North Korea threatens 'shots' over South's leaflets

27 February 2011 Last updated at 04:35 GMT

South Korea lawmakers have sent propaganda leaflets over the border

North Korea says it will fire across the border at South Korea, if Seoul continues to drop propaganda leaflets .

The South has been launching balloons, carrying leaflets about the recent democracy protests in Egypt and DVDs, over the heavily fortified border.

The South should "immediately stop psychological warfare," said the state KCNA news agency.

The warning comes a day before South Korea starts its annual military exercises with US forces.

"South Korea is driving the Korean peninsula to overall confrontation, with beefing up anti-republic, psychological plots," the North Korean statement went on.

South Korea has also been attaching food, clothes and radios to the balloons it sends over towards the North.

North Korea says the military exercise with US troops is a pretext for an invasion from the South, but Seoul insists it is purely defensive.

There are 28,500 US troops stationed in South Korea.

Inter-Korean relations have been extremely tense since 46 South Koreans died when their warship was sunk last March.

Seoul blamed the North for the incident, something Pyongyang denies.

Military talks aimed at defusing tensions and restarting dialogue broke down earlier this month.

Three killed in Tunisian anti-government protests

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The BBC's Paul Moss in Tunis says the situation there is "very serious indeed"

Three people have been killed in clashes between hundreds of demonstrators and security forces in the Tunisian capital, authorities say.

Police used tear gas, batons and live ammunition to disperse demonstrators outside the interior ministry in Tunis.

Police and masked men in civilian clothes, armed with sticks, moved through streets looking for protesters.

The protest comes a day after police cleared huge crowds from the streets demanding the prime minister resign.

That was the biggest rally since President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled after weeks of unrest.

The fighting went on for several hours on Saturday, as protesters tried to storm the interior ministry, right in the centre of Tunis, and police repeatedly repelled their attacks, says the BBC's Paul Moss in Tunis.

In a statement, the interior ministry said: "Three people died from the dozen who were wounded during clashes and were transferred to hospital for treatment... Several members of the security forces were wounded to different degrees," it said without giving a number.

The statement added more than 100 people were arrested on Saturday and almost 90 had been arrested on Friday.

That follows one reported death in Friday's clashes, during which police fired tear gas and warning shots to disperse demonstrators.

Sudden trouble

Police used tear gas as well as batons and live ammunition to disperse demonstrators

The stench of tear gas again filled the main shopping street in Tunis on Saturday, our correspondent said.

The trouble flared very suddenly - people out shopping found themselves caught up in the confrontation, women carrying heavy bags running for cover with handkerchiefs clutched to their mouths, he added.

Several members of the security forces ran into the lobby of a hotel, yelling at startled customers drinking coffee to return to their rooms or leave the hotel immediately, he said.

The interim government of PM Mohammed Ghannouchi, who had served under ousted President Ben Ali since 1999, has promised elections by mid-July.

Although Mr Ghannouchi has introduced some reforms and removed a number of controversial cabinet members, protesters remain angry that figures from Mr Ben Ali's authoritarian government remain in the interim cabinet.

Egypt's army passes draft constitutional amendments

26 February 2011 Last updated at 22:38 GMT

Police had driven crowds away from Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday with batons and tasers

The army in Egypt has passed a draft of constitutional amendments to be submitted to a national referendum.

Under the proposed changes, the president would only be allowed to serve two four-year terms, instead of unlimited six-year periods.

Deposed President Hosni Mubarak was serving his fifth six-year term when he was toppled by a mass uprising earlier this month.

The amendments would also reinstate judicial oversight of elections.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that now controls Egypt asked a panel of experts to suggest constitutional amendments that produce democratic reforms.

It has promised to put them to a national referendum ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections to be held within six months.

The changes are long-standing demands of the Egyptian opposition, some of whom have also wanted to limit presidential powers.

But the committee that drafted the changes said it had decided to postpone that issue until after the elections.

A future president would also be obliged to appoint a deputy, something Mr Mubarak avoided until the last days of his rule.

Other changes would make it easier for individuals to qualify to run as a presidential candidate.

Elections would be subject to judicial supervision and it would harder for any leader to maintain the state of emergency.

Earlier the Supreme Council apologised after military police surrounded a crowd of protesters overnight, beating them with batons and using tasers to drive them out of Tahrir Square in central Cairo.

The demonstrators had been calling for a faster pace of reform and the replacement of the interim government of Prime Minister Ahmad Shafiq.

