Emergency declared in Yemen as violence rages
From Mohammed Jamjoom, CNN

(CNN) -- At least 40 people were killed and more than 100 hurt Friday in clashes between tens of thousands of anti-government protesters and security forces outside Sanaa University in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, medical officials on the scene said.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced that a state of emergency had been declared, and he expressed his "deep regret" over the casualties.
An Interior Ministry official said both sides suffered casualties in the violence. The official would not be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
Witnesses said the clashes began after government supporters and anti-government demonstrators threw rocks at each other. Security forces shot into the air and then into the crowd; they also fired tear gas to try to disperse the crowd, witnesses said.

"Orders had been issued earlier to all security apparatus to protect the protesters and the opposition, and to separate them," Saleh said.
At the time the firing began, however, the two sides were far apart -- meaning security forces could not protect the protesters, Saleh said. He also said the protesters opened fire in an area that was full of people.
"Their protests have to be carried out in places away from houses of ordinary people, in order to prevent any friction between them and the people living in those areas," he said.
"Therefore we have today announced a state of emergency in all regions and the ban of any acts of armed violence in order to preserve the safety and security of citizens," he added.
A spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy in Washington, Mohammed Albasha, called on senior security authorities to bring the perpetrators of Friday's violence to justice.
Separate statements from France and the United States, however, called on the Yemeni government to allow peaceful protests, implying that they believe the Yemeni government was responsible for the deaths and injuries.
"It is now imperative to stop attacks by security forces and pro-government armed groups against individuals exercising their right of expression and demonstration," the French Foreign Ministry said in a written statement. "We again urge the Yemeni authorities, as they have previously pledged to do, to protect peaceful demonstrators, to guarantee the civil and political rights, and to adopt concrete and credible measures reaching out to the aspirations of the country."
U.S. President Barack Obama also urged Saleh to stick to his pledge to protect peaceful demonstrations.
"The United States stands for a set of universal rights, including the freedom of expression and assembly, as well as political change that meets the aspirations of the Yemeni people," he said in a statement.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a statement Friday saying that the U.S. is "alarmed by today's violence in Sanaa against anti-government protesters" and that she joins Obama in "condemning the violence."
The U.S. is "seeking to verify reports that this is the result of actions by the security forces," Clinton said, adding that "all perpetrators of violence should should be held accountable and brought to justice."
Amnesty International went further, saying the shootings were part of an "apparently coordinated sniper attack" on protesters.
"This appears to have been a sniper attack with security forces deliberately shooting to kill protesters from strategic vantage points," said Philip Luther, Amnesty International's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Protesters were reportedly chanting anti-government slogans at a protest camp near Sanaa University when armed men in plain clothes, believed to be members of the security forces, started shooting live rounds from the top of nearby buildings, Amnesty International said.
Members of the security forces also shot at protesters at street level around the same time, it said.
The group said it heard from a witness that the shooting started from different buildings and continued for more than 30 minutes.
Hamid al-Ahmar, a member of parliament and leader of Yemen's opposition Islah Party, also blamed the government. "The attacks on protesters are unacceptable, and the end of the regime is near," he declared. "Saleh has brought upon himself a life of disgrace after the killing of innocent protesters."
Yemen has been wracked by weeks of unrest, with thousands protesting Saleh's government.
High unemployment has fueled much of the anger among a growing young population steeped in poverty. The protesters also cite government corruption and a lack of political freedom.
The president has said he will not run for another term in the next round of elections. He also has pledged to bring a new constitution to a vote by the end of the year and transfer government power to an elected parliamentary system.


Journalist Hakim Almasmari contributed to this report.

