Obama-Karzai spat reaches new low
Washington, July 9
The trust deficit between President Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai has fallen to new depths with the Afghan leader accusing the US of trying to negotiate a separate peace with both the Taliban and their backers in Pakistan, according to a media report.

Cairo, July 9
Hazem el-Beblawi, a liberal economist and Egypt’s former Finance Minister, was today appointed the country’s new Prime Minister in a transitional government as the interim President unveiled a roadmap for fresh polls by early next year to end the raging political crisis.

Interim President Adly Mansour appointed El-Beblawi to Egyptian premiership, presidential spokesman Ahmed El-Moslamany announced.

He also appointed Nobel laureate and former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei as Vice-President for foreign affairs.

Seventy-one-year-old ElBaradei leads an alliance of liberal and Left-wing parties, the National Salvation Front.

The move comes after Mansour issued a constitutional declaration late last night giving himself limited power to make laws, and outlined the timetable for parliamentary and presidential elections.

The appointments ended days of deadlock over filling the top posts of the new government.

El-Beblawi, who is in his mid-70s, had served as Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister from July to December 2011 in Essam Sharaf's Cabinet during Egypt’s post-revolution transitional phase after the ouster of strongman Hosni Mubarak. He is a founding member of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, Al Ahram reported.

El-Beblawi served as undersecretary-general at the United Nations between 1995 and 2000, having been chairman of the Export Development Bank of Egypt from 1983 to 1995.

Starting his academic career at the University of Alexandria in 1965, El-Beblawi became a professor of economics nine years later.

Egypt is experiencing turmoil after the country’s first democratically-elected President Morsi was ousted by the army, sparking deadly clashes that has claimed over 50 lives. — PTI

Moscow, July 9
US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, who has been holed up in a Moscow airport for more than two weeks, has agreed to an offer of political asylum from Venezuela, a top pro-Kremlin lawmaker said today.

“As was expected, Snowden agreed to (Venezuelan President Nicolas) Maduro’s offer of political asylum," Alexei Pushkov, head of the Russian lower house of parliament’s international affairs committee, said on Twitter.

“Apparently this option looked like the most reliable one to Snowden.” Minutes after, the announcement the statement was removed from his Twitter feed.

Pushkov's announcement came after the Leftist governments of Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua had, over the past few days, offered the 30-year-old former National Security Agency contractor asylum.

A day earlier, Maduro called on Snowden to decide if he wanted to fly to Caracas.

"We have received the asylum request letter," Maduro told reporters from the presidential palace in Caracas.

"He will have to decide when he flies, if he finally wants to fly here." He called the offers from the three Latin American nations "collective humanitarian political asylum." But it remains unclear how the world’s most famous refugee would be able to leave the transit zone of Sheremetyevo, where he has been marooned without valid documents since he arrived from Hong Kong on June 23.

There are no direct flights between Moscow and Caracas.

The quickest way to get to Venezuela would be to fly via Havana.

A spokeswoman for Russian national carrier Aeroflot, Irina Danenberg, said she was not aware if Snowden had been on the flight to Havana that left Moscow earlier today. — AFP

Washington, July 9
The trust deficit between President Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai has fallen to new depths with the Afghan leader accusing the US of trying to negotiate a separate peace with both the Taliban and their backers in Pakistan, according to a media report.

"A video-conference between Obama and Karzai designed to defuse the tensions ended badly," The New York Times quoted both American and Afghan officials with knowledge of the June 27 spat.

Karzai, according to the officials, accused the US of trying to negotiate a separate peace with both the Taliban and their backers in Pakistan, leaving Afghanistan's fragile government exposed to its enemies, the report said.

Karzai had made similar accusations in the past. But those comments were delivered to Afghans — not to Obama, who responded by pointing out the American lives that have been lost propping up Karzai's government.

Frustrated by Karzai's attitude, Obama is seriously considering speeding up the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, the report said.— PTI

Beirut, July 9
A massive car bomb ripped through a Beirut stronghold of Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group that has been fighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war, wounding 53 persons on Tuesday.

None of those hurt were seriously wounded, Health Minister Hassan Khalil told Reuters, and there were no fatalities. Sectarian tensions in Lebanon have been high following the intervention of the Shi'ite Muslim Hezbollah in support of Assad's forces fighting a two-year revolt led by Syria's Sunni Muslim majority.

There was no immediate indication of who was behind the blast, the worst such attack in years, which came as forces loyal to Assad are making gains on the battlefield and as Sunnis and Shi'ites clash in Lebanon.

But residents in the Shi'ite district blamed Sunni militant supporters of the insurgency against Assad, while politicians also suspected a sectarian motive. “This is the work of agents trying to create strife in Lebanon,” Hezbollah parliamentary deputy Ali Meqdad said at the site of the explosion. — Reuters