First Lady Visits Minneapolis Bridge Disaster Site

By Greg Flakus Houston 03 August 2007

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In Minneapolis, recovery work continues in the rubble of the 35 West bridge, which collapsed during the afternoon rush hour Wednesday. Officials have now confirmed five deaths from the disaster, with eight people still listed as missing. Among visitors to the site Friday was First Lady Laura Bush. We learn more in this report by VOA's Greg Flakus in Houston.

First Lady Laura Bush talks to first responders as she visits the site of the I-35W bridge collapse over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, 3 Aug. 2007

The First Lady came to the site on the banks of the Mississippi River to see the destruction with her own eyes and to offer whatever comfort and support she could to rescue workers who went into the turbulent waters over and over again looking for survivors. Speaking later, Mrs. Bush said she was impressed by the spirit of the people in the so-called Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

"Over the last 43 hours, the whole country has seen the strength of the Minneapolis-St. Paul community, and because we have seen that strength, we all are confident that the bridge will be rebuilt and that your city will heal," she said.

President Bush is to visit the disaster site on Saturday.

The 160-meter-long bridge was located near the University of Minnesota campus and rose 20 meters over the Mississippi River. As many as 200,000 people crossed the bridge each day, traveling between the two cities. That traffic has now been routed around the disaster site.

Authorities have lowered the water level at the site by using dams and dikes installed higher up on the river, but recovery workers still face a daunting task. The broken concrete slabs and metal support beams that lie twisted and scattered under the water's surface present hazards for divers trying to locate bodies underwater. In addition, there are currents, which are actually swifter and more treacherous as a result of the water level having been lowered.

The collapse of the bridge has also wakened officials all over the country to the threat posed by bridges and other vital infrastructure that might be cracked or showing signs of fatigue as well as to the need for new inspections. Experts say there are nearly 600,000 bridges in the United States, and they have an average age of 42 years. More than 75,000 of them have ratings of "structurally deficient," as did the bridge in Minneapolis.

Authorities say that rating does not mean the bridges are in danger of imminent collapse, but that measures should be taken to either address the problems or replace them.

People in Minnesota are now asking why more was not done to repair the Minneapolis bridge, which was revealed to have problems in a 2005 inspection and yet was not listed as needing to be replaced until 2020.

The effort to determine what exactly caused the collapse is expected to take many weeks. Federal and state engineers are working together to recover material from the bridge and to study videotapes from nearby security cameras that may provide clues as to what went wrong.

VOASE0803_In the News

03 August 2007

Good Sports, Bad Sports
Sports professionals are being praised, condemned and investigated.

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This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

For the last several weeks, professional athletes have been on the first page of newspapers as much as in the sports pages. Some news stories are about extraordinary careers. Others are about athletes behaving badly.

Professional baseball players Cal Ripken and Tony Gywnn are among the heroes.

Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. after they entered the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

They were admitted into the Baseball Hall of Fame Sunday at a ceremony in Cooperstown, New York. About seventy-five thousand fans gathered there to celebrate. Both men spoke about the importance of the public image of athletes. Gwynn said professional baseball was about more than just playing. He said players need to do the right thing for all the fans who love the sport. Ripken said players are behavior models whether they like it or not. He said the only question is whether they will be good ones or bad ones.

Barry Bonds, right, and Doug Mirabelli watch Bonds's 748th career home run.

The speeches followed weeks of legal charges, accusations and investigations involving sports professionals. In baseball, Barry Bonds is two homeruns away from breaking the record set by Hank Aaron in nineteen seventy-six. Bonds' success has renewed accusations that he used banned performance-improving drugs. However, Bonds has never failed a drug test nor has he been charged with any crime.

Similar accusations of banned drug use also took place at the Tour de France bicycle race last month. Several riders tested positive for a performance-improving drug. And, in the final week of the race, the leading cyclist Michael Rasmussen of Denmark was expelled on suspicion of taking banned drugs.

