Pakistan. Rain threatens to worsen floods..[ 1584 ]

More rain threatens to worsen Pakistan floods

Pakistan's Meteorological Department said more heavy rains were in store in the next few days.

By the CNN Wire Staff

August 7, 2010 -- Updated 1610 GMT (0010 HKT)

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Heavy monsoonal downpours worsened massive flooding in Pakistan Saturday and weather forecasts provided little hope of drying out in the next few days.

The flooding that began in the northwest threatened places as far south as the port city of Karachi. Districts in the southern province of Sindh were on high alert Saturday as more rain swelled already bloated rivers and inundated drenched earth.

Pakistan's Federal Flood Commission warned Saturday that the Indus River was flooded and rising in parts of Sindh, including Sukkur, the third largest provincial province.

As many as 12 million people have been affected by the torrential rains and floods, Pakistani authorities said. About 1,600 people have died.

Pakistan's Meteorological Department said more heavy rains were in store in the next few days, threatening to deepen the worst natural disaster Pakistan has experienced in recent history. And the monsoon season is only halfway over.

Pakistan's disaster management authority estimated that 650,000 houses have been damaged or destroyed. By comparison, the earthquake of 2005 affected 3.2 million people and damaged or destroyed 611,000 homes.

"Pakistan has been hit by the worst flood of its history," said Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in a televised speech Friday. "As I speak, the flood is still engulfing new areas and adding to the scale of devastation."

Gilani said a true assessment of the loss to life and infrastructure can be determined only after the water recedes. He appealed to the international community and to Pakistanis living abroad to dig deep into their pockets.

As the rains continued, aid agencies feared not being able to alleviate the suffering of flood victims desperate for food and shelter.

Patrick Fuller has worked for the International Red Cross for 15 years and been involved in other disasters. Still, he said he was shocked by the flooding and called on the world for donations.

"These people need help desperately and the world needs to wake up," Fuller told CNN Friday. People can't go back to their homes. They are living in a precarious situation."

He said there has been a conspicuous absence of aid in some areas, despite efforts by the Red Cross and other international aid groups.

Parts of the Swat Valley remain inaccessible by road; helicopters provide the only way in or out for people, food, clean water and medicine. Those flights were hampered Saturday by more bad weather.

Meanwhile, among the suffering, anger grew at the government for perceived lack of action. They hurled stinging criticism at President Asif Ali Zardari, who was in England for talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron during the worst of the crisis.

"We elected him," a resident of the flooded town of Chachran Sharif said about Zardari. "Where is he?"

U.S. emergency relief teams were continuing to arrive in Peshawar for distribution by Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority, the State Department said.

In all, the U.S. Agency for International Development has committed $35 million in aid to international organizations and non-governmental organizations, it said.

CNN's Reza Sayah, Dan Rivers and Moni Basu contributed to this story.

Russia battling fires round-the-clock..[ 1583 ]

Russian emergency services battling fires round-the-clock

Topic: Abnormal hot weather in Russia

• 
• 
• 

2/3

Wildfires in Russia

12:48 07/08/2010

© RIA Novosti. Alexey Nikolsky

MOSCOW, August 7 (RIA Novosti)

Russia’s emergency services have begun extinguishing round-the-clock wildfires raging near Moscow that have seen the city shrouded in thick, toxic smog for a second day.

“From today work on putting out peat bog fires will be carried out during the night as well,” the deputy emergency minister said.

“Up until now they had only been contained at night,” Alexander Chupriyan added.

The smog has seen levels of carbon monoxide reached some 6 times the safe level. The fires have been caused by a heat wave that has seen temperatures nudge 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

The smog is not expected to clear until at least Tuesday, when wind directions should change.

Much of the central part of European Russia has also been hit by wildfires, with blazes reported in over 20 regions. More than 50 people have died in the fires.

Colombia's leader to take office..[ 1582 ]

Colombia's leader to take office amid tensions with Venezuela

Juan Manuel Santos takes office Saturday.

By the CNN Wire Staff

August 7, 2010 -- Updated 1044 GMT (1844 HKT)

(CNN)Colombia's new president may have a chance to test his diplomatic skills as soon as he takes office Saturday. Venezuela's foreign minister could be attending his inauguration.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told state television Friday that his country's foreign minister would attend the inauguration of Juan Manuel Santos in Bogota, Colombia.

The announcement comes amid high tension between the neighboring countries, who are at odds over accusations that leftist rebels have found refuge in Venezuela.

