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Bangladesh building collapse death toll exceeds 350

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Bangladesh rescuers on Sunday located nine people alive inside the rubble of a multi-story building that collapsed five days ago, as authorities announced they will now use heavy equipment to drill a central hole from the top to find survivors and dead bodies.

At least 362 people are confirmed dead in the collapse of the 8-story building that housed five garment factories. The death toll is expected to rise further, but it is already the deadliest tragedy to hit Bangladesh‘s garment industry, which is worth $20 billion annually and is one of the mainstays of the economy.

Wednesday’s collapse and previous disasters in garment factories have focused attention on the poor working conditions of workers who toil for as little as $38 a month to produce clothing for top international brands.

Army Maj. Gen. Chowdhury Hasan Suhrawardy, the coordinator of the rescue operations, said they will try to save the nine people first by manually shifting concrete blocks with the help of light equipment such as pick axes and shovels.

“But if we fail we will start our next phase within hours,” which would involve manual efforts as well as heavy equipment, including hydraulic cranes and cutters to bore a hole from the top of the collapsed building, he told reporters.

The purpose is to “continue the operation to recover both survivors and dead bodies. In this stage, we have no other choice but to use some heavy equipment. We will start it within a few hours. Manual operation and use of small equipment is not enough,” he said.

The work will be carried out carefully so as not to mutilate bodies, he said. All the equipment is in place, “from a small blade to everything. We have engaged many private sector companies which supplied us equipment, even some heavy one.”

In rare good news, a woman worker was pulled out alive on Sunday. Hasan Akbari, a rescuer, said when he tried to extricate a man next to the woman, “he said his body was being torn apart. So I had to let go. But God willing, we will be able to rescue him with more help very soon.”

On Saturday, police took six people into custody, including three owners of two buildings who were placed under arrest. Also under detention are the wife of the building owner who is on the run and two government engineers who were involved in giving approval for the building design. The owner had the approval to construct five floors but he added three more illegally.

A huge crack appeared in the building, Rana Plaza, on Tuesday, but the owner, Mohammed Sohel Rana, assured tenants it was safe to go inside. A bank and some shops on the first floor shut their premises on Wednesday after police ordered an evacuation, but managers of the garment factories on the upper floor told workers to continue their shifts.

Hours later the Rana Plaza was reduced to rubble, and most victims were crushed by massive blocks of concrete and mortar falling on them. A garment manufacturers’ group

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Texas mother, son indicted in 1977 murder of Army officer

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The wife and stepson of a decorated Army officer killed in a decades-old cold murder case have been charged with his death, the El Paso Times reported.

Roger Evan Garrett, 54, and his mother, Lisbeth Ann Garrett, 74, were indicted on murder charges in the Jan. 3, 1977, killing of Army Maj. Chester Garrett, according to the newspaper.

West Texas investigators said in February they had solved the murder of the Army Green Beret, who was found with a fractured skull and stab wounds in an El Paso County desert 35 years ago.

Roger Garrett was extradited from Knoxville, Tenn., where he had been living, to El Paso, the newspaper reported. Both Roger and Lisbeth Garrett are being held in the El Paso County Jail on $1 million bonds.

The 35-year-old major’s bloody body was found in the back seat of his 1972 Volkswagen in the desert east of El Paso. Investigators say he’d been stabbed 10 times but died of a skull fracture.

At the time of his death, investigators found footprints and a set of tracks belonging to a different car in the area, but no signs of a struggle, according to the newspaper.

The case eventually went cold after all leads became exhausted. The investigation was not reopened until 2006.

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Commander encouraged by anti-Taliban uprising

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Villagers in an area of southern Afghanistan that was the birthplace of the Taliban movement two decades ago have staged a first-of-its-kind uprising against the insurgents, a senior American commander said Wednesday.

