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The families of some Omagh bomb victims have decided not to attend a ceremony next week to mark the 10th anniversary of the atrocity.
Many relatives of those who died in the 1998 attack are angry at the way Omagh District Council has organised the official anniversary event planned for next week.
They are also unhappy at how the council handled the contentious issue of the wording for new memorials erected at the bomb site on the town's Market Street and at a nearby garden of remembrance.
It is understood the families of at least ten of the 29 victims of the bombing will not attend the service next Friday.
Instead the relatives, the majority of whom belong to the Omagh Support and Self Help Group, are holding their own memorial event on Sunday.
Kevin Skelton, who lost his wife Philomena, said he would have no part of the council event.
'There's a whole range of issues I've got problems with,' he said.
'The whole wording issue and some of the politicians that are going to be there - I think they have (the council) have made a real mess of it altogether.
'They certainly didn't consult with us about the event.'
Members of the support group had demanded the retention of a phrase engraved on an original tribute stone, which has since been removed from the garden of remembrance, stating that the victims were 'murdered by a dissident republican terrorist car bomb.'
The council appointed an independent fact-finding team to try and resolve the issue and councillors unanimously accepted its recommendation to use the phrase on the walls of the garden of remembrance, but not on the glass obelisk at the bomb site.
Sinn Féin councillor and chairperson of Omagh council Martin McColgan said it was a pity some families had decided not to attend.
However, he defended the council's approach to the memorial issue. 'I would love to see everyone there on Friday,' Mr McColgan said.
'As a council we have tried to do our best to mark the anniversary.'
'I realise it's a sensitive time and different people will react differently.
'But I can't legislate for how some families are going to react, that is their prerogative.'
Ten years on from the bomb, those responsible have not been caught, with police on both sides of the border having been heavily criticised for their handling of the investigation.
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Nasa has pushed back by a year its internal target date for flying the successor to the shuttle.
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Agency officials say they are now aiming for September 2014 for the first crewed mission of the Orion ship.
This is a year later than Nasa had hoped for, but still inside its March 2015 absolute deadline.
The officials say the funds currently available to develop Orion and its Ares launch rocket mean the faster timeline is no longer tenable.
Engineers also need time to grapple with a range of technical issues as they develop the new systems. These include trying to reduce the levels of vibration astronauts are likely to experience when they lift off atop the new Ares vehicle.
"The commitment date we have made to the administration and Congress has been March 2015 and that hasn't changed.
"What we have changed is our internal planning date," explained Doug Cooke, the Nasa deputy associate administrator in the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate.
"Without as much information as we have today, we were attempting to close the gap between shuttle retirement and the first flight of Orion and Ares 1 to the absolute minimum; and so we were trying to push the project towards a September 2013 date internally.
"That was not a commitment in any sense because we knew we had not built into that any contingencies; everything would have to go perfect to make that date, and would probably have required some additional funding.
"Now we've changed our planning date from September 2013 date to a September 2014 date."
In July, the US space agency fixed the dates of its last shuttle flights.
The final orbiter to launch before the whole fleet goes into retirement will be Endeavour on 31 May, 2010.
The timeline envisaged by Nasa means routine Orion trips to the International Space Station (ISS) to exchange crews are unlikely to occur before 2016. In the meantime, the agency will have to rely instead on Russian Soyuz capsules; or on a commercial system developed by the Californian SpaceX company, assuming this is flight-approved.
Remaining shuttle missions in 2008
8 October - Atlantis: A mission to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.
10 November - Endeavour: ISS re-supply, and servicing of rotary joints that allow the big solar arrays to track the Sun.
Shuttle missions in 2009
12 February - Discovery: Final pair of solar arrays to be installed on the starboard end of the station's backbone.
15 May - Endeavour: Delivery of third and final component of the Japanese Kibo Laboratory.
30 July - Atlantis: Largely a logistics mission, but it will include spacewalks to install equipment on Europe's Columbus lab.
15 October - Discovery: The flight will take up two spare gyroscopes that are needed to maintain station stability.
10 December - Endeavour: Delivery of the final connecting node, Node 3, together with the European-built Cupola observation window.
