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There has been no public pushback from authorities despite a severe fiscal crunch, which has brought unpopular measures such as plans to end government-subsidized gasoline prices

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The motion passed easily, according to pro-government Web sites.

And with it, Iranian authorities took another step in restructuring the state to reward the forces that help keep them in power – handing wider decision-making roles to the formidable Revolutionary Guard and its vast paramilitary network that have led the crackdowns against opposition protesters.

The Revolutionary Guard has always been a centerpiece of Iran’s Islamic establishment. But the latest door opened to its militia wing suggests a deepening policy role by Iran’s most hard-line groups as opposition forces grow bolder in their demands and the West considers tighter sanctions over its nuclear impasse with Tehran.

The Basij will again be out in force Thursday for expected protest marches to coincide with events marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Their attempts to crush the anti-government movement have been well documented since Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election last June, including the trademark Basiji motorcycle charges in protest crowds.

What’s perhaps less noticed – but with even deeper significance – is the evolving role of the huge Basij force from loosely organized Islamic vigilantes to a more cohesive force with increasing channels to Iran’s leadership and security apparatus.

“It’s clear that the Revolutionary Guard has been increasingly inserted in Iran’s decision-making equation during the crisis,” said Patrick Clawson, deputy director at the Washington Institute for 대전 안마 Near East Policy. “Expanding the role of the Basij is a natural extension of this.”

The Basij’s big brother, the Revolutionary Guard, has long been a pillar of Iran’s regime as a force separate from the ordinary armed forces. The Guard now has a hand in every critical area including missile development, oil resources, dam building, road construction, telecommunications and nuclear technology.

It also has absorbed the paramilitary Basij as a full-fledged part of its command structure – giving the militia greater funding and a stronger presence in Iran’s internal politics.

The chief of the Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, often accuses dissidents of waging a “soft revolution” against the Islamic system and says forces such as the Basij are needed more than ever to quash internal threats.

The Basij has its roots as volunteer fighters during the 1980-88 war with Iraq. It then developed as a grass-roots defender of the system – taking on roles such as Islamic morality police at checkpoints and parks or as shock troops busting up pro-reform gatherings or publications.

Iran’s meltdown since June has made the Basij into a front-line force against the opposition.

Security forces turned to them as neighbor-by-neighbor informants with hundreds of thousands of eyes and ears in every corner of the country. They also became a first-call attack squad against protests, often roaring into battle on motorcycles and armed with batons.

At least eight people were killed in clashes between security forces and protests in the last major opposition march in late December.

On Monday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed to deliver a “punch in the mouth” to opposition groups if they follow through with calls for marches on Thursday during state-run celebrations of the Islamic Revolution.

He said the Basij would be deployed to provide “order and security.”

It was the latest nod by the ruling clerics that the Basij is moving deeper into the fold.

At the late January Cabinet meeting, one of Ahmadinejad’s top advisers, Mohammad Reza Rahimi, made a speech praising the Basij before the vote to give the group an open invitation to get involved with decisions and policies in every ministry, according to Rajanews.com, a pro-Ahmadinejad Web site. The report also appeared in other government-allied sites as well as some opposition blogs.

Basij leaders also are reportedly asking for another budget increase for the next Iranian year that starts in late March. Last year, the Basij funding was boosted a staggering 200 percent to more than $500 million, according to Sobh-e Sadegh, a publication controlled by the Revolutionary Guard.

There has been no public pushback from authorities despite a severe fiscal crunch, which has brought unpopular measures such as plans to end government-subsidized gasoline prices.

No one in the embattled government wants to risk ruffling groups such as the Basij, which has remained among the strongest supporters of Ahmadinejad.

“They can serve almost as Ahmadinejad’s private army,” said William O. Beeman, a University of Minnesota professor who has written on Iranian affairs.

The higher political profile for the Basij also appears to fit into efforts to expand hard-line oversight in schools and universities. The Basij have been increasingly active in recruitment as the political tensions grow.

