June Death Toll
...
Benoit met Daus when she was still Mrs. Sullivan in WCW in the mid-1990s.
She sided with him in a feud opposing the Horsemen and her estranged husband's Dungeon of Doom (the latter faction was nothing more than a mere attempt at a revival of his previous group of carnivalesque freaks, the Army of Darkness - it is a recurring theme in Sullivan's career for, you see, Kevin Sullivan is a satanist mainly based in New Jersey once upon a time and now to be found either in Florida or in his retreat home on Whidbey Island, eighty miles northwest of Seattle. Florida or Seattle is quite far away from the scene of the murder, you say - and you are quite right. But some things can be planted from afar - in a myriad ways...)
The feud between Horsemen and Dungeon members had been ignited by another Horseman than Benoit; the by-then maniacal Brian Pillman, namely. But once Pillman high-tailed it out of WCW, the other Horsemen, especially Benoit, were left with this storyline that soon went out of control mixing up reality and fiction - with very real consequences. The Horsemen' perennial enforcer, Arn Anderson, found himself in the situation that required him to replace, impromptu, the crazed Pillman in a match against Sullivan when Pillman bailed out rather cowardly. Arn would have to replace Benoit in another match versus Sullivan when Benoit and Daus made it clear that they were involved in a very real way with each other - and that this was no longer make-believe. From that point on (and, it would seem, until the very end of their lives) Benoit and Daus fought their own fights against the Dungeon and Sullivan in particular, with occasional help from fellow Horsemen Ric Flair, Mongo McMichael and Arn Anderson.
Nancy Elizabeth Daus was a sort of Morticia Addams of wrestling - while Christopher Michael Benoit, three years her junior, was a valiant footsoldier for her, the way she liked them it seems... She supported his decision to defect from the WCW to the rival WWE (still the WWF back then) just so both of them could get away from the backstage politics of one matchmaker/booker Kevin Sullivan, her devious ex, who exacted some kind of revenge that way, through his influence backstage... She supported Benoit through thick and thin, in both WCW and WWE, even though she had abandoned an active (meaning onscreen) role due to Sullivan's demands as a WCW booker, which he still was all throughout... (Sullivan had devised a pay-per-view event that would have required Nancy Daus, his ex, to be conveniently and humiliatingly topless before a live audience... She quit instead of giving him the satisfaction to further degrade her, as he had done so often back in the Army of Darkness days...)
Nancy carried on supporting Chris Benoit until he finally achieved his goal (winning the world championship belt that Ric Flair had won so many times and others had held before him, in WCW, while he was always cast aside - a title he won as his good friend Eddie Guerrero, who had defected with him to the WWE, had himself won the WWE championship...) - and, from that point onwards, it appears that they had both peaked - and it would be all downhill from there. Guerrero died first (two years ago). Benoit lost and never again regained the world title. He was bounced around the two "brands" (no longer WCW and WWE but simply "SMACKDOWN" and "RAW" - the mere TV shows' given names...)
and he had recently been "drafted" to the third (and third-rate brand too) - ECW.
Benoit was scheduled to win the ECW world title on Sunday the 24th of June,
during a pay-per-view "event" held in Houston -
while his mentor of sorts, Ric Flair, competed not for a world title anymore but for the U.S. championship he has held five times before in his illustrious career...
Mentor and pupil in reversed positions under a new pecking order -
and both were okay with that.
Thanks, McMahon.
Benoit's other mentor of sorts, Bret Hart, was in Montreal that day, for some odd reason, the 24th being "la fête des Québécois" and I doubt Hart sympathizes with that "cause" at all...
I have no clue regarding the whereabouts of one Kevin Sullivan -and commuting between Atlanta and Florida is fairly easy anyway- so you know who I will suspect of having disguised the triple murder as a double-murder and suicide, one way or another...
A horrid crime that took place in a small suburban town around Atlanta, Georgia -
in a fine home Benoit had bought upon marrying Nancy Daus while still in WCW.
The home itself is almost TOO private, set about 60 metres off a gravel road and surrounded by a stone wall with a double-iron gate...
I believe that satanists got the better of the "rabid wolverine" on the night he was scheduled to fight off a certain "C.M. PUNK" instead. He had cited "personal problems" as an excuse not to be in Houston and, according to police, apparently commit the unthinkable. Even if it was Benoit's hands that acted, I am of the opinion that it was someone else dictating the shots.
Someone else who crept up inside his mind...
Chris Benoit's nicknames in the world of wrestling were the "Canadian Crippler"
and the "Rabid Wolverine".
Kevin Sullivan's nicknames were the "Gamesmaster", the "Taskmaster" and the devil - and he vaunted that he considered himself a master at the game of chess, while implying the use of humans instead of chess pieces on a chessboard...
I can easily picture Kevin Sullivan laughing with gusto upon hearing in the news about the Fayetteville tragedy...
All circumstantial fluff, they would say, I am sure, since the Fayette County Sheriff's Department is "not actively searching for any suspects outside of the house," according to a spokesperson for the suddenly thrust into the spotlight department.
Nothing and no one outside the house...
Nor outside of the bodies and minds of Chris and Nancy...
Yet, karmic imbalance is a fundamental basis of a major religion - and hexes have been scientifically researched and proven as very "real" too; certainly far more "real" than pro-wrestling is...
Hexing can be achieved from a distance too.
However, the police will likely only investigate in depth the steroid-induced paranoia that Benoit is reputed to have been suffering from - and not anything else that reeks of hocus-pocus... You'd have to be a mystic or a satanist to believe in that stuff - right?
(Label me the former -and only the former- or be sued for libel!)
Benoit and Daus were a torrid love affair and a tumultuous mismatch as well...
They were a marriage of Boston and Montreal (never a good mix) made in Atlanta under extraordinary circumstances (when a mere wrestling storyline became reality!)
- their passion was great but it crashed and burned tragically.
Benoit was addicted to painkillers
-like Pillman before him and countless more at the employ of Vinnie Mac's WWE-
and he had mixed those in with drugs, steroids and booze.
Nancy Daus was apparently threatening to file for divorce...
Dissension and disarray reigned in that dream house just outside Atlanta...
And their little boy, Daniel, a child born with a rare genetic disorder,
was the innocent victim of all that.
The police feels as though what happened is,
basically, self-explanatory...
Appearances are deceiving...
The usually wretched WWE had the good sense
to trash their nonsensical "Vinnie Mac is dead" memorial show
and quickly wrap together a commemorative show focusing solely on Benoit's career
- complete with footage from WCW Hogwild 1996
(when he faced another good friend in Dean Malenko)
and even older footage from the days when Benoit wrestled
as the masked "Pegasus" Kid
(he really was destined to be a Horse...man!)
back in Japan.
And they wrapped up the three-hour show (again, originally planned to honor the "memory" of Vince McMahon...) with the match from 2004 when Benoit won the World Title - and he was met in the ring by his good friend Eddie - hinting at a reunion now, in the afterlife...
Some testimonials were interspersed all throughout, too.
As even an oaf like "Triple H" can say - we're all going there, sooner or later...
We shall see if we truly "all go to the same place" though...
Former WCW and WWE wrestler Bret Hart, who considered Benoit like family, commented on the tragedy by saying that "there had to be something else that caused all this" - it could not be just marital woes and the strain of having to care for a child with a deficiency.
Current WWE wrestler and WCW legend Ric Flair abstained, until now (to the best of my knowledge) from commenting on this saddest of events; all he did say was that Benoit embodied what it meant to be a Horseman. He said that before learning all the details of the tragedy too... The fact is, Flair might even feel in part guilty as his Horsemen served as the stage for the very formation of this tragic couple; Nancy Daus had been the Horsemen manager in 1989 and 1990, when the Horsemen were comprised of Ric, Arn, Barry (Windham) and Sid (Vicious) - plus Ole Anderson. Benoit was far from the big leagues back then; but when he signed with WCW in 1994 (due to his accomplishments in NJPW, an associate of WCW) he was placed in the Horsemen line-up - and Ric and Arn were very happy to have such a great worker like him join them.
Then "Woman" returned to WCW and rejoined Flair and his Horsemen -
and Chris & Nancy's destinies
were as locked, sealed and delivered
as Sid & Nancy's...
The hypocritical WWE knew all the sordid details of the tragedy by Monday evening and they still aired a tribute to Benoit and posted several more on their website - only to renege all that, recant their words and remove all of it a mere 24 hours later - not as THEY became privy to the details but as those details were finally allowed to be leaked to the newswires and released to THE PUBLIC by the authorities...
In every damn situation, the damn corporate monster is a beast that wants to come out of it unscathed - no matter what type of business, it is the same hypocrisy that prevails...
McMahon said on June the 25th, that Benoit was one of the greatest WWE superstars of all-time. He declared that knowing full well WHAT HAD HAPPENED in Atlanta... The next day, he removes all traces of this greatest superstar FOR all time - frowning upon his "great superstar" as if he were a monster. Furthermore, on June the 26th, on the Tuesday episode of ECW on the Sci-Fi Network, McMahon made one last mention of Benoit - only to say that there would be no further mentions of him and the "healing process had begun" - said process included hokey segments shot on the beach with one of the alleged WWE "divas" scantily-clad and cavorting not with boytoys but with children (obvious "we love kids, we don't kill them" jab at the critics who'd generalize) complete with new slogan: "(we -wwe?- are) LOVING LIFE"...
We love life, eh?
And yet, if Guerrero went to sleep never to awaken,
it was because he overtaxed his body in order to stay in the WWE
and keep up with the tempo set by McMahon's infernal schedule.
If Pillman's heart gave in,
it was because he abused the consumption of painkillers
in order to keep up as well...
And if Benoit apparently had an incident of "roid rage"
(steroids abuse - mixed in with a lot of other things...)
- it was also because of the WWE, which is, of course,
interested in covering up and snuffing out all that steroids talk;
they'd much rather say that Benoit was psychotic
and a monster
than admit to having driven countless guys
to overuse steroids - with very dramatic consequences.
For, if Benoit is going to hell - so are you, Vince.
And so will the Kevin Sullivans of this world...
Even if all that they do is rejoice about another's tragedy
and ignominious end. Labels: Benoit, Marion Raven music, Nancy Daus RIP
posted by Luminous (\ô/) Luciano™ @ 3:53 PM
32 comments
32 Comments:
14 U.S. soldiers die in Iraq in 3 days
By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer Sun Jun 3, 7:41 PM ET
BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said Sunday that 14 American soldiers were killed over the past three days, including four in a single roadside bombing and another who was struck by a suicide bomber while on a foot patrol.
The blast that killed the four U.S. soldiers occurred Sunday as the troops were conducting a cordon and search operation northwest of Baghdad, according to a statement. Two other soldiers were killed and five were wounded along with an Iraqi interpreter in two separate roadside bombings on Sunday, the military said.
In the boldest attack, a U.S. soldier was killed Friday after the patrol approached two suspicious men for questioning near a mosque southwest of Baghdad, and one of the suspects blew himself up. Military spokesman Maj. Webster Wright said U.S. troops also fired at the second suspect after he began acting aggressively, and the gunfire detonated his suicide vest.
"Our initial analysis is that these guys were al-Qaida and were planning to launch attacks into Baghdad," Wright said in an e-mailed statement.
Seven other soldiers were killed in a series of attacks across
Iraq on Saturday.
Combined with the previously announced death of a U.S. soldier in central Baghdad on Friday, it was a deadly start for June. May was the third bloodiest month since the war began in March 2003, with 127 troops deaths reported.
A car bomb also exploded outside a U.S. base near the volatile city of Baqouba, leaving a number of troops gasping for air and suffering from eye irritations, the military said. It did not confirm a report in the Los Angeles Times that the car was carrying chlorine canisters and said the soldiers who were sickened had been treated and returned to duty.
The attacks came days after the
Pentagon announced the completion of the troop buildup ordered by
President Bush in January, raising the total number of troops in Iraq to about 150,000. That number may still climb as more support troops move in.
The Bush administration has warned that the buildup will result in more U.S. casualties as more American soldiers come into contact with enemy forces and concentrate on the streets of Baghdad and remote outposts.
Sectarian violence persisted against Iraqis as well, with a car parked near a police station by an open-air market exploding shortly after noon in the predominantly Shiite enclave of Balad Ruz, in volatile Diyala province of northeast of Baghdad. At least 10 people were killed.
Abu Hussein, a 35-year-old elementary school teacher, said the force of the explosion knocked a bag of vegetables out of his hands.
He was not injured so helped to evacuate those who were, flooding the local hospital because they were afraid to take them to facilities in nearby Baqouba, which has become an insurgent stronghold.
"I went back and forth many times to the site of the explosion to transfer the wounded with my private car," he said. "I saw men and women rushing to the scene searching for their relatives and loved ones. One was crying 'my brother,' one was saying 'my father' and a woman was crying 'my husband.' It was chaos."
Gunmen at a fake checkpoint in Baqouba, 35 miles north of Baghdad, also killed two passengers and wounded eight others when they opened fire on three minibuses that sought to flee from the highway trap.
At least 73 other Iraqis were killed or found dead nationwide, including 31 bullet-riddled bodies of men who were apparent victims of death squads usually believed to be run by Shiite militias.
Meanwhile, Mahdi Army militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr battled with Iraqi troops and local police searching for two militia leaders in the southern city of Diwaniyah as U.S. jets roared overhead. At least three people were killed and 24 wounded, Iraqi officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
The clashes in Diwaniyah erupted Saturday evening after Iraqi soldiers and police cordoned off a market in search of two senior Mahdi Army figures wanted by U.S.-led coalition forces in connection with sectarian killings.
Maj. Gen. Othman Ali, commander of the Iraq army's 8th Division, said his forces captured one of the men, but he escaped when fellow militiamen came to his aid.
The fighting on the east side of the city, 80 miles south of Baghdad, resumed about 9 a.m. Sunday with the support of U.S. jet fighters and helicopter gunships skimming over Diwaniyah's rooftops, police said.
Ali said his forces raided two locations in "fierce" fighting that lasted three hours. They didn't find their target suspects, but did find weapons caches at the site, he said.
Police and medical sources said 20 wounded Iraqis, including two policemen, were brought to the local hospital from Sunday morning's fighting. The clashes erupted anew around 1:30 p.m, and one soldier and two other people were killed, and three civilians wounded, an army officer said on condition of anonymity, since he was not authorized to speak with the media. The U.S. military had no immediate report on the action.
American helicopter gunships also attacked targets in Mahdi Army-dominated Shiite east Baghdad late Saturday, killing four suspected militants and destroying 10 rockets, the U.S. military reported. The radical Shiite militia is facing growing pressure to bow to central government authority.
The U.S. command said an Apache helicopter team was alerted to men setting up multiple rocket firing positions aimed at the Green Zone, home to the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi government offices. Six other suspects were captured by ground forces of the 82nd Airborne Division.
A recent increase in mortar and rocket attacks on the U.S.-controlled area has raised concern, especially because they come during the U.S.-led crackdown in Baghdad.
Separately, Kurdish leaders urged Turkey not to stage a military incursion into northern Iraq as it builds up its border forces amid debate about whether to attack separatist Kurdish rebels that stage raids in southeast Turkey after crossing over from hideouts in Iraq.
"The Iraqi political leadership wishes to enhance relations between Iraqi and Turkish people ... and to try to avoid tension and provocation or escalate the situation," said Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. He said a Turkish delegation was in Baghdad to discuss the situation.
The leader of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, Massoud Barzani, said Turkish troops had shelled Kurdish areas but no incursion had occurred.
"We reject any interference in Iraqi affairs and we do not accept any presence of Turkish forces on Iraqi lands," he said during a joint news conference with Talabani. "The Turkish army did not enter Iraqi territory yet but if they did, we would consult the Iraqi government and deal with it as an Iraqi issue."
___
Associated Press writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed to this report.
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Ten-year-old Zainab Ali, a victim of a mini bus bomb explosion, look on in the Shiite-dominated neighborhood of Amil, Baghdad, Iraq, on Sunday, June 3, 2007. A parked minibus packed with explosives blew up in a busy section of central Baghdad,on Tuesday, May 29, 2007, killing 17 people and injuring 53 others. Zainab, was in her home the time of the blast and is one of many residents made homeless by the bomb attack. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
AP Photo: Ten-year-old Zainab Ali, a victim of a mini bus bomb explosion, look on in the...
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14 U.S. soldiers die in Iraq in 3 days
No let-up yet in the soaring U-S death toll in Iraq as the military reports 14 more soldiers killed over the past three days. The deaths follow the third most costly months for U-S troops since the war began. (June 3)
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+++
Sad Day - Kelsey Smith,
Care2 member
Many of you have probably heard the recent news report that a young woman, Kelsey Smith, from KS was abducted over the weekend, and her body found yesterday.
I just randomly discovered that Kelsey was a Care2 member, and had signed a petition to help a wounded soldier adopt a military dog (see signature #29,876). She personalized her message in a way that now seems particularly poignant: "Sgt. Dana should be allowed to adopted Rex because the bond between a dog and human is so great that you don't realize it until it's gone!". Wow....
This is such a senseless and sad and utterly tragic loss. I always try to find the silver lining... I guess I can only thank goodness for all millions of good folks who have joined Care2 to put an end to tragedies like this and find ways to build a brighter future. Together we will make that happen.
Thank you Kelsey, and I wish her family the very best during this terrible time.
+++
Muscle cream caused NYC teen's death
Sat Jun 9, 7:07 PM ET
NEW YORK - A medical examiner blamed a 17-year-old track star's death on the use of too much anti-inflammatory muscle cream, the kind used to soothe aching legs after exercise.
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Arielle Newman, a cross-country runner at Notre Dame Academy on Staten Island, died after her body absorbed high levels of methyl salicylate, an anti-inflammatory found in sports creams such as Bengay and Icy Hot, the New York City medical examiner said Friday.
The medical examiner's spokeswoman, Ellen Borakove, said the teen used "topical medication to excess." She said it was the first time that her office had reported a death from using a sports cream.
In addition to spreading the muscle cream on her legs between track meets, Newman was using adhesive pads containing the anti-inflammatory, plus an unspecified third product containing the chemical, Borakove said. The products were used and the chemical absorbed over time, she said.
Newman, who garnered numerous track awards, died April 3. She had gone to a party the night before, then returned home and spent hours talking with her mother.
Methyl salicylate poisoning is unusual, and deaths from high levels of the chemical are rare.
"Chronic use is more dangerous than one-time use," Edward Arsura, chairman of medicine at Richmond University Medical Center, told the Staten Island Advance on Friday. "Exercise and heat can accentuate absorption."
Dr. Ronald Grelsamer, of Mount Sinai Medical Center, said Newman had a very abnormal amount of methyl salicylate in her body.
"She either lathered herself with it, or used way too much, or she used a normal amount and an abnormal percentage was absorbed into her body," he said.
Her mother, Alice Newman, said she still couldn't believe her daughter's death was caused by a sports cream.
"I am scrupulous about my children's health," she told the Advance. "I did not think an over-the-counter product could be unsafe."
Johnson & Johnson, the makers of Bengay, expressed sympathy for the family and reminded consumers about "the importance of reading the label on this and all over-the-counter medicines to ensure safe and proper use," in a statement released Saturday.
The label on Ultra Strength Bengay says the product should be applied no more than three or four times daily and consumers should stop and see a doctor if the condition worsens or symptoms persist for more than a week, spokeswoman Meghan Marschall said.
...
Swiss Mount Everest Pioneer
Dies At 95
The Associated Press
Published: Jun 9, 2007
TBO.com Site Search | Tribune archive from 1990
GENEVA - Ernest Hofstetter, 95, part of the Swiss team that first traced the route to "The Roof of the World" used by Sir Edmund Hillary to conquer Mount Everest, has died, his son, Michael, said Friday.
Hofstetter, who died June 1 at his French chalet with a view of Mont Blanc, was a member of the Swiss expedition that had to turn back just short of the peak in 1952 but is credited with forging the path that Hillary and Tenzing Norgay used in their successful assault a year later. The path is still used today in climbs to the 29,035-foot peak.
Acknowledging the Swiss team's contribution, Hillary's crew sent them a telegram after peaking: "To you goes half the glory."
The Swiss expedition remains one of the most charming and astonishing feats in mountaineering history: During weekly get-togethers in a Geneva square, a bunch of climbing buddies hatched the plan to scale Everest.
Unexpectedly, the Nepal government gave the Swiss the permit for the 1952 climb, taking it away from the British, who had monopolized it the previous 21 years.
Hofstetter and his friends surpassed all expectations, perhaps because they had a huge asset. Like Hillary, they had Norgay, the legendary Sherpa.
They conquered the Khumbu Icefall, one of the most dangerous stages of the expedition, which has claimed many lives because of collapsing towers of ice and large crevasses that open without warning. Reaching the broad glacial basin called the Western Cwm, they scaled the huge Lhotse face at 23,620 feet to reach the desolate, wind-swept South Col.
While Norgay and Raymond Lambert forged on, Hofstetter remained with another group at 26,250 feet, ready to try if the pair failed.
The story of the climb is full of astounding details.
Lambert and Norgay camped at 27,560 feet, despite having forgotten their sleeping bags.
The group in essence was climbing without oxygen because their sets failed.
Lambert and Norgay reached 28,380 feet and were forced back down because of fatigue and bad weather.
They came within 650 feet of the summit on May 26, 1952. Presuming George Mallory and Andrew Irvine failed to reach the summit in 1924, the Swiss had climbed higher than anyone before.
S. Wis. shooting kills 6,
wounds toddler
By TODD RICHMOND, Associated Press Writer
DELAVAN, WIS. - A shooting inside a home killed six people, and a toddler was found in a nearby vehicle with a gunshot to the chest, the police chief said Sunday.
Police found the bodies while investigating a report of shots fired Saturday night in this southern Wisconsin city, Chief Tim O'Neill said.
The wounded child, a 2-year-old girl, was taken to a hospital in Rockford, Ill., where she was reported in critical condition late Saturday, hospital officials said. Rockford Memorial Hospital officials said she was flown to the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison, where officials did not immediately give her condition Sunday morning.
Police cordoned off a two-block area around the crime scene Sunday morning as neighbors gathered on the sidewalks to watch the investigation.
One of the spectators was next-door neighbor Jesus Valadez, 27, who said he was outside in spite of police telling him to stay indoors and keep his doors locked.
"It's kind of scary," Valadez said. "Exciting, don't get me wrong. Better than watching TV."
Delavan is about 40 miles southwest of Milwaukee.
Bomber Kills 7, Wounds 50 in Tikrit
Jun 10, 8:51 AM (ET)
By HAMID AHMED
(AP) Medics help a man wounded in a police station bombing in the Albu Ajil village on the eastern...
BAGHDAD (AP) - A suicide truck bomber struck an Iraqi police agency in northern Iraq on Sunday, killing at least seven people and wounding 50, police said, while overnight clashes between U.S. troops and Shiite militiamen reportedly left at least five people dead and 19 wounded.
The explosion, which occurred about 10:30 a.m., devastated a building housing the local highway police headquarters in the Albu Ajil village on the eastern outskirts of Tikrit, a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
The attacker detonated his payload after smashing into a blast wall, flattening a small reception building and causing heavy damage to the main two-story building just 20 yards away, the officer said, adding that most of the seven killed and 50 wounded were police.
Police and rescuers dug through the rubble in a desperate search for survivors or bodies of more victims. About 60 vehicles inside the compound also were destroyed.
"It was a huge blast, my house was damaged," said Khalaf Eidan, a 45-year-old shopkeeper who lives nearby. "I thank God that none of my children were hurt."
Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, was ousted leader Saddam Hussein's hometown.
The blast was the deadliest of a series of attacks and other violence that killed at least 22 people, many targeting Iraqi police as militants continue to hammer the country's shaky security forces. The terror campaign against Iraqi troops and police appears designed to blunt U.S. progress in creating a stable local force so the Americans can go home.
In Baghdad, police and witnesses in Baghdad said overnight clashes between U.S. troops and Shiite militiamen left at least five people dead and 19 wounded in an eastern district. The U.S. military said it was looking into the reports.
The fighting in the predominantly Shiite Fidhiliyah area on the Baghdad's outskirts broke out after a U.S. military convoy came under attack near the local offices of Muqtada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric whose Mahdi Army militia has recently stepped up attacks on American troops, according to police officers in the area who declined to be identified because they weren't authorized to release the information.
(AP) Medics help a man wounded in a police station bombing in the Albu Ajil village on the eastern...
Full Image
AP Television News video footage shot Sunday showed the charred skeleton of what appeared to be a Humvee and a low-flying Apache helicopter firing flares as several hundred people, including teenagers and children, were gathered around the smoldering vehicle below, mostly teenagers and children.
The police and witnesses said those killed and wounded were Iraqis and included bystanders caught in the crossfire.
U.S. troops stormed al-Sadr offices and detained 16 men, according to police and an official in al-Sadr's office who spoke anonymously because he feared retribution.
Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia fought U.S. forces for much of 2004. More recently, the U.S. military has repeatedly blamed the militia for the death of American soldiers in deadly roadside bombs it says are provided by Iran.
Al-Sadr himself resurfaced in late May for the first time in nearly four months, ending what U.S. officials have said was his voluntary exile in neighboring Iran, apparently to avoid arrest.
(AP) Iraqi policeman walks at the scene of a bombing outside police station in the Albu Ajil village on...
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His public comments - in a Friday sermon May 25 and a television interview last week - have since been heavily anti-American, calling for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq and blaming the Americans for all of Iraq's woes.
In other violence Sunday, a roadside bomb struck a police patrol near a gas station in Balad Ruz, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing one policeman and wounding 6 other people - five officers and one civilian, according to the provincial police center for Diyala, a hotbed of the Sunni insurgency that has become increasingly dangerous since the beginning of the Baghdad security operation nearly four months ago.
Militants have fled the capital to avoid capture and forced the U.S. military to dispatch about 3,000 more American forces to Diyala from already overtaxed reinforcements arriving in Baghdad.
A suicide car bomber smashed into a police patrol about 12 miles south of the provincial capital of Baqouba, killing two policemen and wounding three others, officers at the provincial police center said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.
Gunmen elsewhere in the volatile province killed two policemen and a civilian in two separate attacks in the Shiite enclave of Khalis, they said.
(AP) People work at the scene after a bomb explosion outside of a police station in the Albu Ajil...
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Violence also struck civilians as a suicide car bomber exploded in a line of cars waiting for gas about 11:45 a.m. in Baiyaa, an area in western Baghdad that has seen a recent rise in sectarian violence despite a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown that began on Feb. 14.
About 15 minutes later, parked car bomb also ripped through cars waiting for gas in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Sadiyah in southwestern Baghdad.
In northern Iraq, a roadside bomb targeted a convoy of a Kurdish brigade that had recently been deployed in western Baghdad as part of the security operation, killing one soldier and wounding three, an army officer from the brigade said on condition of anonymity.
The attack occurred in Sulaiman Pak, 90 miles south of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
In another developments, the Iraqi high tribunal said it will issue a verdict on June 24 in the trial of Saddam's cousin known as "Chemical Ali" and four other former regime officials who face a possible death sentence if convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their roles in a 1980s military campaign against the Kurds.
Jaafar al-Moussawi told The Associated Press the five defendants were told of the decision Sunday in a short court session.
Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid and the other defendants face charges that include crimes against humanity for their roles in the 1980s military campaign code-named Operation Anfal. If convicted, they could be sentenced to death by hanging.
Saddam was a defendant in the case but was hanged last year after his conviction for the killing of 148 Shiite Muslims in Dujail after a 1982 attempt on his life.
66 killed in South China flood
By Xie Chuanjiao (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-06-11 06:39
A man climbs a ladder to reach a drainage sluice station in Zi Jin County, South China's Guangdong Province June 10, 2007. It is the worst flood to threaten 15 towns of the county in 50 years. [Xinhua]
Days of torrential rain in southern China have killed 66 people and left 12 missing by last night, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Nearly 9 million people have been affected.
Floods caused by heavy rains damaged 94,000 houses and destroyed 48,000 in the region; and forced the evacuation of about 591,000 people, a ministry spokesman said.
About 294,800 hectares of crops were affected, of which 53,000 hectares were completely destroyed, he said.
From Wednesday to Saturday, continuous rain, mudslides and floods hit Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Jiangxi and Fujian, affecting more than 8.97 million people.
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The disasters have caused an overall loss of more than 2.9 billion yuan ($371 million), according to the ministry, which has sent rescue and relief teams to the disaster areas.
The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said yesterday that Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou and Hunan have been hardest hit.
The National Meteorological Center yesterday forecast heavy rain south of the Yangtze River and continued downpours in South China until Thursday.
The headquarters has activated the level-4 emergency response, the highest in the country.
In Guangdong, 14 people were killed in rain-triggered landslides or house collapses till last night, and 1.45 million people in 17 counties have been affected, according to the headquarters.
China Central Television said floods caused direct losses of nearly 100 million yuan ($13 million) in the province.
In neighboring Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, 13 people were killed in torrential rains that began last Wednesday; and 1.97 million people affected.
On Thursday and Friday, when senior high school graduates across the country were taking the annual college entrance examination, thousands of candidates in Quanzhou county of Guangxi had to be moved to backup exam centers as heavy rain submerged their classrooms.
In Central China's Hunan Province, heavy rainfall on the fifth successive day yesterday left three people dead, one missing, 158,000 homeless and affecting more than 1.33 million people in 11 cities and counties.
Direct losses in Guangxi and Hunan are estimated at 449 million yuan ($58.6 million) and 580 million yuan ($75.8 million).
Jiao Meiyan, director of the National Meteorological Center, attributed the continuous heavy rainfall in part to "global climate change".
She also said the country's capability in flood control was improving with "more financial input and more accurate forecasts".
"The number of casualties has been declining in recent years, which is substantial progress in a densely populated nation with very complex climate conditions," she added.
Experts had earlier forecast floods in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River this summer.
Chen Lei, minister of water resources, warned yesterday that the Songhua River in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province is also likely to be hit by heavy flooding this year.
Xinhua contributed to the story
Heatwave cooks north India, Pakistan, dozens dead
REUTERS
3:47 a.m. June 11, 2007
NEW DELHI – Hot and dusty desert winds have caused a heatwave across the plains of northern India and Pakistan killing more than 120 people over the past week, officials and media reports said on Monday.
Most of the dead were beggars, homeless and people working in the open hit by sunstroke and dehydration.
The Press Trust of India put the toll at 74, including 15 in the western Indian desert state of Rajasthan and nine in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh at the weekend.
In neighbouring Pakistan, at least 50 people had died from the heat over the past four days, a senior provincial health official said.
The highest temperature in this heatwave was in the Sibi district of Pakistan's Baluchistan province – 52 degrees Celsius (125.6 Fahrenheit) on Sunday – just less than the country's record of 52.2C (125.9F) set in 1992, a meteorological official said.
In India, temperatures peaked on Saturday, reaching 48.9C (120F) in Ganganagar in Rajasthan, said S.C. Bhan, director at the Regional Meteorological Centre in New Delhi.
'It is a heatwave. After the next two days it will be over,' Bhan said, adding that it was caused by winds from the Thar desert, which spreads from Rajasthan into neighbouring Pakistan.
In New Delhi, the mercury touched a season high of 44.9C (113F) on Saturday, Bhan said.
People dozed the afternoon away under trees and on shady pavements while those at home stayed close to their air-conditioners when there were no power cuts – a frequent occurrence over the weekend.
'It's unbearable from the moment I set up shop,' complained Som Dutt, a streetside barber in Delhi, who said business was slow because no one wanted to sit in his unshaded chair.
Delhi's markets were nearly deserted with people seeking refuge in the city's air-conditioned shopping malls. Newspaper reports said two flights out of Delhi were delayed as aircraft developed technical problems because of the heat.
Watermelon sellers reported brisk business.
'I used to sell 50 to 70 watermelons in a day, but now I am selling over 100,' said Ram Singh in Jaipur, Rajasthan's state capital.
République centrafricaine - Une volontaire de MSF tuée
12.06.2007
Genève / Bangui, le 11 juin 2007 - C’est avec une immense tristesse que Médecins Sans Frontières a appris le décès d’une de ses volontaires en République Centrafricaine, tuée par balle aujourd’hui lors d’une mission exploratoire dans le nord-ouest du pays. Elsa Serfass, 27 ans, accomplissait sa première mission avec MSF en tant que logisticienne.
© Ton Koene
Basée à Paoua, Elsa participait à notre projet d’assistance à la population victime des violences récurrentes dans cette région du pays. Le nord-ouest de la République Centrafricaine est en proie à un conflit entre des groupes rebelles et les forces armées gouvernementales. Les actes de banditisme sont également fréquents, des « coupeurs de route » profitant de l’instabilité.
Les habitants sont la cible de violences systématiques. De nombreux villages le long des axes routiers ont été attaqués, pillés ou brûlés, forçant leurs habitants à fuir. Ils vivent en brousse, dans des conditions extrêmement précaires. Dans cette zone où le système de santé est effondré, l’insécurité accentue encore les difficultés d’accès aux soins de la population.
MSF travaille à Paoua et aux alentours. Dans l’hôpital de référence de la ville, nous assurons des soins primaires et secondaires. Dans plusieurs villages de la région, nos équipes mobiles vont assurer des consultations de santé primaire. Suite à l’attaque par la rébellion le 30 mai de la ville de N’Gaoundal et aux représailles très violentes des forces gouvernementales, nous avions été alertés sur la situation sanitaire catastrophique dans cette zone et avions décidé d’y mener une mission exploratoire.
C’est au cours de cette évaluation que notre voiture a été la cible de tirs et qu’une balle a mortellement atteint Elsa. Sa disparition tragique est un grand choc pour MSF et nous plonge dans une grande tristesse. Nos pensées et condoléances vont à sa famille et à ses amis.
En plus de la section française basée à Paoua, les sections néerlandaise, espagnole et belge de Médecins Sans Frontières travaillent également au nord de la République Centrafricaine, dans et autour des villes de Markounda, Boguila, Kabo et Batangafo, pour apporter des soins primaires et secondaires aux populations affectées par le conflit. Au nord-est du pays, la section néerlandaise mène également un programme dans et autour de la ville de Birao.
TV's 'Mr. Wizard' Don Herbert dies at 89
By LYNN ELBER, AP Television Writer 2 hours, 5 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES - Don Herbert, who as television's "Mr. Wizard" introduced generations of young viewers to the joys of science, died Tuesday. He was 89. Herbert, who had bone cancer, died at his suburban Bell Canyon home, said his son-in-law, Tom Nikosey.
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"He really taught kids how to use the thinking skills of a scientist," said former colleague Steve Jacobs. He worked with Herbert on a 1980s show that echoed the original 1950s "Watch Mr. Wizard" series, which became a fond baby boomer memory.
In "Watch Mr. Wizard," which was produced from 1951 to 1964 and received a Peabody Award in 1954, Herbert turned TV into an entertaining classroom. On a simple, workshop-like set, he demonstrated experiments using household items.
"He modeled how to predict and measure and analyze. ... The show today might seem slow but it was in-depth and forced you to think along," Jacobs said. "You were learning about the forces of nature."
Herbert encouraged children to duplicate experiments at home, said Jacobs, who recounted serving as a behind-the-scenes "science sidekick" to Herbert on the '80s "Mr. Wizard's World" that aired on the Nickelodeon channel.
When Jacobs would reach for beakers and flasks, Herbert would remind him that science didn't require special tools.
"'You could use a mayonnaise jar for that,'" Jacobs recalled being chided by Herbert. "He tried to bust the image of scientists and that science wasn't just for special people and places."
Herbert's place in TV history was acknowledged by later stars. When "Late Night with David Letterman" debuted in 1982, Herbert was among the first-night guests.
Born in Waconia, Minn., Herbert was a 1940 graduate of LaCrosse State Teachers College and served as a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot during World War II. He worked as an actor, model and radio writer before starting "Watch Mr. Wizard" in Chicago on NBC.
The show moved to New York after several years.
He is survived by six children and stepchildren and by his second wife, Norma, his son-in-law said. A private funeral service was planned.
___
On the Net:
http://www.mrwizardstudios.com
Billy Graham's wife, Ruth, dies at 87
By MIKE BAKER, Associated Press Writer
MONTREAT, N.C. - On a recent visit to Ruth and Billy Graham's beloved home in the western North Carolina mountains, her local pastor recalled, the world's most renowned evangelist fumbled the words to the 23rd Psalm — one of his wife's favorites.
As she had so many times before, Ruth Graham quickly corrected her husband.
It was yet another little reminder of the role Ruth Graham played as her husband's closest confidant, the Rev. Richard White said. The first lady of evangelical Protestantism, she undoubtedly was an equal partner in a ministry that Billy Graham carried to presidents and peasants alike during a spectacular global career that placed him in the pulpit before more than 210 million people.
"She had the ability to move among presidents and leaders, but then turn right around and clean the oven of a widow," White said.
A daughter of Presbyterian missionaries who surrendered dreams of such work in Tibet after meeting Billy Graham, Ruth Graham died Thursday at her home, surrounded by her husband and all five of their children. She was 87.
"Whenever I was asked to name the finest Christian I ever met, I always replied, 'My wife, Ruth.'" Billy Graham said in a statement released Friday. "She was a spiritual giant, whose unparalleled knowledge of the Bible and commitment to prayer were a challenge and inspiration to everyone who knew her."
"In her last days she talked repeatedly of heaven, and although I will miss her more than I can possibly say, I rejoice that some day soon we will be reunited in the presence of the Lord she loved and served so faithfully."
Former President George H.W. Bush remembered her Friday as "a wonderful, kind and wise woman who brightened all our lives."
Nancy Reagan described her as a friend to her and late President Reagan and an extraordinarily caring woman who was devoted to her family. "I admired the fact that she also found the time to care about other children and those less fortunate through her work as an author, poet and philanthropist," she said. "I know Billy's heart will be broken with this loss."
Ruth Graham had been bedridden for months with degenerative osteoarthritis of the back and neck — the result of a serious fall from a tree in 1974 while fixing a swing for grandchildren — and underwent treatment for pneumonia two weeks ago. At her request, and in consultation with her family, she had stopped receiving nutrients through a feeding tube for the last few days, said family spokesman Larry Ross.
The couple's five children will speak at a public memorial service scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday at the Montreat Conference Center, but Billy Graham will not. A private interment service will be held the next day in Charlotte.
Ruth Graham grew up in China, where her father, L. Nelson Bell, headed the Presbyterian hospital in Qingjiang, and she spent three high school years in what's now
North Korea.
She met Billy Graham at Wheaton College in Illinois, where he managed to coax her away from the foreign missions calling and into marriage after both graduated in 1943. In 1945, after a brief stint pastoring a suburban Chicago congregation, he became a roving speaker for the fledgling Youth for Christ organization.
Ruth Graham moved the couple into her parents' home in Montreat, where they had relocated after fleeing wartime China, and they later bought their own home across the street before moving into Little Piney Cove. It was a comfortably rustic mountainside home she designed using logs from abandoned cabins, and became Billy's retreat between evangelistic forays.
"My father would not have been what he is today if it wasn't for my mother," said her son, Franklin, who now heads the Billy Graham Evangelist Association.
"She stood strong for what was biblically correct and accurate. She would help my father prepare his messages, listening with an attentive ear, and if she saw something that wasn't right or heard something that she felt wasn't as strong as it could be, she was a voice to strengthen this or eliminate that. Every person needs that kind of input in their life, and she was that to my father."
Though the wife of a famous Baptist minister, Ruth Graham declined to undergo baptism by immersion and remained a lifelong Presbyterian. When in Montreat, a town built around a Presbyterian conference center, Billy Graham would attend the Presbyterian church where his wife often taught the college-age Sunday School class.
Due to her husband's travels, she bore major responsibility for raising the couple's five children: Franklin (William Franklin III), Nelson, Virginia, Anne and Ruth. She endured her husband's frequent absences, but once remarked, "I'd rather have a little of Bill than a lot of any other man."
The author or co-author of 14 books, including collections of poetry and the autobiographical scrapbook "Footprints of a Pilgrim," she helped establish the Ruth and Billy Graham Children's Health Center in Asheville and the Billy Graham Training Center near Montreat.
___
On the Net:
Billy Graham Evangelistic Association:
http://www.billygraham.org
___
Retired Associated Press Religion Writer Richard N. Ostling contributed to this report.
5 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq violence
By LAUREN FRAYER, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 53 minutes ago
BAGHDAD - Five American soldiers died in
Iraq, the U.S. military announced Friday, a day after extremists fired shells into Baghdad's Green Zone during a visit by the State Department's No. 2 official.
The prime minister imposed an indefinite curfew on Basra, Iraq's second largest city and gateway to the Persian Gulf, after bombers leveled a Sunni shrine just outside the city.
Gunmen armed with rocket-propelled grenades attacked the Talha Bin al-Zubair shrine about 13 miles outside Basra late Thursday, damaging the building, police said. They returned early Friday, planting bombs inside the structure that destroyed it, police said. No injuries were reported.
Gen. Ali al-Mussawi, a top Basra security official, said the bombers were disguised as cameramen who asked guards for permission to film inside the shrine. Minutes after they left, a huge explosion rocked the building, destroying the dome and minaret, he said.
The guards were detained afterward for questioning, al-Mussawi said.
Talha Bin al-Zubair was one of the Prophet Muhammad's companions and commands high respect among Sunnis. The shrine was renovated in late 1990s, during
Saddam Hussein's rule. Sunni pilgrims from India, Pakistan and Turkey frequently visit the shrine.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office issued a statement calling the bombing of the Sunni shrine another of the "crimes aimed at sowing sedition and inflaming sectarian strife among the people."
He said those who are attacking places of worship were "the enemies of God, the homeland and the people and they should not be tolerated."
Three of the U.S. soldiers were killed when a bomb exploded near their vehicle Thursday during operations in Kirkuk province, in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said in a statement. Another soldier was wounded in the blast.
A fourth soldier was killed by small arms fire the same day in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, another statement said. And another soldier died Wednesday in a non-combat related incident, which the military said it was investigating.
A Baghdad-wide clampdown continued Friday, with a curfew still in place two days after suspected al-Qaida bombers blew the minarets off a sacred Shiite shrine and stoked fears of a bloody sectarian backlash.
At least four Sunni mosques were attacked within hours of the Shiite shrine blasts in Samarra on Wednesday, and police in Basra reported four people killed in retaliatory violence there.
Thursday's barrage of rockets and mortars included one that hit on a street close to the Iraqi parliament less than a half hour before U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte passed nearby.
The attack again showed militants' resilience — including their ability to strike the heavily protected zone — despite a U.S.-led security crackdown across the city that began four months ago. But officials paid much closer attention to any signs that Shiites could unleash another wave of retaliation against Sunnis for the explosions at the Askariya mosque compound in Samarra.
The first attack on the site in February 2006 sent the country into a tailspin of sectarian violence that destroyed Washington's hopes of a steady withdrawal from Iraq. On Wednesday, bombers toppled the two minarets that stood over the ruins of the mosques famous Golden Dome about 60 miles north of Baghdad.
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, echoed Washington's claim that the latest attack was the work of al-Qaida.
"I just don't think there's any doubt that it was al-Qaida that first struck the Askariya in February 2006, and the method this time was very similar to that — (explosive) charges very carefully placed to devastating effect," Crocker told a group of reporters.
Negroponte called the Samarra attack a "deliberate attempt by al-Qaida to sow dissent and inflame sectarian strife among the people of Iraq."
The U.S. military issued a statement Thursday saying Iraqi forces had arrested the commander and 12 policemen responsible for security at the shrine, which holds the tombs of two revered 9th century Shiite imams. It was not immediately clear whether the police arrested are suspects in the attack or held for questioning.
Meanwhile, insurgents linked to al-Qaida released a videotape showing the execution-style deaths of 14 Iraqi soldiers and policemen after the expiration of a 72-hour deadline for the Iraqi government to meet their demands.
In a statement that preceded the video footage, the Islamic State of Iraq said its religious court "ruled that God's verdict should be implemented against the renegades" after its demands were not met. In an earlier video, the group demanded the release of all female prisoners in Iraqi prisons.
The killings took place in what looked like a rural area, with a grass field and several tall eucalyptus trees. A small wooden shack stood in the background.
The authenticity of the 1 1/2-minute video could not be verified, but it appeared on a Web site commonly used by Islamic militants and carried the logo of the Islamic State of Iraq's media production wing, al-Furqan.
The U.S. soldier deaths announced Friday brought to at least 3,520 the number of American military personnel who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,889 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
Looting, revenge deaths persist in Gaza
By DIAA HADID, Associated Press Writer 13 minutes ago
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - On Hamas' first day of full rule in Gaza, crowds looted strongholds of the rival
Fatah on Friday — stripping the home of one of the party's strongmen down to the flower pots — and militants sent a man plunging to his death from a rooftop.
At Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' captured seaside office in Gaza City, a gunman sat down at the Fatah leader's desk, picked up the phone and pretended to be calling Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice. "Hello, Rice?" the gunman said. "Here we are in Abu Mazen's office. Say hello to Abu Mazen for me." Other gunmen rifled through Abbas' belongings in a bedroom behind the office, lifting up a mattress and searching through drawers.
Hamas' military takeover of Gaza, after five days of battle, formalized the separation between Gaza and the
West Bank, which lie on either side of
Israel. The moderate government Abbas plans to appoint will have no say in Gaza, but stands a stronger chance than the Hamas-Fatah coalition it replaces of restoring foreign aid to the West Bank.
A resident of a Hamas-dominated neighborhood, identifying himself only as Yousef for fear of reprisal by his neighbors, said Gazans would always back the winner, regardless of ideology.
"Today everybody is with Hamas because Hamas won the battle. If Fatah had won the battle they'd be with Fatah. We are a hungry people, we are with whoever gives us a bag of flour and a food coupon," said Yousef, 30. "Me, I'm with God and a bag of flour."
Fleeing aboard a fishing boat on the Mediterranean, 97 senior members of Fatah's security and administrative apparatus arrived in Egypt hours after Hamas fighters took control of Gaza, an Egyptian security official in the port city of El-Arish said. Israel's Channel Two TV said Israel was briefly opening the Erez crossing into Israel to enable other Fatah leaders to escape.
Gazans awoke to the new reality of Hamas control, fraught with uncertainty and fear that they'll become even poorer and more isolated. Gaza's crossings with Egypt and Israel — lifelines for the fenced-in territory — have been closed this week, and it was not clear if they would reopen. Extended closure could quickly lead to a humanitarian crisis.
Because Fatah recognizes Israel and past peace agreements, a boycott of the Palestinian government imposed by Israel and the international community after Hamas' electoral successes may no longer apply to the West Bank — only Gaza.
A Hamas spokesman said Palestinian police, now under Hamas command, would take up positions at the crossings, but it's unlikely Israel would agree: Hamas militants frequently attacked the passages in the past.
