Police submits a fresh list of unmarked graves found across the Kashmir valley to State Human Rights Commission (SHRC)

Srinagar, Apr 1: Police has submitted a fresh list of unmarked graves found across the Kashmir valley to State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) and exercise of counting of such graves had been carried out under an “Internal Administrative Order (IAO).”

Under the preview of the order, all the district Senior Superintendent of Police (SSPs) were directed by their higher ups to find out the details ad number of the unmarked graves in their respective districts.

The order was passed soon after expose by the investigating wing of SHRC that there are 2156 unidentified bodies buried at 38 sites in Jammu and Kashmir. The expose created uproar in political, human rights and civil society circles.

Director General of Police (DGP) Kuldeep Khoda told Greater Kashmir that a fresh list of unmarked graves has been submitted to SHRC. “Counting of such graves was carried out throughout the Valley. We have submitted the fresh list to SHRC,” DGP said. However he did not divulge the exact number graves found across the Kashmir valley.

In Baramulla district of north Kashmir, 421 such graves have been found. A senior police official from Baramulla told Greater Kashmir on the basis of anonymity that they carried out the documentation of mass graves in border town of Uri, Bijhama, Sheeri, Pattan, Gulmarg and Boniyar areas of the district.

“Our investigating teams found a total number of 421 unidentified persons buried in these unmarked graves,” the police officer said adding that the teams also found the graves 523 identified militants in these areas.

If reports are to be believed, the cops have been seen visiting graveyards in the rural areas before the last snowfall and they were trying to ascertain the facts about marked and unmarked graves.

The exercise according police sources was carried out jointly by the cops of respective police stations in their areas and CID people. The exercise has also been carried out in frontier district of Kupwara and Bandipora.

In Kupwara district, there are reportedly many such graveyards where identified and unidentified militants are buried. One in Lolab area of Kalaroos and other in Kralopra are said to be biggest ones. On number third is a graveyard in Handwara town.

According to sources, in Kalaroos most militants killed in encounters at LoC in Machil sector were being buried. While as at Kralpora graveyard those killed in Keran and Chowkibal sectors of LoC were buried. All these areas are claimed to be strategic from infiltration point of view.

Sunday, 1 April 2012

http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2012/Apr/2/police-submit-fresh-list-to-shrc-22.asp

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Vietnam finds mass grave of communist soldiers

HANOI, Vietnam — A mass grave has been found containing the remains of 23 communist soldiers believed to have been killed during the Tet Offensive, seen by many as the turning point of the Vietnam War.

Col. Nguyen Minh Hung of provincial military command in central Khanh Hoa province said Tuesday that construction workers who were expanding a highway found the site last week. He says it took 30 soldiers and militiamen six days to recover the remains, none of which were identified.

The soldiers were believed to have been killed while withdrawing after attacking an airport and the local military headquarters of the Saigon government, he said.

Thousands of Viet Cong guerrillas attacked major towns across southern Vietnam during the Tet Offensive in January 1968.

Monday, 2 April 2012

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/apr/02/vietnam-finds-mass-grave-of-communist-soldiers/?ap

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Moscow market fire kills 15 migrant workers

MOSCOW: Fifteen people died Tuesday when a night time fire tore through a two-story Moscow market warehouse in which migrant workers from a former Soviet republic were camping out.

"We have found another body and now there are 15," a Moscow emergencies ministry spokesman told AFP.

'They were migrant workers. We are trying to confirm which (ex-Soviet) republic they came from."

Unconfirmed news reports said the migrants were from the impoverished Central Asian nation of Tajikistan. Numerous Moscow markets employ cheap laborers from the region without giving them proper housing or pay.

The blaze broke out early Tuesday at the market on the southern outskirts of the city called Kachalovsky. Officials said it took two hours to put out.

Emergency workers described squalid living conditions in which the workers slept on hard cots that were stacked on top of each other in rows of four without any direct access to the outside.

The workers "lived in a metal annex that was equipped with a space heater", an unnamed law enforcement official told the Interfax news agency.

"They slept in frighteningly tight conditions, on hard bunk cots that were then stacked on top of each other," he said.

Another official said the workers probably left the space heater on all night to stay warm during the frigid Moscow spring. Overnight temperatures plunged below freezing and much of central Russia has been hit by snow.

Russia's Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu demanded an immediate account of how the workers ended up living in a space the market had reserved for storing hardware supplies.

"This is turning into a tradition -- people living in markets," Shoigu said in televised remarks.

"Someone must have settled them there. This facility was completely unsuitable for housing. I ask the law enforcement official to look into this."

The migration service estimates that there are 700,000 Tajiks living officially in the country -- a tenth of their home country's population of just under seven million.

Tajikistan was wracked by a brutal civil war in the early 1990s and then experienced nearly two decades of ethnic tensions and endemic drugs trafficking that hampered sustainable growth.

Its economy remains in tatters and some analysts estimate that up to half of Tajikistan's young male population is currently trying to make a living in Moscow and other major Russian cities.

The overwhelming majority of the migrants who arrive in Moscow do so without acquiring the official city worker permits that the Russian capital has required since Soviet times.

Their employment is therefore never officially reported to the authorities and many end up living in Moscow apartment block basements or makeshift residences.

Seven migrants were killed in January 2009 when a fire swept through an underground Moscow garage they were building and had also used as a temporary living shelter.

Another seven died in May 2011 when a fire engulfed an old abandoned building in central Moscow.

The presence of Central Asian nationals and workers from the predominantly Muslim Caucasus region has also stirred racial tensions in the Russian capital and resulted in repeated deadly attacks.

