Tornadoes flatten homes in South; several dead
Dozens reported injured; Miss. governor cites ‘utter obliteration’
NBC, msnbc.com and news services
JACKSON, Miss. – Tornadoes and severe thunderstorms hopscotched across the South on Saturday, flattening homes and buildings in Mississippi and damaging a chemical plant and shipyard in Louisiana, emergency officials said. At least 10 people, including two children, were killed and dozens injured.Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told The Associated Press there was “utter obliteration” in parts of Yazoo County, an area where he is from. More than 15 other counties also suffered damage.
Death and rebirth at a volcano in Congo
Country hoping to draw travelers back with crater tours
By TODD PITMAN Associated Press
MOUNT NYIRAGONGO, Congo – I was startled to see it perched at the lip of the volcano’s rocky summit: a small cross marking the spot where one visitor tragically slipped from the crater’s edge and plummeted to her death.Below, the mesmerizing lava lake that drew her here several years ago – an awe-inspiring vision of hell – still gushes bright orange fountains of magma like a bleeding wound in the earth.
USA
Graham Pulls Support for Major Senate Climate Bill
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: April 24, 2010
WASHINGTON – In a move that may derail a comprehensive climate change and energy bill in the Senate, one of the measure’s central architects, Senator Lindsey Graham, has issued an angry protest over what he says are Democratic plans to give priority to a debate over immigration policy.Mr. Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said in a sharply worded letter on Saturday that he would no longer participate in negotiations on the energy bill, throwing its already cloudy prospects deeper into doubt. He had been working for months with Senators John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, on the a legislation, which they were scheduled to announce with considerable fanfare on Monday morning. That announcement has been indefinitely postponed.
As Obama visits coal country, many are wary of his environmental policies
By David A. Fahrenthold and Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 25, 2010
BECKLEY, W.VA. — Coal has helped divide Barack Obama from the people of this heavily Democratic state. On Sunday, it will bring the president and West Virginians together, at least briefly.
Obama will speak at a memorial for 29 miners killed April 5 in an underground explosion. The trip brings him to the heart of a state whose voters rejected him twice in 2008. Even some Democratic politicians worry that his environmental policies are hurting a struggling region.
Europe
Charismatic judge who pursued Spain’s fascist assassins finds himself on trial
Powerful enemies are attempting to unseat the ‘superjudge’ who tried to bring the death squads of Franco’s dictatorship to book
Giles Tremlett Madrid
The Observer, Sunday 25 April 2010
The crowd gathered outside Madrid’s national court was loud and angry. “The world has been turned upside down,” they cried. “The fascists are judging the judge!” Some carried photographs of long-dead relatives, killed by rightwing death squads in Spain’s brutal civil war in the 1930s. Others bore placards bearing the name of the hero they wanted to save, the controversial “superjudge” Baltasar Garzón.Pedro Romero de Castilla carried a picture of his grandfather, Wenceslao – a former stationmaster taken away from his home in the western city of Mérida and shot by a death squad at the service of Generalísimo Francisco Franco’s rightwing military rebels 74 years ago. The family have never found his body.
Art, and a Russian revolution
Soviet and modern Russian paintings are in demand at auctions across the world
By Andrew Johnson Sunday, 25 April 2010
The Russians are coming. The multi-million pound herd of buyers who stampede around the world in pursuit of the art market’s “next big thing” is rushing this weekend to buy into what they hope will be the latest bubble: Russian artAuctioneers in Manhattan shifted more than 600 works from the former Soviet Union in just two days of what is being described as a “Russian tidal wave”.
Middle East
US soldier apologises for attack on Iraq families
From The Sunday Times
April 25, 2010
Matthew Campbell
AN American soldier who took part in an attack in which 12 people, including a Reuters journalist, were killed and two children injured has written an emotional apology to the victims’ families in Iraq.Ethan McCord is seen carrying the children to safety in a Pentagon video of the attack which occurred three years ago in a suburb of Baghdad. The film was released on the internet earlier this month by WikiLeaks, the website dedicated to publishing secret documents.
