tsloane

CNN reported that a cruise ship with 122 people on board struc ice on the coast of Antarctica Thursday and was stranded, according to officials.
Mariano Memolli of the Argentina Antarctic Directorate told Argentina's TodoNoticias (TN) Television that passengers of the Ushuaia had been evacuated as a precaution by a naval boat and plane that were dispatched to the cruise ship.
Though the ship, carrying 89 passengers and 33 crew members, was losing fuel and taking on water, it was not in danger of sinking, Television C5N reported.
The ship's call for help was received by the naval base in Ushuaia, Argentina. The head of the base, Adm. Daniel Martin, said the passengers were "in a perfect state of health," and were waiting for nearby cruise ship Atlantic Dream to arrive, C5N said.
"The weather conditions are not the best" where the ship is, Martin said. "There are regular winds in the zone with violent gusts." But he said the ship is protected because it is in a strait, and the weather would not affect the arrival of the rescue plane.
Hailing from Panama, the Ushuaia was located approximately 186 miles southwest of Argentina's Marambio naval base in Antarctica.

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Officials said seven prisoners are dead, five of them beheaded, after a fight between rivial gangs in a Guatemalan prison, BBC News reported.
Reporters who witnessed the incident said they saw inmates at the Pavoncito prison, south of Guatemala City, showing off the heads of some of the dead prisoners.
The riot broke out after a group of gang members was transferred to Pavoncito from another prison.
Acts of violence occur frequently in Guatemala's overcrowded prisons.
It took five hours for prison guards and police to regain control of the prison.
The other two prisoners died at a hospital after suffering gunshot wounds, said Rudy Esquivel, spokesman for the Guatemalan prisons system.
"This is a dispute between prisoners belonging to different gangs, who bring their conflicts with them when they are locked up," he said.
Weapons are often easily accessible to iInmates in Guatemalan prisons, allowing members from rival gangs to continue their disputes behind bars.

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The Associated Press reported via CNN that a college student in Southern China who climbed into a panda bear's habitat on Friday in hopes of getting a hug was bitten by the bear instead, state media and a park employee said.
The park employe, who refused to give his name, said the student was visiting Qixing Park with classmates when he jumped over the 6.5-foot high fence around the panda's enclosure.
The park in Guilin, a popular tourist town in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, features a small zoo and a panda exhibit. It was almost empty when the student jumped the fence surrounding the panda, called Yang Yang, the employee said.
He said the student was bitten on the arms and legs. Park officials were notified when two foreign visitors who witnessed the attack ran to get help from two workers at a concession stand close by, the employee said.
The student was pale but coherent when medics came to take him away, he said.
"Yang Yang was so cute and I just wanted to cuddle him. I didn't expect he would attack," the 20-year-old student, surnamed Liu, said in a local hospital, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Liu had surgery Friday evening and is in good condition, but will be in the hospital for several days, Xinhua said.
Yang Yang, who was flown to Guilin last year from Sichuan province, was behaving normally on Saturday and did not seem to be suffering from any psychological effects, the park employee said.
He said he was unsure whether the park would put up more signs or fences around the panda habitat.
"We cannot make it like a prison. We already have signs up warning people not to climb in," he said. "There are no fences along roads but people know not to cross if there are cars. This is basic knowledge."
Pandas have an image as gentle, lovable creatures, but they are still wild animals that will attack if they feel startled or threatened.
A panda at the Beijing Zoo tore chunks out of a teenager's legs last year after he jumped a barrier when the bear was being fed.
The same panda bit a drunk tourist in 2006 when the man broke into the bear's habitat and tried to hug him while he was sleeping. The tourist retaliated by biting the bear in the back.

