NEWSLINE

Lou Rawls dies of lung cancer in LA

LOS ANGELES - The Associated PressLou Rawls, the velvet-voiced singer who started as a church choir boy and went on to sell more than 40 million albums in a career that spanned nearly five decades and a range of genres, died of cancer on Friday. He was 72. Rawls died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was hospitalized last month for treatment of lung and brain cancer, said his publicist, Paul Shefrin. His wife, Nina, was at his bedside when he died. Rawls' family and Shefrin said the singer was 72, although other records indicate he was 70.

Belarus opposition vows protests if polls flawedWARSAW - Reuters

 The main Belarus opposition candidate for president said on Friday millions of his countrymen would flood the streets in protest if presidential polls on March 19 are not free and fair. Alexander Milinkevich, an independent, is backed by leading liberal and nationalist opposition parties to challenge incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko, accused by the West of crushing dissent, abusing human rights and rigging elections. "We will fight to make the elections fair. If they are not held in accordance with the law, we will go to the streets," Milinkevich told a news conference after talks with Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz. In an interview with private Polish news channel TVN24, Milinkevich said: "We have not had real elections for a long time and I think that even this time we may not be able to force the authorities to conduct fair polls. "But there are millions of people who want to live differently and I think they will flood the streets, like in Ukraine."