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Nigeria nabs 4 over ransom for abducted oil worker

LAGOS, Nigeria (Reuters) -- Nigerian secret police have nabbed four people, including a member of a previously unknown group, over the abduction of a Lebanese man for ransom in the oil-producing Niger Delta, officials said on Monday.

The abduction of the Lebanese construction worker on August 16 is one of eight separate kidnappings in the southern wetlands this month. All but three of the 19 hostages have been released, mostly after payment of ransoms.

A member of the Niger Delta Enlightenment and Expedition Force, which had written to the State Security Service demanding a ransom, was arrested in the Delta state capital of Asaba when he came for the money.

Three staff of the firm where the abducted Lebanese worked were also arrested after they tried to deliver the ransom money.

"Both the givers and taker of the money were arrested by the SSS on Friday. They are still being interrogated," a government spokesman said by telephone from Asaba.

The arrests come after President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered the security services to crack down on kidnappers and threatened to sanction companies caught paying ransoms.

The threat signaled a change in the government's stance towards the recent upsurge in violence in the Niger Delta, which accounts for almost all of Nigeria's 2.4 million barrels of oil per day output.

To reinforce the government's tougher stance, four people arrested over an earlier kidnapping at an oil facility operated by U.S. energy giant Chevron have since been charged with terrorism. If convicted, they could face life in prison.

The government spokesman said the kidnappers of the Lebanese had demanded a five million naira ($38,955) ransom, not 50 million naira ($389,550) as reported by a local radio station on Saturday. His employers came up with 4.5 million naira ($35,060).

Abductions, mostly of foreign oil workers, are common in the volatile delta. Kidnappers have sometimes made political demands but in most cases ransoms have been paid by state governments and oil companies to free the hostages, encouraging the trend.

Last week, the Rivers state government paid 20 million naira ($155,820) for the release of six expatriate oil workers, officials said.

Nigeria's two oil unions, alarmed at the recent rash of kidnappings are to vote this week on whether to withdraw all their members from the oil-rich but impoverished Niger Delta.

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Latest Turkey resort blast kills 3, others injured

(CNN) -- A blast at the Turkish resort town of Antalya has killed at least three people and injured 38 others, the fifth explosion to hit the country in less than 24 hours.

Authorities said they were looking for two suspects, indicating that Monday's explosion was the result of a bomb. However they would not say that outright.

The Antalya governor's office told CNN Turk the cause of the latest explosion -- near a building housing restaurants -- was still under investigation.

Late Sunday, bombings along Turkey's Mediterranean coast and in the commercial center of Istanbul left 27 people wounded, including 10 British tourists, officials said.

The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, a group linked to the main Kurdish guerrilla group, the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, claimed responsibility for Sunday's attacks.

On its Web site the group warned: "Turkey is not a safe country. Tourists should not come to Turkey," according to The Associated Press. It was not immediately possible to verify the statement's authenticity.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Antalya explosion.

Kurdish militants have often threatened to target the tourism industry in their fight for autonomy in the Turkish southeast.

Police sources told CNN Turk the earlier blasts were the result of bombs.

"With the efforts of our security forces we will capture those behind the blasts as soon as possible and bring them to account," Reuters reported Marmaris Governor Temel Kocaklar as saying.

Witnesses in Antalya told Reuters they heard a bang that broke windows, sent shrapnel flying into people and sparked a fire at a shopping area in the city, one of Turkey's most popular destinations.

"I saw two wounded tourists and a burned body of a dead man who was a pastry vendor," said journalist Riza Ozel on holiday.

Hospitals received 38 wounded people, according to Reuters. Russia's Vice Consul in Antalya, Sergey Koritsky, said the injured included a German, a Jordanian, two Iranians, four Israelis and a Russian.

"There was a fire and a lot of cars were damaged, a lot of motorbikes were damaged," he told the news agency, adding that the street was packed with restaurants and shops.

Sunday's blasts

The Antalya blast came less than 24 hours after three separate bombs in Marmaris injured 21 people within 15 minutes. Another device in Istanbul wounded six people earlier on Sunday evening.

