TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Oh boy is he in trouble if he ever goes home.5 March 2013 Last updated at 07:52 ET
Soviet war veteran found in Afghanistan after 33 years
A Soviet soldier who went missing in Afghanistan nearly 33 years ago has been found living with Afghans in the western province of Herat.
The soldier is semi-nomadic, has the adopted Afghan name Sheikh Abdullah and practises herbal medicine, Russia's RIA news agency reports.
An ethnic Uzbek, he was found by ex-Soviet veterans of the war.
He was wounded in battle in 1980, only months after the Soviet invasion, and was rescued by local Afghans.
The head of the official veterans' committee, Ruslan Aushev, said Sheikh Abdullah - real name Bakhretdin Khakimov - was tracked down in Shindand district after a year-long search. He had served with a motorised rifle unit.
The committee lists 264 Soviet soldiers as still missing in Afghanistan, half of them Russians. In the first decade after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 the committee found 29 missing soldiers - and 22 of them decided to return home, while seven opted to stay in Afghanistan, RIA reports.
The committee says it is determined to track all of the missing men down.
Sheikh Abdullah was married but his wife died and he has no children.
The committee's deputy chairman, Alexander Lavrentyev, said Sheikh Abdullah bore the scars of his war wounds - a shaking hand and shoulder and nervous tic. The ex-soldier, from the city of Samarkand, was able to name his former place of residence in Uzbekistan and the names of his relatives, Mr Lavrentyev said.
He understood Russian but spoke it very poorly.
In 2009 the BBC's Lyse Doucet interviewed two ex-soldiers from Ukraine, now Muslims and living with Afghans in northern Afghanistan.
Some 15,000 Red Army soldiers and more than a million Afghans were killed in a decade of fighting between a Soviet-backed government in Kabul and mujahideen fighters armed by the West and Islamic neighbours.
5 March 2013 Last updated at 05:22 ET
Malaysia soldiers attack armed Filipino clan in Borneo
Malaysian soldiers have launched an assault on armed members of a Filipino clan in an ongoing conflict that has left at least 27 dead on Borneo island.
The ground troops are backed by fighter jets, with reports of several explosions near Lahad Datu, where the group of about 180 Filipinos are.
The operation to oust the clan began at 07:00 (23:00 GMT on Monday), the Malaysian government said.
Seven army battalions were deployed to the area on Monday to reinforce police.
Among the aircraft used in the assault were an F-18 and a Hawk fighter aircraft, Malaysian state news agency Bernama reports. Helicopters were also seen flying in the area.
Malaysian National Police Chief Ismail Omar said they achieved their targets in the offensive and that there were no troop casualties.
He did not provide any details about the Filipinos, who he said fired at the Malaysian troops. But a spokesman for the group told Philippine television the men were safe, Reuters news agency reports.
The Filipinos landed at a coastal village in Lahad Datu district on the island of Borneo last month, saying that the territory was theirs.
Calling themselves the Royal Army of Sulu, the clan members said they were descendants of the Sultanate of Sulu in the southern Philippines, which ruled parts of northern Borneo for centuries, and demanded that the Malaysian government pay more money to lease their land.
Malaysia refused their demands and urged the group to return home.
On Monday, the Philippine government appealed to Malaysia to exercise maximum restraint and avoid further bloodshed, and sent Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario to Kuala Lumpur for talks.
Officials said he would request that a Philippine navy ship be permitted to sail to Lahad Datu to bring the clan members home.
In the capital, Manila, protesters are outside the Malaysian embassy, urging a peaceful resolution to the stand-off, reports say.
"We've done everything we could to prevent this, but in the end, Kiram's people chose this path," Philippine presidential spokesman Ricky Carandang said on Tuesday of clan leader Jamalul Kiram III.
'Pride and sovereignty'
Eight Malaysian troops and 19 clan members have already been killed in the three-week stand-off.
Twelve were killed along with two Malaysian policemen when Malaysian security forces tried to tighten the cordon around the occupied village on Friday.
The incident sparked violence in another area over the weekend, in which seven clan members and six policemen died.
Mr Kiram's brother has said they are not violating any laws because Sabah is "owned by the Sultan of Sulu" and insisted that they have a right to defend themselves if attacked.
However, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said over the weekend that its forces were authorised to "take any action deemed necessary".
In a statement on Tuesday, Mr Najib said the assault had become necessary because security forces had been killed and Malaysians in Sabah feared for their safety.
"After the first attack, I stressed that the intruders must surrender themselves or the security forces will have to act," he said in comments carried by Bernama.
He said police had held negotiations with the Filipinos in the hope they would leave peacefully, but that "as the intrusion prolonged it was evident to the authorities that the intruders had no intention of withdrawing from Sabah".
"The government has to take the right action in order to preserve the pride and sovereignty of this country," he said in his statement.
Mr Najib has come under increasing political pressure in Malaysia to end the incursion, with the opposition criticising him for allowing it to continue. The Philippine government is also coming under pressure to do more to protect the Filipino clan.
Sabah shares a sea border with the southern Philippines, which is home to a number of Islamic militant and kidnap-for-ransom groups. The journey between the two can take only a few hours.
It formed part of the Sulu Sultanate - which once spread over several southern Philippine islands as well as parts of Borneo - before it was designated a British protectorate in the 1800s.
Sabah became part of Malaysia in 1963, and the country still pays a token rent to the Sulu Sultanate each year.
5 March 2013 Last updated at 11:04 ET
Syria crisis: Warplanes 'bomb Raqqa after rebel gains'
Syrian warplanes have bombed the northern city of Raqqa, hours after reports said rebels had overrun it, activists and residents say.
Activists said at least 20 rebels and a civilian, and an unconfirmed number of troops, were killed in air strikes and in fresh fighting there.
Rebels captured the provincial governor when they routed regime forces in the city on Monday.
If the city falls it would mark a significant victory for the rebels.
"The centre of the city is being bombarded by warplanes. I counted 60 rockets," Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed resident as saying.
Government forces had been sent to retake the city, Sharif Shihada, a member of the Syrian parliament, told al-Jazeera television, Reuters said.
Rebels had taken control of most of Raqqa but there were still pockets of resistance, including inside the intelligence building in the city, activists said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based activist group, said 20 rebel fighters and "tens of regular soldiers" were killed in fighting on Tuesday, while a civilian was shot dead by a sniper.
The SOHR said there were reports of further casualties from air strikes.
The SOHR is one of the most prominent organisations documenting and reporting incidents and casualties in the Syrian conflict. The group says its reports are impartial, though its information cannot be independently verified.
Unverified video footage purported to show at least two explosions hitting the city centre square, shortly after crowds had toppled a statue of former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad.
People were seen fleeing in panic, with casualties scattered on the ground.
The cameraman is heard to say: "War plane shelling... God is greater than you, Bashar [al-Assad]... The injured have fallen."
Raqqa, situated on the Euphrates River near the Turkish border, has been a refuge for hundreds of thousands of Syrians who fled the violence in other parts of the country.
According to Reuters, some residents had pleaded with rebels not to enter the city, fearing it would bring retribution from government forces.
Governor captured
Late on Monday, rebels fought their way into governor Hassan Jalili's palace, taking him and the ruling Baath party's secretary general for Raqqa province, Suleiman Suleiman, captive.
Amateur video appeared to show the two men seated, surrounded by jubilant rebels.
"All we want is to get rid of the regime," a voice is heard telling the two captives.
The SOHR described Mr Jalili's seizure as "the highest profile capture by rebels of a regime official".
According to the SOHR, a high-ranking state security officer was also taken captive by rebels, and a senior police official was killed.
they also have footage that is giving me Flashbacks..
I am hoping he retires.5 March 2013 Last updated at 14:21 ET
Venezuela's Chavez in 'most difficult hours' - Maduro
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is undergoing his "most difficult hours", his deputy has said.
Nicolas Maduro spoke at length in a speech apparently designed to reassure citizens despite the failing health of Venezuela's leader.
He accused the US of plotting against the Venezuelan government and said a US military attache had been expelled.
On Monday, officials said the 58-year-old Venezuelan leader had a new, severe respiratory infection.
Dozens of people gathered to pray for his health at the hospital where Mr Chavez is being treated.
He has not appeared in public since he returned to Venezuela last month after being treated for cancer in Cuba.
