U.S. POW's dad to Taliban: 'Let there be peace'

The father of the only American POW in Afghanistan sent a message to his son's Taliban captors on Saturday: "After 12 years, let there be peace. Can we push this forward and make it happen?"

And he sent a message to his son: "I will not leave you on the battlefield. You are not forgotten."
Updates about Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's case have been sparse sincehe was captured nearly four years ago after finishing a guard shift at a combat outpost.
Family members have remained reticent for fear of jeopardizing his safety.
But the 27-year-old soldier's parents spoke out at a rally in home state of Idaho on Saturday, just days after U.S. authorities said discussion of a possible prisoner exchange with the Taliban could be on the table during upcoming talks.
"We are feeling optimistic this week," mother Jani Bergdahl said. "So many of you have come from far away, and we appreciate the sacrifices you made to make this possible."
More than 1,000 people were in the crowd, including hundreds of war veterans who rode motorcycles into this town.
Throughout the event, they chanted, "Bring Bowe Home."
Local politicians, state senators and police officials also spoke at the event.
"We hope he will see this and know of you," his mother told the crowd. Then, she sent a message to her son, "We love you and are eagerly awaiting your return home."
In a statement released earlier this week through a family spokesman, the soldier's parents said they were encouraged by word that upcoming negotiations might lead to their son's freedom.
"That is encouraging news, especially after not much encouraging news over the past four years," Army Col. Tim Marsano said, adding that the Bergdahls have been talking with military and government agencies. "They know their son has not been forgotten. My brothers and sisters in uniform know we won't rest until Bowe Bergdahl is safely back with his family."
At Saturday's rally, father Bob Bergdahl sported a long beard, which he has grown out since his son's capture as a sign of solidarity. And he spoke briefly in Pashto, a language that he's studied during his son's captivity. He offered a message that he said was meant for the Taliban.
"May the peace of God and blessings of God be upon you," he said. "After 12 years, let there be peace. Can we push this forward and make this happen?"
Speaking in English, he offered a message in English that he said was meant for his son.
"Bowe, my son, if you can hear me. ... you are part of the peace process, you are part of ending the Afghan war. Have faith. Do good works. Tell the truth, and have the patience that can only come from God. We are being tested," Bob Bergdahl said.
On Thursday, State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said the U.S. expects prisoner exchange to be a topic of talks with the Taliban, which are slated to take place "in the coming days," in Doha, Qatar.
No decisions have been made about transferring any Taliban detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. Any such decision would have to be made with congressional approval and in accordance with U.S. law, she said.
It won't be the first time U.S. negotiators raise the issue of Bergdahl's release with the Taliban. The two sides held meetings in 2011 and 2012 that included the topic of Bergdahl's release, with sporadic discussions since then.
While the United States has been pushing for the return of Bergdahl -- captured in June 2009 in Afghanistan -- the Taliban has been pushing for the release of five of its own men from U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay. Psaki said the United States expects the Taliban will raise that issue again when the two sides meet.
In the meantime, Bergdahl's father said Saturday that he'll never stop pushing for his son's freedom.
"A father does not leave his son on the battlefield. I live in Afghanistan, my phone on Afghan time," he said. "I will not leave you on the battlefield. You are not forgotten. You will not be forgotten. We pray soon you will come home."

Police: Gunmen storm hotel in Pakistan, kill 9 foreigners

Gunmen burst into a hotel in northern Pakistan early Sunday, killing nine foreigners, the interior minister said.
The victims were six Ukrainians and three Chinese, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told parliament on Sunday. He said a Chinese man managed to escape and is safe.
"The attackers abducted two local guides and demanded they take them to where some foreigners are staying to carry out the attack," Khan said. "One (guide) was then killed, another escaped and has been detained by police for questioning."
Earlier, officials said 10 foreigners had been killed. Authorities said the death toll changed due to difficult communications and the area's remote location.
The attack took place between midnight and 1 a.m., said Ali Sher, a senior police official. "This was not a big hotel, just a small log/hut type lodge, so no major security," he added.
He said the violence occurred in Fairy Meadows in Gilgit Baltistan province. It's unclear how many attackers were at the scene.
Pakistani state TV reported that the interior minister has suspended the provincial chief secretary and the inspector general of police.
A spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan said an affiliated group carried out the attack.
The Pakistan Taliban targeted the foreigners because the international community supports drone strikes, said spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan.
The attack was also to avenge the killing of Emir Wali-ur-Rehman in a drone strike in Waziristan last month, the spokesman said.
Rehman was the Pakistan Taliban's No. 2 leader.

