Three Britons and one Australian were injured when a large wave crashed onto their vessel in the Pacific Ocean during a round-the-world yacht race.
They suffered a range of injuries, including suspected broken ribs, 400 miles off the California coast.
Race organisers named the British crew as Jane Hitchens, 50, from Kent, Mark Burkes, 37, from Worcestershire and Nik Brbora, 28, from London.
Paramedics are preparing to parachute in to provide medical assistance.
Ms Hitchens has four suspected broken ribs, Mr Burkes has suffered a back injury and Mr Brbora has possible pelvic sprain.
The other crew member was named as Max Wilson, 62, from Queensland, Australia, who has two suspected cracked or broken ribs.
They were taking part biennial Clipper Round The World Yacht Race in one of 10 UK registered 68-foot yachts, the Geraldton Western Australia.
The wave hit the boat in storm conditions on Saturday, sweeping away its steering wheel and mount and some of its communications equipment.
Race director Joff Bailey said: "We are naturally concerned at the recent incident on Geraldton Western Australia and are in close contact with the skipper, UK Maritime and Coastguard at Falmouth and the US coast guard.
"The safety of all Clipper Race crew is extremely important to us. Our skippers are highly experienced and several crew members on board have medical training."
The 40,000-mile (64,500km) race, which features predominantly amateur crews, started in Southampton in July.
YANGON, Myanmar�? Myanmar holds crucial by-elections on Sunday that are expected to see Aung San Suu Kyi, who led the fight for democracy under the former junta, entering parliament for the first time and could lead to an easing of sanctions by the West.
The United States and European Union have hinted economic sanctions - imposed years ago in response to human rights abuses - could be lifted if the election is free and fair, which could unleash a wave of investment in the impoverished but resource-rich country bordering India and China.
A civilian government took office a year ago after almost five decades of military rule and has surprised the world with the speed at which it has implemented political and economic reforms, including freeing hundreds of political prisoners.
To be regarded as credible, the vote needs the blessing of 66-year-old Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was herself freed from house arrest in November 2010, just after the general election that led to the civilian government the following March.
That election was widely seen as rigged to favour the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), the biggest in parliament, and Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) boycotted the vote.
Suu Kyi appears to have taken a gamble after the reforms pushed through by President Thein Sein, who was himself a general in the former junta. She has called him "honest" and "sincere" and accepted his appeal for the NLD to take part.
Her party is competing for 44 of the 45 by-election seats, but has complained of irregularities that could undermine the vote.
"What has been happening in this country is really beyond what is acceptable for a democratic election. Still, we are determined to go forward because we think that is what our people want," a frail but defiant Suu Kyi told reporters outside her lakeside house in Yangon on Friday.
She has accused rivals of vandalizing election posters, padding electoral registers and "many, many cases of intimidation", including two attempts to injure candidates with catapulted projectiles.
Suu Kyi is running in the constituency of Kawhmu, south of Yangon. She planned to tour polling stations there early on Sunday after voting starts at 6 a.m. (2330 GMT on Saturday), before returning to Yangon later in the day.
It was not clear when the results would be announced.
The government has invited in a small number of election observers, including five from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, but they have been given hardly any time to prepare inside Myanmar.
As big as France and Britain combined, Myanmar's size, energy resources and ports on the Indian Ocean and Andaman Sea have made it a vital energy security asset for Beijing's landlocked western provinces, and a priority for Washington as President Barack Obama strengthens engagement with Asia.
Some U.S. restrictions such as visa bans and asset freezes could be lifted quickly if the election goes smoothly, diplomats say, while the EU may end its ban on investment in timber and the mining of gemstones and metals.
Every air passenger will now have to pay more in duty when they fly
Air passenger duty (APD) has risen by 8%, as announced by the government in the Autumn Statement last year.
For short-haul flights, the tax has increased from �12 to �13. For long-haul flights of more than 4,000 miles, it has gone up from �85 to �92.
In light of the increase, airlines called on the Treasury to review the impact on "hard working families".
A Treasury minister said the majority of passengers will only pay an extra �1 as a result of the rise.
Also as of 1 April, corporation tax in the UK falls by 1% to 24%.
The changes in APD will also see it extended to private business jets for the first time.
'Tax review'
In a joint statement the bosses of Easyjet, British Airways owner IAG, Ryanair and Virgin Atlantic said the increase would "hit millions of hard-working families and damage the wider economy".
"We urge [Chancellor] George Osborne to make APD the first tax to be examined under the Treasury's new review of the wider impacts of taxation on the economy," they said.
They added that further planned rises in the tax before 2016 would mean a family of four paying �500 in tax to fly economy class to Australia. In 2005, they said, the same family would have paid �80.
Sir Richard Branson, who owns Virgin Atlantic, told the BBC increasing the tax might put some people off visiting the UK.
"Tax is all very well when it's not actually costing the country money and I think it's getting to a stage where it's actually going to cost the country money," he said.
The business group the CBI has also called for a lower rise in APD.
The government defended the rise by saying it had frozen APD last year.
"Most passengers pay only a pound more on their flights as a result of the rise," said Economic Secretary to the Treasury Chloe Smith.
