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Human Rights Watch released photos of a cluster bomb it said had been found in Misrata
Pro-government forces in Libya have been accused by a human rights campaign group of using cluster bombs, which are banned by more than 100 countries.
Human Rights Watch said one of its photographers had seen three of the bombs explode over a residential area of the rebel-held city of Misrata.
Libya’s government has denied the allegation.
Government troops have intensified their siege of Misrata, the only west Libyan city still in rebel hands.
The BBC’s Orla Guerin reports from inside the battle-scarred city that local residents fear a massacre without greater action by Nato air forces to break the siege.
A meeting of Nato foreign ministers in Berlin has ended without a commitment from non-participating states to contribute warplanes despite an appeal by Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
The US, UK and France have said in a joint statement that the threat to Libyan civilians will not disappear while Colonel Muammar Gaddafi remains in power.
Russia suggested Nato was exceeding its UN Security Council mandate to protect civilians.
At the scene
The hospital is struggling to keep pace with the attacks. The emergency ward is a tent in the car park. Patients are rushed in and out to make way for new arrivals. Lights go on and off without warning, plunging surgeons into darkness.
Doctors say they are running short of supplies, beds and staff to treat the continuing flow of wounded.
“If anyone else arrives now, they’ll have to be treated on the floor,” said Dr Khalid Abufalgha, a member of Misrata’s crisis committee.
With so many urgent cases, he cannot help patients with chronic conditions.
And there are growing concerns about the security of the port. Medical supplies are coming ashore here but the heavy shelling has halted some ships, and raised fears that Col Gaddafi wants to cut this last link to the outside world.
Fearing massacre in Misrata
Releasing photographs of a cluster bomb, New York-based Human Rights Watch said three had exploded over Misrata’s el-Shawahda neighbourhood on Thursday night.
First discovered by a New York Times reporter, and inspected by HRW researchers, the bomb photographed is said to be an MAT-120 120mm mortar projectile, which opens in mid-air and releases 21 sub-munitions over a wide area.
“Upon exploding on contact with an object, each submunition disintegrates into high-velocity fragments to attack people and releases a slug of molten metal to penetrate armoured vehicles,” HRW noted.
HRW said the bomb it had examined had been manufactured in Spain.
Steve Goose, HRW’s arms division director, said it was “appalling” that Libya was using such weapons, especially in a residential area.
“They pose a huge risk to civilians, both during attacks because of their indiscriminate nature and afterward because of the still-dangerous unexploded duds scattered about,” he added.
HRW said it could not determine whether any civilians had been hurt by the cluster bombs which “appear to have landed about 300 metres [yards] from Misrata hospital”.
The international Convention on Cluster Munitions adopted in Dublin in 2008 prohibits its 108 signatories from using cluster weapons because of the threat they pose to civilians.
Libya is one of the states which has not signed the convention, along with countries such as the US, Israel, Russia and China.
Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim denied cluster bombs had been used in Misrata.
“I challenge them to prove it,” he told reporters in the capital Tripoli.
Referring to inspections by humanitarian groups, he said: “To use these bombs, the evidence would remain for days and weeks, and we know the international community is coming en masse to our country soon. So we can’t do this, we can’t do anything that would incriminate us even if we were criminals.”
There was no immediate comment from Spain, a signatory to the cluster munition convention, on the provenance of the bombs.
The fragments found in Misrata were apparently produced in a year before the convention was adopted.
Rebels in Misrata have been holding out against attacks for two months and UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has stressed that Nato needs to act swiftly to prevent a “massacre” in the city.
He said Nato had been constrained by the need to avoid civilian casualties but had probably prevented the city from being overrun by Col Gaddafi’s forces.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Tom Roe was a noted rugby player, a great dancer and ‘a bit of a lad’
A memorial to the crew of a Lancaster bomber is due to be unveiled in Holland, 67 years after it went missing on a disastrous night for Bomber Command.
Of the seven-man crew, only three bodies were ever found. One was my great-uncle and I spent 10 years tracing the story of that night, and reuniting their families.
It began with a faded photograph of an airman and a single slip of paper outlining the bare details of what happened that snowy night of 19-20 February 1944.
The photograph was of my great uncle, Thomas Roe, and had been one of my late grandmother’s treasured possessions. He’d been a flight engineer on Lancaster bombers, serving with 12 Squadron based at Wickenby, Lincolnshire.
The piece of paper was the “Loss Card” relating to Lancaster ND 410 PH-Y. In barely-legible handwriting it bore the names of the crew, their target for that night – Leipzig – and the fact that three bodies were eventually recovered from the Dutch coastline.
The other four were all missing, presumed dead.
I’d heard plenty of stories during my childhood of Tom Roe – a noted rugby player, a great dancer and a bit of a lad. I became curious about his fate and ten years ago decided I’d try and find out more.
