April 02, 2008

Zimbabwe opposition declares victory

(CNN) -- Zimbabwe's main opposition party has said its leader Morgan Tsvangirai will be the country's next president.

"The opposition has won the election," Movement for Democratic Change secretary-general Tendai Biti said.

Based on the results of 243 constituencies posted outside polling stations, Biti said Tsvangirai won 50.3 percent of the vote -- just barely over the 50 percent margin to avoid a runoff with incumbent President Robert Mugabe.

But Zimbabwe's state-run newspaper announced Wednesday that neither party garnered more than 50 percent, and that a runoff was inevitable.

The government has yet to release any official results from the presidential vote, creating confusion.

Biti told CNN on Tuesday his party believed it had won enough votes to force a run-off election.

The MDC had announced on Sunday -- a day after the presidential vote -- that Tsvangirai had won 67 percent of the vote.

Harare blames the delay in releasing results on logistical reasons, noting that four elections were held simultaneously. But some election observers and analysts have raised concerns that Mugabe is using the time to rig the results.

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a group of non-governmental organizations monitoring the election, had released exit polling data that showed Tsvangirai leading with over 49 percent of the vote -- short of the 50 percent plus one vote needed to avoid a runoff election.

Mugabe was second with 41.8 percent, according to the organization. Independent candidate Simba Makoni had 8.2 percent.

The United States, Britain and the European Union have expressed their desire for Mugabe to step down.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last weekend called Mugabe a "disgrace" to his country and the entire region.

The European Union said it was important for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to release the results and avoid "unnecessary speculation" about the results. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said an immediate release of the results was "critical" so that the elections were seen to be fair.

Tensions are high in the southern African country that has had only one leader -- Mugabe -- since independence from Britain in 1980. There are fears that a delay in results could lead to violence.

A year after the last presidential election -- which the MDC said was stolen -- the government of Zimbabwe charged Tsvangirai for treason. He was acquitted. The MDC accused Mugabe of trying to eliminate him as a challenger.

Zimbabwe faced international sanctions after the 2002 election, including travel restrictions imposed by the United States on Zimbabwean officials.

A hero of the country's civil war against the white Rhodesian government, Mugabe became the country's first black leader in 1980. Nearly three decades later, he has consolidated his rule over all aspects of Zimbabwean life.

His country was once revered for offering its citizens some of the best education and health care in Africa, but now schooling is a luxury and Zimbabwe has one of the lowest life expectancies in the world.

Zimbabwe was once known as the breadbasket of southern Africa, but now it is difficult to get even basic food supplies. Inflation has skyrocketed to more than 100,000 percent, while food production and agricultural exports have dropped drastically.

Thousands of Zimbabweans flood into neighboring countries to look for jobs.

Part of the economic freefall is traced to Mugabe's land redistribution policies, including his controversial seizure of commercially white-owned farms in 2000. Mugabe gave the land to black Zimbabweans he said were cheated under colonial rule, and white farmers who resisted were jailed.

Mugabe denies mismanagement and blames his country's woes on the West, saying sanctions have harmed the economy.

Posted by Publisher at 11:57 AM | Comments (0)

April 01, 2008

Fraud fear over Zimbabwe vote delays

(CNN) -- There were still no official results Tuesday from the weekend's presidential vote in Zimbabwe, but an election monitoring group projected that opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai was leading President Robert Mugabe.

Tensions are high in the southern African state that has never seen a transition of power since Mugabe led the country to independence in 1980.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's delay in releasing the presidential count raised suspicions that Mugabe's government was buying time to rig the results, something many believe was done in 2002, when Mugabe last faced Tsvangirai.

"The people of Zimbabwe will not allow such a thing to happen," said Thoko Khupe, vice president of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Party. "They are not going to accept that. They now know that they won this election."

According to an independent African monitor, senior members of Mugabe's party are worried the government may have lost the elections, The Associated Press reported.

Marwick Khumalo, head of the Pan-African Parliament observer mission, indicated the ruling ZANU-PF party was considering the possibility of defeat, the agency said.

"I was talking to some of the big wigs in the ruling party and they also are concerned about the possibility of a change of guard," he told the South African Broadcasting Corporation's SAfm radio, the agency reported.

MDC sources denied to CNN that it was in talks with the Zimbabwean leader over a possible transfer of power, in spite of a report Tuesday on the New York Times' Web site that Mugabe was preparing to cede power to Tsvangirai.

The long delay in results has left Zimbabweans desperate for information.

Cashing in on the public demand for news of the vote, vendors sold the state-run newspaper The Herald for three times the official cover price.

In spite of the information blackout for the presidential vote, the commission released updated results for the parliamentary election Monday.

With 109 seats out of a total of 210 declared, Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) had won 53; the MDC 51; and a party that split from the MDC had five seats.
Watch Zimbabwe's opposition vows that election won't be stolen

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged a quick report on results, saying "all eyes will be on Zimbabwe."

"I think there are two things that are important: The results come forward soon and they are not delayed. Secondly, that the election seems to be fair and representative."

In the absence of official presidential results, a group of non-governmental organizations monitoring the election released exit polling data that showed Tsvangirai leading.

Noel Kututwa, chairman of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, said that his group's polling data gave Tsvangirai 49.4 percent of the vote -- short of the 50 percent plus one vote needed to avoid a runoff election.

Mugabe was second with 41.8 percent. Independent candidate Simba Makoni had 8.2 percent.

The MDC declared victory Sunday, saying results posted at precincts around the country gave Tsvangirai 67 percent of the vote.

"Results are posted at each and every polling station. It is now public knowledge that the MDC has already won this election. It is not something that is private. Everybody knows that, so how can you steal something which is already in the public's eye," MDC Vice President Khupe said.

One major concern is how Mugabe, 84, or the military would react to electoral defeat.

"The key thing now is whether behind the scenes how the army is reacting, whether they're going to back up ZANU-PF and say 'We're going to keep Mugabe at whatever cost' or whether really now they know the game is up," said British Parliament member Kate Hoey, a frequent visitor to Zimbabwe.

A year after the last presidential election -- which the MDC said was stolen -- the government of Zimbabwe charged Tsvangirai for treason. He was acquitted. The MDC accused Mugabe of trying to eliminate him as a challenger.

Zimbabwe faced international sanctions after the 2002 election, including travel restrictions imposed by the United States on Zimbabwean officials.

The Commonwealth - made up of Britain and its 53 former colonies - suspended Zimbabwe, prompting Mugabe to withdraw from the group.

"The world can't sit by this time and allow Mugabe to steal another election," Hoey said. "It just isn't going to happen. I really can't see this time, because the majority is going to be so much bigger and the people of Zimbabwe are peaceful people and really want to see this change happen. We must support them."

Hoey said the United Nations needs to get involved, as well as South Africa and other neighboring nations.

The United States, which has raised concerns about election fraud, called on Zimbabwe's government to make sure "the counting of the votes ... ensures the will of the people is heard," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Monday.

While election observers have urged prompt reporting of the results to avoid political unrest, government officials said it takes time to verify and "harmonize" the counts.

It is unlikely that if Mugabe emerges as the victor, he will receive any congratulations from the United States.

Speaking to reporters during her trip to the Middle East, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the longtime president and his government "a disgrace to the people of Zimbabwe and a disgrace to southern Africa and to the continent of Africa as a whole."

The Zimbabwean government has denied CNN and other international news organizations permission to enter the country to report on the elections.

A hero of the country's civil war against the white Rhodesian government, Mugabe became the country's first black leader in 1980. Nearly three decades later, he has consolidated his rule over all aspects of Zimbabwean life.

His country was once revered for offering its citizens some of the best education and health care in Africa, but now schooling is a luxury and Zimbabwe has one of the lowest life expectancies in the world.

Zimbabwe was once known as the breadbasket of southern Africa, but now it is difficult to get even basic food supplies. Inflation has skyrocketed to more than 100,000 percent, while food production and agricultural exports have dropped drastically.

Mugabe denies mismanagement and blames his country's woes on the West, saying sanctions have harmed the economy.

Posted by Publisher at 01:41 PM | Comments (0)

March 29, 2008

Voting begins in Zimbabwe elections

(CNN) -- Zimbabweans are turning out in large numbers to vote in hotly contested elections that will decide whether longtime President Robert Mugabe can win a sixth term in office.

Mugabe, 84, of the ruling Zanu-PF party, faces two major opponents: leading opposition figure Morgan Tsvangirai and Mugabe's former finance minister, Simba Makoni, both supported by different factions of the Movement for Democratic Change, the main opposition party.

Critics have predicted the elections will be marred by fraud, though the government has promised they will be "free and fair."

The Zimbabwean government has denied CNN and other international news organizations permission to enter the country to report on the elections, but Zimbabweans crossing the border into South Africa on Saturday told CNN there was good voter turnout with long lines at polling stations, and a heavy police and army presence. Read about reporting on the elections.

But less than an hour after voting began at 7 a.m. (1 a.m. ET), both opposition factions said that in at least 19 polling stations, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission claimed to have "lost" the accreditation for the opposition's polling agent, so it refused to let the agent in.

Eddie Matsangaise of the Zimbabwe Exile Forum said he had heard reports that the names of long-dead white colonialist leaders were on voter lists, but voters who thought they were registered were turned away.

"Obviously they're not free and fair," Matsangaise said of the elections.

Voter confusion is a problem. The elections are not just for president, but also for parliamentary, senate, and local council seats, meaning voters have to cast a number of ballots in a limited amount of time.

Limited voter education means many registered voters were not told which ward to go to and may turn up to the wrong polling station. In heavily-populated urban areas -- traditionally opposition strongholds -- Zimbabweans said there were too few polling stations.

Mugabe's critics say a recent move by Mugabe to increase the salaries of the police, army, and teachers and hand out machinery to black farmers was a vote-buying move. The government denies it was linked to the vote.

The absence of international media and independent observers has heightened critics' concerns. The United States this week warned of a possible unfair election, and New York-based Human Rights Watch warned earlier this month that the elections were likely to be "deeply flawed."

Human Rights Watch said in a report that Zimbabwe's electoral commission is partisan toward Zanu-PF and lacks both expertise and resources to run the elections properly.

An MDC official this week said leaked correspondence from the electoral commission showed it had asked for 3.3 million more ballots than there are registered voters -- including 250,000 extra postal ballots for soldiers and police. Tenda Biti, MDC secretary-general, said it was an indication of fraud. Voting was scheduled to close at 7 p.m. (1 p.m. ET).

Of the three candidates standing against Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Makoni have good chances of winning.

Tsvangirai founded the MDC and led hotly contested challenges against Mugabe in 2000, 2002, and 2005.

