Explosions rock Nigerian capital on independence day - The Hindu

The Hindu : News / International : Explosions rock Nigerian capital on independence dayArchivesSubscriptionsRSS FeedsSite MapePaperMobileSocialSEARCHHomeNewsOpinionSportBusinessArtsLife & StyleS & TEducationHealthClassifiedsToday's PaperTopicsInternationalNationalStatesCities: BangaloreChennaiCoimbatoreDelhiHyderabadKochiMaduraiMangaloreThiruvananthapuramTiruchirapalliVijayawadaVisakhapatnam News» InternationalAbuja,October 1, 2010Explosions rock Nigerian capital on independence dayPTIShare  ·  print  ·   Three explosions rattled Nigeria’s independence day festivities on Friday — one of them at the venue of the President’s celebration — killing at least seven people in the capital.

The explosions came after Nigeria’s main militant group sent a warning that there is “nothing worth celebrating after 50 years” as the people of the Niger Delta have had their land and resources stolen.

One of the explosions occurred at the Eagle’s Square where President Jonathan Goodluck was present to witness the military formation.

Several foreign delegates are in the country to attend the celebrations, including Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, who arrived here on Thursday.

Another explosion at the millennium park near the Eagle Square, killed at least seven people, an eyewitness told PTI.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the rebel group of the Niger Delta, had earlier issued a statement warning that it had planted bombs to stall the 50th anniversary celebrations.

However, the programme continued, with foreign heads of states and delegates in attendance and President Jonathan hosting the Golden Jubilee celebration of the country’s independence from Britain.

MEND had earlier asked for an immediate evacuation of the entire arena before 10:30 a.m. on Friday informing that bombs had been planted.

“Several explosive devices have been successfully planted in and around the venue by our operatives working inside the government security services. In evacuating the area, keep a safe distance from vehicles and trash bins,” MEND had said in a statement, also emailed, to PTI.

The group argued the people of the Niger Delta have been deprived of control over their region’s resources.

“The constitution before independence which offered resource control was mutilated by illegal military governments and this injustice is yet to be addressed,” the group said.

The group which claims to be fighting for resource control in the Niger Delta region claimed responsibility for detonating two car bombs in the Niger Delta city of Warrion on March 15 this year.

MEND, which is part of a group of rebels fighting for resource control in the Delta region, said “a third and most powerful” bomb did not explode but would be used for future attacks.

Militants in the delta have targeted pipelines and resorted to kidnappings, while fighting government troops since 2006.

Late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua had granted amnesty to the militants but MEND had rejected it, opting for a negotiation with the government through mediators.

Keywords: Nigeria serial blasts, MEND, Niger Delta rebels

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5 dead as drenching rains take aim at New England - The Associated Press

5 dead as drenching rains take aim at New England(AP) – 30 minutes ago

NEW YORK — Torrential downpours from a faded tropical storm marched into the Northeast on Friday, a day after claiming five lives in North Carolina, knocking out power and dousing some East Coast cities with more rain in hours than they normally get in months.

Massachusetts was in line for a soaking as the storm began making its way across New England on Friday. The torrential downpours and high winds struck the Berkshires early in the morning and were expected to hit the Boston area by midday.

The weather also snarled air, road and train traffic in the New York City area Friday morning. Motorists and pedestrians there coped with sheets of rain, poor visibility, slick roads and strong wind gusts as they made their way to work. The Federal Aviation Administration reported flight delays of up to three hours at New York's LaGuardia airport.

The massive rainstorm drove up the Eastern Seaboard from the Carolinas to Maine on Thursday, the worst of it falling in North Carolina where Jacksonville took on 12 inches in six hours - nearly a quarter of its typical annual rainfall.

Four people, including two children, were killed when their SUV skidded off a highway about 145 miles east of Raleigh and plunged into a water-filled ditch, North Carolina troopers said. A fifth victim likely drowned when his pickup veered off the road and into a river that was raging because of the rain.

Forecasters warned of the danger of flash floods as rain drove across the densely populated East Coast cities with buffeting winds on a drive to New England. The Friday morning rush hour was a challenge as subway lines experienced delays and traffic slowed on rain-slicked roadways.

Water rushed through the streets of the flood-prone Philadelphia suburb of Darby, covering cars and lapping against first-floor windows. Firefighters on Friday were using a ladder truck to check on a second-floor apartment in a row house. Rainfall totals in the Philadelphia area topped 10 inches.

