Negative Blogs

Thousands of Venezuelans fled their homes on Tuesday after landslides and swollen rivers killed at least 21 people and threatened to cause more damage.

The stormy weather closed most of the Opec member nation’s two largest oil refineries on Monday.  A source at state oil company PDVSA said they were slowly restarting on Tuesday.

Millions of poor Venezuelans live in unplanned, hillside shantytowns in Caracas and along the Caribbean coast. Sustained rain conjures up memories of a devastating 1999 landslide that killed at least 10,000 people.

Small mudslides toppled dozens of houses, and crushing cars and blocking roads this week. Most of the 21 died in landslides, while others were swept away by a river. The government has declared an emergency in three states and Caracas, cancelling school and opening hundreds of storm shelters.

“The rains will carry on for the next three days at least,” Vice President Elias Jaua told state television.

Long lines formed in poor Caracas neighbourhoods as officials registered families to be housed in temporary accommodations including hotels, government offices and even the presidential palace.

Vice President Elias Jaua said 5,600 people were forced to leave their homes because of the rains.

Most of the oil-producing state of Falcon was hit by flooding, which caused a small oil spill near the Cardon and Amuay refineries, which have a combined capacity of 955,000 barrels per day.

The main units of Amuay, which can produce 645,000 bpd, restarted on Tuesday, a source at the refinery complex said. Cardon will take up to 10 days to operate normally after a power cut knocked out its industrial services on Monday.

The source, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak, said shipments from the two refineries had not been affected.

The Andean Development Corporation, a regional development bank, said it authorised a US$100 million (NZ$134 million) donation to Venezuela to help deal with the disaster.

By stuff.co.nz

FOOD DROP: A helicopter prepares to drop water and food for flood victims in Barlovento, about 48 km east of Caracas, Venezuela. At least 21 have died and thousands have been forced from their houses after weeks of downpours that have caused flooding and mudslides in the country.

The United States on Monday called for tighter enforcement of UN sanctions against North Korea and for China to play a “responsible” role in easing mounting tensions in the region.

The United States will “confront the threat” posed by North Korea’s new nuclear activities and its deadly attack on its southern neighbour last week, said US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice.

A UN Security Council sanctions committee meanwhile met to discuss efforts to implement actions already ordered against the North after its nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

Signalling a tougher US line with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s regime, Ms Rice said the United States expects committee members “to intensify their important ongoing efforts to tighten sanctions enforcement.”

The sanctions include an arms embargo and actions – including an assets freeze and travel ban – taken against entities and individuals linked to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

Ms Rice called last week’s attack on South Korea’s Yeonpyeong island “outrageous” and said the United States would “work with the international community to maintain peace and security in this region as we simultaneously confront the threat posed by North Korea’s ongoing nuclear activities.”

The ambassador said the United States looks “to China to play a responsible leadership role in working to maintain peace and security in that region.”

China is North Korea’s closest international ally and its main trade partner.

“It is in China’s interests, it is in the interests of the countries in the region, and we expect them to take steps that are consistent with their obligations and all of our obligations under UN Security Council resolutions,” Ms Rice told reporters.

The United States has not yet stated its position on China’s call for six- nation talks on North Korea to take place in Beijing in the coming days.

South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan had previously been in talks with North Korea seeking to end its nuclear weapons program until the North pulled out of the negotiations in April 2009.

By telegraph.co.uk

Super Hornet fighter attack aircraft is launched off the deck of the U.S. aircraft carrier, USS George Washington during the joint military exercise off South Korea's West Sea Photo: AP

The United States and South Korea began joint war games Sunday as South Koreans demanded vengeance over a deadly North Korean artillery bombardment that has raised fears of more clashes between the bitter rivals.

Meanwhile, the North worked to justify one of the worst attacks on South Korean territory since the 1950-53 Korean War. Four South Koreans, including two civilians, died Tuesday when the North rained artillery on the small Yellow Sea island of Yeonpyeong, which is home to both fishing communities and military bases.

