Floating Bodies And Our Identification System

Forty bodies were found floating in Amansea community, along the border of Anambra and Enugu State. The unidentified bodies have been perceived by many as victims of extra judicial killings by government security agencies. As usual, government officials and the Nigeria Police had vowed to “unravel the mystery behind the floating bodies”, one can only be skeptical of what they can truly unravel when the country lacks basic numerical statistics of how many we are. Everybody just dips hand into their vault of assumptions and peg the nation’s population between 140 and 160 million!

Even the last population census conducted in 2006 to arrive at 140 million was greatly flawed with irregularities and baseless hype of figure to earn cheap political advantage, which is more motivated for selfish reasons rather than for nation building. The result witnessed no specific departure from what 1991 census threw up, with Muslim northern states accounting for over half of the country’s official population of 140m. Laughable as it may sound, Kano’s population was more than that of Lagos, while a sizable number of citizens were not enumerated at all. So on the long run, the 2006 population census was a sham, shame and surreal!

Since Federal-State allocations are absurdly based more on population, land mass than on equality (equal shares per state), social development, and revenue generated, one could easily visualise what warrants the distortion of rare population facts. We are just one nation that benefits from distortion of basic facts. Government enslaves us with it while the citizens make sure it never gets better, that’s why a president would lie to the world that electricity generation has improved when we still sleep for weeks in darkness. We lie about our income, expenditure, poverty rate, social service, national identity cards and everything one can think of. That’s why combating crime still remains as elusive as tracing the source of a rainbow, but something needs to be done. Why would human bodies turn water hyacinth and security operatives are so clueless about the cause?

Though surrounding villages in Anambra and Enugu have claimed none of their members are missing, one irrefutable fact is that, the Nigerian government lacks grounded mechanism to identify her citizens either living or dead. The records are not just there. Take it or leave, those bodies are sons, brothers and fathers of Nigerians. And if they are immigrants, do we have their details? Our borders are so porous that you can ship 20 truck loads of human beings in if you know the right Customs and Immigration officers to pay. Our attempt to identify citizens can only be told in the tales of former Internal Affairs Minister, the late Sunday Afolabi saga. Over $214m was committed into that National ID card project. All those who stood trial along with Sunday Afolabi are today national award holders and still living large at tax payers’ expense.

Personally, I hold no faith in the story that might later spring up in respect of the floating bodies (if there would even be any) but I do hope this would be the last of such shameless lack of responsibility on the part of government and security agencies. Government needs to step up the ante of surveillance through a bio-metric data base with central and state control boards. This data base would be a panacea to planning and aid government policy plan, a means to identify fraud, combat terrorism, create a leverage to citizen’s entitlement and to access public services. Inasmuch as I don’t like comparing Nigeria with the United States of America, there is nothing stopping a responsible government from running a Social Security number (SSN) system for permanent residents, and temporary (working) residents such as Nigeriens, Ghanaians, Beninois, Malians etc. If we need play big brother, then it should be with more security caution and management of the borders. These security numbers can further be used to manage tax collection and social welfare. But the government would choose not to do the project in view of the tax benefit simply to run away from the responsibilities of an all inclusive social welfare.

In 2006, the United Kingdom Parliament passed the Identity Cards Act 2006 which provided National Identity Cards, a personal identification document and European Union travel document, linked to a database known as the National Identity Register (NIR). The Act specified fifty categories of information that the National Identity Register could hold on each citizen, including up to 10 fingerprints, digitized facial scan and iris scan, current and past UK and overseas places of residence of all residents of the UK throughout their lives and indices to other government databases (including National Insurance Number) which would allow them to be connected. A government that cannot manage the identity of its citizen is not worth their respect. According to world fact finder, Wikipedia, Identity management (IdM) means the management of individual identities, their authentication, authorization, roles, and privileges within or across system and enterprise boundaries with the goal of increasing security and productivity while decreasing cost, downtime, and repetitive tasks.

In 2007, the National Assembly passed the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) Act, a replica of that of UK. It has the mandate to establish, own, operate, maintain and manage the National Identity Database in Nigeria, register persons covered by the Act, assign a Unique National Identification Number (NIN) and issue General Multi-Purpose Cards (GMPC) to those registered individuals, and to harmonise and integrate existing identification databases in Nigeria. The Director-General, National Identity Management Commission, Mr. Chris Onyemenam, in order to achieve this magnificent feat( I don’t want to believe it’s impossible) as promised to “recruit the best available talents to fill the spaces within the commission”. All things being equal, the identity registration of Nigerian citizens will begin nationwide in April 2013. And that is where I have my strong reservations.

As much as I want to believe the NIMC, glaring realities put my belief on hold. If truly registration would commence in April, then I don’t see the readiness. The NIMC is still grossly under powered with the basic resources to have an integrated centralised demographic database for the country. Except am mistaken or due process of selection has been subverted, the much taunted recruitment of young, vibrant and talented hands has not been done. Barely three months to commencement. Won’t the new hands be trained or are we on the path to Sunday Afolabi/Sagem again?

The NIMC must understand that the ability to properly identify a person to their true identity is central to their operation, with wider implications for operations against crime and terrorism. These can’t be done by a shabbily put together team. Comprehensive training has to be carried out with a broad-based campaign orientation that would reach the hinterlands and all those staying outside the shores of the country. In recent times, illegal immigration has become one of the key political issues for the country, because of unending menace of Boko Haram whose bulk of suicide bombers are from neighboring countries such as Niger and Mali. To get anywhere, we must be ready to adequately manage the borders!

