World News joined 5

[JohnCenaFan28]

Chinese inflation hit an 11-year high in January after rising price pressures were exaggerated by fierce snow storms, official figures show.



Soaring food prices were largely blamed for pushing consumer inflation up to 7.1% last month, from 6.5% in December.

Inflation in China continues to rise despite higher interest rates and other measures by Beijing to keep the economy from overheating.

The worst winter for decades hit food supplies, sending food costs up 18%.

Massive snowfalls wrecked crops and killed millions of livestock.

But analysts cautioned that the severe weather was not the only factor behind rising food costs, and warned that prices could still increase further.

Unrest

January's inflation rate of 7.1% was the highest figure since September 1996, when consumer price inflation hit 7.4%.

Non-food inflation rose only slowly, hitting an annual rate of 1.5%, the figures showed.

Chinese leaders have been under pressure to control spiralling food costs, the biggest factor behind historical periods of social unrest in a country where according to the World Bank 300 million people live in poverty.

Measures taken by the government include giving farmers incentives to rear more pigs.

Last year, the government also raised interest rates six times in an attempt to keep inflation under control.

Analysts said in light of the latest figures they expected further interest rate rises.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

One of four dissidents freed by Havana has spoken out against the deplorable conditions in Cuban prisons.



Trade unionist Pedro Alvarez was speaking after he and three other political prisoners were released on health grounds and flown to Spain.

Mr Alvarez was freed with independent reporters Jose Ramon and Alejandro Gonzalez and dissident Omar Pernet.

The four have promised to campaign for the release of more than 50 of their colleagues who remain behind bars.

"Imagine what it's like to live in a penal population with delinquents, murderers, unscrupulous people of all types," said Mr Alvarez.

He described the high-security prison where he was held as being plagued by mosquitoes with severe humidity.

"They are practically concentration camps, or more than concentration camps, camps of physical and moral destruction," he told the Associated Press.

Health grounds

The 60-year-old said that the Cuban authorities had given him the choice to remain in prison or go into exile.

With his health failing, Mr Alvarez had little option but to leave Cuba, he said, but had he been a younger man he would have stayed out of solidarity with his fellow prisoners.

Cuba's acting President Raul Castro, 16 February 2008
The release is being seen as a positive move by Raul Castro

The four men were among 75 prominent figures convicted of being mercenaries in the pay of the US five years ago and given lengthy jail sentences.

They were flown out of Cuba on a Spanish military jet with their families, arriving near Madrid on Sunday.

Cuba had been expected to release seven political prisoners on health grounds after negotiations with Spain last week.

Their release is being seen by Western diplomatic sources in Cuba as a positive move by acting President Raul Castro, whose brother Fidel Castro underwent emergency surgery 18 months ago.

Unilateral move

"The decision was made unilaterally by the Cuban authorities and we are very satisfied," said Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.

On Friday, he had announced Cuba would free seven of the 59 dissidents still imprisoned after the 2003 crackdown.

The other three are expected to be flown to the US, says the BBC's Michael Voss in Havana.

Those convicted were given prison sentences of up to 28 years, but 16 have already been released on health grounds.

There has been no official comment on the release by the Cuban authorities.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Ugandan rebels have agreed to let local courts deal with alleged war crimes - one of the obstacles to a final peace deal, a government spokesman says.



Captain Chris Magezi says a final deal would now be signed "soon".

The Lord's Resistance Army rebels have refused to disarm, while three of their leaders are wanted by the International Criminal Court.

The government has given the LRA until 28 February to end the war which has uprooted some two million people.

Capt Magezi said a special division of the Ugandan High Court would be set up to deal with serious rebel crimes, while traditional justice would be used for lesser offences.

"This is an indication that soon we will be signing the final peace agreement," he said.

LRA deputy negotiator James Obita confirmed the deal.

"In negotiations you never get it all but the LRA is happy with the agreement and is committed to the contents," he told Reuters news agency.

The talks in the South Sudan capital, Juba, resumed on Monday.

South Sudanese officials have complained of LRA attacks killing dozens of people in recent weeks.

Hiding

Last week, a Sudanese deputy provincial governor told the BBC that hundreds of rebel fighters had left assembly points and were heading towards the Central African Republic.

The Ugandan government has expressed concerns that the death of senior rebel Vincent Otti would hamper peace talks.

Map

Otti, second in command of the Lord's Resistance Army rebels, was reportedly killed by LRA commanders last year. But his death was only officially confirmed last month.

