AP Interview: Egypt says Iranian pose no risk

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's tourism minister said Thursday that allowing Iranian tourists to visit Egypt after being banned for more than three decades would pose no threat and could help shore up the nation's struggling tourism industry.

Tourism Minister Hesham Zaazoua's remarks, in an interview on Thursday with The Associated Press, come amid controversy over allowing Iranians to visit Egypt after decades of frozen diplomatic relations and suspicion — especially among ultraconservatives — that Iran aspires to spread its Shiite faith to the Sunni world.

Egypt, which is predominately Sunni, has been working to normalize relations with Iran, after a long freeze that began after Egypt signed its 1979 peace treaty with Israel and Iran underwent its Islamic revolution. Relations began to improve after former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down in the 2011 popular uprising.

Egypt's new Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have exchanged visits, which have opened new avenues of cooperation between the former foes.

Zaazoua, who visited Tehran nearly a month ago and signed a memorandum of understanding to promote tourism, told the AP that Iranians were not going to visit Egypt to export an Islamic revolution. He said Iranian visitors, who would be restricted in their movements, would not be visiting religious sites.

"We have not received Iranians for 35 years," Zaazoua said in his office. "They are pure tourists. They are not coming to create a revolution as far as I am concerned."

"They are coming to visit tourist sites within Egypt," he said referring to the ancient cities of Luxor and Aswan. "They are coming for vacationing."

He said if problems surface, "we can stop it, as simple as that."

Egyptians have mixed feelings toward Iran. Some believe in Iranian plots aimed at destabilizing the country while others sympathize with Iran's Islamic revolution and admire Tehran's defiance of the United States.

Zaazoua's visit to Tehran sparked anger of ultraconservative Islamists like Al Nour party. The party issued a statement warning Morsi's government that opening the country up to Iranians risked plunging the country, which "enjoys a Sunni unity," into sectarian strife.

When Ahmadinejad visited Egypt on Feb. 5, he too got a cold shoulder from some. He was given a harsh reception by Egypt's top Sunni cleric of Al-Azhar and the Iranian leader was attacked by shoe-throwing Syrian protesters upset about Iran's alliance with the embattled Syrian regime.

A new understanding with Iran would be a shake-up for a region that has been split between Tehran's camp — which includes Syria and Islamic militias Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza — and a U.S.-backed group led by Saudi Arabia and rich Gulf nations. Further complicating relations, the Islamic militant group Hamas, which rules the Palestinian enclave in the Gaza Strip, is a historical offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, the dominant force in Egyptian politics since Morsi's election.

Zaazoua said preparations were under way to allow Iranian tourists to visit, but he declined to disclose a date.

Last week, Egypt's Foreign and Civil Aviation Ministry established regulations for Iranian tourists, mainly restricting the size and movement of the tourist groups.

Ali al-Ashri, an official with Egypt's Foreign Ministry, said Iranian tourists would only be allowed to visit certain sites, such as the ancient cities of Luxor and resort areas like Sharm el-Sheikh. Cairo was not on the list of places they would be allowed to visit, mainly because it is the site of shrines of revered Shiite figures.

The size of Iranian tourist groups would be limited to 100 persons and there would only be three travel agencies given permits to coordinate the Iranian visits. Flights would carry Iranians directly from Iran to their tourist destination, the civil aviation minister said.

"We don't want to create problems to our country or any other country, including Iran itself," Zaazoua said.

The Egyptian government is looking to boost the tourism business back to pre-revolution levels when 14.7 million tourists visited Egypt in 2010. Continued unrest since the 2011 uprising have scared away tourists and investment. Last year, the number of tourists climbed to more than 10 million, but most tourists go to beach resorts along the Red Sea.

To assuage fears among some that Iranians would try to practice religious rituals in Egypt, Zaazoua emphasized that Iranian tourists would not be allowed to visit religious sites.

"I can't ignore countries like Iran," he said. "I am a technocrat. ... I am looking to just increase the share from international traffic of tourism in the world."

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End of the road for Boston's longest-serving mayor

By Scott Malone

BOSTON (Reuters) - The longest-serving mayor in Boston history plans to tell voters on Thursday that he will not seek a sixth term in office, setting the stage for the city's most competitive mayoral race in decades.

Mayor Tom Menino, 70, is expected to declare his intention not to seek reelection to the office he has held since 1993 at a Thursday afternoon event at Boston's historic Fanueil Hall, according to an official who asked not to be identified ahead of the event.

The decision comes after the mayor was hospitalized for a month last year with a virus and back pain that cut short a vacation in Italy. The Democrat told local media he was growing concerned about how much longer he would be able to keep up his grueling work schedule.

"I can work a mayor's schedule, but not a Menino schedule," the mayor told WBZ news radio on Thursday morning. "I like to work 18 hours a day."

Prior to today, only one other candidate had jumped into the race - fellow Democrat John Connolly, 39, a Boston city councilor who has focused his campaign on improving schools.

But observers expected more local leaders to enter the race now that they know they will not be facing a powerful incumbent.

"Boston mayors are rarely defeated for reelection, so if you are going to make a run for it, this is the time to do it," said Peter Ubertaccio, chairman of the political science department at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts, south of Boston. "The city councilors are going to be jockeying for this position."

Menino had a formidable campaign organization that he has used both for himself and fellow Democrats - his supporters played a key role in Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren's successful 2012 campaign to unseat Republican Scott Brown.

He has declined to endorse either of the Democratic Congressmen, Edward Markey and Stephen Lynch, currently vying to fill the Massachusetts seat in the U.S. Senate that became available when John Kerry was named Secretary of State.

Voters will go to the polls in that special election on June 25, a little more than four months before November's mayoral race, making for one of Boston's most lively political calendars in recent years.

On the national stage, Menino has stood out as an advocate for gun control and gay rights, often working alongside New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Menino became mayor in July 1993, after predecessor Raymond Flynn resigned to become U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.

His fellow politicians were quick to offer praise.

"Tom Menino said yes for 20 years to economic inclusion, immigrant entrepreneurship, social and economic justice for all," said state Treasurer Steven Grossman. "We will miss his leadership at City Hall."

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Paul Thomasch)

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Obama 'Deeply Concerned' For Mandela

President Obama today expressed concern for Nelson Mandela's health, but said the anti-apartheid leader is "as strong physically as he's been in character and in leadership over so many decades."

"Obviously we're all deeply concerned with Nelson Mandela's health. He's a hero, I think, to all of us," Obama told reporters. "We will be keeping him in our thoughts and prayers and his entire family."

The former South African president has been hospitalized for a recurring lung infection but is "responding positively" to treatment, according to the South African president's office.

"Hopefully he will come out of this latest challenge," Obama said.

"We all recognize that he has given everything to his people, the people of South Africa, to the people of the continent, and he's ended up being an inspiration to all of us," Obama said. "When you think of a single individual that embodies the kind of leadership qualities that I think we all aspire to, the first name that comes up is Nelson Mandela. And so we wish him all the very best."

The president's comments came as he met with the leaders of Sierra Leone, Senegal, Malawi and Cape Verde at the White House.

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Mortar kills 15 at Damascus University, Syria says

By Oliver Holmes and Hamdi Istanbullu

BEIRUT/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Fifteen Syrian students were killed when rebel mortar bombs hit a Damascus University canteen on Thursday, state-run news agency SANA said, as attacks intensified in the center of the capital.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition monitoring group, said a mortar killed 13 people at the university, without saying who fired the bombs.

Other activists confirmed the attack but no opposition group has denied or claimed responsibility.

Insurgents trying to end four decades of rule by the family of President Bashar al-Assad have formed a semi-circle around the capital and intensified attacks from positions on the outskirts this week.

A bastion for Assad's forces, the capital city is a crucial prize in a two-year-old uprising that has developed into a war in which more than 70,000 people have been killed.

