Taiwan,massive mudslide and floods ....[ 323 ]

BBC - Friday, 14 August 2009 12:54 UK

Taiwan mudslide death toll rises

Advertisement More troops are being drafted in to help the rescue effort Taiwan's president says the number of people killed in mudslides and floods caused by a typhoon could exceed 500, almost 400 of them in a single village. Hsiaolin was hit by a massive mudslide that covered all but two houses - and officials say they have given up hope of finding any of those missing alive. The official death toll has already climbed to 118 but is set to go higher. The military hopes on Friday to airlift out the nearly 2,000 people who remain stranded in the surrounding area. Last weekend's typhoon caused Taiwan's worst flooding for 50 years. In central and southern Taiwan, roads have been washed out, bridges swept away and low-rise buildings sent crashing into rivers. Many mountain villages can only be accessed by air now. AT THE SCENE Cindy Sui BBC News, Hsiaolin Having seen Hsiaolin with my own eyes, I finally understand the magnitude of what happened. It looks like a river bed with nothing on it - the houses are all gone and a 17m bridge that was there can't be seen any more. Nearly 400 people are buried under a 20-30m deep avalanche of mud. The authorities don't know where to begin - if they start digging through the mud, it's not stable ground so it could cost lives. The mud is so deep that even if the rescue crews had been here in time, they wouldn't have been able to dig through. Hundreds had been feared dead in the wake of Typhoon Morakot, but the government had not previously given an estimated total figure for those killed. Speaking at a national security meeting on Friday, President Ma Ying-jeou said that with the deaths already confirmed "and some 380 people feared buried by mudslides in Hsiaolin village, Taiwan's death toll could rise to more than 500". Over the past few days, thousands of people have been airlifted to safety from the settlements cut off by the mudslides and flooding, some 2,000 on Thursday alone. The BBC's Cindy Sui, in Kaohsiung county, says the authorities are confident they can bring out the remaining 1,900 people thought to be stranded in the area on Friday. The military has enough helicopters now, she says, and the weather has improved. Troops are being sent on foot into some steep valleys that are hard to search from the air, she adds. Many of the worst-affected villages are inhabited by aborigines, who farm the mountainous terrain. Thousands more people are believed to be stranded in remote settlements elsewhere in southern and central Taiwan. Help on way? Taiwan's government says it has received offers of help from the international community, including the European Union and the US. See map of affected area But it has stressed the need for very specific technical assistance - namely giant cargo helicopters that can carry large earth diggers and other machinery into remote mountain areas to help re-open roads. In pictures: Taiwan devastation 'Devil' typhoon's impact The government has also requested prefabricated buildings to help house those left homeless by the flooding and supplies of disinfectant, to try to prevent the spread of disease. The families of those stranded and of the hundreds feared dead have urged the government to speed up rescue efforts. Many have been waiting for days at the rescue operation centre in Qishan for news of relatives missing since the typhoon struck. Critics say the authorities were too slow to realise the magnitude of the disaster. Some of those stranded say they have received no help for days and are short of food and water. The government says it is doing everything it can and that rescue efforts earlier in the week were hampered by bad weather and limited access to the affected areas. More than 14,000 people have been evacuated by air. Others have been carried to safety over ravines where bridges have collapsed by soldiers using makeshift ziplines. Military helicopters have been dropping provisions for those still stranded, but poor weather earlier this week hampered their work. The flooding has destroyed 34 bridges and severed 253 sections of road in Taiwan, Reuters news agency quotes the transportation ministry as saying, with repairs likely to take up to three years in the worst-affected areas. Officials in the island's south-eastern Taitung county estimated that nearly 3,700 people remained cut off as of Friday morning, the AFP news agency reports, while in central Chiayi county some 9,000 were thought to be stranded. Typhoon Morakot, which lashed Taiwan with at least 200cm (80in) of rain last weekend, has caused at least $910m (£550m) in damages to agriculture and infrastructure, Reuters reports. Reconstruction is expected to cost some $3.65bn (£2.2bn). TAIWAN'S WORST-AFFECTED AREAS Qishan - rescue operation centre established here, thousands of troops drafted in to help. Liukuei - 200 people awaiting rescue from hot spring resort as of Thursday, with another 700 survivors in the area. Hsinfa - 32 people reported dead, survivors pulled to safety using ropes thrown across river. Hsiaolin - hundreds feared dead following mudslides the morning after Taiwan's Father's Day. Taoyuan - residents told to run to higher ground as embankment holding back lake gave way. Click here to return