This was before the internet shrank the world of research and my first move was to the Public Records Office as it was then called, at Kew in southwest London.
That led me to the squadron’s operational record book and a little more detail about what happened that night.
Brother of navigator, Evelyn Travers-Clarke, on conditions on board
It contained the printed names of his crew mates: Pilot Paul Wright; Navigator Evelyn Travers Clarke; Bomb Aimer Angus Joseph Gillis from Canada; Wireless Operator Bruce Stratton; Tail Gunner Terrance White and Mid Upper Gunner Barney White (no relation).
I learned that the Leipzig raid was Bomber Command’s heaviest loss of the war up to that point. The weather forecast was wrong. The winds were much stronger than predicted and planes had to fly doglegs or circle repeatedly to arrive at the target on time. And crucially, the German night-fighters followed them all the way to Leipzig and back again.
Bomber Command lost 79 planes that night and more than 550 men were killed or missing.
It took years, but I managed to track down surviving relatives and their families. And through them came little stories that brought the crew alive.
This was a group that perfectly encapsulated the social mix of those who fought and died alongside each other in Bomber Command – more than 55,000 of them.
I learned how Terry White – who worked in a shoe repair factory in Manchester – would serenade the crew by playing Liszt’s haunting Liebestraum on his violin, how Tom Roe would dance the night away at the Ritz in Manchester when the crew would visit Terry’s family. Barney White from Alfreton in Derbyshire was a fishmonger’s delivery boy.
It is thought the plane was shot down by Oberst Gunther Radusch – a German night-fighter ace
Paul Wright had interrupted his studies at Oxford University to join up after his brother was killed with Bomber Command. Evelyn Travers Clarke – a jazz fan and languages scholar – had left Cambridge University to join the RAF. A fortune teller had told him he would meet his death in water.
Bruce Stratton had recently married and his wife was expecting their first child when he was killed.
But what had happened to the plane remained a mystery until last year.
We knew Tom Roe’s body was washed up on the Island of Overflakkee south of Rotterdam and was buried in the village cemetery at Ouddorp. Angus Gillis and Terry White were recovered from beaches a few miles further south. Records revealed that the return route of the bomber stream went directly over Overflakkee.
We now know that Oberst Gunther Radusch – a German night-fighter ace – shot down a four-engine bomber in that same area on that night. As most of the planes lost on that operation have been identified, it is likely that Radusch shot down ND 410.
It is possible that the Lancaster plunged into the Grevelingen lake or another of the sea lanes surrounding the islands.
Almost 70 years on and a local history group on Overflakkee has erected a small memorial and information panel dedicated to the “lost” crew. It will be unveiled during a civic ceremony attended by relatives from across the UK, Canada and the US.
Terry Galvin is a nephew of Terrance White, the rear gunner. He was given his uncle’s Christian name as a living memorial.
“It was their way of remembering him as they were unable to visit his grave in Holland at the time,” said Mr Galvin.
“I think what they are doing over there is a remarkable thing, given the length of time that has elapsed. It’s a way of making sure that the names of the crew won’t fade away as so many others have done.”
He will also be there as a representative of Julia Cook, who was engaged to Terry White at the time.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan introduced the budget proposal
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The US House of Representatives has passed a 2012 budget plan which aims to cut $6.2 trillion (£3.8tn) in spending by the government over the next decade.
The plan, introduced by Republican Paul Ryan, would cut healthcare and social programmes for the poor and require elderly to pay more for their healthcare than they do currently.
The bill passed the Republican-controlled House in a 235-193 vote.
The proposal is not expected to make it through the Democratic-led Senate.
The bill, which covers the fiscal year that starts on 1 October, would transform Medicare – a programme in which the US government pays medical bills for the elderly – into a voucher system that subsidises purchases of private insurance plans.
It would lower taxes for the wealthy, a move fiscal conservatives say will boost US economic growth.
On Thursday, the US Congress passed a budget bill that would cut $38.5bn (£23.6bn) in government spending over the rest of the current fiscal year, to 30 September.
President Barack Obama, who in a policy speech on Wednesday called for raising taxes on the wealthy and changes to social programmes, must now sign that legislation into law.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
By Richard Black
The red ruffed lemur is one of many sliding towards extinction, as logging proceeds
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Sir Richard Branson is to import lemurs to the Caribbean, where they will live wild in the forest on his islands.
The project has alarmed conservation scientists, who point out that many previous species introductions have proved disastrous to native wildlife.
But Sir Richard’s team maintains that both the lemurs, which will come from zoos, and native animals will be fine.
Introducing species found on one continent into another for conservation purposes is virtually unprecedented.
Lemurs are found only on the African island of Madagascar and many species are threatened, largely because of deforestation.
The threat has grown worse since the toppling of President Marc Ravalomanana’s government two years ago, which allowed illegal logging to flourish.