'Attack' on president
The address, broadcast live on TV from the presidential Miraflores Palace, showed Mr Maduro surrounded by political and military leaders in a display of solidarity.
He accused "enemies of the fatherland" in Venezuela and abroad, particularly the United States, of seeking to undermine democracy in Venezuela.
Speaking in a room full of dignitaries including the defence minister and the president's brother, Adan Chavez, Mr Maduro said Mr Chavez's illness was an "attack" by his enemies and called for this to be investigated.
He said the US air force attache, David Delmonico, had been spying on Venezuela's military and had 24 hours to leave the country.
US Department of Defense spokesman Lt Col Todd Breasseale later confirmed Col Delmonico "is en route back to the United States".
In recent days, the opposition have condemned what they say is the lack of clarity surrounding his condition.
"The lack of precise information worries Venezuelans and fuels rumours," said Ramon Guillermo Aveledo of the opposition Democratic Unity coalition.
At the weekend, hundreds of Venezuelan students and opposition members marched in Caracas demanding full details about Mr Chavez's health.
Information Minister Ernesto Villegas accused Mr Chavez's opponents of showing "the same hatred that they have shown towards Chavez all these years.
"It annoys them that he won't give up and neither will the people!," he wrote on his Twitter account.
On Monday Mr Villegas announced from the military hospital where Mr Chavez is being treated that he had suffered "a worsening of respiratory function" and that his condition continued to be "very delicate".
He said Mr Chavez was undergoing "intensive chemotherapy, as well as complementary treatments".
"The commander-president remains clinging to Christ and to life, conscious of the difficulties that he is facing, and complying strictly with the programme designed by his medical team," Mr Villegas said.
Mr Chavez, who has been in office for 14 years, is believed to have cancer in his pelvic area, but his exact illness has never been disclosed.
He announced in June 2011 that he had cancer and has undergone four operations since then, as well as chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
The president was re-elected for another six-year term in October 2012, but the Supreme Court ruled that his swearing-in on 10 January could be delayed because of his illness.
He is said to be taking decisions about the country from the hospital bed but there have been mixed messages from officials on his condition.
5 March 2013 Last updated at 13:26 ET
Dow Jones and FTSE climb to new highs
New York's Dow Jones share index set a new all-time high on Tuesday, while London's FTSE 100 closed at it highest level in five years.
The rallies mean the stock markets are returning to levels not seen since before the global financial crisis.
The Dow reached 14,273 by lunchtime in New York, exceeding the previous record intra-day high of 14,198, set in October 2007.
The FTSE closed at 6,432, its highest close since January 2008.
The recovery suggests investors are regaining confidence in the US and world economies following the financial crisis and global recessions of recent years.
The Dow has more than doubled in value since it plummeted to less than 6,550 points in the depth of the crisis in March 2009, while the FTSE has risen by 68% from its 2009 low.
The US's other closely-watched index, the S&P 500, is also just short of its pre-crisis high, having gained 125% since 2009.
Returning confidence
Investors have been encouraged by signs of recovery in the US housing market in recent months, a return of consumer confidence, and signs that big businesses are beginning to invest in capital spending and hire more staff.
"Key data is turning supportive. Companies are ready to re-invest and grow profitably. With luck, we will see a recovery take hold in the second half of the year," said Paul Atkinson, head of North American equities at Aberdeen Asset Management.
"The question now is whether we are seeing a stealth rally in danger of running its course… or whether we have the conditions for further market gains."
The most recent US data, released on Tuesday, suggested non-manufacturing industries, which account for about 90% of the economy, continued to expand last month.
The Institute for Supply Management said its services index rose to 56 in February from 55.2 in January - its highest level in a year.
In the UK, strong corporate earnings have pushed the market up, with mining and banking shares leading.
QE staying
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Investors in both the US and the UK have also been reassured by signals that central banks are committed to continuing their economic stimulus programmes, which investors see as essential to the recovery of global economies.
These measures have had the effect of driving down the returns on government debt, making other assets, such as shares, more attractive.
The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are all expected to stick with low interest rates and quantitative easing programmes at meetings this week.
On Monday US Federal Reserve officials gave assurances that they would press on with the central bank's QE programme, in which it spends $85bn (£56bn) a month on buying bonds.
