BOGOTA, Colombia - Former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt embraced her children for the first time in six years Thursday, saying the thought of them helped her stay alive until a daring rescue plucked her and 14 other hostages from the jungle.
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"Nirvana, paradise — that must be very similar to what I feel at this moment," Betancourt said, fighting back tears as her son reached over to kiss her. "It was because of them that I kept up my will to get out of that jungle."
Betancourt raced to the stairway of the French government plane that flew her children to Bogota, throwing her arms around Lorenzo, 19, and Melanie, 22.
"The last time I saw my son, Lorenzo was a little kid and I could carry him around," she said. "I told them, they're going to have to put up with me now, because I'm going to be stuck to them like chewing gum."
Betancourt, 46, was airlifted to freedom Wednesday in an audacious operation involving military spies who tricked the rebels into handing over their most prized hostages — including three U.S. military contractors — without firing a shot.
A thin red stream of lava crept down the flanks of the 9,400-foot (3,120-meter) volcano before dawn.
Vulcanologist Juan Cayupi of the government's Emergency Bureau said officials were monitoring the situation to determine if they will need to evacuate small villages in the sparsely populated region 650 kilometers (370 miles) south of Santiago.
Llaima is one of Chile's most-active volcanoes. It erupted for about two weeks in January, forcing hundreds of tourists to evacuate from Conguillio National Park but causing no damage.
ABUJA - Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua is seeking a cut in the 2008 from about 2.7 trillion naira (23.4 billion dollars, 15.2 billion euros) to 2.6 trillion naira, his office said Thursday.
In separate letters to both the Senate and the House of Representatives on Wednesday, Yar'Adua sent an amendment to the budget that was passed and signed into law in April after a spending row with the National Assembly.
The president had accused the parliament of inflating the budget by adding new projects outside what he proposed to the lawmakers.
Yar'Adua signed the budget after and after a compromise was reached to the effect that an ammendment bill could be proposed to take care of the area of contention.
The president is expected to present another supplementary bill this month to take care of the projected spending to fix the country's under-performing power sector.
MOSCOW - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday called for the transfer of a proposed Olympic bobsleigh site over ecological concerns, Russian media reported.
The planned Sochi-2014 Winter Olympics venue, next to a mountain nature preserve above Russia's summer resort city on the Black Sea, was criticised by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) last month as ‘environmentally unfriendly’.
‘I consider it necessary to move these venues to another site, as agreed with the International Olympic Committee,’ Putin said at a meeting with Russian Olympic officials in Sochi, news agency RIA said.
In a nine-page summary of its April inspection, UNEP said Grushevy Ridge, where the bobsleigh course and competitors' accommodation had been due to be built, is home to endangered flora and fauna.
As the official consultant to the International Olympic Committee for environmental protection up to and through the 2014 Olympic Games, UNEP visited Sochi's proposed venue sites at the invitation of the Russian government.
A source close to the Russian government told Reuters: ‘They have taken the environmental concerns very seriously, including the UN report, particularly when it comes to Grushevy Ridge.’
HEART: Afghan and NATO-led forces killed 25 Taliban militants in a 10-hour gun battle in western Afghanistan, a provincial police chief said on Thursday.
The militants were killed in Muqur district in Badghis province on Wednesday during a joint clean-up operation by NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the Afghan army and police, Mohammad Ayob Niazyar said.
"At least 25 Taliban were killed and many were wounded in several hours of fighting after the Taliban attacked our troops," Niazyar told foreign news agency.
He said the clash started Wednesday afternoon and lasted till midnight. No NATO and Afghan forces were wounded in the fighting.