Precise numbers on Basij membership are not published, but some estimates range as high as 1 million or more.

“If they acquire more power as a body, they will be able to recruit more forces who will see this as an instant route toward social mobility and power,” said Beeman.


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Rumors of Mehsud’s death have swirled for weeks, after a spate of U.S

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In messages to The Associated Press on Wednesday, the officials did not provide details of how or when Hakimullah Mehsud died. But it was the first time Pakistani authorities have categorically said the militant chief is dead.

The intelligence official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on the record.

Rumors of Mehsud’s death have swirled for weeks, 대전 마사지 after a spate of U.S. missiles hit his stronghold in Pakistan’s northwest in mid-January. Mehsud was said to have died of wounds suffered in one of the strikes.

The Taliban have denied his death, but have failed to prove that he is alive.

A U.S. counterterrorism official told CBS News correspondent Bob Orr late Tuesday that “the onus is really on the Pakistani Taliban” to prove he’s not dead.

“Hakimullah certainly hasn’t shied away from the terrorist limelight before,” the official said, referring to Mehsud’s previous appearances in Taliban propaganda videos. “So, if he’s alive, why is he doing so now when there’s so much speculation about his demise?”

The U.S. has yet to officially confirm the death of Mehsud, who commands an al Qaeda-allied movement that is blamed for scores of suicide bombings and is suspected in a deadly attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan late last year.

His death would represent a major victory for Pakistan’s government and its allies in the West over the Islamic militant groups which operate along the border with Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, a U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters, told the AP that American officials had reached the conclusion that Mehsud was likely dead based on collective information of U.S. intelligence agencies.


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“This is a children’s emergency,” she said

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The head of UNICEF warned Tuesday that people may still be trying to smuggle children out of Haiti and said protecting youngsters who survived the earthquake is the top concern of the U.N. children’s agency.

Ann Veneman said in an interview with The Associated Press that UNICEF is starting a program to identify children who lost or can’t find their parents. The group is also working with other groups to put children who are alone into facilities where they can receive food, water and psychological help, she said.

“This is a children’s emergency,” she said.

Complete Coverage: Devastation in Haiti Haiti Quake: How You can Help

Veneman, who visited Haiti last week, said in every humanitarian crisis there’s a risk that children will be trafficked out of the country for sexual exploitation, adoption, child labor 부산 안마 or other illegal purposes. In Haiti, she said, “this is a big concern.”

Last week, 10 Americans were charged with kidnapping and criminal association for trying to take 33 children into the neighboring Dominican Republic on Jan. 29 without proper documentation. The Baptist missionaries say they were heading to a Dominican orphanage following Haiti’s devastating quake, and had only good intentions.

Veneman said UNICEF has learned of some other instances “where there is concern that children may not have (had) the necessary documents when they left.”

At the airport in Port-au-Prince and the border with the Dominican Republic, specially trained officials are now checking documents, which Veneman said should make a difference.

Veneman declined to comment on the detained Americans, saying the judicial system in Haiti is handling the case: “I think we need to await the outcome of those proceedings,” she said.

Veneman said Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive expressed concern at the massive media attention directed at the detained Americans.

“As the prime minister said to me in a meeting with him, `I spend so much of my time answering questions about these 10 Americans when I have 2 million people in need here,”‘ the UNICEF chief said,

Even before the Americans were detained, fears that child traffickers would take advantage of the chaos following the quake led Bellerive to announce that all foreign adoptions would need his personal approval.

Veneman said there is no estimate of the number of children left alone as a result of the Jan. 12 quake. Before it struck, there were between 300,000 and 350,000 children in residential care facilities but many were left by parents too poor to take care of them, she said.

Veneman said some care facilities and orphanages collapsed in the quake, killing children, though nobody has any figures.

Many children lost their parents, and most have now been put “into some kind of safe place,” including residential care facilities like an SOS children’s village, she said.

