Negative Blogs

Venezuela’s president says he has deployed troops to the border with Colombia, as tensions rise between the two South American countries.

Hugo Chavez said Friday he believed the outgoing government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe could be planning to attack Venezuela.

The move follows Colombia’s accusations last week that Venezuela is harboring leftist Colombian rebels.

Mr. Chavez, denying the charge, had harsh words for Mr. Uribe.  In a phone call to a Venezuelan television show Friday, Mr. Chavez said the Colombian President should see a psychologist, saying he sees peace as a “little trap.”

Colombia’s president-elect, Juan Manuel Santos, has promised to continue Mr. Uribe’s security policies.

The head of Colombia’s largest leftist rebel group Friday proposed talks with the incoming government to resolve the country’s internal conflict. 

Alfonso Cano, who commands the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, issued the proposal in a video message.  There was no immediate response from President-elect Santos.

On Thursday, Colombia and Venezuela brought their grievances to a group of South American foreign ministers meeting in Ecuador..  But members of the Union of South American Nations, or UNASUR, were unable to resolve the crisis.

The Venezuelan president severed ties with Colombia last week after Colombia went before the Organization of American States’ permanent council in Washington to present photographs, maps, coordinates and videos it said show 1,500 guerrillas hiding inside Venezuela.

Venezuela said the items did not provide any solid evidence of a guerrilla presence there.

By VOA News

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez speaks to the media at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, 22 Jul 2010

Rivers burst their banks during monsoon rains, washing away streets, battering a dam and killing at least 60 people in the most severe floods in decades in northwest Pakistan, officials said on Thursday. Hundreds of thousands more were stranded as rescue workers struggled to reach far—flung villages.

In the Peshawar area, two elderly men clung to a fence post and each other as a raging torrent swept over their heads, footage on Pakistan’s Dunya TV showed. It was unclear whether they survived.

People were forced to trudge through knee—deep water in some streets in the Swat Valley. A newly constructed part of a dam in the Charsadda district collapsed, while crops were soaked in many areas. At least 10 people died near Peshawar when their homes collapsed.

Dozens of people were reported missing, including at least nine Chinese construction workers in the Kohistan area. Some 200 other Chinese workers were trapped amid the downpour, said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for Khyber—Pakhtoonkhwa, the province that has been deluged.

He said it was the worst floods in the northwest since 1929 and estimated 400,000 people were stranded around the northwest.

“A rescue operation using helicopters cannot be conducted due to the bad weather, while there are only 48 rescue boats available for rescue,” he said, noting weather forecasts predict more rain over the next day.

The monsoon season often leads to widespread flooding in Pakistan, and the poorest residents are often most at risk because flood—prone areas are all they can afford.

The torrential rain this week is a suspected factor in a plane crash in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, that killed 152 people Wednesday.

By Thehindu

Pakistani villagers collect their belongings in their house collapsed due to flooding caused by heavy monsoon rain in Bakhtiarabad, 250 kilometers north of Quetta. File photo: AP.

As many as 138 people died when an overloaded boat carrying passengers and goods capsized in rough water in Democratic Republic of Congo, police have said.

Congo’s government confirmed the incident, but gave a lower toll of 80 and said it may have been caused by low water levels on the river due to the dry season.

The accident took place mid-week on a stretch of the Congo River in the western Bandundu province, about 80 miles east of Kinshasa, the capital of the vast central African nation.

“The boat was badly overloaded and it didn’t make the rough waters,” Jolly Limengo, provincial inspector of police for Bandundu, told Reuters by telephone on Thursday.

“People here don’t know how to swim. Our provisional toll is 138 dead,” Mr Limengo added.

Naval forces and local Red Cross have gone to assist and collect the bodies, said Lambert Mende, the information minister.

Congo is a vast country of jungles and huge rivers in Central Africa. Decades of conflict and neglect have left the nation’s infrastructure in tatters, with little more than 300 miles of paved road. Many people prefer to take boats even if they do not know how to swim. The boats are often in poor repair and filled beyond capacity.