Makoni used to be a member of the Zanu-PF and served as the country's finance minister, but the party expelled him after he announced his bid to unseat Mugabe.

A hero of the country's civil war against the white Rhodesian government, Mugabe became the country's first black prime minister in 1980. But nearly three decades later, he has consolidated his rule over all aspects of Zimbabwean life, and the country does not appear better for it.

His country was once revered for offering its citizens some of the best education and health care in Africa, but now schooling is a luxury and Zimbabwe has one of the lowest life expectancies in the world.

Zimbabwe was once known as the breadbasket of southern Africa, but now it's difficult to get even basic food supplies. Inflation has skyrocketed to more than 100,000 percent while food production and agricultural exports have dropped drastically.

Thousands of Zimbabweans flood into neighboring countries looking for jobs.

Part of the economic freefall is traced to Mugabe's land redistribution policies, including his controversial seizure of commercially white-owned farms in 2000. Mugabe gave the land to black Zimbabweans he said were cheated under colonialist rule, and white farmers who resisted were jailed.

In 2005, Mugabe launched Operation Clean Out the Trash, in which he razed slum areas across the country.

Mugabe denies mismanagement and blames his country's woes on the West, saying sanctions have harmed the economy.

Posted by Publisher at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)

March 28, 2008

International Zone under curfew as attacks continue

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's government imposed a weekend curfew in Baghdad on Thursday amid clashes between government troops and Shiite militia fighters, and U.S. Embassy staff were told to remain indoors after days of rocket attacks left two U.S. government employees dead.

The curfew, which took effect at 11 p.m. Thursday (4 p.m. ET), bans pedestrian, motorcycle and vehicle traffic through 5 p.m. Sunday, said Gen. Qassim Atta, an Iraqi military spokesman.

Sixteen rockets were fired Wednesday and 12 on Tuesday. U.S. Embassy workers in Iraq were told to remain in secure buildings and wear protective clothing as rockets continued to rain down on Baghdad's International Zone.

Also called the Green Zone, the International Zone is a heavily fortified central Baghdad district housing the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi government offices.

A senior U.S. official says the insurgents may have had recent training allowing them to conduct more precise targeting of the rockets, believed to be made in Iran.

Meanwhile, the name of the U.S. government official killed in the attacks Thursday has not been released, an Embassy spokesman said.

Another U.S. employee, Paul Converse, died Wednesday from wounds he sustained Sunday, officials said.

And a U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad on Thursday, the U.S. military reported.

Iraq's parliament called a special session for Friday to address the crisis caused by three days of fighting between government troops and Shiite fighters. Meanwhile, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for an end to attacks on his followers.

Fighting between Iraqi government troops and what officials call rogue or outlaw members of Shiite militias has spread through southern Iraq's Shiite heartland to Baghdad since the launch of a government crackdown in Basra on Tuesday.

Three days of fighting have left more than 100 Iraqis dead.

Casualty figures from Basra weren't available Thursday, but the number of deaths is expected to rise from the 40 to 50 reported Wednesday.

The fighting threatens to unravel a seven-month cease-fire by al-Sadr's Mehdi Army.

Al-Sadr issued a statement Thursday urging "all groups to adopt a political situation and peaceful protest and to stop shedding the Iraqi blood," according to a senior member of his movement.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has been overseeing the operation in southern Iraq, has ordered militants to surrender their weapons by Saturday.

In Washington, U.S. State Department official Richard Schmierer said the rocket attacks appear to be coming from fighters affiliated with al-Sadr who were "trying to make a statement" about the government offensive in Basra.

Schmierer, the State Department's director of Iraq affairs, discounted the prospect that the cease-fire was collapsing. He blamed the violence on "marginal extremist elements" who have associated themselves with the Sadrist movement.

Iraq's Interior Ministry said mortar rounds killed one person and wounded four in the city's central Karrada district on Thursday evening, and the ministry's own compound was hit by one shell, wounding seven police officers.

Also Thursday in Baghdad, dozens of gunmen kidnapped the spokesman for the Baghdad security plan, Tahseen Sheikhly. Three of his guards were killed and his house burned in the attack, which an Interior Ministry official said was carried out by "outlaws," a reference to al-Sadr's militia.

A car bomb killed three people and wounded five others near a police patrol in central Baghdad on Thursday, an Interior Ministry official said. There are no apparent links to the violence in the Shiite regions.

People in Basra report smoke rising and gunfire and explosions ringing out across the city. Iraqi security forces, backed by U.S. and British troops, have been taking on fighters using grenades, mortar rounds and machine guns.

A Basra provincial official said on condition of anonymity that weapons such as machine guns and grenades were stolen from a military post in the Muqal area.

Al-Maliki briefed city and provincial officials Wednesday about the offensive and vowed to finish the job.

Provincial officials expressed reservations about the operation, saying Basra will fall into the hands of "outlaws" if al-Maliki fails to restore order.

Basra has been relatively quiet during the war, but the southern city has seethed with intra-Shiite tensions as Sadrists, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the Fadhila party have jockeyed for power.

Much of the fighting in the Shiite heartland involves followers of al-Sadr and security forces aligned with the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq's militia, the Badr Brigade.

The council dominates the ruling United Iraqi Alliance, but the Sadrist movement left the government last year after al-Maliki refused to demand a timeline for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. Both groups have strong contingents in the Iraqi parliament.

A provincial council official also said insurgents sabotaged an oil pipeline Thursday in Zubeir, a town near Basra. The attack sparked a large fire on the pipeline, which transfers crude oil to tanks in the city.

Meanwhile, the FBI identified the remains of two U.S. contractors who had been missing in Iraq for more than a year, a bureau spokesman said Thursday.

Minnesotan Paul Johnson-Reuben, 41, and Californian Joshua Munns, 25, were among four men kidnapped in November 2006 during an ambush in the southern Iraqi town of Safwan. All four worked for the Crescent Security Group, a Kuwaiti-based firm that escorts convoys.

The other two men -- Jonathon Cote, 25, and Bert Nussbaumer, 26 -- are still listed as missing. The FBI has the remains of one more body, which the bureau is trying to identify.

Posted by Publisher at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)

February 05, 2007

South Africa tries to curb Asia's abalone cravings

Story Highlights
• South Africa's abalone is a desired commodity for entrepreneurs and criminals
• The amount of illegal abalone confiscated in South Africa has skyrocketed recently
• Abalone farming accounts for 60 percent of the country's aquaculture revenues
• The government has drastically reduced the total allowable catch in the wild

POSTED: 9:33 a.m. EST, February 5, 2007

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (Reuters) -- Shipped halfway across the world to Asia as a seafood delicacy, abalone has become a prized commodity for South African entrepreneurs as well as criminals who have poached the mollusk almost to extinction.

Known colloquially in South Africa as "perlemoen," abalone is so endangered the government has drastically reduced the total allowable catch in the wild and attempted to encourage saltwater farming of the curlicue-shaped shellfish.

Once sucked from its hard shell, abalone has a soft but chewy flesh that is consumed in a variety of ways, but mostly steamed, grilled or, for the more adventurous, as a sushi dish.

Resembling a giant limpet and a distant relative of garden snails, it thrives only in oceans or special land-based farms that use seawater to cultivate the creatures.

Illegal abalone
Abalone's growing popularity in Asia, where it is a status symbol and reputed aphrodisiac, has spurred sophisticated smuggling rings, some linked to China's notorious Triad gangs, according to South Africa's Institute of Security Studies.

The amount of illegal abalone confiscated in South Africa has skyrocketed to more than 1 million shellfish from a mere 21,000 in 1994 when the country held its first democratic elections.

It is now common for police to pull over trucks, sometimes refrigerated, carrying illegal abalone on the roads of the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces, where most of the delicacy is harvested.

"We've had good successes, especially towards the end of last year, where we seized huge quantities of abalone ... this is just the tip of the iceberg," said Capt. Billy Jones, a spokesman for the Western Cape provincial police.

But legitimate businesses also see a future in abalone farming in South Africa.

Economic value
Production accounts for 60 percent of the country's aquaculture revenues. In 2006 it was worth more than 141 million rand ($19.7 million) and employed about 800 people.

"Abalone farming has the highest economic value as compared to all other farmed products and is the highest employer within the marine aquaculture sector," said Blessing Manale, spokesman for South Africa's department of environmental affairs.

He said the department hoped job losses in shrinking abalone fishery could be offset in the burgeoning farm-raised sector, which last year produced 900,000 kilograms (2 million pounds) of abalone.

Ten years ago production was a mere 90,000 kilograms (22,000 pounds).

South Africa exports live and canned abalone, with its endemic Haliotis midae species fetching between $22 and $38 per kilogram on world markets. China and Japan are among the main markets.

Nick Loubser, general manager of aquaculture at I&J fishing company, said the firm was exporting up to 150,000 kilograms of specialty abalone a year from its facility at Danger Point Bay, about 220 kilometers (137 miles) southeast of Cape Town.

The firm's abalone is fed a special diet at a land-based marine saltwater farm until ready for export.

Instead of waiting 12 to 15 years for the mollusks to reach full size, the roughly 10 South African firms in the sector typically sell cocktail-sized versions that take only three to four years to grow.

Not so easy
Loubser said the industry faced a number of challenges, including concerns about availability of land, conflicting legislation and problems with South African bureaucracy.

"One of the major stumbling blocks at the moment is the fact that the government hasn't declared areas for mariculture. So if you want to start a farm you have to go through a huge amount of red tape," he said.

Pierre Hugo, chairman of the Abalone Farmers Association of South Africa and managing director of Abagold, the country's largest exporter of abalone products, warned the government may be overestimating the potential of abalone farming.

"They think it's easier than it is. One of the models we have been promoting is using the existing abalone farms as a backbone for secondary aquaculture activities - such as seaweed cultivation -- around the farms," he said.

Hugo said satellite farms could also be used to accommodate emerging black farmers, who might lack the finances, technology and management expertise to start a high-tech abalone farm.

The government is working to develop a policy and development plan for the sector, Manale said.

Poached abalone could be reduced or even wiped out, according to Manale, noting there were plans to list wild and cultured abalone as an endangered species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

"This could curb poaching," he said.

Posted by Publisher at 01:50 PM | Comments (0)

China's Hu takes eight-nation tour to Namibia

Story Highlights
• Hu has used the tour to cement China's economic and political ties with Africa
• China was early backer of Namibian independence
• Namibia hopes to benefit from an influx of Chinese investment and tourists

POSTED: 8:58 a.m. EST, February 5, 2007

WINDHOEK, Namibia (AP) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao brought his eight-nation African tour Monday to Namibia, a sparsely populated, mineral-rich desert country which hopes to benefit from an influx of Chinese investment and tourists.

