GERMANY
A 44-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of killing her own babies after her grown children found the bodies of three infants stashed in the family’s freezer while looking for a frozen pizza, police said Monday.
The teenagers then found three identical packets on the bottom of the freezer and opened one and saw the head and arm of an infant that was wrapped in a hand towel, police said.
Police confirmed the grisly find Sunday night in the town of Wenden, near Olpe, in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia after the woman turned herself in, officials said.
The children confronted their parents when they returned home Sunday, and the couple and their daughter then went to police together to tell authorities, said Herbert Fingerhut, head of the police investigation, at a news conference.
The three infants are believed to have been born alive, but authorities were awaiting autopsy results to determine how they died, said Johannes Daheim, a spokesman for prosecutors investigating the case.
The corpulent woman apparently concealed the three pregnancies, believed to have been in the 1980s, not only from neighbors but also her own family, Fingerhut said.
The woman, her 47-year-old husband and three adult children — two sons, aged 18 and 22, and a 24-year-old daughter — have lived in the town in a single-family home since 1984.
CHILE
The Chaiten volcano spewed lava and blasted ash more than 12 miles into the sky on Tuesday, prompting a total evacuation of the provincial capital and other settlements.
President Michelle Bachelet interrupted a speech in the capital to announce that "the volcano is exploding so a total evacuation of the town of Chaiten has been ordered."
Rains following the eruption have carpeted surrounding areas in ash and mud. Hard hit is Chaiten, a small provincial capital of wooden houses and cobblestone streets just 6 miles from the volcano in southern Chile.
More than 4,000 people had fled earlier and the few remaining residents were being transferred to two navy ships.
Local Gov. Fernando Aguilar said some people were resisting, but "everybody must leave."
The volcano's five-day eruption has sent a thick column of ash into the stratosphere, streaming across Patagonia to the Atlantic.
BRAZIL
Amazon region rescue workers on Monday found two more bodies near the site where a boat ferrying people from a religious festival sank near a remote jungle town. The discovery raised the death toll to 17, with dozens still missing.
Authorities don’t know how many people were aboard because the boat didn’t have a passenger list, but it may have been carrying more than 100 passengers and as many as 30 could still be missing, said Navy Lt. Lenilton Araujo.
Some may have survived after swimming to shore, but haven’t managed to get in touch with authorities because of bad communications in the remote area about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the jungle city of Manaus, Araujo said.
BURMA
The death toll from Burma's devastating cyclone has now risen to more than 22,000, state media say.
Thousands more people are missing after Cyclone Nargis hit the country on Saturday, state radio said.
The announcement came as international aid agencies pushed to launch a massive operation in the worst-affected areas of the country.
SUDAN A plane carrying southern Sudan’s defense minister and a presidential adviser crashed Friday, killing all 21 people on board, state media reported.
Nineteen passengers and two crew members were killed when the plane went down in a remote Bahr Gazal region of southern Sudan, state-run SUNA news agency reported. Minister of Defense Dominic Dim Deng and Justin Yak, an adviser to the Southern Sudan president, were among the dead.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known.
May 5, 2008
REGIONAL
GUYANA
The state television and radio, National Communications Network has now placed a ban on the music of Jamaican artistes Movado and Bounty Killer, who were both banned from performing in Guyana last week by the government.
All private programme producers who host programmes on the state radio, particularly 98.1 HOT FM, have been asked to desist from playing the music of these two artistes because of the content of their lyrics.
The move to ban Bounty Killer came after he performed in Guyana two weeks ago.
JAMAICA
The region's local government reform programme has been boosted with the contribution of Cd$485,000 from the Canadian International Development Agency, CIDA.
CIDA and the Caribbean Forum of Local Government Ministries signed the contribution agreement on Friday at the Canadian High Commission in Kingston.
TRINIDAD
Kidnappers have demanded a $3 million ransom for the safe release of kidnap victim, Philippa Talma.
Talma, 45, was abducted while leaving her Maraval home last Friday evening.
According to a report in the Trinidad Newsday newspaper the kidnappers contacted Talma’s father, environmental expert and former Independent Senator, Dr Julian Kenny and demanded the sum.
When contacted yesterday Head of the Anti-Kidnapping Unit Wayne Boyd would not divulge any details, but would only say that investigations are continuing.