In May, dozens of people died when an overloaded canoe capsized on a river in eastern Congo. And last November, at least 90 people were killed after a logging boat sank on a lake in Congo. The timber-carrying vessel was not supposed to be carrying passengers.

By Telegraph.

Many people in Congo take boats even if they do not know how to swim. The boats are often in poor repair and filled beyond capacity. Photo: ALAMY

BAGHDAD — On Sunday, a journalist for Al Arabiya, an Arabic-language news channel, sat in the newsroom and explained that his staff had recently returned to the bureau after being forced to leave for weeks by threats from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

“Thank God we are able to work,” said the journalist, Mohammed Zuhair, the chief of the channel’s newsroom.

Less than 24 hours later, a suicide bomber drove a white minibus packed with explosives past several checkpoints and detonated the vehicle in front of the news channel’s office, killing 6 and wounding 16. The dead included security guards and a cafeteria worker, but no journalists. Among the wounded was a former Iraqi deputy prime minister who lives nearby. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia took responsibility for the bombing.

On Monday evening, two other explosions struck Shiite pilgrims as they marched from Najaf to Karbala to commemorate the birthday of Imam Mahdi, a revered Shiite saint. The attacks, which also bore the hallmark of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, killed close to 20 and wounded more than 50, according to officials in Baghdad and Karbala.

While the bombing at Al Arabiya’s office spared the newsroom, the attack was a brutal reminder of the dangers Iraqis face in practicing journalism, which they have had the freedom to do for only seven years. The war here has been the deadliest in history for journalists. More than 140 have been killed in Iraq since the war began, the vast majority of them Iraqis, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Many newsrooms in Baghdad display photographs of slain colleagues. At Al Sumariya, another popular TV news channel, large photos in a hallway serve as reminders of two correspondents who were kidnapped and killed.

The attack on Monday came as officials have again been debating proposals for a new law to protect journalists — in the event that the country’s political class can end the nearly five-month stalemate that has followed March’s parliamentary elections and form a new government.

Among the ideas are to provide government protection for targeted journalists; offer compensation to the families of those killed; and set up regulations aimed at protecting the newsgathering process. A new law might also elevate a crime against a journalist to a higher level, a parallel to hate crime laws in the United States.

A draft law was sent to Parliament last year but never enacted; many here expect it will be taken up again. Officials recently held a workshop to discuss the proposals.

Mr. Zuhair, who was not hurt in Monday’s bombing, said a law would “give a capability to journalists and a stature.”

The need for a media law — which could also impose fines for publishing false information — is itself a matter of debate. Mindful of prior abuses — when the press was a propaganda arm of Saddam Hussein’s tyranny, and the death penalty could be imposed for criticizing his government — some want no government interference in the news media, even with the aim of protection. Last year, journalists in Baghdad protested against a media law, fearing it would restrict them.

Feryad Rawandozi straddles the worlds of politics and the press. A former member of Parliament, he is the spokesman for the Kurdistan Alliance, a coalition of politicians from Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region, and a newspaper columnist. His position is nuanced.

“Without a law, we cannot compensate families for losing their sons,” Mr. Rawandozi said. “Some areas are still very dangerous for journalists, but not all the Iraqi areas.”

As a politician, however, he believes the Iraqi press is not advanced enough to police itself on ethics, and favors a law to regulate the profession. “Some people think we need some sort of regulation because we are not exercising freedom of speech in the right way,” he said, mentioning an article that he said misquoted him. “It’s very hard to say that journalists stick with the ethics.”

Iraq’s Constitution protects freedom of opinion and speech, but some Western groups are urging the government to give the media a deeper constitutional imprimatur. A group of press advocacy groups working with Unesco recently published an open letter advocating the passage of a freedom of information law, writing, “We still lack the legal mechanism that guarantees the citizen’s right to have access to information.”