Gaza's streets, deserted in the past week of fighting, were crowded with cars, pedestrians and triumphant Hamas fighters, some driving in jeeps and firing in the air. Crowds converged on former Fatah strongholds and looted them.
The house of former Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan, a longtime nemesis of Hamas, was overrun, and looters stripped it of everything from windows and doors to flowerpots. "This was the house of the murderer Dahlan that was cleansed by the holy warriors," read graffiti sprayed on the wall. Donkey carts outside the house waited to take on more loot.
More than 90 people were killed in five days of fighting, and dozens wounded.
The morgue at Gaza City's main Shifa Hospital was overflowing, with bodies lined up on the floor; some of the wounded were sleeping on cardboard on the floor.
The buildings that symbolized Fatah's power, the National Security headquarters and Abbas' residence, were guarded by Hamas men. Outside Abbas' residence, a boy draped a green Hamas flag over a low wall as a Hamas guard looked on smiling.
Earlier Friday, Hamas announced it had arrested 10 of the most senior Fatah leaders in the strip, including the commanders of Abbas' own elite guard unit and the chief of the National Security force, but it later declared an amnesty for all Fatah leaders, and several Fatah leaders, including spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khoussa, were released.
Hamas spokesman Abu Obeideh said his group will "offer amnesty" to all those who are with different opinions. "Our battle is not with Fatah ... We protect our people's right, everywhere and anyone...regardless of their affiliation, to move freely."
However, two revenge killings were reported.
Hamas said a Fatah man was thrown off a rooftop, to his death, in a family revenge slaying. In southern Gaza, a Fatah fighter was shot and killed by Hamas gunmen.
In all, about a dozen Fatah fighters were executed, gang-land style, since Gaza fell to Hamas late Thursday, according to people with ties to Fatah. Among those killed was Samih Madhoun, a leader of a feared militia, whose bullet-riddled body was found Thursday evening. Madhoun was captured by Hamas at a roadblock, and Hamas posted a photo of the blood-covered corpse, sprawled on the ground, on its Web site.
Still, Hamas also sent conciliatory signals. Abu Obeideh called for the immediate release of BBC journalist Alan Johnston, who was kidnapped in March and is believed held by a powerful Gaza clan whose members had ties to both Hamas and Fatah. "We will not allow for his continued detention," Abu Obeideh said of Johnston.
The battle for Gaza ended Thursday night when Hamas forces took the last Fatah stronghold, the seaside office complex of Abbas. The Fatah forces had collapsed quickly under Hamas' systematic onslaught. One by one, Hamas seized Fatah facilities and marched Fatah fighters down the street shirtless and with hands raised.
Fearful that Hamas' momentum could spread to the West Bank, Fatah-allied forces there staged a show of force — driving through central Ramallah in pickup trucks, their rifles raised. In the city of Nablus, Fatah men shot dead a Hamas member early Friday, Hamas said, the first to be killed in the West Bank.
The stage for the struggle between Fatah and Hamas was set last year, when Hamas won parliamentary elections. Hamas reluctantly brought Fatah into a coalition government in March to quell an earlier round of violence, but the uneasy partnership began crumbling last month over control of security forces.
Tony Roman: Le temps des adieux
2007-06-14 13:14:27
Guy A. Lepage, l'acteur Daniel Pilon, le producteur Roger Frappier et de nombreux artistes et proches assistent à ses obsèques. Le chanteur s'est éteint le 8 juin dernier.
De nombreux artistes et amis de Tony Roman se sont déplacés pour rendre un dernier hommage au disparu.
« C'est lui qui m'a fait faire du cinéma », a déclaré l'animateur et producteur Guy A. Lepage, venu assister aux obsèques.
Le producteur Roger Frappier et le chanteur Gilles Girard, du défunt groupe Les Classels, étaient aussi du nombre.
Les funérailles étaient célébrées en l'église Notre-Dame-de-la-Défense, dans la Petite-Italie. De son vrai nom Antonio D'Ambrosio, Tony Roman était né tout près, en 1942.
Le chanteur, scénariste et producteur reposera au cimetière Côte-des-Neiges, à Montréal.
La révélation yé-yé
Tony Roman a succombé à un cancer, le 8 juin, à Montréal. Il avait 64 ans et luttait contre une tumeur au foie inopérable depuis plusieurs semaines.
À 17 ans, il a formé son premier groupe musical.
Très inspiré par la musique américaine, il est devenu célèbre en 1964, à l'époque du yé-yé. Il fonde ensuite sa propre maison de disques, Canusa, dans laquelle ont enregistré les Nanette Workman, Patrick Zabé, Johnny Farago, Les Baronets, entre autres.
Tony Roman met un terme à sa carrière de chanteur au début des années 70 pour se consacrer au cinéma. Il a notamment dirigé et scénarisé le film Ladies room (1999) et écrit la base du scénario du long métrage de Guy A. Lepage, Camping sauvage (2004).
...
4 dolphins shot to death in Calif.
By NOAKI SCHWARTZ, Associated Press Writer Fri Jun 15, 6:01 PM ET
LOS ANGELES - Four dead dolphins have washed ashore with fatal bullet wounds and fifth with lacerations on its pectoral fin, said authorities who have offered a reward for information on the slayings.
The long-beaked common dolphins were all discovered between Carlsbad State Beach and Oceanside Harbor between May 29 and June 5. Photos showed their normally sleek gray skin mottled and stained with blood from the bullet wounds.
"It's a horrendous thing that happened," said Mark Oswell, spokesman for the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. "That someone would go out there and shoot four dolphins."
Necropsies revealed that the dolphins, which were healthy with bellies full of fish, may have been shot at the same time with the same gun. Four had between one and three bullets of the same caliber in the same part of their heads.
Federal officials say that nationwide, they normally get one report of a dolphin shooting a year. The last time San Diego reported such a death was five years ago. Before that there hadn't been one in the area since the 1960s.
"It usually turns out to be a fisherman," said Oswell, adding there have been cases when anglers take out their frustrations on dolphins and other mammals that eat their catch.
The agency is offering up to $2,500 for information on the deaths. If caught, the perpetrator could face civil penalties of up to $12,000 or a criminal fine of up to $20,000, as well as jail time.
Harassing or killing dolphins is a violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, a federal law that protects seals, sea lions, dolphins, whales and other marine mammals.
Car bomb kills NATO soldier, 5 children
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 18 minutes ago
KABUL, Afghanistan - A suicide car bomber targeting a
NATO convoy Friday in southern
Afghanistan killed 10 people, including five children and a Dutch soldier, amid a fresh wave of violence that also left more than 24 militants dead, officials said.
In the east, another coalition member was killed in a battle early Friday.
The car bombing in Tirin Kot in Uruzgan province targeted a NATO convoy but killed the children as well as the Dutch soldier, said Dutch Defense Minister Eimert van Middelkoop.
Four Afghan men were also killed, said Gen. Abdul Qasem Khan, the provincial police chief.
Three Dutch troops and seven Afghan civilians, including two women, were wounded when the bomber drove a car out of a side street in Tirin Kot and detonated the bomb near a Dutch armored car, officials said.
Some 2,000 Dutch troops are involved in a reconstruction mission in southern Afghanistan. It was the second time a Dutch soldier was killed here and the seventh Dutch fatality since the mission began in August. Three died in air accidents, one in an armored car crash and another in an apparent suicide.
"This cowardly attack shows what kind of enemy we are faced with," said Van Middelkoop. "An enemy who just wants to kill, whether it be soldiers or children."
Purported Taliban spokesmen have warned civilians to stay away from military convoys, but suicide bombings commonly kill or wound far more civilians than the intended military targets.
Violence has spiked in Afghanistan in recent weeks. More than 2,300 people have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from U.S., NATO, U.N. and Afghan officials.
Much of it has been focused on the southern province of Helmand, where a coalition and Afghan patrol was attacked by militants near Sangin district Thursday. The troops fired back and called in airstrikes.
"More than two dozen enemy fighters were estimated killed during the nine-hour battle and there are no reports of Afghan civilian injuries," a statement said.
In neighboring Zabul province, coalition and Afghan troops "killed a few militants" and detained three others Friday in a raid on a compound in Shahjoy district, the coalition said. During a brief firefight at the compound, two civilians were caught in the crossfire. One teenager died of gunshot wounds and another boy was wounded.
Also in Zabul, militants attacked a joint coalition and Afghan patrol with machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades near the village of Baylogh in Daychopan district Thursday. A "few enemy fighters" were killed in the five-hour firefight, a statement said.
In eastern Afghanistan, a coalition service member was killed in a clash in Paktika province Friday, the coalition said. The soldier's nationality was not released, but most troops in the east are American.
Elsewhere, U.S.-led troops fired at a group of militants who were setting up a rocket in Shah Wali Kot district, Kandahar province, killing several militants and destroying their vehicle, another coalition statement said.
In Belgium, the NATO allies agreed to deploy more trainers with the Afghan army, aiming to build it up so it can eventually replace the 50,000 international troops here.
But the offer fell short of requirements and NATO's top diplomat joined Afghanistan's defense minister in urging a greater commitment from allied governments.
NATO commanders are seeking to deploy almost 50 teams with about 50 military experts each who can integrate into Afghan units and provide in-field training as they battle insurgents.
At a meeting of NATO defense ministers, France offered to form three such units. Italy, Canada, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia also stepped forward. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said those offers would bring the total to almost 30.
Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said an eventual handover to local forces was the only way to sustain long-term security in the country. "We do not want to be a permanent burden on the international community," he told reporters. "We want to stand on our own two feet."
The Afghan army currently numbers about 50,000 and but is due to increase to 70,000 by the end of 2008. Training facilities are being expanded to accommodate up to 3,000 new recruits monthly, in contrast to about 600 at the moment.
However, NATO officers say the army can field only about 20,000 soldiers at any one time, and that low salaries and poor morale contribute to a 40 percent desertion rate from the force. NATO planners acknowledge international troops will need to stay for the foreseeable future. The alliance has raised its troop levels to almost 40,000 and the United States maintains about 13,000 troops in a separate counterinsurgency force.
___
Associated Press writers Mike Corder in
The Hague, Netherlands, and Paul Ames in Brussels, Belgium, contributed to this report.
Police Bus Bombing Kills 35 in Kabul
Jun 17, 2:39 AM (ET)
By RAHIM FAIEZ
(AP) Afghan police investigation team inspect the police bus after a bomb blast in Kabul, Afghanistan on...
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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A bomb ripped through a police bus in a crowded civilian area in Kabul on Sunday, killing more than 35 people, officials said, in what appears to be the deadliest attack in the capital since the fall of the Taliban.
The police academy bus was carrying several police recruits when the bomb went off inside it, leaving several dead, said Zalmai Khan, the deputy police chief of Kabul province. At least 35 people were also wounded.
The thunderous explosion was heard throughout central Kabul at about 8:10 a.m. local time.
Ali Shah Paktiawal, Kabul police director of criminal investigation, said more than 35 people were killed, including policemen and civilians. He said dozens were wounded and sent to nearby hospitals.
Fazel Rahim, a doctor from a nearby hospital, said 18 dead bodies lay in the hospital courtyard, while more than 35 wounded were being treated inside the building.
"Most of the wounded are in serious condition," said Rahim, whose hands and white coat were covered in blood.
The roof of the bus was blown off and officers were pulling a number of bodies from the wreckage, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene.
The explosion twisted the bus into a charred skeleton, and bloody unidentifiable body parts littered the area as far as 30 yards from the bus. Hundreds of police and investigators were inspecting the scene.
The explosion appears to have happened in the front of the bus, which was more badly damaged than the rest of vehicle. Officials were trying to determine if it was a suicide attack or a bomb planted on the bus.
(AP) Afghans carry a victim after a bomb blast in Kabul, Afghanistan on Sunday, June 17, 2007. A bomb...
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Wali Mohammad, an eyewitness who was driving his car just behind the bus, said "there were a lot killed and wounded, both police and civilian."
Mohammad said that he "saw a big fire and dust in front of me."
The blast happened at a crowded bus station, used by both police and civilians, near the Kabul governor's house.
Police and other Afghan security officials are commonly targeted by insurgents, who consider them tools of the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
At least 307 Afghan security officials have been killed in violence so far this year through June 15, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from the U.S., U.N., NATO and Afghan authorities.
The attack appears to be the deadliest attack in Kabul since the fall of the Taliban. Last September, a suicide bomb attack left 16 dead, including two American soldiers close to the U.S. embassy in the capital. Days later, a suicide attack near the Interior Ministry left 12 people dead and over 40 others wounded.
Car in Tenn. parade hits crowd, kills 4
By WILL YORK, Associated Press Writer 24 minutes ago
SELMER, Tenn. - Investigators were trying to determine what caused a drag-racing car to lose control during a parade and careen into a crowd, killing four people and injuring up to 15 others.
The crash occurred Saturday night during an "exhibition burnout" at the Cars for Kids charity event in Selmer, located about 80 miles east of Memphis, according to a drag-racing organization. A burnout is when a driver spins a car's tires to make them heat up and smoke.
Witness Scott Henley said the vehicle started burning off its tires, then began to fishtail and slammed into a utility pole before spinning around into the audience.
Selmer Police Chief Neal Burks said, "bodies were flying into the air when it happened."
Tennessee Highway Patrol spokesman Mike Browning said at least eight people were taken to three hospitals. The fatalities were all adults, he said.
The identities of the victims and the driver, or the driver's condition, were not immediately known.
Browning said the vehicle has been described as a drag-racing car, but he did not have more details about it.
Matthew Brammer, administrator of AMS Pro Modified Series, which sanctions drag races, said late Saturday that the car involved has been driven by drag racer Troy Critchley, of Wylie, Texas, but he did not know if Critchley was driving when the car struck the crowd.
The AMS Pro Modified Series later issued a news release that said the driver was a veteran of more than 20 years in drag racing and had to be taken to the emergency room.
The release said the driver was performing a burnout when road conditions caused the car to lose control, striking the pole and then spinning into the crowd.
"The race team is in shock and deeply saddened by this unexpected event. Their hearts and prayers are with the injured people and their families," the release said.
Sheriff's officials and police began to close the festival shortly after the crash. About 40,000 to 60,000 people were expected to attend the weekend event.
Cars for Kids holds several events throughout the nation and raises close to $200,000 annually for charities that help children in need, according to its Web site.
The charity was formed in 1990, two years after founder Larry Price's son, Chad, suffered a severe head injury in a bicycle accident.
Price promised that if his son was saved from lifelong injuries, he would spend the rest of his life raising funds for disabled children, according to the Web site.
Price could not be reached for comment Saturday night.
Tenn. car crash death toll rises
By WILL YORK, Associated Press Writer 59 minutes ago
SELMER, Tenn. - Three more people have died after a drag-racing car went out of control and careened into a crowd of spectators, raising the death toll to seven, state officials said Sunday.
The crash occurred Saturday night during an "exhibition burnout" — when a driver spins his tires to make them heat up and smoke — at the Cars for Kids charity event in Selmer, located about 80 miles east of Memphis.
Tennessee Highway Patrol spokesman Mike Browning said the seven who died included a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old. At least eight people were taken to hospitals and several others had minor injuries, he said.
Amateur video of the crash, broadcast on WMC-TV in Memphis, showed the car's engine revving loudly before the vehicle sped down a highway lined with spectators on both sides. After a few hundred feet, the smoking car skidded off the road.
There was a guard rail along at least part of the highway, but state officials could not immediately say if the spectators were standing behind the rail where the crash occurred.
The identities of the victims and the driver were not immediately released.
Mourners placed small votive candles at the crash site early Sunday.
Witness Scott Henley said the vehicle started burning off its tires, then fishtailed and slammed into a utility pole before spinning around into the audience.
Selmer Police Chief Neal Burks said "bodies were flying into the air when it happened."
"I saw body parts flying everywhere," said witness Sean Hood.
Browning said the vehicle was a drag-racing car, but he did not have details.
Matthew Brammer, administrator of AMS Pro Modified Series, which sanctions drag races, said late Saturday that the car involved has been driven by drag racer Troy Critchley, of Wylie, Texas, but he did not know if Critchley was driving when the car struck the crowd.
The AMS Pro Modified Series later issued a news release saying the driver was a veteran of more than 20 years in drag racing and had to be taken to an emergency room.
The release said the driver was performing a burnout when road conditions caused the car to go out of control.
"The race team is in shock and deeply saddened by this unexpected event. Their hearts and prayers are with the injured people and their families," the release said.
Sheriff's officials and police closed the festival shortly after the crash. About 40,000 to 60,000 people were expected to attend the weekend event.
Cars for Kids holds several events throughout the nation and raises close to $200,000 annually for charities that help children in need, according to its Web site.
The charity was formed in 1990, two years after founder Larry Price's son, Chad, suffered a severe head injury in a bicycle accident.
Price promised that if his son was saved from lifelong injuries, he would spend the rest of his life raising funds for disabled children, according to the Web site.
Price could not be reached for comment Saturday night.
___
On the Net:
Cars for Kids: http://www.carsforkidsusa.org/
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US-led airstrike kills 7 afghan children
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer 17 minutes ago
KABUL, Afghanistan - Seven children were killed in a U.S.-led coalition airstrike targeting suspected al-Qaida militants in eastern
Afghanistan, a coalition statement said Monday. The strike came hours after the deadliest insurgent attack since the Taliban fell in 2001.
A suicide bomber on Sunday destroyed a bus full of police instructors at Kabul's busiest transportation hub, killing 35 people and wounding 52, officials said.
The airstrike, which had the support of Afghan troops, was launched on a compound that also contained a mosque and a madrassa, or Islamic school, in the Zarghun Shah district of Paktika province.
Early reports said seven children at the school were killed in the strike and that "several militants" also were killed, the coalition statement said. Two suspected militants also were detained.
Coalition troops had "surveillance on the compound all day and saw no indications there were children inside the building," said Maj. Chris Belcher, a coalition spokesman. He accused the militants of not letting the children leave the compound that was targeted.
"If we knew that there were children inside the building, there was no way that that airstrike would have occurred," said Sgt. 1st Class Dean Welch, another coalition spokesman.
Afghan officials have recently said that civilian deaths are the main concern of Afghans, and President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly called for foreign troops to do more to prevent civilian casualties.
Sunday's enormous blast, which raised the specter of an increase in
Iraq-style bombings with heavy casualties, was at least the fourth attack against a bus carrying Afghan police or army soldiers in Kabul in the last year. The bomb sheared off the bus' metal sidings and roof, leaving a charred frame.
"Never in my life have I heard such a sound," said Ali Jawad, a 48-year-old who was selling phone cards nearby. "A big fireball followed. I saw blood and a decapitated man thrown out of the bus."
The explosion was the fifth suicide attack in Afghanistan in three days, part of a sharp spike in violence around the country.
In the south, in Kandahar province, a roadside bomb killed three members of the U.S.-led coalition and an Afghan interpreter. The soldiers' nationalities were not released, but most in the coalition are American.
Condemning the Kabul attack, Karzai said the "enemies of Afghanistan" were trying to stop the development of Afghan security forces, a key component in the U.S.-
NATO strategy of handing over security responsibilities to the Afghan government one day, allowing Western forces to leave.
A self-described Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said a Taliban suicide bomber named Mullah Asim Abdul Rahman caused the blast. Ahmadi called an Associated Press reporter from an undisclosed location. His claim could not be verified.
Zemeri Bashary, the spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said late Sunday that 35 were killed and 52 wounded in the blast. Karzai's office said 22 police instructors died, indicating that 13 of the dead were civilians.
At least one person survived the 8:10 a.m. bus blast. Nasir Ahmad, 22, a janitor at the police training academy, was sitting in the back of the bus when the bomb exploded. Speaking from a hospital bed where he was recovering from wounds to his face and hands, he said: "There were between 30 to 40 police instructors in the bus."
It was the only full sentence he managed to utter before stopping from exhaustion.
At the entrance to the hospital, a blue plastic trash can overflowed with the bloodied shoes and sandals of victims.
Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Muqbal said initial indications were that a suicide bomber boarded the bus as it stopped to pick up police instructors at an open-air bus station in central Kabul. Such a suicide attack would represent a sizable jump in lethality compared to more typical Taliban suicide bombings, which often kill far fewer people.
Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said it was too early to tell if the attack was a sign of more lethal bombings to come, or heavier involvement by al-Qaida. NATO commanders have long predicted a rise in suicide attacks this year.
A civilian bus was driving just in front of the police vehicle and was damaged when the bomb went off. A police officer at the scene said the civilian bus' position likely prevented more civilian casualties.
Afghan government officials, police and army soldiers are commonly targeted by insurgents trying to bring down Karzai's U.S.-backed government, and buses carrying Afghan police and army soldiers are common targets.
In May, a remote-control bomb hit an Afghan army bus in Kabul, killing the driver and wounding 29 people. In October, a bomb on a bicycle exploded as a police bus went by in Kabul, wounding 11. Last July, a remote-controlled bomb blew up near an Afghan army bus in downtown Kabul, wounding 39 people on board.
Insurgency-related violence has killed more than 2,400 people in Afghanistan this year, mostly insurgents, according to an AP count based on figures from U.S., NATO, U.N. and Afghan officials.
___
Associated Press reporters Noor Khan in Kandahar and Rahim Faiez and Amir Shah in Kabul contributed to this report.
35 killed in Kabul suicide bomb attack
By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 38 minutes ago
KABUL, Afghanistan - The deadliest insurgent attack since the U.S.-led invasion of
Afghanistan in 2001 destroyed a bus full of police instructors at Kabul's busiest transportation hub on Sunday, killing 35 people and wounding 52, officials said.
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Meanwhile, U.S.-led coalition jets bombed a compound suspected of housing al-Qaida militants in eastern Afghanistan, killing seven children and several militants, a coalition statement said Monday.
The strike, which had the support of Afghan troops, was launched Sunday on a compound that also contained a mosque and a madrassa, or Islamic school, in the Zarghun Shah district of Paktika province, a coalition statement said.
"We are saddened by the innocent lives that were lost as a result of militants' cowardice," Maj. Chris Belcher, a coalition spokesman, said in a statement. "This is another example of al-Qaida using the protective status of a mosque, as well as innocent civilians, to shield themselves."
Sunday's enormous suicide blast, which raised the specter of an increase in
Iraq-style bombings with heavy casualties, was at least the fourth attack against a bus carrying Afghan police or army soldiers in Kabul in the last year. The blast sheared off the bus' metal sidings and roof, leaving a charred frame.
"Never in my life have I heard such a sound," said Ali Jawad, a 48-year-old who was selling phone cards nearby. "A big fireball followed. I saw blood and a decapitated man thrown out of the bus."
The explosion was the fifth suicide attack in Afghanistan in three days, part of a sharp spike in violence around the country. In the south, in Kandahar province, a roadside bomb killed three members of the U.S.-led coalition and an Afghan interpreter. The soldiers' nationalities were not released, but most in the coalition are American.
Condemning the Kabul attack, President Hamid Karzai said the "enemies of Afghanistan" were trying to stop the development of Afghan security forces, a key component in the U.S.-
NATO strategy of handing over security responsibilities to the Afghan government one day, allowing Western forces to leave.
A self-described Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said a Taliban suicide bomber named Mullah Asim Abdul Rahman caused the blast. Ahmadi called an Associated Press reporter from an undisclosed location. His claim could not be verified.
Zemeri Bashary, the spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said late Sunday that 35 were killed and 52 wounded in the blast. Karzai's office said 22 police instructors died, indicating that 13 of the dead were civilians.
