Must Reads: A 'Red Era' museum, Obama and mothers of the missing

From attacks in Afghanistan to the missing in Mexico, here are five stories you shouldn't miss from the past week in global news:

China museum builder lets history speak

Obama faces new Mideast challenges in his second term

As 'insider attacks' grow, so does U.S.-Afghanistan divide

Mothers from Central America search for missing kin in Mexico

Britain's crackdown on Web comments sparks free-speech debate

-- Emily Alpert in Los Angeles

Photo: Marta Elena Perez of from Nicaragua attends Mass at the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City on Oct. 28, 2012, with a photograph of her daughter, Karla Patricia Perez, who went missing in 2005. Credit: Marco Ugarte / Associated Press

New Coptic Christian leader selected in Egypt

CAIRO -- A bishop from the Nile delta was chosen to lead the Coptic Orthodox Church on Sunday when a blindfolded altar boy picked his name from a glass chalice in a ceremony resonant with tradition but marked by anxiety over heightening tensions between Christians and Muslims across Egypt.

Bishop Tawadros became the Church’s 118th pope after his name was selected from three finalists at a Mass in St. Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo. He succeeds Pope Shenouda III, who died in March after four decades as patriarch of the largest Christian community in the Middle East. Copts make up about 10% of Egypt’s population of 82 million.

Tawadros inherits a Church uneasy over simmering sectarianism amidst the rise of hard-line Islamists. Many wonder if he will choose to be a vibrant voice for a Christian community that has endured recent church burnings, deadly attacks and fears that Copts will be further isolated by the government of President Mohamed Morsi, a former leader of the once-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

Cheers echoed through the cathedral when the acting head of the Church, Bishop Pachomious, read out Tawadros’ name, picked by a blindfolded boy whom the devout believed was guided by God. The new 60-year-old pope was a pharmacist before entering a monastery in 1986, according to the official state news agency. He had been serving as a bishop in Beheira in northern Egypt.

The Coptic Laity Council was reported as praising Tawadros for “his wisdom, firmness and ability to maintain good rapport with everyone in his province, both Christians and Muslims alike.”

The Coptic Church, which was founded in the 1st century by St. Mark and predates Islam, has, despite periods of unrest, long co-existed with Muslims. The secular government of deposed President Hosni Mubarak routed radical Islamist movements and offered Copts a degree of security. But Christians have felt increasingly marginalized in recent years and thousands began leaving the country when Islamists rose to political prominence with the ousting of Mubarak in 2011.

Similar apprehensions have gripped non-Muslims across the region as the upheaval of the so-called Arab Spring has reshaped the political landscape. Morsi has promised inclusive government but has appointed no Copts or women to key positions. Copts worry about civil rights and demands by ultraconservative Islamists to filter the country’s new constitution through Sharia law.

Young Christians -- inspired by the same uprising that brought the Islamists to power -- have turned politically active and no longer want to rely on the Church to advance their rights. Shenouda was revered by most Copts but he was criticized for being compliant to Mubarak and for attempting to buffer his congregation from the realities of living in a Muslim-dominated nation.

The new pope “shouldn’t hide Christians like before. He shouldn’t say, ‘I’m worried about you and worried that you might get hurt,’” said Remon Amin, a 23-year-old stock trader. “We don’t want any more of that. No more hiding. We want to be the same as anyone else.”

Saad Katatni, head of the Brotherhood Freedom and Justice Party, said on his Facebook page that he was “optimistic about fruitful cooperation with [the new pope] as spiritual leader of Coptic brethren.”

Sectarian suspicions are high, however, and Copts, who have been adrift since Shenouda’s death, are bitter after a number of bloody assaults. A church bombing in Alexandria in 2011 killed 21 people and an attack months later by soldiers and thugs on a peaceful protest left more than 20 Christians dead.

The pope should “stay away from politics. He’s a spiritual man,” said Emad El Erian, a spokesman for a Coptic youth coalition. “President Morsi has a file on his desk with everything that happened to the Copts. The church burnings. The evicting of Christians. . . .  He should be the one who is judged on how Copts are treated.”

Tawadros is expected to be formally installed as pope during a ceremony Nov. 18.

