CP World Report: South Sudan Birthday, Iraq Blasphemy Law, Egypt Power Struggle, Syria
A car bomb in the central Iraqi city of Ramadi has killed seven people and injured 20 –most of the victims were reportedly women. Five of the wounded are in critical condition. In the past month alone, at least 237 people were killed and 603 wounded in attacks, making it one of the bloodiest months since U.S. troops withdrew at the end of last year. The violence is being carried out by Al-Qaeda and its associates.
Meanwhile……
Parliamentarians in Iraq's Kurdish region are drafting a blasphemy law that will protect Christians as well as Islam from insult. It's unlike those in other Muslim-majority nations where it pertains only to Islam. The penalty for offending God or the prophets will be up to ten years in jail. Damaging holy books or religious buildings also fall under the law.
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He's barely been Egyptian president for ten days -- but already a power struggle appears to be brewing between Mohamed Morsi and the military. Morsi has shocked the military by overriding its earlier decision to dissolve parliament. He's calling politicians back to session. The move means the military - which ran Egypt after the fall of Hosni Mubarak -- will now have less power. The supreme council of the armed forces says it'll hold an emergency meeting to discuss Morsi's move. Egypt's parliament speaker has called for members of the lower house to meet today. Morsi has also appealed for the release of one of Osama bin Laden's closest associates--Omar Abdul-Rahman, implicated in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center….better known as "the blind Sheik". Morsi says he wants to see all detainees released.
Kofi Annan--The U-N and Arab league joint envoy to Syria--- was in that country for talks with president Bashar al-Assad. It was the pair's first meeting since the collapse of a peace plan. Annan described the 2-hour long meeting with al-Assad as "constructive and candid". The talks focused on how to implement the six-point peace plan proposed by Kofi Annan back in April. Al Assad, who accused the US of supporting "terrorists" against Syria, said that many foreign countries were proving to be obstacles in the way of Annan's peace plan.
In dozens of cases in Cambodia, worried parents have taken their feverish and gasping children to hospital .... Only to have them die within 24 hours of being admitted.
Here's more on this mysterious and ruthless illness.
At least 58 people were slaughtered after suspected Muslim herdsmen attacked Christian villages near the city of Jos in central Nigeria. 300 more were displaced in the attacks. Nigeria's Islamist terror group Boko Haram—who wants to create an Islamic state-- has killed dozens of Christians in the recent past. But this time, it is not being suspected in this case.
A disturbing public execution of a woman accused of adultery in Afghanistan has caused widespread shock and outrage. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has now ordered the arrest of the Taliban who participated.An amateur video surfaced of a burqa-clad woman sitting on the ground while a man standing a few feet away shoots her nine times before a cheering mob. The execution raises questions about what the planned withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan will mean for women in 2014. Women managed to gained basic rights of education and voting after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
Today South Sudan celebrates its first birthday. Many of the citizens of the young nation gathered in prayer to celebrate. The mostly South Sudan split from the Sudan with a 98 percent vote. It was part of a 2005 peace deal to end decades of a brutal civil war that left 2 million dead. South Sudan became symbolically free from the Islamic government in the north. But, it's been a chaotic year for the world's youngest nation. Long after the independence jubilation faded, the nation faces crippling poverty, lack of infrastructure, tribal violence, corruption among its politicians and still fighting goes on with the North.