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reported that a German girl was found guilty of inventing the story that she protected an immigrant child from neo-Nazis, a deed for which she received a "civic courage" award.
The court concluded that the 18-year-old, named Rebecca K, carved a swastika into her own thigh, refuting her claim that the neo-Nazis had done it.
A Berlin association campaigning against far-right violence gave her the award in February.
The girl said four men had attacked her in the town of Mittweida last November.
The court in Hainichen, eastern Germany, ordered her in its ruling on Friday to complete 40 hours of community service.
Doctors who examined her said the swastika wound was a self-inflicted one.
When she made her claim to police, she was 17 years old, a minor. She told them four neo-Nazis had thrown her to the ground and carved the swastika in her skin when she went to help an immigrant child.
A German media report said investigators did not find any witnesses to support her story.
Headlines across Germany featured her story at the time, inciting intense soul-searching about neo-Nazi violence across Germany.

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The Associated Press reported via the New York Times that four workers constructing a bridge over the Himalayan river in Indian controlled Kashmir were killed Sunday when the bridge collapsed, an accident that also left 19 others missing and feared dead, police say.
B. Srinivas, a senior police official, said that rescuers were searching the banks of the river for bodies or more survivors.
The situation occurred outside of a town called Uri, which is located 62 miles west of Srinagar, the region's main city.The bridge is close to the de facto border between India and Pakistan, both of which claim the Himalayan region.
Some workers may have been carried down the river into Pakistan, Srinivas said. Pakistan's army has been asked to aid in rescue efforts.
Srinivas said the cause of the collapse was still unknown. Construction accidents happen often in India, where low-end materials are used and safety precautions are not often implemented.

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Russian officials said 20 people were killed and 21 were injured Sunday after an accident with its fire extinguishing system caused two compartments of a Russian nuclear submarine to be flooded with freon gas, the New York Times reported.
Naval officials would not identify the sumbarine, but a state-owned news agency identified it as the Nerpa, an Akula-class attack sumbarine. It was undergoing tests in the Sea of Japan when the accident occurred, and a Navy spokesman Igor Dygalo said its reactor had not been damaged and radiation levels were normal.
Most of the victims were shipbuilders who had been hired to carry out tests. An additional 167 on board were not injured, Dygalo said. The accident occurred near Vladivostok, the main Russian base in the far east, but the exact naval base where the vessel returned to was not released.
The submarined was scheduled to be commissioned into the Russian Navy later this year.
The accident was the most deadly incident involving a Russian submarine since 2000, when the nuclear submarine Kursk exploded and sank in the Barents Sea. Though many of the 118 men on board survived the accident, all had died by the time the submarine was brought to the surface, sparking controversy around then-President Vladimir V. Putin and his ability to react to such a crisis.
In this case, current President Dmitri A. Medvedev responded within hours of the crisis. Medvedev asked for constant updates on the situation and pledged support to families of the victims.
The event has seen intense news coverage, and a telephone hotlines for victims’ families has been displayed during broadcasts.
Four additional incidents followed the sinking of the Kursk. Nine crew members aboard a decomissioned nuclear sumbarine were killed when the vessel sank while being towed to a scrapyard in 2003. In 2004, one person died when a holding tank on a submarine exploded during repair work. A frenzied rescue effort in 2005 brought seven Russian sailors to the surface with only three to six hours' worth of air to spare. And in 2006, two soldiers suffocated in a fire broke out on a nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea.

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BBC News reported that a fist fight broke out Sunday between Greek and Armenian Orthodox clergymen at one of Christianity's holiest sites.
Police were called to break up the brawl, which erupted at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Orthodox Palm Sunday.
The church is shared by several Christian denominations, so fights are not uncommon.
Witnesses say this particular one erupted when an Armenian preist forcibly removed a Greek priest from an area near the tomb of Jesus.
They also said the perpetrator felt the Greek priest had been at the tomb for too long.
Police reported being beaten back by worshippers bearing palm fronds after arriving at the scene.
Two Armenians were detained by police, which prompted supporters to rally in protest outside of the police station.
Historically, rivalry between the six different churches which uneasily share the Holy Sepulchre began in the aftermath of the crusades and the split between Eastern and Western Christianity in the 11th Century.
Each of the six denomination grudgingly guards and controls its own portion of the church site.

