The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- U.S. relaxes limits on Somalia aid as famine looms
- Syrian forces hit Hama again, U.S. senators seek sanctions
- Salmonella linked to turkey sickens dozens, one dead in U.S.
| U.S. relaxes limits on Somalia aid as famine looms Posted: 02 Aug 2011 07:18 PM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is working to get more relief into famine-ravaged southern Somalia and is reassuring aid agencies they will not be penalized for programs in regions controlled by al Shabaab rebels, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said under new guidelines, non-governmental organizations working in Somalia would be protected "in the event their operations may accidentally benefit al Shabaab." Toner said the change was intended "to send a strong message publicly to these groups that are working in the region that it's OK for them to bring this kind of humanitarian assistance into areas that are controlled by al Shabaab." "They won't be held accountable to U.S. laws that previously constrained them and (we will) ease some of the licensing requirements on them." The United States has placed al Shabaab on its official list of foreign terrorist organizations, a designation which forbids U.S. groups from providing "material support" to the group that controls large parts of the Horn of Africa nation. The designation has complicated international aid efforts for Somalia, where a famine is spreading and some 3.7 million people are in urgent need of assistance in southern regions, many of them in areas controlled by al Shabaab. Concerns over possible diversion of relief supplies to al Shabaab prompted a number of international aid organizations to suspend programs in southern Somalia in January 2010 and continue to constrain aid work, the U.S. officials said. Al Shabaab has given conflicting signals about whether aid programs will be allowed to resume but the U.S. officials said they believed that, at least in some hard-hit parts of Somalia, it would be possible to get assistance in. "We don't expect there to be any grand bargain where we'll be able to have access to all of southern Somalia," one U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "(But) we believe there will be ways and opportunities to move selectively into southern Somalia." The United Nations' humanitarian aid chief said on Monday the famine in the Horn of Africa is spreading and may soon engulf as many as six more regions of Somalia. The United States has already started to move emergency food supplies into the region, with some 19,000 metric tons of assistance delivered last week. Another U.S. official stressed the new aid guidelines would include risk mitigation procedures designed to prevent al Shabaab from profiting from any aid diversions but they conceded that some spillover was possible. "There is some risk of diversion," the official said. "We're going to do everything we can to prevent that diversion ... but I think the dimensions of this famine, this humanitarian crisis, are such that we've got to put taking care of people first." (Reporting by Andrew Quinn; Editing by Anthony Boadle) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. | ||
| Syrian forces hit Hama again, U.S. senators seek sanctions Posted: 02 Aug 2011 07:18 PM PDT AMMAN, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Syrian forces kept up attacks on Hama for a third day, residents said, while U.S. senators called on the Obama administration to impose tough new sanctions on Syria's energy sector.
Washington also sought to put muscle behind its demand that President Bashar al-Assad halt his lethal crackdown on unarmed protesters. Human rights campaigners said the assaults by Assad's forces across Syria on Monday and Tuesday had killed at least 27 civilians, including 13 in Hama, where troops and tanks began an operation to regain control on Sunday. That brought the total to about 137 dead throughout Syria in the past three days, 93 of them in Hama, according to witnesses, residents and rights campaigners. The plight of Hama -- where thousands were killed in 1982 when security forces crushed an anti-government uprising -- has prompted many Syrians to stage solidarity marches since the start of Ramadan. But Assad's tough response suggests he will resist calls for democratic change that have swept Syria for the past five months, and much of the Arab world this year. "The United States should impose crippling sanctions in response to the murder of civilians by troops under the orders of President Assad," U.S. Senator Mark Kirk, a Republican, said in introducing legislation in Washington to target firms that invest in Syria's energy sector, purchase its oil or sell gasoline. Kirk was joined in sponsoring the bill by Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and independent Senator Joseph Lieberman, who said it was time to push for "a democratic transition that reflects the will of the Syrian people." While the United States weighed its next steps to respond to Assad's escalating suppression of protests, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with representatives of Syria's fledgling opposition who said the battered pro-democracy movement badly needed stronger U.S. support. "We really need to see President Obama addressing the courage of the Syrian people," said Mohammad Alabdalla, one of the U.S.