Even after a cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday, several Mubarak-era ministers remain, including the key portfolios of defence, interior, foreign affairs, and justice.

Mr Mubarak resigned on 11 February, forced out by 18 days of street protests.

Decapitated bodies displayed in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico

27 February 2011 Last updated at 02:00 GMT

Four bodies with their heads severed have been dumped in the Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo, close to the border with the US, police say.

Gunmen laid the decapitated bodies out on a sheet in a central square in full view of horrified pedestrians.

On the sheet was a written message from the Gulf drugs cartel to a rival gang.

Beheadings have become a feature of the violent struggle between Mexican drugs gangs fighting for control of smuggling routes into the US.

More than 34,600 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon began deploying the army to fight the cartels.

Much of the violence has been concentrated in northern states along the US border.

Nuevo Laredo is in Tamaulipas state, which has been the focus of a bloody turf war between the Gulf cartel and the Zetas gang.

Attacks on the security forces have also become frequent in the state.

Earlier this month Nuevo Laredo's police chief Manuel Farfan - a former army officer - was shot dead along with two of his bodyguards.

Last June, a candidate for the governor of Tamaulipas, Rodolfo Torre Cantu, was killed on the campaign trail in an attack blamed on drug gangs.

And in August, the bodies of 72 Central and South American migrants were found inside a ranch in the state, after they allegedly refused to pay an extortion fee to the gangs.

Christchurch quake: New Zealand holds church services

27 February 2011 Last updated at 02:16 GMT

Earthquake victims were remembered at churches in Christchurch and across New Zealand on Sunday

Victims of this week's magnitude 6.3 earthquake that devastated the centre of Christchurch have been honoured at church services across New Zealand.

Tuesday's quake killed at least 145 people; some 200 are still missing.

Prime Minister John Key said there was still a glimmer of hope survivors could be found in the wreckage of the country's worst-ever disaster.

But no-one has been found alive since Wednesday, and rescuers working for a fifth day are only finding bodies.

In the meantime, engineers say at least a third of the buildings in the centre of Christchurch will need to be demolished, while hundreds of damaged suburban homes may also have to be pulled down.

Mr Key said the disaster "may be New Zealand's single most tragic event", outstripping a 1931 quake in Napier which killed 256.

He said a two-minute silence would be held on Tuesday at 1251 local time (2351 GMT Monday), a week after the quake struck.

Having met relatives of the dead and missing, Mr Key said: "It's fair to say they fear the worst but there is still a glimmer of hope."

Slow process

Families of the missing have appealed for the process of identifying dead bodies to be accelerated, but officials have asked for patience.

Updating the lists of the dead and missing was a slow and methodical process, said police spokesman Dave Cliff.

"We are going through it as fast as we possibly can in order to get the deceased reunited with their loved ones," he said.

Rescuers from 10 countries, including Britain, Japan and the United States, have been searching broken buildings and piles of debris, as aftershocks continue.

Rescuers say they are losing hope of finding the scores of people still missing

Emergency worker Phil Parker said teams of eight to 12 people were still going into buildings, but said the work was tough and unpredictable.

"We won't be going into buildings that are deemed unsafe, that's why we're checking them now, but there's always that danger of the buildings coming down on us," he told the BBC.

Many damaged buildings will have to be pulled down, said Auckland University structural engineer Jason Ingham.

"We've collected some data over the past couple of days and it's looking like about one-third of the buildings (would be condemned)," he told TVNZ.

For many residents, it is all too much, and there is an exodus from Christchurch, says the BBC's Phil Mercer in the city.

Officials believe up to 22 bodies may lie beneath the rubble of Christchurch Cathedral; as many as 120 are thought to have been killed inside the collapsed CTV office block, including Japanese, Chinese and Philippine nationals; many others are presumed dead inside the destroyed Pyne Gould Guinness building.

Power has been restored to most of the city but water supply remains a problem, with residents being urged to boil water for drinking or cooking due to contamination fears.

The quake struck at a shallow depth of 5km (3.1 miles) early on Tuesday lunchtime, when the South Island city was at its busiest.

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Bahraini opposition leader back home

A wellwisher takes a picture of Hassan Meshaima, a Bahraini Shiite opposition leader, at Bahrain International Airport in Muharraq, Bahrain, on Saturday. Mushaima, who heads a Shiite group known as Haq, returned Saturday from several months of voluntary exile in London. (AP)

By ARAB NEWS

Published: Feb 27, 2011 00:14 Updated: Feb 27, 2011 01:38

MANAMA: A prominent Bahraini opposition leader returned from exile Saturday and urged the kingdom’s rulers to back up reform promises with action.