Twenty-one people were wounded in three explosions in the popular coastal resort town of Marmaris in southwest Turkey.

Meanwhile, six people were wounded in Istanbul, three of them seriously, the network reported, citing local authorities and witnesses.

In London, the Foreign Office said 10 British citizens were hurt in the blasts, and four of them were in serious condition.

Doctors at Caria Hospital in Marmaris treated four Britons and one Turk after a bomb went off on a local minibus, said operations manager Sozanne Poraz.

None of those treated at her hospital had life-threatening injuries. Most suffered cuts and burns on their legs and had difficulty hearing, Poraz said. Two had to have shrapnel removed from their legs.

Most of those treated at her hospital were in shock and unable to provide much of a description of the blast, Poraz added.

One woman "said she was sitting in the back of the bus, heard a large bang and saw an explosion in front of her, but that's all she's been able to tell us," Poraz said.

Julie Midgmey, a spokeswoman for the Ahuhetman Hospital, said four Turks and six Britons were treated there.

Midgmey said "a couple" of people had to have shrapnel removed from their legs, but other wounds were spread across their bodies.

Hospital sources said nine of those who were admitted to hospitals in Marmaris were discharged -- both Britons and Turks.

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Report: Karr's DNA doesn't match; No charges to be filed

BOULDER, Colorado (CNN) -- The DNA sample taken from suspect John Mark Karr does not match DNA found on JonBenet Ramsey's body and no charges will be filed against the schoolteacher who claimed he was with the child when she died, CNN affiliate KUSA reported.

KUSA, based in Denver, Colorado, quoted two sources in a bulletin on its Web site:

"9NEWS has confirmed from two sources that the DNA sample taken from John Mark Karr is not a match with the foreign DNA found on JonBenet Ramsey's body when she was murdered in 1996. 9NEWS has also learned the Boulder County District Attorney's office will not file charges against Karr in connection with the Ramsey case."

KUSA says other sources also confirm that no charges will be filed against Karr in connection with the Ramsey case by the Boulder County District Attorney's office.

CNN is working to independently confirm the report as Karr awaits his first court appearance in Colorado later Monday afternoon. Karr will appear before Judge Roxanne Bailin at 4:30 p.m. (6:30 p.m. ET).

The Denver station reported that samples of Karr's saliva and hair were taken in Boulder after his arrival Thursday evening. Those samples were tested over the weekend by the Denver Police Department's crime lab.

The Colorado television station says those tests ruled out Karr's DNA is as the foreign DNA left on JonBenet's body when she was slain in December 1996.

JonBenet was covered in a blanket when her body was found. Foreign hair fibers were found on that blanket and they did not match any of the Ramsey family or approximately 100 people that were tested.

Karr still faces charges of child pornography in California.

Earlier Monday, Karr's defense team requested that prosecutors hand over DNA evidence in the Ramsey case.

Public disclosure of any DNA evidence was specifically barred by a gag order issued Friday. The order applies to all attorneys and law enforcement officials involved in the case.

The 41-year-old suspect is being held in Boulder County Jail on suspicion of first-degree murder, first- and second-degree kidnapping, and sexual assault. No formal charges have been filed yet by Boulder prosecutors.

Documents list Karr's birthplace as Conyers, Georgia, and his occupation as "teacher."

Karr was brought back to the United States from Bangkok, Thailand. He arrived in Colorado Thursday evening from California, where he skipped bail in 2001 after being charged in Sonoma County with five misdemeanor counts of possessing child pornography.

Karr appeared at a brief hearing in Los Angeles and waived extradition to Colorado. (Watch Patsy Ramsey's sister reveal what the family will do if Karr isn't guilty -- 4:11)

He told reporters in Thailand he was with JonBenet the night she died, and that her death was an accident. The child's beaten and strangled body was found December 26, 1996, in the basement of her family's Boulder home.

Autopsy results showed she had suffered a blow to the head and been strangled with a garrote tightened with a paintbrush handle.

