Region

TRIPOLI — Libya’s contested new Cabinet convened for the first time Thursday, defying the outgoing administration, which refuses to hand over power and held its own session.

Amid the political chaos in the largely lawless North African state, the High National Elections Commission (HNEC) announced that Libya is going to the polls on June 25 as planned.

A source in new Prime Minister Ahmed Miitig’s office said his team met in a Tripoli luxury hotel.

The seat of government is still occupied by the outgoing Cabinet, which said it also met Thursday.

The incoming team’s agenda covered security issues and ministerial programmes, the source said, asking not to be named.

The governmental crisis adds to security chaos at a time when state coffers in the oil-rich country are being drained and a 2014 budget has yet to be adopted.

At a news conference, HNEC President Imad Al Sayeh urged Libyans to register on electoral lists by a midnight deadline, noting that only 1.4 million of the 3.4 million eligible voters had signed up so far.

The date for polling remains June 25, as announced earlier this month, “and Libyans living abroad will vote on June 21-22,” he said.

The elections are to replace the General National Congress (GNC), the interim parliament that became Libya’s highest political authority after the ouster and killing of dictator Muammar Qadhafi in 2011.

The GNC was elected in July 2012, in Libya’s first ever free polls. But its legitimacy was challenged after it unilaterally prolonged its mandate, due to expire this February, until December.

Under the pressure of street protests, it announced new elections.

But Libya’s political crisis deepened Wednesday when outgoing premier Abdullah Al Thani submitting a request for a court ruling on whether he must hand over power to his GNC-elected successor.

Critics have charged that Miitig was “illegally elected” as prime minister at a chaotic session of the GNC in a vote manipulated by Islamists.

Governments at loggerheads 

Thani resigned last month after claiming he and his family had been attacked, but Thani’s outgoing team and the Miitig administration remain at loggerheads.

Several politicians and armed groups, which hold the balance of power in Libya, have warned they will not recognise the Miitig government, although it won a vote of confidence in the GNC last Sunday.

On Wednesday, gunmen attacked an interior ministry team in Tripoli tasked with protecting the outgoing government, while a rogue ex-general resumed air strikes on jihadists in the eastern city of Benghazi.

Air forces units loyal to former general Khalifa Haftar attacked a jihadist camp on the outskirts of Benghazi, cradle of the 2011 uprising.

Haftar, who returned to Libya from American exile to join the revolution, launched an anti-jihadist campaign in Benghazi on May 16 when his forces also carried out air strikes.

Subsequent fighting killed at least 79 people.

Amid the ever-worsening insecurity, Washington has urged US citizens there to leave “immediately” and has sent a warship to deploy off the Libyan coast with 1,000 marines in case the embassy needs to be evacuated.

BAGHDAD — A post-election wave of attacks across Iraq, including car bombings in Baghdad and a northern city, killed at least 74 people, officials said Thursday.

The compiled death toll for Wednesday, with the number rising to 74 after late-night attacks, made it the bloodiest single day in Iraq in more than seven months.

It was the latest in a protracted surge in unrest fuelling fears that the country is slipping back into all-out conflict.

The wave of violence could further destabilise Iraq as political leaders jostle to build alliances and form a government following April 30 elections that left Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki in the driver’s seat for a third term in power.

In Baghdad’s deadliest attack, a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle rigged with explosives in neighbourhood of Kadhimiyah. 

At least 16 people were killed and 52 were wounded, security and medical officials said on condition of anonymity.

Three other car bombs blew up in the Amin, Sadr City and Jihad districts, costing 20 more lives.

The blasts were the latest in a trend of militants setting off vehicles rigged with explosives during the evening, when Baghdadis go out to markets, restaurants and cafes.

Previously, such attacks had typically been timed to go off during the morning rush-hour.

Four others were killed in shootings and bombings in and around the capital.

In Mosul, one of the most violent areas of the country, twin car bombs set off by suicide attackers killed 21 people, including 14 soldiers and policemen, in the west of the city.

Also in Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital, two other attacks left two people dead.

No group immediately claimed responsibility, but Sunni militants including those linked to the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant often set off coordinated bombings across Baghdad and other major cities.

A spate of other attacks in Kirkuk and Salaheddin provinces, both north of Baghdad, left eight people dead while shelling in the militant-held city of Fallujah, a short drive west of Baghdad, killed three more.

