World News joined 5

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AFP - Thursday, February 14

COPENHAGEN (AFP) - - Several Danish newspapers reprinted on Wednesday a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed that caused bloody riots in the Islamic world two years ago, a move that prompted Iran to angrily summon Denmark's ambassador.

Three of Denmark's biggest dailies were among 17 that published the cartoon, vowing to defend freedom of expression a day after police foiled a plot to murder the cartoonist.

The caricature, which featured the prophet's head with a turban that looked like a bomb with a lit fuse, was one of 12 cartoons published in September 2005 by the Jyllands-Posten daily.

The controversy sparked violent protests in a number of Muslim countries in January and February 2006 that culminated with the torching of Danish diplomatic offices in Damascus and Beirut and the death of dozens of people in Nigeria, Libya and Pakistan.

Iran showed its anger at the reprinting of the cartoon by summoning the Danish ambassador and voicing an official protest, the state run IRNA news agency said.

It carried a government statement saying the foreign ministry, "strongly condemned this (printing of the cartoon) and urged a serious confrontation against such insults and a prevention of any repetition."

On Tuesday, Danish police arrested three people, a Dane of Moroccan origin and two Tunisian nationals, suspected of plotting to kill the creator of the turban cartoon, Kurt Westergaard.

The Dane was due to be released after questioning but the two Tunisians -- who have lived in Denmark for more than seven years -- were to be expelled after being declared a threat to state security by Danish intelligence.

That decision prompted anger from the Danish Institute of Human Rights, and the mens' lawyers.

"It is profoundly troubling that the reasons for these expulsions will not be judged by an independent court," said Christoffer Badse, a lawyer at the state-funded institute.

"It is incomprehensible that we can release one of the three suspects in this affair, a Danish citizen, for lack of evidence, yet expel two foreigners without knowing the reason why or giving them the chance to defend themselves before a judge," Franz Wenzel, lawyer for one of the Tunisians, told Danish TV.

The newspapers that printed the cartoon on Wednesday said they did so to take a stand against self-censorship.

"Freedom of expression gives you the right to think, to speak and to draw what you like... no matter how many terrorist plots there are," conservative broadsheet Berlingske Tidende wrote in an editorial.

The newspaper -- which had not previously printed the caricature despite the massive controversy that engulfed Denmark for months in 2006 -- urged "the Danish media to stand united against fanaticism".

Tabloid Ekstra Bladet meanwhile published all 12 of the original cartoons.

The Danish press has unanimously condemned the alleged murder plot against Westergaard, who has lived in hiding for the past three months.

Even the centre-left newspaper of reference, Politiken, which was most critical of Jyllands-Posten's decision in 2005 to publish the cartoons, joined in the cries of condemnation.

The alleged murder plot was "deeply shocking and worrying" and "shows that there are fanatic Islamists who are ready to make good on their threats and there are people in this country who neither respect freedom of expression nor the law," an editorial read.

It said the media should stand behind Jyllands-Posten "when it is threatened with terrorism."

Members of Denmark's Muslim community have distanced themselves from the alleged murder plot, but opposed the publication of the cartoon on Wednesday.

Imam Walid Abdul Pedersen, a Protestant who converted to Islam, said: "It's not a good idea to reproduce it and the newspapers could have defended the cartoonist differently, without resorting to provocation."

"It's good to have a dialogue on freedom of expression, but you shouldn't seek out a confrontation from the start," he said.

He said it was possible the reprinting could prompt "negative reactions abroad."

Westergaard told tabloid BT on Wednesday that he never expected to end up the target of a death threat.

"With this drawing I wanted to show how fanatical Islamists or terrorists use religion as a kind of spiritual weapon. But naturally I never imagined these kinds of reactions," he said.

He said he considered himself an atheist, adding: "I feel that I am fighting a righteous fight to defend freedom of expression, which is under threat."

[OMEN]

http://stuff.co.nz/images/701930.jpg
UNDER FIRE: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has gone on the defensive after a report found she made 56 false statements on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice vehemently defended her integrity when asked about an independent report that found she made 56 false statements on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

At a congressional hearing, Representative Robert Wexler, a Florida Democrat, questioned Rice about a report from the non-partisan Centre for Public Integrity that accuses Bush administration officials of making 935 false statements about Iraq, which the United States invaded in March 2003.

"This study has found that you, Madame Secretary, made 56 false statements to the American people where you repeatedly pump up the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and exaggerate the so-called relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda," he said at the start of a testy exchange with Rice.

"Congressman, I take my integrity very seriously and I did not at any time make a statement that I knew to be false, or that I thought to be false, in order to pump up anything," Rice replied. "Nobody wants to go to war."

Bush's statements about suspected Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were the cornerstone of his case for going to war in Iraq to topple Saddam.

No such weapons were found following the invasion. The United States now has 157,000 troops in Iraq seeking to restore stability to the country, where a vicious insurgency and sectarian violence erupted after the US-led invasion.

Rice, who was national security adviser at the time of the invasion, squarely blamed the US intelligence community for its erroneous conclusions that Iraq had biological and chemical weapons and was seeking to rebuild a nuclear weapons programme.

When Wexler sought to cut her off, Rice spoke over him and said: "I am sorry congressman – because you questioned my integrity, I ask you to let me respond.

"Now, we have learned that many of the intelligence assessments were wrong," she added. "I will be the first to say that it was not right."

"At no time did I intend to, or do I believe that I did put forward false information to the American people," she said.

The reputations of many Bush aides – including former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who made the case for the war before the UN Security Council – have been tarnished by the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found.

Reuters

[OMEN]

A 54-year-old English tourist has died while walking in extreme heat in gorges near Kalbarri in Western Australia.

Police received a call at 1pm (WDT) yesterday, saying a woman had died on the loop walk trail in the Kalbarri National Park, almost 600 kilometres north of Perth.

The body of the woman and her partner were found a little way off the track, Kalbarri police Sergeant Michael Tite said.

The partner was unhurt.

"We're not sure if they were disoriented or not," Sergeant Tite said.

Police said heat exhaustion might have been a factor in the death.

The temperature in Kalbarri was about 42 degrees yesterday with intense humidity caused by Cyclone Nicholas off the state's northern coast.

AAP

[OMEN]

Chinese police have arrested three people suspected of forging more than 50,000 train tickets worth 4 million yuan ($NZ718,000) during the Lunar New Year holiday, when millions were stranded by freak winter weather.

The gang is accused of making the tickets by computer and selling them at highly-inflated prices along lines between Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong province and worst affected by the winter jam, and Hengyang, in the central province of Hunan, Xinhua news agency said on Thursday.

The gang made a profit of 160,000 yuan in half a month, it added.

Train tickets were a hot commodity in China before the holiday as hundreds of millions of people tried to return home for family gatherings.

For days, hundreds of thousands of people massed in front of Guangzhou's station, awaiting news of departures with the line blocked by ice and snow.

"The confiscated fake tickets looked almost identical to the real ones in paper quality, printing, and even had anti-counterfeiting labels," Xinhua said.

Reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks.

[JohnCenaFan28]

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44427000/jpg/_44427887_bush_int_203.jpg
US President George W Bush has defended his decision not to send troops to the Sudanese region of Darfur, despite what he calls a genocide taking place there.

He called it a "seminal decision" not to intervene with force, taken partly out of the desire not to send US troops into another Muslim country.

Mr Bush was speaking to BBC World News America before flying to Africa.

He also discussed controversy over China's Olympics - saying he would attend the event as scheduled.

After Hollywood director Steven Spielberg withdrew his assistance to the Olympics in protest at China's policy towards Darfur, Mr Bush said he would not be taking a similar stance.

"I view the Olympics as a sporting event," he told the BBC's Matt Frei.


George W Bush meets people in Botswana during his visit in 2003
I've got a firm, heartfelt commitment to the continent of Africa

President George W Bush


Full interview transcript
Bush interview: Your reaction

But he added that he would meet Chinese President Hu Jintao and "remind him that he can do more to relieve the suffering in Darfur".

Mr Bush is scheduled to leave on Friday for his second tour of Africa - though he said on Thursday he might be delayed if a crucial wiretapping bill was held up in Congress.

He is due to visit Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana and Liberia.

The president will be travelling with his wife, Laura.

They will visit hospitals, schools and businesses, hoping to show how US investment in health and development programmes has made a real difference to Africans.

Aid promises

Mr Bush said he had a "firm, heartfelt commitment to the continent of Africa".

But he said it was also in the interest of US and global security to tackle poverty there.


WATCH FULL BUSH INTERVIEW - ON TV
Newsnight, BBC Two, 2230 GMT, Thursday
BBC World News America, via BBC News 24, Friday, 0030 GMT
BBC World News America, via BBC World (outside UK only), Friday, 0000 GMT / 1900 ET / 1600 PT

"We have people who are suffering from disease and hunger and hopelessness. The only way a radical can recruit is to find somebody who's hopeless," he said.

US aid to Africa has grown rapidly since Mr Bush entered the White House in 2001. He said on Thursday it had doubled over his first term and was set to double again by 2010.

Asked by Matt Frei if he felt he had got the credit he deserved for such investment, Mr Bush replied: "I'm not one of these guys that really gives a darn about opinion. What I really care about is are we saving lives?"

Interrogation bill veto

Mr Bush will not visit Kenya, where inter-ethnic violence erupted after recent disputed elections, or Sudan.

But his aides say he will discuss both crises with African leaders during his trip.


PRESIDENT BUSH'S ITINERARY
Benin - Cotonou: arrival ceremony, meets president
Tanzania - Dar-es-Salaam: meets president, tours hospital; Arusha: tours hospital, textile mill and girls' school
Rwanda - Kigali: meets president, visits genocide memorial
Ghana - Accra: meets president, state dinner
Liberia - Monrovia: meets president, visits university

Rice to visit Kenya

Mr Bush condemned the government of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and said he would put more pressure on neighbouring South Africa to find a diplomatic solution.

"I just happen to believe their government could do more to enhance a free society in their region," he said.

Talking about events at home, he defended his threat to veto a bill passed by the US Senate outlawing the interrogation technique of water-boarding, dismissing fears that that might send a negative message around the world.

Asked whether America still occupied the moral high ground after Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, Mr Bush gave a crisply blunt answer, our interviewer says.

"Absolutely," he replied. "We believe in human rights and human dignity. We believe in the human condition. We believe in freedom."

Mr Bush was similarly robust in his defence of his actions in Iraq, saying: "The decision to move Saddam Hussein was right. And this democracy is now taking root. And I'm confident that if America does not become isolationist - you know, and allow the terrorists to take back over, Iraq will succeed."

BBC NEWS

[OMEN]

The Pentagon plans to shoot down a disabled US spy satellite before it enters the atmosphere to prevent a potentially deadly leak of toxic gas from the vehicle's fuel tank, officials said.
President George W Bush opted for a plan to have the Navy shoot the 2,270 kg minivan-sized satellite with a modified tactical missile, after security advisers suggested its re-entry could lead to a loss of life.

Military officials hope to strike the satellite just before it reaches the atmosphere and drive it into ocean waters.

Thousands of space objects fall to Earth each year, but they generally scatter over a huge area and there have never been any reported injuries.

"What makes this case a little bit different ... was the likelihood that the satellite upon descent to the Earth's surface could release much of its 454 kg of hydrazine fuel as a toxic gas," said James Jeffries, deputy national security adviser.

He told a Pentagon briefing the satellite was unlikely to hit a populated area and described the danger from toxic gas as limited. But Jeffries added: "There was enough of a risk for the president to be quite concerned about human life."

The satellite is a classified National Reconnaissance Office spacecraft launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in 2006, according to four senior US officials, who asked not to be named.

The satellite, known as L-21, has been out of touch since shortly after reaching its low-Earth orbit. Since the satellite never became operational, it has toxic rocket fuel on board that would have been used to manoeuvre the satellite in space.

Officials said about half the satellite, including the fuel tank, would survive re-entry into Earth's atmosphere and estimated a crash could spread toxic material across an area equal to two football fields.

"The tank will survive. It will be breached. The hydrazine will reach the ground and that's not an outcome we want to see," NASA administrator Michael Griffin said at the briefing.

"It's hard to find areas that have any significant populations to them where you could put a toxic substance down across a couple of football fields and not have somebody at risk."

Built by Lockheed Martin Corp, the satellite cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this.

[OMEN]

Beirut - Israel ordered its embassies on high alert and the FBI put the United States terror squads on guard to protect Jewish institutions after Hezbollah's leader vowed to retaliate anywhere in the world for the assassination of one of its top commanders.

"Zionists, if you want this kind of open war, let the whole world listen: Let this war be open," Hassan Nasrallah said on Thursday to a throng of fist-waving mourners who attended the funeral of Imad Mughniyeh, the mastermind of terror spectaculars that claimed hundreds of American lives.

Thousands of black-clad mourners raised their fists in the air, chanting, "At your orders, Nasrallah" in response to Nasrallah, who appeared via video. He had been in hiding since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon.

Nasrallah's fiery speech signalled the Iranian-backed Shi'ite group was ending a yearslong policy of battling Israel only on Israeli or Lebanese territory, raising the spectre of attacks in Western or other countries.

Israel denies involvement

Hezbollah and its Iranian backers blamed Israel for Mughniyeh's death in a car bombing on Tuesday in Damascus, the Syrian capital. Israel denied involvement.

Nasrallah accused Israel of taking the fight outside the "natural battlefield" of Israel and Lebanon. He said: "You have crossed the borders."

Unlike Middle Eastern leaders who had indulged in exaggerated rhetoric, Nasrallah was known for acting on his threats.

In 2006, he vowed to take action to free Lebanese prisoners in Israel, and in July that year, Hezbollah guerrillas staged a daring cross-border raid that snatched two Israeli soldiers as bargaining chips.

The incident triggered a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah that devastated southern Lebanon, with the guerrillas lobbing several thousand rockets into northern Israel. It ended with the Israeli soldiers still captive and no deal for a prisoner swap had yet been reached.

Terror squads on alert

Fearing revenge attacks after Mughniyeh's assassination, Israel ordered its military and embassies overseas on high alert on Thursday and recommended Jewish institutions worldwide do the same.

And in Washington, the FBI put its domestic terror squads on alert for any threats against synagogues or Jewish centres in the United States.

Thursday's events in Beirut raised fears that Lebanon's internal turmoil could worsen. Earlier in the day, tens of thousands of Hezbollah's pro-Western political opponents filled a downtown Beirut square to mark the anniversary of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's 2005 assassination.

Fearing clashes, authorities deployed thousands of troops. The two mass gatherings ended with a few fights involving fists, sticks and knives between government supporters and opponents that left at least four injured.

Officially, the Israeli government denied involvement, but speaking privately, Israeli military officials were more vague, refusing to confirm or deny involvement.

AP

[OMEN]

Canberra - Representatives for Australian Aborigines confirmed plans Friday to launch the first compensation lawsuits since a landmark government apology earlier this week for past abuses.

The cases, details of which were not released because they had not yet been filed, would be the first since Parliament made a formal apology on Wednesday to tens of thousands of Aborigines who were taken from their families as children under now discredited assimilation policies.

An activist and a lawyer representing some members of the so-called "Stolen Generations" of Aborigines said on Friday as many as 40 claims for compensation were being prepared in Victoria state.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has ruled out setting up a compensation fund for victims of the policies, which lasted from 1910 until the 1970s, and legal experts say the apology does not strengthen chances of compensation being won through the courts.

Several cases have been filed in the past but most have failed. Lawyers say proving the harm inflicted by the policies in a legal sense is extremely difficult.

Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard, standing in for Rudd who is overseas, reiterated on Friday the government would not offer compensation to head off court action.

Dozens of lawsuits pending

Lawyer Jack Rush said he was representing Aborigine Neville Austin, but declined to discuss specifics of the case. Austin also declined to comment.

A newspaper reported on Friday that Austin intends to sue the state of Victoria for unspecified damages, alleging he was taken by authorities in 1964 from a hospital where he had been admitted as a five-month-old baby with a chest infection.

He then lived in foster homes and orphanages until he turned 18, the Herald Sun newspaper reported.

His cousin, Lyn Austin, head of the state advocacy group Stolen Generations Victoria, said dozens of lawsuits were pending.

"I cannot make comment on that case at all," she told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio, referring to her cousin's case.

"I do know that there are another 30 or 40 that are going to be doing a civil action claim."

Rudd won wide acclaim on Wednesday by leading the Parliament in apologising for the racist assimilation policies.

He received a letter of congratulations from the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, dated the day of the apology, Rudd's office said on Friday,

But Rudd has been widely criticised for refusing to pay compensation for their suffering.

Compensation fund

About 100 000 children were forcibly taken from their parents in an effort to make them grow up like white Australians.

Aborigine Bruce Trevorrow was awarded A$775 000 in damages and interest this month from the South Australia state government. He was taken from a hospital without his parents' knowledge 50 years ago.

Australia's smallest state, Tasmania, is the only government to establish a compensation fund for Aborigines.

AP

[OMEN]

New Brunswick - A nine-year-old boy accused in the beating death of a toddler at a daycare centre last summer has been found guilty of the juvenile equivalent of manslaughter.

The boy, identified only as "JL," was "adjudicated delinquent" and sentenced to 18 months probation. He must continue the counselling and therapy he was already undergoing, the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office said on Thursday night.

Prosecutors had sought to have the youth serve a three-year sentence at a juvenile facility, the maximum allowed under law.

The boy was originally charged with aggravated manslaughter in the August 23 death of 11-month-old Tahir Francis, who died from head injuries after being kicked at the Beverly Bryant Family Day Care facility in Woodbridge Township.

It was still not clear what provoked the attack.

Beverly Bryant, 64, who operated the licensed facility out of her home, was not in the room when the infant was kicked. Authorities had said Bryant was distracted by a phone call and other home chores.

The centre was ordered closed and Bryant was charged with child endangerment. She had pleaded not guilty.

AP

[JohnCenaFan28]

These sort of thing just keeps happening these days...:(

[OMEN]

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday registered as a candidate in the March 29 elections, facing a challenge from a former ally who has vowed to make the crumbling economy the focus of the campaign.

Mugabe is seeking another five-year term to extend his 28-year rule of the once-prosperous southern African country.

Rivals say his re-election would be a disaster for Zimbabweans who are suffering amid an economic meltdown, highlighted on Thursday when Zimbabwe said annualised inflation topped 66,000 per cent in December - a new record.

Millions of Zimbabweans are expected to vote in the presidential, parliamentary and municipal polls. Mugabe and his opponents have described the event as a landmark election in the country's post-independence period.

"We're very confident of victory, 99.9 per cent confident," Emerson Mnangagwa, a cabinet minister and official with the ruling ZANU-PF party, told reporters after presenting Mugabe's election registration papers to a court in Harare.

The opposition is concerned the elections will not be free. Mugabe has been widely accused of rigging the last three major elections and of using security forces to quell dissent.

Earlier this week Mugabe, who turns 84 next week, told state media that he was "raring to go" into the election.

But Mugabe, who was described as a "discredited dictator" on Thursday by United States President George W Bush, must contend with Simba Makoni, a renegade former finance minister who is running for president as an independent.

The ZANU-PF expelled Makoni, 58, earlier this week after he announced what many observers consider the most serious challenge to the veteran Zimbabwean leader, who has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980.

Makoni, accompanied by his wife, filed his registration papers at the court in Harare on Friday.

Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the main faction of the Movement for Democratic Change, the country's largest opposition party, also filed on Friday to contest the presidential election, although he did not do so in person.

The leader of a smaller faction of the MDC has pulled out of the race and is expected to back Makoni.

Makoni's entry could split the opposition vote and spur Mugabe's re-election in spite of the nation's economic misery.

Critics say government mismanagement has plunged the country into a crisis that is marked by soaring poverty, widespread malnutrition and chronic food and fuel shortages.

Mugabe says the problems are the result of sabotage by Western powers who are opposed to his policy of seizing white-owned farms and redistributing the land to blacks.

Despite accusations of widespread human rights violations, Mugabe is regarded in much of Africa as an anti-colonial champion and hero of the liberation era of the 1960s and 1970s.

Reuters



There is no way that any election Robert Mugabe takes part in is going to be a fair contest....He can't afford it to be....

[JohnCenaFan28]

Hmm, interesting...:think:

[JohnCenaFan28]

That's shocking...:o

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the read.

[JohnCenaFan28]

A controversial website that allows whistle-blowers to anonymously post government and corporate documents has been taken offline in the US.

Wikileaks.org, as it is known, was cut off from the internet following a California court ruling, the site says.

The case was brought by a Swiss bank after "several hundred" documents were posted about its offshore activities.

Other versions of the pages, hosted in countries such as Belgium and India, can still be accessed.

However, the main site was taken offline after the court ordered that Dynadot, which controls the site's domain name, should remove all traces of wikileaks from its servers.

The court also ordered that Dynadot should "prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page, until further order of this Court."

Other orders included that the domain name be locked "to prevent transfer of the domain name to a different domain registrar" to prevent changes being made to the site.

Wikileaks claimed that the order was "unconstitutional" and said that the site had been "forcibly censored".

Web names

The case was brought by lawyers working for the Swiss banking group Julius Baer. It concerned several documents posted on the site which allegedly reveal that the bank was involved with money laundering and tax evasion.

Wikileaks logo
The site was founded in 2006

The documents were allegedly posted by Rudolf Elmer, former vice president of the bank's Cayman Island's operation.

A spokesperson for Julius Baer said he could not comment on the case because of "pending legal proceedings".

The BBC understands that Julius Baer asked for the documents to be removed because they could have an impact on a separate legal case ongoing in Switzerland.

The court hearing took place last week and Dynadot blocked access from Friday evening.

Wikileaks says it was not represented at the hearing because it was "given only hours notice" via e-mail.

A document signed by Judge Jeffery White, who presided over the case, ordered Dynadot to follow six court orders.

As well as removing all records of the site form its servers, the hosting and domain name firm was ordered to produce "all prior or previous administrative and account records and data for the wikileaks.org domain name and account".

The order also demanded that details of the site's registrant, contacts, payment records and "IP addresses and associated data used by any person...who accessed the account for the domain name" to be handed over.

Wikileaks allows users to post documents anonymously.

Information bank

The site was founded in 2006 by dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and technologists from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa.

It so far claims to have published more than 1.2 million documents.

It provoked controversy when it first appeared on the net with many commentators questioning the motives of the people behind the site.

It recently made available a confidential briefing document relating to the collapse of the UK's Northern Rock bank.

Lawyers working on behalf of the bank attempted to have the documents removed from the site. They can still be accessed.

Dynadot was contacted for this article but have so far not responded to requests for comment.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

The Vatican has issued new rules making the route to sainthood more difficult.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44435000/jpg/_44435278_martins_ap203b.jpg

Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins called for more rigour and sobriety in the Catholic Church's saint making process.

Cardinal Martins, the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, issued new guidelines to clarify and modernise the procedure.

He stressed the need for a "true reputation for holiness" among sainthood candidates to be established before the process begins.

The Portuguese prelate suggested not enough rigour had been applied in the past when bishops forwarded cases to the Vatican.

'Saint factory'

The Congregation for the Causes of Saints makes exhaustive enquiries into the lives of men and women proposed for official sainthood.


BEATIFICATION PROCESS
Beatification requires that a miracle has occurred
Group approaches local bishop
After Rome's approval an investigation is launched
Findings are sent to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints
Case is presented to the Pope
Blessed may be accorded a feast day
Relics of the candidate may be venerated in local diocese
Canonisation (actual sainthood) requires proof of a second miracle

Reasons for the fast track

Critics have suggested the department has become what they call a "saint factory", overwhelmed by the high number of applicants for sainthood which are originally suggested at local level.

There are more than 2,200 dossiers pending, some of which have been on file for decades, even centuries, says the BBC's David Willey in Rome.

Pope Benedict XVI's predecessor, Pope John Paul II, beatified more people than all his predecessors put together.

In his 27-year pontificate he beatified more than 1,338 people and canonised 482.

Fast-tracked

Pope Benedict has tried to restrict the numbers of men and women who are proposed as role models for saintly life in the 21st Century, our correspondent says.

Pope John Paul II
The current Pope has fast-tracked the sainthood cause of John Paul II

But even he has fast-tracked some candidates for sainthood, notably John Paul II himself.

The case of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the Salvadorian church leader who was gunned down while celebrating Mass in 1980, and is already venerated as a Saint and miracle worker in Latin America, has been put on hold while further investigations are made.

To put Archbishop Romero on the path to sainthood, Cardinal Martins said the Church must first determine that he was killed for religious reasons rather than political ones.

Cardinal Martins also denied reports that the case of Pope Pius XII had been halted, and defended the wartime Pope against accusations that he was silent about the Holocaust.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

A bomb blast in southern Afghanistan has killed at least 35 civilians. Many people were injured, including three Nato soldiers, officials say.

The blast, apparently targeting Canadian troops in a Nato convoy, took place in Spin Boldak town in Kandahar province, near the Pakistani border.

A bomber in Kandahar city on Sunday killed more than 100 people - the country's bloodiest attack since 2001.

Nato troops in Afghanistan have been battling a resurgent Taleban militia.

Fifteen international troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year, most of them from the US.

Some 40,000 soldiers from Nato countries are deployed in the country, where their tasks include aiding reconstruction, tackling opium cultivation and battling the Taleban.

Taleban blamed

Monday's attack in Spin Boldak targeted a convoy of Canadian troops serving under Nato.

Funeral for bomb victim in Kandahar
Funerals for those killed in Sunday's attack were held on Monday

According to Asadullah Khalid, the governor of Kandahar province, three Canadian troops were hurt in the attack.

"The suicide attacker detonated near a Canadian military convoy," the governor of Kandahar province, Asadullah Khalid, said.

He said 35 civilians were killed and 27 civilians were hurt.

The bomb also badly damaged a military vehicle and set fire to several shops in the area, a local police official said.

The nearby border had been closed, as part of a series of security measures for Pakistani elections on Monday.

According to the Associated Press news agency, the crossing was briefly opened to take some of those hurt in the blast to a hospital in the Pakistani town of Chaman nearby.

Earlier on Monday, funerals were held in Kandahar for the victims of Sunday's suicide attack.


MAJOR TALEBAN ATTACKS
29 Dec 2007: 16 policemen killed in Kandahar
6 Nov 2007: At least 70 die in attack on sugar factory in Baghlan province
29 Sep 2007: At least 30 soldiers killed in bus attack in Kabul
16 Jan 2006: At least 24 people killed in two attacks in Kandahar

Deadliest Afghan attacks
In pictures: Kandahar blast

Weeping relatives buried the dead, many of them in graves dug next to each other.

Sunday's bombing - believed to be the bloodiest since the overthrow of the Taleban in 2001 - hit a crowd watching a dogfight near the city.

The dead included a local police chief who also led a tribal militia opposed to the Taleban.

Officials blamed the Islamist Taleban guerrillas but they have denied responsibility.

Spreading influence

The Taleban claim to have influence across most of the country and have extended their area of control from their traditional heartland in the south.

They have a significant presence around Kandahar from where they carry out suicide attacks and roadside bomb blasts.

The militants are also known to operate freely in Wardak province, neighbouring the capital Kabul.

Last year, violence in Afghanistan reached its highest levels since the Taleban were forced from power in 2001, analysts say.

Last November, a suicide bombing in the northern Baghlan province killed 79 people - mostly school pupils - in what was until then the bloodiest bombing since the Taleban were ousted in 2001.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Former President George Bush Senior has endorsed John McCain in his bid to be the Republicans' presidential nominee.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44435000/jpg/_44435044_mccainbush_ap203b.jpg

Mr Bush, father of the current US president, said Mr McCain's character was "forged in the crucible of war" and he was best prepared to lead the US.

The endorsement, which may help unite the party behind Mr McCain, comes ahead of bi-party primary votes in Wisconsin and a Democratic primary in Hawaii.

Mr McCain is leading the Republican race, ahead of Mike Huckabee.

He is considered almost certain to be the eventual Republican nominee, having already won 843 of the 1,191 delegates he needs to secure the nomination.

However, Mr McCain has not been popular with more conservative Republicans because of his relatively moderate views on abortion, immigration reform and gay marriage.

'Character and values'

Speaking in Texas with Mr McCain by his side, Mr Bush Senior said he believed Mr McCain was the best equipped to lead the country.


I think that our effort to continue to unite the party will be enhanced dramatically by President Bush's words
John McCain

"No-one is better prepared to lead our nation at these trying times than Senator John McCain," Mr Bush said.

"His character was forged in the crucible of war. His commitment to America is beyond any doubt. But most importantly, he has the right character and values to guide our nation."

Mr Bush dismissed criticism of Mr McCain's conservative credentials by some high-profile commentators as "grossly unfair".

He said Mr McCain had "a sound conservative record" and also praised his ability to reach across the aisle to the Democrats when needed.

Mr McCain's failed effort to forge bi-partisan legislation to reform the US immigration system last year has troubled many in the party's more conservative wing.

Mr McCain, a Vietnam veteran who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war, said he was honoured to have the support of the former president.

"I think that our effort to continue to unite the party will be enhanced dramatically by President Bush's words," he said.

Mr Bush's endorsement comes only four days after that of Mitt Romney, the former contender for the nomination who dropped out of the race after disappointing results earlier this month.

Delegate hunt

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been campaigning for the Democratic Party nomination in Wisconsin over the weekend.

Barack Obama speaks at the annual Democratic Party of Wisconsin dinner, 16 Feb 2008
Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton attended a Wisconsin Democratic party event

Mrs Clinton released a detailed economic plan on Monday, which her campaign hopes will win her support among working and middle class families struggling amid the country's economic downturn.

Polls suggest Tuesday's vote in Wisconsin will be close.

Wisconsin has 92 delegates up for grabs, while Hawaii - where Mr Obama was born - has 20 on offer.

Mr Obama's campaign confirmed that he had travelled to North Carolina on Sunday for a meeting with former Democratic contender John Edwards, who suspended his campaign before the 5 February Super Tuesday vote.

He told a Wisconsin TV channel that the meeting had been "to talk about how we can move the party in a direction that focuses on middle-class issues - relieving poverty, reducing the influence of special interests in Washington".

Both Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton are also focusing their efforts on the delegate-rich states of Texas and Ohio, which will stage primary elections on 4 March.

Mrs Clinton is currently trailing Barack Obama with 1,220 delegates to his 1,275. It will take 2,025 delegates to secure the nomination at the party's national convention this summer.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed were murdered, Dodi's father Mohamed Al Fayed has told the inquest into their deaths in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

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Harrods owner Mr Al Fayed claimed former prime minister Tony Blair, MI5, MI6 and the British ambassador to France were all part of the conspiracy.

And he said Princess Diana "knew Prince Philip and Prince Charles were trying to get rid of her".

He also said Diana had told him she was pregnant, and the couple were engaged.

"I am the only person they told," he said.

'Crocodile wife'

Asked by Ian Burnett QC, counsel to the inquest, if he stood by his claim that Diana and Dodi were "murdered by the British security services on the orders of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh", Mr Al Fayed replied: "Yes."

He also pinpointed alleged security forces in the ambulance crew, the then British Ambassador to France Sir Michael Jay and the princess's brother-in-law Sir Robert Fellowes as all being involved in the plot.

And he said Prince Charles was complicit, hoping to make way so he could marry his "crocodile wife" Camilla Parker Bowles.


My belief (they) were murdered was confirmed when I learned Lord Condon and Lord Stevens did not show the coroner the note
Mohamed Al Fayed

Al Fayed's 'moment' in court

The Harrods boss also raised concerns about a note written by Diana's divorce lawyer, Lord Mishcon, after an October 1995 meeting. It outlined her fears there was a plot to kill her in a car crash.

The police agreed to hand it to the coroner only after Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell, produced a note from the princess making similar allegations in the Daily Mirror in October 2003. By that time, Sir John Stevens led the Met.

Mr Al Fayed said this delay confirmed his "belief that my son and Princess Diana were murdered".

In his evidence, Mr Al Fayed branded Prince Philip a "Nazi" and a "racist" and said: "It's time to send him back to Germany from where he comes."

"You want to know his original name - it ends with Frankenstein," he added.

Wooden box

Mr Al Fayed read out a statement detailing his main concerns about the crash, and the points he felt the inquest should address.

Diana had told him she kept a wooden box and if anything happened to her, the contents should be made public, he said. But it had not been kept safe by Diana's butler Paul Burrell, or her sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale.

He also said blood samples apparently taken from driver Henri Paul - who was also killed in the crash - did not belong to the Frenchman.


She knew Prince Philip and Prince Charles were trying to get rid of her
Mohamed Al Fayed

Claims point-by-point
Profile of the Harrods boss
Mr Al Fayed felt the murder was likely to have been carried out by photographer James Andanson, who has since died, on the orders of the security services.

During his evidence, Mr Al Fayed held up a copy of Monday's Sun newspaper, which claims Paul Burrell said he had not told the whole truth to the inquest.

He said of Mr Burrell: "He's been sitting here in the witness box talking about baloney things. It's important to bring him back."

Lord Justice Scott Baker later told the court: "This is something that's certainly being investigated."

The coroner said he had called for the Sun's tape and would want to know the circumstances under which it was obtained.

Richard Horwell QC for the Metropolitan Police Commissioner put it to Mr Al Fayed that he had denied Diana "dignity in death" by raising the question of her pregnancy.

The barrister added that "witness after witness" had been asked about her method of contraception and her menstrual cycle, "and the evidence shows she could not have been pregnant".

Mr Al Fayed replied: "All the witnesses who have been saying this are part of the cover-up and have been told what to say."

The Harrods owner broke down when asked about the moment he was told Dodi was dead.

He said someone from security told him, but when asked if he remembered a call from Ritz hotel president Frank Klein, he answered: "It's difficult. I'd like to know why you are asking me things like that."

Mr Klein has told the inquest he telephoned Mr Al Fayed to break the news and he replied: "This is not an accident."

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Vote counting is well under way in Pakistan after a parliamentary election intended to complete the transition from military to civilian rule.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44434000/jpg/_44434450_counting2_afp203b.jpg

Opposition supporters have already started celebrating victory.

They are confident supporters of President Pervez Musharraf are heading for a heavy defeat.

Unofficial returns suggest some of the president's leading allies have lost their seats, but it is expected to be some time before a clear trend emerges.

Monday's election was delayed after the killing of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

Although there were none of the major bomb attacks which overshadowed the run-up to the election, a number of people have been killed in clashes between rival party supporters.

There have also been reports of some missing ballot boxes.

Nine killed

Fears of violence dissuaded many of the country's 80 million eligible voters from leaving their homes, and voting in many places was low.


I left my home today, and I prayed to God to bring me back safely
Shah Zeb
Election official

Pakistanis describe the day
Reporters' log
High stakes for Musharraf

In one incident in Daska district in the Punjab, a polling agent from one party reportedly shot dead an agent from a rival party after a dispute.

In another, on Sunday, at least four people, including a candidate, were reported to have been killed after an attack on former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's PML-N party.

BBC journalists also reported a number of voting irregularities across the country:

* BBC correspondent Riaz Sohail was shot at as he approached a polling station in Natario village, Sindh province, to investigate reports of ballot stuffing; Pakistan People's Party (PPP) activists and voters were also fired upon

* In Karachi, protesters from the Awami National Party (ANP) blocked roads and stoned vehicles after an attack on their candidate

* Firing on a polling station in Gujranwala in the Punjab caused voting to be suspended

* The presiding officer of a polling station in east Karachi - a PPP stronghold - said his police escort took him to the wrong location, leaving him 5km (three miles) from the station, meaning polling was delayed by five hours

Nawaz Sharif, after casting his ballot in the eastern city of Lahore, accused the PML-Q party that backs President Musharraf of "committing rigging, and... attacking our candidates and supporters", AFP news agency reported.

The leader of Ms Bhutto's PPP party, her widower Asif Ali Zardari, had threatened to launch street protests in the event of vote-rigging.


Vote counting in Pakistan, 18 February 2008
Most counts will be completed by Tuesday morning

Benazir's ghost
Balance of forces
Pakistan: Key facts

President Musharraf, voting in Rawalpindi, vowed to work in "harmony" with whoever won the polls.

There are many local election observers on the ground, but few international observers, who have either not been invited or complained they could not work freely.

One, US Senator Joseph Biden, said he feared instability if the vote was rigged.

"If the majority of Pakistani people do not think the election was fair then I think we have a real problem," he said.

Security tight

Close to half a million security personnel, including about 80,000 soldiers, have been deployed for the voting.

The BBC's Barbara Plett, outside a polling station in Lahore, described a barrier designed to prevent car bombs and a heavy police presence.

She said men and women were in separate queues for voting.

In one tribal area near Peshawar, she said, elders had banned women from voting.

HAVE YOUR SAY

The difficulty is in foreseeing what changes will come.

Briscott, Pakistan
Send us your comments

In certain areas the fear of violence hung heavy.

In the town of Charsadda, in volatile North West Frontier Province, election official Shah Zeb told the AP news agency: "We're all afraid but what can we do? I left my home today, and I prayed to God to bring me back safely. Now it is in the hands of God."

Prospects

Analysts say polls suggest a fair vote is likely to result in a hung parliament, with none of the three biggest parties winning a majority.

Attention will then turn on the PPP, and whether it chooses to join forces with pro-Musharraf parties, or with Mr Sharif's party.

Mr Sharif is staunchly opposed to the president, and if the two opposition parties jointly gain two-thirds of the seats, they may try to impeach him, correspondents say.

Mr Musharraf stepped down as army chief late last year. He has ruled the country since seizing power in a coup in 1999.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Serbia has recalled its ambassador to Washington in protest at US recognition of Kosovo independence and threatened to withdraw other envoys.

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Its Prime Minister, Vojislav Kostunica, told parliament in Belgrade that America had "violated international law for its own interests".

France, the UK, Germany and Italy have also pledged their support for the new state declared on Sunday.

In New York, the UN Security Council is beginning a meeting on the move.

Serbian President Boris Tadic is to ask it to annul the independence declaration, and Belgrade is counting on Russia to veto Kosovo joining the UN as a new nation.

The leading European states which endorsed independence did so after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels in which it was agreed that Kosovo should not set a precedent for other states.

Spain and several other member-states have withheld recognition because of concerns about international law and separatism.

'First measure'

Mr Kostunica said the recall of Serbia's ambassador to the US was the "first urgent measure of the government which will be implemented in all countries that recognise unilateral independence".


KOSOVO PROFILE
Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci with the new Kosovo flag
Population about two million
Majority ethnic Albanian; 10% Serb
Under UN control since Nato drove out Serb forces in 1999
2,000-strong EU staff to take over from UN after independence
Nato to stay to provide security

Speaking to Serbian TV from New York, President Tadic said he intended to "demand from [UN Secretary General] Ban Ki-moon the immediate annulment of the independence proclamation by the non-existent state in Kosovo".

Russia's ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, told the BBC that Kosovo had little to gain from declaring independence.

"There is no way they will get into the United Nations or the OSCE or the Council of Europe," he said.

"So what will they be getting, changing nameplates at the offices of Western countries in Pristina, calling them embassies?"

Serbia's interior ministry has filed criminal charges against Kosovo Albanian leaders instrumental in proclaiming independence, accusing them of proclaiming a "false state" on Serbian territory.

In Belgrade, about 10,000 students marched in protest at the independence declaration, and Serb enclaves inside Kosovo also saw anti-independence rallies.

Serbian security forces were driven out of Kosovo in 1999 after a Nato bombing campaign aimed at halting the violent repression of ethnic Albanian separatists.

The province has been under UN administration and Nato protection since then.

