The President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashivili has called a snap presidential election for January following days of opposition protests. Opposition politicians described the move as a victory for democracy. Marthew Collin has more details.
After almost a week of opposition protests, violence outside parliament, and pressure from its international allies, Georgia's embattled president finally offered a concession to his opponents. On Wednesday, riot police used tear gas, batons and water cannon to drive thousands of protesters off the main street of the Georgian capital. Mr. Saakashivili blamed Russian secret services for inciting the unrest as part of an attempt to overthrow his government. A Georgian prosecutor has accused two opposition leaders of plotting a coup in collaboration with Russian officials. And three Russian diplomats have been expelled from the country.
The chairman of the US Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke has warned that economic growth will slow down before the end of the year, but he said the economy was not heading for recession. Mark Gregory reports.
Financial markets have been in turmoil since the credit problems in the US housing market became apparent last July. Yet so far, the US economy as a whole has come through remarkably unscathed.
But in a testimony to congress,the head of American Central Bank, Mr. Bernanke predicts a marked slowdown in the US economy lasting into the early part of next year. He blamed the slowdown on the credit crisis, which is making it harder for banks, businesses and individuals to borrow money.
The former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has dismissed as “too vague” an announcement by President Pervez Musharraf that elections would be held by February 15. She called for a specific election date and for General Musharraf to give up his role as army chief by next Thursday. "There is no date and this is why I say that it is too vague and too generalized. He hits the right buttons. But in fact, if he is committed to a democratic Pakistan, if he is committed to fighting extremism by involving the people in the battle to save our homeland, he must be specific and he should stick to the constitutional schedule. Ms. Bhutto said she was pressing ahead with a planned rally against emergency rule on Friday despite the reported arrest of hundreds of her supporters. "
A new report in the United States suggests that military veterans make up a quarter of the country's homeless population. The National Alliance to End Homelessness says that on average almost 200, 000 veterans spend the night on the streets or in homeless shelters. The report(s) also highlights what it describes as an alarming number of veterans from the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq who are homeless.
World news from the BBC.
The North Sea coasts of the Netherlands and Britain are facing their worst flood threat in decades from a storm-driven tidal surge. The British government has warned that flood defenses could be breached in eastern England; it has begun evacuating hundreds of elderly and disabled people. The flood defenses of the entire Dutch coast have been put on alert and three surge barriers are expected to be closed as the storm approaches.
The floods that left vast areas of the east coast of Mexico under water last week will be one of the costliest natural disasters in the history of the country. Mexican insurance companies estimate that the claims in Tobasko state alone would be almost $700 million. There, the homes of 500, 000 people, had been damaged or destroyed.
The man, who set up the first telephone support line to befriend the suicidal and despairing, Chad Varah has died, four day short of his 96th birthday. He called his approach active listening therapy and it is now used by volunteers around the world. Geraldine Coughlin reports.
Chad Varah founded the Samaritans almost 50 years ago when he was a rector at a church in London. It now has 200 branches in Great Britain and Ireland offering telephone, letter and E-mail services 24 hours a day. Its international alarm befriended as worldwide operates in more than 40 countries. Chad Varah was also an early proponent of sex education providing teenagers with frank information on the subject in the 1930's. The Prince of Wales, who is a patron of Samaritans, described Chad Varah as an outstanding humanitarian.
Wildlife officers in Australia say they are growing increasingly concerned about the number of crocodiles being brought as pets and then abandoned when they grow too big to look after. Officers in the northern city of Darwin say owners have recently deserted their unruly pets in shopping centers, swimming pools and on golf courses.
BBC News.
Background Informaton on Chad Varah
The eldest of nine children of an Anglican Church minister, Edward Chad Varah was born on November 12, 1911, in the small town of Barton upon Humber, County of Lincolnshire, England. He went on to read natural sciences at Keble College in Oxford, and later studied at the Lincoln Theological College, where he was ordained as a priest by the Church of England. In the culturally repressive atmosphere of the United Kingdom in the 1930s, Varah recognized the extent to which confusion and ignorance about many social issues, several still shrouded in taboo, contributed to the despair that often led to suicide.
One of Varah's duties as an assistant curate in 1935 spawned his lifelong commitment to suicide prevention. He officiated at the funeral of a thirteen-year-old girl who was so confused and isolated that she believed that the onset of menstruation was the sign of a mortal illness that would lead to a slow and painful death; the terrified girl killed herself. Deeply moved and upset by that suicide, Varah sought out other suicidal people in hospitals and within his parish, aware of the meager facilities for the suicidal and their frequent
Reverend Chad Varah founded a worldwide movement of volunteers that offers emotional support to those who are suicidal and in despair. GETTY IMAGESreluctance to see a psychiatrist. He believed suicidal people needed a way of being in touch with someone to whom they could talk at any time of day or night that was right for them.
The opportunity to help such people arrived when Varah was appointed rector to St. Stephen Walbrook, the London church where he founded The Samaritans, a volunteer organization dedicated to befriending those going through emotional distress. Remembering the young girl, and seeking to minister to the suicidal despair so common in a large city like London, in 1953 Varah advertised in the press and opened the first drop-in center where emotionally isolated and distressed people could go to find a sympathetic ear.
Varah originally envisioned the service as a counseling program, but within months he recognized three crucial points, which include:
•a significant number of suicidal people had nowhere or no one to turn to for emotional and psychological support;
•the number of people seeking help far exceeded his ability to satisfy the demand; and
• most of the visitors wanted to talk to someone who would give them time and space, who would listen in confidence with acceptance and compassion to their deepest, most anguished thoughts.
To meet the huge response, Varah organized volunteers to talk with those waiting to see him. He soon observed interaction between the many and varied callers coming to talk and the lay volunteers who listened empathetically and acceptingly. He called the listening therapy "befriending." One therapeutic model in the now-multifaceted approach to suicide prevention, it is a "response to an immediate emotional crisis by lay volunteers who are given professional support by appointed medical and psychiatric consultants" (Scott and Armson 2000, p. 703). At the end of the twentieth century there are thousands of volunteers around the world dedicated to befriending the suicidal in the manner first conceived in the 1930s by the visionary Varah.