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Saudi activist gets 1,000 lashes
5/8/2014 5:37:21 AM
- Raif Badawi's retrial brings a much stiffer sentence than his first verdict
- Badawi also plans to appeal this decision, a source who has followed the case tells CNN
- His wife says she is "extremely scared for my husband"
- Badawi's lawyer has been jailed on separate charges
(CNN) -- Prominent Saudi activist Raif Badawi on Wednesday was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes by a Saudi court for insulting Islam, said his wife and a source who followed the case closely.
Badawi had appealed his original 2013 conviction, which carried a sentence of seven years in prison and 600 lashes, for insulting Islam and violating the Kingdom's anti-cybercrime laws.
That verdict was overturned by an appeals court and a retrial was ordered.
Badawi plans to appeal this new decision, said the source, who wished to remain anonymous.
"This is terrible news and I'm absolutely shocked and devastated by it," said Badawi's wife, Ensaf Haider. "How is it possible they could take a sentence that was already so harsh and make it even harsher? Ten years in jail and 1,000 lashes? That's unimaginable. I'm extremely scared for my husband."
The judgment also included a 1 million riyal fine, which is equal to about $267,000.
Despite repeated attempts, CNN was unable to reach Saudi Arabia's Justice Ministry for comment.
Badawi, a respected rights activist in Saudi Arabia, first got into legal hot water with the Saudi government after starting a liberal website and forum where users could discuss religion.
His trial, guilty verdict, sentence and imprisonment has caused immense outrage among international rights groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, who accused Saudi authorities of cracking down on activism and attempting to quell dissent in the ultraconservative nation.
Amnesty International called Wednesday's judgment outrageous and called for the conviction to be overturned.
"He is a prisoner of conscience who is guilty of nothing more than daring to create a public forum for discussion and peacefully exercising the right to freedom of expression.," said Philip Luther, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Amnesty International.
In the last few months, the Saudi government has passed a series of very strong anti-terror laws that many rights groups fear will be used, among other things, as a way to quash dissent
Last year, prominent rights and reform activists Mohammed Al-Qahtani and Abdullah Al-Hamid were each sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Badawi's appeal will be complicated because his attorney and brother-in-law, Waleed Abulkhair, recently was put on trial for undermining the image of the kingdom and breaking allegiance with the King.
Last month, he was detained without explanation during his trial and has been jailed since, according to numerous rights activists and his wife, Samar Badawi.
Samar Badawi said she has spoken to her husband but has not been allowed to see him. His next court hearing is May 28.
NBA use Sterling contract to force sale
5/8/2014 4:31:07 AM
- NBA strategy to include some documents that included morals clauses, source tells CNN
- League's finance committee meets about forcing Sterling to sell team, will meet again next week
- Sterling friend Tommy Lasorda says he is not surprised by the owner's remarks
- Clippers play a road playoff game on Wednesday night
(CNN) -- The National Basketball Association's strategy for forcing the sale of the Los Angeles Clippers by Donald Sterling hinges on a document the owner signed when he bought the team in 1981 that lays out reasons ownership could be terminated, a source familiar with the situation said Wednesday.
Sterling has been banned for life from the team's day-to-day operations and facilities and was fined $2.5 million last week for racist comments that were recorded and posted online late last month.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has asked the other 29 NBA owners to force Sterling, the longest-tenured owner in the league, to sell the Clippers.
The matter is with the Advisory/Finance Committee, which met Wednesday on a conference call. Members discussed the "termination of Mr. Sterling's ownership of the team," the NBA said in a news release. The committee will meet again next week, the statement said.
If the case proceeds to a full vote, 75% of the owners would have to approve the forced sale.
The source told CNN that on several occasions since 1981 Sterling has signed other agreements with the NBA -- some within the past decade -- that contained moral clauses.
Sterling's comments, the source explained, puts the 80-year-old owner in violation of Article 13(d) of the NBA constitution, which states that an owner can lose the team if he fails or refuses to "fulfill its contractual obligations to the Association, its Members, Players, or any other third party in such a way as to affect the Association or its Members adversly."
It is unclear what percentage of the team Sterling owns. A family trust owns the Clippers, and his wife, Shelly Sterling, has indicated that she is a co-owner and wants to keep the team.
Donald Sterling, a lawyer and billionaire real-estate investor, has not spoken publicly since the celebrity gossip website TMZ posted a 10-minute audio recording in which he chastises a woman for posting pictures on Instagram in which she poses with African-Americans, including basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson.
On Tuesday, one of Sterling's longtime friends, former Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, said the remarks were not surprising. But he had no admiration for the woman who recorded them, V. Stiviano.
"I've been a friend of that guy's for 30 years," Lasorda said while getting an honorary degree from Northwood University in West Palm Beach, Florida. "It doesn't surprise me that he said those things. And he shouldn't have said it. He just hurt himself by talking too much and doing things he shouldn't be doing."
As for Stiviano?
"And I don't wish that girl any bad luck," he said, "but I hope she gets hit with a car."
Stiviano, through attorney Mac E. Nehoray, has denied leaking the recordings, another of which was posted by the sports website Deadspin.
The Clippers play the host Oklahoma City Thunder in the second game of their playoff series Wednesday night. The Clippers lead the best-of-seven matchup 1-0.
Bear kills oil plant worker in Canada
5/8/2014 5:23:57 AM
- The attack took place at a Suncor base plant
- 63 people were killed in 59 attacks between 1990 and 2009
(CNN) -- A worker at an oil sands plant in Canada was attacked and killed by a bear Wednesday.
The attack took place at a Suncor Energy base plant, 200 miles north of Edmonton.
"We are shocked by this very unusual incident and there are no words to express the tragedy of this situation," said Mark Little, a Suncor executive vice president.
Between 1900 and 2009, 63 people were killed in 59 incidents in Canada and the United States, according to a 2011 Journal of Wildlife Management report. The study concludes that as human populations and developments rise, so have bear attacks.
The bear in the Wednesday attack was put down.
Barrie Harrison with Alberta Occupational Health and Safety told CBC News that the victim was a woman. Officials are now looking into whether she was alone when the attack occurred.
"I do know that, certainly from an Occupational Health and Safety perspective, this is the first that I'm aware of having a worker either seriously injured or killed by a bear of any variety," Harrison said.
Director Linklater hosts murderer
5/8/2014 12:12:47 AM
- In 1996, Bernie Tiede killed rich Texas widow and hid her in a freezer
- The bizarre case became subject of film "Bernie"
- Film's director, Richard Linklater, is letting Tiede use an apartment he owns
- Victim's granddaughter: "It seems like we've forgotten about my grandmother"
(CNN) -- Three years ago, director Richard Linklater made a movie about a mortician named Bernie Tiede who went to prison after he shot a rich, cranky widow four times in the back with her armadillo gun and hid her body in a deep freezer under the pot pies.
Now he's Tiede's landlord.
Tiede, who was convicted of the 1996 murder of a wealthy Texas widow named Marjorie Nugent, was released from prison on Tuesday. Originally sentenced to life, he has been set free on a $10,000 bond -- with conditions.
One of them is he live in a garage apartment owned by Linklater, the Austin, Texas-based director of such films as "Before Sunrise," "Dazed and Confused," "School of Rock" and 2011's "Bernie," based on Tiede's case.
That's OK. Linklater offered up the place.
It's another strange twist in a case that's been full of them.
For years, Tiede was a cheerful, well-regarded funeral director in the town of Carthage, Texas. As recounted in Skip Hollandsworth's Texas Monthly story "Midnight in the Garden of East Texas," the townspeople were four-square behind Tiede, despite the fact that he'd admitted to Nugent's murder -- and stored her body in a freezer for several months.
"I had been so flummoxed by the twists and turns of this case for the last 17 years," Hollandsworth told CNN's Ed Lavandera. "I just couldn't imagine what was going to happen next, and here it comes. A turn of events that if you put a bunch of A-List screenwriters into the same room and told them to put out a new Bernie story, they never could have come up with this."
Hollandsworth described Tiede as "the nicest guy in town. He ran the campaign for the Boy Scout fundraiser. He raised money for the new wing of the Sunday school building. He bought the trophy shop when it went out of business so the kids could keep getting the trophies. He was a kind of Robin Hood. He was this man who cared about people. And most of all he cared about them at their deaths, giving them this dignified funeral, and leading them into the next life. People loved what he did for them.
"Wherever you go in Carthage, there are people who look up to Bernie as if he is a saint. And that he just made one little mistake with Mrs. Nugent. Just one," Hollandsworth said. "There are lots of Christian men in Carthage, these people say, who make two, three, four or more mistakes. And we forgive them, why can't we forgive Bernie for just making one mistake of shooting a lady in the back four times?"
Nugent wasn't as beloved.
"If she had held her nose any higher," one man was quoted in Hollandsworth's article, "she would have drowned in a rainstorm."