"We have made aviation tax fairer by bringing private business jets in for the first time.
"We were able to take action to freeze APD last year and we have been able to be clear about what will then happen to it this year - I think that does represent a fair deal for passengers and I think it does also represent a fair deal for businesses, who are today enjoying a historically low rate of corporation tax," she said.
There are four bands of APD. Tax on short-haul flights has gone up from �12 to �13.
Longer flights up to 4,000 miles have seen an increase from �60 to �65, while tax on flights between 4,000 and 6,000 miles has risen from �75 to �81.
APD on flights above 6,000 miles has increased from �85 to �92.
All these figures refer to economy class flights; business class passengers pay more.
Game Group's stores operate under the Game and Gamestation brands
The investment group, Opcapita, will announce on Sunday it is buying the rump of the troubled Game Group out of administration, the BBC understands.
The deal will keep open 333 stores and save 3,100 jobs.
Half a dozen banks, led by Royal Bank of Scotland, who are owed �85m, have approved the takeover, says BBC business editor Robert Peston.
Last Monday the video game retailer went into administration, with 277 stores closing down immediately.
Administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) also announced 2,104 staff would be made redundant but the remaining 333 stores were kept open as they searched for a buyer for the business.
The retailer had suffered from high fixed costs and an ambitious international expansion.
Its business has been hit by competition from online retailers.
A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after the bodies of a woman and a child were found at a house in Porthmadog, Gwynedd.
North Wales Police were called to the property in Glanmorfa Terrace at 21:20 BST on Friday evening.
A man in his 40s was arrested at the scene, police said.
Detectives say they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the deaths. Next of kin have been told and family members offered support.
Officers remain at the scene and the police said they were treating it as a major incident.
Police are asking anyone to contact them if they were near Glanmorfa Terrace on the evening of Friday 30 March, or may have any information about the incident.
Thomas and Raymond Kwok, two brothers who control Sun Kai Properties, the second largest property company in the world, were arrested by Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption Thursday, scandalizing the city. NBC's Ed Flanagan reports.
By Ed Flanagan, NBC News
BEIJING ? If you?ve ever been to Hong Kong, you?ve undoubtedly walked by a building built or managed by Sun Hung Kai Properties, the second largest property company in the world and one of the small number of prominent developers that control real estate in this land-scarce region.
To say that the Kwok family, which controls Sun Hung Kai, has played a part in constructing Hong Kong?s iconic skyline would be massive understatement. Three of the tallest buildings in the city were constructed by the firm as well as one of the region?s more surreal icons, a replica of Noah?s Ark which doubles as a hotel and theme park. (The Kwoks are evangelical Christians.)
So when news broke that the company?s co-chairmen, Thomas and Raymond Kwok, were arrested on Thursday by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), it caused an uproar that has scandalized the city of 7 million and caused the firm?s stock to tumble.
Make that plummet.�
In trading Friday on Hong Kong?s Hang Seng Index, Sun Hung Kai?s stock value plunged 13 percent, for a total loss of $4.9 billion in market value.��
Though no charges were publically announced and the Kwok brothers were released late Thursday evening, their arrest at the same time as the reported detention of Rafael Hui, the number two in the Hong Kong government from 2005-2007,�has some speculating that the arrests were related.
If so, the arrests one again underscore the tight relationship between Hong Kong?s government and local property developers, both of whom are in a perpetual race to keep up with the housing demands in the world?s most densely populated city.
Mercurial rise not without its issues With an estimated holdings of $18.3 billion dollars, the Kwok family is listed as the 27th wealthiest family in the world, according to Forbes Magazine. Their company, which was founded in 1963 by family patriarch, Kwok Tak Seng, has risen to prominence by breaking into every facet of the property business, from residential to hotels to industrial development.
Bobby Yip / Reuters
Thomas Kwok (R) and his younger brother Raymond Kwok, both Vice Chairman & Managing Director of Sun Hung Kai Properties, listen to a question during a news conference announcing the company's interim results in Hong Kong in this March 11, 2009 file photo.
By the end of 2011, Sun Hung Kai was reported to have a land bank of 46.7 million square feet of gross floor area either completed or in development. The group also owns 26 million square feet of farmland in Hong Kong?s New Territories that is in the process of receiving planning permission to be converted to building land.�
That translates into an astounding amount of property under Sun Hung Kai?s control in a city where land is extremely precious.�
The company and the family have also long been in the spotlight in Hong Kong. When the family patriarch died in 1990, he left the reins to his eldest son Walter, who became chairman and chief executive. In 1997, Walter was kidnapped and held for a week before his family paid a ransom of more than $77 million to have him released.
Walter returned to the company after his release, but eventually the family relationship unraveled when Thomas and Raymond Kwok dethroned Walter in 2008.
With the support of their mother, the two brothers charged Walter with being unfit to run the business and after a nasty struggle, eventually took over. Thomas, 60, runs the construction of new developments and Raymond, 58, is in charge of the company?s finances.��
Are Hong Kong?s business and political interests too close? The arrest of the Kwok brothers and Rafael Hui by the ICAC comes at a time when Hong Kong is dealing with a number of incidents that bring into question just how transparent and corruption-free the former British colony is today.
