Haiti

Christian Aid Ministries said on Sunday that the two individuals were "safe, in good spirits, and being cared for".

"We cannot provide or confirm the names of those released," the ministry said, giving no further details.

The abduction of the missionaries and their family members, including children, was reported on 16 October.

They were returning from a visit to an orphanage when the bus they were travelling in was seized by gang members on a main road in the town of Ganthier, east of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

The gang is notorious for kidnapping groups of people for ransom.

The same gang, 400 Mazowo, abducted a group of Catholic clergy in April.

The clergy were later released but it is not clear if a ransom was paid.

Who are the victims?

All of those kidnapped are US citizens, except one who is a Canadian national.

Among those seized are five men, seven women and five children. The youngest child is reportedly only two years old.

The decision to return migrants fleeing an earthquake and political instability was "inhumane", senior diplomat Daniel Foote said in a damning letter.

Last weekend, the US started deportation flights from a Texas border town, where about 13,000 migrants had gathered under a bridge.

They have been waiting in a makeshift camp in temperatures of 37C.

Local officials have struggled to provide them with food and adequate sanitation.

Since Sunday, the US has returned to Haiti 1401 migrants from the Texas camp on the border with Mexico.

Rescuers are picking through rubble in a desperate search for any survivors.

Homes, churches and schools were among buildings flattened in the quake. Some hospitals were left overwhelmed and in need of supplies.

An unknown number of people are missing and about 5,700 have been injured, officials say.

The disaster compounds problems facing the impoverished nation, which is already reeling from a political crisis following the assassination of its president last month.

Jocelerme Privert said famine could take hold within three to four months if the situation was not managed properly.

It comes as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for a "massive response" to help the country.

The category-four storm is believed to have killed as many as 900 Haitians.

It has also wiped towns and villages off the map, destroying tens of thousands of homes, crops and food reserves.

Mr Privert said the loss was "amazing", saying food, water and medicine was immediately needed.

Daniel Kapi arrested for conspiracy

http://www.looppng.com/content/daniel-kapi-arrested-conspiracy

An elderly man from Enga province appeared at the Waigani Committal Court today over allegations he conspired with others to sign a court document for a case before the National Court.

Digicel kicks off October with treats for customers nationwide

Hurricane Matthew, a Category Four storm, swept over the west of Haiti and is now heading towards eastern Cuba.

Southern Haiti has effectively been cut off after the bridge linking it to the capital, Port-au-Prince, collapsed.

The deputy mayor of the southern coastal town of Les Cayes described the scene there as "catastrophic".

Marie Claudette Regis Delerme said the city of 70,000 people was flooded and many houses had lost roofs. She herself had to flee a meeting when a gust ripped off the building's roof.

The family now sleeps on the floor of their shack.

All that's left to sell are the pots she uses to cook over a fire pit, when there's something to eat.

The 28-year-old mother of four, is among roughly 1.5 million Haitians who can't get nearly enough nutrition because of a yearslong drought that has spoiled harvests in her small mountain village and across large sections of the countryside.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said that mountains and an unfavourable environment would likely knock Erika below tropical storm force, though there's a small chance it could recover as it moves along Cuba and then approaches Florida late Sunday.

Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said in a televised address late Friday that damage inflicted by the storm set the island back 20 years. Some 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain fell on the mountainous island.