Storm Carlotta weakens over Mexico's Pacific coast, two dead - Reuters
ACAPULCO, Mexico |
ACAPULCO, Mexico (Reuters) - Hurricane Carlotta weakened into a tropical storm on Saturday after battering Mexico's Pacific coast and killing at least two children when their house collapsed in a landslide.
The government of Mexico lifted the hurricane warning from Salina Cruz to Acapulco after Carlotta made landfall in the southern state of Oaxaca on Friday, dumping rain on mountainous villages along the coast.
A mudbrick house collapsed in the town of Pluma Hidalgo, Oaxaca killing a 13 year old girl and her 7 year old sister, said Cyntia Tovar, a spokeswoman for the states' emergency services department. The girls' mother survived but was badly injured and taken to the hospital, Tovar said.
"The damage occurred during the night so we are still gathering information. There was no major flooding but a lot of ran and strong winds," said Tovar.
Heavy rains lashed the tourist resort of Acapulco further north overnight, but the showers had largely subsided by the morning.
Carlotta was located 40 miles north of Acapulco on Saturday morning with winds of 45 miles-per-hour, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
The storm is forecast to swirl inland over southern Mexico for the next several days, dumping between 4 to 8 inches of rain through Monday, the Miami-based center said.
"These rains could cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides," the center said, adding that isolated rains of up to 15 inches (375 mm) are possible.
Carlotta, the third named storm of the Pacific hurricane season, passed north of Mexico's biggest refinery, the 330,000 barrel-per-day Salina Cruz installation, which remained open.
The storms' path was far from the Baja California resort of Los Cabos, where the Group of 20 leaders of top economies are convening on Monday and Tuesday. Authorities said they did not expect Carlotta to make much of an impact and that the airport remained open.
(Editing by Doina Chiacu)
Suu Kyi accepts Nobel Peace Prize 21 years late - Reuters
OSLO |
OSLO (Reuters) - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi finally accepted her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Saturday after spending a total of 15 years under house arrest and said full political freedom in her country was still a long way off.
"Absolute peace in our world is an unattainable goal," Suu Kyi said in her acceptance speech during her first trip to Europe in nearly 25 years.
"Hostilities have not ceased in the far north; to the west, communal violence resulting in arson and murder were taking place just several days before I started out the journey that has brought me here today."
Suu Kyi, the Oxford University-educated daughter of General Aung San, Myanmar's assassinated independence hero, advocated caution about transformation in Myanmar, whose quasi-civilian government continues to hold political prisoners.
"There still remain such prisoners in Burma. It is to be feared that because the best known detainees have been released, the remainder, the unknown ones, will be forgotten," Suu Kyi, 66, told a packed Oslo City Hall.
A day earlier, she arrived from Switzerland to a jubilant reception as dancing and chanting crowds filled Oslo's streets and showered her with flowers.
Suu Kyi, who spent a total of 15 years under house arrest between 1989 and her release in late 2010, never left Myanmar even during brief periods of freedom after 1989, afraid the military would not let back in.
Her sons, Kim and Alexander had accepted the Nobel prize on her behalf in 1991, with her husband Michael Aris also attending the ceremony. A year later Suu Kyi announced she would use the $1.3 million prize money to establish a health and education trust for Burmese people.
She was unable to be with Aris, an Oxford academic, when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and died in Britain in 1999.
INSTRUMENTAL
Suu Kyi, who was elected to parliament in April, thanked Norway - a tiny Nordic nation of just 5 million people - for its support and the instrumental role it played in Myanmar's transformation.
In 1990, the Bergen-based Rafto Foundation awarded its annual prize to Suu Kyi, a little-known activist at the time, after a Norwegian aid worker in South-East Asia highlighted her work.
The award provided lasting publicity for her non-violent struggle against the country's military junta, putting her in the international spotlight and setting the stage a year later for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Norway has also provided a home to the Democratic Voice of Burma, an opposition television and radio outlet, which broadcasts uncensored news into Myanmar, in much the same way Radio Free Europe did behind the Iron Curtain decades earlier.
During her acceptance speech, Suu Kyi skirted the issue of sectarian violence between Rakhine Buddhists and stateless Muslim Rohingyas, which has tested Myanmar's 15-month-old government.
"We hope ceasefire agreements will lead to political settlements founded on the aspirations of the people, and the spirit of union," she said.