Aside the collation of the bio metric data and ID card now, a sustainable upgrading mechanism needs to be devised. Nigeria is one of the few countries you can enter without adequate documentation and nobody cares. You don’t even have to state when you would be leaving the country. NIMC needs to work out collation strategies for births and deaths, liaise with the High Courts, Prisons, and Police to get updates on criminal records, with National Emergency Management Authority to get details during disasters, Immigration agencies (Airport authority, sea ports, borders), etc. The recruitment exercise of NIMC needs to put in mind the number of agencies and places it would have to station staff permanently to enhance continuous monitoring and update. Again and most importantly, NIMC must be conscious that the ID card would bring about socio-economic and political integration as against segregation that might be caused by nepotism, ethnic bigotry and religious fanaticism. The horrible scenarios of Rwanda’s Tutsis and Hutus must not be allowed to replicate itself here.

Tuesday 29 January 2013

http://pmnewsnigeria.com/2013/01/29/floating-bodies-and-our-identification-system/

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DNA of 37 Tazreen fire victims matches with their family members

DNA test results of 37 Tazreen fire victims matched with the samples collected from their family members two months after the devastating fire that took place on November 24 last, a top official of Ministry of Labour and Employment said Tuesday.

About 112 workers had died and many others injured in the fire incident while about 59 bodies were buried as unidentified.

"We got only 48 claims for the dead bodies and 37 matched with the samples," Secretary-in-Charge of Ministry of Labour and Employment, Mikail Shipar told the FE Tuesday.

We just got the report Tuesday, he said adding the ministry will sit with the concerned authorities including the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers' and Exporters' Association (BGMEA), Bankers' Association and the foreign buyer Li and Fung to sort out how to compensate the families who lost their only livelihood earners.

The ministry will also discuss fate of the bodies buried but which are yet to be claimed and do not match with the supplied samples, he added.

About 47 victims' families got Tk 0.6 million each as compensation from the Prime Minister's Office, BGMEA, Bankers' Association of Bangladesh and Li and Fung.

Earlier, a team of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) along with forensic doctors of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital collected samples from the unidentified bodies to find out their identities through DNA tests.

Tuesday 29 January 2013

http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/index.php?ref=MjBfMDFfMzBfMTNfMV84OF8xNTg1OTQ=

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Ezu River - 15 Bodies Exhumed for Autopsy

Fifteen of the initial 18 bodies recovered from Ezu River in Anambra State were yesterday exhumed by a team of pathologists from the office of the Inspector General of Police and the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, (NAUTH) Nnewi.

The recovery is to enable the pathologists carry out autopsy and further investigate the nature and circumstances of their death. The bodies were part of the several that were dumped by unknown persons into the river over a week ago. The bodies were later buried while investigations were still going on as to why and how they were killed.

The corpses were discovered on January 19 by some villagers who had gone to fetch water, giving the impression that they were dumped the previous night. The villagers had reported that they counted over 50 bodies, all hefty young men in boxers while some of them had their hands tied behind their backs and with bullet holes behind their neck.

When people trooped there to witness the incident, about 30 bodies were counted with no person being able to identify any. Some others, according to the villagers' accounts, might have been swept away by the fast flowing river with its source at Ogwu in Enugu Council Area.

Anambra State Governor, Mr. Peter Obi, who visited the scene the following day, had expressed shock at the floating bodies, their source and motive behind their killing and promptly ordered that the bodies be recovered. He also announced a N5 million reward for anybody with any clue as to the source of the corpses and who dumped them.

The Police Commissioner in Anambra State, Bala Nasarawa, on January 21, said 18 bodies had been recovered without bullet holes or machete cuts thereby contradicting the villagers' account.

Three of the corpses, he said, were selected for autopsy, while the remaining 15 were given mass burial.

Four more bodies, however, had been recovered since then. But at the weekend, the Anambra State Health Commissioner, Dr. Lawrence Ikeako, said the pathologists had conducted autopsy on the three selected corpses after subjecting them to toxicological laboratory examination and that 15 others would be exhumed yesterday to determine the cause of their death since it may not be the same for all of them.

Ikeako remarked that the corpses were in very bad state having been buried about a week ago. Some specimens, he said, would be taken from each of the corpses for laboratory examination, adding that the outcome would be known in about two weeks.

Tuesday 29 January 2013

http://allafrica.com/stories/201301290359.html

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Bodies of plane crash victims to be delivered to Kalkaman morgue

The bodies of the victims of the plane crash near Almaty will be placed in Kalkaman morgue, Yuriy Ilyin, head of Almaty mobilization preparedness, civil defense, prevention and elimination of accidents and natural disasters department told Tengrinews.kz.

Initially Almaty administration prepared 50 spots in the city morgue, as the exact number of the victims was unclear. According to Ilyin, the experts are currently collecting the bodies and their fragments at the accident site.

On January 29 a Bombardier airplane owned by Scat airline crashed 7km from Almaty airport during its second attempt to land. According to the prosecutors, the plane was performing Kokshetau-Almaty flight. The accident claimed lives of 5 crew members and 16 passengers, including a 2-y.o. child and a foreigner.

Tuesday 29 January 2013

http://en.tengrinews.kz/emergencies/Bodies-of-plane-crash-victims-to-be-delivered-to-Kalkaman-morgue-16453/

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Eerie sounds of cell phones amid disaster adds to first-responder toll

The dead can't speak. Their cell phones do.

And, for police, firefighters and paramedics, the incessant chirping, bleating and incongruously cheerful boom box beats of victims' cell phones comprise a soundtrack of disaster.

