Former Russian Prime Minster Chernomyrdin Dies at 72

MOSCOW -- Viktor Chernomyrdin, who served as Russia's prime minister in the turbulent 1990s as the country was throwing off communism and developing as a market economy, died Wednesday. He was 72.

No cause of death has been released, but Chernomyrdin had grown thin in recent years and was reported to have been ill.

President Dmitry Medvedev sent his condolences to his family and friends. The president also ordered his chief of staff to organize Chernomyrdin's funeral on Friday, which will be also shown live on national television.

Chernomyrdin helped see Russia through some difficult times, including the economic devastation that followed the Soviet collapse and the war in Chechnya, and was much loved by Russians.

Born in a Siberian village, he was a bear of a man with an everyman's charm. He also had a knack for amusing his countrymen by bursting out with colorful, nongrammatical expressions. His statement that "we wanted the best but it turned out as always" has become part of Russian culture.

Chernomyrdin rose through the ranks of the Communist Party to head the Soviet oil and gas ministry from 1985 to 1989, when he was tapped to become the first chairman of the newly created state gas company Gazprom.

He was appointed prime minister by then President Boris Yeltsin in 1992 and held this post until March 1998. Following the financial crash of August 1998, when Russia defaulted on its debts and devalued its currency, Yeltsin asked him to return as prime minister, but the parliament refused to confirm him.

After Vladimir Putin became president, he appointed Chernomyrdin as ambassador to Ukraine in 2001, a move seen as an effort to distance a political heavyweight from Moscow. Chernomyrdin remained ambassador until last year.

Chernomyrdin is to be buried in Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery, the final resting place of Yeltsin, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and many of Russia's most beloved artistic figures.

He is survived by two sons and four grandchildren. His wife died earlier this year.

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UN: Somalia Vows to Release Child Soldiers in Army

Published November 03, 2010

| Associated Press

NAIROBI, Kenya -- A U.N. envoy says Somalia's government will work with the global body to release and rehabilitate the child soldiers in its army.

Radhika Coomaraswamy says the number of children in the Somali army is unclear. But she welcomed the commitment of Somalia's Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed to develop a plan to address the problem of child soldiers in the Somali army.

Human rights groups and media have been reporting about the existence of child soldiers in Somalia for years.

In June, President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed ordered an investigation into the reports.

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Ugandan Court Bars Photos, Names of Gays in Paper

KAMPALA, Uganda -- Uganda's high court has ordered a controversial newspaper to stop publishing the names and photographs of people it says are gay, ruling that the publication is violating their right to privacy.

A gay rights group, Sexual Minorities Uganda, sought the injunction after the paper on Monday published its second straight edition with names and photos. The first edition, published in early October, sparked attacks against at least four gay Ugandans, Sexual Minorities Uganda said.

Justice Vincent Kibuuka Musoke ordered Rolling Stone on Monday to stop publishing the names and photos of gay Ugandans at least until Nov. 23, when Musoke said a final ruling will be made. Musoke said he ordered the injunction because publishing names and photos "is an infringement of the right to privacy of those whose photos appear in it."

Julian Onziema, the program coordinator for Sexual Minorities Uganda, said the group was happy with the justice's injunction but that other publications are beginning to print the same kinds of stories.

"We filed a suit against the paper for abuse of our fundamental human rights of privacy, association and security," Onziema said. "However my happiness might be short-lived because there are other tabloids in Uganda which are taking over from where Rolling Stone exploded from. They are making people hate us."

Rolling Stone's managing editor, Giles Muhame, says that publishing photos of gay Ugandans can help police find them. Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda and anyone caught in a homosexual act can face up to 14 years in prison.

Gays in Uganda say they have faced a year of attacks and harassment since a lawmaker introduced a bill in October 2009 that would impose the death penalty for some homosexual acts and life in prison for others. The bill has not come up for a vote.

The legislation was drawn up following a visit by leaders of U.S. conservative Christian ministries that promote therapy they say allows gays to become heterosexual.

The bill became political poison after international condemnation, and many Christian leaders have denounced it.

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Al Qaeda in Iraq Threatens Attacks on Christians

BAGHDAD -- Al Qaeda's front group in Iraq has threatened more attacks on Christians following a bloody siege at a Baghdad church that left 58 people dead, saying that the "killing sword will not be lifted" from their necks.

The Islamic State of Iraq's warning of further violence against Christians comes two days after the group's assault on a Catholic church in downtown Baghdad -- the deadliest attack ever recorded against Iraq's Christians, whose numbers have plummeted since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion as the community has fled to other countries.

"We will open upon them the doors of destruction and rivers of blood," the insurgent group said in a statement posted late Tuesday on militant websites.

The Islamic State of Iraq, which is an umbrella group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq and other allied Sunni insurgent factions, also said that its deadline for the Coptic Christian Church in Egypt to release Muslim women that the militant group claims are being held captive has expired.

