Porscha Starlett Christmas Toy Drive

Tis the season to be Jolly and give Joyfully. Porscha Starr presents our 1st Annual Starrlett Christmas Toy Drive! This year, we have partnered with the Salvation Army to help spread Christmas cheer to less fortunate children and families. Join us Saturday, December 14th, 324 E Queen St, Inglewood, CA 90301 from 12noon-3pm and drop off a new toy. Unfortunately not every child will have a Merry Christmas however, with your help and support we can work to change that! An event for the entire family to participate in; join Porscha Starr at the 1st Annual Starrlett Christmas Toy Drive!

Tata Madiba The Great

Model Naomi Campbell embraces her hero Nelson Mandela. Date: February 1998.

Madiba, Father, Troublemaker - Mandela's Names

A message using Nelson Mandela's clan name "Madiba" and a term of affection "Tata" meaning "father", is scrawled on the window of a car parked in the street outside Mandela's old house in Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa Friday, Dec. 6, 2013. South Africans of all races often referred to Nelson Mandela as simply "Madiba" or "Tata", terms of endearment that promoted a sense of familiarity for a towering figure who was widely revered.

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — South Africans of all races often referred to Nelson Mandela as simply "Madiba" or "Tata," terms of endearment that promoted a sense of familiarity for a towering figure who was widely revered.

The use of the more informal names reflected the personality of a man who could break the bounds of formality by cracking a joke, stopping a news conference to greet a child or strolling over to his neighbors for a "pop-in" visit.

The use of the names for a man who broke the shackles of apartheid, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and who became his country's first black president created a sense of intimacy for South Africans, since many considered him not only the father of their nation but also like a father or grandfather. Even South African media and officials often use Mandela's other names.

Here's a glance at what's in the names of Mandela, who died Thursday at age 95:

Madiba:

The name most commonly used by South Africans for Mandela is Madiba. Madiba is the name of the clan that Mandela belonged to and is derived from the name of a chief who ruled in the Transkei region in the 18th century, according to the Nelson Mandela Foundation. By using that name, South Africans expressed their respect for Mandela as the son of a traditional chief, but mostly it as an endearment, creating a sense of familiarity, like one friend would use another friend's nickname.

Tata:

In the language of Mandela's Xhosa tribe, the word simply means "father." Many South Africans adopted the term to show their affection and respect because they regard him as the father of their democratic nation. Some called him "Tata" also because they held him so dearly that they considered him one of their own family members.

Rolihlahla:

Mandela's father, who was a tribal chief in Transkei, a Xhosa homeland in the country's southeast, gave his son the name Rolihlahla at birth. In Xhosa it literally translates as "pulling the branch from a tree" but colloquially it means "troublemaker," according to the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
Nelson Mandela:

His universally known first name Nelson wasn't given to him until his first day of school by his teacher, according to his autobiography. Giving black South African children a Christian or more English-sounding name at the time was not unusual, a legacy of colonial days when rulers struggled to pronounce African names or viewed them as inferior. Mandela is his family's last name.

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Palestinians Remember Mandela As An Inspiration

Palestinian children pray next to a poster with a picture of late South African leader Nelson Mandela, during a special service in his honor at the Holy Family Church, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Sunday Dec. 8, 2013. Palestinians mourned Mandela as a loyal champion of their cause, lighting candles for him in special church services on Sunday and holding up his picture in confrontations with Israeli troops in the West Bank.

RAMALLAH, WEST BANK (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — Palestinians mourned Nelson Mandela as their most loyal champion, lighting candles in special prayer services Sunday and holding his picture like a shield in confrontations with Israeli troops.

But the death of the South African leader who famously said that "our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians" also reminded many here of how far they are from establishing a state of their own.

U.S.-mediated talks between Israelis and Palestinians on the terms of such a state have reached their mid-way point and appear bogged down. "I don't think our leaders or the Israeli leaders or the American leaders will make peace here," Wael Shihadeh, 52, said Sunday while chopping eggplants in the kitchen of a Ramallah restaurant. Palestinians lack a leader of Mandela's caliber, he said.

Palestinian activists have compared Mandela's struggle against apartheid to theirs against Israeli occupation — a parallel Israel rejects — and some increasingly look to South Africa for help in pressure campaigns against Israel.

Many South Africans also equate the Israeli treatment of Palestinians with their former apartheid regime's abuse of blacks. Last year, South Africa's government decided that goods imported from Israeli West Bank settlements cannot not be labeled "product of Israel." In 2011, the University of Johannesburg became the world's first to impose an academic boycott on Israel.