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Israel admits responsibility for 1988 assassination

Deadly Syrian stalemate spurs new diplomacy, little hope

U.N.: Reported executions by Syria rebels could be war crimes

-- Jeffrey Fleishman and Hassan El Naggar

Photo: The name of the new Coptic Church head Tawadros is displayed after a blindfolded altar boy selected it from a chalice Sunday in Cairo at St. Mark's Cathedral. Credit: Mahmud Khaled / AFP/Getty Images

 

Egypt's Copts select three finalists in election for new pope

CAIRO -- Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church began the first phase of voting Monday to elect a new spiritual leader to replace Pope Shenouda III, whose death in March left behind a Christian community increasingly worried over the rise of a new Islamist-led government.

An assembly of more than 2,400 Coptic scholars and public officials cast ballots, narrowing a list of five papal candidates down to three finalists: Bishop Rafael, 54, a doctor and current assistant bishop for central Cairo;  Bishop Tawadros, 60, of the Nile Delta district of Beheira; and Father Rafael Ava Mina, 70.

The names of the finalists will be written on ballots and placed in a box.  In accordance with church tradition, a blindfolded child from the congregation will draw the name of the new pope Nov. 4 during a public ceremony at St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo. The pope will be enthroned in a ceremonial celebration Nov. 18.

The long-anticipated election for the 118th pope of Alexandria, as the leader of the church is known, came as a relief for thousands of anxious Copts, who often said they felt "orphaned" after the death of Shenouda. The late pope led the church for more than four decades and was revered among Copts, who make up about 10% of Egypt's 82 million people.

Shenouda was a calming voice in a country troubled by growing sectarian animosities even under the seemingly secular regime of Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted last year. Churches have been attacked and peaceful Christian protesters have been killed. The Coptic community has felt increasingly isolated since new Islamist President Mohamed Morsi was inaugurated in June.

Morsi’s government includes few Christians, women and other minorities. Copts are also concerned over how strongly sharia, or Islamic law, will influence the nation’s new constitution in terms of civil and religious freedoms. When the Cabinet was chosen in August, the church’s acting leader, Bishop Pachomious, refused to congratulate the prime minister on the formation, which he called "unjust" for failing to be inclusive.

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Former Philippines president arraigned in plunder case

Micro-bus in Damascus reportedly hit by shell; at least 10 dead

Chinese officials back down on chemical plant in face of protests

 -- Reem Abdellatif

Photo: Egyptian Coptic priests wait in line Monday at St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo to cast their votes in the election of a new pope. Credit: Khaled Elfiqi / European Pressphoto Agency

Suspect in Libya consulate attack killed in Cairo, reports say

CAIRO -- A gunman reportedly linked to the militant attack last month on the U.S. mission in Libya was killed in a shootout with police in Cairo on Wednesday, according Egyptian state TV and independent news media.  

The Egypt Independent newspaper reported that the man, whom security officials identified only as Hazem, was described as a terrorist. The newspaper and the state TV website said the heavily armed suspect was killed after a long gun battle with police in the Nasr City section of Cairo.

The reports could not be independently confirmed, and there were conflicting reports over the incident.

“Security authorities said they had acquired information implicating the man of involvement in the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi,” the newspaper reported. The attack on the consulate in September killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

State TV and the Egypt Independent reported that the suspect died in an apartment during the gunfight and a fire. Police reportedly seized bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and ammunition from the scene.

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Sudan accuses Israel of bombing arms factory

Italy's Berlusconi says he won't seek rerun as prime minister

Rogue French trader loses appeal, faces prison, colossal damages 

-- Jeffrey Fleishman and Reem Abdellatif 

New uncertainty for Egypt's troubled constitutional panel

This post has been updated. See the note below for details.

CAIRO -- The fate of the assembly writing Egypt’s new constitution became more uncertain Tuesday when the case to disband the Islamist-dominated body was referred to the nation’s highest court.

The decision by an administrative panel to send the matter to the Supreme Constitutional Court indicates the sensitivity around a document that has become a volatile battle between secularists and Islamists over the nation’s character. The ruling means it is possible the assembly may finish the constitution before the case is decided.

The referral to the supreme court also leads of questions of impartiality. Members of the court recently admonished the assembly over the draft; one judge called certain articles disastrous. Others said the document weakens the court’s purview on constitutional matters and allows a provision that grants the president the power to appoint its judges.