Another 1.2 million Syrians have also fled to neighboring countries and North Africa, where they have registered as refugees or are awaiting processing, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Highlighting the strain the conflict is placing on neighboring states, Turkey, host to about 260,000 of the refugees, denied on Thursday it had rounded up and deported hundreds of Syrians following unrest at a refugee camp.

SANA said mortar rounds landed in a canteen at the College of Architecture in Baramkeh, a central district near several government buildings, including the Defense Ministry, the headquarters for state media and Assad's official residence.

Pro-government Al-Ikhbariya TV showed images of doctors trying to resuscitate at least two young men and blood on the floor of what appeared to be an outdoor canteen. A young woman was shown walking in a hospital, her face bleeding heavily.

SANA quoted the president of Damascus University as saying the death toll, initially put at 12, had risen to 15 in what state and pro-government media called a terrorist attack.

Last weekend rebel groups sent out warnings on the Internet that they planned to intensify strikes on government and military sites in the city and warned residents they should leave to avoid what they called "Operation Shaking the Fort".

The United Nations said on Monday it would withdraw about half of its international staff from Damascus after a mortar bomb landed near their hotel.

The Syrian military has responded to rebel attacks with artillery shelling and air strikes on suburbs where rebels are entrenched among thousands of civilians trapped in crossfire.

On Thursday, opposition activists said rebels had taken the main bus station in northeastern Damascus. They provided footage of fighters walking around a deserted area and stamping on a framed picture of Assad. (http://link.reuters.com/peg96t)

Government reporting restrictions make it difficult to verify such accounts independently.

TURKISH DENIAL

The foreign ministry in Turkey denied on Thursday any Syrians had been expelled following unrest at the Suleymansah refugees camp, near the Turkish town of Akcakale

A group of 130 people, identified with the help of camera footage as being "involved in the provocations", decided to cross back into Syria voluntarily, either because they did not want to face judicial proceedings or because of repercussions from other refugees, the ministry said in a statement.

Witnesses said hundreds of Syrians were bused to the border after Wednesday's clashes in which refugees threw rocks at military police, who fired tear gas and water cannon.

"There has been a big deportation operation here, they got rid of lots of people. They kicked out two of my boys and three of my brother's sons. They came for my boys last night and told them to get their bags," one refugee at the camp told Reuters by telephone, giving her name as Saher.

Camp residents said young men started the protest against living conditions after faulty electrics set a tent on fire, injuring three brothers aged seven, 18 and 19, one of whom later died in hospital, according to Turkish media reports.

UNHCR said it was concerned about the reports and had taken them up with Turkey. Such action would violate U.N. conventions.

In a sign of divisions hampering international efforts to stem the conflict, Russia on Thursday accused the Arab League of abandoning support for a peaceful solution by giving a summit seat to the Syrian opposition.

Opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib took Syria's vacant seat on Tuesday at the Arab summit, which also lent its support to giving military aid to rebels fighting Assad.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also cast doubt over the mandate of U.N.-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi.

"I just don't see how Mr. Brahimi can continue to be considered the representative not just of the United Nations but of the Arab League," Lavrov said in Moscow.

Russia has in the past vocally supported Brahimi, who has met in recent months with Russian and U.S. officials in talks which failed to bridge disagreements over Syria.

Russia, which has long supplied arms to Assad's government but says it is not delivering weapons that can be used in the civil war, vehemently opposes arming the rebels.

Moscow says it has pressed Assad's government to end violence and accuses Western and Arab states of failing to put enough pressure on his opponents to do so, and in many cases encouraging them to keep fighting.

Russia and China have blocked three resolutions in the U.N. Security Council, and Moscow says Assad's exit from power must not be a precondition for peace talks

(Additional reporting by Reuters TV, Erika Solomon in Beirut and Steve Gutterman in Moscow; Writing by Jason Webb; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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Iran, North Korea, Syria block U.N. arms trade treaty

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iran, Syria and North Korea on Friday prevented the adoption of the first international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global conventional arms trade, complaining that it was flawed and failed to ban weapons sales to rebel groups.

To get around the blockade, a number governments called on Peter Woolcott of Australia, the president of the U.N. Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty, to submit the draft treaty to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and request a swift vote on it in the General Assembly.

U.N. diplomats said the 193-nation General Assembly could put the draft treaty to a vote as early as Tuesday. Britain supported the call for an assembly vote on the draft very soon.

"A good, strong treaty has been blocked," Britain's chief delegate Joanne Adamson said. "Most people in the world want regulation and those are the voices that need to be heard."

"This is success deferred," she added.

United Nations member states began meeting last week in a final push to end years of discussions and hammer out a binding international treaty to end the lack of regulation over cross-border conventional arms sales.

Arms control activists and human rights groups say a treaty is needed to halt the uncontrolled flow of arms and ammunition that they say fuels wars, atrocities and rights abuses.

Delegates to the treaty-drafting conference said on Wednesday they were close to a deal to approve the treaty, but cautioned that Iran and other countries might attempt to block it. Iran, Syria and North Korea did just that, blocking the required consensus for it to pass.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had told Iran's Press TV that Tehran supports the arms trade treaty. But Iranian U.N. Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee told the conference that he could not accept the treaty in its current form.

"The achievement of such a treaty has been rendered out of reach due to many legal flaws and loopholes," he said. "It is a matter of deep regret that genuine efforts of many countries for a robust, balanced and non-discriminatory treaty were ignored."

One of those flaws was its failure to ban sales of weapons to groups that commit "acts of aggression," ostensibly referring to rebel groups, he said. The current draft does not ban transfers to armed groups but says all arms transfers should be subjected to rigorous risk and human rights assessments first.

U.S. DEMANDED CONSENSUS RULE

Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari echoed the Iranian concerns, saying he also objected to the fact that it does not prohibit weapons transfers to rebel groups.

"Unfortunately our national concerns were not taken into consideration," he said. "It can't be accepted by my country."

A North Korean delegate voiced similar complaints, suggesting it was a discriminatory treaty: "This (treaty) is not balanced."

Iran, which is under a U.N. arms embargo over its nuclear program, is eager to ensure its arms imports and exports are not curtailed, diplomats said. Syria is in a two-year-old civil war and hopes Russian and Iranian arms keep flowing in, they added.

North Korea is also under a U.N. arms embargo due to its nuclear weapons and missile programs.

The U.S. delegation said it would have voted for the treaty. Russia and China made clear they would not have blocked it but have serious reservations about the text and its failure to get consensus. A Russian delegate told the conference that Moscow would have to think hard about signing it if it is approved.

If adopted by the General Assembly, the pact will need to be signed and ratified by at least 50 states to enter into force.

Several diplomats and human rights groups that have lobbied hard in favor of the treaty complained that the requirement of consensus for the pact to pass was something that the United States insisted on years ago. That rule gave every U.N. member state the ability to veto the draft treaty.

"The world has been held hostage by three states," said Anna Macdonald, an arms control expert at humanitarian agency Oxfam. "We have known all along that the consensus process was deeply flawed and today we see it is actually dysfunctional."

"Countries such as Iran, Syria and DPRK (North Korea) should not be allowed to dictate to the rest of the world how the sale of weapons should be regulated," she added.

The point of an arms trade treaty is to set standards for all cross-border transfers of conventional weapons. It would also create binding requirements for states to review all cross-border arms contracts to ensure arms will not be used in human rights abuses, terrorism or violations of humanitarian law.

The main reason the arms trade talks took place at all is that the United States - the world's biggest arms exporter - reversed U.S. policy on the issue after President Barack Obama was first elected and decided in 2009 to support an arms treaty.

The U.S. demand that the conference be run on the basis of consensus was because Washington wanted to be able to block any treaty that undermined the U.S. constitutional right to bear arms, a sensitive political issue in the United States.

