Typhoon Haiyan: Families Search For Relatives

Survivors Expect Long Wait For Aid

Updated: 1:25pm UK, Tuesday 12 November 2013

By Stuart Ramsay, Chief Correspondent, in Cebu

For hour after hour, driving into the heart of typhoon-stricken northern Cebu, it was the same picture.

Hundreds of families, picking through the remains of their destroyed homes, hoping to find some treasured keepsakes; and children lining the roadside, for mile after mile, pleading for water, food and money.

It has been four days since Typhoon Haiyan - or Yolanda as it is known in the Philippines - swept across the centre of the country, destroying homes and livelihoods in its path.

So far, in northern Cebu at least, very little aid has reached those who need it most.

Supplies of water and rice are trickling through from independent charities but as we drove north, the scene of destruction worsening the further we went, there was no evidence of any food convoys and no airstrips are operational in the area.

Thankfully there was no storm surge in northern Cebu, but the winds struck with a savagery which stunned residents well used to typhoons, believed to have been in the region of 250 miles per hour.

Bonifacio Reviero said: "We hid in the house with our grandchildren but we could hear the telephone and electricity poles snapping like twigs outside, and branches smashing into the roof. It lasted hours.

"When it was over, the roof was gone and the house was ringed by huge trees, which had crashed down but not on us. I don't know how we were so lucky."

One village lost 12 fishermen when four boats capsized in the storm.

In the hills, miles of banana trees have been uprooted or ripped in half. The coconut trees stand bare and broken. There will be no harvest here for a very long time.

More than 90% of the homes in northern Cebu, an area hundreds of miles square, have sustained considerable damage; many pancaked, storey on storey. 

No one expects help to come any time soon, hence the pleading with passing motorists for money, to buy new building materials as soon as possible. The remnants of their old walls and roofs are spread across the nearby fields.

The injured line the walls of the only medical facility in Bogo City, many of them young children.

In one jam-packed ward of the tiny Severo Verallo Memorial District Hospital the very youngest patients lie four to a bed. Since Saturday the hospital has delivered 40 newborns.

Curled up around them on the beds are their hollow-eyed parents, who know they should be celebrating one of the happiest moments of their lives but are unable to amid the chaos and destruction outside; worries about injured relatives, and the knowledge for many that they have no home to take them to. 

Two-day-old Stephen's mother, Maria Janairo, who went into labour a month early during the storm, said it would be a very strange feeling when so many children in the town were celebrating their birthday together every year.

"On the one hand I will be happy that we survived for them to be born, but on the other it will be a haunting reminder of everything we lost."

:: To make a donation to the DEC Philippines Crisis Appeal visit www.dec.org.uk, call the 24-hour hotline on 0370 60 60 900, donate over the counter at any high street bank or post office or send a cheque.

You can also donate £5 by texting the word SUPPORT to 70000.

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Egypt 'Worst Arab Country' For Women's Rights

Male control of women, and fear of women's sexuality, is present in all societies to one degree or another.

But nowhere in the modern world is it so prevalent as in the Arab countries, according to a shocking new poll from the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Apologists for this behaviour - or those simply too cowardly to admit their embarrassment about this state of affairs - will be furious with the survey but the facts are overwhelming, and the details disturbing.

Thomson Reuters Foundation surveyed 336 gender experts in the 22 states of the Arab League.

Women are still not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia

The poll found that Egypt is the worst for women's rights, that female genital mutilation is endemic, and that there has been a surge in sexual violence since the Arab uprisings of 2011. 

Women have been the biggest losers of the misnamed "Arab Spring".

As some analysts argued from the beginning, one of the dangers of "revolution" would be to unleash the darker forces of Islamism previously kept in check by the brutality of the dictators.

Neither side is a winner in Syria with widespread abuses against women

Reuters quotes the Egyptian columnist Mona Eltahawy as saying: "As the miserable poll results show, we women need a double revolution, one against the various dictators who've ruined our countries and the other against a toxic mix of culture and religion that ruin our lives as women."

Many correspondents who have worked in Egypt have been troubled by the rampant sexism and sexual violence against women.

Cairo has long been considered the sexual harassment capital of the Arab world by female correspondents, some of whom will only work there with male guards.

Egypt appears a massively sexually frustrated society.

Suzanne Mubarak was trying to eliminate female genital mutilation

This writer - a man - has been groped by men in Tahrir Square several times during demonstrations, and it is far worse for women.

All of my female Egyptian friends acknowledge that harassment is part of the everyday life and they will only go out if accompanied by male friends.