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The Associated Press reported via the Chicago Tribune that the Red Cross appealed Sunday for a $7.8 emergency fund to aid victims of an earthquake that ravaged southwest Pakistan.
The 6.4-magnitude earthquake hit just before dawn on Wednesday in an impoverished area near the Afghan border. Officials said the quake left thousands homeless and at least 215 dead - a number expected to rise above 300.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement that relief workers are still uncovering mountain villages devastated by the quake and have not yet received any aid. As winter sets in, their main priority is to provide shelter the homeless.
An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people were impacted. The U.N. has put the figure at more than 100,000, half of which are children.
The ICRC said the Ziarat district, which has a population of about 50,000, was affected the worst.
Authorities and the army are transporting tents, sleeping bags and food to victims in the valleys of Baluchistan province. Officials said many of the tents need insulation and stoves in lieu of the cooling weather.
The Red Cross and authorities are also gathering stores of antibiotics to treat children in the region who have been affected by an outbreak of chest infections.
UNICEF said it was delivering supplies of water to Ziarat in attempts to prevent the onset of cholera and diarrhea in young children. The organization appealed for $5 million from donors.
The United States said Friday it would provide an initial $1 million in aid. China, Germany and other countries have also offered financial assistance.

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The New York Times reported that a 48-year-old Brooklyn woman survived almost two days floating in a Guyanese river and said thoughts of seeing her 19-year-old daughter again were what kept her alive.
The woman, Sherry Haynes, was born in Guyana. She was stranded in the Coretyne River on Oct. 24 after the water taxi she was riding apparently got caught on a fishing net and capsized.
Haynes was in Guyana to spread her brother’s ashes along Guyana’s rivers, as he had wished. The trip along the Corentyne, which separates Guyana and the neighboring South American country of Suriname, was supposed to last only 20 minutes.
Six people died in the accident, including her sister and a nephew, also from New York. A crew member on the boat also survived.
“My husband told me he would have given up after the first night, but I am not like that,� Haynes said on Saturday. “At nights I drifted to Suriname, and in the day to Guyana, and then back again. The tides were very strong.�
Haynes said prayer kept her going. She said she realized people were out searching for her when she saw police boats in the river.
“But none came close to me,� she said. “I saw them in the distance.�
Approximately 36 hours after the boat capsized, Haynes washed up on a sandbank. A cattle herder rescued her, gave her food and called the authorities.
While she was waiting for rescue, friends and relatives were gathering fuel, firewood and white linen in preparation for cremating her body.
Haynes’s sister Sheila Gonsalves, a retired public education manager; her nephew Henry Gonsalves, who worked as an intensive-care unit technician at NewYork-Presbyterian; and a friend traveling with them were killed.
“I never in my wildest dreams anticipated that this was what I was coming for, for all these funerals,� Haynes said.

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The Mexican government said Sunday that after a shootout in Tijuana, Mex., security forces have arrested drug lord Eduardo Arellano Félix, one of the United States' most wanted international traffickers, Reuters reported via the New York Times .
Arellano Félix, known as "the Doctor," is a high-ranking member of a family drug cartel that has been involved in the violent battle for control of the drug trade - a struggle which has killed more than 3,700 people in Mexico this year alone, including 450 in Tijuana.
He is suspected of running the cartel with his sister Enedina, who is the only suspect family member still at large after several other brothers have been arrested or killed.
Federal police officials in Tijuana said they arrested Arellano Félix on Saturday after chasing his vehicle into a three-story house in a wealthy neighborhood. The chase resulted into a three-hour gun battle with more than 100 police officers and soldiers, leaving the home covered in bullet holes.
In 2003 the U.S. indicted Arellano Félix on charges of drug-smuggling and money-laundering. A reward of up to $5 million was offered for his capture.
Since late 2006 President Felipe Calderón has sent tens of thousands of troops and federal police officers across the country to combat increasing drug violence, but few arrests of major cartel leaders have been made.
The Arellano Félix family dominated the smuggling of cocaine and marijuana into California in the 1990s. Members were feared for their merciless elimination of enemies.
Eduardo’s youngest brother, Francisco Arellano Félix, was captured while deep-sea fishing off the coast of Mexico last November and sentenced to life in prison in the U. S. Mexican authorities agreed in June to extradite another brother, Benjamín, to the United States to face smuggling charges.

