NATION/WORLD
East Oregonian
Page 10A
Rising violence kills over
200 in a week in Syria’s Aleppo
By ALBERT AJI
and BASSEM MROUE
Associated Press
DAMASCUS,
Syria
— The Syrian army and
rebels unleashed deadly
new attacks on each other
Friday in Aleppo, with
insurgents shelling a mosque
during weekly prayers and
government airstrikes hitting
opposition neighborhoods
in escalating bloodshed the
U.N. decried as a “monstrous
disregard for civilian lives
by all parties.”
More than 200 people
have been killed in eight
days of mounting violence
in and around the contested
northern city, including 15 at
the Malla Khan mosque hit
by rebel rockets and another
10 from the government
warplanes and helicopters,
oficials said.
The surge in ighting
has caused the collapse
of a two-month cease-ire
brokered by the U.S. and
Russia. It also has raised
fears of an all-out govern-
ment assault on Aleppo and
warnings of a humanitarian
Validated UGC via AP video
In this image made from video and posted online from
Validated UGC, a man carries a child after airstrikes hit
Aleppo, Syria, Thursday.
disaster in the 5-year-old
civil war.
In rebel-held neighbor-
hoods, medical facilities,
bakeries and a water station
have been pounded by a
government bombardment,
residents say. Electricity is
down to a few hours a week.
A single road out of Aleppo
is the only supply line for
the
insurgent-controlled
districts, where an estimated
250,000 people remain. If
forces loyal to President
Bashar Assad take the road,
there could be major short-
ages of food and medicines.
“People have already
started leeing the city,” said
Baraa al-Halaby, an activist
who watched older men,
women and children leave
his rebel-held neighborhood
Friday. “If Aleppo comes
under siege, people will
starve to death within a
month.”
Assad’s military declared
a brief truce in the capital of
Damascus and its outskirts
and the coastal province of
Latakia — but not in Aleppo.
That could signal plans
for a ground assault.
Pro-Assad media in Lebanon
have been reporting for
weeks that reinforcements
are preparing for the “grand
battle of Aleppo.”
Syria’s largest city and
its
commercial
center
before the war, Aleppo has
been divided between the
two camps. Now it is once
more the main battleground
after peace talks stalled in
Geneva.
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein,
the U.N. High Commis-
sioner for Human Rights,
said the latest ighting
showed a “monstrous disre-
gard for civilian lives by all
parties to the conlict.”
In a statement released in
Geneva, Zeid urged the sides
to step back from a return to
all-out war.
“In short, the violence is
soaring back to the levels we
saw prior to the cessation of
hostilities. There are deeply
disturbing reports of military
buildups indicating prepara-
tions for a lethal escalation,”
he said.
Parts of India ban daytime cooking as hundreds die of heat
PATNA, India (AP) —
With sizzling temperatures
claiming more than 300 lives
this month in India, oficials
said they were banning
daytime cooking in some
parts of the drought-stricken
country in a bid to prevent
accidental ires that have
killed nearly 80 more people.
The eastern state of Bihar
this week took the unprece-
dented step of forbidding any
cooking between 9 a.m. and
6 p.m., after accidental ires
exacerbated by dry, hot and
windy weather swept through
shantytowns and thatched-
roof houses in villages
and killed 79 people. They
included 10 children and ive
adults killed in a ire sparked
during a Hindu prayer cere-
mony in Bihar’s Aurangabad
district last week.
People were instead told to
cook to night.
Hoping to prevent more
ires, oficials have also barred
burning spent crops or holding
religious ire rituals. Anyone
defying the ban risks up to a
year in jail.
“We call this the ire season
in Bihar,” Vyas, a state disaster
management oficial who
goes by one name, said Friday.
“Strong, westerly winds stoke
ires which spread easily and
cause great damage.”
Much of India is reeling
under a weekslong heat wave
and severe drought conditions
that have decimated crops,
killed livestock and left at
least 330 million Indians
without enough water for their
daily needs.
Rivers, lakes and dams
have dried up in parts of the
western states of Maharashtra
and Gujarat, and overall
oficials say that groundwater
reservoirs are at just 22
percent capacity.
In some areas, the situation
is so bad the government has
sent tankers of water for emer-
gency relief. Monsoon rains
are still weeks away, expected
to start only in June.