Human Rights Watch reports that 91 women were raped or sexually assaulted in public in Tahrir Square in June alone during the anti-Morsi demonstrations.

Groups have had to form protection squads to allow women to demonstrate, circling them so that gangs of men cannot drag them off to the darker parts of the square.

The "Arab Spring" has brought more pain to women

The survey quotes a UN report from April which said 99.3% of women and girls are subjected to sexual harassment in Egypt. 

Unicef says female genital mutilation is endemic with 91% of women and girls subject to cutting. Only Djibouti has a higher rate - 93%.

During the Mubarak dictatorship, his wife, Suzanne, oversaw a programme to try to eliminate the practice.

Funding for this has fallen since he was overthrown.

Iraq is considered the second worst place to be a woman in the Arab world.

Domestic abuse and prostitution rates have soared as a consequence of the upheavals wrought by war.

Saudi Arabia continues to be the only Arab state where women are not allowed to drive, but the poll suggests cautious reforms are having an effect on society.

Women still need a man's permission in order to work, open a bank account, or travel abroad, but more women are studying and working.

The overthrow of the dictatorship in Tunisia has not resulted in advances for women although the country remains one of the more relatively liberal states.

Some 27% of seats in parliament are held by women, contraception is legal, but polygamy is spreading and inheritance laws continue to favour males.

The war in Syria has had a catastrophic effect on everyone but women have been especially affected by the use of rape as a weapon.

The top five places where it is best to be a woman in the Arab world are Comoros, followed by Oman, Kuwait, Jordan and Qatar.

Egypt is 22nd out of 22.

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Animal Rescuer Kills Herself And 31 Dogs

An animal rights activist who committed suicide also killed 31 dogs she was looking after in a sanctuary at the same time.

Sandy Lertzman was found dead at her home she called Sandy's Safe Haven For All Animals in Moreland Hills, near Cleveland, Ohio, last week.

Alongside her body, which was found by a friend in a car in a garage attached to the property, were the bodies of the dogs.

The 62-year-old had been looking after animals at the centre for more than 40 years before ending her life.

Police said a suicide note was found inside her house.

Moreland Hills interim police chief Dale Canter said although the car's engine was running when her body was discovered, it was unclear how long she had been dead.

One dog was able to escape by jumping out of the car and was later found by police in the garage.

It is understood the surviving dog is recovering at the home with Ms Lertzman's husband Rick.

According to the website of the organisation she founded, Animal Rescue Foundation, Ms Lertzman also looked after cats, horses, deer, racoons, squirrels, geese, ducks and other birds.

The local paper said the other animals are being cared for by a worker at the foundation.

A statement on her foundation's website said: "We sadly mourn the passing of our founder, Sandy Lertzman.

"Sandy Lertzman, for over 45 years, was a pioneer in animal rescue. She woke every day to help all of god's beautiful creatures.

"Sandy's dogs were all formerly abused dogs that no one wanted or could not be adopted.

"Blind dogs, dogs with severe disabilities, dogs who could not be socialised - all the dogs found her love and compassion

"She obviously feared that upon her death, these abused dogs would be placed in harm's way."

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John 'Junior' Gotti: Ex-Mafia Boss Stabbed

Former Mafia boss John "Junior" Gotti has been stabbed in a car park on Long Island after what he said was his attempt to break up a fight.

Gotti reportedly drove himself to a Long Island hospital with a bleeding gut on Sunday night.

He had allegedly been assaulted outside a CVS store in Syosset.

The elder John Gotti was known as Teflon Don and Dapper Don

Police are investigating the incident and his claim that a stranger stabbed him in the stomach after he got in the middle of a fight.

The New York Post and other reports said he has declined to provide any more information to police.

Gotti, 49, was the reputed head of the Gambino crime family for much of the 1990s while his father, the late mobster John "Dapper Don" Gotti, was in prison.

The elder Gotti - who had avoided conviction for a long time, earning the nickname of "Teflon Don" - died in prison in 2002.

His son said he left organised crime in 1999, when he pleaded guilty to racketeering charges that sent him to prison for six years.

Since 2005, Gotti has been tried several times for racketeering. Each trial ended in a hung jury.

He says he now manages properties on Long Island.

His wounds are not life-threatening and he is said to be recovering at home.

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Kristallnacht Remembered In Berlin March

More than 200 rabbis from across the world have marched in silence from the Brandenburg Gate to the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht.