Megrahi could be released soon.[ 322 ]

Pan Am bomber at heart of controversy since 1988

By Richard Allen Greene - CNN

(CNN--August 14, 2009 -- Updated 0010 GMT (0810 HKT)) --

Pan Am Flight 103 was 31,000 feet in the air, heading for New York City, when it exploded over Scotland on the longest night of the year, December 21, 1988, killing 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground below.

Reports suggest that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi could be released soon.

It was the world's deadliest act of air terrorism until the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, according to the FBI.

American and British investigators painstakingly pieced together the aircraft's wreckage and found it had been destroyed by a bomb, which they accused Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi and another man of planting.

Al-Megrahi, once the security chief for Libyan Arab Airlines, and Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima were Libyan intelligence agents, the U.S. and Britain alleged in a November 1991 indictment on 270 counts of murder and conspiracy to murder.

The indictment set off a battle that lasted more than seven years.

Libya at first refused to hand the men over, prompting the U.N. Security Council in April 1992 to slap sanctions on the north African country, clamping down on arms sales and air travel.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation put the men on its 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list -- the only time officers of a foreign government have ever been named on the list, as far as the FBI knows, spokesman Ken Hoffman said.

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Two years later, Libya floated the idea of trying the men in a neutral site, in an international court, which the United States and Britain rejected.

In the summer of 1998, they made a counterproposal: that the men face justice in the Netherlands under Scottish law.

By the end of the year, matters came to a head: Kofi Annan, then the secretary-general of the United Nations, met Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in Tripoli, Libya.

Ten days later, a U.S. Appeals Court ruled that the families of the 189 Americans killed in the attack could sue Libya for its possible role in sponsoring the attack.

Libya agreed the next day to let the men face trial.

They were handed over on April 5, 1999, to the United Nations, which suspended its sanctions the same day.

The move triggered a slow thaw in relations between the United States and Libya. Two months after the handover, American and Libyan officials met face-to-face for the first time in 18 years.

Al-Megrahi and Fahima made their first court appearances before the end of the year.

The trial lasted nine months. Al-Megrahi was convicted of the murders after prosecutors dropped lesser charges and was sentenced to at least 27 years in jail. Scotland does not have the death penalty.

Fahima was found not guilty.

Al-Megrahi has always insisted he is innocent and filed one appeal after another against his conviction. His first one was rejected in 2002.

While al-Megrahi continued to fight his sentence, the United States and Libya continued talking.

Libya agreed in 2003 to pay $2.7 billion in compensation to the families of the bombing victims, though Gadhafi always remained cagey about admitting official Libyan involvement in the bombing.

The flamboyant Libyan leader also formally renounced the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction at the end of 2003, opening the country up to nuclear inspectors after months of secret negotiations with the United States and Britain.

The United States restored full diplomatic ties with Libya in 2004, after 24 years.

In June 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission cleared the way for a fresh appeal by al-Megrahi, ruling that it had uncovered new evidence and that al-Megrahi "may have suffered a miscarriage of justice."

Before the appeal could be heard, however, it emerged that al-Megrahi had terminal cancer.

The appeal went ahead in April 2009, leaving al-Megrahi awaiting at least two different decisions about his fate: Will he be cleared on appeal? Will the Scottish justice minister free him on compassionate grounds because of his cancer?

And, of course, a third question also looms: Will he live long enough to find out?