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The AP reported via CNN that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is using Russia's satellite navigation system to track his pet dog.
The Global Navigation Satellite isn't fully operational yet, but after being briefed on its progress by deputy Sergei Ivanov on Friday, footage broadcast on Russian TV showed them attaching a collar containing satellite-guided positioning equipment on Koni, the prime minister's black Labrador.
Ivanov said that the equipment goes on standby when "the dog doesn't move, if it, say, lies down in a puddle."
"My dog isn't a piglet, it doesn't lie in puddles," Putin joked.
"She wags her tail, she likes it," Putin said after watching Koni outside his home on Moscow's western outskirts.
The system, known as GLONASS, was developed in response to the U.S. Global Positioning System during the Soviet era. It has been developing slowly in the wake of the post-Soviet economic crisis.
The government promised the system would be completed by the beginning of the year, but it was delayed by equipment flaws and other technical difficulties.
Ivanov told Putin that the system would have 21 satellites by the end of the year, which is enough to provide navigation services over the entire Russian territory.
Ivanov said it would need to have 24 satellites to be available worldwide, which is projected to happen by the end of 2009.

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According to the New York Times, two missing American journalists were released to the American Embassy in Lebanon on Thursday and are on their way back to Jordan, family members and embassy officials said.
The two young Americans, Holli Chmela, 27, and Taylor Luck, 23, arrived in Lebanon a week and a half ago on a visit from Jordan, where they both worked for The Jordan Times. Nobody had heard from them since they told friends they were on their way to Syria, via northern Lebanon, on Oct. 1.
Several bombings have taken place in northern Lebanon in recent months, so the lack of communication with the pair led to an intensive search beginning Wednesday. Fears had risen that the journalists had been kidnapped.
On Thursday, the Syrian state news agency said the Americans were being detained and questioned for using a smuggler to cross into Syria illegally. A few hours later, they were turned over to the U.S. Embassy in Syria.
According to the article, Syria is extremely sensitive when it comes to immigration and security. Entering the country without a visa would be both difficult and naïve, especially for Americans. Foreigners’ passports are routinely checked for visas.
Last month, thousands of Syrian troops were sent to the border with northern Lebanon in what was said to be an attempt to fight smuggling.
During a phone interview from her home in Massachusetts, Chmela’s mother, Amy Chmela, said she spoke to her daughter on Thursday but didn't know where her daughter and Luck had been while they were missing or how they had gotten into Syria. She said the two intended to return to Jordan late on Thursday.
“I am thrilled,� she said. “She’s fine. She’s been through an ordeal, but there was no time for her to give us details.�
While working at The Jordan Times, Chmela was studying Arabic. Luck, originally from Chicago, is a reporter at the newspaper.

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A man said his dog rescued him from his burning house in Trinidad then died after it ran back into the building, the Associated Press reported via the L.A. Times.
Anderson Marcano, the dog's owner, was quoted in the Trinidad & Tobago Express newspaper as saying his dog woke him in the middle of the night by barking and tugging his pants. Marcano said he smelled smoke and realized his house was on fire.
The story did not say why the dog ran back in. Marcano said nobody else was in the house.
On Wednesday, firefighters found the remains of the dog, "Rebel," as well as the body of the family's pet parrot, he said.

