VIOLENT WEEKEND IN SOUTHERN MEXICO LEAVES 24 PEOPLE DEAD
ACAPULCO: At least 24 people, some bearing signs of torture, were killed in a series of incidents over the weekend in Mexico’s violence-plagued southern state of Guerrero, officials have said.
Authorities found nine bodies – five of which were dismembered – on a road, officials said Monday, after two sailors were discovered dead elsewhere in the state over the weekend. Faced with an uptick in bloodshed the state governor held an “urgent session” with army commanders and federal and state police in an effort to strengthen security in the region, the state’s security spokesman Roberto Alvarez told a Mexican television channel. “The bodies of nine males with visible signs of torture” were discovered on Sunday night on a road between the towns of Tixtla and Atliaca, in Guerrero’s central region, the state’s secretary of security said in a statement.
Agents at the local prosecutors office reported finding “four bodies tied at the feet and hands.” ROME: At least eight people died and “many” more are missing, feared dead, after the latest migrant boat dramas in the Mediterranean, Italy’s coastguard and NGOS said on Tuesday.
The coastguard said one of its boats had recovered seven bodies and another person had died on a rescue boat operated by Malta-based charity MOAS and the Red Cross. The Red Cross said survivors’ accounts suggested “many” people were unaccounted for, including the mother of a young girl who was among the traumatised survivors on MOAS’S boat, the Topaz Responder. “There may be many missing, many dead,” Red Cross Team Coordinator Abdelfetah Mohamed said in a telephone call to colleagues that the humanitarian organisation posted on Youtube along with still images of the aftermath of the rescues. “The doctors managed to revive several people with hypothermia but it was too late for one of them,” MOAS spokeswoman Maria Teresa Sette told AFP.
The coastguard said a total of around 1,200 people had been rescued during operations overnight and on Tuesday morning to rescue people on board 11 boats. One wooden vessel was carrying 450-500 people. There were also two smaller wooden boats as well as the usual overcrowded inflatable dinghies.
The Red Cross said the survivors included migrants from Syria, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and sub-saharan Africa. The latest victims will add to a total of 4,655 migrants confirmed to have died or disappeared in the Mediterranean so far this year, according to counts by the International Organisation for Migration and the UN refugee agency. NEW YORK: Democrat Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu lawmaker in the US Congress, has met President-elect Donald Trump and discussed with him the fight against terrorism and other foreign policy issues amidst speculation that she is being considered as the American envoy to the UN.
Gabbard, 35, who was reelected for her third consecutive term on November 8, was among the first politicians to meet Trump, who is a Republican, in New York yesterday. She has been a vocal critic of President Barack Obama on confronting the radical Islamic terrorism. “President-elect Trump asked me to meet with him about our current policies regarding Syria, our fight against terrorist groups like al-qaeda and ISIS, as well as other foreign policy challenges we face,” she said hours after meeting Trump here. Amidst speculation that she is being considered for the position of US Ambassador to the UN, Gabbard defended the meeting as in favour of national interest. “Let me be clear, I will never allow partisanship to undermine our national security when the lives of countless people lay in the balance,” said the Congresswoman from Hawaii. The presidential transition team confirmed the meeting, but it did not respond to questions.
“She obviously has a very distinguished track record. But it would be a little premature to start putting out specific potential administration positions,” said Jason Miller, communication director for Trump transition team.