Polish archbishop quits amid row
By Samuel Donkin,WNS Poland Correspondent
WARSAW - The controversial Archbishop of Warsaw has resigned, less than an hour before he was due to be installed in his post. Stanislaw Wielgus has been at the centre of a communist-era spying row, and recently admitted collaborating with the secret police. He announced the decision in person at a special Mass for his installation, to a mixture of applause and shouting. The Vatican's mission in Poland said in a statement that Pope Benedict XVI had accepted the archbishop's resignation. The Pope has asked Cardinal Jozef Glemp, Archbishop Wielgus' predecessor, to return to his post temporarily "until further decisions have been taken concerning the archdiocese", the brief statement added. Poland's president was expected to attend the event, which has now been turned into a service in honour of Cardinal Glemp.
Archbishop Wielgus was consecrated in a closed-door ceremony on Friday. But he publicly admitted his collaboration, and a statement acknowledging he had not been truthful about the matter in the past was read out in churches throughout Poland on Saturday. He announced his resignation on Sunday morning, following urgent talks between Polish and Vatican officials overnight. Announcing his decision at the service with tears in his eyes, the archbishop said he had reached the decision after much reflection. There was an immediate reaction from the congregation with applause, cheers and shouting. People who had expected to see him inaugurated reacted by saying: "No, you can't do this." The Polish Church has launched a series of investigations in recent years to identify collaborators. Krakow Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, who heads an investigation in his home diocese, said the communist era had been "a time of persecution of the Church, often bloody and brutal".
The decision to appoint Archbishop Wielgus divided opinion in the staunchly Catholic country. In one survey, two-thirds of people asked, said Archbishop Wielgus should resign. His admission came after a Church commission acknowledged he had collaborated with the communist secret police. Archbishop Wielgus said he had had contacts with security agents, but denied informing on priests. He said documents suggesting otherwise were drawn up only by communist "functionaries". Pope Benedict XVI made the appointment last month. Just before Christmas, the Vatican released a statement insisting the Pope had been fully briefed on Archbishop Wielgus' past and supported his appointment. The Church plays a very prominent role in Polish society and was highly esteemed because of its leading role in the fight against communism in Poland and worldwide, particularly during the time of Polish Pope John Paul II. But historians estimate that up to 15% of Polish clergy agreed to inform on their colleagues in the communist era.
Saddam not hanged 'for revenge'
By Shirley Blair,WNS Baghdad Correspondent
BAGHDAD - Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's execution on Saturday was not an act of revenge, Iraqi officials say. "This whole execution is about justice," Hiwa Osman, an adviser for the Iraqi president said. Mr Osman's remarks come after new video filmed on a mobile phone showed a man taunting Saddam Hussein on the gallows. Correspondents say the manner of the execution may exacerbate divisions in Iraq between supporters and opponents of the former leader.
The country experienced yet another day of violence on Sunday with a car bomb killing one and injuring at least six in Baghdad's northern Hurriyah neighbourhood, AFP reports. Police said they had found 12 bodies dumped in the capital on Sunday, according to the Associated Press, a relatively low number by recent standards. A further four corpses - two women and two men - were also reported to have been found in the northern city of Mosul, AFP reports. Meanwhile, scores of Saddam supporters have been flocking to the site where the former leader's body was buried on Sunday. The former president, 69, was sentenced to death by an Iraqi court on 5 November over the killings of 148 Shias from the town of Dujail in the 1980s.
Images of Saddam Hussein being taken to the gallows in a Baghdad building his intelligence services once used for executions were broadcast on state TV on Saturday. They showed a respectful, if businesslike, team of hooded volunteers shuffling the formally dressed ex-leader onto the platform and slipping the noose over his neck. But the unofficial video images - posted on the internet and shown on Arab and Western channels - show he exchanged taunts with onlookers from the gallows. One of them shouts the name of Moqtada al-Sadr, a prominent Shia cleric. Saddam Hussein said they were not showing bravery. He is then heard citing verses from the Koran before the trapdoor opened and he died.
Saddam Hussein executed in Iraq
By Nicholas Brown,WNS Iraq Bureau Chief
BAGHDAD - Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been executed by hanging at a secure facility in northern Baghdad for crimes against humanity. Iraqi TV said the execution took place just before 0600 local time (0300GMT). A representative of the prime minister and a Sunni Muslim cleric were present. Two co-defendants, Saddam Hussein's half-brother and a former chief judge, are to be executed at a later date. All three were sentenced to death by an Iraqi court on 5 November after a year-long trial over the 1982 killings of 148 Shias in the town of Dujail. A small group of Iraqis witnessed the execution inside a building at an Iraqi compound known by the Americans as Camp Justice, a secure facility in the northern Baghdad suburb of Khadimeya. They watched as a judge read out the sentence to Saddam Hussein. The former Iraqi leader was carrying a copy of the Koran and asked for it to be given to a friend. The noose was then placed around his neck. When the hangman stepped forward to put the hood over his head, Saddam Hussein made it clear he wanted to die without it. The execution procedure took just a few minutes.