At least one person survived the 8:10 a.m. bus blast. Nasir Ahmad, 22, a janitor at the police training academy, was sitting in the back of the bus when the bomb exploded. Speaking from a hospital bed where he was recovering from wounds to his face and hands, he said: "There were between 30 to 40 police instructors in the bus."
It was the only full sentence he managed to utter before stopping from exhaustion.
At the entrance to the hospital, a blue plastic trash can overflowed with the bloodied shoes and sandals of victims.
Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Muqbal said initial indications were that a suicide bomber boarded the bus as it stopped to pick up police instructors at an open-air bus station in central Kabul. Such a suicide attack would represent a sizable jump in lethality compared to more typical Taliban suicide bombings, which often kill far fewer people.
Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said it was too early to tell if the attack was a sign of more lethal bombings to come, or heavier involvement by al-Qaida. NATO commanders have long predicted a rise in suicide attacks this year.
A civilian bus was driving just in front of the police vehicle and was damaged when the bomb went off. A police officer at the scene said the civilian bus' position likely prevented more civilian casualties.
Afghan government officials, police and army soldiers are commonly targeted by insurgents trying to bring down Karzai's U.S.-backed government, and buses carrying Afghan police and army soldiers are common targets.
In May, a remote-control bomb hit an Afghan army bus in Kabul, killing the driver and wounding 29 people. In October, a bomb on a bicycle exploded as a police bus went by in Kabul, wounding 11. Last July, a remote-controlled bomb blew up near an Afghan army bus in downtown Kabul, wounding 39 people on board.
Police seem to be taking notice, and one officer suggested Afghans are beginning to equate police with danger rather than safety.
"We are afraid now that the police are increasingly coming under attack," said Allah Bubani, a 22-year-old recent graduate of the police training academy who said he likely knew some of the instructors killed in the attack. "Nowadays the ordinary people are scared of the police, because they fear an attack on the force would also harm them."
At least 307 Afghan police, army or intelligence personnel have been killed in violence so far this year through June 15, according to an AP tally of figures from the U.S., U.N., NATO and Afghan authorities.
The
European Union on Sunday took control from Germany of the Western mission to train Afghan police. The EU, which will have 200 police, law enforcement and justice experts at the Kabul training center, said the attack "does nothing to diminish our determination to maintain our support for the construction of the Afghan police force."
Sunday's death toll exceeded that of a September 2002 Kabul car bombing that killed 30 people and wounded 167.
Insurgency-related violence has killed more than 2,400 people in Afghanistan this year, mostly insurgents, according to an AP count based on figures from U.S., NATO, U.N. and Afghan officials.
Dr. Asadullah, a health worker at Jamhuriat hospital, said two Pakistanis, two Japanese and one Korean national were among those wounded Sunday.
At one point Sunday, the Interior Minister and a hospital director revised the initial death toll of 35 down to 24, but a government official in the Health Ministry speaking on condition he not be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter said the government may have been trying to downplay the severity of the attack.
___
Associated Press reporters Noor Khan in Kandahar and Fisnik Abrashi and Amir Shah in Kabul contributed to this report.
36 killed in fierce battle in Iraq
By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer 39 minutes ago
BAGHDAD - Iraqi and British forces fought a fierce battle with Shiite militiamen while conducting house-to-house searches early Monday south of Baghdad, and Iraqi police and hospital officials said 36 people were killed in the violence.
More than 100 people were injured in the fighting in Amarah, the officials said. At least three of those killed were Iraqi policemen, they said.
A doctor at Amarah's general hospital said 36 bodies had been taken to his facility, though he could not determine how many were militiamen and how many were civilians. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media.
The British military in
Iraq could not immediately comment on the reports, but a Ministry of Defense spokeswoman in London said details of the fighting were still "quite sketchy" but that there were no British casualties.
The spokeswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with ministry policy, said that the British soldiers played a supporting role to Iraqi security forces during the raid and fighting.
The U.S. military released a statement saying at least 20 insurgents had been killed and six wounded in coalition operations targeting "secret cells" in Amarah. Another suspect was detained, it said.
The men were believed to be members of a terror network that imports deadly armor-piercing weapons made in
Iran known as "explosively formed penetrators," or EFPs, the statement said. They also were suspected of bringing militants from Iraq to Iran for terror training, it added.
Coalition forces came under small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenade attacks during the raids, and called in air support, the military said. The suspects were killed by fire from aircraft, it said.
The U.S. statement did not specify whether the coalition troops were American or British.
Iraqi police said the Mahdi Army, the militia commanded by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, was involved in the clashes, which lasted for about two hours before dawn.
Amarah, located 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, is the provincial capital of Maysan province, a predominantly Shiite region that borders Iran. Iraqi forces took over control of security from British troops there in April.
The city has seen intense militia fighting, most recently in October 2006, when the Mahdi Army briefly took control of the city and fought prolonged gunbattles with local police. At the time, Amarah's police force was believed to be dominated by a rival militia, the Badr Brigades. More than 30 people were killed in the standoff.
Elsewhere Monday, two people were killed in clashes that erupted between Iraqi police and Mahdi Army fighters in Nasiriyah, about 70 miles south of Amarah, police said.
The fighting began after some police patrols were attacked there Sunday night, a police officer and an official in the town's health department said, both on condition of anonymity out of security concerns.
Some local tribesman had joined the fight, siding with Iraqi police in trying to oust the militiamen from their town, the officials said.
A policeman and a militiaman were killed, and more than 60 people were injured, most of them police, they said.
The battle included at least eleven mortar strikes on police headquarters in Nasiriyah, the officials said.
Clashes continued through Monday morning, and local authorities imposed an indefinite curfew on the city, police said.
In Fallujah, four civilians were killed and 13 injured Monday when a parked car bomb ripped through a busy vegetable market, police said. Fallujah lies 40 miles west of Baghdad.
___
Associated Press Writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.
Italian designer Gianfranco Ferre dies
Sun Jun 17, 4:00 PM ET
MILAN, Italy - Gianfranco Ferre, the Italian designer known as the "architect of fashion" for his structured, sculpted shapes and for his groundbreaking tenure at Christian Dior, died Sunday, a hospital said. He was 62.
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Ferre was taken to the San Raffaele hospital in Milan on Friday after suffering a massive brain hemorrhage. The hospital, in a statement authorized by Ferre's family, said he died Sunday night.
Ferre started his career as an accessories and jewelry designer, and then moved on to clothes. His unofficial title as Italy's architect of fashion came thanks to the degree in architecture he obtained in 1969 from Milan's Polytechnic Institute that inspired his designs.
He started his own company in the mid-1970s, but his major leap came in 1989, when he was tapped by Bernard Arnault to be the top designer for Christian Dior. At the time, it was almost unheard of for a non-French designer to lead the venerable Parisian house.
Ferre stayed on at Dior until the fall of 1996, when he returned to Milan to tend to his own men's and women's collections.
Ferre's style was based on simple and structured lines, and the white blouse became one of his trademarks. His suits were used by businesswomen around the world looking for a sophisticated look.
For the evening, Ferre often made important dresses with ample skirts supported by layers of crinolines.
In 2002, Ferre sold Gianfranco Ferre to It Holding, but he stayed on as creative director. His spring-summer 2008 menswear collection is scheduled to be presented next week in Milan.
Born Aug. 15, 1944 in Legnano, in northern Italy, Ferre worked and lived in India for several years. His passion for travel and world cultures was often reflected in his collections.
He is survived by a brother and sister-in-law.
There was no immediate word on funeral arrangements.
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Wife of Cuba's acting leader dies at 77
By ANITA SNOW,
Associated Press Writer
HAVANA - Vilma Espin Guillois, the wife of acting President Raul Castro and one of the communist nation's most politically powerful women, died Monday, the Cuban government announced. She was 77.
Espin died Monday afternoon after "the long illness she was afflicted with" worsened in recent weeks, according to Cuban state television. Authorities did not disclose the illness, but she was said to suffer from severe circulatory problems in recent years.
Her death was likely to have a profound emotional impact on both Raul and
Fidel Castro at a critical moment in Cuban history. Not only was she a wife and a sister-in-law, but a fellow guerrilla fighter who was with the Castro brothers at the start of their revolutionary battle a half-century ago.
Cuba's top leaders will pay homage to Espin with a solemn gathering Tuesday night at the Karl Marx theater in Havana, along with leaders of the Federation of Cuban Women and other representatives of Cuban society.
An official mourning period was declared from 8 p.m. Monday until 10 p.m. Tuesday, and the Cuban flag will be lowered to half mast at all public buildings and military bases. Formal gatherings to pay homage to Espin were scheduled for all day Tuesday across the island of 11.2 million. Her ashes will be scattered during a private ceremony, with full military honors, at a date to be determined, according to the statement from Cuba's Communist Party leadership.
"Her name will be linked eternally to the most significant achievements of Cuban women through the Revolution," the government said, calling Espin "one of the most relevant fighters for women's emancipation in our country and in the world."
Born into a wealthy family in eastern Cuba, Espin became a young urban rebel after Fulgencio Batista took power in a coup, and she battled his dictatorship throughout the 1950s.
After the 1959 revolution, she became Cuba's low-key first lady as the wife of Defense Minister Raul Castro, Fidel Castro's designated successor, because Fidel Castro was divorced.
Espin maintained that role over more than 45 years, even after Fidel Castro reportedly married Dalia Soto del Valle, with whom he is said to have five grown sons. Extremely protective of his private life, Fidel Castro has never discussed that relationship publicly and his current marital status is unclear.
Raul Castro, 76, has been Cuba's acting president since 80-year-old Fidel ceded power in July after the first of several surgeries from which he is still recovering.
Espin's power also was rooted in the more than four decades she served as president of the Federation of Cuban Women, which she founded in 1960 and fashioned into an important pillar of support for the communist government. Virtually every woman and adolescent girl on the island are listed as members.
A tall woman with spectacles, her auburn hair twisted into a bun, Espin was a highly recognized figure across the island. She was regularly seen at gatherings of the National Assembly and other important government meetings.
Born in Santiago on April 7, 1930, and trained as a chemical engineer in Cuba and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Espin participated in early street protests against Batista, and became deeply involved in the revolutionary underground, working with regional leader Frank Pais, who was assassinated in July 1957. Even before Pais died, Espin had assumed leadership of the urban rebel movement in eastern Cuba.
Espin sought refuge in 1958 in the mountains above Santiago, where Raul and Fidel Castro commanded their uniformed rebel fighters.
Espin and Raul Castro were married in April 1959, four months after Batista fled the island and rebels marched triumphantly into Santiago, and later Havana. Pictures in Life magazine showed the bride in an elegant white gown and pearls in her hair. The groom was clad in his olive green military uniform, pistol at his side.
Although rumors circulated for years that Espin and Raul Castro had separated, they were often seen together and there was never any official word of divorce.
"Vilma and I sometimes argue," Raul Castro said in April 2001, with his wife at his side. But, he said, "this marriage ... has lasted 42 years, and we hope to be together longer."
Espin's survivors include the couple's four children, Mariela, Deborah, Nilsa and Alejandro, as well as numerous grandchildren.
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Décès - Québec: Adieu Boule Noire
2007-06-18 13:40:14
Rongé par le cancer, le chanteur d'Aimes-tu la vie? et d'autres succès des années 70 et 80 s'est éteint lundi matin. Il avait lancé son autobiographie la semaine dernière.
« Pourquoi moi? Qu'est-ce que j'ai fait pour mériter ça? Je gueule. Je blasphème. Je rage. Et je pleure. Des larmes d'enfant perdu. Des sanglots d'orphelin. », écrivait Georges Thurston dans son autobiographie, lancée le 12 juin dernier.
Le cancer a fini par emporter Boule noire, qui s'est éteint vers 0 h 20, dans la nuit de dimanche à lundi. Il avait 55 ans.
L'auteur-compositeur-interprète avait appris qu'il souffrait d'un cancer colorectal le 26 février 2006.
Parcours hors du commun
Georges Thurston est né le 29 décembre 1951 à Bedford, dans les Cantons-de-l'Est. « Ce jour-là, mes parents ont disparu », écrit-il dans Aimes-tu la vie?.
Cet enfant mulâtre a été élevé dans un orphelinat, puis a erré de foyer d'accueil en foyer d'accueil, une quarantaine en tout. Il a grandi à Saint-Jérôme, dans les Laurentides.
Georges Thurston avoue être presque devenu un criminel à l'adolescence. Toutefois, la discipline de fer qu'imposait une prison pour jeunes délinquants l'a remis sur le droit chemin.
De Georges Thurston à Boule noire
À peine devenu adulte, celui qui se passionne pour les Beatles, James Brown et les Rolling Stones fonde son premier groupe, qu'il baptise Les Zinconnus.
Au début des années 70, il fait la connaissance de nombreuses vedettes québécoises de la chanson, les Robert Charlebois, Tony Roman, Claude Dubois, Steve Fiset, François Guy, Donald Lautrec, Michel Pagliaro et Nanette Workman. Il travaille comme musicien ou arrangeur pour nombre d'entre eux.
« En 1975, ma bonne étoile s'allume », écrit-il. Il adopte officiellement son nom de Boule Noire, en référence à la populaire coiffure afro qu'il a adoptée.
L'année suivante, il lance son premier album solo, Aimes-tu la vie?, qui lance véritablement sa carrière. Il devient vite disque d'or. Georges Thurston écrit aussi des chansons pour le groupe Toulouse.
Vague disco
À la fin des années 70, la vague disco qui déferle sur la planète contribue à la renommée de Boule Noire. « Le disco allait faire de moi une superstar », lit-on dans , son autobiographie.
Il remporte notamment du succès en Europe et aux États-Unis. En 1979, son nouvel album, Aimer d'amour, est certifié double disque d'or, c'est-à-dire qu'il se vend alors à plus de 100 000 exempaires. .
Georges Thurston a fait paraître d'autres albums, dont Primitif, Première, Reggae, Soul Pleureur et Réunion. Ses chansons reggae remportent notamment du succès à l'étranger.
Il est demeuré actif jusqu'à la fin. Plus récemment, il a produit un CD de 17 nouvelles chansons, intitulé Last call, dernier rappel.
Georges Thurston laisse dans le deuil son fils Maxime et sa femme Loraine Cordeau.
Over 100 reportedly die in Afghanistan
By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer Mon Jun 18, 5:27 PM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - More than 100 people, including militants, civilians and police, have been killed in three days of fierce clashes between
NATO and the Taliban in southern
Afghanistan, Afghan officials said Monday.
To the east, U.S.-led coalition jets bombed a suspected al-Qaida compound, killing seven boys and several fighters.
Afghanistan has seen a spike in violence the last several days, leading to a mounting number of civilian casualties that are sapping support for foreign troops and the government of President Hamid Karzai.
Even though a majority of civilians deaths is caused by attacks initiated by the Taliban, Afghan anger over civilian casualties is often directed toward U.S. and NATO-led troops. Such killings have prompted Afghan authorities to plead repeatedly for international forces to work more closely with Afghans.
But in Uruzgan province in southern Afghanistan, the Taliban have launched what appears to be their biggest offensive of the year, forcing NATO troops to respond.
Dutch military officials said hundreds of Taliban fighters attacked police posts near the strategic town of Chora on Saturday, sparking a battle that officials said was continuing. The attack appeared to be a change in strategy by the insurgents, who had been relying on an increasing number of suicide and roadside bombings this year.
Maj. Gen. Jouke Eikelboom, director of operations with the Dutch military, said Karzai and the Uruzgan governor sought military support after the attack on the police posts.
A summary of fighter jet activity from Sunday sent out by the U.S. Central Command hinted at the ferocity of the battles, detailing at least eight aircraft dropping bombs or firing on the area.
Precise casualty figures were not available because of the continued fighting, though two Afghan officials said more than 100 people have been killed, including at least 16 police. A Dutch soldier also died.
Afghan officials said Taliban fighters sought shelter in civilian homes and that NATO bombers targeted them. Khan called such deaths "friendly fire."
In eastern Paktika province, meanwhile, U.S.-led coalition warplanes targeted a compound Sunday that also contained a mosque and a madrassa, or Islamic school, resulting in the deaths of seven boys ages 10 to 16, said Gov. Akram Akhpelwak.
The governor said there normally is excellent coordination between the government and international forces but said he was not told of the missile strike in advance.
Authorities are working with foreign forces "to have better coordination and to not have these misunderstandings, but today we had a misunderstanding and the people will be unhappy," Akhpelwak told the Associated Press by telephone. "We will go to the area and discuss the issue with the people and apologize."
A coalition spokesman, Maj. Chris Belcher, said coalition troops had "surveillance on the compound all day and saw no indications there were children inside." Belcher, an American, accused the militants of not letting the children leave.
"If we knew that there were children inside the building, there was no way that that airstrike would have occurred," said Sgt. 1st Class Dean Welch, another coalition spokesman.
Reports of civilian deaths in Uruzgan were coming from various quarters.
One wounded man at the main Uruzgan hospital told the AP that 18 members of his family had been killed.
Mullah Ahmidullah Khan, the head of Uruzgan's provincial council, estimated the clashes in Chora killed 60 civilians, 70 suspected Taliban militants and 16 Afghan police.
"I have talked to President Karzai and asked him to send helicopters to ferry the wounded to Kabul," he said.
An official close to the governor who asked not to be identified when talking about preliminary estimates, said 70 to 75 civilians were killed or wounded, while more than 100 Taliban and more than 35 police were killed.
But Maj. John Thomas, a NATO spokesman, said he doubted that Afghan officials could tell the difference between civilians and militants, suggesting some of the wounded who claimed to be civilians were insurgents.
Dr. Hajed Noor, a doctor at Uruzgan's main hospital in the provincial capital, Tirin Kot, said the hospital had received 34 wounded, including nine women and seven children. He said his patients reported that many other wounded were in the Chora district and couldn't make it to the hospital because of the fighting.
Speaking by phone from a hospital bed, Janu Akha, 62, said bombs hit his village of Qala-i-Ragh on Saturday.
"Eight bombs fell in my village," Akha said. "On Sunday my relatives buried 18 members of my family, including women and children."
Khan, the Uruzgan provincial council chief, said he talked to a man named Gul Mohammad at the Tirin Kot hospital who said 15 relatives, including women and children, had been killed. "I also saw Manan Jan in the hospital. He had 12 family members killed," Khan said.
Another doctor at the hospital, Mohammad Fahim, said: "Most of the people who were killed are still there (in Chora). They are not bringing the bodies here, so that is why we do not know how many have been killed."
In the capital, Kabul, police said they detained a suspect in connection with a bus bombing Sunday that killed at least 35 people, most of them police trainers. The suspect, whose name and nationality were not disclosed, had pictures of slain Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah in his phone, as well as text messages from a foreign country, police said.
___
Associated Press reporters Rahim Faiez, Amir Shah and Fisnik Abrashi in Kabul and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.
4 dead in North Texas flooding
By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press Writer Tue Jun 19, 12:55 AM ET
GAINESVILLE, Texas - Torrential overnight rainfall flooded a handful of North Texas towns Monday, killing at least five people and stranding residents and their pets on the roofs of their homes.
A 5-year-old girl and her grandmother were swept to their deaths after the family's mobile home was carried off its foundation and lodged against a bridge above a swollen creek in this city along the Oklahoma border, said Cpl. Mike Linnell of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The girl's 2-year-old sister was among at least five people still missing in the Gainesville area.
In the Fort Worth suburb of Haltom City, a 4-year-old girl died after her family attempted to escaped the flooding in a boat that floated by, but it flipped over and the girl was lost into the rushing water, KTVT-TV reported.
The girl's mother, Natasha Collins, told KXAS-TV of Dallas that the last time she saw her daughter was "when the current took her out of my arms. We reached the boat, and the boat capsized."
Rescue crews arrived later to help the Collins family. Alexanderia Collins' body was found more than two hours later.
A woman died in Sherman, about 60 miles northwest of Dallas, after her car stalled in rising water and was swept away, Sherman police Sgt. Bruce Dawsey said. A 74-year-old man also died in Grayson County after driving into high water, the Dallas Morning News reported.
About 125 residents of a Sherman nursing home were evacuated, and an unknown number of people were rescued from an office building where the roof started caving in, Dawsey said.
In Gainesville, aerial video showed families awaiting rescue on their roofs, some having hacked their way to the outside from their attics. Some were joined by their dogs. Three mobile homes were washed out of the park.
About 500 homes were flooded in and around the city. At one point, about 450 displaced residents had sought refuge at two temporary shelters. That number dwindled throughout the day as many arranged to stay with friends and relatives.
About 100 mobile homes in Haltom City were inundated and many were washed off their foundations, emergency officials said.
"When I looked out the window, water was up to the bottom of the window and the current was so fast houses were washing away, said Haltom City resident Rachel Hawkes. "You could hear people screaming but we couldn't get out to help."
About 37,000 people live in Sherman and about 16,500 in Gainesville.
Amtrak's daily round-trip service between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth was canceled because of flooding, and passengers were placed on buses, said Joe Kyle of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. Fort Worth-based Burlington Northern Santa Fe, which owns the rail line, will decide when service can resume, Kyle said.
Authorities closed Interstate 35 from Gainesville to the Oklahoma state line for several hours because of flooding, the Department of Public Safety said.
The
National Weather Service said rain fell at a rate of an inch every 15 minutes in some places early Monday.
"We get heavy rains in North Texas, but the rate, the amount, the duration and the coverage of this are just amazing," said Gary Woodall, the warning-coordination meteorologist for the weather service office in Fort Worth.
Only isolated thunderstorms were forecast in the area Monday and Tuesday.
Torrential rains also flooded creeks and rivers across central and southern Oklahoma, sweeping a truck off a bridge near Ada and forcing the evacuation of some homes in Caddo. Rescue workers plucked several people from vehicles trapped by rising floodwaters. As much as 3 to 6 inches of rain fell in some areas, and the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for seven counties on Monday.
___
Associated Press writers Rich Matthews and Terry Wallace in Dallas, and Sean Murphy Oklahoma City contributed to this report.
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"Sensational" Sherri passes away
By Corey Clayton
Written: June 15, 2007
WWE is saddened to learn of the death of WWE Hall of Famer “Sensational” Sherri. She was 49.
She passed away at her mother’s home in Birmingham, Ala. Friday morning, according to her husband of 10 years, Robert Schrull.
“It’s a great loss to the wrestling world,” he told WWE.com. The couple resided in St. Petersburg, Fla.
In the early 1980s, Sherri began her career in the AWA. In 1985, she defeated Candi Devine to become the AWA Women’s Champion. Their rivalry lasted more than a year, with the championship trading hands on several occasions.
It was during this time that she began perfecting her skills as a manager, leading “Playboy” Buddy Rose and “Pretty Boy” Doug Somers to the AWA Tag Team Championship. On June 28, 1986, Martel would win the AWA Women’s Championship for a third and final time from Candi Devine.
On July 24, 1987, “Sensational” Sherri debuted in WWE, pinning her trainer and mentor the Fabulous Moolah to become Women’s Champion. Sherri defended the gold against Debbie Combs, Velvet McIntyre, and Desiree Peterson.
She quickly earned the reputation as someone who would do anything to win, even if it meant using unsavory tactics. Her rivalry with Moolah continued as they became the captains for the first-ever female Survivor Series teams in 1989. Sherri held the championship for 15 months before losing to Rockin’ Robin.
In the early ‘90s WWE phased out the Women’s Division, leaving Sherri to focus on managing the male wrestlers. Her first client was “Macho Man” Randy Savage. It was during this time that she became “Sensation Queen.”