Another resident told prosecutor Danny Buck Davidson, "She was so mean that even if Bernie did kill her, you won't be able to find anyone in town who's going to convict him for murder."
Tiede had befriended Nugent after her husband's death. He eventually became a close confidant -- they even traveled together -- and sole heir to her $10 million fortune.
However, according to the article, the demanding Nugent also treated Tiede poorly. Sometime in late 1996, he shot her to death.
Tiede was convicted of Nugent's murder in 1999. Linklater was fascinated by the case.
"I knew Bernie and this town. I just knew this world so well," he told the Austin American-Statesman in 2012.
In Linklater's film, Tiede was played by Jack Black and Nugent by Shirley MacLaine. Matthew McConaughey, then beginning the career upswing that eventually led to his Oscar earlier this year for "Dallas Buyers Club," played Davidson.
It was "Bernie" that helped get Bernie out of prison.
According to The Washington Post, attorney Jodi Cole saw the film at a Texas Monthly screening and was troubled by some of the issues it raised. Taking Tiede as a client, she learned he had been sexually abused. Armed with that evidence, as well as a belief the sentence was unduly harsh, she got Tiede's sentence reduced to time served.
Cole said the parties involved are not allowed to comment on Tuesday's court proceeding. She added that it was part of the bond's conditions.
Nugent's family isn't happy with Tiede's release.
"Bernie Tiede committed a cold-blooded, calculated murder, killing our mother and grandmother, Marjorie Nugent, in her home," Ryan Gravatt, a Nugent family spokesman, said in a statement. "He confessed to her murder and his confession was admitted in his trial. A jury found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison, where he should remain."
Nugent's granddaughter said the drama surrounding Tiede has taken attention away from his victim.
"It seems like we've forgotten about my grandmother in all of this storytelling, and it doesn't feel like we're getting justice for the murder victim in this case," Shanna Nugent said.
And the movie hasn't helped, she said.
"A lot of people's opinions about this are all based on the movie, which is a fiction," the granddaughter said. "This isn't a fiction for my family. This is real life for my family."
Carthage residents, however, generally approve of Tiede's release. James Baker, who knew Tiede, told Tyler, Texas, TV station KLTV, "I'm glad that he's out."
"I don't think that he's a threat to anybody anywhere," he added, "but in the back of my mind you do say well, he did murder her and put her in a freezer."
CNN's Ed Lavandera, Jason Morris and Ann O'Neill contributed to this story.
Jolie: 'I thought I'd never find love'
5/8/2014 4:36:57 AM
- Angelina Jolie opens up about her past and present in Elle magazine
- The actress says her so-called rebellious behavior was her trying to find herself
- She also never imagined that she'd have kids, or find love
- Now, she and her partner Brad Pitt are navigating having kids in show business
(CNN) -- Remember the dark and brooding Angelina Jolie, the one who wore one husband's blood around her neck and shared an uncomfortably intense kiss with her brother?
That wasn't about rebellion, Jolie tells Elle magazine in its June issue. That was a 20-something trying to find herself.
"It wasn't a need to be destructive or rebellious -- it's that need to find a full voice, to push open the walls around you," the 38-year-old actress says. "You want to be free. And as you start to feel that you are being corralled into a certain life, you kind of push against it. It may come out very strange, it may be interpreted wrong, but you're trying to find out who you are."
Interestingly, who she thought she'd become and who she ended up being are two different things. Now a mom of six and engaged to Brad Pitt, Jolie says she once believed she wouldn't have kids or find love.
"I never thought I'd have children, I never thought I'd be in love, I never thought I'd meet the right person," Jolie says. "Having come from a broken home -- you kind of accept that certain things feel like a fairy tale, and you just don't look for them."
Jolie and Pitt's relationship dates back to 2005, the same year their action thriller/romance movie "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" arrived in theaters. At the time, Pitt petitioned to formally adopt Jolie's two kids, Maddox and Zahara, and since then the couple have welcomed four more children: Shiloh, Pax and twins Vivienne and Knox.
"You get together and you're two individuals and you feel inspired by each other," Jolie says of her relationship with Pitt. "(Y)ou challenge each other, you complement each other, drive each other beautifully crazy. After all these years, we have history -- and when you have history with somebody, you're friends in such a very real, deep way that there's such a comfort, and an ease, and a deep love that comes from having been through quite a lot together."
Lately Pitt and Jolie -- who announced their engagement in April 2012 -- are dealing with how to introduce their kids to show business. Vivienne co-stars with Jolie in the May 30 release "Maleficent," with Zahara and Pax also making a brief appearance.
The movie is a live-action re-telling of the "Sleeping Beauty" story from the wicked sorceress Maleficent's point of view, and Jolie explained that Vivienne was cast as the young Aurora because she was the only child who could withstand Jolie's evil character.
"My little Vivienne -- we call her my shadow, because there's nothing I can do to shake her," Jolie tells Elle. "I can be tired, I can be grumpy, I can be in a terrible mood, and she doesn't care. It's 'Mommy, Mommy,' and she'll cling to me. We knew that she would still do that thing, she'd still smile at me and insist that I pick her up. So we couldn't really cast anybody else."
(And apparently Jolie did try; when she asked her daughter Shiloh "about being Aurora, and she laughed in my face," Jolie recalls. "She said she'd be a horned creature.")
While Jolie and Pitt don't discourage their kids from being involved in their careers, neither of them is eager to see the brood follow in their footsteps.
"Brad and I made the decision that we wouldn't keep them from sets and the fun of making movies, but we wouldn't [glorify it either] -- we wouldn't make it a good thing or a bad thing," Jolie says. "But I would really prefer they do something else ... (A)fter two days of it, Brad and I were so stressed we never wanted to do it again."
Putin flip-flops on Ukraine, but separatists will still hold vote
5/8/2014 5:51:55 AM
- NEW: Donetsk separatists say going ahead with referendum
- Russia's Putin had called for delay in east Ukraine referendum
- Pro-Russia separatists plan to hold the vote on sovereignty Sunday
- Russia says withdrawing troops from border, NATO and U.S. see no sign
(CNN) -- Pro-Russia separatists in east Ukraine decided to go ahead with a Sunday referendum on greater local powers, they said Thursday, defying a call by Russian President Vladimir Putin to postpone the vote.
Putin had urged the pro-Russia sympathizers to delay the May 11 referendum in order to give dialogue "the conditions it needs to have a chance."
Representatives from the council of the self-declared Donetsk's People's Republic told a news conference that it has voted to press ahead with the referendum on whether eastern Ukrainian residents living there want sovereignty from Kiev.
It was not immediately clear what separatists in Luhansk, where a vote has also been scheduled, had decided. There was no immediate reaction from Moscow nor Kiev.
Asked about Putin's plea on Wednesday as pressure mounts to defuse to escalating Ukrainian crisis, Denis Pushilin, the self-declared chairman of the Donetsk People's Republic, said the comments were "surprising" but he respected him.
Sunday's referendum would be an echo to events in March, when voters in Crimea approved a controversial ballot to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, which subsequently annexed the Black Sea peninsula. The event escalated the turmoil rocking the country.
The separatists have defied other issues in the past -- an international pact reached among Russia, Ukraine and its Western allies in Geneva, Switzerland last month that called for the rebels to disarm and vacate buildings seized in the volatile region has not yet materialized.
In what seemed to signal a softening in Moscow's attitude towards Kiev, Putin also said Ukrainian presidential elections scheduled for this month were "a step in the right direction."
But he also voiced caution.
"But it will not solve anything unless all of Ukraine's people first understand how their rights will be guaranteed once the election has taken place," Putin added, according to a Kremlin transcript following his meeting with the chairman of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
Putin also said that direct talks between Kiev authorities and representatives of the pro-Russian sympathizers in southeast Ukraine were key to settling the escalating crisis.
Ukrainian interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk dismissed Putin's comments on the referendum as "hot air."
Russian troops
Meanwhile, NATO hasn't seen "any signs" that Russia is withdrawing troops from Ukraine's border, the military alliance's secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen tweeted on Wednesday.
He reiterated that at a press conference in the Polish capital on Thursday.
"So far we haven't seen any indications that they are pulling back their troops. Let me assure you that if we get visible evidence that they are actually pulling back their troops, I would be the very first to welcome it," Rasmussen said.
"That's what we have continued to urge the Russians to do -- to deescalate the situation, pull back their troops, live up to their international obligations."
White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest also told reporters Wednesday that "there is not evidence to date that there has been a meaningful and transparent withdrawal of Russian forces from the Ukrainian border."
The comments came after Putin said Wednesday that Russian forces are "now not on the Ukrainian border but are carrying out their regular exercises at the test grounds."
