French soldiers patrolling near Kayove, Rwanda, June 22. (AFP File Photo)

KIGALI, Rwanda,
Nov. 25--French diplomats and their families hurriedly packed their belongings on Saturday and prepared to leave Rwanda after the government severed relations with France in a major diplomatic row, reported AFP.
Facing an expulsion order that gives them until Monday to quit the country, expatriate staff at France's embassy in Kigali as well employees of all other French state institutions ordered closed readied for departure.
"I was up all last night packing my bags," said one senior French embassy official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. "I will leave Kigali on Monday."
"The ambassador will fly out of Kigali this evening," the official said.
Rwanda broke off diplomatic and cultural relations with France on Friday after a French judge implicated Rwandan President Paul Kagame and top aides in the 1994 assassination of the country's former leader that sparked Rwanda's genocide.
In a dramatic escalation of long-simmering tensions that came to boil with the judge's declarations this week, Kigali ordered the closure of the French embassy, cultural center and all other state institutions in Rwanda.
France's ambassador, Dominique Decherf, was given just 24 hours to leave the country, while others affected, including employees at the French international school in Kigali, the Ecole Internationale Francaise Saint-Exupery, and all aid projects supported by the French government, were allowed 72 hours.
Ordinary French citizens in the Rwandan capital declined to speak about the order, citing fears of retribution from the government, which reacted furiously to the judge's allegations about Kagame and close associates.
Diplomats at other western embassies in Kigali also refused to comment.

MIAMI, USA, Nov. 25--Venezuela's fiery President Hugo Chavez could be headed for a sweeping victory in the country's upcoming elections with a US-based pollster Friday giving him a 29-point lead over his rival, AFP said.
In the poll carried out by professional survey group Zogby International and the University of Miami School of communication, Chavez has the support of 60 percent of voters going into the December 3 election, compared to 31 percent for Manuel Rosales,
governor of the state of Zulia.
Another one percent of voters favor comedian Benjamin Rausseo, the pollsters said in a statement.
Even so, Chavez's big over Rosales has actually shrunk, they said, because an October poll gave him a 35-point margin, 59 percent to 24 percent.
Zogby and the University of Miami department said there is a "sense of inevitability" growing in Venezuela's presidential race, with two-thirds of the people saying they thought incumbent Chavez, known for his rough politics and anti-US oratory, would win no matter who they planned to vote for.
The poll showed that 63 percent of the 800 likely voters surveyed across Venezuela want Chavez's policies to continue while 28 percent were against the policies.

Dick Cheney

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia,
Nov. 25--US Vice President Dick Cheney arrived Saturday in Saudi Arabia for talks with King Abdullah, apparently seeking the Sunni royal family's influence and tribal connections to calm Iraq after an especially violent week, AP wrote.
The vice president's visit one day visit to the kingdom comes at a time of upheaval across the region and as regional diplomatic efforts to calm several potentially explosive situations have foundered.
In Iraq, the slaughter Thursday of 215 people in a series of car bombs by suspected Sunni insurgents in a Shiite neighborhood prompted a new political crisis ahead of talks scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday in Jordan between the Iraqi premier and US President George. W. Bush.
But developments in Iran, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories have heightened worries of further regional instability and are expected to be on the agenda of Cheney's talks with Abdullah.
Saudi Arabia, as the wealthiest Arab country, is a key broker in the region and a staunch US ally.

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 25--Four members of an international demining team have been wounded in an Israeli-laid minefield in south Lebanon, a UN spokeswoman said Saturday, adding it was the first evidence of use by the Jewish state of anti-personnel mines in the summer conflict.
One British and one Bosnian deminer working for London-based company ArmorGroup on a United Arab Emirates-funded project had their feet amputated after being struck by a landmine Friday, UN spokeswoman Dalya Farran told AFP.
A third deminer, a Lebanese, suffered less serious injuries in the incident in Deir Mimas close to the Israeli border, south of the town of Marjayoun.
The deminers initially thought the explosions were the result of cluster bombs but on Saturday a team from another London-based firm, BACTEC, went out to investigate and another British deminer was wounded in what turned out to be a minefield.
"It is a landmine," the spokeswoman for the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre said. "It is an Israeli No 4 anti-personnel mine. It was newly planted during the summer conflict.
"It is the first evidence we have at the United Nations that Israel used landmines during the latest war." Asked how the deminers knew that the mines were newly planted, the spokeswoman said that the Deir Mimas area had been demined after previous conflicts.

MANAMA, Bahrain, Nov. 25--Bahrainis, including the Shiite-led opposition, started voting Saturday to elect their second post-reforms parliament, amid allegations of a plot to keep Shiites under-represented, AFP reported.
Polls opened just after 8:00 am, while hundreds of men and women had queued earlier waiting for the opening of ballot boxes. Some 295,000 voters are entitled to elect 39 MPs in an equivalent number of constituencies. There are a total of 207 candidates, including 17 women.
One seat in the 40-strong chamber has already gone to Latifa Al-Qouhoud--a woman who stood unopposed in her constituency--making her the first female MP in the kingdom's history.
The Shiite majority, which has faced continuous discrimination in a country ruled by a Sunni dynasty, is out in force to achieve recognition.
But the main Shiite faction has had to ally itself with Sunni liberals and leftists. Like the Shiites, they boycotted the last legislative elections, in 2002, over discontent with reforms introduced by King Hamad. The Islamic National Accord Association (INAA), which is the major Shiite formation in the kingdom, is fielding 17 candidates, while the leftist National Democratic Action Association has presented six candidates.
Both boycotted the 2002 polls protesting at the split of legislative powers between the parliament and an equally numbered upper chamber appointed by the monarch.
"Bahrain chooses its future today," read the front-page headline of Al-Watan daily.
Bahrain's Shiites were behind anti-government protests which claimed at least 38 lives in the 1990s, as they pressed for the restoration of parliament which was scrapped in 1975.
The outgoing chamber came about following major reforms that included turning Bahrain into a constitutional monarchy.

CAIRO, Egypt,
Nov. 25--Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal warned Saturday of a third intifada if a political solution to a Palestinian state within 1967 borders is not found within six months, AFP said.
"We give the international community six months for real political horizons... There is a historic opportunity for a Palestinian state within 1967 borders," Meshaal told reporters in Cairo. "If our demands are not met, the Palestinian people will close all political files and launch a third intifada," he said.

BANGKOK, Thailand, Nov. 25--Hundreds of schools in Thailand's restive south will shut their doors in response to increasingly vicious attacks by suspected insurgents against teachers and schools, AP quoted an official as saying Saturday.
The closure, which begins Monday, affects all 336 primary and secondary schools in the province of Pattani, where two teachers were fatally shot by suspected insurgents in the past two days.
In one of the killings, attackers shot a school principal Friday, and then set his body on fire. The principal became the 59th teacher or school official killed in three years of violence, said Bunsom Thongsriprai, president of the Teachers' Association in Pattani.
"Teachers can't bear what has happened," Bunsom said.
"They are paranoid, worried and afraid." He said the province's schools, which teach about 100,000 students, will reopen when teachers feel safe.
Teachers have always been occasional targets, seen by insurgents as representatives of the government and easy targets. But recently, teachers and schools have been attacked on an almost daily basis.

MOGADISHU, Somalia, Nov. 25--Somali Islamists said they poured thousands of fighters and heavy equipment into frontline positions on Saturday as they braced for clashes with the weak government and its Ethiopian allies.
The Islamists said they had reinforced areas outside the government seat of Baidoa, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of Mogadishu, anticipating imminent attack and accusing neighboring Ethiopia of sending air power.
"We are completely ready here on the frontlines and keeping inside our trenches," Islamist military chief Sheikh Muktar Robow told AFP. "We are facing the Ethiopian invaders. The only thing we expect is the start of battle."
"The Ethiopians have brought warplanes, including helicopters, and even heavy tanks to Baidoa and they are intending to wage an attack against us and we are ready for that," he said.
The Islamists and the Ethiopian-backed government have been girding for all-out war near Baidoa for weeks, since the collapse of peace talks earlier this month, but in recent days have stepped up preparations.