The International Cycling Union said there were more cases of doping in the Tour de France this year because there was more testing.

An American professional football player is also in the news. Last week, Michael Vick told a court in Richmond, Virginia, he was not guilty of charges connected to an illegal dog-fighting business. The charges include extreme cruelty to animals.

Federal investigators say they found fight dogs and other evidence on Michael Vick's property in Virginia earlier this year. A defendant who pled guilty in the case has agreed to speak against Vick in court in return for a lesser sentence. Several sporting goods companies that had paid Vick for the use of his name have ended their business relationship with him. And an animal rights group, the Humane Society, is urging the National Football League to suspend Vick from play.

Finally, some bad news in professional basketball. United States federal officials are investigating former National Basketball Association referee Tim Donaghy. The referee enforces the rules and keeps order in the game. He can stop play if he calls a violation by a player and turn the ball over to the opposing team. Donaghy is being investigated for betting money on basketball games, including some in which he was a referee.He resigned last month.

And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by Caty Weaver. I’m Steve Ember.

France Confirms Agreement to Sell Arms to Libya

By Anita Elash Paris 03 August 2007

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France and Libya have agreed to their first arms deal since the European Union lifted an arms embargo on Libya in 2004. The deal comes after the release last week of six medical workers who Libya accused of intentionally infecting Libyan children with the AIDS virus. As Anita Elash reports for VOA from Paris, French opposition parties say they want proof that the arms sale was not part of a release package.

The Bulgarian nurses and medic pose in front of the French presidential plane after their arrival at the Sofia airport, 24 July 2007

Libya has long been isolated from the international community, so for leader Moammar Gadhafi, the deal with France is proof that he is being welcomed back onto the world stage. It comes after the six medical workers were released last week and flown to Bulgaria and a subsequent visit to Libya by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. During that visit, Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Gadhafi signed an agreement for Paris to provide a nuclear reactor to Libya that would turn seawater into drinking water.

Details of the arms deal began to emerge this week, when Mr. Gadhafi's son, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, told a French newspaper it was part of the agreement to free the medical workers.

French Defense Minister Herve Morin confirmed the deal on Friday morning. He said Libya has agreed to contracts worth $405 million including the purchase of communications equipment and medium-range anti-tank missiles from subsidiaries of the European Aerospace and Defense firm EADS. The minister denied that the deal has anything to do with the medical workers. He said an interministerial committee approved it in February.

He says the deal was not speeded up and that the discussion had been going on for years.

French opposition parties are demanding a parliamentary inquiry into the deal. Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande said he wants proof that the arms deal is unrelated to the release of the medical workers, who say they were tortured into making confessions in Libya.

He says he wants a parliamentary commission that can clarify whether the deal was the result of a normal business negotiation, or whether it was part of a negotiation with a country that held the medical workers for eight years and tried to use them as pawns.

The French government has not responded to Hollande's demand. Parliament has closed for the summer, and Mr. Sarkozy is in the United States on holiday.

Darfur Peace Talks Falter Before They Begin

By Nick Wadhams Nairobi 03 August 2007

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Negotiations aimed at resolving Sudan's brutal Darfur conflict faltered before they began on Friday after a leading rebel groups refused to participate. As Nick Wadhams reports from our East Africa bureau in Nairobi, the boycott raises new doubts about prospects for peace in Darfur.

The talks in Arusha, Tanzania are meant to unite Darfur's various rebel factions and were initially seen as a positive and crucial step. They come just days after the U.N. Security Council passed a landmark resolution authorizing the deployment of 26,000 peacekeepers to Darfur.

But the start of the talks was delayed Friday because some rebel groups had not arrived. And already, hopes that the rebels would take advantage of the momentum provided by the resolution seem lost.

About a dozen rebel factions are taking part in the talks, but one important group is absent - the Sudan Liberation Movement, led by Abdelwahid al-Nur. His group argues that it is pointless to talk politics while violence continues.

