15 die as Syrians march demanding Assad's ouster
BEIRUT – Defying government guns, thousands of Syrian protesters poured down city streets and a main highway Friday to press demands for President Bashar Assad's ouster. Security forces opened fire, killing at least 15 people, including two children, activists said.
"Our revolution is strong! Assad has lost legitimacy!" a YouTube video showed protesters chanting in Zabadani, a suburb of Damascus, the Syrian capital.
Syria's streets have become the stage for a test of endurance between a 3-month-old pro-democracy movement, bloodied but resilient, and an iron-fisted but embattled regime. The latest round of protests and killings came as international pressure mounted on Assad.
"We will not stand by while the Syrian regime uses violent repression to silence its own people," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said after the European Union expanded sanctions — asset freezes and travel bans — to more members of the Syrian leadership.
The Syrian opposition says 1,400 people have been killed as the government has cracked down on a movement demanding an end to four decades of Assad family rule — a popular uprising renewed each Friday after weekly Muslim prayers.
Five people were killed by security forces' gunfire this Friday in Barzeh, a Damascus district 3 miles (5 kilometers) from the city center, said the Local Coordination Committees, which track the protests. But Syrian state television offered another version, saying gunmen, otherwise unidentified, had opened fire on security personnel and civilians, killing three civilians and wounding several security force members.
Five other fatalities occurred in al-Kasweh, a suburb of the capital; four in the central city of Homs, and one in Hama, also in central Syria, said the Local Coordination Committees (LCC). Protests in several other provinces also came under fire but it was not immediately clear whether there were casualties, said LCC spokesman Omar Idilbi.
The group said the deaths included a 12-year-old boy, Rateb al-Orabi, killed when security forces fired on protesters in the Shammas neighborhood in Homs, and a 13-year old boy in al-Kasweh. The reports could not be independently verified.
In northern Syria, activists said at least 15,000 people staged a protest along the highway linking the country's two main cities, Damascus and Aleppo. Thousands marched in Amouda and Qamishli in the northeast and in other provinces, said Syria-based human rights activist Mustafa Osso.
Osso and the LCC both reported a few soldiers defected in al-Kasweh after security forces shot at protesters, resulting in a shootout between loyal soldiers and defectors. Syrian TV swiftly denied the mutiny report, saying the army wasn't even inside al-Kasweh Friday.
The report from Osso, which he said came from protesters and other area residents, could not be independently verified.
In Hama, activists said, a massive protest took place in the city's main Assi square. Online footage showed huge numbers of people gathered, many waving Syrian flags and crying for the regime's downfall. A large purple banner was unfurled over a building, reading: "Long live free Syria, down with Bashar Assad."
The video and other reports from inside Syria could not otherwise be confirmed, since the Damascus government has banned all but a few foreign journalists and restricted local media's reporting.
In a speech last Monday, Assad said the disruptive protests threatened to damage the Syrian economy. For now, he can count on the support of Syria's small but growing middle class, which has seen life gradually improve since he began opening up the economy. But if the economy crumbles, Assad could find his main base of support eroding swiftly.
"The economic problems Syria is facing are a direct and predictable consequence of the Syrian authorities' decision to chose repression over reform," Britain's Hague said.
The military's recent sweep through northwestern Syria, where armed resistance flared in early June, has sent more than 11,000 refugees fleeing across the border to refugee camps in Turkey.
Osso said those who did not flee on Thursday, as Syrian troops advanced right to the Turkish border, were arrested — some 100 over the past two days.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters Friday he had conveyed Turkey's "concerns and thoughts" about the border-area military operation in a telephone conversation with his Syrian counterpart on Thursday.
He said he would continue to talk to Syrian officials to ensure that "reforms and peace are brought about as soon as possible."
"We hope that Syria is successful in renewing itself in a stable manner and comes out of the situation stronger. We will do all that we can to help," he said.
Oprah receives South African honorary doctorate
BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa – Oprah Winfrey accepted an honorary degree from a central South African university infamous for troubled race relations, saying Friday the institution had turned an ugly experience into a model for confronting the challenges of reconciliation and remorse.
Winfrey came to a school where five years ago, four white students made a video humiliating black housekeeping staff — they are shown eating a stew the students had mimed spiking with urine — and expressing opposition to integrating the historically white University of the Free State. Jonathan Jansen, who in 2009 became the university's first black rector, called for the four to be forgiven and rehabilitated.
Jansen withstood accusations he was conceding too much to racists as he led the university, the students and the cleaners in a closely watched discussion of the role forgiveness could play in post-apartheid South Africa. In a campus ceremony earlier this year, the students' public apology was accepted by the cleaners.
After receiving her honorary education doctorate Friday, Winfrey called five cleaners to the stage and pronounced them heroes.
"What has happened here at Free State in terms of racial reconciliation, of peace, of harmony, of one heart understanding and opening itself to another heart is nothing short of a miracle," she said. "It is truly what the new South Africa is all about."
Winfrey said she had approached Jansen after reading about his work, and accepted an invitation to come to speak to students. University officials decided to make it a grand event.
A roar from hundreds of people gathered outside first alerted those inside the university auditorium that Winfrey was about to enter for a ceremony for one that offered as much pomp, circumstance, song and dance as a full class's graduation. She threw her arms out with joy when told she was now a member of the university family — a "Kovsie." Other moments moved her to tears.
She kneeled on a padded stool to have her degree bestowed, flashing red stiletto heels to the cheering audience of all races.
The event brought international media to normally quiet Bloemfontein, the farming center where the century-old, 31,000-student university is based.
Susan Mshumpela, a 37-year-old Bloemfontein native, came to the ceremony proudly dressed in the black robes she wore when she accepted her MBA from Free State last year. Mshumpela, operations manager for an agency that helps small businesses, said she hoped Winfrey's visit would give her alma mater a chance to tell the world about its strengths.
"The eyes of the world are here," she said. "I don't think a person of her stature could just accept an honorary degree from just any university. She would want to be associated with a university of stature."
Nadipha Jacobs, a black student, says the university is growing more tolerant.
"In many ways, I feel the university and its people have grown," said Jacobs, who started as an undergraduate in 1996 and now is a graduate student specializing in development studies.
Chantell De Reuck, a white graduate student strolling across campus Friday with her friend Jacobs, said the divides that are healing weren't just along racial lines. When she arrived as an undergraduate in 1999, she was among only six English-speaking students in a dorm dominated by Afrikaners, descendants of early Dutch settlers who speak Afrikaans. The English students stuck together then. Not now, De Reuck said.
De Reuck said black and white students at the university can connect to Winfrey's personal story of early years of struggle and abuse, and find inspiration in her current success.
A 4,500-seat auditorium was full for Winfrey's ceremony. Tickets were sold for 10 rand (about $1), most of that covering computer sales processing fees. Local reporters said hawkers selling fake tickets on Bloemfontein streets didn't increase the price. University officials warned those with fake tickets would not be admitted.
Winfrey is a frequent visitor to South Africa, where she opened a school in 2007 dedicated to giving bright young women of all races opportunities in a society where they are handicapped by conservative traditions as well as the poor schools that are a legacy of apartheid.
