Source: Reuters * 75 bears, 12 wolves to be killed in 2010

* Culling to prevent populations rising

LJUBLJANA, March 10 (Reuters) - Slovenia will this year allow hunters to kill 75 brown bears and 12 wolves to ...

Source: World Health Organisation 10 March 2010 -- Health Action in Crises (HAC) has provided US$50,000 to WHO Uganda to help
procure urgently needed medical supplies to respond to the health needs of several landslides caused by heavy rains that started 25 February. Additional support will be needed to treat the wounded,
prevent disease and coordinate the health response.

Source: Reuters By Chalathip Thirasoonthrakul

BANGKOK, March 10 (Reuters) - Supporters of ousted Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra said on Wednesday a special security law would not stop them protesting peacefully at ...

Source: Reuters * Mozambique issues red alert in some flooded areas

* Flooding expected to continue but human lives not at risk

* Authorities plan to evacuate around 130,000 people

MAPUTO, March 10 (Reuters ...

Source: Reuters * Preliminary results may come on Thursday

* U.N. representative calls vote count an 'honest process'

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD, March 10 (Reuters) - Preliminary results of Iraq's ...

Limited funding having an impact on the achievements of Soroti district's 5,000 children with special needs

Inadequate funding is a major barrier to a decent education for children with special needs in rural communities, authorities in Soroti have said.

The number of children with special needs is on the increase every year, but little is being done by local and central government to beef up funding for the sector, said Soroti district education officer Moses Etoyu.

"My sector receives UShs 10m (around $4,880) per year. This money has to be shared amongst four departments: sports, inspection, administration and special needs. This amount is very small," he said.

The government has policies and structures – from central government's Ministry of Education to district level - regarding the promotion of special needs education and monitoring any issues that arise.

Around 5,000 children in Soroti district, in which Katine is located, have disabilities.

The Guardian has learned that in most cases it is the children with special needs who miss out and achieve poor results because of the limited funding. Out of the UShs 10m the education sector receives, only UShs 1.5m is allocated to special needs. This means that, on average, each child with disabilities receives UShs 300 ($0.15) from the state to fund their education, less than a cost of a 500ml bottle of soda.

Children with special needs are usually assessed to determine who will attend a mixed school, under the country's inclusive education policy to avoid stigma, and who will study at a special school, such as St Francis school for the blind in Madera, which, along with Katine primary school, is taking part in the British Council's Connecting Classrooms school link programme.

Development partners like the African Medical and Research Foundation (Amref), which is implementing the four-year Katine project, Sightsavers International and Uganda Society for the Disabled are supplementing government funding.

According to Etoyu, Amref has provided training for Katine teachers to improve the way they teach children with special needs. It has also worked with the district to ensure inspections of special needs education are carried out.

Amref's education officer, Lillian Viko, says one of the objectives of the Katine project is to improve access to quality primary education, and that includes promoting the inclusive education of girls, children with disabilities, orphans and other vulnerable children. These children tend to have the highest school drop-out rates.

"There are 1,613 (766 female, 847 male) orphans and vulnerable children documented in Katine. Among these 38 are children with disabilities, four blind, 10 deaf, five lame and deaf, and 17 with physically disabilities, and two epileptic. The rest are orphans," said Viko.

The project has held community awareness seminars that attracted 3,600 people on how to care and support orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs). The aim was to raise awareness of the importance of enrolling and supporting marginalised children in school and outside.

Parents and guardians have been reminded how to play an active role in the education of their children so they know their own responsibilities of those of the government. "The communities have now provided information on OVCs in the whole sub-county so that they can be included in sub-county plans," said Viko.

According to Viko, the project has reproduced and distributed to all schools materials for children with hearing impairments. These are expected to help teachers and children work and perform better.

Shadow foreign secretary says a Conservative government would not immediately enter into negotiations about repatriating powers from EU to London

A Conservative government would shy away from an "instant confrontation" with the European Union, William Hague said today.

The shadow foreign secretary told the Financial Times that the Conservatives would be "highly active and activist in European affairs from day one" if they were to win the election.

The Tories are committed to repatriating various powers from the EU to London and at some point this is likely to lead to a row with other EU states, who are opposed to a treaty renegotiation.

But Hague told the FT that the Tories had taken a "strategic decision" to postpone these difficult negotiations.

"We have enough on our hands without an instant confrontation with the EU," Hague said.

"It will not be our approach to go and bang on the table and say immediately we demand A, B, C."

Hague made his comments ahead of a speech on foreign policy that he will deliver to the Royal United Services Institute in London today.