Otti was one of four LRA commanders wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes committed during their insurgency.

LRA leader Joseph Kony, who has also been indicted, is in hiding in the remote north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo but the Congolese government has ordered his troops to leave their base in the Garamba National Park.

Around 20 years of fighting with the LRA has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted some two million people.

The LRA are notorious for mutilating victims and kidnapping children to be fighters, porters and sex slaves.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Two paintings stolen in one of the world's largest art thefts have been recovered in an abandoned car, Swiss police have confirmed.



The pictures, by Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet, were among four paintings worth $160m (£82m) that were stolen from Zurich's Emil Buehrle Collection.

They were discovered on the back seat of a white sedan parked outside a psychiatric hospital in the city.

Three masked, armed men took the artworks from the museum last week.

'Good condition'


HOW THE THEFT HAPPENED
Map of museum
1: Zurich police say the three robbers entered the museum just before it shut on Sunday
2: Officers say one of the men used a gun to force 15 visitors and several staff to the floor
3: Police say his two accomplices then seized the four paintings from a ground-floor display hall - according to the museum website, the Music Room
4: Eyewitnesses say the robbers loaded the art into a white vehicle in front of the museum and drove off. It was all over in three minutes, police say

The two recovered paintings are Monet's Poppies near Vetheuil (1879) and van Gogh's Chestnut in Bloom (1890).

They were in good condition and still under the glass behind which they were displayed in the museum, Zurich police commandant Philipp Hotzenkoecherle said.

The two other stolen paintings, Degas's Count Lepic and his Daughters (1871) and Cezanne's Boy in a Red Jacket (1888), are still missing.

Police closed the area around the Psychiatric University Clinic, about 500m from the gallery, on Monday after a suspicious car was found.

The impressionist artworks were identified by museum director Lukas Gloor after a thorough inspection.

After the 10 February robbery, Mr Gloor said the works were so well known that it would be impossible to try and sell them on the open market.

The three thieves who stole the paintings are still at large.

"The severe wound which was inflicted on our house on 10 February has been closed somewhat," said Lukas Gloor, curator of the collection at the museum.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

The White House race is continuing in Wisconsin as Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton seek a boost in their close battle for the party nomination.



Polls opened despite freezing temperatures, with officials expecting a big turnout.

Republicans are also holding their own contest, but front-runner John McCain is widely expected to win.

A Democratic caucus will be held in Hawaii, while Republicans in Washington state vote in a primary.

Mr Obama is expected to win in Hawaii, where the Illinois senator was born.

Seeking momentum

Wisconsin's 74 Democratic delegates are at stake.

The result in the northern state will not be a killer blow to either side, but a strong win for Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama could set them on the course to eventual victory, says BBC North America editor Justin Webb.

For Mrs Clinton in particular, a good showing might allow her campaign to find its feet again after a string of recent losses, while for Mr Obama success would add to the growing sense that he is now the front-runner, our correspondent says.

On the Republican side, the race between John McCain and Mike Huckabee continues.

Two-tiered contest

Mr McCain, who is well ahead in delegates and has the support of the party establishment, is expected to win.

On Monday, former President George Bush Senior endorsed Mr McCain in his bid to be the Republicans' presidential nominee.

The Washington Republican primary is the second half of a two-tiered nominating contest as the state's Republicans held a caucus on 9 February, which was narrowly won by Republican front-runner John McCain.

Republicans only allocate about half of their delegates on the basis of the primary - the rest were decided earlier in the caucus.

The state's Democrats are also holding a primary, but it is an essentially empty exercise, since their delegates to the party's summer nominating convention were chosen on the basis of caucuses held last month and earlier this month.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

The party of Pakistan's late former PM Benazir Bhutto - the biggest winner in Monday's election - says it is ready to form a coalition with the PML-N party.



If finalised, an alliance of Ms Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the PML-N would have more than half the seats in a new parliament.

The main party backing President Pervez Musharraf suffered heavy defeats.

The president has never looked more vulnerable, the BBC's Chris Morris in Islamabad says.

If a new governing coalition could muster a two-thirds majority in parliament, it could call for Mr Musharraf to be impeached.

President Musharraf has been a major US ally in the "war on terror" but his popularity has waned at home amid accusations of authoritarianism and incompetence.

The US State Department described the election as a "step toward the full restoration of democracy".

'End of dictatorship'

At a press conference on Tuesday, Ms Bhutto's widower and the PPP leader, Asif Ali Zardari, said his party would "form a government of national consensus which will take along every democratic force".

