Calif. wildfires may merge; state of emergency declared
Yucca Valley, Calif. – A 40,000-acre fire chewed through desert wilderness Thursday after destroying 100 homes and buildings and was on course to possibly merge with a blaze in the San Bernardino National Forest.
The huge fire edged northwest toward the forest, burning greasewood, Joshua trees, piñon pines and brush on the desert floor. Containment was just 20 percent. Five miles away, a 1,200-acre fire in the forest was 5 percent surrounded.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in San Bernardino County to better coordinate and expedite state efforts to help people affected.
Evacuation orders were lifted for several communities, including the old Western film locale of Pioneertown, but new evacuations were ordered for dozens of homes in Morongo Valley, and residents of Burns Canyon and Rimrock remained unable to return home.
“We’re very, very lucky,” said Sandy Dugan, whose Pioneertown home still stood while the charred remains of others smoldered. “It’s hard to see your neighbors’ homes gone.”
Authorities said the odor of smoke from the blazes 100 miles east of Los Angeles could be detected in Las Vegas and Ogden, Utah.
Fire officials said that both fires could link up on the desert floor. Higher up in the mountains, millions of dead trees carried the potential for even more destruction, but they were at least 15 miles from either fire.
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Ex-Bosnian soldier sentenced in killings
A court Thursday sentenced a former Bosnian army soldier to 14 1/2 years in prison for his participation in the killing of eight Sarajevo Serbs during the 1992-95 war.
Samir Bejtic, 37, was a member of a Sarajevo-based brigade of the Bosnian army, which was led by Musan Topalovic, a Bosnian Muslim warlord known as Caco.
Topalovic was killed in a government sweep in 1993 after authorities established that he and members of his brigade had killed more than two dozen Serb civilians from Sarajevo and left their bodies in a pit.
Dozens of soldiers from Topalovic’s unit were arrested, and 15 of them were sentenced to prison terms. Bejtic, however, managed to escape to Germany. He was later extradited to Bosnia, and his trial began in 2003.
CEYHAN, Turkey
Presidents open Caspian oil pipeline
The presidents of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia opened a pipeline Thursday designed to bypass Russia and bring Caspian oil to Europe, a route that President Bush said would bolster global energy security.
The United States staunchly supported the 1,100-mile, $3.9 billion pipeline as part of a strategy to tap sources of crude outside the Middle East and draw the Caspian states away from Russia and closer to the West.
Oil began flowing from the Turkish port of Ceyhan last month, and 430,000 barrels of oil are flowing daily, said Norman Rodda, construction manager for the Turkish section of the line.
MINSK, Belarus
Man jailed for leading anti-election rally
An opposition leader was convicted Thursday of organizing an unauthorized rally against the disputed election of Belarus’ authoritarian president and sentenced to 5 1/2 years in jail.
Alexander Kozulin, one of two opposition politicians to run in the March 19 election, denounced his trial as “unfair” and called the judge “an executioner.”
The 50-year-old former bureaucrat has been jailed since leading the protest march six days after the disputed vote, which officials said President Alexander Lukashenko won by an overwhelming margin.