The Iraqi government is wading into the affairs of the news media in other ways, recently establishing a special press court to adjudicate libel offenses and press freedom issues. Western advocates have criticized the court, saying the government has not disclosed enough information about the court’s procedures.

“A specialized press court is hardly the solution to the problems Iraqi journalists face on a daily basis,” Mohamed Abdel Dayem, Middle East director for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a recent statement. “Historically, press courts have been used for restriction rather than protection.”

On Monday afternoon, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia took credit for the bombing at Al Arabiya on a Web site it often uses to communicate, suggesting the attack was in response to a broadcast about the influence of the extremist group. The program was called “Creation of Death.”

“Wait for more,” the group’s statement said.

The capabilities of the group, which is homegrown but is believed to have some foreign leadership, have diminished in recent months with the killing of many top leaders, but it is still able to regularly carry out suicide attacks against institutions of Iraq’s nascent democracy.

Ayad Allawi, the former interim prime minister whose coalition won the most seats in the parliamentary elections, went to the scene of the bombing.

About a month ago the Interior Ministry notified Al Arabiya, whose headquarters are in Dubai, that it had intelligence that the network’s Baghdad office might become a target of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, according to Tariq Maher, a local correspondent for the channel who is a former employee of The New York Times in Baghdad.

The network’s Iraqi staff decamped to the Al-Rasheed Hotel for several weeks, and only in the last couple of days had returned to its office, with a scaled-down staff and added protection from the Interior Ministry, according to Mr. Maher, who was in the building when the explosion occurred. He had been up late working, and he and a colleague had gone to bed for a nap just after 9 a.m. He said a blanket that he pulled over his head saved him from falling debris.

“That is how the miracle happened, why we survived,” he said. “Two guards turned completely to ash.”

By TIM ARANGO

Soldiers inspected the Baghdad office of Al Arabiya, an Arabic news channel, after a bombing Monday in which six people died.

The largest joint military exercise by the United States and South Korea in years is underway in the Sea of Japan.  These war games were called in response to North Korea’s sinking of the South Korean navy ship, Cheonan, an incident that killed 46 sailors in March. 

Throughout the day, on calm seas and under clear skies, F-18 Hornet fighter jets and other aircraft were catapulted from the flight deck of this nuclear-powered carrier.

About 200 aircraft are participating in the four-day drill, known as Invincible Spirit.  Some took part in live fire exercises.  For the first time, an exercise here also includes four of the U.S. Air Force’s most advanced fighters, F-22 Raptors.

In the sea are 20 American and South Korean naval vessels, advancing no closer than 200-kilometers south of the maritime boundary with North Korea in the eastern sea. 

In the Command Direction Center of the aircraft carrier, U.S. Navy Commander Peter Walczak says the exercise is similar to what routinely occurs on the carrier, except for the additional component of cross-training with South Korean forces.   A key component in the drill is detecting enemy submarines and defending against them. 

North Korea’s threat to unleash a nuclear attack in response to the joint war games, Commander Walczak says, is not causing undue alarm for the U.S. 7th Fleet.

“The only extra precaution is that, maybe, were more observant to what is going on in the area.  A little more sensitive to intel reports, what have you.  The ship itself, the airplane flying, the schedule, it is pretty much what we do with standards operations.  Our alert posture is not necessarily any higher than any other time during normal operations,” he said. 

The carrier’s strike group is under the command of Rear Admiral Dan Cloyd.  He calls the current exercise, “purely defensive in nature” and says there’s no reason for North Korea to be provocative.

“Our intent is to improve defense capabilities in areas such as anti-submarine warfare, air defense and anti-surface warfare,” Cloyd said. “Our intent is not to provoke reactions from any nation, be it North Korea, or any other here in the Western Pacific region.”

North Korea denies responsibility for the sinking of the Cheonan in the Yellow Sea on March 26.  The incident has escalated tension on the Korean peninsula, which, on Tuesday, marks the 57th anniversary of the armistice that halted the Korean War.  The two sides have yet to sign a peace treaty.