The National Rifle Association, a powerful U.S. pro-gun lobbying group, opposes the treaty and has vowed to fight to prevent its ratification if it reaches Washington. The NRA says the treaty would undermine domestic gun-ownership rights.

The American Bar Association, an attorneys' lobby group, has said that the treaty would not impact the right to bear arms.

(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Will Dunham and Lisa Shumaker)

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End of the road for Boston's longest-serving mayor

By Scott Malone

BOSTON (Reuters) - The longest-serving mayor in Boston history plans to tell voters on Thursday that he will not seek a sixth term in office, setting the stage for the city's most competitive mayoral race in decades.

Mayor Tom Menino, 70, is expected to declare his intention not to seek reelection to the office he has held since 1993 at a Thursday afternoon event at Boston's historic Fanueil Hall, according to an official who asked not to be identified ahead of the event.

The decision comes after the mayor was hospitalized for a month last year with a virus and back pain that cut short a vacation in Italy. The Democrat told local media he was growing concerned about how much longer he would be able to keep up his grueling work schedule.

"I can work a mayor's schedule, but not a Menino schedule," the mayor told WBZ news radio on Thursday morning. "I like to work 18 hours a day."

Prior to today, only one other candidate had jumped into the race - fellow Democrat John Connolly, 39, a Boston city councilor who has focused his campaign on improving schools.

But observers expected more local leaders to enter the race now that they know they will not be facing a powerful incumbent.

"Boston mayors are rarely defeated for reelection, so if you are going to make a run for it, this is the time to do it," said Peter Ubertaccio, chairman of the political science department at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts, south of Boston. "The city councilors are going to be jockeying for this position."

Menino had a formidable campaign organization that he has used both for himself and fellow Democrats - his supporters played a key role in Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren's successful 2012 campaign to unseat Republican Scott Brown.

He has declined to endorse either of the Democratic Congressmen, Edward Markey and Stephen Lynch, currently vying to fill the Massachusetts seat in the U.S. Senate that became available when John Kerry was named Secretary of State.

Voters will go to the polls in that special election on June 25, a little more than four months before November's mayoral race, making for one of Boston's most lively political calendars in recent years.

On the national stage, Menino has stood out as an advocate for gun control and gay rights, often working alongside New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Menino became mayor in July 1993, after predecessor Raymond Flynn resigned to become U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.

His fellow politicians were quick to offer praise.

"Tom Menino said yes for 20 years to economic inclusion, immigrant entrepreneurship, social and economic justice for all," said state Treasurer Steven Grossman. "We will miss his leadership at City Hall."

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Paul Thomasch)

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Congress Democrats Holding Out on Gay Marriage in the Minority

The number of Democrats who publicly oppose gay marriage dwindled this week as arguments in two Supreme Court cases drew national attention - and political pressure - to the issue.

In a matter of four days, six Democratic senators issued statements indicating that their view of the marriage debate had changed in favor of allowing Americans to marry regardless of gender. Only nine of the 53 Democrats in the Senate continue to oppose marriage equality in some way, and of those, few come down staunchly on the side of preserving the traditional one-man, one-woman definition.

Those nine senators are Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Tom Carper of Delaware, Bill Nelson of Florida, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Tim Johnson of South Dakota. Of the nine, some oppose DOMA, some have adopted a wait-and-see attitude, others are less specific.

Manchin's answer is straightforward: Spokesperson Katie Longo said that guided by his faith, Manchin "believes that a marriage is a union between one man and one woman" and wants to uphold DOMA.

Nelson is a more complicated case. In May 2012 he told the Miami Herald he believes the issue should be left to the states, but a spokesperson for his office told TIME this week that Nelson supports the one-man, one-woman vision of traditional marriage.

Some of those with more complicated stances on the issue tend to value a term President Obama once used to describe his views on gay marriage: "evolving."

"Senator Carper was proud to support Delaware's efforts to enact civil union legislation and earlier this month he joined 211 of his Congressional colleagues in co-signing the amicus brief that urges the Supreme Court to invalidate Section 3 of DOMA," a spokesperson for Carper told ABC News this week. "Like many Americans including Presidents Obama and Clinton, Senator Carper's views on this issue have evolved, and continue to evolve."

"Change" is another favorite.

"We'll have to see what the Supreme Court says about gay marriage," Landrieu told POLITICO on Tuesday. "And I just think that people's views about it are changing quite rapidly, a more progressive position. I'm just going to continue to talk to the people of my state."

An ABC/Washington Post poll released last week showed support for legal gay marriage among Americans had grown from 37 percent in 2003 to 58 percent. Almost 84 percent of Democratic Congress members signed an amicus brief for the Supreme Court asking them to overturn DOMA.

That said, not all those who signed the brief have come out in favor of legalizing gay marriage in their state - Carper, for example.

Even Republicans, typically a group staunchly opposed to gay marriage, have seen some switching up in the past month. More than 80 signed on to a similar amicus brief, led by former George W. Bush White House political director Ken Mehlman. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, announced his support for marriage equality earlier this month, and Wednesday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, announced she was "evolving" on the issue, after her Democratic counterpart, Sen. Mark Begich, endorsed it.

Political strategist Jason Johnson predicts the flood of politicians piling onto the other side isn't going to dry up any time soon. Any hesitancy to express support for same-sex marriage on either side of the aisle stems from uncertainty in how important gay marriage is to voters, according to Johnson.

"No one has been able to figure out with any effective consistency how gay voters vote and how straight voters vote on gay issues," Johnson told ABC News on Thursday. "It's very hard to determine what percentage of your population in your constituency are openly out gay voters and if gay marriage is their driving issue."

For Democrats, though, he said pressure is only going up.

"It's going to become a litmus test for Democrats and they're going to receive money pressure, and really at this point there's not much of a benefit … to standing against it, because it's the direction that the entire country is going in."

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Attempt to end Italy crisis stalls, president mulls next move

By James Mackenzie

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's center-left made a last-ditch appeal to other parties on Thursday to clear the way for a new government before its leader, Pier Luigi Bersani, reports back to President Giorgio Napolitano later in the day.

Bersani, whose alliance fell short of the majority it would need to govern after last month's election, has made little headway in five days of talks with rival parties.

The stalemate in the euro zone's third-largest economy has been watched with growing alarm across Europe as the crisis in Cyprus increased concern about the renewal of market turmoil that would threaten the stability of the currency bloc.

On Thursday, the main indicator of market confidence, the spread between Italian 10-year bonds and their safer German counterparts widened to 350 basis points, some 30 points higher than the level seen before the February 24-25 election.

Both former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right bloc, the second largest force in parliament, and the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, which holds the balance of power, have rebuffed Bersani's attempts to form a viable government.

However with only hours to go before Bersani must report to Napolitano on his exploratory efforts, officials from his Democratic Party refused to concede defeat.

"It often happens that the most delicate issues are resolved in the final phase," said Luigi Zanda, head of the PD's Senate group, urging other parties to help find a "positive solution".

Mindful of the risk of instability, Napolitano has insisted Bersani obtain firm guarantees of support from the other parties before he will give him a full mandate to form a government.

With prospects of a deal receding, options include naming an outsider to head a technocrat government like that of outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti or a broad cross-party coalition.

PRESIDENT

Prospects that Monti may be asked to remain in office have faded since Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi quit this week in a shock move that showed the tensions in the caretaker government.

But Bersani's struggles have shown how hard it will be even for a new technocrat cabinet to win parliamentary support, increasing the chances of a snap new election.

For that to happen, however, a new head of state must be elected by parliament to succeed Napolitano, whose term ends in mid-May. Italian constitutional rules prevent a president from dissolving parliament during the final months of his mandate.

Even this task is politically fraught because Berlusconi wants to pick the new head of state, something Bersani rejects.

