Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim said early Sunday the army has suspended operations against rebels in the western rebel stronghold of Misrata, but not left the city.
Kaim said troops have halted operations in Misrata to enable tribal elders to negotiate with the rebels. He said if the rebels don't surrender in 48 hours, the tribesmen will fight them in place of the army. Kaim had first announced troop withdrawal from Misrata on Friday.
Twenty-four people were killed Saturday in fierce fighting in Libya's third-largest city as the United States announced its first Predator drone strike in Libya.
A U.S. Defense Department statement says the airstrike, carried out by an unmanned aircraft, took place on Saturday. However, the statement does not say where the strike occurred. The U.S. strike is part of a NATO-led effort to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, where rebels are fighting to overthrow the government.
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Earlier Saturday, NATO forces bombed an area close to the Libyan leader's compound in Tripoli, hitting what reporters described as a military installation. There were no reports of injuries.
And the Italian Foreign Ministry said Libyan authorities had released an Italian ship detained in the port of Tripoli last month along with its 11 crew members. The ship, which was working for an Italian oil company, was seized shortly before the international coalition began imposing the no-fly zone.
View the slide show of the besieged city of Misrata
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
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Yemeni government officials say President Ali Abdullah Saleh has agreed to a proposal from Gulf Arab mediators that calls for him to transfer power and resign within 30 days.
Officials said Saturday that the government had informed the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) of President Saleh's acceptance of the plan, which calls for him to leave office after 30 years of rule. In exchange, Mr. Saleh, his family and senior aides will be granted immunity from prosecution.
The plan also calls for President Saleh to transfer power to a deputy, who would then call presidential elections. The plan also sought to form a unity government in which ruling party members would hold half the seats, 40 percent would be held by an opposition coalition, with the rest made up of unaffiliated parties.
GCC Secretary-General Abdullatif al-Zayani presented the plan to Mr. Saleh on Thursday, in a bid to end Yemen's anti-government unrest.
A coalition of seven opposition parties said they also accepted the deal but with reservations. The opposition leaders refused to join the unity government while Mr. Saleh was still in office.
Meanwhile, many Yemenis across the country observed a general strike on Saturday to protest against President Saleh's rule. Some gathered for peaceful protests.
U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Washington welcomes the proposal for ending the crisis and called for immediate dialogue by all sides on a transfer of power.
On Friday, thousands of opposition activists rallied across Yemen, where they repeated calls for President Saleh's immediate resignation.
On Saturday, President Saleh accused his opponents of trying to drag the country into civil war. He also called former ruling party members who had resigned and joined the opposition "symbols of corruption."
He commented during a speech to armed forces academy students in Sana'a.
Some information for this report was provided by AP.
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Casualties, including at least 12 people dead, are being reported in at several Syrian cities Saturday as witnesses say government security forces opened fire on thousands of funeral goers. The bloodshed comes as U.S. President Barack Obama condemns the use of force against peaceful protesters and accuses Iran of helping in the repression.
Funeral goers in the Damascus suburb of Barzeh carry victims of Friday's violent clashes between security forces and protesters on their shoulders, as the crowd chants slogans against the regime. Videos on Facebook show hundreds of mourners in a tumultuous procession.
Al Jazeera TV showed videos of mourners in Barzeh fleeing as shots were fired near them. It also reported that security forces fired indiscriminately on mourners near Izraa, outside the southern city of Diraa, as their procession crossed a highway overpass.
Syrian state media, meanwhile, is claiming that "Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are lying about events in the country." The Syrian news agency SANA insists that "outside forces" are waging a "misleading media campaign" and exaggerating about the size of protests. Opposition protesters, for their part, carried banners calling the government press "liars."
Some mourners on Saturday chanted anti-government slogans and repeated their calls for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to resign immediately.
Syrian state TV is reporting that "armed men" fired on the army and security forces in Diraa and elsewhere. It showed funerals of policemen and soldiers it claimed were killed by protesters. The Syrian-government reports accused outside agents of carrying petrol bombs and bottles of blood to "create fictitious stories of violence." According to the reports, the agents also set fire to buses and attacked fire engines.
