Clinton in Australia for security talks

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Australia for talks about the joint mission in Afghanistan, broader security issues, climate change and trade. The chief US diplomat, who travelled to the southern city of Melbourne from New Zealand as she winds up a seven-country tour of Asia, was expected to meet new Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd. Their meetings will pave the way for annual security consultations on Monday that will also involve US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates and his Australian counterpart Stephen Smith. Rudd welcomed Clinton, saying her visit underlined the "enduring nature" of the alliance between Australia and the United States. Australia is the last country on an Asia Pacific tour that has taken Clinton to New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Cambodia, China and Vietnam.

Interpol issues alert over Yemen parcel bombs

The global police agency Interpol issued an alert to help forces in its member states spot disguised bombs of the kind Al-Qaeda sent last week from Yemen using airmail parcel couriers. The so-called "Orange Notice", which will also be made public, contains photographs and technical details of the latest bombs, which were discovered and made safe at airports in Dubai and Britain after an intelligence warning. Al-Qaeda's Yemen-based branch, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has claimed responsibility for sending the sophisticated devices, in which the explosive PETN was packed into printer cartridges and attached to timers. US intelligence believes the parcel bombs, which were addressed to Chicago synagogues but may have been intended to explode in flight, were the work of Saudi militant Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, thought to be a senior AQAP member.

A credit card for Government employees before Christmas

The Government has planned to introduce a special credit card for Government employees. This programme will be implemented under the mediation of the Cooperatives and Internal Trade Ministry. The Ministry said that the decision to give this relief to Government employees had been taken with the objective of bringing down the cost of living. It has been planned to introduce this credit card before Christmas. The Cooperative and Internal Trade Ministry said that owners of this credit card would be given a 52-day grace period for interest-free purchases. While steps will be taken to fix a small interest ratio it will be made known in the future. A specialty of this is the possibility for the Government employee or his or spouse to use this credit card. The Government's attention has been drawn to extend this credit card facility to Government pensioners and members of recognised Government organisations as well in the future.

Indonesia tsunami: Rescuers battle to reach survivors

  

Some of the villages in the tsunami's path simply do not exist anymore

Indonesian rescue teams are battling to reach an estimated 400 people believed to be missing since a tsunami struck small islands off the coast of Sumatra.

Officials say a 3m-high wave crashed into the Mentawai islands after a quake on Monday, killing at least 154 people.

Rescuers are now in the region, facing bad weather and post-quake aftershocks in villages levelled by the wave.

Indonesia's president is cutting short a trip to Vietnam to visit the islands and oversee the relief operation.

Officials said Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono would fly back from a meeting with regional leaders to help deal with the tsunami aftermath.

He will also be briefed on the rescue effort on Java, where an erupting volcano has caused chaos.

US President Barack Obama, who spent some of his childhood in Indonesia, has spoken of his sadness at the deaths.

"At the same time, I am heartened and encouraged by the remarkable resiliency of the Indonesian people and the commitment of their government to rapidly assist the victims," he said in a statement.

He said the US was ready to help in any way.

Higher ground:

 

At least 10 villages are thought to have been flattened by the tsunami, which was caused by a 7.7-magnitude earthquake late on Monday. 

Waves reached 3m (10ft) high and the water swept inland as far as 600m on South Pagai.

The first images emerging from the Mentawai Islands show empty clearings where homes and buildings once stood, levelled and cleared by the power of the wave.

n the tsunami zone, regional disaster official Hermansyah confirmed that the number killed had risen to 154, and said those who had survived were in urgent need of help.

"They have lost their houses and now need a lot of aid and assistance. There are some tents already arrived here but we still need many more," he told AFP news agency.

Rough seas were making it difficult to ship aid to the Mentawai islands from Padang, the nearest major port on Sumatra. Forecasters say the bad weather is likely to continue in the coming days.

The islands are described as extremely remote, with few roads or functioning telephone lines even before the tsunami hit, making it difficult to make an accurate assessment of the scale of the damage.

One man, a farmer named Borinte from the island of North Pagai, told AFP he had lost his wife and children. He suggested that people living in the path of the tsunami received little or no warning.

"About 10 minutes after the quake we heard a loud, thunderous sound. We went outside and saw the wave coming. We tried to run away to higher ground but the wave was much quicker than us," Borinte said.

"I'm so sorry that I couldn't save my wife and children as I panicked and didn't know what to do. I was swept away as well but I managed to survive by holding onto a wooden plank."

