Ali Khamenei. Image: Google hosted news / AFP

Iran anniversary 'punch' will stun West: Khamenei

AFP | Monday, February 8, 2010

(AFP) – 3 hours ago
TEHRAN — Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that Iran is set to deliver a "punch" that will stun world powers during this week's 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution. "The Iranian nation, with its unity and God's grace, will punch the arrogance (Western powers) on the 22nd of Bahman (February 11) in a way that will leave them stunned," Khamenei, who is also Iran's commander-in-chief, told a gathering of air force personnel. The country's top cleric was marking the occasion when Iran's air force gave its support to revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a key event which led to the toppling of the US-backed shah on February 11, 1979. His comments came as Iran said it would begin to produce higher enriched uranium from Tuesday, in defiance of Western powers trying to ensure the country's nuclear drive is peaceful.

This year's anniversary is expected to become a flashpoint between security forces and supporters of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who charge that the June re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was rigged. Opposition supporters are expected to stage anti-government protests on Thursday when the traditional regime-sponsored marches to mark the revolution take place across the country. Mousavi renewed his call for demonstrations on the February 11 anniversary. Just over a week ago, he and Karroubi had implicitly called for a gathering of their supporters. "The 22nd of Bahman is upon us, truly it should be called the day of gathering," Mousavi said on his Kaleme.org website Monday.

"I feel we have to participate while maintaining the collective spirit as well as our identity and leave an impression," Mousavi said. "Anger and bitterness should not take our control away. "The clerics should know that since imprisonment, beatings, and other confrontational methods are done in the name of Islam and the Islamic regime, it is hurting Islam and we all should try to stop," he added. Anti-government protests were first triggered after the June 12 presidential election won by Ahmadinejad. Over the past eight months, several thousand people were arrested. Some were released and others were given hefty prison terms, among them politicians, journalists and human rights activists. Two protesters were tried, convicted and hanged in the aftermath of the election.

Connecticut power plant blast 'dozens injured or dead'

A huge explosion at a US power plant on Sunday may have left many dead, authorities said.

The Telegraph.co.uk | Story published: 6:57PM GMT 07 Feb 2010

The explosion shook houses at least 10 miles (16 kilometers) away Photo: CTNOW.COM

By Nick Allen in Los Angeles
Published: 6:57PM GMT 07 Feb 2010
There were fears up to 250 may have been injured in the blast at a gas-fired power plant in Connecticut. Two people were confirmed dead last night but rescuers were continuing to comb the wreckage of the plant, which is owned by Kleen Energy Systems. At least four of the injured were in a critical condition. “The reports vary from a few, several to possibly as many as 50 dead,” a Middlesex hospital spokesman, Brian Albert said. “They are in the process of search and rescue.” The explosion at the plant on the Connecticut River in Middletown was felt 30 miles away and many people thought it was an earthquake. A huge grey plume of smoke rose into the sky overhead. One witness said there were “bodies everywhere” and others said more victims could be buried in rubble.

More than 20 ambulances were scrambled to the scene and helicopters airlifted victims to hospitals. The explosion was believed to have happened during a test of the 620 megawatt gas-fired power station’s generating systems. It was due to come online on June 1. A natural gas pipeline was said to have exploded and flames were seen shooting out of it. The new plant would have been one of the largest in Connecticut and up to 1,000 people had been working on construction. Regulatory issues and disputes with city administrators had held up construction for almost a decade. Witnesses said homes were shaken and black smoke was seen for many miles after the explosion. One nearby resident said the blast made him think someone had driven a car into his house.

Worshippers at a nearby church service thought there had been an earthquake. A witness looking at the destruction across the Connecticut River said the main plant building seemed to have been flattened. A Middletown police officer, Kevin White, said he did not know how many people were on site at the time of the accident but there were “mass casualties”. Mr White said tests were being run at the time. Middletown, a college town, is 23 miles south of the state capital Hartford. The explosion was felt in neighbouring towns as far away as East Haven, a distance of 30 miles. A spokeswoman at Middlesex Hospital said a command centre was being set up to deal with the incident. “We don’t know what we’ve got at the moment,” she added.

Pakistani volunteers search a damaged bus after a bomb attack in Karachi. Image: Google hosted news / AFP

Twin suicide bombs kill 25 in Pakistan's Karachi

AFP | Friday, February 5, 2010

By Hasan Mansoor (AFP) – 17 hours ago
KARACHI — Suicide bombers rammed into a bus in Karachi on Friday then hit a hospital where casualties were rushed for treatment, killing 25 people in the second assault on Shiites in the Pakistani city in weeks. The attacks in a city largely isolated from Islamist violence highlighted the instability in Pakistan, which is on the frontline of the US war on Al-Qaeda and where militants have killed more than 3,000 people since 2007. Women and children were among the 12 people killed when a suicide attacker rammed a motorbike bomb into a bus carrying Shiites on one of Karachi's busiest roads, gutting the bus and sending glass flying, officials and witnesses said. A second bomber killed 13 people, damaging ambulances and the entrance to the casualty department at Jinnah Hospital, where the victims of the first attack were being treated and anxious relatives were gathering.

Sectarian violence periodically flares between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, who account for about 20 percent of Pakistan's 167-million-strong population. Such violence has killed more than 4,000 people since the late 1980s. Police said they defused a third bomb rigged inside a television and left in the hospital car park. Witnesses and officials said the bus was packed with Shiite Muslims heading to a religious procession to mark the last day of the holy month of Muharram in Karachi, a southern port city of 16 million people on the Arabian sea. "I heard a deafening explosion. I saw stretchers flying in the air. Two men fell just in front of me. I think they died," said Azam Ali, 26, who went to the hospital to inquire about a cousin wounded in the bus attack. "Those killed and injured were mostly Shiites. They were relatives of those hurt in the first blast."

