World News joined 2

[Black Widow]

Three teenagers have been accused of digging up a body and using the skull as a bong to smoke marijuana.

The tomb raiders are believed to have desecrated a grave belonging to Willie Simms, an 11-year-old boy who died in 1921.

Officers in Texas had been working on a stolen credit card case when one of the trio made a confession, saying the body had been dug up from an abandoned graveyard in woods.

Another reportedly took officers to the site and showed them where they had removed the body.

The state's Harris County District Attorney's Office confirmed that misdemeanour abuse of corpse charges have been filed in the case.

Officers, who are continuing to investigate, do not have any physical evidence but charged the men on the basis of their statements.

Two of the teenagers are aged 17 while the third is 16.


Sky News.com

[JohnCenaFan28]

That's horrible, they should be locked away forever or have someone do that with their skulls!

[OMEN]

Desperate survivors of Cyclone Nargis are pouring out of Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta in search of food, water and medicine as aid groups said thousands more people will die if emergency supplies do not get through soon.

Buddhist temples and high schools in towns on the outskirts of Nargis' trail of destruction are now makeshift refugee centres for women, children and the elderly – some of the 1.5 million people left clinging to survival by the storm.

The reclusive military government is accepting aid from the outside world, including the United Nations, but has made it very clear it will not let in the foreign logistics teams needed to transport the aid as fast as possible into the inundated delta.

"Unless there is a massive and fast infusion of aid, experts and supplies into the hardest-hit areas, there's going to be a tragedy on an unimaginable scale," said Greg Beck of the International Rescue Committee.

In the delta town of Labutta, where 80 per cent of homes were destroyed, the authorities were providing just one cup of rice per family per day, a European Commission aid official said.

The scenes are the same across the delta, where as many as 100,000 people are feared dead in the worst cyclone to hit Asia since 1991, when 143,000 people died in Bangladesh.

"We have 900 people here, but we only have 300 lunch boxes. We gave it to the women and children first. The men still have not had any food," said one woman at a relief centre in the town of Myaung Mya, 100km west of Yangon.

"More are coming every day," she said.

Despite the devastation, the junta has kept its focus firmly on its seven-step "roadmap to democracy" that is meant to culminate in multi-party elections in 2010 and bring an end to nearly five decades of military rule.

State media have not yet revealed anything about the results of Saturday's referendum although there is no doubt about the final outcome of the vote on a new, army-drafted constitution that enshrines the military's grip on power.

In the run-up to the vote, army-controlled newspapers and television pumped out a relentless barrage of propaganda telling the former Burma's 53 million people it was their "patriotic duty" to approve the charter.

"I voted yes. It was what I was asked to do," 57-year-old U Hlaing said in the town of Hlegu, northwest of the former capital Yangon, where voting has been delayed by two weeks. It has also been delayed in worst-hit delta areas.

Protesters in Japan, Malaysia and Thailand denounced the junta for holding the referendum.

"People are dying and they still want to go on with this artificial democracy," said Than Tun Aung, a refugee who led the protest in Kuala Lumpur.

Even before Cyclone Nargis hit on the night of May 2, groups opposed to military rule, and foreign governments led by the United States, had denounced the vote as an attempt by the military to legitimise its 46-year grip on power.

The government's feeble response to the disaster has only fed cynicism about the junta's determination to proceed with their "roadmap to democracy" leading to multi-party elections in 2010.

The Bush administration on Saturday sidestepped directly criticising the constitutional vote and instead said the focus of the junta should be on relief efforts.

Questioned by reporters, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe declined to repeat stiff criticism the United States has leveled against Myanmar's leaders for a vote seen as solidifying the military's grip on the country.

"Our position on the referendum is well-known," Johndroe told reporters. "Our focus now is on getting assistance to the people of Burma and we would certainly hope that is the focus of the Burmese government as well."

The United Nations appealed for $US187 million in aid, even though it is still not confident the food, water and tents flown in will make it to those most in need because of the junta's reluctance to admit international relief workers.

Myanmar state media says 23,350 people died and 37,019 are missing after Cyclone Nargis roared up the Irrawaddy delta the night of May 2 whipping up a wall of sea-water that hammered everything in its path.

Health experts warned that a "second disaster" loomed from diseases such as diarrhoea and malaria, even if survivors do manage to find food and shelter.

State-run TV in Myanmar warned of "foreign interference" in a repeatedly broadcast message on Saturday urging people to vote yes for the constitution.

Most people probably did just that. Of the 20 people Reuters interviewed near polling stations in Hlegu on Saturday, only two admitted to voting No Even then it was in a whisper and with a nervous glance over the shoulder first.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Barack Obama has caught up with Hillary Clinton in the race for superdelegates, the group of independent Democrats who look increasingly likely to decide the party's presidential candidate, media reports say.