On the face of it, the city has a good reputation. The Heritage Foundation calls Hong Kong the world?s freest economy while Transparency International calls it the 12th least corrupt country and/or territory in the world. (The United States came out 10th and 24th respectively.) �
But the relationship between real-estate developers and the government has long been a source of simmering tensions in the crowded city. Opposition leaders and some social groups have long criticized the cozy relationship between the government and the developers.
Thousands took to the streets in March to demand that the city?s Chief Executive Donald Tsang quit after he was �was accused of accepting invitations for lavish yacht dinners and private jet trips from local businessmen.
In elections for the city?s next chief executive just last weekend, the winner Leung Chung-ying, campaigned on a platform of providing more low-income housing in the city.�
Some argue that the Kwok scandal is the next in a storyline of business and government blurring together too closely. However, the fact that the ICAC went ahead with this investigation suggests that for the present time at least, the mechanisms in place to deter and uncover corruption are still strong in Hong Kong.
Where this investigation goes from here will go a long way towards determining whether this latest crisis of faith in Hong Kong is the next step in a gradual erosion of Hong Kong?s autonomy and financial freedom or one that rights it once and for all.
Earlier this month, the filmmakers of the new documentary series "Frozen Planet" caused quite a bit of penguin pandemonium on the web with a video of two penguins in flight -- as passengers on a plane, that is.
Now, the filmmakers have released another clip of the birds soaring through the air, and this time they're using a very different flight method. In the video, female emperor penguins propel themselves through the water and rush through the surface in a short burst of flight.
Some of the penguins are more graceful than others as they plop their bellies back on the ice. In a version of the clip obtained exclusively by Entertainment Weekly, narrator Alec Baldwin explains that the birds have put on some weight because they are returning from three months of feeding at sea so that they can bring back food for their young.
"The males have been caring for eggs all winter long and are eager for their mates' return," Baldwin explains.
As many may know from the 2005 film "March of the Penguins," mating season is tough for emperor penguins, who must brave negative-degree temperatures and a host of predators while taking care of their eggs.
The birds are facing even tougher odds though due to climate change, which is melting the Arctic sea ice the penguins call home. "....If the sea ice shrinks, as projected by climate models, the population will decrease -- we show a dramatic decrease -- by the end of the century," population ecologist Stephanie Jenouvrie told the National Science Foundation in 2009. "The population will decline from about 3,000 breeding pairs to date to 400 breeding pairs by the end of the century."
In the meantime, documentarians hope shows like "Frozen Planet" will alert viewers to the dangers of climate change.
"[The frozen world] is changing faster now than it was when the cavemen were hunting mammoth," David Attenborough, the creator of "Frozen Planet," told The Age in an interview on the series.
Check out the clip of the rocketing birds above and the video of the passenger-penguins below:
SAO PAULO ? �Police say they arrested a woman carrying more than 4 pounds of cocaine stashed inside a fake pregnant belly strapped around her waist.
The federal police says in a statement the 20-year-old woman was arrested Friday morning after arriving at the international airport in the northeastern city of Natal.
Police say the woman arrived from central-western Brazil and became nervous during routine questioning of passengers coming from areas where "drug trafficking levels are high." Police say the woman acknowledged she was carrying 4.6 pounds of cocaine inside the fake belly.
Also arrested was a man waiting for her outside the airport in a taxi. Police did not reveal their identities.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan ? So what happened to the million-dollar falcons?
That?s the question Pakistani officials have to answer for a wealthy Arab sheikh who alleges that the government snatched his four rare falcons ? valued at 350 million rupees, or nearly $3.9 million ? from the Islamabad airport.
The birds apparently were released into the wild ? but maybe not. Customs and wildlife officials have been ordered to produce the falcons.
Sheikh Muhammad Sultan Ahmed Mualla, a United Arab Emirates prince, filed a lawsuit this month to force officials to hand over the birds. The sheikh says the falcons were brought into the country legally, with all required passports, visas and medical certificates.
The lawsuit states that the situation ?may affect foreign relations of both the countries and will lower the prestige of Pakistan in the comity of nations,? according to local media.
Falcons in the UAE are issued passports to combat illegal trading and smuggling of the birds. They are in high demand in the region because they are used in the centuries-old sport of falconry, which is popular in the Middle East.
The prince brought the birds to Pakistan to give to friends, according to The News, a daily newspaper here. But given recent events, he has decided to take the birds back to the UAE. If he can recover them, that is.
Customs officials claim that the sheikh lacked the requisite paperwork. So, realizing the valuable birds would need special care and handling, they requested that the Wildlife Department take custody of them for safekeeping until the owner provided the necessary documents.
But wildlife officials say the falcons were unaccompanied and because no one came to claim them within 12 hours, they were released into the wild.
?They had no legal documents,? Wildlife Department deputy director Raja Javed said. ?If you have falcons, you must claim them.?
Wildlife officials orchestrated elaborate media coverage, convening journalists and television crews to document the four captives being released into the air and using the event as an opportunity to tout ongoing efforts to stop illegal falcon smuggling.
What exactly happened remains murky ? and both agencies are in a PR mode and offering competing narratives. But some believe there has been foul play.
