Homeless Pay the Price of Progress in Lagos, Nigeria

Samuel James for The New York Times

Children scavenge through the remains of a demolition site in Lagos in search of scrap wood to sell.

LAGOS, Nigeria — The young man with the crowbar stood on a heap of rubble — planks, pallets, remains of pots, bits of cardboard, wisps of clothing, chunks of concrete — indistinguishable from every other pile in a field of debris stretching far into the distance.

“This is the home I am staying in before Fashola demolished it,” said John Momoh, 28, looking down at the pile, referring to the governor of Lagos, Babatunde Fashola. Mr. Momoh, a driver, searched doggedly for anything salvageable — a nail, a board — in the mess.

Government backhoes came in and plowed through Mr. Momoh’s simple wooden dwelling and some 500 like it last Saturday, instantly making homeless perhaps 10,000 of Lagos’s poorest residents and destroying a decades-old slum, Badia East. For days, residents wandered the chaotic rubble-strewn field, near prime Lagos real estate.

They were dazed and angry. Small children slept on the muddy ground. Men climbed the mounds of rubble, searching. In intense heat, women, men and children said they were hungry and sleeping outside. The government had destroyed their present, they said, without making any provision for their future.

“I lost everything,” Mr. Momoh said. “We are trying to bring out some sticks, to look for our daily bread,” he said, poking the rubble. “We don’t have money to eat.”

A 30-year-old cook, Kingsley Saviouru, said: “They demolished everything. They didn’t give us anything. We are here, suffering.”

Under Lagos’s energetic governor, much lauded in the international financial media, this crowded megalopolis of high rises, filthy lagoons, fierce traffic jams and sprawling slums, home to perhaps 21 million people, has proclaimed its ambition to become the region’s, if not Africa’s, premier business center.

Infrastructure and housing projects abound, including a light-rail network whose trestles already vault crowded neighborhoods, and a vast upmarket Dubai-style shopping and housing development built out into the Atlantic Ocean, inaugurated last week by former President Bill Clinton. A new Porsche dealership has opened in the financial district.

In this gleaming vision, the old Lagos of slums has an uncertain future. Two-thirds of the city’s residents live in “informal” neighborhoods, as activists call them, while more than one million of the city’s poor have been forcibly ejected from their homes in largely unannounced, government slum clearances over the last 15 years, a leading activist group says.

Last summer, there was a brief outcry when government speedboats bearing machete-carrying men cleared out the floating neighborhood of Makoko, making some 30,000 people homeless. At the vast city dump at Ojota, where thousands eke out a living, shacks are cleared out frequently, residents complained.

The Nigerian government’s untender approach to its poor, who account for at least 70 percent of the population, was again on full display last Saturday at Badia East, where even more demolition — another 40,000 live there — is now threatened. The scene Saturday was classic: a black police vehicle pulled up early, armed, uniformed policemen sprang out to quell any restiveness, and the backhoes went to work under the eyes of dismayed residents, slashing through thin wood and concrete block.

Street toughs — called “Area Boys” in Lagos, and often employed by the state government’s demolition squad for around $10 dollars, activists said — got busy where the backhoes could not penetrate, smashing flimsy structures with sledgehammers and, Mr. Momoh and others said, stealing residents’ possessions.

Many said they were given 20 minutes, at most, to pack up their belongings.

“Everybody was running helter-skelter,” said a resident, Femi Aiyenuro, adding that those who went back in to retrieve possessions risked being beaten with rifle butts and batons. “They started beating people.”

What little that could be salvaged was piled along a railway line running along Badia’s edge.

Read More..

W.H.O. Sees Low Health Risks From Fukushima Accident

TOKYO — A study published on Thursday by the World Health Organization on the health risks associated with the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant suggested that the risk for certain types of cancers had increased slightly among children exposed to the highest doses of radioactivity, but that there would most likely be no observable increase in cancer rates in the wider Japanese population.

The study, which capped off a comprehensive, two-year analysis of the estimated doses of radioactivity from the 2011 Fukushima accident and their potential risks, also warned that the disaster’s psychological impact could have a consequence on health, and called for continued monitoring and health screenings for populations most exposed to the radiological fallout.

The study’s authors warned, however, that their assessment was based on limited scientific knowledge; much of the scientific data on health effects from radiation is based on acute exposures like those that followed the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and not chronic, low-level exposure. In Japan, some densely populated areas are expected to remain contaminated with relatively low levels of radioactive materials for decades.

“Because scientific understanding of the radiation effects, particularly at low doses, may increase in the future, it is possible that further investigation may change our understanding of the risks of this radiation accident,” the report said.

The Japanese government called the report overly cautious. “It overestimates the risks, and could lead to misunderstandings of the likelihoods of developing cancer,” Japan’s Environment Ministry said in a statement made to the public broadcaster, N.H.K. In particular, the ministry said the study failed to fully take into account government evacuations of residents closest to the plant, assuming many people were exposed for longer than they were.

According to the W.H.O. study, girls exposed as infants to radioactivity in the most contaminated regions of Fukushima Prefecture, where estimated doses ranged from 12 to 25 millisieverts for the first year, faced a 70 percent higher risk of developing thyroid cancer than what would normally be expected. The report pointed out, however, that the normal expected risk of thyroid cancer was just 0.75 percent, and that the additional lifetime risk would raise that to 1.25 percent.

Girls exposed to radioactivity as infants in the most heavily contaminated areas also had a 6 percent higher risk of developing breast cancer, and a 4 percent higher risk of developing cancers that cause tumors. Meanwhile, boys exposed as infants had a 7 percent higher chance of developing leukemia.

The study also said that about a third of the emergency workers who remained to try to stabilize the Fukushima Daiichi plant were estimated to have a slightly increased risk of developing leukemia, thyroid cancer and other types of cancer.

There would most likely be no observable increase in cancer rates for the general population in Fukushima Prefecture outside the most contaminated zones, in the rest of Japan and the world, the report said. It also said that the radiological fallout from the disaster was not expected to cause increases in miscarriages, stillbirths and other physical or mental disabilities.

Still, the study said that the psychological toll of the disaster, including the stresses of evacuation, were harmful to health and should color the Japanese government’s response.

The W.H.O. report “underlines the need for long-term health monitoring of those who are at high risk, along with the provision of necessary medical follow-up and support services,” Dr. Maria P. Neira, the Geneva-based organization’s director for public health and environment, said in a news release. “This will remain an important element in the public health response to the disaster for decades,” she said.

Dr. Angelika Tritscher, acting director for the food safety and zoonoses department at the health agency, said, “In addition to strengthening medical support and services, continued environmental monitoring, in particular of food and water supplies, backed by the enforcement of existing regulations, is required to reduce potential radiation exposure in the future.” .

Matthew L. Wald contributed reporting from Washington.

Read More..

The Lede: Syrians Describes Apparent Missile Strikes on Aleppo

A Human Rights Watch video report on the aftermath of apparent missile strikes in Syria’s largest city, Aleppo.

Human Rights Watch investigators who visited Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, have concluded that the Syrian government fired at least four ballistic missiles into civilian neighborhoods there last week, killing more than 141 people, including 71 children. As my colleague Anne Barnard explained, the rights group released details of the four documented strikes, and a video report, on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, opposition activists added English subtitles to an emotional account of the devastation caused by one missile strike on Aleppo from a young boy who said he survived the bombing, but lost several family members and neighbors.

A video interview with a young boy who said that he had survived a missile attack on a civilian neighborhood in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.

The original interview with the boy was posted on YouTube on Monday by Orient News, a private Syrian satellite channel that began broadcasting from Dubai before the anti-government uprising began. Within a week of the first protests in Syria, Ghassan Abboud, the Syrian businessman who owns the channel, told a Saudi broadcaster that senior government officials close to President Bashar al-Assad had threatened to kidnap his journalists if they did not stop covering the demonstrations.

The boy’s testimony was subtitled by the ANA New Media Association, a group of opposition video activists led by Rami Jarrah, who blogs as Alexander Page.

The new reports come weeks after experts told The Lede that video of a huge explosion at Aleppo University last month suggested that the campus had been hit by a ballistic missile.

When Liz Sly of the Washington Post visited Aleppo’s Ard al-Hamra neighborhood after two missile strikes, residents gave similarly graphic accounts of pulling the mangled bodies of victims from wrecked buildings. The scenes of devastation, she wrote, “more closely resembling those of an earthquake, with homes pulverized beyond recognition, people torn to shreds in an instant and what had once been thriving communities reduced to mountains of rubble.”

Ole Solvang, a Human Rights Watch researcher who helped document the damage in Aleppo, drew attention to video posted online by opposition activists, said to show the desperate search for survivors in the immediate aftermath of the strike on Ard al-Hamra.

Video said to show a neighborhood in Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, after a missile strike last week.

As Mr. Solvang assessed the wreckage in person on Thursday and Friday, he described the damage to Aleppo and a neighboring town in words and images posted on Twitter.

Visited a site of similar attack in Tel Rifat today. 25 houses destroyed and 3 killed last Monday. Unbelievable. http://t.co/FaFhNFiAsS

— Ole Solvang (@OleSolvang) 22 Feb 13

Today visited site of yesterday’s missile attack on Ard al Hamra in #Aleppo #Syria. Dozens houses destroyed. Unbelievable destruction. @hrw

— Ole Solvang (@OleSolvang) 23 Feb 13

Bodies are still under the rubble. 3 found during our 30 min visit. Casualty # still unclear. #Aleppo #Syria @hrw http://t.co/gaT7COpRT3

— Ole Solvang (@OleSolvang) 23 Feb 13

Late Tuesday, an Aleppo blogger who supported the uprising but has been critical of the armed rebellion on his @edwardedark Twitter feed, reported that another huge blast had shaken the city.

a massive blast shockwave shakes Aleppo city just now. no idea what it is yet #Syria

— edward dark (@edwardedark) 26 Feb 13

Ms. Sly reported on Twitter Wednesday night that two more missiles were fired at rural Aleppo. “They landed in fields,” she observed. “That’s how accurate they are. Seems a bit pointless.”

