World

NEW YORK — Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in New York and Washington on Saturday, stepping up demonstrations across the United States demanding justice for black men killed by white police.

The rallies in the US capital, New York, Boston and in several Californian cities were among the largest in a growing protest movement sparked by the killing of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9.

Grand jury decisions not to prosecute the white officers responsible for 18-year-old Brown’s death and a fatal chokehold on New York father of six Eric Garner in July, have triggered weeks of protests.

A sea of demonstrators shut down parts of Manhattan and Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue that leads to the Capitol with cries of “No justice, no peace!” “Justice Now!” and “The whole damn system is guilty as hell!”

Though police in Washington did not provide an estimate of the crowd size, it appeared far larger than the 5,000 people organisers initially said they’d expected. 

In New York, police said approximately 25,000 took to the streets. The organisers tweeted that 50,000 people turned out. Their Facebook page had said that 48,000 would take part before the rally began.

The mixed crowds of black and white mobilised many young people but also families, children, parents and the elderly. 

They held aloft banners proclaiming “Stop racist police” and “I can’t breathe” — the last words uttered repeatedly by Garner, as police wrestled him to the ground for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes in New York’s Staten Island.

A string of deaths at the hands of officers, including that of 28-year-old Akai Gurley in Brooklyn, have inflamed resentment against police tactics in the United States and distrust many blacks feel toward law enforcement.

The Garner and Brown families were joined in Washington by relatives of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was shot dead last month by Cleveland police, and of Trayvon Martin, who was killed in Florida by a neighbourhood watchman in 2012.

History-making moment

Garner’s widow and wife took to the stage before the energised crowd. 

“I am here not only for marching for Eric Garner, but for everyone’s daughters and sons and nieces and nephews and dads and moms,” widow Esaw Garner said. 

Garner’s mother Gwen Carr said the protests would continue until lawmakers respond to demands for reform.

“This is a history-making moment,” she said as onlookers erupted in cheers.

“We will come here as many times as it takes,” she told the crowd as they edged toward the US Capitol building that houses Congress.

Civil rights activist Al Sharpton, president of the National Action Network and a prominent figure in the rallies, led the protest march in Washington.

He called for sweeping justice reform.

“You thought it would be kept quiet. You thought you’d sweep it under the rug. You thought there would be no limelight. But we’re going to keep the light on Michael Brown, on Eric Garner, on Tamir Rice, on all of these victims,” he thundered, as the families of those killed joined him on stage, some sobbing.

In New York, protesters shut down a six-kilometre route from Washington Square, down Fifth and Sixth Avenues and Broadway to converge outside police headquarters, filling the air with chants of “Justice now!”

‘Shut New York City down’

After dark and as temperatures hovered above freezing, they shut down the Brooklyn Bridge as they marched across the river. 

“We will shut New York City down,” promised the organisers into loudspeakers as the crowd started to stream out of Washington Square.

Members of the throng carried black cut outs of human figures bearing the words “RIP”, along with the names of those killed by police, while others shouted “Justice now! The whole damn system is guilty as hell”.

Bartender Cole Fox, 24, marched with his mother and held a banner reading “Grand Jury Reform Now”.

“Fundamental changes need to be made. It’s just a matter of days before the next person, black or white, is killed,” he said.

Student Rosalind Watson, 21, decried “institutional racism”. 

“If one person sees this march and feels more supported and safe, it’ll be a success,” she told AFP at the spirited protest.

The atmosphere in New York as elsewhere was defiant but peaceful. Protesters were closely shadowed by police and police helicopters hovered overhead.

In Boston, Massachusetts State Police said several people were arrested and some roads blocked in Boston.

In Berkeley, California, an effigy of a black man hung by a noose was placed outside a university entrance with the words “I can’t breathe” scrawled on its chest.

PORTLAND, Oregon — A suspect in a shooting that wounded three students outside an alternative high school was arrested early Saturday in what appears to be a gang-related attack, Portland police said.

Witnesses told authorities there may have been a dispute Friday outside Rosemary Anderson High School just before the shooting occurred at a street corner. The victims are students or in affiliated job training programs.