President-elect Vladimir Putin had vowed to reinforce migration controls while serving as prime minister for the past four years and won a strong following from Russian nationalists while heading the Kremlin in 2000-2008.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/International/2012/Apr-03/169033-moscow-market-fire-kills-15-migrant-workers.ashx#ixzz1qxoX2uzq

Tues, 3 April 2012

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Titanic archive - identification and disposition of victims

http://www.gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/titanic/list.asp?Search=

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Tragic story of the Titanic one of many to touch Atlantic Canadians

HALIFAX - His was the fourth body pulled from the icy North Atlantic days after the Titanic sank in 1912.

Sidney Leslie Goodwin was only 19 months old when he died. The little English boy is buried in the north end of Halifax.

Though he wasn't the youngest Titanic passenger to perish, his story serves as a poignant reminder that in the weeks after the sinking, crews from four ships — most of them sailors from Halifax — volunteered to perform the grim task of recovering bodies left bobbing on the cold ocean.

History shows that the residents of Atlantic Canada have so often risen to the occasion at times of tragedy that their willingness to help others has become a threadbare cliche.
But like all cliches, this one contains a hard kernel of truth.

For more than a century before the Titanic disaster, the region suffered through countless shipwrecks, major fires, coal mining tragedies and all manner of natural disasters.
In early October 1853, for example, a fierce storm off the north coast of P.E.I. was blamed for sinking about 100 fishing schooners, claiming up to 400 lives. To this day, the Yankee Gale is considered the worst disaster in the Island's history.

On April 1, 1873 — almost 40 years before the Titanic foundered on its maiden voyage — another state-of-the-art White Star Line passenger ship, the SS Atlantic, went aground and sank just west of Halifax, taking more than 500 souls with her. It was one of the worst civilian maritime disasters of the 19th century. Close to 300 of the victims are buried in mass graves near Lower Prospect. N.S.

By the time the Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, residents of the Maritimes and Newfoundland were well acquainted with large-scale disasters, which helps explain why the people of Halifax worked tirelessly to recover the dead and comfort surviving relatives.

"The citizens of Halifax were so moved by it, and they came out in large numbers," says Paul Butler of St. John's, N.L., author of "Titanic's Ashes," a recently published fictional account of the aftermath of the ship's demise. "Being at the mercy of the ocean ... is central to people who have a maritime connection."

Published accounts from the time say the recovery of Titanic victims was physically and emotionally draining, particularly for those who found Goodwin, a fair-haired child whose entire family perished in the sinking.

"He came floating toward us with a little upturned face," John Snow Jr., an embalmer aboard the Mackay-Bennett, told the Halifax Herald after the telegraph-cable ship returned to port, having recovered 306 bodies — 116 of which were buried at sea because they were badly disfigured.
A total of 150 Titanic victims are buried in three Halifax graveyards, their bodies prepared by 40 embalmers from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

It's hard to conceive that anything good could come from taking part in such gruesome tasks, but Bob Conrad thinks otherwise.

In September 1998, Conrad was among a group of Nova Scotia fishermen who joined the search for survivors after a Swissair passenger jet caught fire and crashed into St. Margarets Bay, west of Halifax.

None of the 229 people aboard survived, but Conrad didn't know that as he used a powerful light on his boat to scan a horrific debris field reeking of jet fuel and littered with ghastly array of shredded luggage, clothing and body parts.

At one point, he thought he spotted a child's doll. But as he drew closer, he realized the small figure was that of a toddler's naked body. Conrad recalls how he gently lifted the boy from the water and wrapped him in a blanket.

The fisherman would later learn the boy's name was Robert Martin Maillet. He was only 14 months old when he died along with his parents, Karen Domingue Maillet and Denis Maillet, both 37, of Baton Rouge, La. He was the youngest person on the plane.

Today, Conrad speaks in calm, even tones when describing what happened that moonless night.
"There's a tendency to think that it would be awful — and it is," says Conrad, now 65.
"But, from my experience, when the need to help another is critical, the element of danger and personal threat seems to be gone; it's not there. What would be horrid for your eyes to see, somehow is muted or blunted so that you can perform the task at hand. That was most amazing to me."

Conrad says he didn't think twice about heading out on the water that night. He says he's convinced that his deep desire to help those in need is shared by most people who live in small communities along Atlantic Canada's rugged coastline.

"Why we respond in such a giving, caring kind of way seems to be very deeply connected to the sense of community that we have achieved, unconsciously or otherwise, over the course of our lives" he says.

"Generally, we like where we live. We develop a very deep sense of place in that experience. ... Every society values this sense of community if they can discover it. Sometimes, big cities lose it. Individuals become invisible."

Butler says the reality of living on the East Coast has long meant struggling to survive and relying on others to get by.

"There's almost like an egalitarian ethos in this province (Newfoundland and Labrador) and probably in Nova Scotia. It's based upon this idea that you'll survive if you share and you work out how to survive as a community. The ethos is still there in the background, in terms of sharing and community values."

Blair Beed, a Halifax author and well-known Titanic sites tour guide, says Atlantic Canadians are not unique in their ability to reach out to others.
"When we had the Halifax Explosion in 1917, the people of Boston came rallying to us because of that friendship across the border," says Beed, author of "Titanic Victims in Halifax Graveyards."

"But we certainly have a long history of helping others," he says, noting that Halifax — founded in 1749 as a military base — has always been imbued by a sense of duty and loyalty.

As well, the geography of the Atlantic region has played an obvious role in shaping the Atlantic character, he says. Jutting into the North Atlantic, the Maritime provinces and Newfoundland are routinely in harm's way when the weather turns foul.

"In the early days, people were crashing into us just because they didn't have the technology to say we were there," says Beed, whose grandfather was an undertaker's assistant who helped process bodies recovered after Titanic's sinking.