The rabbis, from 30 countries, held memorial candles as they walked the short route between the two landmarks just before midnight.

Organisers said it gave rabbis an opportunity to reflect privately on what was also known as the Night of Broken Glass.

Kristallnacht saw a series of coordinated attacks carried out against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on November 9 and 10 in 1938.

A rabbi walks through the Holocaust Museum

The attacks were carried out by the Sturm Abteilung - the Nazi Party's paramilitary wing - as well as non-Jewish civilians. Scores of Jews were killed and thousands of Jewish businesses and synagogues ransacked as the authorities looked on and did nothing.

"We paid homage to the victims of the Holocaust last night we paid homage, and we remembered Kristallnacht," said Pinchas Goldschmidt, chief rabbi of Moscow and president of the Conference of European Rabbis.

"We came tonight to this Holocaust memorial in the centre of Berlin to remember the six million victims of the Holocaust.

"Jewish religious life is back, and the learning and studying of the Torah is also back in Berlin. This is what we are celebrating as well during these few days in Berlin."

The rabbis were in the German capital to participate in the 28th convention of the Conference of European Rabbis, the main rabbinical alliance in Europe.

Seven hundred religious leaders from Europe's mainstream synagogue communities are participating in the event, designed to maintain and defend the religious rights of Jews in Europe.

The anniversary of the infamous pogrom fell on November 9/10.

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Al Shabaab Denies Gunmen Fled Kenya Massacre

Somalia's al Shabaab insurgents have denied that gunmen who massacred 67 people in Kenya's Westgate mall tried to flee the shopping centre, insisting they were special suicide commandos.

The al Qaeda-linked movement said in the latest issue of its online magazine that the killers were members of a "martyrdom brigade" - and warned that more attacks were coming.

"(The gunmen) were brothers who have volunteered to enter into enemy ranks and cause havoc before being killed by the enemy," the group said.

The magazine does not specifically say the gunmen had died, but it dismissed initial reports by Kenya's army chief Julius Karangi that the men had tried to run away.

The mall was severely damaged during the four-day siege

It said: "Karangi even had the audacity to claim that the martyrdom-seeking mujahedeen were seeking to abscond and escape from the mall."

A special edition of the magazine was released on Tuesday via extremist websites, and was dedicated to the four-day Westgate siege.

It comes a day after four men appeared in a Nairobi court charged with "supporting a terrorist group" over the September attack.

The magazine contains gruesome photographs of the assault, and messages lauding the success of the massacre.

"Westgate was not a fight, it was a message," the magazine said, quoting al Shabaab spokesman Ali Mohamed Rage. "The real fight is on the way."

It did not name or say how many gunmen there were, but police believe there to have been only four attackers, and not the dozen that security forces had initially reported.

Interpol is assisting Kenya in trying to identify four bodies suspected to be those of the terrorists.

Some media outlets had previously speculated the gunmen may have escaped in the chaos of the fighting, although security sources said they died in a final standoff with Kenyan commandos, who ended the fight by firing anti-tank rockets that sparked a fierce fire.

A police officer outside the evacuated building

Witnesses in the mall described how the al Shabaab gunmen stormed the crowded complex, firing from the hip and hurling grenades at shoppers and staff.

The Kenyan Red Cross has said some 20 people are still missing, and there are fears more bodies could be found in the wreckage of the mall.

"Westgate was meant to send a message to Kenyans: get out of Somalia and stop your aggressions against Muslims," the magazine added.

"After Kenya's defiance and its insistence of staying in Somalia, Kenyans should ask themselves when and where will the next attack be? How safe are you in Kenya?

"If you want peace, remove your military from the Muslim lands that they have invaded."

Kenyan troops entered southern Somalia to attack al Shabaab bases two years ago, and later joined the 17,700-strong African Union force deployed in the country.

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'Noisy' Spanish Pianist Laia Martin On Trial

A pianist is on trial and facing a possible jail sentence of more than seven years after a neighbour complained her playing had caused her psychological damage.

The neighbour, known only as Sonia B, said she had to endure eight-hour practice sessions by Laia Martin, who lived below her in Puigcerda, Spain.

Ms B claimed the music caused her trouble sleeping and led to nervousness, anxiety and panic attacks, and said her neighbour was responsible for noise pollution in the town.

According to the neighbour, Martin practised five days a week while she was studying at a music college.

Ms B told a court she now hated pianos and had moved out of her house, the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported.

Martin, 27, who is now a professional concert pianist, denied playing at home as often as her neighbour claimed and said she took regular classes in other towns.