North Korea said civilians were used as a “human shield” around artillery positions and lashed out at what it called a “propaganda campaign” against it.

The North said that Sunday’s planned U.S.-South Korean war games showed that the U.S. was “the arch criminal who deliberately planned the incident and wire-pulled it behind the scene.”

The war games, which involve the USS George Washington supercarrier, display resolve by Washington and Seoul to respond strongly to any future North Korean aggression. However, Washington has insisted the drills are routine and were planned well before last Tuesday’s attack.

The drills kicked off Sunday morning when ships from both countries entered the exercise zone, an official with South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said on condition of anonymity, citing office rules.

David Oten, a spokesman for the U.S. military in South Korea, said U.S. ships were still steaming toward the area and the drills would not officially begin until later in the day.

North Korea on Saturday warned of retaliatory attacks creating a “sea of fire” if its territory is violated.

The South Korean president told top officials “there is a possibility North Korea may take provocative actions during the [joint] exercise,” and urged them to co-ordinate with U.S. forces to counter any such move, according to a spokesman in the president’s office.

By cbc.ca

South Korean ships are shown off the coast of South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island on Sunday as the two countries prepared to begin war games. (David Guttenfelder/Associated Press)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) — With the assistance of the Brazilian Navy, the Rio police are carrying out a mega raid in one of the city’s largest shantytowns, Vila Cruzeiro, to arrest the criminals responsible for the crime wave that has been devastating the city since last weekend.

A total of 350 policemen, as well as 30 marines, are participating in the raid. Four police armored vehicles, nine Navy M113 armored personnel carriers and a helicopter are providing support to the officers. A local TV station managed to film dozens of criminals trying to escape the shantytown through a back entrance.

The crime wave started on Sunday. Since then, at least 55 vehicles, including buses and trucks, were set on fire. The criminals also shot at several police cabins. The attacks left the city in complete chaos, the bus lines stopped circulating and schools and shops were closed in several neighborhoods.

According to the police, the attacks show the despair of the criminals, who have been losing territory with the establishment of permanent police units in several shantytowns in the past year. The criminals want to incite panic in the population, the police stated.

Since Sunday, at least 23 people died in the several police operations in Rio’s shantytowns. At least 176 people were arrested, and over 30 weapons were seized, including rifles and grenades.

By xinhuanet.com

Police from the Special Operations Battalion enter the Vila Cruzeiro slum with M113 war tanks, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Nov. 25, 2010. Police raided gang-ruled slums and said a number of suspected criminals died in gun battles on Wednesday as authorities tried to stop a wave of violence in the Brazilian city. (Xinhua/Agencia Estado)

INCHON, South Korea — As they left behind gutted homes, scorched trees, and rubble-strewn streets, residents of the tiny South Korean island shelled by North Korea told harrowing tales yesterday of fiery destruction and narrow escapes.

Ann Ahe-ja, one of hundreds of exhausted evacuees from Yeonpyeong Island arriving in the port of Inchon on a rescue ship, said Tuesday’s artillery barrage that killed four people — two of them civilians — had caught her by surprise.

“Over my head, a pine tree was broken and burning,’’ Ann told AP Television News. “So I thought, ‘Oh, this is not another exercise. It is a war.’ I decided to run. And I did.’’

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the shelling of the island near the two nations’ disputed maritime border one of the “gravest incidents’’ since the Korean War.

South Korean troops remained on high alert. In Washington, President Obama pledged to “stand shoulder to shoulder’’ with Seoul and called upon China to restrain its ally, North Korea.

The United States has more than 28,000 troops in South Korea to guard against North Korean aggression. The troops are a legacy of the bitter three-year conflict that ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953.

Seoul and Washington reaffirmed plans to hold joint military exercises this week in the Yellow Sea, just 70 miles south of Yeonpyeong. The White House said the aircraft carrier USS George Washington would take part.

