Somali pirates get 439-year sentences

Somali pirates get 439-year sentences

The Alakrana fishing vessel on route to Victoria Port in the Seychelles Islands on November 17, 2009.

Madrid, Spain (CNN) -- In a rare case, a Spanish court convicted two Somalia men of piracy in the 2009 takeover of a Spanish fishing vessel and sentenced each to 439 years in prison, according to a copy of the sentence viewed by CNN on Tuesday.

The long prison terms stem mainly from the conviction for illegal detention of the vessel's 36 crew members, with a sentence of 11 years for each count of piracy, or 396 years.

In addition, the defendants were convicted on three other counts, including armed robbery and belonging to a criminal gang, which boosted the overall sentence to 439 years.

The vessel, the Alakrana, was freed in November 2009 after being held for 47 days off the coast of Somalia. The crew included 16 Spanish sailors and 20 from Africa and Asia.

A day after the hijacking by 12 armed pirates, Spanish military monitoring the situation captured two pirate suspects on Oct. 3, 2009 as they left the fishing vessel. Then authorities took the unusual step of bringing them to Madrid.

Many other pirate suspects who have been captured by international military forces --- trying to ensure the safety of merchant shipping and fishing off the coast of Somalia --- have been taken to African nations for court procedures, but not to Europe.

The Spanish court identified the two as Raageggesey Hassan Aji, of Ceel Maccan, Somalia, who was born in 1978, although his birthdate was not disclosed; and Cabdiweli Cabdullahi, of Marka, Somalia, with no age given, although the court determined before the trial that was an adult.

Defense lawyers argued unsuccessfully for their acquittal.

Despite the 439-year sentences, a court official told CNN that the likely maximum that could be served for such convictions is about 30 years.

Spanish media reported in 2009 that a ransom had been paid to free the ship, and a leading Spanish fishing industry executive, Juan Manuel Vietes, told CNN at the time he was certain a ransom was paid for the release of the tuna trawler, but he didn't know the amount.

The Spanish government did not say how the ship had been freed.

Portugal reaches deal on bail-out

Portugal reaches deal on bail-out

Portugal's caretaker prime minister José Sócrates.

Lisbon, Portugal (FT.COM) -- Portugal has reached an agreement with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund on a €78 billion ($116 billion) financial rescue package, becoming the third eurozone country to be bailed out of a sovereign debt crisis.

In a brief television address on Tuesday night, José Sócrates, the country's caretaker prime minister, said the deal was demanding, but indicated that the terms were not as tough as those agreed with Greece and Ireland.

The EU and IMF had recognized that "the situation in Portugal is far from being [as serious] as in other countries," he said. "Knowing other external assistance programs, Portugal can feel reassured."

After the prime minister's address, his office said the bail-out funds would total €78 billion over three years, including financial support for Portugal's banking system. The interest rate to be charged was not specified.

Mr Sócrates said the program would not involve any additional fiscal measures in 2011 and would set out less demanding deficit reduction targets than previously fixed by the government.

Under the plan, Portugal has agreed to reduce its budget deficit from 9.1% of gross domestic product in 2010 to 5.9% this year. The previous target for 2011 had been 4.6% of GDP.

Portugal is now committed to cutting the deficit to 3% of GDP by 2013, a year later than envisaged under the government's previous plan.

Mr Sócrates said the package would not involve any cuts in public sector wages or the the minimum national wage, nor any public sector dismissals.

State-owned Caixa Geral de Depósitos, the country's biggest bank by deposits, would not be privatized. No special taxes would be introduced on holiday bonuses and no change made to the minimum retirement age, he added.

The caretaker prime minister said he would not release further details until the country's main opposition parties had been informed. Opposition leaders are expected to express their approval of the agreement ahead of a general election on June 5.

The agreement follows almost a month of negotiations between the Lisbon government and officials from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF.

Portugal was under pressure to reach an agreement so that it could receive bail-out funds in time to meet €7 billion in government bond redemptions and interest payments that fall due on June 15.

EU officials want the package to be approved at a May 16-17 meeting of EU finance ministers. But approval could be delayed by disagreements over the package among Finnish political parties, who are trying to form a new coalition government.

Legislation required to implement the program will not go before the Portuguese parliament until after the June ballot.

Portugal was forced to seek a bail-out after the minority Socialists government was defeated over an austerity program in March, forcing Mr Sócrates to resign and sending government borrowing costs soaring.

Earlier a Commission spokesman denied Portuguese media reports that the negotiations had been held up by disagreements between European and IMF negotiators over the terms of the agreement.

"There are no divergences among members of the troika," said Amadeu Altafaj.

The EU will provide about two-thirds of the total funds, the remainder coming for the IMF.

EU loans will come from the European financial stability facility, the bloc's bail-out fund, and later from the European Stability Mechanism, the permanent crisis resolution instrument due to replace it in 2013.

Osama bin Laden killed, Obama says

Osama bin Laden killed, Obama says

Osama bin Laden, the driving force behind the Sept. 11 attacks, is dead, ending a decade-long manhunt for the world's most-wanted terrorist, U.S. President Barack Obama announced Sunday night.


"I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda and a terrorist who is responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children," Obama said during a statement televised live from the East Room of the White House late Sunday evening.

The president said that he had met repeatedly with his national security team since August and that they received information that bin Laden was hiding in a compound in Pakistan. Then last week it was determined that the U.S. had enough to take action, he said.

The U.S. government released this age-progressed photograph of Osama bin Laden in January 2010. Reuters

"Today at my direction," Obama said, the U.S. launched a targeted attack against that compound in Abbottabad, which is about 150 kilometres north of Islamabad, and that bin Laden was killed in a firefight.

Justice has been done," the president said.

U.S. officials said four helicopters carrying CIA paramilitaries and a Navy SEAL team attacked bin Laden's compound; an Abbottabad resident said the raid took place at 1:30 a.m. local time.

U.S. personnel took bin Laden's remains, which were buried at sea, a U.S. official said. Finding a country willing to accept the body for burial within 24 hours, in keeping with Islamic tradition, would have been difficult, the official said.

Following the attack, Pakistani television broadcast pictures of flames shooting from the roof of bin Laden's two-storey house in the night sky.

The development comes just months before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York and Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The four airplane hijackings orchestrated by bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization killed more than 3,000 people.

The attacks set off a chain of events that led the U.S. into wars in Afghanistan and then Iraq, and America's entire intelligence apparatus was overhauled to counter the threat of more terror attacks at home.

Abbottabad, Pakistan

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said bin Laden's death will "bring some closure and comfort to all those who lost loved ones" on Sept. 11.

In New York City, celebrations broke out in Times Square and people began to gather at the site where the World Trade Center towers stood. The site is now a construction zone where a memorial and new tower are being built.

As news of bin Laden's death spread, crowds also began to gather outside the White House. After Obama confirmed the death, the crowd burst into chants of "U.S.A."

George W. Bush., who was president when al-Qaeda attacked the U.S., said the fight against terror continues "but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done."

In Abbotsford, B.C., Prime Minister Stephen Harper noted that 24 Canadians died in the Sept. 11 attack. He said the death of bin Laden "secures a measure of justice for those Canadians and the their families."

