Negative Blogs

Guatemala is hardest hit by Tropical Storm Agatha with 80 dead.

Floods and landslides triggered by the first tropical storm of the eastern Pacific hurricane season have killed at least 96 people in Central America.

Officials say more than 80 people have been killed in Guatemala alone, including four children swept away in a landslide.

Deaths have also been reported in El Salvador and Honduras.  Mexico has also been hit by Tropical Storm Agatha.  

More than 74,000 people in the region have been forced to flee their homes.

The storm pounded Central America and Mexico Saturday and Sunday.  Agatha made landfall near the Guatemala-Mexico border Saturday with winds of 75 kilometers per hour.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami reports the storm is moving toward the western Caribbean Sea.  Heavy rains continue over portions of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
Thousands of people in Guatemala had already been evacuated due to the eruption of the Pacaya volcano, which has killed at least one person.  The volcano, just south of Guatemala City, began spewing lava and rocks Thursday.  The eruptions have shut down the country’s main airport.

A man uses a plastic to cover himself from heavy rains caused by tropical storm Agatha in Patulul, Guatemala, Saturday, May 29, 2010. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Police in Pakistan say Taliban attackers carried out Friday’s bloody attack on two mosques in Lahore belonging to the Ahmadi religious minority.

Police said Saturday that the attackers were Pakistani Taliban fighters who trained in the North Waziristan tribal region.

Gunmen armed with grenades and suicide vests stormed the two mosques shortly after the start of Friday prayers in the northeastern city of Lahore.  At least 93 people were killed.

Police captured two of the attackers, while at least two others died at the scene.

The Pakistani Taliban has also been linked to an attempted car bombing earlier this month in New York City.  The United States says Faisal Shahzad, a U.S. citizen born in Pakistan who was arrested for the failed attack, trained with and was supported by Taliban militants.

Also, a major U.S. newspaper said Saturday that the U.S. military is reviewing the possibility of staging a unilateral strike in Pakistan if a successful attack on U.S. soil is ever traced to the South Asian country.

The Washington Post says the U.S. would only consider launching an attack in Pakistan in extreme circumstances.  The CIA has been using drones (unmanned aircraft) to bomb al-Qaida and Taliban hideouts in Pakistan.

The newspaper quoted top military officials as saying the United States has been considering new options for military action against militants in Pakistan since the bombing attempt in New York’s Times Square, which could have caused a large number of casualties.

According to the Post, U.S. military forces currently have been given the authority to launch unilateral strikes in Pakistan only if they involve three top targets: al-Qaida leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, or Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar.

Pakistani police official arrange hand grenades recovered from militants who stormed the Garhi Shahu mosque on Friday, in Lahore, Pakistan, 29 May 2010

The near-simultaneous assaults on two mosques in Lahore targeted the Ahmadis, a beleaguered minority group. At least 125 people were injured in the raids.

Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan — Militants in the eastern city of Lahore lay siege on two mosques belonging to a minority Islamic sect Friday, killing at least 52 people in a pair of highly coordinated attacks that exposed the vulnerability of groups considered outside the mainstream of Pakistani society.

The sect targeted, the Ahmadis, is one of the country’s most beleaguered minority groups. Numbering about 4 million, Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims but believe their late 19th century founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was a prophet of God, a belief condemned by many Pakistani Muslims who regard Muhammad as Islam’s final prophet. The group has been heavily discriminated against in Pakistan and is legally barred from calling themselves Muslims.

The attacks in Lahore occurred in the afternoon during Friday prayers, when legions of Ahmadis fill two of the sect’s mosques in the neighborhoods of Model Town and Garhi Shahu. In both cases, militants were able to easily get inside the mosques, where they sprayed gunfire and threw grenades at terrified worshippers. Many of the dead were shot in the head. At least 125 people were injured in the attacks, authorities said.

An Ahmadi elder from the Model Town mosque said the mosque had been getting threatening phone calls for some time, and had reported the threats to Lahore police. “We asked the government and police several times to enhance our security, but we didn’t get anything,” the elder said, speaking on the condition that his name not be given because he feared retribution.