It happened at the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007, a commuter train crash in Los Angeles the next year, the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado, last July and, again, at the night club fire in Brazil that killed 231 people on Sunday.

The incessantly ringing phones and the realization that someone is desperately trying to reach someone else who is now dead, short-circuits the psychological defenses first responders need to do their jobs, said Jim Crabtree, a registered nurse who helps train them for the Los Angeles County Emergency Management Services Agency.

"It starts ringing and it becomes an instant reminder that this person is human, that they have friends and family who care," he said.

It also leaves responders with an uneasy feeling they're keeping a secret from the victim's loved ones, Crabtree said.

Crabtree first ran across the issue following the Virginia Tech shooting, in which a lone gunman, a student, killed 32 people.

Some first responders couldn't get the sound of ringing cell phones out of their ears, psychologists Christopher Flynn of Virginia Tech and Dennis Heitzmann of Penn State wrote in a follow up journal article.

"As police and rescue workers removed the bodies of the deceased and evacuated the survivors, they reported haunting memories of cell phones ringing in body bags as parents and friends desperately called their loved ones."

Los Angeles first responders dealt with the same issue when a commuter train collided with a freight train in 2008.

Hundreds of firefighters and other first responders flooded the scene, clawing through the mangled wreckage to get at the bodies of victims. All the while, Crabtree said, dozens of cell phones kept ringing.

Aurora police Officer Justin Grizzle spoke this month during a court hearing of entering a theater where 12 people died in that shooting rampage.

The things he noticed: blood running down the steps and the sound of cell phones ringing.

It was the same Sunday night, when firefighters rushed through a hole punched into the wall of the Kiss nightclub by people who had escaped the building after it caught on fire.

They found dozens of bodies of club-goers who died of smoke inhalation. And they once again heard the sounds of ringing phones.

Milton Neves, a reporter from Radio Bandeirantes, said some 800 to 900 mobile phones were going off at the same time. One alone had 104 missed calls.

Hundreds of family and friends were desperately trying to reach loved ones who were at the nightclub in the Brazilian city of Santa Maria when a fire swept through early Sunday, killing at least 230 people and injuring hundreds more.

"It was a really complicated scene. A lot of smoke, a lot of shoes that were left, cell phones, because everybody tried to get out of there running," Glauber Fernandes, a reporter for CNN affiliate Band News said.

"While we were there, we saw the cell phones were ringing. It was parents, friends, trying to know about what was happening and nobody was answering."

Few, if any, agencies have policies on what to do about the multitude of ringing phones police and firefighters frequently encounter at disaster scenes, Crabtree said.

He said he tells trainees turning off the phones can help save their own sanity, but says some agencies could view the act as tampering with evidence.

He favors policies that would allow responders to turn the phones off, but says most commanders haven't yet come to the same conclusion.

"It's a 21st century problem," he said.

But it's an issue emergency agencies will have to deal with sooner or later, if the experience of first responders Crabtree has spoken to is any indication.

"They don't talk about it openly, but when you get them alone ... " Crabtree said, like the responders, leaving the rest unspoken.

Tuesday 29 January 2013

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/28/health/cell-phones-death/index.html

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5 dead in central China oil tank blast

The bodies of four missing people have been found after an oil storage tank exploded in central China's Hunan Province on Monday, taking the death toll to five, local authorities said.

The blast occurred around 10:45 am in the yard of a residential building that was under construction in Qingshui village of Xiangtan city, according to sources with the publicity department of Yuetang district, which administers the village.

Five people were also injured in the blast and two are in a critical condition, receiving treatment in a local hospital

A total of 17 people were working in the yard when the tank exploded. The fire caused by the explosion was put out by 1:10 pm.

An initial investigation showed that illegal welding and installation of the oil tank was to blame for the explosion.

The case is under investigation.

Tuesday 29 January 2013

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/758839.shtml

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Update: More bodies of missing Mexican band members found in well

The Colombian-style music group was playing at a ranch in northern Mexico when at least 10 gunmen entered the warehouse where the private party was being held and forced them and several crew members into waiting vehicles, a survivor of the attack told authorities.

Nuevo Leon state security spokesman Jorge Domene said the survivor, a member of the Kombo Kolombia band, told police the 18 were blindfolded and driven on dirt roads until they stopped. He then heard the assailants ask fellow band members if they belonged to a drug cartel, shots were fired and the bodies were dumped into a well.

Domene said the survivor, who is being protected by soldiers, was able to reach a nearby ranch and get help. He wouldn't give details on how the man was able to escape.

The man later led authorities to the well where searchers found several bodies, Domene said.

Domene said four bodies first pulled from the well on Sunday have been identified by their relatives, including a Colombian citizen who played the keyboard. Three of them were wearing matching T-shirt with the name of the band.

"The search will continue ... to see how many more bodies may be hidden there," he said.

By Monday afternoon, searchers had pulled 12 bodies from the well along a dirt road in the town of Mina, about 140 miles (225 kilometers) from Laredo, Texas, Domene said.

The bodies recovered showed signs of torture, said a forensic official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly on the case.

It was hard to determine how many more bodies were submersed in the water, he said.

Authorities initially said 16 members of the band Kombo Kolombia and four crew members were reported missing early Friday after playing at a private party attended by about 50 people and held at a ranch called La Carreta, or The Wagon, in the town of Hidalgo north of Monterrey.

But Domene said Monday 18 band members had gone missing. He didn't say how many were crew members and how many were musicians.

The party guests are being questioned and police have yet to determine a motive in the killings, Domene said.