Russia's Foreign Ministry on Thursday addressed Rasmussen, with a tweet on its account in English that read: "For those with a blind eye we suggest to follow President Putin's statement of May 7" adding a link to a Kremlin transcript. The tweet was later deleted.
Kiev, its neighbors and Western governments have voiced alarm over what NATO estimates are around 40,000 Russian troops massed at various locations along the Ukrainian border. Moscow has repeatedly said they are carrying out exercises.
Military offensive
As the tensions rise, violence has escalated on the ground.
Kiev last week launched its biggest military campaign yet to drive out pro-Russian militants who have reportedly taken over numerous public buildings in towns across southeast Ukraine.
Five pro-Russian activists were killed overnight Wednesday when Ukrainian forces attacked barricades on the outskirts of Mariupol, a spokeswoman for the pro-Russian camp said.
Elsewhere in the volatile Donetsk region, an uneasy standoff continued Wednesday between the Ukrainian military and the separatists.
Both sides clashed at the rebel stronghold of Slovyansk on Monday. Ukraine's security services said 30 "heavily armed" militants had been killed in recent days as part of the "anti-terrorist" operation in the area.
Kiev and many in the West believe the separatists are backed by Moscow and fear that Putin is fomenting trouble to increase his influence in the region.
Moscow says that right-wing, ultranationalist groups are behind the violence in Ukraine and that it has no direct influence over the pro-Russian groups.
The government in Kiev is bracing for further unrest in the run-up to Friday's national holiday to commemorate the end of the second world war.
In a television address, Yatsenyuk urged Ukrainians not to take part in "mass actions" and not to respond to provocations.
"The demand is to restrain from any actions which will be used by Ukraine's enemies in the information war against our country," he said.
Kiev has said it was stepping up security measures ahead of the holiday.
CNN's Nick Paton Walsh, Matthew Chance, Lena Kashkarova and Laura Smith-Spark contributed to this report
Ant-government protests begin in Bangkok
5/9/2014 12:13:00 AM
- Officials expect up to 60,000 at the anti-government rally
- Protesters are seeking to replace the embattled caretaker government
- Political tensions are high after the ouster of Yingluck Shinawatra as PM Wednesday
- Analysts fear a resumption of political violence
Bangkok (CNN) -- A rally seeking to remove Thailand's embattled caretaker government has begun in Bangkok, amid soaring political tensions in the wake of former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra's ouster.
The People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), which has been protesting against the government since November, is pushing to replace the country's caretaker administration with an unelected interim government.
Lt. Gen. Paradon Patthanathabut, security adviser to the prime minister told CNN that the PDRC had mobilized supporters from the countryside to join the protests in the capital. "It is still difficult to estimate the crowd at this moment. But roughly, we think between 30,000-60,000 people might join today's rally."
He said PDRC leader Suthep Thaugsuban was expected to lead the crowd to Government House and television stations. "We are monitoring (the situation) closely," he said, adding that 60,000 security forces were on standby. The protest leaders are currently at Government House.
The march comes at the end of a week of political chaos in Thailand, which saw Yingluck removed from office by a top court Wednesday in what her supporters see as a "judicial coup," and indicted by an anti-corruption body Thursday.
Her supporters are planning their own mass rally to protest the decisions Saturday.
Members of the National Anti-Corruption Committee unanimously decided to indict Yingluck for dereliction of duty over her government's controversial rice subsidy scheme, NACC member Wicha Mahakun told reporters in Bangkok Thursday. The Senate will now vote on whether to impeach her.
Asked how the 46-year-old could be impeached when she had already been dismissed from the premiership, Wicha said the case still needed to be reviewed by the Senate, as Yingluck could be banned from holding political office for five years if impeached.
Analysts had speculated that Yingluck's replacement as caretaker prime minister, Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisan, might also be indicted, creating a political vacuum, but Wicha did not announce any measures against the new premier.
An NACC committee was also considering whether to file criminal charges against Yingluck, but had not yet found sufficient evidence, he said.
The rice subsidy program, introduced in 2011, pledged to pay farmers well above the market rate for their rice, but has run into financial problems.
Critics say it has wasted large amounts of public funds trying to please rural voters, hurting exports and leaving the government with large stockpiles of rice it can't sell without losing money.
Yingluck has previously said she was only in charge of developing policy around the scheme, not its day-to-day implementation, accusing the commission of unfair treatment.
READ MORE: Yingluck denies corruption allegations over rice program
'Political freefall'
Analysts warn the week's developments leave the country facing "political freefall" and the potential resumption of violent clashes.
"The post-Yingluck polarization is likely to deepen and intensify," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, political scientist at Chulalongkorn University.
"We are now looking at a political freefall... Much worse looks likely in the near term, before we can hope for improved circumstances in the longer term."
Officials confirmed Thursday a grenade had been thrown at the house of one of the Constitutional Court judges whose ruling forced Yingluck and nine cabinet ministers from office.
Paradon told CNN nobody was hurt in the early morning attack on the home of judge Jumpot Kaimook. "It landed on his garage," he said.
The court removed Yingluck, who was elected in 2011 and had been serving as caretaker prime minister until elections could be held, after finding her guilty of violating the country's constitution for reassigning a senior security official in 2011.
The official was replaced by the then national police chief, whose role in turn was given to Priewpan Damapong, a relative of Yingluck. Damapong is the brother of the ex-wife of Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck's brother who was overthrown as prime minister in a military coup in 2006 and has since lived in self-imposed exile to avoid a corruption conviction.
'Polarization to intensify'
The dismissal of Yingluck, who has been replaced by Niwatthamrong, the deputy prime minister and commerce minister , has deepened Thailand's protracted political crisis, which has occasionally spilled over into deadly violence.
Observers say the move has heightened the risk of clashes between opposing camps, and made near-term compromise solutions unlikely.
Analyst Paul Quaglia, director at PQA Associates, a Bangkok-based risk assessment firm, said the court's removal of an elected prime minister on what he described as "fairly weak" grounds was viewed by the government's supporters as a case of politically motivated judicial overreach.
"They consider it a way to usurp democratic elections," he said.
Yingluck is the third Thaksin-linked prime minister to be dismissed by the Constitutional Court, which also dissolved Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai political party in 2007, raising suspicions among government supporters that the institution was biased against them.
Thitinan said the appointment as caretaker prime minister of Niwatthamrong, seen as closely affiliated to Yingluck and her brother, was poor judgment, especially when another deputy prime minister, Pongthep Thepkanchana, would have been a more acceptable compromise candidate.
"He lacks the stature and networks to see through an interim caretaker administration," he said. "Nevertheless, no matter who comes in as the new caretaker, the tensions will mount."
Widening divide
Thailand's widening political divide pits anti-government, predominantly urban "yellow shirt" protesters against the pro-government, mainly rural and working class "red shirts."
The yellow shirts, drawn mainly from Bangkok's middle class, royalist establishment, allege that Yingluck is her brother's puppet and seek to rid Thai politics of her family's influence.
Led by the PDRC, they began their protests in November, outraged by her government's botched attempt to pass an amnesty bill that would have paved the way for the return of Thaksin to the political fray in earnest.
Parliament was then dissolved in December ahead of a snap February general election that was disrupted by anti-government protesters, and subsequently ruled invalid by the Constitutional Court.
The yellow shirts are seeking a new government -- but not through elections, which the opposition Democrat Party has boycotted, arguing the alleged corruption of their political rivals makes widespread reform necessary before any meaningful vote can be held.
"They claim the Thaksin clan as they call (it) is corrupt and has dominated the country's politics, and the only way forward is to remove the Thaksin influence from politics and not have elections," said Quaglia.
Suthep, a former deputy prime minister for the Democrat Party, has instead called for power to be transferred to an unelected "people's council."
But Quaglia said the opposition's real motivation for avoiding elections was clear.
"The Democrat Party say 'No, we can't have elections,' because they know they will lose those elections."
In contrast, the red shirt supporters of Yingluck and her brother, many of whom hail from the north and northeast of the country, accuse the court of bias against their side.
PDRC spokesman Akanat Phrompan told CNN his movement did not recognize the legitimacy of the caretaker government.
"Currently there is no government to govern this country, so we must find a way to appoint a new government."
'Breaking point'
Meanwhile, the red shirts are planning their own rally in Bangkok Saturday to protest what Quaglia said they saw as "a judicial coup."
In the wake of the court's ruling Wednesday, supporters at the red shirts' Bangkok headquarters were defiant.
"This is the breaking point now, everything is leading up to the breaking point," Kanthira Ketawandee, a Bangkok piano teacher and Yingluck supporter told CNN. "I would say Yingluck has died (in) her duty for democracy."
Thida Thavornset, a red shirt leader urged supporters to join Saturday's rally. "We won't give up until we win."
Elections are scheduled for July 20, but Thitinan said he believed it was "unlikely" that a vote would proceed in the wake of recent developments.