The authorities blame external factors such as the civil war in neighbouring Syria, and insist that wide-ranging operations against militants out to sow instability are having an impact.

But near-daily attacks have continued and diplomats say the Shiite-led government must do more to reach out to the disaffected Sunni Arab minority to curb support for militancy.

The unrest comes as Maliki seeks to remain in his post after April 30 polls which gave his parliamentary bloc by far the highest number of seats.

But the bloc fell short of an absolute majority on its own and he will have to court the support of rivals, many of whom have refused to countenance a third term for Maliki.

CAIRO — Ex-army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi has scored a crushing presidential election triumph and consolidated the military’s grip, 11 months after the overthrow of the only Egyptian president not drawn from its ranks.

Ninety-six per cent of voters, at least 21 million Egyptians, chose Sisi, who deposed elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, with ballots counted from all but a handful of 352 stations, state television reported Thursday.

Sisi’s only electoral rival, leftist leader Hamdeen Sabbahi, won less than 4 per cent, according to the preliminary results.

The longtime opposition figure conceded defeat on Thursday but cast doubt on the estimated turnout figure of 47 per cent after calls for a high participation rate as a sign of legitimacy.

Ahead of the final results due within a week, hundreds of Sisi supporters took to the streets on Wednesday night to celebrate, waving Egyptian flags, setting off fireworks and honking car horns.

“It’s a victory for stability,” said Tahra Khaled, among the crowd in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, nerve centre of the mass protests that forced autocratic president Hosni Mubarak to step down in 2011.

Sisi, who retired from the army to run for office, becomes Egypt’s fifth president from the military, reasserting the institution’s grip on politics in the Arab world’s most populous nation.

The military has always formed the backbone of political life in Egypt and the institution has provided its leaders ever since army officers toppled the monarchy in 1952.

The only exception was Morsi, elected a year after the fall of Mubarak, himself a former air force commander.

“Few would have imagined that... three years after Mubarak’s toppling, a field marshall, a new pharaoh, would be elected again with 96 per cent, without even unveiling a programme and without campaigning,” said analyst Karim Bitar.

Sisi rode on a wave of support for a potential new strongman who can restore stability and revive the economy after three years of turmoil.

But his opponents say that since he ousted Morsi last July, Egypt returned to autocracy.

A state crackdown targeting Morsi supporters has left at least 1,400 people dead in street clashes and seen more than 15,000 others jailed.

Dozens of young activists have also been jailed for violating a law banning all but police-authorised protests.

A European Union team that observed the election said Thursday the vote was conducted “in line with the law”, although it regretted the lack of participation of some “stakeholders”, in a likely reference to Morsi’s banned Muslim Brotherhood and youth dissident groups.

Opposition hails boycott 

Amid the crackdown on dissent condemned by rights groups and Western governments, the military-installed authorities had aimed for a high turnout as a sign of legitimacy.

Private and state-run media pressed Egyptians to go out and vote, and the election was extended for a third day in a last-minute decision which sparked protests.

Sisi had called for at least 40 million of Egypt’s almost 54 million electorate to go to the polling stations.

Although it could edge higher, authorities put actual turnout at about 25 million, or 47 per cent, down from 52 per cent when Morsi was elected in 2012.

“Ultimately, we have no real way to verify [government] turnout numbers” or Sisi’s victory margin, Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institution’s Saban Centre wrote on Twitter.

He pointed to the absence of “parallel counts and not enough [international] monitors”.

Egyptian authorities are touting the election as a milestone on the road to democracy following Morsi’s ouster, but Human Rights Watch says the crackdown “stripped these elections of real meaning”.

“The intense crackdown on dissent over the last 10 months has created a repressive environment that severely undermines the fairness of the elections,” it said.

The Muslim Brotherhood hailed what it sees as a successful boycott.

“The great Egyptian people have given a new slap to the military coup’s roadmap and... written the death certificate of the military coup,” said its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party.

All of the movement’s main leaders are now in jail or exile, and Morsi himself is being tried on charges that could carry the death penalty.

Prominent activists behind the uprising which ousted Mubarak three years ago had also called for a boycott, charging that Sisi is an even worse autocrat in the making.

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday asked Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah to head a new national unity government which will bring together the feuding Hamas and Fateh parties.