“We’ve been helping to try and preserve lemurs, and sadly in Madagascar because of the government being overthrown the space for lemurs is getting less and less,” Sir Richard told BBC News from his Caribbean property.
“Here on Moskito Island we’ve got a beautiful rainforest – we brought in experts from South Africa, and they say it would be an absolutely perfect place where lemurs can be protected and breed.”
Ring-tailed and red ruffed lemurs are two of the species in the plan. Both are on the Red List of Threatened Species.
Moskito (also spelled Mosquito) Island is one of two that Sir Richard owns in the British Virgin Islands (BVI). Several luxury houses, including one for the boss of the Virgin business empire himself, are being built on it.
His other island is Necker, home to an eco-tourism resort where a stay is priced at around $2,000 (£1,200) per day.
“It’s crucial that this move does not send the wrong message to people that it may be a good idea to keep lemurs as pets”
Christoph Schwitzer IUCN Primate Specialist Group
The plan has aroused a lot if interest locally, with the bulletin boards of BVI news websites buzzing with comments for and against, and politicians locking horns.
And it concerned conservation scientists contacted by BBC News.
“Maybe [Sir Richard] has got some people to say it is alright – but what else lives on the island, and how might they be affected?” asked Simon Stuart, chair of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Species Survival Commission (IUCN SSC).
“It’s pretty weird – I would be alarmed about it and would want some reassurances.”
Dr Stuart suggested the project could contravene the IUCN’s code for translocations – designed to prevent the repetition of disastrous events such as the introduction of rabbits and cane toads to Australia.
Among other things, it says that translocations should never happen into natural ecosystems.
When they do happen into areas that have already been altered by human hand, there should be a controlled trial period with continual assessment.
In the past, it says: “The damage done by harmful introductions to natural systems far outweighs the benefit derived from them”.
Sifakas can jump, but not swim – still, some local people are concerned about them escaping
And Christoph Schwitzer, who co-ordinates the Madagascar work of the IUCN SSC Primate Specialist Group, said the lemurs should really be kept in some kind of confinement.
“The project would only be acceptable if he intended to keep them in a controlled environment – that is, in some kind of fenced-in enclosure where they cannot become a problem to the native fauna and flora,” he said.
“It’s crucial that this move does not send the wrong message to people that it may be a good idea to keep lemurs as pets for their own personal pleasure.”
And he warned that there could be impacts on local wildlife.
While some species of lemur are faithful to a diet of fruit, others will grab whatever is around, including lizards and other small animals.
“There may be birds nesting, and if there are some of the lemurs would attempt to predate on their eggs – or there may be small invertebrates that they’d go for,” said Dr Schwitzer.
Necker and Moskito Island are home to reptiles such as the stout iguana, the turnip-tailed gecko and the dwarf gecko that local conservationists have identified as being of specific concern.
Sir Richard told BBC News that an environmental impact assessment had been carried out for Moskito Island; but critics in the BVI said it did not include evaluation of “introduced exotic species”.
Sir Richard’s motivation for wanting to introduce the animals is not entirely clear.
They seem unlikely to make a significant difference to his eco-tourism business.
Ring-tailed lemurs will be the first arrivals – adaptable feeders with a taste for bird eggs
One of his principal advisors is Lara Mostert, one of the managers of the Monkeyland Primate Sanctuary, a South African facility where many species of monkey and lemur live together in a patch of forest.
She said Sir Richard’s lemurs would have a much better life than in the zoos where they currently live – some, she said, in “horrific” conditions.
“Unfortunately, primates have become rather like a business – the animals are seen as a commodity and apart from that they don’t really have an identity,” she said.
“And that’s one of the things I like about Sir Richard’s plan – he’s not going to sell them.”
She thinks the animals will thrive on Moskito Island.
Sir Richard sees the project as bringing conservation benefits, envisaging that at some point in the future, lemurs could be re-introduced from Moskito Island to Madagascar.
But captive breeding programmes already exist for this purpose.
Lara Mostert suggested Sir Richard’s son “wanted a lemur after seeing the movie ‘Madagascar'”.
Despite the concerns, the plan has been approved by the BVI government and appears to be going ahead.
The first consignment, consisting of about 30 ring-tailed lemurs, is due to arrive within a few weeks, moved from zoos in Sweden, South Africa and Canada.
The much more imperilled red ruffed lemur may follow, possibly alongside some of the sifakas, famed for their calls and their jumping, may follow.
As threats to natural diversity multiply around the world, transporting species from place to place for conservation is one of the “extreme schemes” that conservationists are talking about and even beginning to implement.
But almost without exception, these translocations are taking place within the ecological region where the animal originated, rather than halfway across the planet.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Listeners were given an on-air apology and a past programme was broadcast instead
BBC radio’s Any Questions? had to be cancelled after guests were unable to get to the recording because of major delays on a railway line.
