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Mob burns Kenyans seeking refuge in church

NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) — Gangs of young men armed with machetes are roaming the streets in Kenya as post-election violence threatens to engulf the country. Horrific attacks are being reported, including the torching of a church where people who had sought refuge were burned alive.

At least 148 people have been killed and about 75,000 have fled their homes since President Mwai Kibaki won a narrow victory, according to Kenyan government officials. The Associated Press reported a higher number — about 275 — have died since Saturday.

Much of the violence is between supporters of Kibaki from the majority Kikuyu tribe and backers of opposition leader Raila Odinga, who is from the Luo tribe.

The ethnic violence, previously rare in Kenya, is reminiscent of the strife that led to the Rwanda genocide. In a particularly disturbing incident, a mob appears to have burned a church filled with Kenyans seeking refuge from the violence.

The Red Cross told The Associated Press that at least 50 were burned to death at the church, some of them children. As many as 200 people were at the church, about 185 miles northwest of Nairobi, KTN reporter Tony Biwott told CNN. Watch as machete-wielding looters haul away goods

Biwott said he counted at least 15 charred bodies, including children, in the burned church and an adjacent field.

I’m sure there were more than 15 but I couldn’t count the ones who were ashes, he said in a phone interview.

The wounded sustained gunshot wounds, burns and cuts from a panga, a machete-like weapon, the Red Cross said. Watch smoke darken skies near a burned church

The national police commissioner has said in Kenyan society, churches are considered sacred and no one would expect such violence there.

He said an investigation into the incident is under way.

About 120 people are reported dead and over 1,000 injured countrywide, according to The Red Cross.

Police and political backers of opposition leader Raila Odinga began clashing about four days ago as Odinga, of the Luo tribe, narrowly lost Kenya’s presidential election to Mwai Kibaki.

Kibaki is a member of Kikuyu, Kenya’s largest tribe.

Violence broke out in several cities as frustration mounted during the slow hand-count of the ballots. Kibaki was re-elected with 51.3 percent of the vote, to 48.7 percent for Odinga.

What we now witness is a cold and calculated plan to organize and engage in massacres, government spokesman Alfred Mutua said.

Bringing in the New Year, Kibaki — who rarely speaks to the press — urged calm to the nation.

It now is a time for healing and reconciliation amongst all Kenyans, he said.

Foreign Minister Raphael Tuju said the government is committed to taking control.

If the tear gas doesn’t work then unfortunately they have to use live bullets, he told CNN. The president has been sworn in, the elections are over, the Kenyans have to accept the results, the opposition has to accept the results.

Tuesday, international observers said the balloting fell short of international standards for democratic elections.

Alexander Lambsdorff, the head of the EU Election Observation Mission in Kenya, cited discrepancies in vote counts, election observers being turned away from polling places and observers being refused entrance to the electoral commission vote-counting room.

The violence also has displaced some 75,000 Kenyans inside the country, Mutua said.

The government said Tuesday it will not allow any political rallies in the aftermath of the controversial election outcome.

Odinga’s opposition Orange Democratic Movement had scheduled rallies for Tuesday, raising fears of more violence.

Mutua said there was no intention to impose a state of emergency or curfew at this point, and said police are handling the violence well and with extreme restraint.

However, he warned that police restraint would not last forever. The violence is rare for Kenya, which has enjoyed relative calm even as war and chronic political violence wracked neighboring countries, such as Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda.

The United States has withheld congratulations for Kibaki, citing concerns of voting problems, even though Kibaki has claimed victory.
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CNN Student News: Ten Questions

(CNN Student News) — January 2, 2008

1. According to the report, what New Year’s celebrations took place in different parts of the world?

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2. Did you do anything special to celebrate the new year? If so, what did you do? *

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3. If you could have one wish for the new year, what would it be?

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4. Who was Benazir Bhutto? According to the program, what information is known about the circumstances surrounding her death?

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5. According to the program, what is the status of Pakistan’s parliamentary elections?

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6. With what political party were Benazir Bhutto and her father Zulfikar Bhutto affiliated? Who did this party recently name as its future leader?

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7. Where is the country of Kenya located? What violence has transpired following this country’s recent presidential elections?

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8. Do you think that the international community should respond to the situation in Kenya? If so, how? If not, why not?

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9. Where and when are this year’s first U.S. presidential caucuses taking place?

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10. To what extent do you think that early state caucuses and primaries set the tone for the entire U.S. presidential race?

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* E-mail to a friend

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Record snow hits Michigan; New England braces

DETROIT, Michigan (AP) — A fast-moving New Year’s Day storm dumped more than a foot of snow on southeastern Michigan, a record blast that made driving hazardous, snarled the flight home for holiday travelers and threatened to do the same in New England.

Thousands of people in Michigan and Ohio lost power. Authorities reported no deaths or serious injuries from the six-hour burst of snow in Michigan that started around midnight, but they said there were many spinouts and minor accidents.

The storm left 10 to 16 inches of snow across parts of Oakland, Lapeer and St. Clair counties north of Detroit, the National Weather Service said. The western St. Clair County community of Capac, Michigan, reported 16 inches.

This storm most definitely packed quite a wallop, said Weather Service meteorologist David Shuler in Oakland County. This will be a memorable storm for the amount of snow it dumped in such a short amount of time.

