BLACK DAY

A federal judge Monday sentenced former media tycoon Conrad Black to 6½ years in prison for his role in defrauding shareholders and skimming cash from his Hollinger International newspaper conglomerate.

Black, 63, was convicted in July of mail fraud and obstruction of justice. He has vowed to appeal his conviction and has 10 days to begin the process.

Black was also ordered to pay a $125,000 fine.

"This sentence will send a message that you do not engage in this type of behavior," said U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve. "The court's sentence should adequately deter others from engaging in this conduct."

"Mr. Black, you have violated your duty to Hollinger and its shareholders," the judge said. "I frankly cannot understand how someone of your stature can engage in the conduct you did and risk everything."

His associates -- Peter Atkinson of Oakville, Ontario, Jack Boultbee of Victoria, British Columbia, and Mark Kipnis of Northbrook, Illinois -- were also due to be sentenced on Monday. Atkinson, Kipnis and Boultbee were also convicted of mail fraud.

Black left the court without speaking to reporters.




In the early 1990s, Hollinger International controlled 60 percent of Canadian newspapers in addition to hundreds of dailies worldwide, including the Chicago Sun Times, the Montreal Gazette, Britain's Daily Telegraph and the Jerusalem Post.

Black resigned as chairman and chief executive officer of Hollinger in 2004 after an internal investigation into shareholders' complaints that he and other executives were lining their pockets with company funds.

Weeks after his November 2004 resignation, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil fraud lawsuit against Black, as well as Hollinger International's former deputy chairman and chief operating officer, David Radler, and Hollinger International.

A year later, Fitzgerald brought eight criminal fraud charges against Black, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Federal prosecutors said Black and the other defendants defrauded shareholders of Hollinger International by collecting "non-compete" payments from the sales of media holdings. In a non-compete, the seller agrees -- in exchange for a payment -- not to compete in the buyer's market.
The prosecution argued that the payments ended up in the pockets of the defendants, as tax-free bonuses, instead of in the company coffers.

During the trial at the U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois, which began in March, U.S. federal prosecutors described the lavish, eccentric lifestyles of Black and his wife, Lady Barbara Amiel, a journalist.

Black renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2001 to become a British citizen and was awarded a place in the British House of Lords. He took the title Lord Black of Crossharbour.



The judge ruled that Black will serve his sentence in a U.S. prison, not a Canadian prison as the defense has requested.

She gave Black 12 weeks to surrender to federal authorities and recommended that he do so at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida as requested by defense attorneys.

A date for the surrender will be set later. If Black fails to do so, Judge St. Eve said, he will forfeit his properties in New York and Florida.

The court ruled in July that Boultbee and Atkinson will be allowed to return to Canada to serve their prison sentences.

INGRID IS ALIVE

The Colombian government has seized five videotapes from suspected members of a rebel group that show a number of hostages, including Colombian Sen. Ingrid Betancourt and three American contractors, a government statement said Thursday.

The tapes are the only recent evidence that the hostages kidnapped by the Revolutionary Armed Force of Colombia (FARC) may still be alive.

Four of the five videos show recording dates in late October, while the fifth is branded January 1, 2007.

In addition to Betancourt and the contractors, several kidnapped members of Colombia's security forces appear in the tapes.


Earlier this month, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, acting on behalf of the Colombian government, held talks with Colombian Sen. Piedad Cordoba and Luciano Marin Arango, a member of the high command of FARC, in a bid to broker the exchange of as many as 50 kidnapped.

Those civilians include Betancourt, a Colombian-French national who was kidnapped in 2002 while running for president, and the three American contractors who were captured when their plane went down in 2003 during a drug-eradication flight.

The guerrillas have demanded the release of 500 imprisoned FARC rebels in return for their hostages.

Prior prisoner-release negotiations between Colombia and FARC have stalled over a rebel demand for creation of a demilitarized zone for the exchange and for released rebel prisoners to return to the guerrilla group.

In the early November meeting, Marin Arango reiterated the guerrillas' demands for a demilitarized zone.

Established in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, FARC is Colombia's oldest, largest, most capable and best-equipped Marxist rebel group, according to the U.S. Department of State.

The United States, the European Union and Colombia classify FARC as a terrorist group.

EARTHQUAKE IN PERU

A powerful 7.9 magnitude earthquake has hit the coast of Peru, killing at least 337 people and injuring hundreds more, Peru's civil defence institute says.

All but one of the deaths were in the coastal province of Ica, about 265km (165 miles) south of the capital, Lima.

President Alan Garcia said he was sending three cabinet ministers to the worst affected area.
The earthquake struck at 1841 (2341 GMT) on Wednesday and lasted for several minutes.

The US Geological Survey said the epicentre was beneath the Pacific Ocean, about 145km (90 miles) south-east of Lima. Four strong aftershocks ranging from 5.4 to 5.9 followed, the organisation said.

Rush-hour traffic in Lima came to a halt as buildings shook with the force of the powerful tremors and hundreds of people spilled onto the streets. Low-lying coastal areas in Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Colombia were evacuated after a tsunami alert was issued, but the warning was later withdrawn. Deputy Health Minister Jose Calderon described the situation in the city of Ica, where 650,000 people live, as "dramatic".

The National Institute for Civil Defence said 336 people had been killed in the province and 827 others injured. One person was killed in Lima.

TV reports said 17 people were killed and dozens injured when the Senor de Luren church in Ica collapsed during evening mass.