Army Maj. Gen. Robert B. Abrams said in a video teleconference with reporters at the Pentagon that this was a new and promising development in Kandahar province with potential to spread even as U.S. and allied forces are playing more of a back-seat role in fighting the insurgency.

“This is absolutely the first time that we have seen this sort of an uprising, where the people have said, ‘Enough is enough,'” Abrams said, speaking from his headquarters in Kandahar city. He commands 14,000 U.S. troops in southern Afghanistan whose role has switched from direct combat to helping Afghan forces take the lead.

Abrams said the uprising in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province began about one month ago, and at this point the Taliban have been “kicked out” of all but about four villages — not at the initiative of Afghan or coalition troops but that of the villagers. “I suspect the rest of those villages will fall here in short order,” Abrams said.

Abrams said Afghan officials told him there were two main triggers of the uprising. One was the arrival about six weeks ago of a new district police chief with “a renewed energy, vigor, an offensive mindset.” The second was the beating of a villager by Taliban fighters who, when reprimanded by the village elder, proceeded to humiliate the elder.

“That was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Abrams said. He identified the village as Peshigan.

There have been local anti-Taliban uprisings elsewhere in Afghanistan in recent years — most notably in Andar district of the eastern province of Ghazni last year — but they have not developed into anything close to a national movement.

Seth G. Jones, a counterinsurgency and counterterrorism expert at the RAND Corp. and a frequent visitor to Afghanistan, said he thinks the Panjwai and other local uprisings are significant even if they are not decisive.

“It does show some of the weaknesses of a (Taliban) movement that is not that popular,” Jones said in an interview. “What this may suggest is that for the foreseeable future the struggle in rural parts of Afghanistan, including districts like Panjwai, will see-saw back …read more
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2 arrested in 1977 cold case murder of Texas Army officer

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Investigators in West Texas say they’ve solved the murder of an Army Green Beret who was found with a fractured skull and stab wounds in an El Paso County desert in 35 years ago.

The El Paso Times reports thatLisbeth Garrett, 74, was arrested Thursday in El Paso and charged in the 1977 death of her estranged husband, Army Maj. Chester Garrett.

An El Paso County Sheriff’s Office statement said that his stepson, 54-year-old Roger Evan Garrett, was arrested in Knoxville, Tenn.

The 35-year-old major’s bloody body was found in the back seat of his 1972 Volkswagen in the desert east of El Paso. Investigators say he’d been stabbed 10 times but died of a skull fracture.

At the time of his death, investigators found footprints and a set of tracks belonging to a different car in the area, but no signs of a struggle, the El Paso Times reported.

The case eventually went cold after all leads became exhausted. The investigation was not reopened until 2006, according to the paper.

“We’ve been working this case for many years,” sheriff’s Cmdr. Paul Cross told the paper. “The homicide guys did a tremendous job never quitting that case. It’s a great night, and hopefully this is the first step in getting justice for him and his family.”

Garrett, who was an executive officer of the student battalion at the Fort Bliss Air Defense School, also coached basketball and boys baseball at the school, according to the report.

Sheriff’s Capt. Mac Stout told the El Paso Herald-Post in 1977 described Garrett as a “Special Forces type” and said “[w]hoever got him must have been mighty tough, too, and probably more than one, and probably took him by surprise.”

Both Lizbeth Garrett and Roger Garrett are charged with murder and are being held on $5 million bond, according to the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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NATO helicopter crashes in eastern Afghanistan

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The U.S.-led coalition says a NATO helicopter has crashed in eastern Afghanistan.

The International Security Assistance Force says all crew members have been recovered and no fatalities have been reported in Thursday’s crash. It says the site of the crash has been secured, although the statement did not provide a location or other details.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claims the helicopter was shot down by the group’s fighters in the Tagab district of Kapisa province.

But U.S. Army Maj. Adam Wojack, an ISAF spokesman, says the cause of the crash is still being investigated and it’s not yet known if there was enemy activity in the area at the time.

The Taliban spokesman also said in an email that all crew members were killed. The militants often exaggerate casualty figures.