He will claim that Britain's standing in the world is being damaged by its "diminishing" economic status under Labour and that Gordon Brown's tenure in government has seen the country's influence overseas decline in line with its relative economic clout.

Keeping up the Conservatives' attack on the prime minister's strategy on reducing the deficit, Hague will say that early action is vital to the UK's reputation abroad.

Brown's premiership has done "serious damage" to Britain's attractiveness to enterprise, wealth creation and new ideas, he will argue.

Any incoming government would have to make up for the 13 years Brown – first as chancellor, then as prime minister – has spent "diminishing its economic status", Hague will say.

He will cite the parallel drawn by the US president, Barack Obama, between prosperity and power.

"He was right, and his argument ... applies to this country too," Hague will say.

"And it makes the restoration of our economic fortunes under a new government, with lower deficits, simpler taxes and the opening up of Britain as the natural home for international business the indispensable foundation stone of the construction of effective foreign policy.

"Our ability to undertake economic modernisation will be critical to Britain's future influence. When capital, labour and technology are increasingly mobile we cannot stand still.

"But the change, the modernisation, our economy needs is not guaranteed.

"If our opponents' mistaken arguments and mistaken principles prevailed Britain will move backwards towards a 1970s-style model, with a bigger say for the trade unions who want to impose rigidity and unaffordable regulation across the public and private sector."

According to excerpts from the speech released in advance, Hague will add: "Five more years of Gordon Brown would mean that this country would be associated across the world with risky and unaffordable debt, lack of discipline over spending and trade union power."

Hague will also promise that major national security issues would be tackled by a new national security council including armed Forces and intelligence chiefs.

"A government with a proper national security council would not have taken vital national security decisions, as Clare Short described the scene, in meetings which 'there were never papers. There were little chats about things'," he will say.

"In our new government, if elected, decisions about national security and international relations will be taken together, with the advice of the armed services chiefs, the intelligence agencies and the Foreign Office experts available and in meetings which are properly minuted and recorded."

From bikers to Islam4UK, many seek to exploit Wootton Bassett's 'homeland' mystique – but its neutrality is precious

I have recently discovered the hugely unwelcome news (courtesy of an RAC road sign) that over 10,000 bikers plan to invade Wootton Bassett next Sunday, Mothering Sunday. As residents of the high street for the past 20 years, this is particularly vexing to my family. The children may have to review the planned family day at home, and take the cards, chocolates and flowers elsewhere in an attempt to escape the fumes, the noise and the congestion.

What is particularly perplexing about all this, however, is that this invasion is apparently sanctioned by the police, Wiltshire council and the MoD. The town council were not consulted. Nor were the residents. It turns out that the rally is taking place under the aegis of the charity known as Afghan Heroes. According to its website, by arranging for 10,331 registered (and who knows how many unregistered) bikers to thunder along the high street, it is "honouring the people of Wootton Bassett and the soldiers who have lost their lives in Afghanistan".

No one can argue against our population honouring anyone who puts their life on the line in the defence of this country and its values, whether or not they agree with the particular escapade on which those lives are lost. I hope that Afghan Heroes is also offering the victims of the war whatever practical and financial support that this government hasn't, and I have no issue with them raising funds for this purpose by any legal means.

I can't imagine, however, why they think that creating an unimaginable nuisance outside my front door is in any way "honouring" me. In fact, I don't actually need to be "honoured" for attending a number of the repatriations, and I haven't even been asked whether I want to be respected in this curious way. I imagine that I am being "honoured" in the same way as I was "honoured" in January by the upstanding members of the English Defence League and their pitbulls, who graced our high street one grey Sunday afternoon following an internet rumour that Islam4UK were going to stage an impromptu rally – on a weekend, coincidentally, that many football matches were cancelled owing to wintry weather.

I wish I failed to understand why the rally is picking on Wootton Bassett. Sadly, it's all too obvious that the town is becoming a "homeland" symbol that confers respectability on those who can prove or imply an association, an association that such honoraries as Nick Griffin have recently attempted to exploit. The gatherings for the repatriations began quietly, honestly, almost accidentally. Due in no small part to the sterling efforts of the town council, they continue to be mostly genuine, spontaneous and apolitical, but the attempted politicisation by the media and those who seek the town's reflected glory has been relentless. (The town now even has its own flagstaff flying the Union Jack, which mysteriously appeared overnight in the days before the visit of Charles and Camilla.)