U.S. condemns arrest of opposition figures in Bahrain
By the CNN Wire Staff

Manama, Bahrain (CNN) -- The arrest in Bahrain of several prominent opposition figures has left the United States "deeply troubled," according to a statement Friday from the State Department.
"We are particularly concerned about the arrest of Ibrahim Sharif, a prominent leader of Wa'ad -- a large, registered, legitimate political society recognized by the government of Bahrain, as well as the reported detention of Dr. Ali Al-Ekri, a senior physician at Bahrain's largest public hospital, Salmaniya Medical Center," the statement said.
The United States called on the Bahraini government to ensure the security of the detainees, and to end violence against protesters.
Amnesty International also condemned the detention of the opposition figures and called for their immediate release. Eight activists were detained Thursday, according to a media release from the rights group. The release says they were arrested at their homes in armed raids conducted by a joint force of Bahraini and Saudi Arabian troops, that no arrest warrants were produced and that authorities have not allowed the detainees access to lawyers.

At a news conference Friday, Bahrain's Foreign Affairs Minister defended the decision to request the assistance of Peninsula Shield Forces from the Gulf Cooperation Council, of which the Saudi Arabian troops are members. The United Arab Emirates also sent troops as part of the GCC force.
The arrival of the troops is in accordance with international law, Foreign Minister Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa told reporters in Manama on Friday. They were sent in order to maintain security and stability and should not be seen as foreign interference in Bahrain's internal affairs, he said.
Meanwhile Friday, two doctors from Salmaniya Hospital said security forces were "beating patients."
The unnamed doctors said "six to 10 patients" were removed from the facility, but they did not know where the patients were being taken.
Security forces were also accused of "taking any evidence of presence like medical records and x-rays."
CNN could not independently confirm this information but has contacted the government for comment.
On Thursday, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed concern at reports that security forces were targeting hospitals. She said her office had been receiving "desperate calls" regarding, among other things, "the takeover of hospitals and medical centers by various security forces," which reportedly include troops from Peninsula Shield Forces.
Also Friday, security forces in Bahrain demolished the Pearl Monument, a landmark that had been the site of massive recent anti-government protests.
The government explained the demolition by saying it was done "out of the government's keenness to optimize services and improve the infrastructure" and that it would "boost flow of traffic in this vital area of the capital," according to the state-run Bahrain News Agency.
Pieces of the demolished modern white structure lay like a pile of bones, according to pictures broadcast on Bahrain state television.
Thousands of people congregated at the Pearl Roundabout during the height of anti-government demonstrations last month. The highway leading to the roundabout was clogged with protesters this week, though it was clear Friday and streets were quiet after a government crackdown on protesters.
Members of the opposition expressed their disappointment at the demolition of a structure the government itself had described as one of the kingdom's "most striking landmarks."
"I think it's a stupid act from the authorities that they think by removing this it will be removed from history," said Khalil Al Marzooq, a leading member of the Wefaq party. "But unfortunately what they have created is a historical feeling and records that will not be wiped out. They will continue to be rulers of this country by the tanks and Saudi troops, not by the feeling of the people."
Troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates moved into Bahrain on Monday, the Bahraini government said. The troops arrived under the banner of the Gulf Cooperation Council, an association of six Gulf Arab states.
Al Khalifa said their presence is simply to protect the country's stability and security.
"The view is quite clear," he said in an address on national TV. "The urgent matter is to restore the security and stability. How can we start the dialogue without having security and stability?"


CNN's Leone Lakhani contributed to this report.

Obama's potentially awkward Brazilian arrival
By Ed Henry, CNN Senior White House Correspondent