"The PDRC appears intent on pressing on for an appointment government of its preference, which can only galvanize red shirt protests," he said. "A showdown is looming."
READ: Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra dismissed from office by court
Mom killed on the road to safety
5/8/2014 4:21:23 PM
- Some 1,300 Muslims undertake a 375-mile journey from the capital, Bangui, to the north
- Their convoy comes under attack from Christian militia men; two passengers are killed
- Didiatou Hassam was breastfeeding her baby moments before she was shot in the head
- The United Nations says months of fighting have displaced hundreds of thousands of people
Editor's note: Journalist Gemma Parellada traveled with the convoy from Bangui and was a first-hand witness to the shooting of a woman passenger in the same truck.
Bangui, Central African Republic (CNN) -- Moments after breastfeeding her baby, Didiatou Hassam was shot in the head.
Packed into a truck with about 60 other men, women and children, she was on her way to long hoped-for safety when the militants emerged, guns spitting bullets, from the thick jungle of the Central African Republic.
Hers wasn't the only life lost to the attackers. A man named Issa Lumbi, traveling with his wife, brother and son, was also shot and killed in a separate ambush.
Our truck was No. 9 in a convoy of 20 carrying some 1,300 Muslims fleeing the ethnic violence tearing the country apart. The convoy had set off from the capital, Bangui, two days earlier.
Its passengers, many carrying amulets intended to protect the wearer from danger, perched atop piles of mats, sacks and pieces of wood, the sides of the truck festooned with brightly colored water containers.
The long line of trucks was headed up north, snaking its way 375 miles across the country on a hard, dangerous journey from the tropical Central African forest to the open savannah bordering Chad.
The journey was not made by choice. Bitter fighting between Muslim and Christian militia groups since a coup last year has claimed many lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
But after four months trapped in a 500-meter stretch of road by a mosque in Bangui, under threat from the militia groups roaming nearby, it offered these families a chance at freedom from what had become an open-air prison.
Riding on the truck with them promised to give a close-up view of the dangers they faced en route.
Too risky to stop
As the bullets crack through the air, all of us on truck No. 9 duck down, trying to cover our heads.
A man with blood on his shirt stands up after the shooting. He is calling for help -- some of the people are injured. But for a while the huge convoy keeps on going. It is simply too risky to stop.
The breastfeeding mother is now dying at the man's feet.
The convoy eventually halts. About 10 minutes after it stops, a military doctor finally reaches her. He has been traveling with the Rwandan military escort provided by the African-led International Support Mission to the Central African Republic (MISCA). Its vehicles are scattered through the convoy but cannot cover the whole strung-out line of trucks as it rumbles along the red dirt road. The attackers, meanwhile, have melted back into the forest.
The Rwandan flag carried by the MISCA soldiers is a reminder of the slaughter that scarred their homeland two decades ago. Now they witness another African nation collapsing amid ethnic division.
The doctor tends to several people who were injured but Didiatou, although still breathing, is mortally wounded.
Someone removes the amulet she has attached to her waist. When they bundle her onto a mat and move her from one side of the truck to the other, the women, children and an old man nearby cover their faces and let out cries.
In addition to the baby, she was traveling with another daughter, aged perhaps seven or eight. The other women on the truck, heads covered and dressed in bold, printed fabrics, take over the care of the two children.
The ambush came around midday. Didiatou's body remains in the truck for the next six hours and is buried when the convoy stops for the night in Kaga-Bandoro. Also buried is Issa Lumba, who was killed in front of his family in a second attack, presumably by the same militiamen, on a vehicle further back in the convoy.
Only in Kaga-Bandoro, where the convoy can move into a MISCA compound, can all the passengers climb down from the trucks for the first time in two days.
Joy turns to shock
The ambush was all the crueler because just a few minutes earlier, the convoy had reached Dekoa -- the first area controlled by the Seleka, a predominantly Muslim group.
As the convoy of displaced Muslims passed through, the first Muslim militiamen appeared, welcoming them with cheers and waves.
"We are safe now, no more worries," Mohamad said, smiling, as he greeted the militiamen from his perch on top of truck No. 9.
"The worst is behind," he said, meaning the 185 miles of road dotted with hostile anti-balaka, as the Christian militia are known, in our wake.
But the joy didn't last long.
Dekoa is currently one of the "hot areas" in the country's savage inter-communal conflict -- and the Christian militia were lying in wait for the convoy outside the town.
After the shock of the ambush lay more long miles of travel fraught with hardship and peril.
The convoy spent a third night in Kabo, where some passengers left to join family members or to settle in a newly created camp for internally displaced persons.
The last day ended at another such camp near the town of Moyen Sido, just shy of the border with Chad. Five babies were born en route, including two sets of twins.
After four days on the road, there was no food to greet the new arrivals.
Genocide fears
The country began its descent into chaos in March 2013, after a coalition of mostly Muslim rebels known as Seleka ousted President Francois Bozize. They have since been forced from power, but Christian and Muslim militias have continued to battle for control.
To counter attacks on Christian communities by Seleka groups, the vigilante groups known as the anti-balaka, which translates to "anti-machete," fought back.
As the situation has spiraled out of control, life in an already dirt-poor, unstable country has only become more hazardous.
At least 2,000 people have died in the fighting, and 2.2 million others -- about half the country's population -- need humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced both within the country and beyond its borders.
The continuing violence has raised the specter of genocide, as occurred 20 years ago in Rwanda. "Do not repeat the mistakes of the past -- heed the lessons," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last month on a visit to Bangui.
As communities have fractured, Christian and Muslim minorities have become increasingly threatened.
Aid workers have also been caught up in the violence. The medical charity Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, said this week it is reducing its operations in the country for at least a week after an attack on staff, patients and local authorities in one of its hospitals left 16 civilians dead.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last month in Bangui.
'They will regret it'
The 1,300-strong group that left Bangui on April 27 had been trapped in an area of the capital known as PK12 for the previous four months.
Surrounded by anti-balaka militia members, they couldn't venture out to seek food or medical help, and were killed if they were caught leaving the area. Even within the enclave, they were subject to grenade attacks and shootings.
In response to their pleas for help, the convoy to the north was organized by the International Organization for Migration and other NGOs.
Now only one Muslim enclave remains in Bangui: PK5, where clashes, incidents and violence occur almost every day.
The capital is not the only place where isolated ethnic groups now live in fear. While Muslims are under threat in the south-west, in the north-east it's Muslim militias who rule and the Christians who are targeted.
The mayor of Bangui, Catherine Samba-Panza, was installed as interim president earlier this year. But the prospect of restoring peace to the country seems to be receding with each new attack.
While international peacekeeping forces are in the country -- some 6,000 African Union troops and 2,000 French forces, as well as the first contingent of 1,600 European Union troops -- their ability to police remote communities is limited. The United Nations has promised as many as 10,000 military personnel by September 15, which may help expand their operations. But the challenge is great and it may be too late.
As a local journalist said, troops may be deployed but the real issue is that of reconciliation among communities. The conflict cannot heal without the now-divided society coming together.
Even as the convoy of Muslims traveled north toward Sido Moyen, many of the men and young people packed onto the trucks spoke freely of their anger and desire for revenge.
"We will be back and they will regret it. We will finish with them. They will regret to have been treating us as animals and have kicked us out of our own country," said one 17-year-old civilian. Perhaps he, like others before him, will soon be a Seleka fighter too.
The string of terrible atrocities carried out by both Muslim and Christian militias as this violent divorce between communities plays out makes it hard to see a road back.
READ: Will the people of Central African Republic ever get to return home?
READ: Humanitarian groups: Don't let CAR devolve into genocide
Journalist Gemma Parellada reported and wrote from Bangui, while Laura Smith-Spark wrote and edited from London.
Kidnap girls likely separated and 'taken across border'
5/8/2014 8:45:26 PM
- NEW: Former negotiator believes Boko Haram targeted girls to force concessions
- NEW: Nigerian security chiefs call on those with information about the girls to come forward
- Search must expand to Niger, Cameroon and Chad, a U.N. official says
- France joins United States, Britain, China in search for girls abducted by group
CNN anchor Isha Sesay will be live from Abuja on CNN International on Thursday at 5, 7, 8.30 and 9 p.m. CET.
Abuja, Nigeria (CNN) -- Nigeria's embattled leader vowed Boko Haram's abduction of hundreds of schoolgirls would be the terror group's undoing, even as authorities admitted Thursday the girls likely have been separated and taken out of the country.
President Goodluck Jonathan's statements come amid mounting international outrage over the mass abduction and the government's largely ineffective effort to subdue Boko Haram.
"By God's grace, we will conquer the terrorists. I believe the kidnap of these girls will be the beginning of the end for terror in Nigeria," Jonathan said at the opening of the World Economic Forum meeting in Nigeria's capital city of Abuja.
