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3 formally apply for sole Mass. slots license

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 06 Oktober 2013 | 00.48

BOSTON — Three companies have formally applied to operate a slots parlor, the first type of expanded gambling facility expected to open in Massachusetts, state gambling regulators said Friday.

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission had set a 2 p.m. deadline for the companies to return the 236-page application forms. All three had already paid a $400,000 fee to the panel in January during an earlier phase of the application process.

The state's 2011 gambling laws allows for only one slots parlor along with three regional resort casinos.

The commission hopes to award the slots-only license in late December or early January, months before any of the resort casinos are licensed.

As anticipated, Friday's applicants included Cordish Cos., a Baltimore-based group which has proposed a slots parlor in Leominster; Penn National Gaming, which hopes to add slot machines at the Plainridge harness race track in Plainville; and Raynham Park, which hosted dog racing until it was outlawed in Massachusetts in 2009.

The five-member commission is scheduled to hear 90-minute presentations from each of the companies on Monday.

All were able to meet two key requirements before being allowed to submit final applications: They passed an extensive background check conducted by the commission, and they reached agreements with officials in their host communities that were later approved by voters.

The applicants must also negotiate with officials in neighboring towns and, if necessary, offer compensation for increased traffic or other impacts from a slots parlor. The commission on Thursday voted to extend the deadline for reaching surrounding community agreements from Oct. 15 to Oct. 31.


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US pushes Pacific trade agenda despite shutdown

BALI, Indonesia — Talks on a Pacific trade pact are forging ahead with hopes of meeting a year-end deadline still intact, officials said Saturday, despite President Barack Obama's absence due to the government shutdown.

Obama had intended to thrash out issues with leaders of the 11 other trans-Pacific Partnership member countries on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific regional summit in Bali on Monday and Tuesday.

Instead he ended up shelving the trip to focus on resolving the standoff over funding the U.S. government. Still, U.S. and other senior officials sought to downplay the potential loss of momentum in the trade talks known as TPP.

"I do want to make clear none of what is happening in Washington diminishes by one iota our commitment to our partners in Asia, including our efforts to promote trade and investment throughout the region," Secretary of State John Kerry, who is standing in for Obama, said Saturday.

Both Kerry and U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said that ministers were determined to put together a framework for the U.S.-led pact, a trading bloc that Obama considers a vital part of the "rebalancing" of U.S. strategy toward Asia.

"The TPP countries are strongly committed to working to conclude negotiations this year," Froman said.

Senior economic ministers of the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum finished talks on Saturday by urging the 21 member economies to work toward a longer-term goal of achieving a free trade area encompassing the entire region.

A draft declaration by the APEC leaders, obtained by The Associated Press, hewed to the usual formulations of such communiques in urging "renewed urgency" on negotiations for global trade rules.

With the Doha round of World Trade Organization talks stalled for years, countries have instead been opting for country to country deals and other arrangements narrower than the WTO's global mandate.

But a new commitment to WTO talks on information technology has raised hopes for progress in other areas at high-level WTO meetings planned for December in Bali.

"There is a hopeful sign this week of our ability to work creatively together to solve problems," Froman said. "We were happy to work with China and others to get the information technology talks back on track."

He said negotiators had made "significant progress" in Bali on the Pacific trade pact talks. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key agreed to chair the TPP leaders' meeting in Obama's stead.

The pact has been billed as a "21st century" trade agreement: an attempt not just to slash tariffs but also tackle nontariff barriers to trade, while protecting labor rights. Participants, which account for 40 percent of world trade, include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam.

Complex hurdles remain both in reaching consensus among the 12 nations and in persuading citizens and businesses in each country that the agreement is in their national interest.

Japan, which only formally joined the negotiations in July, is under pressure from the U.S. to open up its auto and insurance industries. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, meanwhile, faces stiff domestic opposition, including from Japanese farmers who fear that foreign imports could drive them out of business.


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DC memorial for journalist Helen Thomas being held

WASHINGTON — A memorial is being held at the National Press Club in Washington for Helen Thomas, who died in July at the age of 92.