Nuevo Leon state, on the border with Texas, has been the scene of a turf battle between members of the Gulf drug cartel and the Zetas drug gang. The Zetas were hit men for the Gulf cartel until they split in 2010, unleashing their bloody war.

People living near the ranch in Hidalgo reported hearing gunshots at about 4 a.m. Friday, followed by the sound of vehicles speeding away, said a separate source with the Nuevo Leon State Investigative Agency. He also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be quoted by the news media.

The officials added that gunfire is common in the area and said investigators found spent bullets nearby.

Relatives filed a missing persons report on Friday after losing cellular phone contact with the musicians. When they went to the ranch to investigate, they found the band members' vehicles still parked outside.

Kombo Kolombia has played a Colombian style of music known as vallenato, which is popular in working class neighborhood in the city of Monterrey and other parts of Nuevo Leon state. Most of the group's musicians were from the area, except for the keyboard player who is Colombian and had Mexican residency, Domene said.

The band regularly played at bars in downtown Monterrey on the weekend. At least two of the bars where they had played had been attacked by gunmen.

It was Mexico's largest single kidnapping since 20 tourists from the western state of Michoacan were abducted in Acapulco in 2010. Most of their bodies were found a month later in a mass grave. Authorities said the tourists were mistaken for cartel members.

Members of other musical groups have been murdered in Mexico in recent years, usually groups that perform "narcocorridos" that celebrate the exploits of drug traffickers. But Kombo Kolombia did not play that type of music, and its lyrics were about love and heartbreak and did not deal with violence or drug trafficking.

But singers of drug exploits are not the only musicians targeted, said Elijah Wald, author of the book, "Narcocorrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns and Guerrillas."

"There is really not correlation. Drug guys hire people to play for their parties and they hire whatever is happening," he said. "Sergio Gomez, the single-most famous singer killed from K-Paz de la Sierra, his big hit was a version of 'Jambalaya.'"

Gomez was kidnapped and found strangled and tortured in 2007 in the western state of Michoacan, a day after Zayda Pena of the group Zayda and the Guilty Ones was shot in a hospital while recovering from a separate bullet wound in the border town of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.

Valentin Elizalde, "El Gallo de Oro," was shot to death along with his manager and driver in 2006 following a performance in Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas. Norteno singer Sergio Vega was shot dead in a northern state of Sinaloa in 2010.

"A lot of people are being killed because they're in the wrong place at the wrong time and musicians are some of the people on that list," Wald said.

Monday 29 January 2013

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/bodies-found-mexico-band-missing-18334928

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Coal mine gas explosion kills eight miners

At least eight coalmine workers were killed and two others wounded when an explosion took place in a private company’s coal mine in Dukki tehsil of Loralai district, some 180 kilometers away from the provincial capital, on Monday.

Official sources said that 10 coal mine workers were working 1200 feet below the surface of earth when the blast took place in the coal mine. According to the preliminary inquiry, accumulation of methane gas – an inflammable gas- was the cause of the explosion as it got ignited by some spark in the mine. The cause of spark could not be ascertained till the filing of this report.

Reports suggested that the blast in the coal mine occurred at 3:30 am, while the rescue operation was launched at 7:30 am after several hours of the tragic incident. Because of this delay, the ill-fated miners lost their lives. But, to the dismay of all of them, the ambulances and doctor could not reach the spot even after several hours of the incident.

The names of ill-fated mine workers included: Hazrat Ali, Samiullah, Khan Zamir, Bakhat Munir, Shakir, Bakhat Jamal, Hukmaran, and Sohrab Khan. All the deceased belonged to Sawat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhawa. Moving scenes were witnessed when the bodies of the deceased were being recovered from the coal mine.

Later, the bodies and the injured were shifted to local hospital. Later, the bodies were dispatched to their native villages in KP.

Meanwhile, Chief Inspector Mines Iftikhar Ahmed expressed his deep grief over the deaths of coal mine workers and directed to conduct inquiry of the incident. He ordered to seal the coal mine.

The labour union of mines held the coal companies responsible for such tragic incidents. They alleged that safety measures could not be properly taken at most coal mines in Balochistan. They demanded of the government to take strict action against those mine owners who had not provided the necessary safety equipment at their mines and were not following the safety rules and regulations. Ahmed Jan, a coal mine worker, told The News there was no concept of safety equipment in the mine which caused the killings of eight people.

It may be noted here that in case of such disaster Rs500,000 is to be paid by mine welfare board to each bereaved family as compensation. Earlier, the compensation amount was Rs300,000 but the previous government raised the amount to Rs500,000.

Tuesday 29 January 2013

http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-13-20578-Coal-mine-gas-explosion-kills-eight-miners

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Passenger plane crashes near Kazakh city of Almaty

A passenger plane crashed in thick fog near Kazakhstan's commercial capital of Almaty on Tuesday, killing all 22 people on board, an emergency services official said.

The Canadian-built Bombardier Challenger CRJ-200 was en route from the city of Kokshetau in northern Kazakhstan to Almaty in the southeast when it crashed near the village of Kyzyl Tu, Deputy Almaty Mayor Maulen Mukashev said.

He told reporters near the scene that the plane belonged to private Kazakh airline SCAT, which operates extensive domestic services and some international flights.

"There was no fire, no explosion. The plane just plunged to the earth," Yuri Ilyin, deputy head of the city's emergencies department, told Reuters near the scene.

Ilyin put the death toll at 22.

Almaty and the surrounding area were veiled in thick fog on Tuesday.