Gaza Strip moves to preserve its abundant ancient treasure
The Gaza Strip was conquered by empires that left behind fortresses, alabaster jewelry, and bronze weaponry. Now the impoverished Strip is trying to rein in the black market in ancient treasure and better preserve items often found by chance.
By Erin Cunningham, / Correspondent / April 24, 2010
Gaza City, Gaza
Better known for its long-running conflict, the Gaza Strip also has a reputation as an archaeological treasure-trove.
When laborers stumbled on an ancient hoard of 1,300 silver coins and the walls of a 3,300-year-old city in the southern town of Rafah in January, it was a fresh reminder that the tiny territory maintains a rich past.At least a dozen major empires have conquered this tiny territory – including the Egyptians, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, and British. They left behind everything from walled fortresses to alabaster jewelry to bronze weaponry.
Asia
Bangkok on the brink as peace offer spurned
The Thai government has rejected a compromise from red shirt protesters. With the capital occupied and army split, tension is rising
By David Randall Sunday, 25 April 2010
Bangkok was a city in a state of high anxiety last night after Thailand’s Prime Minister rejected a peace offer from the red shirt protesters whose siege of parts of the city – and armed efforts to lift it – has led to 26 deaths, major disruption, and considerable damage to the country’s economy. The red shirts immediately announced they would pull out of any negotiations with the authorities.The protesters, who are supporters of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, had said on Friday they would end a three-week occupation of Bangkok’s smartest shopping and hotel district if the government dissolved parliament and announced elections in 30 days.
South Korean warship sunk by ‘close-range explosion’
Last month’s mysterious sinking of a South Korean warship was due to a “close-range” explosion under the ship, a preliminary inquiry has found.
The BBC Sunday, 25 April 2010
After examining the bow of the ship, salvaged on Saturday, officials say the warship was damaged by a “bubble jet” caused by an external underwater blast.
Analysts say that such an effect could be caused by a torpedo or a mine exploding below the ship.
An explosion split the Cheonan in half and it sank, leaving 46 sailors dead.
The ship’s sinking has fuelled tensions with North Korea, who many South Koreans believe was responsible for the sinking.
South Korea’s government has so far taken care not to directly accuse the North.
Africa
We were betrayed, claim mercenaries jailed after ex-SAS man’s failed coup
Soldiers imprisoned after foiled takeover in Equatorial Guinea describe their capture in Zimbabwe and call for compensation from Simon Mann, the Old Etonian ringleader
Ian Evans in Pretoria
The Observer, Sunday 25 April 2010
Former soldiers imprisoned alongside mercenary Simon Mann in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea have demanded compensation from the convicted coup plotter, claiming they were duped into becoming part of his plans.Speaking in Pretoria, where many of Mann’s former accomplices have now settled, the men said that Mann and the other ringleaders of the coup attempt “owed them” for their ordeal.
Slum clearance, South Africa-style
From The Sunday Times
April 25, 2010
Dan McDougall
WAVING iron bars and pickaxes, the Red Ants, a rented mob of thugs in bright red overalls and crimson helmets, used the half-light of dawn for cover as they marched into the slum. Stamping out the first cooking fires of the day with heavy boots, they spread out in a long line. Then they attacked.Bleary immigrant women dropped plastic water containers and ran in panic towards their corrugated iron homes. “Grab the children,” they screamed.
By sunrise their shacks on the outskirts of Johannesburg had been razed. They were forced to watch as their few possessions were burnt.
Latin America
Colombia port proposal sparks concerns
Malaga Bay, a migratory stop for humpback whales, was about to be declared a national park when businesses floated a plan for a deep-water port they say will give Colombia a competitive edge.
By Chris Kraul, Special to the Los Angeles Times
April 25, 2010
Reporting from Cali, Colombia
A proposal to build a container port in a pristine bay on Colombia’s coast frequented by humpback whales has raised an outcry among environmentalists who say the project would put the giant mammals at risk.Malaga Bay is one of the whales’ primary northern stops on their long migratory journey from the Antarctic to as far as Costa Rica. The bay’s relative isolation and natural conditions make it an appealing place for the animals to mate and give birth. As many as 1,000 humpbacks are believed to arrive there from June to August.