New Mogadishu Mayor Tells VOA His Priority is Making the Capital Safe

By Alisha Ryu Mogadishu 05 May 2007

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The new mayor of Somalia's troubled capital says he has implemented tough measures to help secure Mogadishu and is appealing for international help to restore badly-needed services. Mohamed Dheere spoke to VOA Correspondent Alisha Ryu in Mogadishu. It was Dheere's first interview with a western journalist since the former factional leader was named to the post four days ago.

Mohamed Dheere leaves the Mogadishu Municipality Centre after his inauguration, 04 May 2007

Mohamed Omar Habeb, better known as Mohamed Dheere, says his first priority as mayor is making Mogadishu a safer place for residents. He says every effort is being made to crack down on what he calls terrorism and banditry in the capital.

Dheere says as part of tightened security, unregistered weapons are now strictly prohibited in the city and vehicles with tinted windows will be barred from the streets. He says 500 policemen are patrolling on foot and in vehicles throughout Mogadishu, enforcing the law.

The new mayor says he is also working with private businessmen to restore electricity and water service as quickly as possible.

Without a functioning government to provide basic services, much of Somalia has relied on private businesses for the past 16 years to keep the electricity on and water flowing in the capital.

Smoke hovers above the outskirts of Mogadishu, after heavy fighting, 21 Apr 2007

When fierce fighting earlier this year between Ethiopian troops and anti-government, anti-Ethiopian insurgents dragged on for months, many businessmen shut their grids and pumps and fled.

Mohamed Dheere says he is trying to encourage businessmen to return and form a cooperative to provide electricity and water to everyone in Mogadishu, not just to certain paying neighborhoods.

There are other serious issues needing immediate attention, such as the city's enormous sanitation problem. But the mayor says Somalia's interim government cannot address them properly without financial help from the international community.

"We need the international community to help us rebuild our country," Dheere says. But he acknowledges that he first needs to convince international aid agencies that Mogadishu is a safe place to work.

As the ruler of Jowhar, the provincial capital of the middle Shabelle region in south-central Somalia during the first half of this decade, Mohamed Dheere has experience in running a major town. People in Jowhar credit Dheere with maintaining stability and peace during his tenure there as governor.

But others in Mogadishu are skeptical of Dheere's pledge to bring order. Critics of the security crackdown say arrests are likely to be arbitrary, and the accused may have little or no access to lawyers. Also, they say there are no functioning courts in Mogadishu to hold hearings and trials.

Dheere's appointment is seen as a dramatic turnaround for a man who is best known as a factional leader whose militia participated in the destruction of the city during 16 years of fighting between rival sub-clans.

Last year, he was one of several faction leaders, including Somalia's new police commissioner Abdi Qeybdid, who fought against Islamist forces as part of a U.S.-backed anti-terror alliance group.

Some residents accuse the interim government and its security forces of using the threat of terrorism as an excuse to silence critics and to confiscate private properties.

Mohamed Dheere says he has heard about the allegations and is looking into them.

Hamas Rejects American Proposal for Easing Israeli-Palestinian Tensions

By Robert Berger Jerusalem 05 May 2007

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Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal blasted a U.S. proposal calling on Israel and the Palestinians to take concrete steps toward easing tension and building confidence. Under a four-month timetable, Israel would ease roadblocks and travel restrictions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Palestinians would halt rocket attacks on Israel and curb weapons smuggling from Egypt into Gaza.

Khaled Mashaal (file photo)

Speaking at a rally in Damascus, Meshaal called the American plan a farce.

He called on all Palestinians groups to prepare for battle against Israel, saying Hamas would never give up armed resistance in exchange for Israel easing roadblocks.

Hamas is the senior partner in a Palestinian unity government with the more moderate Fatah party, which has expressed support for the American plan. But Hamas has refused to recognize Israel or renounce violence, and Israeli spokesman Mark Regev says Meshaal's comments are therefore no surprise.

"Unfortunately, Hamas with its extremist, hateful positions, with its Jihadist, radical theology is just not ready for peace," he said.

Israel plans to discuss the U.S. proposal at its weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday. Israeli officials say the plan is problematic, because easing travel restrictions could enable Palestinian suicide bombers to enter the country.

Underscoring the difficulties, Palestinian militants fired several rockets at Israel after Israeli undercover troops killed three Islamic Jihad gunmen in a West Bank raid.

Tens of Thousands of Turks Demonstrate for Secular Government

By Amberin Zaman Istanbul 05 May 2007

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Thousands of Turks held anti-government demonstrations Saturday. The rallies in defense of Turkey's secular system come ahead of a key vote in the Turkish parliament to elect a new president. As Amberin Zaman reports from Istanbul, the presidential election has evolved into a showdown between Turkey's pro-Islamic government and pro-secular forces in the opposition and in the military.