“The primary concern is protection of children — making sure they have shelter, food, water, the basic necessities and care,” Veneman said.

UNICEF has begun a program to to give children some kind of identity — such as an arm band — to make sure that as the process goes through they can then reunite them with family members.

“This is really the goal, to reunite any unaccompanied children with family members,” she said.

According to population estimates, 38 percent of Haiti’s nine million people are under the age of 15 and about 45 percent are 18 and under, Veneman said.


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Spears filed for divorce on Nov

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“They are divorced,” the pop star’s attorney, Laura Wasser, said after a Superior Court hearing. “Everything is finalized.”

Court Commissioner Scott Gordon signed orders for dissolution of marriage, an alimony agreement and child custody. The alimony agreement will not be made public unless there is an enforcement issue, Wasser said.

“Most of that tracks the pre-nup,” the attorney said, without elaborating.

“The best interests of the children could be harmed” if the arrangement were not sealed, Gordon said.

Spears, 25, and Federline have two sons, 22-month-old Sean Preston Federline and 10-month-old Jayden James Federline.

The couple had a private wedding ceremony on Sept. 18, 2004. Spears filed for 부천 안마 divorce on Nov. 7, 2005.

By Amanda Beck


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“Normally the Taliban would leave

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Instead of keeping the offensive secret, Americans have been talking about it for weeks, expecting the Taliban would flee. But the militants appear to be digging in, apparently believing that even a losing fight would rally supporters and sabotage U.S. plans if the battle proves destructive.

No date for the main attack has been announced but all signs indicate it will come soon. It will be the first major offensive since President Barack Obama announced last December that he was sending 30,000 reinforcements to Afghanistan, and will serve as a significant test of the new U.S. strategy for turning back the Taliban.

Marjah Marines Brace for Offensive Afghanistan: Life on the Frontline

About 400 U.S. troops from the Army’s 5th Stryker Brigade and about 250 Afghan soldiers moved into positions northeast of Marjah before dawn Tuesday as U.S. Marines pushed to the outskirts of the town.

Automatic rifle fire rattled in the distance as the Marines dug in for the night with temperatures below freezing. The occasional thud of mortar shells and the sharp blast of rocket-propelled grenades fired by the Taliban pierced the air.

“They’re trying to bait us, don’t get sucked in,” yelled a Marine sergeant, warning his troops not to venture closer to the town. In the distance, Marines could see farmers and nomads gathering their livestock at sunset, seemingly indifferent to the firing.

The U.S. goal is to take control quickly of the farming community, located in a vast, irrigated swath of land in Helmand province 380 miles southwest of Kabul. That would enable the Afghan government to re-establish a presence, bringing security, electricity, clean water and other public services to the estimated 80,000 inhabitants.

Over time, American commanders believe such services will undermine the appeal of the Taliban among their fellow Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group in the country and the base of the insurgents’ support.

“The military operation is phase one,” Helmand Gov. Gulab Mangal told reporters Tuesday in Kabul. “In addition to that, we will have development in place, justice, good governance, bringing job opportunities to the people.”

Marjah will serve as the first trial for the new strategy implemented last year by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. He maintains that success in the eight-year conflict cannot be achieved by killing Taliban fighters, but rather by protecting civilians and winning over their support.

Many Afghan Pashtuns are believed to have turned to the Taliban, who were driven from power in the U.S.-led invasion of 2001, because of disgust over the ineffectual and corrupt government of President Hamid Karzai.

“The success of the operation will not be in the military phase,” NATO’s civilian chief in Afghanistan, Mark Sedwill, told reporters Tuesday. “It will be over the next weeks and months as the people … feel the benefits of better governance, of economic opportunities and of operating under the legitimate authorities of Afghanistan.”