-based activists who met Clinton. "We want to hear it loudly and clearly that Assad has to step down." Obama and Clinton have said Assad has lost legitimacy, but have stopped short of directly calling on him to leave office as they did Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi. The U.N. Security Council negotiated for a second day on Tuesday over a Western-backed draft resolution condemning Syria, before adjourning until Wednesday. Diplomats said significant differences remained over the text and it had not been decided whether the end result should be a resolution or a less weighty council statement. Russia and some other countries are pushing for what they say is a more balanced text that would blame both Syrian authorities and the opposition for the violence, but Western nations say the two sides cannot be equated. The United States has already imposed sanctions on Assad and members of his government, and says it is weighing new sanctions including possibly on its oil and gas industry. SHELLING AFTER RESIDENTIAL AREAS POUNDED Tuesday night's shelling in Hama followed the pounding of residential areas across the city on Monday night. The renewed assault concentrated on the eastern Rubaii and al-Hamidiya neighbourhoods, the Aleppo road in the north and the eastern Baath district, two residents said. A crowd which tried to rally in the central Alamein neighbourhood after prayers marking the end of the daytime fast came under rifle fire by Assad's forces. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Rights campaigners earlier said five civilians were killed on Tuesday as tanks thrust further into the central Syrian city of 700,000. Elsewhere, dozens of people were wounded when demonstrators demanding the toppling of Assad in the western Damascus suburb of Mouadhamiya, the northeastern city of Hasaka, and the port city of Latakia came under fire after the nightly prayers, residents said. "Ten buses full of 'amn' (security) entered Mouadhamiya. I saw 10 youths falling down as I was running away from the gunfire. Hundreds of parents are in the streets looking for their sons," said one witness living the suburb, 30 km (20 miles) from the occupied Golan Heights. Residents said tanks first entered Mouadhamiya on Monday, killing two protesters, including a 16-year-old boy, Hassan Ibrahim Balleh, whose funeral was held earlier on Tuesday. A brief riot appeared to have broken out late on Monday at Hama's main prison. Two shabbiha militia buses were seen heading there at night and smoke rose from the compound as the militiamen shouted "God, Syria, Bashar, only" from inside. Syria's state news agency SANA said "hundreds of masked gunmen on motorbikes" had set fire to the main law court in Hama on Monday afternoon and had also vandalised much of the building. SANA said "armed terrorist groups" had killed eight policemen in Hama. The government blames such groups for most killings in the five-month-old revolt, saying more than 500 soldiers and security personnel have died. Syria has incurred international opprobrium for its harsh measures but need not fear the kind of foreign military intervention that NATO launched to support rebels in Libya. The senior U.S. military officer called for a swift end to violence in Syria, but only diplomatic pressure was in view. "There's no indication whatsoever that...we would get involved directly with respect to this," Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in Baghdad. (Additional reporting by Andrew Quinn and Malathi Nayak in Washington, Thomas Grove in Moscow, David Brunnstrom in Brussels, Catherine Hornby in Rome, Adrian Croft in London, Phil Stewart in Baghdad, Henry Foy in Mumbai and Patrick Worsnip in New York; Writing by Michael Roddy; Editing by Daniel Magnowski) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. | ||
| Salmonella linked to turkey sickens dozens, one dead in U.S. Posted: 02 Aug 2011 06:46 PM PDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A multistate outbreak of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella believed to be linked to eating contaminated ground turkey has sickened 77 people and resulted in one known death, U.S. health authorities said. Some 26 states reported the illness between March 1 and Aug. 1, with Michigan, Ohio, Texas, Illinois, California and Pennsylvania reporting the most cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Public health officials were still looking for the source of the contamination, but preliminary information suggested that a single production facility may be involved. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service issued a public health alert last week for frozen or fresh ground turkey, advising consumers to cook the meat until it reaches 165 Fahrenheit (74 Celsius) on a food thermometer. The Salmonella heidelberg strain behind the outbreak is resistant to many commonly prescribed antibiotics. That antibiotic resistance can raise the risk of hospitalization or treatment failure in infected individuals, the CDC said. Most people infected with Salmonella bacteria develop diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps 12 to 72 hours after exposure. Illness usually lasts four days to one week and most people recover without treatment. In some cases, individuals develop severe diarrhea that requires hospitalization. The infection may also spread from the intestines to the bloodstream and on to other parts of the and can cause death without prompt treatment with antibiotics. Older adults, infants, and those with impaired immune systems are more likely to have a severe illness from Salmonella infection. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer group, earlier this year petitioned USDA to declare antibiotic-resistant Salmonella heidelberg and three other strains that have caused outbreaks and recalls as "adulterants." "That would trigger new testing for those strains and make it less likely that contaminated products reach consumers," CSPI said on Tuesday. The CDC estimates that one in six people in the United States gets sick from eating contaminated food each year. Foodborne illness is blamed for about 3,000 deaths annually. (Reporting by Lisa Baertlein, editing by Bernard Orr and Lisa Shumaker) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
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