Typhoon Haiyan Aid 'Must Reach Victims Faster'

United Nations humanitarian chief Valerie Amos has said aid must reach Typhoon Haiyan survivors more quickly.

Ms Amos spoke out amid reports of widespread hunger and thirst and as a mayor of one of the affected areas said he would not be able to maintain law and order unless food arrived soon.

Officials are preparing to bury some of the storm's thousands of victims in mass graves in the hope of minimising the spread of disease in typhoon-hit towns.

Meanwhile Philippine Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla has warned that it could take six weeks to restore power to some areas.

Ms Amos told reporters in Manila: "The situation is dismal. Those who have been able to leave have done so. Many more are trying. People are extremely desperate for help.

Officials are struggling to cope with the sheer scale of the disaster

"We need to get assistance to them now. They are already saying it has taken too long to arrive. Ensuring a faster delivery is our ... immediate priority."

Criticism has been growing that help is taking too long to arrive in areas devastated by Typhoon Haiyan, known locally as Yolanda, last Friday.

Thousands of desperate survivors are clamouring to escape Tacloban, where clean drinking water is in short supply and scores of dead bodies lie piled up in bags outside the ruined city hall.

"There are still so many cadavers in so many areas. It's scary," the city's mayor Alfred Romualdez said, adding that retrieval teams were struggling to cope.

Body bags are piling up as preparations are made for mass burials

He said: "There would be a request from one community to collect five or 10 bodies and when we get there, there are 40.

"We need more manpower and more equipment.

"I cannot use a truck to collect cadavers in the morning and then use it to distribute relief goods in the afternoon."  

Mr Romualdez said the plan was to start mass burials in the nearby village of Basper on Thursday, after attempts to lay to rest some of Haiyan's victims were abandoned when gunshots halted a convoy travelling towards a communal grave.

City officials estimate that they have collected 2,000 bodies but insist many more need to be retrieved.

People queue to charge their mobile phones in Tacloban city

The UN fears that 10,000 people may have died in Tacloban city alone, but President Benigno Aquino has described that figure as "too much". 

US officials said relief was starting to get through, as an aircraft carrier expected to arrive in the Philippines by Friday headed towards the region.

Sky News Correspondent Katie Stallard, watching supplies arrive at an airfield in Cebu City, said: "We are seeing signs that the international relief effort is getting going, but many people will simply not know it is coming."

In Tabontabon, the town's mayor Brendo Gamez told Sky's Asia Correspondent Mark Stone that he feared a breakdown of law and order if aid was delayed.

He said: "We have no food ... if the people of Tabontabon suffer hunger, I don't think I can control them any more."

Some £13m has been raised by the British public in just 24 hours for emergency aid, which will go directly to help more than 11 million people affected by Typhoon Haiyan.

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), a group of 14 UK aid organisations, said that while life-saving aid is on the move, agencies are battling to overcome blocked roads, closed ports, an ill-equipped airport and increasing security concerns.

The disaster-ravaged country has become "increasingly volatile" as people become desperate for food and water, with some resorting to force, the DEC said.

Coree Steadmen, Christian Aid's emergency manager in the Philippines, said: "The devastation here is unimaginable. Aid workers are walking for hours and not seeing a single standing building.

"Most roads are covered with fallen trees and collapsed houses. Where roads are accessible, they are gridlocked with cars fleeing the area.

"Getting aid through is tough, but we are resourceful and we will find a way."

:: To make a donation to the DEC Philippines Crisis Appeal visit www.dec.org.uk, call the 24-hour hotline on 0370 60 60 900, donate over the counter at any high street bank or post office or send a cheque.

You can also donate £5 by texting the word SUPPORT to 70000.

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Tamil 'Tortured And Raped By Sri Lankan Army'

By Lisa Holland, Foreign Affairs Correspondent

Navaneethan Subramaniam is not allowed out of the London mental health unit where he is being treated unless he is accompanied.

He arrived in August after smuggling himself illegally into Britain via Europe in the back of a lorry.

Navaneethan's lawyer says he is under constant supervision because there are fears he may try to take his own life after suffering weeks of torture, allegedly at the hands of the Sri Lankan army.

