Obama praises D-Day bravery, selflessness
COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France, June 6 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama says "bravery and selflessness" marked the D-Day invasion of France by Allied forces during World War II.
Speaking at a U.S. war cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, overlooking the Normandy beach that was codenamed Omaha for the massive June 6, 1944, assault, Obama praised the ultimate sacrifices of the U.S. and Allied troops on D-Day, which happened 65 years ago Saturday, the BBC reported.
"Friends and veterans, what we cannot forget -- what we must not forget -- is that D-Day was a time and a place where the bravery and selflessness of a few was able to change the course of an entire century," he said. "At an hour of maximum danger, amid the bleakest of circumstances, men who thought themselves ordinary found it within themselves to do the extraordinary."
Also present at the ceremony was French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who reportedly thanked the Allies for the 215,000 casualties they suffered in their push to liberate France and Western Europe from the grip of German Nazis, and the Americans in particular for their bravery at Omaha Beach.
"I want to say thank you to the survivors of this tragedy who are here today with us... We owe you our freedom," the British broadcaster quoted Sarkozy saying. "Because of the blood in your veins you are a symbol of the America we love."
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper also recalled the sacrifices made by the Allies on D-Day, while elderly veterans of the Normandy landing were in attendance at the memorial cemetery, the BBC said.
Earlier Saturday, Britain's Prince Charles and Brown appeared at Bayeux Cathedral in Normandy at a remembrance hosted by French Prime Minister Francois Fillon. Brown laid a wreath to honor the fallen among the 130,000 Allied soldiers who landed at Normandy on D-Day.
Calif. hospital offers day care fire help
SACRAMENTO, June 6 (UPI) -- A California hospital says it will admit and treat victims of a Mexican day care fire that killed 29 children.
Catherine Curran, a spokeswoman for Shriners Hospital for Children in Sacramento, told CNN that admissions from the tragedy in Hermosillo, Mexico, would begin Saturday.
Jose Larrinaga, a spokesman for Mexico's northwestern state of Sonora, told reporters it appeared the blaze, in which more than 100 children between ages 1 and 5 were injured, began Friday afternoon in a next-door tire warehouse and then spread to the one-story, concrete building housing the ABC Daycare.
Witnesses told CNN the scene at the day-care center was chaotic, with parents screaming children's names and fainting. When the fire began, 176 children ranging in age from 6 months to 5 years were believed to be inside. Many of them were trapped by thick smoke, local media reported.
CNN said Mexican President Felipe Calderon has ordered the director of the Mexican Institute of Social Security to go to Hermosillo to supervise efforts to help the children and their families.
Up to 30 killed in Peru Amazon clashes
BAGUA, Peru, June 6 (UPI) -- Protests and rioting in Peru's remote Amazon region have killed at least 30 people, local officials and residents say.
Indigenous people in Peru's northern province of Bagua in the Department of Amazonas clashed Friday with police who were attempting to remove a roadblock erected during a protest of oil drilling and mining activities, with eight police and 22 protesters reported killed, CNN said.
Peru has declared a state of emergency in the region, where protests have been going on for 59 days, the U.S. broadcaster said.
The Bagua public defender's office told the Los Angeles Times that 45 people were injured in the clashes, in which rioters allegedly damaged city offices, the local headquarters of President Alan Garcia's political party and about 50 stores.
The newspaper said one report indicated protesters were holding 38 police officers for ransom, threatening to kill them unless police stopped attacking local residents.
The Times said the clashes began in April when the Garcia government granted mineral development rights to foreign companies in areas claimed as ancestral lands by several indigenous communities.
Pentagon: Pakistan terror aid diverted
WASHINGTON, June 6 (UPI) -- Pakistan diverted U.S. aid meant for fighting Taliban terrorists to bolster its conventional warfare capabilities against India, documents indicate.
U.S. Defense Department documents accessed by the Press Trust of India reveal Islamabad secretly diverted a substantial portion of nearly $7 billion in foreign military financing and arms sales from the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush to beef up its armed forces along the Indian border instead of fighting terrorists.
PTI quoted the Pentagon documents as saying that a major portion of post-Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. military aid meant to counter advances made by the Taliban and al-Qaida in Pakistan's northwest was instead used to buy and refurbish eight P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, worth $474 million.
Islamabad also placed orders for 5,250 TOW anti-armor missiles worth $186 million with the aid, the news agency said, adding that 2,007 of missiles have already been delivered and the rest are on the way.