"I grew up with the idea that my grandfather was one of those people who said, 'The job has to be done.' "

For fisherman Bob Conrad, who still lives in Fox Point, N.S., the motivation to help others comes from a profound place.

"For me, there is this reality for every human being: each of us wants our life to count for something. ... It's just that when you get in a disaster scenario, the opportunity to achieve that is thrust upon you," he says.

"There's something so meaningful in not living for yourself but living for others and in community.

Monday, 2 April 2012

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/titanic-swissair-atlantic-canada-answers-call-disaster-strikes-083007307.html

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Plane crash horror: 32 people killed in Siberia after aircraft nosedives on take-off

A passenger plane crashed in Siberia shortly after taking off on Monday morning, killing 32 of the 43 people on board, Russian emergency officials said.

A medium-haul UTair-operated ATR-72 turboprop crashed 18 miles from the city of Tyumen, Siberia, shortly after takeoff from Moscow

The 11 survivors were hospitalised in serious condition.

The aircraft went down on a snowy field outside Tyumen, a major regional center in Siberia. The cause of the crash was not yet clear.

The Emergency Situations Ministry said 12 survivors were flown to a hospital by helicopter, but one of them died there.

The UTair company twin-engine turboprop flying to Surgut is said to have burst into flames shortly after take-off.

'The plane took off from Roschino airport, near Tyumen, towards Surgut (also in Siberia). According to preliminary information there were 39 passengers and four crew members aboard,' a ministry spokesman told the Interfax news agency.

Sixteen bodies have so far been recovered by a team of nearly 200 rescue workers. Children are reported among the victims, according to Russia Today, quoting the Ministry's report.
Survivors have been taken to hospitals in Tyumen by helicopter and are said to have sustained serious injuries.

UTair published a list of the passengers and crew, and none of them appeared to be foreigners.
Connection with the medium-haul ATR-72, a French-Italian-made plane, was lost before the crash, according to RT.com.

A criminal probe has been launched into the incident.Russia has seen a string of deadly crashes in recent years. Some have been blamed on the use of aging Soviet-era aircraft, but industry experts point to a number of other problems, including poor crew training, crumbling airports, lax government controls and widespread neglect of safety in the pursuit of profits.

Mon, 2 April 2012

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2123808/Russian-plane-crash-32-people-killed-Siberia-aircraft-nosedives-off.html#ixzz1qriBRDXI

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Serbian police say 6 people die fleeing blaze in nightclub in country's north; owner detained

Serbian police say six people died in a nightclub fire in the city in the country's north.

The owner of a nightclub where six people died on Sunday trying to escape a fierce blaze has been detained by police, a Serbian official says.

Police spokeswoman Mileva Tomic said Alojz G., who owns Contrast club in Novi Sad in northern Serbia, was detained along with two more people. She did not give the owner's full name.

Emergency workers could be seen removing a body from the blackened shell of the building Sunday afternoon. Nearby, a man crouched in the middle of the road, seemingly in tears.

Investigative judge Ana Stamenic said the likely cause of the fire, which erupted around 2 a.m. (0000GMT), was flawed electrical installations, but an investigation is ongoing.

Police officials have said the victims died from smoke inhalation while trying to flee the blaze that broke out around the stage area during a live performance and quickly spread.

"One of them was just half a meter from an exit," said senior police official Predrag Maric. "There must have been huge panic, they all rushed to get out."

Stamenic said all the victims have been identified, and they are three men and three women, aged 21-29 years old. Officials had initially said the victims were teenagers.

Maric said some 350 people were inside the club during the fire and all rushed to the exits in an attempt to flee the blaze.

Two more people were injured, but their lives are not in danger, doctors said.

Authorities in Novi Sad declared three days of mourning starting on Monday. Serbia's President Boris Tadic expressed condolences to the families in a statement.

Sunday, Apr 01, 2012 07:15 am | The Associated Press

http://www.oldsalbertan.ca/article/GB/20120401/CP01/304019990/-1/old0806/serbian-police-say-6-teenagers-die-fleeing-nightclub-fire-1-just-1-2&template=cpArt

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Disaster victims haunted by ghosts

TOKYO (majirox news) — For many who lived through last year’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the horror lives on – in the form of the ghosts of those who died. More than 15,000 victims perished in the disaster, but the bodies of 3,700 additional victims are still missing.

Some survivors claim to have seen and heard the ghosts of their absent relatives and friends, who implore the living to allow the spirits to rest by finding the bodies and giving them a proper funeral.

An elderly man in Miyagi prefecture in the Tohoku region told a priest that he saw a clear image and heard strange sounds of someone walking on the surface of the ocean. A woman staying in temporary housing said a ghost visited her on the grounds. “I believe something happened here,” she said.

As might be expected, there is no government organization whose duty it is to comfort and counsel those who claim to have been contacted from beyond the grave. Nor are those who are experiencing such visions keen to confide in their families, and so religious groups are stepping into the breach to provide support for these people.

Buddhist priest Kobo Inoue, who acts as secretary general of the Young Buddhist Association of the Pure Land School, says that seeing ghosts is a natural thing for those who have suffered intense trauma, such as that of the March 11 disaster.

“Visions after facing death are more common than people think, and cut across nationalities, religions and cultures,” he said. “I don’t know if they are really ghosts or not, but I don’t deny that they have seen some things that they call ghosts,” he said.

He added that these people are not hallucinating, and are aware of their surroundings while they see these things. He cites stories in literature and historical biographies of such visions seen by those who have faced death or who were on their deathbed.

The chanting of Buddhist sutras seems to help to ease the pain and grief, he says, and many survivors feel a sense of relief after they have chanted alongside the priest. It is impossible for Inoue to forget what he saw up in Tohoku. “I cannot get my mind in order. After I went to the disaster area in Miyagi, I saw cars covered in dirt and dust, darkened stores, Self-Defense Forces helicopters flying around me, and the shocked residents everywhere.” He added that many of those suffering cried, and they gained some hope when they saw the Buddhist priests who had come to help them.