Underlining the challenges for the next government, a senior Bank of Italy official and the head of Italy's statistics agency ISTAT both said the government's latest economic forecasts may still be too optimistic, even after being sharply cut last week.

Last week the government said the economy, in its longest recession for 20 years, would contract 1.3 percent this year, compared with a previous forecast of a 0.2 percent shrinkage.

However, ISTAT head Enrico Giovannini told a parliamentary committee hearing on Thursday the result may be worse than that with no recovery until the end of the year or early 2014.

The lack of a government has increased concern that the slump will only get deeper.

"We need effective and credible economic policies to interrupt the recessionary spiral," Daniele Franco, a top central bank economist, told the committee.

(Additional reporting by Naomi O'Leary and Gavin Jones; editing by Barry Moody and Alistair Lyon)

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Cypriots anxious as banks reopen with limits

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Anxious Cypriots patiently waited in long lines to get at their accounts on Thursday after banks opened for the first time in nearly two weeks, following an international bailout to save the country's financial system.

Fearing a run on its banks, the tiny Mediterranean country has imposed daily withdrawal limits of 300 euros ($384) for individuals and 5,000 euros for businesses — the first so-called capital controls that any country has applied in the eurozone's 14-year history.

Financial strains are building on families and businesses, and the recession in Cyprus is likely to deepen. The mood outside banks was calmer than feared. Many people said the withdrawal limits were probably necessary to keep a bad situation from spiraling out of control.

Flower shop owner Christos Papamichael was among some 30 people waiting patiently for bank doors to open at noon Thursday. "Everything has been paralyzed ... No one thinks of buying flowers," he said.

Banks had been shut in Cyprus since March 16 to prevent people from draining their accounts as politicians scrambled to save the country's stricken financial sector. ATM machines were working, but with a limit on daily withdrawals.

An initial plan to seize up to 10 percent of all Cypriot deposits caused an international uproar and was scrapped. But in order to secure 10 billion euros ($12.9 billion) in loans from other euro countries and the International Monetary Fund, Cyprus agreed Monday to wind down its second-largest bank and seize billions from accounts holding more than the insured limit of 100,000 euros.

European financial markets, which have been on edge for weeks, rose slightly on Thursday. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares rose 0.4 percent, while Germany's DAX index rose 0.1 percent.

Government and bank officials had feared that up to 10 percent of the country's deposits could be siphoned off when banks opened Thursday — but that did not appear to happen. Guards from private security firms reinforced police outside some ATMs and banks in the capital, Nicosia. No problems controlling crowds were reported.

The limits on withdrawals and other capital controls are expected to be relaxed gradually. Analysts say it's anyone's guess how people and businesses will react once that happens.

Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides said that, according to central bank estimates, the controls would be fully lifted in a month. Some analysts say it could last longer.

President Nicos Anastasiades expressed in a statement his "warm gratitude and deep appreciation towards the Cypriot people for the maturity and spirit of responsibility they have shown at a critical time for the stability of the Cypriot economy."

However, many Cypriots were left frustrated and confused by the closures and controls and concerned about the effect on their businesses and livelihoods.

"No matter how much information there was, things were changing all the time," said Costas Kyprianides, a grocery supplier in Nicosia.

For years, the banking sector has been the lifeblood of the Cypriot economy, attracting money from across Europe — and especially Russia — thanks to high interest rates and loose regulation. The country's deposits ballooned to more than seven times its economic output. But Cypriot banks ran into trouble after taking massive losses on Greek government bonds.

Now, the country's second-largest bank, Laiki, is to be split up, with its healthy assets being absorbed into the Bank of Cyprus. Savers with more 100,000 euros ($129,000) in either Bank of Cyprus and Laiki will face big losses. At Laiki, those could reach as much as 80 percent of amounts above the 100,000 insured limit; those at Bank of Cyprus are expected to be much lower.

As part of the country's capital controls, no checks can be cashed, although they can be deposited. Anyone leaving the country, whether Cypriot or a visitor, can only take up to 1,000 euros ($1,290) with them in cash.

The country's general accounting office said pensions and other social security payments, together with salaries for government employees, will be in bank accounts next Tuesday and Wednesday.

Many Cypriots struggled Thursday to understand what exactly they could and couldn't do with their money. Television talk shows addressed viewers' queries, which ranged from how they would pay college tuition for children studying abroad to how to handle check payments.

People also wondered whether they would be able to access their salaries, many of which were due this week.

Some analysts are concerned that, if kept in place long, Cyprus's measures will go against the fundamental principle of the single currency: Free and easy movement of money around the euro's 17 members.

In a statement Thursday, The European Commission said "the free movement of capital should be reinstated as soon as possible".

Not every account in Laiki and Bank of Cyprus will be hit with big losses. Deposits held by the central government, local authorities such as municipalities, universities and development projects being co-funded by the European Union will not face a so-called haircut.

Government welfare and pension fund accounts in Laiki will be treated in the same way as those in the Bank of Cyprus, "thereby ensuring most of the deposits," said Constantinos Petrides, undersecretary to the president.

Some individuals and businesses had moved their money out of Cyprus well before the banks closed their doors last week.

According to ECB figures, deposits in Cyprus' banks slipped 2.2 percent last month, to 46.36 billion euros ($59.36 billion), the lowest figure since May 2010 and down from a peak of 50.5 billion euros ($64.67 billion) in May 2012. The figure excludes deposits from other banks and the central government.

"I anticipated, not this to happen, but I anticipated issues last year, when Greece had a question of whether it will remain in euro and the consequences of that," said Athos Angelides, who runs a business importing and distributing hair salon products. "So luckily we transferred money in the middle of last year over to the UK."

The stock market, which has been closed since March 15, stayed shut. It will remain closed on Friday and Monday, when most of Europe is closed for the Easter celebrations. Cyprus follows the Orthodox calendar and does not celebrate Easter until May this year.

____

Elena Becatoros in Nicosia and David McHugh in Frankfurt contributed.

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Top Islamist accuses opposition of sowing unrest

CAIRO (AP) — A leading Islamist politician accused opponents on Thursday of teaming up with remnants of Hosni Mubarak's toppled regime to sow unrest and violence.

Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie, in his weekly message to followers, also charged politicians he did not name of using foreign funds to instigate violence.

He claimed that opponents of Egypt's Islamist-dominated government have cast off their calls for democracy, liberalism and the rights of people in order to "destroy, burn, kill, shed blood and manufacture crises to drag the country into a cycle of violence and counter-violence."

His comments came days after the worst clashes in three months between anti-government protesters and supporters of the Brotherhood, Egypt's most powerful political group.

Badie did not mention any particular group of anti-government activists by name, but appeared to direct his criticism at the National Salvation Front, the main opposition coalition.

He also claimed it was the Brotherhood that turned protests in the early days of the 2011 uprising into a full-fledged revolution and then went on to protect the achievements.

However, the revolution was led primarily by secular and liberal youth groups now rallying against the democratically elected, Brotherhood-dominated government.

The youth groups maintain that the Brotherhood did not officially join the uprising until it became clear that its momentum was irreversible.

But they acknowledge that the Brotherhood gave the uprising the muscle it needed to fend off attacks by armed Mubarak's loyalists against protesters gathered at Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the protests.

Badie's criticism of the opposition echoed President Mohammed Morsi, a longtime Brotherhood leader. Several times this week, Morsi alleged that recent unrest was the work of paid thugs, not real "revolutionaries."

He has claimed that foreign powers he did not name had a "finger" meddling in Egypt's internal affairs and vowed to bring to justice politicians suspected of inciting violence.

Badie said the Brotherhood has exercised restraint and stayed on a positive course to "build, develop and try to reform."