Iraqi National Security Advisor Mouwafak al-Rubaie, who witnessed the execution, said that the former leader went to the gallows quietly: "When we received him, he was handcuffed and holding the Koran on his chest. And he sat and the judge read the detailed sentence, or conviction, of Saddam Hussein. Then, after that, we took him to the gallows and he was saying some few slogans. He was very, very, very, broken." Video footage of the execution is expected to be released as final proof of Saddam Hussein's demise although it is expected to stop short of showing the actual death. News of Saddam Hussein's execution was broadcast on state-run Iraqiya television, as patriotic music and images of national monuments were played out. It initially said Saddam Hussein was hanged first, followed by Barzan and then Bandar.
However, Iraqi national security adviser, Mouwafak al-Rubaie, later said only Saddam Hussein was hanged. "We wanted him to be executed on a special day," Mr al-Rubaie told Iraqiya, adding that Saddam Hussein "totally surrendered" and did not resist. Saddam Hussein's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Iraq's former chief judge Awad Hamed al-Bandar are to be executed some time after the Eid festival ends next week, he said. Other Arab TV stations aired live footage of the sunrise over Baghdad's Firdous Square, where US Marines pulled down a statue of Saddam Hussein, after he was deposed in April 2003. There were jubilant scenes in the Baghdad Shia stronghold of Sadr City, with people dancing in the streets and sounding their car horns. But Saddam's own Sunni tribesman were angered by his treatment and may well protest once more.
Iraq on alert as Saddam's hanging nears
By Nicholas Brown,WNS Iraq Bureau Chief
BAGHDAD - Iraq was nervously awaiting the execution of Saddam Hussein on Friday, amid rumours that the hanging is imminent and fears it could trigger yet more violence in the blood-soaked country. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told the families of some of the ousted dictator's victims that Saddam's would be put to death without delay, but did not put a precise date on his trip to the gallows. "Our respect for human rights means we must implement the execution of Saddam and his aides. Those who reject Saddam's execution are undermining the dignity of the martyrs of Iraq," he said, acccording to his office. "After the endorsement of the court ruling, no one can prevent the execution sentence against Saddam. There will be neither a revision nor a delay in the implementation of the execution sentence against Saddam and his aides."
However, a senior official in Maliki's office told AFP that it was unlikely that the execution would be carried out during the Eid al-Adha holiday, which begins at the weekend and will last until at least Thursday. Saddam's defence counsel fed speculation about the execution by announcing that he had been asked to send someone to collect Saddam's belongings from the US base where he is being held. "The Americans called me and asked me to pick up the personal effects of the president and Barzan al-Tikriti," lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi told AFP in Amman, referring to Saddam's half brother, who has also been sentenced to death. Dulaimi said that he did not think that the US military had already handed Saddam over to the Iraqi authorities who will carry out the execution, but added that "anything is possible".
And another defence lawyer, Issam Ghazaoui, said: "We have no information, no one has told us if the president will be executed tomorrow or when ... In Iraq anything is possible." US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Garver said Saddam was under Iraqi legal authority, but "for security reasons" would not confirm whether or not he had been physically moved from a US military detention centre. "Legally he was turned over to the Iraqis more than a year ago," he explained. "At the request of the Iraqi government we have maintained him at a US facility for security reasons." The head of Iraq's interior ministry command centre, Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf, said the beleaguered security forces were on high alert ahead of a hanging expected to exacerbate sky-high sectarian tensions. "Certainly, this is a big event, putting into effect the execution of this serial killer," he said. "We will take measures proportionate to this event. We will put all our forces on the streets so that no lives are jeopardised."
US mourns death of former president Gerald Ford
By Jennifer King,WNS US Correspondent
LOS ANGELES - Funeral arrangements were being planned to honour former US president Gerald Ford, the man who led America from its darkest political hour following the Watergate scandal. Ford, who became America's 38th president in 1974 when he replaced the disgraced Richard Nixon, died late Tuesday in California aged 93, sparking an outpouring of tributes in the US and around the world. He was the only US president not elected, and succeeded the only president to resign. Ford, who famously declared that "our long national nightmare is over" after being thrust from the vice presidency into the nation's highest office, vowing to heal the "poisonous wounds" caused by Watergate, was hailed as a politician of integrity, honour and decency.
