agrarian utopia

PHNOM PENH (AFP) ― Jailed Khmer Rouge ministers Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, have defiantly rejected accusations against them and demanded proof of their guilt, according to court documents released Thursday.

The pair, arrested Monday and charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, have been formally detained by Cambodia's UN-backed genocide tribunal for their alleged roles in the Khmer Rouge's brutal 1975-79 rule.

Both came before court judges for the first time on Wednesday at a hearing to determine whether there was enough evidence to take them into custody ahead of trials expected in mid-2008.

They are among a group of five former top cadres widely implicated in crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge during one of the 20th century's worst atrocities, including "murder, extermination, imprisonment, enslavement and forced labour," court records said.

Up to two million people were executed, or died of starvation and overwork as the communist regime emptied Cambodia's cities, exiling millions to vast collective farms in a bid to forge an agrarian utopia.

The Khmer Rouge also abolished money, religion and schools.

Ieng Thirith, who acted as the regime's social affairs minister, said "the claims of the co-prosecutors are 100 percent false," according to documents from the hearing, claiming that she was helping to repair hospitals and produce medicines.

Her husband, who was foreign minister for the Khmer Rouge, said similarly that "there are certain accusations that I cannot accept" and demanded proof of his guilt.

In making their decision to keep the pair in jail, judges Marcel Lemonde and You Bunleng said there was a risk both could flee the country, despite claims they were too elderly to leave Cambodia.

Ieng Sary is 82 and reportedly in ill health. His wife is believed to be 75.

Both were also a threat to potential witnesses, the judges ruled, saying they had "numerous family members and sympathisers" in former rebel-held regions, "some of whom currently hold influential positions and even have armed guards."

Two other former regime leaders, Khmer Rouge ideologue Nuon Chea and prison chief Duch, have been jailed by the tribunal and face life in prison if convicted.

A fifth member of the regime's inner circle, former head of state Khieu Samphan, remains free but is expected to be arrested soon.

Khieu Samphan's wife said earlier Thursday that her husband, who has been hospitalised in Phnom Penh for high blood pressure, would not surrender to the court.

"He will go to the tribunal when there is a summons, when there is a warrant," wife Sor Socheat told AFP, adding that her husband had no fears about facing the trial.

Khieu Samphan, 76, was flown on Wednesday from his home in the former rebel stronghold Pailin, in northwest Cambodia, to the capital for treatment on the orders of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who said he feared criticism if the likely genocide suspect died.

With the first trials months away, fears have been raised that ageing Khmer Rouge cadres could face death before a court verdict.

"This has been an obvious problem since the beginning. We are dealing with old people... all of these people could die from one day to another," said co-investigating judge Marcel Lemonde.

Khieu Samphan continued Thursday to receive medical care at Phnom Penh's Calmette Hospital, said Sor Socheat, adding that he was "feeling normal."

She said medical tests conducted Wednesday showed no abnormalities.

"The results came back normal," she said, adding though that doctors wanted Khieu Samphan to remain in hospital.



Tuesday, November 20, 2007
By Ek Madra, Reuters


PHNOM PENH -- Rifle-toting Cambodian police arrested ex-Khmer Rouge President Khieu Samphan on Monday, the latest member of Pol Pot's inner circle to be detained by the U.N.-backed "Killing Fields" tribunal.
The French educated guerrilla leader was taken from a hospital in the capital Phnom Penh where he was treated after suffering a fall last week at his home in the former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin on the Thai border.

"My client is being transferred to the tribunal today where he will appear before the co-investigating judges," Say Bory, Khieu Samphan's lawyer, told Reuters.

A court spokesman declined to comment, but a Cambodian judge on the tribunal also confirmed the transfer.

A close confidante of Pol Pot, the 78-year-old Khieu Samphan has denied knowledge of any atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge during its four-year reign of terror from 1975-79.

An estimated 1.7 million people were executed or died of torture, disease or starvation under the ultra-Maoist revolution. His 24-year-old daughter said she was not allowed to see her father before his arrest.

"I don't know why they won't let my father go back home," Khieu Maly told Reuters.