In October, veteran anti-apartheid leader Ahmed Kathrada, who was convicted alongside Mandela in 1964, launched a campaign from Mandela's former prison cell for Marwan Barghouti. The Palestinian uprising leader was jailed 11 years ago and is serving five life terms after being convicted of a role in the uprising-related killings of four Israelis and a Greek monk.

Asked about the use of violence by the Palestinians, Kathrada noted that Mandela's African National Congress also turned to it at one point. "When everything failed, every peaceful method failed, we also had to resort to armed struggle, realizing that the main struggle will be where masses of people were involved," the 84-year-old said by phone from South Africa.

"We cannot prescribe to the Palestinian people how they should conduct their struggle," added Kathrada, who spent 26 years in prison, or a year less than Mandela, much of it in the same place. Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in 1967. More than 20 years of intermittent talks with Israel have been fruitless. A decade ago, Palestinians waged an armed uprising that was met by Israeli retaliation, and the fighting left more than 1,000 Israelis and more than 3,600 Palestinians dead.

The violence subsided after Mahmoud Abbas, who views negotiations with Israel as the preferred path to statehood, was elected Palestinian president in 2005, replacing one-time guerrilla leader Yasser Arafat. Two years later, Palestinians split politically, with the Islamic militant Hamas seizing Gaza, refusing to renounce violence and calling for an Islamic state in historic Palestine, including what is now Israel.

Mandela's ANC and Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization have cooperated closely since the 1960s, including in joint military training. Hanan Ashrawi of the PLO said ANC activists told their PLO colleagues they believed the Palestinians would reach their goal first. "The ANC would always tell us, 'when you are independent, when you are free, you mustn't forget us'," she said.

To Mandela, support for the Palestinians was "a personal commitment, a moral commitment," she said. Kathrada said that after Mandela's release from prison, then-U.S. President George H. W. Bush urged the anti-apartheid leader to cut ties with Arafat, Cuba's Fidel Castro and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi.

"Mr. Mandela's response was that when we came to you, the Americans, the British and other Western countries and asked for assistance, you called us terrorists," Kathrada said. Mandela told Bush that "it would be immoral and ungrateful" to break with old allies, Kathrada said.

Alon Liel, Israel's ambassador to South Africa from 1992-1994, said Mandela told him he would never forget Israel's close ties with South Africa's apartheid regime, but was willing to move forward. Mandela said South Africa would have normal and even good relations if Israel moves toward an agreement with the Palestinians, Liel recalled.

Mandela was eager to mediate. When Arafat and then-Israeli President Ezer Weizman attended Mandela's 1994 inauguration, Mandela arranged an impromptu meeting. Arafat and Weizman talked for three hours, Liel said, noting that "this was his (Mandela's) first working meeting as a president."

Mandela offered his services again in 1999, during a visit to Israel after he had already left the presidency. Liel said Israel's prime minister at the time, Ehud Barak, turned Mandela down, telling him that "you are so close to them (the Palestinians) and we need somebody who is balanced between the two sides."

Relations between Israel and South Africa were cool during long years of deadlock in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Solly Tshivhula, a South African diplomat in Ramallah, said his country's relations with Israel are shaped by South Africa's empathy for the Palestinians.

"The complication in South Africa's relations with Israel, in the context of Palestine, is derived from the fact that we see the struggle of Palestine as similar to that of ours against apartheid ...," he said.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said both sides are working hard to improve the relationship. Palmor and other Israeli officials have rejected the portrayal of Israel's rule over the Palestinians as a type of apartheid.

Israel annexed east Jerusalem in 1967, while the West Bank remains under military occupation. Some 350,000 Jewish settlers live in more than 61 percent of the West Bank, in areas under sole Israeli control. The rest is home to some 2.2 million Palestinians and is run by Abbas' self-rule government. However, Israel restricts the Palestinians' trade and movement, citing security concerns.

Since Mandela died Thursday at the age of 95, Palestinians have remembered him in small gatherings. On Friday and Saturday, groups of protesters held up his picture in demonstrations against Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank, which eats up Palestinian farmland along its route, though Israel presents it as a security fence.

On Sunday, churches in three West Bank towns held special prayers for Mandela. In Ramallah's Holy Family Church, about 200 worshippers sang hymns as two children held candles in front of a large Mandela photo leaning against the pulpit.

South Africans Hold Day Of Prayer For Mandela

A Christian worshipper prays on a hill overlooking the city of Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2013. South Africans flocked to houses of worship for a national day of prayer and reflection to honor former President Nelson Mandela, starting planned events that will culminate in what is expected to be one of the biggest funerals in modern times.