The announcement satisfies a five-week deadline following the groups’ reconciliation pact on April 23, but the two sides have yet to publish a list of ministers drawn from independent technocrats, suggesting that disagreements persist.

“This letter designates Doctor Rami Hamdallah to form a new transitional government. I wish him luck in this difficult task which he will undertake,” Abbas said in a swift ceremony with the prime minister at his side.

Israel suspended US-sponsored peace talks with the Palestinians in April after Abbas agreed the unity pact between his Fateh Party and the Islamist Hamas, which is viewed by Israel as a terrorist group.

Israel has threatened Abbas’ aid-dependent administration with financial sanctions if he pursues the deal.

Western-backed Fateh rules the Israeli-occupied West Bank while Hamas, which has refused to recognise Israel, holds sway in the beleaguered Gaza Strip.

Fateh and Hamas developed separate governments while national institutions, including parliament, mostly lapsed after Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 in the wake of a sweeping win in legislative elections.

Sources close to the government talks say disputes remain primarily over who should be foreign minister.

Officials at a joint Hamas-Fateh news conference said on Tuesday they had mostly agreed to a list of names pending Abbas’ final approval this week.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement that a final announcement was not immediately expected. “The consultations over forming a government still need days to finalise the last details,” he said.

Abbas has been keen to assure Western donor countries that he will remain the key Palestinian decision maker and that security coordination between his forces and Israel will continue.

Both Palestinian parties see benefits to a unity pact.

Limping under a strict blockade by neighbours Israel and Egypt, the Hamas government in Gaza has struggled to prop up the economy and pay its 40,000 employees.

Abbas, shifting his strategy after the peace talks collapsed last month, is seeking to shore up his domestic legitimacy since his mandate expired in 2009.

BAGHDAD — Attacks across Iraq, including a spate of car bombs in Baghdad, killed 38 people Wednesday, the latest in a months-long surge in violence that has left more than 4,000 dead this year.

Shootings and bombings, which left dozens more wounded nationwide, also struck in restive areas of the north and west, fuelling fears Iraq is slipping back into the sectarian war that killed tens of thousands in 2006 and 2007.

In the deadliest attack, a suicide car bomb exploded in the mainly Shiite neighbourhood of Kadhimiyah in north Baghdad, killing at least 16 people and wounding 50, security and medical officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Three other car bombs went off in the Amin, Sadr City and Jihad districts, killing eight more people.

The blasts were the latest in a trend of militants setting off vehicles rigged with explosives during the evening, when Baghdad’s residents visit markets, restaurants and cafes.

Previously, such attacks had typically been timed to go off during morning rush hour.

Elsewhere in and around the capital, gun attacks and explosions killed three people, officials said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility, but Sunni militants including those linked to the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant often set off coordinated bombings across Baghdad, ostensibly in a bid to sow instability.

Meanwhile, in north Iraq, a series of 11 bombings in the ethnically mixed town of Tuz Khurmatu killed five people, four of them members of the same family, and wounded 11.

The blasts targeted homes belonging to ethnic Turkmen.

The town, which is also populated by Arabs and Kurds, lies in a stretch of territory Kurdish leaders want to incorporate into their autonomous region over Baghdad’s objections.

Worst violence since 2008 

Insurgents often exploit poor communication between Arab and Kurdish security forces to carry out attacks in the area.

Three others died in a spate of attacks in the northern provinces of Kirkuk and Nineveh.

Shelling in the militant-held city of Fallujah, a short drive west of Baghdad, killed three more people, a day after Human Rights Watch criticised the government for possibly violating the laws of war by shelling the city’s main hospital.

All of Fallujah and parts of nearby Anbar provincial capital Ramadi have been out of government hands since the beginning of the year.

Security forces have shelled Fallujah repeatedly for months.

They insist they are targeting militant hideouts, but human rights groups and residents say civilians are bearing the brunt of the bombardment.

Violence in Iraq has surged to its highest level since 2008.

The authorities blame external factors such as the civil war in neighbouring Syria, and insist wide-ranging operations against militants are having an impact.

But near-daily attacks have continued and diplomats say the Shiite-led government must do more to reach out to the disaffected Sunni Arab minority to curb support for militancy.

The unrest comes as incumbent Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki pursues reelection following April 30 polls that put him in the driver’s seat with by far the highest number of seats.

