Saturday, November 23, 2013
Typhoon death toll rises above 5,000
MANILA, Philippines
The death toll from one of the strongest typhoons on record has risen above 5,000 and is likely to climb further, although recovery efforts are beginning to take hold, Philippine officials said Friday.
Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said 4,919 people were killed on Leyte, Samar and nearby islands in the Eastern Visayas region. Civil defense chief Eduardo del Rosario said 290 others died in other parts of the central and southern Philippines.
The regions were battered two weeks ago by fierce winds and tsunami-like storm surges from Typhoon Haiyan, locally called Yolanda.
Progress reported in Iran nuke talks
GENEVA
Secretary of State John Kerry and foreign ministers of other major powers lent their weight to the Iran nuclear talks after envoys reported progress Friday in marathon negotiations to curb the Iranian program in return for limited sanctions relief.
After a third day of talks, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said Kerry was en route to Geneva to “help narrow the differences.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in Geneva late Friday.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague announced he also would travel to Geneva. A French diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information, said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius would join the others here.
Officials upbeat on health-site fixes
WASHINGTON
There won’t be a magic moment, but the Obama administration’s much-maligned health-insurance website should be able to weather an expected year-end crush of customers, officials asserted Friday.
A combination of software fixes, design changes, added hardware and newly announced wiggle room should provide the right combination to finally deliver a workable website, White House troubleshooter Jeffrey Zients said in an upbeat assessment.
N. Korea confirms American in custody
WASHINGTON
The State Department said Friday that North Korea acknowledges it is holding an American citizen but hasn’t granted diplomats consular access, so the person’s identity is not yet confirmed.
Expectation is that it will be Merrill Newman of California. The 85-year old Korean War veteran’s family says he was detained at the end of a tourist trip to North Korea last month.
Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters that Sweden has been informed by Pyongyang that it is detaining an American citizen. Because the U.S. has no diplomatic relations with North Korea, Sweden oversees consular issues for the United States there.
Psaki says the Swedish Embassy is requesting access daily to the American.
Desert remains are those of missing boys
VICTORVILLE, Calif.
Bones found at a Southern California desert gravesite are those of two boys whose parents also were buried there, coroner’s officials confirmed Friday.
The remains are those of 4-year-old Gianni McStay and his 3-year-old brother, Joseph McStay, the coroner’s division of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. A state DNA lab confirmed their identities, the department said.
Dental records earlier confirmed that other remains belonged to the boys’ parents, Joseph McStay, 40, and Summer McStay, 43.
The four vanished in February 2010 from their home in San Diego County, about 100 miles from the gravesite.
Associated Press