A memorial is being held Saturday for Thomas, who grilled 10 presidents as a White House reporter for United Press International and later as a columnist for Hearst.

She became the first female White House bureau chief for a wire service when UPI named her to the position in 1974. She was also the first female officer at the National Press Club, where women had once been barred as members.


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Health care website gets down time for repairs

WASHINGTON — It's not the sign that the Obama administration wants people to see on its health overhaul website: down for repairs.

Using overnight hours this weekend to debug the system, the Health and Human Service Department hoped to fix the technological problems that overwhelmed the launch of new health insurance markets. Glitches have frustrated millions of consumers unable to complete their applications.

Enrollment functions of the healthcare.gov site will be unavailable during off-peak hours this weekend, HHS said Friday. The department did not release a schedule for hours of operation, but a spokeswoman said the site would be taken down at 1 a.m. EDT each night for a few hours. The website will remain open for general information.

The enrollment function was back online at little before 8 a.m. EDT Saturday, but was working slowly because of heavy traffic.

"Please stay on this page," said a notice. "We're working to make the experience better, and we don't want you to lose your place in line. We'll send you to the login page as soon as we can."

There was no indication of how long the wait would be.

Credit card companies, banks and other online service providers regularly take down websites for repairs. That may also become a feature of the new insurance program.

An effort by congressional Republicans to defund or delay the health care law led to an impasse with Democrats over passing a budget bill, and that sparked a partial government shutdown Tuesday. Republicans quickly pointed to the website problems as another reason that the law they call "Obamacare" should be pulled back.

"Americans have seen once again that Obamacare is not ready for prime time," Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 House Republican, said in a statement Friday. "A dysfunctional website is the least of that law's problems."

The administration put the best face on the situation, noting the unexpectedly strong interest from millions of consumers.

"Americans are excited to look at their options for health coverage, with record demand in the first days of the marketplaces," said the release announcing the planned fixes.

The statement was headlined: "Health Insurance Marketplace Open for Business - Week One Success."

The state-level markets were designed to be the gateway to health insurance for people who don't have access to coverage on the job. Middle-class consumers will be able to buy government-subsidized private plans, while the poor and near-poor will be steered to Medicaid in states agreeing to expand the program.

Federal and state websites experienced problems this week. Some states, including Maryland, have also announced they are scheduling repairs.

The federal site, which serves 36 states, drew millions of users, an indication of strong consumer interest. Yet many people were unable to get on the site. They encountered a screen that told them to wait, and they did, sometimes for hours. Refreshing the screen only sent them to the back of the line.

Quite a few got hung up trying to create security questions to protect their accounts. The drop-down menus providing the questions would not populate. As a result, consumers could not advance through the application process and learn if they were eligible for a tax credit to help pay premiums, much less pick a plan.

Some who did make it through were timed out because they took too long comparing plans.

At the end of the first day at most a handful of people had managed to successfully enroll through the federal site.

However, by Friday, enrollments seemed to be picking up — though not yet at desired levels. The administration is not releasing numbers.

"We are pleased that enrollment for health care coverage through the new marketplaces is picking up," the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association said in a statement. "We expect enrollment to continue to increase."

The so-called Blues are major players in the individual insurance market, but some smaller insurers have yet to see any new customers.

By Monday, "there will be significant improvements in the online consumer experience," HHS said.

The upgrades include extra capacity for more users to get into the system, more technicians working round-the-clock to fix problems, and new pathways to get to the application faster. No details were given. Call centers are also getting more staff and HHS said wait times are now down to less than a minute.

The administration previously announced it is adding equipment to handle the high volume of users. Now it looks like software fixes are also needed.

Consumers have until Dec. 15 to enroll for coverage that starts Jan. 1.


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Concern grows over Asian crab's spread in Maine

PORTLAND, Maine — A species of invasive crab with a voracious appetite that first showed up in the United States 25 years ago has spread to far eastern Maine, and marine ecologists are worried about its potential impact on the environment.

A group of four marine ecology students at the University of Maine at Machias found an Asian shore crab last week while on a field trip to Great Wass Island, in Beals.