Khieu Samphan is the fifth person to face the long-awaited Khmer Rouge tribunal, which started work in earnest a few months ago after nearly a decade of delays caused by wrangling over jurisdiction and cash.

Former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and his wife -- both life-long friends of "Brother Number One" Pol Pot -- were arrested and charged last week with crimes against humanity.

"Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, who had also lived in Pailin, is in the custody of the court on similar charges, as is the Beijing-backed regime's chief jailer, Duch, who ran Phnom Penh's "S 21" torture and interrogation center.

Duch will be the first to make a public appearance at the tribunal when he appears for a bail hearing on Tuesday.

Khieu Samphan was the leading intellectual among the small group of Cambodian students in 1950s Paris who became imbued with communism and returned home to the southeast Asian nation to form the core of the guerrilla movement that became the Khmer Rouge.

However, he published a book three years ago portraying himself as a virtual prisoner of the regime and denying knowledge of any atrocities as Pol Pot drove his dream of creating an agrarian peasant utopia.

Pol Pot died in 1998 in the final Khmer Rouge redoubt of Anlong Veng. Editor's Note: The CNN Wire is a running log of the latest news from CNN World Headquarters, reported by CNN's correspondents and producers, and The CNN Wire editors. "Posted" times are Eastern Time.

Better data prompts major revision in number of people living with HIV

(CNN) -- The number of people around the world living with the virus that causes AIDS is actually nearly 7million fewer than previous estimates, according to figures released Tuesday by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

But while the lower numbers are encouraging, there is still work to be done in the areas of prevention and treatment, especially in in sub-Saharan Africa, where 68 percent of those infected with HIV live, the report showed.

Better information from more countries prompted the groups to revise the 2006 estimate of 39.5 million people living with HIV to 32.7 million, according to a statement from UNAIDS.

The single biggest factor in the reduction, the report said, was the "recent revision of estimates in India after an intensive reassessment of the epidemic in that country." (Posted 9:18 a.m.)

Housing permits fall to 14-year low; starts up slighly

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Housing permits fell to a 14-year low in October although housing starts edged up slightly, according to the government's latest reading on state of the batter home building market released Tuesday.

Permits, a less weather-impacted measure of building strength that is often taken as a sign of builders' confidence in the market, fell to an annual pace of 1.18 million from 1.26 million in September. It's the lowest seasonally adjusted level of permits in a month since July 1993.

Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast permits would slip to only a 1.2 million rate.

Starts edged up to an annual rate of 1.23 million from 1.19 million in September. Economists had also expected that number to fall to 1.18 million. (Posted 8:57 a.m.)

U.S. military: Raids in Iraq lead to killing, detention of insurgents

BAGHDAD (CNN) -- The U.S. military on Tuesday reported a series of recent raids targeting al Qaeda in Iraq, with coalition troops killing five insurgents and detaining 11 suspects from late Sunday through Tuesday.

The operations occurred southwest of Baquba, in Rabiya, and the Samarra area. (Posted 8:24 a.m.)

Election date set as Musharraf heads for Saudi Arabia

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- As Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, arrived in Saudi Arabia for a two-day visit, his country's chief election commissioner announced that voting for Pakistan's national assembly and its four provincial assemblies will take place on Jan. 8.

Opposition parties, including those of former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, have not said if they will participate in the January elections. They've indicated they would boycott elections so long as the emergency declaration and suspension of the constitution ordered by Musharraf earlier this month remains in place.

Former cricket star and now opposition party leader Imran Khan launched a hunger strike from jail, saying it will continue until the Supreme Court justices fired by Musharraf shortly after the Nov. 3 emergency order are restored. Khan was jailed last week after he escaped house arrest.

In Karachi, police Tuesday cracked down on journalists protesting media curbs under the emergency declaration, according to eyewitnesses and police sources. More than 180 were arrested, and several were badly beaten up by the baton-wielding police -- including two journalists who were in critical condition -- the witnesses and sources said. (Posted 8 a.m.)

