World News 14-01-2005 Stars Help Tsunami Appeal who: Brad Pitt what: To appear in star-studded live tsunami telethon when: Saturday night snippet: "Brad Pitt, Robert De Niro and Hugh Grant have been added to the line-up for a two-hour US TV special to raise money for victims of the Asian tsunami," reports the BBC. "Andy Garcia, Lucy Liu, Natalie Portman and Jay Leno are also among the new names for Saturday`s Tsunami Aid. They will join A-list singers Madonna, Sir Elton John, Nelly and Usher plus actors Kevin Spacey, Halle Berry and George Clooney on the NBC broadcast." On Thursday, The Mirror reports that Sir Paul McCartney and his wife Heather had donated £1million to the tsunami disaster relief effort via International Rescue Committee UK. On Monday, British prime minister Tony Blair announced that Britain was increasing its aid to the flood-ravaged countries by 50 per cent from £50million to £75million. And friday`s Mirror reports that the Disasters Emergency Committee expects the total donations from the British public to reach £200million. "The DEC said to date there had been 1.7million telephone donations," writes Daniel Boffey, "650,000 online, 106,000 text and 350,000 by post." In Thailand, hundreds of unidentified bodies were being exhumed from mass graves "so that new DNA samples can be taken, amid concerns that there may be westerners among them who were misidentified as Thais," according to The Scotsman. "The bodies were initially buried in sandy trenches in Bang Muang, north of Khao Lak, because there were not enough refrigerated containers to hold them." The Guardian says the Thai police have accused Porntip Rojanasunan, "the country`s most senior practising forensic pathologist, of failing to follow international standards of identification". Stories of chaos and corruption continue to emerge from the stricken region. The Times says a 26 year-old guerilla from the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka GAM) was shot in the back by policemen after being dragged from his bed in Indonesia. Hamdani Su`ud, one of the survivors from devastated Banda Aceh, "had come down from the hills, unarmed, to see whether his family were still alive," writes Richard Lloyd Parry, suggesting the brutal government security forces are using the disaster to their advantage. "After witnessing Hamdani`s murder, his father and younger brother were arrested and questioned overnight. They buried Hamdani the next day and now live in terror of another knock at the door." On Wednesday, the government in Jakarta ordered foreign soldiers to leave Indonesia "the sooner the better" and no later than March. "Wary of Indonesia`s sensitivities, US marines have scaled back their plans to send hundreds of troops ashore to build roads and clear rubble," says a report published online by The Guardian. "Commanders have also agreed that their troops would not carry guns while on Indonesian soil, and that the majority of troops would return to ships stationed off the coast after each day`s work." Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, President Chandrika Kumaratunga pledged to have his country ready to receive tourists in three or four months. But The Guardian`s reporter Randeep Ramesh says the fishing industry there has been decimated. The fish population has decreased dramatically, most of the fishing boats were destroyed by the tsunami and worst of all, seafood "is unwanted in the kitchens of many homes" because Sri Lankans believe "that Indian Ocean sea creatures have feasted on people who were swept out to sea". [... more]

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