Late Wednesday, Mr. Solvang pointed to video posted on YouTube by opposition activists, showing what they said were distant images of a missile being launched from Damascus in the direction of Aleppo.

Video said to show a missile being fired by Syrian government forces outside the capital, Damascus, on Wednesday night.

Read More..

Rocket From Gaza Hits Israel, Breaking Cease-Fire

Tsafrir Abayov/Associated Press

Israeli explosives experts gathered near a rocket believed to have been fired from the Gaza Strip, landing near Ashkelon, on Tuesday.

JERUSALEM — A Grad rocket fired from the Gaza Strip struck in southern Israel early Tuesday, threatening to further escalate tensions that have been mounting since Saturday, when a 30-year-old Palestinian prisoner died in an Israeli jail.

The rocket, which came down on a road outside the city of Ashkelon and caused no injuries, was the first from Gaza to hit Israel in the three months since a cease-fire agreement ended eight days of cross-border violence. Israel has violated the cease-fire several times by firing on fishermen and farmers approaching newly relaxed security perimeters, but the agreement has otherwise held.

A subgroup of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade, the military wing of the Palestinians’ Fatah faction, said it fired the rocket in response to what it called the “assassination” of Arafat Jaradat, the prisoner who died on Saturday. Palestinian leaders have blamed Mr. Jaradat’s death on what they described as “severe torture” during interrogation, though Israeli officials say the bruising and broken ribs cited as evidence of torture could have been caused by resuscitation efforts.

Mushir al-Masri, a lawmaker from the militant Hamas faction that rules the Gaza Strip, said in an interview that Israel was “fully responsible for the consequences of the wave of the Palestinian public fury.”

After the rocket attack, Israel shut its border crossings with Gaza to goods and people, allowing only “medical, humanitarian and exceptional cases,” according to a statement from the military. President Shimon Peres, who was visiting southern Israel on a previously scheduled tour, said, “Quiet will be met with quiet; missiles will be met with a response.”

Giora Eiland, a senior research fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, said renewed rocket fire could change the current delicate balance between Israel and the Palestinians, because international opinion is largely critical of Israel’s actions in the West Bank but is sympathetic when Israel comes under attack from Gaza.

“I believe that it is under control, it can be contained, and with some gestures from both sides and clear messages from Washington — which I understand are coming every few hours — it will be able to prevent an escalation and not to deteriorate ourselves to a third intifada,” Mr. Eiland said, using the Arabic word for uprising. “There is a very delicate line between two conflicting interests: to do something in order to preserve the Jihadiic identity, to preserve the spirit of resistance, to serve so many domestic interests, but not to do something that would bring some unproportional response.”

Fares Akram contributed reporting from Gaza City.

Read More..

Skepticism Surrounds Resumption of Nuclear Talks With Iran

ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Talks between Iran and six world powers over its nuclear program resume here on Tuesday after a break of eight months, but there is a general atmosphere of gloom about their prospects for success, even if narrowly defined.

Since talks in Moscow last June, Iran has continued to increase its stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent purity, has begun to install a new generation of centrifuges and has not yet completed an agreement on inspection of suspect military sites with the International Atomic Energy Agency, a deal originally advertised as all but done last May.

With presidential elections in Iran scheduled for June, senior Western diplomats involved with these talks expressed skepticism that Tehran’s chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, would be willing to make compromises that could be portrayed as weakness at home.

Mr. Jalili is the personal representative of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, considered the dominant voice on the nuclear issue. Ayatollah Khamenei has recently expressed continued mistrust of the United States and its intentions, saying that he would not allow the kind of bilateral talks between Washington and Tehran that most analysts think would be crucial to any resolution.

At the same time, Iran has taken some of its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium and converted it into reactor fuel, which cannot easily be turned back. The conversion means that Iran now has less of the uranium needed to make a bomb, reducing the sense of urgency among the six powers, and Israel, that its nuclear program needs to be slowed.

But the total Iranian stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium has nonetheless grown since November to 167 kilograms from 135 kilograms, according to the most recent I.A.E.A. report — closer to, if still significantly below, the 240 kilograms or 250 kilograms many experts consider necessary, once enriched further, to produce a nuclear weapon.

Iran denies that its nuclear program has any military aim. The six world powers, the so-called P5-plus-1 group, which are the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — and Germany, want Iran to obey Security Council resolutions ordering it to suspend enrichment and open itself up fully to I.A.E.A. inspectors, to ensure that there is no effort to build a nuclear weapon.

To press Iran to comply, the Security Council, the United States and the European Union have created an increasingly painful set of economic sanctions on Iran, as part of a dual-track strategy — negotiations and sanctions. Iran has for its part insisted that as a precondition for serious negotiations, the world should lift all the sanctions and recognize Iran’s “right to enrich,” which Iran asserts it has as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The negotiations have been tedious, with Iran appearing to be playing for time, diplomats say. The six powers had asked for a resumption of these talks as early as December, but Iran rejected dates and sites before finally suggesting and agreeing upon Almaty. The choice pleased Western diplomats for its symbolic value, since Kazakhstan, when it became independent of the Soviet Union, freely relinquished the nuclear weapons it had inherited from Moscow. American officials are holding up Kazakhstan, one of the world’s largest producers of uranium and a maker of nuclear fuel, as an example to Iran of the benefits of peaceful nuclear energy and compliance with the I.A.E.A.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan appealed to Tehran in a New York Times Op-Ed article in March 2012 to abandon what he suggested was its pursuit of nuclear power status. “Kazakhstan’s experience shows that nations can reap huge benefits from turning their backs on nuclear weapons,” he wrote.

While expectations are low, the six hope to leave here with some momentum and signs of Iranian willingness to engage in what all have agreed should be a reciprocal and step-by-step process of lifting sanctions in return for Iranian actions to comply.

“Iran needs to understand that there is an urgent need to make concrete and tangible progress” in these talks, said Michael Mann, the spokesman for Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief and chairwoman of the P5-plus-1 group.

Mr. Mann said that the six powers have together “prepared a good and updated offer for the talks which we believe is balanced and a fair basis for constructive talks” and that is “also responsive to Iranian ideas.”

Read More..

World Briefing | Middle East: Iran: News Agency Clarifies Drone Report

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said it had conducted tests aimed at bringing down a “hypothetical” foreign surveillance drone during a military exercise, the official Fars news agency said late Saturday, and did not actually shoot down or capture a foreign drone. The Islamic Republic News Agency, another official news agency, also reported on the exercise, but omitted the word hypothetical, giving the impression that a real drone had been downed. Other official Iranian media outlets later referred to the downing of a “hypothetical” aircraft after the initial erroneous accounts.

Read More..

Papal Conclave Accompanied by Reports of Scandals and Intrigue

Osservatore Romano/Reuters

Pope Benedict XVI, right, spoke to cardinals at the Vatican on Saturday.

VATICAN CITY — As cardinals from around the world begin arriving in Rome for a conclave to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI, new shadows have fallen over the delicate transition, which the Vatican fears might influence the vote and with it the direction of the Roman Catholic Church.

In recent days, often speculative reports in the Italian news media — some even alleging gay sex scandals in the Vatican, others focusing on particular cardinals stung by the child sex abuse crisis — have dominated headlines, suggesting fierce internal struggles as prelates scramble to consolidate power and attack enemies in the dying days of a troubled papacy.

The reports, which the Vatican has vehemently denied, touch on some of the most vexing issues of Benedict’s reign, including the child sex abuse crisis and international criticisms of the Vatican Bank’s opaque record-keeping. The recent explosion of bad press — which some Vatican experts say is fed by carefully orchestrated leaks meant to weaken some papal contenders — also speak to Benedict’s own difficulties governing, which analysts say he is trying to address, albeit belatedly, with several high-profile personnel changes.

The drumbeat of scandal has reached such a fever pitch that on Saturday, the Vatican Secretariat of State issued a rare pointed rebuke, calling it “deplorable” that ahead of the conclave there was “a widespread distribution of often unverified, unverifiable or completely false news stories, that cause serious damage to persons and institutions.”

The Vatican compared the news reports to past attempts by foreign states to exert pressure on the papal election, saying the latest efforts to skew the choice of the next pope by trying to shape public opinion were “based on judgments that do not typically capture the spiritual aspect of the moment that the Church is living.”

Benedict had hoped to address at least one scandal with the Feb. 15 appointment of a new head of the Vatican Bank. It is less clear why he reassigned a powerful Vatican diplomatic official to a posting outside Rome, though experts say it diminishes the official’s role in helping steer Vatican policy.

On Feb. 11, Benedict made history by announcing that he would step down by month’s end. He said he was worn down by age and was resigning “in full liberty and for the good of the Church.” The volley of news reports since appeared to underscore the backbiting in the Vatican that Benedict was unable to control, and provided a hint of why he might have decided that someone younger and stronger should lead the church.

At the conclusion of the Vatican’s Lenten spiritual retreat, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the director of the Pontifical Council for Culture and a papal contender, spoke darkly of the “divisions, dissent, careerism, jealousies” that he said plagued the Vatican hierarchy.