Recent declarations of support from superdelegates in Utah, Ohio and the Virgin Islands give Obama 275 of the party's 800 superdelegates, the Associated Press reported.

Clinton has support from 271.

Superdelegates are prominent members of the Democratic party and can vote for whichever candidate they want, irrespective of the results in the primaries.

Buoyed by the support and acting even more like he has clinched the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama said yesterday he would be willing to campaign jointly with Republican John McCain and acknowledged he needed to better introduce himself to Americans.

After a stop at a solar technology company in this central Oregon town, Obama was asked if he supported a suggestion that he campaign with McCain and hold joint town hall meetings in the run-up to the November general election.

"I think that's a great idea. Obviously we'd have to think through the logistics on this," Obama said. "Should I be the nominee, if I have the opportunity to debate substantive issues before the voters with John McCain, that's something I'm going to welcome."

Obama, who took a commanding lead in the Democratic race last week, said he looked forward to pointing out his differences with McCain, including views on the energy crisis, the Iraq war and health care.

"In a contest between myself and John McCain there is going to be a very clear choice on policy," he said. "I think this is going to be a very concrete contest around very specific plans for how we improve the lives of Americans and our vision for the future and that's a debate that I'm going to welcome."

McCain, who held unusual "dual town hall" style meetings with former Democratic White House hopeful Bill Bradley in the 2000 election, would not commit.

"John McCain has repeatedly encouraged these types of appearances with his opponents in the past, but in order to extend all due respect to Senator Clinton, we will look forward to welcoming the arrangements when the Democrats have actually chosen their nominee," said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds.

Although in campaign rallies over the past two days Obama has been speaking mainly about McCain, he too was quick to note that the grueling battle against rival Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination was not yet over.

"We haven't finished this primary yet so it's premature to start projecting how the general election's going to play out," he said at the news conference. But he said Democrats must ensure they unify the party after the nomination battle is settled in order to beat McCain in November.

"I want to go into the general election. . . with the party unified and ready to take on what I think is a wrong-headed vision of where the country should go," he said.

INTRODUCE HIMSELF

Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois, said he realized he must make sure Americans knew who he was and what he stood for as he moves toward the general election.

"The American people are busy. They got a lot of stuff going on," he said.

"I think they have a sense of who I am, but I'm applying for the most challenging job on the face of the planet and I expect that I'm going to have to continually describe to the American people who I am, where I come from, what shaped my character and how I intend to lead this country."

Obama received a rousing welcome from about 2,000 cheering supporters packed into a high school gym in Bend. He urged them to vote for him in the state's May 20 nominating contest.

Clinton was in New York on Saturday and appeared at a "Mother's Day Celebration" fund-raiser with daughter Chelsea. The New York senator and former first lady, who has lent her campaign more than $11 million of her own funds, is struggling financially to keep her battle afloat.

Obama has been picking up the support of more and more "superdelegates" – the group of nearly 800 party leaders and elected officials not bound by state-by-state nominating contests who are free to back any candidate at the Democratic convention in August.

The support of superdelegates has become critical as neither candidate can clinch the nomination without them.

"They are looking forward to resolving this contest as soon as we can so we can pivot and start talking about John McCain and the general election and our positive unified vision for where we want to take the country," Obama said.

With just 217 pledged delegates at stake in the final six primary contests, Clinton has no realistic chance of overtaking Obama's lead in pledged delegates won in the state-by-state battles that began in January.

Clinton is expected to do well in the next election in West Virginia on Tuesday and in the vote in Kentucky on May 20. The nominating contest in Oregon, also on May 20, favors Obama who has been campaigning across the state over the past two days.

An MSNBC count gives Obama about 155 more delegates than Clinton but he is still about 165 delegates short of the 2,025 needed to clinch the Democratic nomination.

- With Reuters

[OMEN]

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was dealt a further blow when former deputy prime minister John Prescott disclosed he had urged Tony Blair to sack Brown when he was finance minister.

In memoirs serialised in the Sunday Times newspaper, Prescott described the tempestuous relationship between the two men in the years before Blair stood down last June, and said the prime minister had been scared to act against Brown.

Prescott's claims come at a difficult time for Brown, already struggling after crushing local election losses, collapsing opinion poll ratings and damaging revelations about his behaviour while serving in Blair's government.

In extracts from her memoirs on Saturday, Blair's wife Cherie accused Brown, who had long sought the prime minister's job, of "putting too much pressure on Tony to quit when Tony wasn't ready".

Prescott said he spent much of his time acting as a conciliator, with "hundreds" of phone calls and meetings dealing with "Blair-Brown issues".

Brown was "frustrating, annoying, bewildering and prickly", Prescott said, while Blair had reneged several times on pledges to make way for Brown as prime minister.

Prescott said he had also challenged Brown to quit as Chancellor of the Exchequer over Blair's broken promises.

