US Admiral Says Mideast Drills Ensure Stability

The admiral in charge of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet has defended the large American-led naval drills taking place in the Persian Gulf and other strategic Mideast waterways as a way to ensure stability and security.

Vice Admiral John W. Miller said Thursday that the participation of more than 30 countries in the anti-mine exercises shows there is a broad, common interest in ensuring the region's sea lanes remain safe. The Navy says the drills are the largest ever focused on mines in the region.

Iran has in the past threatened to block the entrance to the Gulf. Any effort to do so would likely involve mines.

The Navy and its allies are also conducting drills in the Gulf of Oman and in the Gulf of Aden.

20 Sep, 2012

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Yoko Gives Peace Prize to Pussy Riot

Sep 20, 2012 9:21am

MOSCOW – Yoko Ono, the artist and widow of legendary Beatles singer John Lennon, and Amnesty International have announced that members of Pussy Riot will be among this year's winners of the Lennon Ono Grant for Peace. The group will be awarded an unspecified grant during a ceremony in New York City on Friday.

The Russian feminist punk collective became famous worldwide after Russian authorities put three members on trial for a subversive stunt in Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral. In February members of the group jumped on the cathedral's altar and performed what they called a "punk prayer," begging for divine intervention to rid Russia of President Vladimir Putin.

Three of the women were charged with "hooliganism" and in August they were sentenced to two years in prison. In a statement on their website, organizers called for the their release and said the trial called "into question Russia's policies towards freedom of speech and freedom of expression."

The trial was also seen as an attempt by the Kremlin to intimidate the opposition amid an unprecedented protest movement that has called on Putin to step down and for early parliamentary elections to be held.

An appeal in the case will be heard on Oct. 1 and activists have announced plans to hold protests against their incarceration in over 100 cities around the world. Russian authorities are reportedly still searching for two other women wanted in connection with the February stunt. Pussy Riot announced on Twitter that the two had fled the country, but provided no further details.

Ahead of the August verdict the women received high profile support from global music icons including Madonna, Paul McCartney, Green Day and Sting.

Other recipients of the Lennon Ono Grant for Peace this year include peace activist Rachel Corrie, author and activist John Perkins, author and journalist Christopher Hitchens who died earlier this year, and another winner that organizers declined to name "for logistical reasons."

SHOWS: World News

20 Sep, 2012

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Poles Angered by Ukraine's Graveside Fashion Shoot

Poland has protested a photo exhibition by a Ukrainian fashion magazine featuring models posing next to Polish graves.

The photographs showing women in provocative poses against a backdrop of crosses at a cemetery in the western city of Lviv were displayed at a museum last week.

Poland's Foreign Ministry said Thursday that its diplomats in Lviv protested "the impropriety of the exhibition, which could hurt feelings and provoke controversy" and had the exhibit closed.

Galina Tayan of the LZ online fashion magazine, which organized the photo session, said the photographs were meant to illustrate that even religious leaders can sin and not to offend anyone.

The head of the museum, Iryna Magdysh, said she regretted the decision to display the photos, saying "our freedom ends when another person's freedom begins."

20 Sep, 2012

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Soldier Gives Birth at Embattled Base

Sep 20, 2012 10:39am

A British team of pediatric specialists is being deployed to Afghanistan to attend to a female gunner who unexpectedly gave birth in an Afghan outpost that was the scene of a bitter battle just days ago.

The soldier reportedly didn't realize she was pregnant until she developed stomach pains two days ago. The baby was born five weeks premature.

She gave birth in Camp Bastion, a sprawling base in Helmand Province where Britain's Prince Harry is assigned as an Apache helicopter pilot.

The camp was the target of a sophisticated attack last week when three teams of insurgents dressed in U.S. Army uniforms breached the defensive perimeter and destroyed several attack jets and killed two Americans.

The camp is getting a different kind of  reinforcements this week as a pediatric team from Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital is en route to Afghanistan to tend to the soldier and her premature baby.

The soldier, who has not been publicly identified, was deployed to Afghanistan in March. She is believed to be the first soldier to give birth on the frontline.

A Ministry of Defense spokesperson told ABC News that the mother was a gunner in the Royal Regiment of Artillery. Both she and her baby boy are healthy and in good condition.

Pregnant servicewomen are not allowed to be deployed on operations, the Ministry of Defense told ABC News.

"Usually once we find out about a woman being pregnant, we send her back to the UK on maternity leave, but this time, the baby came too fast," the spokesman said.