Witnesses said four militants attacked the Model Town mosque at about 1:40 p.m. One of the assailants killed a security guard at a front gate and then ran into the mosque while another attacker shot through a window at the back of the building to get inside. Hundreds of worshippers inside scurried for cover as the militants fired indiscriminately.

An Ahmadi who would only give his first name, Shahzad, said he and other followers hid on an upper floor while gunfire rang out in the building’s main hall. “They were throwing grenades and firing everywhere,” Shahzad said. “Our leader told us to stay calm and asked us to pray quietly. I was very afraid and very sure that the terrorists would come upstairs and kill us.”

Shahzad said when he looked down onto the main floor, he saw several worshippers lying in pools of blood, many of them with gunshot wounds to their heads. Nearby, a militant clutching a Kalashnikov rifle lay gravely injured, gasping for breath.

Authorities say one of the attackers in Model Town was killed and that another was subdued by worshippers. The whereabouts of the other two assailants was unknown. The death toll at the Model Town mosque stood at 19 as of Friday afternoon. At least 50 people were injured.

After the attack, Ahmadi worshippers formed a human chain around the compound to prevent media and outsiders from getting inside. Worshippers were angered by what they said was a delayed response from police once the attack began. Though a police station is near the mosque, the Ahmadi elder said police arrived about 50 minutes after worshippers called for help.

At about the same time the Model Town mosque was attacked, between seven to 10 gunmen were storming into an Ahmadi mosque in the Garhi Shahu neighborhood. About 1,000 worshippers were inside at the time of the attack. As in the Model Town attack, gunmen at the Garhi Shahu mosque fired wildly at worshippers and threw grenades inside the building. Authorities said 33 people were killed and 75 injured in that attack.

By Alex Rodriguez

A policeman approaches a firefight at an Ahmadi mosque in Lahore's Garhi Shahu neighborhood. (Mani Rana, Reuters / May 28, 2010)

A bomb disguised as a pack of juice exploded Wednesday evening in the southern Russian city of Stavropol, killing at least 7 and wounding more than 40. Investigators have opened a case under terrorism laws.

An explosion killed at least seven people and wounded more than 40 others Wednesday evening in Stavropol, a southern Russian city that had seemed immune from growing violence in the north Caucasus.

Authorities said a remote or timer-controlled bomb went off outside the House of Culture and Sport, near the city center, shortly before the start of a concert by a dance company linked with Kremlin-backed Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. Stavropol is the administrative seat of the ethnically Russian Stavropol Territory, which borders the embattled, mainly Muslim republics of Chechen and Dagestan republics (map).

Authorities say the explosion was equivalent to about a pound of TNT, reports RIA Novosti. Reuters reports that the bomb was equivalent to 400 grams of TNT, and disguised as a pack of juice. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the blast, but police found an improvised explosive device, a gun, and ammunition while searching the homes of two suspects.

Investigators opened a criminal case under terrorism laws, the prosecutor general’s office said in a statement.

The explosive used in the attack appeared to be homemade, reports Russian video news outlet RT, and was packed with shrapnel. A 12-year-old girl was among those killed.

“About 15-20 minutes before the start of the concert we heard an explosion. We saw the blast had practically flung aside the crowd that had gathered outside … about 100-150 people,” Rustam, an eyewitness, told Ekho Moskvy radio, according to Reuters.

The city has rarely been the target of terror strikes. RT quoted Nikolay Petrov from the Carnegie Moscow Center as saying the attack signals spreading terror in the region. The city is 150 miles from Sochi, planned site of the 2014 Winter Olympics, where Putin has staked $17 billion of the state’s money and his own personal prestige on the upcoming Olympic Games.

Many are worried that the unrest in the Caucasus could disrupt the Games.

“This is very alarming,” political scientist Olga Kryshtanovskaya told the Christian Science Monitor after March bombings in Dagestan. “We’re facing an enemy that wants to destabilize the situation for political purposes. Russia’s prestige is at stake here. And if we can’t cope with terrorists in our own capital city, how can we hope to prevent them from disrupting a big international event like the Olympics?”