"Bin Laden's death does not end the threat of international terrorism," Harper said. "Sadly, others will take his place."

Al-Qaeda was also blamed for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 231 people and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors in Yemen, as well as countless other plots, some successful and some foiled.

Crowds gather to celebrate outside the White House in Washington late Sunday after President Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press)

Spain's jobless rate tops 21% as all major sectors lose jobs

Spain's jobless rate tops 21% as all major sectors lose jobs

Young people with placards reading 'Without a house, without a job, without pension' during protests in April.

Madrid, Spain (CNN) -- Spain's unemployment rate rose nearly a point to 21.29%, with 4.9 million jobless for the first quarter of 2011, the government reported Friday, as the prolonged economic crisis continues to squeeze the nation.

Some analysts had predicted the number of jobless might surpass 5 million. But while that didn't happen, the latest statistics were another blow to the economy and to the embattled socialist government.

The numbers for the fourth quarter of 2010 -- 20.33% unemployment and almost 4.7 million jobless --- already represented the highest joblessness rate in 13 years.

The latest numbers, for the first quarter of this year, added more somber news. The number of unemployed increased by 213,000, pushing the overall number to 4.9 million.

All major sectors --- industry, construction, services and agriculture --- shed jobs during the quarter. The number of Spanish households in which no adult had a job increased by 58,000, to a new total of 1.38 million, the government said.

Earlier this month, embattled Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced he would not seek a third term. Elections are due by March 2012.

For months, Zapatero's Socialists have trailed in opinion polls behind the main opposition conservative Popular Party.

In announcing his decision on April 2 to Socialist Party leaders, Zapatero said, "We have made mistakes."

He added that "recent months have been very difficult for the work of the government" because even after enacting a budget austerity plan to reduce the public deficit that put Spain under pressure from international financial markets, the destruction of jobs continued.

Local elections in all Spanish cities and for 13 of its 17 regional parliaments will be held May 22. They are widely seen as a bellwether of voter sentiment for the general elections to follow.

More than 450 escape Kandahar prison

More than 450 escape Kandahar prison

Prisoners look out from their cells in the maximum security wing at Sarposa Prison in Kandahar City in this July 25, 2010 photo. (Bill Graveland/Canadian Press)

Taliban insurgents dug a more than 320-metre tunnel underground and into the main jail in Kandahar city and whisked out more than 450 prisoners, most of whom were Taliban fighters, officials and the insurgents said Monday.

The massive jailbreak overnight in Afghanistan's second-largest city serves as a reminder of the Afghan government's continuing weakness in the south, despite an influx of international troops, funding and advisers. Kandahar city, in particular, has been a focus of the international effort to establish a strong Afghan government presence in former Taliban strongholds.

The 1,200-inmate Sarposa Prison has been part of that plan. The facility has undergone security upgrades and tightened procedures following a brazen 2008 Taliban attack that freed 900 prisoners. Afghan government officials and their NATO backers have regularly said that the prison has vastly improved security since that attack.

But on Sunday night, around 475 prisoners streamed out of a tunnel dug between the prison and the outside and disappeared into Kandahar city, prison supervisor Ghulam Dastagir Mayar said. He said the majority of the missing were Taliban militants.

Five months of digging

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said insurgents on the outside dug the tunnel to the prison over five months, bypassing government checkpoints and major roads. The tunnel finally reached the prison cells Sunday night, and the inmates were ushered through it to freedom by three prisoners who had been informed of the plan, Mujahid said.

He said more than 500 inmates were freed, and that about 100 of them were Taliban commanders.

Four of those who escaped were provincial-level Taliban commanders, said Qari Yousef Ahmadi, another Taliban spokesman.

The highest-profile Taliban inmates would likely not be held at Sarposa. The U.S. keeps detainees it considers a threat at a facility outside of Bagram Air Base in eastern Afghanistan. Other key Taliban prisoners are held by the Afghan government in a high-security wing of the main prison in Kabul.
 
Obtained keys

A man who Taliban spokesmen said was one of the inmates who helped organize the escape from the inside said a group of inmates obtained copies of the keys to the cells ahead of time.

"There were four or five of us who knew that our friends were digging a tunnel from the outside," said Mohammad Abdullah, who said he had been in Sarposa prison for two years after being captured in nearby Zhari district with a stockpile of weapons. "Some of our friends helped us by providing copies of the keys. When the time came at night, we managed to open the doors for friends who were in other rooms."

He said they woke the inmates up four or five at a time to get them out quietly. Abdullah spoke by phone on a number supplied by a Taliban spokesman. His account could not be immediately verified.

The governor of Kandahar province confirmed at least 475 escaped and said that a search operation is going on to recapture them.

"Some of the prisoners have already been recaptured," Gov. Tooryalai Wesa said. He did not provide further details.

Asked how the tunnel was dug without anyone noticing, Wesa said only that the incident was still under investigation.

In the 2008 attack, dozens of militants on motorbikes and two suicide bombers assaulted the prison. One suicide bomber set off an explosives-laden tanker truck at the prison gate while a second bomber blew up an escape route through a back wall. About 900 inmates escaped, including 400 Taliban fighters.

Prairies flood fears see no relief

Prairies flood fears see no relief

City of Regina workers pile onto a dyke along the south side of Wascana Creek in Regina on Monday.

More than 1,000 people in Manitoba and Saskatchewan have been forced from their homes as flood waters continue to rise, with concerns that the Assiniboine and Red rivers could crest at the same time in Winnipeg.

Both are expected to crest in late April to early May, CBC meteorologist Johanna Wagstaffe said.

The number of evacuees has risen to nearly 800 in Manitoba, with almost 600 provincial and municipal roads affected by flooding and 32 municipalities under states of emergency.

Wagstaffe said the Red and Assiniboine are now virtually ice-free, but that water levels are rising as crest dates approach.

Manitoba officials say about 700 provincial staff are working on the flood response across the province, as well as municipal staff, private contractors and non-government agencies such as the Salvation Army, Mennonite Disaster Service and the Red Cross.

Steve Ashton, Manitoba's emergency measures minister, says the province will be wrestling with the legacy of this year's flood long after its rivers crest and the water drenching much of the province recedes.
Damage expected to total at least $70M

Water levels are at least as high as they were in 2009 — the second-worst flood season in the last 150 years.

That flood caused $70 million in damage and this year is expected to be just as costly.

Ashton says water levels will cause problems well into May. He says cottage owners and residents will have to remain vigilant and keep an eye on wind that has the potential to whip up swollen lakes.

In Saskatchewan, 15 communities have declared states of emergencies and more than 440 people on two First Nations have been forced from their homes.

Lynn Acoose, chief of the Sakimay First Nation, says some roads are inundated and many homes are waterlogged. She also says there's concern that wells and cisterns people use for drinking water may have become contaminated.

Cool temperatures have saved a lot of communities from worst-case scenarios. Wagstaffe warned, however, that temperatures are expected to rise and there is still some snowpack left to melt.

The province's Watershed Authority says the City of Regina can expect water levels in Wascana Lake to peak by the end of the week.