"With Tony, when he was moaning on about Gordon's behaviour, I'd say 'Sack him. Find a new chancellor is that's how you really feel'. But neither would take the final step," Prescott said.

"They were caught in their own trap. Tony knew that sacking Gordon would tear the party apart."

Brown's popularity has plummeted in recent months, raising questions over whether he will face a leadership challenge ahead of national elections which must be called by 2010.

An unpopular income tax reform, rising fuel and food prices, a downturn in the housing market and criticism of Brown's leadership brought the Labour party to its worst local election performance on record earlier this month.

Since then, there has been no let-up in bad headlines for Brown.

An opinion poll in Sunday's Observer newspaper showed only one in five voters thinks Brown is doing a good job. Another poll in The Mail on Sunday showed Labour could be heading to defeat in a crucial parliamentary by-election in 10 days time.

The ICM survey carried out in the Crewe and Nantwich constituency puts the opposition Conservative Party on 43 percent, four points ahead of Labour on 39 percent, with the Liberal Democrats on 16 percent.

Reuters

[OMEN]

At least 18 people were killed today in Missouri and Oklahoma after tornadoes swept through the area, authorities in the two states said.

There were at least 12 storm-related deaths in Missouri, 10 of those in Newton County on the border with Oklahoma, according to Susie Stonner of the Missouri Emergency Management Agency.

"There's a lot of wreckage and overturned vehicles," she said, adding police had not ruled out finding more victims.

Hardest hit was Racine, a tiny community along the state line about 170 miles south of Kansas City.

Six people were also killed in the small northeastern Oklahoma town of Picher, officials said.

"Basically a 24-block area is virtually destroyed," said Michelann Ooten, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management.

She added that Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry had ordered National Guard troops to arrive in Picher by Sunday morning (local time) to help in rescue and recovery operations.

Local television footage from Picher showed widespread devastation. Homes were ripped from their foundations, trees were stripped of leaves and sheet metal was twisted like paper.

Ooten said search efforts for missing people in Picher were shutting down as it was unsafe for rescuers to move through the rubble at night even with mobile floodlights.

"You need day break," she said. "That'll be the real story."

Fifty people have been treated for injuries ranging from head trauma to lacerations and broken bones, said Jennifer Hessee, spokeswoman for the Integris Baptist Regional Health Centre in Miami, Oklahoma, 15 miles from Picher.

"I've never seen anything like this," Hessee said. "We went into disaster mode and called in all of our staff. It's slowed down. Hopefully the worst has come in. It'll make for a sad Mother's Day for a lot of people."

Picher is at the centre of a massive federal clean-up of pollution from lead and zinc mining. Residents were being assisted with relocation from the community after high levels of lead were found in groundwater.

In Missouri, Howard Birdsong, the mayor of Neosho, a town of 11,500 that is the Newton County seat, said at least two of the deaths came when a tornado overturned a vehicle.

It appeared the twister carved a 15-mile path just north of town after striking neighboring Oklahoma. In some areas, the destruction is a half-mile wide, he said.

"There's an awful lot of property damage," Birdsong said by telephone. "From what I've seen many homes have been destroyed, some businesses, and some cars have been overturned, uprooted trees and power outages . . . There are several dozen injured."

In all, the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Centre in Norman, Oklahoma, recorded 34 tornado reports in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, though some were multiple reports about the same twister or twisters.

The National Weather Service in Springfield, Missouri, said it would send out assessment teams on Sunday morning to determine the scope of the damage, and figure out the number and paths of the tornadoes.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Turkey says it has launched air and artillery attacks against Kurdish separatist rebels in northern Iraq after an insurgent strike on a military base.

"Targets proven to belong to the PKK terrorist organisation in northern Iraq were put under heavy and effective fire by our air force planes with the support of artillery," the statement said.

The attacks, which began after 3am Sunday NZT, targeted a group of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) members who had escaped into Iraq from Turkey after a rebel attack on a military headquarters that resulted in the deaths of six soldiers.

Two soldiers were killed in the initial PKK attack on Friday night and four died later in ensuing clashes with the rebels.

The military said on its website that it was trying to find out what casualties it had inflicted on the Kurdistan Workers Party.

A senior Iraqi border security official said there was one air strike and artillery shelling of the border area in northern Iraq overnight. There were no casualties in the attacks that occurred around 0800 NZT on Saturday, he said.

The violence was part of a wider military operation, backed by attack helicopters, tanks and artillery, against the PKK in restive and mountainous southeast Turkey.

Amid widespread public anger over PKK attacks, Turkey has sent tens of thousands of troops to the border region. Over the past week dozens of Turkish F-16 warplanes have launched bombing raids against suspected PKK positions deep inside northern Iraq.

Turkey blames the PKK for the deaths of 40,000 people since 1984, when the group took up arms to fight for a Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey. Ankara, like the European Union and the United States, considers the group a terrorist organisation.

Reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the story.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.