At least 22 dead in Iraq violence
MOSUL, Iraq, May 24 (UPI) -- Iraq was ripped by violence Sunday with a string of attacks leaving at least 22 people dead and dozens wounded, authorities said.
A police official told The New York Times a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden van in Mosul, killing eight people and wounding 26. The attack, which wiped out a restaurant and several shops, appeared to have been meant for U.S. soldiers but none of them were hurt, the Times said.
Others were killed in roadside bombings, drive-by shootings, ambushes and execution-style slayings Mosul and Fallujah.
The dead included a 2-month-old baby in a house struck by a hand grenade, police said.
Despite the rash of violence, Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, spokesman for the Iraqi security forces in Baghdad, and Maj. Gen. David Perkins, spokesman for the U.S. military, said the overall trend has been fewer and less deadly attacks. Atta said the current rate is about 20-25 attacks per week, down from a high of 450 in 2007.
"We have not witnessed a direct confrontation since 2007 on Iraqi security forces," Atta said.
Perkins agreed the overall picture has improved.
"From a macro point of view the attacks trend down," he said.
NYC records 2nd swine flu death
NEW YORK, May 24 (UPI) -- A New York City woman in her 50s has become the metropolis's second swine flu fatality, city health officials said Sunday.
Jessica Scaperotti, a spokeswoman for the health department, said the woman, who lived in Queens, had an underlying health condition that made her more susceptible to succumbing to the flu, The New York Times reported. That also was the case in the city's first flu death, the newspaper said.
Details of the latest fatal case were not provided other than the woman had died in the previous two days and testing confirmed she had the H1N1 virus, the Times said.
Ninety-four people have been hospitalized with the flu in New York City since the end of April -- up from 68 Saturday and 57 Friday, health officials said.
"As we see more cases in the community we are going to see more severe illness and possibly death," Scaperotti told the Times. "If you're sick right now with flu, you probably have H1N1."
CNN reported that, based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures and counting the latest death in New York, 10 people in the United States are confirmed to have died of the H1N1 flu. There have been more than 6,500 cases of the flu confirmed.
Adding the latest death to World Health Organization figures, 87 deaths are now blamed on the swine flu with more than 12,000 cases reported.
Nearly 89,000 died in 2008 China disasters
BEIJING, May 24 (UPI) -- The earthquake in Sichuan province and other natural disasters last year killed 88,928 people in China, the government said Sunday.
The total is the highest since 1976, when more than 242,000 people died in a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that devastated Tangshan in northern China's Hebei province, Xinhua reported, quoting the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
Last year's disasters affected 480 million people and resulted in financial losses of about $173 billion, the state-run news agency reported.
Besides the May 12 Sichuan earthquake, which left more than 87,000 people dead or missing, other disasters included blizzards and heavy snows in much of central and southern China, the ministry said.
Sri Lankan refugees recall horror of war
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, May 24 (UPI) -- The Tamil Tigers' prolonged civil war in Sri Lanka may have ended but the plight of those displaced by the fighting remains dire, officials say.
Hundreds of thousands of such people, in need of water and medicine, huddle in refugee camps, recalling their dreadful experience, CNN reported.
"We suffered a lot because shelling was coming from everywhere," a 38-year-old man told CNN. "Firing, shelling -- many, many people have died -- there was nobody there to carry the dead. A lot of dead were left on the road."
During a weekend visit to the island nation's refugee camps, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the situation was the worst he's witnessed.
"I have traveled around the world and visited similar places, but this is by far the most appalling scenes I have seen," Ban said.
A joint statement issued after Ban met with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa called for the government to provide access to humanitarian agencies to help the refugees.
But the CNN report said access remains limited as Sri Lankan officials look for Tamil Tigers they fear might be hiding in the refugee camps.
TimesOnline reported some of those living at the Manik Farm, the largest of the displacement camps, as a prison or a concentration camp.
The report said 7-foot-high barbed wired wooden posts with razor wire coils atop surround the camp.
"I read in a book on the Second World War about concentration camps. I feel we are experiencing that now," a Roman Catholic priest was quoted as saying.
"I hope my visit today can help begin a process of national recovery, renewal and reconciliation for all Sri Lankans," CNN quoted Ban as saying.
