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Posted by Stephen Cook on May 3, 2014

An aerial image showing the sheer size of the mountain above Ab Barak that collapsed

By Mirwais Harooni and Jeremy Laurence, Reuters - May 3, 2014 – http://tinyurl.com/kg6vp3t

(Reuters) – Afghan officials gave up hope on Saturday of finding any survivors from a landslide in the remote northeast, putting the death toll at more than 2,100, as the aid effort focused on the more than 4,000 people displaced.

Officials expressed concern the unstable hillside above the site of the disaster may cave in again, threatening the thousands of homeless and hundreds of rescue workers who have arrived in Badakhshan province, bordering Tajikistan.

“More than 2,100 people from 300 families are all dead,” Naweed Forotan, a spokesman for the Badakhshan provincial governor, told Reuters.

Afghan villagers gather at the site of a landslide at the Argo district in Badakhshan province, May 2, 2014.
Credit: REUTERS/Stringer

Villagers and a few dozen police, equipped with only basic digging tools, resumed their search when daylight broke but it soon became clear there was no hope of finding survivors buried in up to 100 meters of mud.

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan said the focus was on the more than 4,000 people displaced, either directly as a result of Friday’s landslide or as a precautionary measure from villages assessed to be at risk.

Their main needs were water, medical support, counseling support, food and emergency shelter, said Ari Gaitanis, a spokesman from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

The impoverished area, dotted with villages of mud-brick homes nestled in valleys beside bare slopes, has been hit by several landslides in recent years.

The side of the mountain above Ab Barak collapsed at around 11 a.m. (0630 GMT) on Friday as people were trying to recover belongings and livestock after a smaller landslip hit a few hours earlier

Hundreds of homes were destroyed in the landslides that were triggered by torrential rain. Officials worry another section of the mountainside could collapse.

The Afghan military flew rescue teams to the area on Saturday, as the remote mountain region is served by only narrow, poor roads which have themselves been damaged by more than a week of heavy rain.

“We have managed to get one excavator into the area, but digging looks helpless,” Colonel Abdul Qadeer Sayad, a deputy police chief of Badakhshan, told Reuters.

He said the sheer size of the area affected, and the depth of the mud, meant that only modern machinery could help.

NATO-led coalition troops are on standby to assist but on Saturday said the Afghan government had not asked for help.

Hundreds of people camped out overnight in near freezing conditions, although some were given tents. Officials distributed food and water.

At least 100 people were being treated for injuries, most of them by medics who set up facilities in a stable building.

Seasonal rains and spring snow melt have caused heavy destruction across large swathes of northern Afghanistan, killing more than 100 people.

U.S. President Barack Obama said American forces were on standby to help.

“Just as the United States has stood with the people of Afghanistan through a difficult decade, we stand ready to help our Afghan partners as they respond to this disaster, for even as our war there comes to an end this year, our commitment to Afghanistan and its people will endure,” he said.

About 30,000 U.S. soldiers remain in Afghanistan, although that number is falling as Washington prepares to withdraw by the end of this year all combat troops who battled Taliban insurgents.

Police said they had provided a security ring around the area, which has been relatively free of insurgent attacks. The Taliban said in a statement they were also willing to provide security.