Drummers and dancers in traditional dress greeted Hu at the airport. Chinese and Namibian flags and photos of Hu and Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba decorated the main highway from Windhoek's airport in preparation for the 24-hour visit.

"I hope that my visit will enhance mutual understanding and trust, strengthen the bond of traditional friendship and advance the friendly relations and cooperation between China and Namibia," Hu said in a written statement.

Hu arrived from Zambia, where he inaugurated an economic cooperation zone designed to draw $800 million (615 million euro) in mining investment and create 60,000 jobs in the Copperbelt province.

Hu said the Copperbelt partnership was "a showcase for a higher, new level of China-Africa business cooperation."

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa said the agreement would "change the face of the Copperbelt and, indeed, the Zambian economy in that our raw materials will now have chance to enjoy value addition of unimagined proportions."

Hu has used the tour -- which also included a stop in Sudan -- to cement China's increasing economic and political ties and its fast-growing role as a foreign donor throughout the continent.

In Windhoek, Hu was expected to have talks with Pohamba, meet Namibia's former president Sam Nujoma and attend a state banquet.

Pohamba, who became president in March 2005, has actively promoted cooperation with China and trade in the first 11 months of 2006 amounted to $240 million (185 million euros), an increase of 103 percent from the previous year.

Namibia, which has a population of only about 2 million people, is rich in diamonds and minerals such as uranium, zinc and cobalt.

It has a long-standing friendship with China, since the Asian country backed its struggle for independence, which it achieved in March 1990.

Nujoma visited China 13 times, and Pohamba has been twice, further cementing ties.

In December the Namibian government secured an 18.2 million Namibian dollar ($2.6 million; 2 million euros) interest-free loan from China for various national development projects.

This follows a 2005 interest-free loan of 44.9 million Namibian dollars ($6.3 million; 5 million euros) to implement small-scale industrial and farming projects.

Hu's visit to Windhoek is expected to focus on trade initiatives to help Namibia widen its industrial base; access for Namibian products into the Chinese market; and tourism. Namibia is becoming an increasingly popular destination for Chinese tourists.

The Beijing government has conducted a number of education and health projects, including financing primary schools in rural areas and exchange programs for Namibian students and Chinese professionals.

China has been involved in a number of construction projects such as the drilling of wells, the building of low-cost housing and a children's recreation center.

There has been an increasing number of Chinese enterprises operating in Namibia and Hu is expected to meet with Chinese business leaders before leaving on Tuesday for South Africa.

Posted by Publisher at 01:50 PM | Comments (0)

Ivory Coast toxic waste case to be tried in Britain

Story Highlights
• Britain's biggest-ever class action suit; against international oil trader Trafigura
• Company denies dumping toxic waste in sites around Abidjan
• Ten people died, thousands fell ill, hundreds of tons of chemical slops dumped
• Trafigura's headquarters in Holland; operations coordinated from London

POSTED: 3:17 p.m. EST, February 2, 2007

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (Reuters) -- A British court has agreed to hear one of Britain's largest-ever class action cases involving a complaint against international oil trader Trafigura, accused of dumping toxic waste in Ivory Coast, lawyers said on Friday.

Ten people died and thousands fell ill with vomiting, diarrhea, nosebleeds and breathing difficulties after hundreds of tons of chemical slops were unloaded from a tanker chartered by Trafigura and dumped in mainly open-air sites in Abidjan last August.

Trafigura has denied any wrong-doing and says it entrusted the waste to a state-registered Ivorian company, Tommy, which was created weeks before the Panamanian-registered ship docked in Abidjan's port.

Martyn Day of the Leigh Day & Co. law firm representing the victims told Reuters the class action would enable the complaints of an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 people to be dealt with swiftly in one single case expected to begin in early 2008.

"There are a number of hurdles to overcome to be successful in this case but this decision by the court is a very major step forward to getting justice for my clients," he told Reuters.

Trafigura's headquarters are located in Holland but its operational activities are coordinated from London. In a statement on Friday the company said it would contest the claims it shipped the waste to Ivory Coast to be dumped.

"We continue to investigate the matter ourselves and we shall vigorously contest the claims in the courts," the statement said, adding the slops left the port "under the normal supervision of port, customs and environmental authorities".

2 Trifigura directors arrested; face poisoning charges
Day described class actions as a means of simultaneously dealing with large numbers of civil suits involving the same defendant and complaint. They are faster and cheaper than large numbers of individual cases that can take years to process.

To be eligible to join the suit, victims must prove they were injured by the waste and were living in or around Abidjan between August 19, when the waste was unloaded from the ship, and November 19, when most of it had been cleared up.

More than 100,000 people flocked to Abidjan's hospitals and clinics in the weeks after the dumping, overwhelming medical staff, but the government said most people were seeking free medicine and health care offered exclusively to waste victims.

Day said he and a team of lawyers from his firm would return to Abidjan on Monday to continue meeting victims and compiling evidence after a previous visit last month.

Philomene N'Guessan, spokeswoman for residents living beside the Akouedo landfill where much of the waste was dumped, welcomed the news that the trial would proceed.

"It's a good thing for us the victims because after having been intoxicated it is good that justice is being done," she said, adding that residents were still breathing fumes from waste dumped in a pond that had proven difficult to clean.

Authorities in Ivory Coast and Holland, where Trafigura's headquarters are based, have begun criminal investigations into the dumping. Two French Trafigura directors have been detained in Abidjan and face charges under Ivorian poisoning and toxic waste laws.

Posted by Publisher at 01:49 PM | Comments (0)

100 die in clashes between protesters, police in Congo

Story Highlights
• Protesters alleging electoral fraud rampaged through several towns this week
• Security forces called in to restore order, humanitarian organizations said
• Dead include security forces, but most were demonstrators
• Protesters support Jean-Pierre Bemba, who lost election to Joseph Kabila

POSTED: 11:47 a.m. EST, February 2, 2007

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) -- Nearly 100 people died and 30 others were wounded this week in clashes that erupted when demonstrators protesting alleged electoral fraud rampaged through several towns and security forces tried to restore order, rights groups and humanitarian organizations said Friday.

Dolly Ibefo of the rights group Voice for the Voiceless said the killings -- mostly of demonstrators shot by police or soldiers -- had happened since Monday in several towns in southwestern Bas Congo province. The area was reported quiet Friday.

The protests were led by Bundu Dia Kongo, a group that supports former warlord-turned-senator Jean-Pierre Bemba. Violence spread to at least five towns in Bas Congo, including Matadi, Boma, Kasangulu, Kinzaomvwete and Moanda.

Ibefo said the rights group's assessment was based on witness testimony and local rights officials in the troubled southwest province. He said more than a third of the people died in Moanda and the dead included several soldiers and police officers.

Willy Iboma, who heads the local Foundation for the Defense of Children's Rights, said demonstrators in Moanda had rampaged through the town's streets, setting ablaze a police post and several government buildings, prompting security forces to intervene.

Authorities ordered soldiers from nearby Kitona to the area to help restore order, and the soldiers had used automatic weapons and rockets.

"Until now, bodies are still being gathered from the streets and the bush" in Moanda after violence reached its peak there Thursday, Iboma told The Associated Press by telephone from the town.

Leader says protest was 'bloodily repressed'
Government officials could not be reached for comment on the violence, and a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo, Kemal Saiki, said the U.N. had not obtained any official toll. The bulk of the U.N.'s 18,000 peacekeepers are deployed on the other side of the country, which is wracked by sporadic fighting involving militias and renegade army units.

Speaking by telephone from the capital, Kinshasa, the head of Bundu Dia Kongo, Ne Mwanda Ne Semi, described the events in Bas Congo as "a peaceful protest that was bloodily repressed by police and soldiers."

"The whole of Bas Congo is rising up against corruption that has infected all the elections and especially the election of senators and governors," Semi said.

Gubernatorial elections took place last weekend and the legislative vote was held a week before that.

Shuttered shops, barricades of car hulks
Local radio stations said Thursday that shops and street stalls were shuttered in the towns and residents had taken cover as protesters barricaded streets with the shells of destroyed cars.

Bemba, a former warlord who once controlled a vast territory in northern Congo and became vice president in a power-sharing deal that ended the country's 1998-2002 war and re-united the country, won a senatorial seat last month.

Bemba's militia clashed with President Joseph Kabila's forces twice last year, as results were announced in the initial presidential vote and the runoff that marked Congo's first free elections for a head of state since wresting independence from Belgium in 1960.

Posted by Publisher at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

Liberians welcome Chinese leader

Story Highlights
• President Hu Jintao's nation wants resources, Liberia needs investment funds
• West wants China to tie aid to reforms, but China won't set conditions
• China offering low interest loans, debt relief to increase its influence in Africa
• Trade between China and Africa jumped 40 percent last year to $55.5 billion

POSTED: 9:07 p.m. EST, February 1, 2007

MONROVIA, Liberia (Reuters) -- Thousands of cheering Liberians lined the streets of the capital Monrovia on Thursday to greet Chinese President Hu Jintao, hoping for desperately needed investment for their war-scarred nation.

Arriving from Cameroon, where he signed nearly $100 million in grants and soft loans on Wednesday, Hu was greeted by large crowds waving Chinese flags, many of whom had waited several hours for his arrival.

"China has brought pride to Liberia. For the first time a world leader has come to this poor country," said Ruth Davies, a 38-year-old student. "This is a historic time for us."

China has been offering low-interest loans, debt relief and other incentives to increase its influence on the world's poorest continent in return for access to the natural resources it needs to feed its booming economy.

China only resumed diplomatic ties with Liberia -- a U.S. stronghold in Africa during the Cold War -- in 2003 after Monrovia broke off relations with Taiwan. Before its civil war, which killed more than 200,000 people, Liberia had been the world's fifth largest exporter of iron ore.

Hu was due to meet President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf on Thursday. Chinese diplomats said Hu would sign seven bilateral accords with Liberia, which in addition to iron ore, has large reserves of rubber and timber.

War-scarred Monrovia gets face-lift
The pot-holed streets and bullet-marked buildings of Monrovia were given a hasty face-lift in preparation for Hu. Street corners were draped in Liberian and Chinese flags.

"The visit of the president is good for Liberia. China is a super power in its own way. If such a country's president can visit this small country, it means a lot for us," said Jimmie Smith, as he painted a stairwell at the Foreign Ministry.

Hu's eight-nation tour will also take him to Sudan, Namibia, South Africa, Seychelles, Zambia and Mozambique.