To accomplish that, NATO needs to take the town without causing significant damage or civilian casualties. That would risk a public backlash among residents, many of whose sons and brothers are probably among the estimated 400 to 1,000 Taliban defenders. U.S. aircraft have been dropping leaflets over the town, urging militants not to resist and warning civilians to remain indoors.

Provincial officials believe about 164 families – or about 980 people – have left the town in recent weeks, although the real figure could be higher because many of them moved in with relatives and never registered with authorities.

Residents contacted by telephone in Marjah said the Taliban were preventing civilians from leaving, warning them they have placed bombs along the roads to stop the American attack. The militants may believe the Americans will restrain their fire if they know civilians are at risk.

Mohammad Hakim said he waited until the last minute to leave Marjah with his wife, nine sons, four daughters and grandchildren because he was worried about abandoning his cotton fields in a village on the edge of town. He decided to leave Tuesday, but Taliban fighters turned him back because they said the road was mined.

“All of the people are very scared,” Hakim said by telephone. “Our village is like a ghost town. The people are staying in their homes.”

Sedwill said NATO hopes that when Marjah has fallen, many Taliban militants could be persuaded to join a government-promoted reintegration process.

“The message to them is accept it,” he said. “The message to the people of the area is, of course, keep your heads down, stay inside when the operation is going ahead.”

Mangal, the governor, said authorities believe some local Taliban are ready to renounce al Qaeda and give the government a chance.

“I’m confident that there are a number of Taliban members who will reconcile with us and who will be under the sovereignty of the Afghan government,” he said.

Ali Ahmad Jalali, 대전 마사지 a former Afghan interior minister who lectures at the National Defense University in Washington, said the U.S. had little choice but to publicize the offensive so civilians could leave and minimize casualties. He said it would have been impossible to achieve complete surprise because “an operation of this scale cannot be kept secret.”

But Jalali added that publicizing the operation may have encouraged hard-core Taliban to stand and fight to show their supporters and the international community that they will not be easily swayed by promises of amnesty and reintegration.

“Normally the Taliban would leave. They would not normally decisively engage in this kind of pitched battle. They would leave and come back because they have the time to come back,” Jalali told The Associated Press.

“If there’s stiff resistance in Marjah, this could increase the recruiting power of the Taliban or at least retain what they have in that area,” he said. “It’s become the symbol of Taliban resistance. So I would suspect it’s possible there would be stiff rearguard resistance. If it becomes bloody, it would affect opinion in Europe and the U.S.”

Jalali also said that success would depend on whether the Afghan government can make good on its promise of services once the battle is over.

“If the coalition can stabilize Marjah, rebuild it and install good governance, that can be an example for other places,” he said. “If not, it would be another problem.”

Echoing this theory, McChrystal told reporters at a defense conference in Turkey last weekend that it was necessary to tell Afghans that the attack on Marjah was coming so they would know “that when the government re-establishes security, they’ll have choices.”


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Rostam Qasemi and four subsidiaries of a previously penalized construction firm that he runs

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The Treasury Department said it was targeting one person and four companies for penalties over their alleged involvement in producing and spreading weapons of mass destruction. The agency said it was freezing the assets in U.S. jurisdictions of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Rostam Qasemi and four subsidiaries of a previously penalized construction firm that he runs.

The sanctions made public Wednesday expand existing U.S. unilateral penalties against elements of the Guard Corps, or IRGC, which Western intelligence officials believe is spearheading Iran’s nuclear program.

The announcement came as U.S. officials lobby for action at the U.N. Security Council, which has already hit Iran with three sets of sanctions. The Obama White House wants to impose fresh international sanctions over Tehran’s failure to prove its nuclear program is peaceful.

Qasemi commands the Guard Corps’ Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters, which Treasury described as its engineering arm that is involved in the construction of streets, tunnels, waterworks, agricultural projects and pipelines. Its profits “are available to support the full range of the IRGC’s illicit activities, including WMD proliferation and support for terrorism,” Treasury said in a statement.