The Obama administration urged China to press North Korea to halt provocative action, saying Beijing has a duty to tell Pyongyang that deliberate acts “specifically intended to inflame tensions in the region’’ are not acceptable.

China said late yesterday that it was highly concerned about the artillery exchange and urged restraint.

China “feels pain and regret about an incident causing deaths and property losses and is worried about the developments,’’ Hong Lei, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in a statement.

Diplomats for countries on the UN Security Council said there had been no request for the 15-member council to hold a full, formal meeting about the shelling, but said some informal bilateral talks were being held.

About 10 homes suffered direct hits and 30 were destroyed in the midafternoon barrage, according to a local official who spoke by telephone from the island just seven miles from the North Korean shore. About 1,700 civilians live on Yeonpyeong alongside South Korean troops stationed there.

“I heard the sound of artillery, and I felt that something was flying over my head,’’ said Lim Jung-eun, 36, who fled the island with three children, including a 9-month-old strapped to her back. “Then the mountain caught on fire.’’

Many evacuees had spent the night in underground shelters and embraced tearful family members on arrival in Inchon.

The shower of artillery from North Korea was the first to strike a civilian population. In addition to the two marines killed, the bodies of two men, believed in their 60s, were pulled from a destroyed construction site, the coast guard said. At least 18 people — most of them troops — were injured.

The skirmish began after North Korea warned the South to stop carrying out military drills near their sea border, South Korean officials said.

When Seoul refused and fired artillery into disputed waters — away from the North Korean shore — the North retaliated by shelling Yeonpyeong.

Seoul responded by unleashing its own barrage of howitzers and scrambling its fighter jets.

North Korea, laying out its version of events, said the army warned the South several times that firing “a single shell’’ in its waters would draw a “prompt retaliatory strike.’’

In Pyongyang, residents boasted that the exchange showed off their military’s strength and ability to counter South Korean aggression.

By boston.com

Survivors of the artillery exchange arrived yesterday at the port in Inchon, South Korea, from Yeonpyeong Island. (Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

U.S. President Barack Obama met Tuesday with his top advisers about the situation on the Korean peninsula, in the wake of North Korea’s artillery attack on a South Korean island. Obama is expected to telephone South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to reiterate U.S. support for South Korea.

Immediately upon his return to the White House from a brief trip to the Midwestern state of Indiana, the president went into a meeting  of his national security team.

According to a White House statement, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, and Secretaries of State and Defense Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates were among those taking part.

Also participating in person or via video link were the chairman of the U.S. military Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen and the commander of U.S. forces in Korea, General Walter Sharp as well as Admiral Robert Willard, Commander of U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice.

The White House statement says Obama reiterated the unshakeable support of the United States for the Republic of Korea, and that he discussed ways to advance peace and security on the Korean peninsula.

Briefing reporters earlier in the day, Deputy White House Press Secretary Bill Burton described Mr. Obama has being “outraged” by North Korean actions on Tuesday, adding that the United States “stands shoulder to shoulder” with South Korea and that it is fully committed to South Korea’s defense.

It is unknown what contacts President Obama has made or plans to make with other world leaders. Asked whether the president would call China’s President Hu Jintao, White House Burton said only that Obama would do what is appropriate.

U.S. envoy for North Korea Stephen Bosworth was in Beijing, consulting South Korean, Japanese and Chinese officials, and is expected to meet with the president. The key focus of Bosworth’s talks in the region was Pyongyang’s recent revelation of an apparent uranium enrichment plant.

Bosworth called the North Korean artillery attack that killed two South Korean marines and wounded 18 people, three of them civilians, “aggression.”

The U.S. State Department on Tuesday called the attack an “unprovoked military assault,” and said the Obama administration is planning a “measured and unified” response, working with China and other nations in the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program.

By voanews.com

As prospects dim for a major agreement on capping pollution worldwide, deforestation, renewable energy and other smaller steps that target global warming will take center stage at a United Nations meeting next week, observers predict.