Her school's first class just graduated, overcoming early setbacks that included a scandal over a dormitory supervisor accused of trying to kiss and fondle students. The supervisor was acquitted of sexual assault charges last year.
In a passage that drew cheers from the audience Friday, the citation accompanying Winfrey's honorary doctorate, the 152nd awarded by the university, said Winfrey "has truly become a South African.
"She did so because she believed that there was important work to be done here, and she wanted to be part of what Nelson Mandela and others had begun."
Previous recipients of Free State honorary degrees include anti-apartheid icons Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Winfrey's visit overlapped with that of another famous Chicagoan — Michelle Obama, wife of the U.S. president. The two had dinner together on Tuesday in Johannesburg.
Explosion kills 3 security personnel in Yemen
SANAA, Yemen – A large explosion shook the southern Yemeni port city of Aden on Friday, killing three security personnel, as anti-government demonstrators there and in other cities demanded the ouster of the country's autocratic leader of nearly 33 years.
The blast, in Aden's free-trade zone, was heard throughout the city, but its cause was unknown. It blew out the glass facade of a four-story building. Besides the three killed, three others were injured, said a medical and a security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.
Residents of Aden say military forces loyal to embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh recently removed checkpoints at the city's entrances and withdrew, raising fears that Islamic militants who seized two nearby towns after government forces carried out a similar pullback could attempt a takeover of the strategic port city.
Months of political turmoil in Yemen have raised fears, perhaps most acutely in the U.S., that Yemen's al-Qaida franchise could end up with more room to operate freely and plot attacks on the West from its redoubts in the country's remote and mountainous hinterlands.
The U.S. says al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is now the terror network's most active branch. It has been linked to several nearly successful attacks on U.S. targets, including the plot to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner in December 2009 with a bomb sewn into the underwear of a would-be suicide attacker. The group also put sophisticated bombs into U.S.-addressed parcels that made it onto cargo flights last year but were caught before they exploded.
Yemen's political crisis began in February with protests by largely peaceful crowds calling for Saleh to end his rule over the impoverished country on the southern edge of Arabia. A government crackdown on unarmed protesters has killed at least 167 people, according to Human Rights Watch.
The president is clinging to power despite the daily protests and an attack on his palace this month that badly wounded him and forced him to fly to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment.
Over the past weeks, Islamic militants, some of whom are al-Qaida-linked, have taken advantage of the strife to overrun the southern towns of Jaar and Zinjibar, which are not far from Aden. This week, nearly 60 al-Qaida suspects broke out of a prison in Yemen.
On Friday, residents of Aden spoke of worries that militants could reach their city after the sudden disappearance of tank and artillery units from the entrances of the city. Police are also absent, they say.
In the earlier takeovers of Jaar and Zinjibar, smaller towns to the east of Aden, security forces also disappeared, raising accusations that President Saleh allowed the militant takeover to bolster his claims that without him in power, al-Qaida would seize control of the country.
Saleh's opponents have dismissed his warnings as overblown. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has an estimated 300 hard-core members, and is not seen as capable of seizing control on a wide scale.
The United States, with the agreement of Saleh loyalists, has carried out expanded strikes against al-Qaida targets in Yemen with armed drones and warplanes in recent weeks.
Adeeb Salam, a resident of Aden, said the city's entrances are not protected. "There were three checkpoints with guards on tanks, but now we see none," he said.
Residents in some districts have started to form popular committees to try to fill the security vacuum, according to Shaher Mohammed Said, an activist and city resident.
"We have been hearing that militants have made it through to Aden, which makes us worried about our city," he said.
The only visible security forces in Aden on Friday were those confronting tens of thousand of anti-government protesters who took the streets during a funeral procession for a young man beaten to death in police custody.
Forces backed by tanks fired to disperse the crowds, killing at least one person, a medical official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.
The man who was buried, 25-year-old Ahmed Darwish, was arrested in a mass roundup by security forces last year, before the start of this year's political crisis, which spun off from the other uprisings sweeping the Arab world.
A forensics report published by rights groups found that Darwish was tortured to death in June of last year, and his family had refused to bury him until an investigation was concluded. A court ruling on Sunday found three policemen guilty in his killing and determined that Darwish died of beatings with metal objects, said his brother, Anwar. The policemen have not been sentenced.
To the north of the capital on Friday, Republican Guard forces fired missiles at the town of Arhab, killing one resident and injuring 13 others, said resident Mohammed Ghaylan. Three homes were destroyed, he said.
Residents there have supported the anti-government protesters.
The blast, in Aden's free-trade zone, was heard throughout the city, but its cause was unknown. It blew out the glass facade of a four-story building. Besides the three killed, three others were injured, said a medical and a security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.
Residents of Aden say military forces loyal to embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh recently removed checkpoints at the city's entrances and withdrew, raising fears that Islamic militants who seized two nearby towns after government forces carried out a similar pullback could attempt a takeover of the strategic port city.
Months of political turmoil in Yemen have raised fears, perhaps most acutely in the U.S., that Yemen's al-Qaida franchise could end up with more room to operate freely and plot attacks on the West from its redoubts in the country's remote and mountainous hinterlands.
The U.S. says al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is now the terror network's most active branch. It has been linked to several nearly successful attacks on U.S. targets, including the plot to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner in December 2009 with a bomb sewn into the underwear of a would-be suicide attacker. The group also put sophisticated bombs into U.S.-addressed parcels that made it onto cargo flights last year but were caught before they exploded.
Yemen's political crisis began in February with protests by largely peaceful crowds calling for Saleh to end his rule over the impoverished country on the southern edge of Arabia. A government crackdown on unarmed protesters has killed at least 167 people, according to Human Rights Watch.
The president is clinging to power despite the daily protests and an attack on his palace this month that badly wounded him and forced him to fly to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment.
Over the past weeks, Islamic militants, some of whom are al-Qaida-linked, have taken advantage of the strife to overrun the southern towns of Jaar and Zinjibar, which are not far from Aden. This week, nearly 60 al-Qaida suspects broke out of a prison in Yemen.
On Friday, residents of Aden spoke of worries that militants could reach their city after the sudden disappearance of tank and artillery units from the entrances of the city. Police are also absent, they say.
In the earlier takeovers of Jaar and Zinjibar, smaller towns to the east of Aden, security forces also disappeared, raising accusations that President Saleh allowed the militant takeover to bolster his claims that without him in power, al-Qaida would seize control of the country.
Saleh's opponents have dismissed his warnings as overblown. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has an estimated 300 hard-core members, and is not seen as capable of seizing control on a wide scale.
The United States, with the agreement of Saleh loyalists, has carried out expanded strikes against al-Qaida targets in Yemen with armed drones and warplanes in recent weeks.
Adeeb Salam, a resident of Aden, said the city's entrances are not protected. "There were three checkpoints with guards on tanks, but now we see none," he said.
Residents in some districts have started to form popular committees to try to fill the security vacuum, according to Shaher Mohammed Said, an activist and city resident.
"We have been hearing that militants have made it through to Aden, which makes us worried about our city," he said.
