Haiti judge says 8 of 10 missionaries to be freed

Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE - A Haitian judge says he decided to free 8 of 10 Americans charged with child kidnapping after their parents testified they voluntarily handed their children over to the missionaries.

Judge Bernard Saint-Vil tells The Associated Press that the 8 are free to leave Wednesday without bail or other conditions.

He says he still wants to question group leader Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter about their visit to Haiti in December before the earthquake.

Saint-Vil says he also asked for Coulter to be hospitalized because of her diabetes.

The group was caught trying to take 33 children out of the quake-stricken country late last month. It says it was on a mercy mission.

Los Angeles Times

U.S. military mission in Haiti shifting from aid to reconstruction

By Megan McCloskey and Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes

Mideast edition, Thursday, February 18, 2010

South Korean peacekeeping troops bound for Haiti cheer during a ceremony in Incheon on Wednesday. South Korea will be sending a total of 240 troops to Haiti by the end of this month as the sixth United Nations peacekeeping unit working on rebuilding the quake-ravaged nation

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The U.S. military is scaling back its primary mission of medical and humanitarian assistance in this earthquake-ravaged nation while ramping up reconstruction and resettlement, according to the commander of Joint Task Force Haiti.

A massive food distribution push is set to end later this week. And significant — and surprising — improvement in the medical situation on the ground has lessened the need for U.S. medical personnel.

As a result, the military is sending some assets home and shifting the focus of the remaining forces to engineering projects and rubble removal, he said.

At the peak of the mission, in the wake of the Jan. 12 earthquake, there were 20,000 U.S. forces on the ground and on ships offshore. Now, 13,000 troops remain, of which 7,000 are on the ground, military officials said.

“We see the need for military assistance dwindling,” Lt. Gen. Ken Keen told a Pentagon news briefing Wednesday via satellite from Haiti.

Reconstruction and resettlement are “two significant challenges for the government and the international community,” he said.

Keen wouldn’t elaborate on how long he sees U.S. forces remaining in Haiti.

“It’s too early to tell which units may not be needed on the ground as we go forward,” he said.

Keen said the capacities of the port, the airport and the Haitian government still need to mature.

Just two weeks ago, doctors aboard the USNS Comfort said patients were stuck aboard the hospital ship with no place to go for recovery and further treatment in Haiti.

The Haitian facilities were either unable to handle the complicated cases or overwhelmed with patients already.

Now it appears that the medical capabilities in Haiti have turned around so thoroughly that a 250-bed facility the military rushed to build in Port-au-Prince has gone unused save for a handful of patients. Keen said he had thought there would be a significant need for an interim after-care facility, possibly requiring as many as 5,000 beds, but the need never materialized.

The Comfort now has only about 70 patients onboard, down from about 500 at its peak.

“Things are stabilizing and moving towards reconstruction,” said Lynn Lawry, a doctor who worked in Haiti with International Medical Corps, which has a large presence there. Lawry also consults for the Defense Department on issues of working with NGOs.

The U.S. military is drawing down its surgical capabilities in Haiti, said Col. Gregory Kane, task force operations officer.

An Air Force hospital established after the earthquake should be gone in the next week or so, and surgical teams aboard the USS Bataan are headed home, he said.

With the recovery of Haitian hospitals and the expansion and opening of nongovernmental facilities, there are now 91 functioning hospitals, 53 of which have surgical capabilities, Lawry said. That is more than double what the area had before the earthquake.

“I don’t think anybody anticipated that things would rebound so quickly,” said Capt. Andrew Johnson, the Comfort’s director of medical operations.

Meanwhile, as the World Food Program’s distribution “surge” is slated to end on Saturday, the food distribution points secured by Marines and U.S. soldiers will no longer be used to hand out aid, according to Col. Gareth Brandl, commander of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit.

Marines will remain ashore for the time being to make sure that Haitians and nongovernmental agencies can handle food distribution, Brandl said.

Afterward, most Marines will return to their ships off Haiti’s coast to stand by if needed, he said. A small number of Marines will remain behind to coordinate relief efforts.

The plan is for local Haitian leaders and aid agencies to drop off food at smaller locations, such as orphanages and camps for displaced Haitians, said Lt. Col. Robert Fulford, battalion commander for 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment.

When asked if things might get chaotic without Marines to provide security, Fulford said the United Nations will not distribute food unless the sites are well organized.

Ultimately, it will be up to Haitian leaders to maintain order, he said.

Stars and Stripes reporter Megan McCloskey reported from Washington

Stars and Stripes

Romance on the menu for Dermot O'Leary as he visits Los Angeles with girlfriend

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Television host Dermot O'Leary enjoyed a relaxing day out with his long-term girlfriend Dee Koppang in Los Angeles yesterday.

