German police arrest Al Jazeera journalist in Berlin Germany has arrested a leading Al Jazeera journalist in Berlin, complying with an Egyptian request. Ahmed Mansour, a dual British-Egyptian national who worked for the network's Arabic language channel, has been sentenced to 15 years in absentia by a Cairo court, charged with torturing an unnamed lawyer in Tahrir Square in 2011. Both Mr Mansour and Al Jazeera reject the allegation. A spokesman for the German Federal Police confirmed that a 52-year-old man was arrested at Berlin's Tegel airport at lunchtime on Saturday, in accordance with an international arrest warrant issued by the Egyptian authorities. It is believed that he was boarding a Qatar Airways flight to Doha. In October, Al-Jazeera said Interpol had rejected an Egyptian request to issue a "red notice" for Mansour's arrest. A network spokesman could not be reached for comment Saturday night. Mr Mansour recently hit the headlines with a rare interview with the head of Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliated group fighting alongside western-backed rebels in Syria. In a Facebook post Saturday night, the presenter said he had showed German authorities an email from Interpol saying he was not wanted by them. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/11688998/German-police-arrest-Al-Jazeera-journalist-in-Berlin.html Gaza Welcomes Break From Strife and Reopening of Border With Egypt For much of the past year, Gaza has sat in frustrated isolation as it struggled to recover from a devastating war with Israel. But for the people of the battered coastal enclave, the past week brought some welcome signs of relief. First, Egypt opened its border crossing, allowing thousands of Palestinians to exit Gaza after being penned in for months. Then, Egypt allowed in 8,000 tons of cement, a fraction of what the territory needs to rebuild. But the move suggested a thaw in relations between the Egyptian government and Hamas, the Palestinian group that governs Gaza. Meanwhile, news has been emerging that Hamas has begun quiet negotiations with Israel via intermediaries to extend a truce and to ease the tight restrictions on the territory. The shifts underscore how far Hamas has staked out its own path, bypassing its reliance on the Palestinian Authority government in Ramallah, the administrative center of the West Bank, for money and reconstruction. And they came as the Ramallah government, which has been rived by infighting, appeared close to collapse http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/world/gaza-welcomes-break-from-strife-and-reopening-of-border-with-egypt.html