After Karr's statements in Thailand, questions have surfaced as to whether the slight, soft-spoken man could have been involved in the grisly killing.

Earlier this year, Michael Tracey, a journalism professor at the University of Colorado, alerted authorities to e-mails he had been receiving from a person now believed to be Karr.

Tracey, who has produced a documentary about the Ramsey case, said there was something in the e-mails "that made me decide I had to try and do something." But he would not say just what prompted him to contact prosecutors.

A law enforcement official told CNN that Karr's e-mails to Tracey were initially innocuous but that the professor contacted authorities when they became "weird." The communications were eventually tracked to Thailand.

Tracey told CNN Thursday he also learned Karr's name five days before the arrest.

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Pregnant Britney poster allowed in Tokyo subway

TOKYO - Tokyo's subway allowed a publisher to display posters of a nude and heavily pregnant Britney Spears on Monday, overturning a decision to cover up part of the image for being "too stimulating" for young people.

The picture of the pop singer -- nude but covering her breasts with her arms and crossing her legs at the knee -- appeared in the August issue of Harper's Bazaar in the United States and will be on the cover of the magazine's Japanese edition for October.

Tokyo Metro and the publishers had initially agreed to display a censored version of the cover photo, with the pop star's body covered from the elbow down.

But the Metro reversed the move to mask the picture, saying "the original decision wasn't a good one."

"It's a strong image of a working woman," said Tomoki Ishikawa, a 19-year-old male university student walking through Omotesando subway station in a trendy part of central Tokyo.

"It's old fashioned that the Metro people thought that way," he added.

One passer-by expressed concern for Spears' unborn baby.

"It's becoming an absurd world," said 83-year-old Tsuyako Egashira as she looked at the poster of the former teen idol.

"Why does a pregnant woman have to show her belly? You have to take care of it," she said.

But not everyone in her age group agreed. Takuro Shimizu, 78, traveled in from a Tokyo suburb especially to take photos of the posters. "I think it's good for the low birth rate problem," he said. "It's not so exciting for me since I'm old," he smiled.

Harper's Bazaar commented: "We're happy that our position was accepted."

Japan's low birth rate is at the center of public concern as the fertility rate fell to an all-time low of 1.25 in 2005, the same year that its ratio of elderly people to the total population became the world's highest.

Reuters

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Japanese lead aliens kept out of country

WILLIAM B. DEPASUPIL

The Manila Times Reporter

Japanese have topped the list of aliens barred by the Bureau of Immigration from entering the country during the first six months of 2006.

Immigration Commissioner Alipio Fernandez Jr. on Monday said a total of 797 aliens were turned back at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and other ports of entry from January to June, compared with 682 who were refused entry in the first semester of 2005.

Nearly a third, or 222, of that number were Japanese nationals suspected of being Yakuza gang members. Others turned away were Chinese (99), Indians (55), Taiwanese (28), and Americans (nine).

Except for the suspected Yakuza, the other Japanese who were turned back were caught either using tampered passports, fake visas or other spurious documents.

Lawyer Gary Mendoza, chief of the immigration regulation division, said several of those barred were blacklisted aliens and former deportees who tried to slip back into the country by assuming other names or using tampered passports.

"They were immediately booked on the first available flight to their port of origin after they were issued exclusion orders by our immigration officers," Mendoza said.

BI records also showed that in the same six-month period, 1,144 departing passengers—mostly Filipinos—were barred from leaving, compared to the 1,157 who were offloaded a year ago.

Most of the offloaded were "tourist workers" or contract workers disguised as tourists and passengers whose names are on the bureau’s hold-departure list and watchlist.

Fernandez credited the rise in the excluded aliens to the BI’s campaign against human smuggling. The bureau has also adopted stricter procedures to screen arriving and departing passengers.

"We have been very vigilant in screening passengers, in line with our campaign against human traffickers and international terrorists," he said.

Immigration officers, Fernandez said, are now more adept at detecting fraudulent travel documents with the training and high-tech equipment they acquired from foreign governments, such as the United States and Australia.