As a result, "all Christian centers, organizations and institutions, leaders and followers, are legitimate targets for the muhajedeen (holy warriors) wherever they can reach them," the group said. The statement did not specify any one location, raising the specter of violence against Christians across the region.

The release of the women in Egypt was one of the militants' demands during Sunday night's siege, along with the release of Al Qaeda-linked prisoners held in Iraq.

The Baghdad church siege horrified Iraq's Christian community, hundreds of whom gathered Tuesday for a memorial service in Baghdad. One of the officials read a letter from Pope Benedict XVI to the crowd.

"For years the violence hasn't stopped hitting this country, and Christians are becoming the target of these cruel terrorist attacks," the letter read.

While Christians were the target Sunday night, Shiites bore the brunt of a string of 13 attacks on Tuesday that struck neighborhoods across the capital.

On Wednesday, the death toll in that violence climbed to 91 people, according to Iraqi police and hospital officials. No break down of the new death toll was immediately available.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

Tuesday's attacks evoked painful memories of the bloody sectarian war Iraq's Sunni and Shiite militias fought in 2006 and 2007, killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians.

They were designed to hit civilians at restaurants and cafes where many Iraqis were gathered to enjoy the warm evening. The violence demonstrated the insurgents' ability to carry out coordinated attacks from one side of Baghdad to the other despite a network of police and army checkpoints and blast walls crisscrossing the capital.

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Iran: West's 'Arrogance' Could Doom Nuke Talks

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's president said Wednesday that upcoming talks with six world powers about its disputed nuclear program will fail if those nations continue along what he called a "path of arrogance."

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments, made in an address to a crowd of thousands in northeastern Iran, cast doubt on any possible progress in talks that Tehran has said it is ready to hold with the six powers -- the U.S. Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- sometime after Nov. 10.

The U.S. and some of its allies suspect Iran's civil nuclear energy program is a cover for a secret effort to develop weapons and are pushing Iran to fully open all facilities to international inspection and to give up uranium enrichment, a key element of its nuclear work that could give it a pathway to the bomb.

Iran denies having nuclear weapons ambitions and says it only wants to enrich uranium to the lower levels used in producing fuel for power plants.

The standoff is the central issue of dispute between Iran and the West, and Ahmadinejad often accuses the U.S. in particular of using the confrontation to thwart Iran's technological progress and of wanting to dominate the nations of the Middle East.

"If you want to continue the previous path of arrogance ... these people (the Iranian nation) will pursue you until you end up in hell," Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast live on state television.

The crowd, in the city of Bojnord, responded with chants of "death to the U.S."

The U.N. Security Council imposed a fourth round of tough sanctions against Iran in June over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, which at higher levels of processing, can be used to make the fissile core of warheads.

At the time, Ahmadinejad dismissed the U.N. sanctions as "annoying flies" and as useless as "used tissues." In response, he said then that Iran would not hold talks with the West for at least two months to "punish" world powers.

Iran's Supreme National Security Council, which handles the country's nuclear negotiations, and the European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, are now exchanging letters on the date and place of a new meeting.

Negotiations foundered a year ago over a U.N.-drafted proposal for Iran to ship most of its stockpile of enriched uranium abroad for further processing and to be returned in the form of fuel rods for a Tehran research reactor that makes isotopes used in cancer treatment.

Fuel rods cannot be used to make weapons material. Iran balked at that deal. It accepted a similar proposal from allies Brazil and Turkey, but the other six nations said that offer fell short of their demands.

On Wednesday, Ahmadinejad warned that the new talks will fail if the West seeks to impose tougher conditions than those Tehran rejected last year.

But the Iranian president said a compromise could be reached if Iran is respected.

"The best path for them (world powers) is to respect nations, stop being obstinate, get out of glass palaces and sit down like a polite boy and talk on the basis of justice and respect. If they come like this, they may get results," Ahmadinejad said.

"But if they come with arrogance and deception, the response of the Iranian nation is the same it has already given."

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LRA Rebel Fighter Numbers Dwindling, Officials Say

NAIROBI, Kenya-- The number of soldiers in the rebel Lord's Resistance Army has dwindled to the low hundreds, and without external support the ultraviolent group could soon cease to exist, Uganda's military spokesman said, echoing the findings of a new report.

The Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, has about 400 fighters, less than half the number the group had two years ago, according to a report from the Enough Project, which was based on interviews with more than five dozen former LRA troops.

Uganda's army spokesman, Felix Kulayigye, told The Associated Press on Tuesday he thinks the current LRA strength is even lower -- 200 fighters. That's far below the strength the LRA had at its height in 2003, when it had 3,000 armed troops and 2,000 people in support roles. Still, the group is extremely dangerous. As recently as May, the LRA killed 36 people and drove 10,000 from their homes in Central African Republic, the U.N. said.