The Dagestan suicide bombings killed 12 people and wounded dozens more in attacks that came on the heels of the devastating Moscow metro bombings.

By Ben Hancock

Rescuers and investigators work at the site of an explosion that killed at least seven people and wounded more than 40 others outside a cultural center in the southern Russian city of Stavropol, Wednesday.

Russia criticized on Wednesday the United States’ deployment of Patriot missiles in Poland, saying the move did not help security or trust.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said: “Such military activity does not help to strengthen our mutual security, to develop relations of trust and predictability in this region.”

A Patriot surface-to-air missile battery arrived in Monday in Poland and was to be deployed in the north of the country, close to the border with Russia’s enclave of Kaliningrad.

“We have repeatedly stated that we do not understand the logic and sense of cooperation between the United States and Poland in this sphere,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said.

“We note with regret that our questions to the Polish and U.S. sides have remained unanswered, as well as our arguments in favor of temporarily moving the deployment region as far as possible from Russian borders.”

There was no immediate hint of any retaliatory Russian move to the Patriot deployment in the Foreign Ministry statement.

The battery, manned by up to 150 U.S. troops, will be stationed for about one month four times a year in Morag, northern Poland, close to Kaliningrad. Its stated main mission is to train Polish military personnel.

Russia is wary about the deployment of U.S. troops and military hardware near its borders, though its defense ministry in January denied suggestions it might boost its Baltic naval fleet in response to the Patriot deployment in Poland.

Moscow relies heavily on its strategic nuclear missiles for defense, because of the poor state of its conventional troops, so it is particularly sensitive to any deployments of anti-missile systems such as the Patriot.

By Dmitry Solovyvov

A U.S. soldier stands next to a Patriot surface-to-air missile battery at an army base in Morag May 26, 2010.

A Thai court issued an arrest warrant Tuesday for ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on terrorism charges, accusing the fugitive former leader of fomenting two months of unrest in Bangkok that left 88 people dead.

If found guilty of the charges, he could face the death penalty.

Thaksin, who was ousted in a 2006 military coup and later fled abroad ahead of a corruption conviction, has been accused by the government of being a key force behind Red Shirt protesters who seized areas of downtown Bangkok before being overcome by army troops last week.

Thaksin denies involvement. His lawyer claimed Tuesday the charge would undermine hopes of reconciliation in Thailand.

Thaksin spoke regularly by video link in the initial stages of the rallies, which began peacefully. He has publicly expressed support for the Red Shirts’ cause, but has denied government allegations that he bankrolled the movement.

The demonstrations have deepened rifts in Thai society between the mostly rural poor supporters of Thaksin and current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, whose government they accuse of being oblivious to their plight.

On Monday, parliamentary opposition leaders moved to impeach Abhisit over his handling of the rioting.

The measure, which would need approval in the Senate, and a move to censure top Cabinet officials were expected to be easily defeated if put to a vote. They were expected to be debated during a special session of Parliament next week, the Bangkok Post newspaper reported.

Life in the Thai capital was largely back to normal Tuesday - with roads and shops in the protest zone reopened - although businesses are still counting the cost of the violence, which culminated in a wave of arson by protesters targeting malls, banks and government buildings.

The Cabinet decided Tuesday that the city of 10 million and nearly a third of Thailand’s provinces will remain under a nighttime curfew for another four days as a precaution against further unrest.

The Department of Special Investigations alleges that Thaksin committed, threatened to commit or supported terrorist acts.

Criminal Court Judge Krerkrit Ittarat said it was up to the DSI to proceed with the prosecution and coordinate Thaksin’s extradition with the Foreign Ministry. Previous attempts to extradite Thaksin have failed.

Thaksin, who is based principally in Dubai, is already barred from entry into Britain, where he earlier lived, and most European countries. But United Arab Emirates authorities have said the multi-millionaire could remain as long as he refrained from political activities. There were reports that Thaksin is currently in the seaside resort of Budva, in Montenegro.

