AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — The U.S. and several key allies looked again Wednesday for a strategy to end Syria's civil war, their united efforts unable at the moment to stem the Assad regime's military gains and Washington still unwilling to join those providing the rebels with lethal military aid.
CAIRO (AP) — The safe release Wednesday of seven conscripts kidnapped by suspected militants in Sinai brought a victory for Egypt's Islamist president after months of criticism that his government is mismanaging the country.
Nearly a month after Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika suffered a small stroke (excuse me, “transient ischemic attack,” he remains out of the country and unseen in public. With Presidential elections due next year, the 76-year-old President’s health remains a matter of speculation, especially since many expected him to seek a fourth term.
Now rumors are swirling, as are denials. Bouteflika has reportedly been moved from the Val-de-Grace military hospital in Paris to the Invalides Military hospital, but with his health unclear. A number of French publications have reported that he is in precarious health, possibly in a coma.
For the first time in some years two Algerian newspapers, Mon Journal and its Arabic version Djaridati, have been censored and been blocked from publication for publishing the rumor that Bouteflika is in a coma and has returned to Algiers. Publisher Hichem Aboud was quoted as saying:
“According to my sources — I personally did not see anything, but I
have my sources, which I cross-check and verify — the president is in
Algeria,” Hichem Aboud, head of both newspapers, told FRANCE 24.
“My sources say that he’s neither in Geneva, Switzerland, nor in the
Val-de-Grâce hospital in Paris. He is in Algeria. He arrived at dawn on
Wednesday [May 15], after leaving Paris at 3am,” specified the former
member of the military who now opposes the regime.
“His health is declining, which is why they transferred him to
Algiers,” said Aboud. “The Val-de-Grâce hospital could no longer help.
We’ve been told he’s in a deep coma that can go on for days or weeks.
That is what we put in those two pages.”
The government denies these reports. Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sallal has said he is “improving every day,” but his doctors have ordered a “complete rest.”
Rumors about Bouteflika’s health have persisted for years. After surgery for a gastric ulcer (officially) in France in 2005, rumors spread that he had stomach cancer, and this was denied; he subsequently won a third term.
He has not yet announced for a fourth term but so long as the issue is open his party allies are reluctant to declare their own candidacies.
Usually during past health crises, Bouteflika has taken pains to make a public appearance; when he was rumored on the Internet to have died in 2012, he was promptly shown on television meeting people. His absence from appearing even in photographs from the hospital after a month is doubtless fueling the rumors of a coma.
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AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — The U.S. and several key allies looked again Wednesday for a strategy to end Syria's civil war, their united efforts unable at the moment to stem the Assad regime's military gains and Washington still unwilling to join those providing the rebels with lethal military aid.
BAGHDAD (AP) — An Iraqi government spokesman says Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has ordered changes in senior ranks of the military in the wake of bloody attacks that have killed dozens of people in the past few days.
CAIRO (AP) — Six Egyptian policemen and a border guard kidnapped by suspected militants in the volatile Sinai Peninsula last week were freed by their captors Wednesday after successful mediation, the country's military spokesman said.
BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's main opposition alliance on Wednesday urged fighters to come from around the country to reinforce a rebel-held town under attack by President Bashar Assad's troops and their allies from the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group.
Mohamed Morsi calls for the people of Sinai to give up their arms after seven members of the Egyptian security forces abducted in the region are freed.
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Iran’s President Ahmadinejad says he will contest the disqualification of his ally Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei from next month’s presidential poll.
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CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian troops and police mistakenly fired on a Bedouin funeral in the Sinai Peninsula on Tuesday, security officials said, in the opening salvo of a sweep searching for security personnel kidnapped by suspected militants.
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