Man tries to buy crack with credit card

FLINT, Mich. (AP) – Authorities said a man accused of stealing a car then reporting it stolen remains in custody after telling police he was robbed at gunpoint while trying to buy crack cocaine with a credit card. The Flint Journal said the man reported Thursday night that a 2003 Chevy Malibu had been stolen.

Police reports indicated the vehicle was previously stolen out of Lapeer, about 50 miles north-northwest of Detroit.

The suspect is being lodged at the Genesee County Jail.

No further details were released.

Nearly 200 people indicted in Philippines massacre

MANILA, Philippines (AP) – Philippine prosecutors filed charges Tuesday against the head of a powerful clan and 195 others in the biggest and deadliest murder case since the country’s World War II war crimes trials.

The indictment said Andal Ampatuan Sr. and the others were part of a conspiracy to ambush and kill members of the rival Mangudadatu family and supporters, who were gunned down Nov. 23 on a hilltop in Maguindanao province. In all, 57 people died the massacre apparently to prevent Esmael Mangudadatu from challenging the Ampatuans’ control of the province in a gubernatorial election.

Among those killed were 30 journalists and their staff who were going to cover the filing of Mangudadatu’s candidacy papers.

The massacre was unprecedented even for the country notorious for election violence and political killings that have claimed hundreds of lives this decade alone. Only the war crime trials of World War II Japanese commanders in the Philippines involved the higher numbers of victims.

“I would say it is the biggest (trial) since the war, but I would even say in Philippine history because I don’t put this in the same category of wars or those political crimes where you talk of numbers of victims,” said Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera.

“Legally, it will take a little while because every accused has a right,” she told The Associated Press.

Mangudadatu, who said he had received death threats from the Ampatuans, sent his wife and other female relatives and supporters to the provincial capital in the hope that his rival would not harm the women.

Before Tuesday’s indictment, only the patriarch’s son, Andal Ampatuan Jr., had been formally charged.

“From the witnesses presented … it can be deduced that the commission of the crime was planned deliberately by the perpetrators and that, until its consummation, there was an inexorable resolve to kill,” the indictment document said. “Consequently, their plan was carried out leading to the mass murder.”

China gives 5 years to activist who probed quake

BEIJING (AP) – A Chinese activist who investigated the deaths of thousands of children crushed in their schools during the Sichuan earthquake was sentenced Tuesday to five years, underscoring the government’s determination to suppress questions about why the buildings fell.

Many have asked whether poor construction was responsible for the staggering number of children killed in the May 2008 temblor, which took 90,000 lives. Parents have protested frequently, and authorities have reacted severely to such demonstrations, jailing, harassing and threatening participants.

The United States quickly condemned Tuesday’s conviction of Tan Zuoren, and a human rights activist said the case was the latest example of how China uses its vague subversion laws to silence dissent.

Tan, 56, was convicted of inciting subversion of state power and handed the maximum sentence of five years’ jail by the Chengdu Intermediate Court in southwestern China’s Sichuan province, his attorney Pu Zhiqiang said.

Tan and others have raised the possibility that shoddy construction – possibly fostered by corrupt officials who failed to enforce building codes – caused some schools to collapse in the quake while buildings nearby remained intact.

The government was widely praised for its response to the quake, which came just months before it was set to host the Olympic Games in Beijing, a time of intense scrutiny from the outside world. Authorities were eager to keep the focus on their massive rescue and relocation efforts and moved quickly to quash the politically sensitive theory.

To read more go to:http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_16021/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=X2ZPUaes

UN slams Haitian hospitals for charging patients

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – The United Nations has warned that it will cut off shipments of free medicine beginning immediately to any Haitian hospitals that it finds are charging patients.

When the catastrophic earthquake struck Jan. 12, authorities immediately decided to make all medical care free. More than 200 international medical relief groups have sent in teams to help, and millions of dollars of donated medicine has been flown in.

U.N. officials told The Associated Press that about a dozen hospitals – both public and private – have begun charging patients for medicine. The officials said they could not immediately provide the names of the hospitals but said they were in several parts of the country, including Port-au-Prince.

“The money is huge,” said Christophe Rerat of the Pan American Health Organization, the U.N. health agency in the region. He said about $1 million worth of drugs have been sent from U.N. warehouses alone to Haitian hospitals in the past three weeks.