Two members of parliament from Diraa resigned to protest the government violence. The mufti of Diraa told al Jazeera TV that the shootings were "unacceptable" and announced he was resigning his post, as well.
Fahd al Masri of the Syrian opposition group Justice and Development says that security forces fired on protesters both on Friday and Saturday.
He said people were killed Saturday in the cities of Diraa, Homs and a Damascus suburb. He adds that many people were killed and injured and thousands were arrested by state security forces on Friday. He notes that the government's announcement it was lifting martial law appears to have changed nothing and that security forces continue to fire on people.
Fouad Ajami, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution in the U.S. western state of California and Director of Middle East Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. He told VOA that he thinks it was inevitable that the wave of Arab revolutions finally hit Syria.
"This revolution was bound to come to Syria. It was just that it would come to Syria. It was proper to come to Syria. Syria could not be spared. The revolution was bound to come to Syria, because it was in Syria where the terrorist state, the way we know it in the Arab world, basically took shape in the '70s. So, everything about this revolution perfectly fits Syria," he said.
Ajami points out that unlike Egypt and Tunisia, or even Libya, the presence of many different religious factions in Syria is raising the specter of sectarian violence:
"Once (the revolution) came to Syria, it had to be Syrian. It can't be Egyptian or Tunisian and thus it has to be violent and thus the hidden menace of sectarianism that could devour this revolution. That, at the very end when it's all fought, it would become what it always was destined to become: a war where (the regime) would rally the Alawis and their allies among the Christians and the Druze and the Ismailis etc. against the vast Sunni middle class," he said.
Ajami also notes the secret police that supports the regime makes the equation in Syria even more volatile than in Libya. Opposition reports say that members of Lebanon's Hezbollah and of Iran's Revolutionary Guards have been seen attacking protesters alongside Syria's secret police. The reports have not been independently confirmed.
U.S. President Barack Obama condemned Syria Friday for using "outrageous force" against anti-government protesters, and said it "must come to an end, now." He also criticized President Assad for "seeking Iranian assistance in repressing Syria's citizens."
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Hundreds of Iraqi Shi'ites rallied in Baghdad on Saturday in a show of solidarity with Shi'ites in Bahrain who have demonstrated for a greater role in their Sunni-led government.
Some demonstrators in Iraq also denounced the presence of Saudi troops in Bahrain.
In March, Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa authorized the entry of Saudi soldiers and police from the United Arab Emirates to help protect his government from unrest caused by his kingdom's Shi'ite majority.
Shi'ites in Iran and Lebanon have also voiced support for fellow Shi'ites in Bahrain.
Separately, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says the anti-government protests that are gripping much of the Arab world are justified because many demonstrators are facing "tyranny" and oppression.
He says people have a right to protest peacefully in order to change their "reality" for the better.
Maliki's office released his comments on Saturday. A statement says the president made the remarks earlier in the week during an interview with a South Korean news agency.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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Pakistan's Army Commander says his forces have "broken the back" of the insurgents and he hoped that soon that what he described as the war on terror would be won following hardships and sacrifices. His statements on Saturday come as the U.S.-Pakistani relationship is strained over how to proceed in anti-terrorism efforts and the war in Afghanistan.
Speaking at this years graduation ceremony at the Pakistani Military Academy, General Ashfaq Kayani said he believed the insurgents and extremists in Pakistan, linked to the Taliban and al-Qaida, would soon be defeated.
"In the war against terrorism, our officers and soldiers have made great sacrifices and have achieved tremendous success... the terrorist backbone has been broken and inshallah [God willing] we will soon prevail," he said.
The Pakistani army chief's words come amid continued difficulty between Pakistan's leadership and the U.S. over how to proceed in the war effort.
In recent weeks rounds of shuttle diplomacy have done little to defuse the situation despite a number of trips by both sides to the other partner's capitols.
Earlier this week the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, traveled to Islamabad to conduct high level meetings with Pakistani officials, including General Kayani.