Beginning Monday in Cancun, Mexico, the 12-day United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will pick up where last year’s Copenhagen meeting left off: a global community seeking the fairest way to deal with a warming world.

“I would not look for any major agreement,” says energy expert Reid Detchon of the United Nations Foundation, which supports U.N. causes. “I would look toward small agreements for progress being made.”

At last year’s Copenhagen meeting, world leaders did not come up with a successor treaty to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The protocol committed 37 industrial nations and the European Union — excluding the U.S. — to lowered greenhouse gas emissions, and measures designed to help limit global surface temperature warming to less than a 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit increase over pre-industrial levels. In the last century, these temperatures have risen about 1.3 degrees, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A non-binding Copenhagen “Accord,” which would continue the Kyoto effort, brokered by President Obama, has since picked up pledges from 138 countries to cut emissions, including a 17% U.S. cut by 2020.

“Cancun is going to answer the question of whether that agreement was progress or the beginning of the end,” says Jonathan Lash of the World Resources Institute (WRI), an environmental think tank in Washington, D.C. Along with seeing whether the Copenhagen Accord can be made part of the successor agreement to Kyoto, Lash and others are looking to forge agreements on:

• Deforestation — An agreement on financing and monitoring measures would preserve forests. Timber losses contribute to carbon dioxide releases to the atmosphere, causing perhaps 12% to 17% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to WRI.

• Clean energy — Steps toward agreement on “technology transfer” of more-efficient energy production methods to poor nations, which would keep patents protected was one outcome of a recent Major Economies Forum meeting in Washington.

• Money — Developed nations pledged $30 billion from 2010 to 2012 to help poor ones pay for cleaner energy and prevention of deforestation, as well as infrastructure to adapt to inevitable climate changes.

Todd Stern, the Obama administration’s special envoy on climate change, said in October at a University of Michigan speech that “many countries are arguing that we should capture the so-called ‘low-hanging fruit’ — the ‘easier’ issues on which there is less discord.”

But Stern said that just signing those agreements without addressing emissions cuts and ways for verification “is a non-starter for the United States.”

In particular, Stern charged that “Chinese negotiators have acted almost as though the (Copenhagen) Accord never happened,” in backing away from its commitments. China’s representatives complained that Western nations have for decades avoided commitments made in 1992 to limit emissions.

Hanging over the meeting is the question of whether an upcoming congressional fight over Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, required by a 2007 Supreme Court decision, will hinder the Obama administration from delivering on its 17% cut goal.

By usatoday.com

A worker plants oil palm seed in Sumatra, Indonesia. The palm oil business is causing deforestation.

Donated liver salvaged from plane crash, successfully transplanted at English hospital

Rescuers saved a donated liver from a fiery plane crash in central England and rushed it to a nearby hospital, where it was successfully transplanted, officials said Saturday.

The private jet carrying the organ clipped an antenna as it was landing at Birmingham Airport in thick fog on Friday afternoon and caught fire as it hit the ground.

Two crew members were injured, but rescuers managed to put out the fire and take the organ to Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital on a police motorbike.

The liver was undamaged and was successfully implanted in a patient during a four-hour operation, the hospital said in a statement. The hospital praised the rescuers for their quick thinking.

The patient was now stable, but the hospital declined to release any further details, citing medical confidentiality.

The crash forced Birmingham Airport to close, disrupting 80 other flights, as investigators examined the site of the crash. The airport has since reopened.

Investigators are looking into the cause of the crash.

By abcnews.go.com

In this photo made available by the West Midlands Fire Service, a rescue vehicle at the site of a plane that crashed, at Birmingham Airport, Birmingham, England, Friday, Nov. 19 , 2010. A plane carrying a donated liver crashed at an airport in England, but the organ was rushed to a hospital and implanted in a patient, officials said Saturday. The Cessna carrying the organ clipped an antenna as it was landing at Birmingham Airport in thick fog on Friday afternoon, catching fire as it hit the ground. The hospital said that liver, which was undamaged in the accident, was successfully implanted in a patient during a four-hour operation. The hospital released a statement praising the rescuers for their quick thinking. (AP Photo/West Midland Fire Service, ho)

The pilot of an Air India flight that crashed in May, killing 158 passengers, slept through more than half the flight and woke up disoriented when it was time to land the aircraft, an investigative panel has concluded.