Other priests take different views of the phenomena. Tokyo priest Ryonosuke Fukumoto emphasizes the “realistic” teachings of Buddhism.

“I do not believe in any superstitious things such as ghosts,” he said. “The reason why one sees such things is that one’s mind is confused as a result of fear and worry. In my experience, such a troubled mental state has always brought me bad results.” For example, Fukumoto said he made a trivial mistake in his work, which he would never have made in his usual mental state.

He believes that Buddhist teachings help calm our emotional agitation, and see the truth – the reality, restating his believe that “ghosts” or “voices” are a reflection of one’s mental and emotional states.

Although the communities flattened and destroyed by the earthquake are slowly being rebuilt, rebuilding the spirits of the residents and healing the scars caused by their losses will take longer, and this is an area where religion provides comfort and helps to lay the ghosts of the past – whatever they may be – to rest.

Monday 15 October 2012

http://www.majiroxnews.com/2012/03/12/disaster-victims-haunted-by-ghosts/

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Japan's post-disaster reconstruction efforts hindered – by ghosts

Reports of ghost sightings have reportedly been made by residents in the city of Ishinomaki in Miyagi prefecture, home to nearly a fifth of all tsunami fatalities.

Reconstruction and repair have been put on hold in some instances due to workers' fears that the spirits of the dead who passed away a year ago will bring them bad luck if they continue, according to AFP.

Highlighting one half-repaired supermarket, local Satoshi Abe, 64, told the agency: "I heard people working to repair the store became sick because of ghosts. People died here everywhere, here and there. The city is full of such stories."

A taxi driver, who did not want to be named, added that he was unwilling to stop in certain parts of the city that were badly damaged in the tsunami for fear of picking up a customer who is a spirit of the dead.

Meanwhile, another local woman described hearing stories of people seeing queues of people rushing towards the hills, a replay of their final moment as they attempted to escape the tsunami, according to AFP

As the first anniversary of the disaster approaches, Ishinomaki appears, on the surface at least, to be returning to a new level of normality, with the tsunami debris cleared away in most areas and a growing number of businesses reopening.

At the same time, the emotional impact of the massive losses of human life are clearly continuing to take their toll on residents: close to 4,000 Ishinomaki locals were killed in the tsunami out of a total death toll of 19,000 for the northeast region.

However, experts described the city's apparent widespread belief in ghosts as a "natural" side effect of a large-scale tragedy which wiped out vast swathes of the community and a potentially positive part of the healing process.

"Human beings find it very difficult to accept death, whether they are inclined by nature to superstition or are very scientifically minded," said Takeo Funabiki, a cultural anthropologist.

"A sudden or abnormal death, anything other than someone dying in bed of old age, is particularly difficult for people to comprehend.

"When there are things that many people find difficult to accept, they can find expression in the form of rumours or rituals for the dead, among other things. The point is that it takes the shape of something that you can share with other people in your society."

Koji Ikeda, a therapist and lecturer at the Academy of Counselors Japan, added: "It is possible that a whole lot of emotions that people cannot fully cope with lead to 'projections' of spirits" he said. "Pent-up emotions need to be expressed in order for people to be able to adapt to the new reality and move forward with their grief."

29 February 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/9113559/Japans-post-disaster-reconstruction-efforts-hindered-by-ghosts.html

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World War I diggers named

Nine more World War I diggers have been identified out of more than 250 found in a mass grave at Fromelles, along with two Australian special forces troops killed in the Dutch East Indies in World War II.

Revealing the names of the soldiers in a statement on Saturday, Veterans Affairs Minister Warren Snowdon said the total number of those identified from the Battle of Fromelles now stood at 119.

A further 92 Australians remain unidentified, along with two British soldiers and a further 37 whose graves are marked 'Unidentified Soldier of the Great War'.

'We are encouraged by the success, made possible by the large number of extended family members, both in Australia and Britain, who have provided DNA samples to assist with identification,' Mr Snowdon said.

Fromelles was the first major action involving Australian troops in France in World War I. It was fought over July 19-20, 1916 and resulted in more than 5500 Australian casualties. Many of the fallen were never found. The battle is regarded as one of the worst days in Australian military history.

In 2009 a mass grave was located in Pheasant Wood, on the battle site where German soldiers had buried Australian and British dead.

All the bodies have now been reburied in the new Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery.

Mr Snowdon said the latest identification project has now ensured privates Leonard Broadhurst, Robert Carrington Forland, John Robertson Forrest, John Joseph Goulding, William Alexander Jamieson, Arthur Joseph Johnson, Claude Ward, John Cyril Wynn and Corporal Alfred George Tuck are known by name where they lie in Fromelles.

Army chief Lieutenant General David Morrison said in a statement that 3000 family members had become involved in the identification process 'but we still need more', he added.

'If you think you might be related to a soldier who remains unaccounted for from the Battle of Fromelles, please get in contact with the army,' Lt Gen Morrison said.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission will erect new headstones each nearing the identified men's details. They will be dedicated on July 20 during the annual commemoration of the battle.

Along with the Battle of Fromelles soldiers, two Australian special forces troops killed in the Dutch East Indies at the tail end of World War II have been identified after 67 years.

Mr Snowdon said the two had been named as Lieutenant Scobell McFerran-Rogers and Private John Whitworth of the Australian Z Special commando Unit.

Also identified was their Timorese interpreter, Roestan.

They were participating in Operation Raven, a search and recovery party sent to find and determine the fate of a US aircrew shot down over Celebes in the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, in 1945.