"For now, the decision of the party is that we are not interested in any of those people who are part and parcel of the last government," he said, seemingly ruling out any coalition with the Pakistan Muslim League's pro-Musharraf wing, the PML-Q.

The PPP has won 87 seats so far, according to the website of private TV network, Geo.

The PML-N, or Pakistani Muslim League-Nawaz, which is led by another former PM, Nawaz Sharif, has 66 seats so far.

Mr Sharif said earlier on Tuesday that he was prepared to discuss joining a coalition with Mr Zardari's party in order "to rid Pakistan of dictatorship forever".

The two parties so far have a combined total of 153 seats in the 272-seat parliament.

President Pervez Musharraf main parliamentary ally, the PML-Q, has already admitted defeat.

The party has come a distant third, with 38 seats so far.

PML-Q chairman, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, told Associated Press Television News his party accepted the results "with an open heart" and was prepared to "sit on opposition benches".

Mr Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, was forced by his foreign allies to step down as army chief last year.

The parliamentary election has been seen as a key milestone in Pakistan's transition from military to civilian rule.

BBC News

[OMEN]

Democrat Barack Obama has easily beat rival Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin, extending his US presidential winning streak and putting pressure on Clinton to win next month in Ohio and Texas to salvage her campaign.
The Obama win in Wisconsin pushed his hot streak to nine straight victories in Democratic nominating contests. Democrats in Hawaii, where Obama was born and is a heavy favourite, also were voting on Tuesday.

As the results rolled in, both Democrats looked ahead to March 4 showdowns in two of the biggest states, Texas and Ohio, which have a rich lode of 334 convention delegates at stake and where Clinton desperately needs to win.

"The change we seek is still months and miles away, and we need the good people of Texas to help get us there," Obama said at a rally in Houston after noting his win in Wisconsin.

Up for grabs in Wisconsin and Hawaii were a combined 94 delegates to the August convention that selects the Democratic presidential nominee in November's election. Obama has a slight lead in pledged delegates won in state presidential contests.

Republican front-runner John McCain also won in Wisconsin, taking another big step toward becoming his party's nominee in the presidential election.

McCain, an Arizona senator, beat his last remaining major rival, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, to expand his huge and essentially insurmountable lead in delegates.

"Thank you Wisconsin for bringing us to the point where even a superstitious naval aviator can claim with confidence and humility that I will be our party's nominee for president," McCain, a former Navy fighter pilot and Vietnam prisoner of war, told supporters in Columbus, Ohio.

McCain took direct aim at Obama in his victory remarks, previewing a possible general election match-up. "Will we will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate?" McCain asked.

"I will fight every moment of every day in this campaign to make sure Americans are not deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change that promises no more than a holiday from history," he said.

Obama took his own shot at McCain, noting his support for President George W. Bush's economic policies and his support for a prolonged US military presence in Iraq.

"He represents the policies of yesterday and we want to the be the party of tomorrow," Obama said.

Obama's win in Wisconsin was particularly meaningful, coming in a general election swing state with a large population of blue-collar workers - a big part of Clinton's constituency and a similar demographic to Ohio.

The primary also was an open contest allowing participation by Republicans and independents, not the small, closed caucus states where Obama has performed well.

Democrats open their caucuses for presidential preference voting in Hawaii at 7pm HST (6pm NZT on Wednesday).

Clinton is the early favourite in both Texas and Ohio, although one public opinion poll in Texas on Monday showed the race in a statistical dead heat.

Clinton did not mention the Wisconsin results during a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, after the race was called.

"We can't just have speeches. We've got to have solutions," Clinton said. "While words matter, the best words in the world aren't enough unless you match them with action."

Heading into the voting, Obama had 1116 pledged delegates to Clinton's 986, according to a count by MSNBC. A total of 2025 are needed to win the nomination.

McCain had over 835 delegates to Huckabee's 243, with 1191 delegates needed to win.

With his victory, Obama shrugged off a weekend controversy over his uncredited use of speech lines from a friend and ally, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. Obama said he should have credited Patrick but dismissed the controversy as no big deal.

Clinton had argued the incident cast doubt on the authenticity of Obama's rhetoric - one of the Illinois senator's biggest selling points.

"The real issue here is, if your entire candidacy is about words, they should be your own words," Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady, said in a satellite interview with a Hawaii television station.

