19 YEARS AGO TODAY

May 25 1985

11,000 people are killed in Bangladesh when a cyclone hits the Bay of Bengal. A 10-to-15 foot wall of water surges over the Ganges delta, devastating a wide area and drowning half a million cattle.

Bangladesh is a disaster prone country. Cyclones, storm surges, floods etc extract a heavy toll on lives and animals and damage valuable property almost every year, disrupting the total development activities of the country.

Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world and suffers heavy casualties in a disaster. It is estimated that a total 775,303 people died in the coastal areas and offshore islands of Bangladesh within the last 222 years (1775–1997) time, only due to cyclone and storm surges.

 About 15.0 million people live in the vulnerable areas.

www.gfz-potsdam.de/ewc98/abstract/akhand.html

Look out, Vermont! Historic group worried by Wal-Marts

In Iraq, the Job Opportunity of a Lifetime
Managing a $13 Billion Budget With No Experience

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 23, 2004; Page A01

They supported the war effort and President Bush. Many had strong Republican credentials. They were in their twenties or early thirties and had no foreign service experience.

They had been hired to perform a low-level task: collecting and organizing statistics, surveys and wish lists from the Iraqi ministries. But as suicide bombs and rocket attacks became almost daily occurrences, more and more senior staffers defected. In short order, six of the new young hires found themselves managing the country's $13 billion budget, making decisions affecting millions of Iraqis.

None had ever worked in the Middle East, none spoke Arabic, and few could tell a balance sheet from an accounts receivable statement.  

Other staffers quickly nicknamed the newcomers "The Brat Pack."

"They had come over because of one reason or another, and they were put in positions of authority that they had no clue about."

The group's primary responsibility was to hand out money. Each month, it sent out authorizations for the release of several hundred million dollars for government employees' salaries, reconstruction projects and sundry other expenses.

"There were a lot of people who, being political science majors, didn't know what an income statement was."

                                     Liberated Iraqi

-New Yorker

"There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Saturday.

The wedding videotape shows a dozen white pickup trucks speeding through the desert escorting the bridal car — decorated with colorful ribbons. The bride wears a Western-style white bridal dress and veil.

 Children, mainly boys, sit on their fathers' laps; men smoke an Arab water pipe, finger worry beads and chat with one another. It looks like a typical, gender-segregated tribal desert wedding.

Kimmitt has denied finding evidence that any children died in the raid.

However, an AP reporter obtained names of at least 10 children who relatives said had died. Bodies of five of them were filmed by APTN when the survivors took them to Ramadi for burial Wednesday. Iraqi officials said at least 13 children were killed.

May 23, 2004, 1:58PM

WASHINGTON --At least 2,000 pages might have been missing from the copy of the Army report on soldiers' abusive treatment of Iraqi prisoners that was delivered to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The 6,000-page report, compiled by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, formed the basis for hearings this month into the allegations. Taguba found 'numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses' had been inflicted on Iraqis held at Abu Ghraib prison.

"Certainly, if there is some shortfall in what was provided, it was an oversight," Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said.

Marines admit abuse at second prison

By Rick Rogers
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

May 22, 2004

While world attention was focused on the scandal at Abu Ghraib prison, two Marines were court-martialed May 14 for abusing an Iraqi prisoner with electricity, it was disclosed yesterday.

Five more Marines have been implicated in the same early April incident at  Al Mahmudiya prison and might face charges, according to Marine officials in Iraq.

Andrew J. Sting and Jeremiah J. Trefney, both 19 and privates first class, pleaded guilty to charges that included cruelty and maltreatment for shocking an unruly prisoner.

"The Marines attached wires to a power converter and pressed the live wires against the body of the detainee to create a shock."

148 YEARS AGO TODAY

May 24 1856

A small gang led by abolitionist John Brown murders five pro-slavery homesteaders in Franklin County, Kansas. The event comes to be known as the Pottawatomie Massacre.

On May 21, 1856, the Pottawatomie Rifles were called together, when it was heard that an attack was to be made on Lawrence. On the way they learned that Lawrence had been destroyed and were in camp when news was brought that an attack was expected on the Pottawatomie.

 Owen Brown, and later John Brown, asked to take a party down there to watch what was going on. 

After supper John Brown revealed his plan, which was to "sweep the Pottawatomie of all pro-slavery men living on it."

Among the pro-slavery men were Allen Wilkinson, who kept the postoffice; James P. Doyle, who took up a claim north of the Pottawatomie in the fall of 1854; Henry and William Sherman, who settled on an abandoned Indian farm at the ford of the creek.

The party went north until Doyle's house was reached. They brought out Doyle and his sons—William and Drury. Doyle attempted to escape and John Brown shot him.

 When the boys attempted to get away Brown's sons killed them with swords.

 The party then proceeded to Wilkinson's house and ordered him out. He had gone but a short distance with them when one of the Brown boys killed him with a sword.

 In the meantime William Sherman had been taken to the river, where he was killed with short swords and his body thrown into the stream.

http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/archives/1912/p/pottawatomie_massacre.html

Rumsfeld bans camera phones in Iraq: report

Mobile phones fitted with digital cameras have been banned in United States Army installations in Iraq on orders from Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, The Business newspaper reported on Sunday.

Quoting a Pentagon source, the paper said the US Defence Department believes that some of the damning photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were taken with camera phones.

"Digital cameras, camcorders and mobile phones with cameras have been prohibited in military compounds in Iraq," it said.

A "total ban throughout the US military" is in the works, it added.

--AFP

A man identified only as Chen went to the alternative medicine expert in China's Hunan province because of severe neck pains.

He was told to eat at least six raw frogs a day to get rid of the pain and had scoffed his way through 130 before he collapsed, complaining of stomach pains and headaches.

He is now suing after doctors discovered his body was riddled with parasites that had come from the frogs.