|
Hurricane Earl center seen keeping off US coast- NHC MIAMI, Sep 1 (Reuters) The head of the US National Hurricane Center said today he was highly confident Hurricane Earl would veer to the northeast starting late tomorrow, which should keep the worst of the storm from the US East Coast.
Still, the Category 3 storm is expected to bring extremely high waves, surf and rip currents to the US East Coast in the coming days, Hurricane Center Director Bill Read told reporters in a conference call.
Earl, currently churning through the open Atlantic east of the Bahamas, had top sustained winds of 205 kph, with hurricane-force winds extending outward up to 150 km. Its tropical storm-force winds reached out as far as 325 km.
The storm was expected to approach close to North Carolina's Outer Banks island chain late tomorrow. While the expected northeast turn at that point should keep the center of Earl at sea and parallel to the US eastern seaboard, any delay in the turn would mean greater weather impact for coastal areas, Read said.
''If the turns occur a little bit later than we're forecasting it could bring more of a threat at that time to extreme eastern Long Island or southeastern New England,'' the hurricane center chief said.
Read said Earl was producing ''incredibly high seas'' as it barreled across the Atlantic. A 50-foot wave was registered overnight by a US weather service buoy.
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate said US President Barack Obama had been briefed on emergency preparations for Earl's approach.
There was a possibility Earl could intensify.
''The chance over the next 24 hours of a change in intensity on the upscale still exists. We're over the warmest water,'' Read said.
At least 6 killed in Mozambique price riots -sources MAPUTO, Sep 1 (Reuters) Police opened fire on demonstrators protesting against rising prices in Mozambique's capital today, killing two children and at least four other people, police and hospital sources said.
Police shot live ammunition after running out of rubber bullets, police officials said. They also fired tear gas as protesters blocked roads and burned tyres across the city.
The government said it had the situation under control.
''We call on everyone to be calm and serene. We ask for everyone's collaboration,'' Interior Minister Jose Pacheco said on Radio Mozambique.
The violence was the worst in the poor southern African country, home to 23 million people, since 2008.
Police officially said three people were killed while hospital and police sources said the death toll was at least six.
''Two children have been killed in the suburb of Mafalala,'' police spokesman Arnaldo Chefo said.
The protests appeared to have been touched off when the government increased prices on bread by 30 per cent today as wheat prices have soared around the world.
Residents of one of the world's poorest countries say they have been hit hard by rising costs for basic necessities including bread, with rising costs for fuel and other essentials adding to their troubles.
An estimated 70 percent of Mozambique's population live below the poverty line, according to the CIA World Factbook.
Mozambique also is heavily dependent on imports from South Africa, which have become more expensive in recent months as the South African rand currency has strengthened.
''I can hardly feed myself. I will join the protest because I'm outraged by this high cost of living,'' Nelfa Temoteo, who lives in the densely populated Malhazine suburb, said.
Maputo police also called for calm as the riots spread throughout the city.
''There is looting and vandalisation. Shops including banks in the Central Business District are closed,'' Chefo said.
In 2008, at least six people were killed in Mozambique in protests in over high fuel prices and living costs. The government agreed to cut the price of diesel fuel for minibus taxis.
Hostage taken at US Discovery Channel HQ - Police WASHINGTON, Sep 1 (Reuters) One hostage has been taken by a man with a handgun at the Discovery Channel headquarters building in suburban Washington, Montgomery County police told ABC television today.
Police Corporal Dan Friz said the building in Silver Spring, Maryland, was on lockdown but he could not confirm gunshots were fired as a Discovery employee had told ABC television.
Discovery Communications said it reaches 1.5 billion subscribers in more than 180 countries with the Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Science Channel and Planet Green networks.
German held by American troops in Afghanistan BERLIN, Sep 1 (Reuters) A German citizen has been arrested by US troops in Afghanistan, the German foreign ministry said today, after a newspaper reported he was being held on suspicion of involvement with a terrorist group.
''The government is trying to offer consular assistance through the US,'' said a spokesman for the foreign ministry.
The spokesman did not confirm details of the report in the German daily Die Tageszeitung, which said the man had been held for several weeks on suspicion of taking part in terrorist activities.
Citing unidentified security sources, the paper said the suspect belonged to a group of Islamists from the northern German city of Hamburg that travelled to the Afghan-Pakistani border area in March 2009 in order to train in extremist camps.
Blasts kill 18 in Pakistan's Lahore, 100 hurt LAHORE, Pakistan, Sept 1 (Reuters) Three bombs exploded at a Shi'ite procession in the Pakistani city of Lahore today, killing at least 18 people and wounding over 100, piling pressure on a government already overwhelmed by floods.
Witnesses said a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of hundreds, after a lull in violence during the floods, the type of attack that Pakistani Taliban militants have claimed in the past.
''According to my information 18 people are dead and over 100 injured,'' Sajjad Bhutta, a senior Lahore district administration official, told state-run Pakistan Television.
Soon after the blasts, a mob set fire to a police station and several vehicles. People also beat policemen, witnesses said.