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A popular Outback zoo's director said that a 7-year-old Aussie boy broke into the zoo Wednesday, fed several animals to one of its crocodiles, and killed several lizards, the Associated Press reported via the Chicago Sun Times.
The boy had entered the Alice Springs Reptile Center in central Australia by jumping a security fence, zoo director Rex Neindorf said. The incident lasted about 30 minutes and was captured on a security camera.
Once inside, the boy went on a rampage, smashing three lizards to death with a rock and then feeding them to "Terry," the zoo's 11-foot, 440-pound saltwater crocodile, Niendorf said. One of the lizards killed was the zoo's beloved 20-year-old goanna.
The child also fed Terry several live animals by throwing them over the fences surrounding the crocodile's habitat.
''It was like he was playing a game,'' Neindorf said, referring to the blank expression the boy wears in the footage.
Neindorf said the killing spree left 13 animals dead, including a turtle, bearded dragons and thorny devil lizards. Their net value was around $5,500, and although none were rare, some will be difficult to replace, he said.
He also said the boy's small size was likely what allowed him to slip past the zoo's security system.
''We're horrified that anyone can do this and saddened by the age of the child,'' Neindorf said.
The boy's name was not released because of his age, and Alice Springs police said they are unable to press charges against the boy because he is so young.
Niendorf said he intends to sue the child's parents.
''I just want people to learn that they can't let their children go and run amok,'' he said. ''If we can't put the blame onto the child, then someone has to accept the responsibility.''

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According to a CNN article, UN officials reported Sunday that at least 52 Somalis died when the boat that was smuggling them across Gulf of Aden to Yemen broke down and left them stranded without food or water for 18 days.
A news release from the San'a, Yemen, office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said seventy-one people survived the ordeal and were rescued by coast guardsmen in Shihr after the boat drifted into Yemeni coastal waters on September 21.
Survivors said they left war-torn Somalia to escape drought, unemployment and other insecurities. Smugglers received between $70 and $100 from each passenger, the UNHCR said.
The survivors said there were 124 of them when they left September 3 from Manera on the Somali coast. The engine stopped several hours later, they said.
"The knife-wielding crew of the smuggling boat told passengers they would travel to the Somali city of Bossaso in a smaller boat to recharge a battery and then return as soon as possible," the UNHCR said. "They never returned."
Thirty-eight men and 10 women died while the boat was drifting, survivors said. The bodies were thrown overboard. Four survivors died in the hospital after being rescued.
After high waves and the current carried the boat toward Yemen's Shihr coast, 3 people decided to swim to shore and find help. One is still missing.
The Yemen coast guard towed the boat to shore, and UNHCR staff members and other humanitarian agencies met survivors with food and water.
The UNHCR said there has been a recent increase in people smuggling across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia. It attributes the increase in smuggling to displacements in Somalia, the opening of new smuggling routes across the gulf, and the smugglers' belief that the gulf has less surveillance during the holy month of Ramadan.
Stormy gulf weather usually causes the frequency of smuggling to slow between May and September.
At least 31,192 people have been smuggled into Yemen already this year. More than 228 Somalis and Ethiopians have died, and 262 are missing.

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The New York Times reported that another milestone in China's space program was met Saturday afternoon when a Chinese astronaut orbiting the earth performed the nation's first spacewalk.
Zhai Zhigang pulled himself out of the Shenzhou VII spacecraft around 4:40 p.m. Beijing time, attached himself to a safety cords and a handrail, and waved to the multitudes who were watching the country's third space mission with an astronaut on a live broadcast.
“I am here greeting the Chinese people and the people of the world,� Mr. Zhai said, waving to a camera attached to the module.
The mission was part of China's plan to create a space station by 2020 and eventually land on the moon.
The Chinese government provides extensive media coverage to its space missions with astronauts. This achievement was another step towards the country's establishment as an economic and technological superpower.
President Hu Jintao was in Beijing's space command center on Saturday.
Zhai also waved a Chinese flag once he was fully out of the module and safely attached to it, causing cheers from viewers at the command center, the article said.
Liu Boming, another astronaut, became the second Chinese astronaut to touch space when he briefly stuck his head and part of his body out of the craft at one point during the mission. The third astronaut, Jing Haipeng, stayed behind in the re-entry module, which will take them back to earth should an emergency arise.
Two hours later, the team released a tiny monitoring satellite.
This was China's third manned space mission in five years. Prior to the occasion, only space programs in the United States and the Soviet Union, and later Russia, had sent humans into space, though astronauts from other countries have participated in some of those missions.