The army's Unrecovered War Casualties Unit said the group landed on the island, today called Sulawesi, on June 19, 13 days after the first plane was shot down.

A day later while waiting to be evacuated by floatplane, they encountered a Japanese patrol. Two of the team - Mr Roestan and Lieutenant McFerran-Rogers - were killed during the initial fire fight. Private Whitworth was believed to have been wounded and later captured.

A war graves registration team found their remains after the war but they were not identified. They were reburied in the Bomana War Cemetery at Port Moresby as 'known only to God'.

Last year, family members of Private Whitworth approached the Unrecovered War Casualties Unit seeking to determine his fate, plus that of the others lost on Operation Raven.

Mr Snowdon said he hoped this would bring some closure to the families.

'The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has received the army's recommendations and new headstones will be installed in the coming months. I hope we will be able to dedicate those headstones during the 70th-anniversary commemorations of the Kokoda and Milne Bay campaigns,' he said.

Sat, 31 March 2012

http://www.skynews.com.au/world/article.aspx?id=734940&vId=

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Government to Hold Mass Burial For Sinai Victims

A mass burial will be held next week for the Sinai fire victims who were burnt beyond recognition.

The unidentified bodies and those burnt beyond recognition will be interred at the Lang’ata cemetery.

The DNA testing of the victims was conducted against samples of the people who lost their loved ones.

Speaking to media on Friday, Special Programmes PS Andrew Mondoh said that 15 bodies have so far been positively identified and will be given to family members for burial.

“So far because of the severity of the burns and the inhalation injury in burns some of the survivors have become so sick, we lost five more survivors on Wednesday night,” she said.

15 bodies have been positively identified and the families will be given the go ahead to burry them although the government will meet the all the costs of transporting the bodies and the burial.

More than 90 patients are nursing injuries at the Kenyatta National Hospitals and other hospitals within the city.

Experts from India will also be flow into the country by the national carrier Kenya Airways to help administer specialized care to the burn victims.

Sat, 31 March 2012

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Witness Details Srebrenica Mass Graves Study

Former investigator describes complexities of identifying human remains from various sites.

The trial of former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic continued this week with testimony from a former prosecution investigator about the research done on mass graves dating from the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995.

Karadzic is accused of planning and overseeing the murder of some 8,000 Bosniak men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995. The indictments against him include genocide, extermination, murder, persecutions and other crimes against humanity and war crimes.

A high percentage of the Srebrenica victims have been identified from the remains found in mass graves.

This week’s witness, Dusan Janc, is a police inspector in Slovenia. As he told the court this week, between 2006 and 2009, he served as an investigator the Hague tribunal’s Office of the Prosecutor, studying mass graves and the Srebrenica victims they contained.

The witness described his role as being to prepare reports about the investigation and identification process, including a document he drafted for the Karadzic trial. These reports were based on data collected by “a team of international experts working in the field in eastern Bosnia”.

Janc explained that his latest report had been updated in certain areas, “including a more current representation of the number of victims found so far”.

He said specified during the main examination that the International Commission on Missing Persons, which provided the basic data for his reports, had identified 5,977 of the Srebrenica victims as of the end of 2011. A further 260 sets of remains had been located “without their identity having been determined”, he said. This, he added, was because there was no comparable DNA material available from family members.

“Another difficulty was obviously the fact that many people had a very similar DNA structure, including brothers or even twins, which made it difficult for the identification,” he continued.

The witness said his latest report, completed in January, included “new data about previously unknown locations for mass graves, and had also more broadly considered the issue of mortal remains found on the surface”.

In his testimony, Janc explained the concept of “primary” and “secondary” mass graves – the latter being sites “where the bodies were taken from locations they were originally buried at, in order to cover up the crime”.

As an example of relocation, he said that “in an extreme case, one man’s remains were found in three mass graves, whereas five body parts of the same person were found in two mass graves”, located far apart from each other.

Janc noted that a peculiar feature of some locations of killings was that similar numbers of victims were found to have died.

“There were three sites in the broader Srebrenica region at which slightly over 800 people were killed, he said, citing a figure of 815 bodies at Kozluk, for example.

“This proves that somehow the number 800 was a ‘threshold’,” he said. “Perhaps it was the transport capacity of the VRS [Bosnian Serb Army], or a temporary accommodation capacity.”

During cross-examination, Karadzic asked the witness whether his task was “to support the prosecution”. The witness answered in the affirmative, but rejected the assertion that this meant he was biased.

Karadzic suggested that the witness simply accepted data from reports by international experts without “checking what was being written and who was writing them”.

The witness replied that he had acquired sufficient evidence from many different and objective researchers to be able to draw valid conclusions, without having to look into “points of research made by individuals”.

Janc said he was “ready to discuss concrete measures or mistakes if the defendant wished to ask any questions”.

Karadzic said he would not be doing so, due to lack of time.

He went on to put it to the witness that “victims also came from different time periods, months or maybe years before”.

Janc replied that there was a “complex set of criteria used to connect them to the events in July 1995, including the way of death, the locations, or the objects found with the victims in the mass graves”.

“There was only one mass grave, at Biljeceva, in which the remains of the Srebrenica victims were mixed up with older remains,” he added.

Karadzic continued the same line of questioning, referring to Baljkovice – an area the witness mentioned in his report. He argued that this was the scene of intense combat between Bosnian Serb forces and the Bosnian government army, as a result of which “a very large number – hundreds – of Muslim soldiers were killed”.

The bodies of these combat victims, Karadzic said, were “properly picked up during the clearing up of the terrain, buried in mass graves”, and therefore could not be regarded as victims of the July 1995 events in Srebrenica. “In fact, the clearing up was properly ordered on July 20, 1995,” he added.

The witness answered that experts had not found “any mass grave with hundreds of bodies in that area”.

