India sex scandal guru arrested

Police in India say a controversial Hindu holy man facing charges of obscenity has been arrested.

Nithyananda Swami was detained in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh where police said he had been hiding.

The guru stepped down last month as head of a religious organization based in the southern city of Bangalore.
His announcement came after a video apparently showing him engaging in sexual acts with two women. He says he is innocent and the video is a fake.

Nithyananda Swami has a huge following in southern India and his mission has branches in several countries, including the US and Europe.


"Nithyananda Swami was arrested at Solan [in Himachal Pradesh] along with his associate Gopal Seelam Reddy and they would be brought to Bangalore soon," the city's director general of police, DV Guruprasaad, said.

On Tuesday, the authorities raided the swami's sprawling centre near Bangalore.

Nithyananda Swami, 32, stepped down as leader of the global Dhyanapeetam (Knowledge Centre) organisation soon after the police inquiry was launched.

"I have decided to live a life of spiritual seclusion for some indefinite time," the guru said in a statement.
"If required, I will return and talk about all that had happened as an independent witness to my conduct with a clean heart and pure soul and in a less prejudiced atmosphere."

The video shocked his devotees and angered locals - his ashram near Bangalore was vandalised after TV channels broadcast the video.

The guru's followers allege the video was created and distributed by a jealous inmate of the ashram in a bid to defame him.

Rovos Rail train derails in South Africa

A luxury tourist train has derailed near the South African capital, Pretoria, killing at least two people and injuring at least 25 more.

The dead include a woman and her baby, who was born moments after the derailment, reports AFP news agency.

The train is run by Rovos Rail, which offers "unique train safaris" in its wood-panelled carriages, some of which have hot showers and air conditioning.


The nationalities of the casualties are not known.

"We are dealing with a mixture of foreigners and South Africans," said Johan Pieterse, spokesperson for Emergency Medical Services (EMS), reports South Africa's Business Day.


A spokesperson for Rovos Rail told AFP that most of its customers were from Europe and the US.


"It's absolute carnage," emergency worker Chris Botha told AFP.
"Some of the railway coaches are lying on top of each other and absolute wreckages.

"They had to use hydraulic rescue equipment to cut some of the people free," he said.
The train was carrying 55 passengers and had come from Cape Town.

The derailment occurred outside the Blue Train depot in Pretoria, says AFP.
The Blue Train is another luxury tourist train which runs between Cape Town and Pretoria, but only Rovos Rail uses restored antique trains.

Safety inspectors told AFP that it appeared the accident happened during the switch from an electric locomotive to the steam engine Rovos Rail sometimes uses to pull its carriages.


The part of the line affected by the accident has been closed until further notice.
The accident comes 50 days before South Africa hosts the World Cup.

Would you be scared to fly through the ash cloud?

As travelers around the world battle with days of canceled flights and disrupted travel plans, another war between the airlines and air safety authorities is beginning.

Commercial European flights continued to be disrupted for a fifth straight day as the UK Civil Aviation Authority told  that there were still detectable levels of ash in the air.
A spokesman from NATS, the British air traffic control provider also said that it would not lift restriction on air travel in the current circumstances.
This is despite growing pressure from air travel groups such as the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and major airlines that are criticizing the tough restrictions.
Several airlines including British Airways have recently conducted test flights and have said that the aircraft sustained no damage.
British Airways' Chief Executive Willie Walsh said: "The analysis we have done so far, alongside that from other airlines' trial flights, provides fresh evidence that the current blanket restrictions on airspace are unnecessary.
"We believe airlines are best positioned to assess all available information and determine what, if any, risk exists to aircraft, crew and passengers."
However, some test flights by military planes have indicated that the ash cloud does indeed damage aircraft.
Several Finnish Air Force F-18 Hornet fighters that flew training missions over northern Finland last Thursday morning showed physical damage to parts of the plane.
A post-landing inspection revealed accumulations of powdery volcanic dust in the aircraft’s air intakes, according to a Ministry of Defense statement.
Imagery obtained indicated that even a short-duration flight inside an ash cloud may cause substantial damage to aircraft engines.
We want to know what you think.
Would you be confident enough to fly through an ash cloud? Are you still too scared to fly?

Bomb strikes IPL cricket match in Bangalore

A bomb has exploded outside a cricket stadium in the southern Indian city of Bangalore, police say.