The pair, who have been dating for almost eight years, were spotted canoodling over lunch at the Blu Jam Cafe on Melrose Avenue after a day of shopping.

He is said to be in the U.S. in the hope of securing a six-figure deal to host the American version of X Factor, which will kick off Stateside next year.

The 36-year-old is meeting with Cecile Frot-Coutaz, the chief executive of show producers FremantleMedia, according to sources.

Simon Cowell is believed to have already given him a ringing endorsement, along with UK judge Cheryl Cole.

TV director and producer Dee joined him on the trip for moral support, also giving him the chance to mix business with pleasure.

The couple live together in north London and are planning to marry and have children - eventually.

'We've talked about marriage,' he said late last year.

'You're not with someone for seven years unless you're deeply in love with them. For the time being that's enough for me. 

'Of course I want to get married and I'd be gutted if she didn't say the same thing.

'But she's a career-orientated girl. There are things she needs to do before we get married, and I'm cool about it'.

They met in 2002 while working for the same television company.

Daily Mail

The future of technology in Kingdom

By ROGER HARRISON | ARAB NEWS

JEDDAH: Much of the eighth plenary session - Science and Technology - at the Jeddah Economic Forum on Tuesday consisted of a review of the Kingdom's current position in technological development and a presentation of the big-picture view of where Saudi Arabia should be in 2020. Adaptive and innovative research and development, global cooperation and cross pollination of ideas together with the difficult issue of ownership of intellectual property all surfaced in the presentations and ensuing discussions.

Prince Turki bin Saud bin Mohammed Al-Saud, vice president for research institutes at KACST (King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology) reviewed the development of policy that led to the current structure of the university. He said that the structure to establish the development of science, technology and innovation in the Kingdom would be complete this year. In a second plan, the Kingdom would become a leading country in the region. These two plans would, he continued, be completed by 2015.

"The third plan is for the country to become a leading country in science, technology and innovation in Asia and by the end of the fourth plan, the country will be transformed into a knowledge-based economy and society joining the advanced industrialized countries." He said that by 2025 the Kingdom should be, as far as the plan is concerned, an advanced and industrialized country with funding at that stage of a minimum two percent of it GDP (gross domestic product). "So far we are actually implementing this plan exactly as hoped." Of the eight programs within the plan, the long-term plans the first, strategic technologies program, gets about two thirds of the funding.

The areas of technology in this program include development of water, oil and gas, petrochemicals, nano and bio-technology, environment and electronics and communication.

"The funding for the plan is about SR8 billion ($2.2 billion) which started in 2007 and in the next five years we are looking to double that funding." Since the establishment of KACST in 1977, it has spent about $200 million on funding research at universities. "In 2009 alone, we spent about $400 million, twice what was spent during the previous 30 years." In his presentation directed at presenting the benefits of telecoms in the development of a country, Sami Al-Basheer El-Morshid, director if the Telecommunication Bureau of the International Telecommunication Union said that no nation on earth developed in any economic sector without first without developing ICT infrastructure. "You cannot have a sound educational system without ICT services, nor health or agriculture." He was convinced that the future was broadband technology. "It is the key for any sound development and the digital economy," he said.

Experience from around the world had shown that this could not happen using only the private sector. It needed a sound government involvement, he said, citing South Korea as an example.

The centerpiece in the Kingdom's drive toward the vision of a knowledge-based technological society is the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. The two-part mission, described by the founding president, professor Choon Fong Shih was to recruit the top talent from around the world to pursue graduate degrees. It was, he said, a people project, "to create an environment to pursue their passion, their research and to work together at peace." The second part was to catalyze the diversification of the Saudi economy through innovation to become entrepreneurial spirits and to transform knowledge based products into commercial businesses. It was the ownership of research results that exercised the minds of several delegates. Choon admitted that a challenge was to find a way to share intellectual property rights balancing the ownership by the researchers and the university against commercial potential, but it was a difficult issue. Prince Turki agreed and said that the exploitation of intellectual property had helped many universities to establish commercial companies and develop products.

The incubation of companies that drive from research projects was, he thought, vital. "It is very important to allow researchers to benefit from their research and establish companies". He noted that KACST had been involved in developing this and anticipated a law to clarify the process in due course.

Arab News

A challenging day for Ray Gosling in murder probe

By Jonathan Brown

Ray Gosling had spent yesterday in the full glare of the media spotlight, insisting he would not disclose any more details about his extraordinary on-air revelation that he had smothered his dying lover to death. Today, it was the turn of the police to try to persuade the 70-year-old television presenter to be more forthcoming.

