MN News Scrapbook Sunday 25 May 2008

FARC leader dead - CNN News.

Quote :

The leader of Colombia's largest leftist rebel group is dead, a spokesman for the nation's defense ministry said Saturday.


Manuel Marulanda Velez, leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, in 2000.

Pedro Antonio Marin, known as Manuel Marulanda Vilez and nicknamed Tirofijo, is believed to have died of a heart attack, ministry spokesman Juan Manuel Santos said.

"He must be in hell," Santos told a reporter from Semana magazine.

Marulanda, who was believed to be in his late 70s, has led the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, for decades.

"The information that we have is that he has gone already," he added. Asked whether he was saying that Marulanda had died, Santos said, "That's what a source who has never failed us tells us."

Speaking later, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe stopped short of saying Marulanda is dead, but he also said that the news comes from a reliable source.

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"I hope so," he said of Marulanda's reported death.

Santos said that the Colombian military had bombed three areas where Marulanda was believed to be around the time of his death but that the fighting was not believed to have killed him.

Santos said Marulanda may have been replaced as leader by Alfonso Cano, a longtime ideologue for the group.

Communists are the new villains in the latest Indiana Jones film and this has provoked a reaction in Russia.

MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- Members of Russia's Communist Party are calling for a nationwide boycott of the new Indiana Jones movie, saying it aims to undermine communist ideology and distort history.

Harrison Ford returns as Indiana Jones in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" stars Harrison Ford as an archaeologist in 1957 competing with an evil KGB agent, played by Cate Blanchett, to find a skull endowed with mystic powers.

It hit Russian screens Thursday.

Communist Party members in St. Petersburg said on a web site this week that the Soviet Union in 1957 "did not send terrorists to the States," but launched a satellite, "which evoked the admiration of the whole world."

Moscow Communist lawmaker Andrei Andreyev said Saturday "it is very disturbing if talented directors want to provoke a new Cold War."

RTE radio reports that an earthquake in China today has destroyed over 70,000 houses and killed hundreds of people. Rains are expected in the earthquake zone.

BBC LINK

News in Ireland

INDO
- MacNamara debts - billions owed to banks
- 35,000 out of 70,000 Poles leave Ireland and return home to Poland
SBP
-Lisbon too close to call
-Ahern argues that Drumcondra probe is outside Mahon Tribunal remit.
- Austrians back Libertas
- McNamara may back new housing deal.
- Revenue home in on tax avoidance schemes
- Waterford Wedgewood shares below 1c