africa

2011年6月26日星期日

Michelle Obama and family go on African safari (AP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

MADIKWE GAME RESERVE, South Africa – It's an African safari for Michelle Obama and her family.

The first lady, her daughters, her mother, and a niece and nephew climbed into an open-air vehicle Saturday afternoon in search of lions, giraffes and other animals in a South African game reserve.

The group had seen at least one elephant by early afternoon.

Mrs. Obama has been in Africa all week, promoting youth leadership, education, and health and wellness in South Africa and Botswana. She returns home to Washington on Monday.

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Algerian village protests after shooting blunder (AFP)

ALGIERS (AFP) – An Algerian village was on strike for a second day Saturday after a civilian was shot dead by soldiers in error after a bomb attack, press reports said.

The incident on Thursday prompted a rare statement from the defence ministry admitting the mistake and expressing its condolences to the family.

Father of five Moustapha Dial was fired upon by troops who raided a villa where he was caretaker and seriously wounded, the press reports said, quoting witnesses. He was finished off by another burst of gunfire as he tried to seek aid.

The troops entered two other villas in Azazga in the Kabylie region, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Algiers, the reports added.

The defence ministry said that earlier Thursday a bomb attack on a military patrol killed one soldier and wounded another.

"During the response by the patrol and the pursuit of the terrorist group responsible for the attack, a citizen was killed by mistake," the ministry said Friday.

The regional governor of Tizi Ouzou, Abdelkader Bouazghi, reacted angrily, saying, "There was a man killed, sacking, theft, destruction of property and violation of privacy."

"Nothing explains such behaviour," he added.

Dial was to be buried later Saturday in his home village of Souama, some 20 kilometres from Azazga. A protest rally was planned to follow the funeral.

Earlier this month, the minister for Maghreb and African affairs, Abdelkader Messahel, admitted there has been an increase in attacks in Algeria blamed on radical Islamists.

"It is not by chance," he added, claiming it was due to "arms and munitions coming from Libya" -- the neighbouring country in the throes of an armed uprising against Moamer Kadhafi's regime.

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Sarkozy defends Libya mission as House keeps funding (Reuters)

BRUSSELS/TRIPOLI (Reuters) – France rejected on Friday U.S. criticism of Europe's performance in the NATO operation against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi while the U.S. administration survived Congressional anger in a funding vote.

Gaddafi has managed to stay in power despite months of NATO air operations to weaken his rule and help rebels based mainly in eastern Libya who have tried to advance on the west.

Reports of civilian deaths have exacerbated the public divisions between Western governments, as they ponder the future of a military commitment with no clear end in sight.

Libyan television said on Friday that five civilians were killed in NATO attacks on targets in Brega. It gave no further details.

NATO earlier said it had taken out Gaddafi troops who had quietly occupied abandoned buildings in Brega over an unspecified period of time to create a "command and control hub to direct attacks against civilians" in Ajdabiyah and Benghazi.

However, there was no immediate comment on the Libyan report of the deaths.

Several explosions shook the Libyan capital Tripoli on Friday night, a Reuters correspondent said. Jets could be heard overhead as Libyan tracer fire arced across the dark sky.

Libyan television said the NATO-led military alliance also hit targets in the town of Zlitan, east of Tripoli.

War-fatigued lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives took a symbolic swipe at President Barack Obama's military intervention in Libya but in a second vote rejected an effort to bar U.S. forces from continuing to carry out air strikes.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed the vote. "We are gratified that the House has decisively rejected efforts to limit funding for the Libyan mission," she told reporters.

MUSCLE

French President Nicolas Sarkozy assailed outgoing U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates for remarks this month criticizing EU nations for lacking military muscle.

"It was particularly inappropriate for Mr. Gates to say that, and what is more, completely false, given what is going in Libya," Sarkozy told reporters at an EU summit in Brussels.

"There are certainly other moments in history when he could have said that, but not when Europeans have courageously taken the Libyan issue in hand, and when France and Britain, with their allies, for the most part, are doing the work."