Khatam al-Anbiya was hit with U.S. sanctions by the Bush administration in 2007. Wednesday’s penalties apply to Qasemi and Khatam al-Anbiya subsidiaries, the Fater Engineering Institute, the Imensazen Consultant Engineers Institute, the Makin Institute and 부산 마사지 the Rahab Institute.

“As the IRGC consolidates control over broad swaths of the Iranian economy, displacing ordinary Iranian businessmen in favor of a select group of insiders, it is hiding behind companies like Khatam al-Anbiya and its affiliates to maintain vital ties to the outside world,” said Stuart Levey, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

“Today’s action exposing Khatam al-Anbiya subsidiaries will help firms worldwide avoid business that ultimately benefits the IRGC and its dangerous activities,” he said.

Treasury’s move followed a tough new warning to Iran from President Barack Obama, who said on Tuesday that the country remains on an “unacceptable” path to nuclear weapons, despite its denials, and that the U.S. and like-minded countries would soon present a set of punishing sanctions at the United Nations.

His comments came in response to Iran’s announcement that it was rejecting a deal it provisionally accepted in October under which it would ship low-enriched uranium to Russia for further enriching for use in a Tehran medical research reactor. On Sunday, Iran said it would would produce its own higher-enriched uranium. On Tuesday, Iranian state television said the process began in the presence of inspectors from the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog.

Mr. Obama said he was sticking to a two-track approach: offering to negotiate, while threatening further pressure. He said the world would welcome an Iranian decision to accept U.N. demands that it live up to its nuclear control obligations.

“And if not, then the next step is sanctions,” he said. “They have made their choice so far, although the door is still open. And what we are going to be working on over the next several weeks is developing a significant regime of sanctions that will indicate to them how isolated they are from the international community as a whole.”

Mr. Obama said that work to broaden the U.N.’s sanctions was moving quickly, but he gave no specific timeline for the presentation of a new resolution. Russia, a traditional opponent of sanctions, appears ready to support new penalties. But another of the council’s five permanent, veto-wielding members, China, which has increasingly close economic ties to Iran, can block a resolution by itself. China has said the time is not yet right for fresh sanctions.


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Ontario Provincial Police Dot. Insp. Chris Nicholas said Monday that Col. Russell Williams, 46, was also charged in the sexual assaults of two other women. Williams was arrested Sunday in Ottawa.

The charges left Canada’s military in a state of shock.

Williams, a 23-year military veteran, was appointed as the base commander of Canadian Forces Base Trenton in Trenton, Ontario last July. Trenton is Canada’s busiest Air Force base and is providing logistical support for Canada’s missions in Haiti and Afghanistan as well as support for the Vancouver Winter Games.

Williams is charged with the first-degree murder of Jessica Lloyd, 27, of a Belleville, Ontario, resident whose body was found earlier Monday, and Marie Comeau, a 38-year-old corporal found dead in her Brighton, Ontario, home in November.

Authorities said Williams came to the attention of police during a roadside canvas on Feb. 4, six days after Lloyd was deemed missing.

Williams is also charged with forcible confinement, breaking and entering and sexual assault after two women were sexually assaulted during two separate home invasions in the Tweed, Ontario area in September of 2009.

“We’re shocked by the connection that has been made with a leader in our Air Force,” Maj. Gen. Yvan Blondin, the direct commander of Williams, said in Trenton.

“It obviously is no longer possible for the commander to remain in his position.”

Blondin said he didn’t know him personally but said Williams was an elite pilot and considered a “shining bright star.”

Williams was photographed last month with Defense Minister Peter MacKay and Canada’s top general during an inspection of a Canadian aircraft that was on its way to support relief efforts in Haiti.

Lieutenant-General Andre Deschamps, Canada’s Air Force chief, said the Air Force is fully supporting civilian police. He called it a difficult period but said the Air Force would provide support for personnel at Trenton.

Dan Dugas, a spokesman for MacKay, called the charges serious but said MacKay will not comment.

Police descended on Williams’ Ottawa home on Sunday and police cars remained posted there Monday evening. Williams’ Defense Department biography said he is married.

Williams once served as a Challenger aircraft pilot who transported VIPs. The Air Force declined to say who he flew but the Challenger regularly flies cabinet ministers and the governor general, Canada’s ceremonial head of sate. A spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he didn’t believe Williams flew Harper.

Between December 2005 and June 2006, Williams was the commanding officer for Camp Mirage, the secretive Canadian Forces forward logistics base that is not officially acknowledged by the government or 청주 마사지 military but has been widely reported to be near Dubai.

“We are certainly tracking the movements of where this man has been over the past several years and we’re continuing with our investigation,” Nicholas said.

Williams walked into a courthouse in Belleville, Ontario on Monday in hand and leg shackles, wearing a blue prison-issue jumpsuit. The judge imposed a publication ban on other details.

He was held in custody and will appear in court by video on Feb. 18.


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Since then it’s turned in to a very large, what we call, platform.” The radical rap-metal band Rage Against the Machine headlines the show, which also features Wu-Tang Clan, Talib Kweli, Cypress Hill and Mos Def — considered by hip-hop aficionados to be the best of the best

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In many ways, that is what the Rock the Bells festival is about. The festival, which is currently on tour, was created in a Los Angeles club as a way to support what the promoters call “real hip hop.”

“We created Rock the Bells to support social, political, conscious hip hop,” founder Chang Weisberg said. “That was about four years ago … Since then it’s turned in to a very large, what we call, platform.”

The radical rap-metal band Rage Against the Machine headlines the show, which also features Wu-Tang Clan, Talib Kweli, Cypress Hill and Mos Def — considered by hip-hop aficionados to be the best of the best. Rapper Nas performed in Massachusetts and is slated for more shows, but didn’t make it to his native New York.

The tour kicked off in Mansfield, Mass., at the Tweeter Center and then moved on to Randalls Island in New York City where stopped for two days. Unfortunately for concert goers, Sunday’s show was a soggy one, but the 20-something (mostly white) crowd didn’t seem to mind as many passed joints and drank beer.

The acts who participated in this year’s 12-city tour are certainly among the genre’s most respected and most left leaning. Many used the stage to express their feelings about politics.

“F— George Bush!” Public Enemy hypeman Flavor Flav shouted.

“If you love real hip-hop music like Cypress Hill, Like Wu-tang, like Mos Def, say something!” he urged the crowd.

Rock the Bells is Weisberg’s attempt to salvage the music he loves as the industry continues to sell less and less albums. The live experience, 부천 안마 he said, cannot be downloaded or bought on CD and he hopes the show is able to introduce fans to artists who may not be played on the radio or MTV. The show also featured a second, smaller stage for indie rappers on the Paid Dues tour.

Weisberg, who said he personally invites the artists to perform, chose carefully. He picked the notoriously militant Public Enemy to perform because this marks their 20th year. Nas recently released a song lamenting the direction of hip hop called “Hip Hop Is Dead.” That phrase became a touchtone for Rock the Bells, and among the crowd, signs and T-shirts bear slogans refuting Nas’ claim.

“Nas is totally entitled to say exactly what he feels,” Weisberg said. “That statement has been a source of inspiration for lots of people — put that chip on peoples’ shoulders to say, you know what, hip hop is not dead.”

For more tour dates visit RockTheBells.net.By Caitlin Johnson


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“Since this morning all they’ve had was coffee – and a tiny portion of bread,” she said

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<img src="http://image.baidu.com/search/http:%5C/%5C/www.xbsh.cn%5C/bbs%5C/data%5C/attachment%5C/forum%5C/201606%5C/01%5C/102005wmf70klb69m345zw.jpg" alt="193770 3240 4327 94028585 .” style=”max-width:400px;float:left;padding:10px 10px 10px 0px;border:0px;”>”Sometimes they arrive too late,” said Dr. Adrien Colimon, the chief of pediatrics, shaking her head.