Shortly before 8am, the veteran broadcaster and gay rights campaigner was taken to Oxclose Lane police station near his home in sheltered accommodation in Nottingham, where he spent the day being quizzed by murder squad detectives investigating his apparent confession. In a documentary, he told BBC viewers that he had killed the unnamed man during the final stages of an Aids-related illness.

His solicitor Digby Johnson told reporters gathered outside the station that the investigation was at a “very, very early stage”. He said: “There is no saying how long Ray will be here, but he is in good spirits and I would ask you to respect these are very difficult times for Ray because, by its very nature, the things we are talking about are as distressing as could be”.

Among the problems faced by the detectives investigating the decades-old case is that Mr Gosling did not reveal the identity of the dead man, nor exactly when the incident took place. It is known that the man had Aids and that it was in the early days of the disease – effectively narrowing it down to some time in the 1980s. Close friends have confirmed that he had spoken about it in the past and had been largely untroubled by his actions.

However, some newspapers challenged Mr Gosling’s version of events, claiming that in the original “confession” and resulting interviews he had appeared to contradict himself. In the programme Inside Out, which was broadcast in the East Midlands on Monday night, he described the pact he had made with the man who was his lover but not his partner.

Strolling through a graveyard, he said: “In a hospital one hot afternoon, the doctor said ‘There’s nothing we can do’, and he was in terrible, terrible pain. I said to the doctor ‘Leave me just for a bit’ and he went away. I picked up the pillow and smothered him until he was dead. The doctor came back and I said ‘He’s gone’. Nothing more was ever said”.

Nottinghamshire Police declined to reveal any further details of the case, which has become a highly sensitive one for the force both in terms of the investigation and handling the intense media interest. One experienced murder squad detective said officers had to act. “In a high profile case like this where a confession is made on national television, it is important that the police are seen to act and they would have waited until the immediate media attention died down before they made the arrest,” he told The Independent.

Any decision made by the Crown Prosecution Service will be influenced by new guidance on when prosecutions should be brought for assisted suicide, due to be published next week. The new guidance will replace interim guidelines introduced last year, after a House of Lords judgment in the case of Debbie Purdy, a multiple sclerosis sufferer who wanted to know if her husband would be prosecuted for helping her end her life at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland.

The BBC again defended its decision to broadcast the programme on the grounds of “journalistic integrity” and said it had been under no obligation to report the matter to the police.

The Independent

Sri Lanka's opposition candidate appeals defeat in court

By BHARATHA MALLAWARACHI | AP

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's jailed and defeated opposition presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka appealed to the country's highest court Tuesday to overturn the results of last month's election, a lawmaker said.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa secured a wide victory over his former army chief and main rival Fonseka in the Jan. 26 election, according to official results. But the opposition claims the poll was marred by widespread fraud and has rejected the result.

Lawyers for Fonseka - who was arrested last week after the government said he was planning a coup - have asked the Supreme Court to annul the results of the vote, said Tissa Attanayake, an opposition lawmaker. The appeal cites alleged government involvement in vote-rigging, use of state resources on behalf of Rajapaksa and other violations.

It was not clear when the court would consider the case.

The campaign between Rajapaksa and Fonseka was a bitter one. The two were allies when they worked together to defeat the Tamil Tiger rebels last year, but fell out after the war.

Fonseka denies plotting to stage a coup, and the opposition says he was arrested because he dared to challenge Rajapaksa.

The dispute has spilled over onto the streets and even into the Buddhist temples of the island nation off the southern coast of India. For the Sinhalese Buddhist clergy, both Rajapaksa and Fonseka are considered heroes for defeating the Tigers and ushering in a period of peace.

The country's top Buddhist monks have urged Rajapaksa to release Fonseka immediately.

On Tuesday, thousands of opposition supporters paraded in Colombo demanding Fonseka's freedom and accusing the government of undermining democracy.

Tuesday's move by Fonseka's lawyers comes as the country gears up for general elections scheduled for April 8 in which the ruling coalition hopes to further strengthen its grip on power.

There have been widespread accusations of harassment in the weeks after the presidential poll, with international human rights and media groups saying the government has put particular focus on journalists.

On Tuesday, a lower court released a newspaper editor after police kept him in detention for 18 days under the country's wartime anti-terror law, a police spokesman said.

Chandana Sirimalwatte, editor of the Lanka weekly newspaper that was close to Fonseka, was released a day after his lawyers petitioned the Supreme Court saying his detention was arbitrary and he should be released immediately.

Police spokesman Prishantha Jayakody said Sirimalwatte was taken to court Tuesday and the judge revoked a 90-day detention order.

Separately, the fate of another journalist remained unknown more than three weeks after his disappearance.