Almaty's deputy mayor Maulen Mukashev visited the crash site near the village of Kyzyl Tu and said that the Canadian-built Bombardier plane crashed in thick fog, Reuters news agency reports.

"The preliminary cause of the accident is bad weather," Mr Mukashev is quoted as saying. "Not a single part of the plane was left intact after it came down," he said.

Scat airlines is based in Kazakhstan with its main base at Shymkent airport - it operates extensive domestic services and some international flights as well.

It was the second plane crash in the Central Asian country and former Soviet republic in just a over a month.

On December 25, a military transport airplane crashed in bad weather near the southern Kazakh city of Shymkent, killing all 27 people on board.

Prosecutors have said that a fatal combination of technical problems, bad weather and human errors caused that accident.

Tuesday 29 January 2013

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/01/29/uk-kazakhstan-aircrash-idUKBRE90S0AZ20130129

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Rescuers find 3 more bodies in West Sumatra, bringing death from landslides in Indonesia to 19

A government official says rescuers have found three more bodies, bringing the death toll from a landslide in Indonesia's province of West Sumatra to 14, including four children. That raises the national toll to 19.

National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said Monday that rescuers are searching for six other villagers buried under mud and rocks following the early Sunday landslide in Tanjung Sani village of Agam district. Two of the missing are children.

The other five people were killed Saturday when a rain-triggered landslide swept through a drilling field in neighbouring Jambi Province.

Seasonal downpours cause frequent landslides and flashfloods each year in Indonesia, a chain of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains

Tuesday 29 January 2013

http://www.windsorstar.com/news/Rescuers+find+more+bodies+West+Sumatra+bringing+death+from/7882139/story.html

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Cleansing ceremonies held at Chitungwiza’s “house of death”

Hundreds of people drawn from different Christian denominations yesterday descended on Chitungwiza’s “house of death” for a cleansing ceremony, blaming traditional healers for the death of five people in a suspected bomb blast.

Church leaders described traditional healers, popularly known as n’angas or sangomas, as agents of the devil. One of the dead was a traditional healer who was in the midst of working on a client when the blast went off.

The once peaceful Ndororo Street in Chitungwiza’s Zengeza 2 suburb is now a hub of activity as curious Zimbabweans take turns to visit the scene of the blast.

As first reported by the Daily News, a bomb is the most likely cause of the explosion which killed traditional healer Speakmore Mandere, an infant and three others who included a soldier and an ex-policeman.

The blast left close to 20 families homeless. Touched by the plight of the families now living in tents donated by Red Cross International, churches drawn from the Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC) yesterday donated food, which is the immediate need for the now homeless families.

The case has deepened the rift between the church and traditional healers with churches yesterday saying n’angas were behind much of the evil in the country.

Many Zimbabweans patronise both churches and traditional healers resulting in a tussle for loyalty.

Anglicans, Methodists and Salvation Army “soldiers” danced to “songs of hope” which were played with finesse by a percussion band.

A short prayer and then a sermon by Godfrey Gaga, the head of ZCC, targeted traditional healers for criticism.

“What happened here is a reminder to all of us that we should not trust in traditional healers. The Bible says the devil comes to steal, kill and destroy.

“What happened here is an example of what happens when people associate themselves with the devil.

Whatever it is, this is the work of the devil. Ndozvinoitika kana vanhu vakaisa pfungwa ne tariro yavo pavanhu (This is what happens if people put their trust in other people),” said Gaga.

Located 30 km southeast of Harare, Chitungwiza is a bustling town infamous for disease outbreaks and vice but the blast has put it on the international map.

“We must go back to God, Chitungwiza go back to God. I know that this area is known for believing in traditional healers. Some people move from one house to another, one n’anga to another, from Zengeza 2 to Zengeza 4, up and down St Mary’s,” thundered Gaga.

A petrified neighbourhood and traumatised victims were assured that the “spirits of darkness” that were haunting them since the explosion on Monday last week had been eliminated.

“We are going to mobilise resources from the private sector to assist these families rebuild their houses, it is written that faith without works is dead. We must show our faith by doing something for these families.

“Ndororo Street from now on is a saint street because it is now a redeemed street. No more fear because the spirits of darkness have been removed,” said Gaga.

With traditional healers conspicuously absent, Gaga urged Zimbabweans to shy away from old “pagan” practices.

Residents of Ndororo Street say they are now inundated by inquisitive people daily.

“I think we should put a toll gate and collect the proceeds from people who are coming here now and again. Some of the people who come here drive top of the range vehicles but don’t leave us anything,” said a local, Dumi Kapfeni.

Monday 28 January 2013

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6 dead, 7 hurt as van falls into 300-meter ravine in Benguet

Six people were killed while seven others were injured when a van fell into a ravine in Atok, Benguet, on Sunday, the state disaster agency said.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said the van driven by Wilbert Galino fell into an approximately 300-meter deep ravine between 1 to 2 a.m. Sunday.

The vehicle came from Mt. Province and was headed to Baguio City, the agency added.

The fatalities were identified as Lawrence Bondad, Raquel Galino, Melanie Rondalis, Kyla Rondalis, Jynnahrie Galino and Claring Abalos.

Galino, the driver, was among those injured identified as Howard Rondalis, Elmer Galino, Panganiban Galino, Fevelyn Garcia, Fritzi Bondad, and Travish Galino.

The passengers were rushed to Atok District Hospital and Benguet General Hospital, the NDRRMC said.

Monday 28 January 2013

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/breaking-news/2013/01/28/6-dead-7-hurt-van-falls-300-meter-ravine-benguet-265189

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8 die when Russian fishing boat sinks in Sea of Japan

Six crewmen were killed and nine were still missing after a Russian fishing vessel sank off the coast of the Russian Far East, the emergency situations ministry said on Monday.

