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The leader of a conservative group opposed to President Hugo Chavez has been charged with hiding explosives in his home — allegations he called a farce in comments sent from his jail cell.

Prosecutors announced conspiracy and arms trafficking charges against Alejandro Pena Esclusa on Friday, more than six weeks after he was arrested on July 12.

The attorney general’s office said in a statement that agents who raided his apartment found about 100 detonators and 2 pounds (900 grams) of C-4 explosives.

Officials have linked Pena’s arrest to the capture of a Salvadoran man, Francisco Chavez Abarca, who is accused of helping to organize bombings in Cuba as part of a campaign against the island’s communist government.

Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami has said Chavez Abarca acknowledged plotting violence to disrupt upcoming Venezuelan elections and said he had had contacted some “fascist sectors of the Venezuelan opposition.” But after a few days of interrogation, the government sent him to face charges in Cuba rather than charging him in Venezuela.
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Pena, who is jailed in the intelligence agency headquarters in Caracas, said Saturday night in a written response to questions from The Associated Press that “the accusations against me are a farce.

“The authorities know that very well, because it was the government that orchestrated the case and ordered evidence ‘planted’ in my home,” Pena wrote. He also said police who raided his home stole money, electronic items and other belongings.

Pena’s wife, Indira, has accused authorities of planting the explosives in a drawer of their 8-year-old daughter’s desk.

Pena heads the small Fuerza Solidaria organization, which opposes Chavez and other leftist Latin American governments while advocating free-market economics. Pena also was a strong supporter of the interim Honduran government installed after Chavez ally President Manuel Zelaya was ousted by the military last year.

Pena ran for president in 1998, finishing ninth with 0.04 percent of the vote after throwing his support to another candidate who lost to Chavez.
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He was detained in 2002 on suspicion of links to military officers who took part in a failed coup attempt against Chavez, but was later released.

“I’m definitely a political prisoner; all of Venezuela recognizes that,” Pena said. “I’ve never believed in violence as a form of struggle; I condemn terrorism.”

If convicted, Pena could be sentenced to as many as 10 years in prison, the attorney general’s office said.

“There is no possibility of a judge absolving me, even if I present the most solid evidence,” Pena said. “Venezuela’s justice system has been totally hijacked by the executive branch.”

Critics say Chavez has stacked the courts with friendly judges and has used criminal prosecutions to intimidate others. Chavez insists the courts are independent.

“Chavez is trying to neutralize my work. But he won’t achieve it,” Pena said.
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“I could have left the country to avoid prison, but I didn’t want to because I think I’m more useful to my homeland in jail than in exile. For that reason, I’m psychologically prepared to endure the confinement with firmness,” Pena wrote. “I feel proud and even happy.”

The women come from all over Israel every month to pray at the Western Wall, one of Judaism’s holiest sites.

As their voices rise and fall in prayer, onlookers gawk and occasionally harass the praying women. Israeli police have arrested several women on charges of disturbing the peace; Orthodox men and women have spit at, cursed and attacked others.

The scene repeats on the first day of every month in the Jewish calendar as “Women of the Wall” assert their right to worship aloud and in the manner that they choose at the Western Wall.

“What we are fighting for is simply our right to pray here as women, according to our Jewish beliefs,” said Leslie Sacks , a coordinator for Women of the Wall.

To the Orthodox and other groups who adhere to a strict interpretation of Jewish law, however, the fight is over who controls Israel’s religious institutions, and it’s but one of the struggles by non-Orthodox Jews to challenge the largely Orthodox conventions that rule Israel’s religious life.

From marriage vows to burial codes, groups are challenging Orthodox interpretations and advocating Conservative or Reform practices that are common in the United States and other Western countries.

“In Israel , the Orthodox have a monopoly on who gets to practice religion and how,” said Nofrat Frankel, a 28-year-old medical student who drives three hours each month to pray with Women of the Wall. “This is a state that was created for Jews, but only one group of Jews controls it.”

The women’s group focuses on the Western Wall, also called the Kotel, or Wailing Wall. Though it’s been a public site since Israel won control of it from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War, the plaza that faces the wall is under the de facto control of the Orthodox, the women’s group says. They say that about two-thirds of the wall is dedicated to male worshipers, with a smaller, southern section for females.
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According to the Orthodox interpretation of Jewish law, only men may wear kippas (head coverings) and tallits (prayer shawls). Men alone are allowed to read from the Pentateuch, or Torah, Judaism’s founding text and also the first five books of the Christian Bible, while women are expected to pray with barely a murmur.