?It is strongly suspected that the falcons flown into the air are not the original ones and the originals have been kept with some greedy motivations,? said The News reporter Umar Cheema, who has been covering the scandal. ?The entire thing is embarrassing for everyone.?
Federal tax authorities ordered television stations covering the release of the falcons to turn over footage of the event. The film could reveal whether common falcons were substituted for the rare birds.
So will the government produce the falcons in court?
?They have been freed and we do not know where they are,? Javed said. ?These are migratory birds. They migrate and they pass through Pakistan.?
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Ex-Soviet KGB foreign intelligence chief Leonid Shebarshin was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Friday in an apparent suicide, Russian investigators said.
Shebarshin, 77, who headed the First Chief Directorate, a foreign intelligence service within the KGB during 1989-1991, appeared to have committed suicide, the Investigative Committee said on its website www.sledcom.ru. A gun, which he was awarded upon retirement, was discovered near his body.
Police also found a suicide note on the scene, Interfax news agency quoted a police official as saying.
The ex-spy, fluent in Urdu, worked on assignments in Pakistan, India and Iran in the 1950s-1970s. He was appointed deputy chief of foreign intelligence in 1987, and promoted to head the service in 1989.
Shebarshin briefly occupied the KGB's top post after the failed August 1991 hardline coup, intended to halt president Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms paved the way for the collapse of the communist party, the end of the Soviet Union and the creation of the present-day Russian state.
He resigned from active service shortly after the coup.
The KGB fragmented after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Its once-mighty foreign intelligence service, crippled by under financing and corruption in the 1990s, suffered damage to its reputation in a number of embarrassing spy failures abroad.
The U.S. intelligence services exposed a group of 10 Russian spies operating on their territory in 2010, which was followed by a Cold war era-type spy swap between the two ex-foes.
(Reporting By Alexei Anishchuk; editing by Ron Askew)
PARIS ? �French police detained 19 people Friday as they launched a crackdown on suspected Islamist extremists in cities around the country, President Nicolas Sarkozy said, promising more raids to come.
Tensions are high following a spate of killings in southern France by a radical Islamist that left seven people dead and two wounded and ended up with police killing the gunman last week after a 32-hour standoff.
But French Interior Minister Claude Gueant told journalists "there is no known link" between those detained Friday and Mohamed Merah, the 23-year-old Frenchman who claimed responsibility for the shootings in Toulouse and Montauban.
Sarkozy gave no details about the reasons for Friday's arrests.
"It's in connection with a form of Islamist radicalism," Sarkozy said on Europe-1 radio. "There will be other operations that will continue and that will allow us to expel from our national territory a certain number of people who have no reason to be here."
Sarkozy said he didn't know whether the 19 detainees were part of any network.
A police investigator told The Associated Press that the anti-terrorist unit of the Criminal Brigade detained five men before dawn in Paris who had suspected links to an Islamist movement. Weapons were also seized, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with the department's rules.
The other arrests took place in Toulouse, Marseille, Nantes and Lyon, the official said.
In Nantes, Mohammed Achamlane, the head of Forsane Alizza, a radical Muslim group that formed two years ago, was among the detained. French officials had banned the group in February.
Merah, who espoused radical Islamist views and said he had links to Al Qaeda, was buried near Toulouse on Thursday.
Three Jewish schoolchildren, three paratroopers and a rabbi were killed in the worst terrorist attacks in France since the 1990s, slayings that revived concerns about homegrown Islamist radicals.
Public order and security are high up on the agenda as Sarkozy seeks reelection in the upcoming presidential poll that kicks off April 22.
"It's our duty to guarantee the security of the French people. We have no choice. It's absolutely indispensable," he said Friday
French Muslims have worried about a backlash after Merah's attacks, and French leaders have urged the public not to equate Islam with terrorism.
But concerns about radical Islam are high and the government on Thursday banned several international Muslim clerics from entering France for a conference of the UOIF, a fundamentalist Islamic group. The clerics were of Palestinian, Egyptian and Saudi origin.
"These people call for hatred and violence and seriously violate the principles of the Republic, and in the current context, seriously risk disrupting public order," the foreign ministry said.
Sarkozy said earlier these clerics would not be "welcome" as their views are incompatible with French values.
The leader of France's right-wing National Front party, Marine Le Pen, went even further Friday, calling for the complete dissolution of the UOIF and saying it is thought to have links with "terrorists."
"Drastic measures must be taken against radical Islam," she said in a statement.
The UOIF responded by saying that Thursday's ban "deeply hurts the Muslim community and reinforces the blending in public opinion" between moderate Muslims and extremists.
"Our group combines a peaceful way of practicing religion with republican citizenship," it said.
One of those banned, the Egyptian-born Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, is widely respected throughout the Middle East and has a popular weekly TV show on Islamic law on the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera.
But because of his suspected extremist links, the 86-year-old cleric has been banned from the United States and refused entry into Britain.
In the Islamic world, al-Qaradawi has been criticized by more conservative scholars for allowing men and women to study together, encouraging Western Muslims to participate in their democracies and condemning Al Qaeda's Sept. 11 attacks.
