EU's Ashton calls for smart European power at security conference

Munich - The European Union must combine its hard and soft power and take responsibility for affairs both on its own doorstep and in the world's furthest flashpoints, the bloc's diplomatic director said Saturday - in her first major security policy speech. Catherine Ashton's task is to give the EU more influence in global diplomacy, and her speech to the annual Munich Security Conference set out her vision of bringing together the bloc's military, diplomatic and civilian tools.

"We must mobilize all our levers of influence - political, economic, plus civil and military crisis-management tools - in support of a single political strategy," Ashton said.

Ashton's post was created by the EU's Lisbon Treaty. It was meant to give the bloc more global clout by combining in one person the representative of all 27 member states and the vice-president of the EU's executive, which controls key policy areas such as trade and development and humanitarian aid.

However, despite such high-profile names as former British prime minister Tony Blair being floated for the job, the post finally went to the barely-known Ashton.

Her tasks range from acting as the EU's "foreign minister" in international meetings to setting up a common diplomatic service for the bloc.

The latter task is a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to build something new ... that adds real value to what our EU member states are already doing," she said.

But her key task is to pull the EU's member states together in a more coherent response to threats such as terrorism, organized crime, energy shortages and illegal migration.

"Many of these threats are inter-linked. We have to identify the linkages and then frame and implement comprehensive strategies," she said.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/307839,eus-ashton-calls-for-smart-european-power-at-security-conference.html.

Mubarak, Abbas discuss peace process in Cairo

Cairo (Earth Times) - Egyptian president Hosny Mubarak met Saturday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss developments in the efforts aimed at reviving he Middle East peace process. Both leaders also discussed the Palestinian reconciliation process between the West Bank's Fatah, and Hamas, the Islamist group in charge of the Gaza Strip, Egypt's Radio and TV website reported.

After the meeting, Abbas told reporters that both the negotiations with Israel and inter-Palestinian reconciliation are moving side by side.

"We have to build the state, the economy and security, (we have the) reconciliation, and the US proposals to renew negotiations with Israel. There is no priority to one issue over the other," He said.

Palestinian-Israeli peace talks collapsed last year after the Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip.

Abbas also stressed that reconciliation talks started in Egypt and will remain in Egypt. "Signing a final document on this score will also be undertaken in Egypt" he added.

Egypt have been brokering talks between Hamas and Fatah since last year.

Fatah signed an Egyptian-brokered agreement last October, but Hamas balked at the deal, saying it wanted to clarify a few points first.

Zuma apologizes for 'pain' caused by fathering child out of wedlock

Johannesburg (Earth Times) - South African President Jacob Zuma apologized on Saturday for fathering a child out of wedlock, in an affair that has seen the polygamist leader condemned for a lack of leadership and self-restraint. A week ago, the country's Sunday Times newspaper revealed that Zuma, who already has three wives and a fiancee, had fathered a child last year with another woman.

Sonono Khoza, the 39-year-old daughter of South African football boss, Irvin Khoza, gave birth to a baby girl in October, three months before Zuma married his third concurrent wife, Thobeka Mabida.

The infant is Zuma's 20th confirmed child from four out of five total marriages - he is divorced from one wife and another committed suicide in 2000 - and his fiancee.

After initially insisting the matter was a private one and shirking public demands for an apology, Zuma, 67, on Saturday finally admitted wrongdoing.

"I deeply regret the pain that I have caused to my family, the ANC (ruling African National Congress), the (governing tripartite) Alliance and South Africans in general," he said in a statement issued by the presidency.

Zuma said he could "acknowledge and understand the reaction of many South Africans," who have accused him of making South Africa the butt of jokes because of his sexual philandering and of undermining the fight against HIV/AIDS by evidently failing to practice safe sex.

In a measure of the dismay felt by many women particularly, the niece of Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale, Kananelo Sexwale, had accused Zuma in comments on Facebook social networking site of the "stereotypical bad behavior of a randy black womanizer."

She was later forced to apologize for "disrespect to an elder."

South Africa has the world's highest burden of the disease, which is mainly transmitted through unprotected sex. An estimated 5.7 million people in the country, or one in nine, is HIV-positive.

As recently as World Aids Day on December 1, Zuma had urged South Africans to protect themselves against HIV infection - remarks that had been understood as promoting the use of condoms.

While still insisting, as he did in earlier statement on Wednesday, that the matter was "private" and that he had fulfilled his responsibilities towards the mother and child by paying customary damages to the Khoza family in keeping with the Zulu tradition - Zuma said he recognized his responsibility "to uphold and promote" the values of "personal responsibility, respect and dignity."

The ANC, which has stood by him publicly throughout the week-long furore, welcomed Zuma's apology as a sign of his "integrity and honesty" and appealed to all South Africans to "to put this matter to rest."

Yemeni president sacks governor of rebellion-hit province

Sana'a, Yemen - Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Saturday sacked the governor or the restive province of Saada where government troops are fighting with Shiite rebels in the north-west of the country, the official Saba news agency reported. Saba said Saleh issued a republican decree dismissing governor Hassan Muhammad Manna'a and appointing Taha Abdullah Hajar in his place.

The agency gave no reason for the dismissal of Manna'a.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/307846,yemeni-president-sacks-governor-of-rebellion-hit-province.html.

Taiwan opposes proposed ban on bluefin tuna fishing

Taipei - Taiwan on Saturday opposed a proposed international ban on fishing the endangered bluefin tuna, saying setting individual country quotas was a better way to protect the fish. Tsai Jih-yao, vice director of the Fisheries Administration, said he hoped the fishing of bluefin will continue to be controlled by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT).

Tsai said there are no Taiwan fishing trawlers catching bluefin tuna in the West Atlantic because the quota for Taiwan is too small - only 60 tons per year - and Taiwan has warned its fishermen not to go there.

The quota for Japan, the world's top consumer of bluefin tuna, is several thousands tons per year.

