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Thursday, April 12, 2012

Search for avalanche victims in Pakistan







Kofi Annan deadline, Syria on ceasefire


Kofi Annan says he has been informed by Syria on ceasefire.  The international envoy said that Syria has told him it will "cease all military fighting throughout Syrian territory" as of 6 a.m. Damascus time on Thursday. The Syrian defence ministry said Wednesday that it will cease military operations against rebel fighters from Thursday, the day set by peace envoy Kofi Annan as a deadline to halt hostilities, state television reported. Annan's spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said in a statement Wednesday that the letter from Syria s foreign minister said the government reserves "the right to respond proportionately to any attacks carried out by armed terrorist groups against civilians, government forces or public and private property."  Fawzi said Annan will continue to work with the Syrian government on implementation of his six-point plan to end the more than yearlong conflict in which more than 9,000 people have been killed, according to the U.N. The official said the armed forces would “remain on standby to retaliate against any attack by the armed terrorist groups against civilians, the security services, armed forces, or private or public property.” Annan, who drafted a deal to end 13 months of bloodshed, said in Geneva on Wednesday that he had received a written pledge from the Syrian government to stop fighting at dawn on Thursday.

Siachen Update: little chance of finding survivors

There was little chance of finding survivors at the site around 4,000 meters above the sea.  Harsh weather conditions hampering the search for 138 people buried under a huge avalanche at a Pakistani army camp will last at least another 24 hours, a senior meteorological official said Wednesday. As more than 450 rescuers worked in sub-zero temperatures, experts said there was little chance of finding any survivors at the site, which is at an altitude of around 4,000 metres (13,000 feet). The site of the Gayari camp has been hit by heavy snow in recent days and Arif Mahmood, the head of the Pakistan Meteorological Department said the bad weather was likely to last another day. According to the resources  relief operations for more than 138  soldiers & civilian were buried by an avalanche that swept through their camp continued at a slow pace, made difficult by the location of the camp struck and weather situation. A column of rescuers, using dogs and helicopters, has gone to the military camp Gayari, at 6300 meters above sea level at the Siachen Glacier. A press release states that Army soldiers were part of the army of light infantry. The avalanche, it refers to the release, occurred in the early hours of Saturday when the soldiers were sleeping. The Siachen glacier, along the border dispute between India and Pakistan, is a highly militarized zone with a large presence of Indian soldiers and experts pachistani.secondo India has about 5000 men in the area around 2500 against Pakistan. On February 16 Indian soldiers were killed in another avalanche. Photographs released by the military Tuesday showed diggers and rescuers at work on an almost featureless expanse of dirty grey snow and ice, with no trace visible of the camp that had been the 6th Northern Light Infantry headquarters. The site is surrounded by some of the world s highest peaks and lies near the de facto border with India in the militarised region of Kashmir, which has caused two of the three wars between the two countries since independence in 1947. The nuclear-armed rivals fought over Siachen in 1987, but guns on the glacier have largely fallen silent since a slow-moving peace process was launched in 2004.