The assailant and two other people fled, and the injured trio went to the school for help, police said. A 16-year-old girl was critically wounded, and a 17-year-old boy and 20-year-old man were hospitalised in fair condition. Another girl was grazed by a bullet.

A student, Oliviann Danley, 16, told The Oregonian she saw a boy run into the school and yell, “Oh my God, did I just get shot?”

Hours later, authorities said they stopped the suspect’s vehicle around 1:30am and arrested a 22-year-old man. A handgun was found in the vehicle.

Police searched an apartment soon after that is about five blocks east of the shooting. Detectives said they would release the suspect’s name and charges after he is booked into jail.

Gang investigators “feel comfortable saying this is a gang-related shooting based on some of the people involved”, Sgt. Pete Simpson said. Police believe the shooter has gang ties.

Simpson said police were still gathering details on the reported dispute outside the 190-student school that serves at-risk students who were expelled or dropped out or are homeless or single parents.

Police identified the hospitalised victims as Taylor Michelle Zimmers, 16, who was in critical condition; David Jackson-Liday, 20; and Labraye Franklin, 17.

Sierra Smith, a 17-year-old student, told The Oregonian she saw one of the male victims getting help from a teacher inside the school.

“He was laying on the ground. He had blood coming out of his stomach,” she said. “It was scary.”

Gang violence in Portland isn’t a new phenomenon. Some of the violence occurs between rival gangs, but bystanders have also been hurt.

“We’ve made a lot of progress in addressing the gang problem, but we haven’t eradicated it,” Mayor Charlie Hales said Friday. “Today’s really a sad reminder that it’s still with us.”

KABUL — Taliban insurgents killed at least 20 people in a series of gun and suicide attacks in Afghanistan on Saturday, underlining worsening security as US-led NATO forces end their combat mission in the country.

A suicide blast wrecked an Afghan military bus in Kabul, killing seven soldiers, while a senior court official was assassinated in the city and 12 Afghan mine clearance workers were gunned down in the south.

Two NATO soldiers were also killed on Friday in an attack in the east of Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement, without identifying their nationality.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for all the attacks.

The latest bout of violence comes ahead of the official end of NATO’s war against the Taliban on December 31 after 13 years of fighting that has failed to thwart the Islamist insurgency.

The bloodshed has wrecked claims that the insurgency is weakening and has highlighted fears that Afghanistan could trip into a spiral of violence as the US-led military presence declines.

NATO’s force in Afghanistan will change at the end of the year from a combat mission to a support role, with troop numbers cut to about 12,500 — down from a peak of 130,000 in 2010.

On Saturday, a suicide bomber on foot detonated explosives next to the military bus in central Kabul, destroying the vehicle in one of the busiest parts of the city as people left work.

“The suicide attack on an Afghan army bus today killed seven and injured 18 more, including some civilians,” General Ayoub Salangi, the deputy interior minister, said.

The Taliban have often targeted buses that take government and military personnel to and from work everyday in Kabul, despite efforts by security forces to provide protection for the vulnerable vehicles.

Worsening security 

Earlier in the day, Taliban gunmen shot dead a senior Supreme Court official in the city as he left his home.

Insurgents also killed 12 mine clearance workers in the restive southern province of Helmand in attack that President Ashraf Ghani condemned as “unjustifiable and un-Islamic”.

The Taliban have targeted de-mining projects before, beheading seven workers in the western province of Farah in 2011.

On Thursday, a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up among the audience attending a performance at a French cultural centre in Kabul, killing one German national and wounding 15 others.

Other recent targets have included foreign guesthouses, a female Afghan member of parliament, a British embassy convoy and three members of a South African family killed when their compound was attacked.

Kabul has been hit by at least 12 suicide attacks in the last month.

US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said on a visit to Kabul a week ago that the upsurge showed “that the international community must not waver in its support for a stable, secure and prosperous Afghanistan”.

He insisted Afghanistan would not go the way of Iraq, where another US-trained army virtually collapsed in the face of an onslaught by Islamic State jihadists after American troops left the country in 2011.

But Afghan officials have expressed alarm over the challenge facing the local security forces who must increasingly tackle the insurgents without NATO military assistance.