Singapore gets some relief from haze of choking fumes

Singapore breathed a sigh of relief Sunday as changing wind patterns created a pocket of clearer skies from a haze of choking fumes.
Pollution levels measured by the Singaporean government dipped sharply after all-time record levels hit Friday. The fumes were blamed on plantation fires in neighboring Indonesia.
Small pockets of people ventured back out to the streets in neighborhoods such as Ang Mo Kio, but many donned filter masks to help with the foul-smelling haze.
 Masks quickly sold out at stores when the pollution hit last week. But by Sunday, officials handed out emergency supplies of free masks at community centers.
Although haze levels have receded, officials warned that the smoke could make a strong comeback in the coming days, and may linger for months.
That could have serious health implications, said Philip Eng, a professor of respiratory medicine at Mt. Elizabeth Medical Centre.
"In my patients, I have seen an increase (in consultations) by about 30% or so," he said, particularly among older people with chronic conditions.
"But we are still in early days," he said. "If this thing drags on for a month, I won't be surprised if more people get hospitalized."
Many usually crowded cafes along the waterfront sat empty Saturday, with too few customers to stay open. But a scattering of tourists braved the haze to take photos at the city's iconic Merlion fountain.
The smell of the burning peat and wood was distinct.
"We're used to fog, but this was a real 'pea souper'," Briton expatriate Tom Fairburn said. "It smells like a pile of burning tires next to a bonfire, not pleasant."
It's hard to predict the final economic impact of the haze on Singapore's economy. One Asia-Pacific brokerage firm put the potential toll in the hundreds of millions.
CLSA said that the economy had taken a $300 million-hit in lost tourist income, closed offices and construction downtime in 1997 -- the previous all-time high in pollution. The current situation could be far more costly, it said.
Transport officials warned ships to be extra vigilant in the teeming straits between Singapore and Sumatra because the haze made it difficult to see other boats.
It is easy to see the neighboring island from the beaches in Singapore. But the view was not as clear in the past few days, with ships peeking in and out of the thick haze Saturday.
Local shop owners felt the crunch.
In one beach side shop, the owner looked forlornly into the horizon as bikes that would normally be rented out stood in stacks.

Brazil's president warns protesters against violence

In the aftermath of more than one million people taking to the streets in anti-government demonstrations, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff vowed Friday to talk with protest leaders but warned the government would not tolerate violence.
The warning came amid sporadic reports of looting, people breaking into public buildings and protesters setting fires during demonstrations that appeared to take the government by surprise this week.
The movement has brought together Brazilians angered by a government they say is shortchanging its duties to its citizens while spending lavishly on events such as the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games.
"We cannot live with this violence," Rousseff said in a nationally televised address. She called on security forces to work within the framework of the country's law to prevent violence and vandalism.

Rousseff said she planned to meet with leaders of the protest movement, but did not publicly detail when or where the meetings would take place. Her remarks followed an emergency meeting with her Cabinet.
While most of the protests have remained peaceful, there have been reports of sporadic violence that have resulted in two deaths.
On Friday, state-run Agencia Brasil reported an employee of the city of Belem, who as cleaning the streets near the mayor's office, died after being "shocked" by clashes between police and protesters.
The news agency did not say how the woman died, but reported that she suffered from hypertension and was transported to a hospital, where she died Friday morning.
Another protest-related casualty reportedly occurred Thursday in Sao Paulo state, where a young man was run over by an SUV at an intersection during a demonstration, state police said.
Even after various state governments repealed the public transportation fare hikes that spurred the discontent, more than a million people took to the streets across the country on Thursday.
Until now, the government's position was to support the protests as peaceful freedom of expression, and it is unclear whether there will be a shift as violent incidents mount and the unrest continues.
"It's a very delicate balance, and it's not very simple," Roberto Jaguaribe, Brazil's ambassador to the United Kingdom, told CNN.
The government wants to protect protesters and property, while not being overbearing with its response.
It's presumptuous, Jaguaribe said, to assume that the government understands what is taking place on the streets and the forces behind it.
Protesters say they want to see more expenditures on education and health care, changes that cannot be done quickly. The majority of marchers are young and well-educated.
"One of the problems is that the normal democratic channels that are established are not followed by these people," Jaguaribe said. "They don't feel represented adequately by these channels. They want to to create something new."
"We have to understand that and see how it goes," he said.
The mood in Sao Paulo, one of the centers of the protests, was tense Friday. Many were anxious to hear a message from Rousseff.
The protests come amid the soccer Confederations Cup tournament, a friendly array of matches, in which the host country, Brazil, plays against a small group of national teams from around the globe. The cup serves as a precursor to the World Cup.