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — South Africans of all races flocked to houses of worship Sunday for a national day of prayer and reflection to honor Nelson Mandela as a large contingent of foreign dignitaries, including royalty, begin arriving in the country to pay their final respects to the liberation struggle icon.

The government said Sunday that 53 heads of state and government as well as a broad range of eminent persons had confirmed that they would be attending a national memorial service and state funeral for the country's first black and democratically-elected president. The memorial service is expected to be one of the biggest in modern times.

Hundreds attended the Regina Mundi Church that was at the epicenter of the Soweto township uprising in 1976 against white rule. The Rev. Sebastian J. Rossouw described Mandela as "moonlight," saying he offered a guiding light for South Africa. Hundreds of people attended the Mass.

"Madiba did not doubt the light," Rossouw said, referring to Mandela by his clan name. "He paved the way for a better future, but he cannot do it alone." During the service, worshippers offered special prayers for the anti-apartheid leader and lit a candle in his honor in front of the altar. Off to the side of the sanctuary was a black and white photo of Mandela, who died Thursday at age 95.

Mandela's ex-wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, joined one of his grandsons, Mandla Mandela, and South African President Jacob Zuma in a prayer service in a Methodist church in Johannesburg. "We felt it important that we should have a day where all of us as South Africans can come together and pray for our first democratic president and reflect on his legacy," Zuma said. "But it is also to pray for our nation ... to pray that we not forget some of the values he fought for."

Zuma said Mandela had forgiven even those who had kept him in prison for 27 years, and that he had opposed both white and black domination. Inside a small, hilltop church behind Mandela's property in the eastern village of Qunu, where he will be buried next Sunday, about 50 people held a raucous, celebratory service. A man in a blue robe set the tempo by banging on a goat-skin drum. Men, clapping, formed a tight huddle as mostly barefoot women danced on the cement floor in a circle around them.

Joshua Mzingelwa, the leader of Morians Episcopal Apostolic Church, delivered a loud, throaty sermon. "There is still hope in the hardship that you are facing daily," Mzingelwa told the congregation. In an affluent and predominantly white suburb of the capital Pretoria, parishioners prayed for Mandela at what was once a worship center for pro-apartheid government and business leaders. They prayed in silence as a picture of Mandela was beamed onto the wall above the church's pulpit, the event starkly highlighting the enormous changes that have come to this country.

Pastor Niekie Lamprecht of the Dutch Reformed Church of Pretoria East said the congregation's overwhelmingly white 1,600 parishioners have changed, and that Mandela himself was the driving force. The idea of showing a picture of him inside the church two decades ago would have been unthinkable.

"What helped the white people of South Africa was Mr. Mandela's attitude," Lamprecht said. "He said, 'Let's forgive,' and he forgave. That created a space for people to feel safe ... at a time when the expectation was that there was going to be a war."

A service was also held at St. George's Cathedral in Cape Town, where a prayer was said for a man whose journey from prisoner to president inspired the world. "May his long walk to freedom be enjoyed and realized in our time by all of us," worshippers said in a prayer.

Ahmed Kathrada, who was sentenced to life in prison with Mandela in 1964, said he was informed shortly before Mandela's death on Thursday night that his old friend was about to die. Kathrada said Graca Machel, Mandela's wife, conveyed the message to him through another person that "the doctors have said, 'Anytime.'"

A national memorial service for the man who, as the country's first black president forged a new multiracial, democratic South Africa, will be held at a Johannesburg stadium on Tuesday. Mandela's body will lie in state at the Union Buildings, the seat of government in Pretoria, from Wednesday to Friday, followed by his funeral and burial in Qunu next Sunday.

Among those who have already indicated that they will be coming to South Africa are U.S. President Barack Obama and his two predecessors, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will also travel to Johannesburg for the memorial service.

Other leaders and dignitaries who have confirmed that they are coming include French President Francois Hollande, Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff, Cyprus' Parliamentary Speaker, Yiannakis Omirou, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg and Crown Prince Haakon of Norway.

King Willem-Alexander and Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans will attend on behalf of the Netherlands.

Associated Press writers Alan Clendenning in Pretoria, Jason Straziuso in Qunu and Christopher Torchia in Cape Town contributed to this report.