Shmuel Rabinowitz , the Orthodox chief rabbi of the Western Wall, told McClatchy that the women’s group was interested only in provocation and that “there is no value” to its form of prayer, which offends other female worshippers at the site.

“We challenge them the moment we open our mouth to sing with our full voices,” said Frankel, who sings in a quiet but steady voice. The group sings with melodic timbre, and the women’s voices carry across the stone plaza as they pray. They clap their hands, and close their eyes to the agitators who often gather around them.

When Women of the Wall was founded in 1988, the mostly American and British Jews sought the right for women to pray audibly at the wall while wearing the religious clothing of their choice. They also believe that women should be able to handle and pray from the Torah, a practice that led last month to the arrest of Anat Hoffman , one of the founding members, by Israeli police. Frankel herself was arrested for wearing a tallit last year. Now she wears it wrapped around her shoulders like a scarf.

“I refuse to give in, and I will continue to fight for my right to practice Judaism according to my beliefs,” Frankel said. “Here in Israel , the Western Wall has become a place that is so religious, so extreme, that the average person doesn’t feel like it could belong to them too.”
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Two decades ago, the Women of the Wall began petitioning Israel’s High Court of Justice . Their court battles continue, but up to now the courts have ruled that it’s illegal for the women to read aloud from the Torah or wear tallits in public.

They’re allowed to do so only in a separate, out-of-sight platform built expressly for their use south of the main Western Wall plaza. While it’s technically part of the Western Wall, it’s nearly 100 yards from the main area.

“The problem is that Israel is controlled by the rabbinate” — rabbinical authorities — “and there is no separation of church and state. There is no freedom of religion, so I have to practice my religion in closed doors,” said Sharon Orshalimy, a 25-year-old student.

As she spoke she donned a kippa made of small, colorful rhinestones, and prepared to take part in a prayer service at the platform.

“Why should we be here, cast off to the side? Wasn’t the whole point of this state to allow all Jews to pray freely?” she asked.

She and Frankel travel here almost every month with Women of the Wall, and both said they were used to the insults hurled at them when they pray at the main plaza. Last month, during the service in which Hoffman was arrested, angry onlookers punctuated the group’s prayer with shouts of “Betrayer,” “Nazi” and “Lesbian” at the group of 120 people. About a dozen or so Orthodox protesters showed up, and as many police stood by to keep the groups apart.
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Orshalimy and Frankel sang through the interruptions and gave encouraging nods to newer members of the group. Since the recent arrests and subsequent press attention, the group has swelled to more than 150 worshipers.

“Some months we are more, some less,” Frankel said. “The point is that one day it will not be a question, whether or not we can pray here.”

One day, she added, her daughters won’t need a formal group to pray as they choose with women at the Western Wall.

The 104-year-old heiress to a Montana copper mining fortune — now a recluse in a New York hospital room — is

at the center of a criminal investigation into her fortune and welfare, two people familiar with the probe told The

Associated Press.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office is looking into how Huguette Clark is being cared for and how her finances

are being handled, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized

to speak publicly about the probe.

Clark has been living in hospitals since leaving her luxury co-op overlooking Central Park more than 20 years ago,

according to building staff who saw her leave in an ambulance.

Attorney Wallace Bock and accountant Irving Kamsler have been in charge of her financial affairs for years, and

they’re among the few people who have contact with Clark.

“She’s very much alive,” Bock told The Associated Press recently. Neither he nor Kamsler returned calls about the

investigation.
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MSNBC.com first reported the criminal probe.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to say whether a probe was under way. The office successfully

prosecuted the case surrounding Brooke Astor, the late philanthropist and heiress whose 85-year-old son was

convicted of scheming with her attorney to bilk millions of dollars from her.

Clark is worth about half a billion dollars — four times as much as Astor.

There is no public record of a will, and distant relatives have not seen her in years.

In recent weeks, the Manhattan mystery has taken on sinister turns, with two men apparently crucial to the

investigation — Bock and Kamsler, a registered sex offender convicted of e-mailing pornographic pictures to

underage girls.

Neither has been charged in the Clark probe, but the questions remain: How are she and her fortune being cared

for?
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When she left home on the stretcher, Clarke was frail but not physically ill, according to building staff.

