OceanPark

1-15-05 Tsunami Update

From the World Health Organization, now that the Tsunami story has dropped off the front pages, so to speak.

The chart on the toll so far is chilling. There's been nothing like this in recent memory.

India: 648,820 displaced, 10,151 dead, 5,628 still missing; Indonesia: 605,849 displaced, 113,360 dead, 10,078 still missing. In Malaysia: the numbers are 8,000 displaced, 68 dead, 6 still missing; In the Maldives: 21,663 displaced, 83 dead, 26 missing. In Myanmar, 3,205 displaced, 60-80 dead, 3 missing. In Sri Lanka, 441,110 displaced, 30,893 dead, 6,038 missing. In Thailand, 8,457 displaced, 5,303 dead, 0 missing.

Situation report 16

Aceh, Indonesia remains the priority for relief work as the province continues to be in a state of emergency. Strong progress has been achieved in Sri Lanka, but systemic relief must be undertaken alongside planning for rehabilitation and reconstruction.

Summary

• Public health teams, convened by WHO and working with the US military, are currently based on the ship Abraham Lincoln off the western coast of Aceh. They will be conducting rapid health assessments of otherwise unreachable populations in an a large area estimated at 350 km by 10 km.
• Communicable disease surveillance systems are in place in most affected countries and daily reports are becoming available. The next two to three weeks will be critical. Expert epidemiologists are on standby in the case that an outbreak is reported. No outbreaks have been reported so far.
• Public health and reference lab capacity has been strengthened.
• WHO is completing an assessment today of supply stockpiling and will inform governments and donors of what is needed where.
• In Sri Lanka, the number of displaced persons has further decreased and now stands at 441,410.
• WHO released a statement on the increased vulnerability of women and girls in circumstances of social upheaval.

10-4-04 In the Land of Absurdity Again...

...this time, absurdly awful.

Pitcairn man pleads guilty

SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) -- Pitcairn Island postmaster Dennis Christian, a descendant of Bounty mutineer Fletcher Christian, has pleaded guilty to three charges during a trial into rape and underage sex stretching back 40 years, reports said on Tuesday.
Radio New Zealand reported that 49-year-old Dennis Christian, one of seven men facing sex charges, had changed his plea to guilty on three of the four charges he faced. The fourth charge was dismissed when no evidence was offered, it said.
Seven Pitcairn Island men -- half of the island's male population -- face 55 charges of rape and underage sex. Some of the charges relate to incidents that took place in the 1960s, the prosecution says.
The seven include Pitcairn mayor Steve Christian, another descendent of Fletcher Christian who led the mutiny on the British ship, the Bounty, in 1789.
Pitcairn is the last British territory in the South Pacific and has a population of just 47.
The rocky outcrop, chosen as a hideaway by the Bounty mutineers because it is so remote, is a dot in the ocean, with an area of just 5 sq km (2 sq miles), halfway between New Zealand and Panama.

Pitcairn men, and some island women, say they have a tradition of underage sex dating back to when the mutineers who rebelled against Captain William Bligh first landed in 1790.
British law forbids having sex with a girl under 16.
The island, 2,160 km (1,300 miles) southeast of Tahiti, has no safe harbour, is too rocky for an airstrip, has no paved roads, no sewage system and no landline telephones.
Visitors have to fly to an outlying Tahitian island and then travel by boat for 36 hours to get there, ending their journey riding the surf that crashes onto the island in a small boat.
The British government has had to ship in judges, police, a jail, court officials and a handful of reporters for the trial, which is expected to last for about six weeks.
A courtroom has been erected in the island's small, timber community hall. The charges against the Pitcairn men follow a report by a British policewoman stationed on the island in 1999.
Radio New Zealand said Dennis Christian, a cousin of Steve Christian, had admitted indecently assaulting a 12-year-old girl in the early 1980s. It said details of the other two charges on which he pleaded guilty had been suppressed.
Dennis Christian was remanded on bail by judge Russell Johnson, one of three New Zealand judges hearing the case, for sentencing at the end of the hearing.
A group of eight Pitcairn women, most now living in New Zealand, began giving evidence last week via video for the prosecution.
Prosecutor Simon Moore and Christine Gordon, shown here arriving at court on Pitcairn Island for the trial, told the court at the start of the trial last week that Steve Christian, 53, was the "leader of the pack" on the island and believed he had a right to have sex with young girls.
Among the other accused men are his 30-year-old son Randy, his father-in-law Len Brown who is also the oldest defendant at 78, and Brown's son Dave, 49.
Christian wore an HMS Bounty T-shirt in court. He left court with Brenda Christian - his distant cousin and the island's local police officer.