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Sexual misconduct a major reason behind military commander firings

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Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair, fired from his command in Afghanistan last May and now facing a court-martial on charges of sodomy, adultery and pornography and more, is just one in a long line of commanders whose careers were ended because of possible sexual misconduct.

Sex has proved to be the downfall of presidents, members of U.S. Congress and other notables. It’s also among the chief reasons that senior military officers are fired.

At least 30 percent of military commanders fired over the past eight years lost their jobs because of sexually related offenses, including harassment, adultery, and improper relationships, according to statistics compiled by The Associated Press.

The figures bear out growing concerns by Defense Department and military leaders over declining ethical values among U.S. forces, and they highlight the pervasiveness of a problem that came into sharp relief because of the resignation of one of the Army’s most esteemed generals, David Petraeus, and the investigation of a second general, John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

The statistics from all four military services show that adulterous affairs are more than a four-star foible. From sexual assault and harassment to pornography, drugs and drinking, ethical lapses are an escalating problem for the military’s leaders.

With all those offenses taken together, more than 4 in every 10 commanders at the rank of lieutenant colonel or above who were fired fell as a result of behavioral stumbles since 2005.

The recent series of highly publicized cases led to a review of ethics training across the military. It also prompted Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to conclude that while training is adequate, it may need to start earlier in service members’ careers and be reinforced more frequently.

Still, officials struggle to explain why the problem has grown and they acknowledge that solving it is difficult and will take time.

“I think we’re on the path. I think the last two defense secretaries have made this a very high priority and have very much held people accountable. But we’ve got a ways to go,” said Michele Flournoy, a former undersecretary of defense under President Barack Obama.

She said the military must enforce a “zero tolerance” policy and work to change the culture so service members are held accountable and made to understand that their careers will be over if they commit or tolerate such offenses.

“The policy is in place,” she said. “I don’t know that it’s as evenly and fully enforced as intended.”

For top officers, the numbers are startling.

Eighteen generals and admirals, from one star to four stars, were fired in recent years, and 10 of them lost their jobs because of sex-related offenses; two others were done in by alcohol-related problems.

The figures show that 255 commanders were fired since 2005, and that 78 of them were felled by sex-related offenses. A breakdown: 32 in the Army, 25 in the Navy, 11 in the Marine Corps and 10 in the Air Force.

Alcohol and drug-related problems cost the jobs of 27 commanders — 11 in the Navy, eight in the Army, five in the Marine Corp(s and three in the Air Force.

“It’s troublesome,” said Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Navy’s top spokesman. “Navy leadership is taking a look at why personal conduct seems to be a growing reason for why commanding officers are losing their commands. We’re trying to get to the root causes. We don’t really fully understand it.”

He and other military leaders agree that poor leadership, bad judgment, and ethical lapses, rather than operational failures, are growing factors in the firings. But Kirby said it’s not clear whether that has anything to do with the strains of the past 10 years at war or simply reflects deteriorating morals among the general population.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered the ethics review in November. He said that “when lapses occur, they have the potential to erode public confidence in our leadership and in our system for the enforcement of our high ethical standards. Worse, they can be detrimental to the execution of our mission to defend the American people.”

Anu Bhagwati, executive director of the Service Women’s Action Network, said there is more focus on this issue now than ever in the past, but that there really is no sufficient deterrent in place. She said a major problem is that military commanders are responsible for deciding what cases should move forward.

She said military lawyers, who are trained and have a greater appearance of impartiality, should make such an important legal decision.

The statistics gathered and analyzed by the AP represent a very conservative estimate of the problem. While the Army, Navy and Marine Corps provided details for all military commanders who were lieutenant colonels or commanders and above for 2005 until now, Air Force officials said they could only provide data for colonels and above from 2008 until today.

Also, the figures reflect only officers who were in command positions. The numbers don’t include what could be hundreds of officers fired from other jobs, such as administrative or other military posts. Military officials said they only collect data on officers in command who are fired.