Mandela's Jailer Praises The Anti-Apartheid Icon

In this image from TV, Christo Brand the Robben Island jailer talks to The Associated Press Saturday Dec. 7, 2013, in his Cape Town home, about former South African President Nelson Mandela who was assigned to guard from 1978 until his release in 1990. Mandela was convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964. The former Robben Island warder Brand said "I want to say Mandela was my prisoner. He became my friend, and was also like a father to me". During the interview Brand recounted a meeting with Mandela during political negotiations to build a new constitution for South Africa, when Mandela saw Brand and said to the assembled members of parliament making a big announcement to everyone, "You know who is this person? This person was my warden, this person was my friend." I feel very humble, I feel very small at that moment said Brand, during a photo session Brand stood on the side but Mandela said, "No, no, you must stand next to me, we belong together."

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — He was with Nelson Mandela during all those years the anti-apartheid icon was imprisoned on Robben Island. And, like millions around the world, he has been hit hard by Mandela's death.

Yet this South African was not one of Mandela's fellow prisoners. Christo Brand was his jailer. The two men — the black political prisoner and the white Afrikaans warden — forged an unlikely but enduring friendship.

They last met about two years ago when Brand, now in his 50s, brought his wife, son and grandson to see Mandela in Cape Town in a Sunday afternoon visit that lasted nearly three hours. They had "nice chats about the past, about his family. He wanted to pick up my grandchild, to hold him, which he was a little bit shy to go to him. You could see he really reached out for touching a child at that moment," Brand recalled.

"When I got the message when he passed away, it was very sad for me," Brand told The Associated Press on Saturday. "But I think he was successful and he did what he wanted to do. I wanted him to go in peace and I am thinking of the family today, what they go through."

Brand started to work on Robben Island in 1978 when he was 18 and Mandela was 60. Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison on Robben Island. Eventually Brand grew to like Mandela and smuggled in special treats like bread and Mandela's favorite hair pomade. Brand even sneaked in Mandela's infant granddaughter so that the prisoner could hold her.

For his part, Mandela encouraged Brand to continue his education and maintained an interest in him and his family. Years later, when Mandela was president, he took special care to single out Brand for recognition while Brand was a lowly civil servant while South Africa's new constitution was being drafted. Mandela flew in by helicopter and entered the room where members of parliament were debating the new constitution, said Brand.

Mandela went around the room shaking hands with parliamentarians but when he saw Brand, who was distributing documents, Mandela lifted his arms and warmly greeted him. "He immediately made a big announcement to everyone: 'You know who is this person? This person was my warden, this person was my friend.'" Brand said he felt very humble and proud at that moment. After that when the parliamentarians went out for a group photo, Mandela insisted that Brand be in the photo. "He said 'No, no. You must stand next to me, we belong together.'"

Brand once again works on Robben Island which is no longer a prison but a bustling tourist attraction. He and other former guards and prisoners tell visitors about the new South Africa's racial reconciliation.

Brand said he shared a joke with Mandela about his final resting place. "I say to Mandela that we must bury you on Robben Island. Then he just laughed. He said 'Why? For tourist attraction?' He said 'You should have made money. But I think I must go to Qunu.' That was him making a joke."

Meldrum contributed from Johannesburg

Few Heirs Apparent To Mandela's Symbol Of Freedom

This combination of 2013 file photos shows, from left, Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi; Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot by the Taliban for promoting education for girls, and Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. The passing of Nelson Mandela leaves a waning number of global figures representing freedom and resilience against oppression - and a changing world that makes it harder for anyone to approach Mandela’s iconic power.

(ASSOCIATED PRESS) The passing of Nelson Mandela leaves a waning number of global figures representing freedom and resilience against oppression — and a changing world that makes it harder for anyone to approach Mandela's iconic power.

There are a few whose trials have made them symbols of freedom, including the former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar, the Dalai Lama and, more recently, Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl turned women's rights activist .

But Mandela, the black revolutionary who emerged from 27 years in prison to embrace his white oppressors and lead a new South Africa, may be one of the last of a breed for all sorts of reasons — including the circumstances of his heroism, his extraordinary success and the onset of an age when heroes' foibles are often exposed.

"He lived and worked in a context and historical period where his extraordinary individual qualities could help make change in his country and ripple throughout the world," said Daniel Calengaret, executive vice president of the Freedom House, a watchdog group working to expand freedom around the world.
"It's hard to think of someone who was both an iconic dissident figure and was actually central to building a new system," Calengaret said. Mandela is often mentioned in the same breath as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., who also changed nations through nonviolence. Yet Gandhi and King were killed before their dreams were realized.