“While a few mass graves were found in that area, [there were] small ones which obviously did have a few fighting-related remains [but] none of these were included in my report,” Janc explained, adding the caveat that “there may be further mass graves which were as yet unfound” and that “any effort on supporting the discovery of additional mass graves would be welcome”.

“Regarding the clearing up, I wish to repeat that the evidence we have – aerial photography, but also testimonies from different involved people – confirm the contrary; that there was no clearing up of the terrain, but that the mass graves were rather hastily and unsystematically dug,” he concluded.

The trial continues next week.

30 March 2012

http://iwpr.net/report-news/witness-details-srebrenica-mass-graves-study

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Thirteen dead in new Honduras prison fire

Tegucigalpa. At least 13 people were killed Thursday in a fire at a prison in Honduras, officials said -- less than two months after a deadly prison blaze killed more than 350, AFP informs.

"There are 13 bodies. We have not yet been able to identify the circumstances of the incident" at the San Pedro Sula prison in the north of the country, said Marleny Vanegas of the city prosecutor's office.

"We will have to await the results of the investigation."
Earlier, police spokesman Walter Amaya had put the death toll at one. Officials said the fire was rapidly brought under control.

Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla said the fire at the facility -- which was built for 800 inmates but which currently has 2,250 -- had "once again highlighted the critical situation" in the country's prisons.

A horrific fire erupted on February 14 at a prison in Comayagua, some 90 kilometers (55 miles) north of the capital Tegucigalpa.

The incident, in which 361 people were killed, was one of the world's deadliest prison blazes, and highlighted the problem of overcrowding in Latin American jails.

Agents from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) concluded that the fire was accidental, but the US ambassador to Honduras also said official negligence was to blame, due to overcrowding at the facility.

Fri 30 March 2012

http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n274485

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Documents show debate over handling of 9/11 remains

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cremated remains that may have included those of victims of the September 11 attacks were incinerated and sent to a landfill despite an internal debate in which some officials at the main U.S. military mortuary recommended the ashes be dispersed at sea.

Documents released on Friday show that nearly one year after the September 11, 2001 attacks, military and civilian personnel responsible for the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware engaged in an lengthy e-mail exchange over what to do with 1,321 portions of remains.

The fragmentary remains, which were categorized as "Group F," were unidentified and could not be linked to any specific victim of the September 11 attack on the Pentagon.

They were mixed in with debris from the building and airplane, and could have included remains of the hijackers as well, an official said on Friday, adding that it was not even certain they were human.

"They could have been anything biological. So there may have been human, but it could have been something from someone's lunch, anything that would be of a biological nature," said Jo Ann Rooney, acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.

Navy Captain Craig Mallak, the Dover medical examiner, said the mortuary encourages workers at the scene of a mass disaster to collect anything they think might be a sample that would help to identify a victim. He said thousands of unidentified samples sometimes remain at the end of an investigation.

The Pentagon released about 2,000 pages of documents on Friday that were gathered as part of an investigation into allegations that the Dover mortuary mishandled the remains of war dead. That investigation revealed that some remains from September 11 had been incinerated and sent to a landfill.

The discovery raised concerns among the families of the September 11 victims. Rooney said she had met with representatives of the families on Friday to assure them the bodies of their loved ones had been treated with dignity and respect.

But an e-mail among the released documents showed that many officers who debated how to dispose of the Group F remains believed they should have been treated as if they belonged to the victims of the September 11 attack.

One military officer suggested that once remains were cremated, the ashes should be dispersed at sea. His name, like all others in the e-mail exchange, were redacted.

Another officer agreed and suggested, "it may be appropriate for us to witness and perhaps even have a chaplain present."

"I do like the idea of spreading the ashes at sea in that it's a neutral arena, it should represent an area readily agreeable to all parties," a colonel added.

But another, evidently senior, official objected, saying the remains being disposed of were considered "medical waste" and the contractor responsible for the cremation "should not return any medical waste back to the military service."

"Powder and ashes from the incineration of the material and the containers that were used for the burning is to be disposed of as normal waste," the official wrote.

"We shouldn't attempt to spread the residue at sea, as it could possible (sic) send a message to the next of kins (sic) that we are disposing human remains, and that is not the case," the official wrote. "Please have the contractor responsible for the incineration 'immediately' dispose of all residual materials."

A colonel agreed to do as directed, saying he assumed headquarters had been consulted, but he noted: "My point, as you are aware, is that Group F is not your normal set of medical waste."

The official replied "understand Group F was special," but added that the decision had been coordinated with other senior officials responsible for the mortuary.

The colonel then agreed to do as directed and forwarded the e-mail to another colonel, saying: "Dispose of Group F as stated and keep this email as proof of our coordination."

The practice of incinerating partial remains as "medical waste" and disposing of them in a landfill was discontinued in 2008. They are now buried at sea.

Fri Mar 30, 2012

http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCABRE82T1EX20120330?pageNumber=3&virtualBrandChannel=0

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Seven soldiers die in Venezuela helicopter crash

CARACAS, VENEZUELA (BNO NEWS) — A military helicopter crashed Thursday morning during an operation against drug traffickers in southwest Venezuela, killing all seven crew members on board, officials at the country’s Ministry of Defense said.

The accident happened at around 5:15 a.m. local time when the Super Puma 2216 aircraft, belonging to the Venezuelan Air Force, went down in a field near Yagual in the country’s state of Apure near the border with Colombia, approximately 600 kilometers (372 miles) southwest of Caracas.

The press office of the Venezuelan Ministry of Defense confirmed all seven crew members were killed in the crash, which happened while the helicopter was taking part in a military operation against drug traffickers in the region. The cause of the accident was not immediately known.