The reasons for the firings are also murky. In some cases, no reason was listed; in other cases, it was vague — such as “ethics” or “leadership” or for fostering a bad command climate.

There also are varying degrees of publicity when such action is taken.

In Sinclair’s case, the charges and impending court martial have received extensive coverage. The five pages of allegations, which involve his conduct with five women who were not his wife, include one count of forcible sodomy, two counts of wrongful sexual conduct, six counts of inappropriate sexual relationships, and eight counts of violating regulations. He could receive life in prison if convicted.

But in many other cases, particularly of those below the rank of general, there is little public notice if the senior officer is in the Army or Air Force. The Navy, however, issues a public statement every time a commander is removed from a job.

The figures also highlight the Navy’s reputation for being quick to justice. Although it is the second smallest of the four military services, the Navy has relieved the most commanders, 99, over the past eight years. By comparison, it was 83 for the Army, 41 for the Marines and 32 for the Air Force.

Dismissing a commander from a job does not mean that officer is forced out of the military. In some of the more serious cases, officers may be discharged or forced to resign. But in many other cases, service members may go on to another job for some time.

Still, a dismissal often signals the end of an officer’s career, and with no chance for promotion, officers will often retire or leave the service.

The Army is the largest of the military services, reaching a peak of about 570,000 active duty soldiers at the height of the Iraq war. It is supposed to cut 80,000 troops by 2017. The Marine Corps is the smallest service, with about 202,000 at its peak during the wars and is set to slim down to about 182,000. The Navy has about 322,000 active duty forces and the Air Force has about 328,000.

The other reasons for dismissals by the services cover a broad range of offenses, from assault and drug and alcohol use to being a poor or abusive leader. There are also instances of fraud as well as a few cases where Navy officers commanding a ship have hit something, such as a buoy or another ship.

Four generals have lost their jobs in recent years as a result of public scandals. All were dismissed while Robert Gates was defense secretary:

–Gen. Michael Moseley, the Air Force Chief of Staff, was dismissed in 2008 for failing to address several nuclear-related mishaps by the service.

— Army Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley and Army Maj. Gen. George Weightman were dismissed because of the poor outpatient treatment of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 2007.

—Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal resigned after members of his staff made disparaging remarks about Obama’s national security team, including Vice President Joe Biden. A Pentagon investigation later cleared him of wrongdoing.

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Afghan bomber strikes near major US base

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A vehicle apparently driven by a suicide bomber exploded at the gate of a major U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, with initial reports indicating some Afghans were injured but no one was killed, a NATO command spokesman said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

The vehicle, probably with a suicide bomber inside, exploded at the gate of Camp Chapman, located adjacent to the airport near the provincial capital of Khost, which borders Pakistan, coalition spokesman U.S. Army Maj. Martyn Crighton said. He called it an “unsuccessful attack.”

Earlier, Afghan Police Gen. Abdul Qayum Baqizai said the attack was directed at a NATO convoy traveling to the airport.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in an email that the bomber targeted Afghan police manning the gate and Afghans working for the Americans entering the base. He claimed high casualties were inflicted.

NATO operates with more than 100,000 troops in the country, including some 66,000 American forces. It is handing most combat operations over to the Afghans in preparation for a pullout from Afghanistan in 2014. Militant groups, including the Taliban, rarely face NATO troops head-on and rely mainly on roadside bombs and suicide attacks.

NATO forces and foreign civilians have also been increasingly attacked by rogue Afghan military and police, eroding trust between the allies.

On Tuesday, the Interior Ministry said a policewoman who killed an American contractor in Kabul a day earlier was a native Iranian who came to Afghanistan and displayed “unstable behavior” but had no known links to militants.