The only visible security forces in Aden on Friday were those confronting tens of thousand of anti-government protesters who took the streets during a funeral procession for a young man beaten to death in police custody.
Forces backed by tanks fired to disperse the crowds, killing at least one person, a medical official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.
The man who was buried, 25-year-old Ahmed Darwish, was arrested in a mass roundup by security forces last year, before the start of this year's political crisis, which spun off from the other uprisings sweeping the Arab world.
A forensics report published by rights groups found that Darwish was tortured to death in June of last year, and his family had refused to bury him until an investigation was concluded. A court ruling on Sunday found three policemen guilty in his killing and determined that Darwish died of beatings with metal objects, said his brother, Anwar. The policemen have not been sentenced.
To the north of the capital on Friday, Republican Guard forces fired missiles at the town of Arhab, killing one resident and injuring 13 others, said resident Mohammed Ghaylan. Three homes were destroyed, he said.
Residents there have supported the anti-government protesters.
Jerry Lewis cancels Australia show due to health
SYDNEY – Jerry Lewis canceled a show here Friday due to poor health, according to officials with the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation Australia.
The actor and comedian was hospitalized in Australia, but administrative assistant Violet Ostrowski at Lewis' film company in Las Vegas said the company had not received any updates on his condition.
The Muscular Dystrophy Foundation Australia said the comedian's show was sold out.
Foundation CEO David Jack apologized in a statement, saying the 85-year-old was "not well enough to take the stage." It didn't give details.
The Muscular Dystrophy Foundation in Australia is separate from the American association where Lewis serves as national chairman.
Lewis was touring the country to raise funds for the Australian foundation. The statement said he arrived in Australia on Monday and had performed Wednesday in Brisbane.
In recent years, Lewis has battled a debilitating back condition, heart issues and pulmonary fibrosis.
Lewis is the longtime chairman of the U.S. Muscular Dystrophy Association. He announced last month he was retiring as host of the Labor Day telethon that is synonymous with him.
Ukraine's ex-PM faces abuse-of-office trial
KIEV, Ukraine – Former Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko went on trial Friday on charges of abuse of office, insisting during a chaotic hearing in a small and stiflingly hot courtroom that the case is a plot by the nation's president to keep her out of politics.
Tymoshenko, 50, clad in a beige suit with her signature blond braid wrapped around her head, said President Viktor Yanukovych is seeking to bar her from upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections as a convicted felon.
But the 2004 Orange Revolution heroine, now the country's top opposition leader, said she would not be quiet: "My voice will be even louder from prison because the whole world will hear me."
Confusion reigned in the crammed, poorly air-conditioned courtroom. Tymoshenko's supporters continuously disrupted proceedings, ignoring the judge's demand to respect the court.
They shouted "Shame, shame!" through a loudspeaker, and insulted the court and authorities, including calling one of the prosecutors a witch. One supporter used water to twice douse a pro-government lawmaker, a fierce opponent of Tymoshenko who came to support the prosecution, then insisted it was an accident. Tymoshenko's supporters also scuffled briefly with a small group of Tymoshenko's opponents who were forced out of the room.
More than 100 journalists, supporters and opponents packed the hall in Kiev's Pechersk district court. Most attendees had to climb on top of narrow wooden benches to see and hear the proceedings and took turns standing near a window for fresh air. Sweat dripped from Judge Rodion Kireyev's face and his hair was wet.
Tymoshenko's lawyer, Serhyi Vlasov, pleaded with the court for a short break to change into a new shirt because his was soaking wet. A young woman in the courtroom briefly fainted and was escorted out.
The United States and the European Union have condemned the cases against Tymoshenko and a number of her top allies as selective prosecution of political opponents.
Jose Manuel Pinton Teixeira, the EU's ambassador to Ukraine, who attended the trial together with a group of other foreign diplomats, said the conditions in the courtroom were horrendous. "I cannot give a political assessment of this case, but the conditions of this trial are inhumane," Teixeira told reporters as he headed out.
Tymoshenko has been charged with abuse of office for signing a deal with Moscow in 2009 to buy Russian natural gas at prices investigators said were too high and without authorization to sign the deal by the members of her Cabinet. Prosecutors say her actions have cost the government 3.5 billion hryvnas ($440 million or euro310 million) in damages.
Tymoshenko denies the charges, saying that she didn't need such permission as the premier and that the deal ended a bitter pricing war with Moscow that led to disruptions in natural gas supply across Europe.
Tymoshenko, who carried an Orthodox Christian icon and a prayer book into the courtroom, refused to stand up when addressing the judge, as required, saying the court was not worthy of her respect.
"I declare you a puppet of the presidential office," Tymoshenko told the judge. "You don't have the right to consider this case. You are fully integrated into a system of political repression directed by authorities."
Tymoshenko was the central figure in the 2004 mass protests dubbed the Orange Revolution that threw out Yanukovych's fraud-tainted presidential election victory and brought a pro-Western government to power. She became prime minister but Ukrainians grew frustrated over economic hardships, slow reforms and endless bickering in the Orange camp and she lost to Kremlin-friendly Yanukovych in the 2010 presidential election.
Many Tymoshenko allies also have faced official charges recently, which she describes as part of the government's efforts to weaken the opposition.
Her former economics minister, who faced corruption allegations over the reconstruction of Kiev's airport, was granted political asylum in the Czech Republic in January. The former interior minister has been in jail for six months on charges that he defrauded the government when he hired a driver who was too old and paid him illegal bonuses.
David J. Kramer, executive director of the Washington-based democracy watchdog Freedom House, said the case against Tymoshenko "suggests more an effort by the Prosecutor General's office to find something, anything to go after her."
"They don't seem to be taking ... as aggressive an approach to others, including current government officials," he told The Associated Press.
Few think that Tymoshenko could be sentenced to prison, but observers say a suspended sentence would also keep her out of the next year's parliamentary elections and the 2015 presidential vote.
"I think that it is aimed to make politics devoid of competition, as Yanukovych wants, to liquidate the opposition, to liquidate any dissent," Tymoshenko told reporters during a break in the court session.
The court rejected several motions by Tymoshenko's defense team, including to dismiss the judge and send the case back to the prosecutors. Tymoshenko also requested to be tried by a jury; the court has yet to rule on that plea.
The trial will continue Saturday.
Tymoshenko, 50, clad in a beige suit with her signature blond braid wrapped around her head, said President Viktor Yanukovych is seeking to bar her from upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections as a convicted felon.
But the 2004 Orange Revolution heroine, now the country's top opposition leader, said she would not be quiet: "My voice will be even louder from prison because the whole world will hear me."
Confusion reigned in the crammed, poorly air-conditioned courtroom. Tymoshenko's supporters continuously disrupted proceedings, ignoring the judge's demand to respect the court.
They shouted "Shame, shame!" through a loudspeaker, and insulted the court and authorities, including calling one of the prosecutors a witch. One supporter used water to twice douse a pro-government lawmaker, a fierce opponent of Tymoshenko who came to support the prosecution, then insisted it was an accident. Tymoshenko's supporters also scuffled briefly with a small group of Tymoshenko's opponents who were forced out of the room.