While here he conducted an interview with a local television network in which he said the U.S. had intelligence that certain members of the Pakistani military, along with the country's intelligence agency, the ISI, had ties to extremists groups such as the Haqqani Network- a group with strong ties to the Taliban and al-Qaida.
"The ISI has a long-standing relationship with the Haqqani network," said Adm. Mullen. "That doesn't mean everybody in the ISI, but it's there. I also have an understanding that the ISI and Pakmil [Pakistan military] exist to protect their own citizens. And there's a way, there's a way that they have done that [had relations with the Haqqani group] for a long period of time. I believe over time that's got to change."
That statement further angered the establishment here. Many disputed the claim as "negative U.S. propaganda."
The ties between the two countries have been strained for months following the fatal shooting of two Pakistani men by CIA contractor Raymond Davis.
On the U.S. side, there is frustration that the Pakistanis are perceived not to be doing enough to rein in extremists or stop cross-border traffic by militants from Afghanistan. Many groups fighting against U.S. and NATO forces find safe haven in the lawless frontier between the two countries.
In order to strike at those safe havens the U.S. often uses unmanned drones and many Pakistanis are furious about this, as they see it as a breach of their sovereignty.
Just after Admiral Mullen's visit this week a drone strike struck a meeting in North Waziristan reportedly killing 26. The dead included militants but also reportedly some women and children.
Some political activists here say they will begin blocking the vital NATO supply line into Afghanistan if the drone attacks are not stopped.
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Leaders of an independent Chinese evangelical church have vowed to defy Communist authorities and hold outdoor public services on Easter Sunday, raising the prospect of a confrontation with police.
The defiant stance of the Shouwang Church - one of Beijing's biggest unofficial Christian groups - comes amid a severe crackdown on government critics.
Some church members have already been placed under house arrest. But Bob Fu, a former independent church pastor and president of the non-governmental organization ChinaAid, says hundreds of supporters are planning to turn out across the country to pray and show their solidarity.
"I have a warning that at least 24 house churches so far, many of them major ones like Shouwang, have made an open declaration to show their solidarity with the suffering Shouwang members in various ways," said Fu.
China's atheist Communist Government only allows Christian worship in state-sanctioned churches, which are heavily regulated and staffed by approved leaders. Authorities evicted Shouwang from its previous place of worship in a rented office space in the capital Beijing.
In early April, 170 church followers were rounded up by police after trying to hold a Sunday outdoor worship service. Nearly 50 were detained.
The leaders of the church are currently under house arrest and will likely be unable to leave their homes on Sunday.
But along with pastor Bob Fu, they are urging followers in online messages to follow the example of Jesus Christ and resist government persecution. Fu says China's crackdown against the church will do more harm than good.
"I think the government will cause more instability, less harmony, and will be more harmful to society by escalating this crackdown and campaign against the church. And they will fail in the long run," he said.
The current number of Christians in China is disputed and varies between 23 million and 130 million, including Catholics.
However, millions are believed to attended illegal independent churches.
Authorities have cracked down hard on dissidents, activists and rights lawyers since anonymous Internet appeals emerged in February calling for "Jasmine" protests each Sunday.
China has faced international criticism for its human rights record.
Sunday's predicted showdown between Christians and the authorities comes ahead of next week's annual human rights talks between Beijing and Washington in China.
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In Ukraine they call them 'Chernobylites'. People affected by the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in then-Soviet Ukraine. Residents evacuated after the April 26, 1986 disaster lost their homes as well as their health. And the workers sent in to clean up also developed health problems.
Now that access to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has become possible, some evacuees are returning to visit their abandoned neighborhoods for the first time since those tragic events of 25 years ago.
Twenty-five-year-old Ivanna was just 6 months old when Reactor Number Four exploded at Chernobyl, and Pripyat - founded in 1970 to house workers for the plant - was evacuated. Over the years, she heard many stories from her parents about the city where she was born.
"I wanted to go there," she said. "I was drawn to that place. I would ask my mother - 'Mama, when can we finally go?'"
