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| NKorea confirms it has detained an American SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea acknowledged Tuesday it had detained an American for illegally entering the reclusive country, news welcomed by relatives of an Arizona missionary who feared they would never hear from him again after he sneaked across the border.... hosted.ap.org |
Egypt guard dies in aid convoy clashes Fifteen Palestinians injured after trucks led by British MP George Galloway stopped from entering Gaza StripAn Egyptian border guard was killed and 15 Palestinians injured today in clashes on the Gaza border after an international aid convoy was delayed entering the strip.The sudden and rare outbreak of violence between Gazans and Egyptians signals growing frustration among Palestinians with Egypt's attempt to seal the border with an underground steel wall to cut off hundreds of smuggling tunnels.At first, Egyptian security forces clashed with a pro-Palestinian convoy led by the British MP George Galloway which has spent the past month travelling from London to deliver 198 truckloads of aid and supplies to Gaza in a challenge to Israel's economic blockade of the strip. Several protesters and policemen were injured after clashes at el-Arish, an Egyptian port on the Mediterranean, a few miles south of Gaza, where the trucks were waiting.Later, there were large demonstrations by Palestinians just over the border inside Gaza. Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that won elections four years ago and controls Gaza, called for a protest over the delay of the Viva Palestina aid convoy, which quickly got out of hand. An Egyptian border guard on a watchtower was shot dead and nine others were injured by stones. Shots were also reported from the Egyptian side of the border. Several Palestinians were seriously injured.Ehab Ghussein, a Hamas spokesman, said frustration about Egypt's new underground wall was fuelling the protests. "There was anger, and that's because of what happened, especially about the wall and [Egypt preventing entry of] the people who are coming to stand with us," he said.Israel's strict blockade of Gaza, which has been in place for more than two years, prevents all exports and limits imports to a few humanitarian items. Egypt has also kept its one border crossing with Gaza, at Rafah, largely closed. Egyptian officials told the convoy some of their trucks could not pass through Rafah, but had to enter into southern Israel and then pass through an Israeli-controlled crossing into Gaza. There was no guarantee that the trucks would be allowed to enter the strip."We refused this," said Galloway. "It is completely unconscionable that 25% of our convoy should go to Israel and never arrive in Gaza. Because nothing that ever goes to Israel, ever arrives in Gaza."Egypt has tried to curb a wave of pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the past month after hundreds of foreigners tried to reach the Gaza border to mark the first anniversary of Israel's war in Gaza, in which nearly 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.Under pressure from the US and Israel, Egypt has started building a vast steel wall along its side of the Gaza border to prevent smuggling. Hundreds of smuggling tunnels dug by Palestinians reach into northern Egypt and supply Gaza with a wide range of products from food and clothing to animals and cars. Israel and the US have said they are concerned about weapons smuggling.GazaEgyptPalestinian territoriesGeorge GallowayIsraelRory McCarthyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Woman who hid Anne Frank dies Secretary who hid family from Nazis in Amsterdam for two years and saved second world war diary of teenager dies aged 100The office secretary who defied the Nazi occupiers of the Netherlands to help hide Anne Frank and her family for two years has died, the Anne Frank Museum announced today.Miep Gies, who was 100, saved the teenager's diary. Her website reported that she died on Monday after a brief illness. Maatje Mostar, an Anne Frank Museum spokeswoman, confirmed the report but gave no further details.Gies was the last survivor of the few non-Jews who supplied food, books and company at the secret annexe, above an Amsterdam canal warehouse, where Anne, her parents, her sister and four other Jews hid for 25 months during the second world war.After the annexe was raided by the German police, Gies gathered Anne's notebooks and papers and locked them in a drawer.The teenager's diary, which she was given on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life in hiding from 12 June 1942 until 1 August 1944.Gies refused to read the books and papers, saying that Anne's privacy was sacred.Later, she said that if she had read them she would have had to burn them because they incriminated those who had helped the family.Anne died of typhus, aged 15, in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945, two weeks before it was liberated.Gies gave the diary to the teenager's father, Otto – the only one of those who hid in the annexe to survive the war – and he published it in 1947.After the publication, Gies worked to promote tolerance.She brushed aside the accolades for helping hide the Frank family as being more than she deserved – as though, she said, she had tried to save all the Jews in the occupied Netherlands."This is very unfair. So many others have done the same or even far more dangerous work," she wrote in an email to the Associated Press days before her 100th birthday in February.The Diary of Anne Frank, the first popular book about the Holocaust, has been read by millions of children and adults around the world in 65 languages.Gies was bestowed with the title of Righteous Gentile by the Israeli Holocaust museum. She has also been honoured by the German government, the Dutch monarchy and educational institutions.Nevertheless, in 1997 she told schoolchildren: "I don't want to be considered a hero. Imagine young people would grow up with the feeling that you have to be a hero to do your human duty."I am afraid nobody would ever help other people, because who is a hero? I was not. I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary."Born Hermine Santrouschitz on 15 February 1909 in Vienna, Austria, Gies moved to Amsterdam in 1922 to escape food shortages. She lived with a host family, who gave her the nickname Miep.In 1933, she took a job as an office assistant in the Otto Frank's spice business.After refusing to join a Nazi organisation in 1941, she avoided deportation to Austria by marrying her Dutch boyfriend, Jan Gies.As the Nazis increased their arrests and deportations of Dutch Jews, Otto Frank asked Gies to help hide his family in the annexe above the company's warehouse on Prinsengracht in July 1942."I answered: 'Yes, of course.' It seemed perfectly natural to me. I could help these people," she said. "They were powerless, they didn't know where to turn."Jan and Miep Gies worked with four other employees of the firm to sustain the Franks and those who shared the annexe.Touched by Anne's intelligence and loneliness, Miep brought the teenager her books and newspapers. "It seems as if we are never far from Miep's thoughts," Anne wrote.In her own book, Anne Frank Remembered, Gies recalled being in the office when the German police, acting on a tip that historians have failed to trace, raided the hideout in August 1944.After the raid and arrests, she went to the police station to offer a bribe for the Franks' release – but it was too late.On 8 August, they were sent to Westerbork, a concentration camp in eastern Holland, from where they were later deported to Auschwitz. A few months later, Anne and her sister, Margot, were transported to Bergen-Belsen.After the war, Otto Frank returned to Amsterdam, where he lived with the Gies family until he remarried in 1952.Miep worked for him as he compiled the diary, then devoted herself to talking about the book and answering letters with questions from around the world.After Otto Frank's death in 1980, she continued to campaign against Holocaust deniers and refute allegations that the diary was a forgery.She suffered a stroke in 1997, which slightly affected her speech, but remained in generally good health as she approached her 100th birthday.Her husband died in 1993, and she is survived by her son, Paul, and three grandchildren.Second world warHolocaustNetherlandsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Nick Robinson The PM's plans for a new (middle) class war with the Tories bbc.co.uk |
Japan Vote Turns Against U.S. Base The opponent of a proposed U.S. air base on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa was projected to win a closely-watched mayoral election in Japan. online.wsj.com |