More than 100 journalists, supporters and opponents packed the hall in Kiev's Pechersk district court. Most attendees had to climb on top of narrow wooden benches to see and hear the proceedings and took turns standing near a window for fresh air. Sweat dripped from Judge Rodion Kireyev's face and his hair was wet.
Tymoshenko's lawyer, Serhyi Vlasov, pleaded with the court for a short break to change into a new shirt because his was soaking wet. A young woman in the courtroom briefly fainted and was escorted out.
The United States and the European Union have condemned the cases against Tymoshenko and a number of her top allies as selective prosecution of political opponents.
Jose Manuel Pinton Teixeira, the EU's ambassador to Ukraine, who attended the trial together with a group of other foreign diplomats, said the conditions in the courtroom were horrendous. "I cannot give a political assessment of this case, but the conditions of this trial are inhumane," Teixeira told reporters as he headed out.
Tymoshenko has been charged with abuse of office for signing a deal with Moscow in 2009 to buy Russian natural gas at prices investigators said were too high and without authorization to sign the deal by the members of her Cabinet. Prosecutors say her actions have cost the government 3.5 billion hryvnas ($440 million or euro310 million) in damages.
Tymoshenko denies the charges, saying that she didn't need such permission as the premier and that the deal ended a bitter pricing war with Moscow that led to disruptions in natural gas supply across Europe.
Tymoshenko, who carried an Orthodox Christian icon and a prayer book into the courtroom, refused to stand up when addressing the judge, as required, saying the court was not worthy of her respect.
"I declare you a puppet of the presidential office," Tymoshenko told the judge. "You don't have the right to consider this case. You are fully integrated into a system of political repression directed by authorities."
Tymoshenko was the central figure in the 2004 mass protests dubbed the Orange Revolution that threw out Yanukovych's fraud-tainted presidential election victory and brought a pro-Western government to power. She became prime minister but Ukrainians grew frustrated over economic hardships, slow reforms and endless bickering in the Orange camp and she lost to Kremlin-friendly Yanukovych in the 2010 presidential election.
Many Tymoshenko allies also have faced official charges recently, which she describes as part of the government's efforts to weaken the opposition.
Her former economics minister, who faced corruption allegations over the reconstruction of Kiev's airport, was granted political asylum in the Czech Republic in January. The former interior minister has been in jail for six months on charges that he defrauded the government when he hired a driver who was too old and paid him illegal bonuses.
David J. Kramer, executive director of the Washington-based democracy watchdog Freedom House, said the case against Tymoshenko "suggests more an effort by the Prosecutor General's office to find something, anything to go after her."
"They don't seem to be taking ... as aggressive an approach to others, including current government officials," he told The Associated Press.
Few think that Tymoshenko could be sentenced to prison, but observers say a suspended sentence would also keep her out of the next year's parliamentary elections and the 2015 presidential vote.
"I think that it is aimed to make politics devoid of competition, as Yanukovych wants, to liquidate the opposition, to liquidate any dissent," Tymoshenko told reporters during a break in the court session.
The court rejected several motions by Tymoshenko's defense team, including to dismiss the judge and send the case back to the prosecutors. Tymoshenko also requested to be tried by a jury; the court has yet to rule on that plea.
The trial will continue Saturday.
Hard-line Sunni voice gains audience in Bahrain
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – A visit by Bahrain's king to Sunni supporters this week was also something of a royal blessing for a rising political star: an Islamic scholar who claims the Gulf kingdom is under threat from both foe Iran and ally America.
Once consigned to the fringes, Sunni hard-liners like Abdullatif al-Mahmood are suddenly gaining a receptive audience amid a government crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.
It's another sign of Bahrain's deeply polarized atmosphere as the kingdom's Sunni rulers try to open talks with the Shiite opposition after violence that has left 31 people dead since February.
Al-Mahmood's group appears to be tapping into deep-rooted fears over Shiite giant Iran and growing questions about commitment from Washington, which bases the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet in Bahrain.
"We won't compromise on the safety of our nation," al-Mahmood said during the Tuesday visit by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.
It was a clear slap at Iran, who Bahrain's leaders and Gulf Arab allies accuse of stirring the Shiite-led demonstrations in Bahrain. He also rejected calls by some U.S. officials to cut Bahrain's special trade status following the clampdown on dissent.
"Crises don't scare us," said the king as al-Mahmood stood nearby.
Bahrain's Shiites account for about 70 percent of the island, but they have few allies in high places. They claim the Sunni ruling system is built to block Shiites from any key positions in government or security forces.
The Sunni monarchy's Western backers, led by the U.S., have denounced the unrest and harsh crackdowns. On Wednesday, eight Shiite activists were sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the unrest and next week more than 30 doctors and nurses accused of supporting the protests are due to go on trial.
But Washington and others still have not followed up with any tangible punishments against Bahrain's rulers.
At the same time, Bahrain has pushed a narrative that splits the nation into patriots or traitors. "Loyalty" books and website have been set up to publicly support the monarchy, and anyone challenging the system is branded a potential enemy of the state by official media.
This is where al-Mahmood and other Sunni hard-liners have found a new voice in Bahrain's political affairs.
Al-Mahmood's ultra-nationalist Sunni bloc failed to win parliament seats in elections last year. Now the Bahrain University lecturer is drawing new attention as he accuses Iran and Lebanese-based Hezbollah of meddling in Bahrain.
"This is a well-known fact that Iran has a project to expand its influence all over the region and dominate the Arab world," he told The Associated Press. "This is their ideology."
Washington would have few objections to that point of view. But al-Mahmood also comes down hard against the U.S., saying that American criticism of Bahrain has "made us suspicious that they also have a hand in the recent crisis."
In an interview in April with an Islamic-oriented Malaysian website, al-akham.net, al-Mahmood portrayed many Shiites as fundamentally unable to support a Sunni-ruled state.
"How can you trust them when they put up pictures of (Iranian Revolution founder Ruhollah) Khomeini ... How can the state trust them?" he was quoted as saying.
He went further, however, to claim that the U.S. is somehow supporting Iran to create a "vast Shiite state" in the Gulf and Iraq.
"The truth is there is no hostility between Iran and the U.S.," he told the website. "There are mutual interests and roles between the two."
Such claims are light-years outside the standard policy views. They do, however, shed some light on the extreme outlooks among some of those who have gained favor with Bahrain's rulers since the uprising began.
In April, Bahrain's prime minister praised al-Mahmood's National Unity Gathering group as a symbol of "everything pertaining to the nation's interest and future."
Opposition groups consider the organization a haven for hard-liners. A message on a pro-reform website called al-Mahmood the "latest weapon against the pro-democracy movement."
Officials appear to sense the Shiite unhappiness with al-Mahmood's comments. The prime minister — who praised al-Mahmood's group two months ago — requested it cancel a march last week.
On Friday, Bahrain's most senior Shiite cleric, Sheik Isa Qassim, cast doubt on the chances for talks with the government and Sunni groups — including the National Unity Gathering — that are scheduled to begin July 1.