Rescuers found a second lift craft with five people surviving from the sunken vessel on the morning of Monday, the ministry said, adding the bodies of six crewmen were also found.

The Chance-101 fishing boat had 30 crew members on board - 19 Russians and 11 Indonesians - when it sank in Japan’s waters 50 kilometers (31 miles) east of the Svetlaya village, in Russia's Primorye Territory, on Sunday.

“As of now, 21 crew members were found [15 alive and six dead], while nine crew members are still missing,” a statement from the prosecutor’s office said.

Two life rafts were discovered near the sunken ship on Sunday. The first raft carried six Russians and four Indonesians. Five more people were later rescued from the second raft.

The search operation for the missing people continues and involves several rescue ships as well as an amphibious Beriev Be-200 aircraft and a Mil Mi-8 helicopter.

Nine ships and five airborne vehicles have been deployed to search for the missing crew members.

Monday 28 January 2013

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_01_28/8-die-when-Russian-fishing-boat-sinks-in-Sea-of-Japan/

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20130128/179069883/Six-Found-Dead-15-Rescued-From-Russian-Sunken-Ship--------.html

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7 dead in NE China train-bus collision

Seven people died after a cargo train and a passenger bus collided on Monday morning in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, local government sources said.

The collision happened at 7:36 a.m. in the city of Heihe. Six people died at the scene and another died on the way to hospital. All of the victims were passengers on the bus.

The injured have been rushed to local hospitals.

The train was operated by a local railway company in Heihe.

The cause of the collision is being investigated.

Monday 28 January 2013

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-01/28/c_132132593.htm

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Coalmine gas kills 8 in Balochistan

At least eight laborers were killed as toxic gas filled a coalmine in Dakki area of Loralayi in Balochistan.

Quoting rescue sources, Geo News reported on Monday morning that at least eight coalmine workers were killed.

Correspondent says as many as nine workers hailing from Swat were working in a coalmine when poisonous gas filled it. He said eight workers were killed while another fell unconscious.

Locals rushed to the spot and shifted the dead to a nearby hospital.

Monday 28 January 2013

http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-85587-Coalmine-gas-kills-8-in-Balochistan

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Death toll rises to 7 in Sirnak collapse

Death toll rises to seven in Turkey's south eastern province of Sirnak following the collapse of the sustaining wall on Sunday.

Fire brigade and search and rescue teams have continued their search all night to save the people trapped in the wreckage where the sustaining wall in the football field collapsed.

The identification works are continuing for the dead and wounded.

On the other hand houses in the neighbourhood are emptied due to danger of landslip.

Monday 28 January 2013

http://www.worldbulletin.net/?aType=haber&ArticleID=102431

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8 bodies found in Mexico where band went missing

At least eight bodies were pulled from a well in northern Mexico on Sunday near the site where 20 people went missing late last week, including members of a Colombian-style band, according to a state forensic official.

The Nuevo Leon State Investigative Agency was still working late into the night at the well in a vacant lot in the town of Mina near the northern city of Monterrey, and the body count could rise, said the official.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he w+as not authorized to discuss the case.

The official could not confirm whether the bodies belonged to 16 members of Kombo Kolombia and their crew, who were reported missing early Friday after playing a private show in a bar late Thursday in the next town, Hidalgo.

Authorities had been searching for two days when they came upon the well Sunday afternoon.

People living near the bar in Hidalgo municipality north of Monterrey reported hearing gunshots about 4 a.m. Friday, following by the sound of vehicles speeding away, said a source with the state agency. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be quoted by the news media.

The officials added that gunfire is common in the area, and said investigators found spent bullets nearby.

Relatives filed an official report about their missing loved ones on Friday, after they lost cellular telephone contact with them following the Thursday night performance. When family

members went to the bar to investigate, they found the band members' vehicles still parked outside.

For three years, Kombo Kolombia has played a Colombian style of music known as vallenato, which is popular in Nuevo Leon state. Most of the group's musicians were from the area, and have held large concerts in addition to bar performances.

Nuevo Leon state officials said one of those missing is a Colombian citizen with Mexican residency.

Members of other musical bands, usually groups that performed "narcocorridos" celebrating the exploits of drug traffickers, have been killed in Mexico in recent years. But Kombo Kolombia did not play that type of music and its lyrics did not deal with violence or drug trafficking.

Monday 28 January 2013

http://www.elpasotimes.com/juarez/ci_22464335/8-bodies-found-mexico-where-band-went-missing

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Victims of Nazi anatomists named

Liane Berkowitz was just 19 years old when she was executed by the Nazis.

She was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942 when they caught her putting up posters that displayed messages of protest against an exhibition of Nazi propaganda. She was pregnant at the time of her arrest, but this just led to her execution being postponed until after the birth of her child.

Liane's grim story did not end in her death; her body was one of thousands that were delivered to anatomists and used for dissection and experimentation.

The identity of victims who met this same fate is now coming to light thanks to researchers who are scouring legal records to identify the victims of Nazi terror who ended up on anatomists' dissection tables.

Liane was one of 182 people whose corpses were claimed by the anatomy researcher Hermann Stieve, who, at the time, was a leading anatomist at the University of Berlin.

The full names of the people on "Stieve's list" - the vast majority of whom were women - has now been published by Dr Sabine Hildebrandt, a German-born anatomist based at the University of Michigan.

