News Results

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Tomas moves away from land; mudslides remain threat in Haiti - CNN International

Six people are dead, and some areas are flooded in HaitiThe country's ongoing battle against cholera could be worsened by flood watersTomas is not forecast to reach land in the coming days

Port-Au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Hurricane Tomas killed six people and left a trail of destroyed homes in Haiti as it continued moving away from land Sunday. However, Haitians could still grapple with effects from Tomas after the hurricane dissipates.

The U.S. Coast Guard is helping in Haiti by providing surveillance and helping with coastal assessments.

The hurricane was expected to weaken in the next few days as it churns away from the Americas into the Atlantic Ocean.

As of late Saturday night, Tomas was about 275 miles (440 kilometers) north-northeast of Grand Turk Island and about 570 miles (915 kilometers) south-southwest of Bermuda, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.

The hurricane carried maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph) and was headed north-northeast at at 10 mph (17 kph), the Hurricane Center said. Tomas currently poses no threat to land.

In Haiti, a nation still grappling with the effects of a killer earthquake and a deadly cholera outbreak this year, Tomas ruined houses and turned some streets into rivers. Six people were also killed by the storm, according to the Haitian Civil Protection Authority.

January's 7.0-magnitude earthquake killed 250,000 people and left 1 million more homeless. Many of those Haitians have been living in tent camps, and aid workers had been working in recent days to move the residents to safer housing, which was difficult to find.

Aid workers were already struggling to keep up with the cholera outbreak, which has killed 501 people since the first cases were reported in October. An additional 7,000 are hospitalized. The bacterial disease causes diarrhea and vomiting that can lead to deadly dehydration within hours.

In Leogane, west of Haiti's capital of Port-au-Prince, residents waded in knee-deep water after Tomas. Box trucks got stuck in water, said relief worker Roseann Dennery of Samaritan's Purse.

While the flooding receded somewhat over the weekend, the threat of waterborne disease remained a concern.

"Samaritan's Purse is moving quickly to set up cholera treatment centers in areas where there currently aren't any, and where new cases are appearing as the bacteria continues to spread," Dennery said.

Mudslides also remain a risk because many of the nation's mountains have been stripped of vegetation, which means rain can flow downhill relatively unimpeded, said CNN meteorologist Reynolds Wolf.

"We could see mudslides a week after the storm has passed," Wolf said.

Tomas has also dumped more than 10 inches of rain in the Dominican Republic.

CNN's Paula Newton contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Key events in Myanmar's history - CNN International

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962
Junta-ruled country to hold first elections in 20 years
Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi not allowed to run
Her party won a landslide victory in 1990, but junta rejected results

Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, has been under military rule since 1962. Critics say the November 7 elections -- its first in two decades -- aim to create a facade of democracy.

The constitution requires more than 100 military nominees in parliament, which critics say is aimed at tightening the regime's grip on the Southeast Asian nation.

Democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi has said she will not vote in the elections.

Her party won a landslide election victory in 1990, but the military junta rejected the results.

The regime recently passed a law that made Suu Kyi ineligible to run because of a court conviction. The Nobel laureate has called the law unjust. Her supporters have said the conviction was a way to remove her from the election campaign.

Suu Kyi has spent most of the past 20 years under house arrest. The new law forced her party, the National League for Democracy, to choose between honoring her as its leader and risking the party being declared illegal -- or ejecting Suu Kyi from the party and contesting the election. It decided to skip the race.

Read CNN reporter's firsthand account of Myanmar after Cyclone Nargis

View the original article here

Rachel Maddow on suspended Keith Olbermann: MSNBC should reinstate him - New York Daily News

Rachel Maddow defended Keith Olbermann, and said MSNBC should reinstate him.

Rachel Maddow has Keith Olbermann's back.

The left-leaning MSNBC host says her bosses made their point by suspending Olbermann for his political donations and should put him back on the air.

Olbermann was benched from his "Countdown" show without pay for giving money to three Democratic candidates in the midterm elections - without permission from higherups.

"I understand the rule. I understand what it means to break it," Maddow said on her show.

"I believe everyone should face the same treatment under that rule. I also personally believe that the point has been made and we should have Keith back hosting 'Countdown.'"

Maddow also sought to dispel the argument that MSNBC is a leftie version of Fox News.

She said the Rupert Murdoch-owned rival has a history of "not just giving money to candidates, but actively endorsing campaigns and raising millions of dollars for politicians and political parties."

"Their network is run as a political operation. Ours isn't," Maddow said.

"Yeah, Keith's a liberal, and so am I. But we're not a political operation - Fox is. We're a news operation."

MSNBC rules state that staff can make political contributions only if given the all-clear from superiors in advance.