Afghan suicide bomber kills 9 troops

Afghan suicide bomber kills 9 troops

Afghan policemen keep watch at the site of a suicide attack that killed three officers Friday in Kandahar province. The next morning, another suicide bomber killed nine soldiers at a base near Jalalabad in Laghman province.

Five NATO and four Afghan soldiers died Saturday morning at the Afghan military's eastern headquarters after a suicide bomber dressed in an army uniform approached the base on foot and blew himself up.

The explosion also injured four Afghan soldiers and four translators, according to Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi.

In an email to journalists, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, the deadliest assault against foreign forces this year. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the bomber was from Day Kundi province in central Afghanistan.

"A month ago, he joined with the Afghan army and his aim was to carry out the suicide attack," Mujahid said. "Today, when there was a meeting going on between Afghan and foreign soldiers, he used the opportunity to carry out the attack."

Militants have conducted an increasing number of attacks in the east and north since many of them were routed from their strongholds in the south by an influx of tens of thousands of U.S. and NATO forces last year.

The assailant approached the base, located in Laghman province near the city of Jalalabad, and detonated a vest of explosives at about 7:30 a.m. local time at the entrance, Azimi said.

"The attacker had the Afghan security force uniform on and that gave him the opportunity to reach the entrance to the base and carry out the attack," Azimi said.

NATO issued a statement confirming that five soldiers in its International Security Assistance Force, as the deployment to Afghanistan is known, were killed in "an insurgent attack."

The nearly 100 ISAF troops posted at the base are there mainly to train Afghan army soldiers, NATO spokesman Maj. Tim James said.

The military alliance did not release further information on the service members killed pending notification of their next of kin.

Saturday's attack was the deadliest against foreign forces since a car bomber killed six U.S. soldiers in December in the province of Kandahar.

It came on the heels of a suicide bombing on Friday in which a Taliban fighter disguised in a police uniform made his way into the outer perimeter of police headquarters in Kandahar and blew himself up, killing the provincial police chief and two other officers.

More than 120,000 foreign soldiers are serving in Afghanistan, two-thirds from the United States. Canada's military mission to the country counts about 2,900 forces, most of whom are based in Kandahar in the south.

Bank of Canada holds rate steady

Bank of Canada holds rate steady

The Bank of Canada has opted to leave the country's key lending rate unchanged at one per cent.

The Bank of Canada kept its benchmark lending rate unchanged at one per cent in its latest decision on Tuesday.

Since raising its overnight lending rate to one per cent in September, the bank has held steady for five consecutive policy decisions.

Economists had expected the central bank to hold rates steady, citing the fact that inflation still appears to be under control in Canada.

"We judge that the BoC will want to monitor core CPI for signs of 'consistency' for at least a couple months more," Michael Gregory, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets Economics, said in a report a week ago.

For its part, the Bank of Canada said economic growth in the United States appears to be picking up steam, while emerging markets continue to expand at a robust pace.

But the recent Japanese earthquake will cause supply disruptions, the monetary authority said.

In addition, while Canada's gross domestic product growth is better than anticipated, the expansion is not setting off inflationary alarm bells, the bank said.

Canada steady, Europe not so

The bank’s decision comes in the face of an interest rate hike in Europe. Earlier in April, the European Central Bank raised its trend-setting rate by one-quarter of one percentage point to 1.25 per cent.

Historically, European monetary authorities have been much quicker to clamp down on economic growth to ease inflationary pressures than either Canada or the United States.

Most central banks have begun worrying that soaring commodity prices, including for foodstuffs, and gathering strength among the world’s major economies could reignite a general round of price hikes in industrialized countries.

But, as of yet, the U.S. Federal Reserve is still taking a “wait-and-see” approach before hiking U.S. rates.

“Most Fed members have made it clear that rising commodity prices are not [the] result of U.S. monetary policy nor does it require a policy response,” noted Camilla Sutton, chief currency strategist at Scotia Capital in a Tuesday note.

Japan PM urges calm as nuclear level raised

Japan PM urges calm as nuclear level raised

Japan's prime minister urges the public not to panic after the government boosts the severity level of the nuclear crisis to the highest rating, on par with the 1986 Chornobyl disaster. 

Japan's prime minister is urging the public not to panic after the government boosted the severity level of the crisis at a tsunami-damaged nuclear plant to the highest rating — on par with the 1986 Chornobyl disaster.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan urged people in a televised address to focus on recovering from the country's disasters.

"Right now, the situation of the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plant has been stabilizing step by step," he said. "The amount of radiation leaks is on the decline. But we are not at the stage yet where we can let our guards down."

Japanese regulators said they raised the rating from five to seven after new assessments of radiation leaks from the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

The country's nuclear watchdog said that while the radiation emission rate at the stricken plant is only about 10 per cent of that released at Chornobyl, the crippled Japanese facility has emitted a huge amount of radioactive substances that pose a risk over a large area.

Until now, the Chornobyl disaster in Ukraine was the only event rated Level 7.

The Fukushima crisis was previously rated Level 5, equalling the 1979 Three Mile Island incident in Pennsylvania.

Although the upgrade was dramatic, the two disasters — Fukushima and Chornobyl — are not all that similar, experts say.

In Chornobyl, it was the reactor core itself that exploded, releasing a huge amount of radioactive material in a very short time. Fukushima experienced a less critical hydrogen explosion. And the total amount of radioactive particles released so far is believed to be only a small fraction of that seen in Ukraine.

The upgrade came as at least two new earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 6.0 hit Japan's northeast on Monday night and Tuesday morning. The area has been rocked by numerous aftershocks since then. Until the subducted plate settles back into position, any quake within the rupture zone — in this case an area 300 kilometres long by 150 kilometres wide off the Japanese coast — that has less force than the initial quake is considered an aftershock.

The 9.0 magnitude earthquake on March 11 and the tsunami it generated are believed to have caused as much as $310 billion in damage. Japanese officials have updated the death toll from the disaster to 13,219 people. More than 14,000 others are still missing and more than 145,000 people are living in evacuation centres across the country.

Two Japanese people have a moment of silence on a burial ground, one month after the earthquake and tsunami struck on March 11. 

The Fukushima Daiichi plant has been spewing radiation since, and even a month on, officials say they don't know how long it will take to cool reactors there.

In a move unrelated to Monday's aftershock, the Japanese government is expanding the evacuation zone around the plant to 30 kilometres from 20, citing the risks of cumulative radiation exposure.

The latest calculations from Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission found that an area stretching 60 kilometres north of the nuclear plant and 40 kilometres south have, in the month since the earthquake, already been exposed to radiation equivalent to the annual dosage limit. Within the old 20-kilometre evacuation zone, radiation exposure has reached up to 100 times the annual limit.
 
Work resumes

At the plant itself, the Tokyo Electric Power Co., known as TEPCO, has resumed efforts to contain the plant's radioactive leak, after a one-day delay because of strong aftershocks.

TEPCO will begin pumping contaminated water from the No. 2 reactor Tuesday and transfer it to a condenser, after checking the safety of equipment.

