Liberia police: 3 dead, others missing in fire

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Liberian police say that at least three bodies have been retrieved and more than 10 people are feared trapped under the rubble of a building that was gutted by fire and came down in the Waterside commercial district of Monrovia.

Police Senior Inspector Gregory Coleman told the Associated Press "half of the building collapsed" over people who were helping to put out the fire, which started Wednesday night.

The United Nations radio station, UNMIL Radio, confirmed two of the dead were from the Liberia Fire Service.

Grief-stricken family members have continued to pour into the area in search of missing their relatives.

Some eyewitnesses put the figure of those killed higher and say those trapped are more than 20.

Police are investigating the incident.

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5 UN troops, 7 others killed in South Sudan

JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — Armed rebels that South Sudan believes are backed by Sudan opened fire on a U.N. convoy on Tuesday, killing five U.N. peacekeepers from India and at least seven civilians, officials said.

South Sudan's military spokesman, Col. Philip Aguer, blamed the attack on fighters led by David Yau Yau, a rebel leader South Sudan's military has battled for months.

The top U.N. envoy in South Sudan, Hilde Johnson, said in a statement that five peacekeepers and seven civilians working with the U.N. mission were killed. She said at least nine additional peacekeepers and civilians were injured and some remain unaccounted for.

Aguer said the attack took place on a convoy traveling between the South Sudanese towns of Pibor and Bor on Tuesday morning.

"Definitely this attack was carried out by David Yau Yau's militia," Aguer said. "They have been launching ambushes even on the SPLA for about six months now," he said, using the acronym for South Sudan's military.

South Sudan ended decades of civil war with Sudan in 2005 and peacefully formed its own country in 2011. But the south is still plagued by internal violence and shaky relations with Sudan. Leaders in Khartoum, Sudan's capital, deny that they are arming Yau Yau.

Syed Akbaruddin, spokesman of India's Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi, India, said the convoy, which included 32 Indian soldiers, was attacked by rebels in Gurmukh in the volatile state of Jonglei. He said the casualties are being brought to the capital of South Sudan, Juba, and the injured will be sent to the U.N. mission hospital. The Indian embassy will work with the U.N. to bring the bodies back to India, he said.

India has about 2,200 Indian army personnel in South Sudan. They are in two battalions. One is based in Jonglei and the other is in Malakal, in the Upper Nile, on the border with Sudan.

The Indian embassy said it will inform families before releasing the names of the soldiers killed.

The top U.N. envoy in South Sudan, Johnson, sent condolences to the families of the dead and injured.

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George reported from New Delhi. Associated Press reporter Edith Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

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Canada's Ouellet suggests others may be better for pope

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, one of the leading candidates to succeed Pope Benedict, suggested in an interview with Canada's national broadcaster that other candidates for pope might do a better job.

"I have to be ready even if I think that probably others could do it better," Ouellet, 68, one of a handful of cardinals seen as papal material, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp in an interview published late on Sunday.

Ouellet, who now works in the Vatican, served as archbishop of Canada's French speaking province of Quebec from 2002 to 2010, a fractious time where uncompromising positions from the Vatican often ran counter to the widespread secularism in Quebec.

Pope Benedict subsequently named him to the influential position as prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, which recommends the appointment of bishops to the pope.

In a separate interview with the French-language CBC, Ouellet recognized that his name does come up as a possible replacement for Benedict, who stepped down on March 1.

"I can't not think about the possibility. Reasonably, when I go into the conclave of cardinals, I have to say to myself, 'What if, what if...' It makes me reflect, it makes me pray, it makes me somewhat afraid. I am very conscious of the weight of the task," he said.

"So you have to be ready for any outcome, but I think a certain number of people have more chance of being elected than me."

Ouellet said he recognized that the church and the next pope needed to take advantage of social media. Benedict started tweeting in December, as @pontifex. Ouellet said he has been busy, but knows he needs to start tweeting.

Ouellet, who once said becoming pope "would be a nightmare", faced controversy in Quebec in 2010, months before being brought over to the Vatican, when he restated the Church's position that abortion is wrong even in the case of rape.

That remark drew condemnation from Quebec politicians, and one newspaper columnist wrote that he hoped the clergyman would die a long and painful death.

As he left Quebec, he said "the message of truth is not always welcome," but he also asked forgiveness for any harm he may have brought to people.

A Canadian journalist who interviewed Ouellet several times described him as a cross between John Paul II and Benedict, more reserved than the former but more photogenic than the latter. But even his friends say he is not charismatic.

(Reporting by Randall Palmer; Editing by Janet Guttsman; and Peter Galloway)

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