Since then, nobody has lived in her meticulously maintained 42 rooms at 907 Fifth Ave., or her Connecticut castle,

surrounded by 52 acres of land and now on the market for $24 million.

The properties are financed by her inheritance as the daughter of a 19th century Montana copper mining king who

built railroads across America, founding Las Vegas along the way.

Clark also owns a mansion in Santa Barbara, Calif., on a 23-acre bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

All that’s left of her privileged existence are the lifeless properties — and her name in the New York Social

Register.

After leaving the Fifth Avenue apartment, Clark took up residence in Doctors’ Hospital on the Upper East Side —

to be “more comfortable,” according to MSNBC.com reports documenting her life.

But the hospital building was razed in 2004, and she’s now in an ordinary hospital room elsewhere in the city.
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Huguette Clark’s story begins in 1906 Paris, where she was born to then 62-year-old U.S. Sen. William A. Clark of

Montana and a 23-year-old Michigan woman named Anna Eugenia La Chapelle.

Years of mining the Montana earth for copper made Clark the second-richest man in America, after the

Rockefellers. To prove it, he built an ostentatious mansion on New York’s Fifth Avenue and gained power — as a

U.S. Senator serving a single term.

His daughter attended Miss Spence’s School for Girls in Manhattan, now The Spence School, studying modern

dance while getting savvy about politics and art.

In the Roaring Twenties, the Clarks’ Fifth Avenue home was the scene of wild parties, and Huguette hung out with

rich young men who drove fast cars and flew planes.

At 22, she married a poor bank clerk, but they parted ways after only nine months. Huguette Clark cited desertion

by her husband. He claimed she failed to consummate the marriage, according to “The Clarks: An American

Phenomenon,” a book written by former family employee William D. Mangam.
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Shortly after her father died in 1925, she and her mother left the mansion and moved to 907 Fifth Avenue, the

Italian-Renaissance-palazzo-style building where Huguette Clark lived for six decades. It’s still one of the city’s

most posh co-ops, and hers is the biggest apartment property on Fifth Avenue.

When her mother died in 1963, Huguette was transformed from a rather private socialite in her 50s to a social

specter — an eccentric whom building staff members say they never saw; she had whatever she needed delivered.

Even distant relatives attempting to visit were discouraged from entering; she told several of them to stand on the

sidewalk and she would wave to them, staffers remember.

“She never went out,” said Laurance Kaiser IV, a Manhattan real estate agent who once met her in the Fifth Avenue

building.

She apparently trusted almost no one, but was generous. Each doorman got a $500 check from her at Christmas.

They’d seen her only a few times over the decades — and only by accident, while slipping mail under her door

when she happened to open it. She would scurry away.

Huguette Clark left for good one day in the 1980s, on the stretcher.
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“She just got tired of living,” Kaiser said.

Steven Shirley, an amateur historian in Helena, Mont., said Clark was “very much on top of things — very lucid”

when he last spoke to her a half dozen years ago, by phone.

Though hard of hearing and unable to understand all of his questions, “she reminisced about her days in France

before World War I,” Shirley told the AP. “She read the New York Times every day and she was very aware of

world events,” Shirley added.

In the end, her vast fortune allowed the heiress to lead an ever more solitary life.

She’s said to have once told friends that extreme wealth is a “menace to happiness.”

Islamist militants wearing Somali military uniforms stormed a hotel favored by lawmakers in the war-battered capital Tuesday, firing indiscriminately and killing 32 people, including six parliamentarians.

A suicide bomber and one of the gunmen were also killed in the brazen attack just a half-mile (1 kilometer) from the presidential palace. The attack showed the insurgent group al-Shabab, which controls wide areas of Somalia, can penetrate even the few blocks of the capital under the control of the government and African Union troops.

Tuesday’s well-planned assault came one day after al-Shabab warned of a new “massive war.” Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage, an insurgent spokesman, said the attack by members of the group’s “special forces” targeted government leaders, foreign agents and “apostates” at the $10-a-night Muna Hotel.

Survivors of the hour-long slaughter described seeing bodies strewn throughout the hotel and people scrambling to safety through windows. An 11-year-old shoeshine boy and a woman selling tea were among the dead.

In an interview with The Associated Press, one parliamentarian said she was jolted awake by the popping sound of gunfire. Saynab Qayad said three fellow lawmakers staying on the top floor of the three-story hotel drew their guns while other guests fled out windows.
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“Smoke filled my room after bullets smashed my window. I hid myself in a corner of the room. Then a guest next door came to my door, screaming ‘Come out! Come out!’ And when I came out bullets continued to fly around.