The crabs were first recorded in the United States in 1988 in Cape May, N.J., said Brian Beal, a marine ecology professor at the university. The previous northernmost sighting had been on Maine's Schoodic Peninsula, about 30 miles southwest of Great Wass Island.

Asian shore crabs aren't as much of a menace as the invasive green crab, which are larger and have cleaned out some clam flats in parts of southern and midcoast Maine.

But Beal said they could outmuscle other species for food and space, posing a threat to a variety of marine organisms that live in intertidal zones, including periwinkles, clams, worms and seaweed.

"You know in some way it'll change the ecosystem through its new interactions with both plants and animals," Beal said. "Before it arrives, the system is what it is. But after it arrives, it is changed by the presence of this invader."

The body of an Asian crab is just a couple of inches wide with a mottled shell that ranges from green to purple to orange-brown. The crab's native range runs roughly from North Korea to Hong Kong, said Larry Harris, a marine biologist at the University of New Hampshire.

After the crab's arrival in New Jersey, most likely in a ship's ballast, they rapidly moved north to southern New England waters. They have spread more slowly through the colder waters of the Gulf of Maine, but Harris said they can tolerate the cold and will probably make their way to Labrador, north of Newfoundland in Canada.

"It's not surprising they're showing up in eastern Maine, but it's happening faster than we were expecting," he said. "It's because of the mild winters, I think."

There's not a lot of evidence that shows the crabs are altering the intertidal ecology in any great way, Harris said, but they could end up posing a threat to oyster farms or possibly reduce the population of barnacles.

"The jury's still out on that," he said.


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Analysis: US reliability questioned overseas

An unmistakable sense of unease is growing in global capitals as the U.S. government from afar looks increasingly befuddled. America is shirking from a military confrontation in Syria, stymied at home by a gridlocked Congress and in danger of defaulting on sovereign debt, which could plunge the world's financial system into chaos.

While each may be unrelated to the direct exercise of U.S. foreign policy, taken together they give some allies the sense that Washington is not as firm as it used to be in its resolve and its financial capacity, providing an opening for China or Russia to fill the void, an Asian foreign minister told a group of journalists in New York this past week.

Concerns will only deepen now that President Barack Obama canceled travel this weekend to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in Bali and the East Asia Summit in Brunei. He decided to stay home to deal with the government shutdown and looming fears that Congress will block an increase in U.S. borrowing power, a move that could lead to a U.S. default.

The U.S. is still a pillar of defense for places in Asia such as Taiwan and South Korea, providing a vital security umbrella against China. It has strong allies in the Middle East, including Israel and the Gulf Arab states arrayed against al-Qaida and Iran.

But faith that the U.S. will always be there is fraying more than a little, according to interviews with academics, government leaders and diplomats.

"The paralysis of the American government, where a rump in Congress is holding the whole place to ransom, doesn't really jibe with the notion of the United States as a global leader," said Michael McKinley, an expert on global relations at the Australian National University.

The political turbulence in Washington and potential economic bombshells yet to come from the U.S. government shutdown and a possible debt default this month have sent shivers through Europe. The head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, worried about the continent's rebound from the 2008 economic downturn.

"We view this recovery as weak, as fragile, as uneven," Draghi said at a news conference.

Germany's influential newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung bemoaned the U.S. political chaos.

"At the moment, Washington is fighting over the budget and nobody knows if the country will still be solvent in three weeks. What is clear, though, is that America is already politically bankrupt," it said.

Secretary of State John Kerry has tried to make the case that the partial government shutdown would do nothing to reduce America's global economic, military or diplomatic strength.

"To all of our friends and foes around the world: Do not mistake this momentary episode in American politics for anything less than a moment of politics or anything more than a moment of politics," Kerry told reporters Saturday on the sidelines of the APEC meeting.

"When we get this moment of political silliness behind us, we will get back on a track the world will respect and want to be part of," he said.

Obama finds himself at the nexus of a government in chaos at home and a wave of foreign policy challenges.

