Pakistan human rights worker Khalid Khawaja found dead

The body of a Pakistani human rights activist has been found in the North Waziristan tribal area, weeks after he was reportedly kidnapped by militants.

Officials said Khalid Khawaja's body was found in a ditch near the town of Mir Ali on Friday afternoon. He had been shot in the head and chest.




A note attached to the body claimed that Mr Khawaja - a former Pakistani intelligence officer - was a US agent.


It said that if "someone tries to spy for America this will be his fate".
Mr Khawaja, along with two other men, had been missing for several weeks after traveling into North Waziristan.

A group calling itself the Asian Tigers later said it had kidnapped all three.
The The group is thought to be a front for the Pakistani Taliban, who in effect control most of the Waziristan tribal region.

A video was released of Mr Khawaja before his death in which he was seen confessing that he was a CIA and Pakistani agent.

His captors had been demanding a ransom and the release of Taliban militants in exchange for the release of the men.

In recent years Mr Khawaja had campaigned for the release of dozens of people who have allegedly been taken into unofficial custody in Pakistan.

Mississippi tornado leaves at least 10 dead

A tornado almost a mile wide tore through Mississippi on Saturday, killing at least 10 people and causing significant injuries and damage as it raked cities from the central western border with Louisiana northeastward to Alabama.


Two of the dead were children and one was a 3-month-old baby, according to Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) spokesman Jeff Rent.

The death toll is expected to rise as rescue crews reach hard-hit areas where structures have been badly damaged, said another MEMA spokesman, Greg Flynn.

Five of the dead were from Choctaw County, in the north central part of of the state, four were from Yazoo County, north of Jackson, and one was from Holmes County, also in the north central Mississippi, he said.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who was in Yazoo City where his home is located, called the twister "gigantic" and said that "in places [it] seemed to be to be several miles wide."

Some residents were trapped in badly damaged homes, he said.
"They're working to get to the people and rescue as many as they can," said Dan Turner, a spokesman for the governor, reporting "significant injuries" in at least three counties.

Residents from the region shared tales of tragedy and survival on Saturday evening.
Dale Thrasher was inside Yazoo City's Hillcrest Baptist Church when it was flattened by the tornado.
"I went in the sanctuary and got under the pulpit table and the whole building fell around me," he said.
His injuries: "three little scratches."

Rob and Ashley Saxton were driving to a Yazoo City restaurant owned by Rob's father -- planning to take shelter in the restaurant's walk-in freezer ahead of the tornado -- when the twister blew out the car's windows at a red light. The car was tossed across the intersection, then picked up again and flung into the restaurant.
"When the windows exploded it wasn't like anything I've ever experienced," Rob Saxton said. "It was amazing. It scared us plumb to death."


In all, 12 counties were reporting injuries, with some of the injured airlifted to a Level 1 trauma center at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, said Jeff Rent, a MEMA spokesman.

The hospital has 27 patients with injuries sustained in the tornado, including eight adults in critical condition and six children in serious condition, according to spokesman Jim Albritton.

Many tornado victims were seeking attention at King's Daughters hospital in Yazoo City, where only one doctor was on duty Saturday night, said Jess Silvino, a nurse there.

The hospital is expecting "another one or two waves of victims" as crews are able to fully access the tornado's path, said Richard Summers, chairman of emergency medicine at the medical center.

The hospital has crews in Yazoo City and Lexington that have been "amazed and astounded" by the amount of damage they're seeing, Summers said.

The state's emergency management officials have set up a command post near U.S. 49 in Yazoo City and the state has activated a 25-person rapid response team from Hattiesburg that is capable of search and rescue operations.

The governor said he is activating local members of the National Guard in Yazoo City to maintain order.
President Obama has "been briefed on the tragedy in Mississippi and the situation is being followed by the White House," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.

Barbour said that he has not yet requested emergency federal aid but that he plans to do so on Monday.
"FEMA is in contact and coordination with our state and local partners and stand ready to help if a request is made," said Brad Carroll, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agancy.

Mississippi residents reported that the path of the twister was a half-mile to a mile wide, said Mark McAllister, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Jackson.

