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Russian official rules out Arafat polonium poisoning
Russian official rules out Arafat polonium poisoning (Reuters) / 15 October 2013 If confirmed, the findings would deal a blow to Palestinian suspicions that Arafat was assassinated by Israel – a theory fuelled by a Swiss lab report last year. The head of a Russian forensics agency said on Tuesday that samples from the body of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had revealed no traces of radioactive polonium, a Russian news agency reported. However, the government scientific body later denied that it had made any official statement about the research, saying only that it had handed its results to the Russian Foreign Ministry. If confirmed, the findings would deal a blow to Palestinian suspicions that Arafat was assassinated by Israel – a theory fuelled by a Swiss lab report last year which found unusual amounts of the deadly isotope polonium on his clothes. A Palestinian medical team took samples from Arafat’s corpse in the West Bank last year and gave them to Swiss, French and Russian forensic teams in an attempt to determine whether he was murdered with the hard-to-trace radioactive poison. “He could not have been poisoned with polonium. The research conducted by Russian experts found no traces of this substance,” the Russian news agency Interfax quoted Vladimir Uiba, who heads the Federal Medico-Biological Agency (FMBA), as saying. Uiba said experts from the FMBA had conducted a detailed study of Arafat’s remains. The agency later sought to distance itself from the comments. “The FMBA of Russia has made no official statement about the results of research on the remains of Yasser Arafat,” the FMBA’s Press service said. It added that it had completed its tests and given the results to the authorities. The Russian Foreign Ministry declined immediate comment, but state-run news agency RIA cited a source in the ministry as saying it was up to the Palestinian authorities to release any information about the tests. Arafat died aged 75 of an unexplained ailment he developed while confined to his Ramallah headquarters by Israeli tanks at the height of an armed Palestinian uprising in 2004. Palestinians saw the veteran guerrilla as a hero of their national cause. Israel regarded him as a terrorist, though it denied responsibility for his death. A negative result from the samples may not totally preclude a poisoning, as experts warned last year that his partial exhumation might have occurred too late to detect polonium. The Lausanne-based hospital which first found the isotope on Arafat’s clothing said that eight years would be the limit to detecting it on his remains and questioned whether such a late examination would provide conclusive results. A spokesman for the hospital said at the time of the exhumation that findings might be reached by early this year. No explanation has been given for the lengthy delay in presenting the results. Continue reading
20 dead as 7.1 magnitude earthquake hits Philippines
73 dead as quake hits Philippine tourist islands (AFP) / 15 October 2013 Authorities said the death toll could still climb, with authorities struggling to assess the extent of the damage in the worst-hit areas of Bohol where roads were impassable and power was cut. A powerful earthquake killed at least 73 people on Tuesday as it tore down modern buildings, destroyed historic churches and triggered terrified stampedes across popular tourist islands in the Philippines. Fifteen of the confirmed fatalities were in Cebu, the country’s second most important city and a gateway to some of its most beautiful beaches, the national disaster agency reported. The 7.1-magnitude quake killed another 57 people in the neighbouring island of Bohol, famed for its rolling “Chocolate Hills”, while one other person died on nearby Siquijor, which attracts tourists with its pristine white sands. “I was thrown to the ground by the strength of the quake. Broken glass rained on me,” Elmo Alinsunorin, a guard for a government tax office in Cebu, told AFP. “I thought I was going to die.” Authorities said the death toll could still climb, with authorities struggling to assess the extent of the damage in the worst-hit areas of Bohol where roads were impassable and power was cut. Nevertheless, they expressed relief the earthquake occurred on a public holiday, meaning there were fewer people than normal in many of the major buildings that suffered damage. The quake struck at 08:12 (0012 GMT) near Balilihan, a town of about 18,000 people on Bohol, at a depth of 20 kilometres (12 miles), the USGS reported. The town lies across a strait about 60 kilometres from Cebu. Cebu, with a population of 2.5 million people, is the political, economic, educational and cultural centre of the central Philippines. It hosts the country’s busiest port and the largest airport outside of the capital Manila. It also has a major ship building industry. A university, a school and two shopping malls, public markets and many small buildings sustained damage in the quake. Three of the people who died in Cebu were crushed to death in a stampede at a sports complex, where poor people had gathered to collect regular government cash handouts, according to the provincial disaster council chief, Neil Sanchez. “There was panic when the quake happened and there was a rush toward the exit,” Sanchez told AFP. He said two other people were killed when part of a school collapsed on a car they had parked in, while four others died at a fish market that crumbled. The Philippines’ oldest church, Cebu’s Basilica Minore del Santo Nino, was badly damaged, according to Balido, the civil defence spokesman. It was first built in the 1500s by Spanish colonisers, although its current stone structure dates back to the 1700s. A church on Bohol that was first built in the early 1600s also collapsed, according to Robert Michael Poole, a British tourist who was visiting the area. “It’s absolutely devastated… the entire