Sgt. Dennis Weichel Jr., a Rhode Island Army National Guard infantryman mobilized with Company C, 1st Battalion, 143rd Infantry Regiment, sits inside a Black Hawk helicopter prior to a mission earlier in his deployment in Afghanistan.
According to the report, Weichel was in a convoy in Laghman Province last week when he noticed some children were in the path of the moving vehicles. Weichel and other soldiers got out to move them out of the way.
According to the press release, while most of the children scattered away, one girl went back to the road, as a Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle continued moving toward her.
Weichel saw the massive truck moving toward the girl and grabbed her out of the way, the National Guard said. The girl survived, but Weichel died after the armored vehicle ran over him.
The National Guard said Weichel's remains will be returned to Rhode Island on Saturday, according to the NBC Providence affiliate. The Army said Weichel leaves three children, a fiancee and his parents.
The circumstances of Weichel's death speak to his character, Staff Sgt. Ronald Corbett, who deployed with Weichel to Iraq in 2005, said in a U.S. Army press release.
"He would have done it for anybody," said Corbett. "That was the way he was. He would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. He was that type of guy."
Weichel was posthumously promoted to sergeant, according to the press release.
Corbett said Weichel was considered a fun-loving guy, but he was also a professional.
"When I first heard, I kept expecting him to jump up and say, 'Oh, I got you guys,'" said Corbett. "The last few days have hit me hard."
Trucks drive in the mountains of Paktika province (AP Photo/Axel Heimken)
KABUL, Afghanistan -- An Afghan policeman shot to death nine of his fellow officers as they slept in a village in an eastern Taliban stronghold on Friday, police said, blaming the attack on the insurgents.
The gunman opened fire with his assault rifle after waking up at 3 a.m. ostensibly to take over guard duty at a small command post in Paktika province, killing everybody inside, including the commander, according to officials. He then took their weapons, piled them in a pickup truck and sped away.
It was the latest in a growing number of attacks by Afghan security forces against their own people or against international troops in Afghanistan in recent years, some the result of arguments and others by insurgent infiltrators.
Provincial police chief Dawlat Khan Zadran said the incident took place in Yayakhil town of Yayakhil district.
Bowal Khan, chief of Yayakhil district, identified the gunman as Asadullah and said he goes by one name, as do many Afghans.
Khan said his own brother was among those killed, along with the commander of the post, identified as Mohammad Ramazan, and two of the commander's sons.
The motive for the killing was not known, but police in the area blamed the Taliban for the attack. Paktika is a stronghold of the Haqqani network, a Pakistani-based group with ties to the Taliban and al-Qaida. Although they mostly attack U.S.-led coalition forces, they have often carried out assaults and bombings against the Afghan army and police.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack and said the shooter was a member of the insurgent group. He added in a text message that he took the dead police officers weapons and handed them over to the Taliban.
"This man is a coward. What he did is part of the Taliban conspiracy," Khan said.
Khan and Zadran said the killer's two brothers were being held for questioning.
The increasing number of attacks by Afghan police and soldiers has cast doubt on the readiness of Afghan security forces to take over their own security as the U.S.-led international coalition prepares to end its combat mission by the end of 2014.
So far this year, 16 NATO service members have been shot and killed by Afghan soldiers and policemen or militants disguised in their uniforms, according to an Associated Press tally. That equals 18 percent of the 84 foreign troops killed this year in Afghanistan. Of the approximately 80 NATO service members killed since 2007 by Afghan security forces, more than 75 percent were in the past two years.
There also have been recent examples of Afghans killing their own comrades.
A member of a village-level force that provides security in areas where the Afghan army and police cannot was accused of involvement in the killing of nine members of his unit in March in southern Uruzgan province. They also were shot and killed while asleep at their post in the village of Oshi in the province's Charchino district. It remains unclear if he killed them or allowed a killer into the post, but he was never apprehended.
The village units known as Afghan Village Police, or by their Afghan acronym ALP, are trained by the U.S. but commanded and run by the Afghan government and police.
Taliban infiltration of the ALP is considered more difficult as all their members are recruited locally and vetted by village elders before joining, so they usually know each other.
In other violence Friday, a motorcycle bomb parked by the side of a road exploded, killing an Afghan police officer and wounding another in Sangin district of southwest Helmand province, police said. They added that another police officer was shot and killed late Thursday outside his house in the capital of Helmand.
NATO also said Friday that two of its service members were killed in southern Afghanistan ? one died in a roadside bomb explosion on Friday and the other one in an insurgent attack on Thursday. NATO did not disclose any other details.
So far this year, 88 international troops have been killed in Afghanistan.
___
Associated Press Writer Patrick Quinn in Kabul and Mirwais Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
(CBS News) SANFORD, Florida - The defense of George Zimmerman rests on a violent fight that he said occurred before he fired the shot that killed Trayvon Martin.
Zimmerman is neighborhood watch volunteer at the center of the case. It was almost five weeks that Martin, the unarmed 17-year-old, was killed after Zimmerman found him suspicious. We don't know what happened immediately immediately before the shot was fired. CBS News correspondent Mark Strassman has new evidence in the case.
