World News Review

FARC Hostage’s Emotional Reunion

admin — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:07:10 +0000

7:55pm UK, Thursday July 03, 2008

Politician Ingrid Betancourt has been reunited with her children after being held hostage for six years in jungle hide-outs in Colombia.

Colombia hostage Ingrid Betancourt with her two children

Her two children, Lorenzo and Melanie, flew into Bogota from Paris for the emotional meeting.

“What I’m feeling now is something very close to paradise,” Betancourt told reporters on the runway, hugging her children tightly.

Ms Betancourt said she was as shocked as her rebel captors when she and 14 other hostages were freed by government soldiers.

The troops had gained the trust of Farc guerrillas by posing as aid workers who were supposedly going to transport the hostages to a new location.

But as they took off in a helicopter they revealed their true identities - to the joy of the captives and the horror of two of the rebels on board the aircraft.

One of the guerrillas captured had been her chief tormentor during her six years of captivity, during some of which she was forced to sleep with a chain round her neck.

After landing at a Bogota air base, a pale but smiling Ms Betancourt relived her dramatic rescue.

She said: “We were forced to get on the helicopter handcuffed, which was very humiliating.

“Then, all of a sudden, they disarmed the two guerrillas who were on the helicopter with us and the chief of the operation shouted, ‘We are the Colombian army and you are free!’

“The helicopter almost crashed because we all started clapping and screaming and jumping up and down.”

Ms Betancourt thanked Colombia’s army for what she called its audacious and “impeccably executed” rescue.

She also thanked a captive army nurse who helped her survive her ordeal, which was marked by malnutrition, insect bites and jungle diseases. The nurse, William Perez, was rescued in the same operation.

Ms Betancourt, 46, recalled seeing the Farc commander who had held her and others hostage for the last four years suddenly stripped of his guns.

“I saw this guerrilla commander, who had so often been cruel to us, on the floor,” she said. “But I did not feel happiness. I felt sad.”

The helicopter almost crashed because we all started clapping and screaming and jumping up and down.

Ingrid Betancourt on the moment she and her fellow captives realised they were being rescued.

The entire operation took 22 minutes and 13 seconds, said General Freddy Padilla, head of Colombia’s armed forces. The two rebels disarmed aboard the helicopter were in custody.

Ms Betancourt was snatched during her 2002 campaign for the Colombia presidency, in which she ran on an anti-corruption platform.

The rescue, carried out without a shot fired in the southern jungle province of Guaviare, is a huge victory for President Alvaro Uribe, an anti-guerrilla hardliner who has used billions of dollars in US aid to push the rebels on to the defensive, cut crime and spur economic growth.

The other hostages freed included three Americans - Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell and Thomas Howes - who were captured in 2003 after their light aircraft crashed in the jungles while on an anti-narcotics operation, and several Colombian security personnel.

She thanked her former political rival Mr Uribe for rescuing her and praised his record in office, although she said she still hoped to become president herself one day.

Bex reveals Hanson obsession

admin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:07:10 +0000

Bex revealed her obsession with the pop group Hanson tonight after Big Brother played one of their hits into the house.

As the music started, she jumped on to the dining table and danced to the song.

When it had finished, she sat in the garden and told Rex and Mohamed that she was so excited she was finding it “hard to breathe”.

The group was sitting round the seating area when Bex said: “I can’t believe you people didn’t dance, it was Hanson! They’re like my favourite band.”

Rex pretended not to know them and asked: “What’s a Hanson?”

“They’re a band!” exclaimed Bex.

A puzzled Jen then asked whether they were actually still a band, to which Bex replied: “Yes, I went to see them play live. When I met them, I couldn’t breathe. Taylor is so gorgeous.”

She then went on to list the ages and birthdays of each of the band members while Rex mused: “I don’t get people like that.”

EU halts tuna fishing

admin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:07:20 +0000

Mediterranean tuna ranches are feeling the pinch after the European Union moved to prevent the depletion of fish stocks.

COLOMBIA THUGS TRICKED INTO FREEING HOSTAGES

admin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:07:20 +0000

BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombia freed Ingrid Betancourt and three US military contractors from leftist guerrillas yesterday after military spies tricked rebels into giving them up, the defense minister said.

Shriver trying for a presidential campaign coup?

admin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:07:10 +0000

Shriver trying for a presidential campaign coup?

California First Lady Maria Shriver’s powerhouse annual Women’s Conference last year managed a coup in rounding up all the presidential candidates’ wives — and this year, looks like she may up the bar with both GOP Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.

It’s a natural: Shriver, a Democrat, has endorsed Obama and her husband, GOP California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has endorsed McCain.

And her always-sell-out event - expected to attract upwards of 14,000 women — will be held on Oct. 22, just days before the 2008 election, at the Long Beach Convention Center.

Sources say her team has already invited both Obama and McCain, in hopes of getting a joint town hall meeting session for the two.

It would be a winner for both: McCain has repeatedly urged Obama to share the stage with him at such events, at which he excells. Obama has so far side-stepped such invites, but a California appearance before such a major crowd of female voters could be a slam dunk.

Bottom line, Team Maria says: looking good that both candidates will make their stops in Long Beach, but maybe not on the same stage at the same time.

We can still hope for a ”debate.” Especially since both Obama and McCain hit San Diego next week to talk separately to the National Council of La Raza annual convention.

Posted By: Carla Marinucci (Email) |
July 02 2008 at 12:21 PM

Listed Under: Carla Marinucci | Comments (6) : Post Comment

Reforming Mexico’s state-owned Pemex: Whose oil wealth is it, anyway?

admin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:07:20 +0000

Mexico City - It’s one of the biggest, most controversial issues in Mexico today, along with the ongoing war the government of Mexican President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa is waging, helplessly, with the national armed forces, against the country’s powerful, unsinkable drug cartels.

‘Queen of mean’ goes to the dogs with €3bn will

admin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:07:30 +0000

Leona Helmsley, the New York hotelier and property magnate who bequeathed $12m (€7.5m) to her dog Trouble, has left billions more to the canine world.

UK backs plans to shore up military role of EU

admin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:07:10 +0000

Britain’s Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, has thrown his country’s weight behind French plans for a stronger European Union role in defence policy, insisting that they pose no threat to Nato.

China’s Latest Olympic Woe: Algae

admin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:07:20 +0000

QINGDAO, China (July 2) -China’s latest Olympics nightmare is a vast algae bloom
that covers one-third of the sea where the world’s best sailors are supposed to
be competing in just over a month. Athletes call it the blob, the carpet, the
fairway.

“We almost think of it as land,” said Carrie Howe, a member of the U.S.
team and her three-person squad’s unofficial algae remover. During practice,
she dips her hand into the goo three or four times an hour to remove it from
the rudder.

'Tarantino murders': French exchange students 'tortured and stabbed 250 times' in London flat

admin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:07:10 +0000

Two high-flying French exchange students found dead in their burnt-out flat in Britain were tied up and horrifically murdered in a ‘Tarantino-style attack’.