1. Typhoon-hit victims in Philippines plead for aid
TACLOBAN, Philippines (AP) — Typhoon-ravaged Philippine islands faced an unimaginably huge relief effort that had barely begun Monday, as bloated bodies lay uncollected and uncounted in the streets and survivors pleaded for food, water and medicine.
Police guarded stores to prevent people from hauling off food, water and such non-essentials as TVs and treadmills, but there was often no one to carry away the dead — not even those seen along the main road from the airport to Tacloban, the worst-hit city along the country’s remote eastern seaboard.
Two officials said Sunday that Friday’s typhoon may have killed 10,000 or more people, but with the slow pace of recovery, the official death toll remained well below that. The Philippine military confirmed 942 dead, but shattered communications, transportation links and local governments suggest the final toll is days away. Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said “we pray” that the death toll is less than 10,000.
“I don’t believe there is a single structure that is not destroyed or severely damaged in some way — every single building, every single house,” U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Paul Kennedy said after taking a helicopter flight over the city. He spoke on the tarmac at the airport, where two Marine C-130 cargo planes were parked, engines running, unloading supplies.
Authorities said at least 2 million people in 41 provinces were affected by the typhoon, which is called Yolanda in the Philippines but is known as Haiyan elsewhere in Asia. It’s one of the most powerful recorded typhoons to ever hit land and likely the deadliest natural disaster to beset this poor Southeast Asian nation.
Philippine soldiers were distributing food and water in Tacloban, and assessment teams from the United Nations and other international agencies were seen for the first time. The U.S. military dispatched food, water, generators and a contingent of Marines to the city, the first outside help in what will swell into a major international relief mission.
Authorities said they had evacuated some 800,000 people ahead of the typhoon, but some of the evacuation centers proved to be no protection against the wind and rising water. The Philippine National Red Cross, responsible for warning the region and giving advice, said people were not prepared for a storm surge.
2. Syria-based groups say talks may be ‘last chance’
BEIRUT (AP) — An international peace conference proposed by the United States and Russia may be the last chance to negotiate an end to Syria’s civil war, a coalition of Syria-based opposition groups said Monday.
The call came as Syrian government forces consolidated control over yet another northern town, part of a steadily advancing offensive that has reversed rebel gains in recent weeks.
In Damascus, Syria’s state news agency said a mortar shell hit a school bus Monday in the Bab Sharqi neighborhood, killing four children and the bus driver. It said four children and two teachers also were wounded.
“This is the only available framework and might be the last chance to resolve the crisis in Syria,” the Coalition of Forces for Peaceful Change said in a statement. Earlier in the day, Syria’s main Western-backed opposition group in exile, the Syrian National Coalition, said it too supported the Geneva talks and intended to attend them later this year.
Neither of the groups, however, has much influence over the disparate armed factions fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. The Syria-based opposition ranges from officials close to the government, to intellectuals and parties that have opposed Assad’s Baath party for decades. The exiled group ranges from secular intellectuals to Islamic activists.
In its statement Monday, the exiled Coalition said it would only attend the Geneva talks if humanitarian aid is allowed to reach besieged areas and the government releases political prisoners. The group itself wants any future transitional government to exclude Assad and his close allies — a demand the Syrian government has rejected.
The proposed Geneva conference faces a series of obstacles: the most powerful and best-armed rebel groups aren’t party to the talks, and most fighting units are disorganized bands with little central command or leadership. Even if an agreement is reached in Geneva, it is unclear if it will be accepted on the ground.
3. Deal struck on wider UN inspections of Iran sites
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran agreed Monday to offer more information and expanded access to U.N. nuclear inspectors — including more openings at a planned reactor and uranium site — even as America’s top diplomat said Iranian envoys had backed away from a wider deal seeking to ease Western concerns that Tehran could one day develop atomic weapons.
The flurry of announcements and comments showed both the complexities and urgency in trying to move ahead on an accord between Iran and world powers after overtime talks in Geneva failed to produce a deal that could curb Iran’s uranium enrichment in exchange for a rollback in some U.S.-led economic sanctions.
