Martial declared in Philippine province after massacre

MANILA — A strife-torn southern Philippine province was under martial law on Saturday as soldiers hunted down members of its ruling family accused of carrying out an election-linked massacre of 57 people.

President Gloria Arroyo placed Maguindanao province under military rule late on Friday night in an effort to contain the private armies of the provincial governor and other members of his Muslim clan, the government said.

Martial law was implemented to also make it easier to bring the clan members into custody, presidential spokesman Cerge Remonde told reporters.

"President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has taken this bold step in answer to the cry for justice of the (relatives of the) victims of the Maguindanao massacre," presidential spokesman Cerge Remonde told reporters.

Within hours of martial law being declared, special forces stormed into the home of the governor, Andal Ampatuan Snr, and took him into custody, the military said.

"He was taken at 2am (1800 GMT Friday) by Special Action Forces. He did not resist (arrest)," regional military spokesman Major Randolph Cabangbang said.

One of the clan chief's sons, Zaldy Ampatuan, the governor of an autonomous Muslim area in the southern Philippines, was also taken into custody on Saturday morning, according to the military.

Another son of the clan patriarch, Andal Ampatuan Jnr, is already languishing in a Manila detention centre after being charged with 25 counts of murder for the November 23 massacre that took place in a remote area of Maguindanao.

Police allege Ampatuan Jnr and 100 of his gunmen shot dead the occupants of a convoy that included relatives of his rival for the post of Maguindanao governor in next year's elections, as well as a group of journalists.

The rival, Esmael Mangudadatu, said the killings were carried out to stop him from running for office.

Ampatuan Snr had ruled the strife-torn province since 2001 with the backing of his own private army, as well as the support of Arroyo's ruling coalition, and installed his family members into a myriad of government positions.

He had been grooming his son and namesake, a local mayor, to succeed him as governor.

National police chief Jesus Verzosa said Saturday at least three other members of the Ampatuan clan were also wanted for their suspected links to the massacre.

Verzosa and the armed forces chief of staff, General Victor Ibrado, said martial law was imposed partly because many elements of the Ampatuans' private armies remained on the loose.

"These are large forces that could undertake violent actions against anybody in the province," Ibrado said.

"By their sheer number they are really a threat to the peace and order in the province."

'Nuclear pope' ElBaradei steps down

VIENNA — UN atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who once described himself as a "nuclear pope", quoted the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi in his farewell remarks at the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; were there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy," he told the agency's 35-member board on Friday.

But at the end of his 12 years or three terms as director general of the IAEA, the 67-year-old Egyptian -- who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 -- is still a long way from attaining such lofty goals.

The agency seems further away than ever from closing the page on its long-running investigation into Iran's controversial nuclear drive.

And on ElBaradei's final working day on Friday -- his contract officially runs out on Monday, but the agency is closed for a UN holiday -- the standoff between the Islamic Republic and the international community appeared to be becoming ever more deeply entrenched, with the IAEA's board voting overwhelmingly to censure Tehran for the first time in nearly four years.

ElBaradei has frequently come under fire from the West, and the United States in particular, for being too soft on Iran.

But as the end of his term in office drew nearer, he noticeably toughened up his tone.

In particular, his frustration appears to have grown over Tehran's refusal to sign up to a deal he personally brokered that would have given Iran much-needed fuel for a nuclear research reactor while at the same time allaying western fears that the Islamic Republic is trying to develop an atomic bomb.

He expressed "disappointment" that Tehran had not grasped the outstretched hand and complained that the agency's efforts to verify the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear drive had reached "a dead end".

At the same time, Washington, which during the administration of George W. Bush was one of ElBaradei's fiercest critics, seems to have become, under Barack Obama, one of his biggest fans.

The Egyptian drew Bush's ire for disputing his rationale for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and Washington unsuccessfully tried to block ElBaradei's re-election for a third term as IAEA director general in 2005.

The US frequently criticised ElBaradei for overstepping the IAEA's mandate as a purely technical agency.

But Washington's new envoy to the IAEA, Glyn Davies, now has nothing but praise for him.

"He has been the hero of this piece. No one has worked harder and longer and with more imagination and indefatigeability than Dr Mohamed ElBaradei," told Davies reporters on Friday and paid a similarly glowing tribute as the agency's board wrapped up its two-day meeting.

The incoming director general, 62-year-old Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano, likewise expressed his "deep respect" for and "gratitude" to ElBaradei, describing him as a "towering figure in the history of the agency", which he had brought to "great new heights."