While the United States has stepped back from a leading role in the strike mission NATO took over on March 31, it has continued to provide essential assets, including reconnaissance planes, air-to-air refueling planes and armed drones.

In a June 10 valedictory speech, Gates said the Libyan campaign had exposed limitations, with an air operations center designed to handle more than 300 sorties a day struggling to launch about 150.

"I think his retirement may have led him to not examine the situation in Libya very closely because, whatever people want to say, I don't have the impression that the Americans are doing the bulk of the work in Libya," Sarkozy said.

Gates is due to retire at the end of the month.

Discord among the Europeans over the NATO operation spilled into the public arena earlier this week when Italy called for a suspension of hostilities to allow humanitarian access and Britain, France and others loudly rejected the idea.

The Republican-led House, upset over Obama's failure to seek Congressional approval of U.S. military action in Libya, voted 123-295, largely along party lines, to reject the resolution endorsing U.S. involvement in the NATO-led mission.

But then it handed Obama a largely symbolic victory by rejecting 180-238 a Republican measure to bar the U.S. military from carrying out air strikes against Gaddafi's forces. Eighty-nine Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the bill.

Western governments are also concerned about the financial cost of the NATO operation and even its impact on world oil supplies with Libyan exports cut off.

The loss of Libyan oil output since February represented a greater disruption to global oil supply than the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, an International Energy Agency official told Reuters Insider TV. [ID:nL6E7HO1BI]

IEA Deputy head Richard Jones said the market was facing a possible shortfall of 1.8 million barrels per day for the remainder of June and 1.7 million for the next quarter.

"LIBYAN OASIS" FOR GADDAFI?

Analysts say part of the NATO strategy now appears to be directed at paving the way for a successful local uprising against Gaddafi in the capital Tripoli, where opponents run the gauntlet of tight security to stage "flash" protests.

In a defiant state television audio broadcast this week, Gaddafi said he would fight to the end, but a rebel spokesman was quoted on Friday as saying indirect negotiations were being pursued that could allow him to stay in Libya.

"We have no objection to him retreating to a Libyan oasis under international control," France's Le Figaro quoted Mahmoud Shammam, spokesman of the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), as saying.

NTC Vice-Chairman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga confirmed to Reuters the existence of indirect talks, saying: "The NTC is not contacting Gaddafi's regime. It's the other way around.

"If the NTC believes that there is a political solution that involves the Gaddafi regime stepping down, and that includes the entire regime, to stop the bloodshed of innocent people that are being killed every day in Libya, then it may look at this political solution."

In the latest of a string of defections, 19 police and army officers were among a group of Libyan refugees who arrived in Tunisia by boat on Thursday, Tunisian news agency TAP reported.

Gaddafi allies have denounced such defections.

"Anyone who defects or refuses to take up arms is an apostate ... and this applies to all Libyans," preacher Mohamed al-Matri said in a live broadcast of the Friday sermon from Cordoba mosque in the town of Sirte.

In Benghazi, dozens of rebel supporters freed by Gaddafi arrived on a ship from Western Libya in an exchange that could mark the beginning of broader talks between the adversaries.

"These are mainly civilians ... Among them there are 51 people who were detained in Tripoli but were released by the government there so we brought them back," said Dibeh Fakhr, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Benghazi.

A rebel spokesman said the rebel authority had earlier released five Gaddafi prisoners as part of the transfer.

European leaders meeting in Brussels agreed that only an uprising in Tripoli could end the war.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander in Washington, Ahmed Tolba in Cairo, Joseph Nasr in Berlin, Souhail Karam in Rabat, Maria Golovnina in Benghazi; writing by Andrew Hammond and Mark John; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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House rebukes Obama but won't halt funds for Libya (AP)

WASHINGTON – Challenging presidential power, a defiant U.S. House voted overwhelmingly Friday to deny President Barack Obama the authority to wage war against Libya. But Republicans fell short in an effort to actually cut off funds for the operation in a constitutional showdown reflecting both political differences and unease over American involvement.

In a repudiation of their commander in chief, House members rejected a measure to authorize the Libya mission for a year while prohibiting U.S. ground forces in the North African nation, a resolution Obama had said he would welcome.