Edward Snowden leaves Hong Kong, aided by WikiLeaks

Edward Snowden left Hong Kong on Sunday for a third country "through a lawful and normal channel," the Hong Kong government said.
And he left with the help of WikiLeaks, who assisted with Snowden's "political asylum in a democratic country, travel papers (and) safe exit from Hong Kong." the group said on Twitter.
Snowden took off not long after the United States asked Hong Kong to extradite the man who leaked top-secret details about U.S. surveillance programs.
The U.S. government had also asked Hong Kong to issue a provisional arrest warrant for Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) said.
But officials said there were problems with the request.
"Since the documents provided by the U.S. government did not fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law, the HKSAR government has requested the U.S. government to provide additional information," the Hong Kong government said in a statement. "... As the HKSAR government has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong."
The statement did not say what additional information Hong Kong needed from the United States, nor did it say where Snowden was headed.
U.S. federal prosecutors have charged Snowden with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information, and willful communication of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorized person.
The latter two allegations amount to espionage under the federal Espionage Act.
News of Snowden's departure followed a day of intense speculation over whether Hong Kong would extradite Snowden to the United States.
Hong Kong Executive Council member Regina Ip said authorities could arrest Snowden if his actions qualify as criminal under Hong Kong law, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported earlier Sunday. The executive council decides on policy matters for Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China.
But if the charges against him are deemed to be political in nature, the 30-year-old would not be extradited, Ip told Xinhua.
How the case unfolded
Snowden has admitted in interviews he was the source behind the leaking of classified documents about the NSA's surveillance programs. Those leaks were the basis of reports in Britain's Guardian newspaper and The Washington Post this month. The Guardian revealed Snowden's identify at his request.
The documents revealed the existence of the programs that collect records of domestic telephone calls in the United States and monitor the Internet activity of overseas residents.
The revelation of the leaks rocked the Obama administration and U.S. intelligence community, raising questions about secret operations of the NSA and whether the agency was infringing on American civil liberties.
Obama, top legislators and national security officials defend the surveillance programs as necessary to combat terrorism and argue that some privacy must be sacrificed in a balanced approach.
They say the law allows collection of metadata, such as the time and numbers of phone calls, and that a special federal court must approve accessing the content -- listening to the call itself.
In interviews this month, Snowden said he fled with the classified documents after taking a leave of absence from his job as an intelligence analyst for NSA contractor Booz Allen Hamiliton. The company has since fired him.
A series of blog posts this week purportedly by Snowden said he leaked classified details about U.S. surveillance programs because President Barack Obama worsened "abusive" practices, instead of curtailing them as he promised as a candidate.
Snowden said that he had to get out of the United States before the leaks were published by the Guardian and The Washington Post to avoid being targeted by the government.
In an interview published Sunday, Snowden told the South China Morning Post that the U.S. government is hacking Chinese mobile phone companies to steal millions of text messages. The Guardian also reported Snowden's latest claims.
Snowden had earlier told the Post that U.S. intelligence agents have been hacking computer networks around the world, including in China, for years.
Hong Kong has requested clarification from the United States on such reports. The HKSAR said it will continue to follow up on the matter so as to protect the legal rights of the people of Hong Kong.

