Tag: InternationalNews

{{Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has been admitted to a New York hospital for treatment of a blood clot, her spokesman said Sunday.}}

State Department Spokesman Philippe Reines said Clinton had entered the hospital following a medical examination for a concussion she sustained earlier this month.

“In the course of a follow-up exam today, Secretary Clinton’s doctors discovered a blood clot had formed, stemming from the concussion she sustained several weeks ago,” Reines said in a statement.

“She is being treated with anti-coagulants and is at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital so that they can monitor the medication over the next 48 hours.”

Reines added, “Her doctors will continue to assess her condition, including other issues associated with her concussion. They will determine if any further action is required.”

Clinton was scheduled to return to work this week after treatment for the concussion. She is set to step down from her post shortly after President Barack Obama’s inauguration on January 21. Last week, Obama announced he had chosen Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry to replace Clinton as the nation’s top diplomat.

{{A Russian-made passenger plane crashed upon landing at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport on Saturday, killing at least four people, according to Russia’s Interior Ministry.}}

The plane, owned and operated by the discount carrier Red Wings, had reportedly just flown in from the Czech Republic.

Russian news reports offer differing accounts, with some saying the plane was flying in for repairs and others that it had just dropped off passengers and was flying back.

The plane was carrying between eight to 12 people, according to differing Russian news reports. All were reportedly crew members.

The pilot and co-pilot were among the dead, according to the Interfax news agency. Several others on board were also reportedly seriously injured.

The TU-204 plane was reportedly on its second landing attempt around 4:35 p.m. local time, when it overshot the runway and skidded up to the edge of a major highway.

There it broke into three big pieces and caught fire.

{{The international envoy to Syria warned Sunday that as many as 100,000 could die in the next year if a way cannot be found quickly to end the country’s civil war.}}

Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League envoy for the Syrian crisis, told reporters in Cairo that if the crisis continues Syria will not be divided into states “like what happened in Yugoslavia” but will face “Somalization, which means warlords, and the Syrian people will be persecuted by those who control their fate.”

Syrian rebels are fighting a 21-month-old revolt against President Bashar Assad’s regime. Activists say more than 40,000 people have been killed in the crisis, which began with pro-democracy protests but has morphed into a civil war.

Since starting his job in September, Brahimi has sought to advance an international plan, reached in Geneva six months ago, that calls for an open-ended cease-fire between rebels and government troops and the formation of a transitional government to run the country until elections can be held.

Over the past week Brahimi went to Damascus where he met Assad then flew to Moscow, one of Syria’s closest international allies, where he discussed ways of ending the country’s crisis.

“The situation in Syria is bad. Very, very bad,” Brahimi said after meeting Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby.

“It is getting worse and therefore if nearly 50,000 were killed in nearly two years if, God forbids, this crisis continues for another year, it will not only kill 25,000. It will kill 100,000. The situation is deteriorating.”

The monthly death toll in Syria rose over the past months, as both sides have used heavier weapons and as the Syrian army started using its warplanes to attack rebel-held areas around the country.

{{Al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen has offered to pay tens of thousands of dollars to anyone who kills the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa or an American soldier in the country.}}

An audio produced by the group’s media arm, the al-Malahem Foundation, and posted on militant websites Saturday said it offered three kilograms of gold, worth $160,000, for killing the ambassador.

The group said it will pay 5 million Yemeni riyals ($23,000) to anyone who kills an American soldier inside Yemen.

It said the offer is valid for six months.

The bounties were set to “inspire and encourage our Muslim nation for jihad,” the statement said.

The U.S. Embassy in Sanaa did not respond to an Associated Press phone call asking for comment.

Washington considers al-Qaida in Yemen to be the group’s most dangerous branch.

The group overran entire towns and villages last year by taking advantage of a security lapse during nationwide protests that eventually ousted the country’s longtime ruler. Backed by the U.S. military experts based at a southern air base, Yemen’s army was able to regain control of the southern region, but al-Qaida militants continue to launch deadly attacks on security forces that have killed hundreds.

