BERLIN – A historical novel about the prophet Muhammad and his child bride that was pulled by Random House over concerns it would anger Muslims will be printed by another German publisher, the author said in an interview released Wednesday.

Germany’s Leipziger Volkszeitung newspaper said Sherry Jones told them her debut novel “The Jewel of Medina” will be published in October in English. The American author declined to identify the publisher or give other details, but dismissed concerns it could provoke violence, the newspaper reported.

“To claim that Muslims will answer my book with violence is pure nonsense,” Jones said. “Anyone who reads the book will see that it honors the prophet and his favorite wife.”

Random House Publishing Group, which is owned by German media company Bertelsmann AG, has acknowledged pulling the novel about Muhammad and his ninth wife, Aisha.

The publisher, which had planned to release the book last month, said in a statement at the time that “credible and unrelated sources” had warned that the book “could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.”

The book is already scheduled for publication in several countries, including Italy, Spain, Brazil and Hungary. In August, Serbian publisher BeoBook released “The Jewel of Medina” but then quickly withdrew it from stores after protests from local Islamic leaders who said it insulted Muhammad and his family.

The publisher expressed its “apology and regret” to the Islamic community in a statement published on the company Web site. Jones’ agent, Natasha Kern, says she has been working on resolving the situation in Serbia and remains hopeful it will be published there.

Following the Random House decision, Salman Rushdie, whose “The Satanic Verses” led to a death decree in 1989 from Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that forced the author to live under police protection for years, said the publisher had allowed itself to be intimidated.

“I am very disappointed to hear that my publishers, Random House, have canceled another author’s novel, apparently because of their concerns about possible Islamic reprisals,” Rushdie said in an e-mail sent last month to The Associated Press. “This is censorship by fear, and it sets a very bad precedent indeed.”

Jones was quoted by the Leipziger Volkszeitung as saying that the fact “that one of the biggest publishing houses in the world refuses to publish a book because of warnings is a sobering comment on the state of freedom of speech in the USA.”

	Salah satu sudut Sarajevo saat dikepung (kiri) dan keadaan kini

Salah satunya ada pengepungan 43 bulan terhadap kota Sarajevo.

Warga Sarajevo mungkin punya banyak alasan untuk bersuka cita atas ditangkapnya Radovan Karadzic.

Tragedi pengepungan Sarajevo –yang membuat Karadzic diincar oleh Mahkamah Kejahatan Internasional– berawal ketika kaum nasionalis Serbia mendirikan Republik Serbia di Bosnia dan menentang kemerdekaan Bosnia-Herzegovina yang diakui PBB.

Atas komando Presiden Karadzic, tentara Serbia Bosnia dan milisi Serbia mengepung rapat kota Sarajevo, yang merupakan ibukota Bosnia-Hersegovina. Mereka menutup semua jalan masuk dan keluar, serta memutus aliran listrik, air, dan gas.

Menteror warga

Mulai April 1992, pasukan Karadzic menjadikan kota, dan seluruh isinya sebagai sasaran serangan. Selama 43 bulan, peluru meriam dan penembak gelap menteror warga sipil Bosnia siang dan malam.

	Warga mengenang korban pengepungan Sarajevo

Tujuannya adalah menimbulkan ketakutan, kelaparan, dan memaksa warga sipil mengungsi dan pemerintah Bosnia menyerah.

Penderitaan Sarajevo ini terekam dalam buku harian bocah Zlata Filipovic, yang sering dijuluki Anne Frank dari Sarajevo.

Satu-satunya harapan bagi warga untuk bertahan adalah bantuan yang dikirim melalui udara oleh PBB.

Namun, Pasukan penjaga perdamaian PBB, yang bertugas menjaga bandara Sarajevo, tidak bisa berbuat banyak.

Diperkirakan 12 ribu warga Sarajevo dan sekitarnya terbunuh.

Pengepungan Sarajevo baru berakhir Februari 1996, setelah Nato turun tangan untuk menegakkan kesepakatan damai Dayton

Diperbaharui pada: 02 September, 2008 – Published 09:56 GMT

	Browser baru Google bernama Chrome

Browser bernama Chrome ini dirancang untuk dipakai dalam aplikasi web generasi berikutnya yang banyak menggunakan grafik dan multimedia.

Sebagai langkah awal, Chrome akan diluncurkan dalam versi Beta di 100 negara dalam versi Windows, baru setelah itu Google akan meluncurkan versi Mac dan Linux.

“Kami sadar bahwa… soal browser ini harus dipikir ulang secara menyeluruh,” kata Sundar Pichai dari Google dalam blognya.

Akan menarik melihat perkembangannya John Lilly Direktur eksekutif Mozilla

Chrome akan membantu Google mendorong pemakaian berbagai aplikasi miliknya yang tersedia di internet, untuk menggantikan program-program desktop.

Google selama ini sudah mengembangkan berbagai aplikasi seperti Picasa, Documents dan berbagai jenis peta yang teresedia di internet, dan mulai menggantikan program yang sebelumnya hanya tersedia secara offline.

“Yang dibutuhkan sebenarnya bukan sekedar browser, tetapi juga platform modern bagi situs dan aplikasi web, dan inilah yang akan kami bangun,” kata Pichai.

Persaingan

Peluncuran Chrome versi Beta pada hari Selasa semakin mempergencar serangan Google terhadap dominasi Microsoft dalam bisnis PC.

Browser Internet Explorer buatan Microsoft sekarang menguasai 80% bisnis mesin pencari internet.

… orang akan memilih Internet Explorer 8 karena memberi layanan yang diinginkan langsung di jari pemakai. IE8 bukan sekedar browser Dean Hachamovitch General Manager Internet Explorer, Microsoft

Dalam blognya, John Lilly, direktur eksekutif Mozilla pembuat Firefox, mengatakan langkah Google itu tidak mengejutkan.

“Bisnis mereka adalah web, dan mereka punya pandangan jelas tentang apa yang harus dilakukan, dan orang pintar memikirkan bagaimana membuat teknologi semakin baik.”

“Akan menarik melihat perkembangannya,” tambah Lilly.

Dia menyambut baik persaingan dari Google dan mengatakan kerja sama antara Mozilla dan Google dalam beberapa proyek akan berlanjut.

Dean Hachamovitch, general manager Internet Explorer di Microsoft, yakin pengguna internet tetap akan setiap kepada produk mereka.

“Sektor browser internet penuh persaingan, tetapi orang akan memilih Internet Explorer 8 karena memberi layanan yang diinginkan langsung di jari pemakai. IE8 bukan sekedar browser. Produk kami memberi pengguna kendali atas data pribadi mereka di internet,” kata Hachamovitch.

Chrome akan dapat didownload mulai Rabu pagi tanggal 3 September.

Sumber : Yahoo! News, 03 September 2008

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent Wed Sep 3, 2:22 AM ET

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Republicans assailed Barack Obama as the most liberal, least experienced White House nominee in history Tuesday night and enthusiastically extolled their own man John McCain as “ready to lead this nation.” Delegates at the GOP National Convention rallied behind running mate Sarah Palin in the face of fresh controversy.

“Country matters more than party,” declared Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, making a prime time appeal from the Republicans’ podium to disaffected Democrats and independents. Delegates booed heartily when he said Obama had voted to cut off funding “for our troops on the ground” in Iraq.

A parade of speakers, led by President Bush, hailed McCain, praising him as a war hero who endured years of torture in Vietnam and decades later risked his White House ambitions to support an unpopular Iraq war.

The Republican nominee-in-waiting campaigned in Pennsylvania and Ohio during the day, slowly making his way toward the convention city where the 72-year-old Arizona senator will deliver his formal acceptance speech on Thursday night.

Inside the convention hall, about two dozen men who were Vietnam prisoners with him a generation ago sparked chants of “USA, USA” when they were introduced to the delegates.

Bush, an unpopular president relegated to a relatively minor role at the convention, reprised the national security themes that propelled him to a second term as he spoke — briefly, by satellite from the White House. “We need a president who understands the lessons of Sept. 11, 2001,” he said. “That to protect America, we must stay on offense, stop attacks before they happen and not wait to be hit again. The man we need is John McCain.”