Romania's orphans: Young adults leave horror behind

After Romania's dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown in 1989, the world learned of the shocking conditions in which many children lived in the country's orphanages. More than 20 years later, those children are adults - and for some of them at least, life is far, far better than it was.

To arrive in Siret is to arrive at world's end.
The train from Bucharest - clatter-boom, clatter-boom, through the night - goes only as far as Suceava. An historic city mauled by the communists.
Immediately after the revolution of 1989 I travelled from here to Siret in an elusive taxi.
Now Catalin - with his own car hire firm and a canary yellow cap - waits for me at the station, ostentatiously dusting down his Vauxhall Astra.
The drive, hurtling between cabbages and corn, horses with their carts and a pink sky that crashes into the Moldavian plains, is a reminder of how far you have come from the dusty fug of Bucharest's Gara de Nord.

Siret was a quiet border town, spitting distance from the vast expanse of the USSR.

Change came abruptly in 1990, when its secret was exposed on an international stage. In a four-storey former Austrian army barracks, Romania hid its largest gulag for abandoned and disabled children, far away from the capital.
Communists did not cope well with imperfection.
In came the foreign do-gooders. The broken orphans learned to cry and Siret's entrepreneurs sourced German beer for their prestigious newcomers.
Some charities lasted the course - others moved on with the rolling tide of news but amidst the global opprobrium Siret and many of its abandoned young stayed put.
They are adults now. Few were adopted - it turns out Westerners do not cope well with imperfection either.
Eventually the barracks was abandoned.

The 100-plus adults unable to live independently were moved to another austere stone building - smaller this time with wire-nettings and landings overlooking a concrete court yard.
Dribs and drabs of foreign money have paid for new sheltered accommodation for the lucky few.

But more than 20 years after the revolution the most vulnerable adults still rock back and forth in a building that resembles a human hen coop.

When they saw us the young adults ran over, euphoric, anticipating attention, touching the camera, hugging me and the other visitors, keen for a small shard of love.
A reminder of what it used to be like when the foreigners came to play.
Two decades on and the familiar smell of sweat and wet stone walls has not gone away, nor the disturbing noises of those unable to express themselves.
But there is a key difference between now and then.
He is called Tibi Rotaru - a man with his clear kind blue eyes and a crumpled shirt. He was there to meet me.
A local lad of just 17 when the first wave of foreigners came, Tibi was roped in as a translator.
The volunteers had found their first and most-important ally.
He went on to Bucharest then Germany and Holland to study psychology, before eventually moving back to Siret and taking over responsibility for the orphans.

It is this unassuming man who has turned a small community once scarred by a legacy of child abuse into an oasis of tolerance.
The young adults now wander freely about the town, they sweep the church steps, cadge cigarettes and laugh with the locals.
You can spot the ones from the hospital, they are smaller than everyone else, even the able-bodied are hunched - despite their tender years they have haggard faces and their stumbling gait gives away the horror story that was their childhood.
Tibi shakes his head. "Their lives were stolen from them, and still they don't have what they need," he says.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"When I first walked into the large grey building at the heart of Siret, my immediate instinct was to walk straight back out again.
"Half-naked children leapt from every direction, clawing at my clothes, and there was an overpowering smell of urine and sweat that made me want to retch."

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

His young adults, and make no mistake they are his - to watch him with them is to watch a father with an unruly loving brood - now have a bright shiny new home to move into.

The undignified rows of beds will at last be history.
"Of course," Tibi reminds us, "this building has been ready for over a year, sitting empty".
He knowingly points to the crow's feet in the corners of his eyes.
"I have travelled fortnightly to Bucharest in the hope of meeting a minister.
"A lot of funds have been spent on this project, but they couldn't find the money for a boiler."
He laughs: "How can I move the young people with no heating?"
But Tibi has the patience of a man born into a system he knows he must work with, not against.
Siret's young adults have now been told their new house will finally have heating and hot water.
In a town where the winter temperature drops -30C (-22F) Tibi has once again proved that dreams can come true - so long as you are prepared to wait 23 years.

Turkey's PM Erdogan and opponents hold mass rallies

                                  Riot police again used water cannon in Istanbul's Taksim Square

Turkish activists have held a mass protest in Istanbul, hours after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan rallied his own supporters in a seaside resort.