The radioactive water has been hampering work to restore cooling functions in the damaged reactors. TEPCO says it also resumed injecting nitrogen into the containment vessel of the No.1 reactor late on Monday night. That's aimed at preventing further hydrogen explosions.

Japanese leader invokes WWII to urge quake recovery

Japanese leader invokes WWII to urge quake recovery

A Japanese flag stands amid the devastation of the tsunami in the town centre of Onagawa, Miyagi prefecture, on April 6, 2011.

Tokyo (CNN) -- Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan invoked his country's recovery from World War II on Tuesday as he sought to turn the nation's attention to the arduous task of rebuilding.

Yet the challenges awaiting Japan remained on full display the day he spoke: The country rated the crisis at a nuclear plant stricken after last month's earthquake and tsunami as the most severe on an international system for rating nuclear accidents.

And a fresh round of earthquakes rumbled across an already battered landscape. One with a magnitude of 6.3 was the latest of 52 quakes with a magnitude of 6 or greater since a monster 9.0 quake rocked the country and spawned a tsunami, leaving nearly 28,0000 people dead or missing.

The prime minister noted that he was born in 1946, a year after the end of World War II, and that his family used an unexploded bomb to help stabilize a pickling tub in their home. He said the Japanese people "stood up bravely and achieved a reconstruction that amazed the world" after the war.

"We must renew the determination that we had in the post-World War II reconstruction period, and we must tackle the task of reconstruction after this earthquake," he said.

The devastation left behind by the March 11 earthquake is an opportunity to build "a new, better future than before," said the prime minister. He spoke at a news conference that had been originally scheduled to take place Monday but was delayed because of a series of aftershocks that rattled northern Japan.

In one of the lastest developments following the wave of aftershocks, the Iwaki Fire Department said the death toll from landslides set off by a 6.6-magnitude quake on Monday had risen to six.

Iwaki is located about 100 miles (164 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo and about 30 miles (50 kilometers) southwest of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The landslides in Iwaki buried three houses.

NDP pledges 'immediate action' in 5 key areas

NDP pledges 'immediate action' in 5 key areas

NDP Leader Jack Layton delivers a speech during a rally Saturday, April 9, 2011 in Saskatoon, Sask. Layton released the party's platform in Toronto on Sunday. 

The NDP says it would take "immediate action" in five key areas within 100 days of the election, as part of a broader platform aimed at balancing the books by 2014-2015 without major service cuts.

NDP Leader Jack Layton said the "practical, affordable plan" would eliminate the deficit without major service cuts. The party says it would do this by hiking corporate tax rates to 19.5 per cent, stopping fossil fuel subsidies, cracking down on tax havens and saving on crime legislation.

"Despite what they say, Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff are telling Canadian families to wait at the back of the line," Layton told a crowd of supporters after the NDP platform was unveiled Sunday morning.

The platform outlined five "practical" first steps, many of which were outlined earlier in the campaign, including:
Hiring more doctors and nurses.
Working with the provinces to strengthen the pension systems, with the eventual goal of doubling benefits.
Giving small businesses a tax cut and introducing targeted job-creation tax credits.
Capping credit card fees at prime plus 5 per cent, while taking federal sales tax off home heating.
Working to "fix" Ottawa to stop scandals and encourage co-operation between parties.

"I've laid out my commitment," Layton said. "Real action within 100 days to give your family a break, and I won't stop until the job is done."

The platform included a number of previously announced commitments, including help for family caregivers, a defence policy that prioritizes ships for Canada's navy instead of fighter jets, and a crime prevention and community safety program that would cost roughly $255 million.

It also includes plans to create more affordable housing, reduce poverty and improve access to child care and post-secondary education.

The NDP said it would put a price on carbon through a cap-and-trade system, with revenue from the new system to go to green initiatives.

The party also returned Sunday to the theme of "fixing" a broken system in Ottawa, saying it would work to abolish the Senate and restrict the prime minister’s power to prorogue Parliament.

"I think so many people just shake their head at what they see going on in Ottawa," Layton said.

"We've got to reform our democracy, and that means working towards some form of proportional representation in our country, and we’re committed to that."

The NDP won roughly 18 per cent of the popular vote in the last election and are hoping to make gains this time around. Layton has been positioning himself as a solid alternative to Conservative Leader Stephen Harper at campaign stops across the country.

Final party platform release

The Conservatives, Liberals and Green Party have already released their platforms.

The Conservative election platform included pledges to eliminate the federal deficit by 2014-15 — a year earlier than forecast in its March 22 budget.

When he unveiled the Conservative platform in Mississauga, Ont., Harper said he would find efficiencies through a strategic and operating expense review.

He also said the Conservatives would also push both a tough-on-crime agenda and support for families and businesses.

The Liberals focused on families in their platform, laying out five priority areas in their $8 billion two-year strategy.

The Liberal platform included support for early childhood education, post-secondary students and people caring for elderly parents or sick relatives. It also included changes to the pension system and a green renovation tax credit.

The Green Party said it would raise corporate taxes to 2009 levels and charge $60 per tonne of carbon emitted — but they promised a revenue-neutral "green tax shift" that would cut EI and CPP contributions for both workers and employers.

Can Syrians break the fear barrier?

Can Syrians break the fear barrier?

Anti-government protesters on the streets of Daraa, 100km south of the capital Damascus, on March 23

CNN) -- Fear has been one of the biggest hurdles for those pushing for political change in Syria.

Recent protests in Syria are unprecedented in a country that has had a state of emergency in place since 1963. A Syrian government spokesman has indicated that the emergency laws may be lifted, but no timescale has been given.

Arbitrary arrests, intimidation, torture and travel bans are widespread, according to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Amnesty International has urged President Bashar Al-Assad, in power since taking over from his father in 2000, to lift the country's "repressive laws."

At least 37 people have been killed in clashes between protesters and security forces, particularly in the cities of Daraa and Latakia in the past week, according to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights.

While there are some signs that the fear barrier has begun to break down, many still feel scared to speak openly.

A 26-year-old Syrian blogger, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity, said: "I disagree with protest, not because I'm with government, but because I know what the government will do and how it will deal with such thing, Daraa as an example. People know things will go bloody for sure."

He added: "Many Syrians have broken through a fear barrier in the past week, especially young people, but too many are still scared."

The blogger works mostly in Algeria, but is returning home to Syria this week. He said he would be clearing his laptop hard-drive and emptying his email account before arriving.

He said: "Recently I passed the red line a little bit on my blog. I started blogging on real social issues and the Syrian ministries. All people who know me ask me to stop writing because they love me and want me to be safe. I do feel threatened."

He estimated there was a 40% chance he would be arrested or detained for questioning when he returned to Syria this week.

The blogger said he noticed when he wrote on political issues, Syrians were too afraid to respond to his blog.

"Now it's very dangerous and a lot of people stop contacting me," he said. "They are afraid to put 'like' on Facebook. I know they are reading what I wrote because I see statistics."

A British journalist living and working in Damascus, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said fear levels were still high.

"There's a sense of tension as to whether there will be more bloodshed. People are still scared because we have all seen the response has been pretty brutal," he said.

"However, people are feeling a bit bolder. I wouldn't be surprised to see people talking a bit more openly about politics."