Meteorologist said that the tornado had traveled 150 miles across Mississippi, starting in the western part of the state and moving northeast before weakening as it moved into Alabama.

In Yazoo City, Fire Chief Roy Wilson said that between 20 to 30 houses were destroyed, and said some people were trapped inside structures. Wilson said he didn't yet have confirmed numbers on injuries.
"It's in pretty bad shape so far," he said of the city.

Speaking to reporters in Yazoo City, Barbour said that 17 injured have been taken to a hospital via ambulance and that two others were airlifted to Jackson.

"By God's grace [the tornado] did not go into the most central part of the city, the most populous. However, it went through the southern edge and eastern edge of town in a number of large neighborhoods," he said. "A number of businesses have been destroyed and others severely damaged -- there are churches that have been obliterated."

The sheriff's department in nearby Hinds County is sending two dozen deputies and 100 inmates to assist with the response in Yazoo County and to clear debris, MEMA said.

In Eagle Lake, near the Louisiana border, about 30 homes were destroyed, Turner said. In Holmes County, 50 homes sustained structural damage, the National Weather Service reported.

Parts of three highways were closed due to downed trees and other damage: State Highway 3 in Yazoo County and State Highways 14 and 17 in Holmes County, according to the the Mississippi Department of Transportation.

On I-55, traffic was down to a single lane in each direction in parts of Holmes County and in the area north of Pickens, the transportation department said.

Linda Green, a dispatcher with the Issaquena County Sheriff's Department, said there was minimal damage in the area around Valley Park, and a few power lines were down.

No injuries have been reported in Valley Park after the twister ripped through around 11:30 a.m. (12:30 p.m. ET), she added.

Valley Park is in Issaquena County, while Yazoo City is located in Yazoo County. Issaquena County is in the western part of the state, north of Vicksburg.

Saturday's tornado was part of a broad band of storms that stretched from Missouri to the Florida Panhandle, Jeras said.

The storm system struck Louisiana before it moved into Mississippi. A Tallulah, Louisiana, police dispatcher said a chemical plant in the city had been damaged, but could not give further details.

Turner, the Mississippi governor's spokesman, said emergency response teams had been slowed by people out surveying the effects of the storm.

"One of the biggest obstacles is, of course, people are curious and want to get out and see the damage," he said. "We've urged people to stay away from those areas, not only because it slows down the emergency response, but there are also still live electrical wires, there are open gas lines that will have to be shut down."

Peshawar market suicide bombing leaves many dead

A suicide bombing at a crowded market in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar has killed at least 23 people, police and officials say.

The bomb went off in the centre of the city as police watched over a protest rally against power cuts.
One of the city's most senior police officers was killed. No group has claimed the attack - the Taliban have carried out dozens of recent bombings.


Earlier, a bomb blast outside a city school killed a boy and wounded others.
Monday evening's explosion happened in Peshawar's Qissa Khawani (Storytellers' bazaar) soon after the end of a rally against soaring inflation and power shortages organised by the Jamaat-i-Islami party.
Both police officers and demonstrators were said to be among the dead.

Taliban militants will be suspected of carrying out the attack.
They have recently come under increasing pressure across north-west Pakistan, as the Pakistani military carries out operations against them.

Dozens of militants have been killed, but it is clear they still have the ability to carry out violent revenge attacks, our correspondent adds.

Hundreds of people have been killed in militant attacks across Pakistan since the military launched operations against the Taliban last autumn. Peshawar has borne the brunt of this violence.

Hundreds feared dead in Chinese earthquake

Nearly 400 people are feared dead after a rapid series of strong earthquakes hit a mountainous and impoverished area of China's Qinghai province early Wednesday, state-run media said.


At least 10,000 others were injured, the Xinhua news agency reported, and many victims, including school children, were buried under debris. Rescuers were struggling to clear debris with their hands and save those trapped below.

A 6.9-magnitude earthquake, as measured by the U.S. Geological Survey, struck at 7:49 a.m. local time (7:49 p.m. ET Tuesday), when many citizens were still at home and schools were beginning the day. The USGS also recorded several strong aftershocks -- one of magnitude 5.8 -- all within hours of the initial quake.