Riot police used water cannon to disperse thousands gathered in Istanbul's Taksim Square.
Mr Erdogan told about 15,000 of his supporters that the protests were led by an international conspiracy.
Protests had eased since last Saturday, when police cleared Istanbul's Gezi Park, the focal point of unrest.
 One prayer'
A small protest over plans to redevelop the park began in May.
It exploded into nationwide anti-government unrest after the police used what activists said were heavy-handed tactics.
Mr Erdogan, who has become a hate figure for the protesters, initially appeared to want to placate his opponents, but later hardened his rhetoric.
On Saturday he told thousands of his supporters in the Black Sea city of Samsun how the protesters insulted Islam.
 Let them go into mosques in their shoes, let them drink alcohol in our mosques, let them raise their hand to our headscarved girls," he said.
"One prayer from our people is enough to frustrate their plans."
He also suggested an international conspiracy with financial interests that he termed the "interest-rate lobby" was behind the protests, though he did not elaborate.

 Just the beginning'
In Taksim Square, thousands had gathered to once again call for Mr Erdogan's resignation.
They chanted slogans such as "Dictator Tayyip" and: "This is just the beginning."
But riot police pushed the crowd out of the square, and deployed water cannon to remove stragglers.
TV images showed protesters putting up little resistance, and there appeared to be little violence.
By nightfall, hundreds of protesters continued to mill around on the edges of Taksim Square, with riot police occupying the central area.
The protesters argue that Mr Erdogan, who has been in power for a decade, has become increasingly authoritarian.
Many accuse him of pursuing an Islamist agenda, threatening Turkey's secular political tradition.
However, Mr Erdogan flags up Turkey's impressive economic performance since he became leader, and the large majorities he has won in three elections.
Mr Erdogan has also eradicated the coup culture that plagued Turkish politics, though his critics say he has silenced dissent in the process.

Sirena Seaways ferry damaged hitting Harwich dock

Almost 500 passengers were stranded on a ferry for more than two hours after it struck the quay while docking and started to let in water.

The DFDS ferry Sirena Seaways, with 489 passengers on board, hit Parkeston Quay, in Harwich, Essex, just after midday.
Eyewitnesses said the ship was listing after the accident, which holed the vessel beneath the water line.
Essex Fire and Rescue Service said no-one was trapped or injured.

The fire service said the ship's crew plugged the hole from inside and built a compartment with watertight doors to stem the leak.

There had been no pollution, a spokesman added.
A Department for Transport spokesman said a team from the Maritime Accident Investigation Branch was at the scene investigating how the accident happened.

 Very successful outcome'
The Walton Coastguard rescue team, the Harwich RNLI lifeboat, the harbour launch boat, and an RAF search and rescue helicopter from Wattisham Airfield attended the incident, along with a number of other nearby vessels and tugs that went to assist.
At 14:45 BST the ferry was brought along the quayside and all the passengers on board started disembarking.
Aimee Rampton, watch manager at Thames Coastguard, said: "We had a very successful outcome today: 489 people onboard and no injuries incurred."

The 23,000-tonne vessel had just arrived from Esbjerg, Denmark.
It is described on the DFDS website as a "modern cruise ship with a real focus on passenger entertainment and comfort".
Eric Chalmers, who was at quay when the crash happened, said the ferry was "only just" upright in the water following the collision.
Mr Chalmers said: "I heard a horrible, really loud crumpling, thundery noise.
"I snapped my head around and there she is, ploughing straight into the docks bows-on."
Chris Vincent, 50, was on board the ship having returned from a motorcycle tour to the Arctic Circle and said the ship "juddered" as it hit the quayside.

