MYANMAR TIMES Issue 685 | July 8 - 14, 2013 | Page 34

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Kenyen Officials seize 1.5 tonnes of ivory
WORLD 40
Aid reaches quake-hit Indonesia villages
WORLD( ASIA-PACIFIC) 43
Belgium’ s new king struggles to unite nation
WORLD 36

BRIEFS
An Egyptian man, bearing a toy tank on his head, holds a cross and a copy of the Koran in Cairo’ s Tahrir Square on July 4. Photo: AFP
Washington Activists mark July 4 with NSA rallies Activists across the United States took to the streets and the internet to mark July 4 with protests against the National Security Agency’ s surveillance programs.
The Restore the Fourth campaign, organized via the social network Reddit, has received support from various web platforms including Mozilla and campaigners for online freedom such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Its name refers to the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects against unlawful searches and seizures.
Scattered protests took place in cities across the United States, including Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Chicago and San Francisco.
Around 200-300 people also gathered in a square near the White House in Washington, DC, some brandishing placards reading“ Don’ t steal my rights to privacy!”
Khartoum August arrival for UN troops in Sudan An advance party of UN troops who will support the monitoring of a buffer zone along the disputed Sudan-South Sudan border should arrive by August, the top UN peacekeeper said on July 4.
They will be among more than 1000 Blue Helmets who will eventually protect the border monitors, Herve Ladsous, the UN’ s undersecretary general for peacekeeping, told reporters in the Sudanese capital.
While the first troops are expected next month, the rest“ will be deployed as quickly as possible” to activate the border monitoring, Mr Ladsous.
The troops with special border duties will be part of the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei( UNISFA), one of the contested border regions.
After months of intermittent clashes, Sudan and South Sudan agreed in early March to detailed timetables for normalising relations by setting up the border buffer zone and
implementing eight other key pacts, including an oil deal.
Mexico City Mexico volcano grounds US airlines Four US airlines canceled dozens of flights to and from Mexico City’ s international airport on July 4 after the Popocatepetl volcano blew ash and steam skyward, officials said.
American Airlines, US Airways, Delta Airlines and Alaska Airlines“ decided not to conduct operations to and from Mexico City”, airport spokesman Jorge Andres Gomez told Milenio television.
A fifth US carrier, Spirit Airlines, canceled its flights to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Dallas, Texas, from the Toluca airport, 68 kilometres west of the capital.
Another spokesman for the Mexico City airport said the airlines canceled a total of 47 flights between Mexico and the United States.
The airlines took the precautionary measure even though the airport decided to keep its runways open.

Egypt’ s next leader
from fixing a shattered economy to drafting a set of writes Abigail Hauslohner
But to do that,“ it must be accepted by a vast majority of the population”, he said.
That means getting the support of the Muslim Brotherhood and others who backed Mr Morsi in elections just last year- a tall order at a time when many feel their democratic rights have been trampled.
Muslim Brotherhood officials who spoke at a news conference of Mr Morsi supporters on July 4 said that participating in any process set up by the military is out of the question.
“ Now you are talking about a dictatorship,” said Murad Ali, a spokesman for the group.“ We are not accepting this.”
Mr Ali accused the army of trying to recreate the era of Hosni Mubarak, the militarybacked autocrat who governed Egypt for 30 years before his ouster in 2011.
Rights groups and political analysts warned last week that without a process of reconciliation, stability in Egypt will be elusive.
“ The only gain we made after Mubarak, and through Morsi, was freedom,” said Hossam Mikawy, a judge in Egypt’ s Nile Delta.“ We did not
make any progress in anything else. So if we lose our established freedom by not allowing the Islamists to participate, then we will have gained nothing.”
Military leaders, who have now ousted two governments in three years, insist they have no desire to govern Egypt directly. Mr Amr, the country’ s foreign minister, said he has assured his counterparts around the world of that commitment in telephone conversations.
But the military also seeks to maintain its immense power and privilege, including control of a vast economic empire that it runs free of civilian government oversight. Mr Morsi largely avoided trying to tamper with that empire, and analysts said Egypt’ s next leaders would be wise to do the same.
“ The military in principle wants a civilian political leadership, but it wants a leadership that respects its powers and privileges,” said Robert Springborg, an expert on the Egyptian military at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. – The Washington Post
‘ The only gain we made after Mubarak, and through Morsi, was freedom. We did not make any progress in anything else. So if we lose our established freedom by not allowing the Islamists to participate, then we will have gained nothing.’
Hossam Mikawy Egyptian judge