World News joined 3

[OMEN]

Haiti's government fell when senators fired the prime minister after more than a week of riots over food prices, ignoring a plan presented by the president to slash the cost of rice.

Sixteen of 17 senators at a special session on Saturday voted against Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis, an ally President Rene Preval placed at the head of a coalition cabinet in June 2006 that was meant to unite the fractious Caribbean nation.

The move by opposition senators was seen as a serious but not crushing blow to Preval, whose 2006 election brought a measure of calm to the poorest country in the Americas as it searched for political stability after decades of dictatorship, military rule and economic mayhem.

The clash with senators came after the president of the country of 9 million people - most of whom earn less than $US2 a day - managed to persuade rioters to end a week of violence in which at least five people were killed.

Stone-throwing crowds began battling UN peacekeepers and Haitian police in the south on April 2, enraged at the soaring cost of rice, beans, cooking oil and other staples.

Many Haitians seemed to welcome the ouster of Alexis.

"When he was prime minister, he did nothing to lower the high cost of living. I hope things will change with a new prime minister," said Jean Pierre Jean-Baptiste, 29, an electrician.

Sen. Youri Latortue, a nephew of a former prime minister and leader of Saturday's vote, said Alexis had failed to ramp up food production, protect people against crime, heed calls to establish a new national security force and set a deadline for the UN troops to leave.

Disturbances over high food prices have broken out in several poor countries, primarily in Africa. Record oil prices, rising demand for food in Asia, the use of farmland and crops for biofuels and other factors such as market speculation have pushed up food prices worldwide.

Reuters

[OMEN]

A bomb has exploded in a mosque in southern Iran, killing at least eight people and wounding more than 60 others, Iranian media reported.

Ambulances rushed to the scene of the blast in a crowded district in the city of Shiraz, state television said.

"The death toll has reached eight and about 66 injured," the semi-official Fars news agency said, quoting a police official, identified only as General Zamani.

The agency, quoting an unnamed official, said the death toll was expected to rise because some of the wounded were in a critical condition.

The official IRNA news agency said the bomb exploded during an address by a cleric in the Shohada mosque in Shiraz.

Local officials were not immediately available for comment on the blast.

No one has claimed the responsibility for the blast but the deputy governor of the province Mohammad Reza Hadaegh told state television the cause of the blast was under investigation.

Security is normally tight in Iran, where bomb attacks have been rare in recent years. However, in 2005 and 2006, several people were killed in a string of blasts in the southwestern oil city of Ahvaz.

And 65 men were arrested in February and accused of being behind a bombing that killed members of the elite Revolutionary Guards in a southeastern border province.

Reuters

[Black Widow]

A 14-year-old boy struck by lightning in a Dublin suburb yesterday has died.

14-year-old Patrick Ryan Corr was on his way home.

He was walking through a green space between Kilclare Gardens and Kilclare Crescent in Tallaght at around 4.30pm yesterday afternoon when he was struck by a bolt of lightning.

Patrick suffered injuries to the left side of his head, and exit wounds to his feet.

One of his neighbours witnessed the flash of lightning and then saw him lying on the ground,he was treated by an ambulance crew at the scene before being brought to Tallaght Hospital.

A spokesperson for Tallaght Hospital said that Patrick never regained consciousness, and died in the early hours of this morning.


rte.ie

[OMEN]

HIS FAULT: Chinese media has labelled the Dalai Lama as anti-human rights saying he intended to bring back the Tibetan feudal system. The Tibetan leader has offered to resign if violence in his country worsens.
The Dalai Lama has said he will resign as leader of Tibet's exiled government if violence in his homeland spreads out of control.

"If violence becomes out of control then my only option is to resign," the spiritual leader said at a news conference. "If the majority of people commit violence, then I resign."

The Chinese government has accused the Dalai Lama of orchestrating last month's riots in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa and unrest that followed in other ethnic Tibetan areas, as part of a bid for independence and to ruin the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing.

The Dalai Lama reiterated comments that he was not pushing for a separate state, and said "violence is totally wrong."

Meanwhile, Chinese media has denounced the Dalai Lama and his supporters as "anti-human rights", and slammed top US politician Nancy Pelosi as "the least popular person in China" for her stance on Tibet, in editorials.

The belligerent commentaries by the official Xinhua news agency came the day after Beijing announced the arrest of nine Buddhist monks for bombing a government building in Tibet.

A Tibetan source with strong contacts in its capital, Lhasa, said the city was also swirling with rumours of fresh clashes between monks and security forces at the important Drepung monastery. No one at the monastery or the local police station could be reached for comment.

China has gone on the offensive in the face of mounting international criticism of its handling of violent riots in Tibet and a subsequent crackdown, which is clouding the run-up to the Olympic Games in August.

It considers a growing number of boycott threats, and the chaotic protests that marred a global torch relay, as an unfair mix of sports and politics ahead of an event officials hoped would celebrate three decades of economic reforms and opening.