The bigger question is: what message will this rally give out? Will it simply honour the dead and the respecters of the dead, or will it imply a call to arms? There's a massive difference between a repatriation and a rally. Ten thousand motorbikes throbbing through the town will be noisy, smelly, thrilling, almost martial – miles away from the quiet, spontaneous and reflective commemorations of young lives lost prematurely.

Back in January, Islam4UK abandoned its widely criticised plans to hold a rally through the town, the ostensible purpose of which would have been to raise awareness and promote discussion of the wider issues of the war. While that is doubtless a debate that should be had more frequently, it was right not to have it in Wootton Bassett, thereby preserving the town's neutrality. The Afghan Heroes parade would be a blow to Wootton Bassett's quiet, unassuming decency and neutrality from which the town may never recover.

Russian oligarch awarded damages over claims he arranged polonium poisoning of friend and former KGB spy

The exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky was today awarded libel damages of £150,000 over "savage" allegations he was behind the murder of his Alexander Litvinenko, the poisoned Russian dissident who was his close friend.

In a chaotic high court battle in London, the 64-year-old tycoon successfully argued his reputation had seriously been damaged by a Russian state television broadcast in April 2007.

The programme, available to view for free by satellite in the UK, included an interview with a man who claimed he had been offered £40m by Litvinenko – who was working for Berezovsky until his death – to falsely confess to being a KGB hitman tasked with killing Berezovsky with a poisoned ballpoint pen.

When he refused to take the bribe, the man said, he was drugged and then forced to make a false testimony used to bolster Berezovsky's asylum application in the UK.

The purpose of this lie-filled testimony, the man said, was to "prove" the oligarch would be in mortal danger if he returned to his homeland.

His evidence was indeed crucial in proving Berezovsky's political refugee status and he was granted asylum in 2003, the court heard.

In the same programme the presenter suggested that Litvinenko, who died from poisoning with radioactive polonium in London in November 2006, was killed at Berezovsky's behest because Litvinenko was a witness to Berezovsky's fraudulent claim for political asylum.

The logic was that Litvinenko would be an important witness for Russian prosecutors investigating allegations that Berezovsky's asylum was based on lies, and thus Berezovsky wanted him dead – just in case.

Berezovsky claimed he was a victim of "selective editing" after the programme began with a clip of him saying: "If I particularly dislike someone, I'll kill him." The remark was clearly "ironic or jocular", said his barrister, Desmond Browne, QC.

The oligarch pulled up to court most days during the trial in a blacked-out limousine complete with motorcycle outriders and sat in court flanked by his security guards.

Giving evidence, he explained why he took action. "I cannot imagine a more offensive and damaging allegation. It would be damaging enough to allege merely that I bribed or drugged a man so as to force him to give false evidence in order to help me secure my asylum status; that I was accused of Sasha's [Alexander Litvinenko's] murder, and to think people may believe it to be true, was, and still is, deeply upsetting."

"I have been portrayed as a man whom people should fear; this affects my relationships with everyone who is not already a close personal friend."

Berezovsky, who has an estimated wealth of $1bn (£667m) according to Forbes magazine, told the court that Litvinenko was a dear and loyal friend who had saved his life "on more than one occasion" – chiefly by refusing to assassinate him in 1998 when Litvinenko was a KGB agent.

The grateful Berezovsky then became Litvinenko's benefactor, arranging his family's escape to the UK. Once in London he gave Litvinenko a house and thousands of pounds a month in "research grants".

To back up his claim Berezovsky enlisted a roster of high profile witnesses, including Litvinenko's widow, Marina.

After Litvinenko fell ill in 2006 after ingesting a radioactive isotope in a London sushi bar, Berezovsky told British journalists that his friend had been poisoned because he was an enemy of the then-Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

The two-week trial was almost anarchic at times after officials from the Russian prosecutors' office repeatedly intervened despite not being party to proceedings.

At least three Russian prosecutors were in court each day to assist Vladimir Terluk, the man accused of giving the contentious interview about Berezovsky's bogus asylum claim. They whispered in Terluk's ear, passed him notes and smirked or laughed as the evidence was heard.

Terluk, a Khazak who came to the UK to seek asylum in 1999, had been left to defend the libel action alone and without a lawyer after the Russian Television and Radio Company refused to take part.

He denied being "Pyotr", the man in the offending broadcast, yet maintained everything Pyotr said was true, including "that [Berezovsky's] associates tried to organised the falsification of the assassination plot with the purpose of obtaining refugee status by Mr Berezovsky and his associates… and the late Mr Litvinenko himself was the one who was trying actively to implement that falsification".