Μορακότ, Μαρτύριο δίχως τέλος...[ 321 ]

Εκατοντάδες άνθρωποι θάφτηκαν ζωντανοί κάτω από τόνους λάσπης στην Ταϊβάν

Associated Press

Εικόνα καταστροφής στο νότιο τμήμα της Ταϊβάν

Ταϊπέι--13/8/2009

Προηγούμενο άρθρο: Μάχη με το χρόνο δίνουν οι Αρχές στις πληγείσες από τον τυφώνα περιοχές της Ταϊβάν (13/8/2009) Bαρύτατο είναι το τίμημα που πληρώνει το χωριό Χσιαολίν της Ταϊβάν μετά το πέρασμα του τυφώνα Μορακότ. Σύμφωνα με τις Αρχές πάνω από 500 άτομα θάφτηκαν ζωντανά κάτω από τόνους λάσπης, συνέπεια των κατολισθήσεων που προκλήθηκαν Μέχρι στιγμής ο επίσημος απολογισμός των θυμάτων ήταν 116 νεκροί και δεκάδες τραυματίες. Από την πρώτη στιγμή, όμως, τα σωστικά συνεργεία και οι επίσημες Αρχές εξέφραζαν φόβους ότι ο τελικός αριθμός των θυμάτων θα αυξηθεί δραματικά. «Ήδη μιλάμε για πάνω από 500 νεκρούς» δήλωσε ο πρόεδρος της χώρας. Στην περιοχή του Χσιαολίν η κατάσταση είναι δραματική, αφού εκεί που υπήρχαν σπίτια τώρα υπάρχουν μόνο ερείπια, δρόμοι έχουν μετατραπεί σε τάφρους και γέφυρες κατέρρευσαν. Συνολικά οι διασώστες έχουν απεγκλωβίσει πάνω από 14 χιλιάδες ανθρώπους. Οι Αρχές έκαναν έκκληση στη διεθνή κοινότητα για ανθρωπιστική βοήθεια. Ήδη έχουν ανταποκριθεί η Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση και οι Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες. Ο τυφώνας Μορακότ έπληξε την Ταϊβάν, αλλά και περιοχές της Κίνας το περασμένο Σαββατοκύριακο, προκαλώντας τις χειρότερες καταστροφές των τελευταίων 50 χρόνων. Μέσα σε 48 ώρες έπεσαν 2 μέτρα βροχής, ενώ οι καταστροφές μόνο στη γεωργία ξεπερνούν τα 200 εκατομμύρια δολάρια. Newsroom ΔΟΛ

Κόσμος: Περισσότερες ειδήσεις

The Typhoon Morakot ...[ 320 ]

Slow-Moving Typhoon Morakot Inundates Taiwan

Posted August 11, 2009

acquired August 3 - 9, 2009

Recommend this image

Though its winds were not particularly powerful when it made landfall in Tawian, slow-moving Typhoon Morakot soaked the southern part of the island with heavy rain between August 3 and 9, 2009. The water-soaked ground slid off the sides of mountains, generating deadly landslides. The largest slide occurred in the southern mountains of Taiwan; as of August 10, at least a hundred people were still missing.

This image of the rainfall accumulation along Morakot’s path through the western Pacific is based on estimates from the near-real-time, Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis, which is produced by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The analysis depends on data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite. Increasing storm intensity (beginning with Tropical Depression) is indicated by darker shades of red. Morakot intensified to Category 2 strength prior to landfall. Highest rainfall totals (greater than 900 millimeters, or about 34 inches) are dark blue, and they are concentrated over the mountains of southern Taiwan. According to BBC news, the flooding in Taiwan is the worst in 50 years.

See Severe Storms: Typhoon Morakot for additional images of this storm.

NASA image by Jesse Allen, using near-real-time data provided courtesy of TRMM Science Data and Information System at Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.