Pro-Taliban Sunni militants frequently attack Shi'ites as part of a campaign to destabilise the government.
The renewed violence came as millions of Pakistanis continued to struggle for food and water more than a month after the worst floods in the country's history, deepening concerns over the stability of the US ally.
The floods have ravaged Pakistan's economy, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said, with massive job losses and soaring inflation expected to hurt a nation whose stability is vital to the US war against Islamist militants in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
''The floods have inflicted damage to the economy which may, by some estimates, reach 43 billion dollar, while affecting 30 per cent of all agricultural land,'' Gilani said briefing the cabinet.
Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, with cotton the main cash crop. The sector is one of the biggest sources of employment.
Facing the prospect of long-term economic pain, Pakistan hopes the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will soften the terms of an 11 billion dollar loan. Pakistani and IMF officials are meeting in Washington to work out the impact of the floods.
''This economic loss will translate into massive job losses affecting incomes of thousands of families, which may have serious social implications,'' said Gilani, whose government was heavily criticised for its slow response to the catastrophe.
Pakistan's powerful military has taken charge of relief efforts, but Islamist charities, some linked to militant groups, have also stepped in, raising concerns they may exploit public anger.
BLACKLIST The United States today formally added the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Taliban Movement of Pakistan to its blacklist of foreign terrorist organisations subject to travel and economic sanctions.
The TTP is the main Pakistani militant alliance which operates from Pakistan's northwest. It has links with al Qaeda as well as the Punjabi groups and is suspected of being behind most bomb and suicide attacks across Pakistan.
Before the floods struck a vast swath of the country, the army said it had scored major gains against the Taliban. In renewed air strikes in the northwest region, Pakistani forces killed up to 62 militants, their family members and other civilians with no ties to the fighters, officials said on Wednesday.
Washington has repeatedly urged Pakistan to go after militant sanctuaries in the northwest saying these have helped boost the Afghan insurgency, now at its deadliest. Pakistan says it is doing all it can to fight the militants.
Testing ties further, Pakistan's army said today it scrapped talks with US military officials after a military delegation sent to Washington had to go through ''unwarranted'' airport security checks.
British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said it could take Pakistan years to recover from the floods with threats from water-borne disease and opportunistic militants. ''The danger always is that you get groups who have an ulterior motive who provide aid to try to curry favour,'' he said after visiting an aid camp.
Pakistan is expected to register economic growth of just 2.5 percent because of the impact of flooding, the information minister said, trimming an earlier 4.5 per cent target.
The budget deficit is expected to climb to 6-7 per cent of gross domestic product in the fiscal year 2010/2011, compared with an earlier forecast of 4.5 per cent.
Somali Islamists tell president to step down MOGADISHU, Sept 1 (Reuters) A Somali rebel group has told the Horn of Africa nation's embattled president to resign and said hardline Islamists had succeeded where the government had failed, in establishing order in areas they controlled.
Hizbul Islam, which has waged a three-year insurgency against the fragile interim government alongside the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group, urged Somalia's Muslims to unite and join the Islamists' struggle.
''President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed ought to quit. He has nothing for the people except a call for more foreign troops that massacre Somalis,'' Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, leader of Hizbul Islam, told reporters on Tuesday evening.
Hardline Islamists control vast tracts of south and central Somalia and much of the capital Mogadishu, hemming the government into just a few blocks manned by African Union (AU) peacekeepers.
In recent days, the militants have intensified their offensive on government targets and killed four Ugandan peacekeepers deployed near the presidential palace.
Bent on imposing a strict version of sharia, Islamic law, on the nation, the militants routinely carry out stonings and amputations and have banned football, music and school bells in areas they control. They claim to have restored law and order.
JOIN THE JIHAD ''I urge Islamists to unite. Areas under the control of Islamists are peaceful. They are the good Muslims who can rule the country,'' Aweys said.
Political analysts are at odds over the best way to tackle the insurgency.
A U.S. military official said on Wednesday that foreign militants were not universally accepted by al Shabaab, but that outside powers would find it hard to use their presence to divide and weaken the insurgency.
More than 150 people have died over the last 10 days during the latest escalation of violence in Mogadishu, medics said.
Yesterday, a roadside blast and heavy artillery fire between insurgents and AU-backed government troops killed at least 18 people.
The African Union on Wednesday condemned an attack on Monday in which four Ugandan peacekeepers were killed when insurgents fired mortars at the presidential palace.
''The Chairperson of the (AU) Commission ... reiterates the commitment and determination of the AU to stand by and support the people of Somalia in confronting and defeating these anti-peace elements,'' the AU said in a statement.
Ali Muse, coordinator of the ambulance service, said many of Yesterday's casualties were civilians hit by shells landing in and around the Bakara market, Mogadishu's largest bazaar and a known rebel stronghold.
Nine people were killed when a roadside bomb hit two minibuses, doctors at the Medina Hospital said.
''The bomb exploded on the buses ahead of the one I was on.
Blood and pieces of human flesh littered the road,'' witness Ismail Musamil told Reuters.
|