Pledges of support

On Monday, Washington formally recognised Kosovo as a "sovereign and independent state".


STANCE ON RECOGNITION
For: Germany, Italy, France, UK, Austria, US, Turkey, Albania, Afghanistan
Against: Russia, Spain, Romania, Slovakia, Cyprus

In Brussels, EU foreign ministers adopted a compromise proposal from Spain, one of several countries which argue that Kosovo's independence is a breach of international law and will boost separatists everywhere.

The bloc set aside differences by stressing Kosovo's declaration was not a precedent for separatists elsewhere and pledging that the whole Balkan region would eventually join the bloc.

Unanimous recognition of Kosovo was never at stake at the meeting because the EU has no legal right to recognise new states, BBC European affairs correspondent Oana Lungescu notes.

The question was whether, despite their differences on recognition, Europeans could unite on how to bring stability in their backyard, after almost two decades of seemingly endless Balkan crises.

This is an ugly victory for demographic warfare

It took hours of tortuous negotiations but the EU managed to pass the unity test, our correspondent says.

Kosovo, the ministers agreed, was a unique case and did not call into question international legal principles, such as territorial integrity.

The bloc's statement said the EU was ready to play a leading role in the Balkans, with a 2,000-strong police and justice mission headed to Kosovo and new measures to promote economic and political development in the region, including a donors' conference by June.

The EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana said there was a total commitment to bring all the Balkan countries into the EU.

But Kosovo will not be able to get very close until it is recognised by all 27 members, and that may take a long time, our correspondent adds.

Among other countries to recognise Kosovo was Turkey.

Correspondents say this has symbolic significance because for centuries the Ottoman Turks ruled the Balkans, including modern-day Serbia and Kosovo.

BBC News

[reven207]

The mans been claiming that for ten years, just let it go man.

[OMEN]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/images/703172.jpg
FIDEL CASTRO: the aging, ailing leader of Cuba has announced he will not return to his post.
Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro has announced that he will not return to lead the country as president or commander-in-chief, retiring as head of state 49 years after he seized power in an armed revolution.
Castro, 81, said in a statement to the country that he would not seek a new presidential term when the National Assembly meets on February 24.

"To my dear compatriots, who gave me the immense honour in recent days of electing me a member of parliament ... I communicate to you that I will not aspire to or accept - I repeat not aspire to or accept - the positions of President of Council of State and Commander in Chief," Castro said in the statement published on the Web site of the Communist Party's Granma newspaper.

The National Assembly or legislature is expected to nominate his brother and designated successor Raul Castro, 76, as president in place of Castro, who has not appeared in public for almost 19 months after being stricken by an undisclosed illness.

The title of "Comandante en Jefe" or commander-in-chief, was created for him in 1958 as the leader of a guerrilla movement that swept down from the mountains of eastern Cuba to overthrow US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Castro's retirement draws the curtain on a political career that spanned the Cold War and survived US enmity, CIA assassination attempts and the demise of Soviet Communism.

A charismatic leader famous for his long speeches delivered in his green military fatigues, Castro is admired in the Third World for standing up to the United States but considered by his opponents a tyrant who suppressed freedom.

His illness and departure from Cuba's helm have raised doubts about the future of the Western Hemisphere's only communist state.

"Fortunately, our Revolution can still count on cadres from the old guard and others who were very young in the early stages of the process," Castro said in his statement.

"They have the authority and the experience to guarantee the replacement," he said.

The bearded leader who took power in an armed uprising against a US-backed dictator in 1959 had temporarily ceded power to his younger brother after he underwent emergency surgery to stop intestinal bleeding in mid-2006.

Castro has only been seen in pictures since then, looking gaunt and frail, though his health improved enough a year ago to allow him to keep in the public mind writing reams of articles published by Cuba's state press.

"This is not my farewell to you. My only wish is to fight as a soldier in the battle of ideas. I shall continue to write under the heading of 'Reflections by comrade Fidel.' It will be just another weapon you can count on. Perhaps my voice will be heard. I shall be careful," Castro said.

Castro could remain politically influential as first secretary of the ruling Communist Party and elder statesman.

Raul Castro, Cuba's long-standing defence minister, has run the country since July 31, 2006 as acting president. He has raised expectations of economic reforms to improve the daily lot of Cubans, but has yet to deliver.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Staffers of Australia's former Howard government's shadowy communication unit left their office in a "pigsty" that took four days to clean up, a committee has heard.

Labor senator Robert Ray said the suite occupied by the Government Members Secretariat (GMS), a small unit which coordinated the government's communication strategy, was smeared in food and damaged by repeated games of indoor cricket.

When cleaners raised objections with GMS staff about the state of the suite, they were told to "pee off", Senator Ray said.

"Is it true it took the cleaners four days to clean up that pigsty of leftover stale food and muck?" Senator Ray asked Department of Parliamentary Services assistant secretary John Nakkan.

"It was left in an absolutely disgraceful state.

"I want to know what the repair bill was to that set of suites from the playing of indoor cricket, because I have 55 photos of the damage that was done."

Mr Nakkan said he was not aware of any damage because responsibility for ministerial wing suites lay with the Department of Finance and Administration.

He said he would check with the cleaners.

Senator Ray said he could not only provide photos, but also had the bat and ball in his office.

"And what's more, I've got the stumps in my office, which happens to be a Mark Vaile poster. So much for parliamentary solidarity," Senator Ray said.

Reuters

[OMEN]

The Philippine military has exhumed what it believes is the body of Dulmatin, an Indonesian militant wanted for the 2002 Bali bombings that killed over 200 people.

"His body was recovered yesterday afternoon," Major General Ben Dolorfino, the marine commandant, said on Tuesday. "We are conducting DNA tests to confirm."

Dolorfino said an informant led them to the body, which was dug up in Tawi-tawi, the southernmost tip of the Philippine archipelago.

Dulmatin, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, has eluded the Philippine military and their US advisors for years, although security forces found his wife in 2006 and their children the following year in a rebel hideout in the Philippine south. They have since been deported to Indonesia.

Washington has offered a $US10 million ($NZ12.73 million) bounty for Dulmatin, a leading member of Jemaah Islamiah, a regional militant network blamed for a series of bombings in Indonesia.

Dulmatin was believed to have fled to the southern Philippines in 2003 with Umar Patek, another JI member, after both were implicated in the Bali blasts, which killed mainly Australian tourists holidaying on the resort island.

Dulmatin was reported injured in a clash with the military on January 31 when they raided his hideout.

"Based on the description of the informant, he suffered gunshots in the head, chest and right foot," said Dolorfino.

Both Dulmatin and Patek have been working with members of Abu Sayyaf, a Philippine group responsible for the bombing of a ferry close to Manila in 2004 that killed over 100 people in the Philippines' worst militant attack.

Foreign Islamic militants have a history of helping to train militant Muslims in the southern Philippines, a largely Catholic country, in bomb-making techniques.

Reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

A 70-million-year-old fossil of a giant frog has been unearthed in Madagascar by a team of UK and US scientists.

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The creature would have been the size of a "squashed beach ball" and weighed about 4kg (9lb), the researchers said.

They added that the fossil, nicknamed Beelzebufo or "frog from hell", was "strikingly different" from present-day frogs found on the island nation.

Details of the discovery are reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The team from University College London (UCL) and Stony Brook University, New York, said the frog would have had a body length of about 40cm (16 inches), and was among the largest of its kind to be found.

"This frog, a relative of today's horned toads, would have been the size of a slightly squashed beach-ball, with short legs and a big mouth," explained co-author Susan Evans, from UCL's Department of Cell and Developmental Biology.

"If it shared the aggressive temperament and 'sit-and-wait' ambush tactics of [present-day] horned toads, it would have been a formidable predator on small animals.

"Its diet would most likely have consisted of insects and small vertebrates like lizards, but it's not impossible that Beelzebufo might even have munched on hatchling or juvenile dinosaurs."

The researchers added that the discovery of the fossil supported the theory that Madagascar and the Indian and South American land masses could have been linked until the Late Cretaceous Period (75-65 million years ago).

"Our discovery of a frog strikingly different from today's Madagascan frogs, and akin to the horned toads previously considered endemic to South America, lends weight to the controversial model," Professor Evans explained.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Sperm defects caused by exposure to environmental toxins can be passed down the generations, research suggests.

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Scientists say fathers who smoke and drink should be aware they are potentially not just damaging themselves, but also their heirs.

Tests on rats showed sperm damage caused by exposure to garden chemicals remained up to four generations later.

The US study was presented to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).


If I was a young man I would not drink very heavily and not smoke two packets of cigarettes a day while I was trying to conceive a child
Professor Cynthia Daniels
Rutgers University

It suggests that a father's health plays a greater role in the health of future generations than has been thought.

A team from the University of Idaho in Moscow tested the effects of a hormone-disrupting fungicide chemical called vinclozolin on embryonic rats.

The chemical altered genes in the sperm, including a number associated with human prostate cancer.

Rats exposed to it show signs of damage and overgrowth of the prostate, infertility and kidney problems.

The defects were also present in animals four generations on.

The scientists admitted that the rats were exposed to very high levels of vinclozolin.

Proof of principle

But they argued that their work shows that once toxins cause defects in sperm they can be passed down the generations.

Professor Cynthia Daniels, from Rutgers University in New Jersey, has written books on male and female reproduction.

She said men who drank a lot of alcohol had been shown to have increased rates of sperm defects; and nicotine from tobacco found its way into seminal fluid as well as blood.

Professor Daniels said: "We need to open up our eyes and look at the evidence.

"My advice to young couples would be moderation. Substances that have an impact on reproduction are often also carcinogenic.

"If I was a young man I would not drink very heavily and not smoke two packets of cigarettes a day while I was trying to conceive a child."

Professor Neil McClure, a fertility expert at Queen's University Belfast, UK, said the DNA in sperm cells was more tightly packed than in other cells, and so, to some extent, was protected from damage.

However, once sperm cell DNA was damaged, it had no mechanism by which to effect repairs.

He said: "There is no doubt that if you smoke like a chimney or drink vast amounts of alcohol it will result in sperm damage, and probably damage in the DNA of the sperm.

"My advice to any man trying for a baby would be to lead as healthy a lifestyle as possible."

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

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

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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.

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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.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44433000/gif/_44433810_ugandamap.gif

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.

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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.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44436000/jpg/_44436090_clinton_203body_ap.jpg

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.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44437000/jpg/_44437512_ppp_afp203b.jpg

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

[Dark Drakan]

Sick individual should be jailed regardless... i mean sex with a corpse... :shock:

Plus he was high on illegal drugs.

[JohnCenaFan28]

:sick: That's disgusting...

[JohnCenaFan28]

Kosovo's independence has provided a tool kit for secessionist movements in Europe and beyond, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic has said.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44440000/jpg/_44440133_97a144c5-3336-4159-85de-e9045457addd.jpg

He also said recognition of Kosovo by some EU members would jeopardise Serbia's path to EU membership.

His remarks came as Nato troops reopened Kosovo's northern borders, closed after the demolition of two border posts by Serbian protesters.

Correspondents say the situation at the border is currently calm but tense.

Does anyone in this room think that the Kosovo Albanians are the only group in the world with a grievance against their capital?

Vuk Jeremic
Serbian foreign minister

World split over Kosovo

Nato peacekeepers reopened the two demolished border checkpoints on Wednesday.

Crowds of demonstrators had used bulldozers and explosives on Tuesday to demolish the border posts at Jarinje and Brnjak, and peacekeepers were called in to restore order.

Nato commander Xavier Bout de Marnhac was quoted as blaming local Serbian leaders for the trouble.

Students in the Serb-dominated town of Mitrovica are organising daily protests at 12.44 pm, referring to UN Security Council resolution 1244 under which Serbia insists it still has sovereignty of Kosovo under international law.

'Relations compromised'

Mr Jeremic said Kosovo's declaration of independence was illegal and illegitimate, adding that Serbia would fight tooth and nail to have it overturned.

Speaking at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, he said those who had recognised Kosovo had set a dangerous precedent.

"By the actions of some European member-states, every would-be ethnic or religious separatist across Europe and around the world has been provided with a tool kit on how to achieve recognition," he said.

"Does anyone in this room think that the Kosovo Albanians are the only group in the world with a grievance against their capital?"

Some Russian officials have hinted that Moscow could recognise the Georgian breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in response to the Kosovan declaration.

Mr Jeremic also said Serbia's path to full EU membership had been damaged by the recognition of Kosovo by more than half the EU's member countries.

"The relations between Serbia and certain members of the European Union have been compromised and I don't see how we can accelerate our efforts towards Europe," he said.

Many - though not all - EU states have argued that Kosovo is a unique case - that Serbia lost its right to govern there because of the brutal repression of the Albanian majority.

UN divided

Earlier EU special envoy Pieter Feith began his work in Pristina as the head of the international civilian office due to take over from the UN.

He insisted that a 2,000-strong EU police and justice mission would be deployed throughout Kosovo despite Serb hostility.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the mission was "in breach of the highest international law".

In a separate development, the German cabinet agreed formally to recognise Kosovo's independence. Norway also announced its intention to accept Kosovo as an independent state.

But Serbia responded by recalling its ambassadors to Germany and Austria, another country that has recognised Kosovo.

Britain, France, and Italy were among the first to come out in favour of Kosovo's independence but other EU countries are opposed.

The UN Security Council is divided over how to respond to Kosovo's move, and it has failed to agree on any action.

Serbian security forces were driven out of Kosovo in 1999 after a Nato bombing campaign aimed at halting the violent repression of ethnic Albanian separatists.

The province has been under UN administration and Nato protection since then.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Bhutto widower 'rejects PM role'
The widower of assassinated Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto has ruled himself out as prime minister, despite his party's success at the election.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44439000/jpg/_44439688_cc732b4c-6f9e-403a-81e2-801afd10084e.jpg

Asif Ali Zardari said his PPP party would choose another candidate to lead a coalition government that opposition parties are expected to form.

President Pervez Musharraf has called for reconciliation after his party's defeat, but he ruled out stepping down.

He said the polls had strengthened moderate forces inside the country.

Mr Zardari, a deeply divisive figure in Pakistani politics who has spent several years in prison on corruption charges, is not an MP and is therefore not currently eligible to serve as prime minister.

But there had been speculation that he might enter parliament via a by-election.

Forging a coalition

He was speaking as negotiations between the PPP and the other main opposition party, ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistani Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), intensified.

NATIONAL RESULTS SO FAR
PPP (Bhutto's party) : 87
PML-N (Nawaz Sharif): 66
PML-Q: (pro-Musharraf) 39
MQM (Sindh-based): 19
ANP (Secular Pashtuns): 10
MMA (Islamic alliance): 3
Others: 34
Source: Election commission

The two leaders are due to meet on Thursday and correspondents say the most likely coalition is between the two, as they would have more than half of parliament's seats between them.

The main party backing President Musharraf suffered a heavy defeat, and correspondents say the president appears to be in a very difficult position.

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

Mr Zardari told reporters in Peshawar that his party could work with the MQM, a Sindh-based regional party which supports Mr Musharraf.

'Moderates boosted'

Mr Sharif has urged Mr Musharraf to resign, and a PPP statement cited alleged remarks by the president that he would step down if the parties supporting him were defeated in elections.

But Mr Musharraf said that he would try to work with any new government.

"The president emphasised the need for harmonious coalition in the interest of peaceful governance, development and progress of Pakistan," he said in a statement released by the foreign ministry.

"The elections have strengthened the moderate forces in the country."

In an earlier interview for the US newspaper the Wall Street Journal, Mr Musharraf said he would not resign or retire.

He was re-elected to the presidency last October, in a parliamentary vote boycotted by the opposition as unconstitutional.

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

Alliance not guaranteed

Mr Zardari earlier 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.

With votes counted in 258 out of 272 constituencies, the PPP has won 87 seats, according to the Election Commission of Pakistan.

The PML-N is in second place with 66 seats so far.

Mr Sharif has said is prepared to discuss joining a coalition with Mr Zardari's party in order "to rid Pakistan of dictatorship forever".

But the BBC's Chris Morris in Islamabad says that, while a coalition between the two is the most likely option, there are certainly issues on which they disagree and there are no guarantees an alliance will emerge.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Immigrants who want to become British and settle permanently in the UK will need to pass more tests to "prove their worth" to the country under new plans.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44438000/jpg/_44438279_naturalisation203cr_getty.jpg

Some migrants may also have to pay into a fund towards public services and have a period of "probationary citizenship".

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the UK should expect a "demonstration of commitment" and the process of becoming a citizen should be "more exacting".

The Tories called the plans, which do not cover EU citizens, a "gimmick".

Unveiling the proposals, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said future migrants would need to "earn" citizenship.

This scraps the current system which allows people to apply for naturalisation on the basis of how long they have lived in the UK.

'Transitional fund'

Ms Smith said migrants from outside the European Economic Area would be encouraged to "move on" through a system that leads to citizenship - or choose ultimately to leave the country.

The package of measures includes:

* Raising visa fees for a special "transitional impact" fund

* More English language testing ahead of nationality

* Requirements to prove integration into communities

* Increasing how long it takes to become British

In a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank, Mr Brown said the UK had to be "far more explicit about the ties - indeed the shared values - that make us more than a collection of people but a country".

Earned citizenship would include "clear rights but also stronger obligations at each stage".

Mr Brown added: "And we will emphasise what binds us - showing that our tolerance and fairness are not to be taken advantage of - without diminishing the diversity of what we hold dear."

Press reports suggest the transitional impact fund would raise £15m a year.

The system could see migrants with children or elderly relatives expected to pay higher application fees.

Migrants would find their route to citizenship and full access to benefits, such as higher education, accelerated if they can prove they are "active" citizens.

This would include charity work, involvement in the local community and letters from referees.

At the same time, those who break the law would find the process far harder - or would be barred completely from becoming British.

The Home Office said that it would still be possible for someone to be permanently resident as a foreign national in the UK - but it would be preferable for them to seek citizenship because of the benefits it would bring.

'Complicated'

But the Conservatives said the proposals were a "gimmick" and called for an annual limit on immigration instead.

Shadow home secretary David Davis called it "a complicated, expensive, bureaucratic set of mechanisms to deal with the adverse consequences of out of control immigration".

"The sensible approach is very simple. Deal with the original cause of the problem. Put a limit on the level of immigration. Bring it down to manageable levels. It is simpler, it is cheaper, and it is better for Britain.

"And it will preserve Britain's excellent history of good community relations that is being put at risk by an immigration policy that is both incompetent and irresponsible."

Liberal Democrat justice spokesman David Heath welcomed the points-based system, but said proposals were so "vague and so full of holes" that they were "nowhere near" meeting needs.

Several Labour backbenchers also criticised the government's plans.

Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, said they would force non-European migrants to pay fees that would benefit European migrants.

'Very concerned'

She said: "How can it be fair for non-white immigrants to have already steep fees ratcheted even higher to pay for issues which relate to the broad immigrant population including immigrants from the EU countries?"

Fiona Mactaggart, MP for Slough, said: "One of the reasons we have such excellent race relations in Britain is because migrants to this country relatively quickly achieve permanent residence, unlike other countries in Europe for example, where their status remains insecure and unclear for a long time.

"I am very concerned that these proposals might damage our good relations."

UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage said: "They [the government] keep bringing out the same old story and pretending it's new, and every time they ignore the crucial fact that these rules do not apply to 450 million people.

"It's about time they were brave enough to have a proper debate on immigration which includes the EU dimension."

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Wow, thanks for this.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks.

[OMEN]

Pakistan's two main opposition parties vowed to work together to form a government after their election win, raising the prospect of a coalition intent on forcing President Pervez Musharraf from power.
The US ally has signalled he has no plans to step down, despite his allies' defeat in Monday's election by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of assassinated ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz).

"We will work together to form the government," Nawaz Sharif, another former prime minister whose party came second in the poll behind the PPP, told reporters.

Sharif made his comments at a joint news conference with Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, following talks between the two men in Islamabad.

Zardari, who has led the PPP since his wife's assassination on December 27, said he wanted a "government of national consensus" that excluded the main pro-Musharraf party. It came a poor third in the election.

Zardari said that he and Sharif would hold more talks and vowed the PPP and Sharif's party would remain united: "We intend to stay together, we intend to be together in parliament."

Sharif, ousted by Musharraf in 1999, repeated his call for Musharraf to step down and said he and Zardari agreed on all points.

"There is no issue of disagreement between us," he said.

Zardari said on Wednesday that parliament should decide whether it can work with Musharraf.

The president outraged many Pakistanis when he declared a six-week stint of emergency rule in November and purged the judiciary, detained activists and gagged the media.

But in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Wednesday, Musharraf said he was not ready to resign: "We have to move forward in a way that we bring about a stable democratic government to Pakistan."

Musharraf has been one of Washington's top Muslim allies in the fight against al Qaeda and is vulnerable to a hostile parliament after his supporters' election defeat.

The administration of US President George W Bush has urged the next government to work with Musharraf. Washington needs Pakistan, which borders Afghanistan where US and Nato-led forces are fighting Islamist militants, as an ally.

Analysts have said say if the PPP and Sharif's party teamed up, Musharraf could either quit or drag nuclear-armed Pakistan through more upheaval as parliament tries to oust him on grounds he violated the constitution when he imposed the emergency.

Musharraf's critics say his efforts to hold on to power have destabilised the country. Neighbours and allies fear Pakistan is becoming more volatile.

Nevertheless, Pakistani shares, buoyed by the peaceful poll, ended at a new closing high, at 14,971.94 points. The market has gained 4.3 per cent since the election and recovered the losses that followed Bhutto's killing.

Since returning from exile in November, Sharif has demanded the reinstatement of judges Musharraf fired when he imposed a state of emergency on November 3.

Musharraf sacked the judges, including then Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, before they could rule on whether his re-election by the last parliament while he was army chief was constitutional.

Western diplomats said the election winners should quickly form a government before addressing Musharraf's future or the reinstatement of the judges. But they said the message from Monday's poll was clear.

"In Washington, London and other capitals, people are not in denial about what the message of the elections was," a Western diplomat in Islamabad said.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Britain, France and Germany have revised a sanctions resolution against Iran over its nuclear programme and diplomats said they hoped the UN Security Council would vote on the draft next week.

The new resolution, obtained by Reuters, was virtually unchanged from an earlier draft about which several council members said they had serious concerns.

"The new draft will be introduced to the full council this afternoon and we hope it will be put to a vote by the end of next week," a diplomat from a Security Council member state said on condition of anonymity.

The draft resolution calls for asset freezes and mandatory travel bans for specific Iranian officials and vigilance on all banks in Iran.

It also expands the list of Iranian officials and companies targeted by the sanctions and repeats the council's demand that Iran halt nuclear enrichment activity, which the West fears is aimed at producing uranium fuel for atomic weapons.

Diplomats said the text has the backing of all five permanent council members – the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China – and co-drafter Germany, which is not on the council. These six countries have been spearheading the drive to persuade Iran to halt its enrichment programme.

The changes were minor language adjustments and did not affect the substance of the penalties spelled out in the five-page text.

Diplomats from non-permanent council member states like South Africa, Indonesia and Libya have said they want any resolution voted on by the 15-nation Security Council to reflect a report on Iran from the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna expected to be released on Friday.

Vienna-based diplomats say IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is expected to say in the report that he has made significant progress in resolving outstanding questions related to Iran's past nuclear activities.

Western countries say the IAEA's investigation of Iran's atomic past is important but has little relevance to the future of Tehran's atomic programme, which they fear may one day be used to make nuclear weapons.

They say Iran's refusal to comply with Security Council demands that it stop enriching uranium supports their suspicion that Tehran is seeking atomic weapons. Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful and enrichment a sovereign right.

The South Africans and other members of the Non-Aligned Movement say the IAEA's investigation is relevant and insisted that the council hold the vote until it has the IAEA report.

South Africa, Indonesia and Libya have also said they had serious reservations about the earlier draft and it was unclear if the new draft would satisfy their objections.

South Africa had objected to a section urging states to inspect suspicious cargo to and from Iran transported by the firms Iran Air Cargo and Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line. This section is unchanged from the earlier draft.

NZPA

[OMEN]

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern told an anti-corruption tribunal that a 5000 pound ($NZ12,000) cheque he paid into his bank account while finance minister in 1994 was "a political donation for my personal use".

Giving evidence at the start of his third, two-day session in the witness box since September, Ahern said he could not remember who had given him the money but that he was sure it was not intended as a donation to his Fianna Fail party.

"I would only do that if they said 'that money is for you, it's for Bertie Ahern, it's for your use'," Ahern said when asked why the money had been paid into his savings account.

Ahern, who has admitted receiving tens of thousands of pounds from friends, businessmen and family in the early 1990s, is being questioned as part of a wider decade-long investigation into relationships between politicians and property developers.

He has denied any wrongdoing, describing his finances as complex but not improper following the breakdown of his marriage. He won a third successive term last year despite an election campaign dominated by revelations about the payments.

Ahern said he believed he knew which company the cheque for 5000 Irish pounds, then worth about 5000 pounds sterling, had come from but that the firm had been unable to confirm it.

Asked to explain how a political donation could be construed as being for personal use, Ahern said that in the course of his regular political work he often incurred big personal expenses.

"I could spend four or five hundred euros in any weekend around the country in draws (raffles)," Ahern said.

"I have to use my own personal money to do that. Every politician does."

Lawyers for Ahern criticised the intrusive nature of the inquiry on Thursday and said it was straying from the point when Ahern was asked whether a further 7000 pounds he received from his own mother was originally from his father's estate.

"I didn't ask my mother how she got it. . . and I can't ask her now," Ahern said of his mother, who died in 1998.

Ahern has attacked the tribunal which he says is now delving into every area of his finances having failed to prove initial allegations that he accepted money from a property developer in return for favours.

The inquiry has not produced a "smoking gun" that might curtail Ahern's career after over a decade in office but his appearances before it have overshadowed his third term in a process local media have dubbed "death by a thousand cuts".

Reuters

[OMEN]

Forklift truck driver Steve Wright was found guilty of murdering five prostitutes during one of the most intensive killing sprees in British criminal history.
Wright, 49, had asphyxiated the five drug-addicted women, leaving two of their bodies in a cruciform position with arms outstretched.

The corpses were found dumped at rural locations around the town of Ipswich within the space of just 10 days.

He will be sentenced at Ipswich Crown Court on Friday.

The families of two of the women called for the return of the death penalty. Speaking through a police liaison officer, one of them said: "these crimes deserve the ultimate punishment, and that can only mean one thing.

"The public must insist this government looks at returning the death penalty in cases such as this otherwise many more families will go through the same suffering that we have had to endure."

The 2006 killings led to one of the country's biggest ever manhunts and drew comparisons with infamous 19th century serial killer Jack the Ripper.

Wright, labelled the "Suffolk Strangler" by the media, had murdered the women while his 63 year-old partner Pamela was working night shifts.

On Thursday, after two days of deliberations, the jury at the court found Wright guilty of murdering Gemma Adams, 25, Tania Nicol, 19, Anneli Alderton, 24, Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29.

Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull of Suffolk Police later said the "appalling crimes left a community, a county and a nation in a state of profound shock".

"They left Suffolk Constabulary facing the most daunting challenge in its history."

The Crown Prosecution Service in Suffolk described the prosecution of Wright as one of the biggest cases it had handled, but said scientific evidence had proved he was responsible.

Prosecutors during the trial had said Wright could have killed his victims with an accomplice, although no one else has been charged.

The court had heard that in the three months before his December 19, 2006 arrest, Wright, the son of an RAF policeman, had sex with a dozen prostitutes, including the five he killed. His DNA was found on the bodies of three of the victims while bloodstains from two of the women were found on his jacket at his home.

The odds of the DNA matches occurring by chance were one in a billion, experts testified.

The pattern of the killings was similar to those of his partner's night shifts.

In one fortnight period when she was not working nights, prosecutors said the "prostitutes of Ipswich were not subjected to any campaign by a random psychopath".

Police said after the case they were not aware of any evidence to link Wright with any other crimes.

Reuters

[OMEN]

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BURNING RAGE: Protesters gathered in front of the Serbian government building light torches during a mass protest rally against Kosovo's declaration of independence in Belgrade.
LATEST: The United States is outraged by the attack on the US embassy in Belgrade and will ask the UN Security Council to condemn it, US Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad said.

"I'm outraged by the mob attack against the US embassy in Belgrade," he told reporters ahead of a previously scheduled Security Council meeting.

"I'm going to go in to the Security Council and ask for a unanimous statement to be issued expressing the council's outrage, condemning the attack and also reminding the Serb government of its responsibility to protect diplomatic facilities."

Smoke billowed from the embassy after protesters broke into the building, cheered on by crowds outside, in a protest at US support for Kosovo's independence.

The embassy was closed at the time and was not being protected by police. Black smoke could be seen after a small group of protesters started a fire in the US mission, located in the centre of the Serbian capital.

Up to 200,000 Serbs had massed in Belgrade to protest against Kosovo's secession, refusing to accept the loss of their religious heartland.

"As long as we live, Kosovo is Serbia," Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica told the crowd from a stage in front of the old Yugoslav parliament building in Belgrade, to applause.

"We'll never give up Kosovo, never!" protesters chanted back, as they waved national flags. A huge banner reading "Kosovo is Serbia" draped the front of the building.

"We're not alone in our fight. President Putin is with us," Kostunica said, paying tribute to the Russian leader who has opposed US and European states' recognition of Kosovo.

A few people waved the flags of Russia and of Spain – which has also refused to recognise Pristina's secession on Sunday.

Police estimated 150,000 people packed the square, with columns of at least 10,000 more demonstrators filling up nearby boulevards. Eye witnesses reported big crowds elsewhere in the city.

The "people's rally" was Serbia's biggest since protesters filled the streets in 1999 to protest at Nato bombing and then in October 2000, when they stormed the same parliament building to oust nationalist autocrat Slobodan Milosevic.

In the crowds were many hardline nationalist Radicals, from Serbia's biggest party, who shouted anti-Albanian slogans.

"Today Kosovo is in all our hearts," their leader Tomislav Nikolic told the rally.

Serbs of all ages listened to speeches, melancholic patriotic songs and poems about Kosovo, seen as the birthplace of a glorious medieval kingdom but now home to an Albanian majority.

A certain lack of passion in sections of the crowd appeared to support comments by Western analysts and some ordinary people here that most Serbs were bitter at, but resigned to, the loss of Kosovo, and tired of long years of conflict with neighbouring states.

"The politicians are trying to take advantage of the situation. This is not what people wanted. Not these empty words," said one protester, Dejan Pavlovic.

A few score protesters, some in balaclavas, later threw flares and stones at the US embassy and tore at boards covering its windows since they were smashed in riots earlier in the week.

In other protests, several hundred Serb army veterans at a border post between Kosovo and Serbia stoned Kosovo riot police who, backed by Czech troops in riot gear, stood their ground until the protesters dispersed. No one was hurt.

Nato peacekeepers said they were determined to stop a repeat of Tuesday's destruction of two other border posts by Serbs.

In Banja Luka in the Bosnian Serb Republic, several people were injured when protesters holding aloft portraits of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Serbia's chief ally in its opposition to Kosovo, clashed with police in front of the US consulate.

Serbs from across Serbia and from Kosovo had poured into Belgrade earlier on hundreds of free buses and trains. Schoolchildren were given the day off.

After the speeches, marchers began to head to the city's biggest Orthodox cathedral for prayers for the salvation of Serbs in Kosovo.

Some 120,000 Serbs live there among 2 million Albanians, half in the north next to Serbia, the rest in southern enclaves. Belgrade wants them to stay, to keep alive its claim on the region.

Serbia has protested at Kosovo's secession in world forums and recalled envoys from Washington and European states recognising Kosovo, most recently from Italy on Thursday.

There is little else it can really do, though Russia will ensure Kosovo never gets a UN seat.

The government has said it will not resort to violence to try to regain the province it lost to UN control when a Nato air war forced its troops out in 1999.

Reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

Republican White House hopeful John McCain has rejected a newspaper report that suggested he had an inappropriate relationship with a female lobbyist.

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Mr McCain said the New York Times's claim that close ties to the lobbyist had led him to favour her clients were false and she was "a friend".

Speaking in Ohio with wife Cindy by his side, he said: "I'm very disappointed in the article. It's not true."

The claims date from early in his failed presidential campaign in 2000.

According to the New York Times, his close ties with the telecommunications lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, caused concern among his aides.

She accompanied him to fundraising events, visited his offices and travelled with him on a client's corporate jet, the paper said, leading aides to believe a romantic relationship had formed.

Quoting an anonymous source, the article claimed that Mr McCain's advisers instructed staff members to block the woman's access, "privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him".

Public trust

The Washington Post, in a follow-up article, quoted former McCain campaign aide John Weaver as saying that he had urged Ms Iseman to stay away from Mr McCain.

Mr McCain and Ms Iseman have denied ever having a romantic relationship. Mr McCain said he was unaware of having had any conversation with Mr Weaver on the subject.

Speaking at a hastily arranged news conference in Toledo, Ohio, Mr McCain said he had done nothing that would conflict with his ethical standards.

"At no time have I ever done anything that would betray the public trust or make a decision which would in any way not be in the public interest and would favour anyone and any organisation," he said.

He said he would continue to focus his election campaign "on the big issues and on the challenges that face this country".

Chance to respond

Mrs McCain also said she was "very disappointed" in the New York Times.

"More importantly, my children not only trust my husband, but know that he would never do anything to not only disappoint our family, but more importantly, the people of America," she said.

Campaign manager Rick Davis, speaking on US television network CBS, criticised the article as "the worst kind of tabloid journalism on the front page of the New York Times".

A few hours later, in an e-mail to McCain supporters, he urged them to donate to the campaign, saying: "We need your help to counteract the liberal establishment and fight back against the New York Times."

In a written statement, New York Times executive editor Bill Keller defended the story's content, adding that it had been "a long time in the works".

"On the substance, we think this story speaks for itself," he wrote. "On the timing, our policy is we publish stories when they are ready.

"'Ready means the facts have been nailed down to our satisfaction, the subjects have all been given a full and fair chance to respond, and the reporting has been written up with all the proper context and caveats."

To support its allegations that Mr McCain may have acted inappropriately, the New York Times cites letters he wrote and legislation he promoted while on the Senate Commerce Committee that might have benefited companies Ms Iseman represented.

'Honourable man'

Mr McCain is campaigning in Ohio ahead of presidential primary contests there and in Texas on 4 March.

He is the front-runner for the Republican nomination to run for president, with a substantial lead in terms of delegates over his closest rival, Mike Huckabee.

Speaking in Houston, Texas, Mr Huckabee said he accepted Mr McCain's response to the allegations and called him "a good, decent, honourable man" and someone of integrity.

"I take him at his word. For me to get into it is completely immaterial," he said.

Several high-profile conservative commentators - who have been better-known for their criticism of Mr McCain's record - also rallied to his defence.

Among them were talk radio hosts Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh, who said: "The story is not the story. The story is the drive-by media turning on its favourite maverick and trying to take him out."

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

The US defence secretary has said that the shooting down of a disabled spy satellite with a missile shows the country's missile defence system works.

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Robert Gates said the operation "speaks for itself", adding the US was prepared to share some technology with China.

The comments came after China said the missile strike could harm security in outer space.

US officials are confident that the satellite's potentially toxic fuel tank was destroyed by the missile.

Marine Gen James Cartwright said there was a 80-90% chance the tank had been hit.

A fire ball, vapour cloud and spectral analysis indicating the presence of hydrazine all indicated this, he told reporters.

Graphic of how the satellite was hit

It would take 24-48 hours for officials to confirm whether the operations had been completely successful, he said.

'Complete transparency'

The satellite, USA 193, was struck 153 nautical miles (283 km) above earth by an SM-3 missile fired from a warship in waters west of Hawaii.

New space race fears

Mr Gates said the issue of whether the technology would work was already decided.

"I think the question over whether this capability works has been settled," he said, quoted by AFP news agency.

"The question is what kind of threat, how large a threat, how sophisticated a threat [the US faces]."

The US approach was one of "complete transparency", he said.

"We provided a lot of information... before it took place," he said, adding: "We are prepared to share whatever appropriately we can."

China called on the US on Thursday to provide more information about the mission.

Russia suspects the operation was a cover to test anti-satellite technology under the US missile defence programme.

Frozen solid

Operatives had only a 10-second window to hit the satellite, which went out of control shortly after it was launched in December 2006.

The missile needed to pierce the bus-sized satellite's fuel tank, containing more than 450kg (1,000lbs) of toxic hydrazine, which was otherwise expected to survive re-entry.

The US denies the operation was a response to an anti-satellite test carried out by China last year, which prompted fears of a space arms race.

US officials had said that without an attempt to destroy the fuel tank, and with the satellite's thermal control system gone, the fuel would have been frozen solid, allowing the tank to resist the heat of re-entry.

If the tank were to have landed intact, it could have leaked toxic gas over a wide area - harming or killing humans if inhaled, officials had warned.

The US has denied that it shot down the satellite to prevent parts of it from falling into the hands of foreign powers.

Gen Cartwright said most of the satellite's intelligence value was likely to have been destroyed.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Negotiators for the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army rebel movement have walked out of peace talks with the Ugandan government in south Sudan.

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Talks broke down after the government refused the rebels' demands for cash and positions in government as a condition for disarming.

The government has given the LRA until 28 February to end the war.

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

"We flatly rejected LRA's demands for cabinet posts and cash rewards," government spokesman Captain Chris Magezi told Reuters on Thursday.

"When they saw they were not getting anything out of their tall orders, they walked out of the talks this evening."

LRA negotiator James Obita said the rebel delegates were "extremely angered", AFP reports.

"The government does not want to talk about the issue of inclusiveness and participation of the LRA in the national politics yet," Mr Obita told the news agency by telephone from Juba.

Earlier this week a government spokesman said he expected a deal "soon", after an agreement on a special court to try war crimes cases removed one of the previous obstacles to a settlement.

Three LRA leaders are wanted by the International Criminal Court.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks.

[OMEN]

A Venezuelan passenger plane with 46 people aboard went missing and likely crashed in a remote mountain region soon after taking off from an Andean city, authorities said.

Mountain villagers reported hearing a huge noise they thought could be a crash after the twin-engine plane flew out of the high-altitude city of Merida headed for the capital Caracas roughly 500km away, Civil Defence official Gerardo Rojas said.

"We have information of a possible finding," said National Civil Defence chief Antonio Rivero, although he added the plane was still officially listed as missing.

"We do not know what condition the passengers are in," he said.

Operated by local airline Santa Barbara, flight 518 had been out of contact with air traffic controllers for hours by late Thursday and search teams were heading to the rugged mountain region where the plane was thought to have come down.

Advance rescue teams travelled toward the Paramo Mifafi valley, a chilly area in a region of some snow-capped peaks of up to 4000m that is home to condors and hiking routes that make it popular with backpacker tourists.

Weather conditions and visibility were described as optimum at the time of take off by one air rescue official. He said teams would search by foot until first light, when two helicopters would be dispatched.

Venezuela's civil aviation authority said the plane was carrying 43 passengers and three crew members. The passenger list included a well-known Venezuelan political analyst and relatives of a senior government official, authorities said.

Family members who had waited for their loved ones to arrive in Caracas received help from state psychologists to deal with anxiety.

Reuters - Friday, 22 February 2008

[OMEN]

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BURNING RAGE: Protesters gathered in front of the Serbian government building light torches during a mass protest rally against Kosovo's declaration of independence in Belgrade.
Serb rioters enraged by Kosovo's secession stormed the US embassy in Belgrade and set it on fire, leaving one person dead and drawing swift condemnation from Washington and the UN Security Council.