Afghan soldiers and police have suffered soaring casualties, with more than 4,600 killed in the first 10 months of this year.

Ghani, who came to power in September, has vowed to bring peace to Afghanistan after decades of conflict, saying he is open to talks with any insurgent group.

Ghani finally emerged as president after signing a power-sharing deal with his poll rival Abdullah Abdullah.

The two men each claimed to have won fraud-tainted elections in a prolonged stand-off that caused political paralysis in Kabul and fanned instability nationwide.

KABUL — A teenaged bomber on Thursday targeted a Kabul auditorium packed with people watching a drama condemning suicide attacks and being staged at a French cultural centre, killing at least one person and wounding 16, officials and a witness said.

The suicide blast was the second to strike the Afghan capital in a day, after six Afghan soldiers perished when their bus was hit on the outskirts of the city as they rode into work.

The violence, part of a nationwide campaign by Islamist Taliban insurgents to strike at military and civilian targets, came less than three weeks before the year-end deadline for most foreign combat soldiers to withdraw from the country.

Deputy Interior Minister General Ayoub Salangi said the suspected theatre bomber appeared to have been about 17 years old and detonated his explosives inside the venue, killing one and wounding 16 attending the early evening performance.

“I heard a deafening explosion... There were Afghans, foreigners, young girls and young boys watching the show,” Sher Ahmad, an Afghan rights activist who was at the performance, told Reuters.

He said the blast came during a performance of a new play called “Heartbeat: Silence After the Explosion”, a condemnation of suicide attacks.

“Pieces of flesh were plastered on the wall. There were children and women crying for help. Some were running out, some were just screaming.”

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the bomber targeted the event because it was staged “to insult Islamic values and spread propaganda about our jihad operations, especially on suicide attacks”.

Amid the confusion immediately following the blast, one person could be heard saying “It’s all part of the show” in a video posted on YouTube purporting to be of the attack.

Heavy security

Early police reports said the bomber attacked the French-run Lycée Esteqlal, one of Kabul’s oldest and most highly respected high schools, but Ahmad said the performance was at the French Cultural Centre located in the same compound.

The person confirmed killed by police appeared to be a foreign man, Salangi said, but he could not immediately confirm his identity or nationality.

The French government said in a statement that “several” people were killed in the attack and “many” more injured, but none of the fatalities were French nationals.

The venue was heavily guarded during the event in the auditorium, said Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi, who added that the bomber may have hidden explosives in his underwear to pass through security.

He said the bomber detonated the blast at the top of the auditorium’s stairs, which may have prevented higher casualties. The body of the bomber was shredded, but police were able to identify him as a teenager because his head was found intact.

Taliban militants have stepped up a campaign of violence this year to take advantage of uncertainty and weakness besetting Afghanistan’s security forces as they prepare to take over the war on the insurgency, now in its 13th year.

Earlier on Thursday, a suicide bomber targeted a bus carrying Afghan army personnel, the Defence Ministry said, ending a near two-week lull in attacks in the capital. As well as the six soldiers killed, 11 were wounded.

Dawlat Waziri, deputy spokesman for the Afghan Defence Ministry, said a bomber on foot targeted the bus in the Tarakhil area of eastern Kabul when the army personnel were on their way to work.

Five Afghan school children were also reported killed in a foreign forces air strike in northern Parwan province, Afghan officials said.

The International Security Assistance Force confirmed an air strike in the area, but said five insurgents were killed.

Civilian casualties caused by air strikes have been one of the most contentious issues of the war, although there are often conflicting claims.

LIMA, Peru — Greenpeace said Wednesday that its executive director will travel to Peru to personally apologise for the environmental group’s stunt at the world-famous Nazca lines, which Peruvian authorities say harmed the archaeological marvel.

The group said it was willing to accept the consequences. A senior Peruvian official told The Associated Press on Tuesday evening that his government would seek criminal charges against Greenpeace activists who allegedly damaged the lines by leaving footprints in the adjacent desert.

“We fully understand that this looks bad,” Greenpeace said in a statement Wednesday. “We came across as careless and crass.”

Greenpeace regularly riles governments and corporations it deems environmental scofflaws. Monday’s action was intended to promote clean energy to delegates from 190 countries at the UN climate talks in nearby Lima.