The recent spate of news reports were linked to an earlier scandal in which the pope’s butler stole confidential documents that was considered one of the gravest security breaches in the modern history of the church.

Last week, largely unsourced articles in the center-left daily La Repubblica and the center-right weekly Panorama reported that three cardinals whom Benedict had asked last summer to investigate the leaking of the documents, known as the “VatiLeaks” scandal, had found evidence of Vatican officials who had been put in compromising positions.

The newspapers reported that, after interviewing dozens of people inside and outside the Vatican, the cardinals produced a hefty dossier. “The report is explicit. Some high prelates are subject to ‘external influence’ — we would call it blackmail — by nonchurch men to whom they are bound by ‘worldly’ ties,” La Repubblica wrote.

Vatican experts speculated that prelates eager to undermine opponents during the conclave were behind the leaks to the news media over the last week.

“The conclave is a mechanism that serves to create a dynasty in a monarchy without children, so it’s a complicated operation,” said Alberto Melloni, the director of the John XXIII Center in Bologna and the author of a book on conclaves.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 23, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the last name of a cardinal. His name is Roger M. Mahony, not Roger M. Mahoney.

Read More..

In Niger, U.S. Troops Set Up Drone Base

WASHINGTON — Opening a new front in the drone wars against Al Qaeda and its affiliates, President Obama announced on Friday that about 100 American troops had been sent to Niger in West Africa to help set up a new base from which unarmed Predator aircraft would conduct surveillance in the region.

The new drone base, located for now in the capital, Niamey, is an indication of the priority Africa has become in American antiterrorism efforts. The United States military has a limited presence in Africa, with only one permanent base, in Djibouti, more than 3,000 miles from Mali, where insurgents had taken over half the country until repelled by a French-led force.

In a letter to Congress, Mr. Obama said about 40 United States military service members arrived in Niger on Wednesday, bringing the total number of those deployed in the country to about 100 people. A military official said the troops were largely Air Force logistics specialists, intelligence analysts and security officers.

Mr. Obama said the troops, who are armed for self-protection, would support the French-led operation that last month drove the Qaeda and affiliated fighters out of a desert refuge the size of Texas in neighboring Mali.

Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, signed a status-of-forces agreement last month with the United States that has cleared the way for greater American military involvement in the country and provides legal protection to American troops there.

In an interview last month in Niamey, President Mahamadou Issoufou voiced concern about the spillover of violence and refugees from Mali, as well as growing threats from Boko Haram, an Islamist extremist group to the south, in neighboring Nigeria.

French and African troops have retaken Mali’s northern cities, including Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal, but about 2,000 militants have melted back into desert and mountain hideaways and have begun a small campaign of harassment and terror, dispatching suicide bombers, attacking guard posts, infiltrating liberated cities or ordering attacks by militants hidden among civilians.

“Africa Command has positioned unarmed remotely piloted aircraft in Niger to support a range of regional security missions and engagements with partner nations,” Benjamin Benson, a command spokesman in Stuttgart, Germany, said in an e-mail message on Friday.

Mr. Benson did not say how many aircraft or troops ultimately would be deployed, but other American officials have said the base could eventually have as many as 300 United States military service members and contractors.

For now, American officials said Predator drones would at first fly only unarmed surveillance drones, although they have not ruled out conducting missile strikes at some point if the threat worsens.

American officials would like to move the aircraft eventually to Agadez, a city in northern Niger that is closer to parts of northern Mali where cells of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other militants groups are operating. Gen. Carter F. Ham, the leader of the Pentagon’s Africa Command, visited the base last month as part of discussions with Niger’s leaders on closer counterterrorism cooperation.

The new drone base will join a constellation of small airstrips in recent years on the continent, including one in Ethiopia, for surveillance missions flown by drones or turboprop planes designed to look like civilian aircraft.

A handful of unarmed Predator drones will fill a desperate need for more detailed information on regional threats, including the militants in Mali and the unabated flow of fighters and weapons from Libya. General Ham and intelligence analysts have complained that such information has been sorely lacking.

As the United States increased its presence in Niger, Russia sent a planeload of food, blankets and other aid to Mali on Friday, a day after Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov warned about the spread of terrorism in North Africa, which the Russian government has linked to Western intervention in Libya.

Mr. Lavrov met on Thursday with the United Nations special envoy for the region, Romano Prodi, to discuss the situation in Mali, where Russia has supported the French-led effort to oust Islamist militants. But Russia has also blamed the West for the unrest and singled out the French in particular for arming the rebels who ousted the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

“Particular concern was expressed about the activity of terrorist organizations in the north, a threat to regional peace and security,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement after the meeting. “The parties agreed that the uncontrolled proliferation of arms in the region in the wake of the conflict in Libya sets the stage for an escalation of tension throughout the Sahel.” The Sahel is a vast region stretching more than 3,000 miles across Africa, from the Atlantic in the west through Sudan in the east.

In a television interview this month, Mr. Lavrov said, “France is fighting against those in Mali whom it had once armed in Libya against Qaddafi.”

Eric Schmitt reported from Washington, and Scott Sayare from Paris. David M. Herszenhorn contributed reporting from Moscow.

Read More..

15 G.O.P. Senators Ask Obama to Withdraw Hagel Nomination

WASHINGTON — A group of 15 Republican senators insisted on Thursday that President Obama withdraw the nomination of Chuck Hagel to be defense secretary, the latest move in a contentious battle to block the confirmation of their former colleague.

But even as Republican senators tried to throw up another obstacle, Senate Democrats said they were pushing ahead with plans to hold a final up-or-down vote on the nomination no later than Wednesday.

Should that vote proceed as planned, Mr. Hagel’s confirmation appears assured. Several Republicans have said that they intend to drop their attempts to filibuster the nomination.

But given how deeply divided Mr. Hagel’s nomination has left the Senate, the outlook in the immediate term is murky.

Many Republicans, like the 15 who wrote to the president on Thursday, signaled that they would not let the issue die quietly. And those who have said that they would ultimately not support a filibuster, like Deb Fischer of Nebraska and Richard Shelby of Alabama, were choosing their words carefully.

Saying that Mr. Hagel’s confirmation would be “unprecedented” because of near-unanimous opposition from Republicans, the group of 15 senators urged Mr. Obama to pick another candidate.

“Over the last half-century, no secretary of defense has been confirmed and taken office with more than three senators voting against him,” they wrote. “The occupant of this critical office should be someone whose candidacy is neither controversial or divisive.”

Signing the letter were John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican; Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott of South Carolina; Roger Wicker of Mississippi; David Vitter of Louisiana; Ted Cruz of Texas; Mike Lee of Utah; Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania; Marco Rubio of Florida; Dan Coats of Indiana; Ron Johnson of Wisconsin; James E. Risch of Idaho; John Barrasso of Wyoming; and Tom Coburn and James Inhofe of Oklahoma.

Members of the group cited a litany of objections, including Mr. Hagel’s unimpressive showing at his confirmation hearing, which drew criticism from members of both parties, and what they said was his “dangerous” posture toward dealing with Iran.

The level of derision directed at Mr. Hagel from Republicans has been striking not just because defense secretaries are usually confirmed on a simple up-or-down vote, but also because Mr. Hagel, a Republican, served with many of them in the Senate until 2008.

“Senator Hagel’s performance at his confirmation hearing was deeply concerning, leading to serious doubts about his basic competence to meet the substantial demands of the office,” they said.

Senate Republicans narrowly blocked a vote on Mr. Hagel’s confirmation last week in a filibuster, forcing Democrats to put the matter off until senators return from recess next week.

Republicans have been using the filibuster to prevent final consideration of the nomination by refusing to end debate on it, a procedural step that requires 60 senators to vote in the affirmative.

But some Republicans, including Senator John McCain of Arizona, have since said that they will drop their objections. Mr. McCain was firm, saying on Sunday, “I don’t believe that we should hold up his nomination any further.”

Others, like Mr. Graham, Mr. Shelby and Ms. Fischer, have said that while they do not support a filibuster, they believe that the senators should have ample time to consider their votes, leaving themselves open to voting not to end debate next week.

Only one more Republican “yes” vote would be needed to cut off debate and carry through with a final vote if all the Republicans who voted to end the filibuster last week voted to do so again.

Because Mr. Hagel has the support of Senate Democrats, who control 55 seats, he is likely to clear a final vote.

If Senate Democrats move ahead with a vote and get the 60 votes necessary to end debate, Mr. Hagel could be confirmed as early as Tuesday. But because of procedural rules, any Republican could still delay the vote until Wednesday.

A new voice chimed in on the debate on Thursday. Bob Dole, the former Senate majority leader and, like Mr. Hagel, a decorated veteran, urged his fellow Republicans to put aside their objections.

“Hagel’s wisdom and courage make him uniquely qualified to be secretary of defense and lead the men and women of our armed forces,” Mr. Dole said, adding that he would be “an exceptional leader at an important time.”

Read More..

The Lede: Palestinian Filmmaker Describes Detention at Los Angeles Airport

The trailer for “5 Broken Cameras,” Emad Burnat’s autobiographical film on life in the West Bank.

The Palestinian filmmaker Emad Burnat, who had a hard time convincing immigration officers at Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday that his invitation to this weekend’s Academy Awards was real, described his brief detention in a statement on Wednesday.

Last night, on my way from Turkey to Los Angeles, my family and I were held at U.S. immigration for about an hour and questioned about the purpose of my visit to the United States. Immigration officials asked for proof that I was nominated for an Academy Award for the documentary “5 Broken Cameras,” and they told me that if I couldn’t prove the reason for my visit, my wife Soraya, my son Gibreel and I would be sent back to Turkey on the same day.