"This is no environment for a political solution when people are suffering," he told worshippers. "We cannot see a meaningful and truthful dialogue."
Al-Mahmood declined to say whether his group would support opposition demands to weaken the Sunni leaders' hold on power.
"Everything will be addressed at the discussion table," he said.
Once consigned to the fringes, Sunni hard-liners like Abdullatif al-Mahmood are suddenly gaining a receptive audience amid a government crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.
It's another sign of Bahrain's deeply polarized atmosphere as the kingdom's Sunni rulers try to open talks with the Shiite opposition after violence that has left 31 people dead since February.
Al-Mahmood's group appears to be tapping into deep-rooted fears over Shiite giant Iran and growing questions about commitment from Washington, which bases the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet in Bahrain.
"We won't compromise on the safety of our nation," al-Mahmood said during the Tuesday visit by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.
It was a clear slap at Iran, who Bahrain's leaders and Gulf Arab allies accuse of stirring the Shiite-led demonstrations in Bahrain. He also rejected calls by some U.S. officials to cut Bahrain's special trade status following the clampdown on dissent.
"Crises don't scare us," said the king as al-Mahmood stood nearby.
Bahrain's Shiites account for about 70 percent of the island, but they have few allies in high places. They claim the Sunni ruling system is built to block Shiites from any key positions in government or security forces.
The Sunni monarchy's Western backers, led by the U.S., have denounced the unrest and harsh crackdowns. On Wednesday, eight Shiite activists were sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the unrest and next week more than 30 doctors and nurses accused of supporting the protests are due to go on trial.
But Washington and others still have not followed up with any tangible punishments against Bahrain's rulers.
At the same time, Bahrain has pushed a narrative that splits the nation into patriots or traitors. "Loyalty" books and website have been set up to publicly support the monarchy, and anyone challenging the system is branded a potential enemy of the state by official media.
This is where al-Mahmood and other Sunni hard-liners have found a new voice in Bahrain's political affairs.
Al-Mahmood's ultra-nationalist Sunni bloc failed to win parliament seats in elections last year. Now the Bahrain University lecturer is drawing new attention as he accuses Iran and Lebanese-based Hezbollah of meddling in Bahrain.
"This is a well-known fact that Iran has a project to expand its influence all over the region and dominate the Arab world," he told The Associated Press. "This is their ideology."
Washington would have few objections to that point of view. But al-Mahmood also comes down hard against the U.S., saying that American criticism of Bahrain has "made us suspicious that they also have a hand in the recent crisis."
In an interview in April with an Islamic-oriented Malaysian website, al-akham.net, al-Mahmood portrayed many Shiites as fundamentally unable to support a Sunni-ruled state.
"How can you trust them when they put up pictures of (Iranian Revolution founder Ruhollah) Khomeini ... How can the state trust them?" he was quoted as saying.
He went further, however, to claim that the U.S. is somehow supporting Iran to create a "vast Shiite state" in the Gulf and Iraq.
"The truth is there is no hostility between Iran and the U.S.," he told the website. "There are mutual interests and roles between the two."
Such claims are light-years outside the standard policy views. They do, however, shed some light on the extreme outlooks among some of those who have gained favor with Bahrain's rulers since the uprising began.
In April, Bahrain's prime minister praised al-Mahmood's National Unity Gathering group as a symbol of "everything pertaining to the nation's interest and future."
Opposition groups consider the organization a haven for hard-liners. A message on a pro-reform website called al-Mahmood the "latest weapon against the pro-democracy movement."
Officials appear to sense the Shiite unhappiness with al-Mahmood's comments. The prime minister — who praised al-Mahmood's group two months ago — requested it cancel a march last week.
On Friday, Bahrain's most senior Shiite cleric, Sheik Isa Qassim, cast doubt on the chances for talks with the government and Sunni groups — including the National Unity Gathering — that are scheduled to begin July 1.
"This is no environment for a political solution when people are suffering," he told worshippers. "We cannot see a meaningful and truthful dialogue."
Al-Mahmood declined to say whether his group would support opposition demands to weaken the Sunni leaders' hold on power.
"Everything will be addressed at the discussion table," he said.
PETA urges pope to say no to leather in popemobile
ROME – An animal rights group has urged Pope Benedict XVI to "truly go green" and insist that the next popemobile is made without leather.
PETA said it has written to the pope with the request following the Vatican's confirmation Wednesday that Germany's Mercedes-Benz auto company is making a study of a hybrid, energy-saving popemobile. The car would replace the current Mercedes vehicle used when the pope travels abroad.
PETA spokeswoman Ashley Gonzalez says leather production is not only "toxic to the environment, it's also hell for cows."
The letter, which is dated June, 22 and also sent to The Associated Press, said PETA counts many Catholics among its members and suggested that a leather-free car could "help the environment and prevent animal suffering."
The Vatican press office said Friday it hadn't seen the letter and couldn't comment.
Benedict has made conserving resources an important concern of his papacy. Vatican officials say a green popemobile would be a sign of his efforts to promote sustainable energy and take care of the planet.
When he is outside the Vatican, Benedict usually rides in a modified white Mercedes-Benz outfitted with bulletproof windows. It has room for two passengers in addition to the pope, who sits on an elevated chair to wave to crowds.
Through the years, a number of different models have been donated to the Vatican.
Haitians hunker down in 'transitional' shelters
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – On a recent night in Carrefour, a densely packed city of twisted streets outside the Haitian capital, a band of thieves surrounded Roseline Sylvain's home and slashed the plastic sheet that is the simple structure's only wall.
The men made off with a lamp, not a huge loss, but significant enough for Sylvain and her family. She's mad at the thieves, of course, but more frustrated that she doesn't have real walls seven months after moving into what aid groups billed as a transitional shelter for earthquake victims.
The structure is one of hundreds of wooden frames with steel or plywood roofs that foreign aid groups erected as a temporary fix for people displaced by the January 2010 earthquake, a way station between squalid tent camps and the new homes that would one day be built for the displaced.
But with the reconstruction effort stalled, tens of thousands of quake survivors throughout the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince and its outskirts are resigning themselves to staying in the flimsy shelters for the long haul, even though most of the structures are hardly adequate to withstand an unforgiving Caribbean storm season.
"It's like being right back in a tent," the 28-year-old Sylvain said of her shelter, a one-room structure on a concrete slab that she, her husband, and two children rent from a local landowner for $63 every six months. "The rain comes down the hills and into the shelter."
Her neighbor, Marie Micheline Ridore, 35, piled dirt at the base of her shelter to stave off water rushing down the hillside. She also plugged a tennis ball-sized hole in the wall with a wad of plastic.
What Haitians need are inhabitable homes. That they still don't have them is due to factors ranging from the government's failure to secure land for housing and lay out a workable plan to clear rubble to a delayed election.
President Michel Martelly, who took office May 14, said his government aims to build 400 homes in his first 100 days of office, a goal he is unlikely to meet given that he still hasn't even won legislative approval for his Cabinet nominees. Lawmakers on Tuesday rejected his pick for prime minister, meaning he'll have to pick a new nominee, a vetting process that could take weeks and postpone reconstruction further.