Both countries are active in the global war on human trafficking and terrorism.

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US Airways flight disrupted by threat

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A US Airways flight en route to Houston from Philadelphia was diverted to Bristol, Tennessee, Monday after a bomb threat was found in a note on board, officials said.

The plane landed at the Tri-Cities Airport, which serves eastern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia and western North Carolina, and the passengers were being questioned by the FBI after leaving the plane, a Transportation Security Administration official said.

"It's a Philadelphia to Houston flight that was diverted to TRI, which is Tri Cities Airport in Tennessee, due to a threatening note," the TSA spokesperson said.

"The flight has now landed without incident."

A US Airways spokeswoman said Flight 3441, a US Airways Express flight operated by Republic Airways, landed shortly after taking off at 10:10 a.m. EDT.

"There was a potential threat of a bomb," she said.

She said 52 passengers and three crew members were on board the plane.

An airport official told Reuters there had been a bomb threat.

It is the latest in a series of scares since police in Britain uncovered a suspected plot to blow up U.S.-bound airliners this month. Since then security has been tightened at airports and passengers have been jittery.

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60 Reported Killed in Southern Iraq Fighting

Iraqi army vehicles moving toward Diwaniyah, Iraq south of Baghdad, after gunbattle between Iraqi forces and militiamen of the Mahdi Army

Iraqi officials say at least 40 Shi'ite militiamen and 20 Iraqi soldiers have been killed in fierce fighting in the southern part of the country.

The fighting began late Sunday in the Shi'ite majority city of Diwaniyah. Authorities say Iraqi security forces carried out raids aimed at collecting illegal weapons from militiamen of the Mahdi Army.

The Mahdi Army fighters are loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who leads a faction of the Iraqi government. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has vowed to disband militias as part of his national reconciliation plan.

Earlier Monday, a suicide car bomber blew himself up outside the Interior Ministry in Baghdad, killing 16 people and wounding more than 40.

Despite a spike in violence over the past two days, a U.S. military spokesman said a security operation in Baghdad has reduced violence in the capital.

Violence in the southern city of Basra, the northern city of Kirkuk and other parts of Iraq on Sunday killed more than 60 people.

The U.S. military in Iraq says eight American soldiers also were killed Sunday in several attacks.

In another development, British Defense Minister Des Browne met with his Iraqi counterpart, Abdul-Qader Mohammed Jassim al-Mifarji, in Baghdad.

Browne was expected to discuss plans for British troops to hand over security duties in southern Iraq to Iraqi troops.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.

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World's oldest woman dies at 116

Maria Esther de Capovilla, who has died at 116 years old, with a portrait of her long-dead husband

Relatives say Capovilla was in good health and her death was a shock

Maria Esther de Capovilla - officially the world's oldest woman - has died in Ecuador aged 116, relatives said.

Capovilla died at dawn on Sunday in the coastal city of Guayaquil after succumbing to pneumonia. Her funeral was planned for Monday.

Born in 1889, the same year as Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler, Capovilla was 22 when the Titanic sank and 79 when astronauts first set foot on the Moon.

Her family said donkey milk might be key to her longevity.

Capovilla was born in Guayaquil, to a well-to-do Ecuadorean family which traced its ancestry to the Spanish conquistadores.

Her family was expecting to have a 117th birthday party

Robert Young
Gerontology consultant, Guinness World Records

She was said to enjoy painting, embroidery, dancing and walking. In her youth she would also drink fresh milk from the donkeys at her aunt's farm - something relatives credit with helping her live so long.

She is said never to have smoked, ate regular small meals, and only drank in moderation.

She was also fervently religious, and took communion every Friday, said reports.

'Good health'

She married Antonio Capovilla, an Austrian sailor, in 1917, and was widowed in 1949.

They had five children, three of whom are still alive, and 11 grandchildren, 20 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.

