03/03/2010

Online Google Earth map pinpoints need in Haiti
GENEVA – Aid workers, with the help of Google Earth, are uploading key information onto the Web to illustrate the needs of hundreds of thousands of people left homeless by Haiti's earthquake – an innovation that could boost the ability to respond to future disasters.

Chileans welcome troops now
CONCEPCIÓN, Chile – The Chilean army marched into this wrecked city Tuesday, rounding up looters and receiving the applause of besieged survivors of the weekend's massive earthquake.

Plan to raze Palestinian homes in Jerusalem for tourist center draws criticism
JERUSALEM – Jerusalem's mayor unveiled a plan Tuesday to demolish dozens of Palestinian homes to make room for a tourist center in one of the disputed city's most volatile neighborhoods, drawing criticism from Palestinians.

Offensive gives Pakistani government control of Taliban cave, tunnel complex
DAMADOLA, Pakistan – The Pakistani flag now flies over the complex of caves and tunnels that al-Qaeda and local Taliban militants had made their logistical hub, and a major infiltration route into and out of Afghanistan is under government control, authorities said Tuesday.

Guatemala police chief, anti-drug czar arrested
GUATEMALA CITY – Guatemala's national police chief and anti-drug czar were detained Tuesday in connection with stolen cocaine in a case that led to the deaths of five police agents.

Pakistani militants tied to attacks in India are suspected in Afghan capital bombings
KABUL – An Afghan intelligence official said Tuesday that the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba orchestrated the deadly attack that targeted two guesthouses in the capital last week.

03/02/2010

Rescuers track signs of life in Chile as looters press on
CONCEPCIÓN, Chile – Rescuers found signs of life in the wreckage of a 15-story building Monday as the world offered aid to victims of an earthquake that killed more than 700 people. Looters roamed the streets even after troops and police arrested dozens of people for violating a curfew.

Mexico's habit of parading drug suspects before TV cameras is debated
MEXICO CITY – The manhunt was over. Raydel "Crutches" Lopez Uriarte, suspected of being the top enforcer for a vicious Tijuana drug gang that dissolved victims in lye, would now have to face justice.

U.S. says drug traffickers turning to other routes
WASHINGTON – Drug traffickers are adjusting to law enforcement pressures in Mexico by shifting operations to smuggling corridors in Central America and the Caribbean, the State Department said Monday in a survey of anti-drug efforts.

Wartime Bosnian Serb leader tells war crimes tribunal he was protecting his people
THE HAGUE, Netherlands – Wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, defending himself against charges of Europe's worst genocide since the Holocaust, told judges Monday that he is not the barbarian depicted by U.N. prosecutors but was protecting his people against a fundamentalist Muslim plot.

03/01/2010

Death toll in Chile quake climbs to 708 as looters complicate rescues
CONCEPCIÓN, Chile – Heroism and banditry mingled on Chile's shattered streets Sunday as rescuers braved aftershocks digging for survivors and the government sent soldiers and ordered a nighttime curfew to quell looting. The death toll climbed to 708 in one of the biggest earthquakes in centuries.

03/02/2010

UPDATE: WAR REPORT
A NATO soldier and four Afghan civilians were killed Monday when a suicide car bomber struck a convoy on a bridge between Kandahar city and the local airport, a major alliance base in the south.

Election in strife-ridden Kirkuk may have implications for rest of Iraq
KIRKUK, Iraq – Young men hurtle down dusty streets in cars, waving flags and blaring campaign slogans in a fervor that highlights this city's dangerous ethnic divisions. Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds each see Iraq's parliamentary elections as a chance to prove one thing: Kirkuk is ours.

Haiti's school question: Reopen soon or overhaul system?
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – After seven weeks with seven kids huddled under a shelter of tarps and bedsheets on the median strip of a busy road, Lissithe Delomme says the Haitian government can't reopen schools fast enough.