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/3/2014 6:04:02 PM
	Lavrov presses Kerry to help stop Ukraine assault: Moscow 2 hours ago Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pictured in Moscow on April 8, 2014, during a meeting with his visiting Angolan counterpart Georges Rebelo Pinto Chikoti (AFP Photo/Alexander Nemenov) Moscow (AFP) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday asked his US counterpart John Kerry to press Ukraine to halt its military operation in the east of the ex-Soviet country, his ministry said. "The minister called on the United States to use all of its influence to force the Kiev regime, which it looks out after and which has declared a war against its own people, to immediately halt military operations in the southeast, pull back its troops and free protesters," the foreign ministry said. And Lavrov, who also spoke with his Swiss counterpart and current OSCE chairman Didier Burkhalter, pushed for a greater OSCE role in mediating the crisis in Ukraine, the ministry said. "Sergei Lavrov strongly called for the use of the OSCE potential to influence Kiev with a view to cancelling a military operation against the population of Ukraine's southeastern regions," the ministry said in another statement. "Lavrov stressed that a reprisal operation in the southeast of Ukraine is pushing the country towards a fratricidal conflict," the ministry said after the top diplomat's talks with Kerry. President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier on Saturday that Russia could not resolve the crisis alone and noted that it no longer had influence over rebels in the restive east.
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/3/2014 6:10:06 PM
	Pope's panel meets Pope sex abuse panel highlights accountability By NICOLE WINFIELD2 hours ago VATICAN CITY (AP) — Members of Pope Francis' sexual abuse advisory board said Saturday they will develop "clear and effective" protocols to hold bishops and other church authorities accountable if they fail to report suspected abuse or protect children from pedophile priests. Related Stories John Paul's legacy stained by sex abuse scandalAssociated Press John Paul biographer, aide defend sex abuse record Associated Press John Paul II sainthood a delicate issue for Mexicans AFP John Paul II sainthood stirs Latin AmericansAssociated Press Historic canonization of two popes brings joy and controversy Reuters Victims groups have long blasted the Vatican for refusing to sanction any bishop or superior who covered up for priests who raped and molested children. They have listed accountability as one of the core issues facing Francis and a key test for his new advisory board. Francis announced the creation of the commission last December and named its members in March after coming under initial criticism for having ignored the sex abuse issue. The commission's eight members — four of whom are women — met for the first time this week at the pope's Vatican hotel to discuss the scope of their work and future members. Briefing reporters Saturday, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, the archbishop of Boston, said current church laws could hold bishops accountable if they failed to protect children. But he said those laws hadn't been sufficient to date and that new protocols were needed. "Obviously our concern is to make sure that there are clear and effective protocols to deal with the situations where superiors of the church have not fulfilled their obligations to protect children," O'Malley said. Victims groups have long cited the case of O'Malley's predecessor in Boston, Cardinal Bernard Law, who resigned in disgrace as archbishop after the sex abuse scandal exploded publicly there in 2002 and Law was shown to have covered up for notorious child rapists. But Pope John Paul II then appointed Law to the plum assignment as archpriest of one of the Vatican's four major basilicas in Rome. Even today, another U.S. bishop remains in office despite having been convicted of misdemeanor failure to report suspected child abuse. Marie Collins, a committee member and Irish survivor of sexual abuse, said she came away from the inaugural meeting of the commission "hopeful," primarily because the issue of accountability was addressed straight on. "I know there are many survivors around the world who are hoping, and have great expectations of this commission," Collins said. "And what I can say so far is you can't make concrete promises. But as a survivor myself, I am hopeful that we are going to achieve what is hoped for." That said, much remains to be done. The commission still has no founding statutes. Its independence within the Vatican bureaucracy is unclear. Neither a new date for a future meeting nor a timeline for drafting the protocols were set. And commission members hail mostly from the industrialized world, whereas comprehensive church abuse policies lag largely in the developing world. O'Malley said he hoped to broaden the membership to reflect the universal church, specifically because so much of what the commission must do is educate church officials about the problem in places where the scandal hasn't yet exploded. "There is so much ignorance around this topic, so much denial," O'Malley said. He said the commission might also offer advice to national bishops' conferences to improve their own guidelines for handling abuse cases. Recently, the Italian bishops' conference released their guidelines and said they had no legal obligation to report suspected abuse to police. O'Malley said the church's response shouldn't depend on legal obligations, but rather "moral obligations" to report suspected abuse. The commission met on the eve of a U.N. committee meeting in Geneva in which the Vatican is expected to come under a second round of criticism for its handling of abuse. A U.N. committee monitoring implementation of a key treaty on children's rights blasted the Holy See earlier this year, accusing it of systematically placing its own interests over those of victims by enabling priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children through its own policies and code of silence. ___ Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield Pope's sex abuse panel meets Members of the pontiff's council will develop "clear and effective" protocols to hold church officials accountable. 'Open process'