The couple had rivalries with Miss Elizabeth, Hulk Hogan, Dusty Rhodes and Sapphire. In 1991, “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase enlisted her services. After that relationship dissolved, she took on the managerial duties of Shawn Michaels.
In 1994, Sherri appeared in WCW as “Sensuous” Sherri managing Ric Flair during his rivalries with Sting and Hulk Hogan. After separating from Flair, she became “Sister” Sherri guiding Harlem Heat to seven WCW Tag Team Championships.
Sherri was enshrined in the WWE Hall of Fame in 2006. “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase was her presenter.
+++
78 killed by bombing at Baghdad mosque
By LAUREN FRAYER, Associated Press Writer Tue Jun 19, 7:31 PM ET
BAGHDAD - A truck bomber attacked a revered Shiite shrine in the heart of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 78 people and wounding more than 200 in a resumption of
Iraq's relentless sectarian slaughter. The mosque's turquoise dome survived, but the blast buried some worshippers and badly burned others.
Northeast of the capital, a force of 10,000 U.S. soldiers firing artillery and using heavily armored Stryker and Bradley Fighting Vehicles fought their way through western Baqouba and other al-Qaida sanctuaries in Diyala province. U.S. helicopters and jet fighters flew cover.
In all, 142 people were killed or found dead in sectarian violence Tuesday, a toll reflecting carnage associated with the months before the U.S. security crackdown in the capital began Feb. 14.
The Pentagon is required to issue an initial assessment of the operation next month, and Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, will report in September. The Democratic-controlled Congress set those reporting deadlines to pressure the White House and American military leadership to make quick progress in curbing violence here so U.S. troops — now 155,000 — can be pulled away from the increasingly unpopular war.
American commanders have said there will be positive results by September but that any return to normalcy requires years.
President Bush has even spoken of the U.S. mission in Iraq in terms of the 50-plus-year American troop presence in South Korea.
Tuesday's bombing was a setback. It was the deadliest single attack in Iraq since April 18, when at least 127 civilians were killed when a bomb detonated in a parked car at a mostly Shiite market in central Baghdad.
Police said a truck piled high with electric fans and air conditioners delivered the huge bomb at the Khulani mosque. The powerful explosion in the busy commercial district cut deep into Iraq's Shiite community on just the second day after authorities lifted a four-day curfew in the capital.
The vehicle ban had been imposed to prevent revenge attacks after a bombing last week brought down twin golden minarets at the important Shiite al-Askariya shrine in Samarra, north of the capital. A bombing that destroyed the golden dome there on Feb. 26, 2006 set in motion the sectarian bloodletting that has sundered the sectarian fault line in Iraq.
Tuesday's bombing was presumed to have been carried out by a Sunni attacker because the target was a Shiite mosque. The Khulani mosque's imam, Sheik Saleh al-Haidari, said bombing was particularly deadly because worshippers were just leaving a prayer service.
"This attack was planned and carried out by sick souls," al-Haidari told The Associated Press by telephone. He said his office and the room above collapsed but that he was not in the mosque at the time of the attack.
Karim Abdullah, the 35-year-old owner of a nearby clothing store, said he was on his way to pray at the mosque when the explosion caused his motorcycle to wobble under him.
"I stopped in shock as I saw the smoke and people on the ground. I saw two or three men in flames as they were getting out of their car," he said.
AP reporters said gunfire rattled through the district after police said the truck exploded in a parking lot near the mosque. A courtyard wall collapsed, and a building just inside the mosque compound was turned to rubble. The mosque sanctuary was slightly damaged.
The Khulani mosque is named after a much-revered Shiite figure who, according to the sect's tradition, was one of four "earthly" deputies anointed by the Imam Mohammed al-Mahdi, who disappeared in the 9th century. Shiites believe the so-called "Hidden Imam" will return to Earth to restore justice to humanity.
Police and officials at al-Kindi, Iman Ali, al-Sadr and Medical City hospitals said at least 78 people were killed and 218 were wounded, adding that the toll could rise as bodies were pulled from the debris. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retribution.
The U.S. military said the bombing was a suicide attack and that its unit in the area recorded 35 killed and 65 wounded at al-Kindi hospital. The military did not check other facilities for dead or wounded.
Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said the truck was loaded with propane tanks and that a suicide driver detonated his bomb when the vehicle became stuck trying to drive over a curb. It was impossible to reconcile the difference in the police and military accounts about the truck's cargo, or whether the bombing involved a parked truck or a suicide driver.
Six of those killed lived in a house behind the mosque, a police official said. Twenty cars were incinerated and 25 shops damaged.
The U.S. military operation in Diyala province, an al-Qaida bastion, matched in size the force that American generals sent against the insurgent-held city of Fallujah 2 1/2 years ago. The operation began Monday, and by late Tuesday the military had reported only one American death, a Task Force Lightning soldier killed by an explosion near his vehicle. Two soldiers were wounded.
A second soldier from the 3rd Infantry Division died in a roadside bombing south of Baghdad on Monday, the military said in a second statement. Three were wounded in that attack. Earlier Tuesday, the military said a soldier was killed by small arms fire during combat in eastern Baghdad on Monday.
The deaths brought to at least 3,530 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an AP count.
Additionally, Iraqi forces — about 5,000 Iraqi soldiers and 2,000 paramilitary police — joined the battle in Diyala province, according to Mohammed al-Askari, the defense ministry spokesman.
The U.S. commander in the region, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, said a combined U.S.-Iraqi force of about 3,500 soldiers and police were operating in Baqouba proper, a city of about 300,000.
"We began last night with large-scale air assaults moving by helicopter to surprise the enemy with a large ground assault before daylight. We've had initial good success. ... There's a lot of work left to be done," he told CNN.
The military said at least 22 militants had been killed by daybreak.
In southern Iraq, police and hospital officials said the death toll reached 35 in clashes that continued into a second day between Mahdi Army fighters and Iraqi security forces in Nasiriyah, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad.
Authorities said about 150 people were wounded. They declined to be identified because they feared retribution. Most of the casualties were police or militiamen. A delegation from radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's office arrived in the city to try to end the fighting, according to the city council.
A curfew was imposed on Nasiriyah on Monday, and remained in effect.
At sundown Tuesday in Baghdad, militants fired a volley of mortars into the U.S.-guarded Green Zone. Five crashed to earth near the office of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and one slammed into a structure adjacent to the American post exchange store.
No casualties were immediately reported. The American Embassy confirmed that the Green Zone had been hit by mortar or rocket fire but provided no details.
___
Associated Press News Research Center in New York contributed to this report.
États-Unis: Incendie meurtrier en Caroline du Sud
2007-06-19 17:10:17
L'effondrement d'un entrepôt en flammes à Charleston provoque la mort de neuf pompiers, la plus grosse perte pour le corps des pompiers depuis les attentats du 11 septembre 2001.
Neuf pompiers ont perdu la vie dans l'incendie d'un entrepôt de meubles à Charleston, en Caroline du Sud, dans la nuit de lundi à mardi.
Ils ont péri lorsque le toit du bâtiment en feu s'est effondré sur eux. Un témoin rapporte avoir vu les flammes s'élever à plus de neuf mètres.
Les autorités ont ouvert une enquête pour déterminer l'origine de l'incendie, mais elles ne privilégient pas la piste criminelle.
Le maire de Charleston, Joseph P.Riley, a rendu hommage aux neuf pompiers, mardi matin, en affirmant qu'ils étaient des héros.
Selon l'Agence fédérale responsable de la lutte contre les incendies, c'est la plus grosse perte pour le corps des pompiers depuis les attentats du 11 septembre 2001. L'effondrement des tours du World Trade Center avait alors causé la mort de 343 pompiers de New York.
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Soldats tués en mission: Ottawa double le dédommagement pour funérailles
2007-06-19 08:43:01
L'indemnité versée aux familles pour les frais funéraires des soldats canadiens morts en service atteindra 12 700 $.
Le ministère de la Défense porte à 12 700 $ l'indemnité pour les frais funéraires versée aux familles des soldats morts en mission.
Cette nouvelle mesure s'appliquera à tous les militaires tués depuis le début de la mission en Afghanistan en octobre 2001.
Les dépenses telles que les fleurs et les réceptions, qui n'étaient pas admissibles auparavant, le seront.
Le mois dernier aux Communes, l'opposition dénonçait le fait que des familles avaient dû payer elles-mêmes certaines dépenses.
Le ministre O'Connor avait alors promis de revoir les normes concernant le paiement des funérailles. L'ancienne indemnité en vigueur depuis 1999 était de 4675 $.
La Défense affirme avoir basé ses nouveaux critères sur ceux de la Gendarmerie royale du Canada.
+++
Georges Thurston: Le temps des adieux
2007-06-19 11:33:38
Les admirateurs de Boule Noire pourront lui rendre un dernier hommage, jeudi, à Laval. Ses obsèques seront célébrées vendredi à Saint-Jérôme, dans les Laurentides.
Les funérailles de Boule Noire auront lieu vendredi à la cathédrale de Saint-Jérôme, « là même où Georges a servi la messe comme enfant de choeur », précise un communiqué.
La veille, le public pourra lui faire ses adieux jeudi au Complexe funéraire Yves Légaré, à Laval. Deux plages horaires sont prévues:
de 12 h à 17 h;
de 19 h à 22 h.
À la demande de la famille et de leurs invités, appareils photo, caméscopes et téléphones cellulaires seront interdits aux deux occasions.
Cancer colorectal
Georges Thurston s'est éteint vers 0 h 20, dans la nuit de dimanche à lundi. Il avait 55 ans.
L'auteur-compositeur-interprète avait appris qu'il souffrait d'un cancer colorectal le 26 février 2006.
Parcours hors du commun
Georges Thurston est né le 29 décembre 1951 à Bedford, dans les Cantons-de-l'Est. « Ce jour-là, mes parents ont disparu », écrit-il dans Aimes-tu la vie?.
Cet enfant mulâtre a été élevé dans un orphelinat, puis a erré de foyer d'accueil en foyer d'accueil, une quarantaine en tout. Il a grandi à Saint-Jérôme, dans les Laurentides.
De Georges Thurston à Boule Noire
À peine devenu adulte, celui qui se passionne pour les Beatles, James Brown et les Rolling Stones fonde son premier groupe, qu'il baptise Les Zinconnus.
Au début des années 70, il fait la connaissance de nombreuses vedettes québécoises de la chanson, les Robert Charlebois, Tony Roman, Claude Dubois, Steve Fiset, François Guy, Donald Lautrec, Michel Pagliaro et Nanette Workman. Il travaille comme musicien ou arrangeur pour nombre d'entre eux.
« En 1975, ma bonne étoile s'allume », écrit-il. Il adopte officiellement son nom de Boule Noire, en référence à la populaire coiffure afro qu'il a adoptée.
L'année suivante, il lance son premier album solo, Aimes-tu la vie?, qui lance véritablement sa carrière. Il devient vite disque d'or. Georges Thurston écrit aussi des chansons pour le groupe Toulouse.
Vague disco
À la fin des années 70, la vague disco qui déferle sur la planète contribue à la renommée de Boule Noire. « Le disco allait faire de moi une superstar », lit-on dans , son autobiographie.
Il remporte notamment du succès en Europe et aux États-Unis. En 1979, son nouvel album, Aimer d'amour, est certifié double disque d'or, c'est-à-dire qu'il se vend alors à plus de 100 000 exemplaires.
Georges Thurston a fait paraître d'autres albums, dont Primitif, Première, Reggae, Soul pleureur et Réunion. Ses chansons reggae remportent notamment du succès à l'étranger.
Il est demeuré actif jusqu'à la fin. Plus récemment, il a produit un CD de 17 nouvelles chansons, intitulé Last call, dernier rappel.
Georges Thurston laisse dans le deuil son fils Maxime et sa femme Loraine Cordeau.
+++
IU Celebrates Hoeppner's Efforts Hours After His Death
Jun 20, 3:15 AM (ET) Email this Story
By MICHAEL MAROT
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) - Jane Hoeppner insisted on celebrating her husband's life his way - in groundbreaking style.
Terry Hoeppner, the Hoosiers' football coach the past two seasons, died Tuesday morning from complications of a brain tumor with his family at his side. He was 59.
By midafternoon Hoeppner's wife, mother, sister and two of his children were sitting inside a tent outside the football stadium, kicking off Hoeppner's pet project - a $55 million upgrade to the school's athletic facilities.
"Earlier today Terry passed away, and when I asked Jane, Allison and Drew (Hoeppner's children) if we should cancel this, they said 'Absolutely not, this was his dream, this was his dream job and this is what he would want to see happen,"' Rick Greenspan, Indiana's athletic director, said as his voice cracked.
What was supposed to be a grand day for Indiana athletics, quickly turned into a surreal, emotional memorial service.
Before the Hoeppner contingent arrived clad in Indiana's crimson and cream, a band played the fight song while athletes and boosters mingled. Refreshments were served afterward, and when Greenspan gave his ceremonial shovel for the groundbreaking to Jane Hoeppner, she pumped her fists in the air.
Throughout the ceremony, however, there were tears in the crowd and at the podium.
One person after another fought hard to avoid choking up, and Greenspan's voice cracked several times, once needing a cup of water once to contain his emotions.
Fullback Josiah Sears also struggled to find the right words even as he read from prepared text.
"That poem that President (Adam) Herbert read, he (Hoeppner) knew that poem like the back of his hand," Sears said. "I'll always remember that poem, 'Don't Quit.' But after President Herbert read it, I didn't know what I was going to say."
Hoeppner's death hit everyone in the Indiana football community hard.
Players were stunned by the news since many were unaware how serious Hoeppner's illness was until the first of two early morning team meetings Tuesday. Three players said they had no idea he was so ill, and even after being told he had died, some were still in disbelief.
"I was in denial, at first, I refused to believe that he wasn't coming back," defensive back Tracy Porter said.
Hoeppner's friends and colleagues at Indiana and around the Big Ten offered condolences to the family and reflected on some of the joyous moments they spent with the man who almost single-handedly reinvigorated a program that hasn't had a winning season since 1994.
Indiana basketball coach Kelvin Sampson talked about the symbolism of Tuesday's morning rain in Bloomington, comparing it to Hoeppner's eternally sunny personality. But the sun was shining brightly during the ceremony.
Joe Tiller, the football coach at rival Purdue, called Hoeppner a fierce competitor, and Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said he was a difference maker who will be missed throughout college football.
Ben Roethlisberger, who played for Hoeppner at Miami (Ohio) before joining the Pittsburgh Steelers, called Hoeppner a second father.
"I will miss him more than words can describe," Roethlisberger said in a statement.
School officials, coaches and players repeatedly reflected on Hoeppner's greatest trait - perseverance - and many repeated some of the lines they routinely heard from the coach.
"So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit, it's when things seem worst that you must not quit!" Herbert said, reading from the end of the poem.
What struck Sears, who took two deep breaths before speaking to the crowd, was the speech Hoeppner's wife gave during last week's team meeting when players were told Bill Lynch would replace Hoeppner on an interim basis in 2007.
She did not speak to the team Tuesday but hugged some of the players, including Porter, outside the tent.
"She said, 'He's not quitting, he's fighting, he's getting better,"' Sears said.
Hoeppner's condition deteriorated quickly Tuesday.
At a 6:30 a.m. meeting, players were told the situation was "grave." An hour later, they reconvened for another meeting and learned Hoeppner had died.
"I told Jane that he never quit, he just ran out of timeouts," Greenspan said, a light moment on an otherwise somber day.
Hoeppner's ability to embrace fans, students, coaches and, of course, his players made him beloved in Bloomington and throughout the state.
Although he was only 9-14 in two years with Indiana and never got the Hoosiers to a bowl game, his enthusiastic, energetic style provided the kind of excitement that had been lacking before his hire in December 2004.
He created "The Walk," a pregame ritual in which players strolled with fans through a parking lot of tailgaters on their way to the stadium. And he had a three-ton limestone rock moved to the back of the north end zone. That's how he nicknamed the stadium, "The Rock."
Some were skeptical initially.
"At first, I thought, 'What's he doing, the stadium already has a name,"' Porter said. "But it's a pretty solid symbol of what he brought to the program."
In eight seasons as a head coach, six at Miami, Hoeppner was 57-39, and he took the RedHawks to consecutive bowl games in 2003 and 2004.
Besides his wife, Hoeppner is survived by three children - Amy, Allison and Drew - and four grandchildren - Tucker, Spencer, Tate and Quinn. Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced.
Reliever Rod Beck dead at 38
By GREG BEACHAM, AP Sports Writer
June 24, 2007
Rod Beck, a relief pitcher who wore a bushy mustache while earning 286 career saves, was found dead Saturday. He was 38.
Beck was found by police officers responding to a call to his home in suburban Phoenix, according to police department spokesman Andy Hill. Foul play is not suspected, though the cause of death might not be known for several days.
With long hair framing a menacing stare and an aggressive arm swing before delivering a pitch, the outgoing right-hander was a memorable baseball personality and a three-time All-Star who twice led the NL in saves. He spent the first seven of his 13 major league season with the San Francisco Giants.
Beck was popular with his teammates, reporters and fans, but battled personal demons late in his life. He abruptly left the San Diego Padres for a two-month stint in drug rehabilitation during his final season in 2004.
"He was having some problems, and I just knew he went into rehab and joined us later that year," said Giants manager Bruce Bochy, the Padres' manager at the time. "It's so sad when you see healthy players go at such a young age. This is a bad day in baseball to lose a guy who did so much for the game."
Nicknamed "Shooter," Beck played for the Giants (1991-97), the Chicago Cubs (1998-99) and the Boston Red Sox (1999-2001) before finishing his career with the Padres (2003-04). Beck reportedly was living in a camper behind the Iowa Cubs' center-field fence when San Diego called.
Beck led the majors in saves in 1993, when he set the Giants' single-season record with 48. He was San Francisco's career saves leader with 199 until Robb Nen passed him in 2002.
Beck led the majors again in 1998 with 51 saves for Chicago, helping the Cubs win the NL wild card. He had a career record of 38-45 in 704 games, with a 3.30 ERA.
"He was a great teammate and a great competitor," said Giants shortstop Rich Aurilia, who played his first three major league seasons with Beck in San Francisco. "He left an impression on everybody he played with. You talk to everybody, they'll have nothing but good things to say. He's somebody that Giants fans will always remember."
Aurilia recalled being wary of Beck's mustache and mullet when he came up as a rookie in 1995 -- but Beck was among the first to congratulate Aurilia on making the team.
Beck was a favorite at Candlestick Park through most of the 1990s, but left to sign with the Cubs as a free agent in 1998. He saved 51 games in his first season in Chicago, but managed just 46 saves in his final five seasons combined.
Updated on Sunday, Jun 24, 2007 4:48 pm EDT
+++
Body ID'd As Pregnant Ohio Woman's
Jun 24, 3:55 PM (ET)
By JOE MILICIA
(AP) In this undated photo released by her mother, Jessie Davis, 26 of North Canton, Ohio, is shown....
Full Image
AKRON, Ohio (AP) - A body found at the end of a dayslong search for a woman nearly nine months pregnant is indeed hers, a medical examiner confirmed Sunday as investigators pieced together the case against the boyfriend accused of killing her.
The body found Saturday in a park was that of 26-year-old Jessie Davis, whose due date was July 3, the Summit County medical examiner's office said. Bobby Cutts Jr., who authorities suspect is the father, is charged with two counts of murder.
The cause of death had not yet been determined, said Lisa Kohler, the Summit County medical examiner. Her office had said it might be difficult to determine the cause of death because of the advanced state of decomposition.
The fetus was still in the woman's womb, Kohler said as she left her office Sunday. She declined to comment further. Confirmation of Davis' identity had been announced on a recording from the medical examiner's telephone hotline.
Davis, of Lake Township near Canton, was reported missing after her mother found Davis' 2-year-old son, Blake, home alone, with bedroom furniture toppled and bleach spilled on the floor. Blake gave investigators their first clues, saying: "Mommy was crying. Mommy broke the table. Mommy's in rug."
Thousands of volunteers searched for Davis for several days, while investigators questioned Cutts, 30, a police officer who is Davis' boyfriend and has an estranged wife. He is scheduled to be arraigned Monday.
Davis' relatives have said they believed Cutts, of North Canton, was the father of both Blake and the fetus Davis was carrying.
Investigators have refused to comment on the circumstances surrounding the discovery of Davis' body and Cutts' arrest.
There was no immediate response to messages seeking comment Sunday from Davis' family members and Cutts' lawyer. Cutts' pastor, the Rev. C.A. Richmond, declined to comment as he entered a services in Canton on Sunday.
The body was found in an area known as Top O' the World because of its elevation. The area contains a dirt road, a small dirt parking area and a couple of benches overlooking a grassy field.
The body was found in that field, said Roger Riggins, an investigator for the medical examiner's office.
Just down the road, someone posted a sign that said, "God bless you Jesse and Chloe, forever in our hearts." People had placed flowers and red and yellow ribbons just below a sign identifying the park.
"We're trying to make sure we know everything about Jessie's disappearance and if anybody else is responsible for this, we'll try to identify them and locate them," said FBI agent Scott Wilson.
(This version CORRECTS the hometowns of Davis and Cutts.)
New arrest in death of pregnant woman
By JOE MILICIA, Associated Press Writer
CANTON, Ohio - A former classmate of the man suspected of murdering a pregnant woman was arrested Sunday on an obstruction of justice charge, the FBI said. Myisha Ferrell was arrested in the death of 26-year-old Jessie Davis after sheriff's deputies and FBI agents broke down the door of her apartment Saturday night, agent Scott Wilson said.
The Stark County Sheriff's Department refused to discuss the arrest, saying any information made public would hurt their case. Ferrell was to be arraigned Monday, Wilson said.
The Summit County medical examiner on Sunday identified a body found in Cuyahoga Valley National Park as that of Davis. The dead, nearly full-term fetus was still in her womb.
Davis, of Lake Township near Canton, was reported missing after her mother found Davis' 2-year-old son, Blake, home alone, with bedroom furniture toppled and bleach spilled on the floor. Blake gave investigators their first clues, saying: "Mommy was crying. Mommy broke the table. Mommy's in rug."
Thousands of volunteers searched for Davis for several days, while investigators questioned Bobby Cutts Jr., 30, a police officer who is Davis' boyfriend and has an estranged wife. He is scheduled to be arraigned Monday.
Davis' relatives have said they believed Cutts, of North Canton, was the father of both Blake and the fetus Davis was carrying.
Justin Lindstrom, 27, an upstairs neighbor of Ferrell's, said officers spent two hours searching the woman's apartment before leaving with several full, brown paper bags and bottles of bleach from the basement.
Wilson would not describe what the deputies seized or say how Ferrell might have been involved.
Lindstrom said he had not seen the downstairs tenant over the weekend and rarely spoke to the woman, except to ask her to turn her music down. He said he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary around the time Davis disappeared.
"I heard loud noises in the middle of the night, every night," he said.
There was no immediate response to messages seeking comment Sunday from Davis' family members and Cutts' lawyer. Cutts' pastor, the Rev. C.A. Richmond, declined to comment as he entered a services in Canton on Sunday.
Davis' body was found in an area known as Top O' the World because of its elevation. The area contains a dirt road, a small dirt parking area and a couple of benches overlooking a grassy field.
The body was found in that field, said Roger Riggins, an investigator for the medical examiner's office.
Just down the road, someone posted a sign that said, "God bless you Jesse and Chloe, forever in our hearts." People had placed flowers and red and yellow ribbons just below a sign identifying the park.