He has been battered by the upheaval in the Middle East from the Arab Spring revolts after managing to extricate the U.S. from its long and largely failed attempt to establish democracy in Iraq.

He is drawing down U.S. forces from a more than decade-long war in Afghanistan with no real victory in sight. He leads a country whose people have no interest in taking any more military action abroad.

As Europe frets about economics, Asian allies watch in some confusion about what the U.S. is up to with its promise to rebalance military forces and diplomacy in the face of an increasingly robust China.

Global concerns about U.S. policy came to a head with Obama's handling of the civil war in Syria and the alleged use of chemical weapons by President Bashar Assad's government.

But the worries go far deeper.

"I think there are a lot of broader concerns about the United States. They aren't triggered simply by Syria. The reaction the United States had from the start to events in Egypt created a great deal of concern among the Gulf and the Arab states," said Anthony Cordesman, a military affairs specialist at the Center for International Studies.

Kings and princes throughout the Persian Gulf were deeply unsettled when Washington turned its back on Egypt's dictator and U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak during the 2011 uprising in the largest Arab country.

Now, Arab allies in the Gulf voice dismay over the rapid policy redirection from Obama over Syria, where rebel factions have critical money and weapons channels from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf states.

It has stirred a rare public dispute with Washington, whose differences with Gulf allies are often worked out behind closed doors. Last month, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal warned that the renewed emphasis on diplomacy with Assad would allow the Syrian president to "impose more killing."

The U.S. had said Assad must be removed from power and then threatened military strikes over his government's alleged chemical weapons attack. Now, the U.S. is working with Russia and the U.N. to collect and destroy Damascus' chemical weapons stockpile. That assures Assad will remain in power for now and perhaps the long term.

Danny Yatom, a former director of Israel's Mossad intelligence service, said the U.S. handling of the Syrian crisis and its decision not to attack after declaring "red lines" on chemical weapons has hurt Washington's credibility.

"I think in the eyes of the Syrians and the Iranians, and the rivals of the United States, it was a signal of weakness, and credibility was deteriorated," he said.

The Syrian rebels, who were promised U.S. arms, say they feel deserted by the Americans, adding that they have lost faith and respect for Obama.

The White House contends that its threat of a military strike against Assad was what caused him to change course and agree to plan reached by Moscow and Washington to hand its chemical weapons over to international inspectors for destruction. That's a far better outcome than resorting to military action, Obama administration officials insist.

Gulf rulers also have grown suddenly uneasy over the U.S. outreach to their regional rival Iran.

Bahrain Foreign Minister Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa said Gulf states "must be in the picture" on any attempts by the U.S. and Iran to open sustained dialogue or reach settlement over Tehran's nuclear program.

He was quoted Tuesday by the London-based Al Hayat newspaper as saying Kerry has promised to consult with his Gulf "friends" on any significant policy shifts over Iran.

This message suggested Gulf states are worried about being left on the sidelines in potentially history-shaping developments in their region.

In response to the new U.S. opening to Iran to deal with its suspected nuclear weapons program, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the U.N. General Assembly that his country remained ready to act alone to prevent Tehran from building a bomb. He indicated a willingness to allow some time for further diplomacy but not much. He also excoriated new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as a "wolf in sheep's clothing."

Kerry defended the engagement effort, saying the U.S. would not be played for "suckers" by Iran. Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful energy production, while the U.S. and other countries suspect it is aimed at achieving atomic weapons capability.

McKinley, the Australian expert, said Syria and the U.S. budget crisis have shaken Australians' faith in their alliance with Washington.

"It means that those who rely on the alliance as the cornerstone of all Australian foreign policy and particularly security policy are less certain — it's created an element of uncertainty in their calculations," he said.

Running against the tide of concern, leaders in the Philippines are banking on its most important ally to protect it from China's assertive claims in the South China Sea. Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said Manila still views the U.S. as a dependable ally despite the many challenges it is facing.

"We should understand that all nations face some kind of problems, but in terms of our relationship with the United States, she continues to be there when we need her," Gazmin said.

But as Cordesman said, "The rhetoric of diplomacy is just wonderful but it almost never describes the reality."