The US State Department said the lack of protection for its mission – riot police were nowhere to be seen when the attack began – was intolerable and demanded the Security Council respond.

"The members of the Security Council condemn in the strongest terms the mob attacks against embassies in Belgrade, which have resulted in damage to embassy premises and have endangered diplomatic personnel," the Security Council said in a unanimous statement.

Embarrassed, Serbia said it regretted what it called acts of isolated vandals who did not represent a nation which, while bitter at Kosovo's declaration of independence on Sunday, did not want further violence.

"The acts that were committed are absolutely unacceptable, absolutely regrettable," Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said in an interview. "They hurt Serbia's image abroad."

Germany, Croatia and Britain also said their missions were vandalised. Local media added Bosnia's and Turkey's to the list.

Some 200,000 people attended the state-backed rally. Jeremic said police were overwhelmed by what was Serbia's biggest march since protesters stormed the old Yugoslav parliament building in 2000 to oust nationalist leader Slobodan Milosevic.

But just a few score rioters – many wearing balaclavas – attacked the US embassy for the second time in a week, forcing their way in while police were nowhere to be seen.

One man climbed up and ripped the Stars and Stripes off its pole. Other people jumped up and down on the balcony, holding up a Serbian flag as the crowd below of about 1000 people cheered them on, shouting "Serbia, Serbia".

Smoke billowed out of the embassy. Papers and chairs were thrown out of the windows, with doors wedged in the window frames and burning. American officials said only security personnel were at the embassy at the time, in a different area.

Riot police arrived later and fired teargas to disperse the crowds. A charred body was later found inside, probably of a protester; the embassy said its US staff were accounted for and Marines protecting it had not engaged in any fighting.

Hospital officials said around 150 people were injured in street clashes, including 30 police and some journalists.

At the United Nations, the statement by the 15-nation council recalled the inviolability of diplomatic missions but welcomed steps by Serbian authorities to restore order.

The council has been a battleground over Kosovo, with Russia refusing to accept Western moves to legitimise the mainly Albanian region's independence after nine years as a UN ward.

Serbia considers Kosovo its historic heartland and waged a diplomatic campaign against its secession on Sunday.

"As long as we live, Kosovo is Serbia," Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica had told the state rally, where Serbs of all ages listened to speeches and melancholic patriotic songs about Kosovo, seen as the birthplace of a proud medieval kingdom.

Washington said Kostunica later pledged there would be no repeat of the attacks, but an analyst said tension would remain.

Reuters - Friday, 22 February 2008

[OMEN]

An earthquake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale struck off the west coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island on Friday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, the meteorology agency said.

The epicentre of the quake lay at a depth of 27km about 194km southwest of Bengkulu province, the meteorology and geophysics agency said.

A local Padang resident said the tremors were felt strongly and people rushed out of their homes in panic.

The United States Geological Survey put the quake at a magnitude of 6.1

Indonesia suffers from frequent earthquakes as it lies in the so called "Pacific Ring of Fire", an area of intense seismic activity where a number of tectonic plates collide.

On Wednesday, a strong quake struck off Aceh province in northern Sumatra, killing at least three people and damaging buildings on the nearby island of Simeulue.

NZPA - Friday, 22 February 2008

[OMEN]

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TOUGH TALK: Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has come out fighting, calling former Finance Minister turned presidential rival Simba Makoni a prostitute ahead of next month's general elections
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe derided a former ally now challenging him in general elections as a prostitute, and said he would win next month's polls by a landslide and humble the opposition.

Former Finance Minister Simba Makoni was expelled from Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF last week after registering to run as an independent in March 29 presidential, parliamentary and council elections.

"What has happened now is absolutely disgraceful. I didn't think that Makoni, after all this experience, would behave like this," Mugabe said in an interview broadcast on state television late on Thursday to mark his 84th birthday.

"I compared him to a prostitute. A prostitute could have done better than Makoni, because she has clients. Don't you think so?" said Mugabe.

In his hour-long interview, a relaxed-looking Mugabe also suggested some party officials had lacked the courage to openly express their views within the party.

The remarks were the veteran leader's first public comment on the break with Makoni, a reform-minded technocrat who has long been touted as a possible successor to Mugabe.

Makoni says he is backed by top officials in the ruling party and analysts say he could pose a strong challenge to Mugabe.

On becoming finance minister in 2000, Makoni pledged tighter fiscal discipline to restore relations with donors and he has suggested engaging with Western powers to ease Zimbabwe's economic hardship.

Mugabe has ruled the southern African country since independence from Britain in 1980 but critics say his economic mismanagement, and contested policies such as seizures of white-owned farms, have ruined the economy.

Annual inflation has surged to over 100,000 per cent, the official statistics office said on Wednesday, but Mugabe says the economy has been sabotaged by Western sanctions imposed to punish his land reforms.

The president, who denies opposition charges of rigging past elections, also said he would continue with his anti-British message during the election campaign until London ended what he said were plots for regime change in Zimbabwe.

Mugabe accused the West of funding the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in an effort to topple him and predicted a resounding defeat of the MDC.

He said there would be none of the post-election violence witnessed in Kenya after disputed December general elections there, because there were no ethnic tensions in Zimbabwe.

The government would continue to pursue its programme to transfer majority ownership in mines to locals and focus on full economic recovery after the polls, Mugabe added.

Reuters - Friday, 22 February 2008

Iam sure that Simba Makoni would rather be classed as a prostitute instead of a crazy Homicidal,Thieving,Murdering Bastard that will do anything to hold on to power and is responsible almost single handidly for Zimbabwe's decline from one of the most prosperous countries in Africa to the Third World State that it has become now....

[OMEN]

Turkish ground troops crossed into northern Iraq in their hunt for Kurdish PKK rebels, the military said on Friday, describing the start of a campaign one report said could last 15 days.

The White House said the United States had been informed in advance of Turkey's offensive and called on Ankara to limit the operation to "precise targeting" of the PKK rebels who have been using northern Iraq as a base to stage attacks in Turkey.

Iraq's government urged Turkey to respect its sovereignty and avoid any military action which would threaten security and stability.

"We do not expect these operations will expand because they are against the Iraqi and Turkish desire to have good relations," spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Reuters in Baghdad.

The European Union repeated its call for Turkey, which is seeking EU membership, to avoid "disproportionate" action.

Turkish television said troops, backed by warplanes and Cobra attack helicopters, had moved 25 km (16 miles) inside Iraq.

Turkish TV said 3000 to 10,000 soldiers had entered Iraq, but several Iraqi officials and a senior military official with US-led coalition forces in Baghdad tried to play down the operation, saying only a few hundred troops were involved.

"The Turkish Armed Forces, which attach great importance to Iraq's territorial integrity and stability, will return home in the shortest time possible after its goals have been achieved," the General Staff said in a statement posted on its website.

The General Staff did not specify the size of the operation, but released photographs of armed troops in white fatigues walking through snowy, mountainous Iraqi terrain.

A senior military source in southeast Turkey told Reuters: "Thousands of troops have crossed the border and thousands more are waiting at the border to join them if necessary."

CNN Turk television, citing unnamed security sources, said the operation would last 15 days.

Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people since it began an armed struggle for a Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984. Washington and the EU, like Turkey, classify the PKK as a terrorist organization.

Turkey appeared to be seeking to deal the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) a crushing blow before weather conditions improve, which would allow rebels to cross back into Turkish territory.

A PKK spokesman said rebels had clashed with the troops.

"There are severe clashes. Two Turkish soldiers have been killed and eight wounded. There are no PKK casualties," Ahmed Danees, head of foreign relations for the PKK, told Reuters by satellite phone from an undisclosed location in northern Iraq.

It was not possible to independently verify his statement.

Iraq's foreign minister played down the operation.

"There has not been any major incursion or land invasion. ... What is going on is around a few hundred Turkish forces have crossed the border looking for the PKK or their bases," Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters by telephone.

A senior military officer with US-led coalition forces based in Baghdad made a similar estimate of the number of troops involved. "A few hundred, at most," the source said.

Turkish financial markets weakened slightly on news of the operation.

NATO member Turkey says it has the right under international law to hit PKK rebels who shelter in northern Iraq and have mounted attacks inside Turkey that have killed scores of troops. Turkey says some 3000 PKK rebels are based in Iraq.

"I sincerely believe that this operation will contribute to Iraq's stability and peace in the region," Turkish President Abdullah Gul said in a statement.

The EU and the United States have in the past raised concerns that a major offensive could destabilize the region, though they have not criticized recent small cross-border raids.

"We understand the concerns of Turkey ... but we think this action is not the best response," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told a news conference in Slovenia.

The central Baghdad government, which has little sway over mainly Kurdish northern Iraq, has repeatedly called for a diplomatic solution.

"We urged them (Turkey) to work directly also with the Iraqis, including Kurdish government officials, in determining how best to address the threat of the PKK," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel told reporters.

"I understand that Turkish authorities had notified Iraqi authorities simultaneously (about the operation)," he said.

Turkey launched several major land offensives in the 1990s into northern Iraq against the separatist movement.

"Militarily, even 50,000 troops in the 1990s were not able to destroy the PKK, but psychologically this operation could be quite effective. It has taken the PKK by surprise," said Gareth Jenkins, an Istanbul-based expert on Turkish security issues.

Reuters - Saturday, 23 February 2008

[OMEN]

A Venezuelan passenger plane slammed into the sheer face of an Andean mountainside shortly after takeoff from this tourist city and all 46 people on board were killed, officials said on Friday.

Rescuers rappelled from helicopters to search for remains in the shattered wreckage lodged 4000m above sea level. Only the tail of the Santa Barbara airline plane could be seen from the air.

"This plane was found completely wrecked, smashed against the face of one of the mountains," civil defence chief Antonio Rivero said. "Unfortunately everyone aboard died."

The twin-engine plane crashed 10km from the mountain tourist city of Merida after taking off for the capital Caracas on Thursday before dusk in a notoriously difficult region to navigate.

Authorities said they did not know what caused the plane to crash among mountain peaks that are often covered in snow and known for its condors and adventure hiking trails.

In Thursday's crash, the weather was good, the roughly 20-year-old plane had a solid maintenance record and no history of technical problems. The pilot was experienced and had specialised training for flying through the Andes.

There was no evidence the pilot made distress calls before crashing with 43 passengers and a crew of three aboard.

A well-known Venezuelan political analyst, a local mayor, relatives of a senior government official and an American woman working at the Venezuelan arm of financial services company Stanford Financial Group died in the crash, authorities said.

The passenger list also included an 11-year-old boy.

Olivia Gil, a relative of a woman on board, fought back tears behind wide sunglasses but kept up hope for a miracle.

"They have given us the news that there's nothing there, that there are no survivors but now rescuers are going in to look," she said, adding with a shrug, "We just don't know."

Freddy Belisario, an insurance company worker, considered himself a survivor. He had been scheduled to take the flight but moved up his trip by a few hours "on an impulse."

"It's a day when I was not on the list (to die). My time was not due," he told Reuters, adding he would not be flying for a while because "I don't want to push my luck."

Family members who had waited for the passengers to arrive in Caracas received help from psychologists to deal with anxiety. They were set to fly near to the crash site.

Pilots need special training to fly from Merida's airport because the city is so tightly hemmed in by mountains that planes must make steep ascents at takeoff.

Visibility at dusk becomes so difficult planes are only allowed to take off during daylight. The plane involved in Thursday's incident was the day's last flight out.

Santa Barbara is a small airline that covers domestic routes and has seven Merida flights a day. The plane was an ATR 42-300, a turboprop built by French-Italian company ATR.

The ATR 42 series has been involved in at least 17 accidents since first flying in 1984, according to the Aviation Safety Network, a private air safety monitoring agency.

The French Bureau of Investigation and ATR team of specialists were going to Venezuela to assist the Venezuelan Investigation Authorities, the plane's manufacturers said.

ATR is a joint venture between EADS and Finmeccanica.

Thursday's was the second major air accident in Venezuela this year. Last month, 14 people, including eight Italians and one Swiss passenger, died when a plane crashed into the sea close to a group of Venezuelan islands.

Reuters - Saturday, 23 February 2008

[OMEN]

Africa's top diplomat has pushed Kenya's feuding parties to reach a speedy deal after the government agreed in principle to create a prime minister's post to help end a deadly post-election crisis.

"The weekend will be crucial. We hope that next week we'll have something which can be agreed," the newly elected chairman of the African Union Commission, Jean Ping, said in Nairobi.

The opposition has demanded a powerful role as executive premier for leader Raila Odinga, who accuses President Mwai Kibaki of rigging the December 27 poll.

Kibaki's team says he won fairly and accuses the opposition of instigating riots and ethnic violence that killed 1000 people, displaced 300,000 and wrecked Kenya's image as a stable business, tourism and transport hub.

The government agreed on Thursday to set up a new post of prime minister. But both sides have yet to thrash out the most contentious issue of how much power it will have.

After a late start to Friday's session of talks, both sides were meeting into the evening at a Nairobi hotel.

Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) has withdrawn an earlier call for Kibaki to resign, but is threatening to resume street protests if its demands are not met.

"If by Wednesday ... no tangible outcome is achieved from the mediation process, party members are hereby called upon to prepare for immediate mass civil disobedience," ODM member of parliament Ababu Namwamba told a news conference.

Despite the ultimatum, chief mediator Kofi Annan said he was beginning to see "light at the end of the tunnel".

The government has predicted a deal in days.

Ping, elected at an AU summit in Ethiopia this month, is the latest in a succession of high-powered visitors who have pushed Kenyan leaders towards common ground.

"I am confident ... things are moving towards a good direction," he said after meeting the opposition and Kibaki.

Pressure has grown on both sides of the political divide to reach a lasting deal to end turmoil that has horrified locals, neighbouring states and world powers alike.

"The most effective way to get these issues solved is for the leaders to feel pressure from their own people," US President George W. Bush said on his way home from an Africa tour where the crisis was on high on the agenda.

"We'll help. We send people over and we'll stay engaged."

Odinga left Kenya on Friday on a private trip to Nigeria, but that was not expected to have a bearing on the talks. He told local radio there he was just visiting friends.

Although the east African nation has been relatively calm for a fortnight, the ODM protests ultimatum has stoked fears of a resumption of the post-election bloodshed.

Earlier demonstrations often descended into looting and tribal attacks, and were met with a tough police response.

The crisis has laid bare issues of land, ethnicity, wealth and power that have plagued Kenya since British colonial rule, and have often been exploited by politicians since then.

Reuters - Saturday, 23 February 2008

[OMEN]

The UN nuclear watchdog says Iran has failed to explain Western intelligence reports showing explosives and missile work linked to the production of atomic bombs and that this is a "serious concern".

But the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also said Iran had increased cooperation with UN inspectors in the past few months.

The United States, which has accused Iran of having a secret programme to build nuclear weapons, said Tehran had failed to meet UN demands and that it would go on pressing for new sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Senior diplomats from Britain, France, Germany, the United States, China and Russia would meet in Washington on Monday to discuss the next steps over Iran's nuclear programme, Western officials said.

The IAEA findings, which also said Iran had failed to clear up all outstanding questions by an agreed February deadline, may be branded negative on balance by big powers and spur the UN Security Council to adopt more sanctions as early as next week.

Iran, which says its nuclear programme is only for power generation to meet the growing demands of its economy, hailed the IAEA's comments as a victory because it said the watchdog had found Tehran was pursuing peaceful activities.

The IAEA said in a report Iran was being more open with UN monitors than before but that Tehran was testing technology that could give it the means to enrich uranium much faster.

In unusually strong wording, the IAEA said Iran had not so far explained documentation pointing to undeclared efforts to "weaponise" nuclear materials by linking uranium processing with explosives and designing of a missile warhead.

"In the last four months, in particular, we have made quite good progress in clarifying the outstanding issues," IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei said in a statement accompanying the report, assembled by senior IAEA inspectors.

"On that score, Iran in the last few months has provided us with visits to many places that enable us to have a clearer picture of Iran4s current programme," said ElBaradei.

"However, that is not in my view sufficient," he said.

ElBaradei said one crucial requirement was for Iran to implement the IAEA's Additional Protocol, which allows snap inspections that could verify that Tehran is not engaged in secret bomb work beyond declared civilian atomic energy sites.

Another issue was Iran's failure so far to address Western intelligence, published for the first time by the report, about coordination between uranium processing, missile warhead design work and high-explosives tests, he said.

"The issue is still critical for us to be able to come to a determination as to the nature of Iran4s nuclear programme."

ElBaradei said Iran should heed UN Security Council demands for a suspension of all uranium enrichment activity as a major step towards easing mistrust.

But he expressed satisfaction UN inspectors had been able to clarify all outstanding past issues about the programme, except for weapon making, in the past few months because Iran had provided credible answers that had been withheld earlier.

"We are disappointed with Iran's continued failure to comply with its UN Security Council obligations and calls by the IAEA to suspend all proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities," said senior US official Kate Starr.

"While we welcome the progress the IAEA has made on some issues, until Iran meets its obligations the international community can have no confidence that Iran's nuclear programme is peaceful," said Starr, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council.

In Tehran, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili told a news conference: "(The IAEA report) is another document which proves the Iranian nation was right about the nature of its nuclear activities.

"This report showed that our activities are peaceful."

Reuters - Saturday, 23 February 2008

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this.

[Black Widow]

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/5004/0221elm3jm0.jpg


By PETER BERNARD, News Channel 8, And RAY REYES, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 21, 2008

A Lithia family says a cuddly, programmable Elmo doll revealed its dark side yesterday after fresh batteries were installed.

Instead of singing songs or reciting the favorite color of its 2-year-old owner, James Bowman, the doll started making death threats, the family says.

With a squeeze of its fuzzy belly, the Sesame Street character now says, in a sing-song voice, "Kill James." "It's not something that really you would think would ever come out of a toy," said Melissa Bowman, James' mother. "But once I heard, I was just kind of distraught."

The Elmo Knows Your Name doll, which connects to a computer to learn certain phases and names, recently ran out of battery power, Bowman said.

About an hour after she put new ones in, "I noticed exactly what it was saying," Bowman said. "And my son was repeating exactly what it was saying."

Bowman said Elmo is James' favorite character. James even has Elmo slippers, but the malfunctioning, death-threat-spouting Elmo Knows Your Name doll is now being kept away from her son, Bowman said.

"This is his absolute favorite toy," she said. "So we've been going through a lot of hassle because he's trying to climb up the counter and up the closets to get it."

Fisher-Price, the toy company that manufactures the dolls, said it will issue the Bowmans a voucher for a replacement doll. The company said it will examine James' model for the source of the problem and check whether other Elmos are experiencing the same malfunction.



tbo.com

[Bad Boy]

lmao... a doll makin death threats... wtf has this world come to? :P

[JohnCenaFan28]

:o That's really weird...

[JohnCenaFan28]

Parts of a child's body have been found by police at a former children's home in Jersey.

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Police believe more bodies may be found at Haut de la Garenne in St Martin, which is at the centre of an inquiry into alleged child abuse.

The remains are thought to date from the early 1980s but the police have not confirmed whether it was a boy or girl.

The investigation involves the abuse of boys and girls aged between 11 and 15, since the 1960s.

Jersey police began investigating allegations of abuse in November last year.

The investigation involves several government institutions and organisations in Jersey, with the Haute de la Garenne home and Jersey Sea Cadets the main focus of the inquiry.

The search of the site began on Tuesday using a sniffer dog and ground radar.

Jersey's Deputy Chief Police Officer, Lenny Harper, who is in charge of the investigation, said detectives "think there is the possibility they may find more remains".

Mr Harper said: "This morning just after 09.30 we discovered what appears to be the partial remains of a child.

"The status of the inquiry obviously has now changed."

He told a news conference: "We're in close touch with more specialist assistance from the UK.

"As I said the status of the inquiry has now changed to a potential major crime inquiry concerning a possible homicide."

'Get in touch'

Former Jersey Health Minister Senator Stuart Syvret urged anyone who was at Haut de la Garenne to come forward.

His concerns last year about alleged child abuse in Jersey institutions led to an independent review of child care services by Jersey's parliament, the States of Jersey.

Mr Syvret told BBC News: "It's essential those with concerns call it, or get in touch with the police.

"Having spoken to people who were at Haut de la Garenne, this discovery is not surprising.

"I am frankly very apprehensive about what else they will find."

Haut de la Garenne started life in 1867 as the Industrial School, for "young people of the lower classes of society and neglected children".

It is now Jersey's Youth Hostel and featured as a police station in the TV series Bergerac.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Prosecutors in Saudi Arabia have begun investigating 57 young men who were arrested on Thursday for flirting with girls at shopping centres in Mecca.

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The men are accused of wearing indecent clothes, playing loud music and dancing in order to attract the attention of girls, the Saudi Gazette reported.

They were arrested following a request of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

The mutaween enforce Saudi Arabia's conservative brand of Islam, Wahhabism.

Earlier in the month, the authorities enforced a ban on the sale of red roses and other symbols used in many countries to mark Valentine's Day.

The ban is partly because of the connection with a "pagan Christian holiday", and also because the festival itself is seen as encouraging relations between the sexes outside marriage, punishable by law in the kingdom.

The Prosecution and Investigation Commission said it had received reports of such "bad" behaviour by 57 young men at a number of shopping centres in the holy city of Mecca, the Saudi Gazette said.

The guardians of some of the men defended their actions, however, saying they would regularly get together at the weekend to have fun without ever violating laws governing the segregation of the sexes, it added.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Iraq's foreign minister has warned that any escalation of Turkey's operation against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq could destabilise the region.

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Hoshyar Zebari said the "limited" raid into a remote, uninhabited area should end "as soon as possible".

And the Kurdish regional leader said a "massive resistance" would be mounted if civilians were attacked.

Both Turkey and the rebels have given conflicting casualty figures. The US and the UN have urged restraint.

Correspondents say the aim is to isolate rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, PKK, and to prevent them using northern Iraq as a launch-pad for attacks on Turkish soil.

More than 30,000 people have been killed since the PKK began fighting for a Kurdish homeland in south-eastern Turkey in 1984.

The US, the EU and Turkey consider the PKK to be a terrorist organisation.

Infrastructure targeted

Turkey said its ground forces had crossed the border to tackle rebels late on Thursday after an air and artillery bombardment.

Ankara says 79 Kurdish rebels and seven Turkish soldiers have been killed in two days of fighting. Rebels said they had killed 22 Turkish soldiers - with "not more than five" PKK soldiers wounded. There is no confirmation.

Reports from Turkey on the size of the assault force have varied from 3,000 to 10,000 soldiers.

Without confirming any figures, PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, however, has said the offensive is limited in scale and troops will return as soon as possible.

Iraq's foreign minister said his government had only had been informed of the Turkish incursion "in the last minute" - and did not approve it.

"This is a limited military incursion into a remote, isolated and uninhabited region," Mr Zebari told BBC.

"But if it goes on, I think it could destabilise the region, because really one mistake could lead to further escalation."

Mr Zebari said despite a Turkish promise to Baghdad that Turkish troops would "avoid targeting the infrastructure", a number of bridges had already been destroyed.

A PKK fighter at a camp inside Iraq, near the Turkish border, in December 2007
PKK fighters are known to use northern Iraq as a base

Kurdish region leader Massoud Barzani said the regional government would not be a part of the conflict between the Turkish government and the PKK fighters.

"But at the same time, we stress that if the Turkish military targets any Kurdish civilian citizens or any civilian structures, then we will order a large-scale resistance," a statement from Mr Barzani's office said.

Turkey has carried out at least one ground incursion, as well as frequent air and artillery strikes, against suspected PKK targets in Iraq since parliament authorised the army to act in October 2007.

But this operation's timing is unusual as the mountainous border area is still covered with heavy snow, the BBC's Sarah Rainsford reports from Istanbul.

Nor have there been any major PKK attacks inside Turkey for some time, she adds.

Washington said it had been informed of the incursion in advance and that it had urged the Turks to limit their action to precise targeting of rebel Kurdish targets.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern about the situation.

"The protection of civilian life on both sides of the border remains the paramount concern," he said.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

The leaders of the divided Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities have voiced optimism that they can make progress towards reunification of the island.

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The Cyprus President-elect, Demetris Christofias, said he had asked the UN to arrange a meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat.

Mr Christofias was speaking just hours after his election victory.

Decades of diplomatic efforts have failed to reunite the communities, who are separated by a UN buffer zone.

Mr Talat congratulated Mr Christofias on his election triumph and said "I believe that it won't be a surprise if we solve the problem by the end of 2008".

Mr Talat also called on Mr Christofias, a left-wing leader, to resume negotiations as soon as possible.

Decades-old division

The Greek and Turkish Cypriots have been divided since 1974, when Turkey sent troops into the north, after a coup by Greek Cypriots who wanted union with Greece.

map

Greek Cypriots rejected a UN peace plan in a referendum in 2004, while Turkish Cypriots accepted it.

The BBC's Tabitha Morgan in Cyprus says significant issues that have scuppered all previous diplomatic initiatives remain to be tackled. These include the Turkish troop presence in the north of the island.

Mr Talat said he did not want a repeat of 2004, when the Greek Cypriots "hid their real agenda until the last minute".

Speaking to Reuters news agency, Mr Christofias said: "I've already contacted the representative of the United Nations in Cyprus... the very first step will be an exploratory meeting with Mr Talat."

Earlier, the European Commission urged Mr Christofias to work towards a deal.

Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso called on him to "grasp this chance and without delay start negotiations" under United Nations auspices.

The island's partition has long stood as an obstacle to Turkey's bid to join the EU, and remains a source of contention between Nato allies Turkey and Greece.

The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is only recognised by Turkey.

Support for talks

Mr Christofias defeated rival right-winger Ioannis Kasoulides in a second round of voting on Sunday.

Mr Kasoulides congratulated his rival and offered to help find a solution to the division of Cyprus.

The two men had emerged neck-and-neck from the first round of the election, which saw the defeat of President Tassos Papadopoulos.

Official figures showed Mr Christofias, who heads the communist Akel party, won 53.36% of the vote to Mr Kasoulides's 46.64% in Sunday's second round.

Mr Christofias is likely to find that any progress on reunification will be slow and difficult, our correspondent says.

Many sensitive issues remain unresolved, including the return of refugees, security and the constitution.

The president-elect has already made an alliance with the party of the defeated Mr Papadopoulos - the man who firmly rejected the last UN plan to solve the Cyprus problem.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

The director of the UN's World Food Programme has said it is considering plans to ration food aid because of rising prices and a shortage of funds.

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Josette Sheeran told the BBC that the WFP needed increased contributions from donors to make sure it could meet the needs of those who already rely on it.

She said it also faced growing demands from countries like Afghanistan, where people were now unable to afford food.

Food prices rose 40% last year because of rising demand and other factors.

Earlier this month, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said the rising price of cereals such as wheat and maize had become a "major global concern".

The FAO estimated poor countries would see their cereal import bill rise by more than a third this year. Africa as a whole is expected to see a 49% increase.

The organisation has called for urgent action to provide farmers in poor countries with improved access to seeds and fertiliser to increase crop production.

'Growing needs'

In an interview with the BBC on Monday, Ms Sheeran said the WFP was holding talks with experts to decide whether food aid would need to be stopped or rationed if new donations did not arrive at the agency in the short term.

The former US undersecretary of state said she hoped the cuts could be avoided, but warned that the agency's budget requirements were rising by several millions of dollars a week because of the higher food prices.

"If food is twice as expensive, we can bring half as much in for the same price and the same contribution," she said.

"It will take increased contributions to make sure we can meet those already assessed needs."

Ms Sheeran said there was an urgent need for the funding shortage to be addressed because "in many places, we are the only source of food for some people".

"We're also seeing some new growing needs in some places like Afghanistan, where people are being thrown into food insecurity just simply due to the higher food prices."

She said those who had been hardest hit so far were people in developing countries who were living on 50 US cents (£0.25) a day, 80-90% of which was already being spent on food.

Wheat
Global wheat prices have risen 83% in the past year

"In some of these developing countries, prices have gone up 80% for staple food," she added. "When you see those kinds of increases, they are simply priced out of the food markets."

Even middle-class, urban people in countries such as Indonesia, Yemen and Mexico were increasingly being priced out of the food market or forced to sacrifice education and healthcare, she warned.

Ms Sheeran said Egypt had just widened its food rationing system after two decades and Pakistan had reintroduced ration cards after many years.

China and Russia were meanwhile imposing price controls, while Argentina and Vietnam were enforcing foreign sales taxes or export bans, she said.

The WFP's ability to mitigate the impact of rising food prices has also been hampered by a significant decrease in the past five years of supplies of "in-kind food aid" - food produced abroad and delivered to vulnerable people in emergencies.

In-kind food aid peaked in 2000, when there were large surpluses and low prices for cereals.

The US, the world's largest donor of food aid, has since reduced its surplus and instead chosen to provide funding to international agencies.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

US Democratic front-runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have traded accusations over a photo of Mr Obama circulating on the internet.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44450000/jpg/_44450729_obama_ap_203b.jpg

The picture, sent to the Drudge Report website, shows Mr Obama wearing traditional African dress during a visit to Kenya in 2006.

The Obama camp said it was circulated by Mrs Clinton's staff as a smear. Mrs Clinton's team denied the accusation.

The row comes as the rivals campaign for two crucial primaries next week.

Analysts say Mrs Clinton needs to win the contests, in Texas and Ohio, to remain in the race to choose the Democratic candidate for November's presidential election.

'Fear-mongering'

The photograph shows Mr Obama - whose father came from Kenya - wearing a white turban and a white robe presented to him by elders in the north-east of the country.

According to the Drudge Report, which published the photograph on Monday, it was circulated by "Clinton staffers".

Some Clinton aides have tried in the past to suggest to Democrats that Barak Obama's background might be off-putting to mainstream voters.

A campaign volunteer was sacked last year after circulating an email suggesting, falsely, that Mr Obama was a Muslim.

But the BBC Justin Webb in Ohio says the photograph - coming at this pivotal moment in the campaign - is being seen by the Obama team as particularly offensive.

His campaign manager, David Plouffe, accused Mrs Clinton's aides of "the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we've seen from either party in this election".

The accusation was dismissed by Mrs Clinton's campaign manager Maggie Williams.

"If Barack Obama's campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed," she said.

"Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely."

Mrs Williams did not address the question of whether staffers circulated the photo.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

The man tipped to become the next Russian president has vowed his country will "stick to" its support for Serbia in opposing Kosovo's independence.

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Deputy PM Dmitry Medvedev was in Belgrade for talks with Serb President Boris Tadic and PM Vojislav Kostunica.

Although its focus is mainly economic, the visit is seen as a sign of support for Serbia's view on Kosovo, the BBC's Bethany Bell in Belgrade says.

Kosovo's declaration of independence sparked protests in Serbia last week.

"We proceed from the assumption that Serbia is a united country, whose jurisdiction covers the whole of its territory, and we shall stick to this principled stand," Mr Medvedev said during his meeting with Mr Kostunica, Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported.

Mr Medvedev's comments, and the timing of his visit, will be seen as evidence that Russia's foreign policy is unlikely to change once serving President Vladimir Putin steps down.

Mr Putin's term in office has seen a marked deterioration in relations with the West, most recently over the issues of Kosovo and Nato's ambitions in former eastern bloc states like Poland and the Czech Republic.

'Flagrant cynicism'

Mr Medvedev is the favourite to take over from Mr Putin after next Sunday's presidential election in Russia.

According to Itar-Tass, he said Kosovo's declaration of independence was "absolutely at variance with international law".

He said he and Mr Kostunica had "made a deal to coordinate together our efforts in order to get out of this complicated situation".

A deal between Russian gas giant Gazprom and Serbian state enterprise Serbiagas on a planned gas pipeline in Serbia was signed during the visit, Russian news agency Interfax reported.

Our correspondent says Russia has emerged as Serbia's strongest ally in the country's opposition to Kosovo's independence.

On Sunday the Russian foreign ministry accused the United States of "flagrant cynicism" in recognising Kosovo's declaration of independence a week ago.

The statement followed a comment by US Assistant Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, who accused Russia of aggravating tensions over the Kosovo issue.

The US and most European countries have supported Kosovo's declaration of independence.

Border posts row

Also on Monday, Belgrade government ministers arrived in Kosovo, where they were scheduled to visit Serbian communities to press their message that Belgrade still regards Kosovo as its own.

There had been suggestions that Mr Samardzic might be denied entry until he apologised for comments seemingly condoning violence.

Mr Samardzic described the burning down of two border posts on 19 February by crowds of Kosovan Serbs as "legitimate" acts.

Two days later, Western embassies were attacked in Belgrade, acts Mr Samardzic blamed on the US for accepting Kosovo's declaration of independence on 17 February.

"The US is the major culprit for all troubles since 17 February," Mr Samardzic told the state news agency Tanjug.

"The root of violence is the violation of international law."

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

The Turkish army says it has killed 41 more Kurdish rebels in the most recent clashes of its incursion in north Iraq.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44449000/jpg/_44449897_helicopter_ap_203b.jpg

Two Turkish troops also died in the fighting that brought the toll of rebels killed to 153 since Thursday, a statement on the army website said.

A Kurdish news agency said that Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels had forced the Turkish army to retreat in some areas.

The Iraqi government has urged Turkey to withdraw its forces.

But a spokesman for the Turkish government spokesman said Turkey had the right to defend itself against attacks launched from northern Iraq and operations would continue for as long as necessary.

The new fighting has prompted the Turkish president to postpone an African trip.

Booby traps

The army targeted about 30 PKK shelters during the fourth day of heavy shelling, destroying weapons and equipment, according to the army website.

Funeral in Cukurca in Hakkari province for Turkish guards killed in clashes 25.02.08
Funerals for Turkish guards have been taking place in border towns

Clashes between ground troops were also continuing.

"Terrorists trying to flee the region under our troops' control suffered heavy losses under fire from close quarters overnight," according to the statement by the Turkish army's general staff.

Retreating rebels had set booby traps under dead bodies and planted mines on escape routes, the military said.

Earlier, the army had released footage of helicopters taking off from an unnamed military base in the south.

It also showed military vehicles transporting soldiers, as well as infrared sensor images of bombing attacks.

It is not clear where or when the footage was recorded, but Iraqi Kurd officials say Turkish forces struck PKK positions about 20km (12 miles) from the border.

The Associated Press news agency reports that the sound of artillery fire could be heard in the border town of Cukurca.

US concern

Seventeen Turkish troops have been killed since the fighting started and funerals attended by military commanders and top politicians have been taking place in border towns.

The Turkish authorities launched the cross-border attack on Thursday night, after accusing the Iraqi government of failing to stop the PKK from using the area as a safe haven.

Washington has called on Turkey to keep its campaign in Iraq - another US ally - as short as possible.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul was due to begin a four-day trip to Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Congo on Tuesday.

A presidential spokesman told AFP news agency that the visit had been postponed because "the president wished to be in Ankara while the operation is still under way".

More than 30,000 people have been killed since the PKK began fighting for a Kurdish homeland in south-eastern Turkey in 1984.

The US, the EU and Turkey regard the PKK as a terrorist organisation.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thieves who dug an underground tunnel to a Milan showroom have stolen several million euros of jewellery.

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Seven men dressed as police came through the cellar wall, tied up staff and made off with some of Damiani's most valuable pieces in minutes.

Before Sunday's real-life Italian Job, they had dug for several weeks from a building under construction next door.

Luckily for the showroom, some of its most valuable pieces were on display at the Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles.

Little trace

Undisturbed, the thieves dug a 3ft (1m) tunnel into the cellar of the jeweller's showroom.

The seven men, unarmed and unmasked, came through the wall as staff above them prepared the jewels for a celebrity Oscars party.

Tilda Swinton wearing her bracelet at the Oscars on Sunday
Tilda Swinton's Oscar bracelet was reportedly supplied by Damiani

The thieves tied the staff up with plastic cable and sticky tape.

They then locked everyone in the bathroom except the manager, who was taken to the safety deposit room and forced to empty the lockers.

It is reported that Damiani had supplied the diamond-studded bracelet worn by British actress Tilda Swinton, who took the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday.

Although some of the showroom's jewellery was gracing the red carpet thousands of miles away, there was nonetheless plenty left in Milan.

The real value of the pieces stolen is not yet known as a list is still being compiled.

But it is thought to be millions of pounds worth of gold earrings, necklaces, bracelets and rings - all of them studded with diamonds.

Police say it was an extremely professional job and are working on a theory the gang may have had some inside knowledge.

The thieves made their escape through the same tunnel and police say very little trace was left.


BBC News

[OMEN]

President Raul Ccastro has started work as Cuba's first new leader in almost half a century with a cadre of old guard allies to help him guarantee continuity in a country eager for a measure of change.

Castro, named president by the communist state's National Assembly on Sunday, faces the task of improving living standards on the island while staying faithful to his brother Fidel Castro's revolution.

The 76-year-old general has run Cuba as acting president since Fidel Castro fell ill in July 2006 and withdrew from public view. Since then, he has raised expectations that reform of Cuba's state-dominated economy was in the pipeline.

But his first step was to appoint a hard-line communist, 77-year-old Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, as Cuba's new deputy leader, passing over Carlos Lage, 56, the official most closely identified with modest market reform of the 1990s.

"Raul has put old guard people in, but they will die at some point, and he will have a problem," said a taxi driver named Manolo, who declined to give his surname.

The US government, which has maintained an economic embargo on Cuba for the last 46 years, again criticized the transition of power between the brothers.

"Certainly, a continuation of the Castro family dictatorship is not what we want to see and isn't something that's in the best interests of the Cuban people," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said in Washington.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, on a week-long visit to Cuba, said he had not pressed Havana to release political prisoners but welcomed the fact that four dissidents were released this month.

"Freeing prisoners is a positive act that helps toward reconciliation and gives signs of hope," he told a news conference.

Once known for supervising executions of the revolution's enemies, Raul Castro promised on Sunday to work on minor reforms on issues that Cubans complained about last year in open meetings he sponsored.

But even moderate changes like making the government more efficient, revaluing the peso and lifting some restrictions will take time to churn their way through the machinery.

Analysts say Raul Castro will move cautiouusly. They urged him to allowmore private enterprise in sectors like fishing and car repairs and warned that if his reforms are only superficial, Cubans will grow increasingly frustrated.

The 81-year-old Fidel Castro, who has dominated life in Cuba since his 1959 revolution, will remain a powerful force behind the scenes. Raul Castro stressed he would stick to socialism and would consult his older brother on major issues.

For some young people, who have known no leader other than the bearded revolutionary, that is not a problem.

"The image the people of Cuba have had for nearly 50 years is Fidel and to suddenly change that is a bit difficult," said sociology student Maidolys, 20, hitching a ride to classes.

In Miami, home to many thousands of Cubans who have fled the island over the years, analysts at a University of Miami conference were pessimistic about an opening up of the system.

"The message is, we are in control, we have the armed forces, we have the apparatus. Have discipline, work, and we'll give you something, we'll throw a bone at you. That is not a transformation of Cuba," said Jaime Suchlicki, director of the university's Cuban studies programme.

But dealing with disaffected youth and satisfying some of its needs were a major dilemma for the old guard, said Brian Latell, a former CIA analyst and author of a book on the Castros.

"I think that the leadership is now more worried than they were about the potential for instability on the island," he said.

Reuters - Tuesday, 26 February 2008

[OMEN]

US troops have detained the news editor of a television station owned by Iraq's most powerful political party and his son, who they accused of attacks on US and Iraqi forces, the US military said on Monday.