Jayakody said an investigation into the case of Prageeth Ekneligoda, a columnist for the news Web site Lanka e News and a critic of the president, continued but no progress had been made.

Media rights groups say Sri Lanka is among the most dangerous places for dissenting journalists. Amnesty International says at least 14 Sri Lankan media workers have been killed since the beginning of 2006.

Arab News

Ravens cleared over collapse of waders

By Jonathan Brown

For centuries it has been demonised as a symbol of death and foreboding, driven to the lonely edges of the land by persecuting humans who grew to fear its ebony form among them. Yet the evil mythology that surrounds the raven is now being debunked by science and the reputation of the cronking gloom bird of the popular imagination restored.

New research has effectively dismissed one of the persistent complaints levelled by critics of one of northern hemisphere's most successful bird species in the wake of its extraordinary return to nearly all parts of Britain in the last 20 years - the claim that it is responsible for the collapse of some wading bird populations.

Numbers of curlew, lapwing and dunlin in upland regions have fallen by more than 50 per cent since 1985 - a decline which has closely mirrored the resurgence of Corvus corax in the same areas. A study by the RSPB and the University of Aberdeen's Centre for Environmental Sustainability (Aces) compiled from data taken from sites across more than 1,700 sq km of hill and moorland were analysed to see the patterns of change between the species.

It found only "weak associations" in the rise in numbers of one and the decline in the other with differences put down to other factors, including changes to habitat and vegetation cover and a general increase in other predators such as foxes. There were also no links found between the rise in ravens and the decline in numbers of snipe, golden plover and dunlin in upland areas which include Exmoor in Somerset, the Highlands in Scotland and the Lake District in Cumbria.

Dr Arjun Amar, a senior conservation scientist with RSPB, said that while many viewed the return of the raven as a welcome development in the changing natural history of the British Isles, it has brought land managers and conservation organisations into conflict. Farmers and game keepers can still apply for licenses to shoot ravens if their livestock is threatened. And the image problem remains deeply rooted even though they can now be found on the outskirts of London and in cities such as Chester and Bristol.

Dr Amar said: "We know that they predate and that other birds form part of their diet and people see them predating. Now we are more equipped with the facts about what they do and don't do. Distrust can be caused by ignorance but it can also be a result of individuals with very real concerns over them.

"Ravens have certainly featured prominently and been alluded to in a lot of literature. People see they are a bird that is ever present because they make a lot of noise and you can see them up on the hills where they make no effort to hide themselves away. Maybe that is why they are distrusted".

The raven population has more than doubled in the UK since 1990 due to less intense persecution and an increase in sheep numbers with more carrion. In pre-industrial times however they were plentiful and their carrion-eating ways saw them regarded as socially useful and afforded them protection under the law. Recent research has now shown that though ravens will kill sheep and lambs, the animals they target are usually sick and close to death.

The persecution reached a peak in the 19th century when one Scottish sporting estate alone despatched nearly two million birds over a three-year period. By the beginning of the last century poisoned baits were being used by gamekeepers and most areas in England and Scotland had been cleared. Today only the coastal counties from the Wash to Kent -with Cambridgeshire, London and Surrey - are believed to be without breeding ravens.

The Independent

Case of Aurora woman who went missing in 1996 featured on 'Dr. Phil'

By STAFF REPORTS

The Aurora Sentinel

AURORA | A family is hoping that an appearance on national television Tuesday will spark new interest in the 14-year-old case of their missing family member.

Stephanie O’Bryan, aunt of Kimberly Greene Medina, who disappeared in 1996, said she hopes a plea by John Greene, Kimberly’s stepfather, on the “Dr. Phil” show will spark interest in the case.

“I’m always hoping that somebody who might know something might speak out,” said O’Bryan.

Kimberly, who went by “Kimmy,” disappeared from her Aurora home in October 1996. Her husband, Michael Medina, said Kimmy went out to a gas station and never returned. Kimberly’s family has refuted the story.

In 2005, Michael Medina was arrested and convicted in 2006 of killing his 16-month-old son outside Monte Vista. Michael Medina’s wife then, mother of the infant, said he had confessed to her that he killed Kimmy. Michael Medina is currently serving a 48-year sentence for the killing.

John Greene appeared on the show to discuss the case and draw comparisons, he said, to a recent case out of Salt Lake City in which a mother of two went missing.

O’Bryan said in the years Kimmy has been missing, people are surprised to hear the circumstances surrounding Kimmy’s case.

“People cannot believe that this happened in the city of Aurora,” O’Bryan said.

“What John and I are trying to do is assure safety ... that (Michael will) never come back”.

The Aurora Sentinel