News Update Place

Updated at : Tuesday, January 08, 2008   JERUSALEM: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Tehran in an interview published on Tuesday that it should cease its “provocations” after Iranian vessels confronted US warships in the Gulf.

“Iran should not engage in such provocations,” Rice said in an interview to a
newspaper and website in Israel after Washington said armed Iranian speedboats had threatened three US warships in the Strait of Hormuz.

“That’s what it was and it needs to stop. The US is going to defend its interests. It’s going to defend its allies,” Rice was quoted as saying.

Iran is “the single greatest threat to the kind of Middle East we all want to see,” she added.

The weekend incident, in which the Iranian boats radioed a threat to blow up the US ships, according to US officials, sent tensions rising ahead of the US President George W. Bush’s visit to the region.

“It was provocative, and that kind of provocation is dangerous,” Rice also told the BBC’s Arabic service. “I would sincerely hope that the Iranians would refrain from any such activity.”

The Strait of Hormuz is a crucial energy supply route, with about 20-25 per cent of the world’s crude oil passing through from Gulf oil producers.

The US Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain and US Navy officials say about three dozen US and coalition warships are in the region at any one time. The aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman currently is in the Gulf.

“The United States under this president has sent a very strong signal that America has strong interests in the Gulf, that the United States will continue to defend its interests in the Gulf, and this goes back for decades,” Rice told the BBC.

A Canadian-chartered cruise ship that was holed by submerged ice off the coast of Argentina has sunk.

More than 150 passengers and crew onboard have been rescued by a Norwegian passenger boat off King George Island after spending hours adrift in life boats in the icy waters.

More than 150 passengers and crew spent hours in the frozen Antarctic waters before being rescued

“There was wind, and it was very cold, and we were wet because of the waves,” crew member Andrea Salas, 38, told Argentina’s radio Continental. (more…)

A 15-year-old girl was put in a jail cell in Brazil with more than 20 men, and for one month was raped and forced to have sex for food, human rights groups have said.

Police say the girl was locked up in connection with a robbery

“She was raped from day one” at the jail in Para state, a Children and Adolescent Defense Centre (Cedeca) spokeswoman said on Thursday.

The number of men in the cell varied from 20 to 34 while the girl was there, the spokeswoman said.

Miere Cohen, president of the Order of Brazilian Lawyers Human Rights Commission, said: “She was raped innumerable times and forced to exchange sexual relations for food.”

Media reports of the case have sparked outrage across Brazil.

In another incident earlier this year, a 23-year-old woman was jailed for one month together with 70 men.

The teenager, whose identity was not disclosed, was arrested in Abaetetuba, 80 km from Para state’s capital Belem, on October 21 on suspicion of robbery and put behind bars at a local police station until an anonymous caller tipped off the media.

“Nobody really knows what she was charged with,” Cohen said.

“She was a suspect in a robbery but police were unable to tell us which robbery. There was no formal charge.”

The girl’s lawyers said that police at one point said they believed the suspect was not under-age.

But Ana Julia Carepa, the governor of Para, said: “Whether she was 15, 20, 50, 80 or 100 doesn’t matter. A woman should not have been kept in a jail cell with men.” She said she would hand out “exemplary punishment” in the case.

The Cedeca spokeswoman said the girl is distraught and very afraid, but said she’s able to recognise the police officers who locked her up and the detainees who raped her.

“She’s ready to talk,” she said.

The former top US military commander in Iraq says American troops should pull out by next year.

Sanchez put the blame for Iraq’s lack of security on Iraqi leaders
Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez said he supported troop withdrawal legislation by the Democratic-controlled congress that calls for most US soldiers to be home within a year. (more…)

France has urged Colombia not to call off talks between Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, and Colombian guerrillas aimed at securing the release of hostages who include a French citizen.
Betancourt’s friends and relatives have expressed full confidence in Chavez

“We continue to think that president Chavez is the best chance of securing the release of Ingrid Betancourt and all the other hostages currently held by the Farc in Colombia,” David Martinon, a spokesman for Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, told a news conference on Thursday.

A day earlier, Chavez held talks in Paris with Sarkozy on his efforts to secure the release of French-Colombian politician Betancourt, who has been held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) since 2002.

Outspoken left-wing leader Chavez was invited in August by Alvaro Uribe the president of Colombia, to broker the exchange of the hostages for guerrillas held in Colombian prisons

On Wednesday, Uribcalled off the negotiations between Chavez and Farc accusing the Venezuelan leader of overstepping his mandate.
Chavez, according to Uribe, spoke to Mario Montoya, the Colombian armed services commander, on Wednesday and requested information about the hostages.

Uribe said that in doing so Chavez had violated an agreement that only Uribe and Chavez would hold discussions between the two neighbouring countries about hostages held by the Farc.

Venezuela called Uribe’s decision as a regrettable and surprising one.