The Radio 4 programme was due to be broadcast from the National Railway Museum in Shildon, County Durham.
But three of the four panel members, including Employment Minister Chris Grayling, failed to make it.
The delays were caused after a person was hit by a train on the East Coast main line.
There were further delays after signal problems in the Grantham area.
Liberal Democrat policy chief Richard Grayson was the one guest to make a successful journey, unlike Labour peer Lord Malloch-Brown and Interbrand chairman Rita Clifton.
Listeners were given an on-air apology and a past programme was broadcast instead.
A spokesman said: “Due to unforeseen circumstances some panellists due to appear on Any Questions? from Durham this evening were severely held up on their journey.”
Saturday’s edition of Any Answers?, in which listeners respond to what they have heard during the debate, has also been cancelled.
The programme hopes to return to the museum in the future.
British Transport Police were called to a level crossing in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, after reports of someone being hit by a train.
A person was pronounced dead at scene and there were no suspicious circumstances.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The signs of battle scar Misrata
Glancing around the hospital ward full of broken bodies, a weary Libyan surgeon gave his explanation of the conflict in the besieged city of Misrata.
“Gaddafi is hunting his own people,” said Ramadan Atewah, a volunteer on leave from his hospital post in Britain. “He’s trying to concentrate the shelling where there are groups of people.”
In the overflowing wards of the main hospital that is how it looks.
The surgeon spent more than a week fighting to save the life of a toddler, injured with her sister. Their family was targeted as they tried to flee.
After the elder sister died, he promised the parents he would do everything possible to save their remaining daughter. His eyes filled with tears as he described how he lost that battle.
“We tried by every means I learnt in the past 20 years to save her life,” he said.
“At one minute I was happy because I thought I am saving her. We fight together for the life for more than seven days, and sadly she left me alone.”
During our visit, the intensive care unit was treating patients with multiple shrapnel injuries, including another young girl, a six-year-old called Arwa. She, like many others, was hit inside her own home. Her tiny body was punctured by 30 pieces of shrapnel.
Arwa moaned in pain as a surgeon examined her lacerated abdomen and lifted the dressing from a deep scar running right across her neck. Though her injuries are horrific, she is expected to make a full recovery.
But so many wounds on such a tiny body were a distressing sight – even for her surgeon.
“It’s very hard,” said Ahmed Radwan, a volunteer from Egypt. “I have a daughter her age, or a bit younger. Someone has to help, this is not humanitarian at all, what’s happening here.”
Asked if he felt let down by the international community, his reply was swift: “Definitely. People here have been left alone and no-one is helping, no-one is caring.”
That is a common sentiment in Misrata, inside and outside the hospital.
Doctors told us most of those they see – like Arwa – have been wounded by heavy weapons including rockets and shells.
And they say 80% of those killed or injured in the city are civilians. One of the latest targets for Colonel Gaddafi’s forces was a queue of people waiting for bread.
Hospital staff say 23 civilians were killed in that attack on Thursday morning when about 80 grad missiles hit a neighbourhood bordering Misrata’s port. It was the most ferocious attack yet on the port area.
Five of the dead were Egyptians, who had been waiting for weeks for a ferry coming to evacuate migrant workers. The vessel arrived just a few hours after they were killed.
The hospital is struggling to keep pace with the attacks. The emergency ward is a tent in the car park. Patients are rushed in and out to make way for new arrivals. Lights go on and off without warning, plunging surgeons into darkness.
Staff have asked us not to name the facility for fear of attack. They have already had to move hospital once.
Doctors say they are running short of supplies, beds and staff to treat the continuing flow of wounded.
“If anyone else arrives now, they’ll have to be treated on the floor,” said Dr Khalid Abufalgha, a member of Misrata’s crisis committee.
“I have enough drugs for the moment but if things continue like this I can sustain things for only another two weeks to one month.”
With so many urgent cases, he cannot help patients with chronic conditions.
“Cancer patients are dying,” he said. “It’s happening. There’s no chemotherapy available.”
And there are growing concerns about the security of the port. Medical supplies are coming ashore here but the heavy shelling has halted some ships, and raised fears that Col Gaddafi wants to cut this last link to the outside world.
Downtown we saw tell-tale signs of the fight for the city – empty streets, shelled homes and a burnt-out armoured personnel carrier.
We were told that Col Gaddafi’s forces were dug in on two sides, no more than a kilometre away. One location was near a mosque. Dense black smoke filled the horizon nearby. The rebels thought, or hoped, that was the result of a Nato air strike.
At the corner of battle-scarred Benghazi Street we were introduced to a 16-year-old football fan called Youssef, who now spends his time gathering intelligence for the rebels. Older men identified him – with pride – as “the first one to volunteer for the frontline”.