Suu Kyi, the Myanmar pro-democracy leader, was imprisoned by the military regime for 15 years before she was released and won a parliamentary seat. Yet she battles in a political arena lacking the stark racism of South African apartheid, which deprived the black majority of equal rights.

"She stands for the end of a dictatorship, not the end of a racial system," said Dores Cruz, a University of Denver anthropology professor. Cruz said that the dismantling of communism by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is comparable to Mandela ending apartheid. But Gorbachev did not suffer personal persecution to do it.

She noted that Mandela's image was carefully constructed for political purposes in pre-Internet South Africa, then burnished over the years by international media, musicians and Hollywood. "The impact that has had on the historical imagination, you probably won't find that in anybody," Cruz said. "No one has the same iconic image or same historical status."

The Dalai Lama, a Buddhist figure seeking the nonviolent restoration of Tibet's independence from China, has lived in exile for more than 60 years. And there is an ethnic or racial aspect to the Tibetan struggle, as China seeks to wipe out its traditional culture and replace it with that of the Han Chinese.

"Like Mandela, the Dalai Lama represents the decades-long suffering of his people. And he articulates a peaceful possibility in response to violence and aggression," said William Edelglass, a Marlboro College philosophy professor.

"Like Mandela, he inspires us to the better angels of our nature," Edelglass said. "He reminds us of how we really want to be." But at age 78, with China firmly in control, the Dalai Lama is unlikely to see a free Tibet. And his Buddhist religion sets him apart from Mandela, who enjoyed a type of secular sainthood that transcended religious divides.

Malala, the 16-year-old Pakistani girl, achieved global prominence last year when the Taliban tried to kill her for advocating the equality and education of women. After Mandela's death, she called him "my leader."
In the past, other politicians suffered to reform oppressive regimes — Lech Walesa in Poland or Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia. But the peak of their careers came at the moment when the old regime crumbled, Calingaret observed.

"In a sense Mandela's greatest achievements were as president," he said. "He was on top, he could do anything he wanted, and he chose to push for reconciliation and inclusiveness." Mandela's rise might have been complicated had it happened during the Internet age. Mandela had his share of flaws, including infidelity and a past embrace of violence, but they were overlooked. The volume and speed of the information traveling around the world today makes it impossible for a leader to climb without his or her every weakness being magnified.

"One of the things about Mandela that makes him unique, all those years in prison, he couldn't be really doing bad things during that time. And he lived prior to universal access," said Edelglass. He sees the potential for another Mandela in the fight for democracy in China, "but we would know everything about that person, everything they had ever done wrong."

"I wouldn't want to say there are no more (figures like Mandela) coming. I hope there are more coming," Edelglass said. "But it's a much more complicated world." Roger Levine, who grew up in South Africa and now teaches courses on it as a history professor at the Sewanee: The University of the South, said Mandela became such a potent symbol because he experienced all the tribulations of South Africa itself. But the world no longer builds up politicians as the very embodiments of their nations' struggles, he said.

Mandela was a product of a Cold War world: good vs. evil, us vs. them, black vs. white. "Now," Levine said, "it's a whole lot harder to say who is the us and who is the them." "No one is going to suggest that there aren't instances around the world where we have conflict between good and evil," Levine said. "But there are fewer opportunities to say you're on the right side, because it's a little bit less obvious what the right side of something might be."

Jesse Washington is reachable at http:www.twitter.com/jessewashington

Yemen Says Saudis Behind Attack

 Map locates attack in Sanaa, Yemen.; 2c x 5 inches; 96.3 mm x 127 mm;

ADEN, Yemen (AP) — Saudi militants were behind the massive car bombing and assault on Yemen's military headquarters that killed more than 50 people, including foreigners, investigators said in a preliminary report released Friday. Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was retaliation for U.S. drone strikes that have killed dozens of the terror network's leaders.

The attack — the deadliest in Sanaa since May 2012 — marked an escalation in the terror network's battle to undermine the U.S.-allied government and destabilize the impoverished Arab nation despite the drone strikes and a series of U.S.-backed military offensive against it. U.S. forces also have been training and arming Yemeni special forces, and exchanging intelligence with the central government.

Military investigators described a two-stage operation, saying heavily armed militants wearing army uniforms first blew up a car packed with 500 kilograms (more than 1,100 pounds) of explosives near an entrance gate, then split into groups that swept through a military hospital and a laboratory, shooting at soldiers, doctors, nurses, doctors and patients.