On his Twitter page, Thaksin said the charges were “based on false evidence.”

Thaksin’s London-based lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, said the government “has perverted justice through the laying of a charge that violates logic, law and any claim of hopes for reconciliation.”

Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said the government would work with Interpol to arrest Thaksin.

Thaksin is regarded as a hero by many Red Shirts, mostly rural and urban poor who benefited from his populist policies during his 2001-2006 tenure as prime minister. The former telecommunications tycoon was convicted in absentia in 2008 of corruption and sentenced to two years in prison.

Their Bangkok protest followed four years of political instability triggered by Thaksin’s ouster. Rifts remain deep in Thai society, and most analysts expect further political conflict and possibly renewed violence.

The Red Shirts have demanded that Abhisit resign and call early elections. They claim he came to power illegitimately with the help of back-room deals and military pressure.

Earlier this month, Abhisit offered to hold elections on Nov. 14 but that plan fell through when Red Shirt leaders made more demands. Abhisit now says elections will not be held until the threat of violence is completely quelled - although he will likely remain under pressure to call an early vote. His term expires in late 2011.

With another Red Shirt leader agreeing to meet police Tuesday, all of the movement’s main leaders were under detention or have submitted to questioning.

Before appearing before investigators Tuesday, Red Shirt leader Jatuporn Prompan said the government overreacted to the protests. He appeared voluntarily because he has immunity as a member of Parliament.

“What’s hurtful is that 70-80 Red Shirt people who passed away were accused of being terrorists even when they didn’t have any weapons in their hands,” he said. “Today the Thai society has to think carefully who the terrorists are.”

But the deputy prime minister warned that the movement behind the protests is still a threat. Abhisit has also accused Red Shirt followers of planning further protests and violence.

By KINAN SUCHAOVANICH

A Thai soldier walks by a poster of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra left behind by anti-government protesters Friday, May 21, 2010, in Bangkok, Thailand. Thailand's prime minister says order has been restored in Bangkok and provinces, wracked by violence over the past week.

Thai security officials have recommended that a curfew in Bangkok and 23 other provinces be extended for another week.

An army spokesman said there were still some movements to incite unrest and an extension of the curfew would facilitate the work of authorities.

The curfew, which now runs from 11pm until 4am, would be shortened and begin at midnight (local time) under the recommendation.

All but one of the eight top Red Shirt leaders are now in custody. But there are fears that the government decision to ask the criminal court to charge exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra with treason over the Red Shirt protests might lead to new unrest.

The Red Shirts, who are campaigning for fresh elections to replace a government they condemn as illegitimate, disbanded last Wednesday in the face of a military offensive that forced their leaders to surrender.

Enraged militants within the movement went on a rampage of looting and arson that left 36 major buildings ablaze including the stock exchange and Thailand’s biggest mall, Central World, which now stands in ruins.

Downtown Bangkok was scrubbed clean over the weekend in a frenzied operation involving thousands of city workers wielding brooms and power hoses, as well as enthusiastic volunteers including foreigners.

But everywhere there were reminders of the chaos and large crowds gathered outside Central World, solemnly snapping photos of the wreckage.

Opposition politicians allied with the Red Shirts movement filed a motion to censure prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and five other ministers over the handling of the crisis.

No date has been set for the debate, but the motion is largely symbolic as Mr Abhisit’s coalition has a majority in the parliament.

Thailand’s criminal court will rule Tuesday on whether to issue a warrant to arrest Mr Thaksin on terrorism charges in connection with the deadly unrest as the government seeks to bolster attempts to extradite him.

By Peter Cave.

Looting and arson in Bangkok left 36 major buildings ablaze (AFP: Christophe Archambault)

Two transport accidents in China have claimed dozens of lives, with a passenger train derailed by a landslide and a truck colliding with a bus.

State media said 32 people were killed on Sunday when a truck travelling in the wrong direction on an expressway collided head-on with a bus in the country’s northeast.

