News & Happenings In My World: 10/20/11

Thursday, 20 October 2011

Photo by Geert Vanden Wijngaert / AP file

Moammar Gadhafi was killed Oct. 20, 2011, when revolutionary forces overwhelmed his hometown, Sirte, two months after his regime fell.

10:25 a.m. EDT - AP files a rare FLASH bulletin: Libya's prime minister says Moammar Gadhafi has been killed.

10:15 a.m. EDT - US official: Libyan leaders have informed US that Moammar Gadhafi is dead - AP

8:48 a.m. EDT - Abdelhakim Bel Haj, the NTC military chief in Libya, tells Al Jazeera Arabic that news of Moammar Gadhafi's death has been confirmed. Bel Haj is the military commander who led revolutionary forces into Tripoli.

8:31 a.m. EDT - AFP has released a (graphic) image captured off cellphone camera that claims to show arrest of Gadhafi in Sirte (The Guardian has it on their live blog:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2011/oct/20/syria-libya-middle-east-unrest-live).

8:13 a.m. EDT - Reuters is reporting that Moammer Gadhafi has died of wounds suffered in his capture near Sirte, Libya, according to a senior NTC military official. Al Jazeera English sources also say he has been killed, but notes it is unconfirmed.

By Cory Bergman

Follow Cory Bergman on Google+

Pre-Election Arrests of Parapoliticians in Colombia

Bogota, Oct 19 (Prensa Latina) Colombia's Attorney General Technical Police arrested 11 politicians with pact with paramilitaries for the October 30th regional elections.

The arrests made in Cordoba -of six ex mayors, three ex policemen and candidates and deputies- are part of an operation with 81 arrest warrants signed by the anti-corruption prosecutor to prevent elections fraud.

According to the source the operation extends to Antioquia and Bolivar, home to several politicians and candidates accused of involvement in armed politics.

For the October 30th polls, the votes of more than 30 million Colombians will elect MPs, governors, mayors and councilmen for the 2012-2015 term.

The Registraduria Nacional del Estado Civil, the body in charge of the elections register, said there are 15 million more females to vote than males in 91,521 offices set through out Colombia.

Massive turnout for Syntagma rally

Massive turnout for Syntagma rally [update]

Thousands of public and private sector workers marched to Parliament on Wednesday to protest a series of draft bills introducing more austerity measures to cash-strapped Greece as part of a 48-hour strike that has paralyzed the country.
Police, who turned out in force with over 3,000 officers posted in the downtown Athens area, estimated the turnout to be at around 75,000 people, though some media reported numbers as high as 125,000, making this one of the biggest protest rallies in Greece in recent years.
The rally was mostly peaceful, though not without incident as scuffles that broke out between riot police officers and hooded youths who hurled garbage bags, stones and petrol bombs at them, escalated in the afternoon, with police using large amounts of tear gas to disperse protestors.
Dozens of protestors received treatment from medics posted at various points on and around the square after experiencing breathing difficulties from the tear gas and sustaining minor injuries from being caught in the cross-fire between youths wearing hoods, scarves and gas masks, and riot police.
One police officer was also being treated at an Athens hospital after being attacked by a group of rioters, who reportedly removed his gun from his holster. His condition, according to reports, was not serious.
The troublemakers also hurled a Molotov cocktail at the guard post in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of Parliament, setting it alight.
Meanwhile, a member of the DIAS motorcycle-riding squad was hurt earlier in the day when a group of teenagers threw stones at a unit patrolling the neighborhood of Kesariani, just a few kilometers from the city center.
Police also reported that a group of hooded youths attacked a riot squad posted outside the National Printing House on Kapodistriou Street with homemade petrol bombs, while another group of youths tried to break through a metal barricade set up beside Parliament to contain protestors on Syntagma Square.
Protest rallies are expected to gain momentum on Thursday, when Parliament is due to vote on the reform measures.
Protest rallies were also organized in other Greek cities, including in Thessaloniki, Patra and Volos, as well as on the island of Crete.

Turkey starts incursion against terrorists

PKK kills 24 troops, Turkey starts incursion against terrorists

Turkey on Wednesday launched an air and ground offensive into Iraq after members of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) killed 24 security personnel in one of the deadliest attacks on Turkish security forces in years.

