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Gaza Flotilla Crisis Fuels Blockade Controversy for Israel

2010-06-05T17:50:00.000+07:00

Tel Aviv — The botched Israeli interception of a Gaza-bound blockade-buster flotilla ignited the usual Monday-morning quarterbacking in Israel:

Had the military prepared itself sufficiently for violent resistance?

Did Israel lose the media war in the first hours when official spokespeople were silent for hours despite reports of fatalities on the ships?

But it also fostered renewed public discussion about the broader issue of whether the Gaza blockade has become a burden for the Jewish state instead of a lever to pressure the Hamas government, as it was first conceived three years ago.

“The real issue is the siege on Gaza,” said Gershon Baskin, the co-director of the Israel Palestine Center for Public Information, who said that until now there hasn’t been much discussion of the issue.

To be sure, most of the proponents of rethinking the Gaza blockade come from a more dovish security and political background. Eitan Haber, a former top aide to Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, said that Israel needs to rethink whether intercepting aid ships is worth the price of triggering an international crisis. He suggested that, if there are future attempt to break the Gaza blockade by sea, the flotillas should be allowed to pass.

“We fell into a trap,” Haber said. “We knew what would happen. I know the argument that we shouldn’t blink. But you need some brains,” he said in an interview with Israel Radio. “If we knew this was going to be a provocation, then we should have found a different way.”

Questioning the value of the blockade, Haber pointed out that the notion of an Israeli siege on Gaza is “nonsense” because Gazans have ample supplies of food.

Other experts on Israel’s center-left are arguing that the blockade — enforced by land, sea and air on Gaza — has failed on several counts. It hasn’t forced the Palestinians to free kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and it hasn’t undermined Hamas. And Israel’s closure on commercial goods passing through its land crossings into Gaza has spurred an underground economy through the tunnels, an improvised trade route controlled by Hamas, which uses it to collect fees.

Instead of undercutting the Hamas leadership, the blockade is stifling the Palestinian middle and working classes, the future of Gaza and a potential counterbalance to Hamas, they argue.

Leaders of the major American pro-Israel groups quickly rushed to Israel’s defense, arguing that the deadly violence was the sole responsibility of flotilla activists who were seeking confrontation from the outset.

But beneath the mostly unbroken wall of defense were hints of concern about the strategy and implementation of the attack and more explicit worries about some of its consequences.

The “tragedy has given Hamas at least a short-term political boost while undercutting the sea blockade of Gaza, fitting well with the agenda of the flotilla’s organizers, Turkey’s Humanitarian Relief Fund,” wrote Matthew Levitt, David Makovsky and Jeffrey White in a policy paper for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israel think tank.

In addition, “the episode has severely damaged ties between Turkey and Israel for the foreseeable future,” the authors noted.

On the upside, they added that “the incident — to the extent that the details are known — has shown that U.S.-Israel relations have proven resilient in the face of the first major international incident since the two parties worked to mend relations following the Jerusalem building-permit crisis in March.”

That has been evident in the cautious, relatively mild statements from Obama administration officials — despite strong international pressure for a stern U.S. response.

Kean University political scientist Gilbert Kahn predicted the flotilla fiasco will add to pressure on the Obama administration to look for diplomatic openings to Hamas and to press harder for an easing of the Gaza blockade — but said “Israel cannot lift the blockade by itself; it needs a quid pro quo.”

And that quid pro quo, he said, is Shalit.

“If Hamas and Fatah can bridge the gap between them — which is huge — and then evolve a more unified approach, it will force both the United States and the Quartet to reassess how they address the Palestinians,” Kahn said. “And it will pressure Israel to open up a different kind of dialogue with them.”

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, agreed that the incident “will help Hamas and their supporters open up the issue of the Gaza blockade; it will put a lot of pressure on the Israeli government.”

But Foxman said the government in Jerusalem cannot relent on the blockade without winning the release of Shalit, whose kidnapping and imprisonment are key justifications for the blockade.

While leaders of mainstream Jewish groups are conspicuously refraining from criticizing the Israeli attack, Foxman, speaking from Israel, said that “everybody here is second-guessing whether it could have been done better. Israelis are engaging in a necessary postmortem because they have to develop a strategy for dealing with future situations; this one certainly didn’t work. And it will happen again.”