After 40 minutes of questions and answers, Gibreel asked me why we were still waiting in that small room. I simply told him the truth: “Maybe we’ll have to go back.” I could see his heart sink. Although this was an unpleasant experience, this is a daily occurrence for Palestinians, every single day, throughout the West Bank. There are more than 500 Israeli checkpoints, roadblocks, and other barriers to movement across our land, and not a single one of us has been spared the experience that my family and I experienced yesterday. Ours was a very minor example of what my people face every day.

As my colleague Jennifer Schuessler reported, Mr. Burnat, who was nominated along with his Israeli co-director Guy Davidi for his autobiographical film about the difficulties of life in the occupied West Bank, was eventually released after a previous winner of the Oscar for best documentary, Michael Moore, managed to get a lawyer for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to intervene.

My blog today on Palestinian Oscar nominee Emad Burnat detained last nite at LAX because he didn’t look Oscar-ish enuff http://t.co/WH81TCjt

— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) 20 Feb 13

In a post on his blog, Mr. Moore explained that he was waiting for the Palestinian filmmaker at a dinner for nominees when he received an urgent appeal for help.

I received an urgent text from Emad, written to me from a holding pen at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Here is what it said, in somewhat broken English: “Urgent – I am in the air port la they need more information why I come here. Invitation or some thing. Can you help they will send us back. If you late, Emad.”

I quickly texted him back and told him that help was on the way. He wrote back to say Immigration and Customs was holding him, his wife, Soraya, and their 8-year old son (and “star” of the movie) Gibreel in a detention room at LAX. He said they would not believe him when he told them he was an Oscar-nominated director on his way to this Sunday’s Oscars and to the events in LA leading up to the ceremony. He is also a Palestinian. And a olive farmer. Apparently that was too much for Homeland Security to wrap its head around.

Read More..

Brazen Jewel Robbery at Brussels Airport Nets $50 Million in Diamonds

BRUSSELS — They arrived at Brussels Airport armed with automatic weapons and dressed in police uniforms aboard two vehicles equipped with blue police lights. But their most important weapon was information: the eight hooded gangsters who on Monday evening seized diamonds worth tens of millions of dollars from a passenger plane preparing to depart for Switzerland knew exactly when to strike — just 20 minutes before takeoff.

Forcing their way through the airport’s perimeter fence, the thieves raced, police lights flashing, to flight LX789, which had just been loaded with diamonds from a Brinks armored van from Antwerp, Belgium, and was getting ready for an 8:05 p.m. departure for Zurich.

“There is a gap of only a few minutes” between the loading of valuable cargo and the moment the plane starts to move, said Caroline De Wolf, a spokeswoman for the Antwerp World Diamond Centre, an industry body that promotes the diamond business in Belgium. “The people who did this knew there was going to be this gap and when.”

They also knew they had to move swiftly in a secure airport zone swarming with police officers and security guards. Waving guns that the Brussels prosecutors office described as “like Kalashnikovs,” they calmly ordered ground staff and the pilot, who was outside the plane making a final inspection, to back off and began unloading scores of gem-filled packets from the cargo hold. Without firing a shot, they then sped away into the night with a booty that the Antwerp Diamond Centre said was worth around $50 million but which some Belgian news media reported as worth much more.

The thieves’ only mishap: they got away with 120 packets of diamonds but left some gems behind in their rush.

“They were very, very professional,” said the Brussels prosecutor Ine Van Wymersch, who said the whole operation lasted barely five minutes. The police, she added, are now examining whether the thieves had inside information. “This is an obvious possibility,” she said.

Passengers, already on board the plane awaiting takeoff, had no idea anything was amiss until they were told to disembark as their Zurich-bound flight, operated by Helvetic Airways, had been canceled.

“I am certain this was an inside job,” said Doron Levy, an expert in airport security at a French risk management company, Ofek. The theft, he added, was “incredibly audacious and well organized,” and beyond the means of all but the most experienced and strong-nerved criminals. “In big jobs like this we are often surprised by the level of preparation and information: they know so much they probably know the employees by name.”

He said the audacity of the crime recalled in some ways the so-called Pink Panther robberies, a long series of brazen raids on high-end jewelers in Geneva, London and elsewhere blamed on criminal gangs from the Balkans. But he said the military precision of Monday’s diamond robbery and the targeting of an airport suggested a far higher level of organization than the cruder Pink Panther operations.

The police have yet to make any arrests related to the airport robbery, said the prosecutor, but have found a burned-out white van that they believe may have been used by the robbers. It was found near the airport late on Monday.

Scrambling to crack a crime that has delivered an embarrassing blow to the reputation of Brussels Airport and Antwerp’s diamond industry, the Belgian police are now looking into possible links with earlier robberies at the same airport. The airport, which handles nearly daily deliveries of diamonds to and from Antwerp, the world’s leading diamond trading center, has been targeted on three previous occasions since the mid-1990s by thieves using similar methods to seize gems and other valuables. Most of the culprits in those robberies have been caught.

Jan Van Der Cruysse, a spokesman for the airport, insisted that security was entirely up to international standards, but “what we face is organized crime with methods and means not addressed in aviation security measures as we know them today.” Precautions designed to combat would-be bombers and other threats, he added, could not prevent commando-style raids by heavily armed criminals. “This involves much more than an aviation security problem.”

Read More..

As Assad Holds Firm, Obama Could Revisit Arms Policy

Reuters

A member of the Free Syrian Army inside a weapons factory in Aleppo on Monday. President Obama has decided against providing arms to rebels in the past.

WASHINGTON — When President Obama rebuffed four of his top national security officials who wanted to arm the rebels in Syria last fall, it put an end to a months-long debate over how aggressively Washington should respond to the strife there that has now left nearly 70,000 dead.

But the decision also left the White House with no clear strategy to resolve a crisis that has bedeviled it since a popular uprising erupted against President Bashar al-Assad almost two years ago. Despite an American program of nonlethal assistance to opponents of the Syrian government and $365 million in humanitarian aid, Mr. Obama appears to be running out of options to speed Mr. Assad’s exit.

With conditions continuing to deteriorate, officials said, the president could reopen the question of whether to provide weapons to select members of the resistance in an effort to break the impasse in Syria. The question is whether a wary Mr. Obama, surrounded by a new national security team, would come to a different conclusion.

“This is not a closed decision,” a senior administration official insisted. “As the situation evolves, as our confidence increases, we might revisit it.”

Mr. Obama’s refusal to provide arms when the proposal was broached before the November election, officials said, was driven by his reluctance to get drawn into a proxy war and his fear that the weapons would end up in unreliable hands, where they could be used against civilians or Israeli and American interests.

As the United States struggles to formulate a policy, however, Mr. Assad has given no sign that he is ready to yield power, and the Syrian resistance is adamant that it will not negotiate a transition in which he has a role. Mr. Obama, in his State of the Union address, did not repeat his oft-stated confidence that Mr. Assad’s days are numbered.

Even if Mr. Assad was overthrown, the convulsion could fragment Syria along sectarian and ethnic lines, each supported by competing outside powers, said Paul Salem, who runs the Beirut-based Middle East office for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Syria,” he said, “is in the process, not of transitioning, but disintegrating.”

The State Department has funneled $50 million of nonlethal assistance to the Syrian opposition, including satellite telephones, radios, broadcasting equipment, computers, survival equipment and the training in how to use them. This support, officials say, has helped Syrians opposed to the Assad regime communicate with one another and the outside world, despite efforts by Syrian forces to target rebel communications using Iranian-supplied equipment. A Syria-wide FM radio network is to connect broadcasting operations in several cities in the next several days. The State Department has also helped train local councils in areas that have freed from the Syrian government’s control.

But the State Department does not provide non-lethal assistance to armed rebel factions. This has greatly limited the influence the United States has with armed groups that are likely to control much of Syria if Mr. Assad is ousted.

“The odds are very high that, for better or worse, armed men will determine Syria’s course for the foreseeable future,” said Frederic C. Hof, a former senior State Department official and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “For the U.S. not to have close, supportive relationships with armed elements, carefully vetted, is very risky.”

Because units of the anti-Assad Free Syria Army have captured prisoners and detained criminals in the areas they control, Mr. Hof said, it is essential that either the United States or an ally train rebel staff officers in judicial procedures and make them sensitive to human rights concerns.

While the White House has focused on the risks of providing weapons, other nations have had no such reservations. Russia has continued to provide arms and financial support to the Assad government. Iran has supplied the regime with weapons and Quds Force advisers. Hezbollah has sent militants to Syria to help Mr. Assad’s forces. On the other side of the struggle, anti-government Qaeda-affiliated fighters have been receiving financial and other support from their backers in the Middle East.

The arming plan that was considered last year originated with David H. Petreaus, then the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and was supported by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The goal was to create allies in Syria with whom the United States could work during the conflict and if Mr. Assad was removed from power. Each had their reasons for supporting it.

Read More..

Death Toll Grows in Pakistan Explosion

Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A bomb killed scores of people on Saturday at a market in Quetta, Pakistan, in a Shiite minority neighborhood.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Hundreds of Shiite women staged a sit-in in the western city of Quetta on Sunday evening to mourn the 84 people who were killed in an explosion a day earlier in a crowded market there, and they demanded that the government arrest the attackers.

Grieving relatives declined to bury their dead until the government promised to track down those responsible for carrying out brazen attacks against Hazaras, a Shiite ethnic minority, in the city.