The vote was 295-123 with 70 Democrats abandoning the president just one day after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had made an unusual appeal to rank-and-file members. A Senate committee is to consider the same resolution next Tuesday and is expected to support it, raising the prospect of conflicting messages from Congress.

Friday's votes showed lawmakers' concerns about an open-ended U.S. commitment to a civil war between Moammar Gadhafi and rebel forces looking to oust him — as well as growing weariness among Americans with drawn-out conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In addition, the resounding number rejecting the authority resolution was a clear sign of anger toward the president for failing to seek congressional consent for the operation within 60 days, as stated in the 1973 War Powers Resolution. Republicans and Democrats argued that an arrogant Obama had run roughshod over the Constitution, ignoring the authority of the legislative branch that the founding fathers had insisted has the power to declare war.

While Republican as well as Democratic presidents have often ignored the War Powers Resolution, a frustrated House voted earlier this month to rebuke Obama for failing to provide a "compelling rationale" for the Libyan mission and for launching U.S. military forces without congressional approval. They requested a report to Congress on the operation.

Obama further incensed lawmakers last week when he said he didn't need authorization because the operation did not rise to full-blown hostilities, a decision he reached by overruling some of his advisers.

It's not about Gadhafi, foes of the authorization said.

"I support the removal of the Libyan regime. I support the president's authority as commander in chief, but when the president chooses to challenge the powers of the Congress I, as speaker of the House, will defend the constitutional authority of the legislature," said Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Added Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Fla.: "The last thing that we want as Americans is for some president, whether it's this president or some future president, to be able to pick fights around the world without any debate from another branch of government."

The rejected money-cutoff bill, sponsored by Rooney, would have barred drone attacks and airstrikes but allowed the United States to continue actions in support of the NATO-led operation such as intelligence gathering, refueling and reconnaissance. The effort to cut off money was defeated, 238-180. While GOP leaders backed the measure, they didn't pressure Republicans to support it.

Supporting Obama, Democrats opposed to the votes argued that they would empower Gadhafi, aggravate NATO allies desperately needed in the fight in Afghanistan and send a dispiriting message to those who led the Arab spring uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere.

They reminded lawmakers of Gadhafi's role in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and said he had American blood on his hands.

"The message will go all over the world, the message will go to Moammar Gadhafi, the message will go to our NATO allies, the message will go to every nation of the world that America does not keep faith with its allies," said Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat in the House.

The authorization vote marked the first time since 1999 that either chamber had voted against backing a military action. The last time was to limit President Bill Clinton's authority to use ground forces in Kosovo. There will be no immediate effect on American involvement in the NATO-led mission in Libya, the same as in 1999.

Since NATO took command of the operation in early April, the U.S. role has largely been limited to support efforts such as intelligence and electronic warfare. However, the U.S. has launched airstrikes and drone attacks, flying more than 3,200 sorties. The effort has included 39 drone attacks and 80 strikes with jet fighters.

The bill to cut off funds failed, in part, because several Republicans feared that even a vote for limited authorization for a NATO support mission amounted to support for the war effort.

"By dictating to President Obama how he can use American military forces in support of the NATO effort in Libya, we would authorize him to continue the same mission he has been carrying out for the past three months without congressional approval," said Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J.

The votes Friday were not the last word in the House. Lawmakers plan to target money for Libya when the House considers the defense spending bill the week of July 4.

Reacting to the votes, Clinton said she would have preferred a different outcome on the authorization vote but was "gratified that the House decisively rejected" the bill to cut funds.

"We need to stand together across party lines and across both branches of government with the Libyan people and with our friends and allies and against Gadhafi," Clinton said.

In Benghazi, Libya, rebel spokesman Jalal el-Gallal, said he didn't know why the House voted against the authorization measure.

"America is the beating heart of democracy and should support the birth of a democracy in our time," he said. "I believe the American people will put the pressure on the government to change its mind."