Before the revolution, the teenager’s passions were his favourite teams – Barcelona and Manchester United.
Youssef, fresh-faced and polite, was matter-of-fact about his high-risk missions. “I go to scout at the front, and come back to give the guys information,” he told me. “I’m not afraid, I go any time I want.”
If this slight 16-year old can apparently pinpoint the location of the regime’s fighters, why cannot Nato? Many locals insist the alliance knows perfectly well where they are, but has been reluctant to act robustly.
“We don’t want to sound ungrateful but Nato really should finish the job, otherwise Gaddafi will have no mercy,” said Mohammed Ali, a member of the rebel council and chairman of an investment company.
“After Nato took over, things really slumped.”
The rebel leadership insists that Nato has been given up-to-date information on the whereabouts of Col Gaddafi’s fighters.
“We’ve been sending photos and co-ordinates of their locations and information about their movements but they regard that as advisory,” said Mr Ali.
Nato says Misrata is its “top priority” but, among civilians and rebels alike in this besieged city, there is a common question – how much longer will we have to wait?
“It really is a matter of life and death,” said Mr Ali. “People have so much to fear. The massacre that was prevented in Benghazi could easily happen here.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde (r) is chairing the meeting
Finance ministers and central bankers from the G20 are meeting in Washington to try to come up with a plan to reduce global economic imbalances.
But forging a consensus may not be easy amid the current threats to stability, such as high oil prices and debt levels, and Middle East unrest.
The G20 gathering follows Thursday’s meeting of ministers from the G7 countries.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund meet at the weekend.
The G20 accounts for 85% of global output and is now the main forum for trying to reform the world’s financial system.
Many economists believe that global imbalances contributed to the recent financial crisis.
Emerging market countries reinvested their surpluses in Western markets, causing banks to take excessive risks, so the argument goes.
Finance ministers agree that they must find a solution to these kind of imbalances.
“I think there will not be controversial discussions on that today,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said as he arrived on Friday.
But countries do disagree over how quickly they need to act.
China recognises that it must open its economy and allow its currency, the yuan, to get stronger, but it wants to do it at its own pace.
The US, on the other hand, wants to see this happen much faster.
After its last meeting in February, the group reached a deal on indicators to detect the economic imbalances.
Over the next few days they hope to flesh out the details that would allow them to list the countries with the biggest problems, says the BBC’s Michelle Fleury in Washington.
But although the global economy is on the path to recovery, the meeting takes place at a time when plenty of threats to growth remain.
Among the challenges are continued inflation in China and debt problems in Europe.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Bolivia’s government says the blockades are not justified
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Protesters in Bolivia have blocked main roads and clashed with police, on the ninth day of nationwide demonstrations against the government.
Police used tear gas to clear the main road south of La Paz, and protesters fought back with stones and slingshots.
Teachers and health workers are on strike to demand a 15% pay increase.
The unrest is the worst yet faced by President Evo Morales, who once led similar protests that forced two previous presidents from power.
There have also been street protests and road blockades in cities across Bolivia, including Cochabamba, Santa Cruz and Tarija.
The biggest clashes happened 45km south of La Paz, Bolivia’s main city, where around 2,000 rural teachers used rocks to block the main road to the rest of the country.
Several people were reported injured as riot police moved in to reopen the road.
The protests are being led by Bolivia’s main trade union federation, the COB, which is demanding a 15% pay rise for all workers.
The government has already approved a 10% increase for teachers, soldiers and police, and says it cannot afford any more.
“The president and government have always been prepared for dialogue with all sectors, and so the means of pressure they have adopted are not justified,” Information Minister Ivan Canelas said.
The COB is demanding direct talks with President Morales rather than his ministers.
“”The mobilisations will continue, there will be no truce,” COB leader Pedro Montes told reporters.
Mr Morales has been visiting the southern city of Tarija, but pulled out of a public appearance there because of protests.
Bolivia’s trade union movement was until recently a close ally of Mr Morales, and helped him win election in 2005 and 2009.
The left-wing Bolivian president is himself a trade union leader, and some of his ministers are former leaders of the COB.
But his popularity fell sharply last December when he attempted to cut fuel price subsidies, only to back down in the face of nationwide protests.
Since then, rising transport and food prices and shortages of some basic goods, such as sugar, have caused rising discontent.
Bolivia’s last two presidents were forced from office by mass demonstrations and road blockades which Evo Morales helped to lead.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The BBC’s Orla Guerin reports from a crowded Misrata hospital
The French defence minister has suggested a new UN Security Council resolution may be needed for Nato allies to achieve their goals in Libya.
Gerard Longuet was speaking after a joint letter by the US, UK and French leaders said there could be no peace while Col Muammar Gaddafi was in power.
The current UN resolution makes no mention of regime change.
Signs of division remain within Nato, which is struggling to find additional combat aircraft for its strikes.