“I went back to my room and locked my door. Shortly afterward, the hotel staff asked me to come down and put me in a room at the second floor with four other survivors,” she said. “The body of a member of parliament was lying at that small room’s door.”

A manager at the Muna Hotel, Abdullahi Warsame, said the attack was carried out by two gunmen who first fired on people sitting under a tree, then opened fire at the reception desk. The gunmen then moved to the second floor, where they battled security forces and armed parliamentarians, he said. The two fought until they ran out of ammunition, when one blew himself up, Warsame said.

After it was over, Somali government forces tied the body of one of the dead assailants to the back of a pickup truck and dragged it through the dusty streets of the capital, a scene eerily reminiscent of how bodies of dead American soldiers were treated following the disastrous Black Hawk Down battle of 1993 in Mogadishu.
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Tuesday’s attack only extended the stream of warfare that rattled Mogadishu on Monday, when 40 civilians died in fighting between al-Shabab and Somali and African Union troops.

Somalia’s deputy prime minister told AP that 19 civilians, six members of parliament, five security forces and two hotel workers were killed Tuesday — a total of 32. Two attackers also were killed, said Abdirahman Haji Aden Ibi, the deputy prime minister. A government statement said 31 people were killed. There was no way to immediately reconcile the figures.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the attack during Ramadan highlighted al-Shabab’s “complete disregard for human life, Somali culture and Islamic values.”

Al-Shabab, which has links to al-Qaida and boasts veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars among its ranks, has grown deadlier in recent months. Last month it claimed twin bombings in Uganda during the World Cup final that killed 76 people.

“The only intention of this group is to destroy the nation, massacre people and then finally hand the country to ruthless foreigners,” Somali President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed said. “So I call upon all Somali people to unite fighting against these enemies and help government forces.”
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The militant group is fighting to oust the 6,000 African Union troops from Uganda and Burundi that prop up the U.N.-backed Somali government — forces whom al-Shabab calls crusaders and invaders.

“We will eliminate them from our country in a battle we call ‘the end of the aggressors,’” Rage said. “They wanted to enjoy themselves in hotels while women and children are sent to makeshift homes.”

Al-Shabab calls itself a defender of the nation, but its interpretation of Islam is harsh. Al-Shabab forbids music, TV or letting women walk alone. Men must grow beards. Punishments can range from amputation to death by stoning.

In response to the World Cup attacks, the African Union pledged to increase its troop commitments to Somalia, an approach backed by the United States. The U.S. does not have any troops in Somalia but helps pay to train Somali troops and sends surveillance aircraft over Somalia.

“The United States reaffirms its strong commitment to stand with the Somali people and transitional government and the African Union mission in Somalia as they courageously work to restore peace and stability in Somalia. And we’re very grateful for the fact that this week we have additional resources arriving in support of the (African Union) mission troops coming from Uganda,” Crowley said.
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The Somali government has struggled for years to gain relevancy, but corruption and its minuscule footprint in the country — just a few city blocks near the seaside airport — have limited its effectiveness. The deaths of six parliamentarians will have no practical effect on the government functions.

Al-Shabab operatives frequently infiltrate the small government-controlled area.

In a similar attack in December, a suicide bomber detonated himself at a university graduation ceremony about 1 1/2 miles (3 kilometers ) from Tuesday’s hotel attack, killing 24 people, including three government ministers, medical students and doctors.

Somalia has not had an effective government for 19 years.

Two Spanish aid workers kidnapped almost nine months ago by an al-Qaida affiliate were freed Monday in Mali after a multi-million-dollar ransom was reportedly paid — a sign of the terrorist group’s growing sophistication in bankrolling operations through kidnappings, experts said Monday.

Aid workers Roque Pascual and Albert Vilalta were abducted last November when their convoy of 4-by-4s was attacked by gunmen on a stretch of road in Mauritania. They were whisked away to Mali, whose northern half is now one of the many stretches of remote desert where al-Qaida of Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, has stretched its tentacles.

Late Monday afternoon, the pair stepped out of a helicopter that landed on the grounds of the presidential palace in Burkina Faso and were handed a cell phone. Reporters overheard them saying into the phone ‘muchas gracias’ — or many thanks.

Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported that Spain had paid euro3.8 million in ransom to secure the aid workers’ release. The government refused to comment.

Originally based in Algeria, AQIM had limited reach until 2006, when the organization, then called the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, brokered a deal with al-Qaida’s leadership in the Middle East, allowing them to become in essence a franchise of the larger terrorist network.
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Since then they have abducted Austrian, Swiss, Italian, French and Canadian nationals. Experts say the majority were released after multimillion dollar ransoms were paid, money that is being reinvested to grow the group’s footprint.

In February 2008, AQIM abducted two Austrian tourists vacationing in Tunisia. They were released eight months later after the Austrian government paid $5 million, according to reports in the Algerian press. In December of the same year, the group abducted Canadian national Robert Fowler, the U.N. special envoy to Niger, who was released after a reported $8 million was paid, according to an article in the World Defense Review by Africa expert Peter Pham.

“It’s clear that ransoms are being paid, since no political demand is usually made in connection with these kidnappings,” said Pham, who is the senior vice president at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and who recently traveled to Mauritania and Morocco in order to research the growth of the group.

“It would be illogical to assume that AQIM is carrying out these kidnappings and making no demands for their hostages. The dangerous innovation that we have seen in recent years is that the ransoms have gone beyond acting as startup money. It’s now been incorporated into their business model and has become a major component of their strategy,” he said.
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He pointed to the prisoner exchange that is believed to have taken place last week before the release of Pascual and Vilalta.

Soon after they were kidnapped on Nov. 29, Mauritanian commandos led a raid across the border into Mali, where the terrorist group is believed to have an operating base. There they seized Omar Ould Sid Ahmed Ould Hama. He was sentenced by a Mauritanian court to 12 years in prison for taking part in the kidnapping of the aid workers.

Just one week before they were freed, Hama was quietly extradited to Mali, where a diplomatic source at a Western embassy said he was handed back to AQIM. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak.

Hama, says Pham, is an example of the group’s growing reach and its use of its new capital to recruit the most able fighters. Hama, who is from Mali, is neither Algerian nor Mauritanian — as was the case for the majority of the group’s recruits in its early years.

Pham says Hama, who goes by the alias ‘Omar Sahraoui’ is believed to have been a senior commander of the Polisario Front in Western Sahara, a Muslim group trained by the Soviets. Their fighters are far more skilled then the typical AQIM recruit. And unlike AQIM, the Polisario is a nationalistic movement and is not linked to militant Islam.
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“It’s an example of how the cash flow from these kidnappings is enabling them to hire the best guns,” says Pham. “If you’re reaching into the Polisario, you’re no longer looking for true believers. … Now they can afford well-trained mercenaries. So the success rate of their operations will also go up,” he said.

Rudolph Atallah, who recently retired from his post as Africa Counterterrorism Director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, says that it’s against international law for Western governments to pay ransoms to terrorists. But there is no question, he says, that AQIM is making money from kidnappings. The money is funneled through intermediaries, he said.

The helicopter sent to Mali to retrieve the aid workers also included high-level officials from the entourage of Burkina Faso’s President Blaise Compaore. An adviser to Compaore is believed to have helped in the hostage negotiation.

When they stepped off the plane, the two aid workers appeared clean, wearing polo shirts and khaki pants. One of them propped himself up on a cane as he walked.

It was most likely Vilalta, who suffered multiple bullet wounds to his leg when he tried to flee his abductors on the day of the kidnapping last November. The two were driven to the Ouagadougou airport where they were expected to board a Spain-bound flight.
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“This has been 268 days of suffering for them and their families,” Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told reporters in Madrid.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in an interview published Sunday he believed the Pentagon could be behind a rape allegation against him that was swiftly dropped by Swedish authorities.

His comments came as prosecutors justified their treatment of the 39-year-old Australian, whose whistleblowing website is embroiled in a row with Washington over the publication of secret Afghan war documents.

The Aftonbladet newspaper quoted Assange as saying he did not know who was “hiding behind” the rape claim, which prompted prosecutors to issue a warrant for his arrest on Friday but which was cancelled the following day.

“But we have been warned that for instance the Pentagon will use dirty tricks to destroy us. I have furthermore been warned about set-up sex traps,” he said, in a translation of comments published in Swedish.
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The former computer hacker described the allegations as “shocking” and said he had “never, neither in Sweden nor in any other country, had sex with someone in a way which wasn’t completely voluntary on both sides.”