On Tuesday, the Zionist Organization of America condemned “the media and foreign government attacks [of Israel] including from China, France, Germany, Italy and Turkey.” The group also called for an investigation of Turkey, “the country in which the organization assisting Islamic terrorists and responsible for the flotilla is based.”

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J Street and Americans for Peace Now, not surprisingly, took a different tack, criticizing the Israeli action and putting the blame squarely on the blockade itself.

“This shocking outcome of an effort to bring humanitarian relief to the people of Gaza is in part a consequence of the ongoing, counterproductive Israeli blockade of Gaza,” said J Street President and Founder Jeremy Ben-Ami in a statement. “J Street has been and continues to be opposed to the blockade — believing that there are better ways to ensure Israel’s security and to prevent weapons smuggling than a complete closure of the Gaza Strip.”

Debra DeLee, the APN CEO, said, “The fact that Israel finds itself in this difficult situation today underscores the extent to which Israel’s continued policy of blockading Gaza in untenable and increasingly indefensible.” (See her Opinion point-counterpoint with JINSA’s Shoshana Bryen on page 22.)

But David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, while agreeing that the crisis will “reopen the whole issue of the Gaza blockade,” put the blame for the incident solely on the Gaza protesters and their supporters.

On the one ship that offered violent resistance, he said, “what we saw was not an example of Mohandas Gandhi at work.”

Peter Beinart, who last week launched a frontal assault in The New York Review of Books on the American Jewish leadership for what he sees as its blind support for Israeli policies, found in the flotilla incident additional proof for his thesis.

Writing in the Daily Beast, he said, “the guilt lies with the Israeli leaders who oversee the Gaza embargo, and with Israel’s American supporters, who have averted their eyes.”

Mainstream pro-Israel leaders who this week defended the decision to intercept the flotilla and detain its passengers are colluding in an Israel effort to “impoverish the people of Gaza, and thus turn them against Hamas,” he said — in other words, to impose collective punishment on Gaza.

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In Israel, debate about the effectiveness and international consequences of the blockade took a quantum leap with this week’s dramatic incident in the Mediterranean.

Despite the blockade’s goal of stifling military supply to the Hamas government, it has not stopped Hamas from re-arming with missiles smuggled through the tunnels or been an effective lever to force the Palestinians to free Shalit.

“It has hardened Palestinian positions on doing a prisoner swap deal with Israel,” said IPCPI’s Baskin. “For most the last siege, it has empowered and enriched Hamas by creating an underground economy. It weakens the average Gazan, the working class, who are our future friends and allies for peace. They are the ones being punished, not Hamas.”

The blockade has been enforced with the help of Egypt and the quiet consent of the international “Quartet” of peace process sponsors — the U.S., the United Nations, Russia and the European Union.

On Tuesday, Egypt said it would open the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Sinai for humanitarian purposes, a show of solidarity with Gaza and a response to the growing sympathy throughout the Middle East for Palestinians in Gaza.

Still, it was unclear whether Egypt would reverse its three-year policy of keeping the crossing closed to the general public — a move that would amount to punching a big hole through the blockade.

Recently, Egypt has been building an underground metal partition to shut down some of the smuggling tunnels.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the naval blockade at a meeting of cabinet ministers Tuesday, saying that the blockade keeps out weaponry shipped to Gaza from Iran and Hezbollah that would endanger the region.

“It’s true that there is international pressure and criticism regarding this policy, but we must understand that it is essential to maintaining Israeli security and the right of the state of Israel to defend itself,” he said in a press release.

The quiet tolerance of the blockade has slowly eroded in recent months among United Nations and European Union officials, who see it at best as ineffective — and at worst as collective punishment of the civilian population of Gaza. The ill-fated flotilla mission has “opened up the floodgates” of diplomatic criticism, said one Western diplomat based in the region.

Israel has come under mounting pressure from Great Britain and Ireland to end the naval blockade in the wake of the flotilla incident. Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen urged Israel to allow an Irish-owned ship carrying more blockade busters to reach Gaza.

But Israeli officials firmly reject such pleas.

“It would be unfortunate if there will be a call now to change policies on Gaza, because the blockade is still necessary to prevent Hamas from killing and destabilizing the situation in the area, and also derailing dialogue for peace,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon.