+++
Death of a playboy
Murder victim once thrived
By JON WILLING, SUN MEDIA
Ziad Ahmad’s life could have been the subject of a blockbuster movie, says his family, but after he separated from his wife, Teenge Hinson, things began to go downhill for the once-successful businessman who was murdered Thursday.
After travelling the world, Ziad Ahmad knew Ottawa wouldn't be his permanent home.
He was born and raised here, and it's where his two brothers, sister and parents have lived all their lives.
But he had a taste for the exotic.
He dreamed of an ocean-view home in Europe or Hawaii. Anywhere with a beach. In fact, in the week prior to being found tied to a motel bed with a bullet hole in his head, Ahmad talked with his family about opening a restaurant in Hawaii.
Robbie Ahmad says a blockbuster movie could be made about his "playboy" brother, who has done more in his 32 years than most people do in 80.
STARTED COMPANY
Ziad Ahmad married an airline stewardess and started a flooring company in Dearborn, Mich., before opening a series of gas stations in the same area between 2000 and 2004. He made a good chunk of money and eventually moved back to Ottawa with his wife, Teenge Hinson.
Life was grand.
He travelled to Japan, India, China, the Caribbean and wherever else he wanted to explore. He wore the sharpest threads -- Versace, Armani, Hugo Boss -- and he drove the coolest cars.
Then it started to vanish.
Ahmad's family says he began experiencing hardships about a year and a half ago when he separated from his wife.
While Ziad Ahmad got into trouble with some property crimes, Robbie says his brother was not into drugs or violence.
Ahmad's family have no idea who Phillip Salmon is. Salmon, 28, was also found Thursday night dying from a gunshot wound.
Robbie says the family knew his brother was going through some "hardships" after his separation, but they didn't know to what extent.
When he sold his posh house in Gloucester after the split, Ziad Ahmad lived with one of his brothers before recently checking into Pari's Motel on Montreal Rd. Robbie says Ziad didn't stay with his family in Vanier because he didn't want others to know about his emotional turmoil.
"He had some rough things going on in his life," Robbie says, explaining that on top of his relationship problems, Ziad had two close friends recently die.
Yesterday, Ziad's family and friends gathered again at his parents' home. Adults and small children with sad faces left the house throughout the day.
The family's hunger for answers is so fierce, they are putting up a $10,000 reward for information in the case. They are already considering increasing the reward.
Autopsies on Ahmad and Salmon are scheduled for today in Toronto.
Police yesterday were still searching for two people of interest connected to the shootings.
GOOD WITNESSES
Det. Randy Whisker said the investigation is "progressing well."
"We've got some good witnesses," Whisker said.
Patrol officers guarding the scene at Pari's Motel yesterday had to deal with at least one strange incident. They charged a man with obstructing justice after he went under the yellow tape to check out the parking lot, even after he was warned by a cop not to.
Meanwhile, a father who just drove into Ottawa with his 12-year-old son to find a place to crash for the night was thinking twice about staying at the motel.
It was just the third day Harvey Bustos, 41, and his son were in Canada on a trip. They're visiting from Bogota, Columbia.
"We're going to think about it," Bustos said after spotting the yellow crime scene tape. The father and son were looking for a little adventure in Ottawa, "but this is not the kind of adventure we're looking for," Bustos said.
Anyone with information about the double murder case can call major crime detectives at 613-236-1222, ext. 5493.
US tourist killed by bear in Romania
June 24th 2007
BUCHAREST, Romania - A bear attacked a group of U.S. tourists on a remote trail in the Carpathian Mountains, killing a woman and injuring two other people, authorities said Sunday.
The group of six tourists chased off the bear when it tried to approach them near a cabin about 75 miles north of Bucharest, but the bear reappeared on a trail and attacked the group around 10 p.m. Saturday.
The bear attacked a 26-year-old woman. After she fell down and tourists threw stones at the bear, it turned its attention to a man, biting him on the leg. The bear then mauled to death the 31-year-old woman, despite more attempts to distract it by throwing stones.
Officials did not immediately disclose the victims' identities or hometowns.
The 31-year-old died from her injuries shortly after the arrival of rescuers, state news agency Rompres reported, citing local police officials.
The bear had earlier bitten a Romanian tourist on the shoulder and attacked sheep, Andi Mihai, one of the members of the rescue team, told Realitatea TV news.
Authorities are searching for the bear to euthanize it.
Romania is home to about half of Europe's brown bear population, but attacks on humans are rare. Three years ago, two men died after they were attacked by a rabid bear.
THE NEXT DAY in the news, reports of a KILLER HEATWAVE that had claimed over 30 lives in Romania (and 2 in Italy) were all over the place...
Mother Nature has a tooth against Romania...?
+++
WWE star killed family, self
Police: 'Roids found at scene of Benoit murder-suicide
Posted: Monday June 25, 2007 9:24PM; Updated: Wednesday June 27, 2007 11:13AM
Chris Benoit was scheduled to perform at a pay-per-view event Sunday but backed out because of reported "personal reasons."
AP
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FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. (AP) -- Two days before he and his family were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide, pro wrestler Chris Benoit told co-workers his wife and son had food poisoning and were throwing up, according to World Wrestling Entertainment.
Benoit strangled his wife, suffocated his 7-year-old son and placed a Bible next to their bodies before hanging himself with a weight-machine pulley, authorities said Tuesday.
Authorities offered no motive for the killings, which were spread out over the weekend and discovered Monday. No suicide note was found.
On Saturday, Benoit called a co-worker to say he had missed a flight and would be late for a wrestling event in Texas, WWE said in a timeline posted Tuesday on its Web site. The co-worker said Benoit sounded tired and groggy and said "I love you," which the co-worker found "out of context," WWE said.
When a co-worker who usually travels with Benoit called him later from the Houston airport, Benoit told the co-worker his wife, Nancy, was throwing up blood and that his son, Daniel, also was throwing up. Benoit said he thought it was food poisoning, according to WWE.
After Benoit talked to a WWE Talent Relations representative, the representative suggested Benoit try to make it to a pay-per-view event in Houston since he would not be able to make it to the live event in Beaumont, Texas.
But early Sunday, two co-workers received a series of text messages from the cell phones of Benoit and his wife. Most stated his home address in Fayetteville, about 20 miles south of Atlanta. One message from Benoit's phone said: "The dogs are in the enclosed pool area. Garage side door is open," according to WWE.
The text messages led WWE to ask authorities to check on Benoit and his family.
District Attorney Scott Ballard said the messages appeared to be an attempt by Benoit to get someone to the home to find the bodies after his suicide.
Investigators found anabolic steroids in the house and want to know whether the muscle man nicknamed "The Canadian Crippler" was unhinged by the bodybuilding drugs, which can cause paranoia, depression and explosive outbursts known as "roid rage."
"In a community like this it's bizarre to have a murder-suicide, especially involving the death of a 7-year-old," Ballard said. "I don't think we'll ever be able to wrap our minds around this."
He said Benoit's 43-year-old wife was killed Friday in an upstairs family room, and her feet and wrists were bound and there was blood under her head, indicating a possible struggle. Daniel was probably killed late Saturday or early Sunday, and his body was found in his bed, the district attorney said.
Benoit, 40, apparently hanged himself hours later, Ballard said. His body was found in a downstairs weight room hanging from the pulley of a piece of exercise equipment.
The prosecutor said it appeared the wrestler remained in the house for up to a day with the bodies.
The boy had old needle marks in his arms, Ballard said. He said he had been told the parents considered him undersized and had given him growth hormones.
"The boy was very small, even dwarfed," Ballard said.
Toxicology test results may not be available for weeks or even months, Ballard said. As for whether steroids played a role in the crime, he said: "We don't know yet. That's one of the things we'll be looking at."
Benoit received drug deliveries from a Florida business that sold steroids, human growth hormone and testosterone on the Internet, according to the Albany County, N.Y., District Attorney's Office, which is investigating the business, MedXLife.com.
Six people, including two of the pharmacy's owners, have pleaded guilty in the investigation, and 20 more have been arrested, including doctors and pharmacists.
The WWE, based in Stamford, Conn., issued a statement Tuesday saying steroids "were not and could not be related to the cause of death."
"The physical findings announced by authorities indicate deliberation, not rage," the company said, adding that Benoit tested negative April 10, the last time he was tested for drugs.
Steroids have been linked to the deaths of several professional wrestlers in recent years. Eddie Guerrero, one of Benoit's best friends, died in 2005 from heart failure linked to long-term steroid use.
The father of Curt "Mr. Perfect" Hennig blamed steroids and painkillers for Hennig's drug overdose death in 2003. Davey Boy Smith, the "British Bulldog," died in 2002 from heart failure that a coroner said was probably caused by steroids.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Wrestler Benoit, family found dead
By Mike Mooneyham (Contact)
The Post and Courier
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Professional wrestling superstar Chris Benoit was found dead along with his family Monday afternoon at his Atlanta home.
The bodies of Benoit, 40, his wife, Nancy, 43, and their 7-year-old son Daniel were found by local law enforcement officials at their home in the suburb of Fayetteville at about 2:30 p.m.
Circumstances surrounding their deaths are being investigated by authorities. Police reportedly were dispatched to the home after receiving a call from WWE officials who were concerned that they had not been able to get in touch with Benoit.
Lt. Tommy Pope told the Atlanta-Journal Constitution that it was being investigated as a homicide pending results of a preliminary autopsy report that will come out today. Police would not give any details on how they died, other than to say they were not shot to death.
The Canadian-born Benoit has two other children from a prior relationship.
Benoit was scheduled to wrestle at WWE's Vengeance pay-per-view Sunday night in Houston, but was replaced at the last minute because of what announcer Jim Ross called "personal reasons."
Benoit also had been scheduled to appear on a WWE house show on Saturday. Sources say Benoit, who was last seen by WWE personnel at last week's TV tapings, called company officials to say he wouldn't be able to attend the event due to a family illness. It reportedly was the last communication they had with the former WWE world heavyweight champion.
Plans for a live, three-hour Raw special Monday night were scrapped in lieu of a tribute to Benoit. Fans in Corpus Christi, Texas, were sent home prior to the event, while wrestlers were allowed to return home to mourn.
WWE owner Vince McMahon, who broke the news to a devastated locker room about 5:30 p.m., opened the show from center ring in an empty arena and called Benoit "one of the greatest WWE superstars of all-time."
"They let the crowd go. There's nobody here," said 16-time world champ Ric Flair. "It was the right thing to do. The McMahons are devastated as a family."
"Chris was one of the nicest, hardest-working, most legitimate, honest people I've ever met in my life," a distraught Flair added Monday night. "Everybody liked Chris."
Benoit, reverently referred to as "the Rabid Wolverine" due to his tenacious, aggressive mat style, his trademark toothless grin and his non-nonsense attitude, was universally respected by his wrestling peers and was regarded as one the best technicians in the business over the past two decades.
"Wrestling has consumed my life," Benoit said in a 2004 WWE career retrospective video. "Wrestling is my mistress. It's my passion. It defines who I am as a person."
Trained by the legendary Stu Hart, Benoit began his career in 1985 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He worked from 1985-89 for Hart's Stampede Wrestling organization where he held both the British Commonwealth title and the International tag-team title on four different occasions. Benoit, working under a hood as The Pegasus Kid, later performed in Japan where he became an international superstar. He claimed the prestigious IWGP junior heavyweight championship and the 1994 Super J Cup tournament working as a light heavyweight.
Benoit, whose "crippler crossface" became one of the most popular finishing maneuvers in wrestling, later won major titles in ECW and WCW. One of his career highlights was becoming an official member of the elite Four Horsemen along with Flair, Arn Anderson and Brian Pillman in 1995.
"He was a great Horseman. He embodied what it meant to be a Horseman," said Flair.
Benoit won the U.S. heavyweight title and the WCW tag-team title on two occasions, and defeated Sid Vicious (Sid Eudy) in his final match with the company in January 2000 to win the WCW world heavyweight title. Later that year Benoit joined WWE and formed "The Radicals" along with Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko and Perry Saturn.
Benoit, a perennial favorite of wrestling purists, held a slew of titles in WWE that culminated with an emotional world title victory in 2004 at Wrestlemania XX at Madison Square Garden. Benoit cried as he celebrated in the ring with his wife and son, as well as best friend, wrestler Eddie Guerrero, who died in 2005. Benoit's wife, Nancy Daus Sullivan Benoit, also had spent much of her life in the wrestling business as a valet and manager.
More commonly known by her wrestling characters, most notably as Woman, she retired from the business several years ago to raise a family.
She and Benoit met when her then-husband, veteran wrestler Kevin Sullivan, drew up a script that had them involved in a relationship as part of an ongoing storyline on WCW. The two divorced in 1997 shortly after the anglee in which Sullivan, then an official with WCW, "booked his own divorce." Nancy and Benoit became engaged in 1997, although Benoit didn't start referring to her as his wife until shortly before the birth of their son Daniel in 2000.
News of Benoit's death stirred passionate comments from many of his local fans.
"The criticism of him always had been he was too short or not charismatic enough to be a main-event star in any promotion, let alone the size-conscious and circus-like WWE," said Ken Mihalik of Charleston. "The enormous heart of Chris Benoit was often concealed by his style as methodical wrestling machine. Take a close look at his face immediately after he was handed the championship belt at Wrestlemania in 2004 and you see the expression of a seasoned pro who knew it was to be his night. At the same time, you witness the genuine exhilaration of the kid forever smitten with wrestling. Benoit never stopped believing, to paraphrase Emerson, if he advanced confidently in the direction of his dreams, he would find success in uncommon hours."
Foul play suspected in wrestler family's deaths
Updated Mon. Jun. 25 2007 11:39 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
Canadian pro wrestling superstar Chris Benoit, his wife and son have been found dead at their suburban Atlanta home, and police said Monday they are treating the matter as a possible murder-suicide.
A detective told television station WAGA that investigators couldn't confirm that suspicion until evidence has been examined by a crime lab.
Lt. Tommy Pope, the lead investigator with the Fayette County Sheriff's Department, told ABC News that the "instruments of death were located on scene."
He wouldn't describe the instruments or say where in the house the bodies were found.
The house itself is quite private, set about 60 metres off a gravel road and surrounded by a stone wall with a double-iron gate.
Officers are "not actively searching for any suspects outside of the house," Pope said.
Results of autopsies on Benoit, his wife Nancy, and seven-year-old son Daniel are expected Tuesday, he said.
World Wrestling Entertainment aired a three-hour tribute show to Benoit instead of its usual "Monday Night RAW" TV show on the USA Network.
"I am deeply saddened over the loss of Chris Benoit," WWE Canada president Carl DeMarco said on the WWE website.
"My heartfelt thoughts and sympathy go out to his parents and family. My relationship with Chris has extended many years and I consider him a great friend. Chris was always first-class -- warm, friendly, caring and professional ... one of the best in our business."
Wrestling fan Chris Szabunia told CTV Edmonton: "Definitely a sad day for wrestling and for Edmonton too. ... He's been one of my favourites for a long time, with a local connection, but I like what he does in the ring too."
Benoit, 40, was born in Montreal and grew up in Edmonton, graduating from Archbishop O'Leary High School.
A wrestling fan as a boy, he began his career in 1985, starting with the famous Hart family of Calgary, who operated Stampede Wrestling.
"Wrestling has consumed my life," Benoit is quoted as saying on his WWE bio page. "It's my mistress, my passion. It defines a lot of who I am as a person."
He would wrestle for the National Wrestling Alliance, World Championship Wrestling and Extreme Championship Wrestling before joining WWE in 2000.
Four years after that, he would win the world heavyweight championship at Wrestlemania XX. In response, Edmonton declared "Chris Benoit Day" on April 15, 2004.
Benoit stood 180 centimetres tall, weighed about 100 kilograms and looked ripped. Some called him "The Canadian Crippler," in part because he broke another wrestler's neck in 1994. Another nickname was the Rabid Wolverine. His signature move is the "Crippler Crossface."
"Chris was beloved among his fellow superstars, and was a favourite among WWE fans for his unbelievable athleticism and wrestling ability," the WWE said on its website.
"He always took great pride in his performance, and always showed respect for the business he loved, for his peers and towards his fans. This is a terrible tragedy and an unbearable loss."
Benoit had been scheduled to wrestle at a pay-per-view event in Houston on Sunday night. However, he got replaced at the last minute for "personal reasons," according to announcer Jim Ross.
With files from CTV Edmonton, The Canadian Press and The Associated Press
Benoit's death part of a double murder-suicide
Written: June 25, 2007
According to lead investigator Lt. Tommy Pope, of the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department, in Fayetteville, Ga., the deaths of WWE Superstar Chris Benoit, wife Nancy and son Daniel were the result of a double murder-suicide, WWE.com has learned.
Benoit failed to appear both at Saturday’s live event in Beaumont, Tx., and WWE’s Vengeance: Night of Champions in Houston Sunday night, after informing WWE of a family emergency. Several curious text messages sent by Benoit early Sunday morning prompted concerned friends to alert Richard Hering, VP of Government Relations for WWE, Inc. Hering, in turn, spoke with Fayette County sheriffs Monday, and requested that they respond to the Benoit residence to check on him and his family.
Authorities representing the Sheriff’s Department initially had a difficult time entering Benoit’s new Fayetteville home Monday afternoon, which had been guarded by two large German Shepherds roaming freely around the property. Once authorities entered the residence, they quickly located the bodies of Benoit, Nancy and Daniel. WWE was notified of the discovery at approximately 4 p.m.
At 10 p.m. Monday night, Lt. Pope held a press conference in conjunction with Scott Ballard, the district attorney for Fayette County. The press conference officially ruled authorities’ findings as a double murder-suicide from within the home.
WAGA, a FOX-owned and operated television station in Atlanta, reported that investigators believe Benoit killed his wife and 7-year-old son over the weekend, then himself on Monday.
The three bodies have been received by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s crime lab, in Decatur, Ga., where autopsies will be performed Tuesday morning. Toxicology reports will not become available for at least two weeks.
WWE.com has further information relating to both the investigation and the cause of death, but the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department has requested that WWE.com not release any additional details at this time.
Wrestler Benoit, wife and son found dead
By DEBBIE NEWBY, Associated Press Writer Tue Jun 26, 3:01 AM ET
FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. - WWE wrestler Chris Benoit, his wife and son were found dead Monday, and police said they were investigating the deaths as a murder-suicide.
Detective Bo Turner told WAGA-TV the case was being treated as a murder-suicide, but said that couldn't be confirmed until evidence was examined by a crime lab.
The station said investigators believe the 40-year-old Benoit killed his wife, Nancy, and 7-year-old son, Daniel, over the weekend, then himself on Monday. The bodies were found in three rooms.
World Wrestling Entertainment said on its Web site that it asked authorities to check on Benoit and his family after being alerted by friends who received "several curious text messages sent by Benoit early Sunday morning."
Lead investigator Lt. Tommy Pope of the Fayette County Sheriff's Department told The Associated Press the deaths were being investigated as homicides, and that autopsies were to be performed Tuesday. Pope said the bodies were discovered about 2:30 p.m., but refused to release details.
The house is in a secluded neighborhood set back about 60 yards off a gravel road, surrounded by stacked stone wall and a double-iron gate. On Monday night, the house was dark except for a few outside lights. There was a police car in front, along with two uniformed officers.
Benoit was a former world heavyweight and Intercontinental champion. He also held several tag-team titles during his career.
"WWE extends its sincerest thoughts and prayers to the Benoit family's relatives and loved ones in this time of tragedy," the organization said in a statement on its Web site.
Benoit was scheduled to perform at the "Vengeance" pay-per-view event Sunday night in Houston, but was replaced at the last minute because of what announcer Jim Ross called "personal reasons."
The native of Canada maintained a home in metro Atlanta from the time he wrestled for the defunct World Championship Wrestling.
The WWE canceled its live "Monday Night RAW" card in Corpus Christi, Texas, and USA Network aired a three-hour tribute to Benoit in place of the scheduled wrestling telecast.
"My relationship with Chris has extended many years and I consider him a great friend," Carl DeMarco, the president of WWE Canada, said in a statement. "Chris was always first-class — warm, friendly, caring and professional one of the best in our business."
WWE® Shocked At Latest Developments In Benoit Tragedy, Concerned By Sensationalistic Reporting
Written: June 26, 2007
STAMFORD, Conn., June 26, 2007 – World Wrestling Entertainment is stunned and saddened by the details released by local authorities concerning the double homicide-suicide involving Chris Benoit, his wife, Nancy, and his son, Daniel.
However, WWE is concerned with the sensationalistic reporting and speculation being undertaken by some members of the media following the press conference held by the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department and the District Attorney. During the press conference, the investigating authorities made the following points, all of which run contrary to the media speculation that "roid rage" was a factor in the senseless murders and suicide:
1. The authorities stated that all drugs found in the house were believed to be legal prescriptions.
2. Steroids were not, and could not, be related to the cause of death (asphyxiation). Authorities had no factual basis to speculate as to Benoit’s state of mind, and rightly did not do so.
3. Toxicology tests have not even been completed, so there is no current evidence that Benoit even had steroids or any other substance in his body. In that regard, on the last test done on Benoit by WWE's independently administered drug testing program, done on April 10, 2007, Benoit tested negative.
4. The physical findings announced by authorities indicate deliberation, not rage. The wife's feet and hands were bound and she was asphyxiated, not beaten to death. By the account of the authorities, there were substantial periods of time between the death of the wife and the death of the son, again suggesting deliberate thought, not rage. The presence of a Bible by each is also not an act of rage.
5. WWE strongly suggests that it is entirely wrong for speculators to suggest that steroids had anything to do with these senseless acts, especially when the authorities plainly stated there is no evidence that Benoit had steroids in his body, pending the toxicological reports, and that they had no evidence at this time as to the motive for these acts.
WWE is continuing to monitor the ongoing investigation being conducted by local authorities.
WWE/Chris Benoit timeline
Written: June 26, 2007
On Saturday, June 23, Chris Benoit was slated to appear at a WWE live event in Beaumont, Texas. That afternoon, Benoit contacted WWE to inform them that his wife and child were ill, and that he would not be able to attend the show.
WWE executives rebooked Benoit’s flight for the following morning, allowing Benoit to miss the Beaumont event making alternate arrangements for him to attend the pay-per-view event in Houston on Sunday.
WWE employees attempted to confirm with Benoit his travel plans but were unable to contact him.
Early Sunday morning, between 3:51 and 3:58 a.m., Benoit sent five text messages to co-workers:
Text Message 1 to two co-workers (sent 6/24 at 3:53am)- Chris Benoit’s cell phone
“My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane, Fayetteville Georgia. 30215”
Text Message 2 to two co-workers (sent 6/24 at 3:53am)- Chris Benoit’s cell phone
“The dogs are in the enclosed pool area. Garage side door is open”
Text Message 3 to two co-workers (sent 6/24 at 3:54am)- Nancy Benoit’s cell phone
“My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane.
Fayetteville Georgia. 30215”
Text Message 4 to two co-workers (sent 6/24 at 3:55am)- Nancy Benoit’s cell phone
“My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane.
Fayetteville Georgia. 30215"
Text Message 5 to one co-worker (sent 6/24 at 3:58am)- Nancy Benoit’s cell phone
“My address is 130 Green Meadow Lane. Fayetteville Georgia. 30215”
Throughout the day on Sunday, WWE made numerous attempts to contact Benoit both at home and at local hospitals in the Atlanta area. As of 11:00 p.m., WWE officials were unable to establish contact with Chris Benoit.