front of the church has collapsed onto the street,” Poole told AFP by telephone. However he said there was nobody in the church at the time of the quake. Aside from its beaches, Bohol is famous for its more than 1,000 small limestone “Chocolate Hills” that turn brown during the dry season. One of the main tourist venues there, the Chocolate Hills Complex, was severely damaged and may be beyond repair, according to Delapan Ingleterra, head of a local tourist police unit. “There are huge cracks in the hotel and there was a collapse of the view deck on the second floor,” Ingleterra told AFP, adding that no-one was injured at the complex. There were no reports of foreign tourists being killed anywhere in the disaster zone. Tuesday’s quake was followed by at least four aftershocks measuring more than 5.0 in magnitude. The epicentre was 629 kilometres from Manila. The Philippines lies on the so-called Ring of Fire, a vast Pacific Ocean region where many of Earth’s earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. More than 100 people were left dead or missing in February last year after an earthquake struck on Negros island, about 100 kilometres from the epicentre of Tuesday’s quake. The deadliest recorded natural disaster in the Philippines occurred in 1976, when a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 7.9 earthquake devastated the Moro Gulf on the southern island of Mindanao. Between 5,000 and 8,000 people were killed, according to official estimates. Continue reading
85 dead as quake hits Philippine tourist islands
85 dead as quake hits Philippine tourist islands (AFP) / 15 October 2013 Authorities said the death toll could still climb, with authorities struggling to assess the extent of the damage in the worst-hit areas of Bohol where roads were impassable and power was cut. A powerful earthquake killed at least 85 people on Tuesday as it tore down modern buildings, destroyed historic churches and triggered terrified stampedes across popular tourist islands in the Philippines. Fifteen of the confirmed fatalities were in Cebu, the country’s second most important city and a gateway to some of its most beautiful beaches, the national disaster agency reported. The 7.1-magnitude quake killed another 57 people in the neighbouring island of Bohol, famed for its rolling “Chocolate Hills”, while one other person died on nearby Siquijor, which attracts tourists with its pristine white sands. “I was thrown to the ground by the strength of the quake. Broken glass rained on me,” Elmo Alinsunorin, a guard for a government tax office in Cebu, told AFP. “I thought I was going to die.” Authorities said the death toll could still climb, with authorities struggling to assess the extent of the damage in the worst-hit areas of Bohol where roads were impassable and power was cut. Nevertheless, they expressed relief the earthquake occurred on a public holiday, meaning there were fewer people than normal in many of the major buildings that suffered damage. The quake struck at 08:12 (0012 GMT) near Balilihan, a town of about 18,000 people on Bohol, at a depth of 20 kilometres (12 miles), the USGS reported. The town lies across a strait about 60 kilometres from Cebu. Cebu, with a population of 2.5 million people, is the political, economic, educational and cultural centre of the central Philippines. It hosts the country’s busiest port and the largest airport outside of the capital Manila. It also has a major ship building industry. A university, a school and two shopping malls, public markets and many small buildings sustained damage in the quake. Three of the people who died in Cebu were crushed to death in a stampede at a sports complex, where poor people had gathered to collect regular government cash handouts, according to the provincial disaster council chief, Neil Sanchez. “There was panic when the quake happened and there was a rush toward the exit,” Sanchez told AFP. He said two other people were killed when part of a school collapsed on a car they had parked in, while four others died at a fish market that crumbled. The Philippines’ oldest church, Cebu’s Basilica Minore del Santo Nino, was badly damaged, according to Balido, the civil defence spokesman. It was first built in the 1500s by Spanish colonisers, although its current stone structure dates back to the 1700s. A church on Bohol that was first built in the early 1600s also collapsed, according to Robert Michael Poole, a British tourist who was visiting the area. “It’s absolutely devastated… the entire front of the church has collapsed onto the street,” Poole told AFP by telephone. However he said there was nobody in the church at the time of the quake. Aside from its beaches, Bohol is famous for its more than 1,000 small limestone “Chocolate Hills” that turn brown during the dry season. One of the main tourist venues there, the Chocolate Hills Complex, was severely damaged and may be beyond repair, according to Delapan Ingleterra, head of a local tourist police unit. “There are huge cracks in the hotel and there was a collapse of the view deck on the second floor,” Ingleterra told AFP, adding that no-one was injured at the complex. There were no reports of foreign tourists being killed anywhere in the disaster zone. Tuesday’s quake was followed by at least four aftershocks measuring more than 5.0 in magnitude. The epicentre was 629 kilometres from Manila. The Philippines lies on the so-called Ring of Fire, a vast Pacific Ocean region where many of Earth’s earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. More than 100 people were left dead or missing in February last year after an earthquake struck on Negros island, about 100 kilometres from the epicentre of Tuesday’s quake. The deadliest recorded natural disaster in the Philippines occurred in 1976, when a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 7.9 earthquake devastated the Moro Gulf on the southern island of Mindanao. Between 5,000 and 8,000 people were killed, according to official estimates. Continue reading