“Especially at a time when Hamas is sliding in popularity, the calls embolden Hamas and destabilize the situation.”

Israeli human rights critics say that the blockade on Gaza amounts to a form of collective punishment on a civilian population, which is illegal under international law.

“For the last three years Israel has restricted the flow of goods in and out of Gaza, not to prevent security threats, but rather to cripple Gaza’s economy in order to pressure the civilian population,” said Sari Bashi, the director of Gisha, a nonprofit that does legal work on behalf of the rights of Palestinians to travel freely.

“Banned items include coriander, raw materials for manufacturing, and building materials. Punishing civilians for the acts of militants or political actors is illegal under international law and has done nothing to advance Israel’s stated goal of weakening the Hamas regime,” she said.

Joshua Mitnick is Israel correspondent. James D. Besser is Washington correspondent.

Scores Feared Dead in Plane Crash in Southern India

2010-05-22T20:11:00.000+07:00

NEW DELHI — An Air India flight from Dubai carrying 166 people crashed into a heavily wooded valley moments after landing at an airport in southern India on Saturday morning, killing almost everyone on board.
The plane overshot the hilltop runway where it was landing in one of India’s trickiest airports, in the city of Mangalore, which sits in the Western Ghats, or hills, on India’s southwestern coast.

Aviation officials said that the pilot of the Boeing 737 missed the landing threshold, a critical portion of the runway at airports where runways are shorter because of hilly terrain, by as much as 2,000 feet. The plane veered off the runway and struck a concrete navigational aid called a localizer, according to Praful Patel, India’s aviation minister.

“The wing fell of and the aircraft plunged into the valley,” Mr. Patel told reporters at a news conference.

Seven people survived the crash, according to the financially troubled airline, which is owned and operated by the Indian government.

“As soon as we landed, the tire burst,” one of the survivors told a local television crew from his hospital bed. “Within three seconds there was a fire blast. The inside was filled with smoke.”

He said he escaped through a crack in the fuselage.

Aviation officials said that the weather was clear, with six kilometers of visibility, and no rain. The plane’s pilot had landed the same aircraft on the Mangalore runway 19 times before. And while the runway is shorter than others in major Indian airports, it was more than adequate for landing a Boeing 737, aviation safety experts said.

The flight is popular with migrants from southern India, millions of whom work as laborers in construction sites in the Persian Gulf.

Rescue workers scrambled over the smoldering crash site, looking for more survivors among the charred remains, but there was little hope of finding anyone else alive.

The crash, at an airport with a short runway built on a plateau and surrounded by cliffs, is likely to renew debate about safety standards in India’s rapidly expanding aviation sector. Some Indian aviation safety experts have expressed increasing concern in the last couple of years about the country’s airlines, airports and regulations. Last year, there were three near-miss collisions between planes at the airport in Mumbai, the country’s commercial capital.

Air India, in particular, has been in the news for a number of embarrassing incidents, including a midair scuffle between pilots and flight attendants during which the plane was reportedly unmanned for a few minutes. In September, an Air India flight to Toronto was delayed 11 hours while staff searched for rats that had climbed aboard the plane.

As investigators rushed to the smoldering wreckage, experts said the unusual configuration of the runway made landing there complicated.

Kapil Kaul, the chief executive of India and the Middle East at the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation, a research group, said pilot error was a likely cause. The pilot had 7,500 hours of flying experience, 3,500 of which were on this type of plane, Mr. Kaul said. But he may have missed the landing threshold, which is the very first part of a runway usable for landing, he said. That kind of error doesn’t always result in a crash, but did at the Mangalore Airport because it is on a plateau.

The plane, a Boeing 737-800, was relatively new, having made its first flight in December 2007, according to the Aviation Safety Network.

The 737-800 has been involved in five fatal accidents since entering service in 1998. The most recent was in January, an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Addis Ababa that crashed into the Mediterranean Sea in stormy weather shortly after takeoff from Beirut, killing 90 people. The cause of that accident remains under investigation.

In February 2009, nine people died when a Boeing 737-800 operated by Turkish Airlines crashed on approach near Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. Dutch investigators identified a faulty altimeter, which caused the plane to slow down too abruptly and stall at an altitude of around 2,000 feet.