The policewoman, identified as Sgt. Nargas, shot 49-year-old Joseph Griffin, of Mansfield, Georgia, on Monday, in the first such shooting by a woman in the spate of insider attacks. Nargas walked into a heavily-guarded compound in the heart of Kabul, confronted Griffin and gunned him down with a single pistol bullet.

The U.S-based security firm DynCorp International said on its website that Griffin was a U.S. military veteran who earlier worked with law enforcement agencies in the United States. In Kabul, he was under contract to the NATO military command to advise the Afghan police force.

The ministry spokesman, Sediq Sediqi, told a news conference that Nargas, who uses one name like many in the country, was born in Tehran, where she married an Afghan. She moved to the country 10 years ago, after her husband obtained fake documents enabling her to live and work there.

A mother of four in her early 30s, she joined the police five years ago, held various positions and had a clean record, he said. Sediqi produced an Iranian passport that he said was found at her home.

No militant group has claimed responsibility for the killing.

Chief investigator of the case, Police Gen. Mohammad Zahir said that during interrogation, the policewoman said she had plans to kill either the Kabul governor, city police chief or Zahir himself, but when she realized that penetrating the last security cordons to reach them would be too difficult, she saw “a foreigner” and turned her weapon on him.

There have been 60 insider attacks this year against foreign military and civilian personnel, compared to 21 in 2011. This surge presents another looming security issue as NATO prepares to pull out almost all of its forces by 2014, putting the war against the Taliban and other militant groups largely in the hands of the Afghans.

More than 50 Afghan members of the government‘s security forces also have died this year in attacks by their own colleagues. The Taliban claims such incidents reflect a growing popular opposition to the foreign military presence and the Kabul government.

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In Afghan Taliban birthplace, US troops step back

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President Barak Obama will decide in the coming weeks how many American troops to send home from Afghanistan next year. A major factor in his decision will be the question of how successful U.S. troops have been in preparing the Afghans to secure their country at bases like this one, located in one of the country’s most violent areas — the birthplace of the Taliban.

There have been calls in Congress for Obama to increase the size of a planned drawdown of U.S. forces before the end of summer 2013, when the Afghan military is supposed to take the lead in security across the country. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, as well, has suggested he wants the drawdown accelerated.

“We are working to make this transition of security happen sooner. We want all the foreign forces to come out of the villages and go to their bases so the Afghan forces can carry out security,” Karzai said last week.

But too large a pullout too soon could undermine the fight against the Taliban insurgency if Afghan forces are not fully prepared. It is widely thought that Gen. John Allen, the top military commander in Afghanistan, and his senior staff want to keep a large force in place for the summer fighting season, before international forces move into an entirely back-up and training role behind the Afghan forces by the start of autumn — an event known as “Milestone 13.”

Obama is expected to decide on the size of the withdrawal after meeting with Karzai in Washington in early January. Their talks will also be key on determining what the U.S. military’s role will be in Afghanistan after December 2014, when the foreign combat mission is set to end and almost all international troops are scheduled to leave. The U.S. currently has 66,000 thousand troops in Afghanistan out of an international force totaling about 102,000.

The work of training Afghan army units being done at this dusty base in the Zhari district of Kandahar province and at other bases scattered around the country will help shape Obama‘s decision.

U.S. and Afghan officers here say the district is a success story: Violence has not gone up more than two months after the American presence here was brought down from around 3,500 troops to around 300, with Afghan forces taking the lead in more areas.

But the situation remains tenuous. Residents say Taliban fighters remain in control of large parts of the district.

Zhari is where Taliban leader Mullah Omar was born, where he founded the movement that ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s and has battled U.S. and Afghan forces for the past 11 years. Three years ago, Taliban forces controlled the district, and it has been one of the three most violent areas of Kandahar, the province that is the Taliban’s traditional heartland.

U.S soldiers had a hard fight in Zhari when they moved into the south in large force as part of the surge in American troops early in the Obama administration. The district has rich farmland that produces pomegranates and grapes used for raisins, and the fields, covered in dirt mounds, formed natural trenches the Taliban could fight from. Food, which was abundant, was easily coerced by the Taliban from villagers.

Lt. Col. Tim Davis, commander of Combined Task Force Buffalo, said, “the density of mines was impressive” when his task force arrived and that it required “an entire combat operation just to put a road in.”

The commander of international forces in Kandahar and three other southern provinces, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Robert Abrams, told reporters recently that progress in Zhari had been “astounding.” Afghan forces are already in the lead of security duties in many parts of the district, he said. Across the south, the Afghans carry out 400 to 500 daily patrols without coalition assistance.

Afghan military officers in Zhari contend they can now handle the fight without much help from the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force.

“Zhari is about 70 percent safe now,” said Col. Abdul Rahimi, operations officer of the Afghan army’s 3rd Brigade 205th Corps at Pasab base, though he acknowledged neighboring Maiwand district remains a problem. The number of Taliban fighters was down to around 100 in Zhari and Maiwand, compared to some 900 two years ago, he said.

“The enemy is not able right now to fight against the government, nor can it take over if ISAF leaves,” Rahimi said.

Residents in Zhari, however, give a different picture. Some said the government has control of the main highway but not much else.

“Government claims that they control most of the area are just a dream not related to any reality,” Allahnoor Taraki, a 38-year-old farmer, said.

Mohammed Salim Danghar, a taxi driver, said the province remains hotly contested. While the government has improved its position, he said, “we all know that most of the area is controlled by the Taliban.”

The American drawdown in Zhari is a model of plans for the pullback elsewhere.

Here, large American combat units have been replaced by smaller teams made up of about 18 soldiers each. The teams are embedded with Afghan units, advising them on tactics, leadership and strategy — but not fighting.

In Zhari, attacks “have not only decreased, but significantly decreased,” said Davis.

“The challenge is when we start pulling back,” he said. The key to a successful transition will be “to see if the local security forces can take up the slack.”

The U.S. military plans to repeat that process elsewhere in the south and east by creating 400 such teams. At the same time, eight of the 14 U.S. brigades in Afghanistan will be reduced in size to 1,400-1,900 personnel, down from 3,500, to act as support for the teams. That role change alone will mean a reduction of between 13,000 to 17,000 NATO troops.

The U.S. military has not made public its recommendations to Obama about the size or timing of next year’s drawdown. Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said recently that NATO and the Afghan government intend to begin the final phase of transition by the mid to latter part of 2013 — suggesting he prefers a later start to the drawdown, as opposed to earlier in 2013.

The top contender for Panetta’s job, former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, is thought to support a more rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has already announced that about 3,800 of his country’s troops will leave by the end of 2013, leaving 5,000 to stay into 2014.

The Afghan army now numbers about 350,000 and has taken the lead on security in areas that are home to 76 percent of Afghanistan‘s population of 30 million. Still, despite their progress, only one of Afghanistan‘s 23 brigades around the country can operate on its own without coalition help of some kind, the U.S. Defense Department said in its most recent semi-annual report to Congress.

Attacks by insurgents around the country have not decreased, but the violence has been pushed out of most population centers, the report said. Civilian and NATO casualties have fallen. But Afghan forces are taking an increasing toll. More than 300 Afghan soldiers and policemen are dying each month, according to Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, who said that represented an increase, though he did not provide comparative figures.

“We still face challenges in southern Afghanistan,” Abrams acknowledged in his headquarters at Kandahar Air Field.

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Coalition soldier missing in Afghanistan

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A military spokesman says a search is under way for a soldier from the NATO-led coalition who has gone missing in southern Afghanistan.

U.S. Army Maj. Martyn Crighton says the Georgian soldier is believed to be the first to have gone missing since U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was taken prisoner by the Taliban more than three years ago.

Eighteen soldiers from the former Soviet republic of Georgia, which has 1,560 troops in Afghanistan, have been killed over the past three years.