Demonstrators march during a pro-secular rally in Manisa, western Turkey, 05 May 2007

Waving Turkey's crimson national flag and chanting anti-government slogans, more than ten thousand demonstrators marched through the western city of Manisa on Saturday. Their message was the same as in a mass rally held last week in Istanbul: "Turkey is secular and must remain so." Further west in the city of Canakkale thousands more staged a similar protest.

Meryem Tuna is a middle-class homemaker from Istanbul who has taken part in anti-government demonstrations. Like others opposed to the government, she is worried that Turkey's pro-Islamic prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has nominated his foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, to replace the incumbent Ahmet Necdet Sezer as president when he steps down on May 16.

Tuna says the main problem with Gul is that his wife wears an Islamic style headscarf and will therefore project a backward image of Turkey, one that directly contradicts the kind of Turkey Ataturk envisioned when he encouraged Turkish women to abandon their veils and gave them the right to vote even before their peers in France and Switzerland.

For Turkey's main opposition parties, it is about more than just Turkey's image. They say if both the government and the presidency are controlled by Islamists, Turkey's secular system will be overturned. At the end of April, they boycotted a first round of voting in the parliament to elect a new president.

Gul, who is running unchallenged for president, suffered a further setback when the constitutional court upheld the opposition's claims that there were not enough deputies present at the session and it was therefore invalid.

The court delivered its verdict only days after the military issued a statement on its Web site listing the risks posed by Islamic fundamentalism and threatened to intervene if need be. The move was sharply criticized by the European Union.

The E.U. is demanding that the military's powers be trimmed before Turkey is admitted as a full member of the 27 member bloc.

Onur Oymen is deputy chairman of the staunchly pro-secular main opposition Republican People's Party, which was founded by Ataturk. He disagrees that the military was in breach of democratic principles when it delivered its ultimatum last week. "They expressed in a strong way maybe their opinions but they stated in their statement that everybody needs to observe the rules of the constitution - that was their message. The constitution and the basic principles of the constitution starting with secularism," he sad.

Oymen adds that he does not believe that the Turkish army, which has overthrown four governments since 1960, will seize power ever again.

The government will attempt for a second time on Sunday to elect Gul. Should it fail to do so, Erdogan has said he will hold nationwide general elections on July 22, well ahead of the originally scheduled date, November 4. He is also pushing for constitutional changes that would allow the Turkish people to elect a president themselves

Two center-right opposition parties - the True Path and Motherland - announced Saturday they are uniting as the Democrat Party in order to challenge the ruling party in July 22 elections.

Kenya Airways Jet Crashes in Cameroon

By Katy Migiro Nairobi 05 May 2007

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Authorities in Cameroon have begun a search for a Kenya Airways jetliner that crashed with 114 people aboard in the southern part of the country. The plane took off from Cameroon's commercial center of Douala early Saturday and was bound for the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. There is no word yet on casualties. Katy Migiro has more for VOA from Nairobi, where Kenya Airways has set up a crisis center.

Kenya Airways CEO Titus Naikuni gives a press conference in Nairobi, 05 May 2007

Kenya Airways chief executive Titus Naikuni says the aircraft lost touch with the control tower in Doula immediately after take off.

Naikuni says Cameroonian authorities picked up an automatic distress signal from the plane and they have sent helicopters to the area the signal came from.

"The latest information that we have is that a distress signal was picked up on the west coast of Africa and a search and rescue mission, initiated by the Cameroonian authorities, was initiated at 1105 this morning, that is Nairobi time," he said. "So far no report has yet been received from this mission."

The distress signal came from an area about 35 nautical miles south west of Doula.

Relatives wait after hearing news of missing Kenya Airways plane at Jomo Kenyatta airport in Nairobi, Kenya, 05 May 2007

Naikuni says there were 105 passengers and nine crew members on board the plane. He says most of the passengers were African, but there were also Europeans, Asians and one American on the flight.

Government spokesperson Alfred Mutua described the situation as tragic.

"The government has co-ordinated a team of officials and experts led by the Honorable Minister of Transport Chirau Ali Mwakwere to travel to Cameroon and link up with authorities there so as to establish what is happening and also lead the operation," he said. "The government will do everything to unearth the cause of this accident in order to prevent it from occurring again."

In 2000, 169 people died when a Kenya Airways Airbus crashed into the sea shortly after take off from Abidjan, in Ivory Coast.

The missing plane was only six months old.

VOASE0505_People In America

05 May 2007

Gene Kelly, 1912-1996: His Movies Made Dance Popular in America

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VOICE ONE:

I'm Shirley Griffith.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program, People in America. Every week we tell about a person important in the history of the United States. Today, we tell about actor and dancer Gene Kelly. Experts say he did more than anyone else to make dance popular in America.