The second stage of Haiti’s medical emergency has begun, with diarrheal illnesses, acute respiratory infections and malnutrition beginning to claim lives by the dozen.

And while the half-million people jammed into germ-breeding makeshift camps have so far been spared a contagious-disease outbreak, health officials fear epidemics. They are rushing to vaccinate 530,000 children against measles, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.

“It’s still tough,” said Chris Lewis, emergency health co-ordinator for Save the Children, which by Tuesday had treated 11,000 people at 14 mobile clinics in Port-au-Prince, Jacmel and Leogane. “At the moment we’re providing lifesaving services. What we’d like to do is to move to provide quality, longer-term care, but we’re not there yet.”

Haiti’s government raised the death toll for the Jan. 12 earthquake to 230,000 on Tuesday – the same death toll as the 2004 Asian tsunami. Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said she expects the toll to rise as more bodies are counted, and noted the number does not include bodies buried privately by funeral homes or families.

The number of deaths not directly caused by the quake is unclear; U.N. officials are only now beginning to survey the more than 200 international medical aid groups working out of 91 hospitals – most of them just collections of tents – to compile the data.

Special Report: Road to Recovery in Haiti

Some 300,000 people are injured. At Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital, patients continue arriving with infections in wounds they can’t keep clean because the street is their home. The number of amputees, estimated at 2,000 to 4,000 by Handicap International, keeps rising as people reach Port-au-Prince with untreated fractures.

Violence bred of food shortages and inadequate security is also producing casualties. Dr. Santiago Arraffat of Evansville, Ind., said he treats several gunshot wounds a day at General Hospital.

“People are just shooting each other,” he said. “There are fights over food. People are so desperate.”

Nearly a month after the quake, respiratory infections, malnutrition, diarrhea from waterborne diseases and a lack of appropriate food for young children may be the biggest killers, health workers say.

Part of the problem is ignorance. Abigail’s mother, 20-year-old Simone Bess, waited a week after her child fell ill to bring her in, 대구 마사지 Colimon said.

Colimon ushered Bess into an adjacent tent when it became clear the Swiss doctors trying to hydrate and keep her child breathing would fail. Bess screamed in agony and crumpled to the paving stones when she heard.

“Please give me my child!” she wailed. “My one and only child. Tell them to do something for her! Tell them to wake her up!”

Twenty yards away, the child’s father, James Charlot, curled up against a wall, shaking with grief.

A shortage of medical equipment and spotty electrical power – service has been restored to about 20 per cent of Port-au-Prince – have worsened the medical emergency.

A respirator might have saved Abigail, Colimon said. But the hospital has none. Nor does it have electrocardiogram machines. The sweltering heat inside the pediatric tent may also have been a factor.

“This whole tent – all (the infants inside) are dried up because it’s so hot in there,” said Willow Walsh-Hughes, of Draper, Utah, a nurse who hugged and stroked Bess as her child’s life slipped away.

The wire-thin Bess had stopped lactating after the quake, Walsh-Hughes said. Because breast-feeding is the best way to avoid infant diarrhea, a mother’s ability to lactate can determine a baby’s survival.

At another General Hospital tent, Farah Paul, 16, held her acutely malnourished daughter Roselande. Doctors said the wan-looking, 4-month-old baby was coughing and not gaining weight.

Paul said her breast milk dried up the day of the quake, even before she learned that her sister, mother and aunt had been killed in the disaster. Doctors said Paul had given the baby porridge and bananas, food the child could not digest.

Acute child malnutrition is only expected to worsen until the summer harvest in August, said Mija Ververs, a UNICEF child nutrition expert.

Ververs said that while shock and trauma can cause a mother to stop lactating, it is a myth that hungry women can no longer breast-feed.

“Little infants are like parasites in a way. No matter how little the mother gets herself, she is always able to nourish a child,” Ververs said.

