Mexico bodies "not all students"

12 October 2014 Last updated at 01:38 The disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa Teacher Training College students has shocked Mexicans Some bodies found in shallow graves near the Mexican town of Iguala are not those of students missing after clashes with police, the state governor says.

The 43 students were last seen being pushed into police vans after a protest in Guerrero state on 26 September.

“I can say that some of the bodies, according to the work of forensics experts, do not correspond to the youths,” said Governor Angel Aguirre.

Prosecutors believe police turned over the students to a drug gang.

The gang was linked to the family of Iguala’s Mayor Jose Luis Abarca Velazquez.

He, his wife and his head of security went on leave after the clashes and have not reappeared.

A formal search has been launched for them.

Mr Aguirre has promised new developments in the investigation over the next few days.

“I have big hopes of finding our young students alive. That is why we have now entered a new phase in the search for them,” he said.

The clandestine graves were located in the outskirts of Iguala following an anonymous tip off.

Twenty-eight burnt bodies were retrieved from the pits. Forensic experts are still working to identify all of them, said Mr Aguirre.

‘No impunity’

The students all attended a local teacher training college with a history of left-wing activism.

Federal forces have disarmed local police and taken over security in the town of Iguala Parents of the students joined the search for their loved ones, but many fear the worst at this stage

Six students were killed in two separate shooting incidents during the protests in Iguala, which lies some 200km (120 miles) south of the capital, Mexico City.

But it is not clear whether they were targeted for their political beliefs.

Some think that they may have angered a local drug gang called Guerreros Unidos by refusing to pay extortion money.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets across Mexico to demand government action to locate the students.

President Enrique Pena Nieto went on national television to promise to identify and punish those responsible for the disappearance.

He described the incident as “shocking, painful and unacceptable” and said there will be “no impunity”.

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Mexico bodies "not all students"

More bodies push Nepal blizzard death toll to 38

Oct. 17, 2014: In this handout photo provided by the Nepalese army, rescue team members carry the body of an avalanche victim at Thorong La pass area in Nepal (AP Photo/Nepalese Army)

A rescue helicopter spotted nine more bodies Saturday on a trekking trail in northern Nepal, bringing the death toll to 38 from this week’s series of snow storms and avalanches in the worst  hiking disaster in the Himalayan nation.

The bodies were seen from the air in Dolpa district, but the steep terrain made it impossible for the helicopter to land, said Yadav Koirala from the Disaster Management Division in Katmandu.

The helicopter picked up three survivors and rescuers on foot would be sent to the area to retrieve the bodies, he said.

The victims are most likely Nepalese porters, said Ram Chandra Sharma of the Trekking Agents Association of Nepal.

Dolpa district is next to Manang and Mustang districts in the popular Annapurna mountain range trekking trail where most of the foreign trekkers and Nepalese guides and villagers were killed this week. Among the dead were Canadians, Indians, Israelis, Slovaks and Poles.

While more than 300 people have been rescued, sometimes plucked from mountainsides by helicopters and taken to nearby villages and towns, dozens more are still taking shelter in isolated mountain huts, said government administrator Yama Bahadur Chokhyal.

The snow storms were whipped by the tail end of a cyclone that hit the Indian coast a few days earlier. The weather has since improved and sunny skies and calm wind conditions were helping the rescue efforts.

Survivors of the blizzards that swept through the Annapurna trekking route said they were caught off-guard when the weather changed quickly.

The skies were clear at the start of the week, said Gombu Sherpa, who was guiding a group of Germans. But that changed suddenly when the snow blew in.

“We could hardly see anyone, even within a couple of feet. The wind was blowing snow and visibility was almost zero,” he said in a telephone interview after returning by bus to Katmandu. He said many people lost their way in the storm, but that everyone in his group survived.

One of his assistants, who was behind the group when the storm hit, was missing for an entire night, lost in the blizzard.

“We found him the next morning wandering in the snow. It is a miracle that he is alive,” he said.

Most of the people were on or near the Annapurna Circuit, a 140-mile trail through the mountain, the 10th-highest in the world.

The blizzard also left 14 people dead on Thorong La pass, north of Annapurna.

Five climbers — two Slovaks and three Nepalese guides — were killed in a separate avalanche about 45 miles to the west, at the base camp for Mount Dhaulagiri, the world’s seventh-highest peak.

The deaths are the worst hiking disaster in Nepal, where an avalanche in April just above the base camp on Mount Everest killed 16 Nepalese guides.

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More bodies push Nepal blizzard death toll to 38

Mexico bodies "not all students"

12 October 2014 Last updated at 01:38 The disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa Teacher Training College students has shocked Mexicans Some bodies found in shallow graves near the Mexican town of Iguala are not those of students missing after clashes with police, the state governor says.