The victims were identified as pilot Captain José Ramón Garrido Salcedo, co-pilot Lieutenant Carlos Eduardo Martínez Salvatierra, Major Joel Lamuño Rojas, Freddy Vásquez Carrasquero, Víctor Barrios López, José Yrumba Chávez and Alexis Montevideo Córdova.

A committee has been formed to investigate the circumstances of the accident. Both President Hugo Chávez and Defense Minister Henry Rangel Silva expressed their condolences after the accident. “Eternal life to those who gave their lives for their country,” Chávez said.

On January 19, five people were killed when a Bell Long Ranger 206 helicopter crashed on the Auyantepui Mountain peak in Canaima National Park in the state of Bolivar. The mountain is famous for Angel Falls, the world’s highest waterfall, which was discovered by U.S. pilot Jimmie Angel in the 1930s when his plane crashed on Auyantepui.

Fri 30 March 2012

http://earththreats.com/2012/03/seven-soldiers-die-in-venezuela-helicopter-crash/

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French, German victims of Italy shipwreck identified

Rome: The bodies of a young French couple and three German tourists on board the shipwrecked Costa Concordia cruise liner have been formally identified, local authorities said in a statement on Tuesday.

Officials also identified the bodies of a five-year-old Italian girl, Dayana, and her father Williams Arlotti. The corpses were recovered earlier and were among the 32 people believed to have died in the January 13 tragedy.

The families of the French couple, 25-year-old Michael Blemand and 23-year-old Mylene Litzler, have been in Italy for weeks awaiting news of their loved ones and visiting the scene of the disaster on Giglio Island.

In a last text message to their families sent the night of the disaster, Blemand and Litzler said they had put on their life jackets and were boarding a lifeboat.

Their relatives have said they cannot understand what happened and have voiced frustration with the lengthy process of identifying the bodies.

The three German victims were identified as Elisabeth Bauer, Brunhild Werp and Margrit Schroeter, according to a statement from the prefecture in Grosseto, the town closest to Giglio, where an investigation is under way.

Eight people are still officially reported as missing, including three Germans, an American couple, two Italians and an Indian crew member.

http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/french-german-victims-of-italy-shipwreck-identified_763649.html

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Two more bodies recovered from Costa Concordia cruise ship

(AGI) Florence- Two of the 5 bodies identified on March 22 have been recovered from the Costa Concordia cruise ship. The announcement pertaining to the recovered bodies of the victims came from the office of the appointed commissioner for the emergency arising from the wreck of the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia. Operations are being run by the scuba units of the National Firefighters' Corps, the Military Marines' Operational Divers Group and the Coast Guard and State Police's diving units.

13:39 26 MAR 2012

http://www.agi.it/english-version/italy/elenco-notizie/201203261339-cro-ren1043-two_more_bodies_recovered_from_costa_concordia_cruise_ship

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Two deaths reported after Tuesday’s earthquake in Mexico

ACAPULCO, Mexico (BNO NEWS) — Two deaths were reported on Friday after a powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck southwestern Mexico on Tuesday, damaging tens of thousands of houses.

The first victim, identified as Ernesto Bernal Ruiz, died after being crushed by a falling wall in the small community of El Tamale in Guerrero state. In a separate incident, 90-year-old Juan Chute Bruno from San Nicolas, also in Guerrero, died of a heart attack caused by the earthquake.

In addition to the fatalities and 11 people who were previously reported injured, at least 15,000 people have lost their homes in the state of Oaxaca, where damages caused by the earthquake are estimated to succeed 90 million pesos ($7 million). In Guerrero, Governor Ángel Aguirre Rivero requested assistance to provide 10,000 residential homes for those affected, as well as 20,100 reconstruction packages for damaged homes.

According to the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) preliminary earthquake report, the epicenter of the quake, which had a depth of 17 kilometers (10.5 miles), was in the state of Guerrero, around 186 kilometers (115 miles) east of the popular port city of Acapulco and about 25 kilometers (16 miles) east of Ometepec, both in the same state.

The strong earthquake was felt up to Mexico’s central region, causing numerous buildings in Mexico City to be evacuated.

On Thursday, a 5.4-magnitude aftershock shook Mexico City residents again, causing the evacuation of several office and residential buildings in the city’s business district on Reforma Avenue and Insurgentes Avenue.

On September 20, 1985, one of the most devastating earthquakes struck the coastal area of Michoacan, although most of the damage was seen in Mexico City. Initial government reports indicated that some 6,000 to 7,000 people died, although further investigations revealed that approximately 10,000 people died.

Fri 23 March 2012

http://earththreats.com/2012/03/two-deaths-reported-after-tuesdays-earthquake-in-mexico/

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Japanese boat washed away in tsunami spotted more than a year later

(CNN) -- A fishing trawler swept away more than a year ago by a tsunami off the east coast of Japan has been spotted floating near British Columbia, Canadian officials said Friday.

"It looks fairly sound and has rust streak from being out there for a year," said Marc Proulx, the maritime coordinator of the Joint Rescue Coordination Center in Victoria, British Columbia.
The trawler is part of a giant debris field that was generated by the giant wall of water that struck the east coast of the island nation following a 9.0 earthquake, sweeping everything from cars to houses into the ocean.

The fishing vessel is about 120 miles off the Queen Charlotte Islands, commonly referred to as the Haida Gwaii. The islands are an archipelago on the north coast of the British Columbia.
It was first spotted by a Canadian military air patrol, and it has since been determined that it has been adrift without anybody at the helm since March 11, 2011, Proulx said.

The Japan Coast Guard identified the owner of the vessel after being contacted Friday by Canadian officials, who were able to provide the identification number on the hull of the ship. The vessel, which was used for squid fishing, was moored at Hachinohe in the Aomori prefecture when the tsunami hit, said Toshiro Yoshinaga, a Coast Guard official.