But the premier’s bloc fell short of an absolute majority on its own, and he will have to court the support of rivals, many of whom have refused to countenance a third term for Maliki.

His opponents blame him for the marked deterioration in security in the past year, as well as rampant corruption and what critics say is insufficient improvement in basic services.

Maliki, however, contends he has been hamstrung by a national unity government that snipes at him in public and has blocked his legislative efforts in parliament.

CAIRO — Egyptians cast their votes in a presidential election on Wednesday that is certain to install former army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi as president, but his call for an overwhelming mandate did not appear to have been heeded by voters.

Tareq Al Shibl, a member of the election committee, was quoted by Al Ahram, a state-run newspaper, as saying that more than 21 million people voted, or nearly 39 per cent of an electorate of 54 million.

That would be less than the 40 million votes, or 80 per cent of the electorate, that Sisi had called for last week.

However, a Western diplomat following the vote put the turnout at between 10 million and 15 million votes, which would equate to between 19 and 28 per cent of the electorate, much less than the official projection.

The lower turnout figure threatens to undermine Sisi’s credibility as leader of the Arab world’s most populous nation.

It would also suggest that he had failed to rally the support he hoped for after toppling Egypt’s first freely elected president, Islamist Mohamed Morsi, following street protests last year.

A tour of Cairo polling stations on Wednesday saw only a trickle of voters cast their ballots. The same pattern emerged in Egypt’s second city, Alexandria, Reuters reporters said.

In a country polarised since a popular uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak in 2011, the lower than expected turnout was linked to political apathy, opposition to another military man becoming president, discontent at suppression of freedoms among liberal youth, and calls for a boycott by Islamists.

The two-day vote was originally due to conclude on Tuesday but was extended until 9:00pm (1800 GMT) Wednesday to allow the “greatest number possible” to vote, state media reported.

“The state searches for a vote,” said a front-page headline in privately owned Al Masry Al Youm newspaper.

The Democracy International observer mission said the decision to extend polling raised questions about the integrity of Egypt’s electoral process.

“Last-minute decisions about important election procedures, such as a decision to extend polling by an additional day, should be made only in extraordinary circumstances,” said Eric Bjornlund, president of Democracy International, in a statement.

Sisi’s campaign posted pictures of long lines of voters, some waving Egyptian flags and holding posters of Sisi. “Come out and raise the flag of your country,” it said on Facebook.

A 45-year-old Cairo shopkeeper, who gave her name as Samaa, said at a polling station in downtown Cairo she was supporting Sisi. “Our country can now only be handled by a military man, we need order.”

But no long queues could be seen. An army officer reading a newspaper outside the same Cairo polling station said: “You want to speak with voters? Do you see any voters? I don’t know why they’re not coming, maybe they reject politics.”

Khaled Dawood, a liberal activist, accused the electoral commission and the government of running a chaotic election.

“The feeling is that the result is known in advance and this kind of festival they were creating for Sisi backfired because people no longer buy into this propaganda.

“People in Mubarak’s days did not participate because they knew that their vote wouldn’t make a difference and that is what is happening now,” he said.

Despite an official campaign to bring out more voters, Egyptians, many opposed to Sisi, gave various reasons for their lack of enthusiasm.

The Muslim Brotherhood, believed to have one million members, has rejected the poll, describing it as an extension of the army takeover. The group, loyal to Morsi, was outlawed by the military as a terrorist group and saw around 1,000 members killed in a security crackdown.

“Holding these elections is null and void under the military coup ... It cannot be legitimised by elections or in any other way,” said Muslim Brotherhood member Mohamed Abdel Hafeez.

Young secular activists, including those who backed Morsi’s ouster, had become disillusioned with Sisi after many were rounded up in the security crackdown that also restricted protests.

“The low turnout is a slap in the face for Sisi. I hope he now sees that he only has the votes of old women and men but not us, the youth, who are the majority in this country,” said Mohamed Ahmed, 26-year-old employee in a private firm in Cairo.

Voter turnout may have also been down because some Egyptians who decided Sisi’s victory was a foregone conclusion saw no point in casting ballots. Others simply did not want to vote for another military man after Mubarak.

More austerity

Since he gave a series of television interviews, many Egyptians feel Sisi has not spelled out a clear vision of how he would tackle Egypt’s challenges, from widespread poverty to an energy crisis and an Islamist insurgency.