Five people - four policemen and a security officer - were injured.

The blast happened shortly before the start of an Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket match. Police say the device was hidden in the perimeter wall.

The match was scheduled to begin at 1600 (1030 GMT) with about 40,000 people in the stadium. It has now got under way.

The Chinnaswamy Stadium is staging a match between the Bangalore Royal Challengers and the Mumbai Indians.


The team's captains were walking out on to the pitch to toss the coin to decide who would bat first when the explosion happened.

Police commissioner Shankar Bidari told a news conference that the bomb was a "low-intensity" explosive.
"It appears some sort of explosive material was hidden in the wall, some distance away from the stands.


"Four policemen have suffered minor injuries and a security guard has been seriously injured," he said.
Mr Bidari said that a section of the perimeter wall had also been damaged and that forensic experts had been called in to investigate.

The game started after security staff carried out an inspection of the grounds.
Police commissioner Shankar Bidari told a news conference that the bomb was a "low-intensity" explosive.
"It appears some sort of explosive material was hidden in the wall, some distance away from the stands.

"Four policemen have suffered minor injuries and a security guard has been seriously injured," he said.
Mr Bidari said that a section of the perimeter wall had also been damaged and that forensic experts had been called in to investigate.

The game started after security staff carried out an inspection of the grounds.

Dozens killed in attack on Pakistan camp

At least 32 people were killed and more than 50 were injured in suicide attacks Saturday at a camp for displaced people in northwest Pakistan, officials said.


The attacks occurred about noon in Kohat town in the North West Frontier Province, said Khalid Khan Umarzai, a local commissioner.

There were two blasts from two separate suicide attackers at the camp, which is for people who have fled the military offensive in the area, officials said. Police said both suicide bombers were wearing burqas.
When people came to help those injured in the first blast, a second one went off, wounding and killing more people.

Pakistan military has stepped up its offensive against the Taliban in recent weeks, causing a flood of displaced people to pour into camps.

South Korea: External explosion sank ship

A South Korean investigator said Friday that an "external explosion" was the most likely cause of the mysterious sinking of a naval ship in which 46 South Korean sailors were lost in tense waters off the North Korean coast.

"There is a higher possibility of an external rather than an internal explosion," Yoon Duk-yong, the co-head of a government-appointed team to investigate the March 26 sinking of the corvette Cheonan, said Friday in a televised press conference.

The Cheonan's stern section, where the missing sailors were believed to have been trapped, was raised from the Yellow Sea bottom Thursday after a salvage operation that was made both risky and difficult by low underwater visibility and strong currents. The bow section is expected to be salvaged next week.
Of the Cheonan's 104-man crew, 58 men were rescued from the sea on the night of the explosion. Thirty-eight bodies have so far been recovered; eight remain missing.

Yoon's comment was based on a preliminary investigation of the stern wreckage. He added, however, that it was necessary "to make a detailed analysis, leaving all possibilities open."

President Lee Myung-bak has demanded a transparent probe into the sinking, which Defense Minister Kim Tae-young on Friday called "a grave national security incident."

While Seoul has avoided blaming North Korea, Kim has said that a sea mine or torpedo appear the most likely causes. The media has been rife with speculation -- theories aired range from an internal boiler explosion to a North Korean naval special forces attack.

On Thursday, Open Radio for North Korea, a Seoul-based radio station that maintains covert contacts north of the border, announced that Northern authorities are calling the Cheonan sinking "self-inflicted."
North Korea's state-run media have been silent on the issue, and both South Korean and U.S. forces in South Korea say they have not detected any unusual moves by the armed forces of the hard-line state.
However, the Cheonan went down close to the disputed inter-Korean sea border, off which fatal naval skirmishes took place in 1999 and 2002.

If forensic evidence does point to North Korean involvement, it is unclear what moves South Korea could take against a country that has artillery ranged in on Seoul, and which is believed to possess at least six nuclear devices..

The United States declined to strike militarily against North Korea when the spyship USS Pueblo was seized in international waters off North Korea in 1968.

Nor did South Korea retaliate in 2002, when three Southern sailors were killed and their patrol boat sunk in a North Korean attack on the same day that South Korea was playing its last match of the World Cup.

Frustration as grounded passengers seek alternatives to air

Volcanic ash from Iceland severely disrupted air traffic across Europe for a second day on Friday, causing the cancellation of some 17,000 flights, according to the intergovernmental body that manages European air travel.

