cezunusi

Rain and cooler temperatures heading for Houston

2008-11-24T06:06:00.001-08:00

Two pockets of scattered showers are blowing this way, but the Houston area probably won't get much rain, according to the National Weather Service.

The first batch of rain is expected to arrive at about 7:30 a.m., followed by a second system before 10 a.m, said Charles Roeseler, a meteorologist based in League City.

A quarter-inch or less of precipitation is expected, and skies should be clear by noon, he said.

The rains are coming in ahead of a cold front that is expected to drop the low temperatures tonight by as much as 20 degrees below this morning's temperatures, which were in the 60s, Roeseler said.

It'll be colder in rural areas and a bit warmer inside Loop 610.

"There will probably be no discernible temperature change behind the front this afternoon," he said. "You really won't start feeling the cold air invection until overnight."

Astronauts venture on 4th, final spacewalk

2008-11-24T06:03:00.000-08:00

HOUSTON (AP) — Three spacewalks down. One to go. Astronauts Stephen Bowen and Robert "Shane" Kimbrough venture outside the international space station Monday for the fourth and final spacewalk of space shuttle Endeavour's nearly two-week visit to the orbiting outpost.

The spacewalkers hope to finish unjamming a huge joint that keeps a power-generating solar wing on the space station's right side facing the sun. The joint hasn't been used much since September 2007 because parts were grinding, shaving off metal shards that jammed it and kept it from rotating toward sunlight. That limited the amount of energy the wing could produce.

Space station commander Michael Fincke said power generated by the wing will help the outpost's crew expand from three to six residents next year and allow more research 220 miles above Earth.

"We're going to need every watt of that power," Fincke said Sunday.

Astronauts couldn't finish the cleaning and lube job after three spacewalks, so the task was added to the fourth. They also plan to lubricate a similar joint for the station's left solar wing. Other tasks include installing a video camera, spacewalk handrail and GPS antenna, as well as taking photos of equipment.

During the first spacewalk last week, a $100,000 tool kit floated away from lead spacewalker Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper as she tried to clean grease from a lubrication gun. That forced flight controllers to choreograph the other spacewalks with only one pair of grease guns. Endeavour commander Christopher Ferguson said Sunday that the shuttle's spacewalkers had overcome that loss with aplomb.

"We're jacking up the international space station, taking the wheels off, and we're bound to get a little dirty, a little dusty and meet a few surprise along the way," Ferguson said. "I think we've weathered this one just fine and come back with a lot of confidence."

Inside the space station, astronauts spent a fourth day Sunday trying to get a urine processor working. The processor is part of the newly delivered $154 million system that converts urine, sweat and condensation into drinking water.

Fincke and shuttle astronaut Donald Pettit tried to fix the problem by changing how a centrifuge in the urine processor is mounted, but the machine stopped running after 3 1/2 hours during a test run. During previous tests, the urine processor has worked for just two hours at a time before shutting down. A normal run is about four hours.

"It looks like we made things better, but we're maybe not there yet," Fincke told Mission Control.

Parts of the system that recycle sweat and condensation are working without problems.

Endeavour undocks from the space station on Thanksgiving Day and returns to Earth on Saturday.

Gunman Kills One at a Church in New Jersey

2008-11-24T06:02:00.000-08:00

A gunman invaded a small church in Clifton, N.J., during services on Sunday and killed his estranged wife and critically wounded two other people with shots to the head in what appeared to be the climax of a violent domestic quarrel that had reached from California to India to New Jersey over the past year, authorities and witnesses said.

As more than 100 worshipers dived under the pews of St. Thomas Syrian Orthodox Knanaya Church, the assailant, after an argument in the foyer, fired four shots from a silver handgun, striking his wife, who had refused to leave the church with him; a relative who had recently taken her in; and a man who either happened upon or tried to intervene in the confrontation, the police and witnesses said.

The shootings happened at 11:44 a.m., a witness said.

The gunman ran from the church and drove away in a green convertible Jeep Wrangler with a black soft top and the California license 5JHD200, said the police, who identified him as Joseph Pallipurath, 27, of Sacramento. He remained at large Sunday night as the New Jersey State Police and law enforcement authorities in northern New Jersey widened a manhunt on highways and at transportation terminals.