White House spokesman Jay Carney said, "We think now is not the time to send the kind of mixed message that it sends when we're working with our allies to achieve the goals that we believe that are widely shared in Congress: protecting civilians in Libya, enforcing a no-fly zone, enforcing an arms embargo and further putting pressure on Gadhafi."

The authorization resolution mirrors a Senate measure sponsored by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will consider that resolution on Tuesday, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has indicated it has the panel's support.

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Associated Press writers Jim Abrams, Lolita C. Baldor and Matthew Lee in Washington and Hadeel al-Shalchi in Libya contributed to this report.

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Egyptian pleads guilty in NYC maid sex abuse (AP)

NEW YORK – A prominent Egyptian businessman admitted Friday to kissing and groping a hotel housekeeper who didn't welcome his advances, pleading guilty as the woman sued him for $5 million.

Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor sexual abuse charge, acknowledging he kissed the woman on the lips and neck and touched her breasts after she brought tissues to his room at the posh Pierre hotel. The 74-year-old chairman of state-run salt production firm El-Mex Salines Co. already has completed five days of community service in a soup kitchen, and his case will be closed without jail time or probation if he stays out of trouble for a year.

After softly answering "yes" in English to questions from a judge and prosecutor, Omar declined to comment as he left a Manhattan courthouse. Arrested while in New York to pick up a salt-industry award for El-Mex Salines, he spent about four days behind bars before being released on bail earlier this month.

His lawyer, Lori Cohen, called the case the result of a "big miscommunication" between the 44-year-old maid and Omar. While he acknowledged in court that he knew he didn't have the woman's consent for his advances, Cohen said he thought the housekeeper was receptive.

"I believe he thought something was happening that wasn't," she said. "I think his lack of a great understanding of English, and her desire to file a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, led to these accusations."

The woman's lawyer bristled at the suggestion that she embellished the encounter to try to reap money from the former bank chairman.

"That's just not true," said the attorney, John P. Grill. "She didn't know who he was."

Omar initially faced a felony sexual abuse charge that carried up to seven years in prison. After interviewing numerous witnesses and reviewing surveillance video and forensic evidence, prosecutors concluded the incident "did not rise to the level of forcible compulsion," which would have to be proven for the felony charge, Manhattan assistant district attorney Nicole Blumberg said.

Whatever his plea deal, the woman's lawyer said, "it doesn't change what happened."

The woman's federal assault and false-imprisonment lawsuit says Omar also rubbed his groin against her legs and groped her buttocks. It was filed Friday so Omar could officially be served with a copy before he left the country, Grill said.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly had said the case could be complicated to prosecute. Although the maid told a superior immediately that she had been attacked, the supervisor waited until the next morning to alert the hotel's security director, who then told police. The hotel suspended the supervisor and promised to buy "panic buttons" for maids to alert managers if they are attacked.

A spokeswoman for the hotel's owner, Mumbai-based Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, didn't immediately return a telephone call Friday.

Omar's lawyer said he might well have chosen to go to trial but was eager to get home to his wife, who has recently had surgery.

"This was the most expeditious way for him to return home," she said.

Besides chairing the salt company, Omar has served as chairman of Egypt's Bank of Alexandria, the Egyptian American Bank and the Federation of Egyptian Banks, according to a biography on his company's website. He has led El-Mex Salines since 2009.

Omar's arrest came little more than two weeks after then-International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested on charges of attempting to rape a maid at a different hotel, charges Strauss-Kahn denies. Together, the cases drew attention to the potential dangers of hotel maids' jobs.

The New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council plans to call for panic buttons as part of its contract negotiations with 150 hotels next year, and a state legislator has proposed to require the devices statewide.

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Associated Press writer Tom Hays contributed to this report.

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Jennifer Peltz can be reached at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

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Egyptians injured in clashes over Mubarak's fate (Reuters)

CAIRO, June 25 (Reuters) – Dozens of people were injured in clashes between two groups of protesters, for and against putting former president Hosni Mubarak on trial, Egypt's official news agency MENA reported Saturday.

Mubarak, 83, was forced from office in February in a popular uprising driven by anger at high-level official corruption and widespread poverty. He is due to stand trial on August 3 for the killing of protesters and abuse of power.