Taiwan's Tungkang Fishery Association also protested the proposed ban on bluefin tuna fishing.

Lin Han-chou, secretary-general of the association, said banning or cutting the catch of bluefin tuna will severely hurt the livelihood of fishermen at Tungkang, one of the main bases of Taiwan''s ocean-going fishing trawlers.

"Tungkang trawlers catch between 200-300 bluefin tunas each year, accounting for one-sixth of Tungkang fishermen's income," he told CNA.

The European principality of Monaco has lobbied the 175 CITES members to agree on a global ban on Atlantic bluefin exports at a meeting in Qatar's capital Doha in March.

Japan objected to the ban while France demanded a delayed imposition of the ban.

Atlantic bluefin can grow to three meters long and weigh over 650 kilograms, fetching 2,000 yen (20 US dollars) per slice in a Japanese restaurant where people like to eat it raw, dipped in a soy sauce mixed with mustard.

The CITES has warned that Atlantic bluefin tuna population has declined over 80 per cent since the 19th century, and environmentalists are seeking tighter control on catching Atlantic bluefin tuna, to save it from extinction.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/307845,taiwan-opposes-proposed-ban-on-bluefin-tuna-fishing.html.

Uighurs will be relocated to Switzerland

By Mary E. O’Leary, Register Topics Editor

Two Chinese Uighurs, imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for eight years after being turned over to the U.S. military by bounty hunters, will soon be learning French in their new home in Switzerland thanks to the efforts of a New Haven attorney.

Elizabeth Gilson, whose practice was mainly environmental issues until she volunteered to represent the brothers, got the word this week that they will be relocated in about 60 days.

“It took millions of dollars of attorney costs, eight years and two innocent people before it all came together,” Gilson said of her long fight as part of a team of attorneys.

She worked with lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, who donated their services on behalf of the Uighurs and others held at Guantanamo.

The siblings were among 22 Uighurs swept up in the chaos in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The Uighurs are a Turkic ethnic minority in China, who often flee that country in response to oppression, according to congressional testimony.

Never charged with a crime and eventually found not to be a threat to the U.S., the brothers are part of a group of prisoners who have languished for years at Guantanamo when the U.S. could not find a country willing to grant them asylum. They could not send them back to China for fear they would be tortured.

Bahtiar Mahnut, 32, had an opportunity earlier to leave for Palau, a tiny island in the Pacific, but Gilson said he turned it down when his brother, Arkin Mahnut, 45, did not want to go there because it was temporary and they feared Chinese intervention.

Gilson said the men’s mother in 2001 sent the older brother after Bahtiar to bring him home when he ended up in Afghanistan on his way to Turkey. She said Arkin Mahnut developed a mental illness from his detention, basically post traumatic stress syndrome, but has been doing better lately.

Gilson recently spent a week in Switzerland lobbying on behalf of her clients as the Swiss Federal Council and the Canton Jura agreed to admit them.

“There was intense interest in the case in Switzerland, which was getting pounded by the Chinese” and threatened with loss of a trade agreement if they accepted them, Gilson said. “The Swiss don’t like being threatened by anyone,” she said. Those in opposition argued the U.S. should take in the men.

Imprisoned in solitary confinement for 18 months, the brothers recently have been in a less restricted area at Guantanamo, Gilson said.

She said the Swiss “have a very good system of resettlement. This is a great place to go.” The immersion program includes job training, which they are eager to embrace, she said.

Arkin Mahnut, who was married with two children, is now divorced. “They can never go back to China,” she said.

The advocates have won several court battles in their long fight over habeas corpus rights, but as many reversals. Gilson will stay involved, including working on Supreme Court appeal briefs due March 23.

Source: New Haven Register.
Link: http://newhavenregister.com/articles/2010/02/06/news/a3-neuighurs.txt.

More than 100,000 March in Support of Chavez in Venezuela

Caracas, February 5, 2010 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Dwarfing recent opposition protests, more than 100,000 supporters of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez marched in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, yesterday in defence of the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ and to celebrate 18 years since Chavez, then a lieutenant colonel, led a failed civilian-military uprising against the corrupt government of former president Carlos Andrés Pérez on February 4, 1992.

The second term of Carlos Andrés Pérez, from 1989-93, (he served previously as president from 1974-79), had been marked by a series of social crises, including a popular revolt, known as the Caracazo uprising on February 27, 1989 against IMF-imposed neo-liberal reforms, which saw up to 3,000 people shot dead by the military and security forces, as well as and two military rebellions (February 4, 1992 and November 27, 1992). In May 1993 Andrés Pérez became the first Venezuelan president to be forced out of office by the Supreme Court for misappropriation of 250 million bolívars of public funds.

Chavez’s attempted uprising became a catalyst for the political movement based on the principles of Simón Bolívar, the 19th Century independence fighter who liberated Venezuela and much of South America from Spanish colonialism that swept him to power six years later. The date is now referred to by government supporters as the Day of National Dignity.

As the 1992 uprising began to collapse Chavez gave a short 90 second appearance on television which electrified the nation. He accepted responsibility and called for his comrades to lay down their arms saying, “For now, the objectives that we have set for ourselves have not been achieved.”

The next morning graffiti saying “por ahora” (“for now”), appeared all over the streets of Venezuela. While Chavez was in prison over the next two years it became a rallying cry for a movement of the poor and working-class majority of Venezuelans, who were fed up with the neo-liberal policies of the corrupt political establishment in which two major parties, Democratic Action and COPEI, had ruled the country in a power sharing deal known as the Punto Fijo pact, for nearly 40 years.

Chavez was pardoned by then-President Rafael Caldera in 1994 and formed a new political party called the Movement for the Fifth Republic and in a political upset for Venezuelan elites he won the presidential elections of 1998 with an important majority vote of 56%.

As part of the Day of National Dignity celebrations on Thursday, Chavez’s supporters, including thousands of pro-revolution students who gathered at the Bolivarian University of Venezuela, converged from five different points around the capital to the Fuerte Tuina military base, where Chavez addressed the crowd and the Bolivarian Armed Forces.