Even the mother was taken by surprise, officials said, unaware that she was pregnant.

"Medically, it is possible for a woman not to notice a pregnancy, but it's very, very unusual," Dr. Jack Singer, from Harley Street Pediatric Group in London, told ABC News.

"It's with great difficulty that a pregnancy goes unnoticed," joked Singer. "I mean, most women would find amenorrhea (the lack of menstrual bleeding and growth of breasts) unusual, or notice a bump at least in the third trimester."

"All it would take is a simple urine to blood test, before the women are deployed," said Singer. "If you're wearing all that gear and carrying equipment, it's not as obvious as if you're used to wearing black cocktail dresses. These women are under huge stresses and strains, so they can ignore what's going on with their body," he added.

Around 70 women have been sent back from Afghanistan in the last decade after discovering they were pregnant, and twice that number from Iraq in the same period. The Ministry of Defense commented that these figures account for fewer than one percent of British servicewomen ever deployed on operations.

Major Charles Heyman, an author of books about the British Army and a former soldier, said: "The Army needs to make sure for the welfare of the female soldier concerned that they are not pregnant before they deploy."

Servicewomen are usually on leave for at least six months after the birth of their child, but according to according to UK law maternity leave can last up to a year.

SHOWS: Good Morning America

20 Sep, 2012

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Poland Urges Ukraine to Make East-West Choice

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski urged Ukraine's leader on Thursday to push for integration with the European Union, but acknowledged that a key obstacle is the country's jailing of its former premier, Yulia Tymoshenko.

After talks with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in Kiev, Komorowski said Ukraine must decide whether it wants to align itself with the EU or join a Russia-led customs union. "It is impossible to implement those two scenarios at the same time," Komorowski said at a news conference with Yanukovych. "A choice has to be made."

Tymoshenko, the country's top opposition leader and the heroine of the 2004 Orange Revolution, is serving a seven-year jail term on charges of abuse of office while leading natural gas import negotiations with Russia in 2009.

Tymoshenko, 51, denies the charges and accuses Yanukovych, the antagonist of the Orange Revolution, of throwing her in jail in order to bar her from Ukraine's Oct. 28 parliamentary election.

AP

Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych and Polish counterpart Bronislaw Komorowski , left, are seen during an official meeting ceremony in front of the Presidential office in Kiev, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 20, 2012. (AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov) Close

The nation's relations with the EU have been strained over her treatment, which the West has condemned as politically motivated. The EU has balked at implementing a key cooperation deal with Ukraine over the Tymoshenko case.

Komorowski said Tymoshenko's jailing is a key impediment n Ukraine's road into the European club.

"The Tymoshenko case is an internal matter of Ukraine, but at the same time this case is a serious, significant obstacle in the rapprochement between Ukraine and the European Union," Komorowski said. "From our side we expect that all Ukrainian political players will work toward removing these obstacles which hamper the ... integration of Ukraine with European structures."

Yanukovych skirted a question on whether he could pardon Tymoshenko, who also faces an array of other accusations, including in connection with a 15-year-old murder case.

"The (legal) process in the case of Tymoshenko is not over yet," Yanukovych said at the news conference. "We are interested and will do everything so that all the cases take place only in the legal framework."

Tymoshenko is undergoing treatment in a Ukrainian hospital for a severe spinal condition which has left her partially paralyzed and in constant pain. She has been unable to attend trials and take part in investigations in cases against her.

Yanukovych wished her a speedy recovery, but Tymoshenko's lawyer, Serhiy Vlasenko, said the Ukrainian leader's statement signaled a continuation of "political repression" in Ukraine.

"Yanukovych has shown his true face. He has shown that he doesn't understand European values, European democracy and what a leader of a European country should be like," Vlasenko told The Associated Press.

20 Sep, 2012

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Niger Hit by Worst Flooding in 80 Years: Oxfam

The international aid group Oxfam says half a million people have been displaced in Niger as the country reels from the worst flooding in 80 years.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that more than 80 people were killed in the floods.

The landlocked West African country of Niger has been pummeled by back-to-back droughts in 2005, 2010 and the first part of 2012 causing an acute hunger crisis. Samuel Braimah, country director for Oxfam, says the rains were needed, but the excessive rainwater has now destroyed 17,000 acres (7,000 hectares) of crops, making it even more difficult for families strained by drought to rebound.

Of the 1 million children facing life-threatening malnutrition this year in the Sahel, UNICEF says that one-third live in Niger.