Ambulances were heavily damaged outside the hospital, blood stained the bus and wreckage strewed the ground after both attacks, witnesses said. Twelve people died in the first blast and 13 in the second, with more than 100 people wounded, said Sagheer Ahmed, health minister for the southern province of Sindh. "The dead included two women and two children," he told AFP. The US embassy in Islamabad condemned the "terrorist attacks" and Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani appealed for calm in the politically volatile city, where violence has killed up to 85 party activists so far this year. Police said they were investigating who was responsible for an apparently sophisticated and well-organised attack designed to inflict maximum casualties. "The perpetrators knew Jinnah Hospital was the nearest to the site of the first attack and ensured a follow-up attack when they saw significant numbers of people gathered there," said senior police official Mazhar Mishwani.

For area children, hunger statistics called ‘alarming'

Chron.com | Thursday, February 4, 2010

Jan Holly, a volunteer and client, arranges canned goods at Bethel's Heavenly Hands Ministry, one of more than a dozen food pantries in the region that responded to a survey on need. Photo: Eric Kayne For the Chronicle

By RENÉE C. LEE
THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Item originally published Feb. 3, 2010, 9:57PM
More than 400,000 children in the Houston region were fed by a local food pantry last year, representing an 85 percent increase over four years ago, according to a Houston Food Bank report released Wednesday. “This is an alarming statistic for the Houston Food Bank and for our area,” said Brian Greene, the food bank's president and chief executive officer. But it's not surprising. With the recession squeezing family budgets, many people have had to make some tough choices. More than half of the food bank clients surveyed for the report said they had to choose between paying for food and paying utilities or choose between buying food and paying rent or mortgage. From 2005 to 2009, their choices resulted in a 74 percent increase in individuals seeking assistance from food pantries and a 70 percent increase in the number of people fed each week by pantries.

“What we have is the most dramatic change since we've been doing this study,” said Greene, who was joined by representatives from more than a dozen food pantries at the Fonde Community Center to share details of the report. The statistics are just as stark at the state level. About 1.2 million children visited a soup kitchen or food pantry, according to results from a Texas Food Bank Network report released on Tuesday. That represents an 85 percent spike over 2005. Overall demand for food rose by 45 percent, the report said. The surveys are conducted every four years to get a better understanding of hunger in the state and across the Southeast Texas region, which includes 18 counties.

Seen as a safety net

Low-wage employment and the loss of manufacturing jobs as the economy transitions contribute significantly in the increase in requests for emergency food assistance, Greene said. People can't find jobs that will support a family above the poverty level, so they're turning to food banks as a safety net, he said. State and federal programs such as food stamps are supposed to be the first line of defense, but many people do not know how to access them. The Houston Food Bank reportshows that only 23 percent of food pantry clients receive food stamps. Veronica Santamaria, a single mother raising two girls, 12 and 8, lost her job as a receptionist last June and had to move in with her mother in California.

Unable to find work there, she moved back to the Houston area in December. She said she remembers moving into her Katy rental home and worrying about filling the refrigerator. “The first week, there was nothing in my cupboards,” Santamaria recalled. A friend told her about Bethel's Heavenly Hands food pantry in southwest Houston, where she was able to get help while waiting for food stamp assistance. She said she has always had a job to provide for her children. She's even helped the cause by contributing to the Souper Bowl of Caring food donation campaign. “I would see brown bags at the grocery store, and I would give every now and then,” Santamaria said. “Now, I know the importance of those bags. It helps to feed my daughters and me.”

Pakistani army soldiers run during a drill in Miranshah. Image: Google hosted news / AFP

US missile volley kills 16 militants in Pakistan: officials

AFP | Wednesday, February 3, 2010

By Hasbanullah Khan (AFP)
Item originally published Tuesday, February 2, 2010
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan — At least 16 militants were killed on Tuesday after US drones fired numerous missiles at a village in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border, security officials said. The strike, which officials said involved 18 missiles fired from eight of the unmanned planes, is the latest in a series of US attacks on the lawless tribal area, which Washington calls the most dangerous place on earth. It is a known stronghold of homegrown Islamist militant groups and extremists who fled Afghanistan after the US-led invasion toppled the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001. "Up to eight US drones fired some 18 missiles at multiple militant targets in Dattakhel village," a senior security official told AFP.

"At least 16 militants were killed in the missile strikes," the official said, after earlier putting the death toll at ten. Local administration and intelligence officials confirmed the deaths after the volley of strikes reportedly struck militant hideouts and a training centre in three places in the village. Residents of Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan tribal district, said they saw the drones flying overhead and heard the explosions from Dattakhel, 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of the town. Drone bombings have soared recently as US President Barack Obama puts Pakistan at the heart of his administration's fight against Al-Qaeda and Islamist extremists.

The Pakistani government publicly condemns the strikes but US officials say they are necessary to protect foreign soldiers stationed in Afghanistan and have killed a number of high-value extremists. Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud is said to be a prime target of the drone strikes but he has dispelled rumours of his death in apparent audio recordings, also vowing revenge for the drone programme. His predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in a US drone strike last August. Washington is also pressing Islamabad to tackle militants in the northwest who use Pakistan soil to launch attacks in Afghanistan, where about 113,000 troops under US and NATO command are battling a Taliban-led insurgency.