Evidence mounts of massacre in Syria

Evidence mounts of massacre in Syria

beirut

Evidence mounted on Sunday of a new massacre in Syria’s deepening civil war, with activists reporting a killing spree by government forces after they seized the suburb of Daraya from rebel control three days ago. Reports of the death toll ranged from more than 300 to as many as 600.

Video footage posted by activists showed lineups of bodies, many of them men with gunshot wounds to their heads. During mass burials on Sunday, bodies were sprayed with water from hoses — a substitute for the ritual washing prescribed by Islam in the face of so many dead.

The gruesome images appeared to expose the lengths to which the regime of authoritarian President Bashar Assad was willing to go to put down the rebellion that broke out in March 2011.

Wildlife threatened, conservationists say

harare, zimbabwe

Tens of thousands of wild animals face annihilation in a wave of land takeovers in Zimbabwe by politicians of President Robert Mugabe’s party, a consortium of wildlife ranchers said Sunday.

The Save Valley Conservancy said thousands of people’s livelihoods also are threatened in the 1,000-square-mile nature preserve and surrounding districts after hunting permits and land leases were granted to 25 leaders of the ZANU-PF party under a black empowerment program.

Flooding kills 10

yola, nigeria

An emergency management official in northeast Nigeria says 10 people were killed in floods that swept through the region.

Adamawa state Emergency Management Agency official Shadrach Daniel Baruk said others were trapped by flooding Sunday.

Baruk blamed the release of water from a dam in the neighboring nation of Cameroon for the flood.

Quakes rattle Calif.

san diego

Dozens of small to moderate earthquakes rattled Southern California on Sunday, shaking an area from Imperial County to the San Diego coast and north into the Coachella Valley. The largest quake, magnitude 5.3, struck at 12:31 p.m. about three miles from the small Imperial County farming town of Brawley, according to Paul Caruso, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

Associated Press