But the group signalled in the second of two e-mails Wednesday that it recognised it had deeply offended many Peruvians.

It said Greenpeace’s executive director, Kumi Naidoo, would travel to Lima this week to apologise.Greenpeace will fully cooperate with any investigation and is “willing to face fair and reasonable consequences”, the statement said.

In the stunt at the UN World Heritage site in Peru’s coastal desert, activists laid a message promoting clean energy beside the famed figure of a hummingbird comprised of black rocks on a white background.

Deputy Culture Minister Luis Jaime Castillo called it a “slap in the face at everything Peruvians consider sacred”.

He said the government would seek to prevent those responsible from leaving the country and ask prosecutors to file charges of “attacking archaeological monuments”, a crime punishable by up to six years in prison.

The activists entered a “strictly prohibited” area where they laid big yellow cloth letters reading: “Time for Change; The Future is Renewable.” They said after initial criticism that they were “absolutely careful” not to disturb anything.

Castillo said no one, not even presidents and Cabinet ministers, is allowed without authorisation where the activists trod, and those who do have permission must wear special shoes.

The Nazca lines are huge figures depicting living creatures, stylised plants and imaginary figures scratched on the surface of the ground between 1,500 and 2,000 years ago. They are believed to have had ritual astronomical functions.

The Greenpeace delegation chief to the climate talks, Martin Kaiser, said none of the people involved in the action had been arrested.

“I think activists are always taking responsibility for what they are doing,” he said. “We clearly underestimated the sensitivity of the situation.”

He would not say whether any activists face internal sanction for the action.

HONG KONG — Over 10,000 protesters massed at a major pro-democracy protest site on Wednesday evening, even as authorities warned people to stay away, before the final clearance of the main “occupy” camp the following morning.

Hong Kong urged pro-democracy protesters to pack up their tents and leave their main camp near government headquarters, saying it could not promise there would be no “confrontations”.

Thousands of police will move in on the site in Admiralty, next to the Central business district, after two-and-a-half months of road blockades and sporadic violent scuffles in the former British colony.

The protests represent the most serious challenge to China’s authority since the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations and bloody crackdown in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

“We can’t guarantee there won’t be any confrontations,” Chief Secretary Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s number two official, told reporters. “I appeal to the protesters who have been illegally occupying our roads to pack up their belongings and to leave the protest sites.”

The Admiralty site has stood as a poignant symbol of calls for democracy that have been spurned by the government and Communist Party rulers in Beijing.

“Our aim is to let the world see what we demand and most importantly, that Hong Kongers can unite,” said protester Kenneth Kan.

Over 10,000 people crammed into the Admiralty protest area on Wednesday. They cheered and clapped to speeches from student leaders such as Lester Shum, who said the civil disobedience campaign for full democracy wouldn’t end with the clearance, but would take on new forms.

Some packed up their tents and provisions on Wednesday, but thousands of protesters still lingered at the site, hunkered down for a final showdown with police in the morning — brushing off concerns of arrest or violence.

Others scrambled to preserve the “Umbrella Movement” artwork or snapped “selfies” and pictures on phones and cameras in what was a defiant, valedictory night for perhaps the boldest stand against China’s Communist Party leaders over democratic rights in more than twenty years.

“I came here sometimes after work, but this is the first time for my son,” said Alice Leung, accompanied by her nine-year-old. “He has seen the movement on TV, but I want him to experience it himself so that he will understand better when he grows up and understand what democracy is.”

Civil disobedience

Hong Kong Federation of Students leader Alex Chow said his group and Scholarism, the other main student group backing the protests, were urging everyone who had participated to return to Admiralty on Thursday morning in an act of civil disobedience.

“Some will fight back. Some will sit down and wait to be arrested,” said Johnny Chung, a 20-year-old student. “The government is ridiculous. Over 100,000 people came here and slept on the street... and this government did nothing.”

Police sources said clearing the site would begin around 9am (0100 GMT).

Describing tactics similar to those used to clear another protest site in the Mong Kok district two weeks ago, the sources said workers and bailiffs would first clear the areas subject to the court injunction, then come from multiple directions, cordon off the protest area and clear all barricades, tents and people in the roads. They may arrest those who refuse to leave.