With negotiators set to resume next week, Iranian officials promoted the pact reached with the U.N. nuclear chief Yukiya Amano as a “roadmap” for greater cooperation and transparency, which could move the talks ahead. But the plans do not mention some of the sites most sought by U.N. teams to probe suspicions of nuclear-related work, notably the Parchin military facility outside Tehran.
“It’s an important step forward, but by no means the end of the process,” Amano told The Associated Press in Tehran. “There is still much work to be done.”
Western leaders, meanwhile, were keen to display a unified front after suggestions that France had broken ranks in Geneva and demanded more concessions from Iran on enrichment levels and an under-construction heavy water reactor that produced a greater amount of plutonium byproduct, which could be used in eventual weapons production. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said it was Iran that put the brakes on reaching a first-phase agreement, but gave no details on the Iranian concerns and suggested it was only a matter of time before a formula is found.
“There was unity but Iran couldn’t take it,” Kerry said during a stop in Abu Dhabi. He added: “The French signed off on it, we signed off on it.”
Kerry told the BBC on Monday that negotiators had been “very, very close … extremely close” to reaching a deal with Iran.
“I think we were separated by four or five different formulations of a particular concept,” he said.
4. Fox reporter’s lawyers seek to keep sources secret
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York’s highest court will decide whether state law protects a Fox News reporter from revealing confidential sources from a story about James Holmes, who’s accused of killing 12 people in a suburban Denver movie theater last year.
Holmes’ lawyers want Jana Winters, who works at New York-based Fox News, brought to a Colorado courtroom to name two law officers who told her Holmes had mailed a notebook depicting violence to a psychiatrist. They argue the sources violated a gag order, may have later lied under oath about that and won’t be credible as trial witnesses.
Holmes’ attorneys argue that New York journalists, as a group, are not immune from being subpoenaed to testify in other states.
The Court of Appeals will hear arguments Tuesday. Its ruling is expected in December.
Holmes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His murder trial is scheduled for February.
New York has a strong so-called “shield law” protecting professional journalists from having to disclose their confidential sources and preventing courts from finding them in contempt if they don’t disclose. Colorado has a similar law, but with an exception to subpoena information “directly relevant to a substantial issue” that cannot be obtained elsewhere.
Winters reported that the notebook, mailed to a University of Colorado psychiatrist before the mass shooting, had drawings of “gun-wielding stick figures blowing away other stick figures.” She cited two unnamed law enforcement sources.
“In cases of confidential source information, the privilege is absolute,” Winters’ attorney Dori Hanswirth said of New York’s law. “It was designed to be very strong.”
“Essentially, what we’re arguing is that the public policy in New York that’s embodied in the shield law should have prevented the judge from signing off on this particular subpoena,” Hanswirth said Monday. Winters has “never wavered” on the accuracy of her report.
5. APNewsBreak: Ohio convicted killer donates organs
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A convicted child killer scheduled for execution this week requested Monday that his organs be donated to help his ailing mother and sister.
Death row inmate Ronald Phillips would also be willing to donate organs to other individuals if it’s not possible to help his relatives, his attorney said in a letter to the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
“Ron is making this generous request without any conditions or expectations,” according to the letter obtained by The Associated Press.
“He is nonetheless willing to do whatever is necessary to enable as many people as possible to benefit from his death,” the letter continued.
Phillips’ request is not a delay tactic, public defender Lisa Lagos said Monday.
“Ron just wants to be able to do a charitable act and help bring any closure to the victim’s family that he can,” she said in an interview.
The Ohio prisons agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Phillips’ request for mercy was denied last week by Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Phillips has dropped all his appeals, Lagos said.
Phillips, 40, is scheduled to die Thursday by an untried injection of a sedative and painkiller that has never been used in a U.S. execution.
Phillips’ mother has kidney disease and is on dialysis and his sister has a heart condition, the letter said.
Phillips was sentenced to die for the rape and death of his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter in Akron in 1993.
Attorneys for Phillips note that Ohio has stopped using two drugs that damaged an inmate’s organs — one a paralyzing agent, the other a drug that stops the heart.
On Thursday, Ohio plans to use midazolam, a sedative, and hydromorphone, a painkiller. It was not immediately clear Monday what effect those might have on organs.
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