THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2012
PAGE 3A
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SOUTH AMERICA
Officials give aid to crack addicts
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A welfare worker escorts a young suspected crack user to a waiting van near the Parque União slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Wednesday.
RIO DE JANEIRO — Days after police stormed one of Rio de Janeiro's most dangerous shanty towns to seize back territory long held by a powerful drug dealing organization, city health and welfare workers are working to ease the despair and devastation left behind among hundreds of crack cocaine addicts suddenly without drugs.
Since Sunday, when more than 2,000 heavily armed officers stormed into the Manguinhos and Jacarezinho complexes, crews working with police support by Wednesday had rounded up 231 crack users, and another 67 who had migrated elsewhere looking for the drug.
The area had been Rio's biggest open-air crack market, known as "cracolandia," or "crackland," where hundreds of users bought the drug, consumed it and lingered in shacks and on blankets, picking through trash for recyclables to sell so they could buy more.
"These people have to be cured and treated," Jose Mariano Beltrame, who heads security for Rio state, said during a Tuesday visit to the area. "They're not coming back to Jacarezinho and Manguinhos; the area is now occupied."
Drug dealers tired of the hassle posed by the addicts and by incursions of city health and welfare workers earlier this year banned crack in Mandela, one of the slums. Police now have taken over the entire complex housing about 70,000 people as part of a state program to make Rio safer before the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.
In the days after the occupation, officers were still searching for guns, drugs and suspects, but other city services were already making headway. The garbage removal company ran its own mega-operation, removing 220 tons of trash. City utility workers replaced more than 300 street lights.
The crew of welfare workers, psychologists and others who provide
help rounded up drug users found in the streets and took them to shelters. Adults don't have to stay; of the 215 picked up from the streets between Sunday and Tuesday, half had
left the shelters by Tuesday night, the city health department said.
ASIA
World War II planes to be dug up in Myanmar
ASSOCIATED PRESS
YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar has signed a deal with a British aviation enthusiast to allow the excavation of a World War II treasure: dozens of Spitfire fighter planes buried by the British almost 70 years ago.
The British Embassy said Wednesday that the agreement was reached after discussions between President Thein Sein and British Prime Minister David Cameron during his visit to Myanmar earlier this year.
Aviation enthusiast David J. Cundall discovered the locations of the aircraft after years of searching. The planes are believed to be in good condition, since they were reportedly packed in crates and hidden by British forces to keep them out of the hands of invading Japanese.
The excavation of the rare planes is slated to begin by the end of October.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
In this Sept. 28, 1941 file photo, Spitfires, subscribed for by the people of Assam, are now operating with fighter command of the Royal Air Force.
The Myanma Ahlin daily reported that the excavation agreement was signed Tuesday by Director General of Civil Aviation Tin Naing Tun, Cundall on behalf of his British company DJC, and Htoo Htoo, managing director of Cundall's Myanmar partner, the Shwe Taung Paw company.
are in good condition" Htoo Htoo Zaw said.
"It took 16 years for Mr. David Cundall to locate the planes buried in crates. We estimate that there are at least 60 Spitfires buried and they
AFRICA
Multinational efforts stop Somali terroists
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MOGADISHU, Somalia — The first Ugandan soldiers to fly into Somalia 5 1/2 years ago came under attack as soon as they arrived: Militants fired mortals at the new mission's welcome ceremony.
Today, backed by a sweeping multinational effort that includes $338 million in U.S. equipment, wages and training, the force of Ugandans, Burundians, Kenyans and Somali that was deployed to take on the country's Islamic radicals can claim a degree of success that had initially seemed highly unlikely.
When the Ugandan spearhead arrived on March 6, 2007, Somalia had been in chaos for years, ruled by warlords and insurgents bent on creating an Islamic state. AMI-SOM, the African Union Mission in Somalia, was the most ambitious response since the failed 1990s U.S. intervention of Black-Hawk-Dow infamy.
The militants called al-Shabab, who once controlled nearly all of
Mogadishu, have been gone from the capital for more than a year, and last month AMISO booted them out of their latest urban stronghold, the port city of Kismavo.
"I think from a military and security perspective it has been a success. Absent AMISOM, al-Shabab would now be in control of Mogadishu. We would not be talking about a new (Somali) national government with a president from civil society in charge," said E.J. Hogendoorn, a Horn of Africa expert at the International Crisis Group, a think tank that tracks conflicts.
But if the specter of Somalia as al-Qaida's next Yemen has been averted, the challenge now is to achieve a strong central government for an estimated 10 million Somali. "What is necessary for the long term in Somalia," said Hogendoorn, "is some sort of political resolution to this conflict."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
In this Feb. 17, 2011 file photo, al-Shabab fighters march with their weapons during military exercises on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia.