THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2012
PAGE 3
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NEWS OF THE WORLD
AFRICA
ASSOSCIATED PRESS
Refugees wait in line to receive packages of food that had been air-dropped by the World Food Programme (WFP) on Friday in Yida camp, South Sudan. Refugees at the camp along the volatile South Sudan-Sudan border sav renewed fighting between rebels and Sudan's military is likely to continue.
Hordes of refugees flock to Yida camp
YIDA, South Sudan — Tens of thousands of people have already swarmed to a refugee camp in South Sudan and community chiefs expect a new wave to soon begin the trek from Sudan's war-torn Nuba Mountains, setting up what humanitarian workers warn could become a catastrophe.
As many as 15,000 more refugees could stream across the border from Sudan by the end of the year, straining a camp that has been hit by malaria and diarrhea with many people arriving malnourished, said the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR.
"We are already stretched to the breaking point here, and any surge
or increase in the population will make it nearly impossible to cope with the situation," UNHCR's Kathryn Mahoney told The Associated Press.
Yida sits near the northern tip of South Sudan's Unity State near the border with Sudan. It is a remote region in one of the world's least developed countries. Recent rains have made roads impassable, and the World Food Program has been forced to drop food from the sky to meet the camps' needs. For the past week, large lilyinjets have screamed over the camp, dropping 64 metric tons each day from a height of 200 meters (yards). The
cheers of refugees - and some aid workers - watching the spectacle accompany each drop.
The population of Yida rose since February from 17,000 to 65,000 by September. From mid-June through mid-July, around 1,000 new arrivals came each day, along with a rash of death and disease that one Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) official described as "five weeks of hell."
According to MSF, around two people per every 10,000 in the camp were dying each day, double what the organization considers the emergency threshold. Around 25 percent of those admitted to the MSF hospital in Yida were dying. Many were acutely malnourished, and the rains brought malaria and diarrhea.
"In June, July it was so (bad)," recalled MSF Emergency Coordinator Foura Sassou Madi.
An influx of refugees is also expected at the four camps in Upper Nile State's Maban county. The refugees have there have fled a similar war in Sudan's Blue Nile. There are now more than 110,000 refugees in the Maban camps.
Associated Press
UNHCR says it needs $183 million to manage the humanitarian needs at the camps. So far only around 40 percent has been delivered.
NORTH AMERICA
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Five oil workers missing after fire
REYNOSA, Mexico — Mexico's state-owned oil company says at least five people are still listed as missing in a pipeline fire that killed 26 workers and injured 46 others at a plant near the U.S. border.
Juan Jose Suarez, director of the state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos company, told local media Wednesday that at least 5 workers have not been seen since the blast. Two of the 46 injured were in serious condition.
President Felipe Calderon said emergency teams' quick reaction prevented a "real catastrophe," by controlling the fire before it reached the massive tanks of a neighboring gas processing plant.
The enormous fire Tuesday hit a distribution center near the U.S. border that handles gas coming in from wells and sends it to a processing plant next door.
"The timely response by oil workers, firefighter and the Mexican Army was able to control the fire relatively quickly and avoid a real catastrophe of bigger proportions and greater damages if the fire had spread to the center for gas processing which is right there," Calderon said in a speech in Mexico City.
A Mexican army vehicle patrols on a road as fire and smoke rise from a gas pipeline distribution center in Reynosa, Mexico near the Mexican border with the United States.
The blast and ensuing fire were so powerful they left charred tanks and a mound of tangled steel at the walled plant near the border city of Reynosa, across from
McAllen, Texas.
The facility had perimeter walls topped with razor wire as a security measure in a country which has seen thieves, saboteurs and drug gangs target oil installations, and
Officials of Petroleos Mexicanos, also known as Pemex, say the blast appeared to have been caused by an accidental leak, and there was no sign so far of sabotage.
Until the final moments before the explosion there was no sign anything was amiss.
that presented an obstacle for plant workers trying to flee.
The blast forced the closure of the wells and the evacuation of people at ranches and homes within three miles (five kilometers) of the gas facility, which is about 12 miles (19 kilometers) southwest of Reynosa.
MIDDLE EAST
Protesters accuse local of blasphemy
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Pakistani lawyers chant anti-U.S. slogans during a demonstration, near an area that houses the U.S. Embassy and other foreign missions in Islamabad, Pakistan on Wednesday.
ISLAMABAD — Demonstrators angry over an anti-Islam film accused a local businessman in southern Pakistan of blasphemy, forcing the police to open a case and driving him and his family into hiding, following an argument that broke out when he refused to join their protest, officials said Wednesday.
The incident demonstrates the potential for abuse of the country's strict blasphemy laws as well as the intense feelings the film, which denigrates Islam's Prophet Muhammed, has unleashed in Pakistan.
At least two people have died in protests against the film, which has generated widespread animosity across the Muslim world.
The incident in the city of Hyderabad began when hundreds of protesters rallied Saturday. Some protesters demanded that businessman Haji Nasrullah Khan shut his roughly 120 shops in solidarity, said police officer Munir Abbasi.
When Khan refused, one of his tenants said his decision supported the film, the officer said.
The protesters claimed Khan insulted the Prophet while arguing with them, said city police chief Fareed Jan. But he said there was no evidence to suggest the insults really occurred and that police only
opened a blasphemy case because they were pressured by the mob. Opening such a case doesn't mean the person is necessarily charged with the crime but that police are investigating him or her.
Protesters ransacked Khan's house, and surrounded a police station, refusing to go away until officials opened a blasphemy case, Abbasi said.
The situation became even more inflamed when religious leaders from one of the biggest mosques in the city issued an edict calling for Khan's death and announced from the mosque's loudspeakers that he should be killed, Kabbasi said.
The police officer said Khan and his family members had gone into hiding in fear for their lives.
Under Pakistan's blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of defiling the holy book, or Quran, or insulting Islam's Prophet Muhammad can face life in prison or death.
Critics say the laws are often abused to harass non-Muslims or to settle personal rivalries. Radical Islamist groups have also been behind some of the blasphemy accusations.