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson drew some of the loudest cheers of the night as he scoffed at Obama, the 47-year-old Illinois senator who is seeking to become the first black president.

“Democrats present a history-making nominee for president. History making in that he is the most liberal, most inexperienced nominee ever to run for president,” Thompson said as delegates roared their agreement.

Like Lieberman, Thompson described Palin as a political maverick in the McCain mold.

Thompson delivered a particularly sharp defense of the Alaska governor. She is “from a small town, with small town values, but that’s not good enough for those folks who are attacking her and her family.”

He said McCain’s decision to place her on the ticket “has the other side and their friends in the media in a state of panic.”

Other Republicans — delegates and luminaries alike — also defended Palin, who disclosed on Monday that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is pregnant. In addition, a lawyer has been hired to represent the governor in an ethics-related controversy back home in Alaska.

Conservatives, slow to warm to McCain even after he clinched the nomination last spring, were particularly supportive.

“I haven’t seen anything that comes out about her that in any way troubles me or shakes my confidence in her,” said former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who ran unsuccessfully for the party’s presidential nomination this year.

“All it has done for me is say she is a human person with a real family.”

And Ron Nehring, chairman of the California state party, said video footage of Palin on a firing range was helping her cause.

“The reports I’m getting back is that every time they show that footage we get 1,000 precinct walkers from the NRA,” he told members of his state’s delegation, to laughter. “She cuts taxes and shoots moose. That’s Gov. Palin,” Nehring said.

Thompson jabbed at Obama on abortion, as well.

“We need a president who doesn’t think that the protection of the unborn or a newly born baby is above his pay grade,” he said in prepared remarks, referring to a recent episode in which McCain’s White House rival said it was “above my pay grade” to decide the point at which an unborn child is entitled to rights.

There were indications that Republicans thought they could turn Palin-related controversy to McCain’s gain. Officials said Levi Johnston, the 18-year-old father of the baby Bristol Palin is expecting, was en route to the convention from his home in Wasilla, Alaska.

McCain’s wife, Cindy, took in the evening program from a VIP box. So, too, former President George H.W. Bush, accompanied by his wife Barbara.

Bush scrapped a planned Monday night speech because of the threat Hurricane Gustav posed to New Orleans. With polls making it clear the nation is ready for a change, the McCain campaign indicated there was no reason for him to make the trip to St. Paul.

The president referred to the years of torture McCain endured as a prisoner of war. Then Bush added, “If the Hanoi Hilton could not break John McCain‘s resolve to do what is best for his country, you can be sure the angry left never will.”

“As president he will stand up to the high tax crowd in Congress … and lift the ban for drilling on America’s offshore oil,” Bush added.

As for Palin, despite Thompson’s remarks — and McCain’s declaration that he was satisfied with the scrutiny his aides had given the governor before her selection_ there were fresh disclosures.

Among them: that both as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, and as governor, she had sought earmarks for local projects. Her most recent round of requests totaled $300 for every Alaskan. McCain has frequently vowed to veto any earmark legislation, and has said she will be a force in his battle to wipe them out.

Additionally, the lawyer hired to defend Palin in an ethics investigation said he also is representing her personally and is permitted to bill the state up to $95,000 for work in the current case. The issue involves the dismissal of public safety commissioner Walt Monegan after he refused to fire a state trooper who had divorced the governor’s sister.

Republicans handed Lieberman the prime spot in the evening lineup, and he blended praise for McCain with criticism of Obama.

“When others wanted to retreat in defeat from the field of battle, when Barack Obama was voting to cut off funding for our troops on the ground, John McCain had the courage to stand against the tide of public opinion,” the Connecticut Democratic-turned-independent senator said in excerpts released in advance of his speech.

The decision to place Lieberman out front on the convention’s second night capped an unprecedented political migration. Only eight years ago, he stood before a cheering throng at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles and accepted the nomination as Al Gore’s running mate.

In the years since, he lost badly in 2004 when he sought the Democratic presidential nomination, lost a Democratic nomination for a new term at home in Connecticut in 2006, then recovered quickly to win re-election as an independent.