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/3/2014 6:30:19 PM
	Death toll probably a lot higher according to this source More Than 2,100 Confirmed Dead in Afghan Landslide Posted by Stephen Cook on May 3, 2014 An aerial image showing the sheer size of the mountain above Ab Barak that collapsed By Mirwais Harooni and Jeremy Laurence, Reuters - May 3, 2014 – http://tinyurl.com/kg6vp3t (Reuters) – Afghan officials gave up hope on Saturday of finding any survivors from a landslide in the remote northeast, putting the death toll at more than 2,100, as the aid effort focused on the more than 4,000 people displaced. Officials expressed concern the unstable hillside above the site of the disaster may cave in again, threatening the thousands of homeless and hundreds of rescue workers who have arrived in Badakhshan province, bordering Tajikistan. “More than 2,100 people from 300 families are all dead,” Naweed Forotan, a spokesman for the Badakhshan provincial governor, told Reuters. Afghan villagers gather at the site of a landslide at the Argo district in Badakhshan province, May 2, 2014. Credit: REUTERS/Stringer Villagers and a few dozen police, equipped with only basic digging tools, resumed their search when daylight broke but it soon became clear there was no hope of finding survivors buried in up to 100 meters of mud. The United Nations mission in Afghanistan said the focus was on the more than 4,000 people displaced, either directly as a result of Friday’s landslide or as a precautionary measure from villages assessed to be at risk. Their main needs were water, medical support, counseling support, food and emergency shelter, said Ari Gaitanis, a spokesman from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. The impoverished area, dotted with villages of mud-brick homes nestled in valleys beside bare slopes, has been hit by several landslides in recent years. The side of the mountain above Ab Barak collapsed at around 11 a.m. (0630 GMT) on Friday as people were trying to recover belongings and livestock after a smaller landslip hit a few hours earlier Hundreds of homes were destroyed in the landslides that were triggered by torrential rain. Officials worry another section of the mountainside could collapse. The Afghan military flew rescue teams to the area on Saturday, as the remote mountain region is served by only narrow, poor roads which have themselves been damaged by more than a week of heavy rain. “We have managed to get one excavator into the area, but digging looks helpless,” Colonel Abdul Qadeer Sayad, a deputy police chief of Badakhshan, told Reuters. He said the sheer size of the area affected, and the depth of the mud, meant that only modern machinery could help. NATO-led coalition troops are on standby to assist but on Saturday said the Afghan government had not asked for help. Hundreds of people camped out overnight in near freezing conditions, although some were given tents. Officials distributed food and water. At least 100 people were being treated for injuries, most of them by medics who set up facilities in a stable building. Seasonal rains and spring snow melt have caused heavy destruction across large swathes of northern Afghanistan, killing more than 100 people. U.S. President Barack Obama said American forces were on standby to help. “Just as the United States has stood with the people of Afghanistan through a difficult decade, we stand ready to help our Afghan partners as they respond to this disaster, for even as our war there comes to an end this year, our commitment to Afghanistan and its people will endure,” he said. About 30,000 U.S. soldiers remain in Afghanistan, although that number is falling as Washington prepares to withdraw by the end of this year all combat troops who battled Taliban insurgents. Police said they had provided a security ring around the area, which has been relatively free of insurgent attacks. The Taliban said in a statement they were also willing to provide security.
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/4/2014 10:28:22 AM
	Blood and gunfire in Ukraine army attack on rebel checkpoint By Max Delany16 hours ago Heavy firing was reported in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, as rebels in the nearby separatists stronghold of Slavaiansk brace for incoming troops. Mana Rabiee reports. Watch video Near Slavyansk (Ukraine) (AFP) - Blood flowing from a bullet wound, the grey-haired man lies in the middle of the roadblock waving weakly for help as shots ring out nearby and thick black smoke from burning tyres curls into the sky. "I've called an ambulance. They have to come, they have to come," a man screams, ducking for cover behind a concrete breezeblock. A hundred metres (yards) away, a column of Ukrainian army armoured vehicles opens fire again. The sound of their mounted machine guns and the soldiers' automatic rifles echoes as they move in on one of the remaining pro-Russian rebel checkpoints just south of the rebel bastion of Slavyansk. From nearby trees, separatist gunmen shoot back with the clack-clack-clack of sporadic automatic gunfire. They are retreating, as they realise they are no match for the larger Ukrainian force. - 'Who's shooting?' - View gallery Ukrainian soldiers take position at a checkpoint near the southern city of Slavyansk on May 3, 2014 … Not very far away, on the outskirts of the town of Kramatorsk -- the last town to the south of Slavyansk on the road from the regional capital Donetsk -- the rebels are in control. A handful of masked men crouch behind a van with rifles as a small pile of tyres burn in the road. Other militants gather Molotov cocktails by the