The journalist cut short his phone call with CNN because he was in a café and nervous of speaking in a public place. He said working as a journalist in Syria was difficult.

"Journalists are being clamped down on. Many have been arrested and others are stopped from going to certain places. We have to remain low-key about what we are doing," he said.

"Generally, Syrian journalists practice self-censorship to avoid getting into trouble. Foreign journalists risk being thrown out of the country. I write without bylines."

The British journalist added that he believed there would be some change.

"The protests have definitely got the government worried. We have already seen the recognition of problems from the government. This government is not used to being questioned, so even though the protests have not been on the same scale as elsewhere they are enough to cause change."

Ribal Al-Assad, director of the London-based Organization for Democracy and Freedom in Syria, agrees that the fact that Syrians have taken to the streets in protest could create real change.

Al-Assad, a cousin of the Syrian president who has lived in exile since the age of nine, said: "I'm confident that things will change because the genie can't be put back in the bottle. We can't let this pass. Everybody in Syria has a satellite dish and they follow the news. They see how other people live around the world and they want to live better too.

"We will not accept any less than what our brothers in Egypt and Tunisia have. People are starving and they see the corruption of those around them."

Berlusconi: Migrants to leave Lampedusa in 48 hours

Berlusconi: Migrants to leave Lampedusa in 48 hours

Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi has promised that the island of Lampedusa will soon be free of migrants.

Mr Berlusconi had earlier described the immigrants as "poor wretches"

Thousands of people have arrived on the island south of Sicily since January, travelling from Tunisia and Libya.

Officials say sanitary conditions have become "desperate" and islanders have staged protests at the town hall.

On a visit to the island, Mr Berlusconi announced to a crowd that in "48 to 60 hours Lampedusa will be inhabited only by Lampedusans".

About 20,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean since the upheavals in North Africa and the Middle East began in January.

Emergency

Some 6,000 migrants - more than the total population of the island - are now living there in makeshift camps.

There were no new arrivals on Tuesday night, Italian media reported, the first night with no new immigrants for some time.

On Wednesday morning, five ships arrived, sent by the Italian government to Lampedusa to take migrants to camps on the mainland. One of the ships was the naval vessel San Marco and the rest were civilian ferries, reports said. Another boat was expected later.

Mr Berlusconi's plane arrived on the island shortly after 1300 local time.

After meeting the regional governor and mayor of Lampedusa, he addressed a crowd of islanders outside the town hall, promising a series of measures including tax breaks and welfare benefits.

He also said there would be a plan to relaunch Lampedusa's tourist industry, which has been badly hit by the influx from North Africa.

The previous evening, he had described the immigrants arriving on Lampedusa as "poor wretches" fleeing a world without freedom and democracy.

Repatriation

Although most of the immigrants on the island are expected to be transferred to Sicily or camps on mainland Italy, negotiations are said to be under way to repatriate a number of people to Tunisia.

Most of the arrivals since January have sailed from Tunisia, but in recent days boats have come from Libya as well.

he BBC's Duncan Kennedy, in Rome, says that Italy, as the former colonial power in Libya, does not want to provoke the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, into sending thousands more migrants fleeing.

Early on in the crisis, Col Gaddafi threatened to do just that, if the EU backed military action.

Migrants who can prove they are refugees from a conflict are eligible for asylum in the EU under human rights conventions.

The European Commission says EU member states must address the surge in migration produced by the unrest in North Africa.

Some 20,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean since the upheavals began

Workers endure austere conditions in averting nuclear disaster

Workers endure austere conditions in averting nuclear disaster

Austere conditions for Fukushima workers

Tokyo (CNN) -- They sleep anywhere they can find open space -- in conference rooms, corridors, even stairwells. They have one blanket, no pillows and a leaded mat intended to keep radiation at bay.

They eat only two meals each day -- a carefully rationed breakfast of 30 crackers and vegetable juice and for dinner, a ready-to-eat meal or something out of a can.They clean themselves with wet wipes, since the supply of fresh water is short.

These are the grueling living conditions for the workers inside Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. They've been hailed as heroes risking their lives by braving high levels of radiation as they work to avert a nuclear meltdown.

But until now, the outside world has known little about the workers' routine.

Tuesday, safety inspector Kazuma Yokota, who spent five days at the plant last week, spoke with CNN about the plight of the 400 workers staying in a building within 1 kilometer (.6 of a mile) of Reactor No. 1. Japanese officials ordered mandatory evacuations for everyone else within 20 (12.4 miles) kilometers of the plant.

The workers look tired, Yokota said. They are furiously connecting electrical cables, repairing instrument panels and pumping radioactive water out.

They work with the burden of their own personal tragedies always weighing heavily.

"My parents were washed away by the tsunami, and I still don't know where they are," one worker wrote in an e-mail that was verified as authentic by a spokesman for the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which runs the Fukushima plant.

"Crying is useless," said another e-mail. "If we're in hell now, all we can do is crawl up towards heaven."

But they are doing it all with the kind of determination required in a task with such high stakes. There's no room for plummeting morale and the workers are not showing any signs of spirits flagging, Yokota said.

However upbeat the workers are, there's no denying the conditions are beyond difficult.

"On the ground at the nuclear power plant, the workers are working under very dangerous and very hard conditions, and I feel a great deal of respect for them," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters Tuesday.

The workers spend three days on site and go off for one. They start their work day at 8 a.m. and go for 12 long hours.

Gary Was, a nuclear engineering expert at the University of Michigan, told CNN Tuesday that contaminated seawater brings potential danger "and they need to take all precautions."

Particulates that land on the skin or are ingested "can be a constant source of radiation into the future," Was said. "You need to be very careful not to ingest any of that."

Was said officials need to remove and store contaminated water.

Last week, three men who were laying electrical cable in the turbine building of the No. 3 reactor stepped in tainted water, exposing themselves to high levels of radiation. Tokyo Electric apologized and said their exposure might have been avoided with better communication.

Radiation alarms went off while the three men were working, but they continued with their mission for 40 to 50 minutes after assuming it was a false alarm. They were hospitalized after it was determined they had been exposed to 173 to 181 millisieverts of radiation -- two of them with direct exposure on their skin. They were later released.

By comparison, a person in an industrialized country is naturally exposed to 3 millisieverts per year, though Japan's Health Ministry has said that those working directly to avert the nuclear crisis could be exposed to as much as 250 millisieverts before they must leave the site.

The incident also prompted further criticism of Tokyo Electric and how well it is safeguarding the workers.

Yokota said the power company hoped to improve living conditions for the workers by moving them to another facility. Edano said officials also hope to find replacements in order to relieve the workers at the plant.

Until then, they will continue as the faceless heroes in Japan's tragedy, the nation's only hope of thwarting further disaster.

Man faces terrorism charges after Toronto arrest

Man faces terrorism charges after Toronto arrest

Al-Shabaab fighters form an armed group of mostly young adherents in Somalia with links to al-Qaeda. Mohamed Sheikh Nor/Associated Press

A man suspected of travelling to Somalia to join what has been deemed by Canada as a terrorist group has been arrested and charged in Toronto by RCMP.