Assange told Aftonbladet — for which he last week agreed to write a regular column — that his enemies would still use the claims to damage WikiLeaks despite the lifting of the warrant.

The website is set to publish 15,000 more secret papers about the war in Afghanistan in coming weeks, having recently released nearly 77,000 papers and sparking charges that it had endangered the lives of informants and others.

“I know from experience that WikiLeaks’ enemies continue to trumpet things even after they have been denied,” Assange said.

He refused to give more details about the two women whose claims sparked the furore, saying that it would impinge on their privacy.

Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said any allegation of dirty tricks was “absurd”.
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Sweden’s prosecution service said Saturday that Assange was now “not suspected of rape” and was no longer wanted for questioning on the allegation, but added that an investigation into a separate molestation charge remained open.

He had been in Stockholm earlier this month giving a press conference on the upcoming release of the last batch of Afghanistan documents, but he generally remains on the move around the world staying with supporters.

He told Aftonbladet he was currently at a friend’s summerhouse in northern Sweden.

As the furore over the arrest warrant grew, the Swedish prosecutor’s office issued a statement on Sunday defending its actions.

It said that chief prosecutor Eva Finne, who was responsible for withdrawing the arrest warrant, had “more information available to decide on Saturday than the duty prosecutor on Friday evening”.

“A decision regarding restrictive measures, such as this, must always be reevaluated in a preliminary inquiry,” the statement added.
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Prosecutor’s office spokeswoman Karin Rosander told AFP late Saturday that the procedure followed was normal and would have been launched automatically by the duty prosecutor in serious cases such as rape.

Separately the duty prosecutor, Maria Haljebo Kjellstrand, said that she “did not regret her decision”.

The two women who originally made the allegations did not make an official complaint and it was the police who took the decision to inform the prosecutor’s office, she told Expressen newspaper, which broke the story of the charges.

“I received a report from the police which seemed to me to be sufficient to arrest him. On Friday evening I got a call from the police describing what the women said. The information I received was convincing enough for me to take my decision,” Hljebo Kjellstrand was quoted as saying.

WikiLeaks and the Pentagon are locked in a bitter dispute over the Afghan papers, with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates calling the website “guilty” on moral grounds and Assange saying that the site would not be threatened.
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The Pentagon has said it would not negotiate a “sanitised” release of the documents, as WikiLeaks had suggested it might in order that US officials could help analyse the documents and avoid publishing the names of people whose lives could be threatened.

It is common that people forget things easily. This character in human helps them through a bad situation, at times. Now what

about the good-natured people whom one forgets to thank and think about? What about those who spare their time to help

people? Just like the ones issuing tickets from the ATVM machines by placing their own cards during the peak hours!
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‘I do it out of my own interest’, says Ravimariyan, a college student, who is also a member of a social welfare organisation

and does such social welfare activities during his leisure. One can find him involved in this job at the Nungambakkam Railway

Station.
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‘There is nothing to lose in it as I get the ticket fare while issuing the tickets’, he said and added that the only thing ‘we attain

is the self-satisfaction while doing the work.’ Another 50- year- old man says, ‘I do it every morning from 8.00 to 9.00 and

from 8,00 to 10.00 on Monday mornings.’

He also requested the youngsters, at least college students to involve themselves in this activity. Assistant Commercial

Manager, Department of Railways, Venkatasubramaniam, says, ‘They are not railway department staff, we appreciate and

encourage such people for their timely support. Our department is planning an alternative to cater to the needs of the public

during peak hours’.
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He also said that the department was conducting campaigns to create awareness among the people to use ATVM cards, yet

only 3 per cent of the EMU commuters use the cards. ‘ We are planning to increase it to 25 per cent in order to regulate the

commuter flow, he adds.

The mother wrongly convicted of murdering her infant after the baby infamously disappeared in the Australian Outback 30

years ago has pleaded for her daughter’s death certificate to state that a dingo was responsible.

Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton published an open letter on her website Tuesday — the 30th anniversary of the disappearance

of her daughter while the family camped near Uluru, the red monolith in the remote Outback.

“Our family will always remember today as the day truth was dragged in the dirt and trampled upon,” she wrote. “But more

than that it is the day our family was torn apart forever because we lost our beautiful little Azaria.”

The case is one of Australia’s most enduring mysteries and became international with the 1988 film “A Cry in the Dark” — for

which Meryl Streep earned an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Lindy Chamberlain.