Shuttle missions in 2010
11 February - Atlantis: Another logistics mission to make sure the station is fully stocked with supplies.
8 April - Discovery: The flight will see the installation of a Russian Mini Research Module to be attached at the rear of the ISS.
31 May - Endeavour: The last flight. The 15-day mission will be the 35th orbiter flight to the station.
BBC News
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The alleged leader of a coup attempt in Guinea-Bissau last week has escaped to the Gambia, the armed forces say.
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Rear Adm Americo Bubo Na Tchuto evaded house arrest in Guinea-Bissau. AFP news agency reports that he was detained shortly after entering the Gambia.
Mr Na Tchuto is suspected of asking senior officers for help in ousting President Joao Bernardo Vieira.
The former Portuguese colony is in the throes of a political crisis that has seen the president dissolve parliament.
That decision came a month after one of Guinea-Bissau's three main parties quit the unity government.
Courting support
Mr Na Tchuto, the West African nation's navy chief, had last Thursday telephoned several top officers, including the army's chief-of-staff, to request their assistance in his plan to depose the president, according to an army spokesman.
He was put under house arrest but escaped on Monday, travelling to the Gambia by sea, the armed forces said.
He was reportedly arrested there by Gambian officials shortly after his arrival.
Guinea-Bissau, one of the world's poorest countries, is no stranger to coups.
President Vieira first came to power on the back of a military coup in 1980, while he was head of the armed forces.
He was toppled in 1999 but returned to win the presidency as an independent in 2005.
BBC News
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BREAKING NEWS — Georgia's Security Council chief says Russians have bombed and looted the city of Gori outside the breakaway province of South Ossetia in violation of the truce.
Alexander Lomaia says that the Russian military bombed Gori Wednesday morning and entered the city. The Russian military then let paramilitaries into Gori who started massive looting.
An AP reporter outside the city of Gori saw the convoy speeding past and heading south.
The accusation came less than 12 hours after Georgia's president said he accepted a cease-fire plan brokered by France. The Russian president said that Russia was halting military action because Georgia had paid enough for its attack on South Ossetia, a separatist region along the Russian border with close ties to Moscow.
Still, Medvedev ordered the Russian defense minister at a televised Kremlin meeting to destroy any resistance or aggressive actions.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili had gambled on a surprise attack late Thursday to regain control over his country's pro-Russian breakaway province of South Ossetia. Instead, Georgia suffered a punishing beating from Russian tanks and aircraft that has left the country with even less control over territory than it had before.
In the west, Georgian troops acknowledged Wednesday they had completely pulled out of a small section of Abkhazia, a second separatist region — a development that leaves the entire area in the hands of the Russian-backed separatists.
A few dozen separatist fighters moved into Georgian territory on Wednesday, planting their flag on a bridge over the Inguri River.
"The border has been along this river for 1,000 years," separatist official Ruslan Kishmaria told AP on Wednesday. He said Georgia would have to accept the new border and taunted the departed Georgian forces by saying they had received "American training in running away."
Georgia's Security Council chief Alexander Lomaia said that Russia had moved 50 tanks into Gori, a strategic town 15 miles from the border with South Ossetia, violating the new accord.
Russia's deputy chief of General Staff Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn denied any tanks were in Gori. He said Russians went into the city to try to implement the truce with local Georgian officials but could not find any.
An APTN television crew in Gori saw some Russian armored vehicles Wednesday morning near a military base there. Puffs of smoke in the air indicated some military action.
An AP photographer saw several Russian troops and two armored vehicles on the northern outskirts of the city. His driver went further up the road and ran into Russian military volunteers, who warned that Russian forces would soon shell Gori. The two retreated south but no immediate shelling could be heard.
Nogovitsyn said sporadic clashes continued in South Ossetia where Georgian snipers fired sporadically on Russian troops who returned fire. "We must respond to provocations," he said.
Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Zurab Gvenetadze said that Russian forces seized a military base on the outskirts of Gori, situated on Georgia's only significant east-west road.