Republicans in Washington state also hold a primary, which is the second half of their two-tiered nominating contest. The state's Republicans held a caucus on February 9, won narrowly by McCain.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will not be allowed to take part in elections proposed by the country's military leaders in 2010 because she had been married to a foreigner, the Straits Times reported.

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said his Myanmar counterpart told a regional meeting on Tuesday that the new constitution barred Suu Kyi from the polls because of her marriage to Briton Michael Aris, who died in 1999, and because their children held foreign passports, the newspaper said.

Yeo said foreign ministers of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) told Myanmar's representative, Nyan Win, that the move was "not in keeping with the times".

"He was quite clear that in the new constitution, a Myanmar citizen who has a foreign husband or who has children not citizens of Myanmar will be disqualified, as it was in the 1974 constitution," Yeo said, according to the paper.

Earlier this month, Myanmar's ruling generals announced a referendum in May on a new constitution, to be followed by an election in 2010.

The generals last held elections in 1990, but ignored them when Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has spent more than 12 of the past 18 years under some form of detention.

Reuters

[OMEN]

The US Navy may make its first attempt to shoot down an errant spy satellite loaded with toxic fuel Thursday afternoon NZ time in an area of the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii, according to US officials and government documents.

A notice to mariners broadcast by the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency warned of "hazardous operations" in the area between 3.30pm and 6pm NZT on Thursday.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a similar notice to airmen.

Officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the notices were intended to clear the area of shipping and air traffic during what could be an initial attempt to down the bus-sized satellite from a US Navy ship in the Pacific.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters no decision about when to attempt the shootdown has yet been made.

But he said the first attempt would follow the scheduled landing of the space shuttle Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on Wednesday at 3.06am NZT.

"The window of opportunity. . . opens as soon as the shuttle is safely on the ground. At that point, we begin to look at when is the best time to take a shot to bring down this dying satellite," he said at a Pentagon briefing.

A Navy official said the satellite poses several challenges for US ballistic missile defence because it is travelling far faster than the targets the system was designed to attack and will provide less of a heat target for infrared sensors.

Some analysts, citing defence sources, have said the Pentagon may even wait until as late as March to try to down the 2270-kg satellite.

The notice to mariners also laid out alternatives – each day this week through Monday during the same 3.30pm to 6pm NZT time-frame.

The Pentagon expects to announce the missile firing publicly within an hour of the event. But Morrell said it could take a day or more to determine whether the missile successfully destroys the satellite's fuel tank, which contains the chemical hydrazine.

The Pentagon revealed last week that President George W Bush decided to have the Navy try to shoot down the satellite because of the danger that its fuel tank could leak deadly toxic gas if it enters the atmosphere and reaches Earth.

The satellite would be unlikely to strike a populated area but the craft's hydrazine fuel could pose a threat to life if it did, officials said.

The Navy hopes to strike the missile with a nonexplosive "kinetic kill vehicle" just before the satellite reaches the atmosphere and drive it into ocean waters, about 240km above the Earth's surface.

The satellite has been out of touch since shortly after reaching its low-Earth orbit

Reuters

[OMEN]

A chef accused of murdering teenage model Sally Anne Bowman saidy he had sex with her corpse while high on drink and drugs but did not murder her.

Mark Dixie, 37, said he stumbled across the teenager's body lying between a van and a skip in the street after he went out to buy cocaine in the early hours.

Giving evidence at his Old Bailey trial, Dixie said he felt "worse for wear" after a drug and alcohol binge and did not immediately realise she was dead.

"I took full advantage of someone and I shouldn't have," he told the jury. "I thought she had passed out through drink or fallen over."

He told defence barrister Anthony Glass that he had not noticed the pool of blood around the 18-year-old's body.

Dixie said he had just been on a four-day drugs and alcohol binge during which he took cocaine and cannabis and drank wine, beer and whisky.

He described himself as the "life and soul of the party" with a large appetite for drugs.

"I am like a vacuum cleaner when it comes to cocaine. I always need more," he said.

After realising that Bowman was dead, Dixie said he panicked and ran to his flat. He smoked cannabis to try to calm down, slept for a few hours and went out drinking.

Bowman, who was working as a hairdresser and part-time model at the time of her death, was stabbed outside her Croydon home in September 2005.

Earlier in the trial, prosecutor Brian Altman said Dixie murdered her for his own sexual gratification and then concocted a "ludicrous" defence "borne out of desperation".

Dixie denies murder. The trial continues.

Reuters