Olbermann, MSNBC's marquee name, didn't ask for permission before he gave the maximum legal amount of $2,400 to two candidates in Arizona and one in Kentucky. He was suspended indefinitely after Politico.com revealed the donations.

cboyle@nydailynews.com

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Gene Robinson, first openly gay Episcopal bishop, announces his retirement - Boston Globe

By John M. Guilfoil, Globe Staff

The first openly gay Episcopal bishop, whose consecration instigated a global religious controversy, announced today that he would take early retirement, citing stress from the experience.

Bishop V. Gene Robinson will be 65 when he steps down in January 2013, seven years below the mandatory retirement age for Episcopal bishops.

Robinson announced his plans at the annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire in Concord. He said he gave the two-year transition to give the diocese enough time to find and elect a new bishop who will then be subject to approval from the national church.

?Since the very beginning, I have attempted to discern God?s will for me and for you, and this decision comes after much prayer and discernment about what God wants for us at this time,? Robinson said in his prepared remarks.

Robinson made it clear that the stress of being the focal point of discussion in the Anglican Communion has taken a toll on him. Robinson has been at the center of an international uproar over whether a married, openly gay man should lead a church that disapproves of homosexuality.

?The fact is, the last seven years have taken their toll on me, my family, and you,? he said. ?Death threats, and the now-worldwide controversy surrounding your election of me as Bishop, have been a constant strain, not just on me, but on my beloved husband, Mark, who has faithfully stood with me every minute of the last seven years.?

In 1998, the Anglican church passed a resolution declaring homosexual acts ?incompatible with Scripture,? but also condemned homophobia and declared ?homosexual persons ? are loved by God.?

?There are still things left for me to do. First and foremost, there is continuing to be a good bishop for you during the next two years,? Robinson said. ? I don?t intend to be a ?lame duck,? as you deserve a bishop during this interim that is ?on all burners? for the remaining two years. I intend to continue to be fully engaged as your Bishop in the remaining time we lead the diocese together.?

Robinson said in his remarks that he was in good health, having lost 25 pounds over the past seven years. He also said he has been sober for five years after seeking treatment for alcoholism.

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Volcano travel chaos as ash grounds flights to Indonesia - AFP

Volcano travel chaos as ash grounds flights to IndonesiaBy Bayu Ismoyo (AFP) – 3 hours ago

YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — International airlines cancelled dozens of flights to Indonesia on Sunday as Mount Merapi volcano spewed ash high into the sky, ahead of a visit by US President Barack Obama.

Airlines cancelled 50 flights on Sunday and 36 flights on Saturday, in an echo of events in Iceland earlier this year when volcanic ash led to thousands of cancellations and transport chaos across Europe.

The death toll from a series of eruptions since October 26 is expected to climb as more bodies are pulled from the volcanic sludge that thundered down on central Java on Friday, the volcano's biggest eruption since the 1870s.

"Fifty flights to and from Jakarta from 15 airlines have been cancelled today for safety reasons, they are mostly flights which pass through Singapore," Soekarno-Hatta International Airport spokesman Sudaryanto said.

The airlines affected include Singapore Airlines, Air Asia, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Malaysia Airlines, Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa.

The spokesman said Jakarta airport, which handles around 900 flights per day, remained open.

The volcano also affected flights to Yogyakarta, Solo and Bandung, cities closer to Merapi in the centre of the main island of Java. Thousands of passengers have been left stranded.

"We called three airlines but all the seats were booked," said Singaporean Raymond Yong, 34, whose Singapore-bound Lufthansa flight was cancelled from Jakarta.

"I don't understand why the airlines have to cancel flights when there are others which are operating just fine. I have to work tomorrow and this is such a major inconvenience."

Three Malaysian Air Force Hercules C-130 transport aircraft flew to Yogyakarta to collect 664 Malaysians stranded there, in a series of flights to take place Saturday and Sunday.

Obama is scheduled to arrive in Jakarta on Tuesday for a highly anticipated -- and twice delayed -- visit. White House officials said Saturday there was no sign so far of any disruption to the schedule.

Mount Merapi first started erupting on October 26 and a violent blow-out on Friday killed nearly 80 people, incinerating villages up to 18 kilometres away.

Pyroclastic flows or heat clouds of boiling hot gas and rock travelling hundreds of kilometres an hour killed people in their sleep, leaving smouldering ruins full of bodies.

The country's disaster management agency said Sunday the overall death toll from the disaster had been revised down to 117, but it warned the toll would climb as rescuers reached stricken villages.

"The death toll will clearly rise as rescuers are still looking for bodies in the villages," the agency's spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told AFP.

The volcano, a sacred landmark in Javanese tradition, continued to spew clouds of gas and ash on Sunday.

It is 430 kilometres (270 miles) east of Jakarta but only 26 kilometres north of Central Java provincial capital Yogyakarta.

"The eruptions continue to pose a big threat to residents," volcanologist Budi Santoso said.

Dozens of people from one of the worst-hit villages were to be buried in a mass grave in Yogyakarta, disaster management spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

"We will bury them in a place where it's safe. There's no way we will have the burial in their village, as the village is within the 20-kilometre danger zone," he said.