That reality worldwide, he said, "is a real concern about where is the U.S. going. There is a question of trust. And I think there is an increasing feeling that the United States is pulling back, and its internal politics are more isolationist so that they can't necessarily trust what U.S. officials say, even if the officials mean it."

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Steven R. Hurst, The Associated Press' international political writer in Washington, has covered foreign affairs for 35 years, including extended assignments in Russia and the Middle East.

___

AP writers Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Robert H. Reid in Berlin, Hrvoje Hranjski in Manila, Gregory Katz in London, Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, and Sarah DiLorenzo and David McHugh in Paris contributed to this report.


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Spain quakes increasing near gas storage plant

MADRID — Spain's geographical institute says there has been a large increase in the number of small earthquakes off the country's east coast, where a large underground gas storage plant is being tested before going into operation.

Government officials believe there's a direct link between the temblors and injections of fuel gas into the storage system in Castellon.

The geographical institute said Saturday there have been 139 minor earthquakes in 10 days — a substantial increase compared to the weeks before that. During that same period, only 27 small quakes were felt in other areas of Spain.

Some of the earthquakes have exceeded magnitude 4.0, prompting regional prosecutors to open an investigation into the plant, which will help supply the Valencia region. Inspectors were sent to the site Thursday.


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Obama to public: Don't give up on health sign-ups

WASHINGTON — Defending the shaky rollout of his health care law, President Barack Obama said frustrated Americans "definitely shouldn't give up" on the problem-plagued program now at the heart of his dispute with Republicans over reopening the federal government.

Obama said public interest far exceeded the government's expectations, causing technology glitches that thwarted millions of Americans when trying to use government-run health care websites.

"Folks are working around the clock and have been systematically reducing the wait times," he said.

The federal gateway website was taken down for repairs over the weekend, again hindering people from signing up for insurance.

Obama, in a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, also disclosed that U.S. intelligence agencies believe Iran continues to be a year or more away from having the capability to make a nuclear weapon. That assessment is at odds with Israel, which contends Tehran is on a faster course toward a bomb.

He expressed optimism about the blossoming diplomacy between his administration and Iran's new president, but said the U.S. would not accept a "bad deal" on the Islamic republic's nuclear program.

The president spoke to the AP on Friday, four days into a partial shutdown of the federal government that has forced 800,000 people off the job, closed national parks and curbed many government services.

Obama reiterated his opposition to negotiating with House Republicans to end the shutdown or raise the nation's debt ceiling.

"There are enough votes in the House of Representatives to make sure that the government reopens today," he said. "And I'm pretty willing to bet that there are enough votes in the House of Representatives right now to make sure that the United States doesn't end up being a deadbeat."

On other points, Obama:

—Contrasted his tenure as a senator with the current crop of first-term Republican senators, saying he "didn't go around courting the media" or "trying to shut down the government" while he was in the Senate.

—Said he's considering keeping some American forces in Afghanistan after the war formally ends in late 2014, if an agreement can be reached with the Afghan government. He tried to do the same in Iraq but was unable to reach an agreement with its government.

—Suggested that the owner of the Washington Redskins football team consider changing its name because, the president said, the current name offends "a sizable group of people."

With no sign of a breakthrough to end the government shutdown, Obama said he would be willing to negotiate with Republicans on health care, deficit reduction and spending — but only if House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, holds votes to reopen the government and increase the nation's borrowing limit.

Some House Republicans are seeking health care concessions from Obama in exchange for approving government financing and want more spending cuts before raising the debt ceiling.

The Treasury Department says the nation will hit its borrowing limit around Oct. 17. Obama didn't specifically rule out taking action on his own if Congress fails to increase the debt ceiling, but said he doesn't expect to get to that point.

Obama, who successfully ran for president as a first-term senator, also spoke critically about first-term Republican senators, such as Ted Cruz of Texas, who have been leading efforts to shut the government if Republicans can't extract concessions from the White House.

The president said that when he was in the Senate, he "didn't go around courting the media. And I certainly didn't go around trying to shut down the government."