But some investors also warn that both the UK and US recoveries remain sluggish, while growth in China has also slowed slightly, and the eurozone remains mired in recession.
"What happens when this [QE programme] kind of evaporates or goes away, that's the major question in the back of my mind," said Anthony Conroy, head trader at US brokerage BNY Convergex.
"But right now, the economy, the market, everything looks fairly healthy. Stocks still look fairly inexpensive."
Mean while5 March 2013 Last updated at 05:06 ET
Wen Jiabao 'well-being' vow as China parliament opens
COMMENTS (66)
China's Premier Wen Jiabao promised stable growth, anti-corruption efforts and better welfare provision as he opened an annual session of parliament.
Mr Wen, whose work report traditionally begins the session, also called for more balanced development in a lengthy speech on both achievements and plans.
This National People's Congress will see the final stage of the country's once-in-a-decade leadership change.
Communist Party chief Xi Jinping will become president, replacing Hu Jintao.
The event will be keenly watched to see who secures other top government posts.
This work report - a 29-page consensus document approved by the leadership - is Mr Wen's last. He is expected to be replaced by Li Keqiang as premier later in the parliament session.
The report set a target of 7.5% for economic growth, unchanged from 2012, with an inflation target of 3.5%, and promised to create more than nine million new urban jobs.
Mr Wen said boosting domestic consumption was key, calling it a "long-term strategy for economic development".
Noting that dramatic changes to Chinese society had led to a marked increase in social problems, Mr Wen said livelihood issues should be addressed.
"We must make ensuring and improving people's well-being the starting point and goal of all the government's work, give entire priority to it, and strive to strengthen social development,'' Mr Wen said.
He spoke of improving pension provision for the poor and also focused on the adverse effects of development on the environment, saying: "The state of the ecological environment affects the level of the people's well-being and also posterity and the future of our nation.''
Corruption - the focus of Mr Xi's speech after he was formally appointed to lead the Communist Party in November - was also on the agenda, with Mr Wen calling for strengthened "political integrity" and better checks on power.
"We should ensure that the powers of policy making, implementation and oversight both constrain each other and function in concert," he said.
State media also reported that defence spending would rise by 10.7% to 720.2bn yuan ($115.7bn, £76.5bn), a slight drop from the rise of 11.2% in 2012.
China's military spending has seen several years of double-digit growth - and observers say actual expenditure is believed to be far higher. But the figure falls well short of US military spending.
Nonetheless, increases to China's military budget are keenly watched both by the US and neighbouring countries with whom Beijing is currently engaged in a raft of territorial disputes.
In his speech, Mr Wen promised to "resolutely uphold China's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity", drawing applause from delegates.
Vocal public
Around 3,000 delegates are attending the Congress, including members of the military, monks, ethnic minority representatives and business leaders. The majority are members of China's Communist Party.
Rather than debate policy, the role of the delegates is to ratify decisions already made by party officials behind closed doors, making the Congress essentially a rubber stamp parliament.
They are expected to approve plans to restructure several government departments as well as to amend some long-standing policies on the military, the virtual monopoly of some state enterprises and on individual freedoms.
While the exact schedule has not yet been made public, towards the end of the two-week-long event, Mr Xi will formally become the country's new president.
Since his party promotion in November, Mr Xi has been feted in Chinese media as a man of the people who shuns the usual trappings of his position, as well as a staunch nationalist.
He has also been quoted speaking firmly of the need to stamp out corruption at all levels, warning of civil unrest if party privilege is not tackled.
Also set for promotion is Li Keqiang who, as the replacement for Wen Jiabao, is expected to give a press conference at the end of the gathering.
Security has been tightened for the NPC, with police and other security personnel patrolling in increased numbers around the Great Hall of the People.
China's new leaders are set to inherit a far more vocal public than their predecessors faced, with social media now forcing them to address public concerns more than they ever have before.
On the eve of the Congress, the country's media reflected high public expectations, reporting demands for action on corruption, education, social care, the environment and inequality.
And after Mr Wen's speech, many internet users posting on weibo, Chinese versions of Twitter, appeared frustrated that the premier failed to present specific solutions to looming challenges.
Some highlighted particular concerns, such as reform of the household registration system, or water and air pollution, while others spoke out on the wealth gap.