The man was arrested at Pearson International Airport without incident Tuesday evening, the RCMP said in a release.

It's alleged the man was bound for Cairo after a stop in London, England.

The man was then due to travel to Somalia "to join [the militant group] al-Shabaab and participate in their terrorist activities," RCMP allege.

He faces charges of attempting to participate in terrorist activity, and providing counsel to a person to participate in terrorist activity.

His arrest comes after a joint investigation by the RCMP's Integrated National Security Enforcement Team and the Toronto Police Service's intelligence division.

The man is in custody pending a court appearance later Wednesday.

His identity will be revealed after his charges are entered in court, RCMP said.

Libyan rebels regain Ajdabiya

Libyan rebels regain Ajdabiya

Libyan rebels celebrate on a captured tank after taking the city of Ajdabiya, south of Benghazi in eastern Libya, on Saturday.

Libyan rebels regained control of the eastern gateway city of Ajdabiya on Saturday after international airstrikes on Moammar Gadhafi's forces, in the first major turnaround for an uprising that once appeared on the verge of defeat.

Ajdabiya's sudden fall to Gadhafi's troops spurred the swift UN resolution authorizing international action in Libya, and its return to rebel hands on Saturday came after a week of airstrikes and missiles against the Libyan leader's military.

On the road into the city on Saturday, at least eight blackened Gadhafi tanks lay on the ground.

Stores and houses were shuttered after the weeklong siege that left residents without electricity or drinking water, but drivers honked horns in celebration and flew the tricolor rebel flag.

Others in the city fired their guns into the air. Saif Sadawi, a 20-year-old rebel fighter with an RPG in his hands, says the city's eastern gate fell late Friday and the western gate fell at dawn Saturday after airstrikes on both locations.

"All of Ajdabiya is free," he said.

The UN Security Council authorized the operation to protect Libyan civilians after Gadhafi launched attacks against anti-government protesters who demanded that he step down after 42 years in power. The airstrikes have sapped the strength of Gadhafi's forces, but rebel advances have also foundered, and the two sides have been at a stalemate in key cities.

Earlier Friday, British and French warplanes hit near Ajdabiya, destroying an artillery battery and armored vehicles. Ajdabiya and the western city of Misrata have especially suffered because the rebels lack the heavy weapons to lift Gadhafi's siege.

On Saturday, rebels in Ajdabiya hauled away a captured rocket launcher, adding to their limited firepower. On Friday, the U.S. commander in charge of the overall international mission, Army Gen. Carter Ham, told The Associated Press, "We could easily destroy all the regime forces that are in Ajdabiya," but the city itself would be destroyed in the process.

"We'd be killing the very people that we're charged with protecting."

Instead, the focus was on disrupting the communications and supply lines that allow Gadhafi's forces to keep fighting in Ajdabiya and other urban areas like Misrata, Ham said in a telephone interview from his U.S. Africa Command headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.

Libyan Rebels Reclaim Oil Town Ajdabiya After Weeklong Siege

Libyan Rebels Reclaim Oil Town Ajdabiya After Weeklong Siege

Libyan rebels have overcome Muammar al-Qaddafi's forces in strategic oil town of Ajdabiya, seizing control of the city Saturday in a major turnaround for an uprising that appeared to be on the verge of defeat.

Libyan government forces pulled out from the city of Ajdabiya following an air assault by Western coalition forces, a senior government official told Reuters.


"Without the planes we couldn't have done this. Qaddafi's weapons are at a different level than ours," said Ahmed Faraj, 38, a rebel fighter from Ajdabiya. "With the help of the planes we are going to push onward to Tripoli, God willing."

Drivers honked in celebration and flew the tricolor rebel flag. Others in the city fired their guns into the air and danced on burned-out tanks that littered the road. Inside a building that had served as makeshift barracks for pro-Qaddafi forces, hastily discarded uniforms were piled on the floor.

Saif Sadawi, a 20-year-old rebel fighter with an RPG in his hands, says the city's eastern gate fell late Friday and the western gate fell at dawn Saturday after airstrikes on both those locations.

"All of Ajdabiya is free," he said.

Ajdabiya had been under siege for more than a week, with the rebels holding the city center and scattered checkpoints but facing relentless shelling from government troops on the outskirts. Residents are without electricity or drinking water, and many have fled.

Coalition warplanes struck Qaddafi's forces outside the strategic city of Ajdabiya Friday, the gateway to the rebel-held east, hitting an artillery battery and armored vehicles. Tiny Qatar also became the first Arab country to fly combat missions over Libya.

Pentagon officials say they considering more firepower and airborne surveillance systems to find and attack enemy troops in Libya.

The proposed attacks would target forces loyal to Qaddafi, who still remain a threat to civilians in the area.

Among the weapons being eyed for use in Libya is the Air Force's AC-130 gunship, an imposing aircraft armed with cannons that shoot from the side doors with precision. Other possibilities are helicopters and drones that fly lower and slower and can spot more than fast-moving jet fighters.

American officials have said they won't drop bombs in cities to avoid killing or wounding civilians -- a central pillar of the operation. Yet they want to hit the enemy in contested urban areas such as Misrata, Ajdabiya and Zintan.

Qaddafi is trying to keep his weakening hold on power by offering promotions to all his military, while arming "volunteers" to fight against a resurgent rebel force.

"(The) brother leader of the revolution has issued a decision to promote all members of the armed people who are currently drafted in his various military units for their heroic and courageous fight against the crusader, colonialist assault," Libyan TV said in a written statement, according to Reuters.

U.S. Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, director of the Joint Staff, said during a briefing Friday that the international coalition is aware of reports that Qaddafi is arming "volunteers." He also said that the Libyan strongman has diminishing ability to command ground forces.

A Libyan government official says his country is ready to talk with opposition rebels and accept political reforms, possibly including elections.

Former Libyan Prime Minister Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi said Friday that the violence in Libya is being carried out by "extremists" and foreign intervention. Al-Obeidi is a member of the Libyan delegation at African Union talks in Ethiopia.

This comes as a Canadian general will be taking over NATO's military operations in Libya, Fox News has learned.

A State Department official tells Fox News that Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard will be the joint task force commander.

The official says Bouchard will "work with his naval and air component commands to be implementing this operation" for both the no-fly zone and the civilian protection missions.

Bouchard recently served as the deputy commander at NORAD.

NATO is expected to take command of Libyan military operations early next week, the Italian foreign minister told Reuters Friday, a day after NATO agreed to just enforce the no-fly zone over the country for now.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said in a news conference that "NATO will be operational Sunday or Monday," according to Reuters.

Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague also said he expected NATO to take command of operations within days.

This comes as France declared Libya's airspace "under control," after NATO agreed to take command of the no-fly zone in a compromise that appeared to set up dual command centers. Muammar al-Qaddafi drew a rare rebuke from the African Union, which called for a transitional government and elections.

"Having our first Arab nation join and start flying with us emphasizes that the world wants the innocent Libyan people protected from the atrocities perpetrated by pro-regime forces," U.S. Air Forces Africa Commander Maj. Gen. Margaret Woodward said.

