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US begins aid flights to Myanmar cyclone victims (World, 26 articles)
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But international aid groups said the number of dead could eventually top 100,000 - and the British aid group Oxfam said 1.5 million, if residents don't get clean water and sanitation soon. A U.S. plane ferried relief to Myanmar for the first time Monday to help nearly 2 million cyclone victims facing disease and starvation, but the U.N. chief criticized the military junta for its " unacceptably slow response. Local staff for international relief agencies are stretched to breaking point and facing tighter restrictions on their ability to deliver the trickle of foreign aid flowing in to 1.5 million survivors facing hunger and disease. Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said its first cargo plane loaded with medical supplies landed in the cyclone-hit former capital, Yangon, on Monday but it was facing "increasing constraints" imposed on its staff in the delta. Hopefully, with word of a US cargo plane being allowed to bring aid into the country, the governing military junta in Myanmar will be more open to other aid groups. The junta is refusing to grant entry to foreign aid workers that relief officials say are crucial to preventing further deaths from disease among an estimated 1.5 million survivors.
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Pro-EU alliance wins Serbia election (World, 14 articles)
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Serbs voted on 11 May in the first general election since Kosovo declared independence on 17 February - an event that sharply polarised Serbian society. Serbia's coalition government collapsed in March as a result of irreconcilable divisions over how to respond to Kosovo's bid for independence, and early elections were called. Serbia went into Sunday's parliamentary elections after the fall of an unstable coalition - and will probably emerge with another unstable coalition at the helm.
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Other stories about EU, European and elections:
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Hezbollah orders West Beirut withdrawal as army offers olive branch (World, 12 articles)
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The worst fighting Monday was in the northern city of Tripoli, where government supporters and gunmen loyal to the opposition Hezbollah militia clashed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. In the mountains above Beirut, clouds of white smoke drifted on the breeze as Hezbollah and the pro government Druse militia traded mortar and automatic gunfire. On Saturday, Hezbollah agreed to pull its fighters off the streets of Muslim western Beirut after the army overturned government measures aimed at curbing the group.
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Shiite Muslim factions sign Sadr City deal (World, 11 articles)
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The cease-fire might not end the seven weeks of clashes in Sadr City, the stronghold of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, as the U.S. military has blamed clashes on breakaway groups. The signatures put an official seal to a truce brokered over the weekend by Sadr's political representatives and members of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's governing alliance. The U.S. military said its troops in the southeastern portion of the district had come under attack at least three times and had killed three gunmen since the deal began to take effect Sunday.
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Visiting B.C. students uninjured in China's massive earthquake (World, 14 articles)
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A powerful earthquake toppled buildings, schools and chemical plants Monday in central China, killing about 10,000 people and trapping untold numbers in mounds of concrete, steel and earth in the country's worst quake in three decades. State media reports indicated that the number of dead was likely to soar, with Xinhua saying 10,000 people remained buried in the Mianzhu area of Sichuan province. The most powerful earthquake to hit China in 30 years has killed at least 10,000 people in south-western Sichuan province, with thousands more trapped.
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UMass chief supports stripping Mugabe of honorary degree (World, 7 articles)
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A leading state lawmaker is urging the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to rescind a 1986 honorary degree awarded to Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, whose authoritarian regime is accused of stifling political opposition and of systemic human rights abuses. In a May 9 letter to UMa president Jack M. Wilson calling on the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees to revoke the honorary degree, Murphy denounced Mugabe as " an affliction on the people of Zimbabwe. Mugabe's government has targeted supporters of Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai since Mugabe lost the first stage of a presidential election in March.
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Mexico police say drug cartel killed No. 2 cop (World, 5 articles)
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The five und three men and two women und belonged to a criminal cell acting on the orders of the Sinaloa drug cartel, said Gerardo Garay P Mexican president Felipe Calderon has been brave enough to try to wrestle back control of his country from the vicious drug cartels that have been terrorizing border areas and, increasingly, major Mexican cities for years. The price for this courage has been high and is getting higher - more than 100 people were killed as a result of drug-related violence last week in Mexico, including about 20 police officers.
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Sudan cuts ties with Chad, saying it aided attackers - (World, 12 articles)
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Darfur rebels have launched a brazen attack on the Sudanese capital for the first time in their five-year insurgency, in a show of force that revealed the government's vulnerability and raised tensions in the region. The rebels clashed with government troops in Omdurman, Khartoum's twin city across the Nile, on Saturday, after making a lightning advance across 600km of desert and bush in a convoy of between 100 and 200 vehicles. The broadcast and sale of Sudanese music was also banned, Hissene said, reading a statement on state-owned television and radio.
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Sharif's party quitting Pakistan's cabinet (World, 7 articles)
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Everyone in Pakistan agrees that President Pervez Musharraf's dismissal of Supreme and High Court judges under emergency rule last year was unconstitutional. Amid spiraling food prices, rising militant violence and a crime wave sweeping the country, Pakistanis watched with dismay as the ruling coalition collapsed today after less than seven weeks in power. Under immense international pressure, the U.S.-backed military leader stepped down as army chief Nov. 28 and called for general elections to go forward.
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Rocket from Gaza kills Israeli woman amid peace efforts (World, 6 articles)
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The chances of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas dimmed further on Monday, after the Israeli government rebuffed an Egypt-sponsored ceasefire proposal and a rocket fired by Palestinian militants killed an Israeli citizen close to the Gaza strip. Israel charged that Hamas was creating an artificial crisis, raising tensions ahead of a visit by the Egyptian mediator trying to broker a truce between the two enemies. Gaza receives its fuel supplies from Israel, which has severely limited shipments to pressure Palestinian militants to halt their rocket barrages at nearby Jewish communities.
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Cartoons of Prophet Met With Outrage (World, 4 articles)
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KABUL, Afghanistan, Feb. 8 Like tens of thousands of protesters this week, the crowd that gathered Wednesday in the southern Afghan town of Qalat came to speak out against cartoons in European newspapers mocking the prophet Muhammad. Pakistanis in the crowd began chanting against the United States and tried to force their way into the local U.S. military base. The cartoons were published in September in a conservative, mass-circulation Danish daily, Jyllands-Posten, and were reprinted three weeks ago in Magazinet, a small evangelical Christian newspaper in Norway.
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blaster@cs.columbia.edu
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