"Whatever (economic) increase there has been has only benefitted corrupt officials; ordinary people are still poor," wrote one internet user on Tencent Weibo.
5 March 2013 Last updated at 02:34 ET
China's Shangpu village fights back over land grab
By John Sudworth
BBC News, Shangpu village, Guangdong, China
Nearly 2,000km (1,200 miles) away from the communist leadership gathering in Beijing, a small village on China's southern coast serves as a potent reminder of the challenges facing the senior party ranks.
As you approach Shangpu in Guangdong province, its relevance to the shifting sands of Chinese politics is not immediately apparent.
In the surrounding fields, barefoot farmers ankle-deep in water still work the rice paddies, as if oblivious to the dizzying economic and social change shaking other parts of this country.
But a few days ago a harsh reality came knocking.
Shangpu descended into violence when a group of men turned up, seemingly intent on forcing the 3,000 or so villagers who live here to fall in line and accept the sale of some of their farmland to a developer.
'Grab our land'
Mobile phone footage of the incident shows stone-throwing, running battles and someone firing a handgun into the air.
The locals fought back, forced the attackers to leave and are now manning their own makeshift checkpoints on every road into the village.
The say their unelected village chief illegally signed the land deal on their behalf at a rock bottom price without proper consultation.
The contract, a copy of which they showed me, paves the way for the conversion of some of their most productive land into a green-field industrial site for a new factory, earmarked to produce electric cables.
Fearing further reprisals for their opposition to the deal, no villager is prepared to be photographed individually or to give their names.
"This is not about economic growth," one man tells me. "This is simply about using force to grab our land."
The main street in Shangpu is now littered with the wrecks of the vehicles that the attackers were forced to leave behind, some upturned on their roofs.
The authorities have asked to be allowed in to clean up the mess, but the villagers say they will only allow that to happen once all original copies of the land contract have been returned to them.
Rallying cry
Shangpu is simply the latest example of the anger simmering across China's vast countryside, with some estimates suggesting that many hundreds of thousands of farmers are dispossessed of their land each year.
Much of China's rural land is still collectively owned, one of the last remaining communist principles to survive intact.
But it is a principle that is increasingly in conflict with China's burgeoning capitalist economy.
Government officials, all the way down the chain, are heavily incentivised to boost economic growth in their areas and promotion often depends upon it.
Add corruption into the mix, with some bureaucrats ready to divvy up profits with developers, and China's farmers with their hard-to-enforce collective rights often do not stand a chance.
Fifteen months ago, not far from Shangpu, the village of Wukan erupted over similar accusations of illegal land expropriation. And there are many thousands of other protests, albeit on a smaller scale, each year.
For now, these protests remain disconnected, but may one day present a wider challenge.
"We strongly request legal, democratic elections," read one of the banners in Shangpu, strung between two lamp posts above the bashed-up cars.
It is very clearly a demand for local reform, nothing grander, but it is nonetheless a rallying cry with troubling connotations for the party elite now meeting in Beijing.
In Japan I see the Future... of American health Care.Japanese man dies after being turned away from 25 hospitals
By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, March 5, 2013 7:00 EST
A 75-year-old Japanese man died after 25 hospitals refused to admit him to their emergency rooms 36 times over two hours, citing lack of beds or doctors to treat him, an official said Tuesday.
The man, who lived alone in a city north of Tokyo, called an ambulance after suffering breathing problems at his home in January.
Paramedics rushed to his house but were told in turn by all 25 hospitals in the area that they could not accept the man because they did not have enough doctors or any free beds, a local city official said, adding some institutions were contacted more than once.
The ambulance eventually made a 20 minute drive to a hospital in neighbouring Ibaraki prefecture, but the man was pronounced dead shortly after arrival. The cause of death has not been made public.
One of the paramedics told Jiji Press they had never experienced “a patient being rejected so many times”.
The city of Kuki, where the man lived, in Saitama prefecture, has asked hospitals in the region to improve their emergency room capacity, the official said.
Public healthcare in Japan is heavily subsidised and generally of a high global standard.
But commentators warn that with a population that is living longer and with fewer young people entering the workforce, healthcare operators could become increasingly strained over the coming decades.