Back in the Senate, his vote allows the Democrats to command a narrow majority, yet he has been one of the most outspoken supporters of the war in Iraq. He has traveled widely with McCain in recent months, and occasionally has angered Democrats with remarks critical of Obama.

___

Associated Press writers Beth Fouhy in Philadelphia and Scott Bauer and Martiga Lohn in St. Paul contributed to this story

	Badan bantuan darurat segera datang ke lokasi pemboman

Ini adalah serangan terburuk terhadap situs militer dalam sejarah Pakistan.

Dua bom meledak di kota yang terletak 30km di barat Islamabad ketika pada pekerja meninggalkan pabrik. Banyak orang menderita luka-luka.

Juru bicara Taliban Pakistan mengatakan mereka melancarkan serangan tersebut, yang dikatakan untuk membalas kekerasan oleh militer di bagian barat laut negara itu.

Banyak orang lainnya luka-luka dan kami memperkirakan jumlah korban jiwa akan bertambah Nasir Khan Durrani Kepala Polisi Wah

Kepada BBC, Maulvi Umar dari Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan mengatakan pemboman di Wah adalah serangan balasan atas kematian “wanita dan anak-anak tidak berdosa” di daerah kesukuan, Bajaur.

Dia mengatakan serangan akan dilancarkan lagi juga militer Pakistan tidak keluar dari daerah-daerah kesukuan.

Para wartawan mengatakan kota Wah adalah tempat strategis yang biasanya mendapat penjagaan keamanan ketat, karena merupakan lokasi kompleks industri besar yang menghasilkan senjata dan amunisi.

“Banyak orang lainnya luka-luka dan kami memperkirakan jumlah korban jiwa akan bertambah,” kata kepala polisi setempat Nasir Khan Durrani kepada BBC.

“Setidaknya 25 orang menderita luka berat.”

Durrani mengatakan korban bukan personil militer.

Operasi militer

Ledakan pertama terjadi di luar gerbang pabrik ketika para pekerja meninggalkan kompleks pabrik.

Beberapa menit kemudian ledakan kedua mengguncang gerbang lain di pabrik yang sama.

Wah, yang terletak di provinsi Punjab, adalah tempat kompleks penghasil senjata khusus di Pakistan.

Wartawan BBC Syed Shoaib Hasan di Islamabad mengatakan serangan-serangan itu diyakini terkait dengan operasi militer yang sedang berlangsung di kawasan kesukuan di Pakistan.

Pada hari Selasa, 32 orang tewas dalam serangan bunuh diri di sebuah rumah sakit di kota Dera Ismail Khan di utara.

Wartawan kami mengatakan ini adalah serangan langsung kedua terhadap instalasi militer Pakistan belakangan ini.

Bulan Juli lalu, 17 perwira dan tentara Pakistan terbunuh dalam serangan bunuh diri di pangkalan pasukan khusus di dekat kota Tarbela-Ghazi.

(Getty Images/NARINDER NANU)

Komuter India berupaya melewati jalan yang tergenang air setelah hujan deras mengguyur Amritsar, 12 Agustus 2008

/

LUCKNOW, KAMIS – Hujan deras yang menerpa India utara telah menewaskan sekitar 74 orang serta merusak puluhan rumah yang tidak layak huni. Seluruh korban tewas berasal dari negara bagian Uttar Pradesh, salah satu negara termiskin di India.

Hujan musiman yang berlangsung dari Juni hingga September di India diperlukan bagi musim cocok tanam para petani di negara tersebut. Namun, hujan musiman juga menimbulkan bencana alam seperti banjir dan longsor, serta merusakkan sejumlah rumah dan menimbulkan petir yang menewaskan ratusan orang setiap tahun. Bencana banjir terbaru telah mengakibatkan jumlah korban meninggal dunia dalam setahun terakhir mencapai lebih 300 jiwa. 

