Military Plane Crash in Algeria Kills 103

At least 103 people are feared killed as a military cargo plane crashed in north-eastern Algeria.

The breaking news was reported by the local Annahar TV channel, cited by the Bulgarian public radio, BNR.

According to the channel, the plane went down not far from a north-eastern town of Oum El Bouaghi.

No other details are available at the moment.

Tuesday 11 February 2014

http://www.novinite.com/articles/158115/Military+Plane+Crash+in+Algeria+Kills+103

Docu-drama on forgotten Leith rail disaster

It was a sunny May morning in 1915 and the troops on board the train were cheery, whistling, comrades in arms.

As the train carrying 500 Edinburgh men bound for the Front approached Gretna few could have anticipated the horror that was about to unfold.

The locomotive smashed into a goods train, bursting into flames.

Then, with people still trapped inside, a Glasgow bound-express train ploughed into the wreckage.

The tragedy that ensued has been likened to the rail industry’s Titanic moment – a disaster which left 215 Royal Scots and 12 civilians dead.

Now, nearly 100 years on, a special docu-drama charting the disaster is to be made – and the programme makers are keen to unravel the events’ roots in Leith, the community from where many of the victims hailed.

Director Robert Rae, of Theatre Workshop Scotland, is based in the former Dalmeny Drill Hall where the ill-fated battalion was based.

He is seeking help to tell the train disaster story, which was not widely reported at the time for fear it would damage home-front morale.

He said: “This is a seminal event in Leith history. “It was the biggest rail disaster in UK history, and yet today many people have never even heard of it.

“Through our research we have found out that the youngest victim of the crash had only just turned 15-years-old. Some families lost all of their children in the disaster.”

Among the officers killed was Lieutenant Christian Salvesen, son of the shipping magnate of the same name.

Robert said: “The bodies were brought back to the Dalmeny Drill Hall and the people of Leith gathered outside and waited to find out what had happened to their loved ones.

“But they weren’t allowed into the building because the injuries were so horrific. It was almost the only time that the war came home in such a direct way. They didn’t even manage to get out of Scotland.”

This isn’t Theatre Workshop Scotland’s first foray into film-making.

Their award-winning feature film The Happy Lands, created with members of the mining communities of Fife, was screened by the BBC, and the team are hoping to repeat that success in Leith. Already, people with a personal connection to the disaster have expressed an interest in taking part.

Robert said: “We have been approached by people who have said their grandfather was involved and that they want to tell their story. You don’t need any experience and we’re keen for people to get involved in everything from acting to the research process.”

Jim Tweedie, from Leith Local History Society, welcomed news of the planned documentary. “I’m all for this tragedy being publicised. It’s an important part of Leith history, but it tends to be forgotten that more than 200 people died.”

“Many people in Leith can trace back to relatives who were involved in this disaster.”

Tuesday 11 February 2014

http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transport/docu-drama-on-forgotten-leith-rail-disaster-1-3300763

Expert has hopes for Northern Ireland's Disappeared

The top forensic investigator with the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains said “we would like to think we will have some success in this coming year”.

Geoff Knupfer was speaking in Drogheda last night at the opening of an exhibition on the Disappeared.

There are seven bodies still to be recovered in the Republic. While no dates are in place to resume digs, he acknowledged it is “a tall order,” to ask somebody to identify a site 30 years later.

“These sites were selected with great care for their anonymity, they are barren wastelands and to ask anybody to come along 30 years later is a tall order.”

Amongst those at the opening was Seán Megraw whose brother Brendan was abducted and murdered by the IRA in 1978, and Anna McShane, daughter of Charlie Armstrong whose body was recovered in 2010. He disappeared in 1981.

Tuesday 11 February 2014

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/expert-has-hopes-for-disappeared-258339.html

Rescue op for Odisha boat victims in Hirakud called off for the day

As the sun went down the western horizon, the district administration suspended rescue operations for the day today although the bodies of three persons who are still missing following the boat mishap deep inside the Hirakud Dam reservoir on Sunday are yet to be fished out.

Operations, however, will continue on the shores with electric lights, sources in the district administration said.

Rescue operations inside the reservoir will resume at day break tomorrow, the sources added.

A total of 28 bodies have been recovered in two days of rescue operations, according to district administration.

While bodies of three more members of the Lions Club picnic team are to be traced, there is no word yet on the whereabouts of the boatman, the assistant boatman and several others who were also on the boat, leading to apprehension that the death toll could go up further.

Tuesday 11 February 2014

http://odishasuntimes.com/31114/rescue-operations-inside-reservoir-called-day/

112 Dhaka collapse victims unidentified

A Bangladesh expert said on Monday he has given up hope of identifying 112 victims of the Rana Plaza factory collapse, almost a year after one of the world's worst industrial tragedies.