Causeway Bay will be cleared after Admiralty, either on Thursday or Friday, the sources said.

Hong Kong returned to China in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula, allowing it some autonomy from the mainland and a promise of eventual universal suffrage. Beijing has allowed a vote in the next election for leader in 2017 — but insists on screening the candidates first.

The Umbrella Movement, named after the items protesters used to defend themselves from pepper spray and batons, is demanding a fully democratic election with open nominations.

Admiralty is where police fired tear gas at tens of thousands of protesters in late September. That galvanised scattershot protests into a longer-term movement, complete with a sea of colourful tents, democracy-themed artwork and statues, makeshift classrooms and food and medical stations.

“We’ll be back,” proclaimed a large yellow banner hung along one of the pedestrian bridges. “Though we are disappointed, we must not give up hope,” said another.

“This movement is incredibly important,” said Rose Tang, one of the student activists during the 1989 Beijing protests. “They are making history.”

But she urged protesters to depart without bloodshed.

“Don’t be a martyr, it is not worth it. Don’t try to be a tank man,” she said, in reference to a lone man who blocked a line of tanks near Tiananmen Square after the 1989 military crackdown.

WASHINGTON — US Senate investigators delivered a damning indictment of CIA practices Tuesday, accusing the spy agency of inflicting suffering on prisoners beyond its legal limits and peddling unsubstantiated stories that the harsh interrogations saved American lives.

Treatment in secret prisons after the September 11, 2001, attacks was worse than the government told Congress or the public, said the report from the Senate Intelligence Committee, the first official public accounting after years of debate about the CIA's brutal handling of prisoners.

Five hundred pages were released, representing the executive summary and conclusions of a still-classified 6,700-page full investigation.

President Barack Obama declared the past practices to be "contrary to our values" and pledged, "I will continue to use my authority as president to make sure we never resort to those methods again”.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat and the committee chairman, branded the findings a stain on the nation's history.

"Under any common meaning of the term, CIA detainees were tortured," she declared, commanding the Senate floor for an extended accounting of the harsh techniques identified in the report.

Tactics used included weeks of sleep deprivation, slapping and slamming of detainees against walls, confining them to small boxes, keeping them isolated for prolonged periods and threatening them with death. Three detainees faced the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding. Many developed psychological problems.

But the "enhanced interrogation techniques" didn't produce the results that really mattered, the report asserts in its most controversial conclusion. It cites CIA cables, e-mails and interview transcripts to rebut the central justification for torture — that it thwarted terror plots and saved American lives.

In a statement, the CIA said the report "tells part of the story" but "there are too many flaws for it to stand as the official record of the programme".

Some Republican leaders objected to the report's release and challenged its contention that harsh tactics didn't work. But Republican Sen. John McCain, tortured in Vietnam as a prisoner of war, welcomed the report and endorsed its findings in the main.

"We gave up much in the expectation that torture would make us safer," he said in a Senate speech. "Too much."

The report, released after months of negotiations with the administration about what should be censored, was issued amid concerns of an anti-American backlash overseas. American embassies and military sites worldwide were taking extra precautions.

Earlier this year, Feinstein accused the CIA of infiltrating Senate computer systems in a dispute over documents as relations between the investigators and the spy agency deteriorated, the issue still sensitive years after Obama halted the interrogation practices upon taking office.

Former CIA officials disputed the report's findings. So did Senate Republicans, whose written dissent accuses Democrats of inaccuracies, sloppy analysis and cherry-picking evidence to reach a predetermined conclusion. CIA officials maintain they gained vital intelligence that still guides counterterrorism efforts.

"The programme led to the capture of Al Qaida leaders and took them off the battlefield," said George Tenet, CIA director when the September 11, 2001, attacks occurred. He said it saved "thousands of American lives”.

Not so, said Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader. "Not only is torture wrong, but it doesn't work," he said. "It got us nothing except a bad name."

President George W. Bush approved the programme through a covert finding in 2002, but he wasn't briefed by the CIA about the details until 2006. At that time Bush expressed discomfort with the "image of a detainee, chained to the ceiling, clothed in a diaper and forced to go to the bathroom on himself."