He also acknowledged the offers of help from the United States, Britain, China and France, all of which have offered help in the weeks-old search for the girls who were snatched in mid-April from their beds at an all-girls school in rural northeastern Nigeria.
But the task of recovering the girls appeared to grow more complicated with news that U.S. intelligence believe the 276 girls have been split up.
"We do think they have been broken up into smaller groups," U.S. Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said.
He declined to detail how U.S. officials came to the conclusion. It is a sentiment that has been echoed by a number of others, who believe the girls already have been moved out of Nigeria and into neighboring countries.
"The search must be in Niger, Cameroon and Chad, to see if we can find information," former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the U.N.'s special envoy for global education, told CNN.
"It's vital to use the information to find the girls before they are dispersed across Africa, which is a very real possibility."
The girls have not been seen since Boko Haram militants abducted them on April 14 from the Government Girls Secondary School in rural Chibok, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) west of Maiduguri and some 600 miles from the capital of Abuja.
That was followed on Sunday night by another kidnapping, with villagers in Warabe accusing Boko Haram militants of taking at least eight girls between the ages of 12 and 15.
Boko Haram leader takes a new tact
Boko Haram's leader, Abubakar Shekau, took credit in a video that surfaced this week for the mass kidnappings.
"I abducted your girls," he taunted in the video, first obtained by Agence France Presse. "There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell."
Shehu Sani, a former negotiator between Boko Haram and the government, believes the group targeted the girls to force concessions from the Nigerian government -- beginning perhaps with the release of its followers from prisons.
"The fact Shekau said he would sell the girls and did not say he would kill them is a clear indication that negotiation is possible. Shekau's video is not going to be the last word from the group on the girls," he said.
Now, Boko Haram may be going after those trying to find the girls. On Thursday, Nigerian police said one officer was shot in the neck during a gunfight with suspected members of the group on the road between Maiduguri and Chibok.
And on Monday, Boko Haram attacked Gamboru Ngala, a remote state capital near Nigeria's border with Cameroon that has been used as a staging ground for troops in the search for the girls. Some of the at least 310 victims were burned alive.
The assault fits a pattern of revenge-seeking by Boko Haram against those perceived to disagree with the group or those who have provided aid to the Nigerian government.
'Time is of the essence'
The Nigerian government has been under fire by those who say government officials failed to take action in the hours and then days after the girls were abducted. Jonathan, who waited three weeks before speaking to the nation on the matter, and his security ministers have defended the response, saying efforts were under way but could not be disclosed publicly.
Nigeria appeared this week to admit it needed help, accepting offers of assistance from world leaders.
The United States was among a number of nations who repeatedly offered assistance to Nigeria in recent weeks, Kirby said.
"In a hostage situation, time is of the essence," Kirby said. "...We lost some time."
The United States is sending a team of law enforcement experts and military advisers. France said Thursday that it would send a "specialized team" to help. The British government is also sending a small team, Prime Minister David Cameron's office said. Neither country said exactly what expertise their teams would bring.
British satellites and advanced tracking capabilities also will be used, and China has promised to provide any intelligence gathered by its satellite network, the Nigerian government said.
Seven members of the U.S. military are scheduled to arrive Friday in Nigeria to join a team of advisers supporting the Nigerian efforts to rescue the girls, Kirby said. Right now, there are no plans to send U.S. combat troops, he said.
Nigeria's top security officials appealed to the public for help during a visit to the Chibok school on Thursday, according to a statement released by Nigeria's director of defense information.
The chief of defense, Air Marshal Alex S. Badeh, called on members of the immediate community to provide security agencies with useful information that will lead to the rescue of the girls.
Boko Haram, which translates to "Western education is sin" in the local Hausa language, has said it wants a stricter enforcement of Sharia law across Africa's most populous nation.
The militants have even been known to kill Muslim clerics who dare criticize them.
The United States has branded Boko Haram a terror organization and has put a $7 million bounty on Shekau.
Nigerian police also announced a reward of about $310,000 for information leading to the girls' rescue.
Why hasn't the rescue effort produced results?
Why terror group kidnaps schoolgirls, and what happens next
6 reasons why the world should demand action
Vladimir Duthiers and Isha Sesay reported from Abuja; Holly Yan and Chelsea J. Carter reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Nima Elbagir, Nana Karikari-apau, Jake Tapper, Barbara Starr and journalist Aminu Abubakar contributed to this report.
HK's biggest-ever graft trial opens
5/8/2014 1:12:36 AM
- Property tycoons Thomas and Raymond Kwok in court on graft charges
- Charges include conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office, furnishing false information
- Their company, Sun Hung Kai, built some of the tallest buildings in the city's celebrated skyline
Hong Kong (CNN) -- Two billionaire brothers who control Asia's biggest property development company have gone on trial in Hong Kong's biggest ever corruption case.
Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP) co-chairmen Thomas and Raymond Kwok were among five people charged with a total of eight offenses, including conspiracy to offer advantages to a public servant and misconduct in public office, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) said in a statement.
The two brothers are ranked 86th on the 2014 Forbes list of the world's richest people.
Hong Kong's former chief secretary Rafael Hui, banker Francis Kwan and Thomas Chan -- responsible for land acquisitions for SHKP -- were the other men charged after one of the biggest anti-graft probes in the banking hub's history.
READ: Tycoon arrests rock Hong Kong
Hui, previously the city's No.2, faces charges related to misconduct in public office, including the acceptance of rent-free apartments and unsecured loans -- he's the highest-ranking former official to face trial in the city.
All five defendants plead "not guilty" to each of the charges.
The ICAC revealed the offenses took place between 2000 and 2009 as investigators probed land sales overseen by Hui involving SHKP.
The case has caused a media frenzy in the city, where real estate is a local obsession. Sun Hung Kai, which helped to build some of the tallest buildings in the city's celebrated skyline, contributed to the Kwok brothers' estimated $18.3 billion fortune.
The brothers, who were arrested in March 2012, have always protested their innocence.
"I can say that personally I have done nothing wrong. And I can vouch for Mr. Thomas Kwok that he has done nothing wrong either," Raymond Kwok said at a news conference on April 2012, referring to his brother.
"I hope this investigation will clear my name," he said at the time.
Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, is considered to be one of the world's least corrupt territories. According to Transparency International's 2013 Corruptions Perceptions Index, Hong Kong is the 15th least corrupt territory in the world -- with the United States, by comparison, ranked 19th.
Police kill woman, 93, in Texas
5/8/2014 1:16:34 AM
- DA: A man believed to be the woman's relative called 911 asking for help
- Police, prosecutor say officer asked 93-year-old woman to drop gun; she refused
- Officer fired three times on Pearlie Golden at her home, hitting her twice, attorney says
- Community members upset over shooting of "Ms. Sully" and say she was sweet woman
(CNN) -- Texas Rangers are investigating why police in a small central Texas town fatally shot a 93-year-old woman at her home.
Pearlie Golden, a longtime resident of Hearne, a town of approximately 4,600 people about 150 miles south of Dallas, was shot multiple times Tuesday.
A man believed to be a relative of Golden's made the 911 call asking for help from police, Robertson County District Attorney Coty Siegert said.
"What I understand is (Hearne police) were called out because a woman was brandishing a firearm," Siegert said.
"An officer asked her to put the handgun down, and when she would not, shots were fired."
Hearne City Attorney Bryan Russ Jr. said Officer Stephen Stem told Golden to drop her weapon at least three times.
Stem fired three times, and Golden was hit at least twice, he said.
She was transported to a local hospital, where she died.
The Hearne Police Department placed Stem on administrative leave pending the inquiry.
"We're very saddened by this. Everybody in the city government is deeply disappointed that this lady was killed," Russ said. "Now, the investigation is out of our hands. It's under the Texas Rangers, which is where we want it to be."
According to police, the Texas Rangers have a revolver believed to have been in Golden's possession at the time of the shooting.
Community members told CNN affiliate KBTX that Golden, known affectionately as "Ms. Sully," was a sweet woman.
"Even if she did have a gun, she is in her 90s," Lawanda Cooke told KBTX. "They could have shot in the air to scare her. Maybe she would have dropped it. I don't see her shooting anyone."
The case will eventually be presented to a grand jury, which is standard procedure when dealing with officer-involved incidents, Russ said.
In the meantime, Hearne City Council members will meet Saturday to discuss Stem's employment or whether any disciplinary action will be taken.
"I would expect people to be upset about this, a young police officer shooting a 93-year-old lady," Russ said. "I'm upset about it. Most of our citizens are upset but at the same time I don't believe all the facts have come to the surface yet."
