Philippine workers fight the clock to name dead while digging mass graves
Philippine workers are struggling with few resources and little time to bury bodies in hastily dug trenches, a delicate operation that may delay but not necessarily prevent desperate families from learning the fates of their missing loved ones, say two of America’s top mass-casualty experts.
Searchers and rescuers in decimated locales are working against the clock to funnel supplies to survivors and control disease outbreaks while simultaneously removing, storing and identifying thousands of decaying corpses – a grim job with a euphemistic name: “fatality management.”
“Communities don’t want the lingering memory, vision, or odors as they try to transition into recovery,” said Dr. Andrew Garrett, director of the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS), which dispatches mobile mortuary teams to domestic calamities to identify remains. (The U.S. teams are not working in the Philippines). Garrett helped oversee that task in Joplin, Mo. following a 2011 tornado that killed 158 people.
Italian investigator says pope could be target of Calabrian Mafia
Gratteri believes Francis’s Vatican reform plans could be problem for ’Ndrangheta
Paddy Agnew
At first glance it sounds like a cliche any aspiring Dan Brown might concoct, that Pope Francis’s reforming zeal may have made him a target of the ’Ndrangheta, the Mafia in Calabria in southern Italy.
Senior Calabrian Mafia investigator Nicola Gratteri, whose investigative zeal has forced him to live with police protection since 1989, has said the pope’s plans to reform Vatican structures, including the Vatican bank, the IOR, could prove a problem for the ’Ndrangheta, Italy’s most powerful Mafia.
He said that while Pope John Paul II called on the “military” mafiosi to “repent” in 1993, Pope Francis has gone further, perhaps hitting the ’Ndrangheta where it hurts.
Football Violence: Neo-Nazis and Hooligans Find Common Ground
Football is increasingly becoming a platform for right-wing extremist violence across Germany. Alarmed sociologists and security experts warn of a new danger: a network of neo-Nazis and hooligans.
They call themselves the GnuHonnters, a take on the English term "new hunters." Their motto is: "Comrades in spirit. Many colors, but one entity." It refers to the fact that they support different soccer clubs. Three weeks ago, some of the members met at a small celebration in Berlin, as one hooligan group marked the 30th anniversary of its founding. There was beer, rock music, strippers and table dances. Eventually, one of the guests, a tattooed tank of a man with a bald head, trudged through the room with a giant snake on his shoulders.
Tamil protesters mob British Prime Minister in Jaffna infuriating Sri Lankan leader
November 16, 2013 - 6:05AMBen Doherty
British Prime Minister David Cameron was mobbed by Tamil protesters in Sri Lanka’s north, who surrounded his car asking for help and claiming their relatives had been killed by the state.
Hundreds of demonstrators broke through police lines and surrounded the PM’s car, holding up pictures of loved ones lost during, and since, the country’s civil war, which was especially brutal in the country’s north.
Ever since [my brother] has gone missing, I am unable to eat, sleep, or study
“I want my elder brother. Ever since he has gone missing, I am unable to eat, sleep, or study,” a sobbing Vibhshika Palendiran told Fairfax.
Diamonds aren't CAR's worst enemy
The precious stones do fuel corruption, but the real crisis in the country is political, writes David Smith.
The Central African Republic (CAR) is having a hard time staying below the radar these days. Incidents of violence are reported on a daily basis from virtually all parts of the country. The lack of control President Michel Djotodia has over the rebel alliance called Seleka – which brought him to power – is behind the current reign of terror. What fuels that terror and how to stop it is part of the debate held at the United Nations, the African Union and elsewhere.
At Emperors Palace near Johannesburg next week, signatories to the Kimberley Process on conflict diamonds will discuss, among other things, whether diamonds are helping to keep Seleka armed.
Venezuela's regional energy program Petrocaribe wobbles
Guatemala announced in early November that it was pulling out of Venezuela's Petrocaribe alliance. The Chavez-era oil-for-regional-influence program could be on its last legs.
When Guatemala announced it would join Petrocaribe, the alliance where Venezuela sends petroleum to 17 countries at below-market prices, there was little worry about the program’s future. Oil was trading at more than $100 per barrel and Venezuela was sitting atop the world’s largest reserves.
But that was 2008.
Since then, President Hugo Chávez succumbed to cancer, leaving behind a Venezuela with serious economic concerns that put in question his ideology of “Socialism for the 21st Century,” and how flagship programs at home and abroad might be affected.The future of Petrocaribe, a pillar of Mr. Chavez’s foreign policy, is top of mind.
Guatemala announced in early November that it was pulling out of the alliance as the cost of staying within it increased. Guatemala's decision was the clearest sign yet that the program could be on the verge of serious changes.
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