Government officials said a team, led by a high-ranking police official, was investigating.

Protests and sit-ins were also held in other major cities on Sunday, as Shiite leaders condemned the government’s inability of the government to curb the killings.

The attack on Saturday took place in Hazara Town, one of two enclaves in Quetta for Hazaras, who have suffered numerous attacks at the hands of Sunni death squads in recent years.

The police said that explosives were hidden in a water-supply truck. It remained unclear how the truck had managed to enter the busy market, avoiding detection by police and intelligence specialists. The police said the bomb was apparently set off by a remote-controlled device, possibly hidden in a rickshaw. The explosion caused a building to collapse, and three other structures were heavily damaged.

Shiite leaders have also called for a strike in Karachi, the southern port city, on Monday. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Karachi’s most powerful political party, said it would support a strike.

The growing sense of insecurity and vulnerability felt by Shiites was evident in angry speeches by leaders across the country on Sunday.

Allama Asghar Askari, a Shiite leader, sharply criticized the country’s law enforcement authorities at a rally here in the nation’s capital. “If the law-enforcement forces had targeted the militant strongholds with real intent, people would not have seen such a day,” Mr. Askari said to hundreds of protesters. One was holding up a placard that said “Stop Shiite genocide.”

Some Shiites have suggested that Army troops should be sent to Quetta to quell the sectarian violence, but for now neither the government nor the military has given any indication of a deployment.

The police in Quetta and the Frontier Corps, a provincial paramilitary force, have come under heavy criticism as violence has escalated and militants belonging to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the largest sectarian group, have targeted Shiites with impunity in Baluchistan Province, where Quetta is the capital.

“Militants term Hazaras as ‘impure’ and have vowed to ‘cleanse Quetta of their presence,’ ” Tahir Hussain, the city’s representative for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said in an interview.

The killings have forced at least 20,000 Hazaras to leave the city, Mr. Hussain said, adding that militants have a heavy presence in the Mastung district of Baluchistan Province. More than 300 Shiites, many of them Hazaras, have been killed in Baluchistan since 2008, according to Human Rights Watch.

The Frontier Corps and the police have shown little willingness to clamp down on militant strongholds in Mastung, Mr. Hussain said.

“They know who are the perpetrators,” he said. “But apart from giving empty assurances, the high-ups of law-enforcement have not done anything.”

Read More..

Karzai to Forbid His Forces to Request Foreign Airstrikes

KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai said Saturday that he would issue a decree forbidding his military forces from turning to NATO or American forces to conduct airstrikes, and he condemned the use of torture on detainees by his security forces.

He made his comments in a speech at the Afghan National Military Academy in Kabul. It was the first time he had dwelt at such length and with such passion on human rights.

His proposed ban on Afghan troops from calling in airstrikes came after a joint Afghan-NATO attack last week in Kunar Province, in eastern Afghanistan, that killed four women, one man and five children, all of them civilians, according to local officials.

Mr. Karzai said Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the commander of the international coalition forces fighting the Taliban and other insurgents in Afghanistan, told him that the airstrike had been requested by the National Directorate of Security, the country’s intelligence service. The attack took place in the Shigal district, an area where two known Taliban commanders were visiting family members, Afghan officials have said.

“Our N.D.S. in their own country calls foreigners to assist them and bombard four or five Al Qaeda or Taliban,” Mr. Karzai said.

“It is very regrettable to hear this,” he added. “You are representing Afghan pride. How do you call for an airstrike from foreigners on your people?”

Civilian casualties in the war on the Taliban has long vexed Mr. Karzai and has been a major point of contention with American and NATO troops. New rules instituted by commanders from the International Security Assistance Force have minimized the loss of life, and the coalition has all but stopped air attacks on populated areas and on homes. The result has been a dramatic drop in civilian casualties caused by foreign forces.

Nevertheless, Afghan troops, who lack their own air support, still turn to foreign forces for help during pitched battles with the Taliban and other insurgents. It was not clear whether there would be exceptions to Mr. Karzai’s decree, but he was clearly dismayed that his own forces would be employing the very techniques he had worked so hard to persuade the West to abandon.

In an unusual move, the Afghan president also publicly acknowledged that torture was a problem in Afghan detention centers and pledged to halt it. In the past, the government has largely deflected charges of torture raised by human rights organizations, contending that any abuse was the work of a few bad actors.

But after a United Nations report released in January detailed abuses or torture at a number of detention sites around the country, Mr. Karzai took a closer and more independent look at the complaints.

He appointed a delegation to investigate the report’s validity, and when the inquiry confirmed many of the allegations, he ordered the security ministries to implement the team’s recommendations. He reiterated that order on Saturday. The recommendations include prosecuting perpetrators of torture, giving detainees access to defense lawyers, providing medical treatment for detainees who are ill or have been beaten, and videotaping all interrogations.

“Not only have foreigners tormented and punished Afghans, but our people have been terrorized and punished by our own sons too,” Mr. Karzai said. “The U.N. report showed that even after 10 years, our people are tortured and mistreated in prisons.”

The United Nations’ human rights office here emphasized the importance of Mr. Karzai’s attention to the issue.

“It is encouraging that the president appears to be personally taking the issue of human rights of all Afghans seriously,” said Georgette Gagnon, the office’s director of human rights. She added that the government should act immediately on the delegation’s recommendations. “We urge them to do so without delay,” she said.

Read More..

Meteor Fragments Rain Down on Siberia; Hundreds of Injuries Reported

MOSCOW — Gym class came to a halt inside the Chelyabinsk Railway Institute, and students gathered around the window, gazing at the fat white contrail that arced its way across the morning sky. A missile? A comet? A few quiet moments passed. And then, with incredible force, the windows blew in.

The scenes from Chelyabinsk, rocked by an intense shock wave when a meteor hit the Earth’s atmosphere Friday morning, offer a glimpse of an apocalyptic scenario that many have walked through mentally, and Hollywood has popularized, but scientists say has never before injured so many people.

Students at the institute crammed through a staircase thickly blanketed with glass and from there out to the street, where hundreds of people were standing in awe, looking at the sky. The flash had come in blinding white, so bright that the vivid shadows of buildings slid swiftly and sickeningly across the ground. The light burst yellow, then orange. And then there was the sound of frightened, confused people.

Around 1,200 people, 200 of them children, were injured, mostly by glass that exploded into schools and workplaces, according to Russia’s Interior Ministry. Others suffered skull trauma and broken bones. No deaths were reported. A city administrator in Chelyabinsk said that more than a million square feet of glass had been shattered by the shock wave, leaving many buildings exposed to icy cold.

And as scientists tried to piece together the chain of events that led to Friday’s disaster — on the very day a small asteroid passed close to Earth — residents of Chelyabinsk were left to grapple with memories that seemed to belong in science fiction.

“I opened the window from surprise — there was such heat coming in, as if it were summer in the yard, and then I watched as the flash flew by and turned into a dot somewhere over the forest,” wrote Darya Frenn, a blogger. “And in several seconds there was an explosion of such force that the window flew in along with its frame, the monitor fell, and everything that was on the desk.”

“God forbid you should ever have to experience anything like this,” she wrote.

At 9 a.m., the sun had just risen on the Ural Mountains, which form a ridge between European Russia and the vast stretch of Siberia to the east. The area around Chelyabinsk is a constellation of defense-manufacturing cities, including some devoted to developing and producing nuclear weapons. The factory towns are separated by great expanses of uninhabited forest.

As residents of Chelyabinsk began their day on Friday, a 10-ton meteor around 10 feet in diameter was hurtling toward the earth at a speed of about 10 to 12 miles per second, experts from the Russian Academy of Sciences reported in a statement released Friday. Scientists believe the meteor exploded upon hitting the lower atmosphere and disintegrated at an altitude of about 20 to 30 miles above the Earth’s surface — not an especially unusual event, the statement said.

This meteor was unusual because its material was so hard — it may have been made of iron, the statement said — which allowed some small fragments, or meteorites, perhaps 5 percent of the meteor’s mass, to reach the Earth’s surface. Nothing similar has been recorded in Russian territory since 2002, the statement said.

Estimates of the meteor’s size varied considerably. Peter Brown, director of the Center for Planetary Science and Exploration at Canada’s Western University, said it was closer to 50 feet in diameter and probably weighed around 7,000 tons. He said the energy released by the explosion was equivalent to 300 kilotons of TNT, making it the largest recorded since the 1908 Tunguska explosion in Siberia, which is believed to have been caused by an asteroid.

Meteors typically cause sonic booms when they enter the Earth’s atmosphere, and the one that occurred over Chelyabinsk was forceful enough to shatter dishes and televisions in people’s homes. Car alarms were triggered for miles around, and the roof of a zinc factory partially collapsed. Video clips, uploaded by the hundreds starting early Friday morning, showed ordinary mornings interrupted by a blinding flash and the sound of shattering glass.

Maria Polyakova, 25, head of reception at the Park-City Hotel in Chelyabinsk, said it was the light that caught her eye.

“I saw a flash in the window, turned toward it and saw a burning cloud, which was surrounded by smoke and was going downward — it reminded me of what you see after an explosion,” she said. The blast that followed was forceful enough to shatter the heavy automatic glass doors on the hotel’s first floor, as well as many windows on the floor above, she said.

Valentina Nikolayeva, a teacher in Chelyabinsk, described it as “an unreal light” that filled all the classrooms on one side of School No. 15.

“It was a light which never happens in life, it happens probably only in the end of the world,” she said in a clip posted on a news portal, LifeNews.ru. She said she saw a vapor trail, like one that appears after an airplane, only dozens of times bigger. “The light was coming from there. Then the light went out and the trail began to change. The changes were taking place within it, like in the clouds, because of the wind. It began to shrink and then, a minute later, an explosion.”