By Steve Herman

The aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) departs Busan, Republic of Korea, 25 July 2010

The Taliban has captured two US soldiers in eastern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the Islamic insurgents said.

American officials separately confirmed that two US soldiers serving with Nato forces were missing, but did not comment on the Taliban claims.

In the eastern Afghanistan province of Logar, local radio broadcast offers of a $20,000 reward for information that led to the safe release of the pair.

“Early this morning two coalition personnel went missing,” the announcement said. “They are believed to have been captured by insurgents somewhere in Logar province.

“They may have been separated from one another or maybe in the process of being moved to another location.”

A Taliban spokesman said that three servicemen with the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had been captured but one had died. He did not give further details.

The soldiers were tracked and ambushed in a shoot-out by Taliban fighters as they drove through Logar in a four-wheel drive armoured vehicle, according to the account of a local Afghan chief.

He also thought that one of men may have been killed and the other captured.

Samer Gul, district chief of Charkh district in Logar province, said Saturday that the vehicle was seen on Friday night by a guard working for the district chief’s office. The guard tried to flag down the vehicle, carrying a driver and a passenger, but it kept going, Mr Gul said.

”They stopped in the main bazaar of Charkh district. The Taliban saw them in the bazaar,” he said. ”They didn’t touch them in the bazaar, but notified other Taliban that a four-wheel vehicle was coming their way.”

The second group of Taliban tried to stop the vehicle. The insurgents opened fire and the two occupants in the vehicle shot back, he said, adding that one may have been killed and the other taken hostage by the Taliban.

”Maybe they wanted to go to Paktia province or to the American base, but they came down the wrong road toward Charkh,” Mr Gul said. ”They didn’t pay any attention to the police. Otherwise we could have kept them from going into an insecure area and now this unfortunate incident has happened.”

Military officials could not confirm the district chief’s account.

In the radio broadcast one of the missing men was described as about six foot tall and weighing 15st 10lbs with blond hair and brown eyes. The other was described as 13st 8lbs, bald with a thin moustache. Both men have tattoos, the broadcast said.

“Coalition forces are offering $20,000 reward for any information that leads to the successful return of these two,” the statement said, without identifying the men.

A Nato statement said later that two ISAF service members left their compound the previous day in Kabul but did not return. A search is under way for them.

The statement did not identify the pair by nationality but US officials said they were Americans.
There is believed to be only one other ISAF soldier being held by the Taliban, who released a video of him last Christmas.

Meanwhile, five US troops died on Saturday in two separate roadside bombings.The two unnamed US personnel were wearing standard military camouflage, according to the radio report.

By Philip Sherwell

Typhoon Chanthu moved deeper into western China Friday, lashing Guangxi province with high winds and rain before weakening to a tropical storm.

Authorities predicted the storm would bring continued downpours to a region that already is suffering the worst flooding in 10 years.  The official Xinhua news agency said the official toll now is 742 dead and 367 missing after weeks of flooding from storms.

Chanthu was blamed for three deaths, including two killed when 126-kilometer-per-hour winds knocked over a wall in Guangdong province.  In neighboring Hong Kong, officials recovered the body of a man who was swept away late Thursday.

Earlier in Hainan province, authorities suspended all flights in and out, and ordered more than 20,000 fishing boats to return to port and seek shelter.

Xinhua said Chanthu has affected about 1.36 million residents and toppled almost 3,000 houses.  It estimated the economic losses at more than $350 million.

By VOANews

Rescue workers evacuate residents from flooded areas in Jianong town in Leshan in southwest China's Sichuan province, 18 July 2010

A car bomb has exploded in a marketplace near the Iraqi city of Baquba killing at least 15 people and wounding more than 40, police say.

The blast went off near a mosque in the predominantly Shia village of Abu Sayda, about 45 miles (70km) north of the capital, Baghdad.

Police said the latest explosion caused buildings to collapse, and women and children were among those injured.

The Baquba area has suffered several attacks in recent days.