Some Brotherhood supporters felt emboldened to speak out, feeling vindicated by the lower turnout.

“Now I can say I am a Morsi supporter,” said Ahmed Ali, a 28-year-old Cairo shopkeeper.

Unlike the previous election which brought Morsi to power and was contested by a dozen candidates, Sisi faces only one rival now: The leftist Hamdeen Sabahi, whose campaign rejected the extra day of voting.

The justice ministry said Egyptians who did not vote would be fined, and train fares were waived in an effort to boost the numbers. Local media loyal to the government chided the public for not turning out in large enough numbers, and Muslim and Coptic Christian religious leaders also urged people to vote.

In the Sinai, where Egypt’s most dangerous militants are based, gunmen killed an Egyptian soldier, security sources said.

In an eastern district of Cairo, gunmen opened fire at an electricity station in what the electricity ministry called a “terrorist” attack.

Egypt is suffering from almost daily power cuts as the country faces a massive energy crunch.

BEIRUT — Syrian expats streamed to their embassy in Beirut Wednesday to vote in a controversial presidential election as war raged at home and bombs killed more than 40 people in the city of Aleppo.

With expats around the world voting in advance of the June 3 election, Beirut’s Yarzeh district was festooned with Syrian flags and portraits of President Bashar Al Assad, who is expected to cruise to victory.

An estimated three million Syrians live abroad, including peacetime residents and refugees, but only about 200,000 were able to vote Wednesday, at 38 embassies, a foreign ministry source said in Damascus.

In Amman and under tight security, Syrian voters lined up in their hundreds outside their embassy.

Around 30 anti-regime activists stood near the mission, chanting slogans and carrying a banner which read: “No to the killer’s reelection.” (see story page 3)

Pro-regime daily Al-Watan said that is “a relatively acceptable figure, if we bear in mind the fact that France, Germany and Belgium have banned Syrian citizens” from voting, along with the United Arab Emirates.

The ministry says 40,000 citizens in Lebanon, which hosts more than a million refugees fleeing the violence, are on the electoral register.

Damascus has barred refugees who left Syria through unofficial crossings from taking part in the election.

By midday, all the entrances to the Lebanese capital were blocked, causing long tailbacks, as thousands of Syrians descended on the embassy, mostly by foot.

The army set up checkpoints around the embassy to head off any disturbances, with the country’s Syrian community sharply divided into pro- and anti-Assad camps.

Lion of the Arabs

There was little sign of any opposition voters in the long queues outside the mission.

“The lion of the Arabs,” and “With our soul, with our blood, we sacrifice ourselves for you,” read slogans on Assad’s portraits.

“Where are the ‘Friends of Syria’? If only they would come and see this picture” of thousands taking part in the election, said one young man, sitting on a bus waving the Syrian flag.

Others made the V-for-victory sign.

Syria’s exiled opposition and its Western backers, who hold international meetings under a “Friends of Syria” umbrella, have ridiculed the June 3 vote as a “farce”.

The civil war raging since March 2011 has killed more than 160,000 people and forced nearly half of the population to flee their homes.

More casualties were added to the figure Wednesday, with news that air force raids on rebel-held areas of the northern city of Aleppo had killed more than 40 people in 24 hours.

Barrel bombs killed 22 people in eastern districts of Aleppo Tuesday and another 21 Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Nine children figured among the dead, the Britain-based observatory added, warning that the toll could rise because “many people are in serious condition and there bodies are under the rubble”.

But Syrian state television repeatedly interrupted its programmes to broadcast live images of crowds of loyalists voting in Beirut.

Syrian Ambassador Ali Abdelkarim Ali said “these elections are a response to those who had wagered on the fall of Syria. It proves that the Syrian people are attached to their land, their country and their sovereignty”.

The regime ensured no upsets by barring exiles from standing and with candidates needing endorsement by 35 MPs in the state-controlled parliament.

The United States has called the vote a “parody of democracy”.

Assad’s reelection is not in doubt in Syria’s first multicandidate presidential poll, running against two little-known opponents. Maher Al Hajjar, an independent former communist MP, and Hassan Al Nouri, a businessman, are seen as token rivals.

Inside Syria, the conflict has left large swathes of territory under rebel control, allowing for voting only in regime-controlled areas.

