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Show Page 12 World&Nation Friday, April 9, 2010 Slum disappears in Rio mudslide; 200 feared dead NITEROI, Brazil (AP) — They are all gone. The Evangelical church where worshippers were praying. A daycare center where kids were playing. The pizza parlor where a family was eating. All were buried under a mountain of mud, garbage and stone when yet another landslide hit metropolitan Rio de Janeiro late Wednesday. This one swept through the Morro Bumba slum, engulfing as many as 200 people and 60 homes. Nothing was left behind but a massive crater of blackened, sodden earth and the remnants of flimsy brick shacks. "I had just picked up my 10-year-old son from the day care. We walked down the hill to the street, and within 10 minutes, my community collapsed," said Patricia Faria, 28, crying as she watched heavy machinery dump the remains of her life into a waiting truck. "All I have left is what you see on me — and my son. Thank God, I have my son." Rio state health secretary Sergio Cortes said it was hard to say how many people were buried in the latest slide. "A worse-case scenario is 200," he told The Associated Press. "We know that about 60 houses were buried." Already 161 people have been confirmed dead in the heavy rains that began Monday in Rio, most of them swept away in landslides that roared through city slums built on steep, unstable hillsides. The death toll surpasses that of flooding and mudslides in the southern state of Santa Catarina in 2008, which killed nearly 130 people and displaced about 80,000. "In our experience, it's an instant death," Pedro Machado, undersecretary of Rio state's Civil Defense department, said of the victims buried by landslides. Faria said she was certain people were buried inside the Morro Bumba slum's Assembly of God church, which collapsed during nightly services. Clesio Araujo, 39, said he narrowly escaped the slide, leaving a pizza parlor just a few minutes before the earth gave way. He said a family was still inside. The destruction was compounded because the slum is largely built atop an old garbage dump, making it especially unstable and vulnerable to the heavy rains, said Agostinho Guerreiro, president of Rio's main association of engineers and architects. "It is very fragile soil. It couldn't hold. The houses came down, destroying the ones below them," Guerreiro told Globo TV. "It was a tragedy foretold." The federal government announced an emergency fund of $114 million to help Rio state, where the slum is located, to deal with the mudslides and flooding. But the money will be of little help to people who have no choice but to live in such precarious sections of the city, said Rosana Fernandes, 43, whose sister, brother-in-law and two young nieces were buried under the mud. Holding a faded photo of the smiling family, she didn't bother holding back the tears as she explained what it is that leads families to live atop a landfill formed by decades of accumulated garbage. "Yes, it was a dump. But people are desperate to have a home anywhere," she said. "What else were they going to do? Where else were they supposed to go? This is our reality. They knew the risks, but when you have no money, you have no choice," she said. Rio officials said they are going to step up forced evictions of slum residents living in at-risk areas. Mayor Eduardo Paes announced that 1,500 families are going to be removed from their homes in at least two Rio slums, and that more evictions are likely. Officials from Rio state's Civil Defense department said that at least 14,000 people were forced from their homes by the mudslides and that potential slides threatened at least 10,000 other houses in the city. On Thursday, scores of rescue workers poked at the massive mountain of earth that slid down the hills of the Morro Bumba slum toward a paved road in Niteroi, Rio's sister city of 500,000 people across the Guanabara Bay. Mounds of soil and garbage rose 40 feet (12 meters) high. A dozen dump trucks were lined up to carry off the debris. Hundreds of onlookers watched as firefighters carried at least four coffins out of the crater created by the slide. Homeless residents sought shelter in two Evangelical churches just down the road from the slum, where water, food and clothing were handed out. Small children played and slept on dozens of mattresses laid out on church floors. Niteroi recovery operations were moving slowly: The wet, steep terrain posed a continued threat to anyone trapped in the wreckage and to emergency crews as well, said lead firefighter Alves Souza. "The work is very intense, given the fact that the