Callers to Radio Programas del Peru (RPP) said many homes in poor neighbourhoods in Ica and nearby Chincha had collapsed and that several cities had no electricity. The town of Pisco, 60km east of the epicentre, was also badly affected.

Hospitals are reported to be overwhelmed by the number of casualties. A cameraman for the Associated Press said the floors of the hospital in Chincha were covered with dead bodies.
The mayor of Ica, Mariano Nacimiento, said he had asked the government for medicine, blankets, tents and all help that could be given. The weather in the region is very cold at the moment.

Rescuers have struggled to reach Ica, however, as parts of the Pan-American Highway have been blocked by huge cracks in the tarmac and fallen power lines.

N.Y. TWISTED

The first world is not free of the weather climate change. That's right, Dorothy, you're not in Kansas anymore - you're in Brooklyn! (N.Y., USA)

A tornado hit the Borough of Kings yesterday, leaving a path of shredded rooftops, splintered trees and wrecked cars from Bay Ridge to Sunset Park.

The weather phenomenon more often associated with the Midwest than the Big Apple struck just after 6:30 a.m. amid a furious thunderstorm. For several minutes it swept across the southwestern part of Brooklyn with winds as high as 135 mph, according to the National Weather Service.



The storm uprooted 217 trees - 174 in Brooklyn alone - damaged 40 homes and wrecked as many as 200 cars, officials said.

And it dumped as much as 3½ inches of rain in parts of the city in a matter of hours - crippling the city's transportation system and creating a nightmare for commuters trying to get to work.

Officials recorded one storm-related death - that of a New Jersey woman whose car stalled in high water beneath a Staten Island overpass, was rear-ended and burst into flames.

Police arrested the other driver, Yahov Raihshtein, 58, for operating with a suspended license.

For the most part, however, the first twister in New York City since 1995 - and the first in Brooklyn since 1889 - left little more than torn-up roofs and shattered nerves in its path.

BRIDGE DOWN IN USA

At least 7 people were killed when an interstate bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota (USA) collapsed in what the governor called a "catastrophe of historic proportions."

The accident occurred shortly after 6 p.m. (7 p.m. ET) when dozens of cars were on the bridge.

Witnesses described a "dust cloud" as it collapsed, sending cars and and chunks of concrete plunging into the Mississippi River below.

At least 60 people were taken to local hospitals, according to Minneapolis Fire Chief Jim Clack.

All survivors have been taken off the bridge, said Minneapolis police Chief Tim Dolan during a news conference Wednesday night. Crews have searched 50 cars and will be looking for more possible victims, but the mission has changed from a rescue to a recovery mode.

Recovery operations have ended for the night because conditions became dangerous for workers as darkness set in. "There's too much debris in the river to continue in the river tonight. We will at first light be back in the river working again," Clack said.

Mark Lacroix, who lives on the 20th floor of an apartment building near the bridge, told CNN he saw the last seconds of the collapse.

"I heard this massive rumbling and shaking basically and looked out my window," Lacroix said.

"It just fell right into the river."

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it saw no indications of terrorism in the incident.

Construction took place on the bridge Tuesday night and was to take place again Wednesday night, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation. The highway would have been restricted to a single lane in both directions from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. both nights.

The bridge was undergoing redecking work, but nothing structural was being done, U.S. Transportation Department spokesman Brian Turmail said.

There were 8 construction workers on the bridge at the time of the collapse, and one of them is unaccounted for, said Mike McGray, president of Progressive Contractors, the company doing the repair work on the bridge.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty said inspections of the 40-year-old bridge in 2005 and 2006 found no structural defects, but a 2001 study conducted by the Minnesota Department of Transportation found "several fatigue problems" in the bridge's approach spans and "poor fatigue details" on the main truss.

The study suggested that the design of bridge's main truss could cause a collapse if one of two support planes were to become cracked, although it allowed that a collapse might not occur in that event. But, the study concluded, "fatigue cracking of the deck truss is not likely" and "replacement of the bridge ... may be deferred."

After the collapse, the nearby University of Minnesota Medical Center received "just a handful" of injuries from the accident, spokesman Ryan Davenport said.

"One of our hospitals has five patients so far, and the other on the other side of the river has none," he said.

Nancy Ebert of Northwestern Hospital said it had received four injured people -- two children and two adults.

Dr. Joseph Clinton, chief of emergency medicine at Hennepin County Medical Center, said the hospital is treating 28 injured people, six of them critically hurt.

He also said the hospital received one patient who was pronounced dead on arrival. "We have one drowning victim here, and I believe there are more drowning victims at the scene," he said.

Witnesses told CNN a school bus filled with children was on the bridge when it collapsed, but they also said the bus did not drop into the water and it appeared that all the children had been evacuated.

Jeff Pearson, regional vice president of First Student, Inc. -- which handles school buses in Minneapolis -- said that about 60 children, plus teachers, chaperones and a driver, were on the bus and that all were accounted for.

Aerial footage showed the middle of the bridge caved in, lying in the Mississippi River, with cars both on top and submerged in the water. The main part of the collapsed span was not submerged, but the span clearly separated from the land-based sections of the highway on both the north and south ends of the bridge.

A witness said it looked like "toy cars" were plunging into the water.

"I heard a terrible noise, and then I looked. It seemed like a piece of the bridge was pancaking and going down," said Janet Stately. "I said, 'Did we really see that? Did we really see that?' and it was unbelievable."

About 100,000 cars a day travel over the bridge, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation.