Tuesday 30 April 2013

Explosion shakes central Prague, some injured and trapped

PRAGUE (Reuters) - An explosion in central Prague on Monday injured about a dozen people and others were trapped in a building damaged by the blast, a Reuters witness and emergency services officials said.

The explosion, a few dozen meters (yards) from Prague's National Theatre, was heard as far as Prague Castle about a mile across the Vltava river.

A police spokesman said the blast was probably caused by gas and that there had been about 15 people in the building, which included an office of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and an art gallery.

"There is an unknown number of injured and trapped people," said Jirina Fikejzova, Prague emergency services spokeswoman.

A Reuters witness at the site said about a dozen people were being treated by emergency services.

The blast blew out windows in neighboring buildings, including Prague's landmark Cafe Slavia.

A fire department spokeswoman said there have not been reports of any deaths. Neighboring buildings were being evacuated, the spokeswoman said.

(Reporting by Michael Winfrey, David Cerny and Robert Mueller; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/explosion-shakes-central-prague-injured-trapped-091125948.html

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Friday 19 April 2013

Venezuela crackdown called worst in years

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) ? National Guard troops beat dozens of opposition supporters inside a barracks for refusing to accept the government-certified electoral victory of Hugo Chavez's heir, a leading human rights lawyer charged Thursday in what he called Venezuela's worst political repression in six years.

Alfredo Romero said his group's lawyers also compiled evidence supporting opposition activists' claims that National Guard troops had used excessive force against protesters, including shooting some point-blank with plastic shotgun pellets.

As details of the crackdown emerged, Nicolas Maduro prepared to be sworn in as president and the speaker of the National Assembly again threatened to bar the opposition from its only remaining political platform, the legislature, unless it recognized Maduro's legitimacy.

Romero said the beatings occurred at National Guard barracks No. 47 in the western city of Barquisimeto after at least 300 protesters were arrested across Venezuela for backing opposition candidate Henrique Capriles' demand for a recount of all the votes cast Sunday.

Interrogators "put baseball caps on these kids' heads with a pro-government insignia ... and made them say they recognized the Maduro government, and if they said 'No' they were beaten," Romero said, adding that most of the detainees ranged in age from 15 to 22.

Asked about the allegations, Interior Ministry spokesman Jorge Galindo called them "totally false, absurd and without basis." He said the detainees, though in a military barracks, were being overseen by ministry officials to "guarantee their rights."

Romero called the crackdown Venezuela's worst since Chavez shut down the opposition TV station RCTV in 2006 when more than 250 people were arrested. His 12-year-old group, Foro Penal Venezolano, has more than 200 lawyers who represent without charge people they consider political prisoners.

He said the group has complained to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, whose rulings Venezuela's government no longer recognizes, and is preparing a complaint to the International Criminal Court.

One of the worst cases of excessive force this week occurred in the central city of Valencia, members of the opposition's youth wing said in Caracas.

They said National Guardsmen fired plastic pellets at extremely close range at a group protesting the regime-friendly National Electoral Council's decision to ratify the victory of Nicolas Maduro.

Maduro is to be sworn in Friday in the National Assembly at a ceremony being boycotted by the opposition because its deputies are not being allowed to address the body unless they recognize his presidency as legitimate.

The government says 15 countries including Iran, China and Saudi Arabia were sending high-level delegations. Brazil said its president, Dilma Rousseff, was attending as was Argentina's Cristina Fernandez, but it was not clear whether the president of neighboring Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, would attend.

On Thursday, Maduro headed to Lima, Peru, for an evening meeting of presidents of the Union of South American Nations, UNASUR, to discuss Venezuela's post-election tensions.

The meeting was convened by Peru's president, Ollanta Humala, who holds the organization's rotating chair, and every leader on the continent save Ecuador's Rafael Correa, who was traveling in Europe, was attending, said Peru's deputy foreign minister, Fernando Rojas.

The youth opposition wing members displayed photographs showing deep, bloody wounds on the skin the hand and arm of Jonny Alvarado, a local leader of the centrist Proyecto Venezuela party who they said had been shot three times in the arm and undergone two surgeries in an attempt to save his hand.

The AP confirmed Alvarado's non-life-threatening injuries with the director of the hospital where he was treated.

At least 10 other activists were hit by pellets, some in the head, but not hurt as seriously, said Carlos Graffe, Proyecto Venezuela's youth leader. He said other protesters were punched or hit with batons by National Guardsmen.

A total of 400 were injured nationwide by authorities and government backers, said Juan Requesens, national coordinator of the opposition's youth wing.

In Monagas state, a group of 30 to 40 protesters was attacked by pro-government forces, then detained by authorities when they tried to flee, said Diego Scharifker, president of the youth wing of the Nuevo Tiempo party. He said virtually all were anti-government, but National Guard members had even swept up a handful of pro-government youth during sweeps of streets.

Romero said other activists described being arrested as they were walking home from peaceful protests.

The government alleges Capriles' backers have incited all the postelection violence, which it says has caused eight deaths and 70 injuries. It also charges the opposition loyalists have burned eight health clinics and several offices of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

Non-government media and private citizens have published photos of unmolested clinics and party offices that they said disproved the claims.

Chief Prosecutor Luisa Ortega reiterated on Thursday the government's contention that neither it nor its supporters were to blame for any of the violence that followed Sunday's vote.

"A common denominator is that the wounded and injured are all supporters of Chavismo," she said in an interview on state TV.

Romero said 71 youths in all were arrested in Barquisimeto on Monday and Tuesday, when opposition supporters marched on regional offices of the electoral council, while 83 were arrested in Valencia over those two days.

He said it appeared that most were being freed Thursday, but that many faced criminal charges that include public incitement, destroying public property and other crimes.

Other arrests occurred in the states of Barinas, Merida and Maracay, Romero added, but he said he didn't have solid information on events there.

The prosecutor, Ortega, said Thursday that a total of 135 people had been arrested across Venezuela, with 90 of them charged with crimes.

The country awaited, meanwhile, word on whether the electoral council would agree to Capriles demand for a vote-by-vote recount after receiving the opposition's petition on Wednesday.

National Assembly Speaker Diosdado Cabello repeated the threat he made Tuesday to bar the opposition from the chamber, it's only platform on the national political stage. The opposition has just three of Venezuela's 23 governorships.

"I repeat to deputies of the opposition, just in case by chance they didn't understand, if they don't recognize Maduro as president I won't recognize them in the AN (National Assembly)."

There would be no constitutional basis for such an action, but Maduro and his ruling circle has paid little heed to the document since their mentor disappeared in December to Cuba for cancer surgery, never to be heard from publicly again.

Cabello was one of the closest allies of Chavez, who died March 5 after a long battle with cancer.

The ruling socialists control the legislature with 165 seats to 98 for the opposition and elections are not due until next year.

___

Associated Press writers E. Eduardo Castillo and Vivian Sequera contributed to this report.

___

Frank Bajak on Twitter: http://twitter.com/fbajak

Michael Weissenstein on Twitter: http://twitter/mweissenstein

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/venezuela-crackdown-deemed-worst-years-230149996.html

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Monday 8 April 2013

Kerry struggles to get Turkey to mend Israel ties

ISTANBUL (AP) ? U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry struggled Sunday to convince Turkey's leaders they should promptly restore full diplomatic ties with Israel, two American allies counted on by President Barack Obama to help calm the turbulent Middle East.

But Turkey demanded that Israel first end all commercial restrictions against the Palestinians before the once-close partners could end their estrangement, which stems from an Israeli raid in 2010 on a flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip. Eight Turks and a Turkish-American died.

Obama revived the rapprochement during a visit to Israel last month, and Kerry aimed to firm that up in Istanbul, the first stop in a 10-day trip.

The stakes are high, given that the U.S. sees Turkey and Israel as anchors of stability in a region riven by Syria's civil war, Arab Spring political upheavals and the potential threat posed by Iran's nuclear program.

"We would like to see this relationship that is important to stability in the Middle East and critical to the peace process ... get back on track in its full measure," Kerry told reporters at a news conference with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

Kerry said that meant promises of "compensation be fulfilled, ambassadors be returned and that full relationship be embraced."

He also met with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and then went to Israel.

Obama, before leaving Israel two weeks ago, arranged a telephone conversation between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Erdogan. Netanyahu apologized for the flotilla incident; compensation talks are expected to begin this week.

But Davutoglu suggested that full normalization of ties would probably take some time.

"There is an offense that has been committed and there needs to be accountability," Davutoglu said.

He signaled that Turkey would pursue a "careful" advance toward a complete restoration of relations, with compensation and an end to Israeli trade restrictions on the Gaza Strip as the stumbling blocks.

"All of the embargoes should be eliminated once and for all," he said through an interpreter.

Fixing the relationship long has been a goal of the Obama administration, and the U.S. desperately wants significant progress by the time Erdogan visits the White House in mid-May.

The Turks have reveled somewhat in what they view as a diplomatic victory, with billboards in Ankara celebrating Netanyahu's apology and praising Erdogan for bringing pride to his country.

Perhaps seeking to add to his leverage, Erdogan indicated shortly after the call that he was in no hurry to finalize the deal and pledged to visit the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory soon.

From a U.S. strategic sense, cooperation between the American allies has only become more important as Syria's 2-year conflict has grown ever deadlier.

More than 70,000 people have died in the war, according to the United Nations, but the U.S. fears it could get even worse, by spilling into neighboring countries or through the use of chemical weapons.

Both potential scenarios have led to intense contingency planning among Washington and its regional partners, including Israel and Turkey.

Kerry, who noted his twice-weekly telephone chats with Davutoglu, spoke of shared U.S. and Turkish efforts to support Syria's opposition coalition.

The opposition has suffered from poor coordination between its political leadership and the military factions leading the fight against the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and from intense infighting among those who seek to guide the amorphous movement's overall strategy.

Turkey has gone further than the U.S. in its assistance, accepting some 180,000 Syrians as refugees and sending advanced weaponry to rebels fighting to overthrow Assad.

The U.S. is only providing nonlethal aid to the rebels in the form of meals, medical kits and training.

Kerry praised Turkey for its generosity toward refugees and commitment to keeping its borders open, an issue of growing U.S. concern as the outflow of Syrians stretches the capacities of neighboring countries to accommodate them.

"The United States and Turkey will continue cooperating toward the shared goal of a peaceful transition in Syria," he said.

After arriving in Israel for his trip there in two weeks, Kerry went directly to the West Bank city of Ramallah, where he met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

He planned to see Netanyahu and other senior Israeli and Palestinian officials Monday and Tuesday as part of a fresh American bid to unlock the long-stalled Middle East peace process.

Conversations in Israel will also cover shared U.S. and Israeli concerns over Iran's nuclear program.

Representatives from the U.S. and other world powers met the Islamic republic in Kazakhstan for another round of negotiations, but no breakthrough was announced on a proposed deal that would see international penalties eased on Iran if Tehran convinces the world that it is not trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Kerry said the "door is still open" for a negotiated agreement, but that the onus was on the Iranians.

"If you have a peaceful program for nuclear power, as a number of nations do, it's not hard to prove that," he said. "They have chosen not to live up to the international requirements and standards with respect to verification of their program."

The other stops on his trip are Britain, South Korea, China and Japan. He returns to Washington on April 15.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-struggles-turkey-mend-israel-ties-182253810--politics.html

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Thursday 4 April 2013

Lead poisoning toll revised to 1 in 38 young kids

Cuyahoga County Board of Health lead risk assessor Tom Barsa swipes a windowsill Thursday, April 4, 2013, in Lakewood, Ohio. More than half a million U.S. children are now believed to have lead poisoning, roughly twice the previous high estimate, health officials reported Thursday. The increase is the result of the government last year lowering the threshold for lead poisoning, so now more children are considered at risk. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

Cuyahoga County Board of Health lead risk assessor Tom Barsa swipes a windowsill Thursday, April 4, 2013, in Lakewood, Ohio. More than half a million U.S. children are now believed to have lead poisoning, roughly twice the previous high estimate, health officials reported Thursday. The increase is the result of the government last year lowering the threshold for lead poisoning, so now more children are considered at risk. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

Cuyahoga County Board of Health lead risk assessor Tom Barsa swipes a doorway for lead Thursday, April 4, 2013, in Lakewood, Ohio. More than half a million U.S. children are now believed to have lead poisoning, roughly twice the previous high estimate, health officials reported Thursday. The increase is the result of the government last year lowering the threshold for lead poisoning, so now more children are considered at risk. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

Cuyahoga County Board of Health lead risk assessor Tom Barsa swipes a kitchen floor for lead Thursday, April 4, 2013, in Lakewood, Ohio. More than half a million U.S. children are now believed to have lead poisoning, roughly twice the previous high estimate, health officials reported Thursday. The increase is the result of the government last year lowering the threshold for lead poisoning, so now more children are considered at risk. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

Chart shows yearly percentage of children tested who are at risk of lead poisoning

Cuyahoga County Board of Health lead risk assessor Tom Barsa swipes a kitchen floor for lead Thursday, April 4, 2013, in Lakewood, Ohio. More than half a million U.S. children are now believed to have lead poisoning, roughly twice the previous high estimate, health officials reported Thursday. The increase is the result of the government last year lowering the threshold for lead poisoning, so now more children are considered at risk. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

(AP) ? More than half a million U.S. children are now believed to have lead poisoning, roughly twice the previous high estimate, health officials reported Thursday.

The increase is the result of the government last year lowering the threshold for lead poisoning, so now more children are considered at risk.

Too much lead can harm developing brains and can mean a lower IQ. Lead poisoning used to be a much larger concern in the United States, but has declined significantly as lead was removed from paint and gasoline and other sources.

The new number translates to about 1 in 38 young children. That estimate suggests a need for more testing and preventive measures, some experts said, but budget cuts last year eliminated federal grant funding for such programs.

Those cuts represent "an abandonment of children," said David Rosner, a Columbia University public health historian who writes books about lead poisoning.

"We've been acting like the problem was solved and this?was a thing of?the past," he added.

Lead can harm a child's brain, kidneys and other organs. High levels in the blood can cause coma, convulsions and death. Lower levels can reduce intelligence, impair hearing and behavior and cause other problems.

Most cases of lead poisoning are handled by tracking and removing the lead source, and monitoring the children to make sure lead levels stay down. A special treatment to remove lead and other heavy metals is used only for extremely high levels.

Often, children who get lead poisoning live in old homes that are dilapidated or under renovation. They pick up paint chips or dust and put it in their mouth. Other sources include soil contaminated by old leaded gasoline, dust from industrial worksites and tainted drinking water

Lead has been banned in household paint since 1978 and was gone from gasoline by the late 1980s.

After lowering the standard, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention went back and looked at old blood tests from 1,653 children under 6 to determine how many would have lead poisoning under the new definition.

About 3 percent of them ? or about 50 kids ? had blood lead levels higher than the new threshold of 5 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood. Using that result, CDC officials calculated that an estimated 535,000 young children have lead poisoning.

A year ago, when the threshold was 10 micrograms, experts estimated that somewhere between 77,000 and 255,000 young kids had high levels of lead.

These estimates have focused on children younger than 6, who have been considered most at risk of neurological problems due to lead.

Overall, the new CDC study found lead counts were higher on average in children who were poor or African-American, said the CDC's Mary Jean Brown, an author of the study.

Those kids are more likely to live in old housing or in neighborhoods with greater exposure to lead, she added.

The good news: Even with the lower threshold, lead poisoning appears to still be declining. Years ago, some local health departments began tracking the number of kids with blood levels at 5 or greater, and they say those numbers have been dropping steadily.

However, it's likely that many children with lead poisoning have not been diagnosed. In the CDC study, elevated lead levels were discovered for a third of the children only when they were tested by researchers.

"When you look for it, you find it," Columbia's Rosner said.

Once lead poisoning is diagnosed, doctors often refer parents to local health departments to get their homes checked out to try to find the source of the problem. But as demand for investigations grows, there's less money to pay for them. Congress last year cut CDC lead program's budget from about $29 million to $2 million. That ended CDC grants to local health departments for their programs.

Detroit's lead program was all but eliminated because of the federal cut and state and local funding problems, said Bob Scott of Michigan's lead poisoning prevention program.

Other places are struggling to keep up with lead work at the same time they are cutting staff. The Cleveland area has been aggressive about lead poisoning prevention but the loss of CDC funding hurt those efforts.

For example, Cuyahoga County ? which includes Cleveland ? saw its staff for blood testing of children and public education drop from 2 1/2 positions to 1.

"It's unsustainable," said Terry Allan, the county's health commissioner.

____

Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-04-04-US-MED-Lead-Poisoning/id-fc25312ec2dd41e2ada42c2555b87d28

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