Georgia is not a member of NATO but has a significant presence in Afghanistan, relative to its population of 4.5 million.

There are currently more than 102,000 coalition troops in the country, including 66,000 from the United States. Only a residual force is slated to remain past 2013.

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4 people to be inducted into Aviation Hall of Fame

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A Medal of Honor winner and the chief instructor for the Tuskegee Airmen are among four people being inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Ohio.

Next year’s inductees were announced Monday. They include U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady, who received the prestigious military award and developed techniques for helicopter air ambulance rescue in combat.

Also honored is the late Charles Alfred Anderson, who helped develop a civilian pilot training program for blacks and was chief instructor for the Tuskegee Airmen, the first black military pilots who fought in World War II.

The other inductees are U.S. Navy Capt. Robert “Hoot” Gibson, a flight test pilot who flew five NASA shuttle missions, and the late Dwane Wallace, who led Cessna Aircraft Co.

They’ll be inducted Oct. 4 in Dayton.

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Honduras congress OKs referendum on police cleanup

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The Honduran congress approved a bill Tuesday to submit President Porfirio Lobo‘s police cleanup program to a popular vote, after the measure was blocked by the courts. Lobo has been locked in a standoff with Supreme Court justices, who he accuses of catering to powerful business interests. He says the same people who ousted then President Manuel Zelaya in a 2009 coup are now plotting against him. The tension was heightened Tuesday when about 50 soldiers and 25 police officers showed up outside the congressional building. Army Maj. Melvin Flores said his troops had been sent there by his commanders to guard the building. But congressional vice president Marvin Ponce said he hadn’t asked for the troops. Ponce said congress might consider firing some Supreme Court magistrates, which could further raise tensions. “We are in a high-level political crisis,” Ponce said. “I wouldn’t rule out the firing of some magistrates, or of the whole court.” Late Tuesday night, the president of congress was meeting with the head of the armed forces to discuss the situation, said lawmaker Waldina Paz. “We were notified that the national congress was being militarized and this worries us a lot,” Paz said. “We have requested that the human rights commission ask military leaders to withdraw the soldiers from congress.” Perla Simmons of the Liberal Party said she didn’t know what was happening. “We are suspicious of events and don’t know what decisions are going to be taken over the course of the night.” Honduras‘ federal judges have long been closely tied with the business elite. In October, the Supreme Court shot down Lobo’s plan to build private cities as a means of attracting investment and economic development, and last week it declared unconstitutional his plan to clean up the notoriously corrupt national police force. Honduras has lived through this kind of dispute before. Zelaya was deposed when he ignored a Supreme Court order to cancel a referendum on his plan to revise the constitution, promising the poor they would get a voice in shaping the future of the country. Drug trafficking and violence have spiked since Zelaya’s ouster in Honduras, where two-thirds of the 8.2 million people live in poverty. With a homicide rate of 91 per 100,000 residents, it is often called the most violent country in the world. The 2009 coup split created a headache for the United States, which cut off aid to Honduras as punishment, but then was criticized for recognizing Lobo’s government after he was elected in a regularly scheduled vote later that year. Lobo took office in January 2010 and is limited to a single term, which ends next year.
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More than 200 dead in Philippine typhoon

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Philippine officials say the death toll from a powerful typhoon that sparked flash floods and landslides in the country’s south has risen to more than 200 people.

A government spokeswoman, Fe Maestre, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that at least 151 people died in the worst-hit province of Compostela Valley. That included 66 villagers and soldiers who perished in a flash flood that swamped two emergency storm shelters and a military camp as Typhoon Bopha lashed New Bataan town the day before.

Maestre says an unspecified number of villagers remain missing in New Bataan.

Army Maj. Gen. Ariel Bernardo says 51 people died and 98 others are missing in nearby Davao Oriental province, mostly due to flooding and toppled trees.

Disaster-response agencies reported seven other typhoon-related deaths elsewhere.
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