Iran militia exposed by Blogger...[ 319 ]

Iran militia members exposed by blogger

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• VIDEO

By Frederik Pleitgen - CNN
Berlin, Germany (CNN) -- August 5, 2009 -- Updated 0955 GMT (1755 HKT

Amir Farshad Ebrahimi sits at his computer in a small apartment in Berlin clicking through data bases with thousands of photos. He clicks back and forth between the Web and the photos of demonstrations in Iran for hours.

Ebrahimi names and shames those he recognizes on the Web.

The pictures show plain-clothed men beating up demonstrators in Iranian cities after the disputed presidential elections. Every once in a while he circles a head, a baton or a gun.

"This is one of the guys I used to know," he says. "We were in Ansar-e Hezbollah together. I was very surprised to find him here."

Ebrahimi says he knows many of those who are now beating up demonstrators in Iran because he used to be one of them, a member of a religious militia called Ansar-e Hezbollah. His story gives an insight into the make-up and the ideology of the hard-line groups that are cracking down on demonstrators in Iran.

"None of them are police. Most of them are Basij or Ansar-e Hezbollah members. These are a series of paramilitary groups which work under the direct supervision of the leader, forces which work based on their ideology."
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Ebrahimi names and shames those he recognizes on the Web. He publishes their names and phone numbers and sometimes even their addresses, "so people in their neighborhood know what they are doing."

He says some of them contact him at home and threaten to kill him, but others simply feel betrayed by their former comrade.

"One of them called me and said: 'what you are doing us unethical. You are ruining our friendship.' I told him he was acting unethically and that he has the blood of the people on his hands, I didn't talk to him any further."

Ebrahimi was a founding member of the Ansar-e Hezbollah group, which like many others has its roots in the Iran-Iraq war in the late 1980s. In 1988, when Ebrahmi was just 13 years old, he says he forged his ID and went to the frontline against Saddam Hussein's army. Video Watch more on Ebrahimi's story »

He shows us pictures of him as a young man, trying hard to look older by growing a beard, carrying a rifle or manning an anti-aircraft cannon.

"When an Iranian Basij soldier got shot right next to me, that was the first time I saw a dead body next to me. It was then I realized where I actually was and I asked myself what was I doing there anyway?"

After the war, Ebrahimi and others decided they were now the true guardians of the Islamic revolution and would defend it against Western influence.

"For example, we were opposed to the commercial advertisements of western products, we were opposed to the economic conditions, or the political conditions. So anyway we had some demands and believed we are the rightful because we said we served in the war front, we gave our life and health, not to defend a country that is being looted now the way it was. Those demands we had brought us together to start the Ansar-e Hezbollah."

Farshad rose through the ranks of the organization he says was never meant to be political or violent.

But video apparently taken at a recent demonstration and posted on YouTube showed Iranian protesters chanting "Mojtaba Die!"

"Mojtaba" is Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Iran's Supreme leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Many Iranians accuse Mojtaba of leading the recent violent crackdown on protesters. Ebrahimi says he was also an early comrade of his on the battlefront.

Ebrahimi says he and Mojtaba spent a lot of time together. "He was a good kid, we were really good friends, and you could also truly say he also liked violence."

Over time, Ansar-e Hezbollah grew and Ebrahimi became the managing editor of the group's own newspaper. He says he quit the organization in 1999 when Ansar-e Hezbollah used violence against students during the uprising which was brutally cut down by security forces that year. "We went to a dorm and they started beating up people. That was when I took the microphone and said: 'No, Ansar-e Hezbollah is wrong, you the students are right."

Since then, Ebrahimi has become a fugitive. He was jailed in Iran then fled to Turkey and Germany where he got married and lives today. He says he was taken into custody by Turkish security forces and interrogated by the Iranian secret service who threatened to bring him back to the country.
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He uses his computer, his blog and twitter to spread the information about those he says are beating up the protesters.

"When I last looked somewhere between seven to eight thousand people had visited my site and read the information, so this site has in a way turned into a reference source."