Hafodh al-Beshara, news editor and manager of political programming of the al-Furat television station, was arrested during a raid on the channel's offices in Baghdad's central Karrada district late on Saturday night, station officials said.

Al-Furat is owned by the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the biggest Shi'ite party in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government. Its leader is Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq's most influential politicians, who has been courted by Washington and met President George W Bush at the White House in November.

The US military said in an e-mail response to questions from Reuters that Beshara had been detained in the operation to arrest his son, who was identified in an earlier statement as a suspected militia intelligence operative.

"His (Beshara) arrest had nothing to do with his place of employment or his relationship to his son," US military spokesman Major Brad Leighton said.

The US military declined to give the son's full name.

A US military official with knowledge of the operation said Beshara had been detained because an unauthorised belt-fed machine gun had been found in a search of his home.

In the initial statement, the military said Beshara's son was suspected of belonging to the "special groups", military jargon for rogue units of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army that they say receive funding, weapons and training from Iran. Tehran denies the charge.

"The targeted individual reportedly aided in Special Groups criminal militia attacks on Iraqi and (US-led) Coalition forces as an intelligence operative," the statement said.

The son does not work at the TV station.

The manager of Furat television, Abbas al-Essawi, called the arrest of Beshara "provocative".

"The American forces raided our channel on Saturday night. They put all the guards in one room and took away their weapons," he told Reuters.

He said the soldiers had then searched a house behind the station building and arrested Beshara and his son.

"They told us: 'We don't have any problem with him (Beshara). We just want to ask him some questions.'," he said.

The US military has vowed to target any member of Sadr's militia who refuses to observe a ceasefire that the cleric extended on Friday. It has launched a series of operations to kill or capture special groups members in recent months.

Reuters - Tuesday, 26 February 2008

[OMEN]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/images/704697.jpg
OUTRAGE: Stephen Collins and other protesters carry signs representing 50 bullets fired on the first day of the trial of three New York City police officers charged in the shooting of Sean Bell, outside the courthouse in Queens, New York
New York police who killed an unarmed black man with 50 shots on his wedding day were careless and desperate to make an arrest because their vice unit was about to be disbanded, a prosecutor has said.

Two officers went on trial for manslaughter and a third for reckless endangerment in the death of Sean Bell, 23, who was killed in 2006 following a bachelor party at a strip club in a case generating outrage in much of New York's black community.

Civil rights activist Al Sharpton sat next to the fiance, Nicole Paultre, in a gallery packed with friends and relatives of the victim and police sympathetic to the defendants. Protesters outside, many of whom wanted murder charges against the officers, held up signs numbered 1 to 50, chanting each number.

Demonstrators have called the case an example of police brutality toward blacks even though one of the defendants is a black and another is a black Hispanic. The third defendant is white.

The case will be decided by a State Supreme Court judge because the officers waived their right to a jury trial, saying any jury in the borough of Queens would be biased against police due to intense media coverage.

"On the night of the shooting, the officers were told by a superior officer, 'This might be our last night together. Let's make it count,'" assistant district attorney Charles Testagrossa said in opening arguments.

He accused the officers of "carelessness verging on incompetence" and said that once the shooting began they "never paused to reassess."

The Club Enforcement Unit was eager to make a prostitution arrest, which would have shut the club down, Testagrossa said.

Defence lawyers countered that the officers were engaged in dangerous police work and lacked the benefit of hindsight.

Bell and two friends left his bachelor party in the early morning hours of his wedding day on November 25, 2006, and were followed to Bell's car by police who believed one of the men was going to fetch a gun to settle a dispute.

When police pulled their guns on Bell, he drove into one of them and rammed into an unmarked police van.

The Defence lawyer for officer Michael Oliver, who fired 31 times by emptying his gun and reloading, faulted prosecutors for focusing on the number of shots and relying on hindsight.

"The fundamental flaw in the people's case is its fixation on the number of shots," James Cullerton told the judge.

Describing Oliver's mindset at time of the shooting, Cullerton said: "If he stopped, he would be looking down the barrel of a gun."

The lawyer for Gescard Isnora, the undercover detective who fired the first shot and 11 total, urged the judge to strip politics from the hearing and portrayed his client as trying to shut down a "gritty, raunchy strip joint in a working-class community."

Reuters - Tuesday, 26 February 2008

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this.

[whoblehwah]

I heard about this. Sounds kinda messed up, but they never say what the guy did, weird. Honestly though, I hate Al Sharpton. Too him, EVERYTHING is racist. If the guy wasn't black he wouldn't care.

[OMEN]

A pregnant Papua New Guinea woman hanged from a tree after being accused of sorcery gave birth to her baby while struggling to free herself, local media reports.

Nolan Yekum and her husband Paul were dragged from their house and hung from a tree by fellow tribesmen who accused them of sorcery after the couple's neighbour suddenly died.

Their ordeal occurred in Kilip village near Banz in Western Highlands Province, PNG's newspaper The National reported today.

The woman and her newborn baby girl, her third child, were doing well in Mt Hagen Hospital after two weeks in hiding, the report said.

Her husband said men entered their house in the middle of the night with a rope and tied it to their necks, accusing them of sorcery over their neighbour's death.

They were dragged outside and hung from a tree, he said.

"We managed to loosen the noose to get our feet on the ground ... we were able to free ourselves.

"My wife, who was about seven months pregnant, delivered the baby while struggling to free herself.

"It was a painful experience for me and her," Yekum said.

He said he pleaded with fellow villagers to wait for his neighbour's post-mortem and he accused local police of failing to act.

The couple vehemently denied practising sorcery.

AAP

[OMEN]

Prime Minister Helen Clark has launched a fresh attack on the Fijian regime, saying elections due in March next year have been thrown into doubt by continued moves away from democracy.

Clark was reacting to news a Fijian newspaper publisher has been deported for alleged defamation of the Fijian Provisional Government, led by Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama.

Fiji Sun publisher Russell Hunter was taken from his Suva home last night and according to Fiji Broadcasting he was put on an Air Pacific flight for Sydney a short time ago.

His staff believe he has been deported after the newspaper published details of alleged tax evasion by the military appointed Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry.

Bainimarama staged a coup in December 2006, overthrowing Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase. In a separate development last night Qarase was charged in court over alleged corruption charges.

At a press conference in Christchurch today Clark said the latest incidents in Fiji were a disturbing turn of events.

"Democracy of course involves elections but it also involves freedom of media and freedom of speech and you're not going to be able to have a proper democratic process and elections in a years time unless those basic freedoms are upheld."

To deport a newspaper published was "a very serious move," she said.

"It follows on a threat from the police commissioner recently who advised people not to speak out against the government or there would be consequences."

Clark said her Government was communicating publicly to the Bainimarama Government that "it needs to be on a course back to democracy, not further away from it."

"This is not the sort of behaviour we expect of friends in the Pacific - to be deporting people because they spoke out against a Government.

"The normal course if one thinks one has been defamed is to sue - not to deport the person who you allege might have said something against you."

The New Zealand High Commission in Fiji would continue to lobby the Bainimarama Government directly, she said.

"All Fiji's friends internationally will be concerned by what's happened."

Earlier this week, after returning from India, Bainimarama slammed the Fiji Sun for its coverage of Chaudhry.

"We also have the recent case of an opinion columnist in the Fiji Sun masquerading as a regular correspondent's writing front page stories. So blatant has been the Fiji Sun's disregard for ethics that these lead stories have explicit opinions contained within the article.

"These little tricks are getting out of hand and that is the reason why we have called everyone here to explain to you in detail once and for all the truth that continues to be misconstrued and disregarded by most sections of the media."

Last night Qarase appeared in the Suva Magistrate's Court where he was charged with three cases of alleged corruption.

Hunter, an Australian, has lived in Fiji for around 10 years.

This morning's Fiji Sun said two officers who claimed to be from the Immigration department arrived at Hunter's home at around 8pm and told the security guards to open the gate. There was another car following them with about five men inside.

Hunter was at home with wife Martha and daughter Sheonagh. The officers asked to see their passports and Hunter's.

They then asked Mr Hunter to accompany them to their office where they wanted to question him further. They left in the red car with the other vehicle following them.

His whereabouts during the night was a mystery but Fiji media reported a short time ago that Hunter was put on flight FJ911 for Sydney.

Last night Qarase appeared in a special court, charged with three counts of abuse of office and one count of administration of property of a special character or with special duties.

The three charges relate to share purchases in Fijian Holdings Ltd, a large publicly listed company whose shares can only be held by indigenous Fijians.

It is alleged in the charges that Qarase was a director of Fijian Holdings but did not disclose his interests and relationships in another company he allegedly used to buy the shares.

Magistrate Aruna Prasad released Mr Qarase on $2000 bail, with a surety for the same amount and reminded him not to interfere with prosecution witnesses and not to make comments on the media on the matter.

The case will now be heard on March 28.

Two days ago Bainimarama held an angry press conference on his return from India.

"I have called this press conference to clarify a number of misconceptions. Misconceptions that have always been created in the minds of the public by a select few: the usual opportunists and corrupt people.

"I also want to address the fallacies and deliberate misinformation spread by certain sections of the media.

"While I was away the usual power hungry people who have no qualms in dividing the nation for their own political gain took the opportunity once again to incite.

"They did this by making seditious comments that were gladly lapped up by media personnel who have an axe to grind with the Government."

FairfaxMedia

[OMEN]

A Baptist pastor in Papua New Guinea will face court next week charged with raping a 13-year-old village girl who is now pregnant.

Oti Bagiro, 26, from Warezaira village in Morobe Province was charged after allegedly sexually assaulting the girl repeatedly between June and September 2006.

Bagiro allegedly had sex with her on four occasions in church grounds, bushes and a health clinic where she had gone to look after a sick relative.

PNG's newspaper The National reported Bagiro impregnated the girl, who has since given birth, and had each time offered her 20 Kina ($NZ9.20).

Bagiro denies the charges and has been granted bail before appearing in the National Court next Monday.

AAP

[OMEN]

Colombian Marxist rebels plan to free four hostages on Wednesday in the second release deal brokered by Venezuela in as many months despite its simmering dispute with Colombia's government, officials said.

FARC rebels have told the leftist government of President Hugo Chavez where to pick up the four captive lawmakers, Venezuelan Interior Minister Ramon Rodriguez said on Monday.

"We will be ready to set off early on Wednesday," he told a news conference, adding that Venezuela still needs approval from Colombia's conservative government to go ahead with the operation.

The release of the hostages, who have been held for at least five years in jungle camps, would raise hopes that the most high-profile captives, French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans, could also eventually be freed.

The release in January of two women politicians marked the first major breakthrough in years in talks to move toward peace between the FARC - the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - and the government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

But after close initial cooperation, Chavez and Uribe have bickered for weeks over the Venezuelan's mediation.

Rodriguez repeated Venezuelan accusations that the Colombian army was obstructing the release.

"There are intense, powerful, careless (military) operations in the area where the hostages are. I want the hostages' families to know their relatives are in danger," he said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which accompanied Venezuelan officials on the January mission into the neighbouring country to pick up the hostages, said it would press Colombia to allow a new operation.

"We are in contact with both governments and tomorrow the International Committee of the Red Cross will try to obtain the security guarantees from the Colombian government for the operation," a Red Cross spokesman said in Bogota.

Colombia has previously said that in principle it will permit operations for the release of hostages.

But Uribe, who is popular in Colombia for his tough stance against the guerrillas, has so far refused to give concessions to the FARC over the releases. And despite Chavez's progress, he abruptly fired the Venezuelan last year as a mediator accusing him of using the role to meddle in Colombia's internal affairs.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, last month said it would release lawmakers Gloria Polanco de Losada, Luis Eladio Perez and Orlando Beltran, all held for more than six years. They later said they would also free Jorge Gechem, an ailing legislator.

The FARC holds dozens of high-profile hostages that include Betancourt and three American contractors and hope to swap them for jailed rebel fighters.

At the Venezuelan news conference, relatives of the hostages also pressured their government to aid the mission.

"We cannot stop insisting that the government gives the necessary guarantees so that our loved ones can come back safe and sound," Angela Rodriguez, the wife of one of the captives, said.

Reuters

[Black Widow]

he should be beaten

[JohnCenaFan28]

:sick: He should be tortured...:no:

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Wow, that's amazing...Sorcery!?:eek:

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Talks to end post-election violence in Kenya have been suspended, former UN head and mediator Kofi Annan has said.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44452000/jpg/_44452749_wall_ap203b.jpg

Mr Annan said that negotiations had become acrimonious and that the situation had become "very dangerous".

He also said he would speak to President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga to find a way to move forward "much faster".

At least 1,500 people have been killed in ethnic and political violence since the disputed election, police say.

Mr Kibaki claimed victory in the 27 December election, but Mr Odinga said the poll was rigged.

The government and opposition are stalled on securing a power-sharing deal.

The opposition has threatened to stage protests across Kenya from Thursday if no deal is reached.

On Tuesday, the government said it was surprised that the talks had been suspended.

But a senior aide to Mr Annan suggested that government intransigence was to blame, the BBC's Adam Mynott reports from Nairobi.

PM post

"The talks have not broken down," Mr Annan said.

"But I am taking steps to make sure we accelerate the process and give peace to the people as soon as possible.

"The leaders have to assume their responsibilities and become directly engaged in these talks."

Earlier, Mr Annan had appealed to the leaders to help move the negotiations forward.

Both sides had agreed last week to create the post of prime minister, which would be taken by Mr Odinga, leading to hopes of a final deal soon.

However, they still needed to finalise which powers he would have.

The government now says the president should appoint the prime minister, which would not be an executive post.

As well as how to divide powers between a prime minister and a president, the rivals are also split on sharing cabinet positions and the possibility of a new election if the coalition collapses.

US warning

During a trip to China, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticised Kenyan parties for their lack of progress, saying she was disappointed by the "failure of leadership".

Talks on power-sharing have been dragging on for weeks

"The future of our relationship with both sides and their legitimacy hinges on their cooperation to achieve this political solution," she said.

"We will draw our own conclusions about who is responsible for lack of progress and take necessary steps."

Ms Rice visited Kenya last week in an effort to help broker a deal.

In Nairobi, government officials blamed the situation on false reports of deals reached during negotiations.

"We feel we are just being pushed and pushed and this is not fair," said government representative Mutula Kilonzo.

He said that he was confident there would be an agreement, but took issue with the statement issued by Ms Rice.

"This is a Kenyan issue and a Kenyan solution will be the one needed," Mr Kilonzo said.

Justice Minister Martha Karua said the dispute was over whether to entrench a power-sharing agreement in the constitution or just make statutory amendments.

But Musalia Mudavadi of Mr Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement said that from the beginning both parties had agreed that constitutional and legal amendments might be needed.

He said the opposition felt "extremely frustrated" after initially thinking it had made progress.

"We feel it can be done if there is a political will, but we see that lacking," Mr Mudavadi said.

Tanzanian President and African Union head Jakaya Kikwete was expected to arrive in Nairobi on Tuesday to try to salvage the talks.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

The Iraqi government has denounced a Turkish incursion into northern Iraq in some of the strongest terms heard since the operation began last week.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44452000/jpg/_44452454_snow_ap_203body.jpg

In a statement, the Iraqi cabinet expressed its "rejection and condemnation" of the operation.

It called on Ankara to withdraw its troops immediately.

Snow was impeding operations, Turkey's military said, as fighting entered a fifth day and was said to be close to a rebel base in the Zap valley.

The Turkish military says it has killed 153 rebels and lost 19 soldiers since the cross-border attack began on Thursday night.

The rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) say they have killed 81 soldiers. Neither report can be independently verified.

Clashes are also reported to be continuing in the mountainous area of Hakurk.

Ankara accuses the Iraqi government of failing to stop the PKK from using the area as a safe haven.

'Fierce fighting'

The Iraqi cabinet statement, released by spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh, condemned Turkish "military interference", calling it a "violation of Iraq's sovereignty".

Unidentified armed Kurdish men pass a bridge used by the PKK in Iraq, destroyed by a Turkish air attack, on 24 February
Kurdish fighters say they have hit back hard at Turkey's forces

It came hours after the deputy speaker of the Kurdish regional parliament decried the incursion and the response from Baghdad, during an emergency session.

Kamal al-Kirkuki said the Iraqi central government should have been "taking the lead in dealing with this problem", but had "acted weakly" in its response.

Two Turkish soldiers were killed overnight by rebels using "long-distance guns", the Turkish military said, adding that the attackers had been "silenced". Their losses could not be verified because of the bad weather, it added.

PKK fighters have been taking advantage of the bad weather, which is said to be preventing Turkish air support, to attack Turkish positions, Kurdish media inside Iraq report.

"Fierce fighting erupted, inflicting heavy casualties on both sides" in the Nerwe and Rekan areas, according to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan media website.

Other Kurdish reports speak of sustained fighting overnight in the Zap valley, about 6km (four miles) from the border.

The camp is used to store rebel equipment and arms, a senior source in the Turkish military told Reuters news agency.

The source said that should the camp fall, it would be "a big blow to the PKK's morale".

Operation defended

On Monday, thousands of residents in Diyarbakir, the main city in Turkey's mainly Kurdish south-east took to the streets to protest against the operation.

A demonstration against Turkey's offensive in the city of Diyarbakir in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish south-east
Thousands protested in the Turkish city of Diyarbakir on Monday

Residents of some villages near the Turkish-Iraqi border complain they are being targeted in Turkish air strikes and artillery bombardments.

Speaking in parliament, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted that "terrorists", not civilians, were the targets.

Turkey, he added, had "the right to eradicate those who destroy the peace and comfort of its citizens".

Mr Erdogan thanked the US for providing intelligence for its operation.

Washington has not condemned the offensive, but urges Ankara to show restraint and withdraw its forces as soon as possible.

More than 30,000 people have been killed since the PKK began fighting for a Kurdish homeland in south-eastern Turkey in 1984.

The US, the EU and Turkey regard the PKK as a terrorist organisation.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

US presidential candidate Barack Obama has been endorsed by one of his former rivals for the Democratic nomination, Sen Christopher Dodd.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44452000/jpg/_44452879_dodbama_ap_203b.jpg

Mr Dodd said Mr Obama was "ready to be president" and called for party unity.

Mr Dodd, who abandoned his bid last month, is the first Democratic campaign dropout to endorse another candidate.

The move comes as Mr Obama and his main rival, Hillary Clinton, prepare to take part in a new debate ahead of key primaries in Texas and Ohio next week.

Analysts say Mrs Clinton needs to win both contests to remain in the race to choose the Democratic candidate for November's presidential election.

Momentum

Mr Obama has won 11 consecutive primaries and caucuses in recent weeks and is now seen as the Democratic front-runner.

On Tuesday he and Mr Dodd appeared at a joint news conference in Cleveland, Ohio, where the debate will be held.

Hillary Clinton, 25 February 2008
Hillary Clinton's campaign has been faltering
Mr Dodd said Mr Obama had "been poked and prodded, analysed and criticised, called too green, too trusting and for all of that has already won" more than half the states and millions of votes.

"This is the moment for Democrats and independents and others to come together, to get behind this candidacy," Mr Dodd added.

However he denied that he was asking Mrs Clinton to end her candidacy.

The race between the two Democratic front-runners has become increasingly heated in recent days.

Last week, during the first of two debates ahead of the 4 March primaries, Mrs Clinton accused Mr Obama of political plagiarism.

She was referring to her rival's apparent copying of rhetoric used by one of his supporters, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.

Mr Obama dismissed the charge as part of the "silly season".

Experience

On Monday, the two Democratic candidates traded accusations about a photo circulating on the internet showing Mr Obama wearing traditional Somali robes during a visit to Kenya in 2006.

The Drudge Report website said it was circulated by Mrs Clinton's staff but her team denied it had sanctioned its release or that it ridiculed Mr Obama.

Addressing the issue briefly in an interview with a Texas radio station, Mr Obama said: "I think the American people are saddened when they see these kind of politics."

Ahead of Tuesday's crucial debate, Mrs Clinton described Mr Obama as untested and stressed her own experience.

In a speech on Monday she said her rival would need a "foreign policy instruction manual" to keep the country safe if elected.

Several polls suggest Mr Obama is gaining ground in both Texas and Ohio.

According to a CNN poll, the Illinois senator is leading in Texas for the first time, with 50% compared to 46% for Mrs Clinton.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

An Arabic TV channel has aired a video claiming to show one of five Britons captured in Iraq eight months ago.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44453000/jpg/_44453138_hostage_203.jpg

The footage showed a man making an appeal to Prime Minister Gordon Brown to help secure the hostages' freedom.

"My name is Peter Moore, I have been held here for nearly eight months now," the man in the video footage said.

The man asked Mr Brown to free nine Iraqis in exchange for the Britons' release. The Foreign Office has condemned the release of the video.

The video shows the man speaking in English with an Arabic translation played over the top.

The man appealed for the freedom of the Iraqis prisoners - being held by the coalition authorities - in exchange for the Britons who were seized in May 2007.

"All I want is to leave this place. I tell Gordon Brown the matter is simple: release their prisoners so we can go.

"It's as simple as that. It's a simple exchange of people. That is all they want - their people and we can go home," the man said.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) criticised the footage and said: "We condemn the release of videos such as this, which are greatly distressing to the families of those involved. Our thoughts are with them at this difficult time.

"We urge those holding the group to release them immediately. We are in close contact with the Iraqi authorities and doing everything we can to try and secure a swift release."

The FCO said it wanted anyone who could influence the situation to do what they could to ensure the "safety and release of the hostages".

"We again call directly on those holding these men to release them."

See video here ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_7260000/newsid_7265700?redirect=7265782.stm&news=1&bbwm=1&nbram=1&nbwm=1&bbram=1&asb=1)

BBC News

[OMEN]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/images/705153.jpg
TRANS-TASMAN: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd with his New Zealand counterpart Helen Clark in his Parliament House Office today.
New Zealand and Australia have pledged to work together on climate change and in the Pacific after the first official meeting between prime ministers Helen Clark and Kevin Rudd.

After a 2-1/2 hour meeting in Canberra, Mr Rudd said both countries had resolved to "form a new partnership together" and lauded relations as being "as good as it gets".

Mr Rudd pointed to increased cooperation on the international stage in climate change and on aid to the Pacific.

Climate change is one of the key issues on which New Zealand and Australia were divided during former prime minister John Howard's administration.

One of Mr Rudd's first tasks as prime minister was to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions.

He said with Australia and New Zealand both having fully ratified Kyoto, they had "an unprecedented opportunity to work closely, seamlessly, globally" on climate change.

Miss Clark and Mr Rudd met previously but informally in December immediately after the Australian election.

The Dominion Post

[OMEN]

Australia has up to $A23 billion ($NZ26.60 billion) worth of risky defence projects under way and will re-think several costly purchases, including US fighter planes, Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has said.

"This is a list of projects that are under real risk, real risk in terms of capability and real risk for the Australian taxpayer," Fitzgibbon told reporters, brandishing a confidential list of troubled military buys.

Fitzgibbon's centre-left Labour government, which won power in November, may dump several projects including the $A6.5 billion purchase by the former conservative government of 24 Super Hornet fighter planes from Boeing .

"The Super Hornet project is of great concern to us," Fitzgibbon said.

The Super Hornets were intended to filll a six-year gap between the retirement of Vietnam-era strike bombers and the 2016 arrival of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters (JSF), but Labour believes they may not be needed despite JSF delays.

Also under review are a $A1.5 billion fleet of naval Seasprite helicopters, manufactured by Kaman Corp, and the problem-plagued $A1.4 billion upgrade of guided missile frigates by the local division of French defence electronics group Thales .

Fitzgibbon has ordered a review of Australia's military needs, as well as a fresh comparison of fighter aircraft plans amid delays in the $A16 billion purchase of 100 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, built by Lockheed Martin Corp.

"Obviously these projects are commercially very sensitive," Fitzgibbon said, refusing to reveal the contents of the risk assessment file. Fitzgibbon at the weekend asked the United States to sell Australia Lockheed's advanced F-22 Raptor fighter.

Australia, a close US ally, has embarked on a $A61 billion military upgrade, with contracts signed or being negotiated for fighter aircraft, tanks, missile destroyers, aircraft carriers, cruise missiles and both attack and transport helicopters.

Fitzgibbon said reports two aircraft carriers and three advanced air warfare missile destroyers, worth $A11 billion and already ordered from Spanish state-owned shipbuilder Navantia SA and US firm Raytheon, may be dumped were wrong.

"We made a firm commitment to those projects pre-election and we are absolutely committed to them," he said.

The fleet will transform Australia's navy into one of the most capable in the Asia region, with the two amphibious carriers able to land more than 2000 troops, attack helicopters or fighter aircraft and up to 23 Abrams tanks in one go.

Reuters

[OMEN]

A restaurant owner who fatally stabbed an "aggressive" patron who complained about slow service has been sentenced to seven years in prison.

Khanh Vo, 35, grabbed a paring knife from the kitchen of his restaurant in the Melbourne suburb of Abbotsford and stabbed Anh Dung Nguyen, 54, during a fight on April 16, 2006.

Vo, of Ivanhoe, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Mr Nguyen at the Vietnamese restaurant Bon Mua, which Vo ran with his wife.

The Victorian Supreme Court was told today that Mr Nguyen, who had been drinking earlier in the night at Crown Casino, arrived at the restaurant with a group of nine men about 11pm.

Mr Nguyen complained to Vo's wife at about 11.30pm about the slow service, the court was told.

Justice Kevin Bell told the court that witnesses had said Mr Nguyen had been "abrupt and rude" to Vo's wife.

When she told her husband about this exchange, he became upset and a fight erupted between Mr Nguyen's group and Vo's friends, who were also in the restaurant.

During the scuffle, Vo went to the kitchen where he picked up a paring knife before returning to the dining area.

"In the commotion you went to the kitchen and got a short-bladed paring knife," Justice Bell told the court.

"You swung at him (Mr Nguyen) stabbing him three times in the left side of the torso."

Mr Nguyen was transported to The Alfred Hospital where he died the next day from his injuries.

Justice Bell said he took into consideration that Vo had no prior convictions, had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and was remorseful for his actions.

But he said the "impact on the deceased family has been acute".

"You have killed a person without provocation in a most violent manner in the presence of other people in a public place," Justice Bell said.

He took into account that Vo had already spent 682 days in custody, and sentenced him to seven years in jail with a non-parole period of four years.

AAP

[JohnCenaFan28]

Four hostages held by Colombian left-wing Farc rebels have been released, Red Cross officials say.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44455000/jpg/_44455387_4a2e9308-2eb0-41e0-9b92-cbcd6b501db7.jpg

The hostages were handed over to a delegation sent from Venezuela to secure their release, in a deal brokered by President Hugo Chavez.

A Red Cross spokeswoman said they were fit to travel, despite reports that some were in poor health.

The four ex-members of Colombia's congress are among some 40 high-profile hostages held for years by the Farc.

Last month, two women were freed as part of a deal, raising hopes of more hostage releases.

In a statement quoted by local media after the latest release, the Farc thanked Mr Chavez for his efforts.

Firm stance

The hostages are Luis Eladio Perez, Gloria Polanco, Orlando Beltran and Jorge Gechem.

Red Cross Colombia director Barbara Hintermann said they were handed over to Venezuelan and Colombian politicians and Red Cross personnel, who had arrived in the jungle on two helicopters to collect them.

"They are in our hands and they are in a fit state to travel," she said.

Venezuelan government spokesman Jesse Chacon said Mr Chavez had already spoken by phone to the released hostages.

Mr Chacon said he hoped the release "will help us continue advancing on the path to achieving liberations of the remainder and of course towhat we all yearn for: peace in Colombia".

The Venezuelan helicopters, bearing the Red Cross insignia, flew to the undisclosed location from the Venezuelan border town of Santo Domingo.

The hostages are now heading back to Venezuela, where they will be met by their families and Cuban medical personnel.

Ties between Colombia and Venezuela have been strained in recent months.

But last month, Mr Chavez helped broker a deal to free two hostages, Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez, who were picked up by Venezuelan helicopters from Colombian territory and flown on to Caracas to be reunited with their waiting families.

The release will raise hopes that more hostages might be freed, among them French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three US defence contractors.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said it was a "powerful encouragement" in the task of freeing the remaining captives.

Pressure for concessions

The rebels have long wanted to exchange their high-profile hostages for hundreds of jailed guerrillas.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has maintained a firm stance against the Farc, which is regarded as a terrorist group by the US and the European Union.

The BBC's Jeremy McDermott in Medellin, Colombia, says that with the release, the pressure on Mr Uribe to make concessions to the Farc will increase.

But Colombian Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos said on Wednesday that the Farc was using its calls for dialogue to gain political space and discredit the government.

Farc rebels are also thought to be holding several hundred other hostages, many of whom were taken for ransom to help fund rebel operations.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Russia has said that it may support a new set of UN sanctions against Iran if it does not stop work that may lead to the creation of nuclear weapons.

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Western powers suspect Iran of developing weapons, and want it be subjected to sanctions in addition to those imposed in 2006 and 2007.

Correspondents say Russia has until recently been reluctant to impose further sanctions.

Iran denies it has a secret nuclear weapons programme.

Plutonium concerns

Asked by journalists if Russia would support sanctions, Mr Churkin said: "Yes. If Iran in the next few days does not stop the enrichment activities of its heavy water project then yes, Russia... has taken upon itself certain commitments... to support the resolution that has been drafted in the past month.

"Russia is constantly insisting that the [UN] Security Council adopt certain sanctions against Iran," he added.

Heavy water reactors produce plutonium, which can be an alternative route to a nuclear device, the other being highly-enriched uranium.

Last week, the UN nuclear watchdog said Iran was being more transparent, but had not given "credible assurances" that it was not building a bomb.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran had granted access to sites but remained evasive on key issues.

Renewed sanctions?

The UN Security Council imposed two rounds of sanctions in December 2006 and March 2007.

The first prevented the "supply, sale or transfer" of all goods linked to Iran's nuclear work, while the second prevented dealings with the Iranian state bank Sepah and 28 named people and organisations, many connected to the elite Revolutionary Guard. Imports of arms from Iran are banned while loans are supposed to be limited to humanitarian and development purposes.

The third sanctions resolution - formally submitted by France and Britain - calls for asset freezes and mandatory travel bans for specific Iranian officials. It also expands the list of Iranian officials and companies targeted by the sanctions.

Russia's growing ties to Iran's energy industry have made it reluctant to impose more sanctions. Russia is helping to build a nuclear plant in Bushehr, Iran. It has also just finished delivering nuclear fuel to this plant under a $1bn (£501m) contract. Russian gas monopoly Gazprom is also working to develop Iranian gas fields.

Tehran refuses to stop enriching uranium. It says its nuclear work is aimed at generating electricity.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

An Israeli has been killed in a barrage of rockets fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44455000/jpg/_44455034_rocket203ap.jpg

The Hamas militant group says it fired at least 20 rockets, including eight at the town of Sderot, a frequent target.

The rocket fire came hours after an Israeli air strike killed five members of Hamas's military wing as they drove near Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

The Israeli fatality occurred when one of the unguided Hamas rockets hit a college on the outskirts of Sderot.

He is the fifth Israeli killed in attacks by Palestinian militants in the last three months. Since then more than 200 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army, most of them militants.

Israeli media said the rocket exploded in a car park at Sapir College and a student, 30, was hit in the heart by shrapnel.

“I saw the man with his chest gaping open and he was being tended by medics. When another alarm went off there was mass hysteria in the college – people were shouting, screaming, crying," said psychology student Orel David.

A second man received wounds to his legs and was taken away by stretcher.

Hamas officials said the five dead in Khan Younis included a senior engineer who built rockets and commander who led a rocket squad.

It was followed by a second strike on the same site that left three people wounded, medical sources said.

In other violence on Wednesday, a militant from the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad movement was killed overnight in an air strike in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

Two other Palestinians were killed and two wounded in an afternoon air strike in Gaza City, witnesses said.

Gaza's rocket threat

In the West Bank, Israeli undercover forces killed a militant and wounded a bystander in a daylight raid in Nablus, Palestinian sources said.

The violence comes a day after two senior UN envoys told the Security Council that no progress had been made towards an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement since the launch of US-sponsored peace talks.

Israel carries out frequent military action in the coastal strip in an effort to curb near-daily rocket and mortar fire against southern Israel.

It is three months to the day since the US-sponsored Annapolis conference which was meant to restart the peace process between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority.

BBC News

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[OMEN]

Bangkok - Deposed Premier Thaksin Shinawatra may have returned to Thailand on Thursday to a rapturous welcome by supporters, but he still faces a raft of legal challenges launched by the generals who ousted him 17 months ago.

Here are some of Thaksin's most significant legal troubles:

# Thaksin faces charges before the Supreme Court that he used his political office to win his wife a sweetheart deal in the purchase of prime Bangkok real estate in 2003.

He has been granted bail of eight million baht (about R1.8m) and banned from leaving Thailand without permission. The first hearing in the trial is set for March 12.

# The Department of Special Investigations, Thailand's equivalent of the American FBI, has brought separate charges accusing him of making fraudulent filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission when he listed a property firm in 2003.

He was granted bail of one million baht and ordered to appear again on April 3.

# Army-installed investigators are still looking into allegations of wrongdoing in his family's sale of his telecom firm Shin Corp to Singapore's Temasek Holdings.

His family made more than $2bn tax-free off the sale in January 2006, which sparked street protests that eventually led to the coup.

# Nearly a dozen other corruption cases are being examined by army-installed investigators, who could file additional charges against Thaksin, his family, and his political allies.

# Two billion dollars of his assets are frozen pending the outcome of the corruption investigations, money that Thaksin will doubtlessly want to regain.

# A military-appointed tribunal has banned Thaksin and 110 of his allies from politics for five years. The new government has said it would consider granting them an amnesty in two years, but that may not be fast enough for Thaksin's liking.

AFP

[OMEN]

Edinburgh - Authorities sealed off a building in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Wednesday night after finding three packages inside that might contain radioactive material, an official said.

Firefighters and police placed a cordon around the three-story Regent Language Training School at about 19:00, said Jim Fraser, a group manager with the Lothian and Borders Fire and Rescue Service.

The small packages were found in a cupboard as it was being cleaned and warnings printed on them indicated they contained radioactive materials, he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

However, officials did not know what the packages contained and whether it was radioactive, he said.

No people were inside the cordoned-off building, and authorities did not evacuate other buildings in the area, Fraser said.

A radiation expert was called to the scene with the equipment needed to test the packages and find out what they contain, Fraser said.

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[OMEN]

Cape Town - French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in South Africa on Thursday on his first visit to an English-speaking African nation since taking office in May, with talks expected to focus on energy.

Sarkozy was scheduled to kick off his two-day visit in Cape Town, the seat of the nation's parliament, with talks at 11:00 with South African President Thabo Mbeki. He will later address the assembly.

He was due to hold a joint press conference with Mbeki at 12:10.

South Africa's energy crisis is expected to feature high on the agenda, with Mbeki seeking co-operation from his counterpart along with increased French investment in the transport, energy, automotive and aeronautical sectors.

Meeting with Mandela

The chairperson of French nuclear giant Areva, Anne Lauvergeon, is accompanying Sarkozy as the company bids for a contract to build up to 12 power plants in Africa's economic powerhouse, crippled by an electricity shortage.

The plants would be built in partnership with construction conglomerate Bouygues and French electricity giant EDF, alongside South African engineering firm Aveng.

"Sarkozy aims to light up our lives", screams a bold headline in The Star newspaper on Thursday.

South Africa's state power utility Eskom has rationed electricity use across South Africa. As a result of the shortage, diamond, gold and platinum mines were shut for a week last month and thousands of workers are at risk of losing their jobs.

Controlled power blackouts have disrupted everything from manufacturing to traffic lights in what the government has labelled a national emergency.

Mbeki and Sarkozy are expected to sign a raft of energy, science and technology deals, as well as partnerships in tourism and transport security ahead of South Africa's hosting of the 2010 football World Cup.

On the agenda for talks are security issues on the continent, including the ongoing conflict in Chad which Sarkozy visited prior to South Africa.

The two leaders are also expected to discuss reform of the United Nations and the Bretton Woods international financial institutions.

France is South Africa's eighth largest trading partner and an important investor. Bilateral trade reached R25bn last year.

The trade balance remains in France's favour, with South Africa exporting mainly minerals, metals and other commodities while imports from France included machinery, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

Officials in the two delegations were to meet in a joint business forum in Cape Town.

Sarkozy is accompanied by his new wife, singer and model Carla Bruni.

After the business forum at Cape Town, the pair will leave for Johannesburg for a private meeting with former president and anti-apartheid icon 89-year-old Nelson Mandela.

http://www.news24.com/Images/Source_Images/logo_afp.jpg

[OMEN]

A video of white South African university students feeding black campus cleaners soup they had urinated in has caused outrage in a country scarred by decades of apartheid.
University classes were cancelled and staff and students protested on Wednesday, demanding action against the four men.

The video shows one student urinating into a container of soup placed on a toilet seat at the University of the Free State, situated in a conservative Afrikaner farming region.

"This is the final ingredient," he said before heating the soup in a microwave oven and giving it to the elderly cleaners - four women and one man.

They were also taken to a bar where they drank alcohol and danced to Afrikaans music in what was portrayed as an initiation ceremony.

The leaked video - filmed last year - sparked black and white students to demonstrate at the campus, marching to the Reitz men's residence where it was made. One placard read: "Stop This White Arrogancy".

Police used stun grenades to disperse the crowd. Five students were arrested and there were sporadic incidents of intimidation and damage to property, the university said.

"The boers (Afrikaners) lived happily in Reitz until the day that the previously disadvantaged discovered the word integration in a dictionary," said one of the students in the video.

"Reitz was then forced to integrate and we started our own selection process."

The Young Communist League of South Africa said the video reflected that some Afrikaner students at the university still "regard our people as inferior human beings equivalent to pigs."

The video, released by South Africa's eTV, has made big news in the country, where white minority rule ended with multi-racial elections in 1994.

In a front-page story headlined "The aparthate video", The Star newspaper ran a sequence of photos of the footage, which shows the elderly cleaners on their knees gagging into buckets after drinking the contaminated soup.

"They should go to jail, because obviously they don't know what it is to pay for something that you have done," Pamela Sigidi, a student at another university, told Reuters.

"Because all the time that black people have had to suffer, they don't know anything about suffering."

The university said it had instructed its attorneys to file criminal charges against the students.

"This follows other action taken late yesterday to prohibit two of the four students from the Reitz men's residence, from the campus," spokesman Anton Fisher said in a statement.

"The management has also suspended lectures today in a proactive step to allow the emotions of staff and students to calm down. Lectures will resume tomorrow." he added.

Two of the students in the video had completed their studies and are no longer on campus.

Reuters

[OMEN]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/images/705392.jpg
FLY HOME: Helicopters from Venezuela, marked with the International Red Cross logo, take off at an airport in San Jose Del Guaviare. The FARC guerrillas agreed to hand over four Colombian lawmaker hostages to a representative of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in the second such operation brokered by the left-wing leader.
Marxist rebels have freed four Colombian lawmakers held hostage for years in the jungle, in a victory for President Hugo Chavez of neighboring Venezuela who brokered the deal.

Venezuelan helicopters painted with Red Cross logos swooped into the dense jungle to pick up the three men and a woman, all snatched by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, more than six years ago.

The lawmakers said a prayer at the handover to give thanks for their freedom and were fit enough to fly to Venezuela despite reports of illness, Colombia's ambassador in Caracas said.