Turkish troops killed 21 terrorists in clashes in southeastern Turkey near the Iraqi border on Wednesday, security sources said. At least 100 PKK terrorists were believed to have taken part in the attacks, which targeted eight locations. Turkish commandos reportedly crossed the border into northern Iraq in pursuit of the terrorists after the attack, which occurred in the early morning hours of Wednesday.
There were reportedly intermittent clashes between the troops, who advanced some three to four kilometers into Iraqi territory and the PKK terrorists in the border area near Çukurca in Hakkari province. PKK members have been using Iraq as a launching pad for attacks on Turkish targets in a war for autonomy in Turkey's Southeast.
The private Cihan news agency says Turkish warplanes that took off from Diyarbakır are striking PKK bases in northern Iraq. Turkey's Parliament recently passed a bill extending permission, as it has done several times since 2007, for the Turkish military to mount cross-border operations against members of the PKK in northern Iraq in the coming year. Turkish air and artillery operations against suspected PKK members in the Kandil Mountains have intensified since August. The strikes were ordered after a break of more than a year in retaliation for an increase in PKK attacks on security forces inside Turkey. In the early morning hours of Wednesday terrorists attacked several military and police buildings in Çukurca and Hakkari's city center. Twenty-four soldiers and police officers were killed. Another 18 soldiers were wounded when the terrorists opened fire on military outposts in Çukurca and Yüksekova near the border with Iraq. The attacks occurred simultaneously.
It was the deadliest PKK attack in 18 years. It was the fourth deadliest attack since the PKK started its campaign of separatist violence nearly three decades ago.
The attacks come only a day after five policemen and four civilians, including a 2-year-old and a 10-year-old, were killed by a roadside bomb planted by the PKK in nearby Bitlis province. Wednesday’s attacks also come only days after Turkish President Abdullah Gül visited troops in the region to boost morale in an area that has seen increased violence in recent months.

'Seventeen dead' in latest Syrian violence - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

At least 17 people have been shot dead in Syria, activists say, as security forces continued their brutal crackdown on a popular protest against President Bashar al-Assad.
The alleged deaths came as a pro-government rally drew massive support in the northern city of Aleppo.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Wednesday that 17 civilians were killed in Syria, including three teenage girls and a woman, while at least seven soldiers died in clashes with suspected army defectors.
The watchdog group said eight people were killed in Homs, central Syria, including four shot dead by Shabiha, an armed civilian group that supports Assad's government.
The other eight civilians were killed in and around the town of Qusayr, near the Lebanese border, where clashes raged between troops and suspected army deserters.
One woman was hit by a stray bullet while the teenage girls were killed when their home was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade as troops battled the suspected defectors near Qusayr.
Syrian forces raked homes with heavy machine-guns as they raided neighbourhoods searching for suspects wanted by the authorities, the Observatory said, adding that around 200 people were arrested in the raids.
One man was killed in a raid by security forces in the northwestern province of Idlib, it added.
The Observatory also reported that at least seven Syrian soldiers were killed and others wounded in clashes with suspected army defectors in the village of Jussiyeh near Qusayr.

Frenchwoman Abducted in Kenya Dies

PARIS — A disabled Frenchwoman kidnapped by Somali gunmen inKenya this month has died in captivity, the French government announced Wednesday.

Reuters

Marie Dedieu, 66, was dragged from a beachfront bungalow on Manda, a tourist destination, in the early morning of Oct. 1.

The woman, Marie Dedieu, 66, was dragged from a beachfront bungalowon Manda, an island that is a tourist destination, in the early morning of Oct. 1. Witnesses said a small group of heavily armed Somalis beached their speedboat in front of her home, perhaps alerted to her presence by local workers. A recovering cancer patient and quadriplegic who had lived on the island for years, Ms. Dedieu was taken without her wheelchair or medication.

It was one of a series of similar attacks by Somali gunmen that have shaken Kenyan tour operators and security officials in recent weeks, and that Kenya has used to justify a military campaign into Somalia, begun on Sunday.

Addressing Parliament on Wednesday, Prime Minister François Fillon spoke of the “indignation that is ours in the face of this act of cruelty, this act of barbarity,” noting that Ms. Dedieu was aged, disabled and sickly. “This speaks to the humanity of those who kidnapped her,” Mr. Fillon said. The government had tried to send medication to Ms. Dedieu, he and other officials said, but it was believed that her captors had refused to give it to her.

10 die in Imo flood disaster

10 die in Imo flood disaster

The death toll in the flood disaster currently rocking Okwuamarihe and Amanachi communities in Orsu Local Government Area of Imo State has risen to 10.

Similarly, over 50,000 families have also been sacked from their ancestral homes by flood, while several houses have been submerged in the disaster.

Narrating the ordeal of his people to newsmen, the traditional ruler, Eze Mike Ebighi, lamented that property conservatively put at over N1 billion have been destroyed.

He regretted that some of his kinsmen have relocated to safer grounds in neighbouring towns, adding that apart from being a danger zone, the people were facing intense hardship and abject poverty.

The royal father traced the origin of the flood to the construction of the Ihiala-Orlu federal highway that passes through the community, stressing that no proper channelisation of flood was incorporated in the design.

He recalled with grief that water-borne diseases had become a regular feature in the community, adding that a recent outbreak of yellow fever claimed several lives in the area.

Speaking also, one of the flood victims, Mr. Godwin Ashiegbunam, said his property had been destroyed by the flood and called on the state government to quickly come to their aid.