UN team find burned villages, abuse in C.Africa

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Families sit in the Hopital de l’Amitie (Friendship hospital) in the Boy-Rabe neighbourhood in Bangui, on August 31, 2013. Aid workers who carried out an emergency mission to the north of strife-torn Central African Republic found villages abandoned and burned, and evidence of widespread rights abuses, the UN refugee agency said Friday. (AFP/File)

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GENEVA (AFP) –  Aid workers who carried out an emergency mission to the north of strife-torn Central African Republic found villages abandoned and burned, and evidence of widespread rights abuses, the UN refugee agency said Friday.

“The UNHCR team confirmed widespread lawlessness in the region. Local people spoke of physical assaults, extortion, looting, arbitrary arrest and torture by armed men,” said Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

The team travelled to a region some 500 kilometres (310 miles) north of the capital Bangui last week.

“We are, in general, increasingly worried about the civilians caught in the middle of the fighting and who are at the mercy of anyone with a gun,” she said, adding it remained unclear who was fighting.

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California couple abandons new $220,000 Lamborghini after crash

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Police inspect the damage to a banged up 2008 Lamborghini on the side of La Jolla Village Drive.

Published March 19, 2013

Police searched Tuesday for the owner of a luxury Italian sports car that crashed along a La Jolla roadside and was abandoned by its two occupants, reportedly only hours after it was bought for around a quarter- million dollars, Fox 5 San Diego reported. 

Officers found the 2008 Lamborghini on the side of La Jolla Village Drive near La Jolla Scenic Drive North about 11:45 p.m. Monday, according to San Diego police.

Officers told news photographer Paul Anderegg that they found paperwork in the car showing it was purchased for almost $220,000 just hours before the crash, the station reported. Police said they were staking out an address listed on the paperwork in hopes of finding the driver

Witnesses reported seeing the car speeding on Interstate 5 before it flew off the La Jolla Village Drive exit and crashed, police said, adding that witnesses also saw a man and a woman exit the car.

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