Prior to the Bolivarian revolution “Venezuela was enslaved by the Yankee Empire, the anti-patriotic bourgeoisie, the same bourgeoisie which today continues exuding hatred and venom towards us,” Chavez said referring to the right-wing opposition.

Chavez also called on sectors that support the revolution whose declared aim is “Socialism of the 21st Century”, to maintain their levels of political activism in the lead up to the parliamentary elections in September, saying, “We cannot abandon the streets, there is an imperial counterattack and the opposition feels emboldened.”

Newly appointed Defense Minister Carlos Mata Figueroa, also spoke saying, “Today we mark 18 years since consciousness was awakened in the men and women of the Armed Forces, and opened the way to take the first steps of this process which we are going through. That’s why today we celebrate the day of national dignity.”

Mata Figueroa stressed that thanks to the Bolivarian Revolution, the country has developed significantly and said that the soldiers of the Bolivarian Armed Forces are loyal to their people and prepared to safeguard security and national defence.

“The soldiers of our armed forces remain loyal together with our people, together with the revolutionary government, never again will we be servile instruments of the oligarchy or any imperial power,” he said.

Celebrations also occurred in other parts of the country including a march of several thousand Chavez supporters in Ejido, Mérida state, under the banners of “No to opposition fascism” and “Yes to peace”. The march occurred just over a week after violent opposition protests against the temporary suspension of private cable television station RCTV left two students dead in the Andean state, one a 16-year old Chavez supporter and the other a 28-year old opposition supporter.

Unidentified gunmen shot the youths, but much of the international media falsely reported that state security forces shot them. The Chavez government strictly prohibits the use of live ammunition against protests. Eight police officers also received bullet wounds from armed opposition groups during the incident.

Meanwhile, several hundred opposition students protested in Brion Plaza in eastern Caracas yesterday, throwing rocks and bottles at police. One police officer was injured. Earlier the pro-Chavez mayor of Libertador municipality had denied a request by the students for a permit to march to the national assembly in order to avoid clashes between the two protests.

“The real students are the children of the people, not the children of the bourgeoisie encouraged by the empire to overthrow the revolutionary government with their little white hands,” Chávez said in relation to the rightwing student groups.

The term “white hands” (manos blancos) refers to a symbol used by the opposition students in their protests. U.S.-backed youth and student movements in the denominated “Colored Revolutions”, such as in the former Yugoslavia, the Ukraine, among others, who have links with the opposition student organizations in Venezuela, have used the same symbol.

US-Venezuelan attorney Eva Golinger has documented extensive funding by U.S. government-linked organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to opposition student groups in Venezuela.

Chavez contrasted the U.S.-backed student opposition groups today with demonstrations staged by university students in Caracas in 1991 against economic measures adopted by the Andrés Pérez government, which included increases in fuel prices and transport and that provoked widespread protests resulting in five students shot dead by members of the security forces and 35 arrested.

“Who can forget that year 1991, when a true student rebellion took to the streets, not these four sons of the bourgeoisie who seek to expropriate for themselves the heroic status of students,” he said.

Source: Venezuela Analysis.
Link: http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/5120.

Somalia: Kenya Trains '2,500 Somalia Troops'

(WARNING): Article contains propaganda!

* * * * *

6 February 2010

Some 2,500 Somali troops have finished training in neighboring Kenya and are ready to join a Somali government offensive against rebels, which control much of the war-torn country.

According to Kenyan officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, the new recruits are only waiting their final assessments before actual deployment.

"The recruits have been trained well and they are expected to complete the trainings in the coming days," said a former Kenyan military officer who was part of the trainers.

Sources say the recruits are aged between 20 to 25 years while the training was held in Kenyan town of Isiolo, located in the upper eastern region far from Somalia.

Kenyan Defense Minister Yusuf Haji said on late last year that his government was training Somalis in Isiolo, neighboring Samburu and somewhere in the coastal region.

"Our country is threatened by the Islamists and it's our obligation as a country to help our friends (TFG) solves the 18 years conflict in their country,"

Kenya has refused to contribute troops to the UN-backed African Union peacekeeping mission, which is shoring up the weak government from the powerful insurgents.

Somali government, which also has soldiers trained by Uganda, Djibouti and Burundi, has already announced plans to flush out the insurgents from much parts of the country.

Source: allAfrica.
Link: http://allafrica.com/stories/201002070002.html.

Endeavor to deliver Space Station 'a room with a view'

Space shuttle Endeavor will bring a new seven-window module to the International Space Station. It'll be used as a utility room for air and water purification and for exercise equipment. It'll also give astronauts a spectacular view of Earth and space.

By Peter N. Spotts - Staff writer

After years of construction, the International Space Station is about to get a room with a spectacular view.

At 4:39 a.m. Eastern Standard Time Sunday, NASA is set to launch the space shuttle Endeavor and its six-member crew on a mission to deliver the final US components – made in Europe – to the orbiting lab: Node 3, named Tranquility, and a seven-window cupola for the node, which will give crewmembers breathtaking views of Earth and space.

Much of the module will act as the station's utility room, housing equipment that reprocesses urine to extract drinking water, scrubs carbon dioxide from the station's air, and process other crew waste. It also will become the final home for exercise equipment, including COLBERT, the exercise station whose acronym is a nod to Stephen Colbert, host of the Colbert Report on Comedy Central.

Astronauts will make three space walks

During three spacewalks, the shuttle crew will install the node, connect it to the station's cooling system, and install the cupola. Astronauts also are looking to help repair the station's balky urine-purification system, as well as deliver supplies.

But the star of the module remains the cupola and its windows. NASA has dubbed it the station's "control tower," allowing crew members inside to help guide spacewalks and robotic-arm activities outside. But for crewmembers on orbit, it also carries a significant quality-of-life aspect, managers acknowledge.

