Mes: septiembre 2019

(AP) TRIPOLI, Libya – Libya’s first nationwide elections in nearly five decades brought hints Sunday of an Arab Spring precedent: Western-leaning parties making strides over Islamist rivals hoping to follow the same paths to power as in neighbors Egypt and Tunisia. While final results from Saturday’s parliamentary election could still be days away under a two-tier selection system, unofficial and partial counts from Libya’s biggest cities suggested liberal factions were leading the Muslim Brotherhood and allies in a possible first major 현금바둑이 setback to their political surge following last year’s uprisings. If the Libyan trend holds — which is still far from certain — it would challenge the narrative of rising Islamist power since the fall of Western-allied regimes from Tunis to Cairo. It also could display the different political dynamics in Libya, where tribal loyalties run deep and groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood at times cooperated with the rule of Muammar Qaddafi. “Anyone with past ties with old regime is hated, even despised,” said Fathi al-Fadhali, a pro-Islamist Libyan political analyst who lived in exile for 30 years. “Any political names associated with the regime are immediately politically burnt by that association.” Ultimately, the 200-seat parliament will face the task of forming a government — which could become tests of strength for Islamists and secular forces over questions such as women’s rights, the extent of traditional Islamic...

(CBS/AP) LONDON – Can Britain’s government ditch the dukes, eject the earls and kick out the cronies? Prime Minister David Cameron was setting out ambitious plans Wednesday to replace Britain’s 700-year-old House of Lords, the country’s unelected upper chamber, with a smaller, mostly elected body — taking on a task that has frustrated his predecessors for decades. If passed by Parliament, Britain would strip the country’s non-elected elites of a legislative role they have held since the Middle Ages and hold its first elections to a new, 450-seat chamber — which could potentially be renamed the Senate — in May 2015. The reforms would see the remaining hereditary peers — members who inherited a place in the chamber from their nobleman forebears — removed, and impose 15-year term limits on those elected. Currently, members of the House of Lords — known as peers — are appointed for life. “We’ve been talking about it as a country for 100 years,” Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said. “I think we should just now get on with it.” Cameron and Clegg’s coalition government faces an uphill battle, however. Many members of the lower chamber – which would have to approve the reforms – are against changing the House of Lords, including many from Cameron’s own Conservative party. But the biggest challenge may be apathy. Previous governments have laid out similar, even less-ambitious...

(AP) ATHENS, Greece – Greece’s new three-party coalition government won a vote of confidence in parliament early Monday, ending a period of uncertainty that led to two elections in less than two months, though the country has a long way to go to emerge from a deep recession and pay down its huge debt. There were no surprises in the vote. All 179 deputies of the three parties supporting the government — conservative New Democracy, the socialist PASOK and the moderate leftist Democratic Left — voted in favor. Voting against were the 121 deputies of the Radical Left Coalition (Syriza), the nationalist right Independent Greeks, the extreme right Golden Dawn and the Communist Party. In his concluding speech just before the vote, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said that, despite their diverse political backgrounds, the three coalition partners have a unity of purpose — to keep the country in the Eurozone and out of its deepest and longest recession, now in its fifth year. In the third quarter, the country’s GDP had its sharpest drop yet, declining 9.1 percent compared to the same period in 2011. Greece’s battered economy is forecast to shrink 6.7 percent for the whole year, far above earlier official forecasts of a 4.5 percent shrinkage. “Us three, we have admitted our past mistakes and we are now embarked in a common cause,” Samaras said, addressing the...

(CBS/AP) KABUL, Afghanistan – U.S. officials confirm to CBS News that a roadside bombing Sunday in eastern Afghanistan killed six American service members – a blast which the Taliban claimed responsibility for on Monday morning. The statement from Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the soldiers died when their tank ran over a bomb around 8 p.m. Sunday in Wardak province, south of Kabul. NATO would not disclose the nationalities of the service members killed, but officials confirmed to CBS News correspondent David Martin that they were American. Wardak provincial police chief Gen. Abdul Qayum Baqizoi said after the blast in Jalrez district, a coalition air strike killed a local Taliban commander and wounded three insurgents. More in Afghanistan: The way forward Afghan donors offer $16B in development aidU.S. declares Afghanistan major non-NATO allyFirst NATO truck crosses Pakistan border after 7-month closure Also in the east, authorities said a chief prosecutor in Ghazni province was assassinated Monday morning as he drove to work. The Taliban routinely target Afghan government officials. In addition to the six U.S. deaths, bombs and attacks killed 16 Afghan civilians, five policemen and two members of the U.S.-led coalition in southern Afghanistan, Afghan and NATO authorities said. The civilians, including women and children, were killed in three blasts in Arghistan district, along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. Kandahar province spokesman Ahmad Jawed Faisal said one bomb exploded...

(AP) ELLIOT LAKE, Ontario – Canada’s prime minister has offered to send in the military to help with the rescue effort at a partially collapsed mall in Ontario where at least one person has died and another may still be alive beneath the rubble, officials said Tuesday. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s spokesman Andrew MacDougall said in an e-mail that the federal government is still trying to determine how best to help. “We’ve offered all of our assets,” MacDougall said. “We’ve apprised the provincial government of federal and military capabilities and are waiting to hear what would be useful.” Partial roof collapse at Canada mall, evacuation MacDougall said Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty called Harper Monday night to inquire about bringing in the military to help. The offer comes as officials plan to use heavy equipment to dismantle the building from the outside in order to resume rescue efforts stalled over fears that the unstable structure could further collapse leaving rescuers trapped inside what remains of the mall. Rescuers detected breathing inside the rubble early Monday, but authorities enraged local residents when they called off the work later that day. One death has been confirmed after part of the mall’s roof collapsed Saturday afternoon, and another person is known to be still inside. Bill Needles, a spokesman for the Heavy Urban Search and Rescue team, said the building is not secure...