Convulsions of violence in Iraq leave more than 20 dead, dozens wounded

A spate of shootings and explosions in Iraq left more than 20 people dead and dozens wounded Wednesday, police officials in Baghdad and Ramadi told.

In addition, bodies of 13 unidentified people -- each shot in the head -- were discovered in separate neighborhoods of the Iraqi capital, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Iraqi security forces found eight of the bodies in the Arab Jabour district, a Sunni enclave in southern Baghdad. Five other bodies turned up in al-Shulaa, a Shiite area in the northwestern part of the capital.

Separately, police officials said, convulsions of violence rocked other parts of country:

A hidden bomb exploded inside a funeral tent filled with mourners paying their respects to a family in the western outskirts of Baghdad, killing at least nine people and wounding more than 20 others.

In al-Hurriya, a Shiite neighborhood, gunmen stormed a house and shot and killed three men and two women.

At an outdoor vegetable market in al-Dora al-Mahdiya in southern Baghdad, a roadside bomb blast killed two people and wounded three others.

At a police station in al-Samoud, east of Ramadi -- about 60 miles west of the Iraqi capital -- a car bomb exploded, killing two people and wounding four others.

And a police station at Joyba, in eastern Ramadi, also was rocked by a car bomb blast that killed two people and wounded four.

Mexico: 54 bodies found in mass graves

Police digging up mass graves in western Mexico have now found human remains from at least 54 victims there.

The grim figure released by Mexico's Attorney General's Office Tuesday was the latest since authorities made the startling find this month of dozens of hidden graves during an investigation into the disappearance of two federal agents.

So far, authorities haven't said whether the missing agents' bodies have turned up in the hidden graves found in La Barca, a town near the border of Mexico's Jalisco and Michoacan states.

Prosecutors say they haven't identified the bodies they've found. Some of the victims showed signs of being bound, gagged and tortured, investigators said this week.

Hidden grave may hold clues to missing Mexican youths

Authorities believe municipal police officers were tied to the federal agents' disappearances, Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said.

"We detained them, and from that investigation, we found a place where the federal agents might have been buried," he said.

For years, authorities have described police corruption in Mexico as one of their top concerns as they combat drug cartels.

Federal officials have said the lower salaries of local police officers make them more susceptible to corruption.

Last month 13 police officers in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco were arrested and accused of running a kidnapping gang.

The discovery of the hidden graves comes amid high tensions in the region, where cartels are battling for turf and government forces are cracking down on emerging citizen self-defense groups.

Hundreds of bodies found in Bosnia mass grave

Tampa Bay Sinkhole swallows houses

Large sinkhole near Tampa Bay, Florida has swallowed two homes, a boat and a backyard pool Thursday morning.

The sinkhole in Dunedin, Florida has grown to a size of about 70 feet wide by 53 feet deep by noon, NBC news reported.

Seven houses in Dunedin have been evacuated.

No injuries have been reported from this Tampa Bay sinkhole.

Below is a you tube video of the Ariel view of sinkhole in Dunedin, Florida.

Typhoon Haiyan: More cadaver bags sent to Philippines as toll climbs to 3,633 dead

Tacloban, Philippines -- More than a week after Typhoon Haiyan laid waste to much of the central Philippines, the toll is overwhelming: entire communities flattened, thousands dead and nearly 2 million people displaced.

The arrival in recent days of hundreds of aid workers and military troops has seen a flood gate of humanitarian aid -- food, water and medical supplies -- open, albeit sporadically, in the hard hit provinces.

Crews continued Saturday to collect bodies from streets, with the death toll raised to 3,633, according to the national disaster agency's official death count.

The number of injured stood at 12,487, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council reported. At least 1,179 were missing.

For some who survived the monster storm, the aid came too late.

Richard Pulga, 27, died Friday, seven days after surviving the massive storm surge and fierce winds that flattened large portions of Tacloban City, a city of more than 200,000 people.

Pulga initially suffered an "open fracture of his shin bones," according to doctors working at a damaged clinic. He then contracted a "terrible infection" that left him in need of a blood transfusion.

But with the clinic out of blood and antibiotics, he eventually died, the doctors said.

The death toll could still climb higher, with an additional 1,000 cadaver bags sent to provinces, the disaster council announced as search-and-rescue operations continued in Tacloban City.