The garment factory complex on the outskirts of Dhaka collapsed in April last year, trapping thousands of workers who stitched clothes for Western retailers.

Rescue work ended three weeks later with 1,129 bodies recovered from the ruins of the nine-storey complex.

Authorities buried more than 300 victims whose bodies were so badly damaged or decomposed that they were beyond recognition, but collected their DNA samples to help verify any compensation claims.

Sharif Akhteruzzaman, head of the National Forensic DNA Profiling Laboratory, said his experts have now identified 200 of those victims after matching their DNA samples with those of living relatives.

“Of the 322 people, we have now identified 200 people. Of them 157 were identified earlier and 43 this month,” Akhteruzzaman told AFP.

But Akhteruzzaman said the lab could not identify more than 100 victims, despite re-analysing their samples and trying to match them.

“We don't have any hopes for these 112 bodies as they did not match with any of the 549 people who've come to us for their missing relatives.”

Formal identification means families can claim compensation for the tragedy, amid anger that authorities were not doing enough to help those left behind.

Akhteruzzaman has previously raised concerns about the quality of the DNA samples which were collected.

Akhteruzzaman also said the lab was analysing human remains recovered at the site in recent months to try to identify them, although it was unclear how many new victims have been found.

Police said in December they had recovered remains after street children spotted bone fragments while rifling through debris at the site.

The recovery has reinforced accusations by labour groups that the operation to rescue workers and retrieve bodies ended too quickly, and that the death toll could be higher still.

The tragedy highlighted the appalling safety conditions in the world's second largest garment industry after China, and forced Western retailers and the government to promise factory safety inspections.

Bangladeshi and international labour unions have criticised the government, factory owners and Western retailers for not swiftly and adequately compensating victims and their families.

The government has said it has paid money to families of around 800 victims, including about 40 survivors who lost limbs.

But authorities have delayed compensating the rest, citing a lack of identification, a task made more difficult by inadequate payroll records kept by the factory's managers.

Tuesday 11 February 2014

http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/112-dhaka-collapse-victims-unidentified-1.1644780

Mexico finds 100s of skeletal remains along U.S. border

Mexican officials have discovered hundreds of skeletal remains scattered on ranches in a stretch of towns along the U.S.-Mexico border as they carried out a wide search to locate missing people.

The remains were burned and extremely hard to identify, said Coahuila state prosecutors' spokesman Jesus Carranza on Monday.

News of the grisly finds came at the same time 12 bodies were unearthed from clandestine graves in the southern Mexico state of Guerrero and about two months after 67 bodies were found in western Mexico. Such discoveries remain common despite government claims that the number of killings has gone down in the past year.

Police in Coahuila haven't said whether an organized crime group is suspected in the skeletal remains, but the area is known to be dominated by the violent Zetas drug cartel. Officers have arrested 10 men, including four police officers suspected of aiding a criminal group, the state attorney general's office said in a press release.

The police operation took place on ranches in 11 different towns around the border city of Piedras Negras, right across Eagle Pass, Texas, after interviews with family members and at least 32 former local officials. Usually, remains like these have been found in mass graves, but these were left on the surface in the region known as Five Springs, Carranza said.

At some of the ranches, investigators found bullet casings as well as barrels of diesel fuel that was likely used to burn bodies.

"We are still not sure how many skeletal remains and how many victims we are talking about," Carranza said. "But this operation was launched to try to locate missing people."

An organization that supports families of missing victims has gathered 321 cases between 2007-13 in just Coahuila. Families were worried Monday that the government contaminated the crime scenes because of images from local media showing the use of heavy machinery at the search sites.

"It makes you want to cry. It's unbelievable how they handle evidence. It just complicates the identification of the remains," said Guadalupe Fernandez, a member of Forces United for our Disappeared in Coahuila and the mother of Jose Antonio Robledo, an engineer who went missing in 2009.

The state prosecutors' office said it followed protocols of preservation in crime scene investigations.

In Guerrero state, the attorney general's office said a dozen bodies were found Sunday in the town of Mexcaltepec by military personnel after they received an anonymous tip Saturday night.

In the same state and only a few days before, members of armed self-defence groups found a clandestine grave in the town of Cajelitos near the state capital of Chilpancingo and reported the skeletons of three men and two women.

Two months ago, authorities excavated for several days in recovering 67 bodies that had been bound or gagged in a remote town by Lake Chapala, a popular spot with tourists and American retirees.

It is a region where the Knights Templar and New Generation drug cartels are fighting each other. Local police officers who confessed to handing over people to the New Generation organization led investigators to the scene, officials said.

Tuesday 11 February 2014

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mexico-finds-100s-of-skeletal-remains-along-u-s-border-1.2531629