LA Times News

LA Times News

Egypt protesters tell of beatings while in custody

Posted: 07 Feb 2011 07:39 PM PST

One lawyer says interrogators whipped him with a rubber hose and burned him with cigarettes. Former detainees say they'll continue to demonstrate.

The young lawyer sat in a cafe, burn marks on his hands, purple and yellow bruises hidden under the legs of his jeans. He knows he might be followed, but he doesn't care. He says that telling his story might be the only way to protect himself.

Pledge for reform in Egypt met with distrust

Posted: 07 Feb 2011 07:39 PM PST

Anti-government protesters say talks between the regime and handpicked opposition groups are a sham, meant to fool demonstrators into vacating Tahrir Square. They insist Hosni Mubarak must go.

Hopes for a road map on how to bring political reform to Egypt faded Monday, with anti-government activists casting doubt on the legitimacy of talks and thousands of protesters entering their third week as a noisy occupation force in the heart of the nation's capital.

Mapping the Paris underground

Posted: 07 Feb 2011 03:50 PM PST

'Cataphiles' like to explore, illicitly, the maze of tunnels, caverns and half-flooded passageways under the French capital, stepping over a few skeletons and piles of ruins, some from the time when Romans called the city Lutetia.

It's 4 a.m., and an IT geek with scruffy blond hair called Bunny is sipping beer and swallowing chunks of bread dipped in cheese fondue. Other people are passing around joints, or just chilling — literally.

Strange bedfellows in Mexico's election season

Posted: 07 Feb 2011 02:45 PM PST

A conservative party wins a governorship with a candidate who defected from the main leftist group. All are vying against the centrist former ruling PRI party, which hopes to regain the presidency.

In another case of topsy-turvy political allegiances in Mexico, the conservative party of President Felipe Calderon on Monday appeared to have won the governorship of the state of Baja California Sur with a candidate who once was a former foe from the main leftist party.

KFC gets a bad rap in Egypt

Posted: 07 Feb 2011 04:30 PM PST

Rumors spread that anti-Mubarak protesters were paid money and given a KFC meal, a symbol of Western influence. Witnesses say otherwise.

Officials have called the protesters seeking President Hosni Mubarak's resignation many things: thugs, foreigners, paid troublemakers. But what made Rehab Salah curious were reports on state television that the demonstrators were sitting in Tahrir Square eating Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Julian Assange fights extradition to Sweden to answer sex charges

Posted: 07 Feb 2011 02:13 PM PST

At a hearing in Britain, the WikiLeaks founder's legal team downplays the allegations against him. Assange says he is being unfairly targeted because of revelations made on his website.

Lawyers for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange argued Monday that their client should not be extradited to Sweden for questioning over alleged sex crimes, saying he was the victim of unduly aggressive prosecutors and would not be guaranteed a fair trial.

Jerusalem OKs new Jewish housing in hotly disputed neighborhood

Posted: 07 Feb 2011 11:16 AM PST

The latest project could mean more evictions in Sheik Jarrah, which has become a battleground between Palestinian residents and right-wing Jewish groups.

The city of Jerusalem gave the go-ahead Monday to a new Jewish housing project in the Arab-dominated neighborhood of Sheik Jarrah, raising the prospect of more Palestinian evictions in East Jerusalem.

Suicide attack kills 1 in Kandahar

Posted: 07 Feb 2011 10:20 AM PST

The Taliban claims responsibility for the bombing, the third in the city in 10 days. A group of NATO soldiers near the attack site may have been the target, Afghan officials say.

A suicide bomber killed at least one person and injured five Monday at a customs house in Kandahar, the third suicide attack in 10 days in the volatile southern city regarded as the Taliban's spiritual birthplace.

Cambodia seeks U.N. help to halt battle with Thailand at ancient temple

Posted: 07 Feb 2011 06:44 AM PST

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has asked for a U.N. 'buffer zone' at the disputed 11th century temple where fighting entered its fourth day and at least five people have been killed. Each side says the other shot first.

Cambodia asked U.N. peacekeepers Monday to intervene to help end fighting along the Thai-Cambodian border after a fourth day of gunfire killed at least five people near a disputed 11th century temple.

Egypt's new cabinet meets as protests continue

Posted: 07 Feb 2011 06:59 AM PST

The government attempts to reassert stability over country rocked by more than a week of protests. Large numbers of anti-government demonstrators are expected to remain in Tahrir Square.

Egypt's newly appointed cabinet met Monday as the government attempted to reassert stability over the turbulent country with protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square continuing to resist the new administration.

Around Cairo, some semblance of normality returns

Posted: 06 Feb 2011 10:23 PM PST

Protesters are still camped out in Tahrir Square, but in other areas, as banks and stores reopen, residents begin to return to the routines of daily life.

Anti-government protesters continued to fill Tahrir Square on Sunday. But barely half a mile away, where Tahrir Street spills into the teeming middle-class neighborhood of Dokki, the dense cacophony of a typical Cairo afternoon had settled, like the day's warm and calming rain, over the upheavals of the week before.