                                            Passenger Chris Vincent said he heard a loud bang
  
'Heard a bang'
"We were coming into the port at about 11:45 BST and were due to arrive at 12:00. The ferry seemed to be coming in at quite some speed," he said.
 We heard a bang and some metallic noises. We looked out of the cabin window and could see the ship had hit a hydraulic boarding ramp and some metal bollards. The front of the ship ploughed into the quay."
"The crew were quite good and kept everybody calm. They put tea and coffee and soft drinks on for everybody."
Mr Vincent, a salesman from Syston, Leicestershire, said messages over the ship's public address system told passengers what was happening.
Ch Insp Nick Lee, of Essex Police, said: "We worked closely with DFDS, the Port of Harwich authorities and the coastguard. The boat was redocked and the passengers were able to disembark."
Gert Jakobsen, vice-president of communications for DFDS, said it was "difficult to say" why the ship had struck the quayside.
"There might have been some wind, we don't know why, but it hit the quay," he said.
"A ship is very heavy and it caused some damage to the quayside. There was also some damage to the ship in the front at the starboard side.
"It took in a little water but not much. The ship was fully able to handle it so it only took in water for a short period of time."

Leading human rights group evicted from Moscow office

                                                 The stand-off began on Friday afternoon 

A prominent Russian human rights group has been forcibly evicted from its office in Moscow after a stand-off with the city authorities over the lease.

Security guards removed veteran activist Lev Ponomarev and his For Human Rights group in a dramatic operation in the middle of the night.
Mr Ponomarev, 72, said later he had been beaten and kicked, and others had been assaulted too.
Non-governmental organisations have come under mounting pressure in Russia.
A law passed since Vladimir Putin was re-elected president last year obliges them to register as "foreign agents" if they receive any foreign funding, thereby stigmatising them in the eyes of many Russians.
Hundreds of NGOs in Russia have been raided in recent months.
Mr Ponomarev, a founding member of Russia's Memorial human rights organisation in the late 1980s, has publicly refused to register For Human Rights.
He suggested the eviction was linked to his group's stance and that it had paid its rent on the property, which it had occupied for 15 years, to the end of June.
However, Moscow city council said the lease had expired. "We simply evicted them because the Moscow government is not in the mood to have anyone freeload on its property," a spokesperson told AFP news agency, speaking on condition of anonymity.
'Dragged and kicked' The stand-off in Maly Kislovky Alley, in the city centre, began on Friday afternoon when council bailiffs arrived at the office for the eviction.
As they sought to change the locks, Mr Ponomarev and his staff of six refused to leave, and he spoke to reporters through a window.
Several liberal opposition politicians joined him in a gesture of solidarity.
At around 02:00 on Saturday (22:00 GMT Friday), a large group of men stormed the office.
"They treated us very roughly," he told Reuters news agency by telephone. "I was dragged across the floor and then kicked."
He added that he and five others had been taken by ambulance to a first-aid clinic with bruises and scrapes, but none were in hospital.
Moscow police said they had kept order outside the office but had not taken part in the actual eviction, which was carried out by private security guards. Opposition politicians insisted police had been involved too.
A small group of protesters gathered outside the office on Saturday.
Russian human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin said the dispute should have been resolved through the courts.

Canada floods: Three killed as waters threaten Calgary

                                  Footage of a roof colliding with a bridge in Bragg Creek, Alberta

At least three people have been killed and more than a 100,000 forced to flee their homes as floods triggered by torrential rain hit western Canada.

Officials have ordered the evacuation of the centre of Calgary, Alberta, after both rivers that flow through it, the Bow and Elbow, overflowed.
The floods have washed away roads and bridges, cut-off electricity and submerged hundreds of homes.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper toured flood-damaged areas on Friday.
He has promised federal assistance for those affected.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt Patricia Neely confirmed that three people were dead and two bodies had been recovered.
She said the bodies recovered are of two men found in the Highwood River near High River, about 40 miles (64km) south of Calgary, on Thursday.