At the time of the Chernobyl disaster, Ivanna's older brother Yevhen was seven years old. "My childhood was very happy there, in Pripyat. Then came the constant moves, visits to clinics," he said.
The Makarevych family now lives on the outskirts of the capital. Kyiv. But mother Nadiya, who worked as a medical assistant in Pripyat ,and father Vasyl, who made cement blocks at the plant, still cannot forget the town where they were so happy.
It was paradise on earth. We had a river nearby, woods nearby, multitudes of children all around, all young. There were many flowers. It was so beautiful," she said.
This former paradise is now known as the Exclusion Zone. Scattered throughout the area, the family finds checkpoints, barbed wire and stations that measure radiation levels.
To get to their apartment, the Makarevych family needs a special pass. They will also need to overcome quite a few physical obstacles.
The family finally arrives at the apartment. The door easily gives in and memories come flooding back. "This is the frame of my crib. My father made it himself, by hand," she said.
Coming Home to Chernobyl's Desolation Zone, photo gallery by VOA's Diana Markosian
The morning of the accident, Ivanna's crib stood below an open window. No one knew of the explosion or the radiation leak, and no one said anything. That morning Nadiya had sent her son off to school and was set to wash the windows and paint the balcony in preparation for May Day celebrations.
Having visited their own apartment, the family goes next door. After the evacuation, they lost contact with their neighbors, so they scratch their telephone number in Kyiv on the wall - just in case.
Ivanna searches for her birth records in Pripyat's Maternity Ward without success.. But her brother Yevhen finds his teacher's grade book in the building where he went to school.
"Here I am, here I am ! Makarevych: 3, 3, 3, 5," he said.
Even the date of the accident April 26, 1986 has been entered: Makarevych, Yevhen - present.
At the end of the day, these Pripyat evacuees stand alone among the abandoned buildings of a ghost town. They came here with the intention of leaving behind their fears. But it appears they only re-opened old wounds that have held them captive for a quarter of a century.
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U.S. President Barack Obama says it is time to end the $4 billion subsidies for oil and gas companies and invest in energy independence for the United States.
During his weekly address Saturday, Obama said investing in clean renewable energy sources is one way to combat rising gas prices straining family budgets. He said he disagrees with a congressional proposal that cuts investments in clean energy by 70 percent to lower the deficit.
Obama also called for the United States to continue safe, responsible domestic oil production.
He said the U.S. attorney general has launched a task force to root out fraud and manipulation of oil markets.
The president said the United States can live within its means without sacrificing investments in energy, education, and job creation now and into the future.
In the Republican weekly address, Senator Mike Johanns said Obama administration policies have burdened the primary job creator, small businesses.
Johanns said a leaner, more efficient government best supports the country and people looking for work.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant did much more than change the lives of hundred thousands of affected people. It also contributed greatly to Western science. Physicists and medical professionals learned a great deal from the Chernobyl disaster.
Many people abroad learned about the Chernobyl nuclear plant's explosion well before the population of the Soviet Union. However, Western scientists had little access to the Chernobyl site and medical data for a long time.
In 1991, Alexander Sich, an American of Ukrainian descent, was the first - and for the long time the only - Western scientist who worked in the Chernobyl zone, together with Ukrainian and Russian researchers.
"The scientists were isolated because it was a zone and also people by that time have forgotten about the accident," noted Sich. "The people didn't have the right equipment."
As Sich recalls, his biggest shock came when he realized that the helicopters that were pouring the mixture of sand, boron and other elements on the burning reactor were missing their target - the exposed and super-hot, nuclear core. As a result, the reactor continued to burn for ten days, and the core went into a complete meltdown
"In fact because the core was never covered, the melted fuel actually 'froze' [solidified] itself after 9 days," added Sich.
The scientist says that while the complete core meltdown at Chernobyl was a major disaster, it fell far short of the catastrophe many nuclear power critics had feared, the so-called "China Syndrome." In that scenario, the exposed core of a nuclear reactor becomes so hot that the molten material literally burns its way down through the earth. Chernobyl, at least, proved that to be a myth.