Nato pilots are enforcing the current UN resolution to establish a no-fly zone and to protect civilians in Libya, which has effectively been split between forces for and against Col Gaddafi since a revolt against his rule began in mid-February.
Speaking on French radio, Mr Longuet conceded that ousting Col Gaddafi would be “certainly” beyond the scope of the existing UN Security Council resolution 1973 on Libya, and could require a new council vote.
At the Nato conference
Britain and the United States had crucial talks in the margins of the Nato meetings this morning: Hillary Clinton and William Hague were trying to build momentum with the French behind increased pressure on Col Gaddafi.
They talked about political pressure, but also about the imperative – for them – of persuading other Nato countries to volunteer extra attack aircraft to intensify the bombing campaign.
Afterwards Mr Hague again said he was hopeful others would step up. It’s clear Italy is being worked on particularly hard, but so far there’s a gap between Nato’s ambitions and its ability to break stalemate in Libya.
“Beyond resolution 1973, certainly it didn’t mention the future of Gaddafi but I think that three major countries saying the same thing is important to the United Nations and perhaps one day the Security Council will adopt a resolution.”
At the Berlin conference, Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the organisation was absolutely determined to continue its operation for as long as there was a threat against Libyan civilians.
“And it’s impossible to imagine that threat [will] disappear with Gaddafi in power,” he added.
In their open letter published earlier on Friday, Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy said Nato must maintain military operations to protect civilians and maintain pressure on Col Gaddafi.
To allow him to remain in power would “betray” the Libyan people, they wrote.
The letter from the three leaders, published in the UK’s Times newspaper as well as the International Herald Tribune and France’s Le Figaro, was an attempt to show a united front against Col Gaddafi.
Only a few of Nato’s 28 members – including France, the UK, Canada, Belgium, Norway and Denmark – are conducting air strikes.
Mr Rasmussen has said there are indications that allies will provide extra strike aircraft needed for the operation in Libya.
“We have got indications that nations will deliver what is needed… I’m hopeful that we will get the necessary assets in the very near future,” he said in Berlin.
Italy is thought to have been identified as a key potential contributor.
While politicians debated the way forward, fighting on the ground and Nato bombing missions have continued.
In Libya on Friday there were reports of rocket strikes by pro-Gaddafi forces on the western rebel-held city of Misrata.
Rebels said a rocket attack in Misrata by pro-Gaddafi forces killed 23 people on Thursday. Neither account could be confirmed.
Rebels in the city have been holding out against attacks for two months, but UK Foreign Secretary William Hague stressed that Nato needed to act swiftly to prevent a “massacre” in the city.
He said Nato had been constrained by the need to avoid civilian casualties but had probably prevented the city from being overrun by Col Gaddafi’s forces.
The BBC’s Orla Guerin in Misrata said staff at a hospital there were battling to treat civilians injured by mortars and rocket fire.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Yukiko Horie says she is sorry she was not with her students when the tsunami hit
Standing outside Rikuzentakata’s community hall, Yukiko Horie clasps her hands together and then touches them to her forehead. She bows and says a quiet prayer.
The three-storey building is still standing, but it has been completely wrecked by the tsunami that swept through just over a month ago.
Someone has placed a small bunch of artificial flowers on a smashed window ledge near what was the main door.
When Yukiko looks up she sighs with grief.
She tells me that in her prayer she was talking to her students. Six of them died here. One is still missing. “I kind of apologised to them, saying I’m sorry that on the day I was not with them, I felt very sorry.”
One month on Yukiko Horie is wracked by guilt that she survived while the children died. They were all aged between 16 and 17, and were members of Takata High School’s swimming club.
Yukiko, an English teacher, was also one of the two coaches in charge of the club. She was not with the team when the earthquake struck on 11 March but at school.
Of the 11 members of the club, nine had gone to practise at Rikuzentakata’s B&G swimming centre down by the seafront. They had just got changed into their swimming costumes when the magnitude 9 quake hit.
Fearing a tsunami, the staff at B&G followed their established evacuation drill and took the nine children a mile or so to the town’s community centre, right opposite Rikuzentakata’s town hall.
Six members of the Takata High School swimming club died and one is missing
It was a fateful decision. Takata High School was closer, but the community hall was the designated tsunami shelter for anyone at the pool.
At the school, Yukiko Horie had started to evacuate several hundred children who were still in classes.
The second swimming teacher, 29-year-old Motoko Mori, hurried off towards the seaside to try to find the club members and bring them to safety. Ms Mori has not been seen since. She got married in March last year.
Yukiko Horie and the children in school all reached the top of the hill before the tsunami struck. They all survived.
But, down on lower ground, the community hall was swallowed by the waves. Along with the swimming team, many adults were also sheltering inside.
