News briefs
BY Wire reports
Friday, January 04, 2013
1/04/13 at 3:13 AM
London: Argentina's leader tells UK to give up Falklands
Argentina's president called on Britain on Thursday to relinquish control of the Falkland Islands, accusing London of taking part in an act of "blatant colonialism" in claiming the wind-swept archipelago.
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner published an open letter in the Guardian newspaper urging Prime Minister David Cameron to honor U.N. resolutions that she says backs her case for the return of the islands, which Argentina calls the Malvinas. She has made several similar demands in the past.
"180 years ago on the same date, January 3rd, in a blatant exercise of 19th-century colonialism, Argentina was forcibly stripped of the Malvinas Islands," which are 8,700 miles from London, she says in the letter, copied to U.N Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Britain asserted control of the south Atlantic islands by placing a naval garrison there in 1833. Britain and Argentina fought a brief war in 1982 after Argentina invaded the islands. More than 900 people died, most of them Argentines.
Cameron rebuffed the Argentine president's demand that the islands be handed over. "The future of the Falkland Islands should be determined by the Falkland Islanders themselves, the people who live there," the British prime minister said.
Bangui,: Central African Republic Central African leader fires son from post
Facing an insurgency by a new rebel coalition, the president of Central African Republic consolidated military power under his control Thursday after dismissing his own son as acting defense minister along with his army chief of staff.
President Francois Bozize said in a decree read on state radio late Wednesday that he was taking over the position held by his son, Jean Francis Bozize as neighboring countries sent troops to help.
Hundreds of soldiers from Chad, Republic of Congo, Gabon and Cameroon have been arriving this week.
Rebel spokesman Col. Djouma Narkoyo reiterated Thursday that they were holding their position at the transportation hub of Sibut pending negotiations in Gabon.
Beirut: Activists: At least 9 killed by Damascus car bomb
A car bomb blew up late Thursday in a Damascus gas station, killing at least nine people, a Syrian activist group said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the death toll in the blast in the capital's Masakin Barzeh neighborhood is expected to rise because many of the wounded were in critical condition.
Syria's state news service also reported the blast but did not give a number of dead or wounded. It said the bomb targeted cars that were lined up to get gas and blamed the attack on "terrorists," the government's shorthand for rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Assad.
The pro-regime Ikhbariyeh TV station said some 30 civilians were killed or wounded in the blast.
San Juan, Puerto Rico: Judge: No TV broadcast of Guantanamo 9/11 trial
A military judge has denied a request to allow television broadcast coverage of the Guantanamo Bay war crimes tribunal for five men charged in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Defense lawyers requested TV coverage of proceedings at the U.S. base in Cuba. But the Defense Department had authorized only closed-circuit broadcasts to several military bases in the northeast U.S.
The ruling from Army Col. James Pohl said the court had no authority to allow general broadcast. A Pentagon spokesman declined comment Thursday
London: Terror suspect extradited to U.S. to face trial in N.Y.
Abid Naseer, a terror suspect alleged to be part of an al-Qaida plot to blow up targets in the U.S., Norway and Britain, was put on a plane Thursday afternoon to face trial in New York next week.
Naseer, a 26-year-old Pakistani who arrived in Britain on a student visa, was first arrested in Manchester in 2009.
In July 2010, a U.S.-based inquiry uncovered evidence of his alleged involvement in a wider plot with American-based al-Qaida operatives to plant explosives in the New York subway system. Prosecutors demanded his extradition for trial in the United States.
Associated Images:
Two passengers brave the frigid weather while riding outside on a ferry crossing Casco Bay in Portland, Maine, at sunrise, Thursday. The overnight low temperature dropped to 0 degrees in Portland. The combination of cold air and warmer ocean water created the arctic sea smoke. ROBERT F. BUKATY/Associated Press
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