volume of material we have here is very large," Souza said. While it rained only lightly Thursday, the forecast was for heavier rains later in the day and throughout the weekend. FIREFIGHTERS PULL THE BODY of a landslide victim out of the mud in the Morro do Bumba neighborhood of Niteroi near Rio de Janeiro, Thursday, April 8, 2010. At least 200 people were buried and feared dead under the latest landslide to hit a slum in Rio de Janeiro's metropolitan area, authorities said Thursday. AP photo Racial outbursts sign of unhealed wounds in S. Africa JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A white politician stormed out of a live TV debate about race relations and a black leader of the ruling African National Congress threw racial epithets at a journalist he kicked out of a news conference. The events are just part of the fallout in South Africa after the slaying of a notorious white supremacist. Eugene Terreblanche, leader of the once-feared AWB paramilitary group, was bludgeoned to death on his farm April 3. The acrimonious aftermath reveals strained race relations 16 years after apartheid collapsed and Nelson Mandela became president, urging all races to come together. "I am not finished with you," AWB Secretary General Andre Visagie shouted as he stormed off the local TV talk show, pointing a finger at a black female analyst. Video of the Wednesday night blowup, which erupted after the analyst continually interrupted Visagie and made hand gestures in front of his face, was posted on YouTube and quickly got hundreds of hits. At least four musical remixes went onto the Internet, including one by a popular South African rapper. On Thursday there was more acrimony. Julius Malema, leader of the ANC Youth League, held a news conference in which he sang about beating up white farmers, defying a new directive from his own party to stop singing racially polarizing songs. Some whites have blamed Terreblanche's murder on a song Malema had previously belted out, urging that white farmers be shot. Malema and Visagie perhaps represent two extremes in this once white-led country where blacks for decades were brutalized and belittled by a racist white minority government. But the aftermath of the Terreblanche killing, which was allegedly motivated by a wage dispute, shows that rage and wounds remain raw among many. Some residents of a black township near Terreblanche's farm even hailed Terreblanche's alleged killers as heroes. Terreblanche's extremist Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging movement, better known as the AWB, wanted to create all-white republic within South Africa. "It does really highlight the fact that race relations in our country are an unresolved issue," said Chris Maroleng, the journalist who was host of Wednesday night's TV show. "Eugene Terreblanche's death has opened up a lot of unhealed wounds and unresolved issues in terms of race." Maroleng, however, stressed that most South Africans of all races are keen to get along and work together to rebuild the divided nation of nearly 50 million people. Visagie had become angry when analyst Lebohang Pheko kept interrupting him, asking "Is it still you versus us?" and whether he cared about starving South African children or abused farm laborers. Visagie tore the microphone from his jacket and threw it. Maroleng came between him and Pheko and warned: "Touch me on my studio and you will be in trouble." Some who saw the episode sympathized with Pheko. Tshepo Dithipe, a 22-year-old law student, said, "I was actually scared for the woman." Others thought she provoked Visagie. "She was not asking questions to find out more," said Innocentai Mdluli, a 22-year-old anthropology student. "She wanted this man to look raw and barbaric." C inefour US and Russia sign nuke treaty 2297 North Main, Logan 753-6444 Theatres OPEN SAT AT 11:30 FOR MATINEES Avatar PG-13 Remember Me Daily 3:45, 6:45, 9:35 Fri/Sat 12:30 No 9:35 on Sunday 1.UC-Santa Cruz 2.UC-Santa Barbara 3.UC-San Diego 4.Pepperdine 5.Point Loma Nazarene 6.Hawaii-Manoa 7.Flag,ler (Fla.) 8.Monmouth (N.J.) 9.UNC-Wilmington 10.Salve Regina (R.I.) Source: Transworld Surf © 2010 by King Features Syndicate, Inc. World rights reserved. PG-13 Daily 7:00, 9:15 No 615 on Sunday When in Rome PG-13 Alvin & the Chipmunks The Squeakquel PG Daily 7:30, 9:45 No 9:45 on Sunday Daily 4:15 Fri/Sat 11:45, 2:10 Tooth Fairy PG Daily 4:30 Fri/Sat 11:45, 2:00 Blindside PG-13 Daily 9:30 No 9:30 on Sunday Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief PG Dear John PG-13 Daily 12:15, 2:30 5:05, 7:15 Daily 4:50, 7:15 Fri/Sat 12:30 Sign up to get e-mail editions of The Statesman all summer long. www.aggietownsquare. com Stickelers Answer The missing number is 5. Each pair of numbers, starting with the 2 and the 17 and then moving clockwise, add up to 19. A I MET ONO 10 l< 11- 1 0 1. 