CAIRO — Grilled meat vendor Tarek Fathi planned to support Abdel Fattah Al Sisi in Egypt’s presidential election, believing the man worshiped in the press could fix all problems: from shabby healthcare to an energy crisis.

But Sisi’s tough love message offered little hope for a brighter future after Fathi’s wife died last month in a grimy state hospital. In the end he did not vote for anyone.

Fathi concluded that the former army chief, like so many other leaders from the military before him, had little to offer.

“She died at one of our garbage government hospitals,” said the father of two toddlers, sweating at his sandwich shop in a working- class district of Cairo.

“I thought I’d go for Sisi, but I realise now that neither candidate is capable of helping me. Why go vote? There’s no point.”

Sisi, who enjoyed adulation from the media and support from the military, security services and businessmen, is expected to win the election.

But a low turnout has called into question the level of support for the man who gained hero status after toppling President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood last year.

His only opponent is leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahi.

The nearly empty polling stations could be an early sign of trouble as the career military man prepares to take the helm of a nation where street protests have helped remove two presidents in three years.

Apathy is not the only reason for the low participation in an election that is part of the political roadmap that Sisi announced when he toppled Egypt’s first freely elected president after mass protests against his rule.

In addition to Islamists who reject Morsi’s ouster as a coup and have called for a boycott, some liberal youth activists are also staying away. Under Sisi’s watch a crackdown against the Brotherhood was extended to secular-minded Egyptians.

Sisi seems to have alienated some Egyptians during television interviews in which he said it was up to ordinary citizens to step up to the plate and work hard.

But trying to impose military discipline on a nation exhausted by three years of political upheaval since a popular uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak may have backfired.

Though many Egyptians interviewed by Reuters in working- class districts during this week’s election said they wanted a strong president, others quietly explained how Sisi had lost their vote with his “tough love” message.

Billboards in rundown neighbourhoods call for austerity: “With work,” read the signs, next to Sisi’s smiling face. Another sign shows Sisi and the words “hard work is all I have, and all I will ask from you”.

Millions of poor Egyptians already juggle several jobs, or can’t follow Sisi’s message because they are unemployed.

‘Not a solution’

Sisi’s proposals for tackling some of the most pressing challenges ring harsh, critics say, mainly because they seem to place the burden unduly on the poor.

In order to deal with a crippling energy crisis, young people can walk to work or school instead of driving or taking public transport, Sisi suggested in a meeting during his campaign with young Egyptians.

Instead of a person eating one loaf of bread, he can cut it in four so there is more to go around, he said during a television interview where he urged Egyptians to understand the “true reality”.

“If money appears in my pocket to pay my bills from working more, okay. But how can I cut a loaf of bread into four? That’s not a solution,” complained Emad Abdelaela, Fathi’s co-worker.

It’s not just the poor who seem irritated by Sisi’s prescriptions for Egypt’s social and economic ills.

In the upper middle class district of Sheikh Zayed, in the Cairo desert suburbs, a Mursi supporter said Sisi would find little help from Egyptians like him.

“We have an electricity crisis, and now he’s telling us to conserve,” said Mamdouh Ali, 30, an architect.

Sisi’s ideas have become the butt of jokes, with satirical videos on YouTube poking fun at him.

The well-known Egyptian blogger known by his social media handle Big Pharaoh described Sisi’s approach as “completely absurd”.

He said the man who commanded widespread respect in his military uniform and was hailed as a superhero is now being “scolded” by Egyptians boycotting the vote.

“The political apathy is extremely dangerous now,” said Big Pharaoh. “What we are seeing now with the youth losing trust and losing faith in the political process. This is not a good thing.”

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Right-wing Israeli lawmakers are calling on the government to annex about 90 Jewish settlements built on occupied West Bank land, with one of them saying it was retaliation for the collapse of peace talks with the Palestinians a month ago.

While Israel has built dozens of enclaves since occupieng the land in a 1967 war, it has not applied its law to the territory other than near East Jerusalem, which it annexed as part of its capital in a move never recognised internationally.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said it does not support the legislation the right wingers introduced in parliament on Wednesday, but some cabinet members have urged such a step, blaming the Palestinians for the collapse of a nine-month round of US-brokered negotiations.

Most Western nations and the United Nations regard settlements built on land Israel occupied in 1967 as illegal and an obstacle to peace.

