Brazil to send extra police
to reduce Amazon deforestation
SAO PAULO, Brazil -- Brazil will try to combat deforestation in the Amazon by sending extra federal police and environmental agents to 36 cities and towns where illegal rain forest clearing jumped dramatically last year, officials said Thursday.
Authorities will also monitor areas where deforestation occurred in an attempt to prevent the planting of crops or the raising of cattle, Environment Minister Marina Silva said.
The clearing of Brazil's Amazon rain forest jumped in the final months of 2007, spurred by heavy market demand for corn, soy and cattle.
Holocaust memorial
launches Arabic Web site
JERUSALEM -- Israel's Holocaust memorial launched an Arabic version of its Web site Thursday, including vivid photos of Nazi atrocities and video of survivors' testimony to combat Holocaust denial in the Arab and Muslim world.
Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev said Arabic-language Holocaust education was long overdue.
In 2007, Yad Vashem said nearly 7 million people, from more than 200 countries, visited its Web site, which is available in a variety of languages. Some 56,000 of those visitors came from Muslim countries, including 32,500 from Arabic-speaking countries.
To see the Web site visit http://www.yadvashem.org.
Egypt begins to control
influx of Gazans
RAFAH, Gaza Strip -- Egyptian border guards steered huge crowds of Palestinians streaming from Gaza to Egypt across a breached border for a second day Thursday, but they did not try to halt the flow.
On Wednesday, Palestinian gunmen used land mines to blast down the border partition so Gazans could escape an Israeli closure imposed last week that was making food, fuel and other goods scarce. Since then, tens of thousands of Gazans have rushed into Egypt.
On the frontier, guards patrolled access roads while helmeted police with sniffer dogs used batons to beat the hoods of private cars and pickup trucks that massed at the border, trying to stop them from carrying Palestinians further into Egyptian territory.
Egyptian officials said the border would eventually "return to normal."
Britain unveils new terrorism proposals,
including longer detention
LONDON -- The British government revealed sweeping plans Thursday to toughen terrorism laws, including a proposal to hold suspects for up to 42 days without charges.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's plan would increase the limit for detaining suspects without charges from 28 days to 42 days, allow police to take DNA samples from terrorism suspects and urge judges to impose stiffer sentences on criminals with terrorism-linked offenses.
Proposals to increase the maximum time terrorism suspects can be held by police are opposed by human rights groups as well lawmakers.
Opponents of the changes claim no evidence has been produced to support an extension of detention limits.
An additional $88 million has been allocated to more than 70 local authorities to spend over the next three years on projects aimed at tackling extremism.
Suicide bomber kills
provincial police chief
BAGHDAD -- A suicide bomber killed an Iraqi police chief and two other officers Thursday as they surveyed the site of the wreckage of a blast a day earlier that devastated a predominantly Sunni neighborhood in the volatile northern city of Mosul.
In Thursday's attack, a bomber disguised as a policeman blew himself up as the entourage was just yards away from its vehicles, said police spokesman Saeed al-Jubouri. Brig. Gen. Salah Mohammed al-Jubouri, the police chief for surrounding Ninevah province, was among the dead. Al-Jubouri is a tribal name common in Mosul.
The casualty toll from Wednesday's explosion rose to at least 34 dead and 224 injured, said Hisham al-Hamdani, the head of the Ninevah provincial council.
In addition to deaths, five people were wounded, including three Iraqi police, an Iraqi soldier and a U.S. soldier, the U.S. military said.
The military said initial reports indicated al-Qaida in Iraq was behind Thursday's attack, but Wednesday's explosion remained under investigation.
Rival Kenyan leaders meet
for first time since disputed election
NAIROBI, Kenya -- Kenya's president and its main opposition leader met Thursday for the first time since the disputed Dec. 27 presidential vote, but they emerged still clearly divided over the central question of who really won the election.
President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga met for about an hour with former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who succeeded where previous international mediators had failed in getting Kibaki and Odinga to sit down together.
The two rivals shook hands and promised to work for peace after a spasm of postelection violence left about 700 people dead. They then walked out of the downtown presidential offices side by side.
International allies, saying the vote tally was rigged, have been urging Kibaki and Odinga to negotiate a power-sharing agreement that might create a new position of prime minister for Odinga.
From the Associated Press
Produced by
Washington and Lee
journalism students.
Lead Supervisors:
Prof. Brian
Richardson
Prof. Phylissa
Mitchell
Editing supervisor:
Prof. Pamela Luecke
Technical supervisor: Michael Todd