Six British cavers in Mexico emerged blinking and bedraggled into the center of a diplomatic row on Thursday after being rescued from an 11-day underground ordeal.
Four of the cavers are members of the British armed forces and the Mexican government is upset that it was not told in advance what they were doing on its soil.
PHOTO:EPA
Divers battled for more than six hours to rescue the cavers from the flooded cave, removing them one by one through a labyrinth of underground tunnels.
Emerging tired but in high spirits, the Britons said they had not feared for their safety but were red faced over the international attention.
"It wasn't scary, it was inconvenient," said Jonathan Sims, who left the British armed forces two years ago.
Asked about the diplomatic exchanges sparked by their plight, cave diver Charles Milton laughed nervously. "It's embarrassing," he said.
Late on Thursday evening, Mexican immigration undersecretary Armando Salinas said the Britons would have a medical exam then be handed over to immigration authorities for questioning.
"Early tomorrow, the legal proceedings will begin," he told a news conference. "Statements will be taken regarding their activities to determine if these people, in Mexico legally as tourists, violated the general law on population."
The Mexican senate approved a motion on Thursday to summon Interior Minister Santiago Creel to appear before legislators in coming days and explain the Britons' presence.
There are 13 expedition members in all, most from the British military's Combined Services Caving Association. Six of them, all experienced cavers, became trapped by rising waters two days into a routine exploration trip.
President Vicente Fox has asked for a "swift explanation" of what the foreign soldiers were doing in the cave complex, one of the most extensive in the world. The country does not allow foreign military exercises on its soil.
The divers said they were on a simple cave exploring expedition.
"The military considers that caving, canoeing, rock climbing and offshore sailing are activities that develop people's characters and leadership skills," said Sims.
Relations with Britain are already sensitive because of allegations it helped the US spy on Mexico's UN mission in the run-up to the Iraq war.
The cavers were not in imminent danger and used a camping stove to cook pasta with cheese and instant chocolate cake. They had plenty of light and dry clothing, said expedition leader Major Steve Whitlock.
"We would have been thinner if we'd stayed another week, but we could have done it," said Sims.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
RSS