hood figure, Aicha, whose surname was not given, was arrested after landing back in the Netherlands with her mother Monique last Wednesday.

A judge on Friday had ordered Aicha to be detained pending possible terrorism charges, including taking part in a terrorist organisation.

The court declined to give the precise conditions for Aicha’s release, but said it broadly meant the 19-year-old — called Sterlina before she adopted an Arab name — should “not commit any crimes and adhere to any request by the police and justice officials”.

The Limburg court also declined to say exactly when the Aicha will be released, keeping her “personal interests at heart”.

European nations are increasingly concerned about returning jihadist fighters, but the question of what to do with women who travel to Iraq and Syria but do not fight is a thorny one.

The authorities have barred Monique and Aicha’s lawyers from talking to the press because of the sensitivity of the case.

Monique, 49, has previously told Dutch television how her daughter converted to Islam and began wearing a face-covering niqab.

Aicha travelled to Syria to join a Dutch-Turkish jihadist fighter who went to the war-torn country to train fighters for the IS group.

She later turned to her mother for help after her marriage failed and she ended up with a Tunisian fighter, the Dutch tabloid daily Algemeen Dagblad said.

The paper reported that a niqab-wearing Monique crossed the border into Syria and travelled to the IS stronghold city of Raqqa, but the Dutch prosecutor’s office said they had met at the Turkish-Syrian border.

Public prosecutors said that if Aicha were found to have fought alongside IS she could face up to 30 years in prison.

TEHRAN — Iran President Hassan Rouhani faced thinly veiled pressure Tuesday over a missed nuclear deal deadline and an unexpected seven-month extension of talks with hardliners denouncing the diplomatic deadlock.

The failure to clinch a final agreement with world powers dominated newspaper front pages, with many editorials viewing further dialogue as pointless because the talks have not yet yielded results.

The extension was debated in parliament where the judgement of Rouhani, who told the nation late Monday a deal would still be done despite the setback, was also scrutinised.

Lawmakers have consistently said the president and his negotiators have already made too many concessions over Iran’s disputed nuclear programme, a sentiment aired again in a tense parliamentary session.

Hamid Rasaie, a diehard conservative MP, said that while a final agreement would be a victory for Iran, Rouhani must resist pressure for a deal whose costs are too high.

“No critic who is caring and supportive of the Islamic republic would be happy about your defeat,” he said of the possibility of no deal next year.

“Our criticism relates to your optimism towards the West,” he added.

Rouhani has become a lightning rod for opponents who routinely doubt the merit of the nuclear talks, but the decision on any final agreement rests with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

He officially supports Rouhani’s policy, but has said several times the talks have achieved nothing, often blaming the United States and echoing the views of hardliners.

Khamenei defiant 

On Tuesday, Khamenei said Iran would not sink “to its knees” on the nuclear issue, despite the efforts of “arrogants” — purportedly Western governments — to make it do so.

Iran’s archenemy Israel and many in the international community suspect Tehran of using its civilian nuclear programme as a cover for developing a nuclear bomb, a charge it strongly denies.

Khamenei’s comments, his first since the missed deadline, came in a speech he made in Tehran.

Rouhani on Monday sought to rally support for the talks, saying a deal was within reach and sanctions would be lifted “step by step” though he would never give up the nuclear programme.

“During all this time centrifuges were spinning,” he said referring to the talks and the technical process of enriching uranium, a hotly contested issue as at high purities it can produce fissile material for an atom bomb.

“I promise the Iranian nation that those centrifuges will never stop working,” Rouhani said on state television.

Those remarks were challenged by Rasaie who also criticised Rouhani for labelling his critics “illiterate” and “radical”.

“Right now, neither the centrifuges spin, nor the factories work,” the MP said. “We expected Mr Rouhani to apologise but unfortunately this didn’t happen.”

Conservative media also attacked the extension.

“Nothing” said the front page of hardline broadsheet Vatan-e-Emrooz, labelling the extra time a ruse to “cover up that negotiations in fact failed because of America’s excessive demands”.

Media split

However, Shargh, a leading reformist daily, said dialogue with the West, notably the United States, signalled “major change” for Iran and a “victory of realism, rationality and pragmatism”.

Saeed Leylaz, one of Iran’s top economists, said the $700 million per month Iran will receive in sanctions relief was a good result, equivalent to a daily increase of 300,000 barrels of oil.

“Increasing exports by that amount — about 30 per cent on present levels — would be very difficult under any other circumstances,” he said.

On Rouhani, he said: “He will continue to face pressure but he is the only one who can reach the nuclear agreement that most people want.”

A Western diplomat in Tehran said Rouhani had bought himself time with the extension: “It is neither a defeat nor a victory,” he added.

In a positive economic indicator, meanwhile, the Iranian rial did not fall Tuesday, despite fears that no final deal would hurt the currency.

When international sanctions on Iran were announced in December 2011 the rial fell precipitously.

In central Tehran, the extension was welcomed.

“These negotiations are not a simple task that can reach a result quickly,” said Hashemi, who gave only his surname.