Jumlah korban meninggal dunia dalam bencana banjir terbaru sebagian besar adalah anak-anak dan perempuan. Salah satu wilayah yang terkena dampak terburuk banjir adalah kota Varanasi yang diguyur hujan dengan intensitas 290 milimeter dalam 24 jam terakhir.
JIM
Sumber : AP

Sumber : Yahoo! Asia News

Photo: Reuters Click to enlarge

VERKHNY ZARAMAG, Russia (Reuters) – Russian military trucks trickled back into Russia from Georgia on Wednesday but no armoured vehicles or artillery passed and there was no sign of the large-scale rapid pullout demanded by the West.

The White House said it had seen initial signs that Russia was withdrawing some of its forces from Georgia but Moscow needed to move faster. Germany, a key trading partner of Russia, described the situation in Georgia as “very unsatisfactory”.

A Reuters reporter at Verkhny Zaramag, on the border between Russia and Georgia’s breakaway province of South Ossetia, said the only heavy armour heading into Russia at the crossing was a column of Georgian equipment seized by Russian forces.

He saw eight armoured personnel carriers, followed by three T-72 main battle tanks. The tanks had markings on their turrets in Latin script. Russian armour has Cyrillic markings.

Earlier, the reporter saw about 40 trucks covered with tarpaulins, some apparently empty, crossing the frontier.

“It (the withdrawal) is not significant and it needs to increase,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters aboard Air Force One as U.S. President George W. Bush flew to Florida to give a speech on terrorism.

“Both the size and pace of the withdrawal needs to increase and needs to increase sooner rather than later,” he said. “I don’t think they need any more additional time.”

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who has worked closely in the crisis with his powerful mentor Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, said on Tuesday Russia would withdraw its forces from Georgia by Friday under a peace plan brokered by France.

But diplomats say Russia appears to have secured its military objectives and is in no hurry to give ground. It wants instead to secure maximum advantage from occupying a troublesome neighbour, whose pro-U.S. policies have angered it, they say.

SCEPTICISM

Russia reserves the right to leave some troops in a buffer zone around the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Impatience is turning to scepticism over the delays.

“Three times Medvedev has said they are starting the withdrawal and they have not,” French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was quoted in the International Herald Tribune newspaper as saying. “We cannot accept this kind of blindness, not accepting international law.”

In Berlin, German government spokesman Thomas Steg said: “At the moment we have no tangible indication that the Russian troop withdrawal has really started … The Russian side has to follow up what it has promised with concrete action.”

An official of the Council of Europe, a pan-European forum that promotes democracy, said his convoy was hampered by Russian military checkpoints during a trip to assess conditions in the Russian-occupied central Georgian town of Gori.

“Gori is a ghost town. You see hardly anybody on the streets,” Matyas Eorsi told a news conference, adding that two banks in the centre of the city had been looted.

“We don’t know who did the looting but under international law the occupying power bears full responsibility,” he said.

Around 30,000 refugees were waiting to return to Gori but were too afraid to go back while Russian tanks continued to block roads, Eorsi added.

Near the village of Igoeti, the closest Russian checkpoint to the capital Tbilisi, Russian troops wearing helmets with the sky-blue bands of peacekeepers were digging into foxholes at the side of the road. There was no sign of Russian convoys on the move there, 45 km (30 miles) from the capital.

The crisis erupted on August 7-8 when Georgia tried to recapture South Ossetia, which broke with Tbilisi in 1992. Russian forces hit back, thrusting beyond the region into the Georgian heartland, overrunning the army in fierce fighting.

Both sides issued new casualty figures. Russia said it had lost 64 military dead and Georgia announced 215 dead, including 69 civilians. Russia has previously said 1,600 South Ossetian civilians died after Georgia attacked the province, though this figure has not been independently verified.

DIPLOMACY

At the U.N., Western powers pushed for a Security Council resolution calling for an immediate Russian withdrawal from Georgia, but veto-holding Russia declined to back it.

Agreement at the U.N. is also needed for international peacekeepers to be sent to Georgia. In the meantime, the six-point peace plan accepted by all sides allows Russian forces to take additional unspecified security measures.

A draft U.N. text referred to “the territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognised borders”. Russia argues that phrasing implies the pro-Russian rebel region of South Ossetia, at the centre of the conflict, should be reintegrated into Georgia proper.

