Egypt declares end to emergency law

The Egyptian government said it is lifting a nearly three-month state of emergency and curfew. The emergency law was put into place on August 14 after security forces broke up sit-ins in support of former President Mohamed Morsi, who was ousted by the military on July 3. It allowed for security officials to search homes and make arrests without warrants. The statement has come after an Egyptian court ruled that the emergency decree had expired. However, late Tuesday, the military-led interim government said the state of emergency and curfew would remain in place until it receives formal notification with the text of the ruling. Meanwhile, in a statement read by defense lawyers, Morsi said he intends to sue authorities over his removal. He claimed he was kidnapped the day before the military takeover, held by the Republican Guard, and then detained at a naval base. 

Syria

Syrian government forces seized the Damascus suburb of Hejeira Wednesday, adding to recent gains in an area that had been an opposition stronghold. According to Syrian state media, the army took control of the town, but fighting continued in the outskirts. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime forces were in control of most of Hejeira, but there remain small areas of resistance. Meanwhile, Kurdish militias have overtaken seven additional villages in northeastern Syria, pushing back Islamist rebel groups. The military advances have come a day after the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) announced a plan to form a transitional administration to rule over Kurdish-majority areas. A PYD official said the group intends to develop a constitution and regional parliament, however maintained the area would remain part of Syria.

Headlines

• Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has called on housing ministers to rethink a plan to construct 20,000 West Bank settler homes to avoid an "unnecessary confrontation" which could jeopardize efforts to confront Iran‘s nuclear program.
• Attacks across Iraq targeting security forces and Shiite pilgrims marking the religious festival of Ashura killed an estimated 21 people Wednesday.
• An Israeli soldier was stabbed to death while on a bus in northern Israel by a Palestinian youth who said he was avenging the imprisonment of family members, sparking calls by hardline Israeli lawmakers to end peace talks.
• Saudi Arabia has written to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon officially rejecting a position on the Security Council, clearing the way for Jordan to take the traditional Arab seat.
• An estimated 23,000 Ethiopians have turned themselves in to Saudi Arabian authorities since a crackdown began over a week ago on foreign workers.

Arguments and Analysis

‘Assets of the Ayatollah‘ (Steve Stecklow, Babak Dehghanpisheh, and Yeganeh Torbati, Reuters)

"Setad has become one of the most powerful organizations in Iran, though many Iranians, and the wider world, know very little about it. In the past six years, it has morphed into a business juggernaut that now holds stakes in nearly every sector of Iranian industry, including finance, oil, telecommunications, the production of birth-control pills and even ostrich farming.

The organization’s total worth is difficult to pinpoint because of the secrecy of its accounts. But Setad’s holdings of real estate, corporate stakes and other assets total about $95 billion, Reuters has calculated. That estimate is based on an analysis of statements by Setad officials, data from the Tehran Stock Exchange and company websites, and information from the U.S. Treasury Department.

Just one person controls that economic empire — Khamenei. As Iran’s top cleric, he has the final say on all governmental matters. His purview includes his nation’s controversial nuclear program, which was the subject of intense negotiations between Iranian and international diplomats in Geneva that ended Sunday without an agreement. It is Khamenei who will set Iran’s course in the nuclear talks and other recent efforts by the new president, Hassan Rouhani, to improve relations with Washington.

The supreme leader’s acolytes praise his spartan lifestyle, and point to his modest wardrobe and a threadbare carpet in his Tehran home. Reuters found no evidence that Khamenei is tapping Setad to enrich himself.

But Setad has empowered him. Through Setad, Khamenei has at his disposal financial resources whose value rivals the holdings of the shah, the Western-backed monarch who was overthrown in 1979."

‘In Aleppo I only survive by looking Syrian‘ (Francesca Borri, The Guardian)

"Since the rise of the Islamist resistance, parts of Syria have become off-limits to journalists — 30 of us are now missing. Today my helmet is a veil, and my flak jacket a hijab. Because the only way to sneak into Aleppo is by looking like a Syrian.

Locals here don’t refer any more to ‘liberated areas,’ but to east and west Aleppo — they don’t show you pictures of their children, or of siblings killed by the regime, but simply the pictures of beautiful Aleppo before the war. Because nobody is fighting the regime anymore; rebels now fight against each other. And for many of them, the priority is not ousting Bashar al-Assad’s regime, but enforcing sharia law.

Aleppo is nothing but hunger and Islam. Dozens of threa
dbare children, disfigured by leishmaniasis, walk barefoot in the steps of mothers, covered in black from head to toe — all bowl in hand, seeking a mosque for bread, their skin yellowed by typhus. In the narrowest alleys, to dodge mortar fire, boys are on the right with their toy Kalashnikovs, while the left is for girls, already veiled. Jihadi fathers push with their beards, djellabas and suicide belts. In July, Mohammad Kattaa was executed for misusing the name of the prophet. He was 15.

And so there are only Syrians now to tell us what’s happening. They work for the major media, and contribute to articles written from New York, Paris and Rome. They are the famous citizen journalists, glorified by those who probably would never trust a citizen dentist."

–Mary Casey & Joshua Haber