"We want the relatives to know they are in our hands and safe and sound," said Venezuelan government spokesman Jesse Chacon, adding Chavez spoke to the freed Colombians by telephone.

The release, welcomed from France to the United States, is a diplomatic victory for Chavez, an important regional player who spends time and money in efforts to unite Latin America through socialism but frequently bickers with US-backed Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

A column of about 60 rebels handed over Gloria Polanco, Luis Eladio Perez, Orlando Beltran and Jorge Gechem, who is believed to be suffering severe heart problems, the Venezuelan government said.

"I don't know what I am going to say to him, because it is going to be such a happy moment," Gechem's wife Lucy told local radio. "I always waited for him and I always fought for him."

Chacon said the handover raised hopes for a broader deal to free dozens more hostages, who include French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans whose plight has drawn worldwide attention to the rebels' captives.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has made Betancourt's freedom a policy priority, welcomed Wednesday's release and called for the rapid liberation of all hostages. The United States urged the rebels to free all captives.

The FARC last month released two politicians in a deal also brokered by the leftist Chavez in the first such breakthrough in talks on peace moves for years.

He had spent months in talks with the leaders of Latin America's oldest rebel force, but after close initial cooperation, Chavez and Uribe have argued over his mediation.

Gechem was snatched six years ago when rebels hijacked a commercial aircraft he was traveling on and forced it to land on a secret landing strip before spiriting him away.

Polanco was kidnapped with her two sons, who were later released. Her husband, a prominent politician, was later killed by the FARC in unclear circumstances.

The guerrilla fighters hold hundreds of hostages for ransom and political leverage in their four-decade war with the state. They say they are fighting for social justice and want to swap their captives for fighters held in government jails.

The recent releases have been unilateral and are described by the fighters as a gesture of goodwill to Chavez, whom they see as a sympathetic leader.

International pressure has built recently for a hostage deal with European nations also seeking to free captives.

Grim images of Betancourt in a secret camp last year sparked outrage over the hostages poor health, their faces showing the stress of living for years hidden in the jungle.

The FARC released a statement shortly after the operation reiterating their demand Uribe briefly demilitarize a New York City-sized swath of land for the handover of other captives.

Uribe, whose father was killed in a botched FARC kidnapping, is popular at home for a US backed military offensive that has forced the rebels from large swathes of Colombia. He has offered a smaller area for a prisoner swap.

Reuters

[OMEN]

http://www.foxnews.com/images/347780/1_61_schoolshooting_320.jpg
Feb. 27: A shooting near Carver Middle School.
LOS ANGELES — A gunman fired into a crowd of children and adults at a South Los Angeles bus stop Wednesday, wounding eight, authorities said. Four were in critical condition.

The shooting occurred around 3:15 p.m. at Central and Vernon avenues. Two of the victims ran away and were found wounded outside a nearby middle school, police Officer Sara Faden said.

The gunman ran away after firing the shots, she said.

The critically wounded were a 10-year-old girl, an 11-year-old girl, a 12-year-old girl and a 49-year-old woman, said Fire Department spokeswoman d'Lisa Davies.

A 12-year-old girl, a 14-year-old boy and two men, ages 48 and 68, had minor injuries.

Streets in the area were shut down, with numerous police officers present. Authorities issued various revisions of the incident from the chaotic scene.

Ezequiel Cornejo, 23, a tire mechanic, said he heard about 10 gunshots, probably from a handgun, just after neighborhood schools let out.

"After that I saw a little girl running, she was running back to the school, she was holding her arm," he said.

It was the second major outburst of street violence in the city in a week's span.

Gang-related shootings carried out in broad daylight in the city's northeast area on Feb. 21 led to a gunbattle in which police killed one gunman, wounded another and swarmed a neighborhood with heavily armed officers who captured a third suspect.

Police said the gunbattle involved members of a notorious gang entrenched in that area for decades.

Fox

[OMEN]

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga have signed a power-sharing agreement intended to end a post-election crisis that left 1000 people dead.

Crowds of onlookers clapped as the two rivals inked a deal at a televised ceremony to set up a coalition government following negotiations mediated by former UN chief Kofi Annan.

The two leaders had come under intense pressure to compromise over Kibaki's disputed re-election in a December 27 vote, which forced 300,000 people to flee their homes and severely damaged Kenya's reputation as a stable economic regional hub.

The agreement involves the creation of a prime minister's post for Odinga and posts in the new cabinet will reflect the rival parties' strength in parliament.

Portfolios would be balanced along the same lines, Annan said.

"Compromise was necessary for the survival of this country," Annan said after the signing.

"I commend all those whose efforts have made this possible ... they kept the future of Kenya always in their sights and reached a common position for the good of the nation."

African Union chairman Jakaya Kikwete, who threw his weight behind talks this week, also praised the parties.

"I salute the people of Kenya on this historic occasion," said Kikwete, who is also president of neighbouring Tanzania.

Thursday's talks brought Odinga and Kibaki to the same table for the first time in a month, after discussions between their parties hit a deadlock earlier in the week.

The opposition had threatened to hold mass street protests on Thursday, but called them off after meeting Annan, a former UN Secretary-General, on Wednesday.

The crisis exploded after Kibaki was sworn in on December 30 and Odinga claimed the election was rigged, a charge the president denied.

Reuters

[OMEN]

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HARRY SERVES: Prince Harry has been stationed with British forces in Afghanistan for over two months.
Prince Harry has been serving with the British army in Afghanistan for 2-½ months, the UK Defence Ministry has said.

Following leaks in the international media about his deployment, officials are now reviewing whether he should remain there. Harry, third in line to the throne, was sent to Afghanistan with his regiment in December.

The 23-year-old was due to be sent to Iraq but those plans were scrapped in May. His deployment was cancelled after it was decided it would be too dangerous for the second son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana.

Militant groups threatened to kidnap or kill him after it was made known that his regiment could be deployed to Iraq.

The Ministry of Defence determined he could be deployed to Afghanistan if his presence there was not reported. For the past 10 weeks, British and international media have maintained an embargo on reporting his activities.

Harry has been responsible for calling in air strikes against Taliban positions in the dangerous southern Afghanistan province of Helmand, has conducted foot patrols through local villages and has fired on suspected enemy combatants, pool photographs and footage have shown.

The head of the army, General Richard Dannatt, issued a statement expressing his disappointment that the embargo had been broken by foreign media Web sites, including some in the United States and Germany.

"In deciding to deploy him to Afghanistan, it was my judgment that with an understanding with the media not to broadcast his whereabouts, the risk in doing (so) was manageable," Dannatt said.

"Now that the story is in the public domain, the chief of staff and I will take advice from the operational commanders about whether his deployment can continue.

"I now appeal to the media to restrain from attempting to report Prince Harry's every move and return to our understanding."

Reuters

[Black Widow]

Jersey police searching a former care home for human remains have made "a couple of finds of some significance" in a previously hidden cellar chamber.

Investigators are searching the building that is now the Haut de la Garenne Youth Hostel after complaints of horrific abuse were made by people who had lived there as children.

Officers gained access to one of two cellar rooms on Wednesday after a child's skull was discovered at the site.

Detectives in the investigation said there may be a third chamber hidden underground, but it will take time to clear a way into all the rooms and uncover what is there.

Jersey Deputy Police Chief Lenny Harper refused to say what the most recent finds were.

However, he admitted they involved items which witnesses had said were in an area of the home where child abuse took place.

The investigation involves more than 160 alleged victims going back to the 1960s.

People who have spoken of abuse claim the cellars were used to violate children and keep them in solitary confinement.

They have revealed stories of beatings and sex attacks, claiming they were raped, drugged and flogged.

Sky News crime correspondent Martin Brunt said a second police dog has been brought in to the search - one that is trained to sniff out tiny traces of blood.

He also said Mr Harper had indicated there would be arrests made, but he did not want to make any at the moment for fear of sparking a backlash in the community.

He added that one of the items found by police is thought to have been a bath that was bolted to the floor which some of the alleged victims had described as being used for water torture.

"I think overall the message is that this is going to be a very long, painstaking and complex investigation," Brunt concluded.

There are now 40 suspects in the inquiry.

Mr Harper said the operation was worldwide and detectives have taken statements from witnesses in Australia and Thailand.


sky news

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[OMEN]

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44237000/jpg/_44237609_ali_afp203b.jpg
'Chemical Ali' was sentenced to death in June 2007
The execution of Saddam Hussein's cousin and henchman "Chemical Ali" has been approved by Iraq's presidency.

He was condemned to death on genocide charges for killing 100,000 Kurds during the 1988 Anfal campaign against the Kurds in northern Iraq.

Chemical Ali - whose real name is Hassan al-Majid - was initially sentenced to death in June last year but legal wranglings held up the case.

The execution was approved two days ago, to be carried out within 30 days.

He was convicted along with two other top officials - Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti, a senior military chief, and the former defence minister, Sultan Hashem.

Poison gas



THE ANFAL CAMPAIGN
Anfal (English: Spoils of War) took place between February and August 1988
Officially it was a clampdown on Kurdish separatism in the north
With a civilian death toll of up to 180,000, Kurds regard it as a campaign of genocide
Mustard gas and nerve agents were used in air attacks
Other victims were summarily executed or died in captivity

The presidency, which is made up of President Jalal Talabani and two vice-presidents, has not yet approved the hanging of al-Tikriti and Hashem, says the BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad.

The two men will remain in limbo not knowing whether they are to live or die, says our correspondent.

The trio, who are in the custody of American forces, were supposed to have been hanged by October.

But the executions were delayed after Hashem became a cause celebre among Sunni politicians.

Iraqi Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi has been among prominent Sunnis who insisted Hashem had simply been a career soldier carrying out orders and should be reprieved.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's administration had rowed with the US embassy and demanded all three be handed over to face the gallows.

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The sentences have been held up amid a political row over Hashem

Former regime leaders, including Saddam Hussein himself and his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti, have been handed over by the Americans and hanged by the Iraqi government without significant popular or political repercussions.

The regime claimed the Anfal campaign was a necessary counter-insurgency operation during Iraq's bloody eight-year war with neighbouring Iran.

Majid acquired his nickname Chemical Ali during the operation after poison gas was used.

Over the course of the Anfal trial, which opened in August last year, a defiant Majid showed no trace of remorse for ordering the attacks.

He said at one hearing: "I am the one who gave orders to the army to demolish villages and relocate the villagers. I am not apologising. I did not make a mistake."

BBC

[OMEN]

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44458000/jpg/_44458976_boy_ap_203300.jpg
Gaza has been under sustained bombardment for two days
Israeli forces have kept up attacks on the Gaza Strip, where they have killed at least 32 Palestinians, militants and civilians, since Wednesday morning.

Four Palestinian boys were killed in an Israeli attack as they played in a field in northern Gaza on Thursday.

The Israelis say their attacks are a response to the firing of Palestinian rockets into southern Israel.

A BBC correspondent says Gazan drivers are staying at home, worried their vehicles could be hit from the air.

Well into the night, Israeli air strikes could still be heard in Gaza, the BBC's Aleem Maqbool reports.

There are no signs of either the Israeli army or the Palestinian militants backing down, and the people in Israeli border towns and across the Gaza Strip are bracing themselves for more violence, he adds.

Children killed

Palestinian rocket fire killed one man in the Israeli town of Sderot on Wednesday, and has since injured others.

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Israelis buried rocket attack victim Roni Yechiah on Thursday

Israeli attacks have killed Palestinian militants but also civilians including a six-month-old baby and the four boys, who doctors say had been playing football.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said his country could not make peace with people who were murdering its citizens.

"The only requirement we have from the Palestinians is stop killing innocent Israelis, stop shooting Qassam rockets at the civilian centres of Israel so that we'll be able to do business together," he said.

But prominent Palestinian activist Hanan Ashrawi said Israel was guilty of double standards.

"If you make security for Israel a precondition while Israel has a free hand to kill and destroy and wreak havoc in Palestinian lives, you will never get anywhere," she said.

"There has to be security for everybody."

BBC

[OMEN]

All Turkish troops involved in a major ground offensive against Kurdish PKK rebels inside northern Iraq have withdrawn to Turkey, Iraq's foreign minister told Reuters.

Turkey sent thousands of troops into remote, mountainous northern Iraq on February 21 to crush rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) who use the region as a base for attacks on Turkish territory. Washington feared the incursion could destabilise an area of relative stability in Iraq.

"All the Turkish troops have withdrawn and gone back to the Turkish side of the international border. We welcome this, we think this is the right thing for Turkey to do," Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zabari said.

Earlier a senior Turkish military source said some troops had returned to bases in Turkey after completing their mission, but that no full withdrawal had begun.

A US official in Baghdad told Reuters: "We are seeing a limited portion of the troops that had entered Iraq moving back toward Turkey. (It's) too early to call this a withdrawal."

Turkey's political and military leaders have said the operation will continue for as long as necessary but have come under pressure from the United States, their NATO ally, to keep the campaign as short and carefully targeted as possible.

On Thursday, US President George W. Bush urged Turkey to end the land offensive swiftly.

Washington, like Ankara and the EU, brands the PKK a terrorist organisation, and has been supplying intelligence to the Turkish military on the PKK in Iraq. But it fears that a prolonged campaign could stoke regional instability.

Turkey's military says it has killed 237 rebels in the eight-day ground offensive and suffered the loss of 24 soldiers. The PKK says it has killed more than 100 Turkish troops but has not given a figure for its own casualties.

PRESSURE MOUNTING

During a brief visit to Ankara on Thursday, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said he had failed to obtain a timetable for a Turkish withdrawal.

It is Turkey's first major ground offensive into northern Iraq in a decade.

Turkey's government had insisted the ground operation, backed by warplanes, tanks, long-range artillery and attack helicopters, would continue until PKK bases were erased and the rebels no longer posed a threat to Turkey.

The General Staff said it would make a statement on Friday regarding the reports of a withdrawal.

Iraqi Kurds, long suspicious of neighbouring Turkey, fear it is seeking to undermine the autonomy of Iraq's oil-rich Kurdistan region. Ankara says it wants only to end terrorism.

The PKK has been fighting for decades for ethnic rights and self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey.

But Turkish pressure has gradually squeezed it out of the country, forcing it base itself in a remote, mountainous part of northern Iraq that is outside the control of the semi-autonomous northern Iraqi Kurdish administration.

Turkish leaders have come under domestic pressure to crack down on the estimated 3,000 PKK members who stage deadly cross-border attacks against Turkish military and civilians.

Ankara blames the separatist movement for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people since 1984.

A senior Turkish military source said earlier this week that around 10,000 troops were involved in the operation in Iraq, mainly centred around the Zap valley, a PKK stronghold. Some Turkish media reported that Zap had fallen.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Barack Obama holds a slight lead on Hillary Clinton in Texas and has almost pulled even in Ohio before contests that could decide their Democratic presidential battle, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Houston Chronicle poll released.

The contests on Tuesday are crucial for Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady fighting to halt Obama's streak of 11 consecutive victories in their battle for the Democratic nomination for the November 4 presidential election.

Obama, an Illinois senator, has a 6-point edge on Clinton in Texas, 48 percent to 42 percent. He trails Clinton 44 percent to 42 percent in Ohio -- well within the poll's margin of error of 3.8 percentage points.

In the Republican race, front-runner John McCain holds commanding leads over his last major rival, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. McCain, an Arizona senator, has built an unassailable advantage in delegates who will pick the nominee at the Republican Party convention in September.

The poll, conducted by Zogby International, found McCain with big double-digit margins over Huckabee in Texas and Ohio.

Among Democrats, Obama has a big edge with voters in both states who made their decision within the last month. Clinton led comfortably in both states among voters who decided more than a month ago.

Other opinion polls show tightening races in both states, where Clinton enjoyed big leads just a few weeks ago.

"All the momentum is clearly with Obama," pollster John Zogby said. "The clearest indicator is the line of demarcation between those who decided early and those who are deciding late. The question is whether she can stem the tide."

In Ohio, 9 percent of Democrats said they were still uncertain of their vote. In Texas, 7 percent of Democrats were not yet sure, leaving plenty of room for late swings.

CLINTON'S BASE OF SUPPORT

Clinton's slight advantage in Ohio was built among some of her core constituencies, including women, older voters, Democrats, Catholics, union households and voters outside the state's three biggest cities.

Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, leads in Ohio among independents, young voters, higher-income voters and blacks.

In Texas, the two are essentially tied among Democrats, while Clinton has big leads in the heavily Hispanic southern and western portions of the state.

Clinton, who would be the first woman president, has a double-digit advantage among Hispanics in Texas. They could account for one-third or more of the state's primary voters.

"The question in Texas is who turns out to vote, and how big is the Hispanic turnout," Zogby said.

Among Republicans, McCain leads Huckabee 62 percent to 19 percent in Ohio and 53 percent to 27 percent in Texas. The other remaining candidate, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, had 11 percent in Texas and 8 percent in Ohio.

McCain could come close to clinching the nomination with big wins in the two states. Vermont and Rhode Island also vote on Tuesday.

The rolling poll was conducted Tuesday through Thursday, with most of the survey coming after Tuesday night's combative debate in Ohio between the two Democrats that featured a series of sharp exchanges on health care, trade and Iraq.

Clinton returned to Texas on Thursday night after announcing she had raised $35 million in February, her biggest month of fundraising. That gives her the resources to continue the nominating fight if she can pull out wins on Tuesday.

The poll of 708 likely Democratic voters in Ohio and 704 in Texas had a margin of error in both states of 3.8 percentage points. The poll of 592 likely Republican voters in Ohio and 605 voters in Texas had a margin of error in both states of 4.1 percent.

In a rolling poll, the most recent day's results are added and the oldest day's results are dropped to track changing momentum. The poll will continue until Tuesday.

Reuters

[Black Widow]

http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/5652/goat280444753auu0.jpg

A MAN has admitted trying to have sex with a goat - but believed he wouldn't get caught because "animals couldn't talk".

New Zealand's Rangiora District Court was told the pensioner, who managed to protect his identity, took the goat round the back of his farm and tried to commit a sex act with it.

The court was told that there were complications - and according to reports, "he did up his trousers, patted the goat and walked off".

A police spokeswoman said: "He was contrite, but said he was unable to stop the behaviour."

The 68-year-old North Canterbury man pleaded guilty to attempting to commit bestiality with a goat.

He faces sentencing on March 12.


the sun

[Glorious Maxxwell]

There's a attempted Bestiality law??? :rofl:

Honestly it should be if you didn't do it or you did it...

And on a side note, a comedian named Dave Attel mused during one of his shows a Barely Legal type of magazine for Goat Bestiality, Hilarious shit right there

[JohnCenaFan28]

:sick: That's disgusting...

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the read.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this.

[JohnCenaFan28]

At least 54 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers have been killed in one of the deadliest days of fighting in Gaza since troops withdrew in 2005.

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Doctors said at least eight were children and up to 16 were militants. Israel said most were militants.

More than 150 Palestinians - and seven Israelis - have been injured. Israel says it wants to stop rocket attacks, but about 50 hit Israel on Saturday.

Palestinian leaders have called for international protection.

The UN Security Council is meeting in emergency session at the request of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

However, the BBC's Laura Trevelyan at the UN says diplomats will have problems agreeing a statement on the crisis that is acceptable to both the Arab grouping and the US - a staunch ally of Israel.

As the Security Council was assembling reports came in that an Israeli air strike in Gaza City had destroyed the empty offices of Hamas leader Ismail Haniya, prime minister in the territory's unrecognised government.

Battle of words

Mr Abbas earlier said the Israeli raids were "more than a holocaust".

Israelis inspect a hole in the roof of a flat after it was it with a rocket fired in the coastal city of Ashkelon.
Israel says it wants to end the agony caused by militant rockets

He was apparently alluding to controversial remarks made on Friday by Israel's Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai, who said Palestinians risked a "shoah" - the Hebrew word for a big disaster as well as for the Nazi Holocaust.

Mr Vilnai's colleagues insisted he had not meant "genocide".

Khaled Meshaal, Hamas's exiled leader in Syria, went further, calling Israel's actions "the real holocaust".

The Israeli raids began after a rocket fired by Hamas militants killed an Israeli student in the southern town of Sderot, the first such death in nine months, on Wednesday.

More than 80 Palestinians have been killed since then.

In a statement on Saturday, Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak blamed Hamas for the killings.

"We are not happy about civilians being hurt in Gaza," Mr Barak said.

"Hamas and those who fire rockets at Israel are responsible and they will pay the price."

Air raids

Israel has said it may launch a full-scale attack on Gaza in response to militant rocket attacks.

The BBC's Katya Adler in Jerusalem says Israel's leaders have been under pressure from some quarters to launch a ground invasion.

Map

However, a recent opinion poll has indicated a majority of Israelis favour a truce with the Islamist movement Hamas, which controls Gaza.

Tanks and troops have made an incursion into northern Gaza, encountering resistance from Palestinian militants, as Israeli planes made several air raids.

On one occasion, a house east of the Jabaliya refugee camp was struck - two children, a brother and sister, were killed.

Later, a 15-year-old girl and her 16-year-old sister were also killed.

In another attack, a mother was killed as she was preparing breakfast for her children, medical workers said.

And a resident of Jabaliya told the Associated Press news agency that one of his relatives had been killed.

"His body is still lying on the ground," he said. "Ambulances tried to come, but they came under fire."

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

A state of emergency has been declared in Armenia's capital on the 11th consecutive day of protests against an allegedly rigged presidential election.

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The measure, signed by President Robert Kocharian, bans public gatherings and imposes restrictions on media reports.

It came after police fired in the air to disperse demonstrators. Some reports suggest a number of casualties.

Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian won the 19 February vote against opposition challenger Levon Ter-Petrosian.

Mr Ter-Petrosian says he is under house arrest.

International observers judged the poll in the ex-Soviet Caucasus republic to be generally democratic.

'Standing firm'

The latest clashes erupted after police cleared Freedom Square of opposition demonstrators who had been camping there since the election. At least 31 people were wounded in the morning stand-off.

Regrouping later, they used buses as barricades. Some cars were set on fire.

Lines of police were deployed to face the protesters.

A witness told Reuters news agency police had fired in the air "to scare us".

"They have fired tear gas. But people are standing firm. There are thousands of people standing here with us."

Some unconfirmed reports said a number of people had been injured as police fired in the air. It was not clear how the injuries were sustained.

Alan, a development consultant in Yerevan, heard a lot of gunfire from his home close to Freedom Square.

"After the shooting, we heard a lot of shouting and saw people running from the scene. We could see red tracer bullet fire being shot in two directions," he told the BBC.

Lori, who lives in the centre of Yerevan, saw a line of tanks roll down her street shortly before the violence erupted.

"About 30 minutes later I saw a flash from my window and then we heard a boom sound," she said.

"We heard shooting and saw red tracer bullets firing in our direction. The shooting was constant and very heavy for more than an hour."

But President Kocharian told a late evening news conference that some of the demonstrators were armed and that police said they had been shot at.

"What's going on now is not a political process. It has gone over the edge," he said.

"I appeal to the people of Armenia to show restraint and understanding."

The state of emergency is to remain in force until 20 March, the presidential decree says. Witnesses say they have seen army lorries carrying soldiers on the main road heading towards the Armenian capital.

The opposition has said it will continue with the protests.

Official results gave Mr Sarkisian 53% of the vote, with Mr Ter-Petrosian, a former president, getting 21.5%.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

A top commander of Colombia's left-wing guerrillas the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) has been killed in combat, the government says.

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Colombia's Defence Minister described the death of Raul Reyes as the "biggest blow so far" to Farc.

Reyes, 59, also known as Luis Edgar Devia, is the first member of Farc's ruling secretariat to be killed in combat in the group's 44-year history.

He died with 16 other rebels during an attack near the Ecuadorian border.

Reyes was killed in an air raid followed by a ground operation, Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos said on Saturday.

The rebels had been in a camp 1.8km (1 mile) on the Ecuadorian side of the border across from the province of Putumayo when the attack was called in, Mr Santos said.

Aura of invincibility

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe had telephoned Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa to discuss the operation.

"The Colombian Air Force proceeded to attack the camp from the Colombian side (of the border)," he said.

"Once the camp was bombarded, Colombian forces were ordered in to secure the area and neutralize the enemy."

The BBC's Jeremy McDermott, in Medellin, says the military defeat of the Farc has been a corner-stone of President Uribe's administration since he came to power in 2002.

The killing of such a leading figure within Farc's secretariat, whose members are renowned for dying of natural causes, means the group's aura of invincibility has evaporated, our correspondent adds.

As well as being on Farc's seven-member secretariat, Reyes acted as the group's international spokesman and had led Farc's negotiating team during the failed three-year peace process with the previous government of Andres Pastrana.

He had joined the rebel group from the Communist party in the 1970s.

Hostage releases

With the ageing of Farc's leader, Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda, Reyes had frequently been mentioned as a potential successor.

His death comes as Mr Uribe was coming under pressure to make concessions to the rebels after Farc released four hostages earlier this week, our correspondent says.

Despite the releases, which were brokered by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, scores of hostages - including the French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt - are still being held by the rebel group.

Colombia's government has received billions of dollars in aid to fight the guerrillas from the US administration, which along with the EU, views Farc as a terrorist organisation.

While Colombian troops have recently retaken control of areas previously held by rebel groups, Farc retains a strong hold over Colombia's more remote regions.

BBC News

[OMEN]

LATEST: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has suspended peace negotiations with Israel, demanding it end a Gaza offensive that has killed more than 100 Palestinians, many of them civilians.
Israel said it was acting in self-defence in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to curb constant cross-border rocket attacks by militants and threatened to intensify its ground and air campaign despite allegations it was using excessive force.

Abbas had ordered "the suspension of negotiations. . . until (Israeli) aggression is stopped", a senior aide to the Palestinian leader said in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

But Abbas stopped short of declaring dead the US-brokered statehood talks opposed by Hamas Islamists who seized control of the Gaza Strip from his Fatah movement in June.

The United States later called for an end to the violence and a resumption of negotiations. "The violence needs to stop and the talks need to resume," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his cabinet: "Israel is interested in negotiations but not at the price of giving up our right to protect Israeli citizens".

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due to meet Abbas and Olmert this week. Washington has said it hoped Israeli-Palestinian talks can lead to a statehood deal before President George W Bush leaves office in January.

A 21-month-old Palestinian girl, two other civilians and three militants were killed in the latest fighting in the Gaza Strip, raising the Palestinian death toll in five days of bloodshed to more than 100, including about 60 civilians, medical officials said.

Anti-Israeli demonstrations erupted in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces confronting stone-throwers near the town of Hebron shot dead a 14-year-old boy wearing a Hamas headband, witnesses said.

More than 10 rockets slammed into southern Israel, wounding four people, Israeli ambulance workers said. For the first time since the surge of violence began, Fatah militants in the Gaza Strip said they launched salvoes across frontier.

"Israel has no intention of stopping the fight against the terrorist organisations even for a minute," said Olmert, who faces the new challenge of long-range rockets striking the major southern city of Ashkelon, where a house was hit on Sunday.

Israel has sent tanks and other armoured vehicles as well as special forces and front-line infantry units into the Gaza Strip, but has released no precise troop figures.

"EXCESSIVE FORCE"

Earlier, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon accused Israel of using "excessive force". He demanded a halt to air and ground attacks that killed 61 people on Saturday, the bloodiest day for Palestinians since the 1980s, and militants' rocket salvoes.

European Union president Slovenia condemned Israel's attacks as disproportionate and violating international law. The presidency statement also called for an immediate halt to the rocket fire.

Abbas designated Sunday a day of mourning.

One Israeli has been killed by a rocket launched from Gaza since the current surge in bloodshed began. Hamas has said such salvoes would stop if Israel abandoned operations in the Gaza Strip and raids against militants in the occupied West Bank.

"We are acting to hit the Hamas infrastructure. . . the final target is to bring an end to the firing of Qassams," Defence Minister Ehud Barak said about the crude rockets.

"This will not be achieved in the next two days, but we will continue the activity with all our strength. And we need to prepare for escalation, because the big ground operation is real and tangible," Barak said.

Meeting in emergency session, the UN Security Council said it was deeply concerned about civilian deaths in southern Israel and the Gaza Strip and urged a cessation of violence.

"We are capable of sustaining the fight and tolerating (attacks) beyond the expectations of the enemy," said Abu Ubaida, spokesman of Hamas's Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades.

Olmert has been under pressure from some of his cabinet members to launch a broader offensive in the Gaza Strip, especially after militants began firing longer-range Katyusha rockets at Ashkelon, a city of 120,000 people.

But Israeli officials have spoken publicly of the heavy loss of life such a campaign could cause on both sides. Two Israeli soldiers were killed in fighting with Gaza militants on Saturday.

"I am ashamed to say they have succeeded in chasing us away," said an Ashkelon resident, who gave his name only as Avy, after a rocket smashed through the roof of his house, causing extensive damage. No one was hurt.

Across the Gaza Strip, passages from the Koran echoed from mosque loudspeakers and families erected traditional mourning tents for the dead.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has moved tanks to the Colombian border and mobilised fighter jets, warning Bogota could spark a war after its troops struck inside another of its neighbours, Ecuador.

Reacting to Colombia's killing on Saturday of a Colombian rebel inside Ecuador, a Venezuelan ally, Chavez also ordered the withdrawal of all his diplomats from Bogota in the worst dispute between the neighbours since he came to office in 1999.

"Mr Defence Minister, move me 10 battalions to the frontier with Colombia immediately, tank battalions," Chavez said on his weekly TV show.

"The air force should mobilise. We do not want war. But we are not going to let them ... come and divide and weaken us."

Colombia's military said on Saturday troops killed Raul Reyes, a leader of Marxist Farc rebels, during an attack on a jungle camp in Ecuador in a severe blow to Latin America's oldest guerrilla insurgency. The operation included air strikes and fighting with rebels across the frontier.

Chavez, who had warned a similar operation in Venezuela would be "cause for war," said on Sunday he would send Russian-made fighter jets into US ally Colombia if its troops struck inside his Opec country.

Colombia denied it failed to respect Ecuador's sovereignty and said Saturday's operation was a response to fire from across the border.

"Colombia has not violated any sovereignty, only acted in accordance with the principal of legitimate defence," the government said in a statement.

"The terrorists, among them Raul Reyes, were used to killing in Colombia and invading the neighbouring countries to hide. Many times Colombia has suffered these situations, which we are obliged to avoid to defend our citizens," it said.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has often jousted with neighbours over spillover from its four-decade conflict but has managed differences with pragmatism. Now the dispute among the conservative Colombian and his leftist counterparts has gone from aggressive words to action.

Uribe has complained before that Farc guerrillas take refuge in frontier areas, though neighbours say his troops are not doing enough to prevent violent spillover from the conflict.

The leftist anti-US Chavez has been in a diplomatic dispute with his ideological opposite, Uribe, for months because of the Venezuelan's mediation with Farc rebels over their hostages. Uribe has accused Chavez of using the mediation to meddle in Colombian affairs.

On Sunday, Chavez accused Uribe of lying over the details of the operation that killed the rebel in Ecuador, where the leftist government of President Rafael Correa is a close Venezuelan ally. He called it a "cowardly assassination" of a "good revolutionary."

"I am putting Venezuela on alert and we will support Ecuador in any situation," Chavez said

Ecuador has withdrawn its ambassador to Colombia in protest and also questioned if Uribe lied when he initially explained to his southern neighbour that the strike was in response to fire from rebels across the border against Colombian troops.

"He (Uribe) is a criminal. Not only is he a liar, a Mafia boss, a paramilitary who leads a narco-government, and leads a government that is a lackey of the United States ... he leads a band of criminals from his palace," Chavez said.

Colombia's government had no immediate reaction to Chavez' troop movements and comments on Sunday, although Uribe has in the past called for prudence in diplomatic disputes.

Chavez, a Cuba ally, sees himself as a leader of Latin America's left and says right-wing Uribe is an obstacle to uniting South America.

Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue thinktank in Washington and a critic of Chavez, said the Venezuelan was playing with fire even if the spat could distract from his domestic problems such as chronic shortages of some foods.

"There is a risk here as he reacts strongly and often overreacts, but this could backfire on him," Shifter said. "This is not going to achieve what he wants in terms of regional politics ... It maybe is a measure of how concerned he is about his own domestic support."

"I don't know how far he is going to go with this but it is a risky political action," he added.

Reuters

[OMEN]

At least 39 people have been killed and scores more injured when a suicide bomber attacked a traditional tribal meeting in northwestern Pakistan.

Pakistan is in the middle of a wave of violence blamed on al Qaeda-linked militants based in tribal lands on the Afghan border and there have been three suicide attacks in as many days.

Over 500 people have been killed in militant related violence this year alone.

A top government official in Darra Adam Kheil tribal region said the bomber detonated a device while tribal elders were holding an outdoor "jirga", or traditional meeting.

"They were finalizing the formation of a committee of locals to take steps against miscreants and help the government," said Kamran Zaib, a government official.

A security official who asked not to be identified put the number of dead at 39.

Local television showed pictures of residents and authorities cleaning up the blast site, a shady clearing surrounded by tall trees with a backdrop of rugged mountains.

Piles of torn clothing and bloody Muslim prayer caps were mixed up with the shattered remains of "charpoys", wood and rope daybeds.

"I saw three persons. . .all of them were not locals. The youngest one walked straight toward elders and blew himself up in the middle of them," said Naimat Khan, a witness.

Zaib said a head and identity card found at the scene were believed to belong to the bomber. He said the attacker was aged around 18-20.

A suicide attack on a police funeral in northwest Pakistan killed at least 38 people on Friday, while on Monday the army's top medical officer was killed in a bomb attack in Rawalpindi.

The escalating violence has raised concern about the stability of the nuclear armed state as it passes through a period of political transition, with doubts over how long President Pervez Musharraf can hold on to power after his allies lost a parliamentary election on February 18.

Militants intensified their suicide bomb campaign after the army stormed Islamabad's Red Mosque last July to crush a militant student movement.

Reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

The man early results suggest has won Russia's presidential election, Dmitry Medvedev, has vowed to continue the course of predecessor Vladimir Putin.

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While cautioning that the full results were not in, Mr Medvedev told reporters he hoped to work in an "effective tandem" with Mr Putin as his PM.

As president, he said, he would control foreign policy with the defence of Russian interests his chief priority.

Mr Putin, he confirmed, would be moving out of the Kremlin.

Mr Medvedev was leading with 69% of the vote with more than 70% of ballots counted, the Russian election commission reports.

Such a result would hand Mr Medvedev the election outright, without the need for a second round.

His nearest rival was Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, on nearly 20%. He vowed to go to court over alleged fraud, Itar-Tass news agency reports.

Joint appearance

Mr Putin congratulated the front-runner on his lead when they appeared together at a rally in Moscow's Red Square.

Speaking to reporters later, Mr Medvedev said his policies would be "a direct continuation of that path which is being carried out by President Putin".

Asked about foreign policy, he said "the president defines Russia's foreign policy according to the constitution".

Russia's priorities would, he said, continue to be its fellow ex-Soviet republics.

On where Mr Putin would work as prime minister, he said "the place of the prime minister and the government is the White House", referring to the government building a few miles from the Kremlin.

A first deputy PM, Mr Medvedev was the clear favourite from the start and enjoyed generous television coverage.

Mr Putin, who has been in office for eight years, was barred by the constitution from seeking a third term, but has pledged to serve as Mr Medvedev's prime minister.

'Irregularities'

Turnout was high, at nearly 68%, officials said. But there were reports that many workers were told by their bosses to vote.

Various inducements were also offered to mobilise voters, including cheap food, free cinema tickets or toys, correspondents say.

After polls closed Mr Zyuganov said there had been widespread irregularities.

"We will go to court over this," Itar-Tass quoted him as saying.

The Kremlin has dismissed claims of fraud.

There has been very little scrutiny of voting by Western election observers, many of whom stayed away.

The main independent Russian observer group, Golos, said the turnout was impossibly high in some regions.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is sending thousands of troops and tanks to the border with Colombia, marking a sharp escalation in regional tensions.

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Speaking on his weekly television show, President Chavez also said Venezuela's embassy in Colombia would close.

Mr Chavez said he was reacting to the "cowardly murder" of a leading Farc rebel by Colombian forces in a raid just inside Ecuador on Saturday.

Later, Ecuador recalled its ambassador to Bogota in protest at the incursion.

Raul Reyes and at least 16 other rebels were killed in the operation, which took place about 1.8km (one mile) inside Ecuadorean territory.

'Invasion'

Mr Chavez has been mediating with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - or Farc - to secure the release of hostages the rebels hold, and six have so far been freed under this initiative.


Senior Farc commander Raul Reyes, file picture

But he lamented the killing of Reyes - whom he called a "good revolutionary" - when he spoke on his show, "Alo, Presidente".

Colombia's defence minister had described the death of Reyes as the "biggest blow so far" to Farc.

But Mr Chavez described the strike as "a cowardly murder, all of it coldly calculated".

He said Colombia "invaded Ecuador, flagrantly violated Ecuador's sovereignty".

Mr Chavez addressed his defence minister, asking him to "move 10 battalions to the border with Colombia for me, immediately" - a deployment likely to involve several thousand soldiers.

"The air force should mobilise. We do not want war. But we are not going to let them... come and divide and weaken us."

He ordered the Venezuelan embassy in Bogota closed and said all embassy personnel would be withdrawn.

Mr Chavez had earlier warned Bogota that any incursion into Venezuelan territory similar to Saturday's operation would be a "cause for war".

Ecuador anger

Later, Ecuador announced that it too was taking punitive measures against what it terms an illegal incursion, and had recalled its envoy to Colombia.

Map

But this is not a full severance of ties, as commercial relations will remain intact, said officials at the country's foreign ministry.

In his address, Mr Chavez said Ecuador's President Rafael Correa had also agreed to send troops to the border, Associated Press news agency reported.

President Correa has complained to the Colombian government about its incursion, calling it "scandalous", and a formal protest has been lodged with Bogota.

Colombia's government has received billions of dollars in aid from Washington to fight the guerrillas - as the US, along with the EU, views Farc as a terrorist organisation.

Colombian troops have recently retaken control of areas previously held by rebel groups, but Farc retains a strong hold over Colombia's more remote regions.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this.

[JohnCenaFan28]

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[JohnCenaFan28]

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[JohnCenaFan28]

The UN Security Council has voted in favour of new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44464000/jpg/_44464765_baradei_ap203b.jpg

Fourteen of the council's 15 members voted in favour of measures including asset freezes and travel bans for Iranian officials. Indonesia abstained.

Western powers suspect Iran may be developing nuclear weapons, but Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful power generation only.

Tehran has refused to comply with demands that it stop enriching uranium.

This can be undertaken for power generation, but may also be a precursor to building an atomic bomb.

This third sanctions resolution - formally submitted by France and Britain - adds to resolutions adopted in 2006 and 2007.

It calls for the foreign assets of 13 Iranian companies to be frozen, and imposes travel bans on five Iranian officials.

It imposes a ban on the sale to Iran of so-called dual-use items - which can have either a military or civilian purpose.

The measures are in a sense lowest common denominator sanctions that even China and Russia - who maintain closer links with Iran than the Western powers - would support, says the BBC's Laura Trevelyan at the UN in New York.

Both China and Russia are permanent, veto-wielding members of the Security Council.

Iranian anger

The resolution received the backing of all five permanent members - also including France, Britain, and the US.

The non-permanent members - none of whom holds a veto - all backed it, except Indonesia, which abstained, saying it remained to be convinced of the necessity of the sanctions.

The vote had been planned for Saturday, but was delayed to give the sponsors time to try to win over four members - Indonesia, Libya, South Africa and Vietnam - who had expressed doubts.