At least 40 builders have shipped a dozen model homes to Haiti at their own expense in the hopes that aid agencies, the Haitian government or the private sector will eventually purchase them in bulk.
Martelly and former U.S. President Bill Clinton, co-chair of a reconstruction panel and the U.N.'s special envoy to Haiti, recently walked through some of the homes, which run the gamut from a military bunker replica to an eco-friendly two-room structure.
"We're hoping for the right guy to buy a bunch," Tim Cornell, managing director of Oregon-based Pole Houses, said as the presidents and their entourage passed his model home. "It's all about hope. There are no guarantees."
In the meantime, families do the best they can. Some remember they still have it better than the estimated 680,000 who are still stuck in the "temporary settlement" tent camps that sprouted up around the city after the earthquake.
"I was happy to move away from under the tarps," said 18-year-old Luckson Jean-Baptiste, who now lives in a small boxlike house with plywood walls in the Delmas area of Port-au-Prince. "In the tents it always flooded."
Sylvain, whose family lived in a tent in the street until the fall, hangs a bedsheet from the corrugated steel ceiling of her shelter to create a bedroom. Cooking pots hang from the wooden beams. She and her husband, a welder, were able to cobble enough money together to buy scraps of plywood to cover the gashes in their damaged walls. But still, there is no bathroom.
An April report issued by the U.S. Office of Inspector General noted that shelters built by different non-governmental agencies using grants from the United States Agency for International Development varied greatly in quality, with some failing to meet international standards. USAID-funded structures make up the majority of the temporary shelters that have been built in post-quake Haiti.
Some were nothing more than plastic sheeting wrapped around timber frames, with no floors, doors, or windows, the report said. Others were more elaborate, with concrete foundations, solid plywood walls, and multiple doors and windows.
"Basically, they are wood-frame tents," Ron Busroe, director of the Salvation Army in Haiti, said of some of the shelters he's seen. "The materials are not going to hold up to the harsh climate in Haiti."
USAID no longer plans to allocate funding to relief groups for shelters, and seven major humanitarian groups say they don't want to build anymore anyway.
The precarious nature of the transitional shelters was apparent earlier this month when a slow-moving storm battered Haiti and killed at least 28 people in mudslides and floods. Two children died in a Port-au-Prince slum when floodwaters toppled a cinderblock wall, which crashed through the wooden side of a transitional shelter built by Catholic Relief Services.
Ricot Charles lost his daughter Medgine, 4, and son Jerry, 1. He survived, but with both psychological and physical scars.
"I can show you: I have a big gash," Charles said as he unbuttoned his striped shirt to reveal the parallel scrapes and scars on his bony shoulder. "This is where the rocks fell."
CRS spokeswoman Robyn Fieser wrote in an email that the charity was trying to help the Charles family and had offered counseling services. CRS will build another transitional shelter should they ask for one, she added.
And for those like Sylvain who are threatened by flooding, Nicole Harris, a spokeswoman for CARE, said the group was raising the foundations of shelters and was handing out dirt in flood-prone areas including Carrefour.
Such efforts won't do much to put those like Dominique Philogene at ease.
"These are the worst shelters; I don't feel secure," the 30-year-old Philogene said as he stood outside his closet-size, windowless box of a shelter in Delmas.
His shed, wrapped in a plastic sheet, will do little to protect him against the rain that's been pouring down in much of the Caribbean for weeks and is expected to get worse with the peak of the hurricane season.
"The foreigners could've provided something better than this for all the money they're spending in Haiti," he said.
Preparations for maintaining law and order, resuming oil production and the potential deployment of U.N. peacekeepers as cease-fire monitors have all been drafted during talks over the last month, which have also discussed how officials currently tied to Gadhafi's regime could be integrated into an interim administration.
A senior British diplomat, who demanded anonymity to discuss the work, said Friday that a team of officials from the U.K., United States, Italy, Turkey, Denmark and other nations has spent several weeks in eastern Libya discussing scenarios with opposition leaders.
"We are planning carefully and comprehensively for the days, weeks and months after Gadhafi has gone," the diplomat said.
The plans, which are expected to be completed next week, include a proposed timetable for resuming oil production in Libya's east. Officials believe there is little serious damage there to hamper production and predict work could begin again three to four weeks after Gadhafi leaves office.
The team also has discussed developing Libya's civil society institutions.
Draft proposals "will inform the international effort, led by the U.N., in response to the requirements expressed by the Libyan people," the diplomat said.
Libya's Transitional National Council intends to run the country until parliamentary and presidential elections can take place — a process that is expected to take many months to prepare for.
The British diplomat acknowledged officials have been mindful of recent failures in post-conflict planning. The U.S. and Britain have been sharply criticized over preparations in Iraq for the fall of Saddam Hussein.
"We have learned the lessons of previous conflicts, this is precisely why the U.K. has been at the forefront of supporting the Libyan people's preparations," the diplomat said.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said he had faith in the ability of the Libyan opposition to guide the country toward democratic elections.
"I believe we need to show real support for the Transitional National Council, who I believe are demonstrating they are not extremists, they are not Islamists, they are not tribal. They want a united Libya, but a more democratic Libya," he said, speaking at a European Union summit in Brussels.
Military officials and diplomats in Britain insisted that Gadhafi is being eased out of power, despite his refusal to quit so far.
British military spokesman Maj. Gen. Nick Pope told reporters that a meeting on Tuesday in London of the nations involved in the air campaign in Libya had underscored their resolve. The talks had illustrated the "determination to carry the operation through to a successful conclusion," Pope said.
Attack helicopters and fighter jets have flown 12,000 sorties and struck about 2,400 targets since the campaign began on March 19, he said.
The British diplomat insisted that pressure would soon force Gadhafi to step down. "The anger against him is simmering. The question is not if he will go, but when," he said.
Meanwhile, at the European Union summit on Friday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy derided the low U.S. profile in the international campaign in Libya, saying that France and Britain are carrying most of the burden and will stay until Gadhafi leaves.
While other European leaders pushed for a political solution in Libya, the French leader strongly defended the NATO-led military operation — and NATO itself. He rebutted comments by U.S. Defense Minister Robert Gates that the alliance's future could be in doubt because of European reluctance to exercise military might.
"I wouldn't say that the bulk of the work in Libya is being done by our American friends," Sarkozy told reporters at the summit. "The French and English and their allies are doing the work."
The United States has insisted on a backseat role in Libya. It led the initial coalition airstrikes in March, but in April withdrew U.S. forces from the direct combat role, limiting them to battlefield surveillance, aerial tanking and other support roles.
Seven NATO members are now participating in air strikes: Britain, France, Belgium, Canada, Norway, Denmark and Italy. But, as Gates said, most of NATO's 28 members, including Germany, have refused to join the strike mission in Libya.
Sarkozy wouldn't give a timeline for an eventual end to the 3-month-old air campaign, saying that would play into Gadhafi's hands and "I don't think that would be constructive."
"Things are progressing. I would have liked them to progress more quickly, but they are progressing," he said. "We must continue until Mr. Gadhafi leaves."