However, as soon as the reasons for the explosion became clear, Western nuclear experts lost interest in Chernobyl.
"Once the West understood what caused the accident and this type of the reactors don't operate on the West, that kind of thing can never happen in the West," Sich added. "They were happy with that and they moved on."
But in the areas of medicine, pharmacology and emergency preparedness, the lessons from Chernobyl are still being learned. Alla Shapiro lived in Kyiv in 1986, and worked at the Kyiv Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion. She learned about the nuclear plant accident from her father.
"He called me to tell that he was listening to the Voice of America in the middle of the night, which was his usual thing to do to get the information, and the broadcast was that the nuclear plant in Pripyat - that there was a nuclear explosion," Shapiro recalled.
Later, Shapiro and other doctors were sent to the affected area, where she took blood samples from the population.
"The striking thing was how misinformed the population was at the village that was so close to the reactor," Shapiro added. "People didn't take any precautions. Nobody gave potassium iodide to children or adults in that area. And people were encouraged to use their products, collect mushrooms in the woods, and to burn leaves in the fall. So that the smoke, the mixture of radioactive isotopes, was in the air and people were breathing it."
Now, 25 years after the catastrophe, Shapiro works as a medical officer in the Office of Counter-Terrorism and Emergency Coordination, part of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Her job is to make America ready for similar accidents, which involve radiation, or for the biological, chemical or nuclear terrorist attacks.
"The main [thing] is to have [a] high level of preparedness," Shapiro explained. "And the preparedness would include training the physicians and medical personal and informing the population in timely manner. With the first signs of radiation exposure, people have to go into shelters and then [comes] evacuation. And in case of radioactive iodine, it is mandatory that people have to receive potassium iodide."
Back in the Soviet Union, Shapiro recalls information was concealed not only from the population, but from medical professionals as well.
"[A] Librarian told me that they were forced to take all the literature with the word 'radiation' and put it in [an] archive," Shapiro said.
The Chernobyl disaster provided the field of medicine with some other valuable lessons as well.
"There are two big areas where eyes opened for the physicians on both sides of the World," Shapiro noted. "That radiation burns really attributed to prognosis and outcome of the patients with acute radiation poisoning, that radiation burns really kill patients, if they are extensive - even for the patients who underwent bone marrow transplant. Bone marrow transplant can't save [all] patients. So, selection of the patients for bone marrow transplant is really crucial."
In the United States, the drugs for preventive treatment and alleviation of the effects of radiation poisoning are being developed. Shapiro and her colleagues at FDA collaborate with pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions on that task.
Any technological disaster that takes human lives is a tragedy. But it can also teach lessons for the future if the information is shared and made accessible to experts all over the World.
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The United Nations and Haiti's major donor nations, including the United States, are questioning whether there was fraud in the final results of legislative elections.
The final voting results announced this week showed that the government reversed the outcome of 18 legislative races from vote totals it had released earlier in the month. All but two of the new results favored candidates from the ruling Unity Party of outgoing President Rene Preval.
The UN said the results "raised serious concerns" about the legitimacy of the vote counting. The final results would give the Unity Party 46 of the 99 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 17 of the 30 seats in the Senate. Former pop star Michel Martelly won the presidency with two-thirds of the vote, but his fledgling Reypons Peysan party won only three legislative seats.
Martelly said the results are "unacceptable and don't reflect the will of the people." He urged the international community to "not recognize" the results.
The UN released its statement Friday on behalf of the U.S., Brazil, Canada, Spain, France, the European Union and other major donors. Separately, the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince called on the Haitian government for an explanation of the results, saying it could find "no explanation for the reversals." The U.S. noted that in one instance a candidate was listed as having more votes than the total that was cast for all candidates in his district.
Martelly has promised change in Haiti after he is sworn in on May 14. International donors are waiting for a new government before they release billions of dollars to help Haiti overcome its deep poverty, earthquake-shattered infrastructure and cholera epidemic.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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