High profile hostages
Farc is holding dozens of high-profile hostages in secret jungle camps.

Besides the French citizen, the cocaine-funded guerilla army is also holding three US defence contractors, police officers, former members of Congress and provincial governors.
“We reiterate our support for the Chavez mediation, and we hope that the dialogue between president Uribe and president Chavez can restart,” Martinon said

Betancourt’s Paris-based support committee, which includes her relatives, said in a statement earlier on Thursday that it had “total confidence” in Chavez, and asked Sarkozy to intervene.
Chavez had hoped to bring Sarkozy proof that Betancourt is alive, but instead he said he had received a letter from top Farc commander Manuel Marulanda pledging to prove by the end of the year that all the hostages are alive.

Betancourt has not been heard from since 2003.
“The meeting that the president had with President Chavez in Paris was certainly incomplete, dissatisfying because we did not get any proof of life,” Martinon said.

“But nevertheless there has been progress, very important messages were passed.”

Almost all 154 people on board a cruise ship in the Antarctic Ocean have been rescued after the vessel began sinking after striking an iceberg.

The ship, named Explore, reportedly hit an iceberg and began sinking
(more…)

BAGHDAD, Nov 6: The US military said on Tuesday it will release nine Iranians detained in Iraq in recent months, including two seized in a swoop in the Kurdish city of Arbil in January accused of fomenting violence.

US military spokesman Rear Admiral Gregory Smith told reporters that the nine will be released in the coming days as none of them posed a threat to security in Iraq.

The Americans are known to be holding at least six Iranians they accused of aiding the anti-American insurgency or helping Shiite militias involved in a vicious sectarian conflict.

“It is our intention to release nine Iranians currently held captive in the near future,” Smith said.” These individuals have no continuing value, nor do they pose a further threat to Iraqi security.” US forces detained five Iranians in January in a raid in a building in Arbil, accusing them of aiding the deadly insurgency in Iraq, although Tehran insisted they were diplomats.—AFP

BAGHDAD, Nov 6: Six American troops have been killed in bomb attacks in Iraq, the US military said on Tuesday, making 2007 the deadliest year for the American forces since the invasion.According to a tally based on Pentagon figures, 851 US soldiers have died so far this year in Iraq, against 846 in 2004, the previous most lethal year for the American military since the US-led invasion of March 2003.

“We lost five soldiers yesterday (Monday) in two unfortunate incidents.

Both involving IEDs (improvised explosive devices). There is still much danger out there,” Rear Admiral Gregory Smith told reporters in Baghdad.

Another military statement announced the death of a sailor from wounds sustained in a explosion in the Salaheddin province on Monday. The US military’s overall losses in Iraq since the invasion four years ago have now reached 3,856, according to a tally based on Pentagon figures.

The military also announced that Iraqi forces have uncovered a mass grave con-

taining 22 bodies near a vast lake northwest of Baghdad.

The grave was discovered on Saturday near Thar Thar lake, which spans the central-west provinces of Anbar and Salaheddin, during an operation by US and Iraqi forces targeting Al Qaeda hideouts, it said.

Despite the latest bout of killings, US and Iraqi officials say violence levels have fallen significantly across Iraq since a US troop “surge” ordered by US President George Bush in February.

With an extra 28,500 US troops on the ground, they say, the number of bombings and shootings has dropped to levels not seen since before February 2006, when a wave of sectarian violence was unleashed by the bombing of a Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra.

Rear Admiral Smith told the Baghdad news conference that because of the surge as well as an increasing trend by Iraqis to tip off the security forces, the number of arms caches being uncovered in Iraq had increased significantly.—AFP

NEW YORK: The price of oil closed at a record high of 96.70 dollars a barrel in New York, after earlier hitting an all-time peak above 97 dollars, amid concerns about tight US supplies.

New York’s main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, hit an all-time high of 97.10 dollars a barrel in intraday trade.

Oil prices moved steadily toward the symbolic 100-dollar level on the eve of crucial supply data from the United States, the world’s largest energy consumer.

The record-breaking run came as traders bet on falling US energy supplies ahead of the northern hemisphere winter, when demand for heating fuel is expected to shoot higher, analysts said.

According to analysts falling dollar, losses to financial institutions in the world market, uncertainty in stock markets and limited oil supplies affecting the prices.

The oil prices hike could hit hard the economies of developing countries, analysts added.

he US secretary of state has flown back to Israel to resume intense preparations for a looming Middle East summit after securing cautious Egyptian support for the conference.

Condoleezza Rice is to hold a second round of talks with Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, on Wednesday.

David Chater, Al Jazeera’s correspondent, said Abbas would likely press Rice to get concessions from Israel on “core issues”.

“But if she does force concessions [from Israel] it might mean the collapse of the coaltion government of the Israeli prime minsiter Ehud Olmert,” he said.
(more…)