Officials earlier said 11 militants were killed, including the suicide bomber who drove the car. It was not clear if the 12th attacker was captured or escaped. The investigative committee led by Yemen's Chief of Staff Gen. Ahmed al-Ashwal, said militants shot the guards outside the gates of the military hospital, allowing the suicide bomber to drive the car inside, but a gunfight forced him to detonate his explosives before reaching his target. It said the 12 militants killed, included Saudis.

Two military officials told The Associated Press that wounded soldiers had told them the assailants who stormed the hospital separated out the foreigners and shot everybody in the head. Other military officials said American security agents were helping with the investigations, but that could not be confirmed. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to brief reporters.

Yemeni commandos and other security forces besieged the militants before they could reach the ministry's main building, preventing them from going further than the ministry's entrance gate. All the attackers were killed by 4:30 p.m. Thursday, according to the committee.

Yemeni security forces launched a manhunt in the capital to find the perpetrators, sparking gunbattles that killed five suspected militants and a Yemeni commando, officials said. The committee, which sent its report to Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, did not explain how it came to its conclusions The report was read on state TV and a copy was obtained by The Associated Press. Hadi met Friday with the U.N. envoy to Yemen Jamal Benomar to discuss the attack. He said that "a number of assailants have been arrested," without elaborating. He added that the "criminals will not escape justice."

The report also raised the death toll to 56 and said more than 200 people were wounded. The foreigners killed included two aid workers from Germany, two doctors from Vietnam, two nurses from the Philippines and a nurse from India, according to Yemen's Supreme Security Commission.

But a spokesman for the Philippines' Department of Foreign Affairs, Raul Hernandez, said Friday that seven Filipinos were killed in the attack, including a doctor and nurses, while 11 others were wounded. The victims were among 40 Filipino workers in the hospital. Hernandez said that the Philippines' honorary consul reported that the others survived by pretending to be dead.

It was not immediately possible to reconcile the conflicting accounts. But officials from the military hospital said Friday that at least 10 foreigners had been killed. Germany's foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer also announced Friday that German employees of aid groups doing work on behalf of the German government have been ordered to leave Yemen "as quickly as possible" and "until further notice."

Schafer also said the German embassy will continue to operate with reduced staff and "corresponding security measures." Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the group is known, is the product of a merger by the group's Yemeni and Saudi branches after a crackdown in the powerful neighboring kingdom. Among its leaders is another Saudi, Ibrahim al-Asiri. The drone strikes and military offensives that began in June 2012 have driven militants from southern strongholds they had seized a year earlier, during Yemen's political turmoil amid the Arab Spring.

AQAP's media arm, al-Mallahem, said on its Twitter account Friday that it had targeted the Defense Ministry building because it "accommodates drone control rooms and American experts." It said security headquarters used by the Americans in their war are "legitimate targets."

The United States considers the Yemeni al-Qaida branch to be the most active in the world and it has escalated drone attacks against the militants in Yemen, killing many militant leaders, including the group's No. 2 figure Saeed al-Shihri, a Saudi who was died of wounds sustained in a strike in November 2012.

Associated Press writer Maggie Michael in Cairo contributed to this report.

Nelson Mandela's Death

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge speaks with Zindzi Mandela, the daughter of Nelson Mandela, before the royal film premier of "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom" in London Thursday, December 5, 2013. Zindzi and Zenani had just met dignitaries including Prince William and wife Catherine at the screening when they were informed of the news by telephone "and immediately left the cinema," according to the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Image/Credits: Chris Jackson/Moira Shaw/AFP

Clashes Sweep Central Africa Republic Capital

Seleka soldiers race through Bangui, Central African Republic, Thursday Dec. 5, 2013 as gunfire and mortar rounds erupt in the town. To try to put an end to sectarian violence, the UN security council is scheduled to pass a motion allowing French troops to deploy in the country in order to protect civilians and insure security by all necessary means.

BANGUI, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — Wielding rifles and machetes, armed Christian fighters who support the Central African Republic's exiled president assaulted the capital at dawn on Thursday, leaving nearly 100 people dead. Shrouded bodies were lined up in a mosque as dozens of wounded lay on blood-stained hospital floors.

The ambush on Muslim neighborhoods of Bangui came as the United Nations voted to send a contingent of French troops to try to stabilize the country, and French President Francois Hollande announced plans to double the force. The daylong gunbattle touched even the most protected parts of the capital, including the residence of the prime minister, underscoring the volatile mix of arms and ideology facing the arriving French force.

Scores died in Thursday's attack, including 48 people whose bodies were laid out at a mosque in a northern suburb of Bangui. Separately, a Doctors Without Borders spokeswoman, Amelie Ketoff, said another 50 deaths had been confirmed, bringing the toll to 98.

