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Two dead, hundreds rescued off Italy

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 30 Maret 2013 | 23.55

TWO migrants have died at sea while trying to reach Italian shores from North Africa, while hundreds more were rescued and taken to the island of Lampedusa.

The victims were on a rubber dinghy with 88 other would-be migrants. They were spotted on Saturday struggling with rough seas by an Italian military patrol ship and were later picked up by the Italian coastguard. They died, presumably from hypothermia, before arriving in Lampedusa.

The coast guard said it had rescued 106 more people from another boat, bringing to around 500 the number of migrants taken to Lampedusa this week. Another 82 Somali migrants were rescued on Friday by Maltese authorities.

Lampedusa Mayor Giusi Nicolini said her island was struggling to cope with the latest arrivals. About a hundred migrants have been transferred to another detention centre in mainland Sicily, Italian authorities said.


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Burma unrest death toll reaches 43

THE death toll from recent communal violence in central Burma has risen to 43 with more than 1300 homes and other buildings destroyed.

Sixty-eight people have been arrested in connection with the Buddhist-Muslim unrest, which has left 11,376 people homeless, the New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported.

In total, 163 incidences of violence have been reported in 15 townships, it added.

Previously the official death toll stood at 40.

The situation appears to have calmed since President Thein Sein on Thursday vowed a tough response against those behind the violence, which he attributed to "political opportunists and religious extremists".

Security forces fired warning shots on Wednesday to disperse rioters. But Muslim leaders have criticised the security forces for failing to stop the attacks.

The clashes were apparently triggered by an argument in a gold shop that turned into a riot, but witnesses say the wave of violence since then appears to have been well organised.

It is the worst sectarian strife since violence between Buddhists and Muslims in the western state of Rakhine last year left at least 180 people dead.

Representatives from civil society, government, Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party and religious groups issued a joint statement on Saturday calling for respect for the country's various religions.

"We oppose the violent attacks and threats on the lives and property of citizens and the racial and religious discrimination among citizens," according to the statement supported by 58 people who attended a seminar in Yangon organised by the Myanmar Peace Center.

"It is crucial to act to prevent the riots from spreading," it added.


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Attacks leave more than 50 dead in Nigeria

ATTACKS on villages surrounding a central Nigerian city at the heart of unrest between Christians and Muslims have killed more than 50 people this week.

Officials say an assault on Wednesday on a village in the Riyom local government area killed 28 people and an attack in the Bokkos local government area killed 18 civilians. On Friday, a military spokesman said at least nine people were killed in the Barkin Ladi local government area.

The fighting often pits Christian villagers against nomadic Muslim cattle herders.

The attacks around Jos, a city in Nigeria's fertile central belt, come as a string of unsolved killings continue to plague a region that has seen thousands killed in massacres in recent years.

Authorities have pleaded for calm over the Easter weekend.


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Napolitano bids to end impasse in Italy

ITALIAN President Giorgio Napolitano has asked two unidentified "groups" to come up with a program for government in a bid to end a deadlock between parties more than a month after elections that left no clear winner.

Napolitano stressed that outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti's government would remain in charge until a new cabinet is formed and ruled out his own early resignation -- a scenario that had been mooted to help resolve the crisis.

The 87-year-old did not identify the "two restricted groups of different personalities" but officials said this would be clarified later on Saturday.

Analysts said the groups could be made up of party representatives as well as non-political "institutional" figures.

Napolitano said his latest round of talks with political forces on Friday had shown up "distinctly different positions" and called for "a greater sense of responsibility".

He also said Monti, a former European commissioner drafted in to drag Italy out of the eurozone debt crisis in 2011, represented "an element of certainty".

Pier Luigi Bersani's centre-left coalition, which secured the most votes in the elections but failed to win a majority, ruled out an alliance with Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right grouping which came a very close second.