A coroner initially found that a dingo, a type of wild dog, had taken the 9-week-old baby, but that ruling was overturned and

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Chamberlain-Creighton was convicted in 1982 and sentenced to life imprisonment. Her husband, Michael, was convicted of

being an accessory after the fact, with a deferred sentence. Four years later, the mother was released when a piece of Azaria’s

clothing was found, supporting her claim that the baby was taken by a dingo.

A Royal Commission exonerated the Chamberlains in 1987, but another coroner’s inquest in 1995 was unable to make an

official conclusion on what had happened to Azaria Chamberlain, leaving the cause of death open.

“She deserves justice,” she wrote. “In light of all the evidence before the Commission, this should be reflected on her death

certificate and not the open finding that is there now. … It makes one wonder are they really after the truth, or just too

stubborn or proud to admit that a mistake has been made?”

Also this week, Michael Chamberlain began legal proceedings to quash the open death verdict.
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In response, Delia Lawrie, the attorney-general of the Northern Territory said in a statement Tuesday that she had asked the

Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages to look into whether the cause of death on the certificate is accurate, “taking into

account the most reliable information that is available.”

Chamberlain always maintained she saw a dingo slinking from the tent into the dark before she discovered Azaria missing. But

she could not see what was in its mouth.

In her lengthy letter, addressed to “open-minded Australians,” Chamberlain-Creighton said she had forgiven all of those

involved in “creating the fiasco of the last 30 years and the public so willing to believe the worst and spread nasty rumors.”

Barbara Tjikatu, a traditional owner of Uluru, which is also known as Ayers Rock, and the only surviving Aboriginal tracker

who searched for Azaria the night she disappeared, told Ten Network television news on Tuesday that she had no doubt that

a dingo took the baby.Moncler Polo shirt

Tjikatu said in her Aboriginal dialect that she saw dingo tracks outside the family’s tent leading away over a sand dune and

saw Chamberlain-Creighton crying for her missing daughter.

Maya Sabti’s children were born and raised in Lebanon but they speak only broken Arabic and cringe when presented with an

Arabic book to read.

“I try to get them interested, but I don’t blame them that they’re not,” said Sabti, whose children are 8 and 10. “Mobile

phones, Facebook, movies — all that’s important to them is in English.”

In Lebanon, where everyday conversations have long been sprinkled with French and English, many fear the new generation is

losing its connection to the country’s official language: Arabic. The issue has raised enough concern for some civil groups to

take action.

“Young people are increasingly moving away from Arabic, and this is a major source of concern for us,” says Suzanne

Talhouk, 33, a Lebanese poet who heads “Feil Amer,” an organization launched last year to promote Arabic.

“The absence of a common language between individuals of the same country means losing the common identity and cause,”

Talhouk said. In a nod Moncler Outlet both to its members’ sense of

urgency and their language fixation, the group’s name is the Arabic grammatical term for an imperative verb.

Arabic is believed to be spoken as a first language by more than 280 million people, mostly in the Middle East and North

Africa. The classical, written form of the language is shared by all Arabic-speaking countries but spoken dialects differ among

countries — and fluency in speaking doesn’t necessarily mean fluency in reading and writing.

While Arabic is the official language of Lebanon, a tiny Arab country of 4 million on the Mediterranean, many Lebanese pride

themselves on being fluent in French — a legacy of French colonial rule — and English. Conversations often include a mix of

all three, so much so that “Hi kifak, ca va?” — with the English “hi” and the Arabic and French phrases for “how are you?”

— has become a typical greeting, even appearing on T-shirts and mugs sold in souvenir shops.

Most schools in Lebanon teach three languages from an early age, and many parents send their children to French- or

American-curriculum schools where Arabic comes second or third. It has become very common for young people,

particularly when mbt using Facebook and text messages, to write

Arabic using Latin characters.

Even politicians are not immune. Last year, Prime Minister Saad Hariri, 40, stumbled through a speech in parliament, having

obvious difficulty with the classical Arabic — raising laughter from lawmakers and from the many who watched video of the

address posted on YouTube.

The concerns are not unique to Lebanon. Neighboring Syria requires that at least 60 percent of the space on signs for shops,

restaurants and cafes should be in Arabic.

But Lebanon is a special case because of its more open society, said Mounira al-Nahed, assistant secretary general of the

Beirut-based Arab Thought Foundation.