Parents doubt official account of how their son was shot by officer
'We called for help and they killed him'
Saudi activist gets 1,000 lashes
5/8/2014 7:17:41 AM
- Raif Badawi's retrial brings a much stiffer sentence than his first verdict
- Badawi also plans to appeal this decision, a source who has followed the case tells CNN
- His wife says she is "extremely scared for my husband"
- Badawi's lawyer has been jailed on separate charges
(CNN) -- Prominent Saudi activist Raif Badawi on Wednesday was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes by a Saudi court for insulting Islam, said his wife and a source who followed the case closely.
Badawi had appealed his original 2013 conviction, which carried a sentence of seven years in prison and 600 lashes, for insulting Islam and violating the Kingdom's anti-cybercrime laws.
That verdict was overturned by an appeals court and a retrial was ordered.
Badawi plans to appeal this new decision, said the source, who wished to remain anonymous.
"This is terrible news and I'm absolutely shocked and devastated by it," said Badawi's wife, Ensaf Haider. "How is it possible they could take a sentence that was already so harsh and make it even harsher? Ten years in jail and 1,000 lashes? That's unimaginable. I'm extremely scared for my husband."
The judgment also included a 1 million riyal fine, which is equal to about $267,000.
Despite repeated attempts, CNN was unable to reach Saudi Arabia's Justice Ministry for comment.
Badawi, a respected rights activist in Saudi Arabia, first got into legal hot water with the Saudi government after starting a liberal website and forum where users could discuss religion.
His trial, guilty verdict, sentence and imprisonment has caused immense outrage among international rights groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, who accused Saudi authorities of cracking down on activism and attempting to quell dissent in the ultraconservative nation.
Amnesty International called Wednesday's judgment outrageous and called for the conviction to be overturned.
"He is a prisoner of conscience who is guilty of nothing more than daring to create a public forum for discussion and peacefully exercising the right to freedom of expression.," said Philip Luther, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Amnesty International.
In the last few months, the Saudi government has passed a series of very strong anti-terror laws that many rights groups fear will be used, among other things, as a way to quash dissent
Last year, prominent rights and reform activists Mohammed Al-Qahtani and Abdullah Al-Hamid were each sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Badawi's appeal will be complicated because his attorney and brother-in-law, Waleed Abulkhair, recently was put on trial for undermining the image of the kingdom and breaking allegiance with the King.
Last month, he was detained without explanation during his trial and has been jailed since, according to numerous rights activists and his wife, Samar Badawi.
Samar Badawi said she has spoken to her husband but has not been allowed to see him. His next court hearing is May 28.
Saudi activists calling for change face harassment, jail
Bear kills oil plant worker in Canada
5/8/2014 10:36:07 AM
- 63 people were killed in 59 black bear attacks between 1900 and 2009
- The latest attack took place 200 miles north of Edmonton
- The bear in the attack was put down
(CNN) -- A bear attacked and killed a worker at an oil sands plant in western Canada Wednesday, authorities said.
The attack took place at a Suncor Energy base plant, 200 miles north of Edmonton. The female employee was killed by a mature male black bear in the North Steepbank Mine, described as a "remote part of the main plant," CNN network partner CTV reported.
"We are shocked by this very unusual incident and there are no words to express the tragedy of this situation," said Mark Little, a Suncor executive vice president. "All of us need to focus on personal safety and I would urge everyone to be extremely vigilant in dealing with wildlife."
The company said the woman's name won't be released without the consent of the family. Suncor said is cooperating with "appropriate authorities and will complete a full investigation" into the incident.
Between 1900 and 2009, 63 people were killed in 59 black bear attacks in Canada and the United States, according to a 2011 Journal of Wildlife Management report. The study concludes that as human populations and developments rise, so have bear attacks.
The bear in the Wednesday attack was put down.
Barrie Harrison with Alberta Occupational Health and Safety told CBC News that officials are now looking into whether the employee was alone when the attack occurred.
"I do know that, certainly from an Occupational Health and Safety perspective, this is the first that I'm aware of having a worker either seriously injured or killed by a bear of any variety," Harrison said.
Bear drags woman from garage
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12-year-old bear attack survivor: 'I just thought I was going to die'
Alaska hunter mauled by bear survives 36 hours in wilderness
Jonathan: Girls' kidnap will be end for terror group
5/8/2014 10:42:18 AM
- NEW: Police officer wounded in gunfight with suspected Boko Haram militants, police say
- France joins United States, Britain, China in search for girls abducted by group
- The girls' abductions are "beginning of the end for terror in Nigeria," president says
- On Monday, at least 310 died in attack on town used as staging ground in search
CNN anchor Isha Sesay will be live from Abuja on CNN International on Thursday at 5, 7, 8.30 and 9 p.m. CET.
Abuja, Nigeria (CNN) -- Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, whose country's effort to subdue Boko Haram has been largely ineffective, declared in a speech Thursday that the terror group's abductions of schoolgirls would be its undoing.
"I believe the kidnap of these girls will be the beginning of the end for terror in Nigeria," he said at the opening of the World Economic Forum meeting in Abuja.
The abductions and an attack this week that left more than 300 people dead have focused worldwide attention on Nigeria's fight with terrorists.
The world still doesn't know what happened to the 276 girls kidnapped almost a month ago, except that Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said he plans to sell them.
Now, the militants may be going after those trying to find the girls. On Thursday, Nigerian police said one officer was wounded in the neck during a gunfight with suspected Boko Haram militants on the road between Maiduguri and Chibok, where the schoolgirls were abducted April 14.
And on Monday, Boko Haram militants attacked Gamboru Ngala, a remote state capital near Nigeria's border with Cameroon that has been used as a staging ground for troops in the search for the girls. Some of the at least 310 victims were burned alive.
The assault fits a pattern of revenge-seeking by Boko Haram against those perceived to have provided aid to the Nigerian government.
The United States, Britain, France and China have promised to help Nigeria find the girls, as world outrage over their plight has grown.
"Every day when I wake up and I think about young girls in Nigeria or children caught up in the conflict in Syria, when there are times in which I want to reach out and save those kids. And having to think through what levers, what powers do we have at any given moment, I think drop by drop by drop that we can erode and wear down these forces that are so destructive," U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday night in Los Angeles.
Exactly how, he didn't say.
The latest assault
Witnesses described the Gamboru Ngala attack as a well-coordinated onslaught that began shortly after 1:30 p.m. Monday at a busy outdoor market in the town.
Wearing military uniforms, the militants arrived with three armored personnel carriers, villagers said.
The attackers shouted "Allahu Akbar" -- "God is great" -- and opened up on the market, firing rocket-propelled grenades into the crowd and tossing improvised explosive devices, witnesses said.
Some marketgoers tried to take shelter in shops only to be burned alive when the gunmen set fire to a number of the businesses, the witnesses said.
A few Nigerian soldiers who had been left behind at the village could not hold off the assault and were forced to flee, they said. Many sought safe haven in nearby Cameroon.
The fighters also attacked the police station during the 12-hour assault, initially facing stiff resistance. They eventually used explosives to blow the roof off the building, witnesses said. They said 14 police officers were found dead inside.
Residents who returned to the village said they found 310 bodies.
Malala: Kidnapped girls are 'my sisters'
International effort
The attack came about three weeks after militants snatched the 276 girls from their beds at the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok.
And Sunday night, villagers in Warabe said Boko Haram militants snatched at least eight girls between the ages of 12 and 15.
Amid the growing international outrage, world leaders lined up to provide assistance.
The United States is sending a team of law enforcement experts and military advisers. France said Thursday that it would send a "specialized team" to help. The British government is also sending a small team, Prime Minister David Cameron's office said. Neither country said exactly what expertise their teams would bring.
British satellites and advanced tracking capabilities also will be used, and China has promised to provide any intelligence gathered by its satellite network, the Nigerian government said.
It's unlikely U.S. combat troops would be involved in operations against Boko Haram, U.S. officials told CNN Wednesday.
Nigerian police also announced a reward of about $310,000 for information leading to the girls' rescue.
'I will sell women'
The increased global response came after a chilling video described what may happen to the girls.
A man claiming to be Boko Haram's leader, Abubakar Shekau, made the following claim:
"I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah," he said. "There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell. I will sell women. I sell women."
Boko Haram translates to "Western education is sin" in the local Hausa language. The group has said it wants a stricter enforcement of Sharia law across Africa's most populous nation, which is split between a majority Muslim north and a mostly Christian south.
The militants have even been known to kill Muslim clerics who dare criticize them.
The United States has branded Boko Haram a terror organization and has put a $7 million bounty on Shekau. But his location is as uncertain as the whereabouts of the girls.
Why hasn't the rescue effort produced results?
Why terror group kidnaps schoolgirls, and what happens next
6 reasons why the world should demand action
Vladimir Duthiers reported from Abuja; Holly Yan and Chelsea J. Carter reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Nima Elbagir, Isha Sesay, Nana Karikari-apau, Brian Walker and Dave Alsup and journalist Aminu Abubakar contributed to this report.