This is the first time Navaneethan has left the hospital grounds. He wants to tell his story and has been allowed to leave for a few hours by doctors to meet us at a nearby cafe.

Navaneethan speaks virtually no English and talks to us through a Tamil solicitor.

During the Sri Lankan civil war he says he was a driver for the separatist group the Tamil Tigers - but he insists he is no longer an activist.

After the end of the civil war he says he went to France but was deported back to Sri Lanka, where he said he was abducted one day on his way home from work.

The 33-year-old said he was picked up and tortured in May of this year - four years on from the supposed end of the civil war.

Tamils claim they were abused in government-run refugee camps

His story is typical of the claims of abuses which human rights groups say are continuing in Sri Lanka. 

He told me: "They came in front of me, stopped me and said, 'I want to speak to you, come', then grabbed me from behind my head, grabbed my collar and pushed me into the van."

Navaneethan says he was taken to an army camp where he was held for 23 days.

He said: "I was questioned. They said, 'You have been the driver of the vehicles belonging to the group (Tamil Tigers). You smuggled arms and hid them. Where are the bunkers with weapons?'."

He says he was slapped and punched, beaten with a rifle butt, given electric shocks, made to feel like he was drowning and repeatedly sexually abused.

"I was beaten but before that I was given electric shocks. It was like two squares held onto my waist. After that I was assaulted with a rifle butt. My ear was pulled with pliers and I was stabbed with an army knife.

"The sexual thing ... three army personnel came one night. I was kept the whole night. One after the other they came to me and they did it."

Sri Lanka's High Commissioner dismissed the claims of torture

"I was mostly beaten with plastic pipes, long wooden poles and wires. They put a plastic bag over my head and put water inside. I couldn't breathe at all.

"At that time I felt instead of going through all this torture I would rather die - my torture was that severe. 

"Like what happened to me, the torture is on a massive scale and the outside world has no idea about these things."

Navaneethan - who is applying for permission to stay in Britain - returned to the hospital after spending a few hours with us.

Sky News raised his case with Dr Chris Nonis, Sri Lanka's High Commissioner to the UK.

He said: "People who came over here as economic refugees living off the British taxpayers' money who now should be deported naturally do not want to be deported, and they will come up with all sorts of conjecture of 'torture', because they have a compelling reason why they want to stay.

"There will always be a group of people who funded terrorism, who made terrorism a business, who will perpetuate a proxy propaganda war. All these are usually unauthenticated, unverified and uncorroborated.  

"We have a formal process of investigation. It is a domestic process and that will continue because no one condones any form of torture.

"But there are lots of spurious allegations and it is fundamentally important for a country post-conflict that we separate fact from fiction."

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Sri Lanka: Cameron Urged To Raise Atrocities

Tamil: I Was Tortured And Raped

Updated: 7:24am UK, Thursday 14 November 2013

By Lisa Holland, Foreign Affairs Correspondent

Navaneethan Subramaniam is not allowed out of the London mental health unit where he is being treated unless he is accompanied.

He arrived in August after smuggling himself illegally into Britain via Europe in the back of a lorry.

Navaneethan's lawyer says he is under constant supervision because there are fears he may try to take his own life after suffering weeks of torture, allegedly at the hands of the Sri Lankan army.

This is the first time Navaneethan has left the hospital grounds. He wants to tell his story and has been allowed to leave for a few hours by doctors to meet us at a nearby cafe.

Navaneethan speaks virtually no English and talks to us through a Tamil solicitor.

During the Sri Lankan civil war he says he was a driver for the separatist group the Tamil Tigers - but he insists he is no longer an activist.

After the end of the civil war he says he went to France but was deported back to Sri Lanka, where he said he was abducted one day on his way home from work.

The 33-year-old said he was picked up and tortured in May of this year - four years on from the supposed end of the civil war.

His story is typical of the claims of abuses which human rights groups say are continuing in Sri Lanka. 

He told me: "They came in front of me, stopped me and said, 'I want to speak to you, come', then grabbed me from behind my head, grabbed my collar and pushed me into the van."