1-=I 10 1w 1=1 1:1E1 PREGO AESOP 0 T = 1 -t 1 cc I OM 1)- 1= 1<1 1 1-1-t 1w1 —, 1. 1.1 1< 1 ,0 1•1 T R A U R E 1)1 —, M .:. 111w M 10 IN I< R I E- G I N Ku P H I T WAS ' NYT PLUME 1w 11- 1z1 Y 0 K1 Et ffi Answers To Today's Crossword Puzzle! VERBS I VOR Y P E N D T E X I S H NAD I A SPASM PRAGUE (AP) — The nuclear weapons cuts President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed on Thursday would shrink the Cold War superpowers' arsenals to the lowest point since the frightening arms race of the 1960s. But they won't touch the "loose nukes" and suitcase bombs seen as the real menace in today's age of terrorism. "This ceremony is a testament to the truth that old adversaries can forge new partnerships," Obama declared. "It is just one step on a longer journey." The warheads covered by the treaty are lethal relics of the Cold War, and even with the planned reductions there will be enough firepower on each side to devastate the world many times over. And of more immediate concern are attempts by terrorist groups such as al-Qaida and nations such as Iran and North Korea to acquire or use nuclear weapons. Obama and Medvedev showed solidarity for a spring showdown with Iran. And, beginning Monday, leaders of 47 countries will gather in Washington in an effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, crack down on illicit nuclear trafficking and lock down vulnerable nuclear materials around the world. Introduced Thursday with trumpet fanfare, the two grinning presidents sat at an ornate table in Prague's hilltop presidential castle and put their signatures to a landmark successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Nearly a year in the making, the "New START" signaled a bold opening in previously soured U.S.-Russia relations. If ratified by both nations' legislatures, it will shrink the limit of nuclear warheads to 1,550 each over seven years, down about a third from the current ceiling of 2,200. Ratification in the U.S. Senate will hardly be automatic, requiring 67 votes in the 100-member chamber during a congressional election year when cooperation can be hard to come by. Beyond that, urgent international nuclear tasks still face the two leaders. For example, they are trying to forge agreement among themselves and four other nations — China, France, Britain, and Germany — on how to tackle Iran's continued defiance of United Nations demands that it cease enriching uranium. The West insists Tehran seeks to develop nuclear weapons; Tehran says it is after peaceful nuclear power. At Obama's side, Medvedev made Russia's support for considering a fourth round of U.N. sanctions on Iran clearer than ever. "We cannot turn a blind eye to this," he said of Tehran's intransigence. But that was not the main question heading into the leaders' talks, which ran overtime to about two hours. At issue, as representatives from the six partners prepare for what Obama called ramped-up" discussions in New York, is how weak any new sanctions regime would need to be to get Moscow on board — not to mention China, an even more stubborn holdout. Medvedev said sanctions should be "smart" — designed to change behavior, not to bring down the hardline Iranian government or impose hardship on Iran's people. The Russian leader said he had outlined for Obama "our limits for such sanctions," and Obama Russia expert Mike McFaul said those discussions got very specific. "In all negotiations, people talk about their red lines and their bottom lines and we negotiate," McFaul said. White House officials would not reveal details of the private conversation, concerned that it could threaten progress. But Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said that a total embargo on refined petroleum products into Iran, which depends heavily on such imports, was out of the question for Moscow. There is talk of hitting refined petroleum product deliveries some other way, but sanctions on Iran's energy sector may be jettisoned altogether as too tough for Russia or China. Obama repeated his flat declaration that "strong tough sanctions" will be agreed to this spring. He said "we will not tolerate" any actions by Iran that risk a new arms race in the Middle East or threaten the security of the international community. " PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, left, and Czech Republic president Vaclav Klaus, toast with champagne at the Prague Castle in Prague, Thursday, April 8. AP photo |