After Al Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah was arrested in Pakistan, the CIA received permission to use waterboarding, sleep deprivation, close confinement and other techniques. Agency officials added unauthorised methods into the mix, the report says.

At least five men in CIA detention received "rectal rehydration", a form of feeding through the rectum. The report found no medical necessity for the treatment.

Others received "ice baths" and death threats. At least three in captivity were told their families would suffer, with CIA officers threatening to harm their children, sexually abuse the mother of one man, and cut the throat of another man's mother.

Zubaydah was held in a secret facility in Thailand, called "detention Site Green" in the report. Early on, with CIA officials believing he had information on an imminent plot, Zubaydah was left isolated for 47 days without questioning, the report says. Later, he was subjected to the panoply of techniques. He later suffered mental problems.

He wasn't alone. In September 2002, at a facility referred to as COBALT— understood as the CIA's "Salt Pit" in Afghanistan — detainees were kept isolated and in darkness. Their cells had only a bucket for human waste.

Redha Al Najar, a former Osama bin Laden bodyguard, was the first prisoner there. CIA interrogators found that after a month of sleep deprivation, he was a "broken man". But the treatment got worse, with officials lowering food rations, shackling him in the cold and giving him a diaper instead of toilet access.

Gul Rahman, a suspected extremist, received enhanced interrogation there in late 2002, shackled to a wall in his cell and forced to rest on a bare concrete floor in only a sweatshirt. The next day he was dead. A CIA review and autopsy found he died of hypothermia.

Justice Department investigations into that and another death of a CIA detainee resulted in no charges.

During a waterboarding session, Zubaydah became "completely unresponsive with bubbles rising through his open full mouth", according to internal CIA records.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the September 11 mastermind, received the waterboarding treatment 183 times. Though officers noted he wasn't becoming more compliant, they waterboarded him for 10 more days. He was waterboarded for not confirming a "nuclear suitcase" plot the CIA later deemed a scam. Another time, his waterboarding produced a fabricated confession about recruiting black Muslims in the state of Montana.

After reviewing 6 million agency documents, investigators said they could find no example of unique, life-saving intelligence gleaned from coercive techniques — another sweeping conclusion the CIA and Republicans contest.

The report claims to debunk the CIA's assertion its practices led to bin Laden's killing. The agency says its interrogation of detainee Ammar Al Baluchi revealed a known courier was taking messages to and from Bin Laden.

PARIS — France’s last remaining hostage Serge Lazarevic, who was kidnapped by Islamist militants in Mali in 2011, has been freed, President Francois Hollande said Tuesday.

Serge Lazarevic, 51, was snatched by armed men in Mali on November 24, 2011 while on a business trip with fellow Frenchman Philippe Verdon in a kidnapping claimed by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

There was no immediate information on how the release was secured or whether France paid a ransom.

Lazarevic is the last of more than a dozen French citizens taken captive in recent years, with those held in Africa reaching a high of 15 last year. Four journalists held by Syrian jihadists were released earlier this year.

“Our hostage Serge Lazarevic, our last hostage, is free,” Hollande said. “There are no more French hostages in any country in the world.”

The French presidency said a plane carrying Lazarevic’s daughter Diane was on its way to the Niger capital Niamey to fetch the former hostage, who would be met by Hollande on his return home.

“He is in relatively good health, despite the gruelling conditions of his long captivity,” said Hollande.

A Malian security source said the final stages of Lazarevic’s release had taken place in the northern desert city of Kidal.

“I won’t say if there was a ransom payment or liberation of prisoners,” the source told AFP.

In his three years in captivity, Lazarevic appeared in several AQIM videos, the most recent of which was in November in which he said he was gravely ill and believed his life to be in danger.

Fears spiked for the safety of the towering Frenchman of Serbian origin after hiker Herve Gourdel was abducted in Algeria and beheaded in September by Islamic State-linked militants.

Home ‘for Christmas’

After Lazarevic’s appearance with a thick beard and dark headdress in the last video, his daughter Diane beseeched Hollande to double down and obtain his release “as fast as possible... for Christmas”.