The victims were taken to St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Paterson, where Mr. Pallipurath’s wife, Reshma James, 24, died about 4 p.m., the police said. The other victims, both listed in very critical condition, were identified by church members as Ms. James’s relative, Silvy Perincheril, 47, of Hawthorne, N.J., who is the principal of the church’s Sunday school, and Dennis John Malloosseril, 23, a church director.

Members of the congregation, families of Indian descent from across northern New Jersey and some from as far away as Long Island, gathered outside the steepled red-brick, one-story church in the harsh afternoon cold, huddling in bright silk dresses and shirts, consoling one another, weeping and awaiting word on the victims.

“It was very scary,” Anna Manimalethu said. “My kids are still scared.”

The Clifton police described Mr. Pallipurath as armed and dangerous, 5 feet 8 inches tall and 160 pounds. They said active restraining orders had been issued in California and New Jersey against him after domestic violence complaints by his wife, who had moved recently to New Jersey. Detective Capt. Robert Rowan said it appeared the gunman had driven from California to try to force her to return with him.

Members of the church gave a more elaborate account of the woman’s hardships, citing an arranged and abusive marriage that had left her terrified. A family friend, Aniyan Panavelil, said Ms. James, a registered nurse who grew up in India, had wed Mr. Pallipurath, an American, in India a year ago in an arrangement made by their families.

It was unclear if they had met before their wedding. Mr. Panavelil said the husband returned first to the United States and she joined him in Sacramento in January, and soon became a victim of domestic violence. Mr. Panavelil said the couple returned to India for a month to try to work things out with counselors, but the effort failed.

“He said he couldn’t do it anymore,” Mr. Panavelil said. As for Ms. James, he said, “He was torturing her too much.” The couple separated when they returned to this country, Mr. Pallipurath going to California and Ms. James to New Jersey, where she took refuge with Ms. Perincheril.

Ms. James began attending services with Ms. Perincheril at St. Thomas Knanaya, where some 60 families — first-generation Indian immigrants and their children — worship in a Christian tradition that traces its heritage to Abraham and its culture to Jews of the Aramaic-speaking regions of Israel and Syria, who migrated in 345 A.D. to the Malabar coast, in what is now the state of Kerala, in southwest India.

In recent decades, thousands of Knanaya people have migrated to North America, starting churches in Canada, New York, Massachusetts, Texas and elsewhere. They preserve many customs modeled on Jewish traditions, including the menorah, unleavened bread at Passover and wedding canopies, and they practice endogamous marriage.

The parish of St. Thomas Knanaya was founded in 1987 as part of the Universal Orthodox Church, with allegiance to the Holy See of Antioch. Most members formerly belonged to St. Peter’s in Yonkers, and the congregation met in rented spaces. But in February 2000, it bought the building at 186 Third Street in Clifton, set on a residential block in a working-class neighborhood 10 miles west of Manhattan.

On Sunday morning, the congregation was nearing the end of its regular service in Malayalam, a Dravidian language spoken on the Malabar Coast, when the gunman arrived. The Eucharist had been distributed, the Rev. Father Thomas Abraham had given his sermon and worshipers were saying a prayer for the dead and preparing to disperse.

Suja Alummoottil, 40, of Stockholm, N.J., was in the foyer with Ms. Perincheril and Ms. James, discussing an essay contest for Sunday school classes. The man who came in, she said, wore a black hooded sweatshirt and light-colored slacks. He was thin and bearded, and he interrupted to say he was Reshma James’s husband and had come to take her home.

“He was telling her, ‘I’ve been roaming around without my wife for too long,’ ” Ms. Alummoottil said. Ms. James did not respond, but Ms. Perincheril asked him to leave and talk it over later. She was worried, though, and asked Ms. Alummoottil to go into the sanctuary and get help.

“I don’t want you going anywhere,” the man said.

But Ms. Alummoottil ignored him, entered the sanctuary and summoned Ms. Perincheril’s husband, Thampi. They were returning to the foyer when they heard the shots.

“Everyone got down on the floor,” Ms. Alummoottil said.

Liya Manimalethu, 16, said the congregation had been kneeling in prayer for the dead and was just rising when she heard the shots. The sounds were confusing at first — “Like a flagpole went down,” was the way she described it. “Then people started screaming and crying. Someone told us to get down, so we all got down.”

“We were finishing the Holy Mass,” Father Abraham said. “It was almost over and then I heard the gunshots. There were three to four shots, and I saw people running around.”