The LRA's leader, Joseph Kony, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, entered the Darfur region of Sudan last month, said Kulayigye. Ugandan forces have been pursuing Kony across central Africa since the launch of a U.S.-supported operation in December 2008, but Ugandan troops cannot follow Kony into Sudan.

Uganda believes that Sudanese officials know Kony is there but don't know whether he is receiving support from the Khartoum government. Khartoum once backed Kony but severed the relationship in 2005, at the signing of a peace agreement between north and south Sudan.

Darfur, Kulayigye said, is a difficult place to operate for Kony, and "he can only stay there if he gets support from the Sudan Armed Forces."

In late 2008 the Ugandan government launched Operation Lighting Thunder, a hunt for Kony's group that forced LRA fighters to scatter in small groups. Pockets of fighters are believed to be operating in Sudan, Congo, and Central African Republic.

The new report, "The Lord's Resistance Army of Today," said that Kony no longer has complete and direct command and control over each LRA unit because they scattered. The LRA is now at its weakest point in 15 years, and Kony has less influence over his troops than ever before, said the report, which was released Monday.

The Ugandan army says its forces have killed almost 400 LRA fighters since the start of Operation Lightning Thunder, according to the report, while warning that "the LRA's propensity for violence remains undiminished."

The LRA is known for vicious attacks against civilians and for abducting and forcing children to become members of the group. The U.N. reported in December that the LRA had killed 1,200 people in northeastern Congo from September 2008 to June 2009. The LRA has cut off lips and ears of survivors.

A team of American doctors from Kansas City was in northern Uganda last week and operated on LRA victims. Dr. David Kriet, a reconstructive surgeon, told AP that the primary LRA-inflicted injuries he operated on were mutilated or amputated ears. The rebels commonly mutilated the ears of those who refused to obey their orders," said Kriet, who traveled to Uganda with the Medical Missions Foundation.

U.S. legislation that was signed into law in May requires the U.S. to develop a strategy by late November to protect civilians from the LRA and to "eliminate" the threat to civilians. The law calls for coordination of U.S. diplomatic, economic, intelligence and military efforts.

Kulayigye said Ugandan forces have long received "invaluable" support from the U.S. military, including intelligence sharing. The report released Monday says U.S. intelligence sources pass on information to Uganda's army about satellite phone calls made by the LRA, but that LRA callers often walk 10 miles (16 kilometers) from their base before placing a call. The U.S. intercepts are passed on about 24 hours after the calls, leaving the LRA time to evade pursuing forces.

Kulayigye said it is possible Sudan could begin supporting the LRA once more, especially if tensions rise between Sudan's north and south ahead of a January independence referendum that could see the south vote to become a new country. But without new support, he said, the LRA's two-decade rampage could soon be finished.

"Minus any external factor the LRA is dying," Kulayigye said.

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Indonesian Volcano Erupts Powerfully; Quake Hits

MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia-- Indonesia's deadly volcano erupted Wednesday with its biggest blast yet, shooting searing ash miles into the sky and forcing the hasty evacuations of panicked villagers and emergency shelters near the base.

Soldiers loaded men, women and crying children into trucks as rocks and debris hurled in the air and down the mountain's slopes. No new casualties were reported immediately after the booming explosion that lasted more than an hour.

Oct. 26, said Surono, a state volcanologist.

Tens of thousands of villagers have been evacuated from Mount Merapi, one of the most active volcanoes in the world, since it began erupting just over a week ago, killing 38 people, most from severe burns.

The danger zone was widened Wednesday from six miles from the glowing crater to 9 miles because of the heightened threat.

"I (didn't) think of anything else except to save my wife and son. We left my house and everything," said Tentrem Wahono, 50, who lives in Kaliurang village, about 6 miles from the peak.

He and his family fled on a motorbike, "racing with the explosive sounds as the searing ash chased us from behind."

The last eruption has raised Merapi's status to "crisis" condition, said Andi Arief, a special staff at the presidential office dealing with disaster and social assistance.

235 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanos because it sits along the Pacific "Ring of Fire," a horseshoe-shaped string of faults that lines the Pacific.

As a reminder of that, a 6.1-magnitude quake hit waters off the eastern province of Papua on Wednesday evening, rattling several villages but causing no known damage or casualties.

The volcano's initial blast on Oct. 26 occurred less than 24 hours after a towering tsunami slammed into remote islands on the western end of the country, sweeping entire villages to sea and killing at least 428 people.

In both cases, relief operations are expected to take weeks, possibly months.

More than 800 miles west of the volcano, helicopters and boats were delivering aid to tsunami survivors in the most distant Mentawai islands, which lies almost directly over the fault that spawned the 2004 Indian Ocean monster quake and wave.

There has been talk in recent days about relocating villagers away from vulnerable coastlines.
"I'm all for it," said Regen, who lives on Pagai Utara island and goes by one name. "We're all terrified now, especially at night, and wouldn't mind moving further inland."

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