Lebanon’s sectarian and ethnic diversity have always made it open to foreign influences. Moreover, it has a huge diaspora with

an estimated 8 million people of Lebanese descent living in countries as distant as Brazil and Australia — many of whom

come Moncler Polo shirt regularly to

Lebanon for visits and often don’t speak much Arabic.

Al-Nahed blames parents in part for speaking to their children in French or English at home, thinking they will pick up Arabic

anyway. But this has had the adverse effect, making Arabic come at a distant third.

“It has reached a stage where you see young people in Lebanon feel it’s a shame to speak Arabic. This is not the case in the

Gulf or other Arab countries,” she said.

Al-Nahed also blames teaching techniques that often do not encourage children to speak Arabic and make the language seem

dull and complex to learn.

Talhouk and her group have been lobbying to change that.

Her group visited Lebanese universities in an effort to gauge attitudes toward Arabic. Dozens of students were asked to recite

the Arabic alphabet. Most of them were unable to go beyond the first five letters.

“Not only Moncler Vest Jackets do they

not know their Arabic ABCs, but they also wondered why they should bother learning it and how it would help them,”

Talhouk said.

In an attempt to draw attention to the problem, her group recently organized an all-day Arabic language festival entitled “We

Are Our Language” in Beirut. The festival included a book exhibition, music and literature readings, as well as posters urging,

“Do not kill your language” and “Teach your son to speak Arabic.”

Sabti, a housewife who brought her children to the festival, hoped it would help change their perspective. “We need more

activities like this. I hope this helps young people know we have a beautiful language that we should protect.”

But for Youssef Dakhil, a student in his 20s, the problem is all about the lack of a Lebanese national identity.

“Unfortunately, we Moncler Light Jackets

like everything that’s imported, including foreign languages,” he said.

A German historian on Wednesday presented evidence at the trial of John Demjanjuk that suggested he worked as a guard at the Nazis’ Flossenbuerg concentration camp.

Matthias Meissner of Germany’s Federal Archive showed the Munich state court original documents from Flossenbuerg listing a man called “Demianiuk” and “Demenjuk” as a guard there in October 1943.

The ID number on the card was the same as on the key piece of evidence in the trial — a Nazi-issued identity card that the prosecution says carried Demjanjuk’s photo and indicates he was a guard at the Sobibor death camp in Poland.

Although Demjanjuk isn’t charged with any crimes at Flossenbuerg, which was a forced labor camp rather than a death camp, the documents presented by Meissner could back up the prosecution’s allegation that Demjanjuk was indeed a camp guard and might later have been transferred to Sobibor.

Former Ohio autoworker barefoot shoes Demjanjuk faces 28,060 counts of accessory to murder related to his alleged activities at Sobibor.

The 90-year-old denies the charges. The defense maintains Demjanjuk was a Soviet soldier captured by the Germans and spent most of the war in prison camps himself.

On the documents, the name “Demianiuk” figured twice on a list of weapons handed out to guards at Flossenbuerg in October 1943. Another list of guards, which is undated, lists “Demenjuk” alongside his alleged Nazi ID number.

A third document shows that a “Diminiuk,” again identified by the same ID number, was put on service at a bunker on the Flossenbuerg grounds in October 1944.

Transcribing names from the Cyrillic alphabet used in Demjanjuk’s native Ukraine could lead to slight variations in spellings on the documents, excerpts of which were read out by Judge Ralph Alt or shown on an overhead projector.

Defense attorney Ulrich Busch questioned the documents’ authenticity and said Demjanjuk never was a guard in Flossenbuerg.

About 100,000 people MBT Chapa Shoes were imprisoned throughout the war at Flossenbuerg, in southeastern Germany, and about 30,000 inmates were killed or died there due to inhumane treatment.

Alt asked Demjanjuk at the opening of the trial if he wanted to look at the documents, but the defendant declined.

Demjanjuk followed the hearing lying in a hospital bed next to the judge’s bench, wearing sunglasses and showing no reaction to the testimony.

Demjanjuk was deported from the U.S. to Germany in May 2009.

He had his U.S. citizenship revoked in 1981 after the U.S. Justice Department alleged he hid his past as the notorious Treblinka guard “Ivan the Terrible.” He was extradited to Israel, where he was found guilty and sentenced to death in 1988, only to have the conviction overturned five years later as a case of mistaken identity.

The trial in MBT Lami Shoes Munich, which started in November 2009, will resume on Sept. 13 following a summer break.