The violence, which displaced 30,000 people and killed 29 by government accounts, stems from an entrenched, long-standing distrust of around 800,000 Muslim Rohingyas, who do not even hold citizenship, and much of Myanmar's public regards them as illegal immigrants.
The crisis has also put President Thein Sein in a tight spot. His government is under pressure from rights groups and Western countries to show compassion towards the Rohingyas but a policy shift risks angering the public.
(Editing by Sophie Hares)
Poland V Czech Republic : UEFA Euro 2012 Match Preview - Football
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Chinese astronauts blast off on historic mission - CBC
China launched its most ambitious space mission yet on Saturday, carrying its first female astronaut and two male colleagues in an attempt to dock with an orbiting module and work on board for more than a week.
The Shenzhou 9 capsule lifted off as scheduled at 6:37 p.m. local time (1237 GMT) evening from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert. All systems functioned normally and, just over 10 minutes later, it opened its solar panels and entered orbit.
Female astronaut Liu Yang, 33, and two male crew members — veteran astronaut Jing Haipeng and newcomer Liu Wang — are to dock the spacecraft with a prototype space lab launched last year in a key step toward building a permanent space station.
The Shenzhou 9 spacecraft rocket launches from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. (Ng Han Guan/Associated Press)Two of the astronauts will live and work inside the module to test its life-support systems while the third will remain in the capsule to deal with any unexpected emergencies.
China is hoping to join the United States and Russia as the only countries to send independently maintained space stations into orbit. It is already one of just three nations to have launched manned spacecraft on their own.
Another manned mission to the module is planned for later this year, while possible future missions could include sending a man to the moon.
The program is a source of enormous national pride for China, reflecting its rapid economic and technological progress and ambition to rank among the world's leading nations.
At a sending off ceremony for the astronauts, the ruling Communist Party's No. 2 official, Wu Bangguo, told the crew, "The country and people await your victorious return."
The module, called Tiangong 1, is only a prototype, and the plan is to replace it with a larger permanent space station due for completion around 2020.
That station is to weigh about 60 tons, slightly smaller than NASA's Skylab of the 1970s and about one-sixth the size of the 16-nation International Space Station.
China has only limited co-operation in space with other nations and its exclusion from the ISS, largely on objections from the United States, was one of the key spurs for it to pursue an independent space program 20 years ago.
China first launched a man into space in 2003 followed by a two-man mission in 2005 and a three-man trip in 2008 that featured the country's first space walk.
In November 2011, the unmanned Shenzhou 8 successfully docked twice with Tiangong 1 by remote control.
The selection of the first female astronaut is giving the space program an additional publicity boost.
"Arranging for women astronauts to fly is not only a must for the development of human spaceflight, but also the expectation of the public," space program spokeswoman Wu Ping said. "This is a landmark event."
Speaking Friday, Liu Yang said: "We won't let you down. We will work together and successfully complete this mission."
Tunisia lifts curfew imposed following riots - Reuters
TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia lifted a night time curfew on Friday imposed earlier this week following riots by Salafi Islamists and others over an art exhibition they deemed insulting to Islam.
One man died in the unrest which broke out on Tuesday in Tunis and started spreading to other parts of the country.
There had been fears of further trouble on Friday after Salafi leaders, who follow a puritanical interpretation of Islam, and the ruling moderate Islamist Ennahda party both called for protests in defence of religion.
But the demonistrations were called off at the last minute after the interior ministry refused to issue licences to the march organisers.
Security forces deployed in large numbers on Friday around the Fateh Mosque, which is dominated by Salafis, but worshippers went home peacefully after prayers.
"After the improvement in the security situation and considering the interests of citizens, the ministry of interior and national defence has decided to end the curfew," the interior ministry later said in a statement on its Facebook page.
The riots were some of the worst clashes since last year's revolt ousted President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and launched uprisings across the Arab world.
The violence raised tough questions about the limits of freedom in post-revolutionary Tunisia and fueled fears among Tunisians of a slide into instability.
It also put Ennahda, which leads the government in coalition with two secular parties, in a difficult position as it struggles to satisfy conflicting demands.
While the Islamists did not play a major role in the revolution, the struggle over the role of Islam in government and society has since emerged as the most divisive issue in Tunisian politics and several clashes have erupted in recent months, some of them involving attacks on alcohol vendors.
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