A political solution to the violence in East Timor could take weeks to be hammered out, Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta warned on Monday as the United Nations readied an aid appeal for the tiny nation. The four-year-old country descended into bloody chaos last month after Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri sacked 600 soldiers from the west who had complained of discrimination in the ranks.
Sixteen-year-old Chris Neil Sugui ponders his future as he and younger brother Mark cast their finely meshed net in the warm waters of the South China Sea for milkfish fingerlings. The few pesos they will earn for their hard day’s work will not buy them out of their bleak predicament — they do not have enough money for school.
Tropical storm Chanchu continued to lash the Philippines on Saturday, leaving at least 21 people dead as heavy rains triggered landslides and left parts of the country under water. Floodwaters submerged two provinces in the central Visayas region, and several villages in Leyte’s Sogod town were cut off landslides and floods damaged a bridge and vital highway.
Tropical storm Chanchu slammed into the Philippines overnight, causing flash floods and landslides that forced the evacuation of hundreds of villagers, disaster-relief officials said on Friday. The storm, the first to hit the Philippines this year, left more than 6 000 people stranded.
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/ 24 October 2005
More help arrived in quake-hit Pakistan on Monday as the United Nations warned that time is running out for survivors of the worst catastrophe in the country’s history. ”We are facing an enormous humanitarian catastrophe,” European Union humanitarian aid commissioner Louis Michel said.
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/ 20 October 2005
The United Nations begged the world on Thursday not to abandon survivors of Pakistan’s earthquake, warning of a second wave of deaths without a dramatic effort on a par with the Berlin airlift to reach stranded villagers. ”We thought the tsunami was the worst we could get. This is worse,” said Jan Egeland, the United Nations emergency relief coordinator.
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/ 6 December 2004
Relief agencies battled bad weather to deliver supplies to storm-ravaged areas of the Philippines on Monday as the toll of dead and missing from two storms in one week exceeded 1 400, officials said. Three towns were hit by flash floods, mud, rocks and thousands of fallen logs that cascaded down the mountains.