There has been mounting frustration in European capitals over the rising costs of NATO's military campaign at a time of severe financial austerity, and over the alliance's failure to deal a knockout blow to Gadhafi's forces, despite an overwhelming advantage in firepower.
After Sarkozy and Cameron briefed the other EU leaders on the Libya campaign, other EU leaders were keen to stress political solutions.
The penguin appeared healthy after it was first spotted Monday but has appeared more lethargic as the week progressed, and officials feared it would die if they didn't intervene.
The penguin has been eating sand and small sticks of driftwood on North Island's Peka Peka Beach. It may have mistaken sand for snow, which it eats for hydration in the Antarctic climate where emperors usually spend their entire lives.
Wellington Zoo staff said the bird was dehydrated and suffering heat exhaustion. High temperatures in Wellington recently have been about 50F (10 Celsius).
Zoo vet science manager Lisa Argilla said the bird was spirited and zoo staff didn't want it to suffer. They manually tried to clear debris from the bird's throat, but it still seemed to blocked, so the staff scheduled surgery for Saturday.
"I'm hoping its just a piece of driftwood that we can reach down and pull out," Argilla told the Dominion Post newspaper.
For the penguin's journey to the zoo, three experts lifted it from the beach into a tub of ice and then onto the back of a truck for the 40-mile (65-kilometer) trip, said one of the participants, Colin Miskelly, a curator at Te Papa, the Museum of New Zealand.
Ideally, the bird will heal enough it could be released into the wild. But returning it to Antarctica, about 2,000 miles (3,200-kilometers) away, wasn't feasible. There is no transportation to the continent in the harsh winter.
Miskelly also noted no facilities in New Zealand were designed to house an emperor penguin long-term. It's the tallest and largest penguin species and can grow up to 4 feet (122 centimeters) high and weigh more than 75 pounds (34 kilograms).
Often sick birds require rehabilitation for a month or two before being released, zoo spokeswoman Kate Baker said, adding that some creatures with severe injuries remain in captivity.
The rare venture north by the Antarctic species captured public imagination. Sightseers came to the beach to see the bird and photograph it from a distance.
Christine Wilton, the local resident who discovered the penguin Monday while walking her dog, was back at the beach Friday to say goodbye.
"I'm so pleased it's going to be looked after," she said. "He needed to get off the beach. He did stand up this morning, but you could tell that he wasn't happy."
The penguin is estimated to be about 10 months old and is about 32 inches (80 centimeters) high. Experts haven't yet determined whether it is male or female.
It has been 44 years since an emperor penguin was last spotted in New Zealand.
The men made off with a lamp, not a huge loss, but significant enough for Sylvain and her family. She's mad at the thieves, of course, but more frustrated that she doesn't have real walls seven months after moving into what aid groups billed as a transitional shelter for earthquake victims.
The structure is one of hundreds of wooden frames with steel or plywood roofs that foreign aid groups erected as a temporary fix for people displaced by the January 2010 earthquake, a way station between squalid tent camps and the new homes that would one day be built for the displaced.
But with the reconstruction effort stalled, tens of thousands of quake survivors throughout the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince and its outskirts are resigning themselves to staying in the flimsy shelters for the long haul, even though most of the structures are hardly adequate to withstand an unforgiving Caribbean storm season.
"It's like being right back in a tent," the 28-year-old Sylvain said of her shelter, a one-room structure on a concrete slab that she, her husband, and two children rent from a local landowner for $63 every six months. "The rain comes down the hills and into the shelter."
Her neighbor, Marie Micheline Ridore, 35, piled dirt at the base of her shelter to stave off water rushing down the hillside. She also plugged a tennis ball-sized hole in the wall with a wad of plastic.
What Haitians need are inhabitable homes. That they still don't have them is due to factors ranging from the government's failure to secure land for housing and lay out a workable plan to clear rubble to a delayed election.
President Michel Martelly, who took office May 14, said his government aims to build 400 homes in his first 100 days of office, a goal he is unlikely to meet given that he still hasn't even won legislative approval for his Cabinet nominees. Lawmakers on Tuesday rejected his pick for prime minister, meaning he'll have to pick a new nominee, a vetting process that could take weeks and postpone reconstruction further.
At least 40 builders have shipped a dozen model homes to Haiti at their own expense in the hopes that aid agencies, the Haitian government or the private sector will eventually purchase them in bulk.
Martelly and former U.S. President Bill Clinton, co-chair of a reconstruction panel and the U.N.'s special envoy to Haiti, recently walked through some of the homes, which run the gamut from a military bunker replica to an eco-friendly two-room structure.
"We're hoping for the right guy to buy a bunch," Tim Cornell, managing director of Oregon-based Pole Houses, said as the presidents and their entourage passed his model home. "It's all about hope. There are no guarantees."
In the meantime, families do the best they can. Some remember they still have it better than the estimated 680,000 who are still stuck in the "temporary settlement" tent camps that sprouted up around the city after the earthquake.
"I was happy to move away from under the tarps," said 18-year-old Luckson Jean-Baptiste, who now lives in a small boxlike house with plywood walls in the Delmas area of Port-au-Prince. "In the tents it always flooded."
Sylvain, whose family lived in a tent in the street until the fall, hangs a bedsheet from the corrugated steel ceiling of her shelter to create a bedroom. Cooking pots hang from the wooden beams. She and her husband, a welder, were able to cobble enough money together to buy scraps of plywood to cover the gashes in their damaged walls. But still, there is no bathroom.
An April report issued by the U.S. Office of Inspector General noted that shelters built by different non-governmental agencies using grants from the United States Agency for International Development varied greatly in quality, with some failing to meet international standards. USAID-funded structures make up the majority of the temporary shelters that have been built in post-quake Haiti.
Some were nothing more than plastic sheeting wrapped around timber frames, with no floors, doors, or windows, the report said. Others were more elaborate, with concrete foundations, solid plywood walls, and multiple doors and windows.
"Basically, they are wood-frame tents," Ron Busroe, director of the Salvation Army in Haiti, said of some of the shelters he's seen. "The materials are not going to hold up to the harsh climate in Haiti."
USAID no longer plans to allocate funding to relief groups for shelters, and seven major humanitarian groups say they don't want to build anymore anyway.
The precarious nature of the transitional shelters was apparent earlier this month when a slow-moving storm battered Haiti and killed at least 28 people in mudslides and floods. Two children died in a Port-au-Prince slum when floodwaters toppled a cinderblock wall, which crashed through the wooden side of a transitional shelter built by Catholic Relief Services.
Ricot Charles lost his daughter Medgine, 4, and son Jerry, 1. He survived, but with both psychological and physical scars.
"I can show you: I have a big gash," Charles said as he unbuttoned his striped shirt to reveal the parallel scrapes and scars on his bony shoulder. "This is where the rocks fell."
CRS spokeswoman Robyn Fieser wrote in an email that the charity was trying to help the Charles family and had offered counseling services. CRS will build another transitional shelter should they ask for one, she added.
And for those like Sylvain who are threatened by flooding, Nicole Harris, a spokeswoman for CARE, said the group was raising the foundations of shelters and was handing out dirt in flood-prone areas including Carrefour.
