by Biodun Iginla and Nasra Ismail, BBC News

Published: March 27, 2011 at 5:35 PM ET

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LATAKIA, Syria — Gangs of young men, some armed with swords and hunting rifles, roamed Sunday through the streets of a Syrian seaside city, closing alleys with barricades and roughly questioning passersby in streets scarred by days of anti-government unrest.

The scenes in Latakia, a Mediterranean port once known as a summmer tourist draw, were a remarkable display of anarchy in what had been one of the Mideast's most tightly controlled countries.

Syria has been rocked by more than a week of demonstrations that began in the drought-parched southern agricultural city of Daraa and exploded nationwide on Friday, with security forces opening fire on demonstrators in at least six places and killing dozens.

The government has also tried to calm the situation with concessions, and President Bashar Assad is expected to announce Tuesday that he is lifting a nearly 50-year state of emergency and moving to annul other harsh restrictions on civil liberties and political freedoms.

Member of Parliament Mohammed Habash told The Associated Press that lawmakers discussed the state of emergency during a Sunday night session and Assad would make an announcement about the issue on Tuesday. He offered no further details.

Ammar Qurabi, an exile in Egypt who heads Syria's National Organization for Human Rights, said there appeared to be divergent views within the Syrian leadership, with one branch that believes in a crackdown and another that believes in dialogue.

He said Assad must address the people and show some transparency as quickly as possible.

"People are asking themselves, where is he? why doesn't he make an appearance?" Qurabi said. "Assad must choose whether he wants to go the way of the Moroccan king, who has pledged to sponsor broad constitutional reforms, or the Gadhafi way. Which is it going to be?"

A top adviser to Assad offered the first hint of reforms in an announcement Thursday, saying the government had begun studying change to the emergency law and other measures. That pledge did not stop protests from erupting in cities across Syria the following day.

Some of the worst violence appears to have taken place in Latakia, a coastal city that is a mix of Sunnis living in its urban core and members of Assad's minority Alawite branch of Shiite Islam in villages on its outskirts, along with small minorities of Christians, ethnic Turks and other groups.

Witnesses told The Associated Press that large, religiously mixed crowds took to the steets of Latakia on Friday to express sympathy with protesters in the southern city of Daraa and demand greater civil liberties and political freedoms and an end to official corruption.

According to the witnesses and footage posted on social networking sites, shooting erupted after nightfall Tuesday that protesters blamed on security forces, and unrest erupted that continued until Saturday. Syrian officials said the government moved the army into Latakia in heavy numbers by early Sunday.

Syrian officials said 12 people had died in the city, and blamed the deaths on unidentified gunmen firing from rooftops.

An Associated Press photographer saw traces of what appeared to have been a serious battle in Latakia's main Sheik Daher square. Two police cars had been smashed and rocks and telephone cables torn from overhead poles were strewn across the streets and sidewalks.

The offices housing SyriaTel, the mobile phone company owned in large part by a cousin of President Bashar Assad, had been burned.

At one of the city's two hospitals, officials said they had treated 90 wounded people on Friday. The photographer saw many suffering from gunshot wounds to the hands or feet. Others were in critical condition.

Few cars or people were on the streets and shops were closed. Soldiers patrolled in heavy numbers, stopping virtually anyone seen carrying a bag. They pulled drivers to the side of the road to ask for identification papers and search their vehicles.

Just before sundown, gangs of 10 to 15 young men began roaming the streets, many armed with sticks and a few carrying guns or swords. Some of the gangs could be seen closing streets and alleys with metal barricades and large rocks.

Their allegiances could not be immediately determined, but pro-government groups of men in civilian clothes and armed with hunting rifles and other firearms also could be seen pulling over drivers, asking them for identification and the reason for their presence in Latakia.

The Baath party's office in Latakia did not appear to be burnt, despite reports from activists Saturday that it had been set ablaze, which the government had denied.

The Reuters news agency reported that two of its staffers had been missing in Syria since Saturday night, saying Beirut-based producer Ayat Basma and cameraman Ezzat Baltaji had been expected to cross into Lebanon by road and be picked up by a taxi.

Reuters said it had asked for Syrian officials' help in securing the journalists' safe return.

Syria's state of emergency has been in force since Assad's Baath party took power on March 8, 1963. It lets the government detain suspects without trial and exercise strict control over the media.

It also allows civilians to be tried in military courts.

Assad's decisions are effectively law but the state of emergency would have to be formally canceled by a presidential decree requiring approval of the cabinet. The decree would then be referred to a parliamentary committee for approval before actually going into effect.

The next scheduled cabinet meeting is Tuesday.

Habash, the lawmaker, told the AP before the parliament session Sunday that it might vote on a section of the constitution that mandates Baath party leadership of the nation. The amendment of the constitution's section 8 would open the way for the formation of parties besides the Baath and 11 other closely associated parties known as the National Progressive Front.

There was no word of such a vote after the session.

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Published: March 27, 2011 at 3:49 PM ET

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PARIS — Conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy's party has taken a drubbing and the rival Socialists have gained groun in local elections that have been seen as a test ahead of the presidential vote next year.

The far-right National Front also claimed victory but it is unclear from Interior Ministry partial results whether the party will get its first official footprint in France's smallest administrative districts.

Results showed Sarkozy's UMP party taking 18.9 percent of the vote in Sunday's second-round balloting in the nation's cantons. It is the last national vote before next year's presidential elections.

The Socialist Party has 35 percent of the vote so far and the National Front more than 10 percent, down from 15 percent in last week's first-round vote.

The turnout in the areas counted so far was 44 percent.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

PARIS (AP) — Conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy's popularity is up for a test in local elections that could give the far-right National Front party its first official footprint in France's smallest administrative districts.

Sunday's second-round vote in the nation's cantons is the last national ballot before presidential balloting next year.