Moscow’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has already said the world can forget about Georgia’s territorial integrity after the bloodshed of the last two weeks.

Russian lawmakers will hold an extraordinary session next week to urge the Kremlin to recognise the independence of South Ossetia and of Abkhazia, another breakaway Georgian region backed by Moscow.

(Writing by Gareth Jones and Ralph Boulton; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Robin Brant Wartawan BBC News

	Kerja sama Indonesia dan Malaysia mengamankan Selat Malaka

Statistik dari Biro Maritim Internasional, IMB, menunjukkan pada tahun 2007 terjadi peningkatan serangan bajak laut sampai 10%.

Selat Malaka yang sempit, antara Indonesia dan Malaysia, merupakan jalur pelayaran dunia yang penting dan terkenal dengan aksi para bajak laut.

Ratusan kapal, umumnya berupa tanker minyak dan kapal barang, melintasi Selat Malaka setiap harinya.

Dan selama berabad-abad, selat ini menjadi satu-satunya pintu gerbang utama untuk pelayaran menuju ke kawasan Timur.

Namun langkah pengamanan baru ditempuh dan hingga kuartal pertama 2008 ini, serangan bajak laut mulai menurun, walaupun belum ada jaminan ancaman itu sudah sama sekali menghilang.

Dengan bantuan Amerika Serikat dan Jepang, aparat Angkatan Laut Indonesia dan Malaysia bekerja-sama untuk mengamankan laut di kawasan masing-masing.

Penculikan

	Selat Malaka memang terkenal dengan aksi bajak laut

Bulan Agustus tahun lalu, sebuah kapal tarik yang dinakodai Anwar diserang oleh 10 perampok.

Mereka mengambil semua harta benda milik awak kapal dan menghancurkan peralatan komunikasi. Anwar malah sempat diculik selama 10 hari.

“Saya amat ketakutan dengan kekerasan itu,” kenangnya. Dan Anwar dibebaskan setelah uang tebusan dibayarkan kepada para penculiknya.

Dan dari pelabuhan Port Klang di Malaysia, bisa dilihat apa yang membuat para bajak laut beraksi.

Kapal-kapal yang melintas di Selat Malaka membawa barang-barang yang berharga; baja, minyak, batu bara.

Energi merupakan barang utama yang dibawa kapal-kapal yang melintasi Selat Malaka.

Sebagian besar kebutuhan energi Jepang, yang merupakan negara terkaya kedua dunia, dibawa dengan melintasi Selat Malaka.

Rute penting

	Mmerupakan jalur penting bagi pelayaran dunia

Saya mengikuti patroli bersama Badan Pengamanan Maritim Malaysia, MMEA, yang beroperasi di kawasan laut Malaysia, dan berhenti di pos pengawasan yang terletak sekitar 18,5 dari daratan.

MMEA memiliki kapal cepat sementara helikopter baru akan segera tiba. Mereka mendapat bantuan dari Amerika Serikat dan Jepang, yang amat berkepentingan atas keamanan di Selat Malaka.

Dan patroli hari itu tidak menemukan aksi bajak laut.

Patroli memang menghentikan sebuah kapal penangkap ikan, dan biasanya ditemukan barang seludupan di kapal-kapal kecil, umumnya rokok.

Bagaimanapun patroli yang lebih sering telah membuat aksi bajak laut menurun.

“Ancaman pembajakan dan pencurian di sini amat nyata,” kata Direktur MMEA, Mohammad bin Nik.

“Bagaimanapun negara-negara pesisir seperti Malaysia, Indonesia, dan Singapura mengambil langkah-langkah untuk menjamin jalur air aman bagi pelayaran internasional,” tambahnya.

Dia menambahkan kegiatan intelijen amat diperlukan dalam menangkap bajak laut.

Hingga Mei 2008 tidak ada laporan tentang aksi bajak laut di Selat Malaka yang berada di wilayah Malaysia. Bisa jadi bajak laut beroperasi ke tempat lain, atau berhenti sama sekali beraksi?

Namun seorang ahli keamanan laut mengatakan kemungkinan mereka sedang menunggu sampai situasinyua memungkinkan kembali.