The epicenter was located in remote and rugged terrain, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northwest of Qamdo, Tibet. Qinghai borders the autonomous regions of Tibet and Xingjiang and the provinces of Gansu and Sichuan.

Karsum Nyima, deputy director of news at local Yushu TV, told Xinhua that most of the houses in the area were made of wood with earthen walls. He said some had come tumbling down, including a Buddhist pagoda in a park.

The temblors "have toppled houses, temples, gas stations and electric poles, triggered landslides, damaged roads, cut power supplies and disrupted telecommunications," Xinhua said. "A reservoir was also cracked, where workers are trying to prevent the outflow of water."


Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao ordered local authorities to "go all out to save the disaster-stricken people," Xinhua said. Vice Premier Hui Liangyu was dispatched to the region.

About 700 soldiers were working to clear rubble and rescue buried quake victims, according to Xinhua. More than 5,000 others, including soldiers and medical workers, were sent to the area, the Qinghai provincial government told reporters in a news conference, Xinhua said.

The news agency reported panic on the streets as crews launched rescue efforts in the rubble of collapsed buildings.

"We have to mainly rely on our hands to clear away the debris as we have no large excavating machines," police officer Shi Huajie said. "We have no medical equipment, either."

A Chinese military official told Xinhua that the death toll was expected to rise, given the damage to homes.

He said dispatched soldiers were setting up tents and transporting oxygen for the injured but affected roads leading to the airport could hamper relief efforts.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs plans to distribute 5,000 tents, 50,000 coats and 50,000 quilts to the earthquake zone, Xinhua said.

The Hong Kong Red Cross said it had mobilized 200,000 Hong Kong dollars (about $27,700) to support the relief operation through providing tents, quilts, clothes and food to victims.

The headquarters of the Red Cross Society of China was also sending relief supplies and had dispatched a team to the area for assessment, the organization said in a statement.


"Our top priority is to save students," Kang Zifu, an army officer in the town of Gyegu, told Xinhua. "Schools are always places that have many people."

Gyegu is the seat of government in the Yushu prefecture, a Tibetan region of Qinghai, the news agency said, and has a population of about 100,000.

More than 85 percent of houses in Gyegu had collapsed, a prefecture official told Xinhua.

"Many are buried in the collapsed houses, and there are still lots of others who are injured and being treated at local hospitals," he said.

The Hong Kong Red Cross said 90 percent of houses throughout Yushu had collapsed. Temperatures in the area are forecast to be around the freezing mark at night, the Red Cross said, so "provision of emergency shelters for the victims remains a high priority."

Many ethnic Tibetans live in Gyegu, said. One resident told that when his house began to shake, he grabbed his family and ran outside. There was another quake, and his house collapsed, he said. His family was currently housed outside in tents, he said, but he had managed to buy water. He said they had seen no government assistance.

People were living in fear, the man said, and some were headed up into the mountains to escape the threat of flooding, should the reservoir break.

The region is relatively poor and located in the foothills of the Himalayas at a relatively high altitude, Vause said. Many buildings are not well-constructed and unlikely to hold up well in a quake.

Given the landscape, rescue efforts are sure to be "challenging," said Francis Markus, of the International Federation of the Red Cross. He spoke from Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, which experienced its own tragedy in May, 2008, when a magnitude-7.9 earthquake killed roughly 70,000 people.

"But China does have a lot of experience and a lot of resources," he said. "The capability is there. It's just a question of getting it to this remote spot."

Forecasters said Yushu would see strong winds and sleet in the coming days, which will hamper rescue efforts, Xinhua said.

Some Twitter users were outraged that Chinese television, did not feature the quake as its top story, instead headlining the U.S. nuclear summit in Washington that Hu is attending. Others blamed officials for failing to predict the quake.

"Of course this earthquake has been the headline for all the Chinese media," CCTV correspondent Fung Jinchao told . He said his network had sent a large group of reporters to the region.

Dozens dead from earthquake in Turkey

 A pre-dawn earthquake collapsed homes and killed more than 50 people in a mountainous region of southeastern Turkey Monday, government officials said.


