World/Nation Briefs July 20, 2014
Dutch forensic experts begin to identify victims
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Forensic teams fanned out across the Netherlands on Saturday to collect material that will help positively identify the remains of victims killed in the downing of the Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine. Families and friends of the dead huddled to console one another at churches, schools and sports clubs across the nation.
Altius, a small soccer club on the edge of the central city of Hilversum, was typical of scenes that played out across the Netherlands.
A couple of dozen members held a small ceremony at Altius’ clubhouse to remember a family of four killed in the crash, as the team’s flag fluttered at half-staff in the warm afternoon breeze.
Charles Smallenburg was a long-time volunteer at the club, his young son Werther a promising striker in the D1 youth team, club chairman Tom Verdam told The Associated Press after the brief get-together. Charles’ wife Therese and daughter Carlijn also died, the club said.
Israeli bulldozers destroy tunnels used by Hamas
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli bulldozers on Saturday demolished more than a dozen tunnels the military said were being used by Hamas gunmen to sneak beneath the southern border of the Jewish state and carry out attacks on its soldiers and civilians.
Palestinians reported intensified airstrikes and shelling as the death toll from Israel’s ground offensive rose to at least 342 Palestinians, including many civilians. Five Israelis — three soldiers and two civilians — have also been killed since the fighting began more than 10 days ago, and dozens of Israelis have been injured as Gaza rockets continue to rain down on Israeli cities.
Israeli soldiers uncovered 34 shafts leading into about a dozen underground tunnels, some as deep as 32 yards, the military said. Israel views the tunnels as a strategic threat, and demolishing them is a high priority in their campaign.
Still, Palestinian gunmen disguised in Israeli uniforms managed to infiltrate Israel from Gaza using another tunnel and on Saturday killed two Israeli soldiers and injured several others, the military said. At least one Palestinian was killed in the clash.
Split between Egypt, Hamas plagues cease-fire
CAIRO — Even as the death toll mounts in the Gaza Strip, attempts to broker a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel have so far run aground — in part because they have become mired in the deep divisions between Mideast countries.
At the center of the problems is the bitter enmity between Egypt and its Gulf allies like Saudi Arabia on one side and Gaza’s Hamas rulers and its allies, Turkey and Qatar, on the other.
An Egyptian cease-fire proposal quickly fell apart the past week when Israel accepted it but Hamas rejected it. Hamas demanded greater guarantees for the lifting of the blockade of Gaza, enforced by Israel and Egypt. The Egyptian proposal called for both sides to halt hostilities unconditionally — dangling only a promise of further talks that could address the closure.
Qatar-based Hamas spokesman Hossam Badran described Cairo’s cease-fire proposal as “all but dead,” calling it a “surrender” to Israel.
Officer stripped of gun, badge after chokehold
NEW YORK — A New York City police officer involved in the arrest of a man who died in custody after being placed in an apparent chokehold has been stripped of his gun and badge and placed on desk duty, police said Saturday.
Officer Daniel Pantaleo, an eight-year NYPD veteran, and an officer who has been with the force for four years were both taken off the street after the death Thursday of 43-year-old Eric Garner on Staten Island, police said.
The department would not identify the second officer but said he would retain his gun and badge while on desk duty. The reassignment is effective immediately and will remain in effect while Garner’s death is being investigated, police said.
The president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the city’s largest police union, called Pantaleo’s reassignment a “completely unwarranted, knee-jerk reaction.”
The decision, Patrick Lynch said in a statement, “effectively pre-judges” the case and denies Pantaleo the “very benefit of a doubt that has long been part of the social contract that allows police officers to face the risks of this difficult and complex job.”
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Florida jury slams tobacco company with $23.6B in punitive damages in widow’s lawsuit
MIAMI (AP) — A Florida jury has slammed the nation’s No. 2 cigarette maker, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., with $23.6 billion in punitive damages in a lawsuit filed by the widow of a longtime smoker who died of lung cancer in 1996.
The case is one of thousands filed in Florida after the state Supreme Court in 2006 tossed out a $145 billion class action verdict. That ruling also said smokers and their families need only prove addiction and that smoking caused their illnesses or deaths.
