Raising hope in Italy

September 18, 2013 - Daily News Briefing

When big things break, a different kind of genius is needed: improvisation.

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Engineers declared success Tuesday as the crippled Costa Concordia cruise ship was pulled completely upright during an unprecedented 19-hour operation to wrench it from its side where it capsized last year off Tuscany. The remarkable maritime salvage project now allows for a renewed search for the two bodies that were never recovered from the 32 people killed in the shipwreck, and for the ship to eventually be towed away.

Libya’s prime minister has asked Britain for more help removing weapons that were left over from the collapse of Muammar Qaddafi’s regime. The appeal Tuesday from Prime Minister Ali Zeidan comes a day after the UN Security Council heard reports that caches of such arms and ammunition are being flown and shipped into Syria. Zeidan said dealing with those weapons is “an international matter and we do need assistance” as he held talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron in London. Cameron said he recognized the “huge challenges” facing Libya and said Britain is doing everything it can to help.

Egypt’s official news agency says a Cairo court has upheld an order to freeze the assets of top leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and a former Islamic militant group. MENA reported the Cairo Criminal Court on Tuesday upheld the order to “temporarily” freeze financial assets of Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie and his deputies, including strongman Khairat el-Shater and others. Most of those listed are already in detention, facing trial mostly over inciting violence and murder.

Uganda’s deputy foreign minister says an upcoming summit of the African Union will debate the possible exit of some African countries from the International Criminal Court. Okello Oryem said Tuesday that Uganda, whose president recently attacked the ICC as biased, would be compelled to quit the Rome Statute that created the ICC if a “summit-level” recommendation is made. The ICC has come under strong criticism from some African leaders who say it only targets Africans.

Word of the opening of Iran’s blocked social media sites was spread, of course, by social media itself: in celebratory tweets and breathless Facebook posts. Hours later, the same sites Tuesday chewed over the sobering reality that the four-year-old firewalls were back in place. Iran’s Internet overseers blamed a “technical” glitch on the brief window to the Web.

Afghanistan’s president said Tuesday that he was in no rush to sign a security deal with the United States, once again dashing American hopes that a pact can be quickly finalized. The US wants a deal by October to give American and NATO military planners enough time to prepare to keep some troops in the country after a scheduled 2014 withdrawal, instead of a total pullout.

Brazil plans to divorce itself from the US-centric Internet over Washington’s widespread online spying, a move that many experts fear will be a potentially dangerous first step toward politically fracturing a global network built with minimal interference by governments. While Brazil isn’t proposing to bar its citizens from US-based Web services, it wants their data to be stored locally as the nation assumes greater control over Brazilians’ Internet use to protect them from National Security Agency snooping. President Dilma Rousseff is so angered that she’s postponed a trip to Washington next month where she’s scheduled to be honored with a state dinner.

A volcano in western Indonesia erupted for the second time this week on Tuesday, forcing some villagers who were just returning home to flee the mountain again, an official said. Local Disaster Mitigation Agency chief Asren Nasution said there are no immediate reports of damages or injuries after Mt. Sinabung’s midday eruption spewed volcanic ash and thick smoke nearly two miles into the air and blew eastward to the hilly resort town of Brastagi. He added that there are no immediate reports of damages or injuries.

Outrage is growing in France over the decision to bring manslaughter charges against a jeweler who shot and killed an escaping robber, but the country’s top security official on Tuesday urged fearful storekeepers to let justice take its course. The jeweler, Stephan Turk, was confined at home with an electronic bracelet after the shooting last week that left a teenage robber dead outside Turk’s jewelry story in the French Riviera city of Nice.

A forestry official says Liberia has begun the process of revoking timber permits that were allocated inappropriately, allowing logging companies to claim 40 percent of the country’s forests in just two years. The official said Tuesday that the holders of 17 so-called Private Use Permits had been told their documents would be reviewed.

Compiled from wire service reports

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