The constitutional assembly has had a brief, if turbulent, history. The first 100-member body was dissolved by a court in April amid questions over its selection and concerns that it did not reflect the will of all Egyptians. The new assembly, whose legitimacy has been challenged by various political groups, is expected to complete the constitution by December and put it to a public referendum.

Egypt freezes assets of ex-presidential candidate and Mubarak ally

CAIRO — The Egyptian government on Sunday froze the financial assets of former presidential candidate Ahmed Shafik and his three daughters as authorities move to try the retired general over his alleged business dealings with the sons of deposed leader Hosni Mubarak.

Shafik, who was Mubarak's last prime minister, is wanted for graft and is expected to face trial on Dec. 2. Immediately after losing the presidential race to Mohamed Morsi in June, Shafik left Egypt for the United Arab Emirates. He has not returned home and authorities have announced he may be tried in absentia. 

Last month, Egyptian authorities called for Shafik’s arrest in a case involving Mubarak's sons, Gamal and Alaa, and four retired generals. The charges center on Shafik's role as chairman in the state’s housing association in the 1990s, when he allegedly sold publicly owned lands below market value to Mubarak's sons. Judge Osama Alsaeedy referred Shafik to criminal court on charges of squandering public funds.

Shafik, a staunch Mubarak ally who failed to calm the uprising that brought down the regime last year, has also been ordered to face trial on charges along with 10 other former officials who were accused of corruption in Egypt's Ministry of Civil Aviation. The government did not disclose the amount of Shafik’s assets that have been frozen.

The former pilot and aviation minister spoke from Dubai in September on a television interview to deny the accusations. He said the charges were "politically motivated" and that he would not return to Egypt until investigations were completed and his innocence was proven.

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Lebanese PM won't resign after bombing

Israeli navy intercepts Gaza-bound protest ship

26 high school students, all girls, die in Iran field trip crash

— Reem Abdellatif

Photo: Then-presidential candidate Ahmed Shafik speaks to the media during a news conference at his office in Cairo on May 26. Credit: Khalil Hamra, file / Associated Press.

Striking Egyptian doctors begin nationwide resignation campaign

This post has been updated. See the note below.

CAIRO -- Egyptian doctors began a mass resignation campaign in state-run hospitals across the country Thursday after the government failed to meet demands for higher salaries, better security and a dramatic increase in national healthcare spending.

"We're targeting at least a third of the 50,000 doctors employed through the state. This will cripple the Health Ministry,” said Dr. Ahmed Shoura, a member of the strike committee. “Our campaign is going to resume until at least 15,000 resignations have been collected, then we will submit our resignations to the ministry."

For the last three weeks, doctors in public hospitals have been on a partial strike across the country, handling only chronic cases once a week. Thousands of doctors have threatened to submit their resignations if the state did not meet their demands in a strike that has become an intensifying problem for President Mohamed Morsi's new government.

The strikers are also calling for "corrupt" Health Ministry employees and former officials loyal to ousted President Hosni Mubarak to be removed from office. 

[Updated  2:23 p.m., Oct. 18: Several doctors who helped organize the strike said the ministry has been unresponsive to their pleas for negotiations. However, Dr. Ahmed Sedeek of the Health Ministry previously told The Times that officials had been meeting with doctors to find a middle ground.

“Some of the people participating in the strike believe that the Health Ministry is against the doctors; this is not the case," Sedeek said. "We are doctors as well and the ministry needs all of its doctors to contribute.”

He said that while the doctors have legitimate demands, the new government needs more time to increase the health budget as promised and implement reform.

“Our main goal is to fix the health institution,” he said. “If the doctors don't want to give us a chance or abort the steps we've already taken, then this is just unfortunate.”]

Last week, 85 doctors resigned from one hospital in Cairo's urban slum district of Sayeda Zeinab, Shoura told The Times. He and several dozen doctors in Cairo and Alexandria have already resigned. He said he expects that they will reach their goal quickly because both doctors and patients are "fed up" with Egypt's healthcare system.

Swiss freeze $1 billion tied to leaders targeted in Arab Spring

Switzerland has frozen more than $1 billion connected to leaders who were toppled or are still being battled in Arab Spring uprisings, a top Swiss official told reporters Tuesday.

The bulk of the money -- more than $750 million -- was stashed away by former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his associates, Valentin Zellweger said at a briefing in Geneva. The rest is tied to Syrian President Bashar Assad, former Tunisian leader Zine el Abidine ben Ali and the late Libyan strongman Moammar Kadafi, according to news reports.