At least six people died in a car bombing on Monday near a restaurant in Baquba, and on Tuesday several Iranian pilgrims were injured in an attack west of the city.

Officials have imposed a curfew in Abu Sayda in case there are more explosive devices planted nearby.

Baquba is the ethnically mixed capital of Diyala province, which has become a bastion of al-Qaeda in Iraq and remains one of the country’s most unstable provinces.

A US soldier was killed on Wednesday as his convoy was hit by a roadside bomb as it drove through Diyala.

Meanwhile, Iraqi politicians have not yet agreed on the formation of a new government more than four months after parliamentary elections.

The BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse, in Baghdad, says there are fears that the longer this political stalemate continues, the easier it will be for insurgents to exploit the power vacuum.

By BBC

There have been a string of attacks in the area lately.

A tropical storm has shifted direction away from Hong Kong and is expected to make landfall in South China early Thursday, adding more weather woes to a region that’s already been deluged, causing suffering to millions.

Tropical Storm Chanthu is forecast to hit China’s Guangdong and Hainin provinces as a severe tropical storm, according to the Hong Kong Observatory.

Chanthu was about 260 miles (420 kilometers) south of Hong Kong Wednesday afternoon and was forecast to move northwest at about 6 mph (10 km/hr), edging closer to the coast. The observatory said the storm has slowed down and is taking more westerly track. The storm is expected to strengthen as landfall approaches.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center said the storm is packing sustained winds of 63 mph, which are expected to grow to nearly 75 mph. The center is operated by the U.S. Navy and Air Force in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

The storm is expected come ashore late early Thursday, local time.
This latest storm comes on the heels of major flooding and landslides across much of the nation with more than 700 people dead and hundreds more missing, China’s vice minister of water resources Liu Ning told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday.

More than 700 dead in Chinese floods

Regions affected include Sichuan province and Shaanxi province. Of particular concern is the massive Three Gorges Dam in Hubei province. With the Yangtze River already running at record levels, engineers have opened up the flood gates.

The Yangtze is fed by three major tributaries, and it flows east, from Sichuan, toward the dam. Water flows near the dam are comparable to record flows during devastating floods in China in 1998.

The Three Gorges, the world’s largest dam, was completed last year. So far, it is holding up.

Xinhua quoted Yuan Jie, director of the dam’s cascade dispatching center, as saying that, “Compared to 1998, the biggest difference is the Three Gorges Dam. Without it, thousands of soldiers and rescuers would have been needed to fight the floods.”

Elsewhere, more than 230,000 people have been evacuated from the city of Guangan in Sichuan, after the worst flooding there in 160 years. There’s no power, no clean water, and the only way around is by boat.

The wild weather also has cut off roads, flattened homes, destroyed power facilities and flooded farmland in Ankang City, the worst-hit area, Xinhua reported. Flood control authorities say the lives of nearly 1.5 million people have been disrupted by flooding in 23 counties and cities in the southern regions of the province.

Other areas that have been inundated include the city of Chongquing, and Anhui and Hunan provinces, according to Xinhua. Altogether, more than 9 million people have been affected by floods and landslides, it said.

According to the observatory website, the outer rain bands of Chanthu may affect Hong Kong overnight and local winds will gradually increase.

The government weather website said that since there will be swells, people are advised to stay away from the shoreline and not engage in water sports. All small vessels, including low-power vessels and fishing vessels in open seas, should seek shelter as soon as possible, the government said.The storm is expected come ashore late early Thursday, local time.

This latest storm comes on the heels of major flooding and landslides across much of the nation with more than 700 people dead and hundreds more missing, China’s vice minister of water resources Liu Ning told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday.

More than 700 dead in Chinese floods

Regions affected include Sichuan province and Shaanxi province. Of particular concern is the massive Three Gorges Dam in Hubei province. With the Yangtze River already running at record levels, engineers have opened up the flood gates.

The Yangtze is fed by three major tributaries, and it flows east, from Sichuan, toward the dam. Water flows near the dam are comparable to record flows during devastating floods in China in 1998.