Referring to what he called enemies at home and Mubarak loyalists, he said: "They are trying to push us back to square one in the hope that people will lose faith in the revolution and that by manufacturing crises, failures and spreading rumors, people will dream of the return of the old regime complete with its shortcomings, injustices, defeats, backwardness and treason."

He urged his opponents to keep the competition "peaceful and honorable" in the service of the nation.

"Let us deny the saboteurs and those with ulterior motives at home and abroad the opportunity to sow sedition, burn the nation and take us back in time."

In the latest bout of violence on March 22, protesters and Brotherhood supporters clashed outside the group's headquarters in the capital Cairo.

The violence was rooted in an incident a week earlier when Brotherhood members slapped a woman to the ground and beat up other activists who were spray-painting graffiti against the group outside its headquarters in an eastern district of Cairo.

Several reporters at the scene were also attacked. The Brotherhood said they were part of the protest.

In response, anti-Brotherhood activists called for a protest at the headquarters. Both sides brought out hundreds of supporters, and the scene quickly turned violent.

The clashes deepened the schism in Egypt that has been steadily widening since Morsi came to office in June as the country's first freely elected president. The Islamist leader and his allies are in one camp, while moderate Muslims, liberals, seculars, minority Christians and a large segment of women in the other.

Badie also sought to claim for the Brotherhood the mantle of protectors of the uprising that overthrew Mubarak.

He suggested that the pro-democracy youth groups universally credited with engineering the popular revolt played second fiddle to the Brotherhood, which emerged in the wake of Mubarak's ouster as Egypt's most dominant political force.

"Our movement, together with honorable members of the patriotic opposition, was the direct cause of (the revolution). Our (Brotherhood) youth provided its fuel and strength from the very start," he said.

He also credited the group with protecting the revolution by standing up to bands of Mubarak loyalists who attacked crowds in Tahrir Square.

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Two congressmen urge USTR designate China for trade secret theft

By Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two senior Democrats in the House of Representatives on Thursday urged the Obama administration to formally target China for the theft of U.S. trade secrets, a move they said could lead to duties on Chinese goods if U.S. concerns are not addressed.

"As evidence mounts that the Government of China actively engages in the cyber theft of the trade secrets of American businesses, we write to request that you consider designating China as a Priority Foreign Country under Section 182 of the Trade Act of 1974," the lawmakers said.

The letter from Representatives Sander Levin and Charles Rangel urged the Trade Representative's office to take the action when it issues the annual report on intellectual property protection on April 30.

Their recommendation is the latest sign of congressional frustration with alleged widespread theft of U.S. company trade secrets by competitors in China through both cyber attacks and more conventional means of economic espionage.

"It looks very much as though the Chinese government is stealing our companies' trade secrets and passing them along to their SOEs (state-owned enterprises), and possibly other Chinese companies," Levin and Rangel, the top two Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a letter to acting Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis.

"It is difficult enough for our companies to compete with the endless massive subsidies and other industrial policies of the Chinese government, but add trade secret theft into the mix and it is miraculous that our companies are able to compete at all," they added.

The White House last month rolled out a new strategy to tackle to trade-secret theft included greater use of existing U.S. trade tools, like the U.S. Trade Representative's annual report on countries with the worst records of protecting U.S. intellectual property rights.

USTR rarely designates any "priority foreign country" in that report. The category is reserved for those nations with the most onerous and egregious acts, policies or practices that threaten U.S. intellectual property and which have the greatest adverse impact on the United States.

Under the statute, USTR generally must initiate what is known as a "Special 301" investigation within 30 days of designating a priority foreign country, which could lead to the White House imposing import duties if U.S. concerns are not satisfactorily addressed, the lawmakers said.

"We have received the letter and are reviewing it," USTR spokeswoman Carol Guthrie said.

USTR also could file a case at the World Trade Organization if it determines that the priority foreign country is violating international trade rules.

(Reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by Vicki Allen)

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Italy's center-left leader fails to form govt

MILAN (AP) — Italy remained in political gridlock Thursday after the center-left leader announced he had failed to form a government.

Pier Luigi Bersani, who has been talking with parties since Friday, expressed some bitterness when he told reporters at the president's office in Rome that he found "unacceptable" attempts by some parties to set "preclusions and conditions."

Bersani's attempt at forming a stable government able to help Italy out of recession and get Italians back to work was always a long shot. Bersani's coalition controls the lower house, but not the Senate, and inconclusive February elections gave strong voice to a protest party.

The next move belongs to President Giorgio Napolitano, who will hold a day of consultations Friday to "personally ascertain the developments possible," the president's secretary general, Donato Marra, said.

The failure makes more likely a possible technical government with a well-defined mission to take on urgent tasks, which include rewriting the election law, and push through some measures that have broader acceptance, like cutting political costs.

"I do believe now that the president will try to find a personality who is not so political as Bersani, possibly coming out of the left, and see if that person can find some sort of agreement to get the backing" from both the center-left and the center-right, said Giovanni Orsina, a professor of political science at Rome's LUISS University. "That is the only solution at the moment."

The Feb. 24-25 elections ended in a three-way gridlock with Bersani's center-left forces, former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's center-right forces and the anti-establishment protest movement founded by comic-turned-political leader Beppe Grillo.

Old animosities and a hardline left wing of his party forced Bersani to rule out an alliance with Berlusconi's center-right forces — a sort of grand coalition that Napolitano clearly favored. And Grillo's 5 Star Movement made clear that it wouldn't back Bersani or any established party — despite Bersani's appeal to responsibility during a meeting Wednesday.

The 5 Star Movement's apparent intransigence makes a way forward difficult. It refuses steadfastly to vote confidence in any government that it does not run, and the Italian constitution requires a vote of confidence for a government to officially take office.

The movement on Thursday proposed that Italy could continue under the caretaker government of Mario Monti, allowing the newly elected parliament to take on some urgent tasks. It was unclear if Napolitano would find that acceptable, if Monti would want to stay on, or if such a possibility were even constitutional.

Orsina said there is a limit to how long a government can continue without a vote of confidence, and this caretaker government was formed provisionally until a new government could be formed. "If we say it is not a provisional solution, that it is more permanent, I think Monti should go back to the chambers and ask for confidence," Orsina said.

Monti, whose technical government enacted emergency measures to help protect Italy from the sovereign debt crisis after Berlusconi stepped down in 2011, dissolved parliament last December after Berlusconi pulled support, paving the way to elections. More recently, he has been under pressure over his government's flip-flop over the fate of two Italian marines charged with murder in India. It first announced earlier this month the pair would not go back to face trial after being allowed home temporarily, but then sent them back anyway fearing international isolation over the move.

His decision to run in the elections, finishing fourth with a dismal 10 percent of the vote, also has sapped his authority as a technical figure.

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Spy who foiled jet bomb plot to be MI5 chief

By Peter Griffiths

LONDON (Reuters) - A British spy who thwarted an al Qaeda plot to blow up planes with explosives hidden in drinks bottles and led the response to the 2005 London bombings will be the new head of Britain's domestic intelligence agency, the government said on Thursday.

Andrew Parker has three decades' experience at the agency, known as MI5, countering Islamist militants, Irish republicans and organised criminals, and was deputy head since 2007.

The 50-year-old, a keen birdwatcher and wildlife photographer, will be in charge of 3,800 staff investigating threats ranging from bomb plots and the spread of weapons of mass destruction to espionage and cyber attacks.

One of his first tasks will be to protect U.S. President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and other world leaders at the Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland in June.

The last time Britain hosted the annual G8 meeting in 2005, four suicide bombers killed 52 commuters in London in co-ordinated attacks. Parker was in charge of the agency's reaction to the bombings and oversaw a significant expansion of its role.

Parker, who led the MI5 team that disrupted a 2006 conspiracy to attack multiple passenger jets with bombs hidden in drinks bottles, said it was a "great honour" to be made head of the agency, also known as the Security Service.