Bersani was asked by Napolitano last Friday to try to form a government but admitted on Thursday that his efforts had come to nothing, after he failed to woo rival parties to support his cabinet.

Napolitano's announcement de facto withdrew the mandate from Bersani.

Berlusconi, a scandal-tainted billionaire tycoon who has been prime minister three times in a 20-year political career, has said a cross-party deal is the only viable solution.

The anti-establishment Five Star Movement party, which came in third, has ruled out support for a political cabinet but has left open the possibility of backing a technocratic government of non-political figures.

Developments in Italy are being closely watched by European capitals under similar pressures over budget cuts, as well as investors concerned that Italy could plunge back into the turmoil of the eurozone debt crisis.

Investors have been relatively calm so far and reactions on stock and bond markets have been muted -- mainly because of confidence in Monti.

Analysts say Italy has to find a government solution before markets re-open on Tuesday, however.


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Court upholds election of Kenya's Kenyatta

KENYA'S Supreme Court has upheld the victory of Uhuru Kenyatta in the March 4 presidential election.

The court unanimously ruled that the election had been conducted in a "free, fair, transparent and credible" manner and that Kenyatta and his running mate had been "validly elected", Chief Justice Willy Mutunga said.

"It is the decision of the court that the third and fourth respondents (Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto) were validly elected."

The six judges dismissed petitions filed by Raila Odinga, outgoing prime minister and Kenyatta's main rival in the presidential race, and by civil society groups, over what they said was a series of irregularities that skewed the election results.

The petitioners had called for fresh elections to be ordered.

Kenyatta faces trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague over his alleged role in planning the violence that followed the 2007 elections and left more than 1100 people dead.

There was tight security at the Supreme Court as the judgment was read out on Saturday.

The presidential, legislative and municipal elections held on March 4 were the first since the 2007 poll.


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Mandela 'breathing without difficulty'

NELSON Mandela is comfortable and breathing without difficulty on his third day in hospital after the anti-apartheid hero was treated for pneumonia, South Africa's presidency says.

Messages of concern for the ailing 94-year-old, one of the towering figures of modern history, have poured in since his admission late Wednesday for what was confirmed as "a recurrence of pneumonia".

Mandela had a build-up of fluid that had developed from a lung infection, known as a pleural effusion or "water on the lungs", drained from his chest.

"This has resulted in him now being able to breathe without difficulty," said President Jacob Zuma's office said in a statement on Saturday.

"He continues to respond to treatment and is comfortable."

On Friday, Mandela was said to be in good spirits and making steady progress.

"He sat up and had his breakfast in bed," Zuma's spokesman Mac Maharaj, who was jailed with Mandela during apartheid, told AFP.

There were no details on Saturday on how long he would remain at an undisclosed hospital.

Mandela's recent health troubles have triggered an outpouring of prayers but have also seen South Africans come to terms with the mortality of the revered Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The former president is idolised in his home nation, where he is seen as the architect of South Africa's peaceful transition from white minority-ruled police state to hope-filled democracy.

Nearly 20 years after he came to power in 1994, the first black president remains a unifying symbol in a country still riven by racial tensions and deep inequality.

It is the second time this month that Mandela has been admitted to hospital, after spending a night for check-ups on March 9.

That followed a nearly three-week hospital stay in December, when he was treated for another lung infection and underwent gallstone surgery.

He was diagnosed with early-stage tuberculosis in 1988 during his 27 years in prison under the apartheid regime and has long had problems with his lungs. He has also had treatment for prostate cancer and has suffered stomach ailments.

Keertan Dheda, professor of respiratory diseases at the University of Cape Town medical department, said a pleural effusion was the accumulation of water between the lining covering the lung and that of the chest wall.

Having the fluid tapped was a minor procedure, he said.

"One can drain the fluid with a needle and a catheter and in some cases that's all that's needed," he said.

Other cases required the fluid to be chemically broken down if it had formed pockets or a small operation if infected.