“A shock wave,” she said. “It was not clear what it was but we were deafened at that moment. The window glass flew.”

The strange light had drawn many to the windows, the single most dangerous place to be. Tyoma Chebalkin, a student at Southern Urals State University, said that the shock wave traveled from the western side the city, and that anyone standing close to windows — security guards at their posts, for instance — was caught in a hail of broken glass.

He spoke to Vozhd.info, an online news portal, four hours after the explosion, when cellphones, which had been knocked out, were still out of order. He said that traffic was at a standstill in the city center, and that everyone he could see was trying to place calls. He said he saw no signs of panic.

In those strange hours, Ms. Frenn, the blogger, wrote down the thoughts that had raced through her mind — radiation, a plane crash, the beginning of a war — and noted that her extremities went numb while she was waiting to hear that the members of her family were unhurt.

When emergency officials announced that what had occurred was a meteor, what occurred to her was: It could happen again.

“I am at home, whole and alive,” she wrote. “I have gathered together my documents and clothes. And a carrier for the cats. Just in case.”

Viktor Klimenko contributed reporting from Moscow, Alan Cowell from London and Rick Gladstone from New York.

Read More..

Benedict Says He Will Be ‘Hidden to the World’ in Retirement

VATICAN CITY — Saying he would soon be “hidden to the world,” Pope Benedict XVI took his leave of parish priests and clergy of the Diocese of Rome on Thursday as he offered personal, and incisive, recollections of the Second Vatican Council, the gathering of bishops 50 years ago that set the Roman Catholic Church’s course for the future.

Benedict, who announced his resignation on Monday in a move that stunned the Roman Catholic world, also indicated that he would not hold a public role once his resignation becomes official on Feb. 28. He is the first pope to step down in nearly 600 years.

“Though I am now retiring to a life of prayer, I will always be close to all of you and I am sure all of you will be close to me, even though I remain hidden to the world,” Benedict, 85 and increasingly frail, told the assembly of hundreds of priests, who had greeted him with a long standing ovation and some tears.

Priests in attendance said they felt they had witnessed a powerful moment in church history, one that also humanized a pope who has often seemed remote. “It moved me to see the pope smile,” said Don Mario Filippa, a priest in Rome. “He has found peace within himself.”

“It was a part of history,” said Father Martin Astudillo, 37, an Argentine priest who is studying in Rome. “This is a man of God who at the end of his public role transmits his vision of the church and relationship with the church,” he added. “We saw in a few words a real synthesis of his vision of the church and what he expects from whomever takes over.”

During the reflection — or “chat” in his words — on the Second Vatican Council, Benedict recalled the “incredible” expectations of the bishops going into the gathering.

“We were full of hope, enthusiasm and also of good will,” he said.

But while the council made landmark decisions that would propel the church into the future, much got lost in the media’s interpretation of what transpired, he said, which led to the “calamities” that have marred recent church history.

The media reduced the proceedings “into a political power struggle between different currents of the church,” and they chose sides that suited their individual vision of the world, the pope said.

These messages, not that of the council, entered into the public sphere and that led in the years to “so many calamities, so many problems, seminaries closed, convents that closed, the liturgy trivialized,” the pope said.

Benedict spoke of how the council had explored ideas of “continuity” between the Old and New Testaments, and of the relationship between the Catholic and Jewish faiths, an issue that was thorny during his tenure.

“Even if it’s clear that the church isn’t responsible for the Shoah, it’s for the most part Christians who did this crime,” Benedict said of the Holocaust, adding that this called for a need to “deepen and renovate the Christian conscience,” even if it’s true that “real believers only fought against” Nazi barbarism.

At a news briefing on Thursday, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, confirmed a report in the Turin newspaper La Stampa that the pope had accidentally hit his head during a trip to Mexico last March. The press corps traveling with the pope was not informed of the accident.

The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano has reported that the pope had decided to retire after returning from that trip. But Father Lombardi rejected La Stampa’s suggestion that the episode might have prompted the decision.

La Stampa reported that Benedict had gotten up in the middle of the night but could not find the light switch in the unfamiliar environment, and accidentally hit his head on a bathroom sink.

An unidentified prelate on the same trip said the pope came down to breakfast the next morning with blood in his hair, the paper said. There was also blood on the pillow, “and a few drops on the carpet,” the prelate told La Stampa. “But it was not a deep cut, nor was it worrisome,” and it was covered by the pope’s thick hair, the prelate said. The pope did not complain during the day’s events.

Later that night, the prelate said, he heard that the pope’s doctor had reacted by expressing concerns about so much travel, and that Benedict had responded that he too had concerns about traveling.

Father Lombardi said: “I don’t deny that this episode happened, but it didn’t impact on the rest of his trip, nor on his decision to resign. That isn’t linked to one single episode.”

Since Benedict announced the decision, saying he felt he did not have the strength to continue in his ministry, there has been much closer public scrutiny of his health.

On Tuesday, the Vatican confirmed for the first time that the pope had had a pacemaker since his time as a cardinal and had its batteries changed three months ago.

Once retired, Benedict will live in a convent inside Vatican City, and will be tended to by the nuns who currently look after him. Father Lombardi said Benedict’s longtime personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, who was also named prefect of the papal household two months ago, would continue to work for him.

Father Lombardi said he saw no conflict of interest if Archbishop Gänswein served the current pope and his successor.

The prefect is responsible for logistical duties, and “in this sense it is not a profound problem, I think,” Father Lombardi said.

Rachel Donadio contributed reporting.

Read More..

IHT Special: Tunisia Sinks Back Into Turmoil

TUNIS — Following the murder of a leading opposition politician, Tunisians are asking whether the Arab Spring, which began in their country, has accomplished much of anything. They are disenchanted with the fits and starts of the transition from dictatorship to something else.

“Nobody likes the situation and this government has to change,” said Rabbeh Souly, 28, who sped up her steps on the pavement in central Tunis after witnessing a mugging. “They need to fix the things that concern people like unemployment and poverty. Before, at least things were calm and safe. I regret Ben Ali is gone.”

She was speaking of the longtime dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who was ousted two years ago. His departure ushered in a transition coalition government led by the Islamists.

Now Tunisia is at a crossroads. Violence has been escalating for months and the general political atmosphere has been deteriorating. This was underscored by the murder of leftist opposition leader Chokri Belaid, who was shot in front of his house by unidentified assailants last week. The killing came as a shock to both ordinary people and to the political establishment.

Thousands of Tunisians took to the streets after Mr. Belaid’s death, vowing revenge in scenes reminiscent of the protests in 2011.

“With our souls, with our blood, we will avenge you Belaid,” they chanted in the rain on a march to the cemetery.

In the halls of government buildings, another drama played out. The prime minister, Hamadi Jebali, called for the government to resign in favor of a technocratic leadership. But his own Ennahda party disavowed his call.

Ennahda, a moderate Islamist party, has been the strongest political group following the departure of Mr. Ben Ali, winning elections in October 2011 handily because it was viewed as very different from the strongman and his cronies.

But after the assassination of Mr. Belaid, the party has been forced into retreat, while the secular leftist opposition has been given new momentum and unity.

“The country entered a new political cycle: It was in a difficult political transition that was marked by phases of instability and now we are seeing a radicalization of political actors,” said Vincent Geisser, a researcher at the French Institute for the Near East who is based in Beirut, speaking of Islamists and secularists. “There is a serious need for dialogue before there is another assassination.”

The challenges are real: The country is dealing with a weak economy that contracted by 1.8 percent in 2011 and grew by an estimated 2.7 percent last year — not enough to reduce unemployment, which is running at about 17 percent, up from 13 percent at the end of the old regime.

Political instability is also frightening away tourists. Tourism was a key source of jobs and income in the past.

The turmoil is hurting just about everyone.

“Political parties are fighting and the Tunisian people are paying for it,” said Mohamed Ben Amor, sweeping in front of a bodega after a protest on Avenue Bourguiba. “The country is deeply affected by the problems that are happening, so business has been really bad.”

Tunisians lay the blame at Ennahda’s door for failing to address the roots of popular discontent and maintain order in the country, while creating an atmosphere in which religious radicals get away with making violent threats against the secular opposition.

Violence has been escalating in Tunisia over the past two years. Extremists have attacked tombs they consider sacrilegious and a TV station they believe has violated their conservative religious beliefs. In Sidi Bouzid, a city in central Tunisia, the extremist Salafis vandalized a bar in September.

Rachid Ghannouchi, a founder and leader of the Islamist party, who was recently called an “assassin” by demonstrators, strongly denies that the party has promoted violence.

“Ennahda never resorted to violence, it’s not part of our ideology,” he said during an interview in one of the party’s offices in Tunis.

“We are in power, but we feel like we are in the opposition. We don’t have any political party that stands by our party,” he added.

Even so, many blame Ennahda for the political turmoil and worry about a takeover by the military.

“Most Tunisians are held hostage by this kind of radicalization of the political spectrum,” Mr. Geisser said. “This stubbornness to not listen to each other could lead to a takeover by the security apparatus.”

Fares Mabrouk, a co-founder of the Arabic Policy Institute, a research concern in Tunis, believes that the shorter the transition period, the more chances the country has to get back to a more stable political climate. The current government is only supposed to remain until a constitution is in place and new elections are held.

“There is today an opportunity to create a historical compromise that will be unique to Tunisia, and unique in the Arab world,” he said. “The murder of Chokri Belaid and the unification of the left will balance the forces.”