In a statement before the vote, Iran's envoy to the UN, Mohammad Khazee, described the resolution as politically motivated, illegal, and illegitimate.

He insisted Iran's nuclear programme "has been, is, and will remain, absolutely peaceful".

He said Iran would ignore the sanctions.

'Forged'

In remarks to reporters, the British envoy to the UN, John Sawers, said the five permanent council members would ask the EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana to meet Iran's chief nuclear negotiator to try to resolve the impasse with Tehran.

He restated a offer made in 2006 to assist Tehran with its civilian nuclear programme, in exchange for the suspension of uranium enrichment.

The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, reported in February that Iran had cleared up most of the outstanding questions regarding its past nuclear activities.

But the IAEA has criticised Iran for refusing to clarify remaining questions about intelligence suggesting Tehran may have been exploring ways to "weaponise" nuclear materials.

Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, has dismissed the intelligence as "forged and fabricated".

He said in Vienna after a meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board that "all the outstanding issues have been concluded".

Earlier on Monday, IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei called on Iran "to be as active and co-operative as possible in working with the agency" to resolve the issue.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said the presence of foreign forces in Iraq is a humiliation and an insult to the region.

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On the second day of a visit to Iraq, he said major powers should not be interfering in the region's affairs.

Mr Ahmadinejad called for the immediate withdrawal of foreign troops.

It is the first-ever visit to Iraq by an Iranian president. The two countries fought an eight-year war when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980.

Mr Ahmadinejad did not mention the US by name, but Washington still has more than 150,000 soldiers based in Iraq, nearly five years after it led the 2003 invasion.

The Iranian president and his Iraqi counterpart, Jalal Talabani, on Monday signed a number of co-operation agreements on trade and transport.

"Without the presence of the foreign troops the region will live in peace and brotherhood," Mr Ahmadinejad said.

"We believe that the forces that came from overseas and travelled thousands of kilometres to reach here must leave the region, and must hand over responsibility to people of the region," he said.

Strategic accord

Mr Ahmadinejad made these comments in response to questions from Iraqi and foreign journalists.

BBC Baghdad correspondent Jim Muir says Mr Ahmadinejad's comments did not amount to a strident call for an immediate American withdrawal.

He knows his Iraqi hosts are about to negotiate a long term strategic accord with the US that would keep troops here long enough to ensure the Baghdad government's survival against both internal and external threats.

Our correspondent says Mr Ahmadinejad's visit could not contrast more strongly with those of Iraq's only other presidential visitor since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, President Bush, whose trips have been unannounced, brief and confined to American military bases.

'New page'

Mr Ahmadinejad arrived in Iraq on Sunday.

He accused the US of bringing terrorism to the region, called on Washington to change its standpoint towards Iran and said it had to understand that the Iraqi people did not like the US.

US officials have often accused Iran of supporting militants operating in Iraq.

The Iranian leader is due to end his visit on Monday.

Iraqi leaders extended a warm welcome to the Iranian president on Sunday.

After talks with Mr Talabani, Mr Ahmadinejad said the visit had opened a "new page" in Iran-Iraq relations.

Prime Minister Maliki said his talks with Mr Ahmadinejad had been "friendly, positive and full of trust".

Despite the reconciliation between Baghdad and Tehran, many analysts believe that in the long term, the two countries are destined to be rivals for regional power.

During the long war between them in the 1980s, many of the prominent Shia now in positions of power in Iraq fled to Iran as Saddam Hussein cracked down on internal dissent.

The US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime allowed them to return from exile.

Trade is now growing between the two countries and tourism, in the form of Iranian pilgrims visiting major Shia shrines in Iraq, is booming.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

A gunman killed one person and injured several others at a Florida restaurant before turning the gun on himself.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44465000/gif/_44465951_us_palmbeach_207.gif

The incident occurred at a Wendy's outlet in West Palm Beach, in the south-east of the state.

The gunman emerged from the toilets dressed in a business suit and opened fire, eyewitnesses told local TV.

Three of the survivors were in critical condition, a Palm Beach County sheriff spokeswoman said. Two others were slightly wounded.

A woman quoted by Associated Press news agency said she had been buying petrol near the restaurant when the shooting happened.

I thought this can't be happening - you see your life flash before your eyes
Witness Ashley Milton

"I just saw a lady with a little boy in her arms come running out screaming, 'Somebody's shooting!"' said Sandra Jackson.

Another woman described opening the door of the restaurant to hear the "pop pop" of gunfire and see people running.

"I really didn't think that's what it was. I thought this can't be happening," said Ashley Milton, 28.

"You see your life flash before your eyes."

BBC News

[Stamkos]

Wow, this is rediculous. People wonder why America is always pointed out for the most violence in the world due to guns, but yet we read these stories everyday that come out of America. The way their gun laws are enforced is just rediculous. It should be more difficult to receive a gun there.

[OMEN]

London - Princess Diana's heart-surgeon lover, Hasnat Khan, feared that marriage to one of the world's most-famous women "would be hell because of who she was", the inquest into her death was told on Monday.

"I knew I would not be able to lead a normal life," said Khan in a highly personal statement to the inquest looking into the deaths of Diana and Dodi al-Fayed in a high-speed Paris car crash in August 1997.

Khan revealed that Diana decided to end their relationship after they had a two-year romance during which they were hounded by the media and he was sent hate mail.

"My main concern about us getting married was that my life would be hell because of who she was," Khan said.

He feared that if they ever had children together "I would never be able to take them anywhere or do normal things with them."

Khan told Diana, who as the world's most-photographed woman was pursued everywhere by paparazzi, that he could not face leading that sort of lifestyle, constantly in a media spotlight.

Khan felt the only way they could lead a normal life together was to move to Pakistan, an option that she considered for a while, but rejected.

Dodi's father, luxury department store Harrods owner Mohamed al-Fayed, alleges the couple were killed by British security forces on the orders of Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth's husband and Diana's former father-in-law.

But, Khan said he thought the couple were victims not of a sinister British Establishment conspiracy but of a tragic accident.

Khan said in his statement that Diana was "concerned about her safety, but was not paranoid about it".

The heart surgeon said media attention was not his only problem in such a high-profile relationship.

Harsh hatehail

"I did receive a lot of anonymous threats through the post.

"I have received envelopes containing cut-out pictures of me together with a noose around my neck. This went on and on and it was very stressful."

After Diana came back from a holiday aboard Mohamed al-Fayed's yacht in the south of France in the summer of 1997, "Diana told me it was all over between us," said Khan.

Khan said he thought Diana realised that Dodi al-Fayed "could give her all the things I could not. He had money and could provide the necessary security for her."

Under British law, an inquest is needed to determine the cause of death when someone dies unnaturally.

French and British police investigations have both concluded the deaths were tragic accidents caused by their speeding chauffeur who was found to have been drunk.

Both inquiries rejected al-Fayed's conspiracy theories.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Crispian Balmer and Jonathan Lynn

Paris - A rebel commander killed by Colombian forces was France's contact in negotiations aimed at winning the release of hostage Ingrid Betancourt, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Monday.

"It is bad news that the man we were talking to, with whom we had contacts, has been killed," Kouchner told France Inter radio.

"Do you see how ugly the world is?"

Colombia's military said on Saturday its troops had killed Raul Reyes, considered by analysts to be number two in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), dealing a severe blow to Latin America's oldest guerrilla insurgency.

The killing came days after a former FARC hostage said Betancourt had been mistreated and kept in chains, had a serious liver problem and was mentally exhausted.

Betancourt is a former Colombian presidential candidate who also holds French nationality.

Medical emergency

She has been held hostage in the Colombian jungle for six years and her plight has become a major political issue in France.

"We need to redouble our efforts to talk about Ingrid Betancourt," Kouchner said, adding that she was a "medical emergency".

The killing, carried out beyond Colombia's border in Ecuador, infuriated both Ecuador and its ally Venezuela.

In Geneva, Colombian Vice-President Francisco Santos called at the UN Human Rights Council for international help to free the hundreds of people held by FARC guerrillas in what he said were concentration-camp like conditions.

He said all states were committed by UN Security Council resolution to fight terrorism and to thwart anyone using their territory to plan or commit terrorist acts in other countries.

"... let there be no misunderstanding: we shall continue to be firm in our stance against the worldwide drug problem and against terrorism," he said.

Reuters

[OMEN]

German airline Lufthansa says its pilots averted a crash at Hamburg airport after a strong gust of wind caused a plane, with 130 passengers on board, to veer dangerously on landing.
Amateur video footage, played repeatedly on German television, showed the Airbus A320 buffeted by crosswinds and driving rain as it landed on Saturday at Fuhlsbuettel airport near the northern German port city.

Winds were reported to have reached 250km an hour.

The plane approached the asphalt runway at an odd angle, then swerved sharply before touching down, with one of its wings scraping the ground. The pilots averted disaster by quickly taking off again, going into a so-called go-around manoeuvre.

"Just before landing, the plane was hit by a very strong gust of wind that led to the left wing touching the ground very briefly," said Juergen Raps, Lufthansa executive vice president of operations.

"The pilots reacted outstandingly by inducing a go-around."

No passengers or crew were injured and the plane, which had taken off from Munich, circled for about 10 minutes before landing safely on another runway.

Gale force winds caused chaos in Germany and other central European countries over the weekend, killing several people and causing power cuts as well as major travel disruption.

Flights across Germany were cancelled, diverted or delayed.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia have all sought international backing in a crisis that raised the specter of war after Venezuela and Ecuador deployed troops to the Colombian border.
The crisis erupted after Colombia bombed and sent troops inside Ecuador in a weekend raid that killed a Colombian rebel leader in his jungle camp in a major blow to Latin America's oldest guerrilla insurgency.

Governments from France to Brazil sought to defuse the crisis in the Andes, where Washington ally Colombian President Alvaro Uribe faces left-wing leaders fiercely opposed to US free-market proposals for the region.

Traffic was normal in San Antonio at the main border crossing point between Venezuela and Colombia and while Venezuela and Ecuador said they had reinforced their borders, there was no immediate sign of any mobilization.

Venezuela state TV offered blanket coverage of the crisis but it showed no images of tanks, planes or troops moving and no other media reported military movements in the border area.

Colombia said it would not send extra troops to its frontiers with Venezuela and Ecuador.

Bogota justified its operation on Monday by saying international law allows such actions against "terrorists" and accused Ecuador of permitting the Marxist FARC rebels to take refuge in its territory.

"We have never been a country for ventures either in politics or in military matters," Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos told a UN human rights commission in Geneva. "We have always been respectful of the principal of non-interference."

But Ecuador, a close ally of the larger, richer Venezuela, said Colombia deliberately violated its sovereignty and urged Latin American governments to pressure Bogota so that it does not repeat its "aggression."

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is struggling to fix chronic food shortages in the OPEC nation, sent tanks to the border and threatened to counterattack with Russian-made jets should Colombia unleash a similar raid in Venezuela.

Chavez, who urged governments to side against Colombia, also closed his embassy in Bogota and fellow leftist Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa expelled Colombia's ambassador from Quito. Chavez and Correa both called conservative Uribe a liar.

With Chavez warning war could break out, there was immediate impact on the economies of the three Andean nations which share active trade ties.

Venezuelan and Ecuadorean debt and Colombia's currency all lost value on Monday, reflecting worries of increased risk in investing in the countries.

"It raises headline risks for all three countries significantly," Gianfranco Bertozzi of Lehman Brothers said.

Brazil, the region's diplomatic heavyweight, said it would seek to resolve the standoff, cautioning that the tensions were destabilizing regional ties.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet demanded Colombia explain to the region why its troops entered Ecuador.

"A situation of this nature without a doubt merits an explanation," she said. "The most important thing today is that we can avoid an escalation of this conflict."

France, which has worked to free rebel-held hostages, called for restraint on all sides and said the rebel's killing was bad news because he had been pivotal in freeing hostages.

Colombia, which apologized for the raid, sought to ease tensions.

Despite the leaders' passions and brinkmanship, as well as the risk of military missteps on the tense border, political analysts said a conflict was unlikely.

Chavez - the leader of Andean leftists - was more interested in firing up his base of support with rhetoric and can ill afford to lose food imports from Colombia, they added.

The opposition criticized Chavez for drawing Venezuela into a crisis over a raid that involved other nations.

"The odds of an escalation to a war-like conflict still seem modest, with so much at stake for all sides," Bertozzi said. "Tension should therefore dissipate in the coming days."

Reuters

[Stamkos]

SAN LUIS OBISPO, California (CNN) -- A respected California transplant doctor faces charges he hastened a comatose man's death to retrieve his organs -- a far-reaching case that could impact the nation's organ donation industry.

1 of 2 Dr. Hootan Roozrokh, 34, is accused of ordering excessive doses of drugs to expedite the death of Ruben Navarro, a 25-year-old man who had suffered from a debilitating nerve disease since he was 9, according to the criminal complaint.

On February 3, 2006, Dr. Roozrokh hurried from San Francisco to the Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center with a transplant team after receiving word Navarro would be a donor.

In a pretrial hearing last week, Dr. Laura Lubarsky, a critical-care specialist, testified she would not have ordered morphine or the sedative Ativan as Roozrokh allegedly did. She said she was called into the operating room to monitor Navarro after he was taken off life support and to pronounce him dead.

Lubarsky told the court she heard Roozrokh order a nurse to give Navarro more "candy," meaning additional drugs.

CNN.com

[Stamkos]

(CNN) -- Six people were killed, including two children, and another three children wounded in a shooting Monday in Memphis, Tennessee, authorities said.

Memphis Fire Department spokeswoman Melanie Young said firefighters responded to a 911 call at a home at 6:11 p.m. Monday when the bodies and wounded children were found.

The wounded children -- a 7-year-old boy, a 10-month-old girl and a 4-year-old whose gender wasn't immediately known -- were transported to Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center.

[Darth Fozzy]

Goddam, you never EVER expect it to be kids, why would anyone want to hurt a child, I can never understand people who would willingly want to hurt a child, assclowns!!

[Stamkos]

*Sigh*. It seems like everyday now when I turn on the news or go on the internet, I hear something about someone dying in the US due to guns. It seems like it's happening more than ever.

[OMEN]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/images/706544.jpg
KILLER: Colin Norris has been found guilty of murdering four elderly patients using lethal doses of the diabetes drug insulin, whilst he was working at two hospitals in Leeds.
A 32-year-old male nurse has been found guilty of murdering four elderly patients with lethal doses of the diabetes drug insulin.

Colin Norris administered the drugs to four women during his time at two hospitals in Leeds, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

He was also found guilty of the attempted murder of another patient.

Police said on Monday after the case that Norris had picked on "frail, elderly women, generally confused and helpless" who were in his hands.

"Whilst other people at those hospitals were duly caring for the patients, Colin Norris was doing the opposite. He was looking for opportunities to poison them by insulin," said Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Gregg of West Yorkshire Police.

"He was selecting his patients carefully."

It was not clear what motivated Norris, but Gregg said he believed the defendant had been abusing the power available to him.

"I think it was clearly just having the control and the power to do that," Gregg added.

"He had helpless individuals in his hands. They were vulnerable in his care and he took advantage of that.

"And it seems to be that if they irritated him, caused him any degree of nuisance in his eyes then he resorted to the means available to him."

He paid tribute to Dr Emma Ward, who ordered tests for insulin on one of the women who had entered an unexpected coma.

"If it were not for her prompt actions and recognising that a criminal may be at work on the ward that she was operating in, then I think a serial killer would still be at large here."

Norris was described during police interviews as "exceptionally arrogant, almost aggressive".

He had shown no emotion or remorse during the trial.

The jury heard that suspicions were raised when Norris predicted the death of Ethel Hall, a patient who later slipped into a fatal coma.

Hall, 86, from Calverley, Leeds, was recovering after hip surgery at Leeds General Infirmary (LGI) at the time of her death. Tests later showed about 12 times the normal level of insulin in her blood.

Similar cases were found including, Doris Ludlum, 80, of Pudsey, Bridget Bourke, 88 - whose body was exhumed for tests - and Irene Crooks, 79, of Leeds.

Norris was found guilty of all four murders. He was also convicted of the attempted murder of Vera Wilby, 90, of Rawdon.

Norris, who lives in Glasgow, had denied the charges.

Sentencing will take place on Tuesday local time

Reuters

[OMEN]

A spate of suicide attacks by Islamist militants could spark a war of revenge among ethnic Pashtun tribesmen in Pakistan's northwest just as moderate, secular political parties appear poised for power, analysts say.

The region is already regarded as the main battleground in the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda, and the stakes are raised because of Pakistan's status as a nuclear-armed state.

The militants want to destabilize President Pervez Musharraf, and convince Pakistanis his alliance with the United States is the root cause of conflict in the area.

For their part, Pakistan's Western allies want its new prime minister and government, once they emerge from the hung parliament returned by voters in an election on February 18, to provide the democratic legitimacy for the war on terrorism that Musharraf has been unable to engender.

"You may not question President Pervez Musharraf's policy on terrorism, you may say it's all right but the point is nobody is ready to own this policy," said Talat Masood, a former general and security analyst.

"The greatest advantage of the civilian government will be that the policy will be owned by the people of Pakistan."

Well over 500 people have been killed in militant-related violence so far this year, but the campaign of suicide attacks began after troops stormed the Red Mosque in Islamabad to put down a militant student movement in the heart of the capital.

While the remote Waziristan region has seen the worst of the violence over the past few years, in recent months hitherto dormant tribal areas have erupted in violence.

At least 40 people were killed on Friday in a suicide attack in the Swat district of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) during the funeral of a policeman hours after he was killed in a roadside attack.

On Sunday, another 40 people died and scores were wounded when a young bomber blew himself up as hundreds of tribesmen left a jirga, or council, that had discussed how to restore peace in Darra Adam Kheil, a tribal region near Peshawar, the NWFP capital.

The army has been fighting militants in Swat since October, and just last week had claimed it had cleared all but a few pockets of resistance.

But attacks like a roadside bomb that killed 13 members of a wedding party, including the bride, on February 22, again in Swat, demonstrated the insecurity ordinary families are encountering.

Analysts noted a "dangerous trend" towards attacks that struck at the heart of Pashtun society.

"These are direct attacks on Pashtun society," said Mahmood Shah, a former security chief for the tribal areas.

"All institutions, which represent Pashtun society, the mosque, a wedding, a funeral or a jirga, they have all been targeted.

"They want to bomb the entire Pashtun society into submission."

Pashtuns, whose lands straddle both sides of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, live to a code of honor, commonly known as Pashtunwali, that calls on menfolk to take revenge if a family member is killed.

The attacks on the funeral and the jirga could trigger inter-tribal feuds, in a region where guns are commonly referred to as "Pashtun jewellery".

"This situation could ignite tribal enmities. This will create a very explosive and dangerous situation for the government," said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a newspaper editor and an expert on Pashtun affairs.

The escalating violence has raised concern among Western countries about the stability of the nuclear-armed state amid the growing unpopularity of US ally Musharraf.

The recent attacks came as winners of the February 18 elections were negotiating to cobble together a coalition government.

There have been a spate of attacks in the run-up to elections but polling day passed off with far less violence than feared.

The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of Benazir Bhutto, the country's most liberal politician who was killed in an attack blamed on al Qaeda-linked militants on December 27, emerged as the largest group in the National Assembly, dealing a humiliating defeat to Musharraf's allies.

A moderate Pashtun party, the Awami National Party, won the most seats in the NWFP assembly by trouncing Islamist parties and is likely to lead the provincial government in a coalition with the PPP, but if they fail to quell the violence voters will soon become disenchanted, analysts said.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Fidel Castro is having a good chuckle at reactions in the United States and elsewhere to his decision to retire from the Cuban presidency, the communist country's foreign minister says.

Felipe Perez Roque also told the United Nations Human Rights Council that the old leader's younger brother Raul, who some outside commentators have said might introduce some liberal reforms, "is also Fidel".

"Back in Cuba, Fidel is enjoying the petty and pathetic reaction of those who thought that his authority stemmed from his office, who thought that if he was removed from office or assassinated that would be the magic formula for the defeat of the Cuban Revolution," Perez declared.

"But it turns out otherwise, that Fidel is the people, that his ideas are those of the people."

Raul Castro, 76, took over as president from Fidel last month, vowing to continue his communist revolution and consult him on important issues.

"Raul, with all the authority that his own life story gives him, is also Fidel in his loyalty to the fatherland, to the revolution, and to socialism," declared Perez, long a close aide to the elder Castro.

Castro, 81, stepped down from the presidency on February 24 after 49 years in power. He has not appeared in public since falling ill 19 months ago.

"At the end of the day, Fidel is every man and woman in the world who fights for justice and liberty for people everywhere," Perez said.

Reuters

[Black Widow]

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/3267/1656505su0.jpg

Two teenagers are facing jail terms after they admitted killing a promising graduate in a row over a chocolate bar wrapper.

Evren Anil, 23, died from serious head injuries after being threatened with a knife and punched to the ground.

He had gotten into an argument with the teenagers after the wrapper was thrown through his car window in Crystal Palace, south east London, last August.

Mr Anil had gotten out of the car to confront the pair.

His 26-year-old sister Elif was driving the car when the attack took place.

She told the Evening Standard: "Words can't describe the boy. He was an angel. He was my younger brother and my best friend.

"He was so generous. He was a very bright boy. I was so privileged to have a brother like him.

"I just miss him so much."

Mr Anil was a week into his first graduate job, as a programme developer for an IT company, when he died.

He was also a keen amateur footballer, who turned out for Croydon City, as well as an amateur actor.

He also tutored children at weekends.

A 16-year-old from Thornton Heath, south east London, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and knife possession as his trial was due to begin at the Old Bailey.

His plea could only be reported now after his 17-year-old co-defendant, from Tottenham, north London, also admitted the two charges.

Sentencing will take place at a later date after the judge hears legal argument about the precise version of events, which is disputed.


Sky News

[Black Widow]

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/8640/1655884cc2.jpg

The alleged victim of a gang rape has told Sky News that the hundreds of people who watched the grisly 'attack' on YouTube were perverts.

The footage showed the 25-year-old, who believes her glass of champagne was spiked at her London home, being violated for hours in front of her screaming children, aged two and four.

A three-minute clip of her ordeal was later removed from YouTube after it was posted on the video sharing website.

The victim condemned the 600 people who watched the mobile phone footage.

Sky correspondent Jayne Secker asked the mother what kind of person searches for a rape video on the internet.

She replied: "Someone perverted, someone not right, someone sick.

"It's just crazy to think that someone would get a kick out of watching that.

"The worst thing about it, you can clearly my baby crying. Why would someone not do something about it? I can't understand."

Calling the gang "animals", the mother described how she had been unable to move but was fully aware during the alleged attack.

She said: "They just hurt me the whole way through. They had no respect.

"Afterwards one p***** on me, like I was nothing.

"I felt dirty, humiliated, ashamed. I did not want to tell anyone, did not want to do anything. I just wanted to forget.

"I thought, if I lose my control, I'm not going to be a good mum for my kids. I just had to pretend it did not happen."

The mother had heard rumours of the YouTube footage before she eventually reported the matter to police.

Criticising the website, she said: "How could anyone allow anything as degrading as that to be posted on the internet?"

A YouTube spokesperson said any video that breaches rules prohibiting content like pornography or gratuitous violence is removed from the site once it is reported.

Psychotherapist Lucy Beresford told Sky: "Historically, if you look back at people gathering around the guillotine, there is that dimension where we want to be shocked, we want to have a cathartic experience of watching something dreadful happening to someone else.

"It enables us to get in touch with some dark emotions without having to go through that ourselves.

"Now, with the internet, it's that much more immediate, it's in your sitting room."

Three teenagers have been quizzed by police over the attack.


Sky News

[W-OLF]

I think Im gonna be sick I hope they catch whoever did this and castrate the lpoor excuses for humans.

[Stamkos]

And some people wonder why others are afraid of going to the hospital or the doctor. This is just crazy. My father has diabetes and I'd be furious if his doctor ever did this to him. It's kind of scary.

[JohnCenaFan28]

That's terrible... You can't trust anyone these days...:no:

[JohnCenaFan28]

That is awful... How could that many people watch the video and not do anything?

[JohnCenaFan28]

That's extremely stupid. They kill someone over chocolate? :no:

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the read.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Voting has begun in what could be the most important day so far in the races to stand for US president.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44468000/jpg/_44468241_ohiovoting_getty203b.jpg

Democratic front-runner Barack Obama says rival Hillary Clinton may have to quit if he wins in Texas and Ohio. She says she will stay the course.

Contests in two smaller states also voting - Vermont and Rhode Island - may prove crucial in such a tight race.

On the Republican side, Senator John McCain - already comfortably ahead of his rivals - could seal the nomination.

But most attention is focused on the Democrats' battle.

For the Democrats, Texas is the biggest prize remaining, with 228 delegates to the nominating party convention in August up for grabs.

Voting there is proportional, meaning that Mrs Clinton needs landslide victories on Tuesday and beyond even to catch up with Mr Obama.

An opinion poll published as voting began gave Mrs Clinton a narrow lead in Texas - though within the poll's margin of error. It had the two candidates exactly level in Ohio.

"I feel really good about today," Mrs Clinton told early voters in Houston. "I think it's going to turn out well."

Mr Obama showed equal confidence.

"We know this has been an extraordinary election," he said. "We're working hard to do as well as we can."

Mr Obama has spent twice as much as Mrs Clinton on TV adverts in the state, including ones in Spanish. Hispanics account for about one in five eligible voters in Texas.

Since the nationwide Super Tuesday contests on 5 February, Mr Obama has won 11 states in succession and leads Mrs Clinton in the delegate count.

For the Democrats, a total of 370 delegates are at stake in the four races, which includes 67 delegates up for grabs in Texas caucuses, which begin after the day-long primary vote.

Mr Obama currently has 1,385 delegates to Mrs Clinton's 1,276, according to AP. A total of 2,025 is needed to secure the Democratic Party's nomination.

The New York senator and former first lady has played down suggestions that she is facing a make-or-break moment.

New Mexico's Democratic Governor Bill Richardson, an influential voice who used to be in the race himself, has suggested that whoever has the most delegates after Tuesday's votes should be the party nominee.

The BBC's Kevin Connolly, who is in the Ohio capital, Columbus, says the struggle between the two senators remains fierce and close, and it is far from certain that America will get the clear outcome from these latest battles that it craves.

The day's voting ends in Rhode Island at 0200 GMT on Wednesday.

Mrs Clinton has been focusing her attacks on Mr Obama's foreign policy and national security experience, echoing a campaign advert asking who would respond better to a national emergency in the middle of the night.

The advert says: "It's 3am and your children are safe and asleep, but there's a phone in the White House and it's ringing... who do you want answering the phone?"

Clinton's campaign ad

Mr Obama, senator for Illinois, has countered that with an advert questioning Mrs Clinton's judgement in supporting the invasion of Iraq from the start.

Meanwhile, Mr Obama denied on Monday that his campaign had privately assured Canada his criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), widely opposed in economically depressed Ohio, was just for political show.

A leaked memo suggested Mr Obama's senior economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, had given Canadian officials the impression that Mr Obama's criticism over the US free trade deal with Canada was "political positioning".

The dispute led Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to assure parliament that the memo leak was not an attempt to scupper Mr Obama's chances or to favour Mr McCain, who strongly backs Nafta.

On the Republican side, Senator McCain is expected to beat his rival Mike Huckabee in all four states.

Mr McCain currently has 1,014 delegates, according to the Associated Press news agency, while Mr Huckabee has 257. A total of 1,191 delegates is needed to claim the nomination at the party's national convention in September.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Russian gas monopoly Gazprom has cut supplies of gas to Ukraine again, and said further cuts may follow in the wake of a dispute over debts.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44466000/jpg/_44466898_kievgas_203i_ap.jpg

State-owned Gazprom cut supplies by a further 25% on Tuesday, following a 25% cut a day earlier - thereby cutting supplies by half.

Prior to the news, the EU called for an emergency internal meeting amid fears the row could hit European supplies.

Much of the gas Russia sells to Europe passes through pipelines in Ukraine.

Map of main European gas pipelines

The EU said the meeting would ensure "a fully coordinated EU response to the situation," adding "we look to both parties to ensure that gas supplies to the EU remain unaffected".

The news of the second cut was made after a 1700GMT deadline on Tuesday.

"If the Ukrainian side does not return to the negotiating table, I do not exclude a further reduction in supplies," Sergei Kupriyanov, a Gazprom spokesman, said on state television.

The dispute started after Russia said Ukraine had not paid its debts for previous deliveries, which Gazprom says totals $1.5bn (£770m).

But Ukraine maintains the payments have already been made.

Escalating crisis

Gazprom said it reduced supplies to Ukraine by 25% on Monday after talks broke down last week.

Monday's cut effectively ended supplies of gas directly from Russia, which make up a quarter of Ukraine's imports. The rest of Ukraine's imports comes from other states but travels through Russian pipelines.

Naftogaz, Ukraine's state gas company, earlier said it reserved the right to take "appropriate" action - and disrupt supplies to Europe that transit Ukraine - if Gazprom carried out the threatened additional cut.

But after the announcement, a spokesman said the firm had no plans for such a move at present thanks to warm weather and sufficient reserves.

European fears

Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov reassured European gas users on Tuesday that shipments of Russian gas would continue.

"Export deliveries via Ukrainian territory are carried out in full volume," he said.

European Commission spokesman Michele Cercone said: "They [Gazprom] reassured us that gas supplies to the European Union will not be affected.

A National Grid spokesperson said the UK did not rely on pipelines crossing Ukraine for its gas. "The UK doesn't get any of its gas direct from Russia," he said.

Kiev tension

A previous row between the two sides saw Russia cut gas to Ukraine in 2006. It also hit exports to Western Europe and affected diplomatic relations between Brussels and Moscow.

The BBC's Europe business correspondent Dominic Laurie says since that last crisis, a lot of work has been done to improve the relationship.

"Top officials meet often, and there's now an early warning system with Gazprom that alerts Brussels about dips in supplies at the Russian end," he said.

"The trouble is, the problems aren't there - but further west - in Ukraine. Kiev's energy relationship with Russia is the one that matters, and that just seems to be getting worse."

BBC News

[Black Widow]

who ever watched the video are just as bad as the people who gang raped her..

they should be tortured and slowly killed for doing that to a woman

[Stamkos]

Whoever watched the video will go to hell. I'm surprised I never heard about this until now. This is a huge story. The people who posted it on the website are morons. If they didn't think they were going to get caught, then they had another thing coming.

[Stamkos]

Source: CNN.com

(CNN) -- Sen. John McCain swept all four nominating contests on Tuesday to become the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

McCain won primaries in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island, giving him more than the 1,191 delegates needed to clinch the GOP nomination.

On the Democratic side, Sen. Hillary Clinton was projected to break Barack Obama's 12-contest winning streak with a victory in Rhode Island.

Obama was projected to take Vermont, but the contests in Ohio and Texas were too close to call.

Not like this was a surprise. It was absolutely obvious that he was going to take the leadership of the Republicans. I can't stand the Republicans though. I'm not American, but I'm very interested in this as the new leader of the United States can also effect Canada, in some ways. I'm a Democrat. Obama for President!

[JohnCenaFan28]

:girlsigh: Everyone expected this, but the outcome of this election will sure affect everyone...

[OMEN]

http://www.aolcdn.com/aoluk_feeds/article/200803/the_rev_ian_paisley_a23445931174684718a_200x150
The Rev Ian Paisley will remain as the MP and Assembly member for North Antrim
The Rev Ian Paisley has announced he is to quit as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party and First Minister in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

He will remain as the MP and Assembly member for North Antrim.

Senior Democratic Unionists are hopeful that there will be a seamless handover following his decision to stand down after 37 years.

Stormont finance minister and DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson is the strong favourite to take over, although economy minister Nigel Dodds has also been mentioned as a possible leadership candidate.
But senior sources predicted that there would be no divisive contest, with 59-year-old Mr Robinson likely to take over as leader and First Minister and 49-year-old Mr Dodds becoming his deputy as part of a dream ticket.

Mr Paisley announced he would stand aside after an investment conference on May 7 to 9 aimed at American businessmen, which Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Irish taoiseach Bertie Ahern are expected to attend.

Mr Paisley said he had decided to stand down after the conference because it seemed to be the most appropriate time for him to quit frontline politics.

But he would not be drawn on who should take over. "This is not the Church of Rome," he told Ulster Television, "This is not Apostolic succession and I have no right to say who will succeed me."

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "Ian Paisley has made a huge contribution to political life in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom. His commitment and dedication to public service deserve our gratitude. Progress on bringing a lasting peace to Northern Ireland would not have been possible without his immense courage and leadership."

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams extended his best wishes to Mr Paisley and commended him for his crucial role in forging the agreement with Sinn Fein last year which restored devolution.

AOL

[OMEN]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/images/706890.jpg
BACK IN THE RACE: Analysts said it was critical that Hillary Clinton won Ohio.
Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton has scored a huge boost in her campaign, winning the popular vote in the Texas primary after taking Ohio and Rhode Island, US media reports.
The wins for Clinton, 60, a New York senator, will send the hotly contested Democratic race on toward the next major contest - Pennsylvania on April 22.

Today's wins break Barack Obama's month-long string of victories in the state contests to pick a Democratic candidate for the November US election.

It is a major comeback for Clinton, who was under pressure to win in the two biggest states, Ohio and Texas, or face calls to withdraw from the race.

"We're going on, we're going strong, and we're going all the way," Clinton told roaring supporters in Columbus, Ohio. "We're just getting started."

Earlier, Clinton won the Rhode Island presidential primaries, while Obama picked up an easy win in Vermont.

Turnout was reported heavy in all four states, and the Obama and Clinton campaigns traded accusations of irregularities at the polls in both Ohio and Texas.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Steve Irwin's widow Terri has lost her bid to fight a multi-million dollar lawsuit in her home state of Queensland.

The wife of the late Crocodile Hunter and their world-famous Australia Zoo are being sued by a debt collection company which claims both parties owe more than $A2.5 million ($NZ2.92 million) over a complex loan deal with an offshore bank.

Alyssa Treasury Services has taken over several debts allegedly owed to various overseas companies and banks.

It has issued dozens of writs against various parties it claims did not honour "bills of exchange" - unconditional promises to pay money as part of their involvement in a tax minimisation scheme.

Lawyers for Ms Irwin and the zoo argued that Queensland was a more appropriate venue for the case because most potential witnesses were based there and the claim by Alyssa was brought under commonwealth law.

But Victorian County Court Judge Maree Kennedy today rejected the application, saying she wasn't satisfied the Supreme Court of Queensland was the appropriate court to hear the matter.

"The cause of action herein has a strong connection with this state (Victoria)," Judge Kennedy ruled.

"On the evidence at this stage, it appears that issue, acceptance and endorsement of the bill (of exchange) have all taken place in Victoria."

Judge Kennedy said she accepted that a Queensland connection could become more significant as the case proceeded, adding that she would reserve the right of Ms Irwin and Australia Zoo to further apply in future to have the case moved to their home state if fresh evidence was produced.

Alyssa alleges several parties including Ms Irwin - who is being personally sued for $A60,000 - and the zoo promised but failed to pay large sums of money in connection with the loan.

AAP

[OMEN]

Venezuela has lifted trade restrictions with Colombia after an earlier halt, state television reported, amid a diplomatic crisis that threatens stability in the Andean region.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered tanks to the border after Colombian security forces killed leftist rebels in an attack on Ecuadorean territory, escalating tensions in a dispute Chavez says could lead to war.

A state television reporter said authorities had "decided to allow the entrance of Colombian cargo trucks into Venezuelan territory (if) they are carrying high priority and perishable goods."

Military officials at the border told Reuters they were allowing all cargo trucks to cross into Venezuela.

"Tomorrow the border will be open like any other day," said one official when asked if the restrictions would be lifted permanently.

Truckers and transport industry leaders said Venezuela had shuttered customs operations at three major crossing points, creating long lines of truck on the Colombian side of the border.

The border opening followed hours of conflicting media reports and confusion along the border over what the government had actually decided.

Agriculture Minister Elias Jaua in the morning said, "We have taken some measures like the closure of the border" without elaborating.

Venezuela's Seniat tax agency, which is also in charge of customs, did not respond to requests for clarification.

The two nations have around $US6 billion ($NZ7.61 billion) a year in trade, with Venezuela importing cars, beef and medicine from its neighbour. Colombia imports chemicals, iron and plastic from Venezuela.

Venezuela has also increasingly relied on imports from its neighbour to address shortages of staple foods such as milk and chicken.

The country's business leaders say the shortages are caused by price controls that have not kept up with Latin America's highest inflation, while government leaders blame the problem on increased demand and hoarding.

Reuters

[OMEN]

An Iraqi military helicopter has crashed and all eight people on board killed, the US military said, the worst crash suffered by Iraq as it rebuilds its air force.

"Recovery operations have been completed and there were no survivors," the US military said in a statement.

One US service member was among those on board the Russian-made Mi-17 aircraft, it said, adding that the cause of the crash in northern Iraq was under investigation.

An Iraqi Defence Ministry statement said the helicopter had gone missing in a dust storm and the weather was the most likely cause of the crash.

It said the wreckage of the aircraft was found on Tuesday near Baiji, 180km north of Baghdad.

The helicopter was first reported missing on Monday near Sharqat, a desert area on the northern edges of Salahuddin province. Iraqi security officials had originally said two pilots were the only people on board.

An Iraqi military official in Salahuddin said the helicopter's pilots had radioed that they planned to make a forced landing because of the dust storm.

The US military said the last reported contacted with the helicopter was at 2.40pm (0040 NZT) on Monday.

Iraq is slowly rebuilding its air force, once one of the world's largest, after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. Its helicopters are mainly used for reconnaissance missions and to ferry troops.

Another Iraqi military helicopter was reported to have crashed in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad on May 30 last year, killing five people on board.

Five people were also killed when an Iraqi helicopter crashed during a training flight earlier last year.

Reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the read.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this.

[JohnCenaFan28]

I heard about this, and it sounds good. Thanks.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this.

[Stamkos]

See, if there was no war, then this wouldn't have happened.

[OMEN]

A hijacker armed with explosives was shot dead yesterday after he took 10 Australians hostage on their tour bus in China.

The man let nine of the 10 go but he held a 48-year-old NSW woman and an interpreter for a terrifying two hours until a sniper shot him dead.

#The Australians, all travel agents on an educational tour, were taken hostage in the city of Xian - where the main attraction is the Terracotta Army - in Shaanxi province in north-west China. The man, Xia Tao, reported to be a factory worker, boarded their bus at 10.52am and demanded transport to the airport.

After nine of the hostages were released and taken to safety, members of the Xian Public Security Bureau spoke to Xia.

As thousands of people crowded around Xian's central Bell and Drum Tower Square, where the hijack occurred, they agreed to let him go to the airport. A reader of Hua Shang Bao posted a comment on the paper's website saying they had seen Xia going to police headquarters, where the police chief exchanged himself for the hostages. The reader said Xia had dynamite strapped to his body.

At 12.52, as he approached a toll station near the airport, members of the bureau called out to the man to get out of the car before shooting and killing him.

The Department of Foreign Affairs reported that neither the NSW woman nor the interpreter was harmed. Consular officials would meet the group in Shanghai and provide help.

A diplomatic source in Beijing said they were not surprised by the hijacking as there was much random violence that was often not reported. The motive was not known, but Chinese media reported that when Xia got on the bus he had demanded to speak to the city's second top policeman, Wu Jin Biao

SMH

[OMEN]

The death sentences of three of the nine young Australian drug traffickers in Bali have been reduced to life imprisonment by Indonesia's Supreme Court, giving hope to the remaining three Australians on death row.

