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Zoe’s Ark workers get hard labor

(CNN) — A judge sentenced six French aid workers to eight years hard labor Wednesday after convicting them of trying to kidnap 103 children in the central African country of Chad.

The judge also fined each of the six defendants to pay 60,000 ($87,000) to each of the 103 children, according the CNN Paris-based affiliate, BFM-TV.

That order would require each defendant to pay a total of 6,180,000 ($8.9 million.)

Authorities detained members of the French charity, Zoe’s Ark, in October as they tried to fly 103 children from Chad to France.

The charity said the children were orphans who had fled the nearby war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur, but aid agencies later said the children were from Chad, not Sudan, and that they were not orphans.

The head of Zoe’s Ark, Eric Breteau, said after the verdict that he and his colleagues may have been lied to about whether the children were from Sudan or Chad and whether they were orphans.

We are really sorry because our intention was never to separate families, he told France 2 in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad.

Antonia Van Winkelverg, the wife of convicted aid worker Philippe Van Winkelverg, blasted the sentence in an interview with France 2.

Eight years because he was treating children, she said. You who are doctors, nurses, you go do humanitarian work and at any moment you could be in Philippe’s shoes. That’s Chadian justice for you.

But Chadian prosecutor Alain Kagonbe tld BFM-TV: It was a very merciful ruling, and if that ruling had been rendered by the French justice system it would have been the same.

The court in Chad also sentenced two people from Chad and Sudan to four years in prison. It also acquitted two citizens of Chad. Watch a report on how the events unfolded

The French Foreign Ministry has asked authorities in Chad to let the six aid workers serve their sentences in France.

The French penal code does not include provisions for hard labor, so the six would spend time behind bars in France.
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Does Oscar the cat predict death?

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Lohan: I was sober before 2005 car crash

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — Lindsay Lohan says she was sober before a 2005 car crash near Beverly Hills.

The 21-year-old actress is being sued for negligence over the accident in which her Mercedes-Benz hit a van and injured the driver, Raymundo Ortega.

Ortega, a busboy, alleges Lohan had been drinking at The Ivy restaurant before the crash even though she was underage at the time. Ortega is seeking at least $200,000 in damages from Lohan and the restaurant.

But in a December 15 declaration, Lohan stated: I did not consume an alcoholic beverage or any type of medication or drug either before or during her restaurant visit.

A call to Lohan attorney David J. Ozeran wasn’t immediately returned Wednesday.

Lohan’s declaration was filed Friday in Superior Court by attorneys for The Ivy along with other documents, including a declaration by the waiter who served Lohan. The server, Adam Novicki, said Lohan didn’t order alcohol.

Alonzo Howell, a Los Angeles police officer who was providing security for The Ivy that day, also said he didn’t see Lohan drinking.

Lohan has countersued Ortega, citing a California Highway Patrol report that said he was at fault for the crash because he made an illegal U-turn.

Lohan served 84 minutes in jail last month after pleading guilty to misdemeanor drunken driving and cocaine charges unrelated to the 2005 crash.
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Panama crash survivor awake, doctor says

PANAMA CITY, Panama (CNN) — The sole survivor of a plane crash that killed two Americans and a Panamanian pilot was awake and talking Wednesday, a doctor said.

Francesca Lewis, 13, was walking around when rescuers arrived at the crash site, officials said in a press conference Wednesday.

Her parents are in Panama and have spoken with her, officials said. Her father told CNN he hopes to see his daughter soon and has heard good reports about her condition.

She was flown by helicopter Wednesday afternoon from a hospital near the crash site to the Mae Lewis Medical Center in Boquete, Panama, where Dr. Alexander Quidano said she was in stable condition, awake and speaking.

She was being treated for a fractured arm and several cuts, but tests — including a CAT scan — were under way to make sure nothing else was wrong, Quidano said.

The small plane disappeared Sunday in a mountainous area of Panama.

Authorities found the bodies of pilot Edwin Lasso, American businessman Michael Klein and Klein’s 13-year-old daughter, Talia, about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to a statement posted on the Web site of Panama’s civil protection agency.

Francesca and Talia were friends. Watch latest from school the girls attended

Rescuers planned to retrieve the three bodies Wednesday, said Thomas Mesa, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Panama City.

Klein, a 37-year-old hedge fund manager, was vacationing with the two girls when they took the flight Sunday to photograph a volcano in Chiriqui province, about 285 miles west of Panama City.

Authorities think the small single-engine Cessna ran into bad weather. Radio contact with the flight was lost about noon Sunday.

Authorities spent the last two days searching the dense jungles and mountainous terrain, but heavy rain in the area had hampered recovery efforts.

Klein’s family offered a $25,000 reward in hopes that locals who were familiar with the area would step forward and assist in the rescue.

Klein was president and CEO of eGroups, Inc., in 1999 and 2000, when Yahoo! acquired the company, merging it with its own e-mail services and changing its name to Yahoo! Groups, which now serves more than 100 million users worldwide.
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Campaigns look to seal the deal in Iowa

DES MOINES, Iowa (CNN) — After most took Christmas Day off the campaign trail, presidential candidates are flocking back to Iowa to try to break the logjam at the top of the Hawkeye State’s first-in-the-nation caucus.

The Democratic race for the January 3 caucus remains a three-way dead heat between Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

On the Republican side, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s recent poll surge puts him ahead of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

But more voters haven’t yet made up their minds — one in three likely Democratic caucus-goers said they’re still trying to decide whom to support. And 40 percent of Republican caucus-goers also said they’re undecided, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released last week.

Keating Holland, CNN’s polling director, warned that all these figures should be treated with extra caution, because it is extraordinarily difficult for polls to accurately assess who will attend the caucuses, and Iowans are notorious for making their minds up late in the game.

Indeed, an American Research Group poll released on Christmas Eve showed Huckabee losing his lead and Clinton widening hers.

Romney and Edwards are campaigning Wednesday in New Hampshire, where the January 8 primary is the nation’s second nominating contest, before heading back to Iowa.

And former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the front-runner in most national GOP polls who is looking past Iowa and New Hampshire, is in Florida, which holds its primary January 29.

Romney was stung by hostile editorials in two of the Granite State’s leading newspapers over the past few days. Watch how Romney’s numbers have cooled

The Concord Monitor printed an editorial on Sunday calling Romney a disquieting figure who sure looks like the next president and most surely must be stopped.

And Wednesday’s Manchester Union-Leader, which has endorsed Republican rival Sen. John McCain of Arizona, editorialized that the more Mitt Romney speaks, the less believable he becomes.

In Iowa, Romney has launched a barrage of ads attacking Huckabee on immigration and taxes, trying to stall his surge there. According to the American Research Group poll, it might be working — Huckabee held an 11-point lead over Romney last week, but the Christmas Eve survey said the two were in a statistical tie. Watch Republicans’ strategy for Iowa

Meanwhile, McCain has surged back into the Iowa race — a CNN poll last week showed the senator with 9 percent of the GOP vote, but the American Research Group survey found him a few percentage points behind Huckabee and Romney.

McCain also picked up a key newspaper endorsement in Iowa when The Des Moines Register, the state’s leading paper, editorialized that he was the best choice among GOP candidates.

Among the Democrats, Clinton’s campaign is looking past her opponents in Iowa and toward the general election on her Big Challenges, Real Solutions — Time to Pick a President tour. The former first lady ranks highest in most polls in her electability against Republicans. Watch Democrats’ strategy for Iowa

Obama is focusing on rural voters, where Edwards appears strongest, according to polls, on a Wednesday bus tour.
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