Hu's visit has been overshadowed by calls from Western governments for China to back efforts by donors to promote democracy and human rights in Africa through conditional aid, instead of its current "no strings attached" trade policy.

His visit to Sudan, where China buys crude oil and sells weapons, will be closely watched after Washington appealed directly last month for more support tackling the conflict in Darfur, which has killed more than 200,000 people in four years.

Trade between China and Africa jumped 40 percent last year to $55.5 billion, with the balance $2.1 billion in Africa's favor, according to Chinese Trade Ministry data.

But some Africans warn poor African countries may ultimately lose from expanding trade with China unless they carefully examine bilateral deals and protect their weak manufacturing sectors from cheap Chinese clothes and household goods.

The managing-director of Liberia's National Port Authority, Togba Ngangana, said Chinese investors had signed a memorandum of understanding to build a manufacturing zone outside the southern port of Buchanan which would produce 50,000 jobs.

Chinese relations were recently at the center of a political spat after majority of the members of Liberia's lower house of parliament voted to suspend the speaker after two breaches of protocol -- one of which allegedly involved contact with Taiwan.

Posted by Publisher at 01:47 PM | Comments (0)

December 27, 2006

James Brown's body to lie at Apollo Theater

NEW YORK (AP) -- James Brown's music career will come full circle when his body is brought to rest on the stage of the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem, where he made his explosive debut, and the world changed to his beat.

POSTED: 8:43 a.m. EST, December 27, 2006

The public will be permitted on Thursday to visit the Apollo to have one more look at a man who helped steer modern musical tastes toward rhythm-and-blues, funk, hip-hop, disco and rap, the Rev. Al Sharpton said Tuesday. The reverend has been a close friend of Brown for decades.

"It would almost be unthinkable for a man who lived such a sensational life to go away quietly," Sharpton said in an interview from Georgia, where he was making funeral arrangements with Brown's children.

Sharpton said the public Apollo viewing will be followed by a private ceremony Friday in Brown's hometown, Augusta, Georgia, and another public ceremony, officiated by Sharpton, a day later at the James Brown Arena there.

"His greatest thrill was always the lines around the Apollo Theater," Sharpton said of the Harlem landmark. "I felt that James Brown in all the years we talked would have wanted one last opportunity to let the people say goodbye to him and he to the people."

Brown, known as the Godfather of Soul, died of congestive heart failure on Christmas morning in Atlanta at age 73. He had been scheduled to perform on New Year's Eve in Manhattan at B.B. King's blues club.

Mourners paid their respects to Brown in Augusta on Tuesday, filing past his statue, which was draped in an American flag and a red scarf.

Flowers were left at the base of the statue in tribute to the late singer.

"There were some troubled times in his life, like everybody else, but he meant well," said John Arthur Thomas, 73, of Daleville, Alabama, who stopped by the statue. "He is a legend. There will never be another James Brown."

Sharpton said he and Brown's children talked Tuesday about the moment after the Rev. Martin Luther King's assassination when Brown stepped to a microphone and told gathering crowds of angry people to go home.

"And they went home," Sharpton said. "For them to riot for a man who lived a life of peace would send the wrong message. He always said he was surprised and humbled that he had that influence."

Sharpton said Brown was "always very sensitive as to how people could be remembered."

The Apollo began recruiting and showcasing talent in 1934. Early acts included "Pigmeat" Markham and Jackie "Moms" Mabley. Before long, Lena Horne, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Aretha Franklin and Brown were making their debuts.

Apollo audiences cheered the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Michael Jackson, Fats Waller, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Sammy Davis Jr. and Nina Simone. Comedians such as Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor performed there, too.

Brown, who lived in Beech Island, South Carolina, near the Georgia line, won a Grammy for lifetime achievement in 1992, as well as Grammys in 1965 for "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" (best R&B recording) and for "Living in America" in 1987 (best R&B vocal performance, male.) He had a brief but memorable role as a manic preacher in the 1980 movie "The Blues Brothers," starring Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi.

"Fortunate were those of us who were able to engage his talents and witness his latest shows. The greatest on-stage revue of music in the history of our planet," Aykroyd said in a statement released by his publicist.

Sharpton said Brown always knew his place in history.

"He used to tell me, 'There are two American originals, Elvis and me,' " Sharpton said. " 'Elvis is gone, and I've got to carry on.' "

Posted by Publisher at 02:03 PM | Comments (0)

October 03, 2006

Nigerian dam collapse destroys at least 1,500 homes

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- Rescue workers dispensed water purification tablets Monday to crowds of people whose homes were washed away after a dam collapsed in northern Nigeria, as surveyors worked to determine what caused the disaster.

POSTED: 9:56 a.m. EDT, October 2, 2006

An emergency official said Monday that no one died in the weekend collapse, contradicting earlier reports from police and witnesses.

The Gusau dam in the north of the West African country collapsed Saturday after heavy rains. The torrent of water released washed away hundreds of homes and witnesses said entire families were pulled into the rushing flood.

The government has contracted a construction firm to survey the damage and try to determine why the structure collapsed.

Photos of the scene showed jagged chunks of concrete torn from the dam walls lying in pools of water. Women in brightly colored head scarves huddled in overcrowded camps set up for the displaced while Red Cross officials set up tables to dispense sanitation equipment.

On Sunday, police confirmed three deaths and a witness interviewed by The Associated Press said he saw seven dead bodies in the water.

However, Ibrahim Farinloye, a spokesman for the government's emergency management agency, said only two people were reported missing and they were rescued. The agency has 20 rescue workers in the area, working alongside Red Cross and state personnel.

"I assure you, nobody died in that flood. I am speaking on behalf of the federal government," Farinloye said. He said 1,500 homes were destroyed in the flood, but that no bodies had been found.

Farinloye said about 700 people were in the camps, but that others may have gone to stay with relatives.

Police could not immediately be reached for comment Monday. Farinloye said state police had issued contradictory statements and had no authority to speak on disasters.

Asked about the witness reports, Farinloye said: "It is often difficult for an untrained person in the middle of an emergency to tell exactly what they are seeing." The resident who saw the bodies could not be reached again Monday.

Initial state media reports had said 40 people were feared dead.

Saturday's flood in Zamfara state follows continued heavy flooding in neighboring Sokoto state, tied to weakness in another dam.

Dahiru Yusuf Yabo, the head of the Sokoto state water board, said coursing water destroyed hundreds of houses and polluted drinking water there, explaining that a dam failed to release floodwaters because sediment had built up in its outlets. He said the government was dispatching water treatment kits to prevent a disease outbreak.

Though Nigeria is rich in oil, government corruption and poor distribution of wealth have left its infrastructure and health service in ruins.

Posted by Publisher at 02:21 PM | Comments (0)

State radio: Dozens feared dead from Nigeria dam collapse

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- About 40 people were feared dead in flooding from a dam collapse in northwest Nigeria, state radio said Sunday.

POSTED: 7:22 a.m. EDT, October 1, 2006

The dam gave out Saturday after heavy rains apparently overwhelmed the structure, according to Radio Nigeria.

The station said about 500 houses were washed away in villages outside the city of Gusau, the capital of the northern Nigerian state of Zamfara.

The head of the state water board blamed the collapse on a build up of sediment in the dam outlets that increased pressure.

"The water is continuing to rise and flood farmlands," Dahiru Yusuf Yabo said. "Most people had time to flee but they had to abandon most of their belongings."

Yabo said he did not have a figure on how many people may have been killed.

The floodwaters contaminated wells of nearly 10,000 people, he said.

"There is a risk of disease, so we are dispatching people with water treatment kits," he said.

The village of Gangan, with a population of about 7,000 people, was the worst affected, Yabo said.

Posted by Publisher at 02:20 PM | Comments (0)

August 10, 2006

CEO: German worker abducted in Nigeria OK

STUTTGART, Germany (Reuters) -- A German construction firm has been in contact with one of its employees who was abducted last week by Nigerian militants, the company's chief executive said on Thursday.

Thursday, August 10, 2006; Posted: 10:39 a.m. EDT (14:39 GMT)

"He is well," Bilfinger Berger CEO Herbert Bodner said at a news conference in Stuttgart, adding that he had been in touch with the captive, 62-year-old Guido Schiffarth, several times. He declined to give further details.

The Foreign Ministry in Berlin declined to comment on Schiffarth's fate or efforts to secure his release.

The militants on Wednesday issued a photograph of Schiffarth and a statement purportedly written by him in an e-mail which also restated their demand for the release of two jailed ethnic leaders.

Schiffarth said he was being treated well but wanted to go home.

He was abducted from his car by militants disguised as soldiers in the southern oil city of Port Harcourt on August 3 and taken away in a speedboat.

It was another in a series of attacks that began this year and have targeted oil company facilities and executives.

The militants belong to a previously unknown group called the Movement of the Niger Delta People. They also want more jobs and investment by Bilfinger Berger in the community.

The oil-rich Niger Delta has been the scene of kidnappings and unrest as militants and activists demand that oil companies compensate the poverty-stricken region.

Nigeria is the fourth largest exporter of oil to the United States, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Posted by Publisher at 02:36 PM | Comments (0)

July 25, 2006

Rice proposes international forces in Lebanon; Secretary of state meets with Israeli, Palestinian leaders

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is proposing an ambitious plan with up to two international military forces that would help the Lebanese government stabilize the situation in southern Lebanon, Lebanese political sources said.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006; Posted: 11:13 a.m. EDT (15:13 GMT)

The plan initially would involve putting an international force of up to 10,000 Turkish and Egyptian troops under a NATO or U.N. commander into southern Lebanon following a cease-fire.

That force ultimately would be replaced by another international force of up to 30,000 troops that would help the Lebanese government regain control over the southern part of the country, where the Shiite militia Hezbollah now dominates.

Rice presented the plan to Lebanese officials Monday and was showing the same proposal to Israeli officials Tuesday, the political sources said.

The plan, which Rice also will offer to European foreign ministers this week in Italy, depends on several conditions, the sources said.

The first is that Hezbollah either would have to agree to the plan or be defeated militarily.

The second is that Israel wants to drive as far as 20 miles (32 kilometers) into southern Lebanon to end the threat of Hezbollah missiles hitting northern Israel. Such a military campaign might take weeks to accomplish.

Hezbollah sparked the crisis July 12 when it captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight other troops in a cross-border raid into northern Israel. Israel responded with an air campaign and ground offensive against the militants in southern Lebanon.

The conflict has left more than 400 people dead on both sides of the Lebanese-Israeli border. The fighting has displaced an estimated 800,000 civilians, and humanitarian relief has been stymied by bombing that has made many roads impassable.