The result of the final appeals of Matthew Norman, Si Yi Chen and Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen have not been officially announced, but court sources confirmed judges had decided to spare their lives.

The court had taken into account their youth and the fact they were "not masterminds".

A spokesman for the their legal team, Henri Sitanggang, confirmed the news. He said he was delighted their lives had been spared and they would now move to seek a pardon from the President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

In their appeal, all three confessed to their role in the plan to import heroin from Bali to Australia, but begged for forgiveness and a chance to reform.

All three were arrested in Bali's Melasti Hotel with a quantity of heroin, shortly after other members of the plot were apprehended at Denpasar Airport in 2005. They were to carry a second shipment back to Sydney.

Mr Sitanggang said they should have been given a shorter jail sentence as they were young and wanted to redeem themselves.

"Of course I am happy because we have saved these people's lives," he said. "Our next program is to apply for the grace of the President."

Mr Sitanggang said that, in time, lawyers would move to have the three eligible for remissions, and he hoped they could be released within 10 years.

The decision may prompt another courier, Scott Rush, and the alleged ringleaders of the heroin smuggling, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, to lodge their final appeals to the Supreme Court.

The latest Supreme Court verdict came as a surprise as it was the court that upgraded the sentences of the three men to death from 20 years' imprisonment during an earlier appeal.

One of Scott Rush's lawyers, John North, said last night that he was "delighted with the decision".

"It shows that the Indonesian Supreme Court is able to recognise the individual characteristics of those involved," he said.

"We hope that they will, in due course, recognise that Scott Rush is the only one of the airport couriers to face the death penalty and we hope that he will be treated in the same way as Renae Lawrence, who is serving 20 years."

Michael Czugaj and Martin Stephens are serving life.

The lawyer for Sukumaran and Chan, the Melbourne QC Julian McMahon, said: "Who could say that decades in jail for a young adult is not adequate punishment for any crime?"

SMH

[OMEN]

Zimbabwe is seeking to rush in maize imports from southern African states, President Robert Mugabe told an election rally on Wednesday, saying the country faced an emergency.

Concerns over widespread food shortages deepened after a government report on Tuesday showed Zimbabwe would fail to meet its targeted harvest this year, further highlighting the plight of an economy gripped by hyper-inflation.

"Maize is there (in Zambia) ... but we are having problems moving it," Mugabe told about 8000 party supporters during a campaign rally in Mahusekwa, a rural settlement 70km south of the capital Harare.

"We sought permission from the Zambian government to send our people to load the maize into trucks because we have already paid for it," said Mugabe.

"We have 150,000 tonnes in Zambia and more than 300,000 tonnes in Malawi and a few thousands from South Africa. We have an emergency because we have areas that face shortages."

Mugabe also promised to tackle escalating prices of basic goods, review the salaries of teachers who frequently strike over low pay, and give more equipment to farmers resettled under a controversial land reform programme.

Economists say the government's seizure of white-owned farms to resettle landless blacks has deepened the economic crisis.

The March 29 election presents Mugabe with one of the biggest challenges to his rule since taking office in 1980.

Former Finance Minister Simba Makoni was expelled from the ruling ZANU-PF last month after deciding to run against Mugabe as an independent. He has been backed by senior party politburo member Dumiso Dabengwa, a major blow to Mugabe.

The defections may have bruised Mugabe, a former liberation hero Western foes accuse of human rights abuses and ruining the country's economy, allegations he denies.

But the wily 84-year-old leader could still capitalise on the opposition's failure to unite, analysts say.

Makoni has suggested he has the backing of many senior ZANU-PF officials but there is no sign of this. Most party officials have lined up to publicly back Mugabe.

"You do not just fall from nowhere and declare yourself a presidential candidate. That is what Makoni did. The power of leadership comes from the people," Mugabe told his rally.

His other main challenger is long-time rival Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the biggest faction of the divided main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

All three election candidates have promised to tackle the economic crisis but they have produced few concrete proposals to ease hardships worsening by the day.

While the campaign hots up, ordinary Zimbweans are more concerned with chronic food and fuel shortages and the world's highest inflation rate of over 100,000 per cent.

Reuters

Like Robert Mugabe is ever going to let free elections ever take place in Zimbabwe while he is alive...

[OMEN]

Iran on Wednesday rejected a call by world powers for more nuclear talks with their envoy and said it would in future discuss its uranium enrichment programme only with the UN nuclear watchdog.

Tehran also brushed off a third round of sanctions imposed on it on Monday by the UN Security Council over its refusal to suspend enrichment, saying its economy would not be affected.

In Vienna, Britain, France and Germany told governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran's record of cooperation with IAEA inspectors was "abysmal" - a much harsher judgment than that reached by the watchdog itself.

The IAEA wants to learn the true scope of Iran's nuclear programme. A Feb 22 IAEA report said improved Iranian cooperation had helped inspectors resolve all but one question about its past work, but Iran had not explained intelligence on alleged explosives and missile studies applicable to atom bombs.

The three EU powers sponsored more extensive Security Council sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic on Monday.

They, together with the United States, Russia and China, also said they wanted EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to meet Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, to try to reopen talks on offers of incentives for Iran to halt its work.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected the idea.

"From now on, our nuclear issue is with the agency (IAEA) only and we will not negotiate with anyone outside the agency about Iran's nuclear issue," the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying in his first reaction to new sanctions.

A senior Iranian official said Ahmadinejad meant Tehran would accept no more talks with the EU based on their demand for a nuclear halt in exchange for trade benefits and a halt to sanctions. "This carrot and stick policy does not work with us. So they should review their policy," he told Reuters.

Iran was, however, ready to discuss issues such as regional security, trade or nuclear power plants, said the official, who asked not to be named due to political sensitivities.

At the IAEA board of governors meeting, the "EU-3" countries cast the recent agency report on Iran in a more negative light.

IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei had said only one issue of nuclear proliferation concern remained to be clarified, and the rest were "no longer outstanding" - a position he said was "obviously encouraging."

"(ElBaradei's) report leaves our three countries in no doubt that Iran's record in complying with these requirements remains abysmal," the three said in a speech presented by British IAEA Ambassador Simon Smith to the 35-nation board.

An IAEA briefing for diplomats last week, highlighting intelligence about nuclear "weaponisation" work Iran has dismissed as fabricated, underlined Tehran's "record of delay and obfuscation" in dealing with IAEA inquiries, Smith said.

"As long as Iran's choice remains one of non-cooperation, we for our part will remain determined to demonstrate the costs and consequences of that choice," he added, alluding to sanctions.

The Islamic Republic's IAEA ambassador said the latest Security Council sanctions would have no effect on Iran's "exclusively peaceful nuclear activities".

But most on the 35-nation IAEA Board, while recognising that information Iran had provided had eased some concerns about past activity, said Tehran had much more to do to clean its slate.

They pointed in particular to intelligence data, much of it from a laptop smuggled out of Iran by a defector, suggesting links between processing uranium for nuclear fuel, testing high explosives and modifying a missile cone for an atomic payload.

In Geneva, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the new sanctions would not affect the Iranian economy. "Within the last year we have signed and concluded economic contracts with so many companies from around the world," he told reporters.

Asian and other firms continue to sign energy deals with Iran. But European executives say it has become increasingly difficult for Iranian firms and their Western partners to open letters of credit for imports into the country.

Reuters

[Stamkos]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush endorsed Sen. John McCain for president on Wednesday, saying the presumptive Republican nominee has the "character, courage and perseverance" to lead the country.

McCain thanked the president for his support and the work he has done in the Oval Office.

"I appreciate his endorsement, and I appreciate his service to our country," said McCain, adding that he wanted Bush at his side as much as possible on the campaign trail.

"Whatever he wants me to do, I want him to win," Bush said, who was challenged by McCain for the GOP nomination in 2000. But he said the 2008 run for the Oval Office was not his battle.

"It's not about me. I've done my bit," Bush said.

Addressing the calls for change in the presidential campaign, Bush said McCain would be steadfast to one of his administration's policies.

"He's not gonna change when it comes to taking on the enemy," Bush said of the senator from Arizona.

[Stamkos]

(CNN) -- An explosion destroyed a home in suburban Pittsburgh on Wednesday, killing an elderly man and severely injuring his grandchild, authorities said.

The explosion was reported about 1:30 p.m. on Mardi Gras Drive in Plum Borough, about 15 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. Several neighboring homes were damaged, fire officials said.

The victims were Richard Leith, 64, who was babysitting his grandchild in the home, according to John J. Smith, an investigator with the Allegheny County medical examiner's office. Both were transported to local hospitals, though Leith died later in the afternoon.

The condition of the child, who was treated at Children's Hospital, was unknown, Smith said. Leith's autopsy would be conducted on Thursday, he added.

It is unclear what caused the explosion.

Dave Heiser, a neighbor, told CNN that he was home when he heard the explosion. "I thought my house blew up. My windows were blown out. I went outside and debris was falling from the sky," he said.

[OMEN]

John Howard has launched a spirited defence of his legacy, breaking his silence following last year's election loss.

While his coalition colleagues have been junking his policies since being tipped out of office last November, the former prime minister used a speech to a conservative US think tank to attack the Rudd government over industrial relations and Iraq.

He condemned the new government's decision to withdraw combat troops from Iraq and its rollback of his workplace relations laws.

"That will be a mistake," Mr Howard told the American Enterprise Institute's annual dinner in Washington.

"It will be the first time in 25 years that a major economic reform in Australia has been reversed.

"In particular, bringing back the old unfair dismissal laws will stifle employment growth amongst small businesses."

Mr Howard was guest of honour at the dinner, where he was presented with the Irving Kristol award, named after the father of neoconservatism.

He entered the room to a standing ovation from the 1,400-strong audience, including former United Nations ambassador John Bolton, Vice President Dick Cheney's wife Lynne, and former World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz.

Despite their close friendship, US President George W Bush did not attend the dinner, nor did any member of the Bush administration.

Mr Howard was introduced by institute trustee James Wilson as "John Winston Howard, stalwart all-rounder of politics and policy, who made good government a popular cause and advanced Australia fair and free".

Since the election loss, the Liberal-National coalition has battled to regroup, declaring Work Choices dead, reversing its opposition to ratifying the Kyoto protocol on climate change and agreeing with the troop withdrawal from Iraq.

But Mr Howard stood up for his 11-year-old government's legacy, saying it had left Australia in a much stronger position than when they took office in 1996.

"I speak to you tonight as a continuing and unapologetic advocate of the broad conservative cause, but restlessly conscious, as I know you will be, that the battle of ideas is never completely won," he said.

"I'm disappointed that Australia's battlegroup will be withdrawing from southern Iraq in June as one of the new Labor government's election commitments, rather than making a greater contribution to training the Iraqis to maintain their own security.

"The Iraqi people desperately need the time and space created by the surge to sustain the tentative political progress we are now seeing.

"And it would be a tragedy if those gains were surrendered now by premature drawdowns."

Mr Howard criticised the Australian media for concentrating on bad news from Iraq, rather than highlighting advances, and took aim at the Rudd government for regarding Afghanistan as the central front in the war on terrorism.

"While it may be politically convenient, this view is profoundly naive and dangerous," he said.

"One only has to look at al-Qaeda's own words and actions to know that Iraq is every bit as much a major front in the war against terror as is Afghanistan. We simply cannot afford to lose in either."

It was Mr Howard's first speech since election night, and a sign of how he plans to supplement his generous parliamentary pension.

He has signed with the Washington Speakers Bureau, and AEI foreign policy chief Danielle Pletka said Mr Howard's election loss did not make him a less valuable speaker.

"Let me just remind people that Winston Churchill was also defeated. This is what happens in democracies - leaders are defeated," Ms Pletka told ABC radio.

AAP

[OMEN]

Israel and the Palestinians may resume peace talks this week, Israeli media reported, but progress looked set to hinge on stemming bloodshed in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

The two sides agreed under pressure from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to resume the US-backed talks after the Palestinians suspended them in protest of an Israeli offensive in Gaza that killed more than 125 people.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert signalled willingness to stop attacks after the five-day offensive, which killed many civilians in the territory, if the Islamist group Hamas stopped firing rockets into Israel.

Hamas's Western-backed rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, had said he would not return to statehood talks with Olmert until Israel reached a ceasefire in Gaza.

Rice finished a three-day troubleshooting visit to the region on Wednesday by dispatching an envoy to Cairo, a key player in trying to broker calm.

Palestinian officials said Egyptian mediator Omar Suleiman would present Israel and Hamas with a truce proposal including a mutual cessation of hostilities and Israel's assent for key border crossings to open. Suleiman is due in Israel next week.

The United States hopes negotiations could result in an accord before US President George W Bush leaves office next January.

Israel's Haaretz daily quoted Israeli officials as saying "junior representatives" of the negotiating teams may meet as early as Thursday.

Israel called its push into Gaza a response to rocket strikes by Hamas. A rocket killed an Israeli civilian last week and two soldiers died fighting Gaza gunmen.

Hamas, who opposes the peace talks with Israel, routed forces loyal to the Western-backed Abbas to seize the Gaza Strip in June.

Hamas was cool to Olmert's overture, though its rocket fire has largely abated since Israeli troops withdrew from the coastal territory on Monday.

Hamas says attacks from Gaza, including rockets fired by its own militants and others, are a response to Israeli military operations in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank and would end if Israel stopped all such activity and lifted its blockade.

About 290 rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel in the past week, the Israeli army said.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Australian tourists briefly held hostage in China by a lone man armed with explosives told of their ordeal as Canberra urged holidaymakers to heed travel warnings ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

The man attacked a group of 10 Australian travel agents visiting the northwest city of Xi'an, famed as home of the Terracotta Warriors, on Wednesday before he was shot dead by a police sniper.

"He was pacing up and down the bus, they couldn't understand what he was saying. Then he turned around, opened up his jacket and he had a bomb strapped to him," said Sue Wynne, a friend of hostage Rhiannon Dunkley, after speaking to her.

Nine of the hostages were released by the man, but a 48-year-old woman was held captive for several hours before the gunman was killed.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said there was nothing to suggest the Australians were deliberately targeted and the motive for the attack remained unclear.

"We've asked for a full briefing to try to understand the motivation," Smith told journalists in Melbourne.

The travel agents were on an educational tour to Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai, organised by a Sydney-based travel wholesale company, when the attack took place.

As the Australians boarded flights for home from Shanghai on Thursday, the company's General Manager Jimmy Liu said China was a safe destination for the Olympics in August and described the attack as "very rare".

Smith said Australian travel danger warnings for China were set at a very low level, but urged travellers planning trips to the country for the Olympics to read them for their security.

"This is an unusual event for China and the Chinese authorities are no doubt putting their minds to the motivation behind it," Smith said.

Australian foreign ministry advice for China warns that foreigners have been assaulted and robbed, "particularly in popular expatriate gathering areas".

The official Xinhua news agency said police believed the man was named Xia Tao and was a worker in Xi'an. Police investigators did not offer an explanation for the attack.

China has been preparing for an influx of foreign visitors for the Beijing Olympics, and the government has been at pains to highlight the security steps it is taking.

"I don't view this case as an embarrassment to China. Such things happen in every country and what matters is how you handle it," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Sri Lanka's government is responsible for widespread abductions and disappearances as it fights a new phase in a 25-year civil war with the Tamil Tigers, Human Rights Watch said, calling for a UN monitoring mission.

Rights groups have reported hundreds of abductions, disappearances and killings blamed on one side or the other since the civil war, which has killed nearly 70,000 people since 1983, resumed in 2006 as a truce collapsed on the ground.

"President Mahinda Rajapaksa, once a rights advocate, has now led his government to become one of the world's worst perpetrators of forced disappearances," Human Rights Watch Deputy Asia Director Elaine Pearson said in a statement, launching a 241-page report.

The report, entitled "Recurring nightmare: State responsibility for disappearances and abductions in Sri Lanka", features interviews with relatives of 'disappeared', some of whom describe how police had paid visits shortly before abductions.

Others describe relatives disappearing after being interrogated at gunpoint by police in broad daylight, or being bundled into white vans by unidentified gunmen. Police then deny their relative has been arrested.

"We absolutely deny the exaggerated allegations reflected in the Human Rights Watch Report," said Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona. "The report talks about a situation which is getting worse by the minute, and I think it is not only unfair, it is malicious.

"There are all these allegations and they are not exactly serious allegations. They are concocted in our view or exaggerated in order to give the country a bad name," he added. "Over the last 12 months, the situation has improved considerably. . ., a result of measures put in place by the government."

After formally scrapping a 6-year truce with the Tigers in a wider bid to win the war militarily, Rajapaksa's government banished Nordic truce monitors who had blamed troops and rebels for repeated abuses.

The former Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission enraged the government by accusing state security forces of massacring 17 local staff of international aid group Action Contre la Faim in 2006 – the worst attack on aid workers since the 2003 bomb attack on the UN office in Baghdad.

The government has rejected calls for a UN human rights monitoring mission, and has publicly vilified UN officials who have questioned its rights record.

Rajapaksa himself has dismissed reports of abductions and disappearances, some from areas under tight military control, as propaganda aimed at tarnishing his government's reputation.

Some government officials have said reported disappearances and abductions were cases of love-struck youths eloping or going on holiday.

Hundreds of relatives of Sri Lankan civilians who have disappeared as the war has escalated demand answers.

"So long as soldiers and police can commit disappearances with impunity, this horrific crime will continue," Human Rights Watch's Pearson said. "The Sri Lankan government's rejection of a UN monitoring mission reflects badly on its commitment to human rights.

"While the government dawdles, many Sri Lankans will continue to pay the price."

Reuters

[OMEN]

The NSW State Rail Authority (SRA) was not responsible for the rape of a woman who could not flee her attacker because she broke her ankle weeks earlier at a Sydney station, an appeal court has ruled.

A District Court judge last year decided the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, would not have suffered a sexual assault at a private home had she not been injured and immobilised because of her fall at the railway station.

He also found the sexual assault was a "foreseeable" consequence of the SRA's "breach of duty".

But the NSW Court of Appeal overturned the findings, concluding it was not her lack of mobility that principally constrained her from leaving her attacker's room.

"In my view, it was not reasonably foreseeable that a young woman who was immobilised to the extent of having to use crutches would thereby be exposed to a criminal sexual assault," said Acting Justice Jane Mathews.

The Taiwanese woman, who was 31 at the time and in Australia to study English, fell while walking down slippery, wet stairs at Sydenham railway station in December 2002.

She successfully sued the SRA, but her $A239,405 ($NZ282,217) damages award was today reduced to $A217,324.

The original amount was reduced by the $A71,245 awarded in relation to the psychological damage relating to the rape.

But her lawyers successfully argued for a $A49,164 increase in the award for her future economic loss.

AAP

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the read.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Interesting, thanks.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this.

[Black Widow]

School Bans Hugs Over 2 Seconds
Students Don't Embrace 'Public Display Of Affection' Policy


MESA, Ariz. -- A school policy banning student hugging prompted dozens of east Valley students to protest with a giant group hug across the street from campus.

"I think it's ridiculous," said Chelsea Branham, a 14-year-old student at Shepherd Junior High School in east Mesa.

Branham said she got detention this week for hugging her friend after school.

"It's not like it's supposed to mean anything," she said. "It's not like I was making out with him or something."

Branham joined her classmates on Friday for a 20-minute, public hug-a-thon.

"She's taking a stand and I'm standing behind her to do it," said Stephanie Wiegold, her mother.

The "no-hugging" rule had previously been in the student handbook. After many students began expressing concern about public hugging and kissing in the hallways, the school began reinforcing the guideline by punishing huggers, which led to Friday's protest.

Prior to the demonstration, the district said the principal and students brokered an agreement to clarify the "no-hugging" rule. According to the guidelines, small hugs, less than two seconds, are permitted but longer ones and kissing are not.

"We can only hug two seconds? That's ridiculous," Branham said. "It's barely even a hug."

"What we're doing here is hoping to help kids understand what's happening," said Kathy Bareiss of Mesa public schools.

The district said a list of acceptable and non-acceptable behaviors will be handed out to students on Monday.


kpho.com

[JohnCenaFan28]

I remember seeing a show with this in it...

[JohnCenaFan28]

A Russian man suspected of being one of the world's biggest illegal arms dealers has been arrested in Thailand.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44473000/jpg/_44473382_boutthailandap203b.jpg

Viktor Bout - who has been dubbed the "merchant of death" - was picked up by police at a luxury hotel in Bangkok.

The Thai authorities acted on a warrant issued by the US, which accuses Mr Bout of supplying arms to Colombian rebels.

He has also been accused of breaking UN embargoes on arms sales to many countries from central Asia to Africa, but has never been prosecuted.

When Belgium and Interpol issued an international arrest warrant for him in 2002, Mr Bout returned to Russia, where he was protected from extradition by the country's constitution.

Deportation

Lt Gen Pongpat Chayapan, head of the Thai Crime Suppressino Bureau, said Mr Bout was arrested at a hotel in Bangkok shortly after he arrived in Thailand while attempting to "procure weapons for Colombia's Farc rebels".

The left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) have been seeking to overthrow the Colombian government for more than four decades.

"We have followed him for several months. He just came back to Thailand today," Gen Pongpat said.

"We will take legal action against him here, before deporting him to face trial in another country, likely the US."

The US warrant stemmed from an earlier one issued by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), he said.

Unconfirmed US media reports say Mr Bout was arrested during negotiations to sell weapons in a sting orchestrated by a DEA special operations unit.

A spokesman for the US embassy in Bangkok congratulated Thai police on the arrest, but could not provide any details about the possible role of US officials.

The US treasury department imposed sanctions on Mr Bout's businesses in October 2006, seizing his fleet of cargo planes and freezing many of his assets.

UN embargoes

Mr Bout, 41, is said to have graduated from Moscow's military institute in the early 1990s and was a major in the Soviet KGB.

According to a 2007 book about him - entitled Merchant of Death - Money, Guns, Planes and the Man Who Makes War Possible - he set up a network of companies using redundant Soviet military planes.

A 2005 report by the human rights group, Amnesty International, said Mr Bout was "the most prominent foreign businessman" breaking UN embargoes on arms sales to countries such as Bulgaria, Slovakia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.

He has also been accused of supplying weapons to supporters of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Taleban in Afghanistan and even al-Qaeda during the 1990s.

Mr Bout's life is believed to have been the inspiration for Nicolas Cage's character in the 2005 film, Lord of War.

Although he has been investigated by the authorities in several countries, Mr Bout has never been prosecuted for arms dealing.

BBC News

[OMEN]

A group of South Korean women were falsely lured to Australia and forced to work up to 20 hours a day in a Sydney brothel, police say.

Federal Police officers raided six inner-Sydney properties yesterday, arresting three women and two men allegedly linked to a sex trafficking syndicate worth more than $A3 million a year.

"Police will allege the syndicate recruited women in Korea by deceiving them about the conditions under which they would be employed and then organised their entry into Australia under false pretences," the Australian Federal Police said in a statement.

A 46-year-old woman from Greenacre in south-west Sydney, a 42-year-old woman from Hornsby in north-western Sydney and 35-year-old Korean woman are due to appear in Central Local Court today.

They are charged with offences including people trafficking, deceptively recruiting for sexual services, dealing in the proceeds of crime worth more than $A1 million, and arranging a non-genuine marriage.

Two Sydney men, aged 23 and 28, have been charged with knowingly conducting a business involving the sexual servitude of others and will appear in court at a later date.

AAP

[OMEN]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/images/707330.jpg
IN CHARGE: Pakistan's army chief General Ashfaq Kayani.
Pakistan's army chief has called for harmony as a coalition opposed to President Pervez Musharraf prepares to form a government that could force him from power.

Recent opinion polls showed the vast majority of people would like US ally Musharraf, who came to power as a general in a coup in 1999, to step down.

A crushing defeat suffered by his allies in a parliamentary election last month has raised the prospect that he could be forced out by a hostile National Assembly.

General Ashfaq Kayani, who became army chief after Musharraf quit the army to become a civilian leader in November, expressed optimism that there will be a "harmonized relationship between various pillars of the state, as provided in the constitution".

A military statement quoted Kayani as telling army commanders in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, that "any kind of schism, at any level, under the circumstances would not be in the larger interest of the nation."

Pakistan has been reeling since mid-2007 from a suicide bomb campaign mounted by al Qaeda inspired Islamist militants.

There have been four suicide attacks in the past week, and the country's state of political flux has raised international concern about the risks of instability in the nuclear-armed Muslim nation of 160 million people.

The party of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto won the most seats in the election while the party of Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister Musharraf deposed, finished second.

Both parties are set to join hands with another opposition party to form a coalition that could threaten Musharraf's rule.

Musharraf has rejected calls for his resignation and has said he was ready to work with whoever forms the government.

He is expected to convene the National Assembly in the coming days and invite Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) to nominate a prime ministerial candidate to form a government.

Generals have led Pakistan for more than half the 60 years since the country was carved out of the partition of India following independence from Britain in 1947.

Kayani reaffirmed that the army fully stood behind the democratic process and was committed to play its constitutional role in support of the elected government.

He said army would stay out of the political process and expressed his hope it would not be dragged into any unnecessary controversy.

Kayani, who met with Musharraf this week, said an impression was being created that the army was distancing itself from the president and he emphasized the importance of "the constitutional relationship between army and the National Command Structure".

While Sharif has been outspoken in his calls for Musharraf to go, Bhutto's widower and her political successor, Asif Ali Zardari, has avoided taking such a hard line, though both have vowed to banish the military from politics.

Reuters

[Stamkos]

That's extremely stupid. I could understand if it was inappropiate hugging or something like that, but just a normal hug that is over two seconds isn't allowed? Bullshit. Schools are getting more ridiculous with their rules each day. The students won't follow it, guarenteed.

[Pretty Fly Guy]

Back in my day we showed up to school naked and weren't allowed hugs under 60 seconds.

[Bad Boy]

^lmao...

anyhoo... this is a crappy rule... glad tat my school life is getting over very soon, cuz if that rule was enforced in my school, their would be serious problems... lmao...

[OMEN]

Jerusalem - The library of the rabbinical seminary was crowded for a night-time study session when the Palestinian gunman opened fire. Students scrambled to flee the attack, jumping out of windows. Holy books drenched in blood littered the floor.

The attacker killed eight students and wounded nine before he was shot dead on Thursday night. It was the first major attack in Jerusalem in four years.

Afterward, the Jewish seminarians gathered outside the library and screamed for revenge, shouting, "Death to Arabs," while in Hamas-controlled Gaza thousands of jubilant Palestinians took to the streets to celebrate.

Funeral processions for the dead students - one of them 26-years-old and the rest teenagers between ages 15 and 19 - were to depart from the seminary on Friday morning.

Abbas condemns attacks

Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate Palestinian president with whom Israel is negotiating a peace agreement, condemned the attack. But by Friday morning there were some Israeli lawmakers calling on the government to break off talks.

"The government must immediately halt all negotiations and eradicate terrorism in every way possible," said David Rotem of the hardline Yisrael Beiteinu party. "Later, when we have someone to talk with, we can hold negotiations," he told Israel Radio.

Others rejected that call. "It's the job of a responsible leadership, a logical leadership, to say in moments like these, looking at the blood, at the cries for revenge ... that we, at least we in Israel, will do everything we can in order not to be dragged into this cycle," dovish lawmaker Yossi Beilin told Israel Radio.

Hamas militants, who have been battling Israel during a weeklong surge in violence in Gaza, praised the attack in a statement but stopped just short of claiming responsibility. "We bless the operation. It will not be the last," Hamas said in a statement sent to reporters by text message.

Israeli defence officials said the attacker came from east Jerusalem, where the city's Palestinians live. They have Israeli ID cards that give them freedom of movement in Israel, unlike Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

Police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld said the attacker walked through the seminary's main gate and entered the library, where witnesses said about 80 students were gathered. He carried an assault rifle and pistol, and used both weapons in the attack. Rosenfeld said at least six empty bullet clips were found on the floor. Rescue workers said nine people were wounded, three seriously.

Massacre instead of Purim

David Simchon, head of the seminary, said the students were preparing a celebration for the new month on the Jewish calendar, which includes the holiday of Purim. "We were planning to have a Purim party here tonight and instead we had a massacre," he told Channel 2 TV.

The gunman was finally killed by a seminary graduate who is an army officer and lives nearby, Simchon said on Friday.

Witnesses described a terrifying scene during the shooting, with students jumping out windows to escape.

The seminary is the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, a prestigious centre of Jewish studies identified with the leadership of the Jewish settlement movement in the West Bank. It serves about 400 high school students and young Israeli soldiers, and many of them carry arms.

Thursday's shooting was the deadliest incident in Israel since a suicide bomber killed 11 people in Tel Aviv on April 17, 2006.

AP

[OMEN]

Banja Luka - A runaway Bosnian bank teller has been arrested after a tip-off by her husband and faces charges of stealing $1.68m from bank depositors, police said on Thursday.

Sanja Meseledzija-Gvozdjar, 33, left on vacation from her job at Raiffeisen Bank in the Bosnian Serb capital in September last year and never returned home.

She was arrested this week in Belgrade, said criminal police chief Gojko Vasic.

She is suspected of embezzling funds from the bank's term deposit accounts from December 2006 to September 2007.

Her husband revealed her Belgrade hideout to the police and has reportedly filed for divorce and changed his name.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Washington - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Thursday reported raising $55m in February, the highest ever amount of campaign donations recorded for a single month and $20m more than was reported last week by rival Hillary Clinton.

Obama's campaign said $45m were raised online, and more than 90% were donations of $100 or less. More than 1 million people have given money to date, the campaign said.

Obama won 11 straight contests during the money-raising month of February, but his momentum was stopped Tuesday when Clinton took three of four state primaries, including crucial contests in Ohio and Texas.

The two candidates are separated by only about 100 delegates, with some 3 000 already awarded in the series of state-by-state intra- party contests that have been running since early January.

Both Democratic candidates have consistently out-raised their Republican rivals since the race began in early 2007. John McCain, who captured the Republican nomination on Tuesday, reported raising only $12m in the month of February.

But while Senator McCain will now be able to focus exclusively on raising money and uniting the Republican Party, Senators Clinton and Obama will likely be spending at least the next month-and-a-half using precious funds on each other.

The Democratic nomination contest next moves to Wyoming on Saturday and Mississippi on Tuesday, before the delegate-rich state of Pennsylvania votes April 22.

A poll published on Thursday showed both Democrats would beat McCain in a general election match-up. The Washington Post-ABC News poll showed Clinton with a 6 percentage point lead over McCain and Obama with a 12 percentage point lead. ?

Sapa-dpa

[OMEN]

New York - The United Nations peacekeeping chief has told his staff that he will step down this summer and end an eight-year stint in which he often voiced surprising criticism of UN operations.

Jean-Marie Guehenno of France, who has held the job longer than anyone previously, told staff within the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the Department of Field Services that he intends to leave his post when his contract expires in mid-2008, UN deputy spokesperson Marie Okabe said Thursday.

During that time the number of UN troops has doubled from 50 000 to about 102 000 and his department's budget has tripled from $2.5bn to $7.5bn, with new missions added in places such as Sudan, East Timor, Liberia, Ivory Coast and Haiti.

He has overseen the UN's 17 peacekeeping operations and three peace-building missions.

Elusive peace

Working under Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and for his predecessor, Kofi Annan, since October 2000, Guehenno has at times disagreed with the Security Council on the wisdom of sending peacekeeping missions into war zones where peace is elusive.

Recently, he voiced reservations in November about the challenges facing the African Union-UN peacekeeping force into Sudan's Darfur region, including the lack of helicopters and other equipment.

He also has fought to try to focus more public attention on the problem of sexual exploitation by UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti and other places. His job is one of the top positions at the UN that countries such as France and the United States are interested in holding.

The US pays for almost 25% of the peacekeeping department's $7bn a year budget.

AP

[OMEN]

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44475000/jpg/_44475074_activists_ap203bod.jpg
Activists have regularly attacked the Japanese with "stink bombs"
An anti-whaling campaigner says he has been shot by Japanese sailors while protesting over their hunting activities in the Antarctic.

Paul Watson, of the Sea Shepherd group, said his colleagues had been throwing stink bombs, but the Japanese responded with "flash grenades" and gunfire.

He said he felt a thud in his chest and found a bullet in his Kevlar vest.

But Tokyo denied any bullets had been fired, saying "warning devices" were thrown after their ship was attacked.

The foreign ministry said the Japanese coastguard on board the Nisshin Maru ship had thrown a baseball-sized device, which exploded near the activists' ship emitting a loud noise.

The device was not designed to hurt people, and the ministry said it was not aware of any injuries.

'Aimed at us'

Mr Watson told Australian radio that he found a bullet in his Kevlar vest.

"It bruised my shoulder but it would have hit my heart if I didn't have the vest," he said.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44475000/jpg/_44475015_watson_ap203bod.jpg
Mr Watson is captain of the Sea Shepherd vessel, the Steve Irwin

He told Australia's ABC News that there was no justification for the whalers opening fire.

"We were doing what we usually do, which is putting stink bombs on deck," he said.

"We go out of our way to make sure we don't throw them near anybody, but they were throwing the flash grenades directly at us."

Japan had planned to kill up to 900 minke whales and 50 fin whales during the expedition.

Tokyo says it carries out whaling for scientific research, but critics say the same data can be collected without killing the animals.

BBC

[OMEN]

Around 1000 Danish Muslims have demonstrated peacefully in Copenhagen against the reprinting of a satirical cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad in Danish newspapers last month.

On February 13, a number of Danish newspapers published the cartoon - one of 12 that prompted riots in many Muslim countries in 2006 - in solidarity with the artist after three men were arrested on suspicion of planning to kill him.

The organisers of Friday's protest said in a statement that while they valued freedom of speech, they also wanted the Danish government to react more forcefully against humiliation of religious symbols.

A number of other Western newspapers have also reprinted the cartoon, which depicts the founder of Islam with a bomb in his turban. Many Muslims consider any depiction of the Prophet offensive.

Islamists held demonstrations in Pakistan's main cities on Friday to protest at the republication of the drawing.

A number of protests have been held in Muslim countries in the last three weeks, but none as violent as in 2006 when more than 50 people were killed in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

The Netherlands on Thursday raised its terrorism threat warning level ahead of the launch of a film about Islam by a right-wing politician who has described the Koran as a "fascist" book.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Prince Philip will not have to give evidence to the inquest into the deaths of Princess Diana and her lover Dodi al-Fayed, the coroner said.

Queen Elizabeth will not have to answer questions either.

"In my judgment it is not expedient to call the Duke of Edinburgh to give evidence, nor do I think the Queen should be asked to answer the questions by Michael Mansfield," the coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker, said, referring to the lawyer for Mohamed al-Fayed, Dodi's father.

"Neither step will, in my judgment, further the inquest process."

Mohamed al-Fayed, an Egyptian-born retail tycoon, has always wanted Prince Philip to answer questions on his relationship with the princess, who died along with Dodi in a Paris car crash in 1997.

Al-Fayed accuses the royal family of wanting to "get rid" of Diana and has suggested that Prince Philip was behind the plot.

When he appeared before the inquest last month, al-Fayed was asked if Prince Philip was at the heart of the conspiracy.

"That's right," he said.

The inquest earlier heard, however, that Prince Philip and Diana had enjoyed a warm relationship, with the two exchanging letters as far back as 1992 and Diana referring to him as "Dearest Pa".

French and British police investigations have both concluded that Diana and Dodi died as a result of a tragic accident caused by a speeding driver who was found to have been drunk. Both inquiries rejected al-Fayed's theories.

The driver, Henri Paul, a Fayed employee, also died

Reuters

[OMEN]

Zimbabwe's government will not invite observers from countries critical of President Robert Mugabe's rule to monitor a general election due later this month, a government official said.

The state-controlled Herald newspaper on Friday quoted Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi as telling diplomats in Harare that the government had selected 47 foreign observer teams "on the basis of reciprocity, objectivity and impartiality in their relationship with Zimbabwe."

"Clearly, those who believe that the only free and fair election is where the opposition wins, have been excluded since the ruling party, ZANU-PF, is poised to score yet another triumph," Mumbengegwi said.

The southern African country - in the middle of a severe economic and political crisis - votes on March 29 in presidential, parliamentary and council elections.

The most important contest will be between Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, former ally Simba Makoni and old rival Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the biggest faction of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Critics say Mugabe has rigged elections since 2000 to cling to power. The veteran leader denies the charge.

The Herald said Russia was the only European country invited while 23 African and several Asian nations would also monitor the polls, along with teams from regional economic blocs.

Mumbengegwi said all diplomats, including those from the West, accredited to Zimbabwe on a full-time basis could observe the polls.

"Only those diplomats who are accredited on a full time basis - and not those on temporary assignment - and wish to observe the March elections, will be granted accreditation upon their request to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs," he said.

Tsvangirai's MDC slammed the government's decision to bar western election observers, saying the move proved the process was flawed.

"What this means is they have something to hide," Luke Tamborinkyoka, director of information in Tsvangirai's faction, said.

"If they didn't have anything to hide, they would not have invited just their friends. This shows they have skeletons in their cupboards and intend to rig the process under minimum scrutiny."

Political analyst Eldred Masunungure of the University of Zimbabwe said while the move did not come as a surprise given Mugabe's defiance of his Western foes, it could undermine the legitimacy of the poll.

"This discrimination, apparently in favour of friendly states that are expected not to query certain aspects of the election, dims prospects of an election that will get universal acceptance," Masunungure said.

Mugabe accuses Western countries, especially Britain and the United States, of sabotaging Zimbabwe's economy and working with the opposition to oust him over his controversial policy of seizing white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks.

An economic crisis marked by the world's highest inflation rate above 100,000 percent and shortages of food, fuel, and electricity has piled pressure on Mugabe.

But analysts say he could still win the election because the opposition has failed to unite behind one candidate.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has called for anti-whaling activists and Japanese whalers to show restraint, a day after an activist said he had been shot during a clash in Antarctic waters.

Paul Watson, captain of the Sea Shepherd group's protest ship Steve Irwin, said yesterday he was shot, but survived because he was wearing a kevlar vest.

Japan's fisheries agency said coastguard officials had only thrown "flash grenades", which are used for crowd control and are not regarded as weapons, after activists threw stink bombs on to the Japanese factory ship the Nisshin Maru.

"The Australian government absolutely condemns any conduct or activity on the high seas which either causes injury or has the potential to cause injury or risk to the safety of people at sea," Smith told reporters in the western city of Perth.

"We have consistently, and I again, call on all parties to show restraint. What is required here, even in the face of great provocation, is calm and restraint."

Watson's ship has been harassing the Japanese whaling fleet for weeks. In an earlier confrontation, two activists boarded a Japanese ship in January and were held until an Australian fisheries patrol vessel intervened.

Japan, which considers whaling to be a cultural tradition, abandoned commercial whaling after agreeing to an international moratorium in 1986, but began what it calls a scientific research whaling programme the following year.

It plans to kill nearly 1,000 whales during the Antarctic summer.

Australia has promised to try to stop Japan's whaling programme but the two countries have agreed not to let the issue hurt bilateral ties.

Smith said the Japanese government had said no guns were fired, but he said the use of flash grenades was an unwelcome development, though he acknowledged the Japanese were under heavy provocation.

He added that the Australian Federal Police and Japanese authorities are cooperating in evaluating the reported incidents.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela have ended their dispute, publicly shaking hands at a summit after a week of troop buildups that also saw several countries cutting ties with Colombia.