In last week's first-round balloting, the rival Socialist Party led with 25 percent of the vote, way ahead of Sarkozy's UMP party with 17 percent and just ahead of the National Front's 15 percent.

The far right, resurgent under Marine Le Pen's leadership, threw Sarkozy's party into disarray. Of the 1,566 cantons still up for grabs, the National Front is vying in 394 of them.

Posted by biginla at 9:03 PM BST

Updated: Sunday, 27 March 2011 9:10 PM BST

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27 March 2011 Last updated at 06:54 ET

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by Biodun Iginla and Natalie de Vallieres, BBC News

Baden-Wuerttemberg has the lowest unemployment and fastest growth in Germany

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Germans are voting in a state election in Baden-Wuerttemberg, which analysts say will test Chancellor Angela Merkel's hold on power.

Mrs Merkel's Christian Democrats could be ousted in the state for the first time since 1953, opinion polls suggest.

They say that the Social Democrats and the Greens have enough support to form a governing coalition.

The opposition to Mrs Merkel's party has also been energised by anti-nuclear sentiment.

On Saturday, tens of thousands of Germans took part in what are thought to be the country's biggest-ever protests against nuclear power, in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan.

Japan is still struggling to stabilise the Fukushima plant, crippled by the earthquake and tsunami of 11 March.

Voter discontent

Polling stations across Baden-Wuerttemberg opened at 0600 GMT and will close at 1600 GMT. About eight million people are eligible to cast their votes in one of Germany's industrial powerhouses.

Angela Merkel changed policy on nuclear power a week ago

Recent polls have suggested that the Social Democrats and Greens could secure 48% of the vote.

Mrs Merkel's party and the Free Democrats, a coalition partner, are forecast to win about 43%.

The BBC's Germany correspondent Stephen Evans says that two specific issues have driven discontent against the Christian Democrats: nuclear power, particularly after the disaster in Japan, and a plan for a big railway project which could transform the centre of Stuttgart.

Mrs Merkel changed policy on nuclear power a week ago, suspending for three months an earlier decision to extend the lifetime of Germany's nuclear reactors. Four of them are based in Baden-Wuerttemberg.

The chancellor also temporarily shut off the seven oldest reactors pending a safety review.

But one of Mrs Merkel's ministers said in a leaked memo that such decisions made on the eve of elections "were not always rational".

Germany - which was hit by fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster - has long had a large body of public opposition to nuclear power.

Our correspondent also says that some voters in the state say they feel their views have been ignored in favour of those of bigger corporate interests.

Preliminary results are expected soon after the voting ends.

More Europe stories

Vettel beats Hamilton in opener

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Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Geraldine A. Ferraro and Walter F. Mondale on July 20, 1984.

By Douglas Martin and Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Published: March 26, 2011

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Last Word: Geraldine A. Ferraro

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She was 75 and lived in Manhattan.

The cause was complications from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that she had battled for 12 years, her family said in a statement. She died at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she had been undergoing treatment since Monday.

“If we can do this, we can do anything,” Ms. Ferraro declared on a July evening to a cheering Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. And for a moment, for the Democratic Party and for an untold number of American women, anything seemed possible: a woman occupying the second-highest office in the land, a derailing of the Republican juggernaut led by President Ronald Reagan, a President Walter F. Mondale.

It did not turn out that way — not by a long shot. After the roars in the Moscone Center had subsided and a fitful general election campaign had run its course, hopes for Mr. Mondale and his plain-speaking, barrier-breaking running mate were buried in a Reagan landslide.

But Ms. Ferraro’s supporters proclaimed a victory of sorts nonetheless: 64 years after women won the right to vote, a woman had removed the “men only” sign from the White House door.

It would be another 24 years before another woman from a major party was nominated for vice president — Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the Republican running mate of Senator John McCain, in 2008. And though Hillary Rodham Clinton came close to being nominated that year as the Democratic presidential candidate, a woman has yet to occupy the Oval Office. But Ms. Ferraro’s ascendance gave many women heart.

Ann Richards, who was the Texas state treasurer at the time and went on to become governor, recalled that after the Ferraro nomination, “the first thing I thought of was not winning in the political sense, but of my two daughters.”

“To think,” Ms. Richards added, “of the numbers of young women who can now aspire to anything.”

In a statement, President Obama said Saturday, “Geraldine will forever be remembered as a trailblazer who broke down barriers for women, and Americans of all backgrounds and walks of life.”

As Mr. Mondale’s surprise choice, Ms. Ferraro rocketed to national prominence, propelled by fervid feminist support, a spirited and sometimes saucy personality, canny political skills and the calculation by Democratic strategists that Reagan might be vulnerable on issues thought to be more important to women.

But it proved to be a difficult campaign. The incumbent Reagan-Bush ticket presented a formidable enough challenge in and of itself, but Ms. Ferraro found herself on the defensive almost from the start, answering critics who questioned her qualifications for high office. Then there were damaging revelations about the finances of her husband, John Zaccaro, forcing Ms. Ferraro to release his tax returns and hold a marathon news conference in the middle of the general election race. Some said she had become a liability to Mr. Mondale and only hurt his chances more.

Quick Study as Candidate

A former Queens criminal prosecutor, she was a vigorous but relatively inexperienced candidate with a better feel for urban ward politics than for international diplomacy. But she proved to be a quick study and came across as a new breed of feminist politician — comfortable with the boys, particularly powerful Democrats like the House speaker, Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., and less combative than predecessors like Representative Bella Abzug of New York.

She was also ideal for television: a down-to-earth, streaked-blond, peanut-butter-sandwich-making mother whose personal story resonated powerfully. Brought up by a single mother who had crocheted beads on wedding dresses to send her daughter to good schools, Ms. Ferraro had waited until her own children were school age before going to work in a Queens district attorney’s office headed by a cousin.