Talma is the mother of two teenaged boys and her father is a highly respected environmentalist and former Professor at UWI St Augustine.
JAMAICA
Cops under stress are to receive spiritual support from pastors who are to be assigned to each police station, Assistant JCF Chaplain, Bishop Gary Welsh announced yesterday.
Some 150 pastors had already volunteered to take on the job, but there were still more than 300 vacancies to be filled, said Welsh who noted that the objective of this new initiative was to influence police work with faith.
On a typical day the station pastor will be required to visit the station and conduct prayer and a short devotion with the police officers. This should be done at least once per week.
The station pastors are also encouraged to work in tandem with the JCF's Association of Christian Peace Officers (ACPO), which is a collection of Christian police officers who meet at their respective police stations once a week to pray and read the Bible.
TRINIDAD
Both the church and the media have to re-evaluate their approach in the modern world. This was the message conveyed at the celebratory mass for the 116th anniversary of the Catholic News and World Communications Day.
The mass was held at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Independence Square, Port of Spain, yesterday
Monsignor Cuthbert Alexander said in his homily the church had to embrace the new media age as it looked to serve its mission.
Alexander noted that the church must assess the culture of the modern era if it was to move forward.
CAYMAN ISLANDS
The Cayman Islands Police detained a visiting homosexual man for kissing his partner on a dance floor last week.
The man, 23–year–old Aaron Chandler from, Massachusetts, in the USA, was dancing at the Royal Palms with his partner. His partner’s sister and brother–in–law also came along to the popular nightspot after they had all dined at Reef Grill.
However, whether or not Mr. Chandler could have actually been charged is not immediately known.
Although homosexual acts between consenting adults were decriminalized in Cayman by a UK Order in Council in December, 2000, there are a couple of laws that could possibly make the public display of affection by two people of the same sex a crime, especially if it causes distress or disturbance to other member of the public.
VENEZUELA
The summit of presidents of member countries of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) concluded last Thursad with a call to support the government of Bolivia, and the signing of an agreement on food assistance.
Leaders Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and Cuban vice-president Carlos Lage issued a statement backing the government of La Paz, in which they expressed their unrestricted solidarity and support for the sovereign and democratic process of change in Bolivia.
The statement rejected destabilization plans seeking to undermine peace and unity in the Andean nation.
INTERNATIONAL
SOMALI
Thousands of people rioted in the streets of the Somali capital on Monday to protest rising food prices and shops' refusal to accept Somali currency.
Witnesses said two protesters were shot dead by Somali soldiers who were guarding buildings that were attacked by demonstrators.
BURMA
More than 10,000 people were killed in a devastating cyclone that hit western Burma on Saturday, Foreign Minister Nyan Win has said on state TV.
He said his government was ready to accept international assistance, and aid shipments were now being prepared.
Thousands of survivors of Cyclone Nargis are lacking shelter, drinking water, power and communications, but in many regions help has not yet arrived.
USA
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday pressed Israel to ease travel restrictions on Palestinians and called Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank particularly problematic.
But she said Washington believed an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal was still possible before US President George W. Bush leaves office in January, praising the seriousness and depth of negotiations.
INDIA
Indian politicians from all parties have joined in criticizing US President George Bush’s remarks that blamed India for the global food crisis. Although the ruling Congress party has joined the chorus, the BJP has questioned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s silence on Bush’s remarks. The BJP plans to raise the issue in Parliament today.
May 2, 2008
REGIONAL
JAMAICA
A near riot erupted yesterday as students of the Marcus Garvey Technical High School in St Ann’s Bay, reportedly spurred on by teachers, hurled stones and other missiles at the police and school principal Leslie Riley, in protest against Riley’s return as head teacher after vacation leave.
Riley and several police personnel were hit with missiles as they entered the school compound. The police, who were escorting Riley to his office, were forced to use teargas to disperse the unruly students.
TRINIDAD
Dismissed minister Dr Keith Rowley yesterday put his political life on the line, promising that if an independent Commission of Enquiry found that all was well with U-de-COTT, he would resign his seat in Parliament and exit public life for good.
Rowley also put the chairman of the Cabinet sub-committee, Dr Lenny Saith, in the hot seat, calling on him to tell the country what happened at the meeting in question, because silence was not an option.