At 12:30 p.m. on Monday, June 25, WWE officials were notified of the text messages sent to the co-workers the previous day. By 12:45 p.m., WWE had contacted Fayetteville County Sheriff’s office requesting they check on the Benoit family.
Fayetteville County Sheriffs office made contact with WWE at approximately 4:00 p.m. advising that they had entered the house of Chris Benoit and found three deceased bodies – an adult male, adult female and a male child. WWE was told that Benoit’s home was now considered a major crime scene.
The decision to cancel the live event scheduled in Corpus Christi that night was made between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. In keeping with company policy, and with limited knowledge regarding facts of the case, WWE choose to air a memorial dedicated to the career of Chris Benoit. As facts emerged surrounding the case, all tributes to Chris Benoit were removed both on-air and on WWE.com.
Shocking Grim Details Revealed In Benoit Tragedy
Reported by Andy Steven on 06/26/2007
TNAHeadlines.com - Breaking TNA News, Spoilers, Photos & More!
Grim details have been made available regarding the Benoit family tragedy. According to Dave Scherer of PWInsider.com, authorities believe that Chris Benoit strangled his wife Nancy on Saturday then either strangled or smothered his son in his bed on Sunday. According to reports, Benoit then hung himself on Monday in his weight room of his Georgia home.
According to an article on TMZ.com, one source told them that Benoit was text messaging friends during the airing of WWE’s Vengeance PPV this past Sunday and was possibly watching the show with his son Daniel, indicating that he may have been alive at the time.
We’ll have more information as soon as it becomes available.
Written by Ryan Gray of WrestlingNewsWorld
Child Psychologists On Benoit Incident, New Benoit News
Reported by Andy Steven on 06/26/2007
TNAHeadlines.com - Breaking TNA News, Spoilers, Photos & More!
ABC News has an article up titled Talking To Kids About Chris Benoit after child psychologists said that Chris Benoit's violent end could have profound effects on his youngest fans. You can read the story here http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=3318243&page=1
District Attorney Scott Ballard was interviewed on the Fox News channel and stated that a cable was found around the neck on Nancy Benoit. He said Daniel was found face down on his bed, also strangled.
Ballard said in the weight room in the basement, Benoit wrapped a cable from a weight machine around his neck. He first wrapped a cloth around his neck. When Benoit let the cable go, the weights lifted up and straggled him.
We can expect WWE to undergo another big round of Wellness Policy tests in the near future to clear their name of what, if any, role steroids played in the Benoit tragedy.
Remember to check out the official forums of PWMania. We have thousands of members and posts featuring wrestling multimedia, hot babes and lots more. Check us out at PWMForums.com.
Benoit Restraining Order Court Documents Online, More
Reported by Andy Steven on 06/26/2007
TNAHeadlines.com - Breaking TNA News, Spoilers, Photos & More!
TMZ has posted the court documents of Nancy Benoit's 2003 request for a restraining order against Chris Benoit as well as custody of Daniel Benoit. The documents can be seen at the following link: http://www.aolcdn.com/tmz_documents/0626_benoit_dismiss.pdf
Benoit restraining order court documents surface
We will have more as we get it. Stay tuned to PWMania.com as new information continues to come.
Report: Benoit's Son Had Fragile X Syndrome
Reported by Andy Steven on 06/26/2007
TNAHeadlines.com - Breaking TNA News, Spoilers, Photos & More!
Canadian female Pam Winthrope told News 1130 in Canada that Chris Benoit's son had a genetic condition called Fragile X syndrome.
According to WebMD, "Fragile X Syndrome is a defect of the X chromosome which causes mild mental retardation. The disorder occurs more frequently and severely among males than females. This condition is the leading known familial cause of mental retardation in the United States. Language delays, behavioral problems, autism or autistic-like behavior (including poor eye contact and hand-flapping), enlarged external genitalia (macroorchidism), large or prominent ears, hyperactivity, delayed motor development and/or poor sensory skills are among the wide range of symptoms associated with this disorder."
Winthrope, whose son also suffers from the condition, told the Canadian news outlet that her husband reached out to Benoit five years ago in an attempt to increase awareness about Fragile X.
She told News 1130, "We talked to him because I was trying to set up a support group in BC and in Canada, we only have a couple of them. My husband was struggling when we got diagnosed with our son, and Chris was struggling with his. They talked for a few minutes and then he said he didn't want to be a public face for Fragile X, he just wanted to keep it really, really quiet."
Winthrope noted that the lack of support for those affected by the disorder can tear families apart. Nonetheless, "she couldn't believe the news that Benoit had taken his life along with his wife and 7-year-old son," wrote News 1130.
Remember to check out the official forums of PWMania. We have thousands of members and posts featuring wrestling multimedia, hot babes and lots more. Check us out at PWMForums.com.
Wrestler and wife argued over child care
By GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA - In the days before pro wrestler Chris Benoit killed his wife and child and hanged himself, the couple argued over whether he should stay home more to take care of their mentally retarded 7-year-old son, an attorney for the wrestling league said Wednesday.
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"I think it's fair to say that the subject of caring for that child was part of what made their relationship complicated and difficult, and it's something they were both constantly struggling with," said Jerry McDevitt, an attorney for World Wrestling Entertainment. "We do know it was a source of stress and consternation."
McDevitt said the wrestling organization learned from the couple's friends and relatives that the Benoits were struggling with where to send the boy to school since he had recently finished kindergarten.
He also said Benoit's wife didn't want him to quit wrestling, but she "wanted him to be at home more to care for the kid. She'd say she can't take care of him by herself when he was on the road."
The child suffered from a rare medical condition called Fragile X Syndrome, an inherited form of mental retardation often accompanied by autism, McDevitt said.
Over the past weekend, authorities said, Benoit strangled his wife, suffocated his son and placed a Bible next to their bodies before hanging himself with a weight-machine cable in the couple's suburban home. No motive was offered for the killings, which were discovered Monday.
Anabolic steroids were found in Benoit's home, leading officials to wonder whether the drugs played a role in the slayings. Some experts believe steroids cause paranoia, depression and violent outbursts known as "roid rage."
The WWE, based in Stamford, Conn., issued a news release Tuesday saying steroids "were not and could not be related to the cause of death" and that the findings indicate "deliberation, not rage." It also added that Benoit tested negative April 10, the last time he was tested for drugs.
Also Wednesday, Benoit's personal physician said the wrestler did not give any indication he was troubled when he met with the doctor hours before the start of the weekend.
Benoit had been under the care of Dr. Phil Astin, a longtime friend, for treatment of low testosterone levels. Astin said the condition likely originated from previous steroid use.
Astin prescribed testosterone for Benoit in the past but would not say what, if any, medications he prescribed the day of their meeting.
"He was in my office on Friday to stop by just to see my staff," Astin said. "He certainly didn't show any signs of any distress or rage or anything."
"I'm still very surprised and shocked, especially with his child Daniel involved," Astin said. "He worshipped his child."
District Attorney Scott Ballard said the autopsy indicated that there were no bruise marks on the child's neck, so authorities are now assuming he could have been killed using a choke hold. "It's a process of elimination," he said.
The Benoits' argument over their son was not the only friction in their marriage. Nancy Benoit had filed for a divorce in 2003, saying the couple's three-year marriage was irrevocably broken and alleging "cruel treatment." She later dropped the complaint.
Meanwhile, authorities in Georgia were investigating a link between Benoit and a Florida business that may have supplied him with steroids.
Prosecutors in upstate New York who have been investigating the company's drug sales said Benoit received deliveries from Signature Pharmacy and MedXLife.com, which sold steroids, human growth hormone and testosterone on the Internet.
Six people, including two of the pharmacy's owners, have pleaded guilty in the investigation, and 20 more have been arrested, including doctors and pharmacists.
"That's something that sounds like we ought to be investigating," Ballard told the AP on Wednesday.
A lawyer for MedXLife co-owner Dr. Gary Brandwein scoffed at allegations that his client's company sold steroids to Benoit.
"I've only read that in the paper. I have no direct information about that whatsoever," Terence Kindlon said Wednesday, adding that prosecutors in Albany County, N.Y., were trying to "distract everyone's attention from the fact that their case is disintegrating."
Brandwein, a 44-year-old osteopath from Boca Raton, Fla., has pleaded not guilty to six counts in New York state court related to the criminal sale of a controlled substance. He was accused of signing and sending prescriptions without ever seeing patients.
Telephone messages left for attorneys for Brian Schafler and Greg Trotta — two other co-owners of MedXLife — were not immediately returned Wednesday. The two men have pleaded guilty to felony third-degree diversion of prescription medications and prescriptions, admitting they helped get drugs in 2006 for customers in upstate New York who had no medical need for them.
McDevitt said the drugs found in Benoit's house were legitimately prescribed. "There's no question, none of these drugs are out there, none of these drugs came from Internet pharmacies," he said.
In addition to causing paranoia and explosive outbursts, steroids can also contribute to deep depression, according to experts.
"Just as you have the extreme high of when you're on steroids, you can get the opposite," said Dr. Todd Schlifstein, a clinical assistant professor at the New York University School of Medicine. "You can have a dramatic difference in mood swings. You can feel there's no hope, there's no future."
Fans are still in shock:
# Sid K Says:
June 26th, 2007 at 6:37 am
Chris Benoit is not a murderer — he would not murder intentionally. Something beyond his control made him snap. He is still however accountable if he did kill — which so far looks as if he did.
Chris benoit has wounded the psyche of a whole generation of people who looked upto him. Women will look at guys with more hidden fears now. More feminism and more gender war is what I predict.
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Bombing near Shiite shrine kills 14
By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer 32 minutes ago
BAGHDAD - America's No. 2 diplomat in Iraq predicted progress by fall on bringing together Iraq's feuding factions as violence claimed more lives Wednesday, including 14 people killed in a late night car bombing near a Shiite shrine in the capital.
In all, at least 60 Iraqis were killed or found dead across the country, most of them in the Baghdad area, according to police reports. Also Wednesday, one American soldier was killed and four were wounded in a roadside bombing in east Baghdad, the U.S. command said.
U.S. officials have been pressing the Iraqis to enact a series of laws designed to bring together the country's warring factions, curb the violence and arrest the slide in support for the U.S. mission among the American people and Congress.
During a news conference Wednesday, the second-ranking U.S. diplomat in Iraq said he was hopeful that the Iraqis would make progress on "some" legislation by September.
That's when Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker are to submit a report on prospects for ending the violence.
The report is expected to mark a watershed in the troubled American effort to build a stable democracy in Iraq in the wake of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
"We're in a very significant period of political turmoil. ... But we do expect Iraqis to work through these issues," U.S. diplomat Daniel Speckhard told reporters. "My expectations are still that they'll rise to the challenge of producing some key legislation by September."
Speckhard said much work has been done in Iraq's parliament on a U.S.-backed law that would regulate the oil industry and distribute revenues among all the country's ethnic and sectarian groups.
Other "benchmark" bills would amend the constitution, allow many former members of Saddam's Baath party to get back government jobs and arrange new elections for provincial posts.
All those measures have stalled because of political divisions within the Cabinet and parliament.
In a bid to overcome those differences, an aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said two major Shiite parties had signed a "charter of honor" to form a new, streamlined Cabinet of technocrats whose members would be appointed on merit and not sectarian affiliation.
The aide, Hassan al-Suneid, said the two major Kurdish parties would sign the pact soon. It was unclear whether the biggest Sunni party was ready to sign on too.
Despite talk of progress, violence continued Wednesday.
In the deadliest attack, at least 14 people were killed and 22 were wounded when a parked car exploded late Wednesday near a major Shiite shrine in the Kazimiyah district of northern Baghdad, police said. The victims were mostly local residents enjoying a warm summer evening.
Khazim al-Taie said he was selling soft drinks at his stand "when I heard a big explosion followed by a big ball of fire."
"Before I lost consciousness, I was able to see several stalls collapse or catch fire," al-Taie said. "I saw many frightened people fleeing the place. "
Elsewhere, five policemen were killed in a bombing in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, police said. Four other policemen died when gunmen attacked a police station in the Bashir area about 15 miles south of Kirkuk, police Brig. Sarhat Qadir said.
In Baghdad, three rockets or mortars slammed into the fortified Green Zone, which includes major U.S. and Iraqi offices. An Iraqi security official said one round exploded near the U.S.-run hospital and another near the residence of one of al-Maliki's advisers.
There were no reports of casualties, and the official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
Five people died and 10 were wounded when a bomb planted under a car exploded in north Baghdad, police said. Three of the injured were police and the other victims were civilians, police said.
In the capital's Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City, at least one person was killed in an exchange of gunfire when four or five men opened fire on American military police, the U.S. command said. The officers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release information to media.
Associated Press Television News video showed two cars riddled with bullet holes in the windshield. Residents told AP Television that two people died in the shootout but they refused to give their names, presumably for fear of reprisal. They claimed the men were shot by American soldiers who were stuck in a traffic jam and opened fire on cars around them.
Also Wednesday, the U.S. military announced that coalition forces killed a senior al-Qaida leader and his courier, both Turks, in an operation on June 23 in northern Iraq.
Mehmet Yilmaz, also known as Khalid al-Turki, operated a cell that helped move foreign fighters into Iraq for al-Qaida operations, the military statement said. The courier was identified as Mehmet Resit Isik, also known as Khalil al-Turki.
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Associated Press correspondents Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Sameer N. Yacoub and Bassem Mroue contributed to this report.
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Bombing kills 22 at Baghdad bus station
By SAMEER N. YACOUB,
Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 34 minutes ago
on June 29th, 2007
BAGHDAD - A car bomb exploded Thursday at a bus station in a mostly Shiite west Baghdad neighborhood, killing 22 people. Officials received word that 20 decapitated bodies had been found near the capital but were unable to confirm the report because of fighting.
In addition to the dead, more than 50 people were wounded in the rush-hour blast in the Baiyaa neighborhood, police said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
A huge fireball incinerated about 40 minibuses as people were lining up to catch rides to work, police and survivors said.
Associated Press Television News video showed the area littered with smoldering vehicle parts and charred bodies — their clothing in tatters. Bystanders, some weeping, gingerly loaded human remains into ambulances and pickup trucks.
No group claimed responsibility for the blast, but suspicion fell on Sunni militants.
Baiyaa is a mixed neighborhood with a Shiite majority, part of a string of neighborhoods just south of the main road to Baghdad International Airport where sectarian tensions have been running high.
U.S. and Iraqi commanders have launched operations in towns and villages around the capital in hopes of stopping the flow of car bombs into Baghdad, where thousands of American troops have been deployed since February to try to restore order.
One American soldier was killed Thursday and another was wounded by a roadside bombing during a combat patrol in eastern Baghdad, the U.S. military said.
To the south, two policemen from separate commands said villagers had reported finding 20 beheaded bodies near the Sunni Muslim village of Um al-Abeed. The village is near the city of Salman Pak, 15 miles southeast of the capital.
Villagers said the victims were all men aged 20 to 40 and that their hands and legs had been bound, the two officers said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
Another police officer in eastern Baghdad said officials had heard the report and tried to send a force to the area to confirm it. The visit was called off because the area was too dangerous because of clashes between police commandos and extremists.
An official in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office said he had seen no such report. He also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not supposed to talk to media.
Maj. Alayne Conway, a U.S. military spokeswoman, said U.S. aircraft spotted what appeared to be five bodies on the east side of the Tigris River north of Salman Pak. American ground troops were sent to investigate but could not find the bodies.
Salman Pak and the surrounding area have been the focus of new U.S. military operations to oust extremists from the Baghdad's outskirts. Salman Pak was once a major headquarters for Saddam Hussein's security services and was long reported to be a training center for non-Iraqi Arab terrorists.
Both Sunni and Shiite extremists operate in the area, long a flashpoint of sectarian tension.
Fears of more sectarian violence rose Thursday when radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr vowed to go ahead with a planned march July 5 to the devastated Askariya shrine in Samarra.
Al-Sadr, head of the notorious Mahdi Army militia, said the goal was to unite Sunnis and Shiites against the Americans and Sunni extremists responsible for attacks against civilians.
But the government and Sunni organizations have urged al-Sadr to cancel the march, fearing it will provoke attacks by Sunni insurgents and further enflame sectarian violence.
The Feb. 22, 2006 bombing of the Askariya shrine provoked a wave of Shiite-Sunni reprisal killings that plunged the nation to the brink of all-out sectarian war. A blast June 13 destroyed two minarets that had survived the 2006 explosion.
At least 51 people were killed or found dead across the country Thursday, according to police reports.
They included three people who died when mortar shells slammed into the Shorja market in central Baghdad. At least 14 people were wounded in the market attack, said a policeman on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to media.
Also Thursday, the British military said three British soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb in southern Iraq.
The bomb exploded near the soldiers' vehicle late Wednesday southeast of Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, the military said in a statement. Another soldier was wounded in the blast and was in stable condition at a military hospital, it said.
Britain has withdrawn hundreds of troops from Iraq, leaving a force of about 5,500 based mainly on the fringes of Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad. The U.S. has about 155,000 troops in Iraq.
Also Thursday, an Iraqi legislator accused the U.S. Embassy of providing shelter to Culture Minister Asad Kamal al-Hashimi, a Sunni under investigation in the 2005 assassination attempt against the lawmaker. His two sons were killed in the attack.
Legislator Mithal al-Alusi said the minister was hiding in the U.S.-controlled Green Zone since an arrest warrant was issued against him this week.
"The embassy is giving shelter to the fugitive minister" and protecting him, al-Alusi told reporters.
The U.S. Embassy said in a statement that it had not "intervened in the situation" and that the case "is for the government of Iraq to resolve in accordance with the rule of law."
"Mithal al-Alusi's accusations are incorrect," Embassy spokesman Philip Reeker wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Sunni politicians claim that al-Hashimi's arrest warrant is part of a campaign by the Shiite-dominated government to marginalize Sunni political leaders. Sunni leader Adnan al-Dulaimi said Wednesday that he believed the minister's departure from Iraq "will be facilitated."
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THE PLOT, ODDLY ENOUGH, THICKENS STILL...
Dead wrestler's Web page was altered
By HARRY R. WEBER,
Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA - Investigators are looking into who altered pro wrestler Chris Benoit's Wikipedia entry to mention his wife's death hours before authorities discovered the bodies of the couple and their 7-year-old son.
Benoit's Wikipedia entry was altered early Monday to say that the wrestler had missed a match two days earlier because of his wife's death.
A Wikipedia official, Cary Bass, said Thursday that the entry was made by someone using an Internet protocol address registered in Stamford, Conn., where World Wrestling Entertainment is based.
An IP address, a unique series of numbers carried by every machine connected to the Internet, does not necessarily have to be broadcast from where it is registered. The bodies were found in Benoit's home in suburban Atlanta, and it's not known where the posting was sent from, Bass said.
Benoit strangled his wife and son during the weekend, placing Bibles next to their bodies, before hanging himself on the cable of a weight-machine in his home, authorities said. No motive was offered for the killings, which were discovered Monday.
Also Thursday, federal drug agents said they had raided the west Georgia office of a doctor who prescribed testosterone to Benoit.
The raid at Dr. Phil Astin's office in Carrollton began Wednesday night and concluded early Thursday, said agent Chuvalo Truesdell, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration. No arrests were made.
Hours before the raid, Astin told The Associated Press he had treated Benoit for low testosterone levels, which he said likely originated from previous steroid use.
Among other things, investigators were looking for Benoit's medical records to see whether he had been prescribed steroids and, if so, whether that prescription was appropriate, according to a law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity because records in the case remain sealed.
Astin prescribed testosterone for Benoit, a longtime friend, in the past but would not say what, if any, medications he prescribed when Benoit visited his office Friday.
State medical records show that Astin's privileges were suspended for three months in 2001 at a Georgia hospital for "reasons related to competence or character."
Astin did not return calls to his cell phone from the AP on Thursday.
Anabolic steroids were found in Benoit's home, leading officials to wonder whether the drugs played a role in the killings. Some experts believe steroids cause paranoia, depression and violent outbursts known as "roid rage."
Fayette County District Attorney Scott Ballard said in a statement Thursday that he could not immediately comment on the raid.
Benoit's page on Wikipedia, a reference site that allows users to add and edit information, was updated at 12:01 a.m. Monday, about 14 hours before authorities say the bodies were found. The reason he missed a match Saturday night was "stemming from the death of his wife Nancy," it said.
Reporters informed the Fayette County district attorney's office of the posting Thursday, and the agency forwarded the information to sheriff's investigators, who are looking into it, a legal assistant said in an e-mail to the AP.
WWE attorney Jerry McDevitt said that to his knowledge, no one at the WWE knew Nancy Benoit was dead before her body was found Monday afternoon. Text messages released by officials show that messages from Chris Benoit's cell phone were being sent to co-workers a few hours after the Wikipedia posting.
WWE employees are given WWE e-mail addresses, McDevitt said, though he did not know whether Chris Benoit had one.
"I have no idea who posted this," McDevitt said. "It's at least possible Chris may have sent some other text message to someone that we're unaware of. We don't know if he did. The phone is in the possession of authorities."
On Thursday afternoon, the Wikipedia page about Benoit carried a note stating that editing by unregistered or newly registered users was disabled until July 8 because of vandalism.
In other developments Thursday, Ballard told the AP that 10 empty beer cans were found in a trash can in the Benoit home. An empty wine bottle was found a few feet from where Benoit hanged himself, Ballard said.
It could take several weeks for toxicology tests to be completed on Benoit to see what substances, if any, were in his system.
Benoit took four months off from work in 2006 for undisclosed personal reasons, McDevitt said.
"He was feeling depressed, that kind of thing," McDevitt said.
In the days before the killings, Benoit and his wife argued over whether he should stay home more to take care of their mentally retarded 7-year-old son, according to an attorney for the WWE wrestling league.
The child had a rare medical condition called Fragile X Syndrome, an inherited form of mental retardation often accompanied by autism.
Chris Benoit's father, Michael Benoit, declined to comment on the slayings when reached Thursday by telephone in Alberta, Canada. Funeral arrangements were incomplete.
___
Associated Press writer Matt Apuzzo in Washington contributed to this story.
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Utah inmate charged in guard's death
By JENNIFER DOBNER, Associated Press Writer Thu Jun 28, 10:15 PM ET
SALT LAKE CITY - Authorities on Thursday charged a Utah inmate with murder in the shooting death of a prison guard who tried to stop him from escaping during a medical appointment.
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Curtis Allgier was charged with eight offenses, including aggravated murder in the death of Department of Corrections officer Stephen Anderson.
Anderson, 60, was shot in the head and the chest with his own gun Monday while trying to stop Allgier from escaping a University of Utah clinic, police said. Allgier, who has a swastika and "skin head" written on his heavily tattooed face, was alone in a room with Anderson after undergoing an MRI on his sore back.
Allgier fled, stole a car and led police on a high-speed chase before being disarmed by a customer inside an Arby's restaurant, where police captured him, authorities said.
Allgier also was charged with attempted aggravated murder for allegedly trying to shoot an employee inside the restaurant. The weapon didn't go off, police said.
Salt Lake County District Attorney Lohra Miller said she would seek the death penalty against Allgier if he is convicted. She revealed for the first time that Anderson suffered a second gunshot wound to the chest — not just the one in the head.
"Law enforcement officers place their lives on the line to protect our community," Miller said at a news conference. "My condolences and my gratitude go out to officer Anderson and his family."