Moscow has made no secret of their desire to extradite Berezovsky, who has been an outspoken critic of the Kremlin ever since he fell out with Vladimir Putin in 2000.

In April 2009 the Russian prosecutor charged Berezovsky with "knowingly false denunciation of a involvement in a serious crime" – a charge peculiar to Russian law that relates to him allegedly knowingly fabricated evidence in support of his 2003 asylum claim.

One of the Russian prosecutors admitted to the Guardian he hoped Berezovsky would lose the case so his asylum status would be called into question by the Home Office and he would be returned to Russia to face trial.

So obvious was their intention that when one of their mobile phones went off in court one day, Desmond Browne, QC, quipped: "That must be Mr Putin on the line."

Berezovsky is no stranger to London's law courts. In 1997 he sued the American magazine Forbes after it printed an article that asked: "Is he the Godfather of the Kremlin?" He won despite only 2,000 copies of the 785,000 sold worldwide having been purchased in the UK.

That case is often cited as an example of libel tourism – foreigners taking advantage of England's libel laws, which tend to favour the claimant by putting the burden of proof on the defendant.

In 2008 he began a £2bn legal tussle with another London-based oligarch, Roman Abramovich, over allegations Berezovsky was forced to sell shares in a string of huge Russian state companies. He is currently fighting the widow of his friend and business partner Badri Patarkatsishvili for half of the dead man's fortune.

He Who Must Live documents Cuban leader's escapes from bacteria-infected hankie, exploding cigar and poisoned wetsuit

Illness has forced him from public view but Fidel Castro is back in Cuban living rooms via a lavish television series that celebrates his escape from 638 assassination plots.

The eight-part series, He Who Must Live is an extravagant departure from Cuban TV's typically low-budget fare: more than 1,000 actors and extras are used in a mix of CSI-type fiction, docu-drama and archive material.

The interior ministry, institute of police sciences and state-sanctioned film-makers teamed up to tell the story of how the CIA spent decades trying to murder the US's tropical communist foe.

"As a historical series we turn to a mix of genres to help us and give the viewers more information about the facts," the director, Rafael Ruiz Benítez, told officials before the first 70-minute instalment aired last Sunday.

The prime time show, unprecedented in its glossiness, is to run over eight weeks, each episode focusing on a different period. It marks an unexpected starring role for a leader who relinquished power and vanished from public view four years ago after serious intestinal problems.

Dan Erikson, an analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue thinktank and author of The Cuba Wars, said: "Fidel Castro may be leaving the stage but it's already clear that he has no plans to go quietly. By commissioning a major television series about how Fidel Castro outwitted and outlasted his foes in the United States over the past 50 years, the Cuban government is reviving one of its favourite story lines and burnishing the mythology that swirls around Cuba's revolutionary leader."

The series took three years, 243 actors, 800 extras and a possibly significant chunk of Cuban TV's spartan film-making budget.

The inaugural programme focuses on efforts to kill Castro when he was a young revolutionary in Mexico in 1956 preparing to lead several dozen guerrillas on a mission to overthrow Cuba's US-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista.

Later instalments feature the CIA's notorious and much derided efforts to kill the Soviet ally after his insurgency triumphed and he established a communist state 90 miles off Florida.

Some are well known: the exploding cigar, the ballpoint hypodermic syringe, the gift of a poisoned wetsuit. Others less so: a bacteria-infected hankie, an aerosol can filled with LSD.

Cuban security services counted 638 assassination plots by the CIA or their many proxies. A retired agent, Fabián Escalante, wrote about them in his book, 638 Ways to Kill Castro. His colleague, Xavier Solado, wrote a pamphlet of the same name. There was also a 2006 Channel 4 documentary of the same name.

Cuba's TV series features actors playing Batista, the CIA director Allen Dulles and, it is thought, presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, who authorised the murder attempts. A thaw after Barack Obama's election has ended with Washington and Havana trading insults but the US has forsworn killing Castro.

The series airs at a difficult time for the revolution. Raúl Castro has tinkered with the centrally planned economy he inherited from his big brother, but with little success. The state is struggling to pay international creditors and ordinary Cubans are suffering food shortages, electricity rationing and meagre wages.

"The gigantic paternalistic state can no longer be, because there is no longer any way to maintain it," the economy minister, Marino Murillo, said in a recent video shown to communist party cadres, according to Reuters.

With gloom widespread, the TV series may not set pulses racing, said Erikson. "While some older Cubans may be intrigued by this trip down memory lane, the reappearance of Fidel as a telenovela star will likely prompt younger generations of Cubans to reach for their remote controls."