Moments later, parishioners found Ms. James, Ms. Perincheril and Mr. Malloosseril shot in the head and lying in the foyer.

“This is a very unfortunate incident, very tragic,” Father Abraham said. “I am still traumatized.”

Mugabe wins out in Zimbabwe talks

2008-11-10T10:24:00.003-08:00

In the run-up to Sunday's summit, hosts South Africa had promised to talk tough with the Zimbabwean parties and "force" an agreement.

Many observers interpreted that as a sign that the region's most powerful country was at last going to pressure President Robert Mugabe into making concessions to the opposition.

In fact, as the dust settles on the talks it is clear that the exact opposite was the case.

Despite winning the only contested election in Zimbabwe this year, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was yet again being urged to compromise by southern Africa leaders.

Tomaz Salomao, the head of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which organised the summit, announced that an "above normal" situation meant that the home affairs ministry should be "co-managed" by two ministers, one from President Mugabe's Zanu-PF and one from Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

The joint share of home affairs would go alongside most of Zimbabwe's key ministries in the Zanu-PF portfolio.

Effectively SADC was instructing the MDC to accept Mr Mugabe's definition of power-sharing - that they should take a junior role in his government.

"These regional organs are state to state," David Monyae, a South African analyst, told the BBC. "The idea of opposition groups coming in and getting heard is not something they are comfortable with."

Low turnout

So as midnight passed in the Sandton Convention Centre, Mr Tsvangirai was cast as the obstacle to a settlement. At his press conference he came out fighting.

"It is about equitable power-sharing," he said. "It is about giving the responsibility to the party that won an election and has compromised its position to share a government with a party that lost."

The MDC made it clear that they would not take part in the government on those terms.

In demanding that Zimbabwe's leaders accept their deal, SADC tried to flex its muscles - and the MDC's rejection has left it looking weak.

"The problem with SADC is that went into the summit this weekend without any clear alternatives," Judy Smith-Hohn, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, said.

"Those people who were at the summit didn't have time to strategise and that's why they came up with this result."

For a meeting that was billed as "make or break" for the Zimbabwean deal, the turnout was low. Just five of southern Africa's 15 heads of state attended.

Significantly, the president of Botswana, Ian Seretse Khama, was absent. Having criticised President Mugabe and called for fresh elections, it is hard to see how he would have accepted the summit's final verdict.

Mr Mugabe can now claim with some justification that SADC has mandated him to form a government immediately. Over the next few days he may well do so.

This leaves the opposition with an impossible choice. Whether to struggle for power from outside Zimbabwe's government or belatedly battle for a share within.

Palace: Bali bombers' execution a triumph of justice

2008-11-10T10:24:00.001-08:00

Malacañang described yesterday as a “triumph of justice” the execution of three Indonesian extremists responsible for the bombing of a holiday resort in Bali that killed 202 people in 2002.

Press Secretary Jesus Dureza said the closure of the Bali bombing case was a result of cooperation among countries in Southeast Asia and other security allies.

The attack, staged by Jemaah Islamiyah militants, killed more than 160 foreigners, including 88 Australians, and 38 Indonesians.

“It is judicial retribution through legal processes and the judicial system to penalize people and make people answerable for the acts committed,” Dureza said.

Amrozi, 47, his brother Mukhlas, 48, and ringleader Imam Samudra, 38, were killed with shots to the heart in an orange grove near their prison on Nusakambangan island off southern Java shortly after midnight on Sunday, the Indonesian media reported.

The three reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar (God is great)” as paramilitary police escorted them out of their isolation cells shortly before midnight on Saturday.

The execution triggered calls for revenge from radical supporters.

Dureza, however, downplayed the vengeance calls, saying security forces can handle such threats.

He pointed out that two wanted JI bombers – Dulmatin and Umar Patek – who reportedly are in hiding in Mindanao, could not stage terror attacks due to pressure exerted by Philippine lawmen hunting them.

Iraq triple bombings kill dozens

2008-11-10T10:23:00.001-08:00

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A triple bombing in Baghdad has killed more than two dozen people and wounded scores more in the deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital in almost four months.

The Interior Ministry reported at least 30 dead and 70 wounded in the strikes, and the Health Ministry reported at least 28 dead and more than 60 wounded. Iraqis say it was the deadliest attack in the capital city in almost four months.

The U.S. military is reporting lower casualty figures -- eight dead and 48 wounded.