"I recognize that in today's media age, being controversial, taking controversial positions, rallying the most extreme parts of your base, whether it's left or right, is a lot of times the fastest way to get attention and raise money," he said. "But it's not good for government."

The deadline for keeping the government open coincided with the Oct. 1 start of sign-ups for the insurance markets at the center of the health care overhaul Obama signed into law during his first term. Government websites struggled in the first week to keep up with high demand for the new marketplaces. It's not clear that more than a few managed to enroll the first day.

Obama said he didn't know how many people had enrolled. Administration officials have said they do not plan to release real-time data on the number of people enrolling, though some states running their own exchange websites are doing so.

The president predicted that when the six-month signup window for the insurance exchanges ends, "we are going to probably exceed what anybody expected in terms of the amount of interest that people had."

In the flurry of domestic issues consuming his second term, Obama has launched a diplomatic outreach to Iran, aimed at resolving the dispute over Tehran's nuclear program. Last week, he spoke by phone with President Hassan Rouhani, marking the first direct exchange between U.S. and Iranian leaders in more than 30 years.

"Rouhani has staked his position on the idea that he can improve relations with the rest of the world," Obama said. "And so far he's been saying a lot of the right things. And the question now is, can he follow through?"

But Obama said Rouhani is not Iran's only "decision-maker. He's not even the ultimate decision-maker," a reference to the control wielded by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Given the supreme leader's broad influence, some countries, most notably Israel, have questioned whether Rouhani actually represents real change in Iran or just new packaging of old policies.

Khamenei said Saturday that he supported Rouhani's outreach to the West, but at the same time called the U.S. government "untrustworthy, arrogant, illogical and a promise-breaker," according to comment summarized on his website.

Obama also put distance between U.S. and Israeli assessments of when Iran might have the capacity to build a nuclear weapon. Israeli officials have said Iran is just months away from being able to build a bomb, while Obama said Tehran was a year or more away.

The president used the same timetable in March, before traveling to Israel. The U.S. and Israel contend that Iran's nuclear program is aimed at building a bomb, while Tehran says it is enriching uranium for peaceful purposes.

On the 12-year war in Afghanistan, Obama said he would consider keeping some American forces on the ground after the conflict formally ends next year, but acknowledged that doing so would require an agreement from the Afghan government. He suggested that if no agreement can be reached, he would be comfortable with a full pullout of U.S. troops.

"If in fact we can get an agreement that makes sure that U.S. troops are protected, makes sure that we can operate in a way that is good for our national security, then I'll certainly consider that," he said. "If we can't, we will continue to make sure that all the gains we've made in going after al-Qaida we accomplish, even if we don't have any U.S. military on Afghan soil."

All U.S. forces left Iraq at the end of 2011 after no deal could be reached to keep some there longer.

Obama, an avid sports fan, also weighed in on the controversy surrounding the Redskins as the name of Washington's NFL football team. The name has faced a new barrage of criticism for being offensive to Native Americans.

The president said he doesn't think Redskins' fans mean any offense by using the name. But he added: "If I were the owner of the team and I knew that the name of my team, even if they've had a storied history, that was offending a sizable group of people, I'd think about changing it."

___

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC


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Egypt journalist gets 6-month suspended sentence

CAIRO — An Egyptian military court convicted an award-winning journalist Saturday of endangering national security by spreading false information in his coverage of operations against Islamic militants in the Sinai Peninsula, and handed him a six-month suspended sentence on Saturday, a security official and a lawyer said.

The court decision came as the army is on high alert ahead of expected mass demonstrations by supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi timed to coincide with annual celebrations honoring the military, a combination many fear will lead to a new round of violence.

On Saturday, police fired tear gas to disperse dozens of Islamists rallying near Rabaah al-Adawiya, a square in eastern Cairo that was the site of a pro-Morsi sit-in that was violently razed by security agencies on Aug. 14, leaving hundreds dead.

Pro-Morsi protesters also made a push to occupy Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday and were met with volleys of tear gas and riot police, with at least four protesters killed in clashes nationwide.

