Six In The Morning Wednesday November 4

Egypt’s President Sisi defends sweeping security laws

President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has defended Egypt’s sweeping security laws, insisting he is still taking the country on a path to democracy.

Ahead of a visit to the UK, Mr Sisi told the BBC that Egypt was threatened by extremist groups and feared the collapses suffered by its neighbours.

He underlined that Egypt’s situation was different to that of Europe.

The retired field marshal led the army’s overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi in 2013 following mass protests.

Since then, hundreds of people have been killed and more than 40,000 are believed to have been jailed in a crackdown on dissent.

Most of them have been supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, but secular and liberal activists have also been prosecuted for breaking a 2013 anti-protest law that gives the interior ministry the power to ban any gathering of more than 10 people.

 

Historic meeting of Chinese and Taiwanese presidents prompts hope and suspicion

Xi Jinping and Ma Ying-jeou to dine in Singapore, but activists fear meeting – the first since 1949 – is mainland attempt to influence elections in self-ruled Taiwan

The presidents of China and Taiwan will dine together in Singapore on Saturday in what will be the first meeting of its kind since Chairman Mao’s communist troops forced their nationalist enemies from the Chinese mainland in 1949.

Chinese president Xi Jinping and his Taiwanese counterpart Ma Ying-jeou will meet to “exchange views on cross-strait issues”, officials in Taipei said.

Zhang Zhijun, a Chinese official responsible for Taiwanese affairs, said the two men would “exchange views on promoting the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations”.

Beijing still officially considers Taiwan a renegade province that should be reunified with the mainland.

 

But Zhang said the meeting represented “a breakthrough in direct exchange and communication between the two leaders, after hardships and twists since 1949”.

 

 

Russia hits militants using data provided by Syria ‘opposition’

Moscow has set “coordination groups” with opposition factions in Syria, and hit dozens of “terrorist” targets using their data, Russia says. It is the first time the Kremlin has claimed to work with Assad’s rivals.

The Russian jets bombed 24 marks, including command posts, ammunition stores and anti-aircraft artillery in Syria on Tuesday, with assistance from forces who are not allied with the regime.

“The coordinates of all of these targets were given to us by opposition representatives,” senior military official Andrei Kartapolov said.

Moscow also announced it had set up “working coordination groups” with moderate factions, aimed to boost the fight against the “Islamic State.” However, the officials did not provide identities of individuals or factions involved.

“Such close cooperation will allow us to unite the efforts of the government troops with other patriotic forces in Syria that used to be in the opposition and act as a united front against the common enemy – international terrorism,” the defense ministry said in a statement.

 

Turkey targets Erdogan opponents in post-election crackdown

Turkey launched a crackdown on journalists and political rivals of President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday following his AK Party’s election victory two days ago.

Among those arrested were dozens of police officers and bureaucrats with alleged links to the exiled Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, a longtime arch-foe of Erdogans who has been accused of seeking to overthrow the government.

Turkish prosecutors also charged two senior editors at an opposition-aligned magazine with plotting a coup over a magazine cover criticising Erdogan’s election win.

“Nokta editor-in-chief Cevheri Guven and managing editor Murat Capan were arrested on charges of attempting to overthrow the government by force,” the magazine wrote on Twitter.

Police on Monday had raided the Istanbul offices of the left-wing Nokta and detained the two editors over the cover that read: “The start of civil war in Turkey”.

An Istanbul court later ordered that the magazine’s latest edition be withdrawn from the shelves, accusing it of inciting the public to commit a crime.
In his initial testimony published by Nokta, Guven denied the charges, saying it was impossible to incite people to “take up arms and fight” with a magazine that had been prepared well before the election.

Video of Mumbai cops beating couple goes viral, police deny charge

A young couple were seen in the video being manhandled by some cops inside the police station in suburban Andheri and the clip went viral on social media platforms.

Andheri Police, however, rubbished the charge saying that the duo were in an inebriated condition and had a scuffle with each other on night of November 1 and that the police only tried to pacify them.

“The couple were under heavy influence of alcohol and were fighting with each other on the road near Andheri Metro Station. They were then brought to the police station but the two again picked up a scuffle. Police just did the duty to separate them while they were fighting,” senior inspector, Andheri police station, Nandkumar Dhumal said.

He said the man was trying to get hold of the woman while the cops tried to restrain him and the video was shot at that particular moment.

Hypersonic rocket engine could ‘revolutionize’ air travel

Updated 0636 GMT (1436 HKT) November 4, 2015

British aerospace giant BAE Systems is betting big on hypersonic travel — something its potential new partner says could be a reality within two decades.

BAE is planning to invest £20.6 million ($31.8 million) in a 20% stake of Reaction Engines, a UK-based engineering firm which has developed what it calls “breakthrough” aerospace engine technology, which could potentially be used for a new generation of reusable space vehicles and, as a commercial offshoot, could revolutionize air travel.

An announcement on BAE’s website states that the partnership will allow collaboration on Reaction Engines’ SABRE technology — “a new aerospace engine class that combines both jet and rocket technologies with the potential to revolutionize hypersonic flight and the economics of space access.”

Along with hypersonic air travel, Mark Thomas, Reaction Engines’ managing director, told CNN’s Richard Quest that a reusable space plane that takes off and lands like an aircraft is “one of the concepts that could be made possible by this engine.”