Kidnapped at a small hotel in Hombori, in Mali’s north, Lazarevic and Verdon were held captive during one of the most turbulent periods of the country’s history.

The pair, who worked in security and construction, were accused by AQIM of being French intelligence agents, something which their families have denied.

They were in the hands of AQIM as it and other hardline Islamist groups launched a takeover of vast areas of northern Mali in 2012 and as they were in turn ousted by the French army who intervened in January 2013.

Verdon, who suffered from an ulcer and tachycardia — an abnormally fast heartbeat — was found shot dead last year, and those close to his family suggested he had been executed as he was weak.

Uncertainty remains over the fate of another French hostage Gilberto Rodrigues Leal whose death was claimed by an AQIM splinter group but whose remains have never been found.

“We have the grimmest information concerning him. His family knows this. But, France has no more hostages, it must have no more hostages,” Hollande said, calling for great vigilance and protection of French interests.

Hollande thanked the authorities in Mali and Niger for their assistance in securing Lazarevic’s release.

“This liberation was the result of intense and continued efforts from authorities both in Niger and Mali,” the presidency in Niamey said in a statement.

One of the main armed Tuareg groups in the still-volatile region, the High Council for the Unity of Azawad (HCUA) said it had also “participated in the release” efforts.

While the details of Lazarevic’s release were not given, France has repeatedly denied paying ransoms despite being accused of using back-channels to do so by other Western nations.

“France does not pay ransoms, nor does France engage in prisoner exchanges,” Hollande said in September.

But he added: “This does not mean that countries do not do it. It has happened that some countries, to help us, do it. That I concede.”

Former anti-terrorism judge Alain Marsaud was more sceptical.

“There is no reason for heated debate. We pay, we pay and that is all,” he told RTL radio. “There is no release if there is no payment. Someone paid, if not the government, a business or insurance company.”

MANILA — Millions of people in the Philippine capital hunkered down on Monday as a major storm churned towards the megacity, after claiming at least 23 lives while ripping apart homes in remote island communities.

Soldiers and aid workers rushed to reach devastated coastal villages on Samar Island, where Typhoon Hagupit crashed in from the Pacific Ocean at the weekend with winds of 210 kilometres an hour.

In Metro Manila, a sprawling coastal megalopolis of 12 million people that regularly endures deadly flooding, well-drilled evacuation efforts went into full swing as the storm approached on Monday.

“We are on 24-hour alert for floods and storm surges,” Joseph Estrada, mayor of Manila, the original city of 2 million within Metro Manila, told AFP.

Thousands of people, mostly the city’s poorest residents who live in shanty homes along the coast and riverbanks, crammed into schools and other government evacuation centres across Metro Manila.

“I’m very afraid. Every time there’s a storm we have no choice but to evacuate,” Soledad Papauran, 60, who works as a waste picker at a Manila landfill, said inside a school being used as an evacuation centre.

Across the megacity, schools were suspended, the stock market was closed, many office and government workers were told to stay at home, and dozens of commercial flights were cancelled.

Massive effort 

The preparations were part of a massive effort led by President Benigno Aquino to ensure minimum deaths, after a barrage of storms in recent years claimed many thousands of lives.

The worst was Super Typhoon Haiyan, the strongest storm ever recorded on land, which claimed at least 7,350 lives as it devastated large parts of the central Philippines in November last year.

To avoid another massive death toll, millions of people in communities directly in the path of Hagupit were sent to evacuation centres or ordered to remain in their homes.

Hagupit, the strongest storm to hit the Philippines this year but significantly weaker than Haiyan, caused widespread destruction in remote farming and fishing towns on Samar and other eastern islands.

It has claimed at least 23 lives so far, with 18 of those deaths on Samar, Philippine Red Cross Secretary General Gwendolyn Pang told AFP.

Sixteen people drowned during flooding in Borongan, a city on Samar of about 60,000 facing the Pacific Ocean that was almost in Hagupit’s direct path, according to Pang.

Footage aired by local television network GMA showed children standing beside landslide-choked roads in Borongan on Monday carrying signs reading: “Help us,
help us.”