"I look forward to leading the Service through its next chapter," he said in a statement.

The bespectacled father-of-two will replace the current head, Jonathan Evans, when he steps down in April after six years in the job during which Britain suffered no significant attacks.

SECRECY

In contrast to the secrecy that defined its work for decades, MI5 published Parker's name and picture on its website. The government did not acknowledge the agency's existence until 1989 and its head remained anonymous until 20 years ago.

Based in an imposing white stone building near parliament on the River Thames, MI5's role is to fight "espionage, terrorism and sabotage, from the activities of agents of foreign powers, and from actions intended to overthrow or undermine parliamentary democracy".

Parker takes over at a time of pressure on public spending, a persistent threat from al Qaeda and worries about a small group of Irish nationalists who refuse to accept a 1998 peace deal in Northern Ireland.

Outgoing MI5 chief Evans warned last year that al Qaeda militants were using the countries which toppled their leaders in the Arab Spring protests as bases to train radical Western youths for potential attacks on Britain.

Prime Minister Cameron said in January that Britain and other western countries face a "large and existential threat" from Islamist militants that could last for decades.

(Editing by Pravin Char)

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Pope washes feet of young detainees in ritual

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis washed the feet of a dozen inmates at a juvenile detention center in a Holy Thursday ritual that he celebrated for years as archbishop and is continuing now that he is pope. Two of the 12 were young women, a remarkable choice given that the rite re-enacts Jesus' washing of the feet of his male disciples.

The Mass was held in the Casal del Marmo facility in Rome, where 46 young men and women currently are detained. Many of them are Gypsies or North African migrants, and the Vatican said the 12 selected for the rite weren't necessarily Catholic.

Because the inmates were mostly minors — the facility houses inmates aged 14-21 — the Vatican and Italian Justice Ministry limited media access inside. But Vatican Radio carried the Mass live, and Francis told the detainees that Jesus washed the feet of his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion in a gesture of love and service.

"This is a symbol, it is a sign —washing your feet means I am at your service," Francis told the youngsters. "Help one another. This is what Jesus teaches us. This is what I do. And I do it with my heart. I do this with my heart because it is my duty, as a priest and bishop I must be at your service."

Later, the Vatican released a limited video of the ritual, showing Francis washing black feet, white feet, male feet, female feet and even a foot with tattoos.

As archbishop of Buenos Aires, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio would celebrate the ritual foot-washing in jails, hospitals or hospices — part of his ministry to the poorest and most marginalized of society. It's a message that he is continuing now that he is pope, saying he wants a church "for the poor."

Previous popes would carry out the foot-washing ritual on Holy Thursday in Rome's grand St. John Lateran basilica and the 12 people chosen for the ritual were priests to represent the 12 disciples.

That Francis would include women in this re-enactment is symbolically noteworthy given the insistence of some in the church that the ritual be reserved for men only given that Jesus' disciples were all male, and that the Catholic priesthood that evolved from the original 12 disciples is restricted to men.

"The pope's washing the feet of women is hugely significant, because including women in this part of the Holy Thursday Mass has been frowned on — and even banned — in some dioceses," said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author of "The Jesuit Guide." ''It shows the all-embracing love of Christ, who ministered to all he met: man or woman, slave or free, Jew or Gentile."

After the Mass, Francis greeted each of the inmates and gave each one an Easter egg.

"Don't lose hope," he said. "Understand? With hope you can always go on."

Italian Justice Minister Paola Severino, who has made easing Italy's woefully overcrowded prisons a priority, attended the Mass.

___

Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

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Rush Limbaugh: Regardless of Supreme Court Ruling Gay Marriage Is 'Inevitable'

Limbaugh

In his radio show today, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh said defenders of traditional marriage have lost the battle, even though the Supreme Court won't hand down its decisions for another few months.

"I don't care what the Supreme Court does, this is now inevitable," Limbaugh said, "and it's inevitable because we lost the language on this."

Limbaugh took issue with the idea that the word marriage was already applied to gay couples. Therefore, he asserted, modifiers like "hetero" or "opposite-sex" are now at times added to denote a union between a man and a woman.

"I maintain to you that we lost the issue when we started allowing the word 'marriage' to be bastardized and redefined by simply adding words to it - because marriage is one thing, and it was not established on the basis of discrimination. It wasn't established on the basis of denying people anything," the radio host said. "Marriage is not a tradition that a bunch of people concocted to be mean to other people with. But we allowed the left to have people believe that it was structured that way."

On Wednesday, he made a similar prediction, saying that gay marriage would soon become legal "

Earlier this year, Limbaugh compared homosexuality to pedophilia.

Today, he claimed discrimination against gay couples "is not an issue."

"No one sensible is against giving homosexuals the rights of contract or inheritance or hospital visits. There's nobody that wants to deny them that. The issue has always been denying them a status that they can't have, by definition. By definition - solely, by definition - same-sex people cannot be married. So instead of maintaining that and holding fast to that, we allowed the argument to be made that the definition needed to change, on the basis that we're dealing with something discriminatory, bigoted, and all of these mystical things that it's not and never has been."

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Mortar shells strike Damascus, killing at least 10

BEIRUT (AP) — Mortar shells crashed into an outdoor cafe at Damascus University on Thursday, killing at least 10 students in the deadliest of a rising number of mortar attacks in the heart of the Syrian capital.

The strikes have escalated as rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad try to enter the city, terrifying civilians whose support the opposition needs to advance its cause.

It was unclear who fired the rounds. The government blamed "terrorists," its blanket term for those fighting Assad's regime. Anti-regime activists accused the regime of staging the attack to turn civilians against the rebels.

Mortar strikes on Damascus are relatively new in Syria's crisis, which began in March 2011 with protests calling for Assad's ouster, then evolved into a civil war. The U.N. says more than 70,000 have been killed in the conflict.

Since last month, mortar shells have hit previously safe parts of the capital with increasing frequency. The near-daily strikes have frightened residents, and many have begun to avoid open areas and put plastic on their windows to help block flying glass from an explosion or shrapnel.

Some shells appear aimed at government targets, such as one of Assad's palaces and the general command of the Syrian army. Others have hit near civilian targets, including the Sheraton Hotel and a soccer stadium, both on the city's west side. Mortar shells also have struck in areas to the east, like the Christian neighborhood of Bab Touma.

Thursday's strike was the deadliest yet.

State-run Al-Ikhbariya TV showed video of the university cafe where blood pooled on tiles and plastic chairs and pens and eyeglasses littered the area. Later video showed people being treated in a hospital, including a woman with white bandages around her head and a man whose back was peppered with shrapnel wounds.

The dining facility belongs to the Faculty of Architecture in Damascus's central Baramkeh district.

State TV said 15 people were killed in the strike, but the official news agency, SANA, put the death toll at 10 and said dozens were wounded. It also reported three other mortar strikes nearby.

The opposition activist group, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, put the death toll at 13.

Similar mortar attacks on Tuesday killed at least three people and wounded dozens. Six people were killed by mortar shells in different parts of the city on March 11.

"No one anywhere in the world can imagine a more criminal act than this," SANA quoted Amer al-Mardini, the president of the university, as saying. He said he hoped the wounded would heal quickly and "resume their studies as soon as possible."

Anti-regime activists accused the regime of launching the attack to tarnish the opposition's image.

Elizabeth O'Bagy, who studies the Syrian rebels at the Institute for the Study of War, said it was not possible to determine who was behind the attack, but it appeared to fit the regime's pattern of escalation. In other aspects of the war, such as the use of airstrikes or Scud missiles, the regime has gone from trying to target rebels to more indiscriminate attacks on civilians, she said.

"Because of the fact that it does follow regime behavior, it is more likely to be a regime attack," she said, while acknowledging it could also have been a rebel misfire.