Navaneethan says he was taken to an army camp where he was held for 23 days.

He said: "I was questioned. They said, 'You have been the driver of the vehicles belonging to the group (Tamil Tigers). You smuggled arms and hid them. Where are the bunkers with weapons?'."

He says he was slapped and punched, beaten with a rifle butt, given electric shocks, made to feel like he was drowning and repeatedly sexually abused.

"I was beaten but before that I was given electric shocks. It was like two squares held onto my waist. After that I was assaulted with a rifle butt. My ear was pulled with pliers and I was stabbed with an army knife.

"The sexual thing ... three army personnel came one night. I was kept the whole night. One after the other they came to me and they did it."

"I was mostly beaten with plastic pipes, long wooden poles and wires. They put a plastic bag over my head and put water inside. I couldn't breathe at all.

"At that time I felt instead of going through all this torture I would rather die - my torture was that severe. 

"Like what happened to me, the torture is on a massive scale and the outside world has no idea about these things."

Navaneethan - who is applying for permission to stay in Britain - returned to the hospital after spending a few hours with us.

Sky News raised his case with Dr Chris Nonis, Sri Lanka's High Commissioner to the UK.

He said: "People who came over here as economic refugees living off the British taxpayers' money who now should be deported naturally do not want to be deported, and they will come up with all sorts of conjecture of 'torture', because they have a compelling reason why they want to stay.

"There will always be a group of people who funded terrorism, who made terrorism a business, who will perpetuate a proxy propaganda war. All these are usually unauthenticated, unverified and uncorroborated.  

"We have a formal process of investigation. It is a domestic process and that will continue because no one condones any form of torture.

"But there are lots of spurious allegations and it is fundamentally important for a country post-conflict that we separate fact from fiction."

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Super Typhoon Haiyan: Miracle Baby Born

The birth of a baby girl amid the devastation of Super Typhoon Haiyan has provided a rare moment of joy for survivors.

Bea Joy Sagales was born at the airport in Tacloban, the city where officials fear at least 10,000 people have perished.

Her mother Emily Ortega, 21, was in a shelter when the storm flooded the city.

She clung to a post to survive and managed to reach the relative safety of the airport, where a military doctor assisted with the birth.

Cheers broke out in the terminal when it became clear the birth - described as "near miraculous" by officials - had been a success. 

Elsewhere in Tacloban, survivors have been scavenging for food and looting shops in order to stay alive, witnesses say.

Emily Ortega lies amid the debris at the airport in Tacloban

"Tacloban is totally destroyed. Some people are losing their minds from hunger or from losing their families," high school teacher Andrew Pomeda, 36, said as he warned of the increasing desperation of survivors.

"People are becoming violent. They are looting business establishments, the malls, just to find food, rice and milk. I am afraid that in one week, people will be killing from hunger."

Witnesses described how survivors are forming long queues at aid stations, waiting desperately for handouts of rice and water.

Some sit and stare, covering their faces with rags to keep out the smell of the dead.

A medic places baby Bea on her mother's chest moments after the birth

One woman, eight months pregnant, described through tears how her 11 family members vanished in the storm, including two daughters.

"I can't think right now. I am overwhelmed," she said.

Aid agencies have warned that many of the 480,000 people whose homes have been destroyed by the bludgeoning force of the cyclone face a desperate battle to survive.

"Everything is gone. Our house is like a skeleton and we are running out of food and water. We are looking for food everywhere," said Jenny Chu, a medical student in Leyte.

"Even the delivery vans were looted. People are walking like zombies looking for food. It's like a movie."

'Zombie-like' survivors have been left to trudge through thick mud

Lieutenant Colonel Fermin Carangan, of the Philippine Air Force, said he and 41 officers were sheltering in their airport office when "suddenly the sea water and the waves destroyed the walls and I saw my men being swept by waters one by one".

He was swept away from the building and clung to a coconut tree with a seven-year-old boy.

"In the next five hours we were in the sea buffeted by wind and strong rain. I kept on talking to the boy and giving him a pep talk because the boy was telling me he was tired and he wanted to sleep."

He finally saw land and swam with the boy to a beach strewn with dead bodies.