Rice vows 'new Middle East'

Lebanese officials have demanded the United States back an immediate cease-fire for the region.

President Bush has said that the United States wants to change the equation on the ground fundamentally. Bush has said that moving to an immediate cease-fire would leave the components of the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in place.

After meeting with Rice on Tuesday in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to keep up the fight against Hezbollah.

"We will not hesitate to take the most severe measures against those who are aiming thousands of rockets and missiles against innocent civilians for one purpose -- to kill them," Olmert said.

At the start of her meeting with Olmert, Rice said that it's time for "a new Middle East."

"It is time to say to those who do not want a different kind of Middle East that we will prevail, they will not," Rice said.

In a whirlwind tour, Rice went from her meeting with Olmert to one with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Around 1,000 protesters marched to the seat of the Palestinian government to protest her visit there.

Difference of opinion on cease-fire

The Bush administration has been walking a tightrope between supporting Israel's right to self-defense while also trying to avoid destabilizing Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government, which the United States has embraced since it came to power.

In a surprise trip Monday to Beirut, Rice conferred with Siniora and Nabih Berri, Lebanon's parliament speaker, who has close ties with Hezbollah and Syria.

"President Bush wanted this to be my first stop -- here in Lebanon -- to express our desire to urgently find conditions in which we can end the violence and make life better for the Lebanese people," she said.

After a closed-door meeting, a source in the parliament speaker's office said that Berri considered Rice's comments "not encouraging."

The source said Rice had wanted any cease-fire agreements, deployment of international troops, the disarming of Hezbollah, return of the displaced Lebanese and plans for reconstruction to occur at the same time.

Berri considered such a course impractical and believed that a cease-fire should come first, the source said.

U.S. officials said privately not to expect a cease-fire to come out of Rice's mission to the Middle East.

She does not plan to meet with Hezbollah or with Syrian leaders during her trip.

Although Syria is thought to hold much influence with Hezbollah, the Bush administration has argued that direct talks with the Damascus government would be pointless.

Rice also won't be making stops in Jordan, Egypt or Saudi Arabia, all of which sent word that she shouldn't visit unless the United States was ready to press for an immediate cease-fire.

The secretary of state plans to head next to Rome, Italy, to meet with Arab leaders and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Posted by Publisher at 04:41 PM | Comments (0)

July 21, 2006

U.N. chief calls for immediate cease-fire

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.N. chief Kofi Annan called on Thursday for an immediate end to the fighting between Israeli and Hezbollah forces.

Friday, July 21, 2006; Posted: 9:47 a.m. EDT (13:47 GMT)

The secretary-general blamed Hezbollah for triggering the crisis and accused it of holding Lebanon hostage with its campaign against Israel.

"While Hezbollah's actions are deplorable and, as I've said, Israel has a right to defend itself, the excessive use of force is to be condemned," Annan told the U.N. Security Council.

Annan said that the continued bombardments and the destruction of roads and airports have made it impossible for U.N. and other humanitarian groups to provide services.

He said that arranging a cease-fire would be difficult, but he called for the council to take strong action.

"Both the deliberate targeting by Hezbollah of Israeli population centers with hundreds of indiscriminate weapons and Israel's disproportionate use of force and collective punishment of the Lebanese people must stop," Annan said.

The Lebanese people "have been brutally dragged back into war," he said.

He also called for the release of the abducted Israeli troops and for Israel to allow humanitarian groups to reach civilians.

Israel has rejected calls for a cease-fire until it can push Hezbollah back from its northern frontier and retrieve the soldiers kidnapped in a cross-border raid July 12. That position is supported by the United States.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton has maintained that a cease-fire is a "simplistic" solution to the current problem between Israel and the Lebanese militia.

"As we've said repeatedly, what we seek is a long-term cessation of hostilities that is part of a comprehensive change in the region and a part of a real foundation for peace," Bolton said. "But, still, no one has explained how you conduct the cease-fire with a group of terrorists."

The United States and Israel consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization. The group, which has claimed responsibility for terrorist acts, also operates an extensive network of social services in Lebanon. Hezbollah also holds seats in the Lebanese parliament.

Rice to visit region
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to meet with Annan on Friday. She has said the U.S. would support a cease-fire in the conflict "when conditions are conducive to do so."

Rice plans to travel to the region, possibly as early as next week, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters on Thursday.

Senior administration officials said more time is needed to shape the diplomacy and to create conditions on the ground for a permanent change of the situation -- not merely a cease-fire. Israel needs time to "defang Hezbollah," said one of the officials, who asked not to be named in light of the ongoing diplomacy.

Major strikes will end depending, in part, on when Israel believes the job is done, but one senior official said there could be "manageable differences" over determining when enough is enough.

The officials said some Israeli goals may not be achieved overnight or by military action.

Rice also plans to meet with European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana, who recently returned from the Mideast.

Annan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have called for an international peacekeeping force in Lebanon larger and stronger than UNIFIL, a long-established U.N. peacekeeping force already in the country.

Iran's state-run news agency reported Wednesday that Lebanese President Emile Lahoud met with Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Mohammad-Reza Sheybani and expressed thanks for Iranian support during the week-long Israeli air offensive in Lebanon.

Posted by Publisher at 01:21 PM | Comments (0)

Taylor 'unhappy with jail food'

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (Reuters) -- Charles Taylor is not happy about conditions in the Hague jail he was moved to last month, his lawyer said on Friday as the former Liberian president appeared in court for the first time since he left Sierra Leone.

Friday, July 21, 2006; Posted: 8:08 a.m. EDT (12:08 GMT)

Defence lawyer Karim Khan told the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, which will try Taylor for war crimes, that his client could not make phone calls as freely as he could in Freetown, lockdown hours were more draconian and he was unhappy about the food in the "rather Eurocentric" facility.

"Mr Taylor should be afforded the same rights and the same regime that are afforded to all other detained persons (in Sierra Leone)," Khan said.

Taylor, wearing a gray suit to the procedural hearing, also asked the court through his lawyer to speed visas for his family to visit him in The Hague. Taylor's wife is six months pregnant.

The Sierra Leone special court moved Taylor to The Hague because of fears a trial in Freetown could spur unrest in Sierra Leone or Liberia. Proceedings are being held in the premises of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Judge Richard Lussick said he did not want people to have the impression Freetown was "the Riviera of detention" but said he hoped the court's registrar would address Taylor's concerns.

Herman von Hebel, the Sierra Leone court's deputy registrar, told journalists he had come to the Hague to talk to the ICC about logistics related to the trial and said he thought Taylor's concerns were mostly easily solved "start-up" issues.

Trial to start in 2007
Taylor already appeared in court in Freetown for an initial hearing in April, when he pleaded innocent to 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for backing rebels who raped and mutilated civilians during a brutal 1991-2002 civil war in Sierra Leone, Liberia's neighbor.

Prosecutor Brenda Hollis said she hoped the trial could begin in February, but Khan said that was untenable and the earliest the defense could imagine starting would be in July.

Khan said the limits on phone calls were hampering Taylor's efforts to raise funds for his defense and said a case of this magnitude would take more than a year to prepare, especially given the difficulties created by moving the trial to The Hague.

Judge Lussick said it was too early to estimate a start date now, but hoped to be able to do so towards the end of the year. He set the next procedural hearing for September 29.

Hollis said the prosecution expected to want to present evidence from as many as 180 witnesses, either in person, via video link from Freetown or in written testimony. Khan said the defense would object to testimony via video link.

Taylor is being held at a prison near The Hague, where suspects standing trial at the U.N. tribunal for the former Yugoslavia are housed and where former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic died of a heart attack in March.

The U.N. Security Council authorized Taylor's transfer in June after Britain said it would jail him if he is found guilty.

Taylor's rise to power in 1989 led to a 14-year, on-and-off civil war in Liberia that spilled across regional borders. He fled into exile in Nigeria in 2003 but was returned to Liberia and transferred to the court in Sierra Leone on March 29.

Posted by Publisher at 01:18 PM | Comments (0)

July 17, 2006

Israel plans Lebanon buffer zone to stop attacks; Rockets again hit Israeli city of Haifa

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Amid renewed cross-border fighting between Israeli and Hezbollah forces, Israel said Monday that it plans to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon to stop rocket attacks from the militant group.

Monday, July 17, 2006; Posted: 11:58 a.m. EDT (15:58 GMT)

"We have no intention of allowing anyone to stop us before we complete the creation of a buffer zone," Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said.

In six days of fighting, 165 people have been killed and 415 wounded in Lebanon, Lebanese internal security sources said.

Twenty-four Israelis have died in the conflict, including 12 soldiers, and more than 300 have been wounded, Israeli military sources said.

The fighting began last week after Hezbollah guerrillas abducted two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.

Israel responded with an offensive in Lebanon aimed at Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group with a strong presence in the southern part of the country that also holds seats in the Lebanese government. Hezbollah guerrillas began firing rockets into northern Israel.

The United States and Israel say that Hezbollah receives financial and political assistance, as well as weapons and training, from Iran and Syria.

Suspected Hezbollah rockets hit the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Monday, a day after a deadly strike on a train depot in the city.

Israel closed the port in its third-largest city in the wake of Monday's rockets, Reuters reported. Haifa is one of Israel's key shipment points.

A large cloud of smoke could be seen over the port area. Another rocket landed in the sea.

A residential building also partially collapsed when a rocket hit it, injuring at least 11 people,

The barrage also hit the towns of Sefad and Tiberias, but no casualties were reported, Israeli medical sources said.

Earlier reports suggested Israeli ground forces had entered southern Lebanon, but an Israeli military source said that there is no Israeli ground operation going on at present. The source said a small Israeli military unit "destroyed one or two Hezbollah outposts just over the line in Lebanon last night."

"At the moment, there are no military ground troops in Lebanon, and we are working primarily with an air campaign," the source said.

Meanwhile, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman denied an Israeli plane had gone down over east Beirut. Video footage showing an aircraft falling from the sky may have been a missile crashing instead, the spokesman said.

Arabic-language television networks earlier reported an Israeli plane went down.

International force proposed

In a conversation inadvertently picked up by an open microphone during the Group of Eight summit in Russia, President Bush disclosed that he is sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the Middle East.

Despite the president's remarks, the White House told The Associated Press that it had nothing to announce about a Rice trip.

The development came after U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair called for an international stabilization force to be sent to the Israeli-Lebanese border to help end the fighting.

The proposed force would be the first step in what Annan and Blair said should be a series of actions that would stop the hostilities.

"The only way we are going to get a cessation of hostilities is the deployment of an international force to stop the bombardment of Israel and get Israel to stop its attacks on Hezbollah," Blair said at a news conference in St. Petersburg at the end of the G-8 summit.