Trayvon Martin was buried in Miami with a gunshot wound to his chest. But otherwise, according to Richard Kurtz, the funeral director who prepared Martin for burial, his body showed no injuries.
"We could see no physical signs like there had been a scuffle [or] there had been a fight," he said. "The hands -- I didn't see any knuckles, bruises or what have you. And that is something we would have covered up if it would have been there."
And as a surveillance tape shows, George Zimmerman in handcuffs, 40 minutes after he killed Trayvon Martin. He seemed to show no apparent injuries, either.
Yet Zimmerman claims Martin beat him and threatened his life, so he shot the teenager in self-defense.
But Ben Crump, the lawyer for Martin's parents, said the video shows a murderer.
"Look at that video," he said. "Do you see any blood on his head? He said he broke his nose. Look at that video. And look at how easy he walks out of the car."
Zimmerman, a crime watch volunteer, thought Martin looked suspicious, called police, and followed Martin along a street and around a corner.
Robert Zimmerman, the gunman's father, told WOFL-TV in Orlando that Martin suddenly confronted his son.
"At that point he was punched in the nose," he said. "His nose was broken. and he was knocked to the concrete. Trayvon Martin got on top of him and just started beating him in the face and in the nose, hitting his head on the concrete."
Police reports noted Zimmerman was "bleeding from the nose and the back of the head." But a closer look at Zimmerman shows no obvious head or face injuries. At one point, an officer does check the back of his head.
Martin's family contends this video proves police never wanted to arrest Zimmerman.
And Cheryl Brown said a widespread perception is wrong: Sanford police wanted to charge Zimmerman. She identified Chris Serino as the lead investigator who questioned people in the neighborhood.
"Detective Serino -- did you have the sense when he interviewed you that he thought it was a killing in self-defense?" Strassmann asked Brown.
"No, because he actually stated to me in my family room that 'we do not believe it was self-defense and we need to prove it,'" said Brown.
A special prosecutor will now decide whether Zimmerman deserves to be charged. Zimmerman's father insists his son is also a victim here.
"...They are just making up stuff that are not true about George. How he is being portrayed is an absolute lie."
Robert Zimmerman said Martin beat his son for more than one minute. And when his son fired his .9-mm, Robert Zimmerman said it was because he had no choice.
A supporter holds up a portrait of Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi during an election campaign of the National League for Democracy (NLD) party in Yangon March 28, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/Staff
By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON | Fri Mar 30, 2012 6:22am EDT
YANGON (Reuters) - Attempts to disrupt campaigning for Myanmar's historic by-elections on Sunday are "beyond acceptable", opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Friday, her first public appearance since falling sick last weekend.
"What has been happening in this country is really beyond what is acceptable for a democratic election. Still, we are determined to go forward because we think that is what our people want," a frail but defiant Suu Kyi told reporters outside her lakeside house in Yangon.
She accused her rivals of vandalizing election posters, padding electoral registers and "many, many cases of intimidation", including two attempts to injure candidates with catapulted projectiles.
The United States and European Union have hinted economic sanctions - imposed years ago in response to human rights abuses - could be lifted if the election is free and fair, which could unleash a wave of investment in the impoverished but resource-rich country bordering India and China.
To be regarded as credible, the vote needs the blessing of 66-year-old Suu Kyi. She is contesting one seat in her first election since being freed from house arrest in late 2010.
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), competing for 44 of the 45 by-election seats, has previously complained of irregularities that could undermine the vote.
COMPLAINTS
As big as France and Britain combined, Myanmar's size, energy resources and ports on the Indian Ocean and Andaman Sea have made it a vital energy security asset for Beijing's landlocked western provinces, and a priority for Washington as President Barack Obama strengthens engagement with Asia.
"There have been cases of vandalism of NLD signboards and posters and many, many cases of intimidation," said Suu Kyi, who fell ill on March 25 due to seasickness and exhaustion while campaigning by boat. She said she remained "a little delicate".
Much is at stake in Sunday's vote. Some U.S. restrictions such as visa bans and asset freezes could be lifted quickly if the election is credible, diplomats say, while the EU may end its ban on investment in timber and the mining of gemstones and metals.
There are bound to be complaints on election day.
After 49 years of isolation and often brutal army rule, Myanmar has limited experience in holding ballots. The 2010 election was widely seen as rigged to favor the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), the biggest in parliament.
Most diplomats say they believe Myanmar's rulers are sincere, and that Suu Kyi and her NLD party would increase parliament's legitimacy, but the NLD appears to be leaving itself room to contest the results. As well as alleging irregularities, it claims that the president, who is supposed to be impartial, has tried to influence the vote.
The government has invited in a small number of election observers, including five from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, but they have been given hardly any time to prepare inside Myanmar.
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea fired two short-range missiles off its west coast on Thursday believed to be part of a test to upgrade capabilities, said news reports published on Friday, quoting South Korean military officials.
North Korea has raised tensions in recent weeks by announcing it would launch a rocket to put a satellite into orbit, but regional powers are urging Pyongyang to drop the plan, saying it would violate U.N. Security Council resolutions.
North Korea launched two short-range missiles believed to be surface-to-ship missiles from its west coast Thursday morning, South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper quoted government officials as saying.