Hassan Mushaima, who heads Haq movement, was embraced and kissed by a small group of supporters as he returned from months of voluntary exile in London.

Mushaima, who had been among a group of activists previously accused of plotting to overthrow Bahrain’s rulers, called on the government to be more responsive to protesters’ demands for far-reaching political reforms. “Dialogue ... is not enough. Promising is not enough. We have to see something on the ground,” he said on arrival at the airport.

Mushaima said any changes should grant more power to the people. Asked if he hoped to lead the protest movement, he said: “I’m always saying to the people, ‘I’m your servant’.”

Prominent opposition activist Muneera Fakhro welcomed the fast-changing developments. “The firing of the three ministers on Friday and the granting of royal pardon to Hassan Mushaima are good signs. These are clear indicators that the government is responding, and responding positively to the demands of the activists,” she said.

She said passions are running very high in the streets and the situation needs to be handled deftly and carefully. “People are very emotional and there is a reason for that; they have lost some of their near and dear ones in the violence last week,” she said. “We met the families of some of the victims on Saturday and they were pretty emotionally surcharged,” she added.

Fakhro felt that the arrival of Mushaima will help speed the process of dialogue with the government. “He is a Bahraini citizen and we welcome his return to his homeland,” she said. “He will soon meet representatives of the opposition and then we will open a dialogue with the government as to where we should go next,” she said. “Since people are restless, they are expecting rapid changes, but such things take time. I am very optimistic that Bahrain will emerge stronger from all these developments.”

Editorial: Fatah-Hamas talks

The winds of change buffeting the region appear to have impacted the Palestinians

Amid vast regional transformations, pressure is mounting on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to reconcile with Hamas. With options for negotiated peace and a Palestinian state thinning, pressure on Palestinian factions to unify has intensified. So it is that Abbas' Fatah Party has said it is ready for new talks with rival Hamas over a long-elusive reconciliation.

The rivalry between Hamas and Fatah soured dramatically after their split of four years ago. Repeated attempts at getting the two parties to reconcile their differences have led nowhere. But the winds of change with hurricane force that have been buffeting the region appear to have impacted the Palestinians. In the wake of a failed bid to pass a draft resolution in the Security Council condemning Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian lands, young Palestinians recently converged on central Ramallah to call for unity between the main two Palestinian factions. Their demand was not only not to return to negotiations, but more significant, that all efforts be invested in reaching national reconciliation with Hamas.

In such spirit, PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has offered Hamas a spot in a new Cabinet being cobbled together in Ramallah (though having won landslide elections outright in 2006 it's doubtful Hamas would now accept a bit part).

Despite the chants for unity and what appears a real desire for reconciliation, the dispute is difficult to resolve. The quarrel over who will control the security forces is most contentious. Under whose authority will security forces fall? Fatah insists they must come under the control of the Palestinian presidency; Hamas believes the elected government should command the security apparatus. To break the stalemate, the security personnel in the Hamas government should merge with their counterparts in the Fatah government who worked together before military operations resulted in Hamas taking control of the Gaza Strip. Senior security positions could be held by politically independent figures that have no group affiliations to either Fatah or Hamas.

Inter-Palestinian understandings and agreement reached in the past could also be revisited, most prominently the national reconciliation plan approved by all Palestinian factions, the Cairo Agreement of 2005, and the Makkah Accords of 2007.

Of course, Tel Aviv rejects Palestinian national conciliation because it would represent a loss for Israel. A vital gain for Israel from Palestinian division is preventing political unity of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Benjamin Netanyahu can always claim he cannot reach agreement with Abbas because the latter does not represent all Palestinians. National unity would reconnect the West Bank with the Gaza Strip to become one political unit, which Israel does not want. Israel's greatest achievement since inter-Palestinian divisions began is the complete separation between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Israel is doing all it can to maintain this accomplishment.

The Palestinian response should be to regroup, to reassert the national agenda in pursuit of an end to occupation, the return of refugees, self-determination, and to establish a Palestinian state within the borders of 1967 with Jerusalem as its capital.

The position should remain consistent: To never give up the struggle to claim the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. The right to self-determination to be exercised by all the people in the region of Palestine is a legal right that all states have agreed to in law. It is about time, in these days of national resurgence sweeping the region, that the direct parties to the dispute worked in tandem to realize the same rights.