Maria Esther de Capovilla, who held the title of world's oldest woman, with her husband and two daughters Enma and Irma in an undated photo

Capovilla with her husband Antonio and two of her daughters

She spent the last 20 years living with her daughter and son-in-law, and generally enjoyed good health, Robert Young, adviser to Guinness World Records, told Associated Press.

"She was in good shape until she had a bout of pneumonia and she died unexpectedly. Her family was expecting to have a 117th birthday party," Mr Young said.

"They had recently said that she was in good health."

Capovilla was officially certified the world's oldest woman on 8 December 2005, after her family sent extensive documentation to the Guinness World Records.

Capovilla's likely successor as oldest woman is an American, Elizabeth Bolden of Memphis, Tennessee, said Mr Young.

"She is 116, but she was born 11 months after Capovilla," he said.

The oldest man is 115, and the oldest person ever to have lived is documented as Frenchwoman Jeanne Louise Calment, who died in 1997 aged 122.

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UN warns of new Darfur disaster

AU forces in Darfur are stretched beyond capacity

The UN's most senior humanitarian official has warned that Sudan's Darfur region faces a new humanitarian disaster owing to lack of security.

Jan Egeland spoke as the Security Council considered a US and UK plan to send 22,000 UN troops to Darfur.

US Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer has announced she is staying in Sudan for an extra day in order to meet President Omar al-Bashir.

Sudan rejects transforming an existing African Union force into a UN mission.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2m driven from their homes in three years of fighting in Darfur.

Mr Egeland, the UN emergency relief co-ordinator, warned the Security Council that the work of the aid agencies could collapse because of a chronic lack of security, and warned of "massive loss of life".

"Insecurity is at its highest levels since 2004, (humanitarian) access at its lowest levels since that date and we may well be on the brink of a return to all-out war," Mr Egeland told the council, according to a text of his remarks quoted by Reuters news agency.

US pressure

Mrs Frazer, who was due to have left Khartoum on Monday, has brought with her a letter from President George W Bush aiming to persuade the Sudanese government to authorise the deployment of a UN peace force in Darfur.

She has not yet met President Bashir as she had intended.

Washington has said urgent action must be taken to stop a "genocide".

Before leaving Washington, Mrs Frazer stressed the US was not about to "fight its way in" and that any international peacekeeping force would need the backing of Sudan's government.

But she insisted that "foot-dragging at the UN" must not be allowed.

The US and the UK had circulated the draft, calling for 17,000 well-equipped peacekeepers, at the Security Council.

However, Sudanese National Congress Party chairman Ghazi Salah Eldin Atabani said the plan would "impose complete tutelage" on Sudan.

"Any state that sponsors this draft resolution will be regarded as assuming a hostile attitude against the Sudan," he said.

A peace deal was signed last May between the government of Sudan and a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army rebels, yet the bloodshed continues to force tens of thousands of people to seek refuge in camps.

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Afghan 'suicide bombing kills 17'

The blast ripped through a busy market

At least 17 people have been killed and many more injured in a suspected suicide bombing in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, officials say.

The blast ripped through a crowded bazaar in the town of Lashkar Gah.

A spokesman for the provincial governor told the Associated Press news agency that the bomber had blown himself up opposite a police station.

Helmand province has seen some of the worst of the violence that has killed hundreds in Afghanistan this year.

At least 47 people were wounded in the latest blast, six of them critically, Hanif Khan, a local hospital official, told the Associated Press news agency.

Shattered glass and blood-soaked turbans were scattered at the site of the bomb, AP quoted security guard Hayatullah Khan as saying.

Insurgency

Afghanistan is going through its bloodiest period since the fall of the Taleban in 2001.

Militants recently stepped up their insurgency against government and foreign forces in the south and east.

About 2,000 people, most of them militants, but also civilians, aid workers, Afghan forces and more than 90 foreign soldiers have been killed this year.

Last week, US-led forces killed seven men and a child in a raid in Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan.

The coalition forces said the men were suspected al-Qaeda members, but local people told the BBC that the men were tribal elders who had gathered to resolve a local dispute.

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