“The beginning is positive. Hopefully, next time they can reach an agreement.”

TUNIS — The battle for an expected runoff vote for the Tunisian presidency kicked off Monday even before first round results were in from a landmark post-Arab Spring election.

Veteran anti-Islamist politician Beji Caid Essebsi, whose party placed first in a parliamentary election last month, looked set to fall short of the 50 per cent threshold required to win outright, his campaign team conceded.

He is poised to face off against incumbent Moncef Marzouki, a secular politician who has made common cause with the Islamists against what he says is an attempt at a comeback by former loyalists of the autocratic regime overthrown in 2011.

Wasting no time in relaunching the battle after Sunday's vote, Essebsi said his rival was the candidate of "jihadist Salafists", to which Marzouki countered by calling for "a debate on policies... not [a campaign of] insults".

Election officials, who announced a turnout of 64 per cent, have until Wednesday to publish the official results.

The election is a milestone for the North African nation, whose ouster of long-time strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali set off a chain of revolts that saw several Arab dictators toppled by citizens demanding democratic reform.

US Secretary of State John Kerry hailed an "historic moment" in Tunisia's transition to democracy, and pledged Washington's support for the next government, whoever leads it.

His French counterpart, Laurent Fabius, called for Tunisia's transition towards building new institutions to remain "inclusive and democratic".

Tunisian leaders pride themselves on the fact that the country has been spared the bloodshed that has ravaged other Arab Spring states such as Libya and Yemen and, despite fears of disruption by Islamist militants, polling day passed off peacefully.

'Democrats' versus
old guard 

But the expected run-off scheduled for late December is likely to be polarising, with Marzouki's camp portraying him as the last line of defence against a return to the autocratic ways of the old regime, and his opponent deriding him as an Islamist pawn.

In a speech, Marzouki called on “all democratic forces” to back him against Essebsi, who served under both Ben Ali and his predecessor Habib Bourguiba.

“I am now calling on all democratic forces... alongside whom I have campaigned for the past 30 years for a real democracy, for a break with the past, for a genuine civil society and for a separation of powers.”

Marzouki argues that only he can preserve the gains of the uprising, while his critics say he hijacked the spirit of the revolution by allying himself with the moderate Islamist party Ennahda in 2011.

The rule of Ennahda, which came second in the October parliamentary election, was marred by a surge of radical Islamism and the assassination of two leftist politicians by jihadist suspects.

‘Split down the middle’

Essebsi insisted on Monday that only he could defend Tunisia against the threat of Islamist extremism.

“The people who voted for Marzouki were the Islamists... that is to say Ennahda members... but also the jihadist Salafists,” he told French radio station RMC.

Asked about the likely run-off, Essebsi said: “Unfortunately there is going to be a split down the middle, with Islamists on one side and then all the democrats and non-Islamists on the other.”

If Essebsi wins he will have to form a coalition government, even with Ennahda, because his Nidaa Tounes Party fell short of securing an absolute majority in October.

The rival camps disagreed over their balance of support as a run-off loomed.

Marzouki’s camp said he was neck and neck with Essebsi, the pre-polling favourite for the top job, while his rivals said the Nidaa Tounes chief was well ahead.

Another presidential hopeful, leftist politician Hamma Hammami, who according to exit polls came third, told the media his political group would meet “as soon as possible” to consider how to vote in the probable run-off.

Whoever wins, the economy will be a priority, with unemployment, a leading cause of the revolution, still running at 15 per cent.

BEIRUT — Kurdish fighters gained ground from jihadists of the Islamic State (IS) group in fierce battles in the Syrian town of Kobani overnight, a monitoring group said on Monday.

Kurdish fighters of the People's Protection Units (YPG) advanced in both the east and the northeast of the town, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"At least 18 Islamic State militants were killed in the fighting, as well as a number of Kurdish fighters," the Britain-based group's director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP, adding that both sides were using heavy weaponry.

He said control of the town was still almost evenly divided between the Kurds and the jihadists, who began their assault on Kobani more than three months ago.

On another front in Syria's increasingly complex civil war, rebel fighters, including Al Qaeda loyalists, pressed an assault on a Shiite village further west, which has held out against an 18-month siege, residents said.

Syria's small Shiite minority overwhelmingly supports President Bashar Assad's Alawite-dominated regime against the mainly Sunni rebels.

The village of Zahraa is one of two neighbouring Shiite communities along with Nubol where the rebels launched an assault late on Saturday.

The observatory described the fighting as "the most violent" so far.

At least eight rebels and one civilian have been killed in the fighting, according to the observatory, which has a network of sources inside Syria.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Human rights groups have accused Israel of encouraging a shoot-to-kill policy after a wave of incidents in which Israeli forces shot dead Palestinians involved in, or accused of, attacking Israelis.

The alleged practice of killing suspects without trying to arrest them has caused concern after a series of deadly Palestinian attacks also resulted in the perpetrators' deaths — and not always at the scene.

In a rare move, a Jerusalem court on Sunday indicted an Israeli security officer after he shot and killed, apparently unprovoked, a Palestinian during a May demonstration in the occupied West Bank.