The U.S. launched 16 more Tomahawk cruise missiles from naval positions in the Mediterranean Sea, a military official said Friday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. The targets late Thursday and early Friday were Scud missile garrisons near Tripoli, while U.S. bombers struck Qaddafi artillery, command and control and tank positions elsewhere, the official said. French and British warplanes attacked an artillery battery and other targets near the town of Ajdabiya, which has been under siege by Qaddafi forces for more than a week.

The latest Tomahawk missile launchings come after the Pentagon said that the U.S. would not launch these types of missiles into Libya during the military operation.

The strikes were intended to give a measure of relief to the city, whose residents have fled or cowered under more than a week of shelling and fighting between rebels and government troops. Explosions also sounded in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, before daybreak Friday, apparently from airstrikes.

"Libyan airspace is under control, and we proved it yesterday, because a Libyan plane in the hands of pro-Qaddafi forces, which had just taken off from Misrata in order to bomb Misrata, was destroyed by a French Rafale," Adm. Edouard Guillaud said on France-Info radio.

Representatives for the Qaddafi regime met with the African Union on Friday, in Ethiopia, in what the U.N. described as a part of an effort to reach a cease-fire and political solution. Although the U.N. secretary-general said an opposition representative would attend, Mustafa Gheriani, an opposition spokesman, said Friday he knew nothing about it.

"The position of the national council has been clear from the beginning -- no negotiaions," Gheriani said. "All he has to do is stop bombing and leave the country."

African Union commission chairman Jean Ping said the AU favors an inclusive transitional period that would lead to democratic elections.

Ping stressed the inevitability of political reforms in Libya and called the aspirations of the Libyan people "legitimate."

Such a solution seemed a long way off, and NATO's military staff began drawing up detailed plans Friday to assume full control of the no-fly zone over Libya in coming days. The U.S. military said coalition jets flew about 150 sorties on Thursday, about 70 of them with American planes.

"The operation is still focusing on tanks, combat vehicles, air defense targets -- really whatever equipment and personnel are threatening the no-fly zone or civilians on the ground in such locations as Ajdabiya and along some other areas on the coast," Marine Corps Capt. Clint Gebke told reporters from aboard the USS Mount Whitney.

Libyan state television showed blackened and mangled bodies that it said were victims of airstrikes in Tripoli. Rebels have accused Qaddafi's forces of taking bodies from the morgue and pretending they were civilian casualties.

French jet 'destroys Libya plane'

French jet 'destroys Libya plane'

The French military said a Rafale jet attacked the Libyan plane

French warplanes have destroyed a Libyan plane which had been flying in breach of the UN no-fly zone, French officials say.

The plane, a smaller trainer aircraft, had just landed in the besieged city of Misrata when it was attacked, they say.

It is the first incident of its kind since enforcement of the zone began.

Dozens of coalition missiles have already hit military bases, with the aim of ending Col Muammar Gaddafi's ability to launch air attacks.

UK officials said on Wednesday that Libya's air force no longer existed as a fighting force.
Single engine

Coalition forces have pounded Libyan targets for a fifth consecutive night.

Initial reports of the French action said the Libyan plane, a G-2/Galeb with a single engine, was in the air when it was hit.

But French military spokesman Col Thierry Burkhard later said the plane had just landed when the attack took place.

The French jet, a Rafale, fired an air-to-ground missile, other reports said.

Earlier, the French military said their planes had hit an air base about 250km (155 miles) south of the Libyan coastline, but did not give any further information on the location of the target or the damage.

Western military planes were also said to have hit the town of Sebha in southern Libya, according to residents and media reports.

Fresh fighting has meanwhile been reported in Misrata, scene of a bitter battle for control which has lasted for many days.

Misrata resident Muhammad told the BBC many large explosions were heard overnight in the city.

"Even now, we continue to hear the aeroplanes circling the air above Misrata," he said.

"Gaddafi's forces have occupied the main street - there are snipers all along the rooftops of that street. They are firing indiscriminately into the main street and the back streets.

"But the heavy artillery and shelling has stopped since yesterday [Wednesday]. In that sense, we are in a much better position."

Further east in the strategically important city of Ajdabiya, residents described shelling, gunfire and houses on fire.

Nato members have been holding talks about assuming responsibility for the no-fly zone over Libya, so far without agreement.

Turkey is an integral part of the naval blockade, but has expressed concern about the alliance taking over command of the no-fly zone.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged all sides in Libya to cease hostilities. "All those who violate international humanitarian and human rights law will be held fully accountable," his spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

Fifth night of airstrikes unable to stop Gadhafi

Fifth night of airstrikes unable to stop Gadhafi

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Focusing now on Libyan ground forces, coalition jets pounded targets for a fifth consecutive night but so far have been unable to stop Moammar Gadhafi's armor.

A resident in Misrata told CNN that he heard an explosion and that snipers loyal to Gadhafi were operating from rooftops in the besieged western city.

Earlier, Gadhafi's tanks attacked Misrata's main hospital filled with 400 people, half of whom were patients, a witness said. At one point, the shelling went on for 40 long minutes -- without respite.

"Now, fortunately, no more shelling, but the situation is so serious that all the teams here -- the doctors, the patients -- are paralyzed, scared," the witness said, imploring the international community to intervene in the name of civilians under attack.

The situation, he said, was too dangerous for ambulances to leave the hospital. The hospital had no electricity and was relying on a generator.

Witnesses in Misrata are not being identified by CNN because of security reasons. Journalists have no access to the city and cannot independently confirm reports of violence.

The battle for Misrata, Libya's third largest city, has been ongoing for more than a week.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Thursday that many residents remain trapped in their homes without electricity and communications and a dwindling supply of food and water.

Explosions could also be heard just east of the Lybian capital Thursday.

Coalition planes struck the suburb of Tajura, a Libyan government official said and state television showed footage of what it said were the charred bodies of 18 people -- civilians and military -- killed in the attack.

Western leaders have repeatedly denied reports of civilian casualties.

"It is not likely that civilians were a part of any airstrike today," said Joint Task Force Operation Odyssey Dawn Lt. Cmdr. Jim Hoeft.

In the east, Gadhafi's tanks were shelling Ajdabiya, where fierce fighting had occurred the day before. Loyalist forces still controlled the northern and western gates to the city.

"This underlines the appalling danger its inhabitants would be in without coalition action, as do continued threats by Gadhafi forces to 'massacre' residents in areas under bombardment," Hague said.

An opposition member told CNN that an isolated Gadhafi unit had raised a white flag but when the rebels approached, the unit began firing.

The coalition has been able to establish a no-fly zone that spans from east to west along Libya's coastline. A U.S. official said though the rebels are in a better position, Gadhafi's forces still have the upper hand.

They remain capable of carrying out attacks on the opposition, are relatively well-organized and continue to fight effectively, the official said.

 As the Libyan war entered the sixth day, questions persisted over who will take command of the coalition.

"These coalition operations are currently under U.S. command," Hague said. "But we want them to transition to NATO command and control as quickly as possible."

NATO already has ships in the Mediterranean Sea to enforce an arms embargo.

