Can't Stop What's Coming...

Typhoon Xangsane, flood toll reaches 169

HANOI (Reuters) - Flooding killed dozens of people in the days after Typhoon Xangsane raked the Philippines and Vietnam, officials said on Thursday as the combined death toll rose to at least 169 with 79 others missing.

The Vietnam government said 59 people died and 7 were missing after the typhoon hit on Sunday, but state-run media accounts indicated a higher death toll of at least 68, citing provincial disaster reports.

The typhoon's fierce winds and rain destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of homes when it slammed into Vietnam's central coast after bringing parts of the Philippines, including the capital Manila, to a standstill last week.

In Vietnam, nearly 320,000 homes were destroyed or submerged. Xangsane, which means "elephant" in the Lao language, damaged roads, telecommunications and power networks, fisheries and crops along a roughly 1,000 km (600-mile) stretch.

The government estimated the cost of the damage at 10 trillion dong ($624 million).

Workers have been cleaning up the resort city of Danang and the nearby UNESCO-heritage town of Hoi An. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) tourism ministers meeting is scheduled for October 12 to 17 in Hoi An.

In the Philippines, the typhoon killed 110 people, injured 88 and 72 were missing, officials said on Thursday.

More than 2.3 million people were affected by the typhoon in the Philippines and about 80,000 remained in temporary shelters after losing their homes in the disaster.

One year on, Kashmir earthquake haunts survivors

TEETWAL, India, Oct 4 (Reuters) - When Begum Syeda recalls the horror of the devastating earthquake that shook the Himalayan region of Kashmir last October, her face turns pale and she hugs tiny Mufaid, her three-month-old son, close to her chest.

"I can feel the mountains shaking. Houses and buildings start crumbling all around me," 35-year-old Syeda said outside the tin hut she has been living in for almost a year.

"I can't think of a future yet, but I started getting better after Mufaid was born. I'm sure God has sent this baby to help us," Syeda said.

"This (Teetwal) is an unfortunate place," said Azam Gouse, a farmer. "We have been living in constant fear for decades. First it was the shelling, and now the quake has shattered our lives."

Hundreds of people were killed on both sides of the Kashmir frontier as the armies of India and Pakistan engaged in artillery duels daily until the two countries -- who claim Kashmir in full but rule it in parts -- agreed to a ceasefire in November 2003.

"I hope God has something better in store for us," said Gouse.

Jackals attack Indian village, 35 injured

RANCHI, India, Oct 5 (Reuters) - A pack of jackals prowling for food attacked villages in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, injuring at least 35 people, officials said on Thursday.

The attack took place in Madhubani district, about 120 km (75 miles) north of the state capital, Patna, late on Wednesday.

"We are still trying to ascertain the number of jackals involved in the attack and the extent of injuries sustained by human beings," Mala Kumari, a government official said over the telephone from Madhubani.

Jackals have sometimes been seen roaming the streets in India as their forest habitat dwindles, but reports of attacks on humans are rare.

"We have not seen or heard anything like this in the last 12 years," Santosh Kumar, who saw the jackals attacking the villagers. "Some of them were badly bitten," he said.

Indian PM's family in dengue fever scare - report

NEW DELHI, Oct 5 (Reuters) - An outbreak of dengue fever across northern India has touched Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's family, with a son-in-law and two grandsons admitted to hospital with symptoms of the disease, newspapers reported on Thursday.

More than 14 people have died in the capital, New Delhi, as a result of the outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease, and there have been hundreds of cases in the city and in the states of Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh since August.

Singh's son-in-law, Vijay Tankha, and two grandsons, 11-year-old Rohan and 17-year-old Madhav, were admitted to the country's top hospital on Tuesday and Wednesday, said the Times of India.

"The three were admitted with fever which started to come down. Only test reports will confirm whether they are dengue positive," the newspaper quoted the health minister, Ambumani Ramadoss, as saying.

NATO takes over eastern Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO took over eastern Afghanistan from U.S.-led forces Thursday, assuming control of 12,000 American troops and extending its military role to the entire country.

The commander of the NATO-led force, British Gen. David Richards, who was promoted to a four-star general Thursday, called the move "historic" in a ceremony also attended by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and U.S. Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry.

The handover "illustrates the enduring commitment of NATO and its international partners to the future of this great country," said Richards, who now holds the British military's highest rank.

Richards all but guaranteed progress in Afghanistan's deteriorating security, joking that he would appear in front of a firing squad if the country isn't safer by the end of his command in February.

"If by next spring these improvements are not evident then I will be surrendering to whoever wants to put me up against a wall," he told reporters after the ceremony.

Text of North Korea's nuclear statement

SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) -- North Korea said on Tuesday that it would conduct a nuclear test in the future but remained committed to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang's official KCNA news agency said.

Following are parts of the North Korean foreign ministry's statement in English carried by KCNA:

"The DPRK (North Korean) Foreign Ministry is authorized to solemnly declare as follows in connection with the new measure to be taken to bolster the war deterrent for self-defense:

Firstly, the field of scientific research of the DPRK will in the future conduct a nuclear test under the condition where safety is firmly guaranteed.