"The older you are, the longer pneumonia takes to get better," said Dheda, adding that mortality was also higher.

"It takes a bit longer, everything is a bit slower and a bit more complicated the older you get."

While Mandela's legacy continues to loom large over South African politics, he has long since exited the political stage and for the large young population he is a figure from another era, serving as president for just one term.

He has not appeared in public since South Africa's football World Cup final in 2010.

Labour unrest, high-profile crimes, grinding poverty and corruption scandals have effectively ended the honeymoon enjoyed after Mandela ushered in the "Rainbow Nation", but his decades-long struggle against apartheid still resonates.

"The whole country is not happy about the old man's health. He is not so well, but we wish him a speedy recovery," Soweto handicraft seller Nhlanhla Ngobese told AFP on Saturday.

"We want him back, even though he's an old man, he's an icon to us, a hero to us, we still want his diplomacy."

Away from the public eye, Mandela has grown increasingly frail.

His December hospital stay was his longest since he walked free from jail in 1990.


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Tanzanian building collapse toll hits 19

THE death toll from a building collapse in Tanzania's economic capital Dar es Salaam has risen to 19, officials say.

"Two more bodies were found this afternoon," regional commissioner Saidi Mecky Sadicky told AFP, updating an earlier toll of 17 in the disaster that happened on Friday.

Several dozen people are still missing around the site, which was littered with huge chunks of concrete.

"The operation is still going on but we have very little hope to find anyone alive," Sadicky said.

Eighteen people have been rescued alive from the remains of the 16-storey building, he said. However it is almost 24 hours since the last survivors were pulled out.

Hundreds of rescuers worked through the night in search of those still trapped in the rubble from the shell of the tower, which was being built near a mosque in the Kisutu area of Dar es Salaam.

Rescue work was slowed on Saturday afternoon after it started to rain.

Sadicky said between 60 and 70 people were reported to have been at or near the construction site on Friday morning, meaning that between 25 and 35 people could still be trapped.

Hundreds of people, including residents and army rescuers, clawed through piles of rubble in the hunt for survivors, alongside earthmovers and excavators.

"I thought there was an earthquake and then I heard screaming. The whole building fell on itself," witness Musa Mohamed told AFP on Friday shortly after the collapse

Sadicky said the rescue team was boosted on Friday night after the Chinese embassy told Chinese construction firms to provide additional earthmoving equipment.

Dozens of Chinese construction workers were at the site on Saturday instructing operators of excavators and forklifts that were sifting through the rubble.

Local residents turned out to supply rescuers with food, water and medication.

Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete visited the scene of the disaster in the coastal city and posted messages of condolence on his Twitter account.

"We pray for those who have been afflicted by this tragedy," he said. "We pray for togetherness in this time of need."


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Body found as Tibet mine disaster kills 83

Eighty-three workers have been buried after a large-scale landslide hit a mining area in Tibet. Source: AAP

RESCUE teams have found the first body almost 36 hours after a giant landslide in Tibet buried 83 mine workers.

Xinhua news agency said rescuers "found the first body at 5.35 pm (8.35pm AEDT)", after two million cubic metres of earth buried a copper mine workers' camp in Maizhokunggar county, east of the Tibetan capital Lhasa, at 6 am on Friday.

The report came after officials said at a press conference Saturday that no survivors or bodies had been found.

About 2,000 rescuers battled difficult terrain in the hunt for survivors after a vast three-kilometre-long section of land, with a volume of two million cubic metres, crashed down a slope, covering the miners' camp.

The rescuers braved bad weather as an emergency response team attempted to prevent a secondary disaster.

One rescue worker had earlier described the chance of survivors being found as "slim", Xinhua reported.

China's new president Xi Jinping and new premier Li Keqiang had ordered "top efforts" to rescue the victims, Xinhua said.

Mountainous regions of Tibet are prone to landslides, which can be exacerbated by heavy mining activity.


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