Her trial is expected to last until November 15.

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Cyberattack On SuperValu Shop Loyalty Scheme

By Vicki Hawthorne, Ireland Correspondent

Tens of thousands of members of a supermarket loyalty scheme have been warned their credit card details may now be in the hands of criminals.

SuperValu, which has nearly 200 branches across Ireland, says 62,000 customers may have had their details compromised because of a cyberattack at the firm managing the scheme, Loyaltybuild.

AXA Insurance has warned that around 7,000 of its customers may also be affected by the security breach.

Insurance firm AXA has also been targeted

The problem was first reported last week to Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner, but Loyaltybuild has now said the issue is more extensive than first thought.

The marketing company said on its website: "As part of our ongoing investigation into a system breach identified last month, Loyaltybuild has discovered that it has been the victim of a sophisticated criminal attack.

"We have advised the Data Protection Commissioner of Ireland of this new information and the Gardai has also been notified.

"We are working around the clock with our security experts to get to the bottom of this and to further enhance our security in order to protect our valued customers, who are of paramount importance to us.

"Unfortunately, the threat of cyberattacks is increasingly becoming a reality of doing business today and Loyaltybuild would like to sincerely apologise for any distress or inconvenience caused."

The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner said the new information from Loyaltybuild was "extremely disturbing".

SuperValu is advising customers who were involved in the Getaway Breaks loyalty scheme in its stores to check their credit card statements for any unusual activity.

The supermarket said: "The protection of our customers' information is an absolute priority for us at all times and as yet there is no information to suggest that any data has been obtained.

"However as a precautionary measure we are advising anyone who has booked a Getaway Break recently to review their accounts and report any unusual activity or unsolicited communication relating to this issue to their financial institution."

Loyaltybuild has its headquarters in Ireland and manages customer loyalty schemes for major retailers across Europe.

It is understood that a team of investigators visited the offices of Loyaltybuild in Ennis, Co Clare, on Tuesday.

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Typhoon Survivors Expect Long Wait For Help

By Stuart Ramsay, Chief Correspondent, in Cebu

For hour after hour, driving into the heart of typhoon-stricken northern Cebu, it was the same picture.

Hundreds of families, picking through the remains of their destroyed homes, hoping to find some treasured keepsakes; and children lining the roadside, for mile after mile, pleading for water, food and money.

It has been four days since Typhoon Haiyan - or Yolanda as it is known in the Philippines - swept across the centre of the country, destroying homes and livelihoods in its path.

So far, in northern Cebu at least, very little aid has reached those who need it most.

Stephen was born a month early during the storm

Supplies of water and rice are trickling through from independent charities but as we drove north, the scene of destruction worsening the further we went, there was no evidence of any food convoys and no airstrips are operational in the area.

Thankfully there was no storm surge in northern Cebu, but the winds struck with a savagery which stunned residents well used to typhoons, believed to have been in the region of 250 miles per hour.

Bonifacio Reviero said: "We hid in the house with our grandchildren but we could hear the telephone and electricity poles snapping like twigs outside, and branches smashing into the roof. It lasted hours.

"When it was over, the roof was gone and the house was ringed by huge trees, which had crashed down but not on us. I don't know how we were so lucky."

One village lost 12 fishermen when four boats capsized in the storm.

In the hills, miles of banana trees have been uprooted or ripped in half. The coconut trees stand bare and broken. There will be no harvest here for a very long time.

Bonifacio Reviero sits outside what remains of his home

More than 90% of the homes in northern Cebu, an area hundreds of miles square, have sustained considerable damage; many pancaked, storey on storey. 

No one expects help to come any time soon, hence the pleading with passing motorists for money, to buy new building materials as soon as possible. The remnants of their old walls and roofs are spread across the nearby fields.

The injured line the walls of the only medical facility in Bogo City, many of them young children.

In one jam-packed ward of the tiny Severo Verallo Memorial District Hospital the very youngest patients lie four to a bed. Since Saturday the hospital has delivered 40 newborns.

Curled up around them on the beds are their hollow-eyed parents, who know they should be celebrating one of the happiest moments of their lives but are unable to amid the chaos and destruction outside; worries about injured relatives, and the knowledge for many that they have no home to take them to. 

Two-day-old Stephen's mother, Maria Janairo, who went into labour a month early during the storm, said it would be a very strange feeling when so many children in the town were celebrating their birthday together every year.

"On the one hand I will be happy that we survived for them to be born, but on the other it will be a haunting reminder of everything we lost."