The DPRK was compelled to pull out of the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) as the present U.S. administration scrapped the DPRK-U.S. Agreed Framework and seriously threatened the DPRK's sovereignty and right to existence.

The DPRK officially announced that it manufactured up-to-date nuclear weapons after going through transparent legitimate processes to cope with the U.S. escalated threat of a nuclear war and sanctions and pressure.

The already declared possession of nuclear weapons presupposes the nuclear test.

The U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war and sanctions and pressure compel the DPRK to conduct a nuclear test, an essential process for bolstering nuclear deterrent, as a corresponding measure for defense.

Secondly, the DPRK will never use nuclear weapons first but strictly prohibit any threat of nuclear weapons and nuclear transfer.

A people without reliable war deterrent are bound to meet a tragic death and the sovereignty of their country is bound to be wantonly infringed upon. This is a bitter lesson taught by the bloodshed resulting from the law of the jungle in different parts of the world.

The DPRK's nuclear weapons will serve as reliable war deterrent for protecting the supreme interests of the state and the security of the Korean nation from the U.S. threat of aggression and averting a new war and firmly safeguarding peace and stability on the Korean peninsula under any circumstances.

The DPRK will always sincerely implement its international commitment in the field of nuclear non-proliferation as a responsible nuclear weapons state.

Thirdly, the DPRK will do its utmost to realize the denuclearization of the peninsula and give impetus to the world-wide nuclear disarmament and the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons.

As the DPRK has been exposed to the U.S. nuclear threat and blackmail over the past more than half a century, it proposed the denuclearization of the peninsula before any others and has since made utmost efforts to that end.

The U.S., however, abused the idea of denuclearization set out by the DPRK for isolating and stifling the ideology and system chosen by its people, while systematically disregarding all its magnanimity and sincerity.

The ultimate goal of the DPRK is not a "denuclearization" to be followed by its unilateral disarmament but one aimed at settling the hostile relations between the DPRK and the U.S. and removing the very source of all nuclear threats from the Korean Peninsula and its vicinity.

There is no change in the principled stand of the DPRK to materialize the denuclearization of the peninsula through dialogue and negotiation.

The DPRK will make positive efforts to denuclearize the peninsula its own way without fail despite all challenges and difficulties."

Java villages drown in mud lake

In the village of Porong Atas, just outside Indonesia's second city of Surabaya, people are preparing for a flood.

Using pickaxes and shovels, labourers dig a narrow canal around the edge of the village, past the grocery store with its boxes of biscuits stacked outside and a newly arrived army tent.

This sleepy place is now on the front-line of a shifting tide, but it is not water that is approaching, but mud.

Peer over the canal wall and just metres away the fields and buildings are covered with the sticky sludge, which has been streaming from a fissure in the earth since early June.

With the rains coming, people know how easily they could lose everything.

Some, like Poiman, already have.

Refugees

Poiman fled to Porong Atas with his family a month ago after his old house was submerged by the spreading sludge.

"We're refugees," he said. "If it turns out not to be safe here, we'll just move again, though I don't know where."

Poiman's family shares a simple concrete house in the village with another family - seven people and the possessions they salvaged crammed into two rooms.

"I was frightened in the old house," says his wife, "but it's OK here, I feel a bit safer. I'm just worried about money. I hope I can get a job."


Poiman is making bricks out of the dried-out mud.

It is not much of a living; no-one has bought many of his bricks yet, he says, but the mud is there, it is free and he has got to do something.

Spreading further

The rent on Poiman's concrete room has been paid for by compensation he received from a local gas company, Lapindo Brantas.

The company has been accused of causing the disaster by drilling an exploratory gas well, close to where the mud spill happened, though the company has suggested the eruption was caused by seismic activity rather than its drilling.

When the mud first began spurting up through a crack in the earth, it was producing around 5,000 cubic metres a day. Now it is more like 130,000 cubic metres a day.

The lake of mud has spread further and further across the area, covering 400 hectares (988 acres), submerging eight villages and forcing more than 10,000 people from their homes.

And there is no sign of it stopping.

Mystery illness death toll climbs to 17 in Panama

PANAMA CITY, Oct 4 (Reuters) - The death toll from a mystery illness in Panama has risen to at least 17, with 10 others still suffering but recovering from fever, diarrhea and partial paralysis, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday.

Doctors do not know the cause but say the disease progresses rapidly to the renal system and causes neurological damage.

Two more people suffering from the unidentified illness died on Wednesday, health minister Camilo Alleyne told reporters. He also bumped up the number of people fighting the mystery disease to 10 from seven.

Up to Tuesday the disease had killed 15 over the last month, the ministry said.

The ministry declared a national epidemic alert on Tuesday.

The dead were all over 60 years of age and most were already suffering from high blood pressure, diabetes and kidney problems.

The illness does not seem to be contagious and dengue fever, influenza, West Nile virus and other illnesses have been ruled out.

