Aid workers in the Philippines are struggling to find any more survivors after a huge landslide on Leyte island. Heavy rain sent a torrent of earth, mud and rocks down on the village of Guinsaugon. A relief official says 1,800 people are feared dead. Only a few dozen were pulled out of the mud alive on Friday. The US has sent two ships and a UN disaster assessment team is on its way. Another 11 villages in the area have been evacuated. "We asked them to leave yesterday," said Southern Leyte regional governor Rosette Lerias on Saturday. "I had some of the villages checked again today, because some people didn't want to leave their homes." President Gloria Arroyo has said that people should be braced for "the prospect of more landslides." ... http://news.bbc.co.uk censor News |
Editor - 08:33:00 02-18-06 |
Hamas takes power vowing no talks |
Newly-elected members of militant group Hamas have taken their seats in the new Palestinian parliament, rejecting calls for negotiations with Israel. The Hamas members who dominate the new assembly criticised Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas's call for peace talks. After the swearing-in ceremony, Mr Abbas said Hamas would be forming the next government but urged it to respect the Oslo accords signed with Israel. He also hit out at unilateral Israeli measures and military strikes. Hamas have already nominated a senior Gaza Strip leader, Ismail Haniya, as their prime minister. Academic Aziz Duaik, another Hamas representative, has already been confirmed as speaker of the parliament - the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4726494.stm
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Editor - 08:17:00 02-18-06 |
Oil workers kidnapped in Nigeria |
Nine foreign oil workers have been seized by armed militants from a barge in Nigeria's Niger Delta. The group, including three Americans, two Thais, two Egyptians, a Briton and a Filipino, were on a pipelaying barge. Shell's Forcados export terminal was also set on fire, and oil loading there has been suspended. The attacks come a day after a militant commander told the BBC his group was declaring "total war" on all foreign oil interests in the Delta. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta gave oil companies and their employees until midnight on Friday night to leave the region. In an e-mail quoted by Reuters news agency after Saturday's attack, the group threatened action "on a grander scale". "We decided in response to pleas from our kin in these communities, to carry out strikes against oil and gas facilities in Delta state," the group said. ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4726680.stm
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Editor - 08:09:00 02-18-06 |
School Bus Drivers Join the Boogieman Watch? This is getting sick, more so-called Americans willing to Spy on Fellow Americans. |
The war on terror has a new front line - the school bus line. Financed by the Homeland Gestapo Dept, school bus drivers are being trained to watch for potential terrorists, people who may be casing their routes or plotting to blow up their buses. Designers of the School Bus Watch program want to turn 600,000 bus drivers into an army of observers, like a counterterrorism watch on wheels. Already mindful of motorists with road rage and kids with weapons, bus drivers are now being warned of far more grisly scenarios. Like this one: terrorists monitor a punctual driver for weeks, then hijack a bus and load the friendly yellow vehicle with enough explosives to take down a building. An alert school bus driver could foil that plan, security expert Jeffrey Beatty recently told a class of 250 of drivers in Norfolk, Va. After all, bus drivers cover millions of miles of roads. They know the towns, the kids, the parents. Nazi Germany didn’t have so many people spying on other people ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5628669,00.html
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Editor - 19:41:00 02-17-06 |
Democrats plan bill to block Dubai-US port deal |
Two U.S. Democratic senators said on Friday they would introduce legislation aimed at blocking Dubai Ports World from buying a company that operates several U.S. shipping ports because of security concerns.Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Hillary Clinton of New York said they would offer a measure to ban companies owned or controlled by foreign governments from acquiring U.S. port operations."We wouldn't turn the border patrol or the customs service over to a foreign government, and we can't afford to turn our ports over to one either," Menendez said in a statement.P&O, the company Dubai Ports World plans to buy for $6.8 billion, is already foreign-owned but the concern is that the purchaser is backed by the United Arab Emirates government.... http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyid=2006-02-17T154012Z_01_N17197464_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-CONGRESS-PORTS.xml&rpc=22
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Editor - 18:49:00 02-17-06 |
Race to rescue Philippine victims |
International aid agencies are rushing to help victims of a major landslide in the Philippines, where hundreds of people are buried under mud. At least 19 people are confirmed dead and more than 1,500 are thought to be missing after mud swept over a village on Leyte island, following heavy rains. The US has sent two ships and a UN disaster assessment team is on its way. The Red Cross despatched a plane with basic equipment for rescuers and appealed for $1.5m for relief supplies. Hundreds of homes and a school full of children were destroyed when a mountainside collapsed on the remote coastal village of Guinsaugon. Eighty-three people have been found alive, but rescue officials say between 1,500 and 2,500 more might be under the mud. ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4726218.stm
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Editor - 17:29:00 02-17-06 |
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