He said it was the region’s heaviest New Year’s Day snowstorm on record and was unusual for its intensity. In the heart of the storm, snow fell at a rate of at least 2 inches an hour, with periods of 4 inches an hour. Watch the rough conditions

Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, one of the nation’s busiest, canceled 145 flights Tuesday and reported delays of around 45 minutes because of blowing snow. Passengers also experienced morning delays at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, but operations were back to normal by the afternoon, spokesman Michael Conway said.

Utility officials reported scattered power failures affecting more than 36,000 homes and businesses at one time or another.

The storm also blacked out 10,000 customers in northeast Ohio, mainly in areas east of Cleveland, said Chris Eck, a spokesman for FirstEnergy Corp. Wind gusted to 51 mph at Cleveland’s Burke Lakefront Airport, the Weather Service said.

FirstEnergy repair crews had difficulty keeping up with the storm, Eck said. As they’re getting lights on, lights are going off. They’re just fighting it as it happens, he said.

Farther east, the weather system spread snow across upstate New York and northern New England, where it was expected to last into Wednesday and drop as much as a foot of snow on parts of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

That followed a storm in the Northeast on Monday that made it the snowiest December in the region in decades. December’s snowfall at Concord, New Hampshire, totaled 44.5 inches, toppling a record of 43 inches that had stood since 1876. Burlington, Vermont, got 45.7 inches, far above its 17.2-inch December average, and Portland, Maine, amassed 37.7 inches for its third-snowiest December on record.

New Hampshire has already spent $30 million on snow removal out of the $75 million budgeted for the entire winter, said highway department spokesman Bill Boynton.

However, New England ski resorts enjoyed the flurry of storms after last year’s lack of snow early in the season.

In Maine, it provided a fresh layer on top of the roughly 6 feet that the state’s two biggest ski resorts, Sugarloaf USA and Sunday River, each got last month.

It’s been unbelievable, Sugarloaf spokesman Bill Swain said. It just keeps coming.
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2 U.S. Navy sailors found dead in Ghana

(CNN) — Two U.S. Navy sailors were found dead Tuesday morning in their hotel room in Tema, Ghana, the Navy said.

The sailors were on liberty, said a written statement from the U.S. Sixth Fleet. They were stationed aboard the Norfolk, Virginia-based USS Fort McHenry. The dock landing ship is in Ghana as part of the Africa Partnership Station initiative, aimed at helping African nations increase maritime security.

The cause of death is being investigated by Ghanaian authorities along with the Navy and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the Navy said. The sailors’ names were being withheld pending notification of relatives. E-mail to a friend

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Sources: Bhutto was to give U.S. lawmakers vote-rigging report

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) — On the day she died, Benazir Bhutto planned to hand over to visiting U.S. lawmakers a report accusing Pakistan’s intelligence services of a plot to rig parliamentary elections, sources close to the slain former Pakistani prime minister told CNN Tuesday.

Bhutto was assassinated Thursday, hours before a scheduled meeting with Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-Rhode Island, and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania.

A top Bhutto aide who helped write the report showed a copy to CNN.

Where an opposing candidate is strong in an area, they [supporters of President Pervez Musharraf ] have planned to create a conflict at the polling station, even killing people if necessary, to stop polls at least three to four hours, the document says.

The report also accused the government of planning to tamper with ballots and voter lists, intimidate opposition candidates and misuse U.S.-made equipment to monitor communications of opponents.

Ninety percent of the equipment that the USA gave the government of Pakistan to fight terrorism is being used to monitor and to keep a check on their political opponents, the report says. Watch the controversy surrounding Pakistan elections

The Pakistani government denied the allegations, with two Pakistani diplomatic sources calling the report baseless. Rashid Qureshi, a spokesman for Musharraf, called the accusations ridiculous and said the election will be free, fair and transparent.

I think they are just a pack of lies, he said.

One Bhutto source said the document was compiled at her request and said the information came from sources inside the police and intelligence services.

The election had been scheduled for January 8, but in the wake of Bhutto’s assassination, the Election Commission is expected to announce Wednesday that it will delay the vote at least four weeks into February, sources at the commission said.

Sen. Latif Khosa, who helped put the report together, accused the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence of operating a rigging cell from a safe house in the capital, Islamabad. The goal, he said, is to change voting results electronically on election day.

The ISI has set up a mega-computer system where they can hack any computer in Pakistan and connect with the Election Commission, he said.

Media outlets in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh have run reports alleging that retired Brig. Gen. Ejaz Shah — formerly an Inter-Services Intelligence officer and now head of the civilian Intelligence Bureau — is involved in the vote rigging plans.

Shah’s name also turned up in a letter Bhutto wrote to Musharraf after the first attempt on her life on October 18, when she returned to Pakistan after eight years in exile, Pakistani media reported. In the letter, the media reported, Shah was one of four Pakistani officials Bhutto named as people who wanted her dead.

The Pakistan government has denied those allegations as well.

Khosa said he could make no link between Bhutto’s assassination and the report. Some terrorism experts also said there was no reason to believe Bhutto was killed because of the report, agreeing with Pakistani government contentions that al Qaeda was responsible for her death.
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