Tag: Evening Edition

While airports worked to clear the massive backlog of flights, frustration at the paralysis turned to anger as reports emerged of ambulances failing to reach critical patients, in one case leading a woman to lose her baby.

“Clearly, the response was unacceptable,” speaker Christine Quinn told a special session of the city council, giving voice to hundreds of complaints from New York residents.

The leaders of Benin, Cape Verde and Sierra Leone held talks with Gbagbo at the presidential palace, warning that troops from around the region could be sent to topple Gbagbo from the helm of the world’s top cocoa producer if he remains defiant.

Presidents Boni Yayi of Benin, Ernest Koroma of Sierra Leone and Pedro Pires of Cape Verde also held talks with Ouattara at a hotel where he and his supporters have been holed up during the country’s political crisis.

Khodorkovsky and co-accused Platon Lebedev were convicted of embezzlement and money laundering, said judge Viktor Danilkin, dashing the hopes of Russian liberals that the trial would show a new approach from Russian courts.

In a stinging reaction from some Western powers, Germany’s foreign minister said the verdict was a step backwards for Russia while US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it would have a negative effect on Russia’s reputation.

On Tuesday, three West African presidents will visit Abidjan in a bid to convince the defiant 65-year-old leader to step down, a last-ditch plea that comes backed by a threat of regional military intervention.

Gbagbo said he took the threat “seriously” but would never back down, and his lieutenants warned that any intervention could put the millions of West African migrants living in Ivory Coast in danger.

A suicide bomber wearing a burqa, who some officials said was a woman, killed at least 43 people at a World Food Programme distribution point in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan.

The blast occurred in Khar, the main town of lawless Bajaur tribal district, once a stronghold of Taliban militants who have carried out several bombings and suicide attacks in the area.

“At least 11 of our men have been martyred and 12 others wounded,” Amjad Ali Khan, the administrator of lawless Mohmand tribal district, told reporters at a press conference in the area’s main town, Ghalanai.

Security officials earlier said at least three soldiers were killed in the attacks.

UN officials in Abidjan said Gbagbo’s security forces, shielded by civilian protesters and backed by unidentified masked gunmen, had prevented human rights monitors from probing reports of at least two new mass graves.

They said gangs of gunmen carry out murderous overnight raids on civilians living in the poorest districts of Abidjan, where local men throw up makeshift barricades and women beat cooking pots as a warning signal.

The United States said it was in talks with Ivory Coast’s neighbours about mustering UN reinforcements, and the World Bank said it had agreed with these West African capitals to halt loans to the regime.

The new pressure on Gbagbo came after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned Ivory Coast faces “a real risk of a return to civil war” unless Gbagbo stands down and hands power to his rival Alassane Ouattara.

Gbagbo accused the international community of “making war” on his people, but insisted he did not want to see more bloodshed and offered to allow envoys from world powers to form a panel to study the post-election crisis.

The offer seems likely to fall on deaf ears, as the United Nations has recognised Gbagbo’s rival Alassane Ouattara as victor of the disputed poll and accuses the incumbent’s forces of carrying out death squad-style killings.

The United Nations mission in Ivory Coast accused the defiant leader’s men of involvement in killings and rights abuses against Ivorians and demanded he stop harassing foreign envoys and UN peacekeepers in Abidjan.

In New York, the UN Security Council warned that Gbagbo’s camp could face new sanctions, and opened the way for the 10,000-strong UNOCI peacekeeping force to be reinforced — dismissing the regime’s demand that it leave.