Sanat Kaul, a former aviation ministry official and a former member of Air India’s board of directors, said the runway at Mangalore airport sits on a plateau and was extended to 8,000 feet, from 5,500 feet in 2006 to better accommodate bigger planes like the 737.

“Mangalore is a difficult field because it is on a plateau,” he said. “From all accounts the visibility was all right. One can’t make any conclusions. The runway was extended to 8,000 feet in 2006. That is all right for landing” a 737.

The airline said 160 passengers were on board, four of them infants, along with six crewmembers.

Air India, which is owned and run by the Indian government, has been struggling since a 2007 merger with another state carrier, and lost $1.2 billion in the last fiscal year. Competition from new private airlines like Kingfisher and Jet Airways is luring away customers, and the company is focusing on cutting costs by trimming staff and routes.

Many safety consultants blame the government for weak policies and spotty enforcement.

“Aviation safety is a potent subject in America while it is an impotent one in India,” A. Ranganathan, a former pilot and safety consultant, wrote in The Hindu newspaper late last year. “We are impotent because we have an ineffective hierarchy — ministry, legislators and regulator — controlling aviation.”

If most of the passengers have been killed, as is feared, this would be the worst airline disaster in India since 1996, when an Air Kazakhstan flight collided with a Saudi Arabia Airlines flight in midair above Delhi airport, killing 312 people.

The last major airline accident in India was in 2000, when an Alliance Air Boeing 737 plane crashed into a neighborhood while trying to land at an airport in Patna, killing about 60 people.

Damage assessments begin in Carter, Johnston counties after tornadoes

2010-05-13T07:56:00.000+07:00

CARTER COUNTY, OK - Two days after severe storms ripped across Oklahoma, residents and emergency management officials continue to survey the damage caused by tornadoes.

Governor Brad Henry declared a state of emergency in 56 counties across the state Tuesday, the first step in seeking federal assistance for the affected areas.

Emergency Management officials say the counties will now have to wait for a Presidential declaration before federal assistance will become available.

Carter County Emergency officials toured damaged homes in both Lone Grove and Healdton on Wednesday where an EF-3 tornado took out four mobile homes and one foundation home.

Officials in Johnston County say the tornado that heavily damaged the U-Cross Arena and 10 other homes in Coleman is estimated to have caused close to $3 million in damages.

Volcanic ash cloud disrupts flights

2010-05-09T21:09:00.000+07:00

Ash spewing from an Icelandic volcano prompted flight cancellations in parts of Europe again on Sunday.

Eurocontrol, the agency that manages European air travel, expects 24,500 flights on Sunday -- about 500 below average for a Sunday at this time of year.

The agency said that ash eruptions were affecting air space, particularly between the ground and 20,000 feet.

Officials in Italy closed airports in Milan, Pisa and Florence at least until afternoon.

In Spain, the Santiago de Compostela, Vigo and La Coruna airports were also expected to remain closed until Sunday morning.

Six Scottish airports have also been closed.

The ash cloud also disrupted flights to and from Switzerland, southern and central France, and northern Portugal, authorities said.

Authorities hope that the area affected by the ash cloud will shrink during the day and the closed airports will reopen.

While the ash has also affected trans-Atlantic flights, most airlines are rerouting to avoid the area. This is leading to some delays, but significant cancellations have not occurred, Eurocontrol said.

On Saturday, there were 22,424 flights -- about 200 below normal traffic levels.

Volcanic ash can be a serious hazard to aircraft, reducing visibility, damaging flight controls and ultimately causing jet engines to fail.

The problems began in mid-April, when the volcano beneath the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in southern Iceland erupted and sent a cloud of ash into the atmosphere, closing most of Europe's airspace for six days.

The shutdown snarled global air travel and stranded tens of thousands of passengers around the world.

Robert Downey Jr. Says His Own Father Looms Over 'Iron Man 2' Character

2010-05-01T15:12:00.000+07:00

It is no accident one of the world's biggest movie stars, Robert Downey Jr., maintains that notation after his name. The "Iron Man" star is, of course his father's namesake. But fans may not know that the "Sr." Downey is a noted indie filmmaker. Once filming began on "Iron Man 2," the iconic director, Downey Jr. said, was never far from his mind.