CHILE BRIEFS
Clinton to bring satellite phones

World briefs
Argentina wants U.S. help with Britain dispute

NATO, Afghan officials look for support from Marjah civilians
MARJAH, Afghanistan – One by one, residents of Marjah stood up before Afghan officials Monday to voice complaints – their houses damaged and relatives killed during the massive military offensive in southern Afghanistan.

03/01/2010

Al-Maliki says ban on candidates before vote is legitimate
BAGHDAD – Iraq's prime minister Sunday defended a ban of candidates with alleged ties to Saddam Hussein's former regime, calling it a legitimate decision that would not affect Sunni turnout at the polls.

Assassins used muscle relaxant, pillow to suffocate Hamas figure, Dubai says
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – The assassins of a senior Hamas operative used a powerful muscle relaxant to incapacitate him before suffocating him with a pillow in his hotel room, Dubai police said Sunday, in the latest revelations about a slaying that local authorities have blamed on Israel.

Drug war clashes between Gulf cartel, Zetas may escalate, could affect North Texas
Longstanding tensions between the Zetas paramilitary group and their old employers, the Gulf drug cartel, have exploded into a full-blown war, worrying U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials that a likely protracted battle will further threaten this stretch of the Texas-Mexico border.

Nuclear-related equipment slips past sanctions into Iran
TAIPEI, Taiwan – Early last year, a Chinese company placed an order with a Taiwanese agent for 108 nuclear-related pressure gauges. But something happened along the way. Paperwork was backdated. Plans were rerouted, orders reconfigured, shipping redirected.

Winter storm batters Western Europe
PARIS – A violent late winter storm with fierce rain and hurricane-strength winds ripped across Western Europe on Sunday, battering France and four other countries and leaving at least 51 people dead.

Drug war clashes between Gulf cartel, Zetas may escalate, could affect North Texas
NUEVO LAREDO – Longstanding tensions between the Zetas paramilitary group and their old employers, the Gulf drug cartel, have exploded into a full-blown war, worrying U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials that a likely protracted battle will further threaten this stretch of the Texas-Mexico border. Parts of it are already under heightened security.

World's largest atom smasher is restarted
GENEVA – Operators of the world's largest atom smasher restarted their massive machine Sunday in a run-up to experiments probing secrets of the universe, a spokeswoman said.

Troops plan to remain in Marjah to deter Taliban
MARJAH, Afghanistan – More than 2,000 U.S. Marines and about 1,000 Afghan troops who stormed the Taliban town of Marjah as part of a major NATO offensive against a resurgent Taliban will stay several months to ensure insurgents don't return, Marine commanders said Sunday.

02/27/2010

Chilean earthquake one of strongest ever
The magnitude-8.8 earthquake killed nearly 150 people and set off a tsunami that threatened every nation around the Pacific Ocean.
Hawaii feeling tsunami's effects
Dallas-area Chileans hope preparations help
How to help
Plate sliding under S. America blamed
More quake news

02/28/2010

Protests in Yemen could create more instability
ADEN, Yemen – Less than an hour's drive outside this dilapidated port town, the Yemeni government's authority is scarcely visible, and a different flag appears, that of the old independent state of South Yemen.

Building codes, preparation, luck kept Chile's quake toll lower than Haiti's
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The earthquake in Chile was far stronger than the one that struck Haiti last month – yet the death toll in this Caribbean nation is magnitudes higher.

Chile quake kills over 200, displaces 1.5 million, sends tsunamis across Pacific
SANTIAGO, Chile – One of the most powerful earthquakes on record jolted central Chile on Saturday, killing at least 214 people, ripping apart buildings and bridges and sending tsunamis surging across the Pacific, where countries as far away as Japan were evacuating coastal areas.

Chile quake struck near site of 1960 temblor that killed nearly 2,000
The magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck off the coast of Chile early Saturday occurred along the same fault responsible for the biggest quake ever measured, a 1960 tremor that killed nearly 2,000 people in Chile and hundreds more across the Pacific.

Iran opposition leader calls rulers dictatorial 'cult'
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's top opposition leader said Saturday that a dictatorial "cult" was ruling Iran – his strongest attack to date on the country's clerical leadership.