The constitution is not finished and there is no date set yet for elections. This fight over political legitimacy is hurting the country.

“We have two equal forces and it can lead to civil war,” Mr. Mabrouk said. “The first one has electoral legitimacy and the other has now a martyr that is giving them legitimacy. With the political future so unclear, no Tunisian or foreign businesses will invest.”

But for many Tunisians, the murder of Mr. Belaid was a call to even greater political activism.

“I am in a state of shock, but actually there are thousands of Chokri Belaids,” said Mounji Ayari, 43, who wept as he held a sign with a picture of Mr. Belaid that read “martyr” at the funeral. “He is someone who taught us rebellion. He may be dead but he will forever stay with us and we will make sure his ideals live on.”

Read More..

The Lede: Latest Updates on the Pope’s Resignation

The Lede is providing updates on Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement on Monday that he intends to resign on Feb. 28, less than eight years after he took office, the first pope to do so in six centuries. (Turn off auto-refresh to watch videos.)

4:17 P.M. |Subtitled Video of Pope’s Resignation Statement

The Telegraph has added English subtitles to video of the pope’s resignation statement, made in Latin to cardinals at the Vatican on Monday.

Video of Pope Benedict XVI announcing his intention to resign.

Later in the day, the photojournalist Alessandro Di Meo captured a striking image of St. Peter’s Basilica during a thunderstorm that drenched the Vatican.

Lightening strikes St Peter’s on day #Pope Benedict announces resignation from Vatican (pic ANSA) http://t.co/09KGgZNl
— Jon Williams (@WilliamsJon) 11 Feb 13

— Robert Mackey

3:24 P.M. |The Vatican’s Electoral College

As the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano reports, the Catholic News Service has published a complete list of the cardinals, “from oldest to youngest, eligible to vote for a pope in a conclave.” The oldest, Cardinal Walter Kasper, will be 80 years old on March 5, so “depending on the date of the conclave, he might be over 80, and thus too old to vote.”

Full list of potential cardinal-electors for a papal conclave: http://t.co/qzl9NFTY
— L’Osservatore Romano (@LOsservatoreUSA) 11 Feb 13

The youngest elector, 53-year-old Cardinal Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church from India, was appointed less than three months ago by Pope Benedict XVI.

A video report on Cardinal Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal, major archbishop of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.

— Robert Mackey

2:11 P.M. |Pope Decided to Step Down ‘Months Ago’

As our colleague Rachel Donadio reports, the editor of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano said that the pope made his decision to step down nearly a year ago after a trip to Mexico and Cuba. The pope made up his mind “after his trip to Mexico and Cuba, and having repeatedly examined his conscience before God, due to his advancing age,” the editor, Giovanni Maria Vian, said.

Vatican newspaper says Benedict made his decision to resign “many months ago” after his trip to Mexico & Cuba March 2012. He was tired then.
— Rachel Donadio — NYT (@RachelDonadio) 11 Feb 13

Vatican newspaper frontpage: “Benedict XVI leaves the pontificate” http://t.co/PS3bwOR7
— Catholic News Svc (@CatholicNewsSvc) 11 Feb 13

The German newspaper Die Welt reports that the pope’s brother, Father Georg Ratzinger, who is also a Catholic priest, said that he had known of the impending announcement for many months.

A German television interview with the pope’s older brother, Father Georg Ratzinger, on Monday.

As the Catholic News Service reports, the pope had previously hinted that resignation was a possibility for him:

The German author and journalist Peter Seewald asked Pope Benedict in the summer of 2010 whether he was considering resigning then, a time when new reports of clerical sexual abuse were being published in several European countries.

“When the danger is great, one must not run away. For that reason, now is certainly not the time to resign,” he told Seewald, who published the remarks in the book, “Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times.”

The pope did tell him, though, “one can resign at a peaceful moment or when one simply cannot go on. But one must not run away from danger and say that someone else should do it.”

In another section of the book, the pope told Seewald: “If a pope clearly realizes that he is no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right and, under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign.”

— Robert Mackey

1:43 P.M. |Obama and Other World Leaders Praise the Pope

The White House released the following statement on Monday in response to the pope’s resignation:

On behalf of Americans everywhere, Michelle and I wish to extend our appreciation and prayers to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. Michelle and I warmly remember our meeting with the Holy Father in 2009, and I have appreciated our work together over these last four years. The Church plays a critical role in the United States and the world, and I wish the best to those who will soon gather to choose His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI’s successor.

President Obama joined many world leaders in paying tribute to the pope on Monday. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, called the pope, “deeply educated, with a sense for history’s great correlations and a lively interest in the processes of European unification.” She added: “”In an era in which people are living ever longer, many people can understand how the pope is having to deal with the burdens of aging.”

A less somber note was struck by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a catholic, who joked at a news conference that he would not be running for the papacy.

Reporter yells about the pope retiring. ”Oh,” says Biden. ” No, I’m not running.” #bidenguns
— Tara Murtha (@taramurtha) 11 Feb 13

Ireland’s prime minister, Enda Kenny, who was caught on video checking his phone during a papal address last year, said: “On behalf of the Government and people of Ireland, I would like to extend best wishes to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI following his declaration today that he intends to step down from his office. This is clearly a decision which the Holy Father has taken following careful consideration and deep prayer and reflection. It reflects his profound sense of duty to the Church, and also his deep appreciation of the unique pressures of spiritual leadership in the modern world.”

Two years ago, Mr. Kenny also attacked the Vatican after a report found that officials there had discouraged efforts by bishops to report cases of sex abuse to the police.” In a speech to the Irish Parliament after the release of the Cloyne Report in 2011, which detailed abuse and cover-ups by church officials, Mr. Kenny said:

for the first time in Ireland, a report into child sexual abuse exposes an attempt by the Holy See to frustrate an inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic … as little as three years ago, not three decades ago. And in doing so, the Cloyne Report excavates the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism — the narcissism — that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day.

— Robert Mackey

12:55 P.M. |The Pope’s Decision as ‘the Eruption of Modernity’

Reflecting on Monday’s news, Ezio Mauro, the executive editor of La Repubblica, suggested in a video interview published on the Italian newspaper’s Web site, that the pope’s decision to resign marked “the eruption of modernity” into the papacy.

Mr. Mauro also discussed the possible difficulties the resignation, unprecedented in modern times, could have for the next pope, who will have to deal with not just the memory of his predecessor, but the also the fact of the living man. He added that, although a Vatican spokesman insisted that the pope “was absolutely not depressed,” the scenario unfolding in real life reminded him somewhat of the plot of the Italian director Nanni Moretti’s 2012 comedy “Habemus Papam,” about a reluctant new pope who tries psychoanalysis before ducking out of the Vatican to wander the streets of Rome.

The trailer for the 2012 Italian comedy “Habemus Papam,” about a reluctant pope.

— Robert Mackey

11:59 A.M. |Cardinal Dolan Says He Admires Pope for Decision

Associated Press video of Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, speaking to reporters on Monday about the pope’s resignation.

Speaking after the pope announced his resignation plans on Monday, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, told reporters, “I just always admired him as a scholar, as a priest, as a holy man — and now my admiration for him is even higher because of his humility.” The American cardinal also said in a statement:

The Holy Father brought the tender heart of a pastor, the incisive mind of a scholar and the confidence of a soul united with His God in all he did. His resignation is but another sign of his great care for the Church. We are sad that he will be resigning but grateful for his eight years of selfless leadership as successor of St. Peter.

Though 78 when he elected pope in 2005, he set out to meet his people – and they were of all faiths – all over the world. He visited the religiously threatened – Jews, Muslims and Christians in the war-torn Middle East, the desperately poor in Africa, and the world’s youth gathered to meet him in Australia, Germany and Spain.

He delighted our beloved United States of America when he visited Washington and New York in 2008. As a favored statesman he greeted notables at the White House. As a spiritual leader he led the Catholic community in prayer at Nationals Park, Yankee Stadium and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. As a pastor feeling pain in a stirring, private meeting at the Vatican nunciature in Washington, he brought a listening heart to victims of sexual abuse by clerics.

— Robert Mackey

11:45 A.M. |Speculation Online About Who Comes Next

A video report from the news agency Rome Reports on what happens after the pope’s resignation.

Within hours of the announcement that the pope had resigned, Twitter was filled with speculation as to who would come next, with some hoping it would be an opportunity for a younger, more reform-minded pope, or one drawn from the new Catholic strongholds in the developing world, where more than half the world’s Catholics now reside.

An interesting profile of Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, the most likely African papal candidate. http://t.co/0LLkUh2T #pope
— Lydia Polgreen (@lpolgreen) 11 Feb 13

Name to keep in mind in talk of papal succession: #Brazil’s Cardinal João Braz de Aviz http://t.co/XgNUwGkq & http://t.co/rk25wEz0
— Simon Romero (@viaSimonRomero) 11 Feb 13

I wish the Pope well. Probably next choice won’t be 78 y.o. #conclave
— qestout (@qestout) 11 Feb 13

I believe Cardinal Arinze will be the next Pope. See my booklet of eschatology: The Future and the Popes http://t.co/pdj2nBNa #conclave
— Ronald L. Conte Jr. (@RonConte) 11 Feb 13

Hoping for a Pope from outside Europe or North America . . . #conclave #churchhistorygeek
— Tim Dalton (@timdalton74) 11 Feb 13

Hmm… Gonna be interesting to see what the #Conclave decides. Hopefully a #Pope who is somewhat #liberal. #Popeguy
— Jeanette Widén (@JeanetteWiden) 11 Feb 13

Church insiders speculate that Dolan will not be next #pope because he is from a “superpower”.
— Greg O’Brien (@RealGOBstoppah) 11 Feb 13

As our colleagues Elisabetta Povoledo and Alan Cowell report:

Vatican lore has it that cardinals seen as front-runners in advance of the vote rarely triumph, and Vatican-watchers say there is no clear favorite among several potential contenders: Cardinal Angelo Scola, the archbishop of Milan; Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna; and Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the Canadian head of the Vatican’s office for bishops.