"We need agreement to unified command and control for it to be robust, and we expect to get that soon," Hague said.

Critics are also calling for a clearer explanation of U.S. policy in the North African nation.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who just wrapped up a five-day trip to Latin America, has insisted that the goal of the U.N.-sanctioned military mission is strictly to prevent a humanitarian crisis.

Specifically, the U.N. mandate calls for protecting Libyan rebels and other civilians from attacks by forces loyal to the strongman.

U.S. officials have indicated they hope Gadhafi will be removed quickly by forces currently loyal to him, though they haven't publicly called for a coup

The international airstrikes against Libyan military positions began over the weekend after Gadhafi defied a United Nations-mandated cease-fire to stop attacks against civilians.

The war was sparked in February by protests demanding an end to Gadhafi's nearly 42-year rule. The Libyan strongman responded with force against civilians, prompting the international community to take action.

France launched the air campaign, and Britain and the United States followed. Britain has announced an international meeting for next Tuesday to assess the situation in Libya.

Tests detect radiation above limits for infants in Tokyo water

Tests detect radiation above limits for infants in Tokyo water

Tokyo (CNN) -- A top Japanese official urged residents of the nation's capital not to hoard bottled water Wednesday after Tokyo's government found that radioactive material in tap water had exceeded the limit considered safe for infants.

"We have to consider Miyagi and Iwate and other disaster-hit areas," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said. "I'd like to again urge consumers not to purchase more bottled water than they need."

Earlier Wednesday, Tokyo government officials advised residents not to give tap water to infants or use it in formula after tests at a purification plant detected higher levels of radioactive iodine.

The city's water agency said the spike was likely caused by problems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, located 240 kilometers (150 miles) away.

Still Tokyo residents made a dash for bottled water.

"I did not know about the news at all. I saw the sudden increase in customers and learned about the contamination," said Seiji Sasaki, a grocery store owner.

He had 40 cases of water in his shop. They quickly sold out. Other stores and supermarkets also reported they had no water. A CNN cameraman visited three stores and found two cases of water remaining in only one, but those cases were snapped up quickly. The supply of bottled water was already limited following the earthquake.

"I cannot find water anywhere. All sold out and I can only place orders," lamented Harue Kamiya, a city resident.

Officials evacuated some workers at the plant Wednesday afternoon as a black plume of smoke billowed above one of the reactors, plant owner Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.

The company said it was unclear what was causing the smoke.

Workers have been scrambling to cool down fuel rods at the nuclear plant since a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and massive tsunami on March 11 knocked out cooling systems there.

Some radiation has been released, officials said, but it was unclear whether radiation levels spiked after the black smoke was spotted Wednesday. Japan's nuclear agency said radiation levels near the plant had not changed, public broadcaster NHK reported.

But in Tokyo, concerns over radiation surged.

Government samples taken Tuesday night found 210 becquerels of radioactive iodine per kilogram of water -- two times higher than the limit that the government considers safe for infants.

The amount of iodine detected was lower than the level considered safe for adults: 300 becquerels per kilogram.

A becquerel is a measurement of radioactive intensity by weight.

"There's no immediate health threat," Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara told reporters, urging people to "stay calm."

Also Wednesday, Japan's government expanded food shipment restrictions after the health ministry said tests detected radioactive materials at levels exceeding legal limits in 11 types of vegetables grown near the Fukushima plant.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan asked Ibaraki Prefecture to suspend shipments of raw milk and parsley, Edano told reporters Wednesday.


The government of Fukushima Prefecture also told residents not to eat leafy vegetables, he said.

Edano said radiation levels in the food would not cause health problems right away, but if radiation rises, "We are looking at the possibility of levels reaching levels that may harm human health."

The decision to prohibit produce sales is another potentially devastating blow to a part of northeast Japan hit by the earthquake and tsunami.

Fukushima ranks among Japan's top producer of fruits, vegetables and rice. Ibaraki, south of Fukushima, supplies Tokyo with a significant amount of fruits and vegetables and is Japan's third-largest pork producer.

"This is our livelihood," a Fukushima farmer told Japanese television network TV Asahi. "It's a huge problem that we are unable to ship all our produce. We raised (this produce) with our own hands. It's unbearable that we would have to throw it all away."

Hong Kong on Wednesday said it was restricting food and milk imports from certain prefectures over the radiation concerns. The United States previously announced import alerts covering milk, milk products, fresh vegetables and fruit from prefectures near the reactors.

Police say the dual disaster has killed at least 9,487 people and left at least 15,617 missing, many of them killed as a wall of water rushed in following the quake.

Meanwhile, about 387,000 evacuees are staying at 2,200 shelters, Japan's Kyodo News Agency reported. Relief efforts to help them and other victims continued, with U.S. military helicopters delivering food, clothes and supplies to some of the hardest hit areas.

In addition to the stories of people struggling to survive in quake-ravaged towns in northeastern Japan, the plight of workers braving high radiation levels to solve problems at the troubled plant has also drawn attention.

Tokyo Electric said Wednesday that two workers were injured at the plant while working with an electric panel. The workers, whose injuries did not involve exposure to radiation, were treated by a doctor at the nearby Fukushima Daini plant.

"We are constantly switching over all the time, since the work cannot be stopped," one worker told TV Asahi.

"It has settled down quite a lot compared to the beginning, and we could even begin to see a bright hope that maybe it would somehow work out in a little bit," another worker said in what the network touted as the first televised interviews with workers.

But authorities said Wednesday that work was far from over at the plant.

The Tokyo Fire Department planned to start spraying water into the spent-fuel storage pool outside the plant's No. 3 reactor Wednesday, said Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. Power has been restored in the control room at that reactor -- which officials say could be a key step in bringing cooling systems back online.

"It is an industrial catastrophe," said Lake Barrett, a nuclear engineer who directed the initial cleanup and response of the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania following a partial core nuclear meltdown in 1979. "It's a huge plant, and it's been basically destroyed internally and has high contamination levels inside. There are areas in the building where no human's going to go for a long time."

But, Barrett told CNN, "it's also not a health catastrophe -- as long as the people follow the instructions from the government, they're going to be safe in Japan."

The No. 3 reactor has been a priority for authorities trying to contain damage to the plant and stave off a possible meltdown. Its fuel rods contain plutonium mixed with uranium, which experts say could cause more harm than regular uranium fuels in the event of a meltdown.

"We have progress in stabilizing cooling capacity. We most progressed in the No. 3 reactor," Edano said. "On the other hand, we are trying to figure out... the cause of the smoke."

With the nuclear plant's six reactors in various states of disrepair, concerns have mounted over a potentially larger release of radioactive material from the facility.

Efforts over the past several days have focused on restoring power at the facility while fire trucks and cement pumps sprayed water on spent fuel ponds, which contain used fuel rods with radioactive material.

Embassies from more than two dozen countries have either closed down or moved operations to cities south of Tokyo since the earthquake and the resulting nuclear crisis, the country's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

"There are 25 embassies which either temporary shut down or moved its function outside of Tokyo," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hidenori Sobashima told CNN. Seven of those 25 have moved to cities such as Osaka, Hiroshima and Kobe, Sobashima said.