side of the road while onlookers warily peer in the distance at the smoking checkpoint. "What's going on? Who's shooting -- us or them?" asks one man hiding in a bus stop and clutching a beer. By "them" he means the soldiers. After about half an hour the sound of firing subsides. Two ambulances drive at speed through Kramatorsk with their sirens wailing. View gallery Pro-Russian activists stand guard at a checkpoint at a railway crossing in Andreevskoe village, near … The Ukrainian soldiers have taken control of the checkpoint. It's a small victory for the military on the second day of an operation against the rebels in Slavyansk. But it's short-lived. Less than two hours later, the Ukrainian soldiers who had fought so hard to take the checkpoint abandon it. It's not clear why. Angry local residents wander around the smouldering wreckage. A few cars nervously pass through, past two empty petrol tankers the rebels had been using as barriers. The ends of the tankers are shorn off, apparently by heavy weapon fire or from an explosion. "They drove off through the fields," pensioner Fyodor Mordiltsev said. "The authorities in Kiev don't care about their people. They have sold out to the White House". View Gallery
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/4/2014 11:04:25 AM
	Ukraine Presses Assault on Rebels With Warning of ‘War’ By Kateryna Choursina, Henry Meyer and Ilya Arkhipov15 hours ago Source: New York Times Watch video Ukrainian forces pressed an assault on separatists today as the head of the country's anti-terror agency said the easternmost regions are "essentially" at war, even as captured international monitors were released. The Ukrainian government's operation in the Donetsk region left five dead and 12 wounded, said Vasyl Krutov, the anti-terrorist center's chief. Government forces secured Slovyansk as operations in Kramatorsk continued, he said. Another 42 people were killed and 125 injured in a building fire and street battle in Odessa that began last night, when pro-Russians attacked marching football fans and a pro-Ukrainian rally. More from Bloomberg.com: McConnell's Nuclear Blunder Haunts Republicans "What is happening in the east is not a short-term action," Krutov said today. "This is essentially a war." Open clashes are sweeping Ukraine's east and south, from Donetsk near the Russian border to Odessa, about 100 miles from the European Union's southeastern frontier in Romania, amid signs the industrial and coastal regions are slipping out of the Kiev government's control. The U.S. and the European Union accuse Russia of fomenting the unrest, while Russian President Vladimir Putin is "extremely concerned" and is studying the situation, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov, said today. More from Bloomberg.com: Hiring in U.S. Kicks Into Higher Gear as Unemployment Plunges to 6.3% Kremlin Calls Peskov said Kremlin officials are getting "thousands of calls" from Ukraine seeking help. Putin has yet to decide how to respond to the escalating conflict, he said. "People are calling in despair," he said in a phone conference with reporters today. "They are asking for help. The vast majority are asking for help from Russia." More from Bloomberg.com: Miami's Poor Live on $11 a Day as Boom Widens Wealth Gap In a day of continued violence, in which the airport at Kramatorsk was wrested back from pro-Russian separatists, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe observers were freed in Slovyansk near Donetsk and were being delivered to the Council of Europe, the council said today in a statement. "We, Ukrainians, are now constantly pushed into confrontation, into civil conflicts and to ruination of the country from inside," said acting President Oleksandr Turchynov on his website today. "We cannot allow this to happen and have to be united in our fight with a foreign enemy who wants to destroy Ukraine." Clashes continued in the country's easternmost region. Eight armed men with guns attacked a national guard patrol last night in Donetsk seeking to gain intelligence about the unit, the number of people and weapons, the Interior Ministry reported on its website. Buildings Seized About 200 pro-Russian protesters, armed with batons and waving Russian flags, stormed and seized the security service's vacant regional headquarters in Donetsk, according to Interfax. In nearby Luhansk, separatists attacked a military recruitment office, taking hostages, Interfax reported. A group of armed activists took over a police building in Horlivka, according to Ukrainska Pravda. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk today urged the security service to act more quickly to free three special-forces soldiers captured in Horlivka earlier. In Crimea, now under control of Russia, the head of the ethnic Crimean Tatar assembly was denied entrance to his homeland, according to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, which called the ban "oppression." A pro-unity rally in Kharkiv set for tomorrow was canceled after the violence in Odessa, organizers said on Facebook. Kerry Warning U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said today that he spoke to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov by phone to tell him Russia must stop supporting separatists in Ukraine. "It's important for Russia to withdraw support from the separatists and to assist in removing people from the buildings and begin to deescalate the situation," Kerry said in remarks to the press in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. In his own website statement following the conversation, Lavrov said he warned Kerry about a "fratricidal conflict" brewing in Ukraine. He also urged the U.S. to get Ukraine to stop the offensive in the eastern regions. The yield on Ukrainian government debt rose 25 basis points yesterday to a six-week high of 10.90 percent, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Russian bonds fell, with the yield on ruble-denominated government debt due February 2027 jumping 20 basis points to a seven-week high of 9.67 percent. The ruble slid 0.3 percent against the central bank's target dollar-euro basket. ‘Losing Hope' The U.S. and the EU accuse Russia of stirring unrest to undermine Ukraine's May 25 presidential election. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at a briefing today in Jezioro, Poland, that officials are "losing hope" about a diplomatic solution to end the crisis. "This is a war of maybe a different kind, it is a war that's undeclared," Tusk was quoted as saying by PAP newswire at a media briefing. "But what we're really dealing with is de-facto a war. You can clearly see that actions taken by the international community haven't brought results." The violence comes after an April peace accord among Ukraine, Russia, the U.S. and the EU. Though all sides have said that the agreement has been battered by violations, the release of OSCE observers indicates that cooperation can be achieved, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said. "Freeing the OSCE observers is an example that all sides can adhere to the Geneva accord," the ministry said in a statement. "Ukraine's Foreign Ministry is calling for the continuation of all necessary efforts to implement the Geneva accord." Odessa Violence U.S. intelligence officials have warned for at least a month of a possible Russian-orchestrated campaign in Odessa similar to those in Crimea and in Ukraine's easternmost, largely Russian-speaking regions. Not only does the port city have economic and military significance, it sits between Crimea and pro-Russian areas in eastern Ukraine and the breakaway Transnistria region of neighboring Moldova. Russian citizens took part in provocation before the bloodshed in Odessa, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website. Their aim was to destabilize the region, the ministry said, citing information from detained Russian citizens. Turmoil erupted yesterday in Odessa, where 160 people were detained by police, according to the Interior Ministry. The nearby city of Nikolaev hosts much of the country's defense and shipbuilding industry, as well as Zorya-Mashproekt, a state enterprise that manufactures gas turbines for OAO Gazprom (GAZP), the Russian natural gas producer and exporter. ‘Work Together In an e-mailed statement, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the U.S. mourned the loss of those killed in Odessa and called on "all sides to work together to restore calm and law and order." The crisis erupted after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted following months of protests against his decision to spurn an EU association accord for closer ties to Russia in a $15 billion deal. Russia now has 40,000 troops massed on its neighbor's border, according to NATO. The assault in Slovyansk marked the biggest operation yet by the Ukrainian government to retake ground from as many as 1,000 armed gunmen who've seized buildings in more than 10 towns and taken several dozen captives. Some anti-Kiev protesters are demanding a referendum on joining Russia akin to the ballot that led to Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in March. Obama, Merkel U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday set the May 25 presidential election as the trigger for possible economic sanctions against Russia if it fails to pull back its support for separatists. "We have a range of tools at our disposal" to hit various Russian industries with sanctions, Obama told reporters at a joint news conference with Merkel at the White House. If Russia doesn't change course, "it will face increasing costs," both economic and diplomatic, he said. Penalties imposed by the U.S. and European Union have so far targeted officials, individuals and companies tied to Putin's inner circle. The next step would be action against sectors of the Russian economy, including banking and energy. Those penalties would have consequences mostly for European countries, which have more extensive economic ties with Russia than the U.S. does. ‘Professional Saboteurs' Ukraine's Defense Ministry said the use of advanced weapons showed the separatists were "professional saboteur groups" rather than peaceful protesters. In a statement, it called their tactics "characteristic of foreign military or mercenaries." At their news conference in Washington, Obama and Merkel said Russia must pull back support for the separatists so Ukraine's May 25 presidential election can go ahead unimpeded. If the vote can't be held, "we will not have a choice but to move forward" with more sanctions, Obama said. Merkel called the election "crucial" and said she's ready to support economic sanctions if needed. Obama is seeking to coordinate a united U.S.-EU response to Russia's actions in Ukraine. Merkel has a pivotal role. Germany is Europe's largest economy and had 91.7 billion euros ($127 billion) in trade with Russia in 2013, according to the International Monetary Fund, making Germany is Russia's second-biggest trading partner. Putin has threatened to escalate economic warfare if further sanctions are imposed. "When we will reach a particular tipping point is very hard to say in advance," Merkel said. "But all I can say is that the elections on May 25 are a decisive juncture for me and if there is further destabilization, things will get more and more difficult." To contact the reporters on this story: Kateryna Choursina in Kiev at kchoursina@bloomberg.net; Henry Meyer in Moscow at hmeyer4@bloomberg.net; Ilya Arkhipov in Moscow at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: James M. Gomez at jagomez@bloomberg.net; Balazs Penz atbpenz@bloomberg.net Balazs Penz, Bernard Kohn
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Lavrov presses Kerry to help stop Ukraine assault: Moscow

Pope sex abuse panel highlights accountability

More Than 2,100 Confirmed Dead in Afghan Landslide

Blood and gunfire in Ukraine army attack on rebel checkpoint

Ukraine Presses Assault on Rebels With Warning of ‘War’