She noted that breast-feeding provides the best nutritional chance for babies in a crisis such as Haiti’s and protects against disease by helping them build immunity. Powdered infant formula is a terrible idea, doctors say, because mothers living in tent camps have limited access to clean water and are unable to sterilize bottles.

Forty-seven per cent of Haiti’s population of more than 9 million is under age 18. The Caribbean country has the Western Hemisphere’s highest birth rate and its highest child and maternal mortality rates. Haiti also has the hemisphere’s highest malnutrition rate – with some 17,500 children under age 5 acutely malnourished even before the quake, according to UNICEF.

At a Save the Children clinic west of the capital, about 30 people stood in line for help. Camp residents subsisting in part on plantains from an adjacent grove said two adults and five children died of starvation there last week. A clinic doctor, Nermie Augustin, said she was seeing a lot of infants with diarrhea.

A mother of five, Janina Desir, said her children were barely getting one meal a day.

“Since this morning all they’ve had was coffee – and a tiny portion of bread,” she said. “No milk.”

An official from a major field hospital said the case of 10 American Baptists charged with kidnapping for trying to take 33 children out of Haiti without permission was impeding the evacuation of critically injured youngsters to the U.S.

“Pilots are very reluctant to take off from the United States and take back children without the proper papers,” said Elizabeth Greig, chief administrative officer for the University of Miami-Medishare Foundation. “That fear has been exacerbated by the kidnapping case, and now they’re just paralyzed.”

The evacuation of eight critically injured children in all has been held up, Greig said. None of them are orphans, she said, but obtaining identity papers after a catastrophic quake can be impossible.

She said she could not say with confidence whether any children have died as a result.


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“Pakistan is best-placed to be a facilitator of a conciliatory move,” said the official, who spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity. “That is what we have now told our American friends. “Pakistan has the clout to try to bring some otherwise irreconcilable elements to the table,” the official added. Last week, General Kiyani met with journalists from a few selected Western news organizations (including CBS News) for his first-ever on the record press briefing at the Pakistan army’s heavily-fortified headquarters in Rawalpindi, just outside Islamabad. The high point of General Kiyani’s briefing was a signal to the U.S. and its NATO allies, offering a role for Pakistan in training recruits to a newly-planned national army and national police force for Afghanistan. Following General Kiyani’s briefing, Pakistani officials said that country’s role was likely to be significant, as it had established close links in the past with Islamic militants, including the Taliban during their rule of Afghanistan. (Pakistan was one of just three countries which recognized the Taliban regime — the others being Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — and maintained an embassy in Kabul.) Following the 9/11 terror attacks, Pakistan’s former military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, abandoned his country’s closely-built ties with the Taliban movement. Responding to news of Pakistan’s offer to the U.S., Western diplomats in Pakistan expressed mixed reaction. Some warned that the offer of support to the U.S. was unlikely to gain much momentum, given Washington’s suspicions over the Pakistani security establishment’s continued links with Taliban militants. For months, Western officials have privately complained about an inadequate push by Islamabad against members of the network of notorious Afghan warlord Sirajuddin Haqqani. Known to some as the “Haqqani network,” this group (which is allied with the Taliban) is thought to have carried out a number of attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan during the past year. But others said the U.S. cannot afford to lock itself in an open-ended conflict in Afghanistan, and needs to bring Pakistan on board in order to guarantee security mechanisms remain in place once U.S. troops have left. “I know there are many who will criticize reliance on Pakistan given Pakistan’s own history,” said a senior Western diplomat in Islamabad who spoke to on condition of anonymity. “But the U.S. needs an ally who is able and willing to hold the security apparatus together. In this case, Pakistan is not one such ally; in fact, it’s the only U.S. ally.” The diplomat characterized General Kiyani’s offer as “a serious new beginning.” By CBS News’ Farhan Bokhari reporting from Islamabad

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