"Stieve himself put this list together in 1946," explained Dr Hildebrandt, who has been investigating the history of German anatomy for a decade. Stieve's own thorough record of his macabre work has enabled her to identify his victims.

Stieve's crimes have been exposed, but Dr Hildebrandt has now focused her efforts of telling the stories of his victims.

"I wanted to find out who these people were," Dr Hildebrandt told the BBC. "I wanted to make them known again."

Stieve was interested particularly in reproductive anatomy; a key reason why so many victims on his list were women.

"Before 1933, he was able to source the bodies of executed men, but no women; Germany was not executing women."

"Then, suddenly, during the Third Reich, women were being executed too."

About half of these women, including Liane Berkowitz, were executed for treason; some were betrayed to the Gestapo by fellow citizens for airing their anti-Nazi politics.

William Seidelman, former professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, has also spent years uncovering links between "medicine and murder" in the Third Reich.

In a 1999 paper in Dimensions: A Journal of Holocaust Studies he revealed some of the details of how Stieve worked closely with the prison in Berlin where prisoners were executed.

"When a woman of reproductive age was due to be executed, Stieve was informed, a date of execution was decided upon, and the prisoner told the scheduled date of her death," wrote Prof Seidelman.

"Stieve was particularly interested in the effects of stress and psychological trauma on the doomed woman's menstrual pattern.

"Upon the woman's execution, her pelvic organs were removed for examination. Stieve published reports based on those studies without hesitation or apology."

Stieve referred to the organs he used as "material". His publications during this time were some of the first to suggest that stress - in the form of being sentenced to death - disrupted a woman's menstrual cycle.

In a mission to reveal the human lives behind this "material", Dr Hildebrandt studied through the personal files of Stieve's victims, which are held at the Memorial Site for the German Resistance in Berlin.

She cross-checked each file against a copy of Stieve's list that is on file at the German Ministry of Justice, identifying every person on the list.

Dr Hildebrandt noted the correct spelling of the names of the 174 women and eight men on the list, their exact dates of birth and death, their nationality, the reason for their execution and any other biographical information she could find.

Some of the files contained personal letters expressing final wishes of condemned prisoners. "Some of them expressed wishes to be reunited with their families in death," said Dr Hildebrandt.

One letter by Libertas Schulze-Boysen, a German-born resistance fighter who was once a member of the Nazi party, but left in 1937 and went on join the resistance and collect photographic evidence documenting National Socialist crimes of violence.

Libertas was arrested in September 1942 and sentenced to death for treason in December of the same year.

In a letter to her mother, she wrote: ''As a last wish I have asked that my 'material substance' be left to you. If possible, bury me in a beautiful place amidst sunny nature.''

Dr Hildenbrandt said that her research made it "painfully clear" how little anatomists at the time were interested in the fate of the people whose bodies they
This left German anatomical research tainted by association.

Of the 31 anatomical departments at universities in Germany and its occupied territories between 1933 and 1945, Dr Hildebrandt found that "all of them - without exception - received bodies of the executed from execution chambers".

The issue only came to public attention in the past two decades.

Prof Seidelman explained that, in 1989, an anatomy lecturer at the University of Tubingen indicated that specimens he was showing were from Russian or Polish slave labourers executed during the Third Reich.

Prof Seidelman told the BBC: "The students were dismayed and demanded an explanation."

The university held a formal investigation, and all anatomy specimens of "suspect or uncertain origin" were buried in a special section of the Tubingen cemetery and, on July 8, 1990, a commemorative ceremony was held.

Several universities, have carried out formal investigations into their own anatomy departments' procurement of bodies during the Third Reich.

Many institutes in Austria were also involved, notably the University of Vienna.

"The University of Vienna had a special streetcar hearse that delivered the cadavers from the execution chamber of the regional court to the anatomy institute," explained Prof Seidelman.

Eduard Pernkopf, who was chairman of anatomy there between 1933 and 1945, left a printed legacy in the form of a now infamous anatomy tome. It is now understood that many of the incredibly detailed illustrations in Pernkopf's atlas depicted the bodies of victims of Nazi terror.

Prof Seidelman said that researchers were at the "very early stage of the journey of revealing the stories of those humans who became 'experimental material'".

"They became inanimate objects," he added.

Dr Hildebrandt agrees that the issue still casts a shadow on anatomy today, and while a great deal has been published about the crimes of the perpetrators, "German post-war anatomy was built in part on the bodies of [the] victims".

She added: "It's time to return the names to the numbers - to give faces and biographies to the so far anonymous victims of anatomy in the Third Reich in order to remember and honour their humanity and the iniquities they had to endure.

Monday 28 January 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21086388

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Toxic smoke, blocked exit caused Brazil nightclub fire deaths; 3 still unidentified

A fire sparked by a music band’s fireworks swept through a nightclub thronged with University students in Southern Brazil’s Santa Maria, killing at least 233, with most of them dying after inhaling toxic smoke.

There was a university party going on in ‘Kiss nightclub’ in Brazilian city of Santa Maria when the blaze was caused by a pyrotechnics show by a band, filling the space with thick toxic fumes that were inhaled by the people rushing out to escape thus causing a stampede.

Most of the deaths were caused by the inhalation of the toxic smoke and others were crushed in the stampede of people rushing to escape through a single exit.

The single exit way was almost blocked with the bodies so much so that even the firefighters had trouble getting in the nightclub to douse the fire.

The investigation is underway and police officials said to a news agency that the band was to blame for a pyrotechnics show and that manslaughter charges could be filed.

Brazil ha declared three days of national mourning for the fire tragedy whereas in Santa maria a 30-day mourning was declared.