In media interviews Wednesday, Allgier, 27, admitted he was trying to escape but denied pulling the trigger. A telephone message left with defense attorney Michael Peterson was not immediately returned.
Miller also charged Allgier's friend, Trisha Tower, with obstruction of justice. Tower told The Associated Press on Wednesday night that Allgier stopped at her house while police were pursuing him.
He rifled through a dresser for fresh clothes and kissed Tower's infant daughter. He admitted to the shooting, apologized and then raced off, she said. "He was pumped full of adrenaline. He didn't know which way to go," said Tower, who has known Allgier for three years.
"He asked me, 'Help me, help hide me,' and I told him, 'I cannot help you,'" she said.
Tower said she was frightened and put Allgier's prison jumpsuit in two plastic bags and a diaper bag. Her brother took the bags to his house, where police recovered them Tuesday.
"I wish he had never come," she said.
Another friend said Allgier told her a week earlier that he had run out of hope and couldn't see a future beyond prison. "He told me, 'I don't feel like I have anything left to live for,'" Kira Diamond, a Portland, Ore., tattoo artist, said Wednesday night.
Diamond said she and Curtis Allgier exchanged letters and talked by phone almost weekly. She first contacted him last year after seeing him on an MSNBC program talking about prison life.
Allgier was in state prison for a parole violation on convictions for burglary and escape. Earlier this month, he was sentenced to nearly nine years in federal prison for a gun crime.
Diamond said Allgier's wife has also filed for divorce. "He's really been overwrought. Just really sad. You can only take so much loss in your life," she said.
More than 2,000 people are expected Friday at Anderson's funeral in Bluffdale, including officers from nearly a dozen prisons in other states, Corrections Department spokesman Jack Ford said.
Inmates at Utah State Prison in Draper, where Anderson worked, have attempted to collect money for his family, Ford said.
___
Associated Press reporter Brock Vergakis contributed to this story.
+++
5 dead in Angolan plane crash
By JORGE MOURA,
Associated Press Writer
Thu Jun 28, 3:09 PM ET
LUANDA, Angola - An Angolan Airlines plane crashed on landing at an airport in northern Angola on Thursday, killing five people on the same day the European Union said it was blacklisting the airline due to safety concerns.
The Boeing 737 plane crashed and broke in half when it landed at an airport in M'banza Congo, a town about 180 miles north of the capital, Luanda, national airports chief Celso Rosas said.
The airline, known by its Portuguese acronym TAAG, said in a statement that 79 passengers had been on board when the accident occurred at 1:40 p.m.
It gave no information about the dead or injured, nor about the possible causes, but said an emergency team was investigating at the scene.
The plane landed halfway down the runway and bounced before crashing into a house, the state news agency, Angop, reported from the scene. It initially reported that six people were killed, but officials later said there were five victims.
The aircraft's landing gear appeared to give way as the plane touched down, Radio Nacional de Angola reported. It said seven crew had been on board, and that the co-pilot died.
Rescue workers were trying to reach the co-pilot's body, the public radio station reported, and a crane was helping to remove debris.
The injured were taken to a hospital in the nearest city, called Zaire, Angop said.
The European Union announced Thursday it was adding the airline to its revised international blacklist. The airline would be barred from flying to EU nations because of safety concerns, the European Commission said.
Earlier this year, the European Union unilaterally banned 62 African airlines from flying into EU airspace following a string of air disasters, including the Kenya Airways B737 crash that killed 114 people.
On Thursday, African governments inaugurated the Civil Aviation Agency, based in Namibia with regional offices in South Africa, Ethiopia, Libya, Nigeria and Cameroon.
The body aims to streamline aviation regulations and licensing throughout Africa at a time when the continent has the worst accident record in the world. About 3 percent of air traffic worldwide currently takes place over Africa. With growth in trade and tourism, the aviation industry predicts a growth of more than 5 percent in African air travel over the next 20 years.
+++
2 die in Greece forest fires
By NICHOLAS PAPHITIS,
Associated Press Writer
Thu Jun 28, 5:19 PM ET
ATHENS, Greece - Wildfires swept through Greece on Thursday, killing two people and destroying homes after days of record temperatures of more than 100 degrees that led to at least nine heatstroke deaths and extensive power cuts.
Authorities evacuated a mountain hotel and casino complex, an air force radar station and a children's camp on the outskirts of Athens as a huge forest fire raged out of control through the Mount Parnitha national park.
An air force spokesman said radar personnel were being evacuated by helicopter. "We decided this as a precaution," Christos Vaitsis told The Associated Press. "The fire is moving toward the unit."
Temperatures had cooled slightly but were still above 100 degrees in most parts of the country Thursday, with a high of nearly 106 in Athens. On Tuesday, the temperature hit 115 degrees, the highest for a day in June since 1889, according to government officials.
The two men who died were trapped by flames after abandoning their truck in a forest fire outside the central city of Larissa, fire officials said. A third man in the truck escaped unharmed.
Besides the Greece heatstroke victims — which included a 103-year-old man — dozens more have died in southeast Europe over the past week because of the heat. Greek Health Ministry officials said more than 140 people were hospitalized with heatstroke in the past 24 hours.
Clouds of smoke cast a pall over Athens and police sealed off a road 10 miles northwest of the capital. The country's main north-south highway was also closed briefly near Tanagra, 35 miles north of Athens, after billowing smoke reduced visibility.
Smoke also reduced visibility to zero and grounded firefighting planes, Public Order Minister Vyron Polydoras said. "We will fight all night," he said.
In other areas, 24 water-dropping planes and 13 helicopters were assisting hundreds of firefighters on the ground, officials said.
Italy's civil protection agency said it had sent two extra aircraft to help the effort, while France and Portugal were also contributing planes.
More than 130 wildfires swept through thousands of acres of forest and brush across Greece, several for the second day. Officials said arson was to blame for at least one fire near Athens.
Interior Minister Procopis Pavlopoulos said firefighters were involved in a "titanic" effort. "We are facing an unprecedented situation," he said.
On the resort island of Poros, firefighters were battling a blaze that destroyed at least 10 homes and forced the evacuation of dozens of houses and three hotels.
Another major fire was burning on Mount Pelion in central Greece, where three homes were destroyed and dozens evacuated.
+++
+++
ABC movie critic Joel Siegel dead at 63
Fri Jun 29, 9:58 PM ET
NEW YORK - Joel Siegel, a longtime movie critic for "Good Morning America" who was famous for his weekly, often humorous reviews, died Friday, ABC officials said. He was 63.
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Siegel, who got his start at the network by working for New York affiliate WABC-TV, had battled colon cancer, the station said.
"Joel was an important part of ABC News and we will miss him," ABC News President David Westin said in a statement. "He was a brilliant reviewer and a great reporter. But much more, he was our dear friend and colleague. Our thoughts and prayers are with Joel's family."
Siegel was known for his sense of humor, movie acumen and sharp judgment. He never let an actor off the hook if the performance was lackluster.
"The appeal of Matthew McConaughey has long evaded me both as a pinup and as an actor," Siegel said in his review of 2006's "We Are Marshall." "His constant ticks, bad hair and strained syntax as a coach fumble what should have been the tragic and inspirational story of the rebuilding of Marshall University's football team after a devastating plane crash."
Dave Davis, president and general manager of WABC-TV, said Siegel loved to poke fun at uninspiring movies.
"No one had more fun writing about a bad movie than Joel," Davis said.
ABC anchor Charles Gibson said Siegel knew how to tell a story.
"He had an inexhaustible supply of stories — most funny, many poignant, all with a point or a punch line," Gibson said.
Born in Los Angeles on July 7, 1943, Siegel graduated cum laude from the University of California, Los Angeles. After college, he started writing for The Los Angeles Times, where he reviewed books.
He landed in New York City in 1972 and worked as a reporter for WCBS-TV. He also hosted "Joel Siegel's New York" on WCBS Radio. Four years later he jumped to WABC, cementing his reputation as a film critic over the next three decades.
In 1981, he joined "Good Morning America" and became a regular as the network's entertainment editor, easily recognizable by his thick mustache and glasses.
In addition to five New York Emmy Awards, he received a public-service award from the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, and was honored by the New York State Associated Press Broadcasters Association for general excellence in individual reporting.
Survivors include his son, Dylan, and wife, Ena Swansea.
+++
The moment they said "movie critic dead" I was so sure it was Roger Ebert who had joined Gene Siskel in the Great Beyond - leaving whatsisname Roeper all alone and confused...
Not yet...
Not yet.
...
Iraq ambush caps bloodiest months for US
By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer 45 minutes ago
BAGHDAD - A huge bomb explosion followed by a hail of gunfire and grenades killed five U.S. soldiers, the military said Friday. The attack came as the Pentagon tallied up the deadliest three-month period for Americans since the war began.
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Seven soldiers were wounded in the attack Thursday in the Rasheed district, a mixed Sunni-Shiite area of southern Baghdad where U.S.-led forces recently stepped up pressure on extremists. The commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad suggested the ambush could be part of an escalating backlash by Sunni insurgents.
Those deaths brought to 99 the number of U.S. troops killed this month, according to an Associated Press count. The toll for the past three months — 329 — made it the deadliest quarter for U.S. troops in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion. That surpasses the 316 soldiers killed during November 2004 to January 2005.
Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., who heads U.S. forces in the Iraqi capital, said U.S. casualties had mounted because Sunni extremists are "starting to fight very hard" as U.S. forces press into areas of the capital where militants once had free rein.
"This is a skilled and determined enemy. He's ruthless. He's got a thirst for blood like I've never seen anywhere in my life," Fil told reporters. "And he's determined to do whatever he can."
During a teleconference with Pentagon reporters, Fil described the Thursday attack as "very violent," displaying a "level of sophistication that we have not often seen so far in this campaign."
He said a blast from a "very large" bomb buried deep in the ground triggered the attack, which was followed by volleys of small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. Four soldiers were killed in the attack and a fifth died Thursday night of his wounds, Fil said.
"As far as the assessment, we believe that we are into an area" of south Baghdad "where we're seeing a very strong al-Qaida cell," Fil said. "Those areas are now denied to them ... They are starting to fight very hard and that's what we saw yesterday."
Sunni insurgents have used similar "swarming" tactics for years, mostly in rural areas to the north and west of the capital. Militants have also been burying explosives deep in the ground, making them difficult to detect and triggering them as vehicles pass by.
Such "deep buried bombs" have been especially effective against U.S. vehicles, including Humvees, Bradley fighting vehicles and Strykers, prompting commanders in some areas to shift to foot patrols to avoid losing so many soldiers in a single blast.
U.S. casualties have been rising since President Bush ordered nearly 30,000 more troops to Iraq in a major push to pacify Baghdad and surrounding areas. The goal was to curb the violence so Iraq's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders can strike agreements to share power in this fractious country.
But progress toward agreements to share oil wealth, provide a greater political role to the Sunni minority and shore up local governments has been slow because of deep suspicions after four years of bloodshed.
In a hopeful sign, radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called off a July 5 march to a bombed shrine in Samarra north of Baghdad after appeals from the government, which feared Sunni extremists would attack marchers along the way.
Sheik Asad Al-Nassiri, an aide to the cleric, told a congregation at Friday prayer services in Kufa that al-Sadr canceled the march because of "the government's inability to secure the route and many officials' appeals for a postponement."
At the same time, however, anger has been welling up among Sunni Arabs, who complain they are being marginalized in the Shiite-dominated government.
A Sunni political party said Friday that four Sunni Cabinet members will refuse to attend government meetings to protest the way Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki handled legal proceedings against the fifth Sunni minister.
Earlier this week, an arrest warrant was issued for Culture Minister Asad Kamal al-Hashimi and security forces raided his Baghdad home after allegations he masterminded an assassination attempt against a politician two years ago.
Sunni politicians considered the move politically motivated and asked al-Maliki, a Shiite, to do something to stop it. The prime minister refused, saying he would not intervene in the work of the judiciary.
"The ministers have decided to suspend their participation in government meetings because they consider the stance of the prime minister and the government unsuitable," Ayad al-Samarraie, a leading member of the Sunni bloc the Iraqi Accordance Front, told AP.
"Had this minister been a member of his (al-Maliki's) party, would he have dealt with the matter the way he did?" al-Samarraie asked.
Muhannad al-Issawi, a spokesman for Accordance Front leader Adnan al-Dulaimi, said the boycott of the 37-member Cabinet "will continue until a compromise is reached."
Al-Issawi said the Sunnis were also protesting the dismissal this month of the Sunni speaker of parliament, who was voted out by the legislators because of erratic behavior.
In April, six Cabinet ministers loyal to al-Sadr quit the government to protest his refusal to call for a timetable for American troops to leave. They have not been replaced.
The boycotts are likely to complicate efforts to enact key "benchmark" legislation that the U.S. is demanding, since the Cabinet must sign off on such proposals before they go to parliament.
Even if the other Shiite and Kurdish members give their endorsement, the absence of key constituencies from the decision-making process would raise doubts whether such legislation would contribute to the goal of national reconciliation.
Elsewhere Friday, a suicide truck bomber attacked an Iraqi army post 20 miles north of the capital Friday, killing six soldiers and wounding five others, police said. Two civilians were also killed in a barrage of gunfire that followed, they said.
The blast occurred at a railway station in Mishada, an officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
Iraqi police said a bomb exploded under a pipeline south of Baghdad, spilling crude oil and sparking a huge fire. The pipeline carries oil from Iraq's southern oil fields to the Dora refinery in the capital.
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More about the Benoit Case...
Rags such as the ENQUIRER, EXAMINER and the rest are having a filed day with this saddest of sordid stories - as we knew they would...
One headline read that
"WRESTLER (BENOIT) RAN A DRUG EMPIRE"
(which could open the door to a "triple murder disguised as a double-murder/suicide" theory...
Were it true...
Or even remotely possible...
But it is not.)
Another headline read:
"WRESTLER AND WIFE MURDERED BY A SATANIC CULT"
Ahh...
I knew that I wouldn't be alone in suspecting Sullivan...
...
On various TV news channels...
Actually...
On those type of shows that we call TABLOID TV...
(I'd like to point the finger at Geraldo Rivera, the main name usually associated with such sensationalim - but it is not him this time, really...
Just go on YouTube.com and type in "Benoit Murder" in the search window - you will likely still see plenty of what I'm talking about here...!)
Various former WCW stars have been asked about the tragedy...
Booker T gave a moving and respectful eulogy to a smalltime interview crew for some local TV station...
Bill De Mott, formerly known as Hugh Morrus (a member in good standing of the Dungeon of Doom) and General Rection, tried to defend "his sport" and "his industry" (even though he was unceremoniously fired by the WWE... He wants back in... No sense in shutting doors, right?) and dismissed the "roid rage" theory, the steroids and testosterone shots that Benoit received and the cocktail it might have produced in his system right there...
He was met with stiff resistence from one DEBRA MARSHALL...
Read on...
...
DEBRA... on NANCY...?
Debra McMichael (then), along with the late Elizabeth Houlette (drug overdose some years back - drugs that her new boyfriend, Lex Luger -alas, another former Horseman- had given to her...)
and "Woman" Nancy Daus were, during the years 1996-1998, the three women that accompanied the Four Horsemen everywhere they went...
A fourth woman had always been desired - and it would have made sense that it would have been former Flair valet and manager Sherri Martel, who died herself this month as well...
Basically - all these women are dead - except Debra!
And Debra is definitely the only one of the four that I would qualify as "execrable"...
It may rhyme with desirable - but it has no meaning at this point...
Debra betrayed her real-life husband - Horseman Steve "Mongo" McMichael - and left him high and dry to go to the rival WWE (or, as I call it, McMahon's Circus)
Once there, she hooked up with resident star (and former WCW star) STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN...
It was known that, with her new so-called "husband", Debra was extremely poorly treated - Stone Cold did things to her that Mongo had never done; essentially, beating her...
NOW, after a finalized divorce, a restraining order and a permanent retirement from the world of wrestling, DEBRA comes to the fore with the BENOIT TRAGEDY (as she knew them well...) and speaks of a rampant conspiracy of silence and episodes of "roid rage" everywhere...
Truth be told, even the refined Ric Flair was accused of having had moments of rage lately - towards the ex-wife and towards someone on the road as well...
The facts about Flair were not covered up - because they could not be (the media knew right away) but Debra alleges that the beatings she suffered and those that Nancy Daus might have suffered were covered up by the WWE - which implemented a veil of secrecy so that the trademark names STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN, his sacrilegious 3:16 t-shirts and associated "CAN OF WHOOP-ASS" merchandize, the names CHRIS BENOIT, CANADIAN CRIPPLER and RABID WOLVERINE and all the other merchandizing would NOT BE TAINTED and/or JEOPARDIZED IN ANY WAY...
Debra revealed that she thought she would DIE the last time Austin attacked her - and those violent mood swings were caused by steroids too (nothing to do with her execrable self - no.)
She felt such empathy towards Nancy - it made me want to puke knowing that she was envious of Nancy Daus and had always resented her...
And now, she was Nancy's best friend all of a sudden?
Please...
Nancy Daus and Debra Marshall did the same basic thing - they cheated on their husbands and left to hook up with another man.
(Nancy's real -meaning FIRST- husband was not Kevin Sullivan, mind you...)
And both women (and Elizabeth Houlette too) found nothing but disappointment with their new men...
Debra was beaten - when she had never been before (even though deserving...)
Nancy was allegedly abused and finally MURDERED...
Elizabeth was abused too, by that big goofy brawny loser, Lex Luger... And he caused her death too - inadvertently though.
Truly, they made their bed...
Still, Nancy and Elizabeth should have survived.
Debra was the expendable one -
being the true bitch of the lot.
...
Other stuff...
Various other articles, found left and right, speak of Benoit's now "tainted legacy"...
The Horsemen are mighty tainted now, that is for sure...
The Horsemen which are, out of all the groups associated with wrestling (wolfpac, nWo, DX, AOD, DOD, LOD, LWO, NewBlood, NewBreed, The Flock, HF and the D.A.) the only ones with class, a sense of tradition, true distinction and finesse... Well, they are now sullied beyond redemption in many people's eyes.
The Four Horsemen will likely never ride again now.
Oh well - they were not meant to ride in a wrestling ring nor on the gridiron (as the first sportsmen association to borrow the name was a collection of four elite football players, yes...)
THE FOUR HORSEMEN
were meant to ride in the SKIES
the blodd-red skies above us
during the Apocalypse
and they will be not four mere men
but the embodiments of
PESTILENCE
FAMINE
WAR and
DEATH.
It was probably never a good idea to try to personify those four archetypes - as "faces" (good guys) on top of that, some times...!
Flair, Benoit, Anderson & Pillman were most effective as HEELS anyway (bad guys)...
Pillman, the crazy man, is dead.
Benoit is, too...
Flair and Anderson's best years as Horsemen with OTHER partners in crime were spent, again, as HEELS indeed...
Still...
they were the kind of bad guys fans loved to hate - and excuse too.
A simple excuse to do so would have the fans root for them - and they could only be good guys, championing "tradition", up against the nWo insurrection...
Even though the nWo was rife and chock-full of lowlives - they have yet to do anything like Benoit did.
Sad, but a fact.
nWo members Louie Spicolli, Rick Rude and Curt Hennig (a Horseman traitor) just... died.
Like Eddie Guerrero...
and Brian Pillman.
They overtaxed their bodies and their hearts simply stopped beating.
All because of...
the wrestling industry.
...
The last few comments here have convinced me to go ahead with that project of mine...
(As if I wasn't convinced already!)
I am writing a book about WRESTLING...
From the "thinking fan's point of view" - intermingling wrestling, entertainment and philosophy!
Look for it - in 2008!
+++
UPDATE
On the "Benoit Case"...
Brain injury, not steroids, seen in wrestler death
2 hours, 38 minutes ago
By Daniel Trotta
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Extensive brain damage caused by a career in professional wrestling is far more likely than steroids to have led Chris Benoit to kill his family and then himself, medical experts said on Wednesday.
Neurologists with the Sports Legacy Institute who examined Benoit's brain found it pockmarked throughout with evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), whose symptoms include depression, dementia and erratic behavior.
CTE is believed to afflict 20 percent of professional boxers and was found in four professional American football players aged 36 to 50 who died in recent years -- two by suicide -- after showing erratic behavior, the institute said.
The private research institute's experts believe Benoit's brain damage "is enough to very likely explain aberrant behavior including suicide and even homicide," Julian Bailes, chief of neurosurgery at West Virginia University, told a news conference in New York.
Benoit, 40, killed his wife Nancy and 7-year-old son Daniel before hanging himself in their suburban Atlanta home in June in what police labeled a murder-suicide.
That raised speculation it may have been a case of "roid rage," or uncontrollable violence caused by steroid use. An autopsy found Benoit injected steroids not long before he died.
But Bailes said steroids would not have caused Benoit's brain damage, and while he drew no conclusions, he all but ruled out steroids as a cause.
"There is no consensus in the medical community that the syndrome of 'roid rage' even occurs," Bailes said.
The Sports Legacy Institute, an advocate for greater safety in contact sports, was founded by former Harvard University football player and professional wrestler Christopher Nowinski, whose career was cut short by post-concussion syndrome.
Benoit, nicknamed "The Rabid Wolverine" and "The Canadian Crippler," performed for the World Wrestling Entertainment Inc..
Benoit's father, Michael Benoit, granted permission to conduct the test for CTE, which can only be done postmortem. He raised concerns about the extreme nature of the theatrics in professional wrestling.
"The human skull just isn't built to get hit with a table or a chair," he said.
Indeed, it is not!
This statement and article were released a mere 36 hours after the wrestler performing under the name "UMAGA" allowed himself to be smashed over the head repeatedly with a steel chair and another object too (...) - and then be finished off with a SLEDGEHAMMER (the other object in question...) HIT to the back, courtesy of resident favored "star" and son-in-law to the boss "Triple H"...
I guess some people really NEVER DO LEARN...
The human skull is not to be smashed like this, repeatedly - even if it doesn't crack nor buckle under the pressure, the precious insides will be rattled... Sometimes beyond repair, quite obviously.
I guess the findings of this analysis (the CTE test) put the kibosh on anything more "fantastic" going on here...
As Hulk Hogan had suggested, "satanism and that stuff" might have been at the core of this sad tragedy; Hogan had hinted so much when he said, in his own words, that Nancy Daus was "too much into that kind of stuff" - too lost in her (wrestling) role...
If this was true, one could have imagined indeed that Benoit ran afoul of it - that, perhaps, Nancy had begun some form of unholy ritual around their son Daniel, and the man of the house saw nothing else to do but to put a stop to it - by consecrating them to God through death, leaving the Bible opened next to each corpse...
And then he would perhaps doom his own soul by committing suicide, unable to stick around in a world that he knew would never understand what he had done...?
Hmm... That scenario could hold, even with the CTE test, as Benoit's faux pas regarding his own soul can then be blamed on his brain damage; but then, how not blame the double murder on that as well?
The real reason to ditch the "more fantastic scenario" explaining what transpired there though, is Hogan!
Anything he has to say cannot be found to be credible; no, folks, Hogan does NOT know best...!
What did he know about Nancy, Chris, anyone outside of his usual cronies Brutus, Jerry & Jimmy?!?
Hogan wasn't intimate friends with anyone but HIMSELF in the WCW.
Or WWE/WWF...
And speaking of that sorry circus - maybe someone will step in yet and regulate that steel chair shots to the head are forbidden...
One day, soon...?
I suppose you read the article titled "Muscle cream caused NYC teen's death" or the one about steroids... and felt you had to supply an alternative?
Thanks, fashion king!
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