Security has been beefed up around Cairo, with police and army vehicles deployed in strategic junctures on the eve of the celebrations in an attempt to prevent clashes between rival protests.

The Interior Ministry, in charge of the police, warned in a statement that it would deal "firmly" with any attempts to "foil" the celebratory mood on Sunday — the 40th anniversary of the Egyptian army's Oct. 6 crossing of the Suez Canal during the 1973 war with Israel. The war is celebrated for Egypt's initial battlefield victories over Israel.

But the celebrations have been marred by continued political tension. Supporters of Morsi, who was ousted on July 3 in a popularly supported military coup, vowed to keep up their rallies and to march on Tahrir Square, which has become the symbol of Egyptians' uprisings against successive leaders.

The square is to hold celebrations by the military and its supporters as rival rallies threatened to descend into renewed confrontations.

The case against Ahmed Abu-Draa, who was arrested on Sept. 4, has drawn outrage from fellow journalists and rights groups accusing the army of undermining freedom of expression and continuing to refer civilians to military tribunals, despite a campaign to stop the practice.

Colleagues said Abu-Draa's trial was an attempt to silence independent reporting from the flashpoint area, which sits on the border with Israel and the Gaza Strip. Few journalists have direct access to what is happening in Sinai because of security concerns, forcing many to rely on statement by officials.

In addition to the suspended sentence, the journalist was fined $30 for entering a military zone without a permit. The court dropped charges of broadcasting news that undermine Egypt's reputation abroad, and filming strategic areas without a permit, according to his lawyer, Negad El-Borai.

El-Borai said Abu-Draa, 38, had been held in solitary confinement in a military prison. The lawyer called the suspended sentence an attempt to defuse criticism, while still delivering a warning that people should not challenge the military.

He said that was the wrong message. "There is no case. He should have been set free," el-Borai said.

Abu-Draa had disputed the military's claims that no civilians were hit in an intensified operation against rising militant attacks in the Sinai. The military said it was only targeting homes of militants and tunnels used for smuggling goods to Gaza, but the journalist reported that civilian homes were hit and a mosque was damaged.

Amnesty International also criticized the prosecution of Abu-Draa, saying he was "being prosecuted for challenging the army's version of its operations in the restive North Sinai region."

A security official said an intelligence report presented to the court had stated that Abu-Draa had acted with "good intentions." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Abu Draa, who lives in Sinai, freelances for multiple Egyptian and foreign newspapers and television channels.

It was unclear when Abu-Draa would be released. The suspension runs for three years, meaning that if he commits another offense in this period, he would be punished for both.

Activists and lawyers have campaigned to end military trials for civilians as discussions for amending Egypt's constitution, which was passed under Morsi, are underway.

Ahmed Maher, a leading member of youth group April 6, said such tribunals for civilians should be banned from the amended constitution.

"Imprisoning journalists was one of the mean reasons of revolting against (ousted President Hosni Mubarak) and Morsi. Agreeing to their jailing and even trying them before military tribunals is treason to the revolution," Maher wrote on his Twitter account.


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Greenpeace: Russia actions among worst 'assaults'

AMSTERDAM — Greenpeace International's director says Russia's seizure of its ship "Arctic Sunrise" and the arrest of its crew is the worst "assault" on the group's environmental activism since its flagship "Rainbow Warrior" was bombed in 1985.

Russia seized "Arctic Sunrise" after a Sept. 18 protest at a Gazprom oil drilling platform located in the Arctic circle, and last week charged all 30 people on board with piracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years.

Kicking off global Greenpeace protests Saturday, international director Kumi Naidoo said "we will not be bullied and intimidated into silence." He demanded the release of the activists, who come from 18 countries.

In London, several hundred people gathered to protest Russia's actions. The crowd included some celebrities, including actor Jude Law and musician Damon Albarn. Law said it was "ludicrous" for Russia to charge the activists with piracy.

There were smaller protests in several other British cities and in other parts of the world, including Brazil.

French secret operatives blew up the "Rainbow Warrior" in New Zealand because it was going to protest against French nuclear tests. One person died.


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