Six In The Morning

Night falls on Abidjan: Looting, gangs, burning corpses – and hungry people afraid to go out
Daniel Howden reports from the perilous streets of Abidjan, as the conflict in Ivory Coast edges closer to a bloody showdown
Friday, 8 April 2011
The roadblocks begin right outside the airport. Rusted barrels and planks are strewn across side streets, manned by boys in filthy vests. The boys are armed with little more than their own strength in numbers. The looting lends the streets of Abidjan the appearance of an earthquake zone. Burnt-out cars are overturned. Emptied streets are carpeted in smashed glass. What's left on the Tarmac is only what was broken as it was looted.

A line of office furniture reaches as far as a smashed wardrobe and stops. Then the bodies start. At first, the fire seems to be nothing more than a pile of tyres. Then a soldier explains that people have begun to burn the corpses to prevent disease from spreading. Further along, a cloud of stinking black smoke rises from a garishly painted bus stop. A charred leg rises unmistakably out of the flames.

Rebels rejects Gadafy talks
irishtimes.com
Friday, April 8, 2011
With daily skirmishes near the contested port of Brega in eastern Libya making little impact on the front line and rebels unable to end a brutal government assault on the western city of Misrata, Nato admits its mission to protect civilians is tough.

In rebel-held eastern Libya, wounded rebels being brought to a hospital Ajdabiyah said their trucks and tanks were hit yesterday by a Nato air strike outside Brega, where fighting has dragged on for a week.

It was the second time in less than a week that rebels had blamed Nato for bombing their comrades by mistake after 13 were killed in an air strike not far from the same spot on Saturday

German Justice Through the Eyes of a Somali Pirate
A courtroom in Hamburg is the scene of a head-on collision between two worlds as the German justice system tries 10 Somali pirates who hijacked a cargo ship. The pirates, some of whom are under 18, had no idea what a court or a trial was and were afraid they would be tortured -- or executed -- by the judge.
By Beate Lakotta in Hamburg
This odyssey is Abdiwali's fate, and only God knows how it will end. It almost came to an end for him once before, in the Indian Ocean.

They had been held on board the Dutch warship Tromp, where Dutch marines had blindfolded them and secured them to the deck with handcuffs. Abdiwali was terrified that they would be tortured, so much so that he managed to loosen his handcuffs and jump overboard, hundreds of nautical miles off the Somali coast.
As he watched the Tromp slip away in the cool, smooth waters, he expected to be attacked by a shark. "I wanted the ocean to swallow me. I preferred to die quickly," he says today.

Men have affairs because wives neglect their responsibilities, MP tells parliament

April 8, 2011 - 12:47PM
Malaysian men have extramarital sex because of "wives who neglect their responsibilities" to their husbands, a Malaysian MP has told his country's Parliament, outraging women's groups.

"Husbands driving home after work see things that are sexually arousing and go to their wives to ease their urges," said independent lawmaker Ibrahim Ali, according to online portal Malaysiakini.

"But when they come home to their wives, they will say, 'wait, I'm cooking,' or 'wait, I'm getting ready to visit relatives,'" Mr Ibrahim said.

Hazare announces jail bharo on April 13 after govt rejects demands

TNN | Apr 8, 2011, 10.16am IST
NEW DELHI: The government has rejected the demand of Anna Hazare to issue an official notification to constitute the draft committee for Lokpal Bill and also rejected the proposal for an outsider to lead the new committee of government and civil society.

The protesters announced that Kapil Sibal had conveyed about this decision to them and has also said that Pranab Mukherjee will head the committee.

Reacting to the government's stand, Anna Hazare announced country-wide Jail Bharo agiation on April 12.

White House talks fail to produce budget deal; House passes stopgap bill

By Philip Rucker, Perry Bacon Jr. and William Branigin
A Thursday-night meeting between congressional leaders and President Obama failed to resolve an impasse over federal spending that, barring an agreement on Friday, would result in a government shutdown.

After the session, which lasted nearly 90 minutes, Obama said in brief remarks to reporters that differences between the two parties remained, adding, “I’m not yet prepared to express wild optimism.”

He did not detail the remaining disagreements between Democrats and the White House and congressional Republicans, which have prompted days of tense negotiations over a bill to fund the federal government.