Much of the time, the windows' protective covers will be closed to avoid damage from space junk or micrometeoroids. In addition, the shutters help keep the windows out of direct sunlight, where constant cycling between heat and cold would weaken their seals.

But the cupola, mounted on the earthward side of Tranquility, can be used for smell-the-roses moments or as the view to exercise, particularly the windows looking straight down or toward the trailing segments of the station, where orbital-debris strikes are far less likely.

Installing and activated the cupola is one of the mission's high points – even for the shuttle crew. Crew members won't be able to open the windows' protective shutters until late in the mission. But when that happens, it will be an oooh-and-ah moment. It will give station crew members the kind of view usually reserved for spacewalkers.

"We will definitely be bringing along some still cameras as well as video cameras to try to capture those views as best we can," says mission specialist Kathryn Hire. "But I can guarantee you, we can provide high-definition pictures, but it's still not like the real thing – being there and having the full expanse laid out in front of you."
Budget crunch for NASA?

The launch comes at a time of heightened angst within NASA.

Last week the Obama administration sent to Congress a budget that cancels the Constellation program. The program not only was well along in developing a replacement for the shuttle to ferry crews to the space station. Over the long term, it aimed to provide a more powerful rocket to carry crew or cargo to destinations more distant than the station's home in low-Earth orbit, initially to the moon.

But the administration's budget proposal – which envisions the agency's budget growing by $6 billion over the next five years – cancels Constellation in favor of launch cargo and astronauts to the station in rockets built by companies with private, rather than federal dollars. Instead the agency would focus on developing technologies that would lead to so-called heavy-lift rockets that would allow for human missions beyond low-Earth orbit.

The budget plan also extends US participation in the station out to 2020, five years longer than the Constellation program envisioned.

Despite the uncertainty, mission managers say their team remains focused on the success of this flight.

"There are a few folks reeling from the shock," acknowledged Michael Moses, the shuttle payload integration manager, during a pre-launch briefing on Friday. But, he added, "the team here is very focused on this mission…. If we can't do what we're doing on Sunday right, then there really is no future for any of the spaceflight programs or the ISS. So we've got to get this launch done."

The launch is the final night launch in the shuttle program, which has four flights left on the schedule after this one. Weather permitting, the orbiter's rise should be visible along the East Coast until main-engine cutoff roughly eight minutes after launch.

Source: The Christian Science Monitor.
Link: http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0206/Endeavour-to-deliver-Space-Station-a-room-with-a-view.

Christian monastery in Egypt reopens

Feb. 6, 2010

SUEZ CITY, Egypt, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- The reputed oldest Christian monastery in the world, Saint Anthony's in Egypt, has been opened to tourists, officials say.

A government-sponsored $14 million restoration of the Suez City monastery, believed to be 1,600 years old, has been completed and the facility has been reopened to visitors, the BBC reported.

It said the monastery has long been a pilgrimage site for Coptic Christians. Its rehabilitation comes after six Copts were shot dead on Christmas Eve in the worst sectarian violence in a decade, the British broadcaster reported.

The Egyptian government reportedly sees the monastery renewal as a symbol of its efforts to produce peace and co-existence between the country's Muslim majority and Christian minority.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/International/2010/02/06/Christian-monastery-in-Egypt-reopens/UPI-57271265484097/.

Black boxes from Ethiopian jet crash found off Lebanon

BEIRUT (AFP) - Searchers located the black boxes of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed in the sea off Lebanon last month killing 90 people, Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said on Saturday.

"The boxes have been found under the rear part of the fuselage" which was found on Saturday morning, the Lebanese minister told AFP.

"Lebanese army divers have gone down to retrieve them, but this operation will take time," said Aridi.

"We have to be cautious because we must preserve the data contained in the boxes," he added.

Aridi stressed special measures would be taken to bring to the surface the flight recorders in a way to avoid any damage that could be detrimental to the information they contain.

The minister also said he had been informed by the Syrian authorities that debris from the plane had been found in the Mediterranean Sea off the western city of Lattakia.

He said earlier that the search vessel, Ocean Alert, had located the rear sections of the aircraft's cabin.

The sections found were between 10 and 12 meters (33 and 40 feet) long, and at a depth of 45 meters (150 feet) off Naameh, 12 kilometers (seven miles) south of Beirut, Aridi said.

The Boeing 737-800 went down before dawn on January 25, just minutes after take-off during stormy weather from Beirut airport. It was bound for Addis Ababa with 83 passengers and seven crew on board.

No survivors were found from Flight 409, and only 15 bodies have so far been recovered.

Aridi said he hoped other sections of the plane would soon be found, along with bodies of the remaining victims still thought to be strapped to their seats.

Of the 15 bodies found, nine were Lebanese, five Ethiopian and one Iraqi. Fifty-four Lebanese were on board the aircraft.

The Lebanese military said on Saturday that "pictures are being taken" of the located section of fuselage with a view to raising it.

Flight recorders are usually placed in the rear of commercial airliners.

Lebanese officials have said the captain was instructed by the control tower to change to a certain heading, but that the aircraft then took a different course.

Experts have told AFP that the stormy weather may not have been the only reason for the crash, and that the aircraft may have had engine or hydraulics problems.

Haitian women become crime targets after quake

By PAISLEY DODDS, Associated Press Writer

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Bernice Chamblain keeps a machete under her frayed mattress to ward off sexual predators and one leg wrapped around a bag of rice to stop nighttime thieves from stealing her daughters' food.

She's barely slept since Haiti's catastrophic earthquake Jan. 12 forced her and other homeless women and children into tent camps, where they are easy targets for gangs of men.

Women have always had it bad in Haiti. Now things are worse.

"I try not to sleep," says Chamblain, 22, who lost her father and now lives in a squalid camp with her mother and aunts near the Port-au-Prince airport. "Some of the men who escaped from prison are coming around to the camps and causing problems for the women. We're all scared but what can we do? Many of our husbands, boyfriends and fathers are dead."