He said: "I think the boy saved my life because I found strength so that he can survive."

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Syria Opposition Agrees To Join Peace Talks

Syria's Western-backed opposition has agreed to take part in international peace talks in Geneva, if conditions are met.

The decision to try to end more than two years of civil war was reached after two days of talks by the Syrian National Coalition.

The coalition's leader had previously expressed a willingness to agree to the talks which will be attended by the Syrian regime, but this is the first time the group as a whole has committed to the proposed conference.

But the coalition outlined conditions that must be met before talks can go ahead, including guaranteed access to relief agencies to besieged areas and the release of political prisoners, especially woman and children.

"All we can do is hope is that these (Geneva) talks will end with the departure of Bashar al Assad," said Adib Shishakly, a member of the coalition.

The US and Russia, which are sponsoring the talks, are trying to get the negotiations under way by the end of this year.

Some Islamist rebel factions have declared their opposition to the Geneva process if the conference does not result in President Bashar al Assad's removal, and others have said they would charge anyone who attended the planned international talks with treason.

Human Rights Watch criticises the use of incendiary weapons in Syria

The breakthrough comes as the Syrian government is accused of using incendiary weapons in dozens of attacks over the past year.

Incendiary weapons can contain any number of flammable substances, including napalm, thermite, or white phosphorus.

Human Rights Watch claimed a half-ton bomb killed 37 people at a school in Aleppo on August 26.

British emergency doctor Saleyha Ahsan, who treated the patients, told HRW that most of them were covered in burns.

Of one victims, she said: "The clothes had been burned off him. It was the most horrific injury I have ever seen in a live patient. Only his eyes moved."

HRW said that since last November, when it documented one of the first cases of incendiary bomb use in the Damascus suburb of Daraya, Syrian jets and helicopters had dropped incendiary bombs at least 56 times. All of the weapons were made in the Soviet Union, it said.

President Assad's forces have used cluster bombs and vacuum bombs and are accused by the West of firing rockets loaded with the nerve agent sarin into districts outside Damascus in August, killing hundreds.

More than 100 countries - but not Syria - have signed up to an international convention banning their use in areas with "concentrations of civilians".

But loopholes and inconsistencies limit its effectiveness, HRW said.

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Super Typhoon Haiyan: Struggle For Aid Workers

Survivors Scavenging For Food

Updated: 3:31pm UK, Sunday 10 November 2013

Survivors of the super typhoon that has devastated several islands in the Philippines have begun scavenging for food and looting shops in order to stay alive, witnesses say.

Shopping centres and grocery stores in hard-hit Tacloban have reportedly been stripped of goods as rescuers' efforts to deliver food and water are hampered by severed roads and communications.

"Tacloban is totally destroyed. Some people are losing their minds from hunger or from losing their families," high school teacher Andrew Pomeda, 36, said as he warned of the increasing desperation of survivors.

"People are becoming violent. They are looting business establishments, the malls, just to find food, rice and milk. I am afraid that in one week, people will be killing from hunger."

Witnesses described how survivors are forming long queues at aid stations, waiting desperately for handouts of rice and water.

Some sit and stare, covering their faces with rags to keep out the smell of the dead.

One woman, eight months pregnant, described through tears how her 11 family members vanished in the storm, including two daughters.

"I can't think right now. I am overwhelmed," she said.

During a visit to Tacloban, President Benigno Aquino acknowledged that looting had emerged as a major concern after only 20 out of 390 of the city's police officers turned up for work following the typhoon.

"So we will send about 300 police and soldiers to take their place and bring back peace and order," he said.

"Tonight, an armoured vehicle will arrive and our armed forces will display the strength of the state to put a stop to this looting."

Aid agencies have warned that many of the 480,000 people whose homes have been destroyed by the bludgeoning force of the cyclone face a desperate battle to survive.

"Everything is gone. Our house is like a skeleton and we are running out of food and water. We are looking for food everywhere," said Jenny Chu, a medical student in Leyte.

"Even the delivery vans were looted. People are walking like zombies looking for food. It's like a movie."