Rebels have established footholds in a number of Damascus suburbs but have only been able to push into limited areas in the south and northeast parts of the capital. The government has retained its grip of downtown Damascus, although the mortar strikes have deepened fear among many residents that they will soon see the violence that has damaged many other Syrian cities.

Thursday was not the first time Syria's universities have been targeted. On Jan. 15, twin blasts hit Aleppo University, killing more than 80 people. The opposition said the regime had bombed the university, while the government accused rebels of striking it with rockets.

Also Thursday, Ghassan Hitto, the newly elected prime minister of the main opposition bloc, said he was reviewing candidates for a planned rebel interim government. It will be a service-oriented administration with nine to 12 ministries and will be based inside Syria, Hitto said during a meeting with Syrian expats in Qatar.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said the head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, Mouaz al-Khatib, has decided to continue serving until his six-month term ends in May. Al-Khatib resigned on March 24, citing frustration with the group and its level of international support. The Coalition rejected his resignation.

Syria's conflict threatens to destabilize neighboring countries, where more than 1 million refugees have fled to escape the violence.

In Jordan, on Syria's southern border, a riot broke out Thursday in a refugee camp after Jordanian authorities refused to let buses full of refugees return to Syria because of violence over the border. U.N. refugee liaison Ali Bibi said it was unclear how many refugees were involved in the melee at the Zaatari camp, but no one was injured.

To the north, Turkey denied reports that it was deporting hundreds of Syrian refugees for rioting on Wednesday in a camp in Akcakale after a fire killed a 7-year-old child. A camp official said local authorities identified 300 people involved in the uprising and prepared to deport them, but the government stopped them.

A Foreign Ministry official said 100 refugees asked to leave the camp and return to Syria on their own.

The U.N. refugee agency did not confirm the reports, but said it was concerned about possible deportations of refugees.

In Israel, on Syria's southeastern border, the military said it was beefing up medical teams along the border because of several cases of wounded Syrians crossing the frontier for medical care. Eleven Syrians have been treated in Israeli hospitals, including one who died from his wounds on Wednesday, a military official said. Others returned home after their conditions improved.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

____

Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria; Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey; Bradley Klapper in Washington; Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Dale Gavlak in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.

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Irish PM's party wins by-election, junior partner suffers

By Stephen Mangan

ASHBOURNE, Ireland (Reuters) - Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny's Fine Gael party held its seat in a by-election on Thursday, but its junior coalition partner Labour was beaten into fifth place in a humiliating defeat.

Labour went into government for the first time since the late 1990s two years ago on a promise to end the previous administration's adherence to "Frankfurt's Way", an austerity plan the party said was dictated by the European Central Bank.

However the centre-left party has angered supporters by pursuing the tough austerity required under the country's EU/IMF bailout and its vote in the Meath East constituency collapsed to 4.6 percent from 21 percent last time.

Fine Gael's Helen McEntee captured 38.5 percent of the vote to win the seat left vacant when her father committed suicide last year. The coalition would have kept its record parliamentary majority even if she had lost.

"I voted for Labour last time out but will never vote for them again," said Abigail Flores, a mother-of-two living in Ashbourne, a town 20 km north of Dublin where so-called "ghost estates" lie unfinished after a spectacular property crash. She said she had no interest in voting this time around.

"I would have always voted for Labour and so would my parents and sisters but they've shown in the last two years that they're just spineless and are no different from Fine Gael or Fianna Fail. They don't actually stand for anything."

By fielding the daughter of the late junior minister Shane McEntee, analysts said Fine Gael sheltered itself somewhat from voter anger. Political dynasties are common in Ireland, Kenny won his first election 38 years ago after his father's death.

The fellow centre-right Fianna Fail, which dominated Irish politics before losing three-quarters of its seats in humbling elections held after it signed up to the bailout, came second after jumping to 32.9 percent from 19 percent two years ago.

A rise of just four percentage points to 13 percent for Sinn Fein, the only major party rallying against austerity, showed the limited Irish appetite for the type of populist political movements making inroads elsewhere in Europe.

"DIFFICULT DAY"

A lack of opposition to deep tax hikes and spending cuts has helped Ireland hit the targets set under its bailout and close in on getting off emergency EU and IMF assistance, a move cemented last month by a landmark 10-year bond sale.

But that has meant little to Labour's traditional working class support base which has been hit hard by high unemployment. State workers face fresh cuts in a new public sector pay deal.

"It's a difficult day for Labour, people are very angry out there and clearly the Labour Party has been singled out for the brunt of responsibility," Pat Rabbitte, a senior Labour minister, told the Today FM radio station.

"There's little point in trying to explain to the individual voter that bond prices are cheaper, that butters no parsnips as far as they're concerned."

Analysts said the loss poses little threat to the coalition and its austerity push as Labour, which has already seen five of its 38 MPs defect from the party, would be unlikely to leave government and force an election with support so low.

"It will make life a bit more uncomfortable but I can't really see what they can do to stem to flow other than to steady the nerves and hope that the economy turns around," said Eoin O'Malley, politics lecturer at Dublin City University.

(Writing by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Rosalind Russell)

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South Africa's Mandela "responding positively" to treatment

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Former South African President Nelson Mandela has been admitted to hospital with a recurrence of a lung infection, the government said on Thursday.

A statement said the 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader was admitted shortly before midnight. It gave no further details other than to say he was receiving the "best possible expert medical treatment and comfort".

Mandela was admitted briefly to hospital earlier this month for a check up.

However, he spent nearly three weeks in hospital in December with a lung infection and after surgery to remove gallstones.

It was his longest stay in hospital since his release from prison in 1990 after serving 27 years for conspiring to overthrow the white-minority apartheid government.

(Reporting by Ed Cropley; Editing by Ed Stoddard)

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Palestinian journalist jailed for Abbas photo

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Two rights groups say a West Bank court has sentenced a Palestinian journalist to a year in prison for a Facebook page photo that portrays President Mahmoud Abbas as a traitor.

Abbas' Palestinian Authority has come under mounting criticism for stifling dissent. In particular, Abbas has been cracking down on the Islamic militant group Hamas.

The defendant in Thursday's ruling was Mamdouh Hamamreh, a reporter for the Hamas-linked Al-Quds TV.

Prosecutors say a photo montage on his Facebook page back in 2010 showed Abbas next to a TV villain. The villain was an informer for French colonial rulers and the photo caption read: "They're alike."

Hamamreh denied he posted the photo.

The groups Al-Haq and the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedom confirmed the ruling.

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North Korea readies rockets after U.S. show of force

By David Chance and Phil Stewart

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea put its rocket units on standby on Friday to attack U.S. military bases in South Korea and the Pacific, after the United States flew two nuclear-capable stealth bombers over the Korean peninsula in a rare show of force.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed off on the order at a midnight meeting of top generals and "judged the time has come to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists in view of the prevailing situation", official KCNA news agency said.

On Thursday, the United States flew two radar-evading B-2 Spirit bombers on practice runs over South Korea, responding to a series of North Korean threats. They flew from the United States and back in what appeared to be the first exercise of its kind, designed to show America's ability to conduct long-range, precision strikes "quickly and at will", the U.S. military said.

The news of Kim's response was unusually swift.

"He finally signed the plan on technical preparations of strategic rockets of the KPA, ordering them to be standby for fire so that they may strike any time the U.S. mainland, its military bases in the operational theaters in the Pacific, including Hawaii and Guam, and those in south Korea," KCNA said.

The North has an arsenal of Soviet-era Scud missiles that can hit South Korea, but its longer-range missiles are untested. Independent assessments of its missile capability suggest it may have theoretical capacity to hit U.S. bases in Japan and Guam.

The North has launched a daily barrage of threats since early this month when the United States and the South, allies in the 1950-53 Korean War, began routine military drills.