Some died of bullet wounds, others from what appeared to be machete blows using a weapon known in the local language as a "balaka." The Christian militia, whose members are believed to have led the attack Thursday, call themselves the "anti-balaka," reminiscent of the horrific violence once seen in Rwanda.

Rebel leader-turned-president Michel Djotodia appealed for calm, even as his residence was looted and vandalized by the fighters. He announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew in a bid to stem the threat of retaliatory violence against Christians, following the early morning attack on Muslim neighborhoods.

"This morning the enemies of Central African Republic wanted to destabilize the country but they have failed," Djotodia announced in a speech broadcast in the Sango language on state radio. France already has hundreds of soldiers in Bangui, and an armored personnel carrier and other military vehicles patrolled the streets. The roads were otherwise bare except for the brightly painted pickup trucks driven by the ex-rebels who run the government.

The resolution passed by the U.N. Security Council on Thursday allows France to send hundreds more troops for a temporary period. Speaking from the Elysee Palace in Paris, Hollande said the 600 troops already in the country would be doubled "within a few days, even a few hours" to around 1,200.

The U.N. measure also authorizes the deployment of an African Union-led force to Central African Republic for a year to protect civilians and restore public order. The AU force is replacing a regional peacekeeping mission whose presence has been mainly limited to the capital and a few northern cities.

"It's necessary to intervene very quickly to establish order in this country, in order that humanitarian aid arrives and to avoid an actual civil war based on religion," said France's U.N. ambassador, Gerard Araud, speaking on French RTL radio Thursday.

Central African Republic, a desperately poor country in the heart of Africa where the life expectancy is a mere 48 years, has been roiled by rebellions and coups for decades. The president ousted in March had himself ascended to power by force a decade earlier.

Djotodia, the country's current ruler, who is Muslim, managed to unify several rebel groups in the country's mostly Muslim north, where resentment of the federal government and a sense of disenfranchisement has been rife for years. Once those rebels — known as Seleka, the local word for coalition — were unleashed upon the capital, though, he wielded very little control over the mélange of bush fighters, child soldiers and foreign mercenaries he had recruited along the way.

Before long, human rights groups were documenting cases of Seleka rebels going door to door with machetes, bludgeoning their victims and burning down scores of homes. Supporters of the ousted president began rising up in opposition to the lawless and ruthless rebels, forming self-defense militias. Thursday's attack demonstrates that these fighters are more than vengeance-seeking civilians with artisanal hunting rifles.

"This is not a war between an army and a rebel group. It's really become a conflict between communities where people are being targeted based on their religion," said Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch, who has documented scores of attacks in Central African Republic.

"And it is actually the Muslim community which is the most vulnerable because of the vast abuses committed by the Seleka and the fact that they are a relatively small minority amongst a much larger Christian population who are just furious because of the abuses they have suffered" under the Seleka.

Camal Fodor managed to get his friend to a health clinic by 7 a.m., but seven hours later he still lay listless on a bench. "The anti-balaka attacked our neighborhood and he was shot in the stomach," Fodor said of his friend, Solomon Haroun, whose blood-soaked T-shirt was dripping blood through the cracks of a wooden bench, where it pooled on the floor below, next to another man awaiting treatment for gunshot wounds.

In another sign of the growing melee, Prime Minister Nicholas Tiangaye confirmed his house had been looted, describing the attackers as a group of Seleka who arrived in three four-wheel-drive pickup trucks.

Speaking in Paris to the Associated Press, Tiangaye said he had been informed that the provisional toll was "more than 100 dead and several hundred wounded." Babacar Gaye, the U.N. special representative for the Central African Republic, appealed for calm in a joint statement from the U.N., European Union, African Union and France.

In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney condemned the "shocking and horrific atrocities against civilians" and said the U.S. was providing $40 million in assistance to the African Union mission.

In the hills overlooking Bangui, dotted with banana trees, the ex-Seleka fighters spent Thursday afternoon showing off the weapons they'd seized from the enemy earlier in the day. The fighters traded combat boots for flip flops and munched on French baguettes in the shade.

Gen. Bachar Fadoul says the Christian militia may attempt another attack but his troops will be waiting. "We will hunt them down and chase them from the city," he said.

Associated Press writers Jose Richard Pouambi and Jerome Delay in Bangui, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, and Lori Hinnant and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.