Nancy Chang, who was in Tacloblan City on a business trip from China and walked three hours through mud and debris for a military-led evacuation, said: "It's like the end of the world."

Relief efforts are being hampered by the complete destruction of the airport, where seawaters shattered the glass of the airport tower, levelled the terminal and overturned vehicles.

Military aircraft and helicopters, which are in limited supply in the Philippines, are the only way in and out of the city.

Amid the destruction, extraordinary stories of survival are starting to emerge.

Lieutenant Colonel Fermin Carangan of the Philippine Air Force said he and 41 officers were sheltering in their airport office when "suddenly the sea water and the waves destroyed the walls and I saw my men being swept by waters one by one".

He was swept away from the building and clung to a coconut tree with a seven-year-old boy.

"In the next five hours we were in the sea buffeted by wind and strong rain. I kept on talking to the boy and giving him a pep talk because the boy was telling me he was tired and he wanted to sleep."

He finally saw land and swam with the boy to a beach strewn with dead bodies.

He said: "I think the boy saved my life because I found strength so that he can survive."

The World Food Programme said it was airlifting 40 tonnes of high-energy biscuits, enough to feed 120,000 people for a day, as well as emergency supplies and telecommunications equipment.

Aid agencies said relief efforts in the Philippines are stretched thin after a 7.2 magnitude quake in central Bohol province last month and another refugee crisis due to conflict in southern Zamboanga province.

The US embassy in Manila has pledged $100,000 towards relief supplies and the Australian government gave A$390,500 but some expressed anger at the slow pace of rescue efforts. 

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Super Typhoon Haiyan: '10,000 Could Be Dead'

At least 10,000 people in the central Philippine province of Leyte could have been killed by Typhoon Haiyan, according to a police chief.

The national government and disaster agency have yet to confirm the fatalities, a sharp increase from initial estimates on Saturday of at least 1,000 deaths.

If the typhoon death toll is confirmed, it would be the deadliest natural catastrophe on record in the Philippines.

Coastal villages in Leyte were flattened, or swallowed by the storm surge

As the super storm tore through the province it destroyed 70-80% of the town of Tacloban, said chief superintendent Elmer Soria.

"The devastation is so big. We had a meeting last night with the governor and the other officials. Based on their estimate, 10,000 died," Mr Soria said.

A child is returned home after leaving an evacuation site in Tacloban

Most of the dead are understood to have drowned or were crushed by collapsed buildings. Many corpses hung on tree branches, buildings and in the roads.

"On the way to the airport we saw many bodies along the street," said Philippine-born Australian Mila Ward, 53, who was waiting at the Tacloban airport to catch a military flight back to Manila.

Shivering children wait ito be evacuated from a rescue centre in the city

"They were covered with just anything - tarpaulin, roofing sheets, cardboards," she said. Asked how many, she said, "Well over 100 where we passed."

The Philippines has no resources on its own to deal with a disaster of this magnitude, and the US and other governments and agencies are mounting a major relief effort, according to Philippine Red Cross chairman Richard Gordon.

A woman about to give birth is carried into a medical centre at Tacloban

Haiyan was one of the strongest tropical storms ever to have made landfall, lashing the Philippines with wind gusts of 275kph (170mph) and whipping up a storm surge which swallowed coastal towns and villages.

Haiyan, a category five typhoon that churned through the Philippine archipelago in a straight line from east to west, has weakened significantly before it is expected to hit Vietnam later today.

Residents beside a road littered with debris

Tacloban, a city of 220,000 people south of Manila, bore the brunt of Haiyan, which flooded villages up to one kilometre from the shore. Bodies have been seen floating in roads covered with debris from fallen trees, tangled power lines and flattened homes.

Interior secretary Manuel Roxas said: "From a helicopter, you can see the extent of devastation. From the shore and moving a kilometre inland, there are no structures standing. It was like a tsunami. I don't know how to describe what I saw. It's horrific."

A pregnant woman cooks a meal inside a building overlooking Tacloban

Mr Roxas said patrols had been sent out to stop widespread looting by residents desperate for food and water as city officials warned they were struggling to retrieve bodies and send relief to survivors.