As Yukiko steps into the ruined hall for the first time since the disaster, broken glass and splintered wood crunch underfoot. Torn wires and shredded cladding hang from the ceiling. Twisted panels lie everywhere.
One huge concrete wall and the giant steel girders that once held up the roof of the hall’s concert auditorium have all caved in. Rows and rows of seats have been ripped from their mountings. Everything has been smashed to pieces.
The community hall was a designated evacuation area in Rikuzentakata
Incredibly two girls from the swimming team managed, somehow, to survive this. With a mobile phone pressed to her ear, Yukiko is speaking to one of them, Honoka Sasaki, who is in hospital. She is guiding Yukiko through the building.
Yukiko is looking for the storeroom up on the third floor where the two girls clung to each other while the waters swirled around them.
She ends the call as we have to scramble under twisted pipes and then, suddenly, she sees the room. The door is ajar.
“This is the place. It’s exactly here,” Yukiko exclaims, “it must be. They couldn’t open the door, but the wave pushed them in.”
Honoka and the second girl, 16-year-old Chihiro Kanno, told Yukiko how they ran upstairs to escape the rising water. But it caught up with them. The water forced the door of the store open, and swept them inside.
“Ah, look,” she says, pointing at the wall near the ceiling, “up there, it’s very clear you can see the line on the wall where the water reached. It’s just a few inches from the top. In that space they had air. They were swimming, just to keep breathing.”
Yukiko is making a paddling motion with her hands as if re-enacting the way the girls struggled to keep their heads above the water.
The storeroom is small and dark. The tidemark where the water stopped rising is easily visible, about six inches below the ceiling, which must be 9ft (3m) up.
“How is it possible?” Yukiko says out loud. “The girls! Here! Amazing!”
After the earthquake, 16-year-old Chihiro had been crying and panicking. But a third girl from the swimming club had calmed her, telling her not to worry, it would all be fine.
As the tsunami swept into the hall, Chihiro held the girl’s hand while they fled upstairs. But when the water forced Chihiro into the storeroom she could not keep hold of her friend. They were pulled apart.
Chihiro Kanno survived in a storage room where water did not quite reach the ceiling
Chihiro and Honoka watched as their teammate was swept across the hall, pressed against an elevator by the wave, then carried away.
“They saw it,” says Yukiko. Then she turns. “Here’s the elevator. The girl was struggling. The two of them, here, they were watching. But they couldn’t help. Oh.” And she raises her hands to her face again, sighs, and bows once more.
The two surviving girls were trapped in the storeroom, holding on to each other and struggling to breathe in their air pocket for 10 or 15 minutes until the tsunami receded.
Then, soaking wet, they spent a night trapped in the building in the freezing cold until they were found by a rescue team the next day.
Honoka Sasaki is still in hospital. She cut her leg on a ventilation fan that was floating in the water and had to have an operation last week.
“Honoka remembers the terrible things and cannot sleep,” says Yukiko, “though gradually she is sleeping a little more.
“I don’t know how to help her,” she adds, “I think the terrible experience will stay with the girls for their lives.”
The earthquake and tsunami killed one in 10 residents in Rikuzentakata
Chihiro Kanno was taken to an evacuation shelter. In the chaos after the disaster it took her three days to find her parents. They thought she had died.
Her home has been destroyed so she now lives in a tiny room in an old people’s home, along with other evacuees.
Chihiro now has frequent nightmares. She tries to keep busy, to ward off the memories. She is polite and shy.
“We were in the hall on the 3rd floor when the wave came over us,” she says in a soft, quiet voice. “I was holding my friend’s hand, but we got separated, then she was swept away.
“I was washed into the storage room. I was underwater, my back touched the floor. Above me was wreckage. I dodged it and swam up. There was a small space between the ceiling and the water, I could breathe there.
“I heard Honoka say ‘Are you there, Chihiro? Find a door.’ We held each other and waited until the water drained away.”
Chihiro wants to get back to school as soon as possible to be with her friends. But the tsunami destroyed her town of Rikuzentakata. Of its population of 23,000, one in 10 is dead or missing. Half have lost their homes.
All around Rikuzentakata teams of soldiers are clearing up the broken buildings. They are depositing smashed wood, twisted metal and wreckage in neat piles. The fabric of an entire town is being carried away so Rikuzentakata can be rebuilt.
But the many, many broken lives here and in other towns for hundreds of miles along the coast may never be repaired.
Japan’s Red Cross says up to one in 10 of all survivors from Japan’s earthquake and tsunami might now suffer post traumatic stress disorder. That could be tens of thousands of people. The trauma may be the legacy that weighs the longest on Japan.
Takata High School is a wreck. The reinforced three-storey building is still standing. But the sports hall was picked up and rammed into one side of the school. Every classroom is full of debris.
Yukiko Horie, the swimming teacher, walks slowly through the building. She cannot escape her feelings of guilt that she could not save her students.