Another 21 people were injured and sent to hospital.

The collision occurred on a section of the expressway that was undergoing maintenance in the city of Fuzin in Liaoning province, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Derailed

In another incident, Chinese state television said a landslide in eastern China derailed a passenger train early on Sunday morning, killing at least eight people and injuring 55.

The train was bound for the tourist destination of Guilin when it was derailed in a mountainous area near Fuzhou city in eastern Jiangxi province.

Heavy rains caused a landslide that buried the railway tracks, and the train derailed when it crashed into the huge mound of dirt and debris, China Central Television said.

Xinhua said about 2,000 rescuers, including firefighters, police and soldiers, managed to evacuate at least 280 people who were trapped inside the carriages.

Chinese authorities have launched an investigation into the accident.

Tens of thousands of people die in transport-related.

South Korea is talking tough a day after it revealed what it views as irrefutable evidence North Korea sank one of its navy ships. North Korea has threatened war over any retaliation, and says it wants to send a team to inspect the evidence.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak convened his top security ministers Friday for an emergency meeting. He said North Korea’s attack on the South’s navy ship violates international law.

The president said the matter is a military provocation and a violation of both the United Nations charter and the inter-Korean armistice agreement.

“It is a grave and serious matter,” he said. “We cannot make a single mistake in implementing countermeasures.”

The ship, the Cheonan, was ripped in half and sunk by a mysterious explosion in late March, killing 46 South Korean sailors. An international investigative team presented extensive forensic evidence Thursday supporting accusations a North Korean submarine fired a torpedo at the vessel.

On Friday, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young warned North Korea will now face consequences.

“Even in a boxing match,” said Kim, “the fighters agree to wear gloves. North Korea has stepped over that limit and for that we will make it pay.”

A military reprisal is next to impossible for the South, because it could escalate almost overnight into a much deadlier war. South Korea is taking its case to the United Nations Security Council, which Seoul hopes will agree on a way to punish the North with sanctions or other coordinated action.

North Korea has called the Cheonan investigation a “fabrication,” and said any retaliation could trigger a war and prompt it to cancel all agreements with Seoul.
Pyongyang also says it wants to dispatch its own team to inspect the investigators’ findings. South Korea says it will refer that request to the United Nations commission that monitors the 1953 armistice between the Koreas.

Kim Yong-hyun, North Korea studies professor at Seoul’s Dongguk University, predicts the North’s plan probably will not be accepted. Kim said the idea of North Korea sending its own investigators to the South can be seen as a political move.  “It will be very hard for South Korea to approve the idea, even if the U.N. armistice commission gets involved,” said Kim.

Baek Seung-joo, a researcher with the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, says the North’s threats of war are a sign of panic. He said North Korea would never have dreamed that South Korea would find fragments of its torpedo, which they thought would be destroyed with the other evidence. Baek adds the investigation prevented the North from committing the perfect crime.

By Kurt Achin

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak

Thai authorities restored order over most of Bangkok on Thursday but the peace looked fragile, a day after rioting and fires that veered toward anarchy as troops took control of a camp occupied by anti-government protesters.

Thousands of the mostly rural and urban poor “red shirt” protesters had deserted their once-barricaded rally site in central Bangkok, but the tough crackdown and bloodshed raised fears of deepening anger among Thailand’s underclasses.

Modern Thailand has never seen such a protracted period of urban violence, deadly riots, clashes and widespread destruction, and has never teetered so close to full civil conflict.

“Thailand has become a nation deeply divided, and although talk of a civil war may still be premature, there is a high risk that civil unrest and political violence will not be contained,” said Danny Richards, analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

The crackdown that began before dawn on Wednesday morning killed 15 people and wounded nearly 100. About 1,500 protesters took refuge in a temple, where six bodies were found on Thursday. Hundreds who remained inside were coaxed out by police.

Dozens of buildings were torched, including many banks, the stock exchange and Southeast Asia’s second-biggest department store. By morning, the worse was over. The protesters were gone.