Reports of attacks are increasing: Women are robbed of coupons needed to obtain food at distribution points. Others relay rumors of rape and sexual intimidation at the outdoor camps, now home to more than a half million earthquake victims.

A curtain of darkness drops on most of the encampments at night. Only flickering candles or the glow of cell phones provide light. Families huddle under plastic tarps because there aren't enough tents. With no showers and scant sanitation, men often lurk around places where women or young girls bathe out of buckets. Clusters of teenage girls sleep in the open streets while others wander the camps alone.

The government's communications minister, Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue, recently acknowledged the vulnerability of women and children but said the government was pressed to prioritize food, shelter and debris removal.

Aid groups offer special shelters for women and provide women-only food distribution points to deter men from bullying them. But challenges are rife more than three weeks after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake killed an estimated 200,000 people and left as many as 3 million in need of food, shelter and medicine.

Women who lined up for food before dawn Saturday said they were attacked by knife-wielding men who stole their coupons.

"At 4 a.m. we were coming and a group of men came out from an alley," said Paquet Marly, 28, who was waiting for rice to feed her two daughters, mother and extended family. "They came out with knives and said, 'Give me your coupons.' We were obliged to give them. Now we have nothing — no coupons and no food."

Aid organizations set up women-only distribution schemes because they trust the primary caregivers to get that food to extended family, not resell it.

"We've targeted the women because we think it's the best way to get to families," said Jacques Montouroy, a Catholic Relief Services worker helping out Saturday. "In other distributions when we've opened it up to men, we found that only half of the men would do what they were supposed to with the food."

Soldiers from the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, guard many of the streets around the distribution points, but they can't be everywhere all the time.

Aid workers say they've been staging elaborate decoy operations to draw men to one area while food coupons are given to women in another. Each of the 16 daily distributions throughout Port-au-Prince presents its own security challenges, Montouroy said.

"The coupon distribution has been hellish," he said, explaining how crowds of men swarm around the women.

Even if the women successfully make it back to the camps with their 55-pound (25-kilogram) bags of rice, that doesn't mean their worries are over. Some camps are even providing special protection for women, with tents where they can receive trauma counseling or be alone to breast-feed and care for young children.

"My sister died in the earthquake, so now I have to take care of my three daughters and my sister's two," said Magda Cayo, 42. "I try to keep them close but I see lots of hoodlums looking at them. We're all nervous. It's no good."

Women have long been second-class citizens in Haiti.

According to the United Nations, the Haitian Constitution does not specifically prohibit sexual discrimination. Under Haitian law, the minimum legal age for marriage is 15 years for women and 18 years for men, and early marriage is common. A 2004 U.N. report estimated 19 percent of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 were married, divorced or widowed.

Rape was only made a criminal offense in Haiti in 2005.

In the months after a violent uprising ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, thousands of women were raped or sexually abused, the British medical journal Lancet reported. The coup set off a bloody wave of clashes among Haiti's national police, pro- and anti-Aristide gangs, U.N. peacekeepers and rebels.

Because so many police stations and government offices were destroyed in the earthquake, some women may have no place to go to report assaults, according to Melanie Brooks of CARE, which is working to protect women while providing disaster relief.

She said women recovering from quake-related injuries are even more vulnerable because many are not mobile. An additional threat is HIV; Haiti has the highest infection rate in the Caribbean.

"The women whom we've talked to tell stories of rape, assaults or men following them around when they're bathing," Brooks said. "These stories are becoming the new bogeymen now. Everyone is looking over their shoulder."

Before the earthquake, the government set up a panel to look at ways of empowering Haitian women. But the Women's Ministry was among the government buildings destroyed.

Three Haitian women working on important judiciary reforms to protect women against sexual violence — Myriam Merlet, Anne Marie Coriolan and Magalie Marcelin — died in the earthquake. Many view their deaths as setbacks for all Haitian women.

As women lined up for food at the National Palace on Saturday, U.S. soldiers kept the men behind a cordon.

"It's discrimination!" said Thomas Louis, 40. "We've all lost mothers, sisters, wives. Without women we can't get coupons. They're treating men like we are animals."

Teenage Spanish matador kills 6 bulls

By DANIEL WOOLLS, Associated Press Writer

CACERES, Spain – A 16-year-old Spanish matador killed six bulls in one afternoon Saturday, pulling off a feat normally attempted only by seasoned veterans and winning trophies for his skill — ears from animals he had just slain.

Jairo Miguel Sanchez Alonso, who nearly died from a horrific goring in Mexico in 2007, smiled broadly and waved to a friendly hometown crowd after a pageant that took about two and a half hours.

A tall and slender boy who is also amazingly articulate for his age, he showed off his stuff in an arena called Plaza Era de los Martires, or Time of the Martyrs.

The bullfighter, who goes by the stage name of Jairo Miguel, turned in his best performance with bull No. 5, a hulking black specimen that weighed 435 kilograms (959 pounds).

After skillful cape-work, he finished off the bull with a single deathblow from his sword, sliding it into a spot where it severed the beast's spinal chord. With the rest of the bulls he needed around three stabs.

This is considered too many, and Jairo Miguel acknowledged frustration with that part of his work, although he felt his effort was a success overall and said he was never scared.

"I brought out the best in myself that I could," he told The Associated Press. "It was a good afternoon of bullfighting, and people were not bored."

For the fifth bull, he was awarded the animal's severed ears, one of the bullfighting world's prizes for a job well done. He took a slow victory lap around the ring, showing the organs to the crowd.

Minutes before he stepped into the ring, Jairo Miguel hugged his father Antonio, a former bullfighter, and in a powerfully emotional scene they both cried.

Wearing a sparkling white suit of lights with gold sequins that twinkled in the late afternoon sun, the young toreador was greeted by a two-thirds full 5,000-seat bullring in Caceres, in Spain's southwest Extremadura region.

The average age for matadors in Spain is 25 to 30. Jairo Miguel spent around four years fighting in Latin America to escape the strict age limit of 16 in Spain.