Hospitals don’t need to charge patients to pay their staff, because Haitian Health Ministry employees are getting paid with donated money, Rerat added.

Haiti now has about 90 hospitals, including public and private hospitals and field hospitals set up in the quake’s aftermath.

A member of the Haitian government commission created to deal with the medical crisis, Dr. Jean Hugues Henry, said he had no knowledge of any hospitals charging for services or medicine.

U.N. officials said beginning immediately, any hospital found levying fees for medicine will be cut off. But the U.N. would consider continuing to supply non-governmental groups working at private hospitals with drugs if those groups can make a convincing case that none of their patients are being charged.

U.N. goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie, meanwhile, was heading to Haiti to meet with earthquake victims on Tuesday after speaking with hospitalized quake survivors in the neighboring Dominican Republic.

U.N. workers and quake survivors were also keeping one eye on the sky. There’s been no significant rain since the disaster, but everyone knows that won’t last.

To read more go to: http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_16022/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=ilyxD158

Zimbabwean law to require black business ownership

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) – White businesspeople in Zimbabwe who don’t cede control of their companies to black partners could face jail under a law going into effect next month.

An official notice Tuesday says the law will be enforced from March 1, and includes jail penalties of up to five years. It gives companies worth $500,000 or more 45 days to submit compliance proposals. Foreign investors also need to meet an “empowerment quota.”

The law passed by the Harare parliament when it was still dominated by President Robert Mugabe’s lawmakers in 2008 is meant to benefit “indigenous” Zimbabweans – those who suffered under colonial-era racial discrimination and their children born after independence in 1980. That effectively excludes the nation’s 20,000 whites.

Fire at South African orphanage kills 13 children

JOHANNESBURG (AP) – A South African official says 13 children are dead after a fire tore through an orphanage early Tuesday.

Mandla Ngema, spokesman for the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Social Development, said police don’t know yet what sparked the blaze. Fire investigators from Pretoria are searching for clues, he said.

He said a total of 15 people were killed, including the person in charge of the Hope of Christ Home in KwaZulu-Natal province.

Hope of Christ is a non-governmental organization registered under South Africa’s Department of Social Development.

Nigeria footage: uniformed men shoot unarmed men

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) – An international news channel is showing chilling footage of men in uniforms shooting unarmed men after they purportedly were arrested during clashes last year with Muslim militants in northern Nigeria.

The footage aired Tuesday on Al-Jazeera shows two uniformed men forcing seven young men to lie face-down at the side of a busy road. The uniformed men then fire into the men’s backs. The footage could not be authenticated by The Associated Press.

Boko Haram sect militants sparked violence in late July, unleashing a bloodbath in which 700 people died. Rights groups claimed authorities committed extrajudicial killings.

Borno state Police Commissioner Ibrahim Abdu says the TV images are false and “a deliberate attempt of the surviving sect members to cause confusion and threats.”

Women held after protest at immigration centre

Four women have been detained by police after a group of mothers at an immigration removal centre protested at being separated from their children.

 Officers were called to the Yarl’s Wood centre in Bedfordshire yesterday, where more than 80 women were said to be on hunger strike in protest against their detention and conditions.

Bedfordshire Police detained four women for offences under the Immigration Act last night following the disturbance, they said today.

They were taken to Greyfriars Police Station in Bedford at about 7.30pm and will be handed over to the UK Border Agency later today.

They have not been arrested or charged with any criminal offences, a spokeswoman said.

The remaining detainees were dealt with on site by resident staff, she added.

Yesterday detainees said a number of protesters were separated from everyone else and kept in a hallway for several hours after asking to speak to officials about why they were being detained.

One detainee, who said she had been held at the centre for three months without her two young children, said 80 or so women spent more than six hours shut in a hallway.

The woman, who gave her name only as Aisha, said today: “We were taken back to the rooms at 8pm.

“Nobody came to see us and we didn’t get to discuss our concerns. We were trying and asking but no one came to talk to us about it.”

Some women did not want to leave the hallway until they had received answers but one tried unsuccessfully to escape through a window and ended up getting injured, she said.

Aisha, a 29-year-old Nigerian, added: “They shut us in with no water, no food and no toilet facilities.”

The UK Border Agency (UKBA) said staff at the centre were liaising with case workers to resolve the concerns raised by the women.