More than 166,000 people are living in cramped temporary shelters after being ordered to evacuate from a 20-kilometre "danger zone", though many were reluctant to abandon their properties and livestock.

The Indonesian archipelago has dozens of active volcanoes and straddles major tectonic fault lines known as the "ring of fire" from the Indian to the Pacific oceans.

The authorities are also dealing with the aftermath of a tsunami which smashed into villages on the remote Mentawai island chain on October 25, killing more than 400 people.

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Oakland protests went wrong - 152 arrested - San Francisco Chronicle

Oakland protests went wrong - 152 arrested Article:Oakland protests went wrong - 152 arrested:/c/a/2010/11/06/BAL91G8A33.DTLArticle:Oakland protests went wrong - 152 arrested:/c/a/2010/11/06/BAL91G8A33.DTL advertisement|your ad here SFGateHome of the San Francisco Chronicle

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Oakland protests went wrong - 152 arrested Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer

San Francisco Chronicle November 6, 2010 07:23 PM Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Sunday, November 7, 2010

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Paul Chinn / The Chronicle

Oakland neighbors Shareene Lindquist and Philip Means tell what happened Friday night when protesters smashed car windows.

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(11-06) 19:23 PDT Oakland --Philip Means could sympathize with the hundreds of people protesting Johannes Mehserle's two-year sentence for killing Oscar Grant Friday night - right up until they surged into his neighborhood and started screaming, jumping on cars and smashing windows.

Means, 23, burst from his house at Sixth Avenue and 18th Street in his underwear, took in the situation at a glance and decided to flee.

"I was afraid for my truck because it was parked right in front of the house, so I jumped in and took off," he said. "All I'd heard was smashing and yelling.

"It sounded like a protest gone wrong. I wasn't going to wait around for my stuff to get broken."

Means was experiencing the tail end of a day of protests over the Mehserle sentencing - a day that had begun peacefully with tears, songs and speeches at Oakland City Hall, but ended with destruction and more than a hundred arrests.

It wasn't the kind of protest conclusion organizers had hoped for.

"Our demonstration at City Hall was really, really beautiful, where children, mothers, elders and youngsters all had the opportunity to express the great emotion that Oakland felt yesterday," said Cat Brooks, co-chair of the Onyx Organizing Committee, which helped put on the demonstration. "That part of the day was very successful."

The only "damper" on the afternoon, she and others said, was the way police officers lingered around the gathering. Nearly 500 people assembled to protest the sentence, and at least as many police officers from jurisdictions as far away as Monterey tried to prevent the protests from turning into riots the way they did July 8.

That rally against Mehserle's involuntary manslaughter conviction devolved into looting that left 100 downtown businesses damaged and 78 people arrested.

This time police kept a much closer hand on things. Though 152 were arrested, destruction was mostly limited to the windows of one East Oakland business and about a dozen cars.

It all went well until nightfall, said Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts.

March starts

Shortly after 6 p.m., as the speeches in front of City Hall finished, about 200 protesters headed southeast toward the Fruitvale BART Station, where Mehserle shot unarmed BART rider Grant to death Jan. 1, 2009. Brooks said the plan had been to march to West Oakland's DeFremery Park, but police lines appeared to block the way, so some decided to head to the BART stop instead.

The police weren't going for that.

At Laney College, about a mile from downtown, a line of officers tried to stop the march. The crowd broke through a fence and headed past Lake Merritt into East Oakland and began wandering toward Fruitvale, flanked by police.

Along the way, some in the group smashed more than a dozen car windows, and the windows of the San Huo Fine Arts & Sign Co., at 22nd Street and International Boulevard. About 7 p.m., one of the protesters ripped a holster and gun from an officer's belt. He was arrested immediately, and Chief Batts decided to put an end to the night.

He declared the gathering an unlawful assembly based on the danger of the gun theft.

Arrests

The remaining 150 or so protesters still marching were soon penned on Sixth Avenue between East 17th and East 18th streets by lines of officers. Several hundred police waded in, and by 9 p.m. 152 protesters had been arrested, most on charges of unlawful assembly. Some of the protesters had mace and gasoline in their backpacks, police said.

As they waited to be arrested, several protesters trampled yards and smashed car windows. Chants of "We are all Oscar Grant" filled the air.

"It was a crazy scene," said 32-year-old Shareene Lindquist, who lives on the block, a modest stretch of Victorians, duplexes and apartment buildings. "I totally agreed with what they were saying, but destroying someone's property - who does that help? Is that honoring Oscar Grant's memory? I don't think so.

"It just makes working people think they shouldn't do business here, and that doesn't help anyone."

E-mail Kevin Fagan at kfagan@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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Related Topics: BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant, Fruitvale (BART station), Sixth Avenue (Manhattan), Manslaughter, Laney College, BART Police, Lake Merritt, List of streets in Manhattan, Oakland, California

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