In the capital, Sanaa, security officials said two gunmen on a motorbike shot and killed two intelligence officers early Sunday as they were leaving a downtown security facility.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity according to regulations, said all intelligence and security officers have been instructed to take precautionary measures outside working hours.

The government blames al-Qaida for the killing of several senior military and intelligence officials this year mainly by gunmen on motorbikes.
The officials said security authorities in Sanaa have launched a campaign against motorcyclists suspected of involvement in these attacks or other crimes, arresting about 200 for questioning for violations, including driving motorcycles without license plates.

{{A young woman who died after being gang-raped and beaten on a bus in India’s capital was cremated Sunday amid an outpouring of anger and grief by millions across the country demanding greater protection for women from sexual violence.}}

The cremation took place during a private ceremony in New Delhi soon after the woman’s body arrived in the capital on a special Air India flight from Singapore, where she died at a hospital Saturday after being sent for medical treatment.

The tragedy has forced India to confront the reality that sexually assaulted women are often blamed for the crime, forcing them to keep quiet and discouraging them from going to authorities for fear of exposing their families to ridicule.

Police often refuse to accept complaints from rape victims, and the rare prosecutions that reach courts can drag on for years.

Security was tight, with no access to the public or media at the crematorium.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling Congress party, were at the airport to receive the body and meet family members of the victim who were on the flight.

Hours after the victim died early Saturday, Indian police charged six men who had been arrested in connection with the attack with murder, adding to accusations that they beat and gang-raped the woman on a New Delhi bus on Dec. 16.

New Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said the six suspects face the death penalty if convicted, in a case that has triggered protests across India and raised questions about lax attitudes by police toward sexual crimes.

After 10 days at a hospital in New Delhi, the victim, who has not been identified, was taken Thursday to Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth hospital, which specializes in multi-organ transplants, but her condition worsened, with her vital signs deteriorating.

Following her death, thousands of Indians lit candles, held prayer meetings and marched through various cities and towns, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata, on Saturday night to express their grief and demand stronger protection for women and the death penalty for rape, which is now punishable by a maximum of life imprisonment.

But even as thousands mourned the rape victim’s death and in a sign of how pervasive such crimes are, police in West Bengal state were investigating another suspected gang-rape and death.

In the latest case, the family of a woman said she and her husband were attacked by six men as they returned home after working at a brick factory.

They dragged the woman into a nearby farm after pouring acid into her husband’s mouth, the family said.

The woman was found dead with multiple injuries, said police officer Bhaskar Mukherjee, adding he was waiting for an autopsy report.

No charges have been laid. Another police officer, Sugata Sen, said four men had been detained for questioning.

The alleged attack is similar to the Dec. 16 case, where the woman and a male friend, who also has not been identified, were on a bus after watching a film when they were attacked by six men who raped her.

The men beat the couple and inserted an iron rod into the woman’s body, resulting in severe organ damage. Both were then stripped and thrown off the bus, according to police.

Dozens of protesters tried to break through a police cordon Sunday and march to the parliament building in the Indian capital, but were pushed back.

The protesters, belonging to the student wing of main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, shouted anti-government slogans as they marched.

Hundreds of policemen have sealed off the high-security area, where the seat of India’s government is located, in anticipation of more protests.

The area is home to parliament, the president’s palace, the prime minister’s office and several ministries.

Gandhi assured the protesters in a statement that the rape victim’s death “deepens our determination to battle the pervasive, the shameful social attitudes and mindset that allow men to rape and molest women and girls with such an impunity.”

Attitudes by Indians toward rape are so entrenched that even politicians and opinion makers have often suggested that women should not go out at night or wear clothes that might be seen as provocative.

Meanwhile, a United Nations statement said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “offers his sincerest condolences” to the victim’s family and “utterly condemns this brutal crime.”

“Violence against women must never be accepted, never excused, never tolerated,” the statement said. “Every girl and woman has the right to be respected, valued and protected.”

Ban urged the Indian government to take steps to deter such crimes and bring perpetrators to justice, and to “strengthen critical services for rape victims,” it said.

{{Twenty-one tribal policemen believed to have been kidnapped by the Taliban were found shot dead in Pakistan’s troubled northwest tribal region early Sunday, government officials said.}}

Officials found the bodies shortly after midnight in the Jabai area of Frontier Region Peshawar after being notified by one policeman who escaped, said Naveed Akbar Khan, a top political official in the area.

Another policeman was found seriously wounded, said Khan.

The 23 policemen went missing before dawn Thursday when militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons attacked two posts in Frontier Region Peshawar.

Two policemen were also killed in the attacks.

Militants lined the policemen up on a cricket pitch late Saturday night and gunned them down, said another local official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion fell on the Pakistani Taliban, who have been waging a bloody insurgency against the government for the past few years.

The tribal region is the main sanctuary for the Taliban in Pakistan.

On Saturday, an explosion ripped through a passenger bus at a terminal in the southern city of Karachi, killing six people and wounding 52 others, some of whom were in critical condition, said Seemi Jamali, a doctor at the hospital where the victims were being treated.

Police were trying to determine whether the blast, which reduced the bus to a charred skeleton, was caused by a bomb or a gas canister that exploded, said police spokesman Imran Shaukat.

Many buses in Pakistan run on natural gas.

{{A government official says Pakistani authorities have asked tribal elders to help rescue 23 policemen who appear to have been kidnapped by the Taliban.}}

The tribal policemen went missing Thursday when militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons attacked two posts before dawn in Pakistan’s northwest tribal region, the main sanctuary for al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in the country.

Two policemen were killed in the attacks.

Government administrator Naveed Akbar Khan said Friday that authorities plan meetings with tribal elders in the two villages where the attacks occurred in the Darra Adam Khel tribal region.

Tribal law stipulates that the elders could be punished for attacks that occurred in their areas.

Security forces have also launched an operation to try to recover the missing policemen.

{{Myanmar said Friday it will allow private daily newspapers starting in April for the first time since 1964, in the latest step toward allowing freedom of expression in the long-repressed nation.}}

The Information Ministry announced on its website that any Myanmar national wishing to publish a daily newspaper will be able to submit an application in February.

New papers will be allowed to begin printing April 1 in any language.

The move was an expected part of new press freedoms President Thein Sein has introduced as part of wider democratic reforms since taking office last year, after a half-century of military rule.

In August, the government abolished direct censorship of the media and informed journalists they would no longer have to submit their work to state censors before publication as they had for almost half a century.

Myanmar has state-run dailies which serve as government mouthpieces and more than 180 weeklies, about half of which cover news while the rest feature sports, entertainment, health and other subjects.

Private dailies in Burmese, English, Indian and Chinese languages were once vibrant in the former British colony, previously called Burma.

But all were forced to close when late dictator Ne Win nationalized private businesses in 1964.

Under Ne Win’s one-party Socialist government the standard of newspapers diminished to propaganda sheets.

The most recent military regime ruled by Gen. Than Shwe used the country’s three state-owned dailies as junta mouthpieces, which continue to be unpopular with low circulation.

Until just two years ago, this Southeast Asian nation’s reporters were regarded as among the most restricted in the world, subject to routine state surveillance, phone taps and intense censorship.

The censorship board would shut down newspapers temporarily for violations. Journalists were tortured, imprisoned and subjected to constant surveillance.

Testing their new freedoms, journalists and private publications have become bolder.

They have printed once forbidden items including pictures and stories about anti-government demonstrations and sectarian violence.

The once highly taboo images of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi are now often displayed, even in state-controlled media.