"The dead are on the streets, they are in their houses, they are under the debris, they are everywhere," said Tecson John Lim, a Tacloban city administrator.

In Vietnam villagers are evacuated in preparation for the arrival of Haiyan

The typhoon has weakened as it approaches central and northern Vietnam, where authorities have evacuated more than 500,000 people.

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UN Expected To Elect China To Rights Council

By Mark Stone, Asia Correspondent in Beijing

China is almost certain to be elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council despite evidence of a worsening human rights record across the country.

On Tuesday, the UN General Assembly will elect 17 new member states to the 47-member council, whose role is to "promote universal respect for the protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms".

China's bid comes at a time when evidence suggests Beijing's record on the human rights of individuals across the country is at a particularly low ebb.

Oslo: Liu Xiaobo's plight has attracted attention across the world

Over the past month, Sky News has seen evidence of an abortion forced upon a couple, houses forcibly demolished before owners could remove their belongings and individuals detained for expressing displeasure with their government.

Since President Xi Jinping took office in March, his government has made no secret of its widespread and concerted effort to crack down on dissent.

Activists, journalists and well-established dissidents have been rounded up and detained in record numbers.

Government security prevented the Sky crew from talking to his wife

The forced demolition of homes continues, as does the practice of forced abortions in provinces where over-zealous local officials take enforcement of the one-child policy to its extreme.

"Electing China as a world judge on human rights would be like asking the fox to guard the chickens," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch.

China's government argues vehemently that it has improved the "collective" human rights of its people by pulling so many millions out of poverty over the past three decades.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told Sky News: "In the past 30 years China has pulled more people out of poverty than anywhere else and pushed forward the largest scale urbanisation project in the world.

"So in China, millions of people's lives are being changed for the better."

In its official nomination papers for the Human Rights Council, China says: "The Chinese Government respects the principle of the universality of human rights and has made unremitting efforts for the promotion and protection of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the Chinese people.

"China earnestly fulfils its obligations under relevant international human rights treaties."

Mr Neuer disputed this, saying: "This is a complete lie. The truth is that the Chinese Communist Party has Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo behind bars, denies 1.3 billion human beings their basic freedoms of assembly, speech and religion, and crushes Tibetans, Uighurs and other minorities."

Mr Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011.

He was unable to travel to Oslo to collect the award because he was locked up for "subversion" of the Chinese government. Three years on, he remains in a jail in northern China.

Sky News tried to visit his wife last week. She lives on the fifth floor of an apartment block to the north west of Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Residents pick though their belongings after their homes were bulldozed

Mrs Liu has been under house arrest since the day her husband was awarded his Nobel prize.

We arrived at the apartment block knowing it was unlikely we would succeed in seeing her and as we opened the lobby door, three plain-clothed security men confronted us. They forcibly removed us with no explanation.

Mrs Liu has lived with guards at her door 24-hours a day for three years. Her crime is being married to a dissident.

A few miles from Mrs Liu's locked apartment is a pile of rubble which was once home to a small community.

We had driven there after a tip-off that a forced demolition had taken place. We arrived an hour after the bulldozers had moved out.

The Sky team were prevented from filming by site officials

Across the two-acre site, locals were sifting through their belongings. They had not been granted the time to move out before their houses were flattened to make way for new developments.

Standing on top of the rubble that was once her house, Liang Jian Wei said: "Yesterday we were happily living here. This morning, with no sign at all, they demolished the house."

The mood was more one of resignation than anger.

"I'm not angry, I'm frustrated," Jian Wei says.

"I can only accept this reality. In this society, led by the Communist Party, anything could happen.

"There's no place I can go to tell my story, to make some sense out of it. I don't think our country has the full rule of law."

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Iran 'Will Not Halt Uranium Enrichment'

Iran's president has said his country will not abandon its nuclear rights after talks with world powers ended without agreement.

"There are red lines that must not be crossed," Hassan Rouhani told the conservative-dominated parliament in remarks quoted by the ISNA news agency.

"The rights of the Iranian nation and our national interests are a red line. So are nuclear rights under the framework of international regulations, which include enrichment on Iranian soil," he said.

More follows...

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