“At night I can’t sleep,” she says, “I imagine many things because I was not with them in that building. How horrible it was. The fear. How cold was the water. How scared [they were], the black water.”
“I imagine I could see [how] they tried to struggle and they are good swimmers, maybe they tried to swim and go up, but I couldn’t help them.”
Now Yukiko is working with the other teachers to open a new, temporary school for the surviving children. She says she tries to be strong for her students.
“These days I am thinking if they were here, the swimming members, what they will tell me,” Yukiko says. “I imagine, maybe they will ask me to try not to be so sad, to just stand up. I think they will tell me that. So that’s my strength.”
And then she adds, “sometimes the swimming members appear in my dream and they also make me laugh.”
“I should step forward, so I try not to be thinking of the sad stories. I have a responsibility to step forward.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
There have been protests on Friday in a number of Syrian town, including Qamishli in the north
Tens of thousands of protesters trying to march on the centre of the Syrian capital, Damascus, have been met by security forces firing tear gas.
Witnesses said security forces also beat protesters with batons.
Syria has been shaken by a month of anti-government protests in which about 200 people have been reported killed.
Demonstrations have continued despite President Bashar al-Assad forming a new government and granting amnesties to some of the detained protesters.
Thousands of people were also reported to have demonstrated in a number of other Syrian cities, including Deraa, Latakia, Baniyas and Qamishli – most places where violence has been previously reported.
State media reported that “small demonstrations” had taken place in different parts of the country and security forces did not intervene.
The mass protest in the suburbs of Damascus marks a major escalation of Syria’s month of unrest, which has largely bypassed the capital.
Analysts said Friday’s protests were the biggest since they began in the southern city of Deraa on 15 March.
“It is time for the Syrian government to stop repressing their citizens and start responding to their aspirations”
Hillary Clinton US Secretary of State
The unrest is seen as the biggest challenge to Mr Assad, who inherited power from his father in 2000.
The protesters say they want greater freedoms, including a repeal of the decades-old security law, which bans public gatherings of more than five people.
The demonstrators in Damascus held up yellow cards, in a football-style warning to President Assad, AP news agency said.
“This is our first warning, next time we will come with the red cards,” one protester said.
Other witnesses said the demonstrators tore down posters of Mr Assad they passed along their route and called for the overthrow of the president.
Reuters quoted a witness who said 15 busloads of secret police had chased people into alleyways north of the city’s main Abbasside Square.
The United Nations and a number of Western governments have decried President Assad’s use of force to try to quash the protests.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Syria’s authorities to stop using violence against their own people.
“The Syrian government has not addressed the legitimate demands of the Syrian people,” she said after a Nato meeting in Berlin.
“It is time for the Syrian government to stop repressing their citizens and start responding to their aspirations.”
Human rights campaigners say hundreds of people across Syria have been arrested, including opposition figures, bloggers and activists.
Mr Assad blames the violence in recent weeks on armed gangs rather than reform-seekers and has vowed to put down further unrest.
US officials have said Iran is helping Syria to crack down on the protests, a charge both Tehran and Damascus have denied.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Analysts say President Blaise Compaore’s grip on the army appears to be slipping
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Burkina Faso’s president has dissolved his government after members of his presidential guard went on an overnight rampage in the capital Ouagadougou.
Blaise Compaore named a new army chief and fired the head of his presidential guard after the unrest – apparently in protest against unpaid allowances.
Mr Compaore, in power since 1987, had sought to calm soldiers earlier this month after similar complaints.
Burkina Faso has been affected by the turmoil in neighbouring Ivory Coast.
The World Bank warned on Thursday that the Ivorian conflict had disrupted supplies and also pushed up prices for processed foods such as dried milk, sugar and vegetable oil in Burkina Faso and other landlocked countries in the region such as Mali and Niger.
The dissolution of government was announced in a statement broadcast on national radio said.
“The secretary generals of ministerial departments will ensure the execution of current business,” it said.
Mr Compaore had briefly fled the capital during a reported mutiny by his personal guard overnight.
Gunfire was reported in the presidential compound and nearby barracks after demonstrators marched through the capital and other towns on Thursday, angered by rising food prices and alleged human rights abuses.
Unrest among soldiers in the capital quickly spread to other barracks and firing went on until just before dawn, says the BBC’s Mathieu Bonkoungou in Ouagadougou.
Residents were said to be so scared by the shootings that many stayed in their homes throughout Friday.
Mr Compaore has ruled the country since taking power in a coup from his friend Thomas Sankara 23 years ago.
He has since won four presidential elections, the latest in November 2010.
But analysts say his grip on the army appears to be slipping.
Earlier this year, students protested in several cities against the death in detention of a young man. Government buildings were torched and six students were killed.
In March, soldiers went on the rampage and managed to free a number of colleagues arrested for rape.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