SLM spokesman Yahia Bolad says al-Nur will not make the same mistake he made in 2006, when he agreed to a peace proposal after months of talks in Abuja, Nigeria, that amounted to nothing.

"The result is that weak Abuja agreement and the government continues killing our people. The humanitarian issue became more worse than ever. For that reason we need to suspend the conflict," he said. "So the matter is not issuing resolutions, the matter is how to implement these resolutions and that's what we're waiting for. When we see U.N. troops on the ground we will start the political process steps."

Al-Nur is one of the Darfur rebellion's founding fathers and a member of Sudan's largest tribe, the Fur. He is popular among many of the 2.5 million people who have been displaced by the Darfur fighting. Some 200,000 people have been killed since the conflict began in 2003.

Without his participation it seems unlikely that the three days of talks in Arusha will result in serious progress. The negotiations are being sponsored by the African Union and the United Nations.

The Sudanese government is not participating in the talks. But foreign ministry spokesman Ali Sadiq Ali says he believes a successful conclusion of the talks in Arusha could lead immediately to new negotiations with the government.

"I don't think it will be a failure," he said. "If they are agreed on a common position I think the next step will be to name the place and the time of the first talks so that the process will start from there on."

The various rebel factions are also calling for the release of the humanitarian coordinator of the Sudan Liberation Army, Suleiman Jammous. The factions believe that Jammous could help jump-start the limited relief work in Darfur and could also help unite the various rebels.

Jammous has been in a U.N. hospital near Darfur for more than a year and the Khartoum government says he will be arrested if he tries to leave.

Thailand Seeks Closer Ties with Muslim Nations

By Ron Corben Bangkok 03 August 2007

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The Thai Government is seeking closer links with Muslim countries, part of a two-pronged strategy to end separatist violence in three of its southern provinces. Even as the government was announcing the plan, at least 13 more people died in the area this week in bombing and shooting attacks. Ron Corben reports from Bangkok.

A security report released by the Thai Cabinet this week says the government will pursue closer ties with Muslim countries, especially Malaysia and Indonesia.

The statement, part of a draft foreign policy paper on security, said closer contacts would also be developed with international Muslim organizations and foundations.

Thai soldiers and police officers stand as pay their respects to a colleague who was shot dead by militants during a funeral ceremony at the airport in Narathiwat province, 03 Aug 2007

Also this week, the Thai military reported it had rounded up more than 1,900 suspected militants during recent sweeps across the provinces of Narathiwat, Yala, and Pattani. The military calls 300 of those in custody "leading insurgents," who supervised and staged attacks.

Analysts are viewing these moves as a two-pronged strategy by the government to end the three-year-old Muslim insurgency in the three provinces, which sit on Thailand's southern border with predominately-Muslim Malaysia. The violence has claimed almost 2,500 lives since 2004.

Panitan Wattanayagorn, a political scientist at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, says the strategy aims to give the government a better picture of how and where the separatists are receiving their support.

"The network in the South has been known to be connected to overseas foundations," he said. "Another strategy is to engage those countries - those foundations and those individuals - to understand what's going on and to get some cooperation and assistance as to how to contain or disconnect some of these linkages."

Nitti Hassan, president of the Council of Muslim Organizations of Thailand, says the government is casting a wide net in hopes of attracting Muslim help.

"The government expects that the Muslim country or the Muslim leader will help to solve the problem from the deep South. They think the insurgents may receive the influence from the Muslim country," said Hassan. "So the government has invited the [religious] leader from Egypt, from Saudi Arabia, also Indonesia, and from Malaysia also."

Thailand has already sought help from Malaysia in opening a dialogue with separatist leaders. Thai intelligence sources say further such efforts are expected this month.

For now, knowledge of the militants is limited. One organization, the Barisan Revolusi Nasional, is linked with the RKK Commando Force. The two are seeking a separate Muslim entity in the region, which was an autonomous Malayan sultanate until annexed by Thailand 100 years ago. Intelligence sources say the RKK has fewer than two thousand militants, with ties to private Islamic schools.