In the 1984 race, many Americans found her breezy style refreshing. “What are you — crazy?” was a familiar expression. She might break into a little dance behind the speaker’s platform when she liked the introductory music. Feeling patronized by her Republican opponent, Vice President George Bush, she publicly scolded him.

With Ms. Ferraro on the ticket, Democrats hoped to exploit a so-called gender gap between the parties. A Newsweek poll taken after she was nominated showed men favoring Reagan-Bush 58 percent to 36 percent but women supporting Mondale-Ferraro 49 percent to 41 percent.

For the first time a major candidate for national office talked about abortion with the phrase “If I were pregnant,” or about foreign policy with the personal observation “As the mother of a draft-age son....” She wore pearls and silk dresses and publicly worried that her slip was showing.

She also traveled a 55,000-mile campaign trail, spoke in 85 cities and raised $6 million. But in November the Democratic ticket won only one state — Mr. Mondale’s Minnesota — and the District of Columbia.

And to the Democrats’ chagrin, Reagan captured even the women’s vote, drawing some 55 percent; women, it appeared, had opposed, almost as much as men, the tax increase that Mr. Mondale, a former senator and vice president under Jimmy Carter, had said in his acceptance speech would be inevitable, an attempt at straight talking that cost him dearly at the polls.

Most election analysts believed that from the start the Democratic ticket had little chance against a popular incumbent who was basking in an economic recovery and proclaiming that it was “morning again in America.” Some said the choice of the little-known Ms. Ferraro had been a desperate move to attract the female vote in a daunting election year. Compounding the campaign’s woes was a barrage of questions about the Ferraro family finances — often carrying insinuations about ties to organized crime — that not only blemished Ms. Ferraro’s stature as the first Italian-American national candidate but also diverted attention from other issues.

Ms. Ferraro’s politics teetered from liberal positions, like her support for the Equal Rights Amendment for women and a nuclear freeze, to conservative ones, like her opposition to school busing and her support of tax credits for private and parochial school parents. In her first race for the House of Representatives, in 1978, from New York’s Ninth Congressional District in Queens, a Republican stronghold, her slogan was “Finally, a tough Democrat.”

The abortion issue, magnified because she was Roman Catholic and a woman, plagued her campaign. Though she opposed the procedure personally, she said, others had the right to choose for themselves. Abortion opponents hounded her at almost every stop with an intensity seldom experienced by male politicians.

Writing in The Washington Post in September 1984, the columnist Mary McGrory quoted an unnamed Roman Catholic priest as saying, “When the nuns in the fifth grade told Geraldine she would have to die for her faith, she didn’t know it would be this way.”

Named for a Brother

Geraldine Anne Ferraro was born on Aug. 26, 1935, in the Hudson River city of Newburgh, N.Y., where she was the fourth child and only daughter of Dominick Ferraro, an Italian immigrant who owned a restaurant and a five-and-dime store, and the former Antonetta L. Corrieri. One brother died shortly after birth, and another, Gerard, died in an automobile accident two years before Geraldine was born.

Geraldine was born at home; her mother, who had been holding Gerard at the time of the crash and who had washed and pressed his clothes for months after his death, would not go to the hospital for the delivery and leave the third brother, Carl, at home.

Geraldine was named for Gerard, but in her book “Framing a Life: A Family Memoir,” written with Catherine Whitney, Ms. Ferraro said her mother had emphasized that she was not taking his place.

“Gerry is special,” she quoted her mother as saying, “because she is a girl.”

Unknown to Ms. Ferraro at the time, her father had repeated trouble with the state liquor authorities and ultimately lost his restaurant license. During the vice-presidential campaign, she learned by reading The New York Post that her father had been arrested on charges of running a numbers racket but had died of a heart attack the morning he was to appear in court. Her mother was arrested as an accomplice, but the charges were dropped after her husband’s death, Ms. Ferraro wrote.

She called her father’s death, which happened when she was 8, “a dividing line that runs through my life.” In her grief, she said, she developed anemia.

Her mother soon sold the store and the family’s house and moved to the South Bronx. With the proceeds from the sale of property in Italy that her husband had left her, she sent Geraldine to the Marymount School, a Catholic boarding school in Tarrytown, N.Y. She sent Carl to military school.

Ms. Ferraro’s outstanding grades earned her a scholarship to Marymount College in Tarrytown, from which she transferred to the school’s Manhattan branch. She commuted there from Queens, where her mother had moved by then. An English major, Ms. Ferraro was editor of the school newspaper and an athlete and won numerous honors before graduating in 1956. “Delights in the unexpected,” the yearbook said.

After graduating, Ms. Ferraro got a job teaching in a public grade school in Queens. She later applied to Fordham Law School, where an admissions officer warned her that she might be taking a man’s place. Admitted to its night school, she was one of two women in a class of 179 and received her law degree in 1960.

Ms. Ferraro and John Zaccaro, whose family was in the real estate business, were married on July 16, 1960, two days after she passed her bar exam. She was admitted to the New York State bar in 1961, and decided to keep her maiden name professionally to honor her mother. (She was admitted to the United States Supreme Court bar in 1978.)

For the first 13 years of her marriage, Ms. Ferraro devoted herself mainly to her growing family. Donna was born in 1961, John in 1964, and Laura in 1966. Ms. Ferraro did some legal work for her husband’s business, worked pro bono for women in Family Court and dabbled in local politics. In 1970 she was elected president of the Queens County Women’s Bar Association.

In 1973, after her cousin Nicholas Ferraro was elected Queens district attorney, she applied for and got a job as an assistant district attorney in charge of a special victims bureau, investigating rape, crimes against the elderly, and child and wife abuse.

The cases were so harrowing, she later wrote, that they caused her to develop an ulcer. And the crime-breeding societal conditions she saw, she said, planted the seeds of her liberalism.

Sights Set on Congress

One night Mario M. Cuomo, who was lieutenant governor of New York at the time, gave Ms. Ferraro and her husband a ride home from a bar mitzvah. She told him she was thinking of running for public office. “What about Congress?” Mr. Cuomo asked.

Ms. Ferraro found her opportunity in 1978, when James J. Delaney, a Democratic congressman from a predominantly working-class district in Queens, announced his retirement. In a three-way Democratic primary for the seat, Ms. Ferraro won with 53 percent of the vote. In the general election campaign, a slugfest against a Republican assemblyman, Alfred A. DelliBovi, she won by 10 percentage points, helped by her law-and-order background.

In the House, Ms. Ferraro was assigned to unglamorous committees but used them to her advantage. On the Public Works and Transportation Committee, she successfully pushed for improved mass transit around La Guardia Airport.

Mr. O’Neill, the speaker, took an immediate liking to her, and in her three terms she mostly voted with her party’s leadership. Liberal and labor groups gave her high ratings, though she was less adamant than many liberal Democrats about cutting military spending.

Ms. Ferraro was a co-sponsor of the Economic Equity Act, which was intended to accomplish many of the aims of the never-ratified Equal Rights Amendment. She also supported federal financing for abortions.

“She manages to be threatening on issues without being threatening personally,” Barney Frank, the Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, told The Chicago Tribune in 1984.

Others were less laudatory. “Some see her as too compromising, too ambitious, too close to the leadership,” The Washington Post wrote that same year.

Her friendship with Mr. O’Neill helped her career. Thanks in part to him, she was elected secretary of the Democratic caucus, giving her influence on committee assignments, and in 1983 she was awarded a seat on the powerful budget committee, where she received a crash course in economics. To enhance her foreign policy credentials, she took trips to Central America and the Middle East.

It was Ms. Ferraro’s appointment as chairwoman of the 1984 Democratic Platform Committee that gave her the most prominence. In her book “Ferraro: My Story,” written with Linda Bird Francke, she said that in becoming the first woman to hold that post she owed much to a group of Democratic women — Congressional staffers, abortion rights activists, labor leaders and others — who called themselves Team A and who lobbied for her appointment.

Even before then, however, Ms. Ferraro’s name had been mentioned on lists of potential candidates for vice president, along with Representative Patricia Schroeder of Colorado, the former congresswoman Barbara Jordan and Dianne Feinstein, the mayor of San Francisco. By May 1984, Mr. O’Neill had endorsed her for the No. 2 spot on the ticket. It was “the Good Housekeeping seal of approval,” as Ms. Ferraro later put it.

On July 1, the National Organization for Women threatened a convention floor fight if the Democrats did not choose a woman, and three days later a delegation of Democratic women went to Minnesota to urge Mr. Mondale to do so.

Mr. Mondale made his historic call, asking Ms. Ferraro to be his running mate, on July 11. His campaign believed that she would do well not only among women but also among blue-collar workers. Eight days later, wearing a white dress she had purchased on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, she accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president.

Trouble Over Finances

Her campaign was soon stalled by accusations about her personal finances. The storm reached its height in a two-hour press conference on Aug. 21, after Ms. Ferraro had released the tax returns of her husband, Mr. Zaccaro. She responded to question after question in a confident, relaxed manner. Mr. Cuomo called it “one of the best performances I’ve ever seen by a politician under pressure.”

Ms. Ferraro later faced down hecklers in Texas and pro-Reagan auto workers in Illinois. After Vice President Bush was overheard bragging that “we tried to kick a little ass last night,” referring to a debate with Ms. Ferraro, she declined to comment directly, though her aides called the remark insulting and demeaning. There were signs at campaign rallies saying, “Give ’em hell, Gerry!”

Everywhere people were adjusting — or manifestly not adjusting — to a woman on a national ticket. Mississippi’s agriculture secretary called Ms. Ferraro “young lady” and asked if she could bake blueberry muffins. When a Roman Catholic bishop gave a news conference in Pennsylvania, he repeatedly referred to the Republican vice-presidential nominee as “Mr. Bush” and to the Democratic one as “Geraldine.”

Ms. Ferraro’s words raised hackles as well. She was criticized for suggesting that Reagan was not a “good Christian” because, she said, his policies hurt the disadvantaged.

Her inability to escape questions about her finances was partly brought on by her husband’s initial refusal to release his tax returns. She riled Italian-Americans when she explained, “If you’re married to an Italian man, you know what it’s like.”

When her financial situation was finally disclosed, it turned out that the candidate with the rags-to-riches story had a net worth exceeding that of Mr. Bush, a boat, a full-time uniformed maid and vacation homes on Fire Island in New York and in the Virgin Islands.

Mr. Bush’s wife, Barbara, complained that Ms. Ferraro was masquerading as a working-class wife and mother, calling her a “four-million-dollar — I can’t say it, but it rhymes with rich.”

Her associations and finances revealed one questionable thing after another. The Federal Election Commission fined her 1978 campaign committee for accepting $134,000 in contributions from her husband and children when they were legally allowed to contribute only $4,000.

Evidence also emerged that organized-crime figures had contributed to her campaigns. When a House ethics panel investigated her financial disclosures, it came out that one of Mr. Zaccaro’s companies had rented two floors of a building to a pornography distributor.

The disclosures damaged a campaign that was already fighting an uphill battle; Mr. Mondale later said he thought they cost the campaign 15 percentage points in the polls. He also suggested that a male running mate might not have been dissected so severely. After the election, the House ethics committee determined that Ms. Ferraro’s financial disclosures had been inadequate. In 1986, the elections commission said that one of her campaign committees had improperly allocated funds.

Ms. Ferraro’s family experienced legal problems of its own. In 1985, Mr. Zaccaro pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge that he had schemed to defraud a mortgage broker. Two years later he was acquitted of attempted extortion in a cable television company’s bid to get a Queens franchise. And in 1988 the couple’s son, John, was convicted of a felony for selling cocaine in Vermont while a student at Middlebury College.

After her defeat in 1984, Ms. Ferraro was criticized for appearing in a Diet Pepsi commercial. Feminists in particular called it undignified.

She is survived by her husband, her three children and eight grandchildren.

Later Bids for Office

Weary of the spotlight on her family, Ms. Ferraro passed up a chance to challenge Senator Alfonse M. D’Amato of New York in his bid for a second term in 1986. But she decided to seek the seat in 1992 and entered the Democratic primary. She finished 10,000 votes (1 percent of the total) behind Robert Abrams, the state attorney general, who lost to Mr. D’Amato in the general election. She again ran for the Senate in 1998 but lost to Charles E. Schumer in the Democratic primary by a lopsided margin.

Ms. Ferraro was later ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission during the Clinton administration and co-host of the CNN program “Crossfire” from 1996 to 1998. She also wrote books and articles and did business consulting.

Near the end of 1998 she learned she had multiple myeloma, a bone-marrow cancer that suppresses the immune system. She was one of the first cancer patients to be treated with thalidomide, a drug used in the 1960s to treat morning sickness that caused severe defects in unborn children.

“Such a strange thing,” Ms. Ferraro said in an interview with The New York Times in 2001. “What was terrible for a healthy fetus has been wonderful at defeating the cancer cells.”

She addressed her place in history in a long letter to The Times in 1988, noting that women wrote to her about how she had inspired them to take on challenges, “always adding a version of ‘I decided if you could do it, I can too.’ ” Schoolgirls, she said, told her they hoped to be president someday and needed advice.

“I am the first to admit that were I not a woman, I would not have been the vice-presidential nominee,” she wrote. But she insisted that her presence on the ticket had translated into votes that the ticket might otherwise have not received.

In any event, she said, the political realities of 1984 had made it all but impossible for the Democrats to win, no matter the candidates or their gender. “Throwing Ronald Reagan out of office at the height of his popularity, with inflation and interest rates down, the economy moving and the country at peace, would have required God on the ticket,” Ms. Ferraro wrote, “and She was not available!”

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26 March 2011 Last updated at 15:05 ET

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by Biodun Iginla, BBC News, New York

Geraldine Ferraro was a low-profile figure until the presidential race

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Groundbreaking US Democratic politician Geraldine Ferraro has died at the age of 75.

She had been been suffering from cancer for many years, and died in hospital in Massachusetts, a family friend said.

Ms Ferraro was the first female vice-presidential candidate to represent a major political party, when she became Walter Mondale's running mate in 1984.

Their presidential bid was heavily defeated by Republican Ronald Reagan and his running mate, George Bush snr.

A statement released by Ms Ferraro's family said she was widely known as a "leader, a fighter for justice, and a tireless advocate for those without a voice".

It continued: "Her courage and generosity of spirit throughout her life, waging battles big and small, public and personal, will never be forgotten and will be sorely missed."

'Pioneer'

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Analysis

Katie Connolly BBC News, Washington

Born into a humble working-class Italian family in New York, Geraldine Ferraro rose to the highest echelons of US politics, blazing a path for Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin.

Her candidacy alongside Walter Mondale drew enormous attention. Women rallied around her - many wept openly at the convention where she was nominated. She faced a barrage of questions about her experience and was also plagued with questions about her husband's finances.

But Ferraro was undeterred. During a debate, she told her rival, then Vice President George H W Bush, that she resented his patronising attitude toward her.

Mondale and Ferraro lost in one of the biggest landslides in American political history. In the end, her candidacy didn't win the day, but it was, and still is, a win for women in American politics.

Ms Ferraro made a name for herself as district attorney prosecuting cases of rape, child abuse and domestic violence before running for Congress.

She had been an elected representative for almost six years when the Democratic nominee for president, Walter Mondale, selected her as his running mate.

Despite their overwhelming defeat, she paid tribute to his decision to choose her.

"Campaigns, even if you lose them, do serve a purpose," she said at the time.

"My candidacy has said the days of discrimination are numbered. American women will never be second-class citizens again."

Reacting to news of Ms Ferraro's death, Mr Mondale called her "a remarkable woman and a dear human being".

"She was a pioneer in our country for justice for women and a more open society," he told the Associated Press.

"She broke a lot of moulds and it's a better country for what she did."

In 2008, Sarah Palin became the second woman - and the first Republican - to become a mainstream running mate, when she was chosen by Senator John McCain.

Ms Palin was also a political unknown at the time, serving as governor of Alaska.

She paid tribute to Ms Ferraro on her Facebook page. "May her example of hard work and dedication to America continue to inspire all women," Ms Palin wrote.

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• Ferraro on the 2008 candidates 01 NOVEMBER 2008, US ELECTIONS 2008
• Clinton aide quits over race row 12 MARCH 2008, AMERICAS

From other news sites

• New Zealand Herald First female US vice presidential candidate dies, aged 75 34 mins ago

• Miami Herald First female VP candidate Ferraro dies 58 mins ago

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Advertisement 26 March 2011 Last updated at 16:47 ET Share this page

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by Biodun Iginla and Rashida Adjani, BBC News

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The BBC's Ben Brown says the rebels have made gains because of allied air raids

Continue reading the main story Libya Crisis

• Libya and Mid-East as it happened: Saturday
• Tripoli: Fear and uncertainty
• Turkey's difficulties
• Sarkozy seizes moment

Libyan rebels have pushed on westwards after recapturing the key oil town of Ajdabiya from Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's forces.

Reports said they later seized the town of Brega, 70km (44 miles) away.

The eastern towns along the coast had been lost one-by-one to advancing pro-Gaddafi forces before coalition airstrikes started last week.

In the west, reports from besieged rebel-held Misrata said shelling ceased when coalition planes flew overhead.

"The shelling has stopped and now the war planes of allies are above the sky of Misrata. The shelling stopped when the planes appeared in the sky," one rebel told Reuters news agency.

France meanwhile said it had destroyed at least five military planes and two helicopters at Misrata air base on Saturday.

Misrata has become a key focus for the battle in western Libya: it is the only significant rebel-held city left, and has been under heavy bombardment for days.

Losses reversed

Libyan rebels began their uprising in mid-February, seeking to end Col Gaddafi's four decades in power.

The area around Ajdabiya is littered with destroyed military hardware

For the last seven nights coalition planes led by the US, UK and France have pounded targets across Libya, enforcing a UN no-fly zone aimed at protecting civilians.

The air strikes appear to have allowed the rebels to finally turn the tide on Col Gaddafi's forces in the east, and reverse their earlier losses.

A Libyan minister said the army had left the town after the "heavy involvement" of Western forces.

British RAF Tornado aircraft have been firing Brimstone guided missiles around Ajdabiya, a town of about 100,000 people.

The BBC's Ben Brown in Ajdabiya says those strikes seemed to be even heavier on Friday night, leaving wrecked tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery pieces at both the eastern and western gates to the town.

Continue reading the main story At the scene Ben Brown BBC News, Ajdabiya

There have been wild celebrations in Ajdabiya. Rebel fighters firing their guns into the air, blaring their car horns, hugging each other and waving flags. They say Ajdabiya is a town that has been terrorised by Gaddafi loyalists but that now it has been liberated.

And there's huge military significance to this too. Ajdabiya is seen by the rebels as the gateway to the west and with this victory they have been given, they say, much needed momentum in their campaign to topple Col Gaddafi.

But the liberation of Ajdabiya has been a strange affair. The rebels more or less walked into the town after coalition war planes including British RAF Tornadoes, carried out wave after wave of devastating air strikes against Gaddafi forces on the ground. We counted more than two dozen burned-out or abandoned tanks around the town's east and west gates.

In Tripoli, the government has admitted that its fighters retreated in the face of overwhelming air power. Those fighters have now pulled back, it's thought, to Brega. The rebels say they're in hot pursuit.

Some of the celebrating rebels chanted "Thank you, Obama", "Thank you, Cameron" - references to the US president and British prime minister.

Rebel forces then moved towards Brega.

A journalist travelling with the rebels told Agence France-Presse news agency they were now in the centre of the town and that government forces had fully withdrawn. Rebels also told Reuters they now controlled the town.

In his weekly address, US President Barack Obama said that the "clear and focused" military mission in Libya was succeeding.

"Make no mistake, because we acted quickly, a humanitarian catastrophe has been avoided and the lives of countless civilians - innocent men, women and children - have been saved," he said.

In the capital, Tripoli, a distressed woman reached a hotel where foreign journalists are staying, and told them she had been detained for two days by pro-Gaddafi forces and gang-raped after being stopped at a checkpoint.

She was still telling her story when hotel staff and government minders tackled her, and she was dragged out of the hotel and driven away by security guards. Reporters say her story cannot be verified but she did show signs of injury.

A Libyan government spokesman later said the woman was drunk and possibly mentally ill, but said an investigation was being carried out.

More on This Story Libya Crisis Features and Analysis

• Libya and Mid-East as it happened: Saturday
• Tripoli: Fear and uncertainty
• Turkey's difficulties
• Sarkozy seizes moment
• What next?
• Rebel challenges
• In pictures
• Mission uncertain for US Marines
• Gaddafi's bolt-hole
• Rebels fail to seize chance
• Libya's gold reserves
• Regime's heart hit
• Resolution analysis

Guides

• Airstrikes mapped
• Coalition firepower
• Key figures in Libya's rebel council
• Key maps
• Profile: Muammar Gaddafi
• Country by country
• How revolutions happen

Posted by biginla at 11:06 PM BST

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by Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Published: March 26, 2011 at 10:33 AM ET

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"Every day, the pressure on Gadhafi and his regime is increasing," President Barack Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday, aired just after Libyan rebels regained control of the eastern city of Ajdabiya. It was the first major turnaround in an uprising that once appeared on the verge of defeat.

Obama also readied for a speech to the nation Monday evening to explain his decision-making on Libya to a public weary of a decade of war.

Lawmakers from both parties have complained that the president has not sought their input about the U.S. role in Libya or stated clearly the U.S. goals and exit strategy.

"The United States should not and cannot intervene every time there's a crisis somewhere in the world," Obama said in the speech Saturday. But with Gadhafi threatening "a bloodbath that could destabilize an entire region ... it's in our national interest to act. And it's our responsibility. This is one of those times."

Among the weapons under consideration for use in Libya is the Air Force's AC-130 gunship, armed with cannons that shoot from the side doors. Other possibilities are helicopters and drones that fly lower and slower and can spot more than fast-moving jet fighters.

Obama said in an e-mail statement Saturday that "we are now handing over control of the no-fly zone to our NATO allies and partners, including Arab partners like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates."

In light of that goal, the discussion of adding weapons to step up the assault on Gadhafi's ground troops reflects the challenges in hitting the right targets.

U.S.-led forces began missile strikes last Saturday to establish a no-fly zone and prevent Gadhafi from attacking his own people.

American officials have said they won't drop bombs in cities to avoid killing or wounding civilians — a central pillar of the operation. Yet they want to hit the enemy in contested urban areas.

"The difficulty in identifying friend from foe anywhere is always a difficult challenge," Navy Vice Adm. William Gortney, staff director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday at the Pentagon. The difficulty in distinguishing "friend from foe inside an urban environment is magnified significantly."

Army Gen. Carter Ham, the U.S. officer in charge of the overall international mission, told The Associated Press, the focus is on disrupting the communications and supply lines that allow Gadhafi's forces to keep fighting in the contested cities.

Ham said in a telephone interview from his U.S. Africa Command headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, that the U.S. expected NATO would take command of the no-fly zone mission on Sunday, with a Canadian three-star general, Charles Bouchard, in charge. Bouchard would report to an American admiral, Samuel Locklear, in Locklear's role as commander of NATO's Allied Joint Force Command Naples, he said.

But with the Obama administration eager to take a back seat in the Libya campaign, it is still when — or even if — the U.S. military's Africa Command would shift the lead role in attacking Libyan ground targets to NATO. U.S officials say the alliance is finalizing the details of the transfer this weekend.

Obama spoke with Democratic and Republican congressional leaders about Libya on Friday afternoon. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he was concerned that the current military action might not be enough force Gadhafi from power, his spokeswoman said.

Brooke Buchanan said McCain, the top Republican in the Senate Armed Services Committee, supports the military intervention but fears it could lead to a stalemate that leaves Gadhafi's government in place.

Posted by biginla at 4:12 PM BST

Updated: Saturday, 26 March 2011 4:18 PM BST

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by Biodun Iginla, BBC News

March 27, 2011 Ads by Google BP's Work in the Gulf

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THE United States and its allies are considering whether to supply weapons to the Libyan opposition as coalition air strikes fail to dislodge government forces from around key contested towns.

France supports training and arming the rebels, and the Obama administration believes the United Nations resolution that authorised international intervention in Libya has the ''flexibility'' to allow such assistance ''if we thought that were the right way to go'', Obama spokesman Jay Carney said.

Gene Cretz, the recently withdrawn US ambassador to Libya, said administration officials were having ''the full gamut'' of discussions on ''potential assistance we might offer, both on the non-lethal and the lethal side''.

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The coalition has stepped up its approaches to the opposition, inviting one of its senior leaders to a high-level international conference in London on Tuesday, called to determine future political strategy in Libya.

At the same time, French President Nicolas Sarkozy held out hopes of a diplomatic initiative to end the conflict, announcing that Britain and France were jointly preparing a ''political and diplomatic'' solution.

''There will certainly be a Franco-British initiative to clearly show the solution is not only military but also political and diplomatic,'' Mr Sarkozy said, referring to Tuesday's talks.

Increased focus on aiding the rebels came as NATO reached agreement on taking over command and control of all aspects of the Libya operation, including US-led air strikes against forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Canadian Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard, at NATO's Joint Forces Command headquarters in Naples, Italy, will take command of the operation this week. The NATO decision came in time for US President Barack Obama to brief a bipartisan group of nearly two dozen congressional leaders on Friday. Mr Obama had scheduled a speech at the National Defence University tomorrow ''to update the American people'' on actions taken ''with allies and partners to protect the Libyan people … the transition to NATO command and control, and our policy going forward'', the White House said.

Unlike a week ago, when the White House discouraged questions during a briefing for congressional leaders as the Libya mission began, Mr Obama entertained queries from lawmakers on Friday. He was asked repeatedly about the goal and length of the operation.

The US has flown most of the combat air sorties over Libya since strikes began last weekend.

The US administration has been eager to hand over both its lead combat role and overall operational command in keeping with Mr Obama's portrayal of the operation as an international humanitarian mission.

Arab support for the effort has been a key selling point, and the Pentagon announced that fighter planes from Qatar had participated for the first time on Friday in no-fly patrols over Libya. The United Arab Emirates also announced it would send F-16s for the patrols.

Posted by biginla at 3:13 PM BST

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Advertisement 26 March 2011 Last updated at 08:21 ET Share this page

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by Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Trevor McDonald was one of the journalists nurtured by the service Continue reading the main story Related Stories

• BBC ends broadcasts in Albanian
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The BBC Caribbean Service has made its final broadcast, ending seven decades of programming for the region.

The service is being shut as part of budget cuts announced by the BBC World Service in January.

BBC managers say they have had to make tough choices because of a 16% cut in UK government funding.

But one critic called it a short-sighted decision, showing the BBC did not understand the complexities of the region.

The Macedonian, Albanian, Serbian and Portuguese for Africa services have also been closed in a bid to to save $75m (£46m) a year.

Seven other language services have moved away from radio to focus on online, mobile and television content.

These include Spanish for Latin America which last month ended its remaining radio broadcasts, on short-wave and intended mainly for Cuba.

This week, members of the Caribbean Service team have each presented a final programme, including material from the BBC archives.

Copies of the sound and text content of the service's radio and online output are being donated to the University of the West Indies, which will have a team working at the BBC's Bush House base to catalogue the material.

Regional voice?

E-mails to the Caribbean Service overwhelmingly voiced sadness at its closure.

"It filled a great need for the Caribbean audience to have a view of the world not provided by local radio stations," wrote Jacqueline Sharpe in Trinidad and Tobago.

Regional media commentators have said the demise of the BBC Caribbean Service should spur renewed efforts to create a pan-Caribbean news network.

"Since the announcement, we have come to truly know the important role we have been playing across the Caribbean. We're going out on a high - what more can any broadcaster ask for?" said Caribbean Service head Debbie Ransome.

The origin of the Caribbean Service was Calling the West Indies, a programme that began in 1939, featuring West Indian troops on active service during World War II reading letters to their families.

From 1943 to 1958, it became Caribbean Voices, highlighting West Indian writers, including VS Naipaul, George Lamming, Andrew Salkey and Samuel Selvon.

In 1949, We See Britain was introduced as part of the programming for the Caribbean under the management of cricketer-turned-producer Ken Ablack.

Over the next three decades, the Caribbean Service nurtured producers and presenters, including Trevor McDonald who became one of the best-known newsreaders on British television.

The service closed in the mid-1970s, but in 1988 it reopened as a news and current affairs department.

David Jessop, director of the London-based Caribbean Council, has described the closure as another marker of Britain's "less than joined-up approach to the region".