About 71 others were injured when the earthquake struck at 4:32 a.m., according to officials. The U.S. Geological Survey registered the quake at magnitude 5.9, while the Turkish earthquake monitoring center listed it as a 6.0.


The quake struck in Elazig province, with the village of Okcular the worst hit, according to Ozcan Yalcin, the press secretary for the province's governor. Most of the mud brick homes in the village were destroyed, he said. Villagers had buried 15 of the people that died, he added.

"The people are sad but they are calm," Yalcin said. "They lost relatives and loved ones, they are crying, but all of their needs are being met by the state."

The quake killed 51 people, the office of the Prime Minister and Crisis Center in Elazig province said. The death toll revises an earlier report by Turkey Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek that at least 57 people had died. There was no further detail on the discrepancy.


Dozens of aftershocks, ranging up to magnitude 5.5, shook the region in the hours after the quake.

 "According to the information that we got from the technical teams on the ground, there shouldn't be anyone left in the rubble by now. But the search and rescue operations are continuing," said the deputy governor of Elazig, Mehmet Ali Saglam.

 "Most of the houses that were demolished in the villages are not cement houses. ... Other buildings, such as schools, were not destroyed," the deputy governor said.

"The Red Crescent is there. They are giving all kinds of help to the people. They are setting up tents. The weather is cloudy, 8 to 10 degrees Celsius (46 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit)."

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on television said: "Teams from the state mass housing project have also been sent to the area to study how to rebuild the area in different methods."


Monday's quake occurred near the meeting point of two major fault lines, geologists said.

The Northern Anatolian Fault and East Anatolian Fault juxtapose each other, in an area where other fault lines exist, said Okan Tuysuz, a professor of geology at Istanbul Technical University.

"The Anatolian plate, which is surrounded by these two different fault systems, moves every year 2.5 centimeters westwards," Tuysuz said. "And the movement of the Anatolian plate westwards creates different fault systems in this area. And the earthquake occurred in such a complex geological environment."

Turkey is periodically pummeled by deadly earthquakes. In 1999, two powerful earthquakes hit heavily populated areas near Istanbul, Turkey's largest city, killing at least 20,000 people.

Nigeria ethnic violence 'leaves hundreds dead'

Hundreds of people, including many women and children, were killed in ethnic violence near the city of Jos in Nigeria at the weekend, officials say.

They said villages had been attacked by men with machetes who came from nearby hills.

Troops have now been deployed in the area and dozens of arrests are said to have been made.

Acting President Good luck Jonathan has ordered security forces to prevent more weapons being brought into the area.


Jos has been under a military curfew since January when at least 200 people died in clashes between Christians and Muslims.

The latest attacks are said to have been reprisals for the January killings.


The authorities say the villages are now calm after troops and military vehicles entered them.


An adviser to the Christian-dominated Plateau state government, Dan Manjang, told AFP: "We have been able to make 95 arrests but at the same time over 500 people have been killed in this heinous act."


Another Plateau state official, Gregory Yenlong, urged people to "remain calm and be patient as the government steps up security to protect lives and property in this state".


Many of the dead in the villages of Zot and Dogo-Nahawa are reported to be women and children.


Chief Gabriel Gyang Bot, from nearby Shen, told Focus on Africa programme that people in his village feared more attacks.


He said he had received text messages from people who claimed responsibility for the weekend attacks and had threatened to return.



Mark Lipdo, from the Christian charity Stefanos Foundation, said Zot village had been almost wiped out.
He said: "We saw mainly those who are helpless, like small children and then the older men, who cannot run, these were the ones that were slaughtered."

A resident of Dogo-Nahawa said that the attackers had fired guns as they entered the village before dawn on Sunday in defiance of a curfew.

"The shooting was just meant to bring people from their houses and then when people came out they started cutting them with machetes," Peter Jang told Reuters news agency.


Some witnesses said villagers were caught in fishing nets and animal traps as they tried to escape and were then hacked to death. Mud huts were also set on fire.


Mass burials took place on Sunday and scores more bodies were laid out in the streets of the three attacked villages, awaiting further burials on Monday.