Brasilia, Brazil (CNN) -- Just hours after declaring at the White House that he has helped put together a "strong" coalition to launch military action against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi if necessary, President Obama arrived in a country that abstained from voting on the critical United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing force.
Obama landed in Brazil on Saturday for a bilateral meeting at the grand Planalto Palace with President Dilma Vana Rousseff, the first female leader of Brazil, which was one of just five nations that voted to abstain on Thursday night's vote before the U.N. Security Council.
A Brazilian official told CNN that Rousseff's government believes U.N. resolution 1973 is too wide in scope because besides opening the door to member nations imposing a potential no-fly zone over Libya, the resolution also allows those nations to take "any means necessary" against the Libyan government.
U.S. officials downplayed any notion that Brazil's position on Libya will cause friction at the start of Obama's five-day tour of Latin America, even though military action may commence over the weekend during the president's stops in Brasilia and Rio.
Obama will also be traveling to Chile and El Salvador, and the White House is hoping to keep the focus on efforts to create American jobs by boosting U.S. exports in this region instead of any tension over Libya.
"The U.S. enjoys a close and dynamic relationship with Brazil," said a senior Obama administration official. "We value Brazil's leadership in regional and multilateral institutions, including the U.N. Although we have not always agreed, we appreciate the strong working relationship we have and are fully confident that Brazil will uphold the Security Council's decisions as they've shown they have in other steps recently."
The other nations to abstain on the vote were China, Germany, India and Russia. The resolution passed anyway, by a 10-0 margin, thanks to the support of such key U.S. allies as France and the United Kingdom.
Brazil, a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, did vote in favor of the earlier U.N. Resolution 1970 that authorized tough sanctions against Libya to try to force Gadhafi to end attacks on civilians in his own country.
Obama said at the White House on Friday that the second resolution authorizing military action -- including the no-fly zone to prevent Gadhafi from bombing civilians from the air -- is necessary to put further pressure on the dictator.

Barely hatched,

startups take flight at SXSW

By Stacy Cowley, tech editorMarch 14, 2011: 12:03 AM ET

AUSTIN (CNNMoney) -- Almost 2,000 miles from

New York, a posse of the city's tech entrepreneurs gathered Sunday at an SXSW offshoot to network, recruit and pitch investors over beer.
Established fixtures from the city's startup scene -- like Etsy, Foursquare and Gilt Groupe -- turned out to mingle with a flock of brand-new upstarts. Some, quite literally, are just-barely hatched: Scott Carleton, co-founder of Artsicle, turned out to pitch his "Netflix of fine art" site. It launched 10 days ago.

Carleton is a former nuclear engineer who recently turned his hand to Web development. The creation-spark for Artsicle came from his girlfriend and fellow co-founder, Alexis Tryon, an art lover and former American Express employee.
"She went to a SoHo gallery, bonus check in hand, wanting to buy a painting -- and they wouldn't show it to her," Carleton says. Several tries later, she still couldn't crack the gallery code.
Enter Artsicle, which wants to demystify art shopping. For $50 a month, subscribers can rent a work from the site's portfolio. If they love it and want to keep it, the purchase price is prominently posted. Otherwise, they can swap it the next month and snag a new painting to display. The site opened its doors with a roster of 30 emerging artists, sourced from local university programs and galleries.
"It's completely bootstrapped," Carleton says of his venture, which went from idea to launch in four months.

On the other end of the spectrum are New York tech firms like SecondMarket, a seven-year-old financial services company that handled $10 billion in transactions last year. Its executives stopped by to tout the company's new private-stock sales platform, which connects deep-pocketed buyers with equity holders -- like employees at the startups milling around, drinking Shiner Bocks and swapping business cards via Twitter.
New York's tech scene leans heavily toward consumer Web companies. The SXSW meetup reflected that tilt, with pitches from new startups like imup4 (a planning tool for group outings), Dealery (daily-deals aggregator) and Pixable (Facebook photo sharing).
But the city is also home to a handful of deep-geek enterprise software companies -- the kinds of ventures more typically found in Silicon Valley. Like MongoDB. The name comes from "humongous," and that's the best way to describe the databases MongoDB underpins. It's the foundation of Foursquare, which stored records for 382 million check-ins last year.
MongoDB is an open-source product, offering its software (and the complete code base) for free and making money selling services and support around it. Founded in 2007, the company now has 30 people and a client roster that includes Intuit (INTU), Shutterfly, Bit.ly and the New York Times.
The most common complaint about trying to run a tech company in NYC is the city's shallow pool of skilled programmers, compared to the deep reservoirs in the San Francisco area. Nosh Petigara, director of product strategy at 10gen -- the commercial developer behind MongoDB -- said he "hasn't found it super-hard to recruit" the engineers MongoDB needs to grow. Still, 10gen just opened its first Bay Area office, in part, to tap into the city's talent stream.