Bolivia mayor's grope caught on video
5/8/2014 11:07:54 AM
- Santa Cruz mayor has been seen making similar advances on video before
- Percy Fernandez, 75, apologized to journalist he's seen groping
- A lawmaker has filed a sexual harassment claim against the mayor
(CNN) -- The mayor of Bolivia's largest city is in trouble for groping a journalist at a public event last week.
In a video that's gone viral, Santa Cruz Mayor Percy Fernandez is seen placing his hand on the thigh of journalist Mercedes Guzman April 30.
The UNO network journalist is first seen on the video greeting the mayor in the traditional Latin-American style, with a kiss on the cheek. When she sits down in her assigned seat next to him, Fernandez, 75, puts his hand on her leg. For a brief moment, there's a bit of a struggle as the journalist tries to get the mayor's hand off her thigh. The video was aired by Gigavision, a Bolivian TV network.
It's not the first time Fernandez's advances have been seen on video. In 2012 he was caught on camera -- also at a public event -- touching city council President Desireé Bravo's bottom twice.
Lupe Cajías, president of the La Paz Association of Journalists, denounced the latest incident and strongly criticized the mayor.
"On one hand, I think it reflects the arrogance of power; and on the other hand, a lack of control of (the mayor's) own actions. The two things are probably related. If you think there's no boundaries because you're above good and evil, then you can grab a journalist's leg or talk with double-meaning in front of the camera without shame," Cajías said.
After a public outcry and complaints by Guzman's family, the mayor's office sent a video to Santa Cruz media in which Fernandez apologizes for the incident.
"I'm worried that I might've disrespected you while you were performing your duties. I apologize again to you and your dignified family," Fernandez says on the video.
Mario Espíndola, the journalist's husband, accepted the apology but said Fernandez's behavior is going well beyond just unpleasant and embarrassing moments. "We all obviously want Percy Fernandez to stop doing that because ultimately him, as mayor, is the one who loses the most," Espíndola said.
But some say the apology was not enough, that it was forced and insincere.
Opposition lawmaker Marcela Revollo filed a complaint accusing Fernandez of sexual harassment, sexual violence and discrimination.
"We consider this an expression of violence against all Bolivian women, considering that the mayor's actions have happened before," Revollo said after filing the complaint.
It's not yet known if prosecutors will call Fernandez to answer to the charges.
Fernandez is one of the country's most popular mayors. First elected in 2010 to represent the city of 1.5 million people, he's expected to run for another five-year term in 2015.
Pagina Siete, a Bolivian newspaper, published a survey Monday showing that the Santa Cruz leader is at the top of a list of popular mayors in Bolivia.
In February, President Evo Morales called Fernandez "the best mayor in Bolivia" and appeared with him at a public event.
There has been no reaction from the president's office regarding the latest incident and no indication of whether the president still endorses the embattled mayor.
8 Pakistan troops ambushed on border
5/8/2014 4:26:14 AM
- Several others injured in attack on convoy in North Waziristan
- Prime Minister condemns bombing
- Another bombing occurred in Quetta, leaving 2 dead
(CNN) -- At least eight members of Pakistani security forces were killed Thursday in an ambush near the Afghan border, officials said.
The bombing attack on a convoy in Pakistan's restive North Waziristan Agency left several others injured, according to the army's public relations arm. Other government sources say that as many 12 people were killed.
It drew a strong condemnation from Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
In other violence, fresh clashes between the rival Taliban groups Sheryaz Mehsud and Khan Said, also known as Sajna, have left at least 10 militants dead. The fighting broke out in the Shawal area of North Wazirstan early Thursday morning, security sources said.
In Quetta, a bombing killed two people and injured at least 10 others, police said. The victims were civilians, but the bomb -- planted in a motorcycle -- was believed to be targeting a security forces convoy, police said.
FBI agent arrested in Pakistan released on bail
Journalist Zaher Shah in Peshawar and CNN's Aliza Kassim in Atlanta reported and wrote. Journalist Syed Ali Shah in Quetta contributed to this report.
Could Nigeria turn into a new Iraq?
5/8/2014 11:55:16 AM
- UK, U.S. have denounced Boko Haram's abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria
- Richard Dowden says their reaction has given the militant group the publicity it craves
- Nigeria's government has long ignored the area where Boko Haram is based, he says
- He says necessary development there is a bigger task than any military intervention
Editor's note: Richard Dowden is director of the Royal African Society and author of "Africa: Altered State, Ordinary Miracles," published by Portobello Books. Follow @Dowdenafrica on Twitter. The views expressed in this commentary are solely the author's.
(CNN) -- The leadership of Boko Haram must think they have hit the jackpot. The abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls in northeast Nigeria has been denounced by U.S. President Barack Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
That has given them all the publicity they crave. Their movement is now the top item on all global news channels. If, as I suspect, Boko Haram sees itself as a suicide mission to inspire all Muslims to follow them and wage war on the West, they must feel their hour has come. The final battle is about to begin.
Bornu state Nigeria is one of the poorest, most neglected parts of the planet. Until recently I would have said the only surplus in that part of Nigeria was its long-suffering Islamic resignation. Now that has turned to anger. And this remote, dry, dusty corner of Nigeria, a place you would only visit on your way to the Sahara Desert, has become the new battleground between militant Islam and the Western world.
How? The answer lies in a very telling comment from John Kerry, the U.S. Secretary of State. The U.S. had, he said repeatedly offered help to Nigeria but it was ignored.
Ignored. That is exactly what the Nigerian government's attitude has been to the northeast for decades -- and to the Boko Haram terrorists until they hit Abuja, the capital. Then there was an attempt to clamp down but the security extended there never reached Maidugri, the capital of Bornu state in the northeast and some 500 miles away from Abuja, the capital, and another 320 miles from Lagos, the commercial megacity of West Africa.
So it doesn't matter. Just as the kidnapping of more than 200 girls did not elicit any statement from President Goodluck Jonathan until more than two weeks after it happened.
Nor do the levels of poverty, unemployment, lack of education and health services and a fast-growing population in the northeast matter to the government of Nigeria. Its income derives from Western oil companies so the government has little democratic relationship with the people of Nigeria. Sixty per cent live in poverty.
Boko Haram began as a fundamentalist but not particularly violent movement in 2002. The killing of its leader, Mohammed Yusuf, while in police custody inspired its members to take up arms against the state. Nigerian police said Yusuf had been shot while trying to escape, but other reports said he had been summarily executed.
The police force, which in normal times just collects "personal fines" from motorists and others for minor transgressions, is too corrupt to protect anyone.
Meanwhile the army, trained to fight a conventional war, went in heavily and terrified rather than protected the population. On this day last year Boko Haram attacked a barracks, a prison and a police post in the town of Bama. The military said the group killed 55 people and freed 105 prisoners.
Nigeria is used to uprisings. A few years ago the Niger Delta which produces Nigeria's immense oil wealth, was in flames. Gangs of youths with heavy machine guns killed their rivals and kidnapped oil workers for cash. They too played on the neglect of the local population which could see billions of dollars-worth of oil being sucked out from under their feet while not a single road was being built. The government of Goodluck Jonathan -- himself from the Delta -- now administers an amnesty program under which former militants receive payments to give up their arms. Many of the militants were given jobs in the government and swapped their tee-shirts and bandanas for sharp suits and ties.
But there is no such incentive to develop Bornu state. It produces nothing and will not vote for President Jonathan. Unless there is a major political upset, he will serve another four-year term after elections in February next year.
The big challenge in Nigeria for the U.S. military and intelligence services is this: if they limit their intervention purely to tracking down and releasing the girls and killing or capturing their Boko Haram kidnappers, they will have a brief success followed by long term failure. No movement like Boko Haram can exist for long without some, at least tacit, support of the local people. And the local people have little to thank the government for.
Richard Dowden
I was on the beach at Mogadishu in 1992 when the Navy Seals stormed ashore followed by waves of Marines. For a few weeks Somalia was quite peaceful, mission accomplished was the message. We wrote positive stories about the restoration of Somalia. The war has continued to this day.
Two years later I followed the U.S. Marines into Kuwait and then into Iraq in the first Gulf War. Problem solved, it seemed. And I worked in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s where the British army was always claiming to be on the brink of defeating the IRA. That very attitude simply strengthened them.
Have the lessons from Iraq, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland been learned? Military intervention is tough but easy compared with the long haul of development which must accompany it. The Kanuri people of northeast Nigeria need robust protection, peace and security in the short term but they also need education, health services and livelihoods in the long term.
They need to know that the Nigerian government and its American supporters are on their side. Can America provide that? Or will we see a magnificent charge, lots of shoot-outs and arrests followed by a declaration of peace, the departure of the army and then an even worse uprising two years hence?
