Parents of kidnapped journalist seek answers

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The parents of an American journalist kidnapped in Syria more than four months ago said Thursday that his latest disappearance is more upsetting than an earlier one in Libya because they don't know who is holding him.

James Foley, 39, was working in northwest Syria with another journalist when they were kidnapped by unknown gunmen on Nov. 22, his parents said. Foley, a freelance journalist, had been working in Syria for about a year and was contributing videos to Agence France-Press when he disappeared.

It's unclear whether he's being held by the government, a rebel group or a criminal gang, said his mother, Diane Foley.

"We don't know who to direct our plea to," she said. "We don't know who is holding him or why."

Foley was held for six weeks by the Libyan government in 2011, but his parents said that situation was very different because the U.S. government worked with the Libyan government to secure his release and provided them with regular updates.

The U.S. does not currently have a formal relationship with Syria and there has been no regular or reliable information about Foley, his parents said. Though they have been in touch with federal officials, they said the most they've received are rumors of their son's whereabouts.

"I joked a while ago that it would be nice to hear from a terrorist asking for $10 million just so we know he's alive," said his father, John Foley.

The Foleys traveled to Milwaukee from their home in Rochester, N.H., for a Friday night vigil for their son at Marquette University, where he studied history. He taught in Arizona, Massachusetts and Chicago before switching careers to become a journalist.

He had been working in war zones for about five years when he was taken captive in Libya while covering that country's civil war. Another journalist — South African photographer Anton Hammerl — was shot during their capture and left to die in the desert. Foley and another journalist were released.

"I'll regret that day for the rest of my life," Foley told The Associated Press in 2011. "I'll regret what happened to Anton."

Friday is the two-year anniversary of his capture in Libya. If he had doubt about going back to a war zone, his parents said he didn't share it with them.

His father said he doesn't feel his son was reckless. Any journalist committed to covering conflict and war takes some risk, he said.

"It's just the nature of the occupation and the environment," John Foley said. He added, "He wanted to tell stories about people that were truthful and that would help them."

Twenty-eight journalists were killed in Syria in 2012, prompting the Committee to Protect Journalists to name it the most dangerous country in the world to work in last year.

Those who lost their lives include award-winning French TV reporter Gilles Jacquier, photographer Remi Ochlik and Britain's Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin. Also, Anthony Shadid, a correspondent for The New York Times, died after an apparent asthma attack while on assignment in Syria.

Foley had agreed to text his mother about every 48 hours so that she wouldn't worry, and he had a video conference with his parents once a week. They learned about his disappearance in a phone call from Clare Morgana Gillis, the journalist held captive with him in Libya.

His parents said federal officials have advised them to keep quiet, and they did for more than a month. Diane Foley said they decided to speak out because publicity seemed to help secure their son's release in 2011. Still, they second-guess themselves.

"Are we going to make him too valuable?" John Foley asked. "If we don't say anything, is he not valuable enough?"

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Florida officials push for answers at boys' school graveyard

By Bill Cotterell

MARIANNA, Florida (Reuters) - Florida officials said on Wednesday they will seek federal money for a forensic investigation into unmarked graves on the grounds of a shuttered state reform school for boys that has been the target of numerous allegations of abuse and mysterious deaths of children.

Dozens of unmarked graves have been uncovered at the Dozier School in the Florida Panhandle city of Marianna and investigators are trying to determine the circumstances surrounding the deaths, which experts say probably occurred between 1914 and 1952.

"We really don't know exactly how many, or who they are," said Erin Kimmerle, a forensic anthropologist at the University of South Florida with a scroll-like map of spots where her ground-piercing radar spotted signs of human remains.

The Dozier School was legend among adolescents for about 100 years in Florida, as the state's major reform school, until it was closed in 2011.

Several years ago, former students told horror stories of sexual abuse and frequent beatings in a mausoleum-like building dubbed the "White House" where nine barren cubicles held boys accused of rules infractions.

Some died under unknown circumstances, according to relatives.

In December, researchers from the University of South Florida in Tampa said they found evidence of at least 50 graves on the school's property and more grave shafts in and around an area called "Boot Hill" across a major highway from the high, razor-wire-topped fences of the closed school.

Kimmerle's work also indicates there could be at least 50 bodies buried on the property.

"All the focus on exact numbers is not really the issue," she said. "Whether it's one or 20 or 40 or 60, we are talking about a child and families that are asking for information."

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and other state officials are seeking a court order to allow the remains to be exhumed.

The U.S. Department of Justice has a program that could provide up to $3 million for forensic sifting of the burial areas, said U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat, who toured the site on Wednesday.

A $200,000 appropriation is pending in the state legislature.

Nelson said he wants to find out as much as possible and let relatives know the truth. He noted that "the statute of limitation on murder never runs out," but said there is little chance of prosecuting anyone.

State Attorney Glenn Hess said only one or two employees from the era are known to be alive, and it's unlikely a trial could prove how a boy died or who was responsible.

"The question is, can we establish probable cause that a crime has been committed, and who did it?" he said. "That's the hard part."

Families could ask their legislators to file "claims" bills for civil compensation, if identity could be established from remains and if negligence might be established on the part of the state.