Last year, Florida’s highest court re-approved that decision, which made it easier for sick smokers or their survivors to pursue lawsuits against tobacco companies without having to prove to the court again that Big Tobacco knowingly sold dangerous products and hid the hazards of cigarette smoking.
The damages a Pensacola jury awarded Friday to Cynthia Robinson after a four-week trial come in addition to $16.8 million in compensatory damages.
Robinson individually sued Reynolds in 2008 on behalf of her late husband, Michael Johnson Sr. Her attorneys said the punitive damages are the largest of any individual case stemming from the original class action lawsuit.
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Russia bans 13 Americans including congressman, 12 linked to Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia has placed a U.S. lawmaker and 12 other people connected with the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq on its list of those banned from entering the country.
In a statement Saturday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said congressman Jim Moran, a Democrat from Virginia, was banned in response to the July 2 U.S. ban on Russian parliament member Adam Delimkhanov. He said Moran had been repeatedly accused of financial misdeeds but didn’t elaborate.
The other 12, including Guantanamo commander Rear Adm. Richard Butler and Lynndie England, a former soldier convicted of abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib, were banned in response to the United States’ adding 12 names in May to the so-called Magnitsky List of Russians sanctioned for human rights abuses.
Retired Brig. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded U.S. ground forces in Iraq in 2003-2004, retired Col. Janis Karpinsky whose command included the Abu Ghraib prison, and Gladys Kessler, a federal judge who rejected a Guantanamo inmate’s complaint of being force-fed while on hunger strike, were also included.
Moran said he suspects the ban was due to his sponsoring an amendment to a defense appropriations bill approved by the House that bars the U.S. purchase of helicopters from Rosoboronexport, the Russian state arms dealer which he accused of being “the principal supplier to the Assad regime in Syria.”
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Mexico’s elite backs woman who ran child shelter for 6 decades despite charges of abuse, filth
ZAMORA, Mexico (AP) — For more than six decades, poor parents struggling to support their children or raise troubled youths sent them to a group home in western Mexico run by a woman who gained a reputation as a secular saint.
Rosa del Carmen Verduzco raised thousands of children in The Great Family home. She cultivated patrons among Mexico’s political and intellectual elites, and was visited by presidents and renowned writers.
Then, last year, parents began complaining to authorities that they couldn’t visit their children at the home. Residents told investigators of Dickensian horrors — rapes, beatings and children held against their will for years in trash-strewn rooms with filthy toilets.
On Tuesday, heavily armed federal police and soldiers raided the home and arrested nine caretakers, including the 79-year-old woman known as Mama Rosa.
The revelations spawned disgust and horror, but also a rush to Mama Rosa’s defense by supporters who include some of Mexico’s most respected intellectuals and some of the very children who say they were mistreated at her facility.
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Lawmakers, US allies thinking Obama should rethink military withdrawal plan in Afghanistan
WASHINGTON (AP) — Afghanistan’s disputed election and Iraq’s unraveling are giving members of Congress and U.S. allies in the region reason to think President Barack Obama should rethink his decision to withdraw virtually all Americans troops from Afghanistan by the close of 2016.
The White House says Afghanistan is different from Iraq, mired in sectarian violence since shortly after U.S. troops left, and that the drawdown decision is a done deal.
Some lawmakers, however, are uncomfortable with Obama’s plan, which responds to the American public’s war fatigue and his desire to be credited with pulling the U.S. from two conflicts. Ten senators, Republicans and Democrats, raised the drawdown issue at a congressional hearing Thursday.
They argued that it’s too risky to withdraw American troops out so quickly, especially with the Afghan presidential election in the balance. They don’t want to see Afghanistan go the way of Iraq, and they fear that the Afghan security force, while making substantial gains, won’t be ready for solo duty by the end of 2016.
Under Obama’s plan, announced in May before Sunni militants seized control of much of Iraq, some 20,200 American troops will leave Afghanistan during the next five months, dropping the U.S. force to 9,800 by year’s end. That number would be cut in half by the end of 2015, with only about 1,000 remaining in Kabul after the end of 2016.
— Associated Press