"The launch is believed to be to upgrade missile capabilities and not related directly to the North's long-range missile launch," the newspaper quoted a military official as saying.
Another mainstream newspaper JoongAng Ilbo published a similar report.
South Korea's office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff declined to confirm the reports, citing its policy of not speaking publicly on matters involving intelligence activities.
Reclusive North Korea has said it is merely sending a weather satellite into space, but South Korea and the United States say it is a disguised ballistic missile test.
The secretive North has twice tested a nuclear device, but experts doubt whether it yet has the ability to miniaturize an atomic bomb to fit inside a warhead.
The North has said the launch would take place between April 12 and 16. The planned launch, which has even drawn criticism from ally China, will mark the 100th birth anniversary of state founder Kim Il-sung.
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(AP) SOUTH SIOUX CITY, Neb. - Governors of three states got up close with "pink slime" Thursday, touching and examining treated beef at a plant and eating hamburgers made with it in a bid to persuade grossed-out consumers and grocery stores the product is safe to consume.
The three governors and two lieutenant governors spent about a half hour learning about the process of creating finely-textured lean beef in a tour of the main plant that makes the product, then blasted the media for scaring consumers with a moniker coined by critics.
"If you called it finely textured lean beef, would we be here?" asked Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback. Several other leaders echoed his comments as they tried to smooth over consumer concerns about the product.
Beef Products, the main producer of the cheap lean beef made from fatty bits of meat left over from other cuts, has drawn scrutiny over concerns about the ammonium hydroxide it treats meat with to change the beef's acidity and kill bacteria. The company suspended operations at plants in Texas, Kansas and Iowa this week, affecting 650 jobs, but defends its product as safe.
The politicians who toured the plant ? Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Brownback, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, Nebraska Lt. Gov. Rick Sheehy and South Dakota Lt. Gov. Matt Michels- all agree with the industry view that the beef has been unfairly maligned and mislabeled and issued a joint statement earlier saying the product is safe.
"Why are we here today defending a company that has a rather sterling record dealing with making a food product that is very much needed in this country in a very safe manner? Why are we here today?" Perry said.
The officials spent about 20 minutes going over the production process in a separate room at the plant with Craig Letch, the company's director of quality assurance, viewing and handling more than a dozen slabs of raw meat and the processed, finished product laid out on cutting boards on a round wooden table.
The officials asked about the added ammonia, which Letch said is used as an extra safety precaution against E. Coli.
"What we're doing with ammonium hydroxide is directly targeting those specific microorganisms that could affect human health. It is nothing more than something to ensure consumer safety," Letch said as the politicians bent over the raw cuts of beef.
The officials donned hard hats, hair nets and goggles for a brief walking tour through the facility. Workers manned conveyor belts of meat cuts that ran from one side of the room to the other in the chilled room; the ammonium hydroxide treatment process was not visible; plant officials say that's because it binds with moisture in the meat in an aerated process.
From left, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and Nebraska Lt. Gov. Rick Sheehy eat hamburgers which contain the beef product known as pink slime, or lean finely textured beef, following a news conference in South Sioux City, Neb., March 29, 2012.
(Credit: CBS/AP)
Afterward, Perry, Branstad and others ate burgers made from the plant's meat at a news conference.
"It's lean. It's good. It's nutritious," Branstad said as he polished off a patty, sans bun.
Larry Smith, with the Institute for Crisis Management public relations firm, said he's not sure the makers of the product ? including Cargill and BPI ? will be able to overcome the public stigma against their product at this point.
"I can't think of a single solitary message that a manufacturer could use that would resonate with anybody right now," Smith said.
Russell Cross, a former administrator of the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, said the product is getting a bad rap from a food safety standpoint.
"I'm not saying it's perfectly safe. Nothing is perfectly safe. All food is going to have bacteria in it. But this product has never been in question for safety," he said.
Cross said that ammonia is just one tool designed to reduce bacteria and help make the food safer. The process Cargill uses, by comparison, uses citric acid to achieve similar results.
The finished product contains only a trace of ammonia, as do many other foods, and it's meant just to be an additional "hurdle for the pathogens," said Cross, who is now head of the Department of Animal Science at Texas A&M University.
The ammonium hydroxide BPI uses is also used in baked goods, puddings and other processed foods.
National Meat Association spokesman Jeremy Russell said if consumers insist on eliminating the product from ground beef, prices will go up and lean beef trimmings will have to be imported to replace it. The process of creating lean, finely textured beef yields about 12 to 15 pounds of additional meat per animal.
Russell said the outcry has already hurt BPI and other meat companies, and could eventually hurt the price that ranchers and feedlots receive for cattle.
BPI did get some good news Wednesday when Iowa-based grocer Hy-Vee said it would offer beef with and without pink slime because some consumers demanded the option. But larger grocery store chains, such as Kroger, have stuck with their decisions to stop offering beef with pink slime.
The real test may come later this year when school districts purchase meat from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for next school year. The USDA said earlier this month that it would give school districts a choice between 95 percent lean beef that contains pink slime and less-lean beef without it.
Russell said school districts will have to decide whether they're willing to spend roughly 16 percent more for beef without pink slime.