Palestinians say the enclaves deprive them of land for a state they seek alongside Israel and where they have often lived for generations. Netanyahu’s political allies view the enclaves though as a biblical birthright.

The legislation, which has no date set for a vote, seeks to annex enclaves Israel had hinted it may give up for peace, as well as four settlement blocs it seeks to keep under any deal.

The settlements envisaged for annexation total roughly 90, and are located in so-called Area C, a swathe of West Bank land under full Israeli control since a 1993 interim accord.

Some 300,000 Palestinians and 350,000 settlers live in this area, out of a total of 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank, mostly in areas where Palestinians have a measure of self-rule under that agreement of 21 years ago.

Orit Struck, a lawmaker with the far-right Jewish Home Party who co-chairs parliament’s settler lobby, said “unilateral steps are called for” after the Palestinians took steps to form a unity government with Hamas Islamists, sworn enemies of Israel.

Israel suspended the already faltering talks as a result.

Struck, a settler herself, told Israel Radio Israel ought to annex most of the West Bank “but we understand it must be a gradual process” and that, for now, Israel should apply its law to areas where most Israelis living in occupied land live.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Israel’s peace negotiator, told a business conference she opposed applying Israeli law to the settlements. “This idea of annexation won’t happen for as long as I’m a part of Israel’s government,” she said.

Ofir Akounis, a deputy Cabinet minister, told parliament in a debate held marking the anniversary of the 1967 war, the government’s policy was “not to support at this moment the imposition of [Israeli] sovereignty on Judea and Samaria”, using biblical names for the West Bank.

Yariv Levine, coalition whip in Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party, and sponsor of the bill, said on his website he had submitted the legislation because “these regions of settlement are inextricable parts of historic Israel”.

THE HAGUE — In just over a month, Syria is supposed to have rid itself entirely of its chemical weapons programme and the 1,300-metric tonne stockpile of mustard gas and precursor chemicals it declared to the global watchdog overseeing the destruction. But the June 30 deadline, agreed upon last year, now appears out of reach.

Here’s what’s been done so far in the unprecedented mission — the first time the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has attempted to oversee the dismantling of a country’s chemical weapons programme in the midst of a war — and what remains to be accomplished.

What’s left of Syria’s chemical stockpile?

Officials at the OPCW say that 8 per cent, or some 100 metric tonnes, of Syria’s declared stock of 1,300 tonnes of chemical weapons and precursor chemicals to make more poison gas and nerve agents remain to be shipped out of the country.

Where are the chemicals?

The 100 metric tonnes still in Syria are at a storage facility near the capital, Damascus. The OPCW’s Director General Ahmet Uzumcu says the chemicals, including raw materials for making the deadly nerve agent sarin, have been packaged and are ready for transport to the port of Latakia but Syrian authorities say it is not safe to move them now.

What are the security risks?

A joint OPCW-UN mission to investigate alleged chlorine attacks in Syria was ambushed and briefly detained Tuesday by armed men in rebel-held territory — underscoring the country’s fragile security situation.

What’s happening to the rest of the stockpile?

Syria has destroyed its stocks of some 120 metric tonnes of isopropanol, an ingredient used to make sarin. Other chemicals have been loaded onto Danish and Norwegian cargo ships at Latakia and will be shipped away for destruction once the final 100 tonnes are on board.

Hundreds of tonnes of the most toxic chemicals will be put onto the US ship Cape Ray, which is fitted with two special machines — field deployable hydrolysis systems — to neutralise the chemicals. The waste will then be transferred to land for destruction. Sites in Britain, Finland, Germany and Texas will be involved in destroying the chemicals or chemical waste generated by the Cape Ray.

What does Syria still need to do?

Syria and the OPCW are still discussing how to destroy buildings once used to house chemical weapons production and storage facilities — the actual machines used to mix chemicals into weapons were destroyed last year. There are 12 sites still under discussion; five underground bunkers and seven reinforced concrete airline hangars.

Will the June 30 deadline be met?

That’s very unlikely. US authorities have said it will take around 60 days for the Cape Ray to neutralise all the chemicals it has to deal with — and the ship hasn’t even started work yet.

Has Syria declared everything to the opcw?

Rose Gottemoeller, the US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, told reporters in Washington, DC, earlier this month that there are unresolved “omissions” in the Syrian government’s declaration of its chemical stockpile. She said those alleged discrepancies are being pursued by the OPCW.