Eurocontrol said it expected around 11,000 flights to take place Friday, in contrast to the normal 28,000. The impact will last at least another 24 hours, Euro control said Friday morning.

The ash has spread to large parts of northern Europe and has forced the closure of some of Europe's busiest airports, causing more disruption to worldwide air travel than 9/11.

Airspace over much of the United Kingdom was closed to all flights except emergencies at least until 1 a.m. Saturday (8 p.m. ET Friday), Britain's air traffic authority, NATS, said. Select flights were being allowed in Northern Ireland and Scotland, and some North Atlantic traffic may be allowed to those areas, it said.

NATS called the situation "dynamic and subject to change."
Airspace was also closed over Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, and the Netherlands, and airspace was partially closed in France, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Norway, and Ireland, Eurocontrol and local authorities said.

Norway's airspace closure included cancellation of helicopter flights to off-shore oil installations.

The French closure included all Paris airports, though landings were being allowed at those airports during a four-hour window Friday afternoon, the DGAC civil aviation authority said.

Germany's closure included airports in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Duesseldorf, Euro control said. Warsaw airport in Poland was closed, which may affect plans for world leaders to attend the scheduled Sunday funeral of Polish President Lech Kaczynski; a spokeswoman said Krakow airport remained open but had an extremely limited schedule.

Air transport and weather authorities all over Europe are working together and with the airlines to discuss the continued impact of the ash cloud, British Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis said.

 He said he would discuss contingency plans with key transport officials Friday just in case the situation continues.

The U.S. Air Force said Thursday two bases in England, RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath, will be shut down for at least two days. That meant dozens of U.S. Air Force F-15s and other fighter jets and tankers are not flying, and flights to Iraq and Afghanistan flying through that airspace are being diverted to other routes.

English Channel ferry operators and Eurostar, which runs high-speed trains between London, Paris, and Brussels, said they were experiencing an extremely high demand as passengers seek other ways of getting to their destinations. Adonis said Eurostar had added services to cope with demand.

Passengers who spoked at Heathrow's Terminal 1 seemed resigned to having missed their flights.
"I don't want the plane going down. This is really dangerous," said one man. "But I've been in some different situations over the years, and this is a new one."

One woman said she had missed a wedding because of the problems.
"Not sure if we're still going to go or not," she said. "I don't know that there's any point any more, 'cause we've missed everything the trip was ultimately for."

Those passengers stranded at Frankfurt Airport were being given food and supplies. Spokesman Robert Payne said authorities distributed 1,000 cots along with cold drinks, hot soup, bread, baby food, diapers, and toiletries.

Delta Air Lines canceled 65 international flights from its U.S. hubs scheduled over Thursday night and Friday morning in response to the ash cloud. The decision affected flights to Amsterdam; London; Shannon, Ireland; and Brussels in Europe and to Mumbai in India. Whether the airline resumes flights to such destinations will be determined later Friday, Delta said.

Air China announced the cancellation of most of its Friday flights to Europe.
Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific also canceled or delayed flights from Hong Kong to London, Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam.

Volcanic ash can cause jet engines to shut down.
It's hard to predict how long it will be before air travel can resume, said Matthew Watson, a geophysicist, at England's Bristol University.

"You really need two things to happen: You need the volcano to stop emplacing ash to the altitude that commercial aircraft fly at, 30-35,000 feet, and you then need the upper level winds to blow the ash and disperse it out of the airspace," he told.

How long that will take "depends very much on the volcano. If this is it and it's stopped right now and it doesn't do anything else... I imagine you are looking at 24 to 48 hours to clear U.K. airspace," he said.

The closures came after an eruption under an Icelandic glacier early Wednesday. The eruption under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier -- the latest in a series that began on March 20 -- blew a hole in the mass of ice and created a cloud of smoke and ash that went high into the air.

The volcano was still erupting Friday and producing a lot of volcanic ash, a spokesman for Iceland's Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management told.

"The volcanic ash particles are very fine and have been compared to flour and sugar in size," the department said Friday. "The flourine content of the ash is high and presents a health risk to livestock in areas where the ash layer is more than 1 centimeter thick."