"And with this ... this incident that has caused so much damage would be resolved," leftist Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said before standing up and shaking hands with his US-backed Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who had blamed the United States for the crisis as he sent tanks to the border with US-ally Colombia, joined in shaking Uribe's hand vigorously, applauding loudly and smiling broadly.

The resolution of the dispute, which erupted on Saturday when Colombia raided inside Ecuador to kill a commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was a surprise ending to the summit.

The handshakes were broadcast live on television across Latin America in response to a special request from summit host Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez.

Earlier Uribe and Correa had clashed at the meeting.

Correa had called his conservative Colombian counterpart a liar after he accused him of links to guerrillas.

The crisis had spread across the region with leftist allies Venezuela and Nicaragua joining Ecuador in cutting diplomatic ties with Colombia, while Venezuela and Ecuador poured troops to their borders against the strongest US ally in the region.

Nicaragua responded to the ending of the dispute by restoring ties with Colombia.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Spain's main political parties cancelled their closing campaign rallies, two days before an election, after a former councillor from the governing Socialist Party was shot dead in the Basque Country.

The government blamed ETA separatists for the killing of Isaias Carrasco, who was shot several times in front of his wife and young daughter outside his house in the town of Mondragon.

Whether Carrasco's murder would have any effect on the outcome of Sunday's election, in which the Socialists are favourites, was not immediately clear.

In 2004, Socialist Party leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero became prime minister as a result of a surprise election victory three days after an attack by Islamist militants who killed 191 people by bombing Madrid trains.

Both the Socialist Party and the opposition Popular Party cancelled rallies scheduled for Friday, the last day campaigning is allowed.

"Spanish democracy will not accept challenges from people opposed to its basic principles," Zapatero told a news conference in which he blamed ETA for the killing.

"The people who have taken part in this murder will be arrested and tried," said the prime minister, who was told of the killing while waving to followers at a campaign rally in the Andalusian city of Malaga. Television images showed him turn stony faced after a senior official spoke in his ear.

Zapatero broke off peace talks with ETA in December 2006 after they killed two people with a car bomb. His Socialist party leads the conservative Popular Party in opinion polls.

He has led a crackdown on ETA, but the Popular Party has accused him of being soft on the Basque separatists in the past.

"This is a day of mourning. We should all stand by the family of Isaias Carrasco and remain united, united against ETA," said Popular Party candidate Mariano Rajoy.

Julian Santamaria, a politics professor at Madrid's Complutense University, did not think the killing would alter voting intentions.

"It might mean more people get out and vote on Sunday," he told Reuters.

Leftist voters are historically more prone to abstention than conservatives, and Zapatero's surprise victory in 2004 was due partly to an unusually high turnout by young voters angered by the then PP government's blaming the train bombings on ETA.

ETA has killed more than 800 people in four decades in its fight for independence of the Basque Country, in northern Spain and southern France, even though polls show most Basques do not want this.

A neighbour described how he was awoken by the shots.

"I could see him (Carrasco) lying on the ground and his wife and daughter were just shouting 'What's going on? They shot my father three times," Enrique Balmedo, 26, told Reuters by telephone.

Until now, the issue of Basque separatism had played a relatively minor part in the elections, which have been dominated by debate over the slowing economy and immigration.

The Popular Party, founded by supporters of former dictator Francisco Franco, was 4 percentage points behind the Socialists on Monday before a pre-electoral ban on publishing opinion polls came into force.

Zapatero hopes his socially liberal policies, such as legalising gay marriage and making divorce easier, will bring young voters to the polls despite signs that a decade-long boom fuelled by rising house prices and readily available credit may be ending.

House prices have fallen by 3.5 per cent in nominal terms from their peak in July, after tripling in 10 years. Unemployment has risen by almost 10 per cent in a year to 2.3 million.

The Socialists hope higher infrastructure spending and a 400 euro tax rebate will help keep the economy growing at 3 percent a year and create jobs for idle construction workers.

The Popular Party wants cuts in taxes on salaries and companies and tighter immigration controls to reduce the strain on public services.

Reuters

[OMEN]

A KEY advisor to Barack Obama quit overnight after calling Hillary Clinton a "monster'' and sparking a new Iraq war policy row, as the hyper-competitive Democratic White House race took another nasty twist.

A day ahead of the next showdown, the caucuses in the western state of Wyoming, the Clinton camp crowed it was "amateur hour'' in the Obama campaign's foreign policy team, after Pulitzer prize winner and Obama foreign policy advisor Samantha Power's explosive remarks during a book tour in Britain.

The episode suggested the frustration in the Obama camp after the former first lady's comeback wins in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday revived her campaign.

"We f***ed up in Ohio,'' Ms Power told the Scotsman newspaper.

"In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win,'' Ms Power was quoted as saying.

"She is a monster, too - that is off the record - she is stooping to anything,'' Ms Power said.

"You just look at her and think, 'Ergh.'''

Ms Power afterward issued a statement through the Obama campaign saying she was sorry, but Ms Clinton's backers pounced in a conference call, and her resignation came within two hours.

"I made inexcusable remarks that are at marked variance from my oft-stated admiration for Senator Clinton and from the spirit, tenor, and purpose of the Obama campaign,'' Ms Power said when she resigned.

Ms Power, author of the acclaimed book A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, also caused a stir in an interview with the BBC in which she appeared to suggest Mr Obama might water down a vow to get US combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months of becoming president.

"He will of course, not rely on some plan that he's crafted as a presidential candidate or a US senator,'' said Ms Power in the interview.

"You can't make a commitment ... in March of 2008, about what circumstances are going to be like in January 2009.''

Former US State Department spokesman and Ms Clinton advisor James Rubin said Ms Power had been exposed by inadequacies in the Illinois senator's foreign policy apparatus.

"I feel sorry for her, that she has been put in a position where he can't run a foreign policy team,'' Mr Rubin.

"It's the man at the top who has not organised himself.''

But Mr Obama attempted to clarify the situation.

"Senator Clinton used this to try to imply that I wasn't serious about bringing this war to an end. I just have to mention this because I don't want anybody here to be confused,'' he said while campaigning in Wyoming.

"It was because of George Bush with an assist from Hillary Clinton and John McCain that we entered into this war.''

"I have been against it in 2002, 2003, 2004, 5, 6, 7, 8 and I will bring this war to an end in 2009.''

Mr Rubin tied the affair to the row last week over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) when the Obama campaign was accused of telling Canada their candidate's fierce anti-NAFTA rhetoric was for political positioning.

"It's amateur hour on making foreign policy,'' said Mr Rubin.

Mr Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe however said Mr Obama's Iraq war vow was a "rock-solid commitment.''

The latest nasty twist to the campaign came as a new poll showed the two deadlocked in their epic battle to represent the party in the November 4 presidential election.

A national Newsweek poll released Friday showed the two in a virtual tie among Democratic voters, with Mr Obama with 45 per cent support against Ms Clinton's 44 per cent.

The two were also virtually equal in voters' eyes on the issue voters see most important: the sagging economy.

Ms Clinton and Mr Obama will tonight face down in Wyoming, which offers only 12 delegates - a candidate needs 2025 to clinch the party's nod - and on Tuesday, the more significant Mississippi primary, with 33 delegates.

Mr Obama is favored in both, but with his current delegate count at 1581 to Clinton's 1460, according to the independent website RealClearPolitics, neither contest will settle the fight.

Agence France-Presse

[JohnCenaFan28]

An Englishman who survived the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz and dedicated his life to telling the story of the Holocaust, has died, aged 97.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44477000/jpg/_44477713_greenman_203bbc.jpg

Leon Greenman was living in Holland with his Dutch wife Esther, and their son, when they were rounded up in 1943 and sent to the death camp in Poland.

His wife and three-year-old son Barney died there but London-born Mr Greenman survived six different death camps.

Mr Greenman was freed when Buchenwald was liberated by the Americans in 1945.

Mr Greenman later said he had promised God if he lived, he would let the world know what happened during the war.

Services against racism

His first public speech took place in 1946 and in 1995 a permanent gallery telling his story was established at the Jewish Museum in north London.

Three years later, he received an OBE for services against racism.

Mr Greenman never remarried and spent his final years in Ilford, east London.

BBC Jerusalem correspondent Tim Franks, who interviewed Mr Greenman in 1995 to mark the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, said he literally lived behind bars there - with bars on the windows and his letterbox sealed - as he had been targeted by neo-Nazis.

But this did not stop him from doing his work or dim his determination, our correspondent said.

BBC News

[Stamkos]

(CNN) -- Police have arrested a man in the killing of Auburn University freshman Lauren Burk, who died this week, according to the Auburn, Alabama, assistant police chief.

Courtney Larrell Lockhart, 23, of Smiths, Alabama, is charged with capital murder during a kidnapping, capital murder during a robbery, and capital murder during an attempted rape, Tommy Dawson said Saturday.

The Phenix City Police Department took Lockhart into custody on Friday, police said. Phenix City is about 35 miles southeast of Auburn.

Investigators have the suspect's photo, which was enhanced with the help of NASA, Dawson said, according to The Associated Press. Dawson said the photo matched Lockhart, but he declined to say how police got the photo or why they think Lockhart is linked to the crime.

Burk, 18, from Marietta, Georgia, was found shot on North College Street, a few miles north of campus, on Tuesday night. She died later at a hospital.

Minutes after police responded to the call reporting an injured person and found Burk, they found a car -- which turned out to be Burk's -- on fire in a campus parking lot.

Dawson told reporters Friday that authorities think gasoline or another accelerant was used to ignite Burk's car, and police were investigating whether a gas can found in downtown Auburn was connected. Police want to investigate every possible lead, Dawson said.

Authorities were still on patrol in the east Alabama campus, he said.

[OMEN]

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has resigned, dissolving a coalition too divided over the loss of Kosovo to carry on governing.

"This is the end of the government," he told a news conference. "I have called a government session on March 10 to discuss dissolution of parliament."

He said it was likely that a snap election would be held on May 11, the date already set for local elections in Serbia.

The nationalist leader has indirectly accused his pro-Western coalition partners of giving up on defending Serbia's claim to Kosovo in favour of better ties with the West, which backs Kosovo's secession.

He said part of the coalition wanted Serbia to be a member of the European Union only if the independence of Kosovo, which two thirds of EU members have recognised, is revoked, while a majority did not want EU membership linked to Kosovo.

His decision to end the government puts him in direct conflict with Serbia's pro-Western president Boris Tadic and his party, who formed the backbone of the coalition which came to power 10 months ago.

Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) says it would support a Serbian Radical Party (SRS) resolution in parliament, calling on the EU to "clearly and unambiguously" confirm Serbia's territorial integrity, as a condition for further European integration.

Tadic's Democratic Party and their liberal G17 Plus partner opposed the resolution in cabinet earlier this week and defeated it 2-to-1.

The pro-EU parties say the resolution will not bring back Kosovo -- whose Albanian majority declared independence on February 17 with Western backing -- but put a halt to Serbia's bid to join the European Union, which is their key policy aim.

Reuters

[OMEN]

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ELECTION SETBACK: The ruling coalition in Malaysia has won with only a simple parliamentary majority, say election officials as violence rocked the country's east.
Malaysia's ruling party faced its biggest electoral debacle, as the opposition won five of 13 states, putting a dark cloud on the prime minister's political future.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's multi-racial National Front coalition managed to win just a simple majority in parliament and will form the government at the federal level.

But it lost a crucial two-thirds parliamentary majority it has held for most of its 50-year-long rule, the election body said. That level is needed to change the constitution.

The leftist Chinese-backed Democratic Action Party (DAP) won Penang state, which houses many multinational firms.

The opposition Islamist party PAS scored shock victories in the northern heartland states of Kedah and Perak and easily retained power in its stronghold in northeastern Kelantan state.

DAP and PAS also joined the People's Justice Party, or Parti Keadilan, to take control of the industrial state of Selangor and almost all the seats in capital Kuala Lumpur.

"Tomorrow we will start building a brighter future," opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim, whose wife heads Parti Keadilan, told reporters. "This is a new dawn for Malaysia."

The shock defeat in Penang stirred memories of the last time the ruling coalition failed to win a two-thirds majority, in 1969, when deadly race riots erupted between majority ethnic Malays and minority Chinese.

"This is the biggest defeat ever since our (party's) founding 40 years ago," Penang Chief Minister Koh Tsu Koon said. "I feel sad and surprised. I urge all National Front members to stay calm and not to take any action that could jeopardise peace and security in the state."

Police vowed to use tough internal security laws against anyone spreading rumours and banned victory processions, one of which had triggered the 1969 violence.

Results from the elections commission as of 2100 GMT showed the National Front with 137 seats in the 222-seat parliament versus 82 for the opposition, with 3 seats still being tallied.

"This looks like a revolution," PAS Vice-President Husam Musa said. "The people have risen and are united. The message to government is, 'Enough is enough."'

The poll, called before it was due in May 2009, was widely seen as a referendum on Abdullah's rule, and Malaysians took the opportunity to administer a stinging rebuke over price rises, religious disputes and concerns over corruption .

"I think the PM will potentially have to resign," said Bridget Welsh, a Malaysia specialist at Johns Hopkins University in the United States. "This is unprecedented. The only other time this happened was in 1969 and that's why everybody is very nervous now because of the uncertainty."

Works Minister Samy Vellu, chief of the Malaysian Indian Congress, one of the National Front parties, lost the seat he had held for nearly 30 years, because many Indians thought he was out of touch with their concerns.

Two other cabinet ministers, both ethnic Malays, also lost.

Detained ethnic Indian activist and lawyer M. Manoharan delivered another slap in the face of the government, winning a parliamentary seat despite being held under internal security laws for organising a major anti-government protest last year.

Chinese and Indians account for a third of the population of 26 million and many complain the government discriminates in favour of Malays when it comes to education, jobs, business and religious policy.

About 70 percent of Malaysia's 10.9 million eligible voters had cast ballots, the country's top poll official said.

Opposition rallies drew big crowds, especially Chinese and Indian voters unhappy with Abdullah's Malay-dominated coalition.

"This clearly shows Malaysians want an alternative. Going forward Malays, Indians and Chinese all have to work together and make a formidable pact," Anwar said.

The National Front held 90 percent of the seats in the outgoing federal parliament. Political experts had predicted Abdullah's continued leadership could be in jeopardy if his majority fell back below 80 percent, or around 178 seats, in the new 222-seat parliament.

The economy grew 6 percent last year but inflation and a likely US economic slowdown have fueled worries.

Reuters

[OMEN]

President Vladimir Putin Has warned the West it could expect no easing of Russia's combative foreign policy under his protege, president-elect Dmitry Medvedev.

At his first meeting with a foreign leader since his election, Medvedev stressed to German Chancellor Angela Merkel that he would seek continuity in foreign affairs.

Putin, speaking to reporters at a joint news briefing with Merkel before the Medvedev meeting, dismissed hopes that his protege would strike a softer tone in foreign policy after being sworn in as president in May.

"I have the feeling that some of our partners cannot wait for me to stop exercising my powers so that they can deal with another person," Putin said. "I am long accustomed to the label by which it is difficult to work with a former KGB agent."

"Dmitry Medvedev will be free from having to prove his liberal views. But he is no less of a Russian nationalist than me, in the good sense of the word, and I do not think our partners will have it easier with him."

When Merkel later met Medvedev, she referred to Putin's comments, quipping: "I refrained from saying 'I hope they won't become more difficult either"'.

Medvedev said: "I am assuming we will have a continuation of that cooperation which you have had with President Putin... You have had big negotiations and that makes my task easier."

Putin, who is expected to preserve significant influence as Medvedev's prime minister, has been credited at home with restoring some of Russia's international clout after the chaos of the 1990s.

But the former KGB spy has clashed with the West over Nato expansion, Kosovo's independence, US plans to put a missile shield in central Europe and the war in Iraq.

The relationship between Medvedev and Merkel, a physicist from the former East Germany who speaks Russian, is likely to play a key role in relations between the two countries and with the European Union.

Merkel, after meeting Putin, said she saw Medvedev as her "immediate partner in dialogue" ahead of the Group of Eight's meeting in Japan later this year.

Merkel was expected to voice concern about the fairness of the vote Medvedev won after international observers and opposition groups have criticised the March election as unfair.

Putin says the election was held in strict accordance with the Russian constitution.

Germany is by far Russia's biggest single trading partner, with a record $US52.8 billion ($NZ67.05 billion) in bilateral trade in 2007. German firms put $US3.4 billion into Russia last year and have key investments in Russia's energy sector.

Merkel, who has in the past scolded Putin over human rights, has also sought to boost trade with Russia's booming economy and to mediate between Moscow, Washington and Russia's EU partners.

The German Chancellor has been more critical of Putin's Russia than her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder, but is keenly aware of Germany's dependence on Russian energy and Moscow's role in international disputes like Iran.

Reuters

[OMEN]

A van packed with Chinese rural migrant workers collided with a truck in the country's north, killing 10, state media reported.

The van was licensed to carry eight people but had 14 onboard when it slammed into a coal truck in Hebei province, the Xinhua news agency reported.

The van owner has been held by police for investigation.

China's roads are among the deadliest in the world, and nearly 90,000 people died in traffic accidents in 2006.

At this time of year, tens of millions of workers from poorer villages crowd onto buses and trains to seek work in coastal cities and provinces.

Reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

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[JohnCenaFan28]

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[JohnCenaFan28]

The governing Socialist Party of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has claimed victory over the conservative Popular Party in Spain's general elections.

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It remains unclear if the Socialists have secured the 176 seats needed for an absolute parliamentary majority.

With two-thirds of votes counted, the Socialists were projected to win 168 seats to 154 for Mariano Rajoy's PP.

"We can say with confidence that the Socialist Party has won," said party secretary Jose Blanco.

To the cheers of euphoric government supporters wielding flags in the Socialist red and white colours outside the party's Madrid headquarters, Mr Blanco said: "It is a great victory."

He added that Mr Zapatero was "in a better position to govern over the next four years and begin a new period of change and progress with a Socialist government".

But the BBC's Jonny Dymond in Madrid says activists are waiting to see how the vote count translates into seats.

Correspondents say the result may force the party to re-forge an uncomfortable alliance with smaller regional nationalist parties.

High turnout

The elections were marred by Friday's killing of the former Socialist councillor, Isaias Carrasco, in the Basque Country.

Police have blamed Basque separatists for the shooting, which brought election campaigning to an early close, but so far no group has claimed responsibility.

There had been a high turn-out before polling stations closed at 2000 (1900 GMT).

Historically, the PP has had a more solid core vote, and a higher turnout has tended to benefit the Socialists.

In 2004, voters turned out in high numbers - galvanised by the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people three days earlier - to give Mr Zapatero a surprise victory over Mr Rajoy's conservative government.

This time, the faltering economy, rising inflation and unemployment, and immigration have all been high-profile campaign issues.

Credit crunch

After a decade of good growth, Spain's economy is stuttering. Inflation is at a 10-year high and unemployment is the highest this century.

The Spanish housing boom is dwindling, exacerbated by the global credit crunch.

Mr Rajoy's conservative opposition party focused on immigration, a bigger issue than in previous polls.

The Socialists, meanwhile, highlighted the liberal reforms of their time in office, including the introduction of a gender-equality law, fast-track divorces and same-sex marriage.

Spain's 35 million voters were electing 350 members of the Cortes, or lower house of parliament, and 208 members of the 264-member upper house, the Senate.

The remaining 56 Senate seats are decided by indirect election by assemblies in Spain's 17 autonomous regions.

Smaller parties, such as the United Left Party, and Catalan and Basque nationalist parties may hold the balance of power if the race is close.

BBC News

[OMEN]

US Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has dismissed as "gamesmanship" his rival Hillary Clinton's suggestion that he become her running mate on a Democratic White House ticket headed by her.

"I'm not running for vice president. I'm running for President of the United States of America" and commander-in-chief, Obama told a rally in Mississippi.

Clinton and her husband former President Bill Clinton in recent days have talked up the idea of a joint ticket.

But Obama's supporters have suggested that was little more than political manoeuvring by Clinton, who is lagging in the race to become the Democratic nominee to face Republican Senator John McCain in November's US presidential election.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Israel and Hamas Islamists who control the Gaza Strip have been holding their fire as Egypt tries to mediate a truce.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert denied any agreement to halt military action against militants in the coastal enclave, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he believed Israel would go along with a deal.

Abbas said Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the main groups in Gaza behind cross-border rocket fire at Israel, wanted assurances their leaders would not be attacked by the Jewish state.

A Gaza truce sought by the Palestinian president could be key to US-brokered peace efforts but also benefit Hamas, which seized the coastal enclave in June after routing Abbas' more secular Fatah forces.

Israel has not struck in Gaza since Thursday, three days after it ended an offensive that killed 120 Palestinians.

The number of Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel has dropped sharply since Olmert said on Wednesday Israel would have no reason to attack Gaza if the daily salvoes stopped.

Hamas' armed wing has not itself claimed responsibility for firing any rockets since Israel wrapped up its ground and air assault. In the absence of Israeli "aggression", Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said the group had no cause to launch them.

"It seems that Hamas has decided for now not to shoot. And we're not shooting either," said an Israeli official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

"This could well become a ceasefire. But the ball is in Hamas' court," the official said.

In new public comments on the lull, Olmert insisted Israel was not negotiating with Hamas "directly or indirectly". But in a nod to a possible de facto truce, he repeated that if rockets were not fired at Israel, "we will have no reason to shoot".

Speaking in Amman, Abbas said: "Hamas and Islamic Jihad have asked that their leaders should be protected from Israeli (attack). I think the Israelis are agreeing to this or have agreed. We may be hearing about this deal in the coming few days."

Israel, the United States and the European Union refuse to talk with Hamas, which opposes peace talks, until it recognises Israel and renounces violence.

The recent fighting along the Israel-Gaza frontier and longer-range rocket salvoes that hit a major southern Israeli city had threatened to derail the statehood talks.

In protest at the bloodshed in Gaza, Abbas briefly suspended the negotiations. They are due to resume later this week.

An Israeli political source said there had been "an exchange of ideas" between Israel and Hamas via Egyptian mediators. The source did not elaborate.

The political source said Olmert was keen to calm violence with Hamas so that talks with Abbas could make progress and enable him to present a viable peace platform to voters should the statehood moves force a new Israeli election.

Amid much scepticism, Washington has said it hopes to achieve a deal before year's end on Palestinian statehood.

For Hamas, a ceasefire would be particularly attractive if it included an easing of an Israeli-led Gaza blockade. Israeli generals, however, are concerned Hamas might use a lull to regroup and rearm after last week's punishing Israeli offensive.

Reuters

[OMEN]

A suicide bomber has blown himself up among US soldiers in central Baghdad, killing five and wounding three in the worst single attack on US forces in the Iraqi capital in nearly a year.

The US military said in a statement that the blast, which also wounded an Iraqi interpreter, hit the soldiers while they were on foot patrol. Iraqi police said at least nine Iraqis were wounded.

The military blamed the attack on a suicide bomber. Police, citing witness accounts, said the soldiers had been walking in a main street in the upscale Mansour district when a man wearing an explosives vest walked up to them and blew himself up.

The attack was a reminder that while violence is sharply down in the capital since thousands of US and Iraqi soldiers set up patrol bases in neighbourhoods to curb sectarian violence, it is still far from safe.

Nearly 70 people were killed in a double bombing in Baghdad's central Karrada district last Thursday in attack that the US military blamed on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.

"We remain resolute in our resolve to protect the people of Iraq and kill or capture those who would bring them harm," Colonel Allen Batschelet, chief of staff of US forces in Baghdad, said in a statement after Monday's attack.

The statement said four soldiers were killed in the blast and one died later of wounds.

A police official at Baghdad's Yarmouk hospital said nine wounded Iraqis had been admitted, including a policeman. "They said a suicide bomber, a man, blew himself up among American soldiers," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A Reuters cameraman said US forces sealed off the scene of blast, which occurred outside a large computer store.

WOMAN BOMBER

Monday's deaths took to at least 3,979 the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003. Seven soldiers have died so far this month, compared to 81 for the whole of March 2007.

The worst previous single attack on US soldiers in Baghdad was in June, when five soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb attack on their patrol.

Some 2,000 US soldiers are being withdrawn from Baghdad under a Pentagon plan to pull out five brigades from Iraq by July 31. A second brigade in the capital is also due to be withdrawn.

The US military says the withdrawal timetable will not be affected by last week's bombing. They are part of the 30,000 extra troops sent to Iraq last year which the US administration said was meant to give the Iraqi government time to reach a political accommodation with its opponents.

In other violence on Monday, a female suicide bomber killed a prominent Sunni Arab tribal chief who headed a neighbourhood security unit and three others in the volatile Iraqi province of Diyala on Monday, police said.

The neighbourhood units have been credited by the United States for sharp falls in violence across Iraq.

Police said the woman went to the home of Thaer Saggban al-Karkhi in Kanaan, southeast of the provincial capital Baquba, knocked on the door and told guards she needed to speak to him.

When Karkhi came to the door she detonated a vest packed with explosives she was wearing hidden underneath her robes, police said. Karkhi's niece was among the dead and two of his bodyguards were wounded.

Al Qaeda has increasingly used women wearing suicide vests to carry out strikes after tighter security and protective concrete blast walls made car bombings more difficult.

US military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith said on Sunday that a recent increase in bombings was not the start of a wider trend and that violence was down overall.

Reuters

[OMEN]

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has told his most senior administration officials that he had been involved in a prostitution ring, the New York Times has reported on its website, citing an administration official.

A person with knowledge of the governor's role told the Times the governor was believed to be a client of a prostitution ring.

Spitzer had been due to make an announcement at 2:15 p.m. EDT (7:15am NZT), but half an hour later had yet to address a room crowded with journalists awaiting his statement.

As state attorney general before being elected governor in November 2006, Spitzer was sometimes called the Sheriff of Wall Street for his prominent role in investigating financial cases.

A Democrat, he entered the governor's office promising ethical reform but soon entered into a conflict with Republican leaders in the state Senate, slowing his agenda.

He has been married to Silda Wall Spitzer since 1987 and they have three daughters.

Spitzer prosecuted at least two prostitution rings when he ran the state's organized crime task force, the New York Times said in its article.

The paper said Spitzer "spoke with revulsion and anger" after announcing the arrest of 16 people for running what the paper termed a high-end prostitution ring in Staten Island.

The Times quoted Spitzer as saying: "This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure," Spitzer said at the time. "It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring."

Reuters

[OMEN]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/images/708001.jpg
LETHAL WEAPON I TO IV: Chuck Norris is a cult figure among US forces in Iraq, and is beginning to catch on with Iraqis too.
Hollywood action star Chuck Norris, known for his martial arts prowess and tough-guy image, has become a cult figure among the US military in Iraq and an unlikely hero for some in Iraq's security forces.

A small cardboard shrine is dedicated to Norris at a US military helicopter hub in Baghdad, and comments lauding the manliness and virility of the actor have been left on toilet walls across Iraq and even in neighbouring Kuwait, soldiers say.

"The fastest way to a man's heart is with Chuck Norris's fist," reads one message at the shrine, which consists of a signed photo of the actor surrounded by similar statements.

"Chuck Norris puts the laughter in manslaughter," reads one and "Chuck Norris divides by zero," reads another.

Known as Chuck Norris "facts", the claims have already become an Internet phenomenon, and scores are featured on www.chucknorrisfacts.com, including "Superman wears Chuck Norris pyjamas", and "There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Chuck Norris lives in Oklahoma".

The actor has visited Iraq several times and was made an honorary Marine last year. Some 20 US military personnel and support staff spoken to by Reuters could recite at least one Norris "fact", despite many having not visited the website.

US troops in Iraq say his support for them and Norris' invincible image has made him their idol and insist the exaggerated and satirical claims are not meant to mock him.

"The jokes all add to his legend. They're not derogatory. He's an icon," said Sergeant Joe Lindsay at a base in Falluja in Iraq's Western Anbar province, which Norris has visited.

AN IRAQI NORRIS

Bearded and muscled, Norris shot to fame fighting kung fu legend Bruce Lee in the 1972 film The Way of the Dragon, and later films show him devastating groups of men with one kick.

"Norris visited Iraq when violence was its worst and other celebrities were skittish. He's one of the guys," US military public affairs officer Specialist Mark Braden said in Baghdad.

"The Marines love him. He's like a mythical legend," Staff Sergeant Amy Forsythe in Falluja said.

Soldiers cited many reasons for his appeal. Some appreciated his films and fighting ability – Norris is a martial arts guru, and many of his films have military themes.

Others said the masculine and plainly dressed actor was an antidote to the preening and moisturized metrosexual male.

Some praised his Christian and political values. The actor recently endorsed Republican Party presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, though in the spirit of the Norris "facts", Marines argued it was Huckabee who endorsed Norris.

"He's helped us a lot. The appeal is also his martial arts, and sheer physical presence. . . I don't think I go a day without hearing a Norris joke," said Corporal Ricardo Jones in Falluja.

Norris' appeal is not restricted to US troops either. At an Iraqi police graduation ceremony in Falluja, graduates called out for their "Chuck Norris" to pose with them for photos.

"Truthfully, I didn't know who he was. I asked the Americans, and they said he was a great fighter, and that's why they named me after him. They showed me a video, and it's true, he's a great fighter" said police trainer Mohammed Rasheed.

With his handle-bar moustache, Rasheed has a vague resemblance to Norris.

Another police trainer said Chuck Norris was a role model for the police in Falluja, which until 2007 was an al Qaeda stronghold and the scene of fierce battles with security forces.

"I've seen his videos, he's a hero. He saves the city, he protects women and children and he fights crime wherever it is. We should all be like Chuck Norris," Khaled Hussein said.

Reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

The price of crude oil has hit an all-time high for the fifth time in six trading sessions.

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New York sweet light crude touched a new high of $108.21 a barrel, before edging down to trade at $107.93.

Analysts say traders are investing in commodities to protect themselves against the falling dollar.

Another factor pushing up prices is last week's decision by producers' cartel Opec to keep output unchanged, despite rising demand in China.

The dollar has been reaching new lows against the euro and other key currencies since last summer, and was hit again on Friday by a US employment report showing the labour market at its weakest in five years.

This has prompted traders to seek refuge in commodities, including oil and gold, which are more likely to sustain their value than the greenback.

In Europe, Brent crude hit $104.42 at one point on Monday - also a record.

Financial strain

Analysts at the International Energy Agency said that real oil prices are higher than the previous peak reached in April 1980, which was $102.53 in today's money.

But the oil price measure used then was slightly different to the one in current use and so it is difficult to make an accurate comparison.

The high oil price is making petrol and energy costs more expensive around the world, putting financial pressure on businesses and household budgets.

BBC News

[OMEN]

The Bali Nine and Schapelle Corby face an obstacle to their chances of returning eventually to Australia under a prisoner transfer deal with Indonesia.

Indonesian authorities say they are opposed to transfers of prisoners convicted of drugs crimes or terrorism back to Australia.

Australia and Indonesia have been slowly negotiating a prisoner exchange deal for more than two years.

Indonesia says there are still a number of sticking points between the two countries, including how long inmates must serve before being transferred.

Indonesian Justice and Human Rights Ministry spokesman Kolier Haryanto today said Indonesian negotiators believed that prisoners jailed for terrorism and drugs crimes were to be left out of any deal.

"What was agreed (between Indonesian negotiators) is that in the first place that terrorism and drugs was not in it," Haryanto said.

"But we can still talk about it.

"It's still optional. I mean that's not the Indonesian fixed position."

He said most of the other issues related to "technical" matters, such as which authority was responsible for the transfer and who would pay.

An Australian embassy spokesman said Australia was committed to concluding a deal, but it was inappropriate to comment on how the treaty would be applied in particular cases.

Earlier, Indonesia's prisons director general Untung Sugiyono told reporters there was still disagreement about whether people convicted of drugs crimes could be transferred back to Australia.

"It's still under discussion, I cannot give you a (time frame) target," he told reporters in Bali.

"What I know is there's still one thing not matched.

"We don't want to give (the transfer) to those who are involved in drugs."

Sugiyono met with Schapelle Corby as he inspected Kerobokan Prison today, and she took the opportunity to reject reports she had been allowed to go on outings from the prison.

Corby said she had been let of out her Bali prison home only three times in the past four years – for medical reasons.

"I will have been here for four years in a little while," Corby told SugiyoNo

"I have been out three times to take out my tooth only, and that's all.

"Only for half an hour."

Corby is serving a 20-year prison term after her arrest at Bali's airport in 2004 with 4.2kg of marijuana in her boogie board bag but says she is innocent.

Meanwhile, the former head of security at the prison was today found guilty of drugs and weapons charges.

Mohammad Sudrajat was sentenced to four years' imprisonment after Denpasar District Court found him guilty of possessing crystal methamphetamine (ice) and illegally possessing ammunition for a firearm.

At the time of his arrest last year, Sudrajat was head of security at Kerobokan Prison, where the Bali Nine heroin smugglers and Corby are housed.

Denpasar District Court Chief Judge I Nyoman Sutama today said the former security chief was "officially and convincingly guilty" of the charged crimes.

The panel of judges said that Sudrajat had been well mannered during his trial and had no prior convictions, but the crimes were "against the government efforts which are strongly fighting drugs".

Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of seven years' imprisonment.

The court previously heard police had found 50 live bullets for a 0.22 firearm in Sudrajat's office at the prison, but he did not have a licence for the ammunition.

He was also found with packages of ice totalling 0.3g, which police alleged he was going to deliver to a person in Denpasar when he was arrested last September.

Reuters

[OMEN]

John Howard's public rehabilitation has begun.

The extraordinary denunciation of Australia's second-longest serving prime minister started within days of last year's election loss.

Liberal and National MPs fell over themselves to declare Work Choices dead, decry the failure to ratify the Kyoto protocol, and join in the apology to indigenous Australians.

But Mr Howard is being welcomed back into the fold.

Liberal leader Brendan Nelson today praised him as "the quiet achiever", condemning Kevin Rudd as "the quiet deceiver".

Former health minister and Howard stalwart Tony Abbott went further, predicting that the Rudd government would be so bad that it would make the Howard years look like "a golden age of compassion and decency".

Dr Nelson implored coalition MPs to defend their record in government, and urged them against any radical policy deviations.

"As a coalition, in terms of policy, we shouldn't see any radical deviation, it's important that there is no radical shift to the left or the right," he told them.

That's despite the fact that he has spent the past three months junking the fundamentals of the Howard years, with backflips on Iraq, industrial relations, the apology to the stolen generations, nuclear power and ratifying Kyoto.

"We as a coalition need to be focused, resilient and confident – confident in our values and philosophy, be proud of our achievements and not allow Labor to rewrite our time in government," Dr Nelson said.

The change has been sparked by two things.

The coalition has been battered by weeks of dismal polls and revelations that MPs have been moonlighting overseas.

But Mr Rudd's clumsy handling of plans to reconfigure payments to carers and seniors has given it its first sniff of blood.

His refusal to spell out how the government plans to maintain the payments – given as one-off bonuses under Mr Howard – has upset more than two million Australians.

Mr Abbott says the government is suffering "compassion fatigue" after just three months in office.

The government has laughed off the claims.

"Being lectured by this mob on vulnerable people is like being lectured by Paris Hilton on public modesty," Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen joked.

But the running dispute has given Dr Nelson renewed energy.

And Mr Howard has re-entered public life with a series of appearances in the United States, in which he has given a spirited defence of his time in office.

Asked by Harvard University students about what he'd learnt from the election, a philosophical Mr Howard said: "I guess the first lesson I learnt was that you win some and you lose some."

But he pointed out that he had won four elections and stood by his refusal to ratify Kyoto or apologise to the stolen generations.

"I can point to three or four policy decisions that my government took that did look to the longer term but which had a short-term political cost," he said.

Unfortunately, they are the ones his party has turned its back on since the election loss.

But his reappearance seems to have reminded his former colleagues of why they kept him as leader for more than 11 years.

AAP

[OMEN]

Leaders of the US Episcopal Church were told once and for all that the gay man they elevated to bishop will not be allowed to attend a top, once-a-decade worldwide Anglican church meeting this summer.

"It feels as if, instead of leaving the 99 sheep in search of the one, my chief pastor and shepherd, the Archbishop of Canterbury (Rowan Williams), has cut me out of the herd," said Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, after receiving the definitive word that he will be excluded from the Anglican Communion's Lambeth Conference in England.

It was the US church's consecration of Robinson in 2003 as the first bishop known to be in an openly gay relationship in more than four centuries of Anglican church history that jolted the 77 million-member global church, already divided over biblical interpretation, the ordination of women and the blessing of same-sex unions.

Robinson's exclusion from the Lambeth Conference had previously been announced. But the 2.4 million-member Episcopal Church, Anglicanism's US branch, had been negotiating the issue, hoping to change the situation.

Word that no change would be possible came from the Episcopal Church House of Bishops meeting in Texas.

Robinson said he had been offered instead a chance to appear for media interviews at an exhibition that accompanies the Lambeth Conference.

"One workshop on one afternoon and being interviewed by the secular press was not anything I was seeking. I wasn't going to Lambeth to have another interview with the secular press. If interviewed at all, I want to talk with a theologian. I want to talk about the love of Christ. I want to talk about the God who saved me and redeemed me and continues to live in my life," he said.

Robinson said he would nonetheless attend the meeting as an outside observer.

A team of bishops assigned to negotiate the issue with the Archbishop of Canterbury's office told the meeting it had been informed that a full invitation was not possible; that a retreat planned during the meeting in July at Canterbury Cathedral was closed to uninvited guests and media; and that there was no room for an "observer" at the Lambeth sessions.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Japan has failed to bring child pornography under control, leaving children around the world at risk, Unicef said on Tuesday as it launched a campaign to stamp out exploitation of minors.

Japan's government is inching towards a ban on the possession of obscene images of children, which would bring it into line with most other industrialised countries.

But the Japan branch of the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) urged Tokyo to beef up its laws by banning child pornography in manga comics, animated films and computer games as well as individual possession.

"Japan, a major player in information technology, is left uncontrolled, meaning children both here and around the world are suffering sexual exploitation for the sake of child porn," Unicef said in a statement.

A previous campaign prompted laws, enacted in 1999 and 2004, that banned child prostitution and the production and sale of obscene images of children under 18, but simple possession of such material remains legal.

"The media report child pornography cases almost daily," the statement continued. "Hundreds of cases have been brought to court, but they are the tip of the iceberg and figures are still rising."

A committee of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party set up to look into a possible ban on the possession of child pornography, as well as penalties, held its first meeting last week.

"It turned out that almost all the members were in favour of banning individual possession, so we are moving in that direction," Mayumi Moriyama, a former justice minister who heads the committee, told the news conference.

Critics, including Washington's ambassador to Tokyo, Thomas Schieffer, say Japan's failure to ban possession has hampered international investigations into child pornography rings.

Schieffer was set to visit Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama later on Tuesday to press him on the issue, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. Hatoyama has already said he is in favour of a ban.

"I am ashamed to say that our society takes the view that it is all right to possess child porn," lawyer and children's rights campaigner Keiji Goto told reporters, adding that obscene photographs were often used by paedophiles to persuade children that sexual exploitation is normal.

Unicef also called on prosecutors and courts to apply current legislation more strictly, pointing out that photo books and DVDs featuring small children in bikinis are freely available in stores and over the Internet.

Japan and Russia are alone among G8 countries in not banning possession of child pornography.

Some members of Japan's main opposition Democratic Party oppose a ban because it might grant police too much power, domestic newspaper reports have said

reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the read.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this.