Also, as a sign of mourning, a ceremony due in Brazil's capital on Monday to mark 500 days to Football World Cup 2014, was cancelled.

postponed a ceremony due on Monday in the capital, Brasilia, to mark 500 days to the 2014 football World Cup. With 233 deaths, the fire disaster in the university city of Santa Maria known for its university clusters is one of the deadliest fire tragedies since December 2000, when a welding accident reportedly set off a fire at a club in Luoyang, China, killing 309.

In 2004, at least 194 people died in a fire at an overcrowded nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Seven members of a band were sentenced to prison for starting the flames.

A blaze at the Lame Horse nightclub in Perm, Russia, killed 152 people in December 2009 after an indoor fireworks display ignited a plastic ceiling decorated with branches.

Out of 233 dead, names of 230 victims have been released and remaining three bodies are yet to be identified, the BBC reported.

100 more victims are getting treated in nearby hospitals.

President Dilma Rousseff had to cut short her Chile visit to visit the survivors at the city's Caridade hospital along with government ministers, it was reported.

"It is a tragedy for all of us," Rousseff said.

Bodies of the dead and injured were strewn in the street and panicked screams filled the air as medics tried to help. There was little to be done; officials said most of those who died were suffocated by smoke within minutes.

Within hours a community gym was a horror scene, with body after body lined up on the floor, partially covered with black plastic as family members identified kin.

Outside the gym police held up personal objects — a black purse, a blue high-heeled shoe — as people seeking information on loved ones looked crowded around, hoping not to recognize anything being shown them.

Police Maj. Cleberson Braida Bastianello said by telephone that the toll had risen to 233 with the death of a hospitalized victim. He said earlier that the death toll was likely made worse because the nightclub appeared to have just one exit through which patrons could exit.

Federal Health Minister Alexandre Padhilha told a news conference that most of the 117 people treated in hospitals had been poisoned by gases they breathed during the fire. Only a few suffered serious burns, he said.

Monday 28 January 2013

http://www.itv.com/news/story/2013-01-27/nightclub-fire-in-brazil-kills-90/

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Anger at silence over deadly Venezuelan jail riot

A prison riot in southwestern Venezuela has killed 61 people, a hospital official says, although the government has refused to give an official death toll in the bloody standoff that highlighted chaos in the country's jails.

The violence took place on Friday (local time) at the Uribana jail near the city of Barquisimeto. Relatives who gathered outside the jail fumed at the lack of information from authorities, who have started transferring prisoners to other facilities but not confirmed how many were killed.

The rioting took place at a time when cancer-stricken President Hugo Chavez remains in Cuba receiving treatment and with Vice President Nicolas Maduro - the notional head of state - visiting the socialist leader in Havana and then travelling to a summit in Chile.

The riot was the fourth high-profile conflict in 18 months in a prison system that houses three times the number of inmates it was designed to hold. Critics say it is controlled by gangs with ready access to machine guns and even hand grenades.

"We're suffering here, and the government is saying nothing," said Josefina Ramirez, 36, whose 25-year-old husband was inside. "We want Chavez to come here to give us news. We want an answer."

Chavez has not been seen or heard from in 45 days, which has spurred criticism from opposition leaders that the country is effectively without a president. Allies insist he is fully carrying out duties.

Ruy Medina, director of the Barquisimeto Central Hospital, put the death toll at 61.

A hand-written list posted on a barbed wire fence outside the Uribana jail listed 20 dead and 104 injured. Outside the nearby morgue, where hearses lined up on Saturday to collect bodies, a similar list showed 24 dead.

It was not known who posted the lists. A prisons ministry official did not respond to requests for comment. Amid the silence, rumours circulated among family members at the prison gates that the death toll had reached as high as 400.

"There's a bunch of dead people tossed on the ground in there, the government doesn't want to take them out to avoid showing the reality," said Veronica Chavez, whose husband told her he was being transferred to another prison but did not know which. She called the list outside the prison "a lie".

Maduro vowed a full investigation of the incident in pre-dawn comments on Saturday, just after arriving back in Venezuela from Havana. Within hours, he left to meet with Latin American and European dignitaries at a summit in Chile.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff scrapped her agenda at that summit and returned home after a nightclub fire killed at least 232 people.

Prisons Minister Iris Varela in a news conference said the riot was triggered by reports in the opposition media about plans to search the prison to remove weapons. "It seems as though their thirst for blood and terrible things will never be quenched," she said, referring to media.

Varela said reports had exaggerated the number of dead by including prisoners whose bodies showed signs they died several days before the incident - comments that critics seized as further evidence of the cruelty of the penitentiary system.

"They're not dogs, they're not animals, they're people like us," said Angelia Ibarra, 42, seeking information about her 25-year-old son inside. "The true animals are the government people."

Venezuelan jails have been increasingly in the headlines because of repeated shootouts and riots as well as conditions that are both outrageously cruel and downright surreal.

Inmates refusing to be transferred out of a Caracas prison battled security forces in May for days as smoke rose above the compound and shots rang out. Chavez later said he called from Cuba, where he was receiving medical treatment, and spoke with one of the inmates to help negotiate an end to the standoff.

Local media last year published a story about a nightclub called Disco Tokio that held a Mother's Day party that featured musical groups flown in from Colombia and Puerto Rico. The club was located inside the Tocoron jail.

An online animated series about jail violence called "Jail or Hell", produced by a former inmate, has drawn a following among Venezuelans captivated by the chaos of the prisons.

Sunday 27 January 2013

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/8231228/Anger-at-silence-over-deadly-jail-riot

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