BRAZZAVILLE, CONGO, Mar 12: Morgue workers hurried to finish washing the bodies of hundreds of people killed in last week’s explosion at a Congo military base ahead of their state funeral today the single largest loss of life in this Central African nation.

At least 246 people were killed one week ago when an arms depot inside a military barracks went up in flames, setting off a lethal downpour of grenades, mortars and shells.

The detonation flattened buildings, including churches, schools, dormitories and businesses, crushing scores of people.

Only 168 of the bodies have been identified so far, according to morgue records.

The government has ordered them to be laid to rest in identical coffins in order to convey the national character of the loss.

Overnight, families camped out in front of the morgue, waiting for the name of their relative to be read on the outdoor speaker.

They held shopping bags with the new clothes they had bought to dress their loves ones—dinner jackets or suits for the men, and wedding dresses for the women and girls, in keeping with local funeral tradition.

When their turn came, they were ushered inside, and allowed to wash and dress the corpse. The coffins were being loaded on trucks for transport to the ceremony ground. (AGENCIES)

PARIS, Mar 12: President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened in a key re-election campaign rally today to pull France out of Europe’s 25-nation visa free zone unless the EU toughens its immigration policy.

Sarkozy, who this week said France had too many foreigners, made the threat at a mass meeting which he hopes will turn the tide against front-running Socialist Francois Hollande with just 42 days to go before election day.

The so-called Schengen passport-free zone must urgently be overhauled to fight the flow of illegal immigration, said the right-wing leader, returning to a constant theme in his bid for five more years at the Elysee palace.

To chants of “Nicolas, president!” from the tens of thousands in the flag-waving audience, Sarkozy said unchecked immigration would put extra strain on social safety nets for Europe’s poorest.

“In the coming 12 months, (if) there is no serious progress towards this (reforming Schengen), France would then suspend its participation in the Schengen accords until negotiations conclude,” he declared.

The Schengen area is home to 400 million Europeans who can cross borders without a passport. Once inside the area, illegal immigrants can theoretically move freely between the participating states.

Sarkozy’s UMP party chartered TGV high-speed trains and fleets of buses to ferry supporters from across France for the rally in a cavernous exhibition hall in Villepinte, near Paris Charles de Gaulle airport.

Sarkozy told them he also wanted the EU to introduce a “Buy European Act” based on a US measure that obliges the state to use domestically-produced products in public contracts. (Agencies)

NEW YORK, Mar 12: US authorities say Jamaican drug kingpin Christopher “Dudus” Coke was so ruthless that he once ordered a rival killed with a chainsaw.

However, another episode left a more lasting impression with the general public: He was arrested wearing a curly black wig.

A mug shot of Coke wearing the wig as a disguise while on the run went viral on the Internet after his capture in Jamaica during a bloody siege of his ghetto stronghold in 2010 that left more than 70 dead. At the time, he waived extradition to the United States and vowed to fight drug trafficking, gun smuggling, racketeering and other charges.

But following a guilty plea last year, Coke faces up to 23 years in prison at sentencing this week in federal court in Manhattan.

The 43-year-old Coke has sought mercy in a letter to the judge, seven handwritten pages that in tone are formal and polite but in substance barely touch upon a litany of accusations painting him as a cold-blooded killer.

“Good day to you, sir,” he wrote. “I am humbly asking if you could be lenient on me.”

Prosecutors have argued that leniency isn’t an option. They want Coke to serve the maximum term and be deported.

Coke was a divisive figure in Jamaica, where he followed in the footsteps of his father, Lester Lloyd Coke, better known as Jim Brown, a leader of the notorious Shower Posse during the 1980s cocaine wars. Authorities say he took over the organisation when his father, also sought in the United States, died in a mysterious fire in a Jamaican prison cell in 1992.

Once in power, Coke became a folk hero to some followers in the West Kingston slum of Tivoli Gardens. He listed his good deeds in his letter to the judge—throwing Easter parties for seniors, passing out school supplies and Christmas gifts to children and starting a school to teach computer skills to the disadvantaged. (Agencies)

CARACAS, Mar 12: Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez said he will return home from Cuba where he is recovering from cancer surgery next Sunday, to head up a re-election campaign.