A statement from the office of the top U.N. representative in Iraq called the bombings "detestable" and said they were "repugnant crimes aimed at re-instilling fear, distrust and division among the public just as Iraq prepares itself to assume political normalcy with the upcoming provincial elections."

The casualties in Baghdad occurred when two bombs in parked cars exploded early in the day at Kasrah market in the Adhamiya neighborhood, a ministry official said.

When a crowd gathered around the wrecked cars, a bomber wearing an explosive vest detonated in their midst, the official said.

Abbas Fadhil said he was working in a nearby restaurant that was damaged in the blasts.

"I rushed to the site and saw several girl students trapped in a bus and screaming for help. We took the girls outside the bus and rushed them to the hospitals," he told The Associated Press.

Associated Press Television News video showed the minibus damaged by shrapnel with the floor soaked in blood. Girls' shoes lay scattered amid the wreckage.

Ahmed Riyadh, 54, owner of a nearby grocery, described it as a "vicious attack" that "did not differentiate between Shiites and Sunnis."

Adhamiya is a Sunni neighborhood, but the Kasrah district is predominantly populated by Shiites. As such, the area is controlled by Iraqi security forces and not an Awakening Council.

Awakening councils are mainly made up of former Sunni insurgents who turned against al Qaeda and are credited for being one of the main factors that helped reduce violence in the country.

Among the victims of the Monday morning attack were two police officers, four Iraqi soldiers, five women and a number of students, the ministry official said.

Several soldiers and police personnel were also wounded in the blasts.

On July 28, three female suicide bombers attacked Shiite pilgrims killing at least 32 people and wounding 102 others in the Kadhimiya district in northwestern Baghdad.

Attackers also struck in northern Iraq on Monday. A female suicide bomber killed four people and wounded at least 18 others in Baquba, about 60 kilometers (35 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq's Interior Ministry said.

The incident in Baquba took place at noon when a suicide bomber detonated explosives at a checkpoint manned by local Awakening Council members.

Two council members were among the fatalities. Six other members were wounded.

At least 35 female suicide bombers detonated themselves in 2008. Half of them did so in the Diyala province, where Baquba is located.

Miriam Makeba, 'Empress of African Song', dies at anti-Mafia concert in Italy

2008-11-10T10:21:00.000-08:00

Miriam Makeba, the South African singer who became a world famous symbol of the anti-apartheid movement, died this morning, apparently of a heart attack after performing at an anti Mafia concert in southern Italy.

The 76-year-old singer died after being brought to the Pineta Grande Clinic at Castelvolturno at the end of a concert in support of Roberto Saviano, an Italian journalist threatened with death by the Naples Mafia, because of his exposure of the mob in his bestselling book.

Born in Johannesburg in 1932 to a Xhosa father and Swazi mother, Makeba - often called 'Mama Afrika' and 'the Empress of African Song' - left South Africa in 1959. When she tried to return for the funeral of her mother the following year, her passport was taken away and she was banned from the country. She addressed the UN in 1976 to denounce apartheid, after which her songs were banned in South Africa.

The singer lived in exile for over thirty years in the United States, France, West Africa and Belgium. She went back to South Africa in 1990, when the then President, FW de Klerk, began to introduce reforms which eventually ended in the dismantling of apartheid and the release from prison and subsequent election as President of Nelson Mandela.

Makeba sang with Harry Belafonte in the 1960s and with Paul Simon in the 1980s. She became the first black African woman to receive a Grammy award, sharing it with Belafonte, and her greatest hit song was 'Pata Pata' (Xhosa for 'touch, touch'). She once said: "Through my music I became this voice and image of Africa and the people without even realising it."

Reports suggest that, after performing in her final concert, Makeba had asked for a copy of Mr Saviano's book on the Naples Mafia in English, and then returned to her hotel complaining she was feeling unwell. She died in the early hours of this morning.

The performer's final concert went ahead despite an alleged threat posed by the Mafia to the security of those performing and attending. La Repubblica, the Italian newspaper, said that "not even the arrogance of the Camorra" had stopped the performance, with reports suggesting that threats had been issued to those constructing the stage.

The concert had been staged on a square where, last May, Domenico Noviello, a local anti Mafia businessman, had been gunned down. Castelvolturno, a grim and rundown seaside resort, was also the scene of a Camorra massacre in September, when six immigrants of African origin were shot dead in a turf war over drugs.