 

Indonesia launched a purpose-built tsunami warning system two years ago which was aimed to be running completely by 2010. Monday's earthquake was one of its most serious tests, but it is unclear whether the western Sumatra area is covered by an operational system. Mr Hermansyah told BBC Indonesian that about 4,000 households had been displaced by the tsunami, and that many people had fled to higher ground.

He said that those displaced needed tents, blankets, food, drinking water and medicine.
The Indonesian Red Cross said it was despatching a team to the islands, and would send 1,000 tents.

The country's vice-president is due to fly to the area with top military and health officials later.
 

On Tuesday, local fisheries official Hardimansyah said most buildings in the South Pagai coastal village of Betu Monga had been destroyed.

"Of the 200 people living in that village, only 40 have been found - 160 are still missing, mostly women and children," Hardimansyah told Reuters news agency.

"We have people reporting to the security post here that they could not hold on to their children, that they were swept away. A lot of people are crying."

The vast Indonesian archipelago sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, one of the world's most active areas for earthquakes and volcanoes.

More than 1,000 people were killed by an earthquake off Sumatra in September 2009.
In December 2004, a 9.1-magnitude quake off the coast of Aceh triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed a quarter of a million people in 13 countries including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.
 

 Source: BBC

Runway opens at world's first spaceport

Virgin Galactic's VSS Enterprise made a celebratory flight over the runway

Commercial space travel took a step closer with the opening of the runway at the world's first spaceport in the US state of New Mexico.

The event was marked with a flypast of an aircraft carrying SpaceShip Two.

The vehicle has been designed to take fee-paying tourists on trips to the edge of space and back.

British billionaire Sir Richard Branson - whose Virgin group has backed the venture - said the first passenger trip should take place within 18 months.

The opening of the nearly two-mile (three-kilometre) runway comes less than two weeks after another major step for Sir Richard's Virgin Galactic company: the first solo glide flight of SpaceShip Two.

"Today is very personal as our dream becomes more real," Sir Richard said.

"People are beginning to believe now. I think the drop flight two weeks ago, which went beautifully, I think it made people sit up and realize this is really reality."

More than 300 people have already paid at least $200,000 (£128,000) each for a three-hour flight.

Virgin Galactic's White Knight Two - the jet-powered mothership that will carry SpaceShip Two to launch altitude - appeared at Friday's ceremony at Spaceport America near the Mexican border.

The craft, carrying SpaceShip Two, passed over the spaceport several times before landing on the new runway.

Source: BBC

 Biodiversity is the term used to describe the incredible variety of life that has evolved on our planet over billions of years. So far 1.75m present day species have been recorded, but there maybe as many as 13m in total.(BBC)

Gunmen kill 13 at birthday party in Mexico

Reuters
October 23, 2010 20:41 GMT

By Julian Cardona

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - Gunmen sprayed bullets into a family birthday party in the violent Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, killing 13 people and wounding 20, authorities said on Saturday.

It was the second massacre at a party this month in Ciudad Juarez, which borders El Paso, Texas, and is one of the world's most violent cities as drug cartels battle security forces and each other over smuggling routes into the United States.

"I threw myself down on the floor and then a lot of other people piled on top of me," a young man who survived the shooting late on Friday told Reuters, declining to give his name out of fear of reprisals.
The celebration was for a boy's 15th birthday, he said.
At least four of the people killed at the house party were teenagers and a 9-year-old boy was among the wounded, officials said.

"A group of heavily armed men arrived in two minivans. At least 10 men burst into the party," Carlos Gonzalez, a spokesman for state prosecutors, told the Reforma newspaper.
It was not clear whether the shooting was related to Mexico's drug war, which has killed more than 6,900 people in Ciudad Juarez alone since early 2008.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon condemned the shooting, saying it caused "deep outrage."
Calderon is under pressure to show the military-led campaign he launched against the powerful drug cartels in December 2006 is working. With the death toll at nearly 30,000 people over the last four years, Washington and foreign investors are on edge as the violence escalates.

On Saturday, a man used buckets of water and a broom to clean the blood-stained patio where the gunmen opened fire.
"I don't know what happened. I was here with my son, who is a boy," said the man, who declined to be identified.

Earlier this month in Ciudad Juarez, gunmen raided a party and killed six people. After that shooting, Calderon flew to the city to inaugurate parks and hospitals as part of the government's plan to increase social spending and rebuild the depressed city.

(Writing and additional reporting by Jason Lange in Mexico City; Editing by John O'Callaghan)

Source: Global Post