The national disaster council's executive director, Eduardo Del Rosario, said the bags would be placed on stand-by, given that most of the bodies had already been buried in mass graves or claimed by relatives.

Used cadaver bags are cleaned before being reused, he said.

The nation's disaster agency said more than 9 million people were affected in 44 provinces, 536 municipalities and 55 cities. Nearly 2 million were displaced, with about 400,000 of them finding shelter inside evacuation centers.

Somalia cyclone kills at least 115 people; homes, livestock swept into the ocean

Somalia appealed for international help after a cyclone hit the northern region this week, killing at least 115 people, and sweeping livestock and homes into the ocean.

"The number of people killed will go up," said Ahmed Adan, a spokesman for the Somali prime minister.

"Most of the area is devastated. Whole villages were swept away. Some of the parts we can't even reach, a lot of people are missing."

The cyclone made landfall Sunday in the semi-autonomous Puntland region.

It triggered days of heavy rains and flash floods that swept homes, boats, cows, goats and other farm animals into the Indian Ocean. The region heavily depends on agriculture as a source of income.

In a news statement, the African Union Mission in Somalia said up to 300 people are feared dead and hundreds unaccounted for.

Clean water, blankets, nonperishable foods, medicine and helicopters to reach the affected areas are among the most crucial needs, Adan said.

"There is a particularly urgent need for temporary shelter to protect the many displaced and vulnerable people from the elements," Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon said in a statement. "I appeal to international aid agencies to provide any assistance they can to the thousands of people affected by this devastating cyclone."

Areas affected include Dangaroyo and Eyl, the latter a hub where pirates launch attacks on vessels traveling in the shipping lanes of the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden.

The self-governing Puntland region has long maintained that it cut ties with the Somali government over power squabbles. Somalia pledged $1 million to help those affected by the cyclone.

Cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes are regional names for severe storms.

What's referred to as a typhoon in the northwest Pacific Ocean is considered a cyclone in the Indian Ocean and a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean.

'Worse than hell' in typhoon-ravaged Philippines

Tacloban, Philippines -- As the Philippines faced a long, grim path to recovery in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan, the storm plowed into northeastern Vietnam early Monday, packing powerful winds and forcing hundreds of thousands to evacuate.

Philippine authorities warned that the typhoon may have killed thousands there, leaving behind a trail of devastation on a scale they'd never seen before.

No electricity. No food. No water. Houses and buildings leveled. Bodies scattered on the streets. Hospitals overrun with patients. Medical supplies running out.

And a death toll that could soar.

The Philippine Red Cross estimates that at least 1,200 people were killed by the storm, but that number could grow as officials make their way to remote areas made nearly inaccessible by Haiyan.

Others put the toll much higher: The International Committee of the Red Cross said it's realistic to estimate that 10,000 people may have died nationally.

The grim task of counting the bodies was just beginning Monday as authorities sifted through the rubble of what was left behind in hard-hit cities like Tacloban on the island of Leyte. The official toll stood at 255 Monday, according to the country's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.

"I have not spoken to anyone who has not lost someone, a relative close to them. We are looking for as many as we can," Tacloban Mayor Alfred Romualdez told.

5 killed in bombing outside Mogadishu hotel, Somali official says

Mogadishu, Somalia -- An attack Friday night on a hotel in Somalia's capital left five people dead and at least 15 wounded, a government spokesman said.

The bloodshed came after a car bomb went off outside Hotel Makkah Al-Mukarama in central Mogadishu, Abdikarim Hussein Guled, the African country's interior and national security minister, told local media.

Those killed included Abdulkadir Ali, the Somalian government's former acting envoy to Britain better known as "Dhub," said Abdirahman Omar Osman, spokesperson for the country's president.

Somalian Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon put out a statement condemning what he described as a "terrorist attack" and offering "his condolences to the civilian casualties."

"We -- the Somali people and the Somali government -- will stand shoulder-to-shoulder to defeat these killers," Shirdon said. "These terrorists will not defeat us but (will) make us stronger."

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack.

But Somalia has seen such violence before. Some of it has been traced to Al Shabaab, an al Qaeda-linked organization that the U.S. government calls a terrorist group and was behind the deadly siege earlier this fall of a Nairobi, Kenya, shopping mall.

A U.S. military drone strike late last month in southern Somalia killed two suspected Al Shabaab members, U.S. officials said. And a recent joint raid by Kenyan and Somali forces killed at least 30 people believed to be part of that group.