Annan said the U.N. Security Council would have to discuss the matter but said such a force would be only a part of a comprehensive plan of action to stop the fighting.

Beirut port bombed

Earlier Monday, Israel bombed Beirut's port, an army barracks and the capital's southern suburbs.

Video footage of the strike's aftermath showed black smoke billowing into the air over the port against a backdrop of large shipping containers and the charred remains of a truck. At least two people died in the attack.

In the city of Abdeh, about 50 miles (about 80 kilometers) north of Beirut, three Israeli missiles struck an army barracks, officials said, killing six soldiers and wounding 28.

Israeli strikes Monday in the Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border killed seven people, authorities said. Forty-three others were wounded, and a girl is missing.

The strikes followed Hezbollah rocket attacks Sunday on northern Israeli cities, including one that struck a train depot in Haifa and killed eight Israelis.

Meanwhile, several countries continued efforts to evacuate their citizens from Lebanon.

The Lebanese government insists it has nothing to do with the Hezbollah attacks and has called for a cease-fire.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told CNN's "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer" on Sunday that the Israeli attacks had opened "the gates of hell" with what he called a disproportionate response to Hezbollah's initial raid last week.

Israel says it will only stop its campaign when the abducted troops are freed, Hezbollah withdraws from southern Lebanon and rocket attacks stop.

Posted by Publisher at 03:03 PM | Comments (0)

May 29, 2006

Indonesia quake toll over 5,100

JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- The death toll from Saturday's earthquake in southern Indonesia has risen to above 5,100, with 6,504 others reported seriously injured, the country's Social Affairs Ministry reported Monday.

Monday, May 29, 2006; Posted: 6:49 a.m. EDT (10:49 GMT)

Meanwhile Indonesia's president has acknowledged a "lack of coordination" as the first aid trickled into the quake-stricken zone on Java island.

Visiting refugees on Monday, The Associated Press quoted President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as calling for government officials to be "more agile."

The quake, which struck early Saturday morning close to the former Javanese royal capital of Yogyakarta, has so far killed 5,136 people, wounded nearly 6,504 and left 100,000 homeless.

Heavy rain added to the misery Monday as grieving survivors scavenged for food in the debris of their houses. Rescuers are being hampered by rain, power outages and the closure of a local airport.

"I saw in many areas that there are many things that need to be speeded up," the president said, after declaring a state of emergency to quicken relief efforts.

Slammed by some critics as being too slow to act in past disasters, Yudhoyono spent the first night after the quake sleeping in a tent along with survivors and moved his office to Yogyakarta to keep an eye on relief efforts, AP reported.

Meanwhile, activity at the nearby Mount Merapi volcano has tripled since Saturday's quake, experts told AP, and a large eruption is still possible.

Emergency aid only began arriving in two hard-hit districts of central Java on Monday, two days after the large quake flattened communities in this heavily populated Indonesian region.

The U.N. aid flight carried in water, hygiene kits and tents, according to The Associated Press, as rescuers sifted through the debris of homes searching for survivors.

Hospitals have been overwhelmed by the injured --- 2,192 of the 4,000 hurt are seriously wounded --- and medical workers fear tens of thousands of injured may not be receiving adequate treatment.

"Patients are still in the streets," said Malcolm Johnston, a representative of the International Federation of the Red Cross in Bantul. "Anywhere you can hang a drip, they're hanging a drip."

Many people have been reluctant to enter hospitals because they fear structural damage from aftershocks. Since the quake struck before dawn on Saturday, there have been 450 aftershocks.

"We need more paramedics and field hospitals to take care of those who are injured," Andy Mallarangeng, spokesman for Yudhoyono, told CNN on Sunday. (Watch traumatized survivors comprehend what's happening -- 2:12)

Hundreds of thousands went without shelter for a second night Sunday, living in makeshift tent cities or camping outside hospitals as they wait for help. (Watch the survivors camp in the debris, waiting for help -- 1:48)

"There are many, many, many people in misery right now," said Brook Weisman-Ross, a spokesman for the international children's charity, Plan International.

Most of the dead are being found in Bantul, a district near the Java coast just south of the historic tourist destination of Yogyakarta, about 250 miles (400 kilometers) southeast of the capital, Jakarta. (See where the quake hit)

Military troops have been deployed from Jakarta to help dig people out of the rubble and to evacuate victims.

The Indonesian government has allocated 75 billion rupiah ($8 million) for its initial emergency response, and on Sunday, Australia offered A$3 million ($2.27 million) for emergency food, shelter and medical supplies.

About 100 U.S. troops are bound for Yogyakarta to deliver supplies and equipment and help treat the thousands of injured people. The U.S. Marines, Air Force and Navy are involved in the effort.

The U.N. World Food Program announced Sunday three trucks carrying enough high-energy biscuits to feed 20,000 people for a week had arrived in the districts of Bantul and Klaten. (Watch tearful survivor tour destruction -- 2:36)

"The challenge is to make sure there is no mismatch between what is needed and what is being offered," said Dr. Marty Natalegawa, the Indonesian ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Earlier, WFP spokesman Trevor Rowe told CNN they were planning to bring in 80 tonnes of food, several teams of doctors and 2,300 kilograms (5,000 pounds) of medicine.

Countries across the globe pledged monetary aid adding up to millions of dollars. (Where to donate)

The 6.3-magnitude quake struck just before dawn Saturday about 15 miles (25 kilometers) south-southwest of Yogyakarta, near the volcano Mount Merapi.

Ring of fire
Indonesia sits on the Asia Pacific's so-called "ring of fire," marked by heavy volcanic and tectonic activity. Scientists are worried about the impact of the quake on Mount Merapi, which experts and villagers have watched closely in the past few weeks.

The nearby volcano has been rumbling for weeks, spewing out lava and hot gases.

On Monday the mountain spit out lava and hot clouds, sending debris four kilometers (2.5 miles) down its sides.

Since Saturday's quake, the volcano has spewed hot clouds an average of 150 times a day, compared to 50 times before, Subandriyo, chief of the Merapi volcanology and monitoring office who goes by one name, told AP.

Many aid workers anticipating a major eruption were stationed in the region, and they shifted their attention to helping earthquake survivors. Relief teams who remained in the area following the massive 2004 tsunami helped as well.

On Sunday, two strong earthquakes were reported in the Pacific, a 6.2-magnitude quake in Papua New Guinea and a 6.7-magnitude quake in Tonga.

The earthquake is the worst disaster in Indonesia since the December 26, 2004, magnitude-9 earthquake that triggered a tsunami, killing at least 131,029 people in Indonesia alone.

Another earthquake on March 28, 2005 killed about 900 people off the western coast of Sumatra.

CNN's Dan Rivers, Kathy Quiano and Al Goodman contributed to this report

Posted by Publisher at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)

December 21, 2005

Militants suspected in oil pipeline fire in Nigeria

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (AP) -- Investigators are probing the source of a fire that was still blazing Wednesday on a ruptured Royal Dutch Shell oil pipeline in southern Nigeria as the company announced further petroleum production cuts.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005; Posted: 11:20 a.m. EST (16:20 GMT)

Residents near the conduit in Nigeria's strife-riven south said suspected militia fighters blew up the pipeline southwest of Port Harcourt Tuesday with dynamite, sparking a conflagration that killed eight.

Shell spokeswoman Caroline Wittgen said she couldn't confirm any deaths or injuries, citing the ongoing investigation. She said the pipeline was still ablaze Wednesday.

Nigeria normally has daily output of about 2.5 million barrels. Shell and its local partners normally produce about 1 million barrels per day.

The company said its daily output reduction reached 180,000 barrels per day, up from 170,000 a day earlier, after the company and its local partners shut down a flow station. There was no word on when full production would be restored.

In Wednesday trading, crude prices rose on the news coupled with an expected release of petroleum-supply data in the United States.

Despite the valuable crude pumped from Nigeria's south, the region remains one of the country's poorest and is frequently the site of violence as rival groups compete for power -- which means access to oil revenues.

Posted by Publisher at 03:48 PM | Comments (0)

December 11, 2005

Families seek Nigeria crash bodies

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (Reuters) -- Relatives of some of the 103 people killed in a plane crash in Nigeria on Saturday have crowded hospital mortuaries seeking the bodies of their loved ones.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

The Sosoliso Airlines flight on its way from the capital Abuja to the southern oil city of Port Harcourt crashed during a storm and burst into flames at the airport, killing all but seven of the people on board.

More than 50 of the people on board were schoolchildren from a Catholic college in Abuja on their way home for the Christmas break, according to the Abuja archbishop's secretary.

Also among the people who died in the crash were a Frenchman and an American woman working for the relief organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the head of mission for MSF France in Nigeria said.

At the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital on Sunday morning, about 20 badly burnt bodies were laid out on the dirt floor of the mortuary, a room with no refrigeration or air-conditioning.

Hospital staff sprinkled disinfectant on the bodies, most of whom were recognizable, and tagged them with numbers.

"I am angry. I have been here since 6 a.m. All I want is to take the body of my elder sister. Give her to me," cried one woman among hundreds who were pleading to take bodies away.

Many were clutching photographs of their dead relatives.

Hospital authorities said they could not release any bodies until full identification had been carried out, and five armed police were stationed at the door of the mortuary.

One of the survivors, a woman, was being treated in a ward in the same hospital. Most of her body was covered in bandages and her face looked badly burnt.

No word on cause
On Saturday, confusing reports emerged about what exactly happened to the DC9 aircraft as it was trying to land. Civil aviation officials said it missed the runway, but witnesses said they saw it land on the tarmac and break into pieces.

There was no official word on the cause of the crash.

Seven weeks ago a plane operated by Bellview, another Nigerian airline, crashed near the commercial capital Lagos killing all 117 people on board. The cause of that crash has not been established.

Information Minister Frank Nweke said on Saturday that Sosoliso was generally viewed as safe and, as far as he knew, had an accident-free record.

President Olusegun Obasanjo said just after the Bellview crash in October that Nigeria would "plug loopholes" in its aviation sector and strengthen compliance with maintenance standards.

Investigators from the aviation ministry were on their way to the Port Harcourt crash site on Saturday evening, officials said, adding the airport was closed to all flights.

Sosoliso flies many domestic routes and is one of only two Nigerian airlines that operate on the busy Abuja-Port Harcourt route.

The aviation industry of Africa's most populous country has grown dramatically in the past decade, but has been struck by a series of fatal air crashes.

An inquiry is under way into the Bellview crash but there is no word yet on the cause and investigators have not found the voice or flight data recorders.