20 Sep, 2012

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Afghan President Appoints New Governors

An Afghan official says President Hamid Karzai has reshuffled about one quarter of the country's 38 provincial governors as part of an effort to improve local governance.

Rafi Ferdous, a spokesman with the Council of Ministers, says 10 governors were removed or given new jobs as part of Thursday's decision.

Among the governor's to lose his job was Gulab Mangal, who ran the volatile southern province of Helmand.

Earlier this month, the Afghan parliament approved Karzai's choice of two new ministers in key security posts.

20 Sep, 2012

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Serb Acquitted on US Embassy Fire Charges

A Serbian court has acquitted the prime suspect in setting the U.S. embassy in Belgrade on fire in 2008, but has sentenced him to a year in prison for stealing property from the building.

A judge said Thursday there was no evidence that the 24-year-old Milan Zivanovic took part in the burning of the embassy when Serb rioters stormed the building on Feb. 21, 2008, in anger over Washington's support for the statehood of Kosovo, the predominantly ethnic Albanian province that had declared independence from Serbia.

But the judge said Zivanovic, a university student, took part in the stealing of a leather jacket and gloves that belonged to an embassy employee.

The attackers threw stones and flares at the embassy building. One person died in the rioting.

20 Sep, 2012

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UN Urges Pakistan to Tackle Missing Persons Issue

The United Nations has pressed Pakistan's government and judiciary to do more to tackle the problem of thousands of people who have allegedly been detained by law enforcement and intelligence agencies and remain missing.

A U.N. working group on enforced disappearances delivered its initial findings Thursday after a 10-day visit to Pakistan.

One of the group's members, Olivier de Frouville, says they were invited by the Pakistani government.

But the visit was clouded by complaints from Pakistani parliament members who claimed the group's presence was a violation of the country's sovereignty.

Several key institutions in Pakistan — including the Supreme Court, the military and the all-powerful intelligence agency — refused to meet with the group. Their lack of cooperation raises questions about how much impact the group's visit will have.

20 Sep, 2012

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Oil's Slide Continues Toward $91 a Barrel

Oil prices fell closer to $91 a barrel on Thursday, sagging for a fourth straight day as high U.S. inventories and weak economic data from Europe, China and Japan reinforced fears of a deeper global downturn.

By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark oil for October delivery was down 45 cents to $91.53 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract finished at $91.98 on Wednesday, dropping $3.31, or 3.5 percent.

In London, Brent crude traded on the ICE Futures exchange was down 54 cents to $107.65 a barrel.

Figures from Europe, Japan and China reminded investors that the world's economy is struggling, though a positive bond auction from Spain helped limit the retreat in markets.

Among the sobering news for investors was a survey in Europe pointing to a deepening recession in Europe, figures from Japan that showed the country's powerhouse export sector was continuing to suffer and a private survey of manufacturers in China that showed activity fell again in September, though at a slightly slower pace than August.

Signs that the global economy is slowing down tend to push oil prices lower because people and businesses use less energy.

"The extended losses are hinting more and more that the bullish impact of (quantitative easing) had already been priced into the market for several weeks and that the focus is now on weaker global economic growth indicators," said analysts at JBC Energy in Vienna.

Separately, crude inventories grew three times more than analysts had expected last week. Crude supplies grew by 8.5 million barrels to 367.6 million barrels. That's 8.4 percent higher than at the same time last year, according to the Energy Information Administration's weekly report.

Analysts said the uptick in inventory was tied to the return of production by U.S. Gulf Coast refineries after being shut down by Hurricane Isaac.

"We can safely assume that most of this has been on the back of platforms returning to production ... we are seeing the return of the refineries in the Gulf area too," Carl Larry of Oil Outlooks and Opinions said in a newsletter.

Some experts said the large price drop this week was exaggerated and likely to be reversed soon.

Analysts at Commerzbank said they regard "the scale and above all the speed of the price slide as excessive" even if the crude stockpile figures indicate that the market is "amply supplied" at present.

"This is all the more true given that other economic barometers such as equity markets and copper — a cyclical commodity — have defended their gains over the same period," they said. "We expect to see a countermovement in the next few days."

In other futures trading in New York, wholesale gasoline was up 2.24 cents at $2.7497 per gallon. Heating oil rose 1.82 cents to $3.0622 per gallon. Natural gas added 2.4 cents to $2.786 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

20 Sep, 2012

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