World News joined 2

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the story.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the story.

[OMEN]

Several thousand foreigners have fled South Africa after days of violent attacks by angry mobs.

Mozambique is laying on special buses, which have taken some 9,000 people home this week, an official said.

Some Zimbabweans are also going home, preferring to risk the violence there than stay in South Africa.

At least 42 people have been killed and some 15,000 have sought shelter from the mobs, who blame foreigners for high crime and unemployment.

The army is to be deployed in South Africa to contain the violence - for the first time since the end of apartheid.

But police in Johannesburg, where most of the attacks have taken place, say the situation is now much quieter than in recent days.

The police have used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the crowds.

Chaotic scenes

"I am just scared for my life," Henry, a 24-year-old Zimbabwean, told the BBC as he prepared to board a bus taking him home.

"I have a little girl at home - I want to see her grow up," he said after seeing a man shot dead at the weekend.
"I think Zimbabwe is safe."

Some three million Zimbabweans are believed to be in South Africa, fleeing poverty and violence at home.

The BBC's Karen Allen saw chaotic scenes and scuffles at a Johannesburg police station, as Mozambicans tried to scramble on board buses to take them home.

She says that those who could not get places spent the night in waste ground outside the police station, during the southern hemisphere winter.

Many had been beaten and had their property stolen.

Leonardo Boby, Deputy National Director of Migration, said that about 3,000 people had returned to Mozambique each day this week so far.

"We are having hectic moments with the return of these people," he said.

At least eight of those killed are thought to be from Mozambique.

Tavern attacked

The violence also spread to the port city of Durban on Tuesday, where some 700 African migrants sought refuge in a church.
"A mob of plus/minus 200 were gathering on the streets carrying bottles and knobkerries [wooden clubs] busy attacking people on the streets," provincial police spokeswoman Superintendent Phindile Radebe told AFP news agency.

"They attacked one of the taverns there believed to be owned by Nigerians," she said.

The attacks on foreigners began a week ago in the township of Alexandra, north of Johannesburg, before spreading to the city centre and across the Gauteng region.

Mobs have been roaming townships looking for foreigners, many of whom have sought refuge in police stations, churches and community halls.

BBC

[OMEN]

French workers at the national rail company, SNCF, have begun strike action against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to reform public-sector pensions.

Workers from other sectors are expected to join them early on Thursday in a one-day protest to pressure Mr Sarkozy to reverse his economic reforms.

Bus drivers nationwide were expected to strike, air service may be disrupted and about 50% of trains are to be cut.

The strikes follow protests by fishermen that blocked French ports.

High-speed international trains between Paris, London and Brussels were not expected to be affected by the SNCF workers' action.

The transport workers are due to be joined by postal, utility and other public sector workers across France.

Job cuts

The walkouts are not expected to cause the widespread travel chaos of last November when transport workers staged a nine-day strike against Mr Sarkozy's plan to scrap their special pension rights.

The government and the unions negotiated an end to the strikes but now workers are upset over plans to make them stay on the job one year longer - for 41 years - before receiving a full state pension.
Unions are also upset over government plans to cut the numbers of public sector workers.

Teachers and students have staged a number of strikes and protests over the plans which would see retiring teachers not replaced.

Unions are hoping that a head of steam is building up against Mr Sarkozy's economic reform plans, says BBC correspondent Hugh Schofield in Paris.

But the president has so far made the calculation that most people accept the changes that he has promised, and there is no sign of him backing down, says our correspondent.

Mr Sarkozy says the reforms are needed to restore France's economic vitality.

Ports blockaded

A separate dispute was apparently settled on Wednesday when the French government increased its offer to the fishing industry after days of protests over rising fuel costs.

The fishermen said they were not being adequately compensated to cover their increased costs.

On Wednesday, protesters clashed with police outside the agriculture ministry in central Paris.

Ferry traffic with the UK ground to a halt as fishing fleets blockaded several French ports, causing traffic to back up on English roads to busy ports such as Dover.

The French government offered to accelerate a previous aid deal, paying the fishermen 310m euros (£248m) over two years instead of three.

Pierre-Georges Dachicourt, president of the national fishing committee called on "all fishing crews to return to the sea," but it was not clear whether fishermen would be satisfied enough to end their stoppage.

And the trouble at the ports may be worsened by a dock workers' plan to strike on Thursday against privatisation.

BBC

[OMEN]

Eight civilians have been killed in an air strike by US military helicopters north of Baghdad, Iraqi police say.

Two children were among those who died in the attack on Wednesday evening near the town of Baiji, the police said.

Baiji's police chief said the attack targeted a group of shepherds in a farming area. The US military said the incident was under investigation.

In other violence, an Iraqi TV cameraman is reported to have been shot dead in crossfire in Baghdad.

'Tense relations'

A US military spokesman, Lt Col Maura Gillen, said one of its helicopters fired in the Baiji area after noting "suspicious activity", and she said people travelling in a car had ignored warnings to stop their vehicle.

Locals said some of those killed had been people running away on foot after the US forces entered the area.

A local man, Ghafil Rashed, told Reuters that his brother and son had been killed in the attack: "The Americans raided our houses... People started fleeing with their children, then the aircraft started bombing people in a street along the farm."

Baiji's police chief, Col Mudher Qaisi, told Reuters news agency that the attack was a criminal act, and would make relations between Iraqi citizens and the US forces tense.

"This will negatively affect security improvements," he said.

In a press statement, the US military said it regretted the loss of innocent civilian lives.

In a separate development the Iraqi satellite television channel, Afaq TV, said one of its cameramen, Wissam Ali Auda, had been shot dead in sniper fire in the Obeidi district of Baghdad.

BBC

[OMEN]

Eleven elderly people accused of being witches have been burned to death by a mob in the west of Kenya, police say.

A security operation has been launched to hunt down villagers suspected of killing them in Kisii District.

The BBC's Muliro Telewa in the region says the gang had a list of the victims and picked them out individually.

The area has witnessed similar attacks in the past when people suspected of engaging in witchcraft have been killed or ostracised.

But our reporter says that this is a surprisingly large number of people to be attacked at the same time.

'Witches meeting'

Anthony Kibunguchy, the provincial police officer, told the BBC that the eight women and three men were all aged between 80 and 96 years old.

The mob dragged them out of their houses and burned them individually and then set their homes alight, our correspondent says.

Residents have been ambivalent about condemning the attacks because belief in witchcraft is widespread in the area, he says.

But local official Mwangi Ngunyi spoke out against the murders.

"People must not take the law into their own hands simply because they suspect someone," he told AFP news agency.

Villagers told reporters that they had evidence that the victims were witches.

They say they found an exercise book at a local primary school that contained the minutes of a "witches' meeting" which detailed who was going to be bewitched next.

The victim's families have gone into hiding, fearing for their lives.

BBC

[JohnCenaFan28]

That's awful news, there's no such thing as "real" witches.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the story.