theSun | MONDAY APRIL 6 2009
news without borders
46 Afghans suffocate
in smuggling bid
QUETTA (Pakistan): Police found
the dead bodies of 46 Afghans, three
of them teenagers, crammed into a
truck container in Pakistan that was
believed to have been bound for Iran,
police said overnight.
The container was found about
20km south of Quetta, capital of oil
and gas rich Baluchistan, which
borders Afghanistan and Iran, police
said, adding it was unclear where it
came from or where it was going.
“The death toll is 46,” police of-
ficial Ghulam Dastagir told AFP from
the southwestern province after the
bodies were found on Saturday.
“Forty-five people are unconscious
and have been admitted to hospital,”
the official added. Police earlier told
AFP they counted 44 bodies pulled
out of the container.
“We have been able to talk to some
of the people, who were trapped in
the container. They were all Afghans
in the container and the container
was going to Iran,” said senior police
official in Quetta, Wazir Khan Nasir.
“When the condition of people
inside the container deteriorated, the
driver fled, leaving the container,”
Nasir said.
Survivor Nizar Ahmed, 15, told
Ex-soldier
faces death for
rape, murder
of Iraqi girl
CHICAGO: Under the cover of dark-
ness and warfare, five US soldiers
broke into an Iraqi home to rape a
young girl, murder her family and
set the house alight to cover their
crime.
The alleged ringleader – a soldier
discharged for a “personality disor-
der” before the slaying was discov-
ered – faces the death penalty in a
trial set to begin with jury selection
today.
Four other soldiers have already
been sentenced in the March 2006
atrocity and the details which
emerged during their court martials
are chilling.
The plan was allegedly devised
over whiskey and a game of cards at
a traffic check point in Mahmudiyah,
south of Baghdad.
Specialist Steven Green told his
friends he “wanted to go to a house
and kill some Iraqis,” said Specialist
James Barker, who received a life
sentence for the crime. – AFP
EARTHREPORT
Week Ending April 3
Earth ‘over capacity’
ONE of the United States’ science
advisers says the number of humans
on the planet has exceeded Earth’s
“limits of sustainability.” Speaking
prior to a conference in Paris of the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development, State Department
chief scientist Nina Fedoroff said that
famines affecting a billion people could
threaten global food security this cen-
tury. The world’s population has already
exceeded 6 billion and is predicted to
AFP from hospital that he came from
the province of Paktia in eastern
Afghanistan.
“We have all come from Afghani-
stan and we were going to Iran,” he
said without being able to explain
why they were bound for the Islamic
republic, which borders both Paki-
stan and Afghanistan, or when they
left home. Police official Mohammad
Three cops killed,
two hurt in shootout
WASHINGTON: Three police
officers were shot dead and two
more wounded on Saturday as they
responded to a domestic disturbance
call at a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
home where a man wearing a bullet-
proof vest opened fire, police said.
The officers had been called out to
the house following reports of a dis-
turbance, but came under fire from
a man inside, triggering a four-hour
standoff.
“Our hearts and our prayers go out
to the officers who paid the ultimate
sacrifice,” Police Chief Nathan Harper
said in a televised press conference.
“It’s a very sad day for the Pitts-
burgh police bureau. We have never
had to lose three officers in a line of
duty at one time in one call.”
Harper said the shooter, identified
as 23-year-old Richard Poplawski,
fired at the officers several dozen
times using a high-powered assault
rifle before he was finally wounded
and then surrendered.
“He had one assault rifle and one
rise to 9 billion within 50 years. “The
planet can’t support many more peo-
ple,” Fedoroff told the BBC.
Penguin death mystery
MARINE experts in Chile were baffled
as to what caused the deaths of about
1,200 penguins that washed up on two
beaches in the south of the country
over several days. The dead birds were
of the Magellanic and Humboldt spe-
cies, which live in extreme southern
South America and migrate to northern
Chile and beyond during the Southern
Hemisphere winter. Penguin deaths are
common, but “the strange thing is the
number” of dead birds, fisheries official
Bernardo Pardo told reporters.
9
People
gather
around
the bodies
of illegal
migrants at
a hospital in
Quetta.
REUTERSPIX
Zaman Karim said that around 110
people were crammed into the truck-
ing container.
Three of the dead were teenagers
aged between 13 to 15, he said.
Local inhabitants and police real-
ised there were people inside when
they heard sounds coming from
within the container, police said.
– AFP
long-arm rifle as well as one pistol
and a lot of ammo,” Harper said.
The first officers where cut down
immediately upon entering the house,
leading Harper to say he believed
they were victims of a trap set by the
gunman.
“As soon as the officer stepped
through the doorway he was immedi-
ately met with gunfire,” Harper said.
He and a second officer who came
through the doorway were both shot
in the head.
Harper said the gunman, who has
been hospitalised, will be charged
with three counts of homicide. Killing
a police officer is punishable by death
in the state of Pennsylvania.
Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said the
shooting – the first Pittsburgh police
officer deaths since 1995 – stunned
the city and its police force.
“The whole bureau of police today
is very somber, very angry about
this senseless act of violence that
occurred,” Ravenstahl said. “But we
will move on, we will unite.” – AFP
Dust-free warming
ATMOSPHERIC researchers in Wiscon-
sin say that decreases in the amount of
dust in the atmosphere over the past
30 years have contributed to rising tem-
peratures in the North Atlantic Ocean
far more than global warming. Writing
in the journal Science, University of Wis-
consin-Madison’s Amato Evan says that
more than two-thirds of the regional
ocean warming can be attributed to
changes in the amount of dust blow-
ing off African deserts and variations
in tropical volcanic activity during the
period. Evan had earlier shown dust
and other airborne particles can sup-
press hurricane activity. – Universal
Press Syndicate