:: To make a donation to the DEC Philippines Crisis Appeal visit www.dec.org.uk, call the 24-hour hotline on 0370 60 60 900, donate over the counter at any high street bank or post office or send a cheque.

You can also donate £5 by texting the word SUPPORT to 70000.

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Typhoon Haiyan: Appeal For £190m In Aid

Aid agencies have launched a joint emergency appeal to get food, water and shelter to victims of the devastating Philippines typhoon.

The United Nations estimates that $301m (£190m) will be needed in aid.

"We've just launched an action plan focusing on the areas of food, health, sanitation, shelter, debris removal and also protection of the most vulnerable with the government and I very much hope our donors will be generous," humanitarian chief Valerie Amos told reporters in the capital Manila.

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), made up of 14 aid charities, said its members were already responding to the crisis but the scale of the destruction meant there was "huge unmet need".

People wait to be evacuated from Tacloban

A "huge injection" of funds is needed to get aid through to victims after the typhoon, known locally as Yolanda, made roads impassable and put airports out of action, the DEC said.

The British public has donated more than £1.5m in the first 15 hours of the appeal.

DEC chief executive Saleh Saeed said: "We have been overwhelmed by people's generosity.

"To raise such a huge amount of money in so little time - even before the celebrity-backed appeals have aired - is quite staggering."

Police stand next to body bags near Tacloban

The appeals, fronted by musician Myleene Klass and presenter Kirsty Young, will be broadcast at the end of evening news programmes this evening.

Although the official death toll stands at 1,774, around 10,000 people are thought to have been killed in the city of Tacloban alone.

The UN said 673,000 people have lost their homes while a further 11.3 million could be affected after the typhoon, said to be the strongest ever to make landfall, hit the southeast Asian nation.

Sky's chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay is in Hagnaya in Cebu where he said people are begging on the streets because supplies from NGOs have not yet reached them.

He said nearly 100% of the buildings in the town have been damaged.

Homes on a hillside in Tacloban have been obliterated by the storm surge

"There's concern that there is another weather front likely to hit the area with a lot of rain forecast in the next couple of days."

Authorities said they had evacuated 800,000 people ahead of the typhoon, but many evacuation centres proved to be no protection against the wind and rising water.

The Philippine National Red Cross, responsible for warning the region and giving advice, said people were not prepared for a storm surge.

Although weakened, the typhoon, has also killed eight people and devastated farmland since making landfall in southern China. 

DEC chief executive Saleh Saeed said: "The destruction in Tacloban city, on the east coast, is said to be reminiscent of the Boxing Day tsunami.

People in the devout Philippines still try to use a badly flooded church

"There is currently no food, water or electricity. We can only imagine how much worse the situation will be for families living in towns and remote villages.

"DEC members are doing all they can to get aid through but they need a huge injection of funds in order to do so.

"The priorities are getting food, water and shelter to people in desperate need."

Sky's Asia correspondent Mark Stone, on the island of Leyte, said up to 20 people had been killed by falling bags of rice in the scramble to get to aid supplies from a warehouse.

Stone said he had travelled to the island with people who did not know if their family members were alive or not: "There's no mobile phone network here, no way of communicating."

The DEC includes the British Red Cross, Christian Aid, Oxfam and Save the Children.

All of its members will support the appeal and 13 of the 14 are responding either directly or through partner organisations.

The UK is deploying a Royal Navy warship, HMS Daring, and donating £10m of humanitarian assistance in aid for the victims, Prime Minister David Cameron said.

The ship carries equipment to make drinking water from seawater.

Typhoon Haiyan has made landfall in southwest China, killing eight people

Britain will also deploy RAF military transport aircraft in aid of recovery efforts, earmarking at least one C-17 cargo plane to move humanitarian aid and large equipment.

And a 12-strong team of British surgeons and paramedics is being sent to help with the aid effort.

Meanwhile, Australia announced assistance of £5.8m and the US government has pledged $20m in immediate aid and has ordered the aircraft carrier USS George Washington to the sail to the Philippines.

Japan said it will fly a relief team over to the ravaged country and Taiwan is sending £125,000 in aid.

The United Nations World Food Programme has also allocated $2m (£1.25m) and Unicef is sending emergency supplies.

:: To make a donation to the DEC Philippines Crisis Appeal visit www.dec.org.uk, call the 24-hour hotline on 0370 60 60 900, donate over the counter at any high street bank or post office or send a cheque.

You can also donate £5 by texting the word SUPPORT to 70000.

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