U.N. says 1 million people displaced in Somalia

(CNN) -- The U.N. refugee agency estimates the number of displaced people in the war-torn eastern African nation of Somalia "has risen sharply to a staggering 1 million."

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said on Tuesday that about 60 percent or some 600,000 people are thought to have fled from the capital of Mogadishu since February, with nearly 200,000 displaced in the past two weeks -- a flight from warfare that has left "entire neighbourhoods in the volatile capital empty." Previous fighting displaced about 400,000 others. (Posted 7:35 a.m.)

Police in Germany arrest fourth suspect in British student's death

BERLIN (CNN) -- A fourth suspect in the killing of a 21-year-old British woman in Italy has been arrested in Germany, Italian and German police confirmed Tuesday.

A spokesman for police in the western German town of Mainz, near Frankfurt, said Rudy Hermann Guede was arrested by chance after he was stopped for traveling on public transport without a ticket Tuesday morning.

The spokesman told CNN it was only after the suspect was taken in that they realized there was an international arrest warrant on his head.

Guede, 20, of Ivory Coast, was identified after police found a bloody fingerprint on a pillow at the scene of the crime. (Posted 7:32 a.m.)

Huge fire at South Africa refinery spreads black smoke, burns $18 million in fuel

(CNN) -- A refinery fire believed to have been caused by lightning spread a thick column of black smoke over the South African city of Durban and burned nearly $18 million worth of fuel, the refinery's spokesman said Tuesday.

In an interview with the South African Press Agency, spokesman Herb Payne said the 45-meter-high (147-foot-high) tank contained 7.5 million liters (1.65 million gallons) of fuel. He said management estimated 120 million Rand ($17.9 million) worth of fuel "went up in smoke," SAPA reported.

The fire started Monday evening during bad weather and created large amounts of black smoke which spread north in the wind, SAPA reported. Police advised nearby residents to stay indoors.

Payne said the fire had a minimal impact on production and that there was no impact on fuel supply to drivers. (Posted 7:33 a.m.)

5 killed in Baghdad attacks, including key government official

BAGHDAD (CNN) -- Attackers killed five people in Iraq's capital of Baghdad on Tuesday, including the director of the government's Geological Survey, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.

Moussa Jaafar, the survey director, was headed to work when gunmen shot and killed him and another person in the vehicle, the ministry official . The driver was wounded in the incident, which occurred in a Shiite neighborhood in northwestern Baghdad.

The Interior Ministry official said two people were shot and killed in a Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad, and one person was killed and six were wounded in a roadside bombing in a southwestern Shiite neighborhood. A roadside bombing wounded three people in a Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad. (Posted 6:29 a.m.)

Israeli killed in West Bank; 4 Palestinians killed in Gaza

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- An Israeli civilian was shot and killed late Monday while driving his vehicle west of the West Bank city of Nablus, an Israeli army spokesman said.

The spokesman said they believe the victim was shot either by a Palestinian sniper or in a drive-by shooting.

Elsewhere, two separate shooting incidents overnight left four Palestinian gunmen dead, the Israeli military said Tuesday.

In the first incident, just west of the Erez Crossing at the northern end of Gaza, Israeli soldiers spotted three Palestinians attempting to cross the security fence between Gaza and Israel, the military said. A gun battle ensued and two of the Palestinian gunmen were killed, the military said.

Shortly afterward, in southern Gaza, Israeli military personnel spotted four armed Palestinians making their way to the security fence, the military said. After a gun battle, two Palestinian gunmen were reported killed, the military said.

There were no reported Israeli military casualties in either Gaza incident. (Posted 6:27 a.m.)

Iranian FM: Another round of U.S., Iran talks to be held on Iraq in 'near future'

BAGHDAD (CNN) -- Iran's foreign minister on Tuesday said his country will engage in another round of talks with the United States in "the near future" on Iraq, according to an official Iranian news agency.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, speaking to reporters, was quoted by the Islamic Republic News Agency as saying that the Swiss Embassy in Iran "submitted a message from the U.S. government to Iran for holding a new round of talks on Iraq" and that Iran "has responded positively to the U.S. request."