The South and the United States have said the drills are purely defensive in nature and that no incident has taken place in the decades they have been conducted in various forms.

The United States also flew B-52 bombers over South Korea earlier this week.

The North has put its military on highest readiness to fight what it says are hostile forces conducting war drills. Its young leader has previously given "final orders" for its military to wage revolutionary war with the South.

Despite the tide of hostile rhetoric from Pyongyang, it has kept open a joint economic zone with the South which generates $2 billion a year in trade, money the impoverished state can ill-afford to lose.

Pyongyang has also canceled an armistice agreement with the United States that ended the Korean War and cut all communications hotlines with U.S. forces, the United Nations and South Korea.

U.S. SAYS NORTH ON DANGEROUS PATH

"The North Koreans have to understand that what they're doing is very dangerous," U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon.

"We must make clear that these provocations by the North are taken by us very seriously and we'll respond to that."

The U.S. military said that its B-2 bombers had flown more than 6,500 miles to stage a trial bombing raid from their bases in Missouri as part of the Foal Eagle war drills being held with South Korea.

The bombers dropped inert munitions on the Jik Do Range, in South Korea, and then returned to the continental United States in a single, continuous mission, the military said.

Thursday's drill was the first time B-2s flew round-trip from the mainland United States over South Korea and dropped inert munitions, a Pentagon spokeswoman said.

Victor Cha, a North Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the drill fit within the context of ramped efforts by the Pentagon to deter the North from acting upon any of its threats.

Asked whether he thought the latest moves could further aggravate tensions on the peninsula, Cha, a former White House official, said: "I don't think the situation can get any more aggravated than it already is."

Despite the shrill rhetoric from Pyongyang, few believe North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, will risk starting a full-out war.

Still, Hagel, who on March 15 announced he was bolstering missile defenses over the growing North Korea threat, said all of the provocations by the North had to be taken seriously.

"Their very provocative actions and belligerent tone, it has ratcheted up the danger and we have to understand that reality," Hagel said, renewing a warning that the U.S. military was ready for "any eventuality" on the peninsula.

North Korea conducted a third nuclear weapons test in February in breach of U.N. sanctions and despite warnings from China, its one major diplomatic ally.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander in Washington; Editing by Warren Strobel, Paul Simao and Mark Bendeich)

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Syrian officials: 10 killed in university attack

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Mortar shells slammed into a cafeteria at Damascus University on Thursday, killing at least 10 people and wounding 20 in what was the deadliest in a string of such attacks on President Bashar Assad's seat of power, state media and officials said.

Rebels began firing shells at the capital earlier this year, and the strikes have become increasingly common in recent weeks as rebels clash with government troops on the east and south sides of the city.

State-run TV said the casualties occurred when mortar shells struck the cafeteria of the university's architecture department in the central Baramkeh district.

At one point, the official news agency SANA said 15 people were killed, but later the news agency put the death toll at 10. A Syrian official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements said 20 people were wounded in the attack.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which came two days after rebels barraged Damascus with mortar shells that killed at least three people and wounded dozens.

The shelling rarely causes many casualties, but it has shattered the aura of normalcy the regime has tried to cultivate in Damascus. In recent days, rebels have struck deeper than ever into the heart of the city in a new tactic to try and loosen Assad's grip on his main stronghold.

The government blamed "terrorists," the term it uses for rebels fighting to oust Assad, and called the attack as a "barbaric massacre."

Government-run Al-Ikhbariya TV showed footage of plastic tables and chairs turned upside down, shattered glass and pens and books scattered on the floor. Pools of blood were seen on the floor of the open-air cafeteria. The station showed paramedics trying to revive a wounded girl.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the attack, saying many of the wounded were in critical condition.

Syria's crisis began in March 2011 with protests demanding Assad's ouster. Following a harsh government crackdown, the uprising steadily grew more violent until it became a full-fledged civil war. The U.N. says Syria's two-year civil war has killed more than 70,000 people.

The mortar attack at the university occurred as officials denied opposition claims that an Iranian cargo plane allegedly carrying weapons to Assad's regime was hit as it landed at Damascus International Airport.

Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera TV quoted activists as saying that the plane was hit Wednesday night and caught fire as it was landing. State-run TV denied the report while the Observatory chief, Rami Abdul-Rahman, said he could not confirm that such an incident happened.

Ghaidaa Abdul-Latif, the general director of the Syrian Arab Airlines, denied in a telephone interview with The AP the occurrence of any incident at the airport. She stressed that all reports about the incident were "absolutely untrue."

Earlier in the day, activists said Syrian rebels attacked army checkpoints in and around a key southern town that is a gateway to Damascus.

The Observatory said rebel attacks were under way in and around Dael in the strategic Daraa province, which borders Jordan. The Local Coordination Committees, another activists group, said regime bombardment of Dael killed at least three people on Thursday.

The Observatory also reported violence in other parts of Syria, including the northern regions of Idlib and Aleppo, and air raids on the suburbs of Damascus.

The fighting comes as Mideast powers opposed to Assad have stepped up weapons supplies to Syrian rebels in coordination with the U.S. in preparation for a push on the Syrian capital, according to officials and military experts who spoke to the AP in Jordan.

In Jordan, the U.N. refugee agency said a riot broke out at a refugee camp for Syrians in the country after some of the refugees were told they could not return home.

Ali Bibi, a U.N. refugee liaison officer in Jordan, said it was unclear how many refugees were involved in Thursday's melee at the Zaatari camp. The riot broke out after some Syrians in the camp tried to board buses to return to their country.

He said Jordanian authorities refused to let the buses head to the border because of ongoing clashes between the rebels and Assad's forces in southern Syria, just across the border from Jordan. Bibi said there were no immediate reports of injuries.

Turkish officials on Thursday denied reports that the country was deporting several hundreds of Syrian refugees for causing disturbances inside a refugee camp near the border. A Foreign Ministry official said, however, that a group of 100 refugees asked to be allowed to leave the camp and to return to Syria on their own free will.

A fire at the camp in the town of Akcakale late Wednesday killed a 7-year-old child and sparked unrest among the refugees.

A camp security official said local authorities identified about 300 people who allegedly caused the disturbance and prepared to deport them. But the move was stopped by government officials, he said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to discuss the situation in the camp with journalists.

The U.N. refugee agency could not immediately confirm the reports, but said it was concerned by allegations of possible deportations from Akcakale and was seeking further information.

In Israel, the military said it was beefing up medical teams along the border with Syria following several cases of wounded Syrians crossing the frontier to seek medical assistance.

A military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under military protocol, said on Thursday there have been "numerous incidents" in recent months in which Syrians wounded in the fighting in their country arrived at the frontier for first aid from Israeli medics.

Eleven of them were taken and treated at Israeli hospitals, including one who died from his wounds on Wednesday. Others returned home after their conditions have improved.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity under military protocol. He said the military's focus in the Israeli-held Golan Heights was still on security and defense but that Israel sent extra medical teams to the area realizing more wounded could soon arrive.

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Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Suzan Fraser in Ankara Turkey, Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Dale Gavlak in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.

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AP Interview: Egypt says Iranian tourists no risk

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's tourism minister says Iranian tourists would help shore up Egypt's dilapidated tourism industry and would not pose security challenge to the nation.

Speaking to The Associated Press in Cairo on Thursday, Hesham Zazou says he does not worry that visiting Iranians would try to export a revolution to Egypt.

Preparations are under way to allow Iranian tourists visit at a time when the Egyptian government is looking to boost the tourism business back to pre-revolution levels when 14.7 million tourists visited Egypt in 2010.

Continued unrest since the 2011 uprising that forced longtime authoritarian president Hosni Mubarak to step down, have scared away tourists and investment.

Last year, the number of tourists climbed to more than 10 million, but most tourists go to beach resorts along the Red Sea.

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