Dengue outbreak in India kills 38, infects thousands

NEW DELHI, Oct 5 (Reuters) - An outbreak of dengue fever has swept across India's capital and five states, killing 38 people and infected over 2,900 others, Health Minister Ambumani Ramadoss said on Thursday.

Mad deer disease may spread with saliva

WASHINGTON - Deer probably spread a brain-destroying illness called chronic wasting disease through their saliva, concludes a study that finally pins down a long-suspected culprit.

The key was that Colorado researchers tested some special deer.

Chronic wasting disease is in the same family of fatal brain illnesses as mad cow disease and its human equivalent. There is no evidence that people have ever caught chronic wasting disease from infected deer or elk.

But CWD is unusual because, unlike its very hard-to-spread relatives, it seems to spread fairly easily from animal to animal.

Fungus causes pumpkins to develop mold

LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Halloween lovers hoping to create the perfect jack-o-lantern might want to shop carefully this year because of a pumpkin fungus that has put a dent in some crops.

Two types of fungus or rot have affected crops from the Midwest to New England, causing pumpkins to develop mold in some spots and then begin decomposing, said Daniel Egel, a Purdue University Extension plant pathologist. The entire inside of the pumpkin eventually rots until the shell falls apart.

A combination of high temperatures and record rain in August has helped the fungi flourish, Egel said.

Nina Kent, co-owner of Kent's Cucurbits in White County, said one variety of her pumpkins has about 85 percent loss because of the rot.

"We really didn't know until we went out and started picking around the 17th of September," she said. "It's as if they're rotting from the inside out."

The rot has also hit Purdue University's Meigs Farm in Lafayette. Karen Rane, a plant disease diagnostician, turned over a pumpkin and the underside collapsed in her hands.

Guatemala survivors homeless year after mudslide

PANABAJ, Guatemala, Oct 5 (Reuters) - A year after a mudslide wiped out the Guatemalan village of Panabaj, killing hundreds, Maya Indians are still living in precarious camps dangerously close to the disaster site.

More than 300 families huddle in dirt-floored huts with communal latrines in a camp just feet (metres) from where thousands of tonnes of mud and rock buried the lakeside village.

Critics are furious at the government's failure to do more to find them new, safe homes. A report by independent watchdog Citizen Action said less then half of some 7,900 families whose land was washed away in the storm have been relocated.

No one knows exactly how many people died in the tragedy but it appears to be fewer than first feared.

Firefighters put the initial toll at 1,400, but later estimates were that about 1,000 died. Panabaj's mayor says 600 bodies are still under the mud but forensic anthropologists due to excavate the site in November say the number is nearer 300.

No official records exist of how many people lived in Panabaj at the time of the tragedy.

Other victims of last year's storm feel even more forgotten.

In Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan, on the misty mountains near the lake, families are living in U.S. Agency for International Development shelters lacking electricity and running water.

"People have lost their hope," said community leader Miguel Guachiac y Guachiac. "The government keeps promising things but up until now there have been no results."

Hail, flooding cause damage in parts of central and southern Ohio

Eric Watson could only shake his head in disbelief Thursday as he surveyed the side of his house in eastern Franklin County.
Holes — perhaps hundreds of them — had been punched into the vinyl siding by a violent hailstorm that raced through central Ohio Wednesday night. The thunderstorms and lightning also brought flooding to southern Ohio, forcing some homes to be evacuated and two school districts to close because of impassable roads.

The hail, up to the size of a quarter, shattered windows, dented cars and riddled homes with holes.

"When I got here last night, it looked like somebody just came by with a machine gun and just peppered the whole house," Watson said.

In Pataskala east of Columbus, several hundred homes had portions of vinyl siding damaged by the hail or blown away by strong winds, Licking County Emergency Management Director Jeff Walker said.

"Roofers and housing people are out there in droves," Walker said. "With winter just around the corner, I'm sure a lot of people are going to want to get the repairs done."

As Steve Christian and his father, Terry, raked leaves and twigs Thursday, dead birds lay on the nearby sidewalk.

"There must be 400 dents in my car," said Steve Christian, pointing to hail damage on his Honda Civic.

Ryan Webster, a member of a U.S. Forest Service firefighter backfire team, battles a wildfire near Castaic, Calif., in September. 2006 has been the most destructive fire season in 50 years.

USA has most destructive, expensive wildfire season on record

DENVER — The federal government spent $1.5 billion fighting wildfires in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, a tab that reflects the most destructive fire year in nearly half a century.
The cost marks the fourth time in the past seven years that firefighting costs exceeded $1.3 billion, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise. In 2002, federal agencies spent nearly $1.7 billion.

Since January, fires have burned more than 9.1 million acres. That is the worst destruction since the Boise center began keeping accurate records in 1960 and far exceeds the yearly average of 5.2 million acres over the past decade.

16,000 asked to evacuate in Apex, N.C.

APEX, N.C. - Authorities asked about 16,000 residents of this suburban Raleigh town to evacuate early Friday morning as they struggled to deal with a hazardous material fire at an industrial plant, authorities said.

No injuries were immediately reported.

"This is truly awful," town manager Bruce Radford said. "It is the worst potential hazardous materials fire that you can expect."