The Republican politician is best-remembered for pardoning Nixon -- an act that many believe cost him the 1976 presidential election against Jimmy Carter -- and oversaw America's withdrawal from Vietnam. President George W. Bush praised Ford's "strong and steady" leadership from 1974 to 1977 during a "period of great division and turmoil" when trust in the government had collapsed following the Watergate cover-ups. "For a nation that needed healing ... Gerald Ford came along when we needed him most," Bush said in a statement Wednesday. Bush's father, former president George Bush, described Ford as "an amazing man." "I think people will learn (from Ford) what decency and honour are all about in the White House," he said. "It never went to his head that he was president ... this is his legacy. He came in and he healed, and the rest is history. An amazing man."
Ford's wife of 58 years, Betty, issued a brief statement about her husband, who became the longest living US president last month. "My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age," the former first lady said. "His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country." The former president's family said Ford died peacefully at 6:45 pm (0345 GMT Wednesday) at his home in Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs in southern California. No cause of death was given. Funeral services are to be held in the US capital Washington and Grand Rapids, Michigan -- a district he represented for years in the US Congress -- with precise details to be announced at a briefing later Wednesday. Flags on official buildings across the United States were ordered flown at half-mast and military guns boomed out single-shell salutes in tribute.
Two killed and at least 42 injured as quakes rock Taiwan
By Xue Ling,WNS Taiwan Correspondent
TAIPEI - Taiwan on Wednesday assessed the damage after a strong earthquake measuring 7.1 rocked the country, killing two people and wounding at least 42. Hundreds of rescuers were dispatched to the worst-hit Pingtung area in southern Taiwan where at least three houses were reported to have collapsed and other buildings also suffered damage. The tremor triggered a series of aftershocks with the latest being reported at 10:30 am (0230 GMT) Wednesday with a magnitude of 5.9, the central weather bureau said.
One victim was a mother who died apparently trying to protect her twin sons. Fang Shu-chuan, 36, was shielding the seven-year-old twins with her body when the three-storey furniture shop where they lived collapsed. One of the boys was seriously hurt and the other suffered minor injuries. Fang's 34-year-old brother also died in the disaster. At least other 42 people suffered injures in the quake and aftershocks. People in Pingtung rushed into the streets in panic during the tremors which triggered power blackouts in over 3,000 households.
The central weather bureau said Tuesday's quake was the most powerful in a century in the Pingtung region. High-rise buildings all over Taiwan rattled and telephone services in southern parts of the island were disrupted. An elementary school in the mountain region was closed due to falling rocks. Road and rail traffic was also affected by the blackouts. The Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation, currently on trial, halted one south-bound "bullet train" to Kaohsiung but its services in northern Taiwan were unaffected, a company spokesman said. Internet connections across the Asia-Pacific region were affected due to damage caused by the earthquake to undersea data cables. The US Geological Survey said the quake struck 10 kilometres (six miles) under the sea, 57 miles from Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The Taiwan central weather bureau reported one strong quake and a series of smaller ones. It said the stronger tremor struck at 8:26 pm (1226 GMT), with its epicentre 23 kilometres southwest of Hengchun in Pingtung county in the southernmost tip of Taiwan. It originated 22 kilometres under the sea.
The second and third quakes hit Pingtung about eight minutes and 14 minutes later, with magnitudes of 6.4 and 5.2 respectively. A fourth occurred in the same area at 23:41 pm with a magnitude of 5.5. Another hit almost two hours later at 01:35 am, the US Geological Survey reported, with a 5.4 magnitude, about 95 kilometres from Kaohsiung and just six kilometres under the water. The Japan Meteorological Agency warned on Tuesday that the earthquake could have triggered a one-meter high tsunami heading towards the Philippines, but no tsunami was reported. Taiwan, which lies near the junction of two tectonic plates, is regularly shaken by earthquakes.
Saddam execution to be carried out within 30 days
By Nicholas Brown,
WNS Iraq Bureau Chief
BAGHDAD - The death sentence on Saddam Hussein and two co-defendants in his trial for crimes against humanity will be carried out within 30 days, appeals court judge Arif Shaheen said on Tuesday. "It cannot exceed 30 days. As from tomorrow the sentence could be carried out at any time," the judge said, after confirming that the sentences had been upheld and that the trial process was complete and without appeal. "The appeals court has issued its verdict. What we have decided today is compulsory," he said, explaining that Saddam's case had now passed to Iraq's executive arm which is legally bound to follow the verdict.
Officials from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government have previously said they will not hesitate to carry out the sentence. Saddam and six co-defendants were convicted on November 5 of crimes relating to the killing of 148 Shiites whose village, Dujail, was subjected to a collective punishment after a failed 1982 attempt on the dictator's life. Shaheen confirmed death sentences on Saddam, his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and former revolutionary court judge Awad Ahmed al-Bandar, as well as long jail terms on three more defendants. He also said that Iraqi law stipulated that the sentences by carried out regardless of other legal proceedings ongoing, including Saddam's trial for genocide against the Kurdish population of northern Iraq.
By Samuel Donkin,