"Well, sure, any time your dad is revered," the 45-year-old actor told MTV News. "I mean, I grew up with people saying, 'Hey, that's Bob Downey's kid' — and understandably so."

The actor's father has a backstory worthy of the big screen: He served in the Army, played minor-league baseball (striking out Yogi Berra in a game), held the title of Golden Gloves boxing champion and was working as an off-Broadway playwright by age 22. In the 1960s, he made a name for himself writing and directing experimental films like "Balls Bluff" and "No More Excuses," but it was the brilliant 1969 advertising spoof "Putney Swope" (Robert Jr. was 4) that really put him on the map. Thirty years later, he would direct his son in "Hugo Pool," his last wide-release film.

"He was a great innovator and a heck of a filmmaker," Downey said of his dad, now 73.

In the "Iron Man" follow-up, Downey's Tony Stark is similarly grappling with the memory of his father, a respected weapons manufacturer who left his son with vast wealth, power and lots of unanswered questions. "In Tony's case, it's really this massive looming shadow of his dad's posthumous perfection," Downey said of the plot. "That's a tough thing for him to live up to.

"The big idea, the theme, was legacy — a double legacy," he continued. "There's the legacy that he is fondly attempting to continue, and there's the legacy that is attempting to be subverted by some old foes. And then there's the legacy that he has no idea about, which, of course, the Marvel universe provides."

Mississippi tornado kills 10

2010-04-25T19:27:00.000+07:00

YAZOO CITY, Miss. -- Rescuers combed neighborhoods of splintered homes in Mississippi, ferrying the injured on all-terrain vehicles where roads were impassable after a devastating tornado sliced through the state and killed at least 10 people, including three children.
The high winds on Saturday tore roofs off buildings in hard-hit Yazoo County, where Gov. Haley Barbour grew up. He described "utter obliteration" among the picturesque hills rising from the flat Mississippi Delta. Heavy thunderstorms also swept across north Alabama, Georgia and other states early Sunday, downing trees and unleashing scattered hail.

Meteorologists said it was too soon to tell whether a single long-lasting tornado -- or multiple shorter ones -- caused the arc of death and damage in far-flung Mississippi communities.

Yazoo County's coroner, Ricky Shivers, attended to the dead after his own truck was picked up by the winds and flipped over, leaving him with cuts and bruises. Yet even as authorities did their difficult work in more than a dozen counties, some residents told stories of unlikely survival amid the destruction.

"The roof was caving in, TVs flying off the shelves and it was horrible," said Mitchell Saxton, the owner of Ribeye's Steak House in Yazoo City.

Those with him in the restaurant ran into a walk-in freezer to safety when they saw the tornado. Saxton's restaurant was destroyed but no one was hurt there.

"We got in the walk-in freezer, sat in there for about 10 minutes," Saxton said. "When I came out it was really bad. Just thanking the good Lord I'm here and able to talk with you all."

Tornadoes were also reported in Louisiana, Arkansas and Alabama, and the severe weather continued to track northeastward early Sunday as gusty winds also downed trees crossing northwest Georgia.

In Yazoo City, Malcolm Gordon, 63, stood with family members peering out at the neighborhood through a broken window.

Above them, the roof was gone, a tree lay across part of the house and power lines stretched across the yard. The smell of shredded pine trees hung in the warm breeze amid modest houses and mobile homes.

Gordon and his wife, Diane, hid in a closet while much of the neighborhood was blown away.

"I'll just bulldoze what's left and start over," he said.

Essie Hendrix, manager of Peebles department store in Yazoo City, said she and other employees were inside with about 15 customers when the tornado struck. An assistant manager took the customers to the back of the store, and Hendrix saw the tornado barreling through the parking lot.

"It was like a rumbling and a roaring and stuff was falling," Hendrix said. "It sounded like it was going to suck us out of there. It lasted about two minutes, but it felt like it lasted an hour."

No one in the store was injured, about 100 yards away from the steakhouse that was destroyed.

The severe weather began in Louisiana, just across the state line from Mississippi when a tornado destroyed 12 homes and warehouses at Complex Chemical Co., which makes antifreeze and other automotive fluids, owner Jerry Melton said.