The normal format for a bullfight is three matadors taking on two animals each. Aficionados say it is extremely rare for a matador as young as 16 to fight six, a challenge requiring great physical and mental stamina.

In an interview the night before the big fight, Jairo Miguel said he was nervous but confident. A boy with a baby face and a nice smile, he bears a scar from the ghastly goring that nearly punctured his heart in Mexico.

He got started at age 6, locking horns with a young cow.

"Ever since I was very small I have had this in my genes," he told AP. "I have practically grown up with bulls."

Juan Belmonte, a bullfighting critic for Canal Sur television in Seville, said Jairo Miguel is largely untested but a promising matador.

"Imagine a class of first-graders. There is always one that stands out. That is Jairo Miguel," he said.

Belmonte said that of the 800-odd bullfighters active in Spain, just a handful took on six of the 500-600-kilogram (1,100-1,300-pound) beasts at age 16.

One of them was Julian Lopez, who did it in 1998 and is now one of Spain's top bullfighters. He did it in Madrid's storied and very demanding Las Ventas ring, bullfighting's equivalent of Madison Square Garden. He won top honors, being carried out of the ring on fans' shoulders and claiming two trophies — ears from bulls he had just slain.

Jairo Miguel's setting was much less grandiose: a smallish, second-category ring in a preseason charity event to benefit children with autism.

Jairo Miguel said bullfighting gives him a potent, irresistible rush from a cocktail of fear, adrenaline and applause from the crowd. Still, sometimes he feels sorry for the animals he kills.

"I feel quite bad when the bull has been good, and you see the expression on his face, the innocence. He has given you his bravery, he has collaborated so that you win praise and people stand in ovation," he said.

His mother, Celia Alonso, said she chain-smokes in the days leading up to one of her son's fights, cannot sleep even with tranquilizers and would prefer he do anything but this — "football, computers, whatever."

"But he has chosen this and I have to support him," Alonso said. "All I know is what his eyes say when he struts out into the ring."

'Snowmageddon' blankets Mid-Atlantic in white

By JESSICA GRESKO, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Skiers lapped the Reflecting Pool along the National Mall; others used the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for a slope. Hundreds crowded Dupont Circle for a snowball fight organized online, while elsewhere the capital's famed avenues were all but desolate.

Washington took on a surreal, almost magical feel as it was buried under nearly 2 feet of snow Saturday in one of the worst blizzards in the city's history. The nearly 18 inches recorded at Reagan National Airport was the fourth-highest storm total for the city. At nearby Dulles International Airport, the record was shattered with 32 inches.

"Right now it's like the Epcot Center version of Washington," said Mary Lord, 56, a D.C. resident for some 30 years who had skied around the city.

"Snowmageddon," President Barack Obama called it. And even the president's motorcade — which featured SUVs instead of limousines — fell victim as a tree limb snapped and crashed onto a motorcade vehicle carrying press. No one was injured.

From Pennsylvania to New Jersey, south to Virginia, the region was under at least 2 feet of snow. Parts of northern Maryland had 3 feet.

And while the storm created serious inconveniences for many who were without power and faced with digging out, the monuments at Washington's heart seemed even more stately and serene.

At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, soldiers' names were buried 16 rows deep, while higher up snow had settled into the letters so they stood out against the black background. The wreaths of the World War II Memorial looked like giant white-frosted doughnuts. The big attraction at the Lincoln Memorial was not the nation's 16th president, but rather a snowman with eyes of copper pennies bearing Lincoln's likeness.

Obama, a snow veteran from his days in Chicago, spoke at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting and thanked those for being "willing to brave a blizzard. Snowmageddon here in D.C."

But after that, the president went inside, hunkering down in the White House.

The snow fell too quickly for crews to keep up, and officials begged residents to stay home. The hope was everyone could return to work on Monday.

The usually traffic-snarled roads were mostly barren, save for some snow plows, fire trucks, ambulances and a few SUVs. People walked down the middle of New York Avenue near the Verizon Center without fear of being hit. The Wizards game to be played there had been canceled.

The Capital Beltway, always filled with cars, was empty at times. Metro, the area's rail system, shut down by 11 p.m., partly because of so-few riders.

"Our car is stuck. We're not even trying," said Tihana Blanc who was walking her dog in northwest Washington.

Philadelphia, the nation's sixth-largest city, was virtually shut down with a record of nearly 27 inches. The Philadelphia International Auto Show at the Pennsylvania Convention Center downtown was a ghost town.

"Last year when I came, there was a line getting in," said Walt Gursky, 28. "Much more relaxing in here — you can actually see what you want."

Carolyn Matuska loved the quiet during her morning run along Washington's National Mall.

"Oh, it's spectacular out," she said. "It's so beautiful. The temperature's perfect, it's quiet, there's nobody out, it's a beautiful day."

The ugly side of the snow led to thousands of wrecks. Trees toppled and about a half-million people were left in the dark and cold. Still, only two people had died — a father-and-son team who were killed trying to help someone stuck on a highway in Virginia.

Heavy, wet snow collapsed several roofs including at Joshua Temple Church Ministry and a private jet hangar at Dulles International Airport.

People tried to dig out the best they could, though the constant snow made it difficult. As Christine Benkoski in Ellicott City, Md., tried to clear her driveway, she said she uncovered how the storm had gone from snow, to ice, then back to snow.

"I feel like an archaeologist," said Benkoski. "I've been out here for an hour, and my only goal is to get to the street."

Shawn Punga and his wife, Kristine, of Silver Spring, Md., went to a hotel because they lost power and were concerned for their 2-year-old daughter, Ryder, who was bundled up in thick pink pajamas and slippers.

"I have just been watching the thermostat," he said. They left the house when it hit 60 degrees.

Trouble for some was business for others.

Angel Martinez and a small crew of contractors shoveled morning and night and plowed streets and walkways of a Silver Spring subdivision.

