CAIRO

Youth activists vandalize memorial to slain protesters

Egypt’s revolutionary activists, overshadowed since leading the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak, showed a new vigor Tuesday, scuffling with supporters of the military-backed government in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and wrecking a state memorial dedicated to slain protesters only hours after it was inaugurated.

The vandalizing of the memorial reflected the youth activists’ anger against what they see as an attempt by the current military-backed rulers, boosted by popular support since the July coup against Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, to paper over past bloodshed and rewrite history.

The interim prime minister inaugurated the memorial’s empty base – a statue to top it is planned later – with great fanfare on Monday afternoon. By Tuesday morning, the pedestal was reduced to a lump of concrete covered in revolutionary graffiti after activists before dawn ripped off its stone cladding and spray-painted it with slogans denouncing both Morsi and his nemesis, military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

OSLO, Norway

Norway admits monitoring millions of phone calls

Norway’s military intelligence chief said Tuesday his country carries out surveillance on millions of phone calls in conflict areas around the world and shares that data with allies, including the United States.

Lt. Gen. Kjell Grandhagen made the statement at a hastily organized news conference called in response to a story in the tabloid Dagbladet, which reported that 33 million Norwegian phone calls had been monitored by the U.S. National Security Agency.

Grandhagen vigorously denied the story.

“We had to correct that picture because we know that this in fact is not about surveillance in Norway or against Norway, but it is about the Norwegian intelligence effort abroad,” he told The Associated Press.

He stressed that his agency’s actions were legal under Norwegian law since the surveillance was based on suspicions of terrorism-related activity.

– From news service reports