The storm system moved east, with the twister hitting nearby Yazoo County, Miss., killing four people. In adjacent Holmes County, another person was killed. A little farther northeast, a tornado hit Choctaw County, where another five victims were reported, including children ages 3 months, 9 and 14.

Authorities in Choctow County were going house-to-house in the areas with the worst damage to check for any injured.

In Yazoo City, stunned residents stood on a hill overlooking the destruction. A National Guard helicopter sat nearby, and later took the governor on an aerial tour.

"Sad, man," said 22-year-old Rafael Scott, shaking his head. "It's really hard to believe."

Three broken crosses stood near a flattened church. A nearby funeral home was reduced to rubble. In a patch of woods, pieces of tin were twisted high up in the broken trees.

Thousands across the state were without electricity, and downed power lines and trees blocked roads. At least four people had been brought by four-wheeler to a triage center at an old discount store parking lot, Yazoo City Mayor McArthur Straughter said as sirens whined in the background.

Jim Pollard, a spokesman for American Medical Response ambulance service, said four patients from Yazoo County were airlifted and some 20 others were taken to hospitals. At least four people were in critical condition.

Volcanic pall over Europe shows no signs of disappearing

2010-04-18T14:06:00.000+07:00

Reporting from London

The miasma of volcanic ash hovering over Europe showed no sign of dissipating Saturday, keeping thousands of forlorn travelers stranded across the continent for a third day and worsening economic losses.

The cloud of grit from the still-erupting Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland began creeping as far south as Italy, forcing authorities to shut down airports in the northern part of that country.

Travelers anchored to Earth continued their scramble for hotels, or for trains, ferries and even taxis to reach their destinations. In Copenhagen, an enterprising cab company posted fares for long hauls across the continent: about $2,000 for passengers going to Amsterdam, $6,000 all the way to Madrid.

Most of British airspace remained closed, with planes grounded until 1 p.m. Sunday at the earliest despite a brief window of opportunity for a few flights Saturday afternoon from airports in Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England. By Saturday evening, the volcanic pall covered the whole country once again.

In Germany and northern France, including Paris, authorities canceled all flights until early Sunday. Irish, Belgian, Dutch, Austrian and Swiss airspace was restricted. Most major airports throughout Scandinavia were idled, including Arlanda, Stockholm's largest, which warned on its website: "The forecast is now even more uncertain than before."

With the pileup of marooned passengers growing by the hour, and with U.S. airlines canceling more than 80% of their flights to Europe on Saturday, analysts say that clearing out the backlog and getting the system back to normal could take days once the ash cloud dissipates.

And no one was predicting when that would happen.

"It's still erupting," Armann Hoskuldsson, a scientist at the University of Iceland, said of the volcano.

"It's more or less constant."

As winds blew the volcanic debris farther south and east, previously unaffected countries in central and eastern Europe, stretching as far as Ukraine, also began reporting a halt to air traffic.

The disruptions threw into further doubt the plans of many world leaders to attend Sunday's state funeral for Polish President Lech Kaczynski in Krakow. On Saturday, President Obama canceled his plans to pay his respects to the leader, who was killed in a plane crash a week ago.

"I spoke with acting President [Bronislaw]Komorowski, and told him that I regret that I will not be able to make it to Poland due to the volcanic ash that is disrupting air travel over Europe," Obama said in a statement issued by the White House.

Other guests, including high-level delegations from Spain and South Korea, had already sent their regrets.

Trade and tourism losses mounted for a region already struggling to get out from under the thumb of the global recession.

Perishable foodstuffs marked for export sat untouched in warehouses, while roses and other fresh flowers from as far away as Africa and Asia were in danger of wilting and dying before reaching European markets.

Here in Britain, there were reports of shortages of a few items on supermarket shelves, including certain fruits. The country imports much of its fruits and vegetables, the bulk of which arrives by sea but a portion of which is flown in.

The airline industry alone stands to lose more than $200 million a day, the International Air Transport Assn. said. The Europe-wide aviation agency Eurocontrol said it expected only 5,000 flights across European airspace Saturday, compared with 22,000 normally.

The volcano's eruptions were "fairly stable" Saturday, in contrast to its irregular activity Friday, scientist Hoskuldsson said. Ash