"Usually there is not a lot of work this time of year, so when I get the call I'm happy for the opportunity to work," said Martinez, 24, of Gaithersburg. "But today there was too much."

The snow comes less than two months after a Dec. 19 storm dumped more than 16 inches on Washington. According to the National Weather Service, Washington has gotten more than a foot of snow only 13 times since 1870.

The heaviest on record was 28 inches in January 1922. The biggest snowfall for the Washington-Baltimore area is believed to have been in 1772, before official records were kept, when as much as 3 feet fell, which George Washington and Thomas Jefferson penned in their diaries.

Haitian lawyer for jailed US missionaries fired

By FRANK BAJAK and MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Writers

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The Haitian lawyer for 10 U.S. Baptists charged with child kidnapping tried to bribe the missionaries' way out of jail and has been fired, the attorney who hired him said Saturday night.

The Haitian lawyer, Edwin Coq, denied the allegation. He said the $60,000 he requested from the Americans' families was his fee.

Jorge Puello, the attorney in the neighboring Dominican Republic retained by relatives of the 10 American missionaries after their arrest last week, told The Associated Press that he fired Coq on Friday night. He had hired Coq to represent the detainees at Haitian legal proceedings.

Coq orchestrated "some kind of extortion with government officials" that would have led to the release of nine of the 10 missionaries, Puello charged.

"He had some people inside the court that asked him for money, and he was part of this scheme," Puello said.

Coq denied the requested $60,000 payment amounted to a bribe.

"I have worked for 10 people for four days working all hours," he said. "Look at what hour I'm working now, responding to these calls. I have the right to this money."

On Friday, Coq had told the AP that he was working for no fee.

Puello said Coq initially requested $10,000 but kept asking for bigger and bigger amounts. He said that when Coq reached $60,000, he said he could guarantee it would lead to the Americans' release.

A magistrate charged the group's members Thursday with child kidnapping and criminal association for trying to take 33 children out of earthquake-ravaged Haiti without the proper documents.

The Americans said they were a humanitarian mission to rescue orphans after Haiti's catastrophic Jan. 12 quake.

But at least 20 of the children had living parents. Some told the AP they gave the kids to the group because the missionaries promised to educate them at an orphanage in the Dominican Republic and said they would allow parents to visit.

Coq said Thursday that the group's leader, Laura Silsby of Meridian, Idaho, deceived the others by telling them she had the proper documents to remove the children from Haiti.

The Dominican consul in Haiti, Carlos Castillo, has said he warned Silsby on Jan. 29, the day the group was detained at the border, that she lacked the required papers and risked being arrested for child trafficking.

Asked if Silsby had deceived the other nine Baptists by assuring them she had the proper papers, Puello said Saturday, "I believe that is true."

He referred further questions on that issue to Sean Lankford, also of Meridian and the husband and father of two of the jailed missionaries.

Reached by the AP on Saturday night, Lankford would not comment. "I don't have time right now to talk to you," he said.

NBC News reported Saturday that there are divisions within the jailed group.

It said some of the missionaries handed an NBC producer a note through bars of their holding cell earlier in the day that listed the names of all of them but Silsby and her former nanny and partner in the orphanage, Charisa Coulter.

"We only came as volunteers. We had nothing to do with any documents and have been lied to," NBC quoted the note as saying. "Please we fear our lives."

German foreign minister backs idea of European army

Germany's foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, backed the idea of a permanent European army Saturday. While speaking to the Munich Security Conference, Westerwelle said a parliamentary run army would help the EU in its role as a "global player".

By News Wires

AFP - Germany supports the creation of a European army in the long term so that the EU can be a "global player," Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.

"The long-term goal is the establishment of a European army under full parliamentary control. The European Union must live up to its political role as a global player. It must be able to manage crises independently. It must be able to respond quickly, flexibly and to take a united stand," he said.

"We want strong European crisis management. This is not intended to replace other security structures. More Europe is not a strategy directed against anyone. No one has any reason to fear Europe, but everyone should be able to depend on Europe," he added.

He said however that this would require a pooling of resources and distribution of responsibility "even in times of ever scarcer means."

The concept of a European army was set out in the 27-nation EU's reforming Lisbon Treaty," he said.

"United Europe will only be secure if my generation, which has never experienced war, suffering or hunger, is strongly committed to European integration," Westerwelle said.

"And my generation has a chance to extend this cooperation model far beyond Western Europe, perhaps even to the whole of the European continent."

Source: France24.
Link: http://www.france24.com/en/20100206-german-foreign-minister-guido-westerwelle-backs-long-term-european-union-army.

Hamas claims internal unity on reconciliation with Fatah

GAZA, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- Islamic Hamas movement on Saturday rejected claims that its Gaza-based leaders and the exiled leaders in Damascus have different stances on reconciliation with Fatah.

"Hamas is the most responsible movement: its opinions and decisions are independent and it is united," Mushier al-Massri, a Hamas official in Gaza, told Xinhua.

Hamas made the remarks after Nabil Shaath, a senior official from President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, said he felt that the Hamas leaders in Gaza "had real intentions to end the split and this apparently did not satisfy its (Hamas) leaders in Damascus."

Shaath made his remarks to the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper after he left the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Friday. Shaath held talks with Hamas during his three-day visit, the first by a senior Fatah leader to Gaza since Hamas defeated Fatah and took over of the coastal enclave in June 2007.

"We won't allow Shaath to be a mouthpiece for the Zionist rumors that try to divide Hamas into two," al-Massri added.

Sources told Xinhua that Shaath and Hamas leaders exchanged opinions that the two movements wanted to defuse tension and stop crackdown on supporters in the Hamas-ruled Gaza and in the Fatah- governed West Bank.

In October, Hamas refused to sign an Egyptian-drafted proposal aimed to reconcile with Fatah and restore political unity to the geographically-divided Palestinian territories.

The talks between Hamas leaders and Shaath, a member of Fatah central committee, were the first since Egypt halted its mediation efforts in October.