In an article at the time of the announcement in January, he said: "The sole vehicle offering the region the chance to hear on a daily basis about events from a broader perspective and sometimes hold politicians to account, will be no more and leading figures in public life will find it virtually impossible to present their views to a region-wide radio audience."

Announcing the cuts, BBC Global News director Peter Horrocks said the closures were "not a reflection on the performance of individual services or programmes".

"They are all extremely important to their audiences and to the BBC," he said.

"It is simply that there is a need to make savings due to the scale of the cuts to the BBC World Service's grant-in-aid funding from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and we need to focus our efforts in the languages where there is the greatest need and where we have the strongest impact."

BBC World Have Your Say is broadcasting a special programme from the Caribbean on 25 March at 1800 GMT to mark the last day of the BBC Caribbean Service, with reporters in Jamaica, Trinidad and Antigua.

Website: Worldhaveyoursay.com, Email: worldhaveyoursay@bbc.com, Text/ roaming: +44 77 86 20 60 80, Phone: +44 20 70 83 72 72

More on This Story Related Stories

• BBC ends broadcasts in Albanian 28 FEBRUARY 2011, EUROPE
• BBC Russian radio hits off switch 22 MARCH 2011, EUROPE
• BBC ends Spanish radio broadcasts 25 FEBRUARY 2011, LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN
• Three BBC language broadcasts end 25 FEBRUARY 2011, EUROPE
• BBC confirms World Service cuts 26 JANUARY 2011, ENTERTAINMENT & ARTS
• World Service 'silenced' by cuts 26 JANUARY 2011, UK
• BBC reunites family split by Haiti quake 03 FEBRUARY 2010, AMERICAS
• BBC launch new Creole service 24 JANUARY 2010, AMERICAS

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Posted by biginla at 3:04 PM BST

Updated: Saturday, 26 March 2011 4:17 PM BST

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24 March 2011 Last updated at 05:20 ET

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by Biodun Iginla and Xian Wan, BBC News

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Watch: Japan government official explains what happened to the two hospitalised workers

Continue reading the main story Japan quake

• A test of Japan's 'stoicism'
• Disaster or distraction?
• Q&A: Fukushima alert
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Two workers at Japan's damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been taken to hospital after being exposed to high levels of radiation.

The pair had been attempting to restore the cooling system in reactor 3, which was damaged by the quake on 11 March.

Several workers have now been hurt on the site, an indication of the scale of the task facing them.

Radiation levels in Tokyo's water supply have now fallen, but remain high in other areas of northern Japan.

The official death toll from the magnitude 9.0 quake and subsequent tsunami has now risen to 9,523. Another 16,094 people are listed as missing.

Japan's nuclear safety agency said three workers had been injured when their feet came into contact with radiation-contaminated water while laying cables in the turbine area of reactor 3.

They were exposed to radiation levels of 170-180 millisieverts, he said, which is lower than the maximum level permitted for workers on the site of 250 millisieverts. Two of the workers were taken to hospital.

"Although they wore protective clothing, the contaminated water seeped in and their legs were exposed to radiation," said a spokesman.

"Direct exposure to radiation usually leads to inflammation and so that's why they were sent to the hospital to be treated."

Most people are exposed to 2 millisieverts over the average year, while 100 millisieverts is considered the lowest level at which any increase in cancer is clearly evident.

The condition of the injured workers was not immediately known.

Japan's chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said the situation was "very regrettable".

'Serious concern'

Continue reading the main story

• Q&A: Health effects of radiation
• How much risk is there?
• Japanese food ban widens in Asia

The power plant's cooling systems failed after the quake and tsunami, leading to the reactors overheating.

Power has now been restored to the site, but work to restart the coolers in reactor 3 was briefly suspended on Wednesday after a plume of black smoke was seen coming from it.

Tokyo Electric Power Co, which operates the plant, later allowed workers to re-enter after establishing there was no fire and that radiation level in the area had not risen.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said there had been some "positive developments" at the site but that the situation was still "of serious concern".

The plant is 250km (155 miles) north-east of the capital, Tokyo. The government has declared a 20km exclusion zone and evacuated tens of thousands of people. Those living up to 30km away have been told to stay indoors to minimise exposure.

People in Fukushima prefecture have been told not to eat 11 types of green leafy vegetables grown locally because of contamination worries. Local producers have been ordered not to send the goods to market.

Tokyo residents were warned on Wednesday not to give tap water to babies less than a year old because levels of radioactive iodine - which can cause thyroid cancer - are twice the recommended safe level in some areas of the city.

Officials stressed that children would have to drink a lot of it before it harmed them and urged people not to panic-buy. But supermarket shelves were reported to have been cleared of bottled water by Thursday morning.

"Customers ask us for water. But there's nothing we can do," Masayoshi Kasahara, a supermarket worker in Tokyo told Reuters.

"We are asking for more deliveries but we don't know when the next shipment will come."

Emergency shelters

Radiation readings on Thursday showed levels in water in Tokyo had fallen back below the danger level, but the municipal authorities are distributing thousands of bottles of water to households with infants.

The authorities in the nearby city of Kawaguchi, Saitama prefecture, also reported radiation levels above safety norms in its water supply on Thursday.

Concern is also growing among Japan's neighbours. Australia has become the latest country to ban food imports from the affected region.

Police believe the final death toll from Japan's twin disaster may be more than 18,000.

Most of the deaths - 5,700 - have been reported in the prefecture of Miyagi. Three thousand bodies have been found in Iwate prefecture, and 776 in Fukushima.

At least 18,000 houses were destroyed and 130,000 damaged, and more than 200,000 people are living in emergency shelters.

The Japanese government has said it will cost as much as 25 trillion yen ($309bn; £189bn) to rebuild the country after the disaster.

Are you in Japan? Are you taking part in the recovery efforts? Send us your comments and experiences using the form below.

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Posted by biginla at 5:55 PM BST

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