Support for NYC's growing tech ecosystem goes straight to the top. As SXSW kicked off, Mayor Mike Bloomberg fired off a tweet in the Austin direction: "To all the NYC technology leaders attending #SXSW this year: show 'em how we do innovation here in #NYC @NYxSW"

How Japan's religions confront tragedy
By Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor

Proud of their secular society, most Japanese aren't religious in the way Americans are: They tend not to identify with a single tradition nor study religious texts.
"The average Japanese person doesn’t consciously turn to Buddhism until there’s a funeral,” says Brian Bocking, an expert in Japanese religions at Ireland’s University College Cork.
When there is a funeral, though, Japanese religious engagement tends to be pretty intense.
“A very large number of Japanese people believe that what they do for their ancestors after death matters, which might not be what we expect from a secular society,” says Bocking. “There’s widespread belief in the presence of ancestors’ spirits.”
In the days and weeks ahead, huge numbers of Japanese will be turning to their country’s religious traditions as they mourn the thousands of dead and try to muster the strength and resources to rebuild amid the massive destruction wrought by last Friday's 9.0 magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami.
For most Japanese, religion is more complex than adhering to the country’s ancient Buddhist tradition. They blend Buddhist beliefs and customs with the country’s Shinto tradition, which dates back to the 15th century.
“Japanese are not religious in the way that people in North America are religious,” says John Nelson, chair of theology and religious studies at the University of San Francisco. “They’ll move back and forth between two or more religious traditions, seeing them as tools that are appropriate for certain situations.”
“For things connected to life-affirming events, they’ll turn to Shinto-style rituals or understandings,” Nelson says. “But in connection to tragedy or suffering, it’s Buddhism.”
There are many schools of Japanese Buddhism, each with its own teachings about suffering and what happens after death.
“There are many Buddhist explanations of why calamities happen: from collective karma to seeing calamities as signs of apocalypse,” says Jimmy Yu, an assistant professor of Buddhism and Chinese religions at Florida State University. “And perhaps all of them are irrelevant to what needs to be done.”
Indeed, where Christianity, Judaism or Islam are often preoccupied with causes of disaster - the questions of why God would allow an earthquake, for example - Eastern traditions like Buddhism and Shinto focus on behavior in reaction to tragedy.
“It’s very important in Japanese life to react in a positive way, to be persistent and to clean up in the face of adversity, and their religions would emphasize that,” says University College Cork’s Bocking. “They’ll say we have to develop a powerful, even joyful attitude in the face of adversity.”
Japan’s major religious groups are still developing responses to the disaster, but experts say the impulse toward maintaining a positive outlook will likely translate into calls for Japanese to help friends and neighbors clean up and rebuild.
At the same time, Japan’s Buddhist priests will be preoccupied with rituals surrounding death and burial. Japanese Buddhism is often called funeral Buddhism because of its concern with such rituals.
Despite the Japanese penchant for blending their religious traditions - even with Western traditions like Catholicism - the overwhelming majority are buried according to Buddhist custom: cremation and interment in a family plot.
With many bodies swept away in the tsunami, many Japanese will have to come to terms with having to forego that ritual.
After burial, Japanese typically continue to practice rituals around caring for the spirits of the deceased. Most Japanese keep Buddhist altars in their homes, Nelson says, using them to pay tribute to dead ancestors.
“In the days ahead, you’ll see people praying, with hands folded, for the spirits of those killed,” he says. “It goes back to a really early understanding of human spirits and rituals designed to control those spirits, which can take 49 days or, depending on the type of Buddhism, could go on for up to seven years.”
One popular school of Japanese Buddhism, called Amida - or Pure Land - believes in a paradise that spirits of the dead can enter with help from living relatives.
Despite what is likely to be a mass embrace of Buddhist rituals after the earthquake, there may also be some grievances expressed over those traditions.
Many young Japanese have left Buddhism, accusing priests of profiting from grief because of their paid roles in burials. Critics say the priests spend money from funerals on temples without playing a broader role in society.
“The earthquake is an opportunity for Buddhist priests to step up and show they are still relevant,” says Nelson. “Young people just aren’t buying it anymore.”

Posted by: Dan Gilgoff - CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor

Berlusconi lawyer seeks probe of new angle in sex scandal

By the CNN Wire Staff

Rome (CNN) -- A lawyer for Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has asked Rome prosecutors to investigate an alleged attempt to falsify the birth records of the woman at the center of a sex scandal embroiling the prime minister.
The alleged falsification appears to be an attempt to make her appear not to have been a minor when Berlusconi allegedly paid to have sex with her.
Rome prosecutors did not immediately respond to CNN questions about the case.
Authorities allege that Berlusconi had a liaison with 17-year-old Karima el Mahroug, nicknamed "Ruby the heart-stealer," last spring during parties at his villa -- which both deny.
Berlusconi is scheduled to stand trial in April on charges that he paid the underage girl for sex and abused his position as prime minister by trying to get her out of police custody, which he also denies.
His lawyer, Nicolo Ghedini, said he had asked Rome prosecutors to investigate the allegation that two Italian "emissaries" had visited a birth-registry official in Morocco, where el Mahroug was born and offered bribes to make the young dancer seem older.
The allegation was raised by the Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano last week.
The dancer's age is significant because it is illegal to have sex with a prostitute in Italy only if she is a minor.
Berlusconi has been tried on at least 17 charges since his first term as prime minister began in 1994, but none of the cases have resulted in lasting convictions. Several were overturned on appeal.

CNN's Hada Messia contributed to this report.

'Baby Joseph' likely to have surgery within days, hospital says

By the CNN Wire Staff


(CNN) -- A 1-year-old child whose family fought a Canadian hospital over whether he should be allowed to die will likely have an operation to allow the insertion of a breathing tube by the end of the week, his new hospital said.
Joseph Maraachli, widely known in the media as Baby Joseph, is being evaluated by doctors at SSM Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center, a Catholic hospital in St. Louis, hospital spokesman Bob Davidson said.
The hospital had planned to have a press conference on Tuesday but canceled it "because there is not yet a firm treatment plan," he said in a statement late Monday.
But the head of pediatrics at the hospital, Robert Wilmott, expects a tracheotomy to go ahead by the end of the week, the statement said.
A tracheotomy is a surgical procedure to create an opening into the airway through an incision in the neck. A tube allows for suction of fluid out of the lungs, creates a safe and stable way to use a mechanical ventilator, and is more comfortable for the child, the statement said.

Joseph, who has a deteriorating neurological condition, was transferred to Cardinal Glennon Sunday from a hospital in London, Ontario.
Joseph, who was born in January 2010, had been in the care of the London Health Sciences Centre in Canada since October. His doctor, in court papers, said that "all cranial nerve functions are now absent" and there is no hope for recovery. He recommended that the infant's breathing tube be removed and he be allowed to die.
The child's parents, Moe and Sana Maraachli, sought instead to have their son receive a tracheotomy combined with continued mechanical ventilation so that he could be transferred home, where he would be cared for by his family. The child's aunt, Samar Nadar, has said that in 2002 the Maraachlis' daughter died at home with a tracheotomy after suffering a similar condition.
In January, a Canadian Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the hospital, saying it could remove the child's breathing tube without a replacement, and issue a do-not-resuscitate order and recommendations on palliative care.
The Maraachlis fought to have their son relocated to a U.S hospital for a second opinion.
The hospital in Canada said it would not perform a tracheotomy because it is an invasive procedure typically recommended for patients who require a long-term breathing machine. In a statement on the hospital's website, it says Joseph's transfer on Sunday happened "despite the strongest possible medical advice to the contrary from medical experts."
The Maraachli case gained the attention of pro-life groups including Priests for Life and the Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Network, who organized prayer vigils and rallies in support of the family.
In February, the hospital began receiving threats and increased security to protect its staff.
Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, flew to Ontario Sunday night to help with the transfer. He issued a news release saying: "After around-the-clock negotiations, this really became a race against time."
Joseph "needs to be in a hospital that cherishes life over the bottom line," he said.

CNN Medical Producer Sabriya Rice contributed to this report.