The agency said the clashes erupted after anti-Mubarak protesters arrived in an area where hundreds of Mubarak's supporters were staging a rally.

"The situation then developed into clashes between the two groups who threw rocks at each other," the agency said adding that security forces separated the two groups.

Mubarak has not appeared in public since retreating after his overthrow to his family's villa in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

He made one recorded statement in April in which he denied accusations of corruption and vowed to defend his reputation.

Mubarak is suffering from cancer, his defense lawyer said on Monday, citing a medical report to assess whether the former leader is fit enough to face trial.

(Reporting by Ahmed Tolbah and Ashraf Fahim, writing by Yasmine Saleh; editing by Andrew Roche)

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Horror and uncertainty on Sudan's stricken border (AFP)

PARIANG, Sudan (AFP) – Families recall fleeing for their lives when the remote town of Jau, on the border of north and south Sudan, was targeted by army bombings that destroyed the market and scattered the terrified population.

The army air strikes began just days after heavy fighting erupted across the border in South Kordofan, on June 5, between the Sudanese Armed Forces (northern army -- SAF) and militia aligned to the soon-to-be-independent south.

"Antonovs bombed the area and killed my son" says Thrab Deng Nading, a woman from Jau. So she hurriedly left on foot with her remaining four children and came to Pariang, the county capital, a day's walk across the vast plain.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says that 3,700 people have fled Jau since the attacks, with many ending up in Pariang and the nearby towns of Faring and Aliab.

Witnesses say Jau's market was completely destroyed in the second bombing raid, and the remaining population fled as the deadly attacks continued.

Many southern-aligned fighters from South Kordofan had regrouped at the lakeside town, on the south side of the border in Unity state, which has now become a possible new frontline between the south's, Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), and the SAF, its former civil war enemy.

"We can sometimes hear the sound of the bombing," says John Miakol, the Pariang secretary for the South Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (SSRRC), a government organisation charged with helping the displaced.

Army planes have also been seen flying over Panyang, 15 kilometres (10 miles) north of Pariang.

"I am worried that Antonovs will follow us here and bomb Pariang town," says Ayak, another woman who fled Jau 10 days ago.

Leaving their homes and belongings behind, families such as hers are left with little to survive on, and rely on the generosity of the already-stretched local population.

The closure of the roads between north and south Sudan has led to skyrocketing food prices and severe shortages of basic supplies in recent weeks.

The price of sorghum, a local staple, has doubled in the state capital Bentiu, according to the World Food Programme, and fuel prices have shot up too, ironically in an area criss-crossed by pipelines from the state's oil fields.

The supply disruptions and influx of people have come in the middle of the so-called "hunger period," when families cut back on household consumption because last year's produce has been depleted and this year's first crop has yet to be harvested.

The rainy season is also in full swing, so that many of the fugitives, as well as having to beg from local families to feed their own, have no shelter.

In a lone building on the outskirts of town, around 40 families have taken refuge from the torrential rains that render many of the roads to Pariang impassable.

The county commissioner, Mabek Lang Mading, fears the lack of adequate shelter could cause disease, saying that hygiene and sanitation are not being maintained.

"The IDPs (internally displaced persons) are in urgent need of assistance," Mading says.

Compounding their woes, there appears to be no resolution to the conflict across the border, which has already forced more than 70,000 people to flee, according to UN estimates.

"I don't see any progress by the warring sides in South Kordofan," Mading adds.

Whether or not the bombing continues after July 9, when south Sudan will formally declare its independence from the north, is becoming an ever more pressing issue.

Until now, the SPLA has shown restraint in not responding to the attacks, with southern officials insisting that nothing will jeopardise their hard-fought and long-awaited independence. But this may change.

"If they are still bombing Jau after July 9, then we will definitely respond," Mading warns.

Some families in Pariang hope to return home once the bombing has stopped.

"When there is no more fighting, I can go back to Jau to see if my husband is still alive" says Ayak.

But others who have already lost family to the violence expect to start a new life from scratch.

"My son who was killed was the only one supporting me," says Thrab. "I will not go back, no way."

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