At least 300 people have
died of heat-related illness
this month, including 110
in the state of Orissa, 137 in
Telangana and another 45
in Andhra Pradesh where
temperatures since the start
of April have been hovering
around 111 Fahrenheit.
That’s about 8-10 degrees
Fahrenheit hotter than normal
for April, according to state
meteorological oficial Y.K.
Reddy. He predicted the situ-
ation would only get worse in
May, traditionally the hottest
month in India.
The southern state of
Andhra Pradesh is running
ads on TV and in newspa-
pers urging people to stay
indoors during the hottest
hours. Construction and farm
laborers are advised to seek
shade when the sun is directly
overhead.
Huge numbers of farmers,
meanwhile, have migrated
to nearby cities and towns in
search of manual labor, often
leaving elderly and young
relatives behind in parched
villages.
This is the second consec-
utive year southern India has
suffered from a deadly heat
wave, after some 2,500 people
died in scorching temperatures
last year.
Though heat waves are
common during Indian
summers, authorities have
done little to ensure water
security or prepare urban
populations for the risks.
This year, Orissa’s capital
of Bhubaneshwar and Maha-
rashtra’s city of Nagpur joined
Gujarat’s Ahmedabad in
launching a heat wave program
to educate people on how to
stay cool, provide shelters and
train medical workers.
Saturday, April 30, 2016
16 blamed for mistakes
in deadly U.S. attack
on Afghan clinic
WASHINGTON (AP) —
Human error, violations of
combat rules and untimely
equipment failures led to the
mistaken U.S. aerial attack
on a charity-run hospital in
Afghanistan last fall that
killed 42 people, a senior
American general said
Friday. Investigators called
the attack a “disproportional
response to a threat that
didn’t exist.”
Sixteen military members
were given administrative
punishments that could
stall or end careers, but no
one faces a court martial. A
senior defense oficial said
one of the disciplined was a
two-star general.
The AC-130 gunship,
bristling with side-iring
cannons and guns, ired on
the hospital in the northern
city of Kunduz for 30
minutes before the mistake
was realized and the attack
was halted, Gen. Joseph
Votel told a news conference
as he released the Pentagon’s
inal report on the incident.
The intended target was an
Afghan intelligence agency
building about 450 yards
away.
No one involved knew
the targeted compound was
a hospital, Votel said, but
investigators
concluded
the U.S. ground and air
commanders should have
known.
Votel expressed “deepest
condolences” to those
injured and to the families
of those killed and said the
U.S. government made
“gesture of sympathy”
payments of $3,000 to each
injured person and $6,000 to
each family of the killed.
Zabihullah Neyazi, a
nurse who lost his left arm,
eye and a inger in the Oct.
3, 2015, attack, said admin-
istrative punishment for the
American service members
wasn’t enough and said a
“trial should be in Afghan-
istan, in our presence, in
the presence of the victims’
families, so they would be
satisied.”
Pharmacist
Khalid
Ahmad, 24, said those
responsible “are criminals,
and they must be jailed.”
Ahmad still has shrapnel
embedded in his waist and
cannot move his right leg.
Doctors
Without
Borders, the international
charity organization whose
hospital was destroyed, said
Friday that it still wants an
“independent and impartial”
investigation. It said the
punishments were inade-
quate and “out of propor-
tion” to the deaths, injuries
and destruction caused by
the mistaken attack.
“The lack of meaningful
accountability sends a
worrying signal to warring
parties, and is unlikely to act
as a deterrent against future
violations of the rules of
war,” the organization said.
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• Tour through northern Umatilla County
•Visit historic barns, Century Farms, oldest nursery in the
Pacific Northwest, and
produce farm est. 1922
•Lunch at Frazier
Farmstead Museum
•Zerba Cellars – tour and
wine tasting
Saturday, May 21 st
9:00 - 4:00
Tickets: $55 Members; $60 General Admission.
Call Heritage Station
Museum at
541-276-0012
for information
Mother’s Day
Prime
Rib
Buffet
Sunday, May 8 10am-2pm
$26 per person $16 kids 5-12
CALL TODAY FOR RESERVATIONS
541.278.1100 OPTION 2
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Thank you for your support!