Economists want German consumers to spend more as euro crisis debated
BERLIN – Greek extravagance touched off the biggest crisis in the 11-year history of the euro. But the world's most ambitious monetary union faces a less-obvious problem that might be even harder to lick – German frugality.

Egyptians 'hungry for change,' former U.N. nuclear leader says
CAIRO – The former head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, who has emerged as an opposition leader in Egypt, appealed to the government Saturday to heed calls for change before frustration over a stale political system – ruled by one man for nearly 30 years – spirals out of control.

Europe wary about following trail of Dubai killers
GENEVA – A killer – or killers – may be on the loose in Europe after a Hamas operative was slain last month in Dubai.

IRAQI PARLIAMENT
BAGHDAD – Ahmad Chalabi, the one-time Pentagon darling who helped the Bush administration make the case for invading Iraq, is in a good mood as he settles into the back seat of his armored SUV to head out on the campaign trail. He ought to be.

U.S., Afghan forces break Taliban grip on Marjah
MARJAH, Afghanistan – Marines and Afghan troops cleared the last major pocket of resistance in the former Taliban-ruled town of Marjah on Saturday, part of an offensive that is a run-up to a larger showdown this year in the most strategic part of Afghanistan's dangerous south.

02/27/2010

Plate sliding under South America blamed for Chile earthquake
The magnitude-8.8 earthquake that struck off the coast of Chile early Saturday morning occurred along the same fault responsible for the biggest quake ever measured, a 1960 tremor that killed thousands in Chile and hundreds more across the Pacific.

How to get information on U.S. citizens in Chile
To request or provide information about U.S. citizens in Chile, call 1-888-407-4747 (outside the U.S. 202-501-4444) or follow @dipnote on Twitter. Information can also be found at www.travel.state.gov.

World briefs
Turkey holds 18 more

Thai court allows fugitive former prime minister to keep almost $1 billion
BANGKOK – Thailand's Supreme Court confiscated $1.4 billion in frozen assets Friday from the nation's fugitive former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, after finding him guilty of illegally concealing his ownership of a family company and abusing his power to benefit the companies he owned.

Taliban aim Kabul blasts at foreigners in bid to drive U.S. from Afghanistan
KABUL – Taliban militants claimed responsibility for a series of bombings early Friday that targeted foreigners in central Kabul. They said the blasts were intended to force the U.S. and its allies to withdraw from Afghanistan.

Iraq reinstates 20,000 Saddam-era army officers
BAGHDAD – Iraq on Friday reinstated 20,000 army officers dismissed after the U.S.-led invasion, a landmark gesture at reconciliation ahead of the March 7 elections.

Colombian court rules president can't run again
BOGOTA, Colombia – A ruling Friday by Colombia's Constitutional Court closed the door on a third term for President Alvaro Uribe, a staunch U.S. ally in a volatile region.

U.S., allies debate Iran's reasons for moving nuclear fuel
WASHINGTON – When Iran was caught last September building a secret underground nuclear enrichment plant at a military base near the city of Qum, the country's leaders insisted they had no other choice. With its nuclear facilities under threat of attack, they said, only a fool would leave them out in the open.

U.S. rice doesn't help struggling Haitian farmers
POND-SONDE, Haiti – Haiti's rice farmers are dismayed. It's nearly harvest time in this fertile valley, where most of Haiti's food is grown, and they're competing once again with cheap U.S. imported rice.

IN THE KNOW: HUNGER IN HAITI
About 2.4 million Haitians out of a population of nearly 10 million cannot afford the minimum daily calories recommended by the World Health Organization.

Egg-size South African diamond sells for $35.3 million
LONDON – A diamond the size of a chicken's egg has sold for $35.3 million, breaking the record for the highest price ever paid for a rough diamond, supplier Petra Diamonds Ltd. said Friday.

Huge Antarctic iceberg broke off as scientists focused elsewhere
WASHINGTON – With the dramatic crash of an iceberg against a glacier, dislodging a massive new chunk of ice, the mysterious continent of Antarctica once again did the unexpected.

02/01/2010

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