After a mostly dry summer around the Northeast, the fall storm provided inches of much-needed rain. New Jersey has been under a drought watch for nearly two months.

Forecasters said much of the rain would continue its advance across New England during the day, though it likely won't be the deluge that hit North Carolina.

Meteorologist Tim Armstrong with the National Weather Service in Wilmington declared the 22.54 inches to be the rainiest five-day period there that he could find on record since 1871. It easily beat Hurricane Floyd's 19.06 inches in 1999.

"We've measured the last drop of rain in our bucket for this event," Armstrong said. "I went through Floyd also and I thought I knew what rain was. Then I went through this."

He marveled at how a wet week changed everything: "We were praying for rain and we slipped into a moderate drought last week. It all turned around in a hurry."

As skies cleared over Wilmington, heavy rain pushed through the Mid-Atlantic, New York City, eastern Pennsylvania and beyond.

Forecasts said a large high pressure system over Canada was expected to push the storm further offshore and likely spare New England the kind of extreme rainfall that flooded roads and homes.

Sheila Mezroud said sandbags kept floodwaters out of her Carolina Beach home for only a short time. "I have to walk through an inch of water to get from the living room to the bathroom," she said.

The rain was part of a system moving ahead of the remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole, which dissipated over the Straits of Florida on Wednesday.

But the rain caused several other wrecks Thursday, including a crash between two transit buses in Maryland that left 26 people injured. Standing waters and fallen limbs on tracks slowed several Amtrak trains, while some Northeast airports reported flight delays of up to three hours. Parts of Virginia had 7 inches.

Forecasts called for cooler, drier air in many areas once the storm passed.

Associated Press writers Sandy Kozel in Washington; Jim Fitzgerald, Deepti Hajela and Frank Eltman in New York; Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, S.C.; Ben Nuckols in Baltimore; Tom Foreman Jr. and Tom Breen in Raleigh, N.C.; and Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H., contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Prosecutor Considering Adding Bias Discrimination to Criminal Charges Against ... - ABC News

A series of tweets and Internet postings in the weeks before the suicide of a Rutgers University student appear to show that the freshman's sexual orientation had been an issue from the start.

Authorities in New Jersey are investigating the events that led to the death of Tyler Clementi and are considering whether they can pursue more charges against his roommate, Dharun Ravi, and another student, Molly Wei, who allegedly filmed Clementi engaged in a sexual encounter with another man and broadcast it on the Internet.

Ravi tweeted on Aug. 22, "Found out my roommate is gay," according to Forbes.com, and then posted a link to a gay men's website where Ravi said Clementi had placed posts.

Gawker reported it was that same website, JustUsBoys, that Clementi was believed to have turned to once he found out that Ravi had secretly filmed Clementi's sexual encounter with another man.

"So my question is what is next," the posted cti2mo, believed to be Clementi, wrote on Sept. 21. "I could just be more careful next time ... make sure to turn the cam away."

And then, in the same post, "I'm kind pissed at him (rightfully so I think, no?)"

Former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, who resigned from office after disclosing he was gay, said he was "filled with great sadness and pain" after learning of Clementi's suicide and the online torment he faced.

"Coming to terms with your sexual orientation is very much an individual journey. ... You say to yourself, 'I'm different. I'm distinct,'" he said. ""For some gay Americans it's still that much difficult."

The explosion of social media in the last several years has made it that much easier, he said, for gay youth to become a target.

"I think this is actually a very difficult time," he said.

McGreevey said he'd like to see more adults held responsible for the bullying of gay and lesbian youth, much in the same way children are protected against racial or religious discrimination.

"Authority has to instruct children that it's not only morally wrong," he said, "but it won't be tolerated and there are consequences of that happening."

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also spoke out, calling Clementi's suicide an unspeakable tragedy and saying on Thursday that he couldn't imagine how the two students accused of secretly filming Clementi could sleep at night "knowing that they contributed to driving that young man" to suicide.

The governor spoke hours after a body that was pulled from the Hudson River was identified as Clementi. The student leaped to his death after his roommate allegedly secretly filmed him during a sexual encounter with a man and posted it live on the Internet.

The medical examiner's office said an autopsy revealed the 18-year-old had drowned and suffered blunt impact injuries to his torso.

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