Beijing has blamed the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, for orchestrating the March 14 riots in Lhasa and unrest that followed in other ethnic Tibetan areas, as part of a bid for independence and to ruin the Olympic Games.

The Dalai Lama says he is not pushing for a separate state and denies he was behind the unrest. On Saturday a rock-star size crowd of tens of thousands of people packed a Seattle stadium to hear him call for non-violence.

He said on Friday that he did not support a boycott of the Beijing Olympics, but the broadside from the official Xinhua agency denounced him as a sham.

It cited an effort by Tibetan protesters to wrench the torch from a wheelchair-bound athlete as a violation of human rights, and said the Dalai Lama dreamed of bringing back the Tibetan feudal system of serf ownership.

"It is indeed the anti-human rights nature of the Dalai clique that impels the "pro-Tibet independence" separatists to undermine China's stability and unity, disgrace China worldwide, and even sabotage the Olympic torch relay by all sorts of violent means," the English-language commentary said.

The reference to international shame suggested that despite a wave of nationalistic fervour among many of its own non-Tibetan citizens Beijing may be concerned about its global image.

Xinhua also targeted Pelosi, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, after she backed a resolution urging dialogue with the Dalai Lama, the end of a crackdown on nonviolent protesters and a halt to repression in the region.

The People's Daily accused the California Democrat of cynical double standards and said she would likely top any Chinese poll to find "the most disgusting figure".

"Pelosi would remain the least popular person for China if she stiff-neckedly clings to her double standards and an anti-China stance," the commentary said.

"The Chinese are fully justified to call her 'a protector of mobsters, arsonists and murderers'. Why doesn't she give a thought to Iraq?" it added, an apparent reference to US policy in Iraq, of which Pelosi has in fact been a strong critic.

Chinese authorities have put out a wanted list naming 143 people suspected of involvement in the riots, many of them monks, said a source who saw a Tibetan-language local television report.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) will on Tuesday challenge in court a partial election vote recount, its lawyer said.

MDC lawyer Selby Hwacha accused Zimbabwe's electoral commission of calling the recount for Saturday to help President Robert Mugabe find a way out of the biggest challenge to his 28-year rule.

"We will see how they play it out, but we will challenge it," he told Reuters.

A Zimbabwean electoral official said 23 constituencies in the election would be recounted next Saturday, raising new uncertainty over the vote and the possibility that ZANU-PF could overturn its defeat in the parliamentary poll.

A two-week delay in releasing the results from Zimbabwe's March 29 presidential election has raised fears of violence in the southern African nation, where the economy has collapsed.

Zimbabwe's army will not fight Zimbabweans over election results, the information minister said earlier, responding to opposition charges that President Robert Mugabe had staged a de facto coup to extend his rule.

"The soldiers are in the barracks where they belong because the country does not fully require their services in such a peaceful environment. I believe everyone in the country is aware that there is no military junta," Zimbabwe's Sunday Mail quoted Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu as saying.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has accused Mugabe's ZANU-PF of rolling out military forces across Zimbabwe to try to find his way out of the biggest challenge to his rule since independence in 1980.

ZANU-PF says neither Mugabe nor MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the necessary absolute majority and a run-off will be necessary. But the MDC says Tsvangirai has won outright and that Mugabe's 28-year rule is over.

Southern African leaders called on Sunday for the rapid release of the election results.

Zambian Foreign Minister Kabinga Pande told reporters a 13-hour summit in Lusaka had also called Mugabe to ensure that a possible run-off vote against Tsvangirai be held "in a secure environment".

The 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) "urged the electoral authorities in Zimbabwe that verification and release of results are expeditiously done in accordance with the due process of law", Pande said.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Five British tourists were killed and 12 injured in a bus crash in Ecuador late on Saturday, the UK Foreign Office said.

Four gap-year students and their guide died when their tour bus was in collision with another vehicle as they travelled from the capital Quito to the coastal town of Puerto Lopez.

Indira Swann, 18, Elizabeth Pincock, 19, Rebecca Logie, 19, Emily Sadler, 19, and tour leader Sarah Howard, 26, died in the crash, which happened at around 6 p.m. near the town of Jipijapa.

They were taking part in a trip organised by Warwick-based gap year specialist VentureCo, whose director Mark Davison told Sky News the younger four of the dead women had planned to start university in September.

They died within 30 minutes of their destination on a part of the road regarded as the "safer part" of the journey.

An investigation has been launched into the cause of the crash.

Twelve Britons, a French national and two Ecuadoreans -- a driver and a tour guide -- were injured in the crash, the Foreign Office said. None of the injuries are believed to be critical.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said the acting ambassador in Quito had arrived in Manta and was visiting the injured at a clinic where they were being treated for minor injuries.

They will return to Quito in the next day or two, and fly home to Britain when their condition permits, she said.

Reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the story.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.