PRISTINA (Reuters) - Police in Kosovo have arrested Naser Kelmendi suspected by the United States of trafficking heroin and cocaine to Europe through the Balkans, a senior police source said on Monday.
"He was arrested last night in Pristina," the source, who asked not to be identified, said. A police spokesman was not immediately available to comment because of a public holiday in Kosovo.
(Reporting by Fatos Bytyci, writing by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
CAIRO (AP) — The U.S. State Department says arrest warrants and the investigation of a popular Egyptian satirist and other critics of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi highlight a "disturbing trend" of growing restrictions on freedom of expression in Egypt.
The strongly worded statement by U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland Monday came a day after Bassem Youssef, who criticizes Morsi and hard-line clerics on his Jon Stewart-style show, was released on bail following an interrogation into accusations he insulted the country's leader and Islam.
Youssef's questioning followed arrest warrants against five prominent anti-government activists accused of inciting violence.
Nuland said it seemed Egypt's government failed to show even-handed justice in investigating cases of attacks against anti-Morsi protesters, journalists and police brutality.
Prosecutors deny launching a political crackdown, saying they are implementing the law.
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's top prosecutor has issued arrest warrants for five rights activists on suspicion of inciting violence against members of the president's Muslim Brotherhood.
A statement posted Monday on the attorney general's official Facebook page said all five have also been banned from traveling abroad.
The warrants came one day after Islamist President Mohammed Morsi sternly warned his opponents, saying he may be close to taking unspecified measures to protect the nation.
They also followed the issuing of summons for a larger group of politicians and activists for questioning over clashes on Friday outside the Brotherhood's office, the worst between the group's members and opponents in three months.
The five activists are: Alaa Abdel-Fattah, Ahmed Douma, Karim El-Shaer, Hazem Abdel-Azim and Ahmed Ghoneimi.
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's top prosecutor issued arrest warrants on Monday for five rights activists on suspicion of inciting violence against members of the president's Muslim Brotherhood.
A statement posted on the attorney general's official Facebook page said all five have also been banned from traveling abroad. The prosecutor also issued summons for a sixth activist, Nawara Negm, daughter of Egypt's best known satirical poet, for questioning over the same allegations.
The warrants came a day after Islamist President Mohammed Morsi sternly warned his opponents, saying he may be close to taking unspecified measures to protect the nation. The warning came during a speech in which the president was visibly angry, shouting and pounding on the table at times.
Monday's warrants followed the issuing of summonses earlier in the day for a larger group of politicians and activists for questioning over clashes on Friday outside the Brotherhood's office, the worst between the group's members and opponents in three months. Nearly 200 people were injured in the clashes.
The five activists are: Alaa Abdel-Fattah, Ahmed Douma, Karim El-Shaer, Hazem Abdel-Azim and Ahmed Ghoneimi. They were at the forefront of both the 18-day uprising against longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and a subsequent campaign against the army generals who succeeded him and ruled for nearly 17 months.
Abdel-Fattah told The Associated Press minutes after news of the warrants broke that he was consulting with his lawyers on what to do next.
The warrants are a significant escalation in the ongoing tug of war between Morsi and his Islamist allies in one camp and a mostly secular and liberal opposition backed by moderate Muslims, minority Christians and a large segment of educated and urban women in the other.
The political turmoil in which Egypt has been engulfed for most of the two years since Mubarak's ouster has been compounded by a worsening economy and tenuous security. Friday's violence has left the prospect of a dialogue between the two sides slim at best.
Morsi also vowed on Sunday to bring to account politicians found to have incited the violence on Friday outside the Brotherhood's Cairo headquarters.
The larger group summoned by the prosecutors include former presidential candidate Khaled Ali, former lawmaker Ziad el-Oleimi, TV presenter Buthaina Kamel and senior opposition politician Mohammed Aboul-Ghar.