Venezuela broke off diplomatic ties with Colombia last month after Colombian officials said they had photographic evidence of guerrilla camps in Venezuela.

But on Friday, Chavez said he hoped to offer more details about relations with Colombia in the coming days, according to state media.

"We are very optimistic. We must move forward," he said, according to the state-run Agencia Venezolana de Noticias.

Colombia made its case against Venezuela before the Organization of American States last month and asked for international observers to be allowed into Venezuela to verify the presence of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrilla group.

Chavez has denied the allegations and accused Colombian officials and right-wing paramilitary units of plotting his assassination, while the Colombian government has accused Chavez of supporting the rebels.

But Chavez recently expressed hope of restoring relations after Colombian President Alvaro Uribe leaves office.

Last week, he told state-run VTV that he hoped to meet with Santos as soon as possible.

Santos was elected president of Colombia in June with the highest vote total in his country's history: 9,300,000 -- roughly 70 percent of the vote. He ran as a conservative promising to improve Colombia's security.

Some of the strongest strikes against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, came under his leadership as minister of defense, including the high-profile hostage rescue of former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt in 2008.

"We have been tough on terrorism and we will be even tougher now," Santos said at a victory celebration after winning the presidential election in June.

CNN's Rafael Romo contributed to this report.

Ahmadinejad doubts Sept 11 attack toll..[ 1581 ]

Iran's Ahmadinejad doubts Sept 11 attack toll

EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to film or take pictures in Tehran. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gestures while speaking at a ceremony to mark the National Journalist Day at the Iran's state television's conference centre in Tehran August 7, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/ISNA/Mehdi Ghasemi

By Robin Pomeroy and Ramin Mostafavi

TEHRAN | Sat Aug 7, 2010 9:49am EDT

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday the September 11, 2001 attacks were exaggerated in a fresh broadside at the United States just days after President Barack Obama voiced willingness to talk to Iran.

Well-known for his anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric, the hardline populist Ahmadinejad also repeated his denial of the Holocaust, on which the consensus of historians is that six million Jews were exterminated by Nazi Germany.

Ahmadinejad said the September 11 attacks with hijacked airliners on New York and Washington D.C. had been trumped up as an excuse for the United States to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

Speaking at a Tehran conference, Ahmadinejad said there was no evidence that the death toll at New York's World Trade Center, destroyed in the attacks, was as high as reported and said "Zionists" had been tipped off in advance.

"What was the story of September 11? During five to six days, and with the aid of the media, they created and prepared public opinion so that everyone considered an attack on Afghanistan and Iraq as (their) right," he said in a televised speech.

No "Zionists" were killed in the World Trade Center, according to Ahmadinejad, because "one day earlier they were told not go to their workplace."

"They announced that 3,000 people were killed in this incident, but there were no reports that reveal their names. Maybe you saw that, but I did not," he told a gathering of the Iranian news media.

There is a published list of September 11 dead from more than 90 countries available online.

A total of 2,995 people were killed in the attacks, including 19 hijackers and all passengers and crew aboard four commandeered airliners, according to official U.S. figures. The United States blamed the assaults on al Qaeda, led by Saudi-born Sunni Muslim fundamentalist Osama Bin Laden.

Ahmadinejad accused the U.S. government of exercising more media censorship than anywhere in the world.

He had previously said the "9-11" attacks were a "big fabrication" and has rejected the historical record of the Holocaust. On Saturday, Ahmadinejad repeated his belief that the Holocaust had been invented to justify the creation of Israel.

"They made up an event, the so-called Holocaust which was later laid as the basis for the innocence of a group," he said.

Ahmadinejad last week challenged Obama to a televised debate on global issues during his trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September.

Two years ago he asked to visit the site of the World Trade Center "to pay his respects" but New York police refused.

Washington succeeded in June in getting a fourth round of U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed on Iran to pressure it to suspend its disputed nuclear program.

Tougher U.S. and European measures have further tightened restrictions on doing business with the major OPEC country.

Obama signaled on Thursday he was open to talks with the Islamic Republic and was seeking "a clear set of steps that we would consider sufficient to show that they are not pursuing nuclear weapons." [nN05148192]

Ahmadinejad has said he is prepared to return to international talks, which were last held in October, but insists that Iran has the sovereign right to enrich uranium.

Western powers fear the Islamic Republic aims to stockpile the material for possible use, when more highly enriched, in nuclear weapons, and U.N. nuclear inspectors cite indications that Iran is researching how to build a nuclear-tipped missile.

Tehran says it is refining uranium only for electricity and medical treatments.

Israel considers the combination of Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial and his pursuit of nuclear technology a potential threat to its existence and has said it does not rule out military action to prevent Iran developing atomic bombs.

A Washington-based think-tank with access to intelligence said on Friday Iran had begun using recently installed equipment to enrich uranium more efficiently, a step it said could be justified nominally on civilian grounds but in fact made more sense in the context of learning how to make bomb-grade uranium.

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Okinawa., Emotional U.S. serviceman..[ 1580 ]

Okinawa-raised, retired U.S. serviceman keeps island in heart as base issues linger

Thomas Shimabukuro's mouth tenses as he stands outside the U.S. military's Camp Zukeran in Okinawa. (Mainichi)

(Mainichi Japan) August 7, 2010

Inside the spacious compound of Camp Zukeran, a U.S. base in southern Okinawa surrounded by wire netting and barbed wire, the Stars and Stripes and a Japanese flag flap in the wind. Beyond the fence lies a residential area.

"I used to work there," says 76-year-old Thomas Shimabukuro, a resident of Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, pointing to a Marine Corps command center building. Shimabukuro, a retired U.S. military serviceman, has seen Okinawa from inside and outside the wire fence.

He was born in Los Angeles, but his parents, born in Okinawa, decided to return to their homeland when relations between Japan and the United States started deteriorating. Shimabukuro was just 1 year old at the time.

In April 1945, during World War II, U.S. battleships that had taken the East China Sea unleashed booming cannon fire on Okinawa. Shimabukuro, who was 11 at the time, fled from the attacks with his mother and hid in the mountains. They survived there, eating wild plants and potatoes, but Shimabukuro's father, who was drafted into Okinawa's defense force, would not come home.

Several years after Japan's defeat in the war, Shimabukuro received an unexpected notice from the United States that forced him to make a decision: undergo a conscription exam in the United States or lose his U.S. citizenship. Even after graduating from high school, finding a job was not easy. Wanting to ease the burden on his mother, who was raising eight children single-handedly, Shimabukuro decided to cross the ocean to the United States and enlist in the army.

Shimabukuro became a part of the military force that likely killed his father. When he was sent to fight in the Vietnam War, he couldn't bring himself to tell his mother.

At the time, Shimabukuro's fellow soldiers threw candy to the children living in the war zone. Listening to the children say, "Give me chocolate" brought him back to his days as a child 20 years before. He recalled himself in Okinawa, where he had lost everything, collecting lilies and using them to bargain for candy from soldiers. Shimabukuro himself made bags of candy and handed them to the children. At the time, he encountered one elderly Vietnamese woman who, puzzled, asked him, "Are you an American?"

"I'm from Okinawa," he replied. As soon as he did, the woman started crying. Both he and that woman had experienced life in a fierce battle zone; they shared that in common.

In 1970, Shimabukuro was sent to Okinawa before its reversion to Japan. At one point he was in charge of handling a traffic accident caused by a U.S. serviceman. Shimabukuro told the victim in the accident that he would handle the case properly, but the day after, the U.S. serviceman fled back to his country.

"Liar." Shimabukuro was stung by the word, hurled at him by the victim.

"I was always fighting with myself, worried that I wasn't being of use to the people of Okinawa," he says. In 1976, still unable to shake himself free of such concerns, he retired from military service.

A change for Shimabukuro came in 2000. The Bankoku Shinryokan convention center near his family home in Nago was one of the venues for the Kyushu-Okinawa G8 summit, and one of his former classmates wrote to Shimabukuro, who was living in Seattle at the time, asking him to come and help out by teaching residents English and assisting in international exchange. He agreed, and it became the happiest time of his life.

"I felt like I was able to repay my debt to Okinawa," he says.

In 2001, Shimabukuro returned to his family home to care for his mother. Looking around the area as a resident, he felt the U.S. military bases were too many.

Now, in 2010, it is possible that U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma will be moved to the nearby coastal Henoko region.

"Do they really need something that big?" Shimabukuro asks himself. At the same time he feels that there is nothing to do but to accept the Japan-U.S. agreement. When he thinks about Nago, a town tired from being tossed to and fro by politicians, his heart grows troubled.

Shimabukuro hold both U.S. and Japanese nationality, but he considers himself to be an Okinawan. After a life of adversity, Okinawa is like a haven to him. But to Shimabukuro, the sea of his hometown seems more turbulent than ever. 

(This is part three of a series on U.S.-Okinawa history.)

Click here for the original Japanese story