The 43 students were last seen being pushed into police vans after a protest in Guerrero state on 26 September.

“I can say that some of the bodies, according to the work of forensics experts, do not correspond to the youths,” said Governor Angel Aguirre.

Prosecutors believe police turned over the students to a drug gang.

The gang was linked to the family of Iguala’s Mayor Jose Luis Abarca Velazquez.

He, his wife and his head of security went on leave after the clashes and have not reappeared.

A formal search has been launched for them.

Mr Aguirre has promised new developments in the investigation over the next few days.

“I have big hopes of finding our young students alive. That is why we have now entered a new phase in the search for them,” he said.

The clandestine graves were located in the outskirts of Iguala following an anonymous tip off.

Twenty-eight burnt bodies were retrieved from the pits. Forensic experts are still working to identify all of them, said Mr Aguirre.

‘No impunity’

The students all attended a local teacher training college with a history of left-wing activism.

Federal forces have disarmed local police and taken over security in the town of Iguala Parents of the students joined the search for their loved ones, but many fear the worst at this stage

Six students were killed in two separate shooting incidents during the protests in Iguala, which lies some 200km (120 miles) south of the capital, Mexico City.

But it is not clear whether they were targeted for their political beliefs.

Some think that they may have angered a local drug gang called Guerreros Unidos by refusing to pay extortion money.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets across Mexico to demand government action to locate the students.

President Enrique Pena Nieto went on national television to promise to identify and punish those responsible for the disappearance.

He described the incident as “shocking, painful and unacceptable” and said there will be “no impunity”.

View the original article here

Mexico bodies "not all students"

More bodies found at Japan volcano; toll now 36

Monday, September 29, 2014 | 8:58 AM    

KISO, Japan (AP) — Five more bodies were found near the summit of a Japanese volcano on Monday, bringing the total presumed dead to 36, police said, as toxic gases and ash from the still-erupting mountain forced rescue workers to halt efforts to recover the victims.

Eight more bodies were airlifted off Mount Ontake before work on the ash-blanketed peak was called off around 1:30 pm, said Naofumi Miyairi, a spokesman for the Nagano prefecture police.

Together with four victims brought down on Sunday, 12 bodies have now been recovered, leaving 24 near the summit. Exactly how they died remains unclear, though experts say it could be from suffocating ash, falling rocks, toxic gases or some combination of them. Some of the bodies had severe contusions.

Police said the latest victims were found near a shrine at the summit, the same area where other victims were reportedly found.

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More bodies found at Japan volcano; toll now 36

Mexico bar kidnap: Bodies identified

26 August 2013 Last updated at 05:15 ET The mass grave was found after a tip-off in a wooded area near the capital Forensic experts have identified the bodies of five more youths who had gone missing after visiting a bar in a popular entertainment district in Mexico City.

Police found 13 bodies in a mass grave on a ranch near the capital on Thursday.

Ten of them have now been identified as those of the youths who disappeared from Mexico City’s Heaven bar in May.

The motive behind their disappearance and subsequent killing remains unclear.

Mystery disappearance

Seven young men and five women ranging between 16 and 34 years of age were reported missing in the days after the group went to the bar in the Zona Rosa district on 26 May.

Surveillance footage showed some of them being led to cars outside the after-hours bar.

There was no obvious sign of force on the surveillance footage. The men who took them away were not masked and did not seem to be carrying weapons.

There was no trace of the youths until their bodies were discovered in a grave covered with lime, cement and asbestos on the outskirts of Mexico City.

All of the youths come from the rough Tepito neighbourhood of Mexico City, and local media have speculated that their killing could be related to warfare between local crime gangs in the area.

Relatives have accused police of acting too slowly after the youths disappeared

Three of the youths are related to convicted crime bosses, but their relatives have denied the youngsters were involved in illegal activities.

Mass kidnappings carried out by drug cartels are not unusual in the border areas of Mexico, but the case of the 12, who disappeared in broad daylight on a Sunday morning from the centre of the capital shocked residents.

Two co-owners of the Heaven bar and two employees who were working on the night of the incident have been arrested in connection with the case.

Another co-owner, Dax Rodriguez Ledesma, was found burned to death in July. Police had been searching for him at the time of his killing.

Official figures say 26,000 people have gone missing across Mexico since December 2006, when the army was deployed to fight crime gangs.

Amnesty International has accused the Mexican government was not doing enough to investigate the disappearances of thousands of people.

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Mexico bar kidnap: Bodies identified