(Editing by Brendan O'Brien, Kevin Gray and Lisa Shumaker)

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US cardinals seek answers on Vatican dysfunction

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Cardinals said Monday they want to talk to Vatican managers about allegations of corruption and cronyism within the top levels of the Catholic Church before they elect the next pope, evidence that a scandal over leaked papal documents is setting up one of the most unpredictable papal elections in recent times.

The Vatican said 103 of the 115 voting-age cardinals attended Monday's inaugural session of the pre-conclave meetings, at which cardinals organize the election process, discuss the problems of the church and get to know one another before voting.

The red-capped "princes" of the church took an oath of secrecy and decided to pen a letter of "greeting and gratitude" to Benedict XVI, whose resignation has thrown the church into turmoil amid a torrent of scandals inside and out of the Vatican.

"I would imagine that as we move along there will be questioning of cardinals involved in the governing of the Curia to see what they think has to be changed, and in that context anything can come up," said U.S. Cardinal Francis George.

The Vatican's administrative shortcomings were thrust into stark relief last year with the publication of documents stolen from Benedict XVI's desk that exposed the petty infighting, turf battles and allegations of corruption, nepotism and cronyism in the highest echelons of the Catholic Church.

The pope's butler was convicted of stealing the papers and leaking them to a journalist; he eventually received a papal pardon.

The emeritus pope, meanwhile, remained holed up at the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo, his temporary retirement home while the discussions on picking his successor kick into gear in Rome.

No date has been set yet for the conclave and one may not be decided on officially for a few more days; the dean of the College of Cardinals has said a date won't be finalized until all the cardinals have arrived.

Twelve more voting-age cardinals were en route to Rome; some had previously scheduled speaking engagements, others were due in later Monday or in the coming days, the Vatican said. Their absence, however, didn't otherwise delay the conclave's preparations.

Speculation has mounted that the conclave might begin around March 11, with the aim of having a new pope installed by March 17, the Sunday before Palm Sunday and the start of Holy Week.

With 115 electors, 77 votes are needed to reach the two-thirds majority to be elected pope.

Those who were in Rome prayed together Monday, chatted over coffee and took an oath to maintain "rigorous secrecy with regard to all matters in any way related to the election of the Roman Pontiff."

The core agenda item is to set the date for the conclave and put in place the procedures to prepare for it, including closing the Sistine Chapel to visitors and getting the Vatican hotel cleared out and swept for bugs or other electronic monitoring devices, lest anyone try to listen in on the cardinals' secret conversations.

Yet the first day of discussion was rocked by new revelations of scandal after Scottish Cardinal Keith O'Brien admitted that his "sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal."

O'Brien last week resigned as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh and said he wouldn't participate in the conclave after four men came forward with allegations that he had acted inappropriately with them — the first time a cardinal has stayed away from a conclave because of personal scandal.

The Vatican on Monday refused to confirm whether it was investigating O'Brien, even though the Scottish church's press office said the allegations had been forwarded to the Vatican and that it expected Rome would pursue the case.

Pressed to respond to reports of a fifth accuser who reportedly approached the Vatican directly in October with accusations, a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Thomas Rosica, read O'Brien's statement admitting to sexual misconduct and said the Vatican would say no more.

The Vatican and cardinals attending the session said the O'Brien case didn't come up during formal or informal conversations.

"It's a tragic moment for him," George said.

At a briefing discussing the priorities for the future pontificate, George said the next pope will have to follow canon law and keep priests who molested children out of parishes.

"He obviously has to accept the universal code of the church which is zero tolerance for anyone who has ever abused a minor child and therefore may not remain in public ministry in the church," George said. "That has to be accepted. I don't think that will be a problem."

Separately, the Vatican is still reeling from the fallout of the scandal over leaked papal documents, and the investigation by three cardinals into who was behind it.

American cardinals seem particularly keen to get to the bottom of the Vatican dysfunction, and they have had access to a very knowledgeable tutor, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the Vatican's ambassador to Washington.

Vigano's letters to the pope were the most explosive leaks of documents last year; in them, Vigano pleaded with Benedict not to be transferred after exposing alleged corruption in the awarding of Vatican contracts that cost the Holy See millions of euros (dollars).

Vigano was named the Vatican's ambassador to Washington, and as such has been able to give U.S. cardinals a clear-eyed view of the true state of the Vatican, said Corriere della Sera commentator Massimo Franco.

"They have appreciated him very much because he doesn't read the Vatican situation with a rosy lens, a rosy view," Franco said in an interview.

In his new book "The Crisis of the Vatican Empire," Franco paints a portrait of a Vatican completely falling apart, with financial scandals at its bank, backstabbing among its ruling class and the sex abuse scandal discrediting the church on the global stage.

"If we think of the pope, in a way the pope decided to sacrifice himself because he couldn't change anything," Franco said.

Coupled with the upheaval of Benedict's resignation, the scandals have contributed to create one of the most unclear papal elections in recent times.

"It will be a very open conclave with a very unpredictable outcome," Franco said.

In one of his last audiences before resigning, Benedict gave the three cardinals who investigated the leaks the go-ahead to answer their colleagues' questions about the results of their investigation.

"There are members of the College of Cardinals who are interested in having information that has to do with the situation in the Curia and the church in general and will ask to be informed by their colleagues," Lombardi said.

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Trisha Thomas and Rachel Zoll contributed to this report.

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Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

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