For some, the charge of manslaughter in the case was not strong enough, and Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch's comments that "a terrorist who strikes civilians should be killed" indicate no further such investigations will take place.

"Aharonovitch's statement and its application on the ground show that the authorities simply want these incidents to end — with the terrorist killed at the scene rather than brought into the justice system," Carolina Landsmann wrote in Haaretz newspaper.

Israeli rights group B'Tselem says that one of the first victims of "extrajudicial executions" was Abdelrahman Shaludi, a 21-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem who deliberately rammed his car into Israeli pedestrians on October 22, killing a young woman and a baby.

He was shot at the scene by Israeli forces and died several hours later.

CCTV footage

Earlier this month, Israeli forces shot dead 22-year-old Arab Israeli Kheir Hamdan during a routine arrest, saying he attacked them with a knife.

However, CCTV footage showed him banging on the outside of a security van with a knife before turning away, as a security officer got out and shot him in the back.

Last week, two Palestinians stormed a synagogue with meat cleavers and a gun, killing four rabbis at prayer and a policeman who came to their rescue. They were shot dead at the scene by Israeli forces.

None was brought to trial, and the suspects' families face the likelihood of having their homes razed in a punitive measure abandoned in 2005 after the army said there was no proof it had any deterrent.

Israeli forces say the killings of suspects were lawful and in self-defence.

"According to the law... when the danger is real, immediate and threatens the life of a police officer or innocent people, he can shoot," spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP.

"It's kill or be killed."

But Amnesty International told AFP it had "strong suspicions" about a policy of "deliberate killings", even though "the authorities have the absolute duty to ensure that their forces comply with the law".

'Excessive force' 

Even aside from the latest deadly attacks, the number of shootings of Palestinians by soldiers in the occupied West Bank has risen, Amnesty's Saleh Hijazi said.

"In dealing with the Palestinians, [police and soldiers] use excessive force," he said.

Rights groups say Aharonovitch's remarks have been instrumental in formulating attitudes in the field, particularly those he made to reporters on November 5 at the scene of the second hit-and-run attack in Jerusalem in a fortnight.

"The action of the border police officer who chased the terrorist and quickly killed him is the right and professional action, and that is the way I would like these incidents to end," he said.

Three days later, Hamdan was shot dead in what many saw as the minister's words being put into action.

B'Tselem said it was "extremely disturbed" by Aharonovitch's comments, which it described as "provocative" and encouraging "execution without trial".

Israeli rights group ACRI said in a statement the expectation that "police officers will act as jury, judge and executioner, is improper and unacceptable".

According to Landsmann, Israel is also keen to avoid another prisoner swap deal in which it would have to free Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis — as in 2011 when it released more than 1,000 prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit, a soldier held by Hamas fighters for more than five years.

"The best way to avoid releasing prisoners is not to arrest them to begin with," she wrote.

GAZA CITY — Gaza's Hamas-run agriculture ministry threatened on Monday to stop importing Israeli fruit to the Palestinian territory in response to what it said was vegetable exports being blocked.

The warning came months after a 50-day bloody conflict between Israel and militants in the Gaza Strip, leaving the enclave in humanitarian and economic crisis.

"If Israel doesn't reverse its decision to halt the export of Palestinian agricultural produce... we will ban the entry of fruit" from Israel, a ministry statement said.

It said Israel on Sunday refused to let through the Kerem Shalom goods crossing some 12 trucks destined for the West Bank and Jordan and carrying 135 tonnes of vegetables worth $149,000 (120,000 euros).

Gaza has been choked by an eight-year blockade which Israel imposed after Hamas kidnapped one of its soldiers in a cross-border raid.

Israel controls two of the tiny coastal territory's three crossings — Kerem Shalom in the south and the Erez personnel crossing in the north. Egypt controls the third crossing at Rafah in the south.

After the Gaza war ended on August 26, the international community, including the International Monetary Fund, urged Israel to loosen the blockade to allow in crucial humanitarian aid and to revive the ailing economy.

Israel has allowed a small amount of construction material into Gaza to help rebuild some of the tens of thousands of homes destroyed by air strikes and artillery, but has not palpably eased the blockade.

The export of farm produce is a key source of income for Gaza, home to 1.8 million Palestinians.

Exports from Gaza currently stand at around 2 per cent of what they were before the blockade.

For the first time since 2006, Israel recently allowed a tonne of fish and crabs and 10 tonnes of cucumbers to be sent to the West Bank.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — An Israeli student of a Jewish seminary was stabbed in the Old City of annexed East Jerusalem late Monday, leading to the arrests of three alleged Palestinian assailants, Israeli forces said.

The Israeli suffered serious wounds when he was attacked by several Palestinians at the yeshiva, or seminary, where he studied in the Old City, the police said.

"At this stage of the investigation all leads are possible, but it points to being a case of a fight between two parties," said security spokeswoman Luba Samri.

Another Israeli student of the yeshiva was lightly wounded, and three Palestinians suspected of carrying out the attack were arrested, including two minors, said the spokeswoman.