Diplomats said that ElBaradei displayed little emotion in the board room, but had been "visibly moved" as he bid farewell to staff at a reception earlier in the day.

Smiling on Facebook costs Canadian her insurance

MONTREAL — Facebook can be a double-edged sword, a Canadian woman learned when an insurance company cut her health benefits, claiming she was healthy after seeing pictures of her smiling in bikini at the beach.

Nathalie Blanchard, 29, took long-term sick leave from her job at IBM in Bromont, Quebec, more than a year ago for severe depression. She was receiving monthly benefits from her insurance company, Manulife.

When Blanchard called Manulife to inquire why the payments dried up, the insurance company said that "I'm available to work, because of Facebook," she told CBC television.

She said that Manulife cited several pictures Blanchard had posted on her social networking website page, including some showing her enjoying herself during a male strip-tease show at a Chippendales bar, celebrating her birthday and bathing in the sun.

Based on these postings, the firm claimed Blanchard was no longer depressed.

Manulife declined to comment on the incident but said in a statement that "we would not deny or terminate a valid claim solely based on information published on websites such as Facebook."

But the company did recognize that it uses such information to learn more about their clients.

The man who was Thursday: a nightmare By G. K. Chesterton

Calgary closer to getting film studio

A new film and television studio in Calgary is one step closer to becoming a reality.

Culture and Community Spirit Minister Lindsay Blackett said the province has reached an agreement in principle to build a state-of-the-art studio on the city's west side.

It's estimated the studio, to be built on the west side of the Canada Olympic Park, will cost $26 million, not including the purchase of the land.

The four hectares will be purchased from WinSport Canada, which operates Canada Olympic Park.

The studio would feature a 30,000-square-foot sound stage and a 45,000-square-foot digital hub.

However, Blackett said funding still needs to be negotiated among Calgary, the province and the federal government.

"We have still to complete funding with the three levels of government and private-sector involvement. There's several different groups that are interested in it, so we have to do our due diligence and go through that process, but I think it's exciting," he said.

Blackett said the site, located next to the Trans-Canada Highway and on the way to the Rocky Mountains, is perfect.

He said construction could start as early as next year.

Afghan future threatened by ex-warlords in gov't

KABUL — Warlords helped drive the Russians from Afghanistan, then shelled Kabul into ruins in a bloody civil war after the Soviets left. Now they are back in positions of power, in part because the U.S. relied on them in 2001 to help oust the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks.

President Hamid Karzai later reached out to them to shore up his own power base as America turned its attention to Iraq after the Taliban's rout.

With the Taliban resurging, the entrenched power of the warlords is complicating Karzai's promises to rid his new government of corruption and cronies, steps seen as critical to building support among Afghans against the insurgents.

"You can't build a new political system with old politicians accused of war crimes," said lawmaker Ramazan Bashardost, who finished third in the country's fraud-marred August election. "You can't have peace with warlords in control."

Two of Karzai's vice presidents — Mohammed Qasim Fahim and Karim Khalili — are ex-warlords. His outgoing military adviser, Abdul Rashid Dostum, has been accused of overseeing the suffocation deaths of up to 2,000 Taliban prisoners during the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

The term warlord is applied to the commanders of the Afghan resistance who fell out with each other after the defeat of the Soviets. They see themselves as political figures and patriots who defend their people in areas of the country where the central government has little or no control. They often refer to themselves as "mujahadeen," which means holy warriors.

Karzai sought support from those branded as warlords to bolster his weak power base, win re-election and build alliances with ethnic groups. He has defended those ties publicly, pointing out that the U.S. backed the same people eight years ago when it engineered the war to oust the Taliban and brought Karzai to power.

But the U.S. and its allies fear that the continued strength of the warlords undermines government authority. It is hard to convince ordinary Afghans to obey the laws, pay their taxes and support the government when it is dominated by men who flounted the rules to amass power and fortunes.

International pressure is mounting on Karzai to rid his government of corruption and sideline the warlords. Leaders of the U.S., Britain and other troop-contributing countries cannot ask their own soldiers to risk their lives for a corrupt government.

"I am not prepared to put the lives of British men and women in harm's way for a government that does not stand up against corruption," Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Friday.

Last week, Kai Eide, the U.N. mission chief in Afghanistan, suggested time was running out. "We can't afford any longer a situation where warlords and power brokers play their own games," he said. "We have to have ... significant reform."

And Obama told the Afghan leader last week that assurances of reform had to be backed up with action.

Presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada defended Karzai, saying he has appointed to government posts Afghans from all walks of life and from all political backgrounds. He said "the path of inclusivity" was crucial for stability.

A nationwide survey by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, however, found 76 percent of the 4,151 polled believed security would improve if war criminals were brought to justice. Only 8 percent felt it would decrease security and 13 percent said they did not know. The remaining 3 percent were missing.

Removing them from government is "by far the most important issue facing the country today," said Brad Adams, the Asia director of Human Rights Watch.

The New York-based rights group has called for several senior officials in Karzai's administration to be tried for war crimes alongside some of Washington's biggest enemies, like Taliban leader Mullah Omar and insurgent chief Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Faction leaders defend their roles in the civil war of the 1990s, which broke out when the pro-Soviet government collapsed following the departure of Moscow's troops. Some of them held out against the Taliban after the Islamist movement seized Kabul in 1996. The Bush administration supported them in the 2001 attack against the Taliban, enabling the U.S. to oust the Islamists from power without committing large numbers of U.S. ground troops.

But some of the alleged crimes attributed to the warlords were so odious that Washington could not ignore them. Witnesses claim Dostum's forces placed Taliban prisoners in sealed cargo containers and suffocated them to death before burying them en masse, according to a State Department report. Dostum denies involvement in the deaths.

The U.S. and its allies pressured Karzai into firing Fahim, his new vice president, as defense minister and dropping him from the ticket in the 2004 election. He tapped him again as his running-mate this year, a move that helped split the opposition vote.

All that has encouraged a climate of impunity that has trickled down through Afghan society. Rights groups accuse soldiers and police loyal to warlords of kidnapping, extortion, robbery and the rape of women, girls and boys.

In the countryside, local commanders "run their own fiefdoms with illegal militias, intimidate people into paying them taxes, extract bribes, steal land, trade drugs," said John Dempsey of the U.S. Institute of Peace. "They essentially rule with impunity and no government official, no judge, no policeman can stand up to them."

Karzai has tried to rein in warlords before, dispatching his finance minister to haul back sacks of cash from governors reluctant to pay tax to the central government.

But removing strongmen from power or putting them on trial is risky: it could inflame ethnic tensions and alienate regional commanders whose support both Kabul and Washington need to contain the burgeoning insurgency.

A September report released by New York University's Center on International Cooperation said the NATO-led coalition is fueling the problem by relying on militias loyal to local commanders — some involved in rights abuses and drug trafficking — in an effort to bolster security.

The war plan advanced by America's top Afghanistan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, mentions "regional power brokers" with "loyal armed followers," but does not advocate removing them. The U.S. used local armed groups in Iraq to fight al-Qaida and similar militias in Afghanistan have been successful in providing intelligence about the Taliban.

Karzai has been pressured to take action before. In 2005, he was pushed to approve a reconciliation and justice plan that included a vetting system to keep grave rights abusers out of government. But almost none of it was implemented, Dempsey said. Even building a monument or declaring a holiday for war victims was deemed too controversial because Afghanistan and its international backers feared examining the past too closely could destabilize the fragile government.

Sima Samar, chairwoman of the country's human rights commission, said warlords do not necessarily have to be tried. They could face truth commissions, or start by simply apologizing.

There is a lack of political will in bringing them to justice, she said. "We will never have sustainable peace until we tackle our past."

Another presidential spokesman, Hamed Elmi, said commanders like Fahim should be praised. They "played a vital role defending our country against the Soviet occupation and the Taliban. And for the last eight years, they've supported the U.S. in the war on terror."

He said Afghanistan's criminal justice system is ready to try anyone for rights abuses, "but so far, we've seen no proof they've done anything wrong."

Human Rights Watch has documented the indiscriminate killing of civilians by militias loyal to both Fahim and Khalili during the 1990s, which it says constitute war crimes. The group interviewed scores of witnesses accusing militias of murder, pillage and the abduction of ethnic rivals in violation of international humanitarian law.

Akbar Bai, a leader of the country's Turkmen minority — who Dostum beat and briefly kidnapped last year after storming his Kabul home with 100 armed fighters — said the U.S. and its Afghan allies are "fighting the wrong war."

"Karzai's No. 1 problem is the warlords," said Bai, who was released only after government troops surrounded Dostum's mansion. "If you don't remove these people from power, you'll never see peace in Afghanistan."

Families of US hikers in Iran deny espionage charges

WASHINGTON — The families of three US hikers detained in Iran Monday flatly denied allegations that their relatives were spies.