Source: Xinhua.
Link: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-02/06/c_13166286.htm.

Outlaw politicians face Turkish court

ANKARA, Turkey, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- The leaders of a banned political party in Turkey appeared in court to defend allegations they were advocating terrorism in the country.

Ahmet Turk, the leader of the outlawed Democratic Society Party, or DTP, and his deputy Aysel Tugluk testified before a court to face allegations they were advocating terrorism.

A court in December banned the party and excluded its leaders from the Turkish political process for five years.

Tugluk accepted the court's claims that her discussions on the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, were problematic for authorities, Turkey's English-language daily Today's Zaman reports

"But I also explained that we did not mean to endanger the country's unity," she said.

Several of the leaders in the banned party later joined forces with the Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, on the advice of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

The DTP ban struck a blow to Ankara's push for a political solution to lingering issues with the Kurdish minority. Pro-Kurdish groups demonstrated in December in Istanbul and in the Kurdish south as tensions over the ban escalated.

Turk told reporters he was asked to defend charges of "promoting the organization (PKK)," which is listed as a terrorist organization in Washington and Ankara.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2010/02/04/Outlaw-politicians-face-Turkish-court/UPI-81991265309400/.

New twists in Iraqi election ban

BAGHDAD, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- Iraq repealed a ban on hundreds of politicians for March elections, though they are still subject to post-election vetting for ties to outlawed parties.

Iraq's Justice and Accountability Commission provoked outrage when it opted to ban more than 500 political candidates from March parliamentary elections because of suspected ties to the Baath Party of late dictator Saddam Hussein.

An appeals commission reversed the ban for hundreds of candidates, though they would be subject to further scrutiny and possible expulsion from office after the vote, the Christian Science Monitor reports.

The ban sparked outrage from the international community, prompting Washington to schedule meetings with top Iraqi lawmakers in an effort to settle the issue.

Saleh Mutlaq, a controversial but influential Sunni leader who was banned from politics, told the Monitor the ban and post-election vetting could create trouble in Iraq.

"Repercussions could be serious," he said. "If the people find they cannot work for the required change through political means, in their frustration they may turn to any other means at their disposal and create a situation of chaos once again."

Sectarian violence in Iraq reached an all-time high in 2006 and 2007, threatening to push Iraq into civil war. Several reports on the election ban said the decision could influence the security situation in Iraq as U.S. troops begin preparing for their withdrawal.

Campaign season in Iraq starts Sunday, though Iraqi elections officials have already started printing ballots.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2010/02/04/New-twists-in-Iraqi-election-ban/UPI-35741265321846/.

Last-minute deal saves Northern Irish peace

BELFAST, Northern Ireland, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- A last-minute deal between two rowing parties Friday secured peace in Northern Ireland in a diplomatic breakthrough hailed by politicians around the world.

Talks between the coalition partners -- the Protestant Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein, the Catholic party associated with the Irish Republic Army -- ended Friday with an agreement to hand down police and justice powers to Northern Irish authorities this spring.

The conflict over the so-called devolution process had threatened to bring down the country's fragile power-sharing government. It was resolved Friday after two weeks of round-the-clock negotiations.

"This is the last chapter of a long and troubled story and the beginning of a new chapter after decades of violence, years of talks, weeks of stalemate," said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who along with his Irish counterpart Brian Cowen had mediated and pushed for a successful outcome of the talks.

A delighted U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the agreement "another important step toward a full and lasting peace."

Washington, which had helped launch the power-sharing coalition, said the deal sends a positive signal to other conflict zones around the world.

"Northern Ireland gives us hope that, despite entrenched opposition and innumerable setbacks, diligent diplomacy and committed leadership can overcome generations of suspicion and hostility," Clinton said in a statement, adding Washington and herself would support the continuing peace process "in every way we can."

Clinton said she will host both DUP head Peter Robinson and Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness in Washington soon to "discuss further investment in Northern Ireland and ways to build on this agreement."

With the British general elections nearing, tensions had been running high during the negotiations between the DUP and Sinn Fein. Robinson and McGuiness exchanged attacks through the media and at the conference table, with Brown and Cowen trying to mediate.

The conflict circled around the London-backed plan to give away its powers over Northern Ireland's police and judicial system to local authorities.

Sinn Fein has accused the DUP of "delaying" this process to wait for a conservative government in London to take on a different position. Yet both parties also played hard to get to appeal to their own voters because of the nearing election.

Friday's agreement would devolve powers to Belfast while also honoring the DUP's request to change the oversight of loyalist parades.

The Northern Irish Assembly will vote on the agreement on March 9, with the devolution process starting as early as April 12.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2010/02/05/Last-minute-deal-saves-Northern-Irish-peace/UPI-11271265391562/.

Turkish Girl Buried Alive For Talking To Boys

Adam Taylor
02- 6-10

The body of a 16-year-old girl who police say was buried alive by relatives in an "honor" killing carried out as punishment for talking to boys has been discovered in Kahta, Turkey.

Turkish police discovered the body after acting on an anonymous tip. The tipster told police that the girl was killed after a family council meeting, and had been buried under a chicken pen. Police say that the girl had complained two months earlier that her grandfather beat her for talking to boys.

The girl, identified by police only by her initials M.M., was said to have a large amount of soil in her stomach and lungs, indicating she had been buried alive.

"The autopsy result is blood-curdling. According to our findings, the girl - who had no bruises on her body and no sign of narcotics or poison in her blood - was alive and fully conscious when she was buried," one anonymous expert said.

The girl had been reported as missing by her family. Police have arrested her father, mother and grandfather. Her mother has been released but her father and grandfather are awaiting trial.

The case is expected to bring further attention to the issue of "honor" killings in Turkey. Official figures indicate that more than 200 "honor" killings take place each year - almost half of all murders in Turkey.

Source: Huffington Post.
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/05/turkish-girl-buried-alive_n_450019.html.