The United States and Iran, long adversaries, do not have diplomatic relations, and the Swiss Embassy represents U.S. interests in Iran.

This would be the fourth round of Iranian and U.S. talks , a process that began in the spring for the purpose of the countries mutually confronting security issues involving Iraq. Mottaki said "the exact date" of the next round is to be announced later.

The discussions -- which had been held on May 28, July 24 and Aug. 6 and hosted by the Iraqi government -- were attended by the Iranian Ambassador to Iraq Hassan Kazemi Qomi and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker. (Posted 6:07 a.m.)

Police in Germany arrest fourth suspect in British student's death

ROME (CNN) -- A fourth suspect in the killing of a 21-year-old British woman in Italy has been arrested in Germany, Italian police confirmed Tuesday. Rudy Hermann Guede, 20, of Ivory Coast, was identified after police found a bloody fingerprint on a pillow at the scene of the crime.

Italian police told CNN that Guede had been apprehended this morning but refused to confirm where in Germany he had been stopped. According to media reports, the suspect was arrested in Wiesbaden, near Frankfurt, in western Germany.

Guede was in the same circle of friends as the three suspects already in custody, a source in Perugia's prosecutor's office said, adding that all four are now considered prime suspects in the murder.

Investigators found the body of Meredith Kercher half-naked with a stab wound to the neck Nov. 2 at her home in Perugia, where she was studying as an exchange student at the city's university. (Posted 5:50 a.m.)

German police shut school after school shooting threat

BERLIN (CNN) -- Police shut down a high school in northern Germany Tuesday after receiving a tip that a gunman planned a rampage there, a local police spokesman said.

The spokesman said the tip came from Finnish police who were investigating a fatal school shooting near Helsinki this month. The Finnish police were monitoring an Internet chatroom when two people in the chatroom said they overheard that a gunman planned a rampage at a school in the German town of Kaarst, near Duesseldorf, Kaarst police spokesman Ralf Kamphausen said. The threat was not concrete but police closed the school as a precaution, he said.

Tuesday was the one-year anniversary of a school shooting in Emsdetten, near Muenster in western Germany. In that attack, an 18-year-old former student shot and wounded six people before killing himself. (Posted 5:39 a.m.)

Civil servants join striking French transit workers

PARIS (CNN) -- A 24-hour walkout by French civil servants Tuesday coincided with the seventh straight day of crippling strikes by transit workers, putting further pressure on the French government to negotiate an end to the weeklong walkout.

The striking civil servants -- who include teachers, hospital workers, tax collectors, customs officials and post office staff -- planned a march Tuesday afternoon in Paris and other parts of the country.

The streets of Paris were already filled with traffic and pedestrians as commuters, unable to take the trains, resorted to other means to get to work. Cars competed for space with people on foot, bikes, scooters, and Rollerblades.

A dwindling number of transportation workers were supporting the open-ended walkout. The French railroad authority said just 25 percent of its workers were absent Tuesday and the rest were working, and the Paris subway authority said 19 percent of its staff were on strike. (Posted 5:37 a.m.)

Cabbie killed in Manhattan road rage attack

NEW YORK (CNN) -- An argument between a motorist and a cab driver ended with the cabbie pinned under a car and dying on Manhattan's Upper East Side early Tuesday, New York police said.

Investigators said they were not sure what started the road rage, but witnesses said the taxi driver jump out of his cab at the intersection of east 65th Street and Madison Avenue to confront the driver of a black 2005 Nissan Altima.

The driver accelerated to hit the cabbie, who was then pinned underneath the Altima, police said. A man and woman in the car jumped out and ran toward Central Park, witnesses and police said.

After the cab driver was removed from under the car, he was taken to New York Presbyterian Hospital at Cornell, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

Police have not yet named the couple who fled the scene and they have not been found. The name of the dead cab driver will not be made public until family is told. (Posted 5:35 a.m.)