The biggest challenge facing Obama and the Americans is the failure of President Goodluck Jonathan to focus on the problems of northeast Nigeria.
Together they need to make a long term plan to bring investment to the area, provide health and education services and build institutions.
Above all make the people there feel they are part of this booming new Nigerian economy which recently became the biggest in Africa.
READ: Nigeria abducted girls: Why hasn't the rescue effort produced results?
READ: Nigerian missing girls: Families sleep in the bushes, fearing more attacks
READ: Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau: A ruthless leader with a twisted ideology
READ: Why hasn't the rescue effort produced results?
READ: Why terror group kidnaps schoolgirls, and what happens next
READ: 6 reasons why the world should demand action
The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of Richard Dowden.
Ukraine separatists defy Vladimir Putin
5/8/2014 9:05:10 AM
- NEW: Russia says more U.S. and Canadian officials have been added to those barred entry
- Donetsk and Luhansk separatists say they're going ahead with Sunday referendum
- Body reportedly of pro-Ukrainian Donetsk resident is found in burned-out car
- Russia says it's withdrawing troops from border, but NATO and U.S. see no signs of it
Donetsk, Ukraine (CNN) -- Pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine have decided to go ahead with a Sunday referendum on greater local powers, they said Thursday, defying a call by Russian President Vladimir Putin to postpone the vote.
Putin had urged the pro-Russia sympathizers to delay the referendum to give dialogue "the conditions it needs to have a chance."
Representatives from the council of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic and separatists from Luhansk told reporters they have voted to press ahead to ask eastern Ukrainians there if they want sovereignty from Kiev.
"After the vote that was held today, the unanimous decision was to go ahead with the referendum May 11," Denis Pushilin, the self-declared chairman of the Donetsk People's Republic said, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
Pushilin said Putin's comments Wednesday were "surprising" but he respected him.
There was no immediate reaction from Moscow or Kiev.
Sunday's referendum could echo events in March when voters in Crimea approved a controversial ballot to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, which subsequently annexed the Black Sea peninsula. The move escalated the turmoil rocking the country.
"On the local 'referenda,' we strongly emphasize that they should not take place -- neither on 11 May nor at any later date," said Maja Kocijancic, spokeswoman for the European Union's top diplomat, Catherine Ashton. "Such unauthorized local 'referenda' have no democratic legitimacy and can only lead to further escalation."
Separatists have been defiant in the past. An international pact reached among Russia, Ukraine and its Western allies in Geneva, Switzerland, last month that called for the rebels to disarm and vacate buildings seized in the volatile region has not yet materialized.
In what seemed to signal a softening in Moscow's attitude toward Kiev, Putin also said Wednesday that Ukrainian presidential elections scheduled for this month were "a step in the right direction."
However, he also voiced caution.
"But it will not solve anything unless all of Ukraine's people first understand how their rights will be guaranteed once the election has taken place," Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript following his meeting with the chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Putin also said that direct talks between Kiev authorities and representatives of the pro-Russian sympathizers in southeast Ukraine were key to settling the crisis.
Ukrainian interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk dismissed Putin's comments on the referendum as "hot air."
Amid the diplomatic tit-for-tat, Russia's Foreign Ministry said Thursday it had added names to its list of U.S. and Canadian officials barred from entering Russia, in response to sanctions impose by the United States and Canada on Russian officials.
NATO: No sign of Russian troop withdrawal
In a statement on his official website on Thursday, interim President Oleksandr Turchynov said his government was ready for dialogue with those who want to talk -- but not with "armed criminals with blood on their hands."
"Ukrainian authorities have never conducted punitive operations in the east," he said, responding to Russian accusations over Kiev's military campaign to defeat the rebels who have overrun the east.
"The law enforcement agencies protect the lives and health of the citizens in the framework of the anti-terrorist operation performed against terrorists, saboteurs, and other criminals who murder, torture, and kidnap our citizens."
Police in Luhansk confirmed Thursday that Valeriy Salo, a man named by the Kyiv Post as the kidnapped head of a pro-Ukrainian group in the Donetsk region, was found dead in a burned-out car near the Luhansk village of Petrovskiy.
Salo's family told police that on Wednesday evening an unknown armed group arrived at their home and took Salo away. The Kyiv Post said he was captured by representatives of the Donetsk People's Republic.
Rights group Amnesty International last month raised concern over the reported abduction of journalists and local officials by the Donetsk People's Republic and other groups, and urged their immediate release.
Poll: Lack of confidence
A majority of Ukrainians agree their country should remain a unified state, according to a poll released Thursday.
The Pew Research Center poll, conducted in the first half of April, found that 77% of Ukrainians want the country to remain united; 70% in the east feel the same. Things differ in Crimea, where 54% of those surveyed voice support for the right to secede.
The survey also highlighted a lack of confidence in the new government that came to power after pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted following months of protests. Just 41% say the interim authorities are having a good influence on the way things are going.
"Russia is viewed with the greatest suspicion. Three times as many Ukrainians say Russia is having a bad influence on their country as say it is having a good impact (67% vs. 22%)," it said.
Meanwhile, NATO hasn't seen "any signs" that Russia is withdrawing troops from Ukraine's border, said Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the military alliance's secretary-general.
"So far we haven't seen any indications that they are pulling back their troops. Let me assure you that if we get visible evidence that they are actually pulling back their troops, I would be the very first to welcome it," Rasmussen told a news conference in the Polish capital.
White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest also told reporters Wednesday that "there is not evidence to date that there has been a meaningful and transparent withdrawal of Russian forces from the Ukrainian border."
The comments came after Putin announced a troop pullback Wednesday, saying Russian forces are "now not on the Ukrainian border but are carrying out their regular exercises at the test grounds."
Kiev, its neighbors and Western governments have voiced alarm over what NATO estimates are around 40,000 Russian troops massed along the Ukrainian border. Moscow has repeatedly said they are only carrying out exercises.
The state-run ITAR-Tass news agency cited Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov as saying Thursday that Ukraine has deployed a 15,000-strong military force near Russia's borders. He reiterated Putin's comments that Russia had pulled back from the border and said Moscow's defense minister had informed U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel about this in a phone conversation.
Military offensive
Violence has escalated on the ground as tensions rise.
The State Department is now warning U.S. citizens to defer all non-essential travel to Ukraine. It also said Thursday that U.S. citizens should defer all travel to Crimea and eastern regions
Kiev last week launched its biggest military campaign yet to drive out pro-Russian militants who have reportedly taken over some public buildings in towns across southeast Ukraine.
Five pro-Russian activists were killed overnight Wednesday when Ukrainian forces attacked barricades on the outskirts of Mariupol, a spokeswoman for the pro-Russian camp said.
Elsewhere in the volatile Donetsk region, an uneasy standoff continued between the Ukrainian military and separatists.
Both sides clashed Monday at the rebel stronghold of Slovyansk. Ukraine's security services said 30 "heavily armed" militants had been killed in recent days as part of the "anti-terrorist" operation in the area.
Kiev and many experts in the West believe the separatists are backed by Moscow and fear that Putin is fomenting trouble to increase his influence in the region. The Ukrainian authorities have accused Russian special forces of leading the rebellion in the field -- a claim Moscow denies.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Deshchytsia accused Russian troops -- which he says comprise special forces and intelligence -- of infiltrating and destabilizing the east of the country.
"These well-equipped groups resort to guns, oppression and blackmail to intimidate people ... in an effort to channel them to their own purposes, and thus create the false impression that their demands are backed by broad public support," he said.
"Russia's major goal is to destabilize and control the country. We will not let this happen."
Moscow says right-wing, ultranationalist groups are behind the violence in Ukraine and that it has no direct influence over the pro-Russian groups.
The violence in Ukraine has created the worst East-West diplomatic crisis since the end of the Cold War.
However, French President Francois Hollande said Thursday that Putin would be welcome to attend next month's ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, northern France.
"We may have differences with Vladimir Putin at the moment namely over the crisis in Ukraine but I have not forgotten and never will forget that the Russian people gave millions of lives (during World War II)," Hollande told local television in a clip posted on the presidential palace website.
"That is why I told Vladimir Putin that as the representative of the Russian people, he is welcome to these ceremonies."
The government in Kiev is bracing for further unrest in the run-up to Friday's national holiday to commemorate the end of World War II.
In a television address, Yatsenyuk urged Ukrainians not to take part in "mass actions" and not to respond to provocations. Kiev has said it is stepping up security measures ahead of the holiday.
A week in eastern Ukraine
Ukraine crisis: Small numbers, global impact
West threatens Russia with more sanctions
Opinion: Putin's empire building is not a new Cold War
Journalist Lena Kashkarova reported from Donetsk and CNN's Marie-Louise Gumuchian wrote and reported from London. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh, Matthew Chance, Elaine Ly and Laura Smith-Spark contributed to this report, as did journalist Azad Safarov.
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