Experts say most of the country's commercial fleet is over 20 years old and second hand, while runways are often closed because of poor maintenance. It is not uncommon for planes to take off and land in torrential rain.

Posted by Publisher at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)

December 02, 2005

Party expels Nigeria bail-jump governor

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) -- The ruling party has expelled a Nigeria state governor who was charged in Britain with money laundering.

Friday, December 2, 2005; Posted: 9:31 a.m. EST (14:31 GMT)

President Olusegun Obasanjo's People's Democratic Party said in a statement that Bayelsa State Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha's actions are "an assault on the integrity" of the party.

Alamieyeseigha was arrested while on a visit to Britain and charged there on September 15 with laundering £1.8 million ($3.2 million) of stolen Nigerian government funds.

But he slipped out of Britain last month and returned home, where his office makes him immune from prosecution.

Nuhu Ribadu, head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, says Alamieyeseigha left Britain on a phony women's passport and wearing a wig and dress.

Bayelsa's state legislature has begun proceedings to remove the governor from office.

Obasanjo, who on Thursday described the governor's flight as "shameful," has deployed troops to the Bayelsa capital, Yenagoa, and frozen funds due to the state from the federal purse.

Hundreds of demonstrators marched in Yenagoa on Monday calling for Alamieyeseigha's resignation. But he also has supporters in the state.

Obasanjo, elected in 1999 to end more than 15 years of corrupt and brutal military rule, has made the fight against widespread corruption in the country a key objective of his government now in its second four-year term in office.

Several former ministers and a former senate president are currently facing corruption trials in court. A former head of the country's police, Tafa Balogun, last week got a six month jail term after pleading guilty to corruption charges.

Posted by Publisher at 03:45 PM | Comments (0)

September 02, 2005

Military due to move in to New Orleans; Governor warns thugs: Troops 'know how to shoot and kill'

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- A fearful Friday has arrived in lawless New Orleans, with police snipers stationed on the roof of their precinct, trying to protect it from the armed thugs roaming seemingly at will through the flood-ravaged city.

Friday, September 2, 2005; Posted: 6:09 a.m. EDT (10:09 GMT)

The surreal scene comes amid wretched chaos, with incredible scenes of desperation for those people still marooned in the city more than three days after Hurricane Katrina struck a deadly and devastating blow.

Adding to the uncertainty Friday morning was a large explosion in the city's railroad district, possibly from a rail car.

Authorities were trying to get a hazardous materials team to the area, a police officer told CNN. The officer said he believed the team could reach the area by vehicle since the water there had receded.

He said he believed "several cars blew up," but it was not known what they were carrying.

No other details were immediately available.

Earlier, police officers told CNN that some of their fellow officers had simply stopped showing up for duty, cutting manpower by 20 percent or more in some precincts. Before Thursday night fell, police were stopping anyone they saw on the street and warning them that they were not safe from armed bands of young men who were attacking people and attempting to rape women.

A fed-up Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco warned the lawbreakers that extra troops have already arrived in the city, and others are on the way -- and "they're locked and loaded."

She said Thursday night that 300 soldiers from the Arkansas National Guard had arrived -- "fresh back from Iraq."

"These are some of the 40,000 extra troops that I have demanded," Blanco said. "They have M-16s, and they're locked and loaded ... I have one message for these hoodlums: These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary, and I expect they will." (See video on the military response -- 2:40)

Blanco earlier Thursday gave the grim news that "thousands" of people died in the hurricane and its aftermath in New Orleans and surrounding parishes, though she said no official count had been compiled.

Recovery efforts are also continuing in Mississippi, where Katrina washed away entire neighborhoods and killed at least 185 people.

"We got hit by the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States," Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told CNN Thursday.

'Conditions of urban warfare'

Outside the Louisiana Superdome, where as many as 30,000 people sought shelter, refugees waiting for a bus out of town completely covered an outside plaza, where they waited in the heat and rain. Several people in the crowd collapsed and had to be carried away by National Guard troops.

The Houston Astrodome in Texas, where thousands of refugees had been bused over the past couple of days, stopped accepting refugees late Thursday.

However, authorities later decided to process evacuees at the Astrodome and house them in the nearby Reliant Arena, said Patrick Trahan, city spokesman.

Other New Orleans refugees are being taken to Huntsville, Texas, along with San Antonio and Dallas, he said.

At the Ernest Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, thousands of increasingly frustrated people waited for help amid dead bodies, feces and garbage, in 90-degree heat and rain with little food and water. (See video on the desperate conditions -- 4:36)

A National Guard helicopter finally came to drop them some supplies, and Mayor Ray Nagin advised those inside the convention center to march across a bridge to the other side of the Mississippi River for help.

Federal Emergency Management Director Michael Brown told CNN that federal officials were unaware of the crowds at the convention center until Thursday, despite the fact that city officials had been telling people for days to gather there.

"We just learned about that today, and so I have directed that we have all available resources to get to that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water, the medical care that they need," he said.

Brown also said his agency was attempting to work "under conditions of urban warfare."

An effort to evacuate patients and staff from downtown's Charity Hospital had to be suspended after a sniper opened fire on rescuers. The hospital was caring for about 200 patients with no power or water, and the only food left was a couple of cans of vegetables and some graham crackers, according to a doctor at the scene. (Full story)

Sgt. Mark Mix of the Louisiana State Police told CNN late Thursday that a force of police officers would be arriving in New Orleans soon to beef up the law-and-order effort.

Mix said the officers would be coming from Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky, and even Michigan to join with Louisiana law authorities in bringing order to the streets.

"The state of civil unrest is probably going to come to an abrupt end in the very near future," Mix said.

Meanwhile, stranded people remained on roofs, in the backs of trucks or gathered in large groups on higher ground, having little or no idea when help would arrive, or whether it would come at all. (See video on the continuing rescues -- 4:03)

Buildings smoldered from fire and gas leaks bubbled up through brackish floodwater, occasionally catching fire and burning on the water surface.

Despite the deteriorating conditions in the city, hurricane survivors from neighboring Plaquemines Parish have started streaming into the city, according to Nagin.

"We are overwhelmed and out of resources, but we welcome them with open arms and will figure this out together," the mayor said in a written statement.

Trying to quell the violence and chaos, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday that 4,200 National Guard troops trained as military police will be deployed in New Orleans over the next three days, which he said would quadruple the law enforcement presence in the city.

The first contingent of 100 military police officers arrived at Louis Armstrong International Airport late Thursday -- combat-ready for immediate deployment in New Orleans.

Suffering amid the corpses
A heartbreaking humanitarian catastrophe unfolded at the convention center, near the Mississippi River, where thousands of refugees with nowhere else to go gathered, seeking help and hoping for bus rides out of the city.

They waited in increasing frustration in hot, unsanitary conditions, with little food and water. Numerous bodies could be seen, both inside and outside the facility, and one man died of a seizure while a CNN crew was at the scene.

A National Guard helicopter dropped food and water to the refugees Thursday afternoon, although the amount was not nearly enough to meet the needs of the throngs that had gathered.

Shortly after disturbing images from the convention center were broadcast on CNN, Nagin sent out a statement that he called a "desperate SOS," advising those gathered there to march over the Crescent City Connection bridge to the west bank of the Mississippi River to find relief in neighboring Jefferson Parish.

"The convention center is unsanitary and unsafe, and we are running out of supplies for the 15- to 20,000 people," said Nagin, who also said officials did not expect to have enough buses to evacuate people from the convention center.

There were similar stories across the city. At the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Canal Street, Phyllis Patrick said she and other hotel guests were in "dire straits." The hotel has been trying to bring in buses to evacuate them, but she said the Federal Emergency Management Agency "will not let them in."

"I don't believe that we have very much food left at all. We had no lunch today. All we're being given is a glass of water," she said. Off-duty police officers were guarding the hotel with shotguns to protect them from bands of looters outside, she said.

"It just amazes us to hear what is going on outside, that people don't understand the seriousness of the situation," she said.

Boat rescue teams looking for Katrina survivors told CNN they had been ordered to stand down Thursday by FEMA officials concerned about security. However, FEMA issued a statement from Washington denying that it had suspended operations, though the agency conceded that there had been "isolated incidents where security has become an issue."

However, U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey Carter told CNN that its rescue efforts had been suspended in some areas, although they continued in other parts of the city.

"We're having to hold off going in until we're assured that the areas are safe to transit," he said. "We're following the lead of FEMA on that."

At Armstrong airport, a field hospital set up by FEMA was overwhelmed with patients. Equipment normally used to move luggage was instead ferrying patients to a treatment center and to planes and buses for evacuation.

Ozro Henderson, a medical team commander with FEMA, said staff was "so overwhelmed, it's not funny."

"I do not have the words in my vocabulary to describe what is happening here," Henderson said. "Catastrophe and disaster don't explain it."

One bright spot Thursday was news that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expects to complete the sealing off of the 17th Street Canal, in western New Orleans, where a flood-control levee breached, sending floodwater cascading into the downtown area.

Two other breaches in northern and eastern New Orleans remain to be repaired. The Corps has had some problems getting access to one of the breaches.

Other developments

In Washington, the Senate convened in special session Thursday night and approved a $10.5 billion disaster relief request from the Bush administration. The House is expected to do the same when it takes up the matter Friday. (Full story)

The debate is raging over whether the emergency response to the hurricane has been adequate. (Full story)

Gasoline prices spiked as high as $5 a gallon in some areas Thursday as consumers fearing a gas shortage raced to the pumps. The run-up in prices prompted Bush to warn against gouging and to encourage Americans to conserve. (Full story) (See video on Katrina's possible impact on you)

Posted by Publisher at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)

September 01, 2005

Nigeria VP: FBI has not accused me

ABUJA, Nigeria (Reuters) -- Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar's office said Wednesday he had not been accused of corruption despite an FBI raid on a house he owns in the United States.

Wednesday, August 31, 2005; Posted: 1:31 p.m. EDT (17:31 GMT)

Abubakar's office said the raid on the house in the affluent Potomac district outside Washington D.C. on August 3 followed a visit by U.S. congressman William Jefferson to discuss a telecoms deal in Nigeria.

"At the time of Mr. Jefferson's visit, the vice president and his family were unaware that the congressman was under investigation by the FBI," said a statement signed by Abubakar's deputy press secretary Mohammed Yakub.

"We have received no information of any wrongdoing or impropriety on the part of the vice president and his family arising from the visit and subsequent search."

A source familiar with the FBI investigation said subpoenas showed federal agents were looking for records indicating whether Jefferson paid, offered to pay or authorized payments to Nigerian or Ghanaian government officials, a U.S. newspaper reported on Saturday.