David Wood, strategic director for criminality and detention, said: “This peaceful protest was resolved last night. Around 40 women at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre were raising issues around their detention and progress of their cases.

“They returned to their rooms without the need for staff intervention.

“The well-being of detainees is of paramount concern to the UKBA, which is why healthcare staff and independent monitors from the Independent Monitoring Board were at the scene to witness the women’s protest.

“The demonstration remained passive at all times and there was no use of force. The detainees were integrated back into the centre at the earliest opportunity.”

No one was thought to have been injured in the incident and Bedfordshire Police, who had been on hand at the perimeter fence of the compound, were stood down at 7.50pm.

It was not clear exactly how many of the women have been separated from their children.

 PA

Arrest in playgroup sex assault probe

A suspect has been arrested on suspicion of sexual assault at a playgroup, police said today.

 St Padarn’s Playgroup in Aberystwyth, Mid Wales, has been temporarily closed pending further investigation and police said this would be reviewed on a daily basis.

 The playgroup is registered by the Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales (CSSIW), Dyfed Powys police said.

 IT is independent of St Padarn’s Roman Catholic school.

 The suspect has been released on bail.

 In a joint statement, Dyfed Powys Police and Ceredigion Local Safeguarding Children’s Board said: “A multi-agency meeting has been held, in line with the All Wales Child Protection Procedures and Working Together Welsh Assembly Government guidance.

 ”The playgroup has temporarily closed pending further investigation and this will be reviewed daily.

 ”Parents wishing to make alternative arrangements may find useful information at www.cis.ceredigion.gov.uk .

 ”Ceredigion Social Services is making staff available to offer help and support to families via the contact centre on 01545 574 000.

 ”Dyfed Powys Police take any allegation of this kind seriously and have specially trained officers to deal with any victims and any alleged offenders.

 ”Anyone with information can contact Dyfed Powys Police via 101.”

 PA

Saudi rights commission seeks divorce for child bride

Saudi Arabia’s state human rights body has hired a lawyer to review the case of a girl whose mother sought her divorce from an 80-year-old man, a move activists hope is a first step against child marriage.

 Saudi Arabia, a patriarchal society that applies an austere version of Sunni Islam, has no minimum legal age for marriage. Fathers are granted guardianship over their daughters, giving them control over who their daughters marry and when.

 The girl – believed to be 12 years old – from Buraidah, a conservative town near the capital Riyadh, was married to her father’s elderly cousin late last year for bridal money of 85,000 riyals (£15,000), lawyer Sultan bin Zahim said.

 Activists see the divorce proceedings as a test case that could pave the way for introducing a minimum age for marriage in the kingdom, where child marriage is common in poorer tribal areas.

 The child’s mother had earlier filed for divorce on her daughter’s behalf but withdrew without giving a reason after a second court hearing in early February, Zahim told Reuters.

 The state-affiliated rights body then took over the case, to investigate the mother’s reasons for withdrawal as well as the age of the child and her husband, which have been disputed, before they assess further action that they can take.

 The lawyer had previously stated that the Human Rights Commission is filing for divorce on behalf of the child.

 ”(HRC) became involved in this case as a public rights issue that concerns the Saudi community … This case is still valid even after the mother withdrew,” Zahim said.

 This is the first time the commission has intervened in a case of child marriage, an issue that was previously seen as a “family affair” and outside the commission’s remit.

 ”This intervention is part of the commission’s authority in accordance with its rules, however it cannot propagate these measures until it confirms the facts in this case,” Zahim said.

 Saudi Arabia is a signatory of the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child, which considers those under 18 as children.

 ”This case is an investment in order to push for a law,” said Wajiha al-Huweider, a Saudi rights activist. “We need to affect public opinion and I believe that Saudi Arabia will issue a law preventing child marriages soon.”

 Zuhair al-Harthi, a member of the advisory Shura Council, said a draft law on banning child marriages was being studied by a government committee. But activists fear it could take a long time.

 ”Such a law will take a long time to be passed as there are social, religious, and cultural aspects,” said Mufleh al-Qahtani, chairman of the National Society for Human Rights, a non-governmental organisation.

 Harthi said a quicker way to address the issue could be for the government to ban notaries from performing marriages for girls under the age of 18 years, which would be an intervention on an administrative rather than legal level.

 Reuters