                                        Flood waters surround the hospital in Canmore, Alberta

 This is incredible," said Mr Harper, a Calgary resident. "I don't think any of us have seen anything like this before. The magnitude is just extraordinary."
Alberta Premier Alison Redford warned residents should be prepared for more flooding downstream.
Communities further south were under total evacuation orders. Roughly half the homes in High River were flooded.
Swept away While an estimated 230,000 people live and work in central Calgary, officials believed there would be few people to evacuate because many did not come to work on Friday.
Some 25 neighbourhoods in Calgary, a city of one million, had already been evacuated. An estimated 75,000 residents have been ordered out of their homes.
The floods come after a rainy week in Alberta, capped by 4in (10cm) of downpour on Thursday.
Military helicopters rescued about 30 people off rooftops in the Calgary area. At least 350 soldiers are being dispatched to the flood zone, according to the defence minister's office.
The mountain resorts of Banff and Canmore were left isolated after the Trans-Canada Highway was closed.
One resident of Canmore said he awoke in the middle of the night to a "kind of rumbling" sound and realised it was the nearby creek.
"At first it was just intense, pretty powerful, amazing thing to watch," Wade Graham told the Associated Press.

               Canmore resident Sarah Pearson describes escaping across a bridge on a school bus

 As daylight came, it just got bigger and bigger and wider and wider, and it's still getting bigger and bigger and wider and wider."
"I watched a refrigerator go by. I watched a shed go by. I watched couches go by. It's insane," he added.
Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said about 1,500 people went to emergency shelters while the rest were staying with family or friends.
Daniel Kilgallon, who is staying with his relatives after evacuating his flat, told the BBC: "The city has stopped functioning. Nobody can remember a flood like this ever happening here."
'An ocean' Mr Nenshi warned that although the Elbow had crested, the city was not yet out of danger.
The Bow river, which Mr Nenshi said looked like "an ocean at the moment", is expected to remain at its current level for the next 12 hours.
Police have advised people against travelling to the city centre. Public transit there has been shut and schools are closed.
Officials said lions and tigers from the Calgary Zoo may need to be transferred to prisoner holding cells. Two zebras and two pigs have already been moved to a conservation centre.
The Saddledome, home to Calgary's professional hockey team, is also flooded with water levels rising to the stadium's 10th row.
Calgary resident Marshall Strong told the BBC several of his family members' homes were flooded.
"One farm that we went to had 60 cattle drowned in the fields," he said.
"It is truly unbelievable what has happened in such a short time. Calgary is a strong city and we have held it together better then we imagined."

India floods: Rescue efforts intensify, as death toll rises

                                                  The Indian Army is leading rescue efforts

Efforts have intensified in northern India to rescue tens of thousands of people trapped by flash floods that have already killed nearly 600 people.

The army is evacuating survivors in mountainous Uttarakhand state by helicopter and special trains are carrying people from affected areas.

More than 40,000 people are still stranded in what the government has described as a "national crisis".

Officials have admitted a lack of co-ordination in the rescue effort.

Forecasters are predicting more rain.

Early monsoon rains in India this year are believed to be the heaviest in 60 years.

The rainy season generally lasts from June to September, bringing rain which is critical to farming.

'Lack of co-operation'

Government officials say more than 33,000 people have already been rescued from the worst-hit areas over the past several days.

But during a visit to the area, Home Minister Shushil Shinde admitted there was a 'lack of co-ordination amongst agencies involved in relief operations".

Many locals are also complaining of neglect from relief agencies, alleging priority is being given to tourists and Hindu pilgrims, the BBC's Nitin Srivastava in Dehradun reports.

"Whatever is humanly possible is being done," Information Minister Manish Tewari told reporters.

The authorities say they are yet to reach many survivors in remote areas cut off by flash floods, as the army is struggling to repair roads and bridges.

One of the worst-hit areas is the Kedarnath Valley, where thousands of pilgrims remain stranded.

Many survivors have been evacuated to the state capital Dehradun, where relatives of those missing await news.

Dehradun is also the base for the relief effort, from where rescue workers, medicines and food are being flown to the affected areas.

                                 The floods have flattened homes and washed away roads and bridges

 At least 560 are known to have been killed and thousands are missing. The death toll is expected to rise further.

On Friday, 40 bodies were recovered from the river Ganges in the temple town of Haridwar, a local police official said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the situation there as "distressing" and announced a 10bn rupee ($170m; £127m) aid package for the state.

Google has opened up its person finder tool in Hindi and English to help trace missing people in Uttarakhand.

India's National Disaster Management Authority has published control room phone numbers for flood-affected districts.

Working Lives Georgia

                                                        Working Lives Georgia: Surgeon

Gia Gvaramia's patients can't wait for him to get his hands on them. Literally.