	Sedianya pesawat Spanair terbang ke Kepulauan Canary

Beberapa laporan yang belum dikukuhkan menyebutkan dalam kecelakaan ini hanya 26 orang yang selamat.

Pesawat milik maskapai penerbangan Spanair ini mengangkut 172 orang dan sedianya akan terbang ke Kepulauan Canary.

Diperkirakan mesin kiri pesawat terbakar ketika lepas landas.

Beberapa helikopter dikerahkan untuk menyiram pesawat dengan air dan puluhan ambulan datang ke lokasi kejadian.

Tayangan televisi menunjukkan beberapa orang digotong dengan tandu.

Jumlah korban secara pasti belum diketahui. Beberapa laporan menyebutkan hanya 26 orang yang selamat dalam kecelakaan yang terjadi pada pukul 14.30 waktu setempat.

Beberapa pejabat kepada BBC dan kantor berita Spanyol Efe membenarkan bahwa korban tewas lebih dari 100 orang.

Wartawan Spanyol Manuel Moleno yang berada di dekat lokasi kecelakaan mengatakan, pesawat sepertinya “hancur berkeping-keping”.

“Kami mendengar suara keras. Kami menghentikan kegiatan dan melihat asap membumbung,” katanya.

Moleno mengatakan dirinya melihat sekitar 20 orang berjalan meninggalkan badan pesawat yang rusak parah.

Asal negara para korban belum diumumkan.

Perdana Menteri Spanyol Jose Luis Zapatero memperpendek liburan karena kecelakaan ini dan dilaporkan meninjau lokasi kejadian.

Pesawat yang naas ini adalah jenis MD82, pesawat yang biasa dipakai untuk rute-rute pendek di Eropa, kata pakar penerbangan Chris Yates kepada BBC.

Dia juga mengatakan catatan keselamatan Spanair sangat baik.

Beberapa laporan menyebutkan ini adalah kecelakaan pertama di bandara Barajas sejak 1983.

	Amerika sepakat peta jalan Bali setelah disoraki

Perjanjian ini tidak memenuhi kesepakatan pengurangan gas rumah kaca secara prinsipil, kata Gedung Putih, dan perubahan iklim tidak dapat dicegah dengan pengurangan emisi oleh negara maju saja.

Para pegiat lingkungan mengkritik tidak adanya sasaran yang tegas untuk mengurangi emisi gas rumah kaca yang pada awalnya ditolak oleh Amerika.

Pertemuan di Bali diadakan untuk menyepakati perjanjian pengurangan emisi gas rumah kaca guna menggantikan Protokol Kyoto.

Pernyataan Gedung Putih tidak bertolak belakang dengan “Bali roadmap”, kata Richard Black dalam situs BBC News.

Pernyataan itu hanyalah apa yang dianggap Gedung Putih memprihatinkan, dan apa yang akan dipelajari untuk melanjutkan pertemuan Bali.

Langkah kritis

Gedung Putih menganggap perjanjian bali sebagai “langkah kritis pertama” ke arah pembentukan tujuan efektif menangani perubahan iklim, kata juru bicara Gedung Putih.

Dokumen peta jalan Bali mengacu pada “hal yang umum namun tanggung jawab berbeda dan kemampuan berbeda” dan menyerukan agar “langkah mitigasi yang dilakukan disesuaikan dengan kepentingan nasional oleh pihak-pihak negara berkembang”.

Namun, Amerika Serikat, mengatakan mereka merasa prinsip bersama namun tanggung jawab berbeda “masih belum ada dampaknya”.

“Masalah perubahan iklim tidak dapat ditangani melalui komitmen pengurangan emisi oleh negara-negara berkembang saja,” kata pernyataan itu.

“Negara-negara berkembang utama juga harus melakukan hal yang sama.”

Negara-negara berkembang, kata Amerika, harus dibedakan berdasarkan besar perekonomian dan energi yang digunakan.

Tujuan perubahan iklim harus “mempertimbangkan hak negara berkembang dan semua negara yang mengembangkan perekonomiannya, berkembang secara berkelanjutan, dan memiliki akses untuk menjamin sumber-sumber energi”.