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According to the Associated Press, U.N.-funded radio station revealed Monday that a claim that a soccer player was using witchcraft during a game in eastern Congo incited a riot that left 13 people dead.
Radio Okapi said the majority of the victims were children between the ages of 11 and 16. They suffocated after being trampled under the panicking crowd.
The game, which took place Sunday in Butembo in eastern Congo's North Kivu province., was between the soccer clubs Socozaki and Nyuki System, the radio said.
Police fired shots into the air in an attempt to calm the crowds at Matokeo stadium. They also wanted to protect their commander, who was wounded after being hit in the head by fans.
Julien Mpaluku, the regional governor, confirmed that soldiers fired shots to control the violence - an act that caused panic and chaos instead. The situation became deadly "when the crowds all tried to leave at the same time," Mpaluku said. He did not mention witchcraft.
"Most of the dead were children, only two or three were adults," Mpaluku said.
Teenagers marched the streets of Butembo Monday in protest. Thousands of people have been displaced in recent years due to violence between Congo's army and rebels.
The government is currently investigating Sunday's events, the article said.

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According to BBC News, at least 20 were killed and 90 were injured when five bombs exploded Saturday in some of the busiest shopping areas in India's capital, Delhi.
Four unexploded bombs were also found, police say.
According to one witness, there were between 100 and 200 people around one site when the bombs exploded. "Around 1830 we heard a very loud noise, then we saw people running all over the place," Reuters news agency quoted him as saying. Footage shows streets littered with destroyed vehicles, blood, and debris.
All of the blasts occurred in crowded areas.
Thought it's too soon to tell who is responsible for the attack, it appears to be similar to recent bombings in Jaipur and Bangalore, for which a group that calls itself the Indian Mujahideen claims responsibility.
CNN-IBN, a local TV news station, said it received an e-mail before the explosions from the Indian Mujahideen. The message reportedly said: "Do whatever you can. Stop us if you can."
The Indian government has put the area on a high security alert, but the Mayor of Delhi, Arti Mehra, told reporters the city will not be intimidated. "They want to break the spirit of Delhi," he said. "They will not succeed here."
Since October 2005, over 400 people have been killed in bomb attacks in India.

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Despite Chile's reputation as one of South America's most sexually conservative countries, its youth are experiencing a sexual awakening, the New York Times reported.
The increasing popularity of 18-and-under parties and Web sites like Fotolog, which allow people to share photos and organize events, have allowed Chilean teenagers to express themselves sexually in a way that government officials say is unlike anything the country has seen before.
“We are not the children of the dictatorship; we are the children of democracy,� said Michele Bravo, 17, at an afternoon party. “There is much more of a rebellious spirit among young people today. There is much more freedom to explore everything.�
Such means of exploration include competitions to become the “ponceo," or the one who makes out with the most people at any given party - a trend that is included by party music lyrics that encourage teenagers to "Poncea! Poncea!": make out with as many people as you can.
Mario Muñoz, a 20-year-old co-owner of Imperio Productions, which organizes several of the largest 18-and-under parties said that “before, someone would meet and fall in love and start dating seriously here; at a party today, you meet like three people and make out with all three.�
Still, Muñoz insists that parties are good, clean fun. Alcohol is prohibited, cigarettes are not sold, and security guards will throw out any boys whose groping causes a girl to complain.
The parents of these adolescents never received formal sex education, and sex education in Chile's public schools is still lacking. Educators say it is difficult to keep up with the overwhelming amount of sexual content on the internet. Chile's Education Ministry is implementing a new sex education curriculum this year to better protect youth.

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