(MUSIC: "Gotta Dance")

VOICE ONE:

Gene Kelly

Eugene Curran Kelly was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in nineteen twelve. His mother wanted all five of her children to play music and to dance. Gene was more interested in becoming an athlete. Yet he continued his dance lessons even as he became successful in sports. He said later that he never started out to be a dancer. He wanted to play professional baseball for the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team. But, he said, he discovered girls liked his dancing.

VOICE TWO:

Gene Kelly graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in nineteen thirty-three. He started teaching at a dancing school. He also directed local plays and performed with his brother Fred.

He went to New York City in nineteen thirty-eight. He was twenty-seven years old. After dancing in a few Broadway shows, he got the lead part in the musical play "Pal Joey" in nineteen forty.

Critics in New York praised Gene Kelly for his ability to sing and dance, and at the same time, create a believable character on stage. Soon, he was offered work in Hollywood. He went to California in nineteen forty-one.

VOICE ONE:

Gene Kelly's real success in movies began in nineteen forty-four. He and director Stanley Donen created a special dance for the movie "Cover Girl." In it, Gene Kelly appears to be dancing with himself. Cameras took pictures of him doing two dances separately. Then the two pictures were placed on a single piece of film. In the movie, two Gene Kellys seem to chase each other up and down steps, threaten each other, and leap over each other's heads.

Gene Kelly said later that he had made a huge discovery in that movie. He said dancing in a movie does not look the way it does on the stage. So he tried to do things differently for the movies. He tried to invent dance movements that were especially created for cameras.

VOICE TWO:

In nineteen forty-five, Gene Kelly first used a method of filming seen often today. He

Anchors Aweigh

shared the movie screen with a drawing. In the movie "Anchors Aweigh", he appeared to dance with a cartoon mouse. It cost one hundred thousand dollars to film the eight- minute dance.

Gene Kelly danced first. Then cartoon artists filmed the drawings of the mouse's movements. The two films were combined into one. In the movie, Gene and the mouse are happily dancing and singing together.

VOICE ONE:

Gene Kelly was part of another movie-making first in nineteen forty-nine. It happened in "On the Town." It was the first movie musical to be filmed in a real city. "On the Town" is about three sailors in New York. The movie shows sailors getting off their ship. Then they sing and dance through the city streets.

Musicals were normally filmed on sets built in Hollywood to look like other places. Gene said movie company officials at the time thought filming in the real city was crazy, but it worked. It changed movie musicals forever. Gene Kelly called "On the Town" his favorite movie. It opens with the song "New York, New York":

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Some critics say Gene Kelly's greatest success was the nineteen fifty-one movie, "An American in Paris. " It won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Gene won a special Oscar for his singing, dancing, acting and creating dances. The movie ended with a seventeen-minute ballet dance. It showed the effect of the city of Paris on the hero. In the ballet, Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron danced to George Gershwin's "An American in Paris":

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Singin' in the Rain

Many people think the best Gene Kelly movie of all is "Singin' in the Rain." Experts say "Singin' in the Rain" was the last of the great movie musicals. It was released in nineteen fifty-two. In one part, Gene Kelly sings the title song while he dances. It is considered one of the best movie scenes in history. In it, he shows how happy he is at the idea of being in love. He performs the song and dance while heavy rain falls on a lonely city street.

(MUSIC: "Singin in the Rain")

VOICE TWO:

Gene Kelly appeared in forty-five movies. He danced and sang. He acted in movies that were not musicals. He produced movies and directed them, too. He also directed musical plays on New York City's Broadway. He appeared on television, winning an Emmy Award for the show "Jack and the Beanstalk. "

Gene Kelly was in the three "That's Entertainment" movies. In those movies, he worked with another great dancer, Fred Astaire. Fred Astaire was a movie star when Gene Kelly was just starting to dance.

Kelly said he was too big for the kind of dancing Astaire did so well. He said his kind of athletic dancing was better done in pants and a shirt than in the more formal clothes Astaire wore.

VOICE ONE:

Gene Kelly died on February second, nineteen ninety-six following a series of strokes. He was eighty-three years old. He had been honored many times for his work. He was given awards by the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and the American Film Institute. The government of France gave him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. President Clinton gave him the American National Medal of Arts.

People said he had created a new kind of American dance by mixing modern, tap and ballet in an athletic way. Gene Kelly always said he was not that important. He said he really was just a song and dance man.

(MUSIC: "Gotta Dance")

VOICE TWO:

This Special English program was written by Nancy Steinbach. It was produced and directed by Lawan Davis. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE ONE:

And I'm Shirley Griffith. Listen again next week at this time to People in America on the Voice of America.