Chavez was speaking during a televised appearance where he met with his cabinet ministers to show he is in full control of the government despite his illness. (agencies)

SANTIAGO, Mar 12: Chile will tighten tax rules for foreign companies and raise levies on larger firms as part of wide-reaching tax reforms likely to be unveiled in April, President Sebastian Pinera said.

Pinera yesterday told tv channel Chilevision the tax reform was aimed in part at raising the tax take to help fund education reforms that the unpopular government pledged in the face of massive protests last year to demand more social benefits and spending.

The government will also lower taxes for individuals and small- and mid-sized companies, he said.

Pinera said the government would probably tax large companies at a rate of 20 per cent, effectively making permanent a temporary increase implemented in the wake of a massive earthquake in early 2010 that has already been partially rolled back and which was due to revert to an original 17 per cent next year.

‘Not only will taxes on large companies increase, we will also correct and eliminate a series of mechanisms of eluding or evading taxes,’ Pinera said.

‘We will correct a series of mechanisms through which foreign companies are not paying as much tax as they ought to, which is do with prices of transfers, double taxation agreements,’ he added.

Pinera has previously said large companies have to make a greater contribution to a more equitable tax system that will seek to foster growth of small and medium-sized companies.

Pinera hiked royalties on mining companies in 2010 and raised a host of taxes to help finance reconstruction after the devastating earthquake.

(agencies)

SANTIAGO, Mar 12: Chile will tighten tax rules for foreign companies and raise levies on larger firms as part of wide-reaching tax reforms likely to be unveiled in April, President Sebastian Pinera said.

Pinera yesterday told tv channel Chilevision the tax reform was aimed in part at raising the tax take to help fund education reforms that the unpopular government pledged in the face of massive protests last year to demand more social benefits and spending.

The government will also lower taxes for individuals and small- and mid-sized companies, he said.

Pinera said the government would probably tax large companies at a rate of 20 per cent, effectively making permanent a temporary increase implemented in the wake of a massive earthquake in early 2010 that has already been partially rolled back and which was due to revert to an original 17 per cent next year.

‘Not only will taxes on large companies increase, we will also correct and eliminate a series of mechanisms of eluding or evading taxes,’ Pinera said.

‘We will correct a series of mechanisms through which foreign companies are not paying as much tax as they ought to, which is do with prices of transfers, double taxation agreements,’ he added.

Pinera has previously said large companies have to make a greater contribution to a more equitable tax system that will seek to foster growth of small and medium-sized companies.

Pinera hiked royalties on mining companies in 2010 and raised a host of taxes to help finance reconstruction after the devastating earthquake.

(agencies)

BEIJING, Mar 12: Adding to the woes of China’s beleaguered railway sector, a section of a new high-speed rail track in central China’s Hubei province collapsed possibly due to persistent rains, prompting authorities to rush hundreds of workers for its repair.

The Hanyi High-speed Railway, which links the provincial capital Wuhan and Yichang city, is expected to open in May. But part of it has already collapsed after test runs, amid persistent rains.

The roadbed of a 300-metre section rail in Qianjiang city collapsed on Friday.

Workers said that heavy rains in the past few days may have caused the problem, state-run Xinhua news agency reported today.

The 291-km Hanyi railway, constructed by the China Railway’s 12th Bureau Group Co., will be a major high-speed rail in central China.

The Railways Ministry, which has been under fire for lax safety standards, has said it remained committed to high-speed rail. (PTI)

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN, Mar 12: US officials today warned of possible reprisal attacks after 16 Afghan villagers, mostly children and women, were killed in a likely ‘rogue’ shooting by a US soldier that weakens the West’s tenuous grip on a decade-old war.

Washington has rushed to distance the shootings, blamed on a lone US soldier, from the efforts of the 90,000-strong US force in Afghanistan, but the rampage in southern Kandahar province is certain to inflame anti-Western anger once again.