The Three Gorges, the world’s largest dam, was completed last year. So far, it is holding up.

Xinhua quoted Yuan Jie, director of the dam’s cascade dispatching center, as saying that, “Compared to 1998, the biggest difference is the Three Gorges Dam. Without it, thousands of soldiers and rescuers would have been needed to fight the floods.”

Elsewhere, more than 230,000 people have been evacuated from the city of Guangan in Sichuan, after the worst flooding there in 160 years. There’s no power, no clean water, and the only way around is by boat.

The wild weather also has cut off roads, flattened homes, destroyed power facilities and flooded farmland in Ankang City, the worst-hit area, Xinhua reported. Flood control authorities say the lives of nearly 1.5 million people have been disrupted by flooding in 23 counties and cities in the southern regions of the province.

Other areas that have been inundated include the city of Chongquing, and Anhui and Hunan provinces, according to Xinhua. Altogether, more than 9 million people have been affected by floods and landslides, it said.

According to the observatory website, the outer rain bands of Chanthu may affect Hong Kong overnight and local winds will gradually increase.

The government weather website said that since there will be swells, people are advised to stay away from the shoreline and not engage in water sports. All small vessels, including low-power vessels and fishing vessels in open seas, should seek shelter as soon as possible, the government said.

By the CNN

Residents of Guangan, China, try to salvage what they can from their devastated homes Tuesday, July 20. A 10 square kilometer area of Guangan was inundated by waters of the Qu River, which ran through the old part of the city, bringing debris and mud. The death toll has risen past 30 as a result of floods and landslides, says the state-run Xinhua news agency.

South Korea —The United States and South Korea announced on Tuesday that a series of large-scale military exercises would begin next week in the waters off Japan and Korea as a show of force and “first step” in trying to deter North Korea from acts of aggression in the region.

The exercises, to be conducted from Sunday to Wednesday, are to include an American aircraft carrier, the George Washington, as well as some 20 ships and submarines, 100 aircraft and 8,000 men and women from the American and Korean armed services.

Adm. Robert F. Willard, the commander of the United States Pacific Command, acknowledged to reporters in Seoul that there was no guarantee that the show of force would stop North Korea from repeating what an international investigation concluded was the sinking of South Korean warship, the Cheonan, in March, which killed 46 sailors.

But he said that “the choice that our respective commanders in chief have made is a show of force is a first step in deterring North Korea from doing this again.”

Later exercises are to be conducted in the Yellow Sea, which is on the other side of the Korean Peninsula, but Admiral Willard and American defense officials would not say whether they would include the George Washington, a nuclear-powered, Nimitz-class aircraft carrier that is one of the largest warships in the world. China has objected that the exercises will be too close to its coastal area on the Yellow Sea and therefore a form of intimidation, but Admiral Willard dismissed the Chinese reaction.

Asked if he was concerned, Admiral Willard replied: “No, I’m not concerned. If I have a concern vis-a-vis China, it is that China exert itself to influence Pyongyang so that incidents like the Cheonan don’t happen in the future.”

China, which is North Korea’s most important ally and biggest trading partner, has so far not embraced the conclusion of the investigation that North Korea was responsible for the attack.

The United States and South Korea made the announcement about the exercises after Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates met with South Korean’s defense minister, Kim Tae-young, on Tuesday afternoon.

“This exercise will demonstrate the resolute will and capabilities of both the South Korean and U.S. militaries,” said Gen. Han Min-koo, chairman of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a statement released by the South Korean military. “Based on our defense readiness, we will instantly retaliate against any provocation from now on and wrap up our operation at the scene of the provocation.”

The exercises will also include antisubmarine warfare techniques and the interdiction of cargo vessels carrying prohibited nuclear materials and banned weapons. The Cheonan went down, South Korean investigators say, when North Korea fired a torpedo from a midget submarine, which split the Cheonan apart.

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates spoke to American soldiers on Tuesday during a stop at Camp Casey, north of Seoul, South Korea.