Lomaia said that Russian troops also held ground in western Georgia, maintaining control of the town of Zugdidi where they seized the central police station and government buildings and saddling the main highway in the region. He said there had been no fresh clashes since the truce.
Georgia insisted its troops were driven from Abkhazia by Russian forces. At first, Russia said separatists — not Russian forces — had done the job. But the claim rang hollow — an AP reporter saw 135 Russian military vehicles heading toward the gorge Tuesday and Russia is the military patron for the separatists.
Nogovitsyn said Wednesday that Russian peacekeepers had disarmed Georgian troops in Kodori — the very peacekeepers Georgia wants withdrawn. Still, the effect was clear. Abkhazia was out of Georgian hands and it would take more than an EU peace plan to get it back in.
Nogovitsyn said Wednesday that Russian peacekeepers had disarmed Georgian troops in Kodori — the very peacekeepers Georgia wants withdrawn. Still, the effect was clear. Abkhazia was out of Georgian hands and it would take more than an EU peace plan to get it back in.
One of two separatists areas trying to leave Georgia for Russia, Abkhazia lies close to the heart of many Russians. It's Black Sea coast was a favorite vacation spot for the Soviet elite, and the province is just down the coast from Sochi, the Russian resort that will host the 2014 Olympics.
Russia has handed out passports to most in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and stationed peacekeepers in the both regions since the early 1990s. Georgia wants the Russian peacekeepers out, but Medvedev insisted Tuesday they would stay.
Saakashvili said Russia's aim all along was not to gain control of two disputed provinces but to "destroy" the smaller nation, a former Soviet state and current U.S. ally.
Russia accused Georgia of killing more than 2,000 people, mostly civilians, in South Ossetia. The claim couldn't be independently confirmed, but witnesses who fled the area over the weekend said hundreds had died.
The overall death toll was expected to rise because large areas of Georgia were still too dangerous for journalists to enter and see the true scope of the damage.
Georgia's Health Minister Alexander Kvitashvili said Wednesday that 175 Georgians had died in five days of air and ground attacks that left homes in smoldering ruins. He said many died Tuesday in a Russian raid of Gori hours before Medvedev declared fighting halted.
An AP reporter also saw heavy damage inflicted to a Georgian village near Gori by a raid which the villagers said came only half-hour before Russian television broadcast Medvedev's statement. Two men and a woman in the village of Ruisi, in undisputed Georgian territory just outside South Ossetia, were killed and five were wounded.
"I always hide in the basement," said one villager, 70-year old Vakhtang Chkhekvadze, as he was picking away what was left of a window frame torn by an explosion. "But this time the explosion came so abruptly, I don't remember what happened afterward."
The first relief flight from the U.N. refugee agency arrived in Georgia as the number of people uprooted by the conflict neared 100,000. Thousands streamed into the capital.
Those left behind in devastated regions of Georgia cowered in rat-infested cellars or wandered nearly deserted cities.
Georgia, which is pushing for NATO membership, borders the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia and was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.
South Ossetia and Abkhazia have run their own affairs without international recognition since fighting to split from Georgia in the early 1990s. Both separatist provinces are backed by Russia, which appears open to absorbing them.
Medvedev said Georgia must allow the provinces to decide whether they want to remain part of Georgia. He said Russian peacekeepers would stay in both provinces, even as Saakashvili said his government will officially designate them as occupying forces.
Georgia sits on a strategic oil pipeline carrying Caspian crude to Western markets and bypassing Russia. The British oil company BP shut down one of three Georgian pipelines, saying it was a precaution.
Fox News
INDIANAPOLIS - A woman who grew to be 7 feet, 7 inches tall and was recognized as the world's tallest female died early Wednesday, a friend said. She was 53.
Sandy Allen, who used her height to inspire schoolchildren to accept those who are different, died at a nursing home in her hometown of Shelbyville, Ind., family friend Rita Rose said.
The cause of death was not yet known. Allen had been hospitalized in recent months as she suffered from a recurring blood infection, along with diabetes, breathing troubles and kidney failure, Rose said.