Detained contractors in Iraq should be released soon, but guards may be held on charges

BAGHDAD (CNN) -- Iraqi police detained 43 employees of a U.S. Defense Department contractor after a private security guard in their convoy wounded an Iraqi civilian on a Baghdad street Monday, a U.S. military spokesman said on Tuesday.

The detained workers -- employed by logistics and construction contractor ALMCO -- were from Fiji, India, Iraq, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, according to U.S. Army Maj. Winfield Danielson III. Iraqi government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said his earlier statement that two were American proved to be wrong.

Danielson said the detained workers, except for those guards directly involved in the shooting, would be released soon. The Iraqi government would decide whether criminal charges would be filed, he said.

Al-Dabbagh said the security guards fired randomly as their convoy drove down the wrong side of a street in the Karrada district of central Baghdad. He said an Iraqi woman was wounded. (Posted 4:32 a.m.)

In Afghanistan, troops kill 'large group of insurgents'

(CNN) -- Afghan security forces and coalition troops on Tuesday killed a "large group of insurgents" in southern Afghanistan when they were ambushed during a reconnaissance patrol, the U.S.-led coalition said.

The ambush, described as "botched," occurred near Sarsina village in Uruzban province. "A large group of insurgents engaged the patrol with small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades," the coalition said, and the troops returned fire with small arms and machine guns.

"The company-size group of insurgents attempted to out-maneuver the combined force and moved into a nearby structure and trench line forcing innocent Afghan citizens to flee the area. Moments later, the combined force fixed the insurgents in their position and several precision air strikes effectively eliminated the Taliban insurgents who were trying to reinforce the enemy positions." (Posted 4:30 a.m.)

Villagers dispute military chief's estimate of just 5,000 cyclone deaths

PATHARGHATA, Bangladesh (CNN) -- Five days after Cyclone Sidr, one of the worst storms to strike the impoverished country of Bangladesh in recent years, an overwhelming stench filled the air as rotting bodies and animal carcasses floated in pools of stagnant water around the coastal city of Patharghata, according to CNN's Cal Perry who arrived there Tuesday.

Villagers complained about lack of government help and suggested the official death toll estimates are far lower than the reality they see, Perry reported.

Despite grim assessments from relief workers arriving in previously unreached areas, Gen. Moeen Ahmad, the head of the Bangladesh military, estimated Tuesday that the number of people killed would not far exceed 5,000.

The Bangladesh Red Crescent chairman has said the death toll could reach 10,000. The last official death toll from Cyclone Sidr issued Monday was 3,114, but many areas of the South Asian nation remained unreached by relief workers. (Posted 3:38 a.m.)

Election date set as Musharraf heads for Saudi Arabia; Opposition ponders vote boycott, Khan launches hunger strike

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- As Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf left Pakistan for a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia, his country's chief election commissioner announced that voting for Pakistan's national assembly and its four provincial assemblies will take place on Jan. 8.

Opposition parties, including those of former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, have not said if they will participate in the January elections. They've indicated they would boycott elections as long as the emergency declaration and suspension of the constitution ordered by Musharraf earlier this month remained in place.

Former cricket star and now opposition party leader Imran Khan launched a jail hunger strike which he said would continue until the Supreme Court justices fired by Musharraf Nov. 3 are restored. Khan was jailed last week after he escaped house arrest.

In Saudi Arabia, Musharraf will meet with King Abdullah and other senior officials "to discuss issues of mutual interest," Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq said. (Posted 2:35 a.m.)

Genocide tribunal begins for Khmer Rouge defendants

PHNOM PENH (CNN) -- The first formal hearing of a U.N.-backed genocide tribunal opened in the Cambodian capital Tuesday with the goal of bringing to trial the five most senior surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge on charges of crimes against humanity in connection with the Cambodian Communist movement's violent reign.

Kaing Guek Eav, allegedly the chief torturer of the regime, was the first of five defendants to appear before the panel for a pretrial hearing Tuesday.

More than two million people died during the party's efforts to transform Cambodia into an agrarian utopia before troops from neighboring Vietnam overthrew the regime. Remnants of the Khmer Rouge continued to battle Cambodia's government into the 1990s before fragmenting in the middle of the decade