As the Vatican explains on its Web site, popes are elected by a conclave of cardinals.

#Vatican spokesman Lombardi says the #conclave will be held in March before Easter #pope #benedict #papalresignation
— Novus Ordo Watch (@NovusOrdoWatch) 11 Feb 13

There are currently 118 Cardinal-electors that can participate in next #Conclave. A two thirds majority is required to elect the new #Pope
— Óscar SánchezBenítez (@osanchezbenitez) 11 Feb 13

The BBC describes the process:

During this period all the cardinals – retirees included – will begin to discuss in strict secrecy the merits of likely candidates. The cardinals do not have to choose one of their own number – theoretically any baptised male Catholic can be elected pope – but tradition says that they will almost certainly give the job to a cardinal….

The only clue about what is going on inside the Sistine Chapel is the smoke that emerges twice a day from burning the ballot papers. Black signals failure. The traditional white smoke means a new pope has been chosen…

After the election of the new pope has been signaled by white smoke rising from the Sistine Chapel chimney, there will be a short delay before his identity is finally revealed to the world.

Among those who called for the church to embrace change and diversity with its selection was the New York Times Op-Ed columnist Nicholas Kristof, who drew a distinction in Catholic service between the papal activities in the Vatican and those who work in some of the poorest places on earth.

Some of the people I most admire are nuns I’ve met doing heroic work in dangerous places. I nominate them for Pope.
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) 11 Feb 13

As Mr. Kristof observed from southern Sudan in 2010:

As I’ve noted before, there seem to be two Catholic Churches, the old boys’ club of the Vatican and the grass-roots network of humble priests, nuns and laity in places like Sudan. The Vatican certainly supports many charitable efforts, and some bishops and cardinals are exemplary, but overwhelmingly it’s at the grass roots that I find the great soul of the Catholic Church.

— Christine Hauser

11:26 A.M. |Reaction From Germany, Ireland and the U.S.

Television news crews around the world have been sampling street reaction on the pope’s decision to step down.

In Germany, the pope’s native country, there was surprise at the announcement which caught even the German government off-guard, Deutsche Well reports.

The German broadcaster Deutsche Welle sampled reaction in Germany to Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation.

In Ireland, a traditionally Catholic country where the church has been rocked by sexual abuse scandals, The Irish Times found less surprise, and some words of welcome for the idea of a younger pope.

One Catholic in Washington told The Associated Press that his first reaction was to pray and ask for support even from members of other faiths.

Associated Press video on the reaction of American Catholics to the pope’s resignation.

— Robert Mackey

10:20 A.M. |Betting Begins on Next Pope

While many people remain in shock over the pope’s surprise resignation on Monday, bets are already being placed on who will succeed him in one of the world’s most Catholic countries, Ireland.

Next #pope? Bookmakers favouring an African. I’m sceptical. Marc Ouellet of #Canada more likely. And Scola certainly in the running. #news
— John Hooper (@john_hooper) 11 Feb 13

As the Guardian correspondent John Hooper notes, the Irish bookmaker Paddy Power quickly issued odds on the cardinals considered most likely to succeed Benedict — with Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the Canadian head of the Vatican’s office for bishops, Cardinal Francis Arinze, a Nigerian who was converted from animism by Irish missionaries, Cardinal Peter Appiah Turkson of Ghana and Cardinal Angelo Scola, archbishop of Milan, among the early favorites.

Next Pope betting: 5/2 Cardinal Ouellet, 3/1 Cardinal Arinze, 4/1 Cardinal Turkson Web: http://t.co/X3IhCpxO Mobile: http://t.co/WrItgPIK
— Paddy Power (@paddypower) 11 Feb 13

The longest odds offered by the bookie are 1,000 to 1 on the Irish singer Bono, who is not Catholic, and the Irish television star Father Dougal Maguire, who is not real.

In 2005, Cardinal Ouellet, who was then the archbishop of Quebec and primate of Canada’s Catholic Church, warned that legalizing gay marriage “threatens to unleash nothing less than cultural upheaval whose negative consequences are still impossible to predict.”

During the 2004 presidential campaign in the United States, Cardinal Arinze was asked about Senator John Kerry’s support for abortion rights, and replied that a Roman Catholic politician who supports abortion “is not fit” to receive communion.

As my colleague Ian Fisher reported in 2005, Cardinal Scola — who was considered a top Italian candidate to become pope during the previous election — started an Arabic-language magazine, Oasis, that was devoted to improving contacts and dialogue between Christians and Muslims.

Last year, Reuters reported, Cardinal Turkson “caused an uproar at the Vatican by screening a spurious YouTube video that makes alarmist predictions about the growth of Islam in Europe,” to an an international gathering of bishops. The viral YouTube video, “Muslim Demographics,” relies on quotes from Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and wildly inaccurate population projections from anti-Islam authors to make alarmist claims about the future growth of the Muslim population of Europe and the United States.

— Robert Mackey

9:42 A.M. |Not the First Pope Benedict to Resign

Although, as close observers of social media quickly noted, the pope’s new Pontifex Twitter feed has been mute on his resignation so far, the Vatican press office has been busy online, issuing a string of updates on the Vatican news feed with links to a timeline of Benedict XVI’s papacy, a report on Facebook reaction to the announcement — “Hacked?” — interviews with a papal historian and an expert on canon law on the Vatican Radio’s site.

Virtually unprecedented: papal resignation throughout history
§RV http://t.co/xXccYs7g
— Vatican – news (@news_va_en) 11 Feb 13

In one of those interviews, Donald Prudlo, an associate professor of history who studies “hagiography and saint’s lives, medieval miracle stories, Church History, and the development of canonization” at Jacksonville State University in Alabama, explained that the last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down almost 600 years ago, “so that the council of Constance could assume his power and appoint a new pope, and in so doing bring an end Great Western Schism.”

Mr. Prudlo added that the pope’s resignation does not have to be accepted by anyone:

At the end of the 13th century, a very holy hermit named Peter was elected as Pope Celestine V in order to break a deadlock in the conclave that had lasted nearly three years. He was elected because of his personal holiness, sort of a unity candidate. And once he got there, being a hermit, not used to the ways of the Roman Curia, he found himself somewhat unsuited to the task, that it wasn’t just holiness but also some shrewdness and prudence that was also required. So within six months he knew that he was really unequal to the task, and so he gathered the cardinals together in a consistory, just as was recently done, a couple hours ago, and he announced to the cardinals his intention to resign. Because of the Pope’s position as the supreme authority in the Church, Celestine declared that the pope could freely resign, that it was permissible, and that, because, as supreme authority, it did not have to be accepted by anyone.

The professor also noted that one of the few previous popes to step down, also named Benedict, apparently had second thoughts about his decision:

Celestine V and his advisers were aware that this was an unusual process. And so what they did is they went back through history, they looked at the Liber Pontificalis, and they could go all the way back to Pope St. Pontian, in 235, one of the first bishops of Rome, who was arrested and sent to the salt mines, and in order for a successor to be able to be elected in Rome, he resigned his office. And so as early as 235 we have evidence of the possibility of Popes resigning for the good of the church. Several others, they tried to force them to resign. The Byzantines attempted to force Pope Silverius to resign, but he refused to. But that also demonstrates the possibility of resignation. And then, at a rather low point in the Church’s history, Pope Benedict IX, in the 1040s, resigned and attempted to re-acquire the papacy several times. But according to good reports, he too died in penance at the monastery of Grottaferrata outside of Rome.

— Robert Mackey

9:02 A.M. |Video of Vatican News Conference

Video of a Vatican news conference on the pope’s resignation, posted online by The Telegraph.

As our Rome bureau chief Rachel Donadio reports, Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, told reporters at a news conference on Monday, “The pope took us by surprise.” Among other questions, reporters asked Father Lombardi what the pope will be called after is resignation and what he will wear.

Vaticanisti asking how pope will dress & how he will be called after resignation! #BenedettoXVI
— Rachel Donadio — NYT (@RachelDonadio) 11 Feb 13

The spokesman said he had no answers to those questions.

Father Lombardi also explained that the pope would continue to carry out his duties until Feb. 28 and a successor could be elected by Easter, at the end of March.

Video from the news conference was posted online by The Telegraph.

— Robert Mackey

8:51 A.M. |Text and Video of Pope’s Resignation Announcement

Video of Pope Benedict XVI announcing his resignation in a Latin statement on Monday at the Vatican.

As my colleague Rachel Donadio reports from Rome, Pope Benedict XVI announced on Monday that he would resign in a statement in Latin that he read to a meeting of cardinals who had gathered at the Vatican on other church business.

the @ansa journo who broke news on #pope resignation heard #benedictxvi read news to cardinals in LATIN & understood what he said. brava!
— Rachel Donadio — NYT (@RachelDonadio) 11 Feb 13

Video of the pope reading the announcement in Latin was posted on YouTube by Rome Reports, a news agency that covers the Vatican. This English translation of the complete statement was posted on the official Vatican Radio Web site:

Dear Brothers,
I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.
Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.

— Robert Mackey

Read More..