The trawler is considered a navigation obstruction for vessels in the area, according to Canada's Department of National Defense.

Canadian agencies are monitoring the ship for possible marine pollution, though there are no reports of leaks from the vessel, the defense department said.

Sat 24 March 2012

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/23/world/americas/canada-trawler-adrift/index.html

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Poland exhumes some 2010 plane crash victims

WARSAW, Poland — One autopsy report describes organs that had been removed years before. Another adds 20 centimeters (nearly 8 inches) to a short man, making no mention of bones disfigured by childhood polio. One family doubts whether an autopsy was performed at all.

Polish investigators have exhumed the remains of three of the 96 Poles killed in the 2010 plane crash in Russia that killed President Lech Kaczynski due to flaws in the initial autopsies performed by Russian officials.

The need for the new autopsies has added to suspicions held by some Poles that the Russians were, at best, sloppy in their handling of the crash aftermath, and, at worst, trying to cover something up. Russian authorities say any inaccuracies result from the fragmented state of the bodies after the crash.

Two of the 96 bodies were exhumed this week in Poland, following a first such exhumation August. Victims' families and officials say other victims also have reports riddled with mistakes, and prosecutors say more exhumations are possible.

"There were discrepancies. Evidence gathered in Poland differed from information in the Russian documentation," said Col. Zbigniew Rzepa, spokesman for the chief military prosecutor's office. "We had to carry out the exhumations to clarify all the doubts."

Surviving relatives of the three have been enraged by the faulty autopsy reports, which have added to their private grief. Many also fault the Polish government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk for not being firmer with Russia in demanding greater transparency. This comes amid a sense of indignation that key evidence in the crash - black boxes, the plane wreckage and the late Polish president's satellite phone - remain in Russian hands.

At one extreme, the flawed autopsies and the sense that Russians are not being fully transparent have encouraged Polish conspiracy theories claiming Russian leaders might have played a role in the downing of Kaczynski's plane, which crashed in fog after clipping a tree at an airport near Smolensk, Russia, on April 10, 2010.

An official Polish report blamed the fog, pilot error and poor guidance from Russian air traffic controllers.

But Antoni Macierewicz, a conservative lawmaker who heads a parliamentary commission trying to clarify the reasons for the crash, said Friday that he doesn't believe the official Polish explanation and that other theories need to be explored.

Suspicions center on the fact the plane, a Tupolev-154, was Russian built. Some Poles don't believe that the plane could have crashed just by clipping a tree, and find it strange that there were no survivors when it was already so close to the ground when it crashed.

"A lack of openness creates conspiracy theories," said Michael Baden, an American forensic pathologist who has advised some of the victims' families. "You can't investigate a major catastrophe in secret."

Andrei Kovalyov, the head of the Russian Center for Forensic Expertise, which conducted the autopsies, said genetic research and inspections of the bodies were performed to international standard.

"Any discrepancies, if they exist, are likely rooted not in badly performed autopsies but the fact that the bodies were fragmented," Kovalyov said. "When remains of the numerous victims get mixed up inside the cabin there can be problems regarding the attribution of body parts."

Many Poles easily accept the Russian explanation and see no need for the exhumations, feeling that it doesn't change the larger picture of the tragedy.

Tusk, the prime minister, said it's hard to expect perfect reports given "what state the bodies were in after the crash."

The first victim to be exhumed, the late conservative lawmaker Zbigniew Wassermann, had an autopsy report that was largely incorrect, and described organs that had been surgically removed years before, Macierewicz said.

For instance, the 60-year-old had only a part of his liver left, but his report described it as being the entire healthy liver of a young man, Macierewicz said.

"The document from the Russian autopsy was taken out of the blue," said Wassermann's daughter, Malgorzata Wassermann. "It disagreed with the facts: It described things that did not exist and did not describe things that were there."

His new autopsy, carried out in August, corrected the record but did not change the larger conclusions about the cause of his death, said Col. Ireneusz Szelag, a spokesman for prosecutors.

Another lawmaker, Przemyslaw Gosiewski, was exhumed on Monday. The Russian autopsy report described him as 1.8 meters tall (5 foot 9), when in fact he was 20 centimeters (nearly 8 inches) shorter, according to the law firm representing the family.

The report also failed to mention bone defects resulting from childhood polio.

"Glaring irregularities in the documentation mean there can't be certainty if an autopsy was even carried out," said Rafal Rogalski, the Gosiewski family lawyer.

In the case of the third exhumation, family members of Janusz Kurtyka, the head of a state historical institute, doubt that an autopsy was performed because they saw no marks on his body indicating a post-mortem, Szelag said.

Andrzej Melak, the brother of another victim, Stefan Melak, told the parliamentary commission Friday that the Russian documentation was 25 centimeters off in describing his brother's height.

Melak said he felt at a loss, and criticized the Polish government for not demanding more from Russia. "I don't know what to do," he said. "Our government doesn't care about Polish citizens."

Families are also angry because the new autopsies have been perfomed by state experts and they are not allowed to do their own.

Lech Kaczynski was a deeply patriotic leader who was skeptical of Russia, a historic foe that invaded Poland's eastern half during World War II and controlled the country during the Cold War. Most of the people traveling with him were political allies who shared his views, so it's no surprise their families would voice distrust in Russia after the crash.

The presidential delegation was traveling to honor 22,000 Polish officers murdered by Josef Stalin's secret police at the start of World War II in the Katyn forest and other locations. That symbolism only added to the national grief and to the suspicions.

Friday, March 23, 2012 - Tacoma, WA

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/03/23/2078704/poland-exhumes-some-2010-plane.html#storylink=cpy

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