Kamel, who works for state TV, told the AP she has yet to receive the official summons, but that when she does she will consult with lawyers over whether to go. She said she was at the scene of Friday's clashes but did not take part in the violence.
"I did not do as much as throw a rock," she said. "It is my right to participate peacefully in a protest."
Separately, the Brotherhood's legal adviser said he had filed complaints with the attorney general, Egypt's top prosecutor, against a total of 169 individuals, including political party leaders he alleges were involved in Friday's violence. In comments to reporters, Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maqsoud called on the attorney general to take statements from 276 people whom he said were victims of the violence. He said his complaints were backed up by video footage and photographs.
Friday's violence was rooted in an incident a week earlier, when Brotherhood members beat up activists who were spray-painting graffiti against the group outside its headquarters, in an eastern district of Cairo. In response, anti-Brotherhood activists called for a protest there Friday. Both sides brought out hundreds of supporters, and the scene quickly turned to mayhem, with beatings committed by both sides.
In Sunday's address, Morsi, who took office in June as Egypt's first freely elected president, departed from prepared comments at a women's rights conference to deliver a scathing attack against his opponents. The president suggested that he may have to resort to "emergency" measures to deal with his opponents. He accused his foes of using paid thugs to sow chaos and the media of inciting violence.
He made no mention of any particular opposition group or politician and did not refer directly to Friday's clashes. However, his animated comments left little doubt that they were directed at the National Salvation front, the main opposition coalition, and former members of the Mubarak regime.
Alluding to Mubarak-era figures who have been acquitted in court of a range of charges, Morsi said he respected the law and judicial rulings, but added: "There is a president of the republic and there are emergency measures if any of them makes even the smallest of moves that undermines Egypt or the Egyptians."
"Their lives are worthless when it comes to the interests of Egypt and Egyptians," he said, pounding on the table. "I am a president after a revolution, meaning that we can sacrifice a few so the country can move forward. It is absolutely no problem."
Morsi also criticized the media, arguing that it was being used for political aims. The comments echoed similar accusations made by the Brotherhood regularly in recent weeks. Dozens of Islamists are currently staging a sit-in outside the studios of TV networks critical of the president.
On Sunday, the Islamists pelted police with rocks and sought to prevent talk show hosts and guests from going in or out of the complex, located in a suburb west of the capital. Police responded with tear gas. Protesters also threw stones at cars carrying talk show guests, including veteran rights activist Hafez Abou Saeda. The sit-in continued on Monday.
The Cabinet, led by Morsi ally Prime Minister Hesham Kandil, condemned the sit-in protest and violence against network workers, saying it was not the appropriate method to express opinions.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The arrest of Mexico's best-known trade union leader on fraud charges has thrown down the gauntlet to powerful interests standing between President Enrique Pena Nieto and his plans to shake up Latin America's second-biggest economy.
For a generation, even presidents shied away from taking on teachers' union boss Elba Esther Gordillo, making her Mexico's most prominent female politician and a formidable enemy to those who accused her of fostering corruption rather than education.
Pena Nieto, who has been in office for less than three months, crossed that line on Tuesday when police arrested Gordillo and three other people with her at Toluca airport near Mexico City.
Mexican television showed Gordillo, 68, wearing a prison uniform and standing behind bars as a state prosecutor formally charged her with embezzling around $200 million from union coffers and using the money to pay for U.S. property, luxury goods, designer clothes, works of art and plastic surgery.
She is not allowed to apply for bail under the charges.
Gordillo, who deferred comment to her lawyers, faces a maximum jail sentence of 30 years, though prisoners can apply to be moved to house arrest at age 70.
"It is clearly a criminal case," Attorney General Jesus Murillo said in a television interview. "The case is very solid."
A former grandee of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, Gordillo has denied accusations of corruption.
She was snared a day after Pena Nieto signed a law aimed at improving education standards that she had opposed because it would weaken her union's clout.
The Mexican president is preparing to launch a series of ambitious measures that aim to overhaul taxes, open up state oil giant Pemex to more private capital and ease tycoon Carlos Slim's tight grip on Mexico's telecommunications industry.
