Mexico ( Nine Mexican Navy Service Members Killed in Accident )

MEXICO CITY – Nine Mexican navy service members died when the military vehicle in which they were riding overturned in the central state of San Luis Potosi, the Navy Secretariat said in a statement.

The accident occurred at around 5:00 p.m. Friday on the Matehuala-San Luis Potosi highway, the secretariat said.

It said it “deeply regrets the deaths of nine of its personnel and shares the sadness of their family members,” who are legally entitled to financial assistance.

Twelve navy service members who were injured in the accident “have already been taken to the General Military Hospital of San Luis Potosi for immediate care,” the statement said.

Mexico ( Gunmen Kill 3 Attending Children’s Party in Mexico )

VERACRUZ, Mexico – Gunmen killed three people and wounded two others who were attending a children’s birthday party in the Mexican Gulf state of Veracruz, police and city officials said.

The shooting occurred Friday night in Juan Diaz Covarrubias, a community outside the city of Hueyapan de Ocampo.

The gunmen, who were wearing masks and armed with AK-47 assault rifles, opened fire on people attending the party at the El Gran Chaparral restaurant, which is located on the side of the Matamoros-Puerto Juarez federal highway.

The three fatalities included two men and a boy, officials said, adding that the two people wounded in the attack were transported to a clinic.

Veracruz, Mexico’s third most populous state, has been plagued by a turf war between rival drug cartels that has sent the murder rate skyrocketing in the past few years.

The Gulf, Los Zetas and Jalisco Nueva Generacion cartels, as well as breakaway members of the once-powerful Familia Michoacana organization, are fueling the violence in the state.

The port city of Veracruz will be the site of the 24th Ibero-American Summit of heads of state and government and will host the 22nd Central American and Caribbean Games later this year.

Floods kill 45 in eastern India: official

NEW DELHI: Flooding in eastern India has killed 45 people and displaced more than 300,000 in the past week, a senior official said Monday, adding that water levels were now gradually receding.
Residents have been sheltering in relief centers in Orissa since being evacuated from their homes when torrential monsoon rains flooded rivers in mainly northern districts of the state.
“As of today, 300 to 400 villages are still marooned with a population of about 310,000 (evacuated people) affected,” said Pravat Ranjan Mohapatra, state deputy relief commissioner.
Mohapatra said 45 lives have been lost since the flooding hit last week, with 3.3 million people in total affected.
“The IMD (India Meteorological Department) is predicting good weather for the next few weeks. So we hope things will go back to normal in a day or two,” he told AFP by phone from the state capital Bhubaneswar.
Photos and television footage have shown parents and children crammed into trucks as they flee flooded homes and villages. Some, clutching belongings, are seen wading through thigh-deep water to safety, while others are huddled under makeshift tents on roadsides.
The hardest-hit regions have been around the Mahanadi and Baitarani rivers which started to burst their banks last Tuesday.
Torrential rains claimed as many as 48 lives last October in Orissa, just a month after a killer storm slammed into the coast — leaving 18 dead and destroying large tracts of farmland.
The strength of the annual June-September downpour is vital to hundreds of millions of Indian farmers and to economic growth. Asia’s third-largest economy gets 80 percent of its annual rainfall during the monsoon season.

Iraq ( U.S. Targets Iraqi Jihadists with 2nd Round of Airstrikes )

WASHINGTON – The United States carried out a second round of airstrikes against Islamic State forces near the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, the Pentagon said late Friday.

The additional missions were ordered “to help defend the city where U.S. personnel are assisting the government of Iraq,” the Defense Department spokesman, Rear Adm. John Kirby, said in a statement.

Dozens of U.S. diplomats and military advisers are based in Irbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

Drones were used to strike a “terrorist mortar position,” eliminating a number of IS fighters, before four F/A-18 jets were dispatched against a convoy and a second mortar position outside Irbil, Kirby said.

“The aircraft executed two planned passes. On both runs, each aircraft dropped one laser-guided bomb, making a total of eight bombs dropped on target, neutralizing the mortar and convoy,” the Pentagon spokesman said.

In the initial round of strikes earlier Friday, two F/A-18s bombed IS artillery pieces.

The jets took off from the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush, on station in the Persian Gulf.

Before the bombing runs, cargo planes escorted by fighters dropped food and water to nearly 200,000 civilians stranded on Mount Sinjar in northwestern Iraq.

The refugees are mostly Christians and Kurds of the Yazidi community fleeing before the advance of IS, which views Yazidis as heretics and has given Christians in the areas it controls a choice between converting to Islam or paying a special tax.

“When we face a situation like we do on that mountain – with innocent people facing the prospect of violence on a horrific scale, when we have a mandate to help – in this case, a request from the Iraqi government – and when we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, then I believe the United States of America cannot turn a blind eye,” President Barack Obama said Thursday night, announcing the authorization for airstrikes.

Thousands of Christian families fled their homes Thursday after IS militants seized several areas in the northern province of Nineveh, including Qaraqosh, the largest Christian town in Iraq.

IS, which controls parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria, has proclaimed an Islamic caliphate.

Chile ( Elderly Nun Questioned for Abduction of babies )

 

SANTIAGO, Chile – A 93-year-old Chilean nun, sister Maria Graciela Soto, has been questioned regarding the alleged abduction of babies in public and private hospitals in Chile during the military dictatorship (1973-90).

The nun was interrogated by Judge Mario Carroza last Friday in her home, online daily Emol reported, citing prosecuting lawyer Cristian Letelier.

According to some plaintiffs, Sor Maria Graciela Soto was involved in the illegal handover of babies in the Barros Luco hospital of the Chilean capital during the 1970s and 1980s.

On April 15, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts suspended priest Gerardo Joannon, currently under investigation for the irregular adoption of newborns who were pronounced dead shortly after their birth.

The decision was taken following a report by the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIPER), which cited the cases of several girls of single mothers who had been declared dead.

In most of the cases, according to CIPER, it was relatives of the mothers who decided to snatch the children and give them up for adoption with the help of priests and gynecologists, a fact that was admitted by Joannon.

Mexico ( Five Dead in Attack on Mexican Police Chief’s Home )

CULIACAN, Mexico – Five people died in an attack on the home of the police chief in a village in western Mexico, a source in the Sinaloa state Attorney General’s Office told Efe on Thursday.

The incident took place in Casas Viejas, a community within the municipality of Concordia.

Police chief Alejandro Guerrero Reyes was killed, along with his two brothers and two other males, including a 15-year-old.

A group of hooded men brandishing heavy caliber weapons arrived in the village aboard a pickup truck and asked for directions to the police chief’s home, according to the official report.

The gunmen went to the residence, burst in and began shooting at everyone present.

Police and army troops who showed up after the attack found and disarmed a live grenade left behind by the assailants.

The state that gave birth to the first generation of Mexican drug lords is suffering through a period of heightened violence as rival groups jockey for supremacy following the arrest in February of Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” (Shorty) Guzman.

Sinaloa was among Mexico’s five most-dangerous states in 2013, with 41 homicides for every 100,000 residents.

UN chief: Gaza deaths and destruction shame world

UNITED NATIONS: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says “the massive deaths and destruction in Gaza have shocked and shamed the world” and is demanding an end to “the senseless cycle of suffering” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“We will build again, but this must be the last time to rebuild,” the UN chief told the General Assembly Wednesday. “This must stop now. We must go back to the negotiating table.”
Ban said the UN understands Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas rockets but “the horror that was unleashed on the people of Gaza” raises serious questions about respect for international law that requires a distinction between civilians and combatants and proportionality.
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay told the assembly that “any attacks in violation of these principles .... may amount to war crimes.”