US: Russian Diplomats Charged; Russia Objects

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, center, announces charges against more than a dozen Russian diplomats and their spouses living in New York during a news conference Thursday, Dec. 5, 2013 in New York. The charges stem from the defendants' alleged involvement in a $1.5 million fraud of a U.S. government health program for the poor.

NEW YORK (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — U.S. claims that dozens of Russian diplomats and their spouses cheated to get health care aid meant for the poor drew a sharp rebuke Thursday from a top Russian official who blamed the criminal case on "Russophobic forces" interested in scuttling progress toward Russia-U.S. cooperation in confronting world conflicts.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov made the remarks carried by Russia's state news agency, ITAR-Tass, after charges were announced in New York City against 49 current and former Russian diplomats and their wives.

He called the charges "no more than a cheap spin effort, no more than a desire to fulfill the order of Russophobic forces in the United States." Ryabkov added: "We regret that attempt to stir up another conflict or dispute, particularly in view of the fact that Moscow and Washington recently have developed a good format of ties regarding big international issues. We wouldn't like to make such links, but in view of reaching some results in the sphere of settling major conflicts, some people in Washington needed to spoil the atmosphere. We can only assess it this way."

Ryabkov's comments came as a State Department spokeswoman in Washington seemed to downplay the announcement by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan, saying the department was reviewing the just-unsealed charges and didn't believe charges against a "handful" of people would damage U.S.-Russia relations.

Bharara said 25 current and former diplomats and 24 spouses were criminally charged in federal court in Manhattan after they underreported incomes to qualify for Medicaid funds even as they spent tens of thousands of dollars on luxury vacations, concert tickets, fine clothing and helicopter rides.

"Diplomacy should be about extending hands, not picking pockets in the host country," Bharara told a news conference. He called it "shameful and systemic corruption." No arrests were made and only 11 of the diplomats and their spouses remained in the United States. The complaint said Medicaid, a health care program for the poor, lost about $1.5 million in the scheme since 2004.

The case is unlikely to go to trial because the defendants have immunity, Bharara acknowledged. Ryabkov said Russia rejects the accusations and believes the surveillance of diplomats that led to them contradicts international law and is illegal.

He said in remarks carried by Russia's state RIA Novosti news agency that the United States should have pursued its complaints through diplomatic channels. "We have many complaints about U.S. diplomats in Moscow, but we aren't taking them into the public domain," Ryabkov said.

The complaint alleges that the defendants — current and former diplomats and their spouses at the Russian Mission to the United Nations, the Russian consulate and Russian trade offices — submitted fraudulent applications for medical benefits for pregnancies, births and care for young children.

"Being a diplomat does not give you the right to commit health care fraud," said George Venizelos, head of the FBI's New York office. Marie Harf, deputy spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, said at a daily Washington briefing that the charges should not affect relations with Russia.

"Quite frankly, there are too many important issues we have to work on together. The justice system will proceed in the way that it does here in the states, and we don't think it should impact our relationship," she said.

She also said: "I don't think I would probably draw a broad generalization about our relationship with Russia based on a handful of some current Russian officials and some former who are charged with an alleged crime. I think the relationship is much bigger and deeper and broader and more complicated than that."

Bharara said it was a case "we would be prosecuting and making arrests in, but for immunity." Still, he added, participation in crimes by diplomats generally leads to expulsion from a country. In court papers, FBI agent Jeremy Robertson described an 18-month investigation, saying investigators had discovered a pattern of falsified applications.

He said 58 of the 63 births attributed to Russian diplomats and their spouses in New York City between 2004 and 2013 were funded through Medicaid, which is largely federally funded but includes money from state and local governments.

Pregnant women, no matter their immigration status, can get coverage under Medicaid, provided they meet other eligibility requirements, according to the New York Department of Health. Robertson wrote that the diplomats and their spouses generally underreported household income to an amount below the applicable Medicaid eligibility level, and some of them lied about the citizenship status of their children to obtain continuing health coverage for them.

Meanwhile, the diplomats and their spouses spent tens of thousands of dollars on vacations, fancy watches, expensive jewelry and designer clothing at luxury retail stores including Bloomingdale's, Tiffany & Co., Jimmy Choo, Swarovski and others, the court papers said.

The complaint said they also spent tens of thousands of dollars on electronic merchandise at Apple Inc. stores and elsewhere. Authorities said they also bought concert tickets, robotic cleaning devices and chartered helicopters.

Charges in the criminal complaint included conspiracy to commit health care fraud, conspiracy to steal government funds and make false statements relating to health care matters.

Associated Press writers Tom Hays and Edith Lederer in New York and Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this report. Isachenkov reported from Moscow.