The USDA this year is contracted to buy 111.5 million pounds of ground beef for the National School Lunch Program. About 7 million pounds of that is from BPI.
Ahu Akivi Moais, stone statues of the Rapa Nui culture, are seen on Easter Island, 3700 km off the Chilean coast in the Pacific Ocean, on July 13, 2010.
Martin Bernetti / AFP / Getty Images
More than a century after the last king of Rapa Nui ? a.k.a. Easter Island ? was allegedly murdered, his bespectacled, octogenarian grandson has ascended to the throne. Valentino Riroroko Tuki's coronation last July, proclaimed by the indigenous Rapa Nui clans, didn't garner much if any global media attention. But Riroroko's regal rise, though largely symbolic, could prove critical to the Rapa Nui's struggle to wrest control of the tiny but legendary South Pacific isle from Chile. "My first obligation as king," declared Riroroko, who was a farmer and fisherman before becoming a monarch, "is to sue Chile."
In March, Riroroko and Rapa Nui leaders made good on that pledge and filed a lawsuit seeking independence from Chile. Their claim: that the South American nation has violated the 1888 treaty that let Chile annex the island, through years of abuse and neglect of the island and its 5,000 residents, two-thirds of whom are indigenous Rapa Nui. The treaty's terms remain fiercely disputed: Generations of islanders have sought greater autonomy with limited success, but this time the Rapa Nui clans are hoping the royal restoration will help leverage the creation of a sovereign Rapa Nui nation. "Because the [1888] pact was signed by a king," explains Osvaldo Galvez, attorney for the Rapa Nui, "only a reigning king can dissolve it." The king, in other words, is the linchpin of the island's legal argument.
The suit was filed in Valparaiso, Chile, the same city where in 1899 the Rapa Nui believe their last king, Simeon Riroroko Kainga, was poisoned and assassinated while on an official visit. The distance between Easter Island and the Valparaiso courtroom ? some 2,300 miles (3,680 km), the span between the two U.S. coasts ? seems daunting, but the islanders and their ancestors have long been accustomed to traveling unthinkable spaces. Easter Island is the world's most remote inhabited island ? and how its original occupants got there is still one of history's biggest mysteries. So are its 887 enormous and mesmerizing Moai statues, better known as the Stone Heads of Easter Island, which despite the isle's isolation help draw some 70,000 visitors a year.
The Rapa Nui's desire to have more control over that lucrative but also invasive tourist flow has been a source of escalating tension between the island and Santiago for decades. So have other issues, including what the islanders call the government's neglect of social infrastructure like hospitals, schools and electricity. Last year, the standoff boiled over when police forcibly removed members of the Hitorangi clan who were occupying a resort hotel on land they claim is indigenous and say the government illegally purchased decades ago. The startling images of bloodied Rapa Nui were denounced by the U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on Indigenous People, James Anaya.
Migration from Chile has introduced other social ills, says Erity Tiave, high commissioner of the Rapa Nui Parliament's division on human rights, including the erosion of the native language and customs. The lawsuit, says Tiave, is as much about preserving the Rapa Nui's unique culture as about correcting an alleged legacy of abuse by Chile. "Even though Chile is trying to assimilate us, I don't feel Chilean," Tiave says. "Nobody can force me to stop being who I am."
Not everyone shares Tiave's sentiments. One dissenter is Alberto Hotus, president of the island's Council of Elders, which was the Rapa Nui's original self-governing body until the Rapa Nui Parliament split from it to pursue a more hardline stance on issues like independence. Hotus does not consider Riroroko his king, and he calls the independence campaign pointless if not dangerous, given the island's scant resources. Easter Island and its inhabitants are entirely dependent on Chile, Hotus says, so "if Chile were to leave we'd all die of starvation."
Despite the expectations generated by the suit, Galvez admits the Rapa Nui's case doesn't stand much of a chance within the Chilean legal framework. That's due in part to a court system designed to safeguard Chile's own territorial sovereignty. The objective, says Galvez, is to exhaust the legal options in Chile before taking their case to a more impartial international court later this year.
In the court of public opinion, however, Chileans generally sympathize with the Easter Islanders. Last month, in fact, Congress approved an amendment to the Chilean Constitution that allows the government to regulate visitation to the island. Still, it says nothing about what role the Rapa Nui themselves would play in deciding acceptable limits. And while the islanders say the government is trying harder now to address some of their more urgent social needs, independence is still their goal, say Rapa Nui like Tuhira Terangi Tucki Huke, 31, a mother of two. Every day under Chilean rule, she complains, "we lose a little more because they are imposing a system that doesn't allow us to develop socially, spiritually or economically."
Typical of her younger generation, Tucki had to leave Easter Island for a number of years to pursue a university degree. She returned, feeling the strong pull of her island roots, and works in tourism, as do most residents, because there is no work there in her chosen field of environmental planning. She says she does what she can to pass the indigenous traditions on to her children ? and in that regard, Riroroko's coronation was a watershed. Seeing the feathery crown placed on his head, says Tucki, was like living "a dream." But like the mystery of Easter Island's stone heads, a solution to the Rapa Nui's independence movement still seems remote.