At 56, he is a pioneering plastic surgeon who opened Georgia's first cosmetic surgery clinic in 2000.

 Since then business has bloomed in line with an explosion in consumerism for a growing middle class. Average household incomes have risen nearly 50% since the war with Russia in 2008.

Gia now has a further six clinics.

Every year he and his colleagues see 3,000 new patients.

Georgians, young and old, come to his surgeries for Botox, nose jobs, breast enhancement, liposuction and other treatments, luxuries not everyone can afford.

He is surprised by the popularity of his business

"When I began my business people asked me if I was crazy. They'd ask: 'Who needs this business in Georgia?'"

Gia says he has since proven people wrong.

"Now we have so many competitors it means plastic surgery is a business people need."

Back in Gia's family home, his wife, daughter and grandchildren discuss how work is going over coffee and cakes.

Has he ever had to perform plastic surgery on any of his family members I ask.

"Yes, sometimes," he says with a wide grin though not yet on Marika his wife, he confides.

"There are things I think I could do for her," he says as Marika gives a wry smile.

Syria 'friends' agree urgent support for rebels

Foreign ministers of the Friends of Syria group, who are meeting in Qatar, have agreed to provide urgent support to rebels who are fighting President Bashar al-Assad.

Qatar's PM Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani said "providing arms may be the only means of achieving peace".

The group also condemned the Syrian government for its use of Iranian and Hezbollah fighters.

More than 90,000 people have died in more than two years of conflict.

The Syrian government says it is fighting foreign-backed "terrorists".

'Balance on the ground'

The Friends of Syria group includes the US, Britain, France and Germany as well as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan.

Its joint statement said the members had agreed to "provide urgently all necessary materiel and equipment to the opposition on the ground, each country in its own way in order to enable them to counter brutal attacks by the regime and its allies".

Support would be channelled through the Western-backed rebel military command.

The group also called on the immediate withdrawal of Lebanese Hezbollah and Iranian fighters from Syria.

The meeting in Qatar's capital, Doha, comes a week after the US announced it would provide Syrian rebels with "direct military aid".

That decision followed what the US said was evidence of small-scale chemical weapon attacks by the government.

The Friends of Syria group was set up in response to moves by Russia and China to block UN resolutions on Syria.

On Saturday, the Qatari PM said that "failure to reach an agreement in the UN Security Council will not stop us moving forward".

He said that moral support for the rebels was not sufficient, adding: "A balance must be achieved on the ground so the regime can accept negotiations."

The group's statement did not mention the specifics of the support that would be provided.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said again that the Syrian government had crossed a line in using chemical weapons

But he insisted that the decision to provide military support to the rebels was "not to seek a military solution" but to give the rebels more power in negotiating an end to the conflict.

Mr Kerry said the group was still pushing for a peace conference in Geneva between the two opposing sides in Syria.

But he said Mr Assad had responded to the calls for a conference by bringing in Iranian and Hezbollah fighters to confront the rebels.

                            The rebels say they have begun a new offensive in the northern city Aleppo

"That is a very, very dangerous development,'' he said. "Hezbollah is a proxy for Iran... Hezbollah in addition to that is a terrorist organisation."

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said: "We have been talking about how we can help the opposition, how we can help save lives. Different countries will have different ways of doing that.

"We have to cooperate and we have to coordinate as much as possible to try to save the lives of innocent people in Syria."

He said again that the UK government had taken no decision to arm the rebels.

New offensive

The rebels have suffered a series of military setbacks recently.

But on Friday, they said they had received new weapons that could lead to "changes" in the civil war.

A spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army said they had not come from the US.

"We've received quantities of new types of weapons, including some that we asked for and that we believe will change the course of the battle on the ground," FSA spokesman Louay Muqdad told AFP news agency.

On the ground in Syria on Saturday, government forces were reported to have stepped up their attacks on rebel positions north of the capital, Damascus.

The pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported activists as saying there had been heavy shelling in a number of districts.

But the rebels said they had declared a new offensive of their own in the northern city Aleppo, the last major rebel stronghold.

They are attempting to capture government-held areas in the west of the city, Syria's largest.