 Heavy fighting continued on Friday between an Islamic militia and an alliance of warlords and businessmen in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. At least 70 people are now reported killed in the three days of fierce clashes between rival forces. A BBC correspondent in the city says the fighting, concentrated in the north-east, has further intensified, with hundreds fleeing their homes. These are the most serious clashes in Mogadishu for almost a decade. Hundreds of people have been fleeing the northern suburbs where their homes have been hit in the cross fire. "Today we've lost five people shot dead," an Islamist militia leader told Reuters news agency by telephone on Friday. "And on the other side, they've lost six who were burned in a technical [a truck with a mounted gun]," he added. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk
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Editor - 09:53:00 03-24-06
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 Iraq Translator Charged in Bribe Scheme |
U.S. authorities have arrested a translator working in Iraq, charging him with offering a bribe to entice a police official to buy armored vests and other equipment for $1 million. Faheem Mousa Salam, 27, of Livonia, Mich., was arrested Thursday at Dulles International Airport in suburban Virginia, the Justice Department said. Salam is an employee of the Titan Corp., a government contractor working in Iraq. Salam was charged under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for offering $60,000 to an Iraqi police official who Salam believed could help arrange the purchase of the goods by a police training organization, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. Salam said he wanted to sell the group 1,000 vests and a sophisticated map printer, the court papers said. Salam, described in court papers as a naturalized U.S. citizen, later made similar offers to an undercover investigator who was posing as a purchasing officer for the police group, ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5708700,00.html
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Editor - 09:50:00 03-24-06
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| Afghan Clerics: Convert Must Die |
International pressure grew Friday on Afghanistan to free a man on trial for converting from Islam to Christianity, as clerics in Kabul condemned him as an apostate who deserved to die. Australia's Prime Minister John Howard on Friday joined the chorus of Western leaders expressing concern over the case of Abdul Rahman and said he would protest personally to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "This is appalling. When I saw the report about this I felt sick literally," Howard told an Australian radio network. "The idea that a person could be punished because of their religious belief and the idea they might be executed is just beyond belief." Rahman, a 41-year-old former medical aid worker, faces the death penalty under Afghanistan's Islamic laws for becoming a Christian. Senior clerics in the Afghan capital have voiced strong support for the prosecution and have warned they would incite people to execute Rahman unless he reverted to Islam. ...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/24/world/main1435638.shtml?source=RSS&attr=World_1435638
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Editor - 09:45:00 03-24-06
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| Indian PM Launches New Peace Initiative With Pakistan to Promote Talks on Flashpoints |
India's prime minister invited Pakistan on Friday to join his country in a "treaty of peace, security and friendship" to end nearly six decades of tension between the nuclear-armed nations. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appeared to be proposing an umbrella accord that would foster relations and enhance the prospects for agreement on flashpoints such as the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. "I am convinced we can move forward, if all concerned are willing to accept the ground realities; if all concerned take a long view of history and our destiny," Singh said at a ceremony starting a new bus service between India and Pakistan. Pakistan's foreign ministry welcomed the overture but stressed the need for taking "bold and sincere steps" to resolve Kashmir, which is divided between the two neighbors. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1762923&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
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Editor - 09:39:00 03-24-06
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| Mosque targeted in Iraq bombing |
Five Iraqis have been killed and 17 injured by a bomb planted outside a Sunni mosque in the town of Khalis, 60km (40 miles) north-east of Baghdad. Earlier, a series of insurgent attacks in the capital left seven other people dead, including three policemen. Police also discovered the bodies of seven men in the city's east. They had been handcuffed and shot in the head. The violence came as US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urged Iraqi leaders to form a new government. In what appeared to be the latest in a series of sectarian killings which has stricken the country since the bombing in February of a Shia shrine in Samarra, a bomb was planted near the entrance of the Saad Bin Abi Waqqas mosque in Khalis, 60km (40 miles) north-east of Baghdad. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4840386.stm
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Editor - 09:32:00 03-24-06
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| Voodoo Magic May Be Stumped by Bird Flu Benin's Fight Against Evil Spirits With Chicken Rituals May Endanger More People |
Along the back roads of Abomey, bird flu is more than just a public health hazard. It threatens a way of life that has survived for centuries: voodoo. And despite chasing evil spirits, people here are at a loss as to how to counter the potential devastation of a deadly virus. Abomey, once as famous as Timbuktu, is known for two things: the birthplace of the African slave trade and of voodoo. Bird Flu at the Door? Benin's king seems worried about the bird flu virus spreading across Africa and infecting birds in Benin, wedged between Nigeria and Togo in western Africa. "We're almost sure to catch it," Majesty King Behanzin II said in French."I hope a vaccine arrives quickly," he said, sitting in his palace, where the walls are said to be sealed with human blood. Two neighboring countries have already reported cases of the H5N1 virus and Benin will likely be hit next. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/International/story?id=1755228&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
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Editor - 09:28:00 03-24-06
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