Such efforts won't do much to put those like Dominique Philogene at ease.
"These are the worst shelters; I don't feel secure," the 30-year-old Philogene said as he stood outside his closet-size, windowless box of a shelter in Delmas.
His shed, wrapped in a plastic sheet, will do little to protect him against the rain that's been pouring down in much of the Caribbean for weeks and is expected to get worse with the peak of the hurricane season.
"The foreigners could've provided something better than this for all the money they're spending in Haiti," he said.
Diplomats draw up plans for post-Gadhafi Libya
LONDON – International officials and Libya's opposition have drawn up detailed plans to rebuild the North African nation's economy and society following the removal of Moammar Gadhafi, British diplomats said Friday.
Preparations for maintaining law and order, resuming oil production and the potential deployment of U.N. peacekeepers as cease-fire monitors have all been drafted during talks over the last month, which have also discussed how officials currently tied to Gadhafi's regime could be integrated into an interim administration.
A senior British diplomat, who demanded anonymity to discuss the work, said Friday that a team of officials from the U.K., United States, Italy, Turkey, Denmark and other nations has spent several weeks in eastern Libya discussing scenarios with opposition leaders.
"We are planning carefully and comprehensively for the days, weeks and months after Gadhafi has gone," the diplomat said.
The plans, which are expected to be completed next week, include a proposed timetable for resuming oil production in Libya's east. Officials believe there is little serious damage there to hamper production and predict work could begin again three to four weeks after Gadhafi leaves office.
The team also has discussed developing Libya's civil society institutions.
Draft proposals "will inform the international effort, led by the U.N., in response to the requirements expressed by the Libyan people," the diplomat said.
Libya's Transitional National Council intends to run the country until parliamentary and presidential elections can take place — a process that is expected to take many months to prepare for.
The British diplomat acknowledged officials have been mindful of recent failures in post-conflict planning. The U.S. and Britain have been sharply criticized over preparations in Iraq for the fall of Saddam Hussein.
"We have learned the lessons of previous conflicts, this is precisely why the U.K. has been at the forefront of supporting the Libyan people's preparations," the diplomat said.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said he had faith in the ability of the Libyan opposition to guide the country toward democratic elections.
"I believe we need to show real support for the Transitional National Council, who I believe are demonstrating they are not extremists, they are not Islamists, they are not tribal. They want a united Libya, but a more democratic Libya," he said, speaking at a European Union summit in Brussels.
Military officials and diplomats in Britain insisted that Gadhafi is being eased out of power, despite his refusal to quit so far.
British military spokesman Maj. Gen. Nick Pope told reporters that a meeting on Tuesday in London of the nations involved in the air campaign in Libya had underscored their resolve. The talks had illustrated the "determination to carry the operation through to a successful conclusion," Pope said.
Attack helicopters and fighter jets have flown 12,000 sorties and struck about 2,400 targets since the campaign began on March 19, he said.
The British diplomat insisted that pressure would soon force Gadhafi to step down. "The anger against him is simmering. The question is not if he will go, but when," he said.
Meanwhile, at the European Union summit on Friday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy derided the low U.S. profile in the international campaign in Libya, saying that France and Britain are carrying most of the burden and will stay until Gadhafi leaves.
While other European leaders pushed for a political solution in Libya, the French leader strongly defended the NATO-led military operation — and NATO itself. He rebutted comments by U.S. Defense Minister Robert Gates that the alliance's future could be in doubt because of European reluctance to exercise military might.
"I wouldn't say that the bulk of the work in Libya is being done by our American friends," Sarkozy told reporters at the summit. "The French and English and their allies are doing the work."
The United States has insisted on a backseat role in Libya. It led the initial coalition airstrikes in March, but in April withdrew U.S. forces from the direct combat role, limiting them to battlefield surveillance, aerial tanking and other support roles.
Seven NATO members are now participating in air strikes: Britain, France, Belgium, Canada, Norway, Denmark and Italy. But, as Gates said, most of NATO's 28 members, including Germany, have refused to join the strike mission in Libya.
Sarkozy wouldn't give a timeline for an eventual end to the 3-month-old air campaign, saying that would play into Gadhafi's hands and "I don't think that would be constructive."
"Things are progressing. I would have liked them to progress more quickly, but they are progressing," he said. "We must continue until Mr. Gadhafi leaves."
There has been mounting frustration in European capitals over the rising costs of NATO's military campaign at a time of severe financial austerity, and over the alliance's failure to deal a knockout blow to Gadhafi's forces, despite an overwhelming advantage in firepower.
After Sarkozy and Cameron briefed the other EU leaders on the Libya campaign, other EU leaders were keen to stress political solutions.
Stranded penguin moved to NZ zoo, set for surgery
WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A stranded emperor penguin was moved to a zoo Friday and scheduled for surgery as the young bird's health worsened in the New Zealand winter that is much warmer than its species' Antarctic home.
The penguin appeared healthy after it was first spotted Monday but has appeared more lethargic as the week progressed, and officials feared it would die if they didn't intervene.
The penguin has been eating sand and small sticks of driftwood on North Island's Peka Peka Beach. It may have mistaken sand for snow, which it eats for hydration in the Antarctic climate where emperors usually spend their entire lives.
Wellington Zoo staff said the bird was dehydrated and suffering heat exhaustion. High temperatures in Wellington recently have been about 50F (10 Celsius).
Zoo vet science manager Lisa Argilla said the bird was spirited and zoo staff didn't want it to suffer. They manually tried to clear debris from the bird's throat, but it still seemed to blocked, so the staff scheduled surgery for Saturday.
"I'm hoping its just a piece of driftwood that we can reach down and pull out," Argilla told the Dominion Post newspaper.
For the penguin's journey to the zoo, three experts lifted it from the beach into a tub of ice and then onto the back of a truck for the 40-mile (65-kilometer) trip, said one of the participants, Colin Miskelly, a curator at Te Papa, the Museum of New Zealand.
Ideally, the bird will heal enough it could be released into the wild. But returning it to Antarctica, about 2,000 miles (3,200-kilometers) away, wasn't feasible. There is no transportation to the continent in the harsh winter.
Miskelly also noted no facilities in New Zealand were designed to house an emperor penguin long-term. It's the tallest and largest penguin species and can grow up to 4 feet (122 centimeters) high and weigh more than 75 pounds (34 kilograms).
Often sick birds require rehabilitation for a month or two before being released, zoo spokeswoman Kate Baker said, adding that some creatures with severe injuries remain in captivity.
The rare venture north by the Antarctic species captured public imagination. Sightseers came to the beach to see the bird and photograph it from a distance.
Christine Wilton, the local resident who discovered the penguin Monday while walking her dog, was back at the beach Friday to say goodbye.
"I'm so pleased it's going to be looked after," she said. "He needed to get off the beach. He did stand up this morning, but you could tell that he wasn't happy."
The penguin is estimated to be about 10 months old and is about 32 inches (80 centimeters) high. Experts haven't yet determined whether it is male or female.
It has been 44 years since an emperor penguin was last spotted in New Zealand.