It comes less than three weeks after US troops inadvertently burned copies of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, at the main NATO base in Afghanistan, sparking widespread protests in which 30 people were killed.

‘The US Embassy in Kabul alerts US citizens in Afghanistan that as a result of a tragic shooting incident in Kandahar province involving a US service member, there is a risk of anti-American feelings and protests in coming days, especially in the eastern and southern provinces,’ the embassy said in an emergency statement on its website.

Kandahar is the birthplace of the Taliban, toppled by US-backed forces in late 2001. Southern and eastern provinces have seen some of the fiercest fighting of the war, increasingly unpopular among Americans and their European allies.

Early today, the embassy said on its Twitter feed restrictions had been placed on the movements of all embassy personnel in the south.

A sharp increase in attacks on US troops by Afghan forces followed the Koran burning. Sunday’s incident in Kandahar was one of the worst of its kind, witnesses describing it as a ‘night-time massacre’ that killed nine children and three women.

Villagers in three houses were attacked and many civilians were wounded, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.

Officials from the US Embassy, ISAF and from Washington said it appeared there was only one. An ISAF spokesman said the lone US soldier ‘walked back to the base and turned himself in to US forces this morning’, adding there had been no military operations in the area.

The soldier in custody was described by one US official in Washington as a staff sergeant who was married with three children. The sergeant had served three tours in Iraq but was on his first deployment in Afghanistan, the official said.

Neighbours and relatives of the dead said they saw a group of US soldiers arrive at their village in Panjwai district, about 35 km from the provincial capital Kandahar City, at about 2 a.M. They said the soldiers entered homes and opened fire.

However, Afghan Minister of Border and Tribal Affairs Asadullah Khalid said a US soldier burst into three homes near his base in the middle of the night, killing a total of 16 people, including 11 people in the first house.

Villager Haji Samad said his children and grandchildren were among 11 relatives killed.

‘They (Americans) poured chemicals over their dead bodies and burned them,’ a weeping Samad told Reuters at the scene, with blood splattered on the walls of his home.

Neighbours said they had awoken to crackling gunfire from American soldiers, who they described as laughing and drunk.

‘Their bodies were riddled with bullets,’ said Agha Lala, who visited one of the homes where the killings took place.

A senior US defence official in Washington rejected such accounts. ‘Based on the preliminary information we have this account is flatly wrong,’ the official said. ‘We believe one US service member acted alone, not a group of US soldiers.’

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also called Karzai to offer his condolences. ‘I condemn such violence and am shocked and saddened that a US service member is alleged to be involved, clearly acting outside his chain of command,’ Panetta said.

(agencies)

BEIJING, Mar 12: China, which is yet to take a decision on a three-member crew for its first manned space docking mission this year, today said that it may include a woman astronaut in the team.

Authorities have completed the initial selection of crew members for China’s first manned space docking mission and the roster includes woman astronauts, an official with the country’s manned space programme said.

But the final three-person crew will be decided “on the very last condition” of the team of astronauts of both sexes currently undergoing training, Niu Hongguang, deputy commander -in-chief of the country’s manned space programme and deputy head of General Armament Department of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua news agency.

The manned spacecraft Shenzhou-9 will take its crew members to board the Tiangong-1 space module lab, which was launched in September last year and completed the country’s first space docking with the unmanned Shenzhou-8 spacecraft in November.

The selected astronauts are in training at the moment, Niu said on the sidelines of the annual Parliamentary session.

Assembly on the Shenzhou-9 and its carrier rocket, the Long March-2F, has been completed, and the manned space docking is due between June and August this year, he said.

“The perfect docking between Shenzhou-8 and Tiangong-1 has laid the perfect foundation for the manned docking this year,” Niu said, noting that the manned docking will feature brand new technology.

Tiangong-1, or Heavenly Palace-1, has been orbiting normally for more than 160 days, and is capable of docking with Shenzhou-9 and accommodating astronauts, he said. (PTI)