46 — Vanguard, TUESD
Vanguard TUESDAAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2012
Rebels bomb arm
armyy HQ in
Damascus
S YRIAN rebels said
they planted bombs
inside the Syrian army’s
General Staff headquar-
ters in central Damascus
on Sunday as President
Bashar al-Assad’s forces
bulldozed buildings to
the ground in parts of the
capital that have backed
the uprising.
Syrian state television
said four people were
wounded in what it called
a terrorist attack on the
General Staff compound
in the highly guarded
Abu Rummaneh district,
where another bomb at-
tack killed four of Assad’s
top lieutenants two
months ago. But opposi-
tio forces said Violence is
continuing in Syria, with
opposition activists say-
ing that a warplane may
have killed as many as 25
people in a strike in Alep-
po province.
In Damascus, a bomb
left at least five people
dead and many more
wounded in the Jarama-
na area of the city. “The
operation targeted officers
in the Assad army who
have been planning and
giving the go ahead for
the massacres against the
Syrian people,” said a
video statement by the
Grandsons of the Proph-
et brigade, a division of
the Free Syrian Army. As
S/African police teargas miners as
unrest spreads
S OUTH African police
fired teargas and rub-
ber bullets to disperse
striking miners at a gold
mine near Johannesburg
yesterday, in the latest
Brazilian naval ship visits
Nigeria barely a week after a US
BY EVELYN USMAN
I N an apparent adher
ence to the legal
framework provided by
the United Nations Con-
vention on the Law of the
sea in combating piracy
and armed robbery at sea,
a Brazilian Navy offshore
Patrol Vessel “AMA-
ZONS” P120 is scheduled
to pay a three-day Port
call to Nigeria for an anti-
piracy training.
The Ship which will
arrive and berth at Apa-
pa Port today, is coming
the uprising in Syria has
spread, it has taken on a
more sectarian bent, with
activists saying Assad’s
best trained forces from
the mostly Alawite Fourth
Division and the Repub-
lican Guards are spear-
heading the fight in the
capital.
“Bombs were planted
inside the army head-
quarters,” said the video
Polls draw Obama, Romney
level
P
RESIDENT Barack
Obama enters an im-
portant campaign week
tied with Republican
presidential nominee
Mitt Romney, a Reuters/
Ipsos poll found on Sun-
day, leaving the incum-
bent an opportunity to
edge ahead of his oppo-
nent at the Democratic
National Convention.
With the Democrats set
to nominate Obama for a
second term this week in
Charlotte, North Caroli-
na, the race to the presi-
dential election on No-
vember 6 is tight with 45
percent for Obama and
45 percent for Romney
among likely voters, the
survey found.
The findings were from
the seventh day of a roll-
outbreak in a wave of la-
bour militancy spreading
from platinum mining
into other parts of the sec-
tor.
The unrest occurred
Naval Ship, HSV 2
SWIFT had a one week
joint training exercise
with the Nigerian Navy.
Describing the visit as
part of the bi-lateral re-
lationship between the
Brazilian Navy and the
Nigerian Navy, the West-
ern Naval command In-
formation Officer, Lieu-
tenant Commander Jer-
ry Omodara explained
that the ship would also
be involved in other pro-
fessional training pro-
grammes with the Nige-
rian navy during the vis-
it.
statement, which was
broadcast on Arab satel-
lite channels. But as the
rebels demonstrated they
could strike at the heart
of the security apparatus,
residents said army bull-
dozers moved on al-
Zayat and Farouk neigh-
borhoods to the west, and
destroyed at least 20
buildings in the Sunni
Muslim areas that have
sheltered the insurgents.
ing online poll conduct-
ed for Reuters by Ipsos to
judge voters’ attitudes
around the political con-
ventions.
Obama campaigned in
Boulder, Colorado, the
state where he accepted
the Democratic presiden-
tial nomination four years
ago, while Romney was
off the campaign trail in
New Hampshire, about to
begin preparations for
three debates with Obama
in October.
The Democrat is seek-
ing to generate the same
kind of enthusiasm that
propelled him to the
White House in 2008, a
task that is much more
difficult this time with
Americans struggling
under 8.3 percent unem-
ployment.
less than three weeks af-
ter police shot dead 34
striking miners at Lon-
min’s Marikana mine,
the deadliest security in-
cident since the end of
white-minority rule in
1994. The Marikana
shooting shocked South
Africa and marred the
image of the continent’s
biggest economy, as the
full extent of a breakdown
in labour relations in the
mining sector became
apparent.
The latest round of cri-
sis came as South African
prosecutors provisionally
withdrew murder charg-
es on Sunday against 270
miners who had been ac-
cused of killing 34 strik-
ing colleagues shot dead
by police, but said they
could be recharged when
investigations are com-
plete.