Zellweger, who heads the international law department at the Swiss Foreign Ministry, told reporters that the money "is blocked in the framework of Arab Spring," the Associated Press reported. The government reportedly began freezing the funds in early 2011, as protests began to sweep the Middle East.

In times of political upheaval, the Swiss government can freeze the assets of political leaders and their entourages in order to stop money deposited in Switzerland from being shunted elsewhere, according to the Foreign Ministry.

The ultimate goal is to return any pilfered funds to their countries.

Switzerland has sought to shake off its image as the banker to scofflaws. "The Swiss government has made it very clear that funds of illegal origin are not welcome in Switzerland," Zellweger told Reuters television.

Turning the money over to Arab Spring countries could take years, as Swiss authorities pore over evidence that the money was illegally acquired before attempting to return it.

In the past, Switzerland has sent back money from the late leaders Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, among other cases.

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Former Balkan leader proclaims innocence of genocide charges

Britain blocks extradition of hacker who broke into Pentagon computers

Secretary of State Clinton takes responsibility for deadly attack in Libya

-- Emily Alpert in Los Angeles

Photo: Valentin Zellweger, head of the Swiss Foreign Ministry's international law department, speaks at a news conference in Geneva on Tuesday. Credit: Salvatore Di Nolfi / Keystone / Associated Press

$5 million prize for former African leader goes to ... no one

Millions of dollars hung in the balance as a committee huddled in London, trying to decide which former African leader was worthy of their hefty cash prize. Monday, they announced which government head  won.

Nobody.

For the third time in its six years of existence, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation prize committee scanned Africa and decided nobody met the bar for its coveted award, which includes $5 million paid out over a decade and an additional $200,000 annually for life.

The plush prize is supposed to nudge African leaders to serve well -– and serve only so long. It cannot be granted to leaders who illegally cling to power. Only leaders who have left office in the last three years, serving no longer than their constitutionally mandated terms, can get the cash award.

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation eyed “a number of eligible candidates,” it said Monday, “but none met the criteria needed to win this award.” Its chairman and namesake, a British billionaire born in Sudan, told the Associated Press the committee wouldn’t “go through the motions to just find anybody.”

The foundation, launched six years ago, aims to promote good governance in Africa, which has made strides toward stronger democracy but is still speckled with countries where power stems from military coups, corruption or brutality. Last year it honored former Cape Verde President Pedro Verona Pires for bolstering democracy; before that, it didn’t honor anyone for two years in a row.

Ibrahim argued the decision was not a disappointment, but a sign of exceedingly high standards. The foundation gave no details about why nobody was chosen. Despite what Ibrahim said, not handing the prize to anyone was widely seen as a dismal mark for the latest round of African leaders to leave power.

“Good governance is a rather hard sell in Africa,” the Daily Nation in Kenya editorialized ruefully, “because some leaders believe their survival is synonymous with that of their countries.”

Islamist president backs off on replacing Egypt's top prosecutor

CAIRO -- Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi backed off his decision to replace the nation’s prosecutor-general following an outcry Saturday from judges and lawyers criticizing the new Islamist leader for tampering with an independent judiciary.

The retreat was a bracing political lesson for Morsi, who is moving to control government institutions still influenced by officials appointed by deposed autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Morsi deftly maneuvered in August to replace Egypt’s top military commander, but he encountered defiance in recent days from Prosecutor-General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud.

Egyptian law prevents the president from firing the prosecutor-general. Instead, Morsi pressured Mahmoud to accept the role of ambassador to the Vatican. Mahmoud declined and received the backing of judges who supported him Saturday when he showed up for work. That left the president’s staff trying to finesse a way around the embarrassment.

"There was confusion. The acceptance was not complete, was not clear," Vice President Mahmoud Mekki told journalists, referring to the ambassador offer. He said the president decided to keep Mahmoud in his post at the request of the Supreme Judicial Council.

Morsi moved against Mahmoud, an unpopular holdover from an era many Egyptians revile, on Thursday after a court acquitted 24 Mubarak loyalists of plotting an assault on protesters during last year’s uprising. The attack became an international spectacle when camels and horses charged into demonstrators in a desperate attempt for Mubarak to hold on to power.