The Court of Inquiry appointed by the Indian government to investigate the May 22 crash concluded that flight Commander Zlatko Glusica was disoriented and his reactions were slow while bringing the aircraft in for a landing at Mangalore airport, Hindustan Times newspaper reported.

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, confirmed that the newspaper report was accurate, but said the report would be made public only after it was presented to the Indian Parliament.

The Air India Express flight from Dubai to Mangalore in southern India overshot a hilltop runway, crashed and plunged over a cliff, killing 158 people instantly. Eight people survived the crash.

The panel examined information contained in the digital flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder of the aircraft, which were found at the crash site.

The panel said that Glusica reacted late and did not follow many standard operating procedures during the landing.

Glusica was suffering from “sleep inertia” after his nap and was “disoriented” when the plane began its descent at Mangalore airport.

The data recorders caught the sound of heavy nasal snoring and breathing, Hindustan Times said.

The co-pilot, HS Ahluwalia, is heard repeatedly warning Glusica to abort the landing and try the procedure again. The last words captured by the recorders as the plane crashed were those of one of the pilots saying, “Oh my God.”

Glusica, a native of Serbia, had more than 10,200 hours of flying experience, while Ahluwalia had clocked in 3,650 hours.

By telegraph.co.uk

The Air India Express flight from Dubai to Mangalore in southern India overshot a hilltop runway, crashed and plunged over a cliff, killing 158 people instantly

Euro zone finance ministers agreed on Tuesday to lay the groundwork for bailing out Ireland’s banking sector with the IMF, but said Dublin had to decide itself whether to request the aid.

Before the ministers announced their decision in Brussels, Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen resisted pressure to request a bailout — even though the nation’s banking and budget crisis risks spreading to other weak euro zone economies and could endanger the stability of the wider currency bloc.

Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker said the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund would hold talks with Ireland, whose large budget deficit is largely due to the cost of rescuing its banks.

Juncker, who chaired Tuesday’s talks, vowed to protect the stability of the 16-nation currency zone if necessary.

“The discussions that will take place between Ireland and the Commission and the ECB and the IMF will enable us to have at our disposal all the elements and instruments we need were Ireland to make a request for assistance to the EU, the IMF and the Eurogroup,” he told a news conference.

“We confirm that we will take action as the Eurogroup … in a determined and coordinated manner to safeguard the financial stability of the euro area if that is needed,” said Juncker.

He said the means were available to help Dublin “were Ireland to make a request for assistance to the EU, the IMF and the Eurogroup.”

The IMF said Irish authorities requested it take part in the talks.

“An IMF team will participate in a short and focused consultation, together with the European Commission and the ECB, to determine the best way to provide any necessary support to address market risks,” the IMF said in a statement.

Cowen said in Dublin the Irish government was fully funded until mid-2011, and that only its banks may need help.

He also acknowledged the government was no closer to publishing a four-year plan for tackling the budget deficit despite its financial crisis.

“I said before that I had hoped it (the plan) would be available for publication, assuming approval, … next week but I can’t anticipate the outcome of discussions in relation to it. We are working to an indicative schedule,” Cowen said.

Irish banks have grown increasingly reliant on funding from the European Central Bank, as other commercial banks have been reluctant to lend to them following the financial crisis in fellow euro zone member Greece.

Bank of Ireland, the country’s largest lender, signaled last week it had suffered a 10 billion euro outflow of deposits from early August until the end of September.

Allied Irish Banks, which will be more than 90 percent owned by the state following a rights issue later this year, will issue a trading statement later this week with details about its funding situation.

By reuters.com

A sign hangs on the railings of the Bank Of Ireland, in central Dublin, November 15, 2010.