The death toll was widely expected to climb, with damage assessments from some badly hit areas yet to come in, and the storm not expected to fully cross the archipelago of 7,100 islands until Tuesday.

Still, the government was adamant that the preparation efforts had been a success.

“This is a good example of preparation and planning and of caring,” Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said while visiting Borongan on Monday, according to footage aired on GMA.

In Tacloban, a city of 220,000 people that was one of the worst-hit during Haiyan, authorities said there were no casualties over the weekend despite fierce winds that destroyed homes.

Hagupit steadily weakened after passing across Samar, Tacloban and other areas close to the Pacific. On Monday it was downgraded from a typhoon to a tropical storm while passing over open water.

As it made landfall again on Monday night at beach resort areas on the main island of Luzon 100 kilometres southwest of Manila, its winds were down to 85 kilometres an hour.

However, local weather agency Pagasa said the winds were still capable of doing major damage to homes, and heavy rain would likely fall within Hagupit’s 450-kilometre-wide weather front.

Climate change

The Philippines endures about 20 major storms a year, many of them deadly.

But scientists say the storms are becoming more violent and unpredictable because of climate change.

Greenpeace International Director Kumi Naidoo called on United Nations negotiators currently meeting in Peru to take note of Hagupit and act with more urgency to hammer out a world pact on global warming.

“Nature does not negotiate... we need to understand that we are running out of time,” Naidoo, who is in the Philippines to “bear witness” to Hagupit, told AFP.

BERKELEY — Angry crowds hurled objects at police who responded with tear gas in a second night of clashes in northern California following a grand jury decision not to indict a white New York police officer in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man.

Police in Berkeley, California, fired tear gas after being targeted by what they called explosives. They moved in to clear roadways as protesters swarmed freeway overpasses at two locations in the city, a Reuters reporter saw.

Berkeley police on Monday morning said they made five arrests among the demonstrators. Well over 500 people demonstrated and a number of stores in Berkeley were looted. One protester who tried to prevent the looting was assaulted, police said.

Reuters could not immediately obtain further information from police, who some demonstrators said on Twitter had fired rubber bullets.

Protesters have demonstrated daily in several US cities since a grand jury’s decision on Wednesday not to bring criminal charges against the white police officer whose chokehold contributed to Eric Garner’s death in New York City in July.

The killings of Garner and of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, in Ferguson, Missouri, have highlighted the strained relations between police and the black community and rekindled a national debate over US race relations.

New York was quieter over the weekend, but West Coast cities had braced for trouble after clashes in Berkeley and Seattle on Saturday.

Mostly peaceful elsewhere

On Sunday, police in Berkeley fired tear gas after some demonstrators began hurling objects, the California Highway Patrol’s Golden Gate division said.

Patrol vehicles were vandalised, the division said on Twitter. It also displayed photos of rocks it said were thrown.

Authorities closed the local Bay Area Rapid Transit station for a second night due to the unrest. On Saturday evening, what had begun as a peaceful march in Berkeley ended in an extended confrontation between police and demonstrators, with six people arrested and one police officer injured.

The two nights of looting and rock-throwing on the West Coast contrasted with mostly peaceful demonstrations elsewhere.

The decision by a grand jury not to return an indictment in Brown’s killing ignited two nights of arson and rioting in the St Louis suburb.

In Seattle about 200 people gathered on Sunday evening, a day after a demonstration drew more than 1,000 protesters, with some throwing rocks and attacking police in clashes that resulted in seven arrests. There was one arrest on Sunday.

New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said on Sunday the department’s internal investigation into Garner’s death could take four months. He said he would review the results to decide if officers involved in Garner’s arrest had violated department policy. The justice department is doing its own investigation.

In Chicago, church-affiliated protesters marched through the city, carrying signs and chanting, “I can’t breathe” and “Hands up, don’t shoot,” television news footage showed.

Protesters in Miami blocked a portion of the Interstate 195 highway on Sunday afternoon, clogging traffic to a large international art show in Miami Beach, CBS-TV Miami reported.

The outcry over the recent killings spread to NFL stadiums as well. Detroit Lions running back Reggie Bush was among several players donning pre-game practice jerseys reading “I can’t breathe”, Garner’s dying words.