Figures given for the death tolls in the ethnic clashes have varied widely, sometimes to achieve political ends or to reduce the risk of reprisals, or simply because victims are buried quickly.


Jos lies between the mainly Muslim north of Nigeria and its largely Christian south.

Analysts say the latest attack seems to be in reprisal for clashes in January, which claimed the lives of at least 200 people and displaced thousands of others.


Hundreds of people have fled from Jos in the aftermath of the fighting, the International Committee of the Red Cross says.


The clashes represent a challenge for Acting President Jonathan. He formally took over last month from President Umaru Yar'Adua, who has a heart problem.


Mr Yar'Adua returned from three months of treatment in Saudi Arabia two weeks ago but has still not been seen in public.

At least 45 dead in western Europe storms

 At least 45 people have been killed in storms that have lashed parts of Spain, Portugal and France, officials say.

Forty people have died in France and three in Spain, one in Germany as well as a 10-year-old boy in Portugal.

Winds of up to 140km/h (87mph) caused chaos as they moved from Portugal up through the Bay of Biscay.
The storm system is moving north-eastwards and is expected to reach Denmark by the evening, French meteorological authorities said.

At least 23 of those deaths came in France, local media reported, where the extra-tropical cyclone whipped the country's coastal regions and moved inland, bringing sometimes heavy flooding with it.

"At 3 o'clock in the morning, we heard the toilets backing up. We got up to look and then we saw 80 cm (about 31 inches) of water in the garage," a resident of Aiguillon-Sur-Mer, in the department of Vendee.

"It was rushing in, it broke down the walls around the garden and the gate."
At least one million households were without power Sunday afternoon, Bernard Lassus of Electricite de France told BFM.

The high winds -- at times spiking to 200 km/h (124 mph) -- reached inland as far as Paris, where as many as 100 flights were canceled at the Paris-Charles de Gaulle International Airport, BFM reported.

In Spain, three people were killed in the storm, Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said in a news conference Sunday. Two children died in a car accident and another person was killed in northwestern Spain, the minister said in a news conference.

At least 17 provinces were on high alert due to the strong winds, and some flights and train services were canceled.

A 10-year-old child was killed by a falling tree in the high winds in Portugal, Patricia Gaspar, National Operations Assistant with the Portuguese National Authority for Civil Protection.

There are also some power outages in the country, Gaspar said. Some residents have reported roofs blown off and smaller houses collapsing, she added.

One man was killed in southwestern Germany when a tree fell on his car, local police said. The man's wife was seriously injured.

The storm also reached England, where one woman was reported dead when the vehicle she was driving became submerged and washed down a swollen creek in the northeastern part of the country.

The body of the 53-year-old woman was recovered downstream, North Yorkshire Police said in a recorded phone message to the media.

Belgian train crash: At least 20 feared dead in Halle

Reports from Belgium say at least 20 people have been killed in a head-on collision between two trains outside the capital, Brussels.

Railway officials said the two trains collided during the morning rush hour at Halle, south-west of Brussels.

The local mayor told Belgian media that at least 20 people had been killed in the crash, but railway officials could not confirm the figure.

Belgian media said the trains collided in snowy conditions.

Mayor Dirk Pieters said "the most recent information we have is that 20 people died".

The trains collided in the commuter town around 0830 local time (0730GMT) Monday when the carriages were .

Television pictures showed the lead carriages of each train pushed into the air leaning against each other.

Witnesses said passengers were thrown around violently inside the trains.

Emergency workers said there was considerable damage to the overhead power lines at the station in Buizingen, the district of Halle where the trains crashed.

Railway services in the area, including the high-speed line between Paris and Brussels, have been blocked.

Eurostar said services to and from Brussels were canceled until further notice.

There has been no indication of what caused the collision but it comes after a weekend of snow and freezing temperatures across Belgium.

In 2001, eight people were killed and 12 were injured in a head-on collision between commuter trains outside Brussels. It was thought that language difficulties between a Flemish-speaking signalman and a French-speaking colleague might have been a factor in that crash.

Another accident in 2008 left more than 40 people injured when a passenger train traveling in the wrong direction hit a goods train in central Belgium, AFP news agency said.