No separatist group has issued a manifesto, however, and for the most part, the violence has consisted of random shootings and bombings. Both Muslims and Buddhists have been targeted.

While the government seeks answers, the violence continues. At least 13 people have been killed in the region this week and another 30 wounded. In one incident, two Muslim villagers, a 61-year-old man and his 26-year-old son, were gunned down near their home in Narathiwat.

20 Million Affected by Floods in South Asia

By Anjana Pasricha New Delhi 03 August 2007

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Relief workers are struggling to help at least 20 million people affected by floods in South Asia. More than 200 people have died so far in this year's annual monsoon rains. Anjana Pasricha in VOA's New Delhi bureau has more on the situation.

A woman wades through a flooded street to collect food in Sirajgonj, about 104 kilometers (65 miles) north of Bangladesh's capital Dhaka, 03 Aug 2007

As heavy monsoon rains continue to sweep India, Bangladesh and Nepal, government and relief agencies are battling to help the victims.

Devendra Tak, with the regional Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Society, paints a grim picture.

"There have been lives lost across the region due to drowning, due to snake bite, due to house collapses, casualties are rising and…there is always a danger of diseases that always follow floods," said Tak.

In India, the states of Assam, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have been the worst hit by weeks of constant rainfall. Rivers have burst banks. Flood waters have inundated vast tracts of valuable crops and washed out roads, bridges and railways. The Army has been deployed to evacuate hundreds of cut-off villages.

Neighboring Bangladesh is criss-crossed by rivers and half the country is under water. And in mountainous Nepal, landslides and floods triggered by the rains have displaced tens of thousands of people.

Government and aid agencies have established hundreds of relief camps but say the top priority is to provide clean drinking water and food to the victims wherever they are.

Tak says the massive relief operation is making progress but not enough.

"Relief has been slow in coming I would say overall…. and they would need to do a lot of quick work to provide relief to victims who really require it urgently," Tak added.

The floods will leave a long-term impact on the region as they wash away standing crops, and prevent farmers from planting seeds for the next season. And many poor laborers will be left without work - deepening poverty among already impoverished flood victims.

Floods are an annual occurrence in South Asia during the July to September monsoon season. But authorities say the flooding this year has been more severe than usual.

India Releases Text of Civilian Nuclear Accord With US

By Steve Herman New Delhi 03 August 2007

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The text of a historic civilian nuclear agreement between India and the United States has been released, a week after the deal was announced. As VOA's Steve Herman reports from the Indian capital, the document skirts the delicate issue of what would happen if India conducted another nuclear weapons test.

As expected, the 22-page agreement spells out how the two countries will share nuclear fuel and technology, but avoids any mention of what would happen if India were to carry out another atomic weapons test.

The United States originally sought a specific ban on further Indian tests, but the Indians rejected that as an infringement on their sovereignty.

The text does, however, provide for termination of the agreement with one year's notice. It says "consultations" would have to be held first to discuss the reasons for the termination, which could include what it calls a "changed security environment."

This appears to be a reference to the possibility that Indian might resume testing if it feels threatened by a neighbor.

The text says the United States would help India obtain fuel from other nations if the U.S. supply of nuclear fuel to India is cut off - something that would presumably happen if New Delhi did conduct another nuclear test.

Research analyst Reshmi Kazi at New Delhi's Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies doubts the Indian government will violate the terms of the agreement. She points out that India has agreed to oversight by the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, to allay concerns about diversion of U.S. materials to India's military nuclear program.

"India's definitely going to be a reliable partner, with the fact that we have agreed to put forth 65 percent of our nuclear facilities under safeguards," she said. "In addition to that, we have also agreed to put a reprocessing facility under IAEA safeguards. It's definitely going to make a major breakthrough within the non-proliferation world."

The text shows that after two years of intense technical negotiations, India won the right to stockpile and reprocess fuel, which could be used to make nuclear weapons.

The agreement still requires approval by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, along with ratification by the U.S. Congress.