"The fundamental point is that resistance by the de facto powers to reform will be confronted with energy and determination," Federico Berrueto, director general of Mexican polling firm GCE, said after Gordillo's arrest.
In Mexico, the "de facto powers" refer to various entrenched interests that include Slim's business empire and dominant broadcaster Televisa, run by Emilio Azcarraga.
Both have repeatedly fought off regulatory efforts to loosen the control they wield over their respective markets.
The government is due to unveil a major telecommunications proposal in the next few days, while separate initiatives on overhauling Pemex and boosting Mexico's weak tax take are expected to go to Congress during the second half of 2013.
The education law signed by Pena Nieto on Monday still faces a fight from Gordillo's union because it requires a secondary law to be implemented.
Changes to the energy sector could face resistance from the Pemex union so Gordillo's arrest was also interpreted as a government warning to other labor bosses that they too might face close scrutiny.
BAD BLOOD
Although Gordillo is unpopular in Mexico, her arrest has also stirred fears that Pena Nieto could be leaning toward the authoritarian past of the centrist PRI, which ruled Mexico continuously from 1929 to 2000.
Brasil Acosta, a PRI congressman from Pena Nieto's home turf, the State of Mexico, said the party had to be careful that the case against Gordillo was not brought for the wrong reasons.
"If it isn't legally proven, we'll be looking at an act of political repression, which would be dangerous," he said.
Carlos Salinas, who was president from 1988 to 1994, removed two troublesome union leaders as he embarked on his own historic reform drive, but his administration ended mired in allegations of graft.
Appointed by Salinas in 1989, Gordillo became one of the most controversial figures in Mexico.
She has been widely criticized for her lavish lifestyle and she became more vulnerable after splitting with the PRI ahead of the 2006 presidential election, when the party suffered its biggest-ever defeat.
"I imagine he (Pena Nieto) was looking to land a decisive blow against someone, and she was the easiest target," political analyst Denise Dresser told Mexican television.
Gordillo was taken to Santa Martha Acatitla women's prison on the edge of Mexico City on Tuesday night.
NO GAMES
The PRI, reviled by many Mexicans as corrupt and heavy-handed by the time it lost power in 2000, pledged to mend its ways after Pena Nieto recovered the presidency last year.
The former State of Mexico governor vowed to usher in greater accountability and transparency, and his allies are portraying the investigation into Gordillo as part of the new PRI's broader efforts to clean up Mexico.
"They send a clear message. We're not playing games when it comes to governing," said Alejandra Del Moral, a 29-year-old PRI congresswoman.
Gordillo has long been a symbol of the PRI's cozy relationship with trade unions and established interests, which critics blame for fomenting inefficiency and helping to keep the economy lagging behind its emerging market peers.
Opposition lawmakers quickly argued that to realize lasting change Pena Nieto must go further than just arresting Gordillo.
"Today we're going to demand that Pena Nieto carries on with the others in the way he started with Elba Esther," said Armando Rios Piter, a senator for the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD. "There are hundreds and perhaps thousands who represent this model of corruption."
Among these, he said, is Carlos Romero Deschamps, head of the oil workers' union at Pemex and also a PRI senator.
Revamping the state-run Pemex is one of the toughest tasks facing Pena Nieto. Created when the PRI nationalized the oil industry in 1938, the company became a symbol of Mexican self-reliance and his party has been very reluctant to touch it.
Romero Deschamps has denied taking part in corruption and fought off such allegations in the past, and both the PRD and the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, called for an investigation into his wealth after Gordillo's arrest.
With no outright majority in Congress, Pena Nieto needs support from opposition parties for any major reform of Pemex. They are likely to seek concessions in exchange for votes.
(Additional reporting by Gabriel Stargardter and Lizbeth Diaz; Editing by Kieran Murray, Simon Gardner and Paul Simao)