According to the Times-Picayune newspaper, sources familiar with the telecoms deal said Jefferson was attempting to smooth the way for iGate Corp., a small Kentucky company, to offer its high-speed broadband technology to Nigeria's fast-growing telecoms market.

U.S. officials have confirmed the raid took place but declined any further comment.

Abubakar's statement said the Nigerian ambassador to the United States, George Obiozor, had forwarded a letter to Abubakar's office requesting that he look into why the deal had stalled.

"The vice president instructed that the letter be forwarded to the Minister of Communications for advice ... Congressman Jefferson's visit was a follow-up to that letter," it said.

Succession questions
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has not commented on the raid, but on Sunday he publicly accused Abubakar of "proven cases of dubious loyalty" on his monthly television "Media Chat." He did not provide further details.

Analysts have attributed the public flaying to a struggle for political supremacy ahead of general elections in 2007, when Obasanjo must step down after two four-year terms, according to the constitution.

Abubakar is widely believed to want the job for himself, but Obasanjo has made it clear he will not support him. Some Obasanjo allies want the president to amend the constitution and run for a third term.

The Nigerian presidency issued a statement on Monday saying the FBI raid had not tarnished the government's image. "It remains an individual's issue," the statement said.

Posted by Publisher at 10:36 AM | Comments (0)

August 31, 2005

841 dead in Baghdad stampede; 323 hurt as bridge railing collapses amid panic near mosque

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Deaths mounted steadily in northeast Baghdad after a massive midday Shiite religious procession erupted into a chaotic stampede Wednesday, causing the drowning and trampling deaths of 841 pilgrims.

Wednesday, August 31, 2005; Posted: 1:29 p.m. EDT (17:29 GMT)

Authorities believe a rumor raced through the crowd that a suicide bomber was in their midst, and that created panic among the waves of pedestrians trying to cross the Al-A'imma bridge over the Tigris River. The throngs of Shiite faithful had been stopped by security checks and bogged down by concrete barriers.

Three hours earlier, an insurgent mortar attack near the Kadhimiya mosque killed seven people and wounded 36 others.

Government officials are investigating that attack and the stampede itself -- which also led to the injuries of 323 people. The death count could rise as crews search for more victims.

They also want to explore the extent of any "technical defects" on the bridge.

"This will leave a scar in our souls and will be remembered with those who died in the result of terror acts," said President Jalal Talabani, echoing the sorrow across the nation over the tragedy, which prompted comparisons to stampedes at other religious events, such as those in Mecca during the annual pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.

Wednesday's ceremony is one that annually attracts millions of Shiite pilgrims to Baghdad.

The Shiite faithful converge on the Kadhimiya mosque in the northeastern part of Baghdad to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Moussa al-Khadhem, a prominent figure in Shiite history. He is buried at the Kadhimiya mosque, the largest Shiite mosque in the capital.

The stampede occurred at about 11:30 a.m. (3:30 a.m. EDT) near the mosque.

As the people made their way to the mosque, authorities said, it appeared that someone in the crowd stoked fears about a bomber, apparently sparking widespread chaos among the crush of people.

In the confusion, the crowd pushed against a railing on a bridge over the Tigris River, forcing it to collapse and sending dozens into the water. Police said most people drowned but some people were crushed to death. (See video of the bridge still jammed with people after the panic.)

Health Minister Abdul Muttalib Ali confirmed that that "the chaos that happened at the Al-A'imma bridge" because of a "rumor" of a bombing. "This led to a very horrible chaos," the official said, causing people "to run in an uncontrolled way and this led to suffocation of so many people and drowning of some of them in the river."

Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi told reporters that there were concrete barriers on the bridge and people moving forward on the structure had to be searched "for security concerns."

"There had to be a search operation at the end of the bridge. So crowds gathered and a certain scream caused chaos in the crowds and the crowds just reacted and this sorrowful incident took place."

Maj.-Gen. Jawad al-Daini, commander of the al-Rusafa sector of eastern Baghdad, said barricades and barbed wires made it hard for people to walk and "that caused a congestion and suffocated some of the visitors."

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari -- who announced a three-day mourning period -- tried to calm his beleaguered fellow citizens in a speech that addressed both the mortar attack and the stampede.

Speaking in a nationally televised TV address, he tried to calm fears and tempers, urging Iraqis "to be patient with the current circumstances" and called on the country's Shiites, Sunnis and Christians "to think about the benefit of Iraq."

"We heard the news that some of those enemies attacked innocent people with mortars killing our faithful sons. This attack caused chaos among the Iraqi people in other areas in Baghdad and then because of the technical defects of the bridge, many people were martyred."

Al-Jaafari also offered his "gratitude and appreciation to the Iraqi people who continued with their commemoration despite what happened and I want to thank the Iraqi government who helped the Iraqi people and did not stop providing their assistance and security to the people."

The tragedy came amid an atmosphere of general tension in the capital and throughout the society -- daily warfare across the nation, suicide bombings that had been rife in the capital, the continual tensions between Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs, and an attack in the same area in March 2004 during the Ashura commemoration, another Shiite holy period.

Al-Dulaimi -- who spoke at a press briefing later with Interior Minister Bayan Jabr -- stressed that the security had been tight in Baghdad and in southern cities around the so-called Triangle of Death for the Shiite pilgrims heading to the capital.

They pointed to a number of security actions that helped keep order, such as the foiling of car bombings and suicide attackers and the disarming of improvised explosive devices. In one case, an Afghan insurgent headed toward Kadhimiya was killed.

Al-Dulaimi believes all necessary measures had been taken to protect the pilgrims.

The bridge across the Tigris, called the Al-A'imma, is not only a main thoroughfare leading to the shrine, it is also an important juncture in Baghdad -- separating Kadhimiya and Adhamiya.

The largest Shiite mosque in Baghdad is in Kadhimiya, where there is a strong Shiite community, and the largest Sunni mosque in Adhamiya, which has been a longtime insurgent stronghold with a strong Sunni Arab presence.

Al-Dulaimi discounted any theories that this incident was sparked by Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence.

He and other officials thought the bridge should have been closed. Instead, it was opened to accommodate the throngs of pilgrims.

The bridge -- which frequently has been closed to vehicle and/or pedestrian traffic for security reasons over the past few months -- is also near a joint U.S.-Iraqi military base.

-- CNN's Kianne Sadeq, Cal Perry, and Enes Dulami contributed to this story

Posted by Publisher at 06:58 PM | Comments (0)

August 08, 2005

Peter Jennings dies of lung cancer

Longtime ABC News anchor was 67

Peter Jennings
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Nearly four months to the day since he announced in a hoarse voice on his evening newscast that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer, longtime ABC "World News Tonight" anchor Peter Jennings died Sunday, according to the ABC News network. He was 67.

The solemn announcement was made late Sunday by "Good Morning America" co-host Charles Gibson, who said Jennings died in his New York City apartment. His wife, Kayce, his children Elizabeth and Christopher, and his sister were at his side, Gibson said.

He read a statement from the family that said: "Peter died with his family around him, without pain and in peace. He knew he had lived a good life."

At a time when all three U.S. major broadcast networks saw their evening news anchor spots change hands in less than a year, Jennings' departure was a surprise. Both NBC's Tom Brokaw and CBS' Dan Rather announced their plans well in advance, but Jennings' illness forced a quick decision.

In a written statement Sunday to ABC News staff, network President Dave Westin said: "It is with great sadness I write to say that Peter Jennings passed away earlier this evening. For four decades, he has been our colleague, our friend, and our leader in so many ways. None of us will be the same without him.

"As you all know, Peter learned only this spring that the health problem he'd been struggling with was lung cancer. With Kayce, he moved straight into an aggressive chemotherapy treatment. He knew that it was an uphill struggle. But he faced it with realism, courage, and a firm hope that he would be one of the fortunate ones. In the end, he was not."

"We will have many opportunities in the coming hours and days to remember Peter for all that he meant to us all. ... But for the moment, the finest tribute we can give is to continue to do the work he loved so much and inspired us to do."

Jennings, a native Canadian who became a U.S. citizen in 2003, had said he would continue to host "World News Tonight" when possible. Since the announcement, Gibson and ABC's Elizabeth Vargas have filled in for him as temporary anchors.

The veteran anchorman had said he was determined to fight the disease, citing National Cancer Institute statistics that nearly 10 million Americans are living with cancer. "I have a lot to learn from them, and 'living' is the key word," he said.

Since April 5, when Jennings announced his diagnosis on the news program, he kept his public comments positive. Even during the initial announcement, he said he would be undergoing chemotherapy and joked about losing his hair.

"I wonder if other men and women ask their doctors right away, 'OK, doc, when does the hair go?'" said the immaculately dressed and coifed Jennings.

He admitted being a smoker until about 20 years ago, and said he "was weak and I smoked over 9/11."

ABC veterans mourn Jennings
In an April 29 letter posted on the ABC News site, Jennings said he had been "spoiled rotten" by well-wishers and added, "I assume there are a few others out there who, like me, are going with the flow until the day gets better."

ABC veterans Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer reacted sadly to the news of Jennings' death.
"We had such wonderful memories, all of us, with Peter," Walters said. "I don't know anyone who could command an audience with the kind of authority that Peter had."

Sawyer said Jennings was a stickler for details.
"You lived in terror because you knew you didn't know the pronunciation of a street in Beirut," said Sawyer, who said she also respected Jennings' sense of fairness.

He would say, she said, "There is no absolute truth in the world for every group of people."

Since he began anchoring the program in 1983, Jennings won numerous awards, including a National Headline Award and a George Foster Peabody award. He also won some 16 Emmys, according to the ABC News Web site.

Asked how it felt after anchoring ABC's evening news program for 20 years, Jennings told CNN's Larry King on Sept. 8, 2003: "Seems like yesterday; seems like forever -- all at the same time."

"It's sort of, how do you measure it? Do you measure the fact that I'm 20 years older? No. I think I measure it by the events. You know, I came just as the Cold War was coming to an end."

"When you think about the events that we've been through, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to, I guess you'd say, 9/11 being the culmination at the end of that, of that scope, what extraordinary changes there have been."

Network anchor at age 26
Jennings was born July 29, 1938, in Toronto with journalism in his blood. His father, Charles, was the first voice of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation when it was established in the mid-1930s. At age 9, Jennings hosted "Peter's People," a short-lived Saturday morning children's show on the CBC.

A high school dropout, Jennings worked as a bank teller for several years before moving into radio and then into television in 1961. He was hired by ABC in 1964.

The following year, when he was 26, Jennings was picked to anchor "The ABC Evening News." But two years later, he told his bosses he needed more seasoning and returned to field reporting, CNN Correspondent