Tehran's chief prosecutor Abbas Jaffari Doulatabadi told Iranian media that the three Americans -- Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27 -- "are facing charges of spying."

But relatives of the three in the United States angrily rejected the charges. "The allegation that our loved ones may have been engaged in espionage is untrue," they said in a statement.

"It is entirely at odds with the people Shane, Sarah and Josh are and with anything that Iran can have learned about them since they were detained on July 31."

The three have been held for more than 100 days "simply because they apparently strayed into Iran by accident while hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan."

The relatives again called on Iranian officials "to show compassion to our loved ones and release them without delay. This has already gone on for too long."

Jerry Sanders, chair of the Peace and Conflict Studies department at the University of California-Berkeley, where he was an adviser to Bauer, also dismissed the accusations.

"That's the most patently absurd thing I've ever heard. This is beyond satire. It's so far off the mark," Sanders told AFP, adding that although Bauer spoke Arabic he did not know any Farsi.

"He's someone who has always taken a very independent stance. In fact he's working as a freelance journalist and that's the last thing he would want. That would be the kiss of death for him as an independent journalist."

US officials have called for the three to be quickly released.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Berlin there was "no evidence" for Iran to charge the Americans, and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the three "are innocent young people" whose release "should be expedited."

Family and friends of the three have said they were hiking in a mountainous border region in northern Iraq near a famous waterfall when they unintentionally strayed into Iran.

A friend who was scheduled to go on the hike but cancelled because he fell ill appealed to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week to free the three as soon as possible.

"Mr President, by continuing to deprive Shane, Sarah and Josh of their liberty, Iran is working against some of the very causes it supports," Shon Meckfessel wrote.

New Brunswick government says utility sale will save money on reactor refit

FREDERICTON — New Brunswick's energy minister says the proposed sale of NB Power assets to Hydro-Quebec would save taxpayers at least $275 million on the refurbishment of the Point Lepreau nuclear power plant.

Jack Keir says if the project remains 18 months behind schedule, the cost of replacement power for that period will be $400 million.

But if the sale agreement is signed by the end of March 2010, he says New Brunswickers will only be responsible for $125 million of that, with the rest to be paid by Quebec.

Keir has called on the federal government to assume the cost overrun because the work is being done by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., a federal Crown corporation.

The refit of the reactor was supposed to have been complete by the end of September.

Last week, the New Brunswick and Quebec governments announced a proposed deal that would see Hydro-Quebec assume the key assets of NB Power, including Point Lepreau, for almost $5 billion.

Hough-Sweeney and Domi the latest pair voted off Battle of the Blades

TORONTO — Christine Hough-Sweeney and hometown favourite Tie Domi are the fifth pair to be iced on the Battle of the Blades.

Marie-France Dubreuil and Stephane Richer were saved Monday joining the two remaining pairs on the CBC TV show for a chance to win $100,000 for the charity of their choice.

The two pairs with the fewest votes in the fifth week of competition were Hough-Sweeney and Domi, who performed to These Boots Are Made for Walking, and Dubreuil and Richer, who skated to Blues in the Night.

Both pairs performed again before regular judges Sandra Bezic, Dick Button and guest judges Kristi Yamaguchi, the Olympic gold medallist, and her husband Bret Hedican, who won a Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes, for a final chance to remain on the show.

Hough-Sweeney and Domi's charity, Diabetes Hope Foundation, will receive a $25,000 donation.

The other pairs returning to compete on Sunday are: Shae-Lynn Bourne and Claude Lemieux, Marie-France Dubreuil and Stephane Richer, Jamie Sale and Craig Simpson.

Manager says actor Dennis Hopper has prostate cancer

LOS ANGELES - Dennis Hopper has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and is cancelling all travel plans to focus on treatment, his manager said Thursday.

The 73-year-old actor and artist is being treated through a "special program" at the University of Southern California, said Sam Maydew.

Asked about Hopper's prognosis, Maydew said, "We're hoping for the best." He would not elaborate on the actor's condition.

Hopper was forced to cancel his appearance at an exhibition of his artwork and photography at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne. Called "Dennis Hopper and the New Hollywood," the show celebrates "the work and life of an extraordinary filmmaker, artist and key figure in the evolution of American cultural scene from the 1950s to today."

Hopper was hospitalized in New York earlier this month and treated for dehydration.

The "Easy Rider" star recently finished shooting the second season of "Crash," a TV version of the Oscar-winning 2004 film. He plays maniacal music producer Ben Cendars on the series, which airs on the Starz network. Hopper also has several film projects in the works.