Dust and odors were detected Thursday in the Northern Isles in Scotland, the British weather service, the Met Office, said Friday. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency is now analyzing the dust.
The Met Office said the volcano is spewing ash in "pulses," not a steady plume.

An emergency evacuation affecting 800 people was conducted near the volcano due to flash flooding from glacier waters, according to Rognvaldur Olafsson of Iceland's civil protection agency. The same people had fled the area the night before and allowed to return to the area early Thursday.

The ash wasn't necessarily visible in the air, but Manchester Airport spokesman Russell Craig said it can still pose a threat to aircraft.

"If you think about the way an aircraft engine works, it sucks in air, it compresses it, forces it out on the other side. That creates thrust," Craig told.

"If that air were mixed with ash, it can cause engine failure and electrical difficulties with an aircraft. It's happened before, and the aircraft didn't come out the other end in one piece."

Myanmar calls fatal blasts a terror attack

The government of Myanmar said three bombs caused the deadly blasts that ripped through Yangon on Thursday, an action it calls a terrorist attack.


At least 20 people have died and more than 70 others were wounded, a staff member at Yangon Hospital said. But the government says only eight have died and more than 90 others were wounded.

The blasts occurred at 3 p.m. local time during a water festival, part of the New Year's celebration taking place in Myanmar and other southeastern Asian countries. People toss water on each other as part of a cleansing ritual during the celebration.

Myanmar, formerly called Burma, is under strict military rule and such blasts are rare. Yangon, Myanmar's former capital and the country's commercial hub, is generally a crime-free and calm city.

Shots fired near Kyrgyzstan ex-leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev

Shots have been fired at a rally in southern Kyrgyzstan where the deposed President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was addressing supporters.

Gunfire was heard shortly after Mr Bakiyev began speaking in Osh. An opposition rally was going on nearby.
A brother of the ex-president told that his guards fired into the air after supporters of the new government tried to disrupt Mr Bakiyev's rally.

Mr Bakiyev was ousted last week after protests that left dozens dead.


He has since been living in his home region of Jalalabad in the south of the country, where he has been trying to rally support.


Reporters at the scene said Mr Bakiyev had been speaking to a crowd of at least 1,000 when the gunfire broke out.

A rival rally of interim government supporters was being held a few hundred metres away.
Mr Bakiyev's brother told that the former leader had appeared on stage and was immediately attacked by opposition supporters, causing his bodyguards to shoot into the air.


The ex-president was quickly bundled into his car and driven the two hours back to his home village.
Kurmanbek Bakiyev fled the capital Bishkek on 7 April after protests erupted into violence, killing more than 80 people.


Interim leader Roza Otunbayeva has said Mr Bakiyev should stand trial over the recent deadly political unrest.

The ousted president has said he is ready to negotiate and prepared to stand down if his safety can be guaranteed.

DR Congo gang rape crisis 'spreading', new study says

More than half of the victims of rape in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo were gang raped by armed men, a report says.

For years rape has been used against women in the region but the report reveals the scale of the problem.
More than 4,000 rape victims were interviewed over a four-year period.


The authors of the report, commissioned by Oxfam, say there is also evidence suggesting a dramatic rise in the number of rapes by civilians.

It comes at a time when there is debate over how long the United Nations peacekeeping force should remain in DR Congo.

The extensive research, carried out by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, in the eastern South Kivu province produced shocking findings.

It shows that 60% of the rape victims were gang raped by armed men and more than half of the assaults took place in the victims' homes.


There was also evidence of a large increase in the number of rapes carried out by civilians.
Back in 2004, 1% of rapes were committed by civilians, the report says.


Four years later they were responsible for more than a third of these attacks.
The researchers say this proves that the scale of rape during years of war in DR Congo has made this crime seem more acceptable.

Oxfam says given the insecurity in DR Congo, it is imperative the UN peacekeepers stay.


The UN troops have been backing efforts to defeat rebels linked to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.


However research shows that when these UN-backed offensives are carried out, women become even more vulnerable.

The rebels and the government troops use rape as a weapon of war to punish civilians.

The victims face terrible stigma and this new study reveals that more than half of the women waited at least a year before seeking treatment.

War-torn South Kivu is home to five million people but there is just one hospital which can offer suitable help to victims of rape.

Oxfam wants the world's richer countries to help increase the medical services available for survivors of sexual violence in Congo.

Last year alone the UN says more than 5,000 people were raped in South Kivu.