In London, Guinness World Records spokesman Damian Field confirmed Wednesday that Allen was still listed as the tallest woman. Some Web sites cite a 7-foot-9 woman from China.
Coincidentally, Allen lived in the same nursing home, Heritage House Convalescent Center, as 115-year-old Edna Parker, whom Guinness has recognized as the world's oldest person since August 2007.
'Tool to educate people'
Allen said a tumor caused her pituitary gland to produce too much growth hormone. She underwent an operation in 1977 to stop further growth.
But she was proud of her height, Rose said. "She embraced it," she said. "She used it as a tool to educate people."
Allen appeared on television shows and spoke to church and school groups to bring youngsters her message that it was all right to be different.
Allen weighed 6-1/2 pounds when she was born in June 1955. By the age of 10 she had grown to be 6-foot-3, and by age 16 she was 7-1.
She wrote to Guinness World Records in 1974, saying she would like to get to know someone her own height.
"It is needless to say my social life is practically nil and perhaps the publicity from your book may brighten my life," she wrote.
Museum appearances
The recognition as the world's tallest woman helped Allen accept her height and become less shy, Rose said.
"It kind of brought her out of her shell," Rose said. "She got to the point where she could joke about it."
In the 1980s, she appeared for several years at the Guinness Museum of World Records in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
"I'll never forget the old Japanese man who couldn't speak English, so he decided to feel for himself if I was real," she recalled with a chuckle when she moved back to Indiana in 1987.
"At Guinness there were days when I felt like I was doing a freak show," she said. "When that feeling came too often, I knew I had to come back home."
"She loved talking to kids because they would ask more honest questions," Rose said. "Adults would kind of stand back and stare and not know how to approach her."
msnbc
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The US government spent $85bn (£45bn) between 2003 and 2007 on contractors for services in support of the Iraq war and reconstruction, a report says.
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And by the end of 2008, spending is likely to top $100bn, a review by the Congressional Budget Office found.
Supporters say their use is cost-effective but there have also been documented cases of overcharging.
Concern over security contractors also grew following the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis in September 2007.
The US is relying on contractors in Iraq at a greater rate than in any other major conflict, the CBO said.
According to CBO estimates, the US currently employs 190,000 contractors in Iraq and neighbouring countries, a ratio of one contractor per member of the US armed forces.
About 20% are American, 40% are citizens from the country where they are employed; and the rest are foreign workers.
They provide services ranging from security, logistics support, construction, petroleum products and food.
Security
The majority of the $85bn was spent on contracts within Iraq, with the remainder being awarded for contracts in countries including Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
The use of security contractors has been the focus of particular attention, especially after an incident in September 2007 involving employees of the Blackwater firm which resulted in the deaths of 17 Iraqis.
The US justice department is due to decide soon whether to bring charges, the Associated Press reports.
The company, which said at the time that its staff acted in self-defence, is not expected to be prosecuted.
The CBO report says its analysis shows:
* the US spent between $6bn and $19bn on security work in Iraq
* about 25,000 to 30,000 people work for security firms in Iraq - of these, 10,000 work directly for the US government and up to 25,000 for the Iraqi government
* the costs of a private security contract are similar to those of a US military unit performing a similar job, although during peacetime the private contract would not have to be renewed.
Last December, the US government said it had tightened procedures to give US military commanders a greater role in co-ordinating the movements of private security staff.
But the CBO notes that the legal status of contractor staff, particularly for those who are armed, remains uncertain.
The scale of the private contract business and the sums involved have prompted calls for greater scrutiny.
"I believe we need to create a special committee in the US Senate to exercise oversight over contracting abuses related to reconstruction and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Senator Byron Dorgan recently.
He wants a panel similar to one set up by Senator Harry Truman in 1941 during the build-up to WWII.
"The Truman Committee held 60 hearings on waste, fraud and abuse," Mr Dorgan said. "It's unfathomable to me that we don't have a bipartisan investigative committee on contracting in Iraq."
BBC News