Some unrest continued in the Din Daeng area, scene of intense fighting last weekend. Dozens of protesters burned tires and set a bank building ablaze. Troops fired warning shots. But compared to recent fighting, the area was remarkably tame.

Political analysts say the next step is up to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who some say will forever be tarnished by overseeing military operations in which 82 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since April 10.

Nearly 1,800 people have been wounded in the period as the government, backed by Thailand’s royalist establishment, and the protesters with their support from the rural masses and ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, failed to find common ground.

“He is more than tarnished,” Michael Montesano of Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies said of the British-born, Oxford-educated Abhisit.

“All extenuating circumstances notwithstanding, he will always be recalled as the man whose miscalculated incursion led to a burning Bangkok.”

Troops have now established control of Bangkok and the protest encampment occupied since April 3, but at great cost.

Checkpoints of armed troops form a 6 sq-km (2.3 sq-mile) cordon in Bangkok, a city of 15 million known for its raucous nightlife but now reduced to smoldering fires, scarred streets, and 9 p.m. night curfews.

“The question is: how long do troops have to be deployed on this level in the city? The anger is still simmering,” said Tanet Charoengmuang, a political scientist at Chiang Mai University.

The red shirts want fresh elections, saying Abhisit lacks a popular mandate after coming to power in a controversial parliamentary vote in 2008 with tacit military support. Abhisit last week withdrew an offer of fresh elections.

Analysts say regardless of the outcome, the violence marked a turning point in a country where the richest 20 percent of the population earn about 55 percent of the income while the poorest fifth get 4 percent, according to the World Bank.

But protest leaders, now detained, called for calm.

“Democracy cannot be built on revenge and anger,” Veera Musikapong, chairman of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, known as the red shirts, said in a televised statement while in custody, calling on protesters to go home.

RURAL UNREST

Thailand’s unifying figure, revered 82-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej, has not publicly commented on the current bout of turmoil in the kingdom, after defusing previous crises during his 63 years on the throne — including the last political riots in Bangkok — on the same date 18 years ago.

The king has been in hospital since September 19.

The unrest has hammered Thailand’s lucrative tourism industry, which supports six percent of Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy and employs 15 percent of Thailand’s workforce directly or indirectly.

A source at state planning agency National Economic and Social Development Board said the economic impact of nine weeks of political turmoil and rioting would easily cost $3 billion, or about one percentage point of gross domestic product.

A curfew in Bangkok and 23 provinces was extended for another three nights, raising questions about whether authorities feared more unrest in a country where the ranks of the military and the police are split along the same socio-economic fault lines dividing protesters from the government and its affluent backers.

The rioting spread to north and northeast provinces, a red-shirt stronghold and home to just over half of Thailand’s 67 million people. But trouble spots were quiet on Thursday and protest leaders urged calm.

Army spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said about 13,000 people were still “actively waiting to riot and perpetrate illegal acts” in provinces under a state of emergency.

In Bangkok, fires at 39 sites still smoldered but most had been extinguished. Central World, Southeast Asia’s second-biggest department store and a symbol of wealth, was destroyed. Many of its supporting steel beams had collapsed.

“WOUNDED HEARTS AND MINDS”

The protesters’ tented encampment in the heart of Bangkok’s commercial district — an area lined with luxury hotels and shopping plazas — was strewn with rubbish, clothing and the smell of refuse and human waste. Troops roamed the area and some were positioned on an overhead subway system.

There were no signs of clashes.

Groups of soldiers sat on a sidewalk near the twisted wreckage of trucks that had been packed with explosives and blown up at barricades overnight. They looked relaxed in contrast to the tension of recent days, smiling at journalists.

Ten journalists have been shot in six days of violence, including an Italian cameraman killed on Wednesday.

The surrender of key protest leaders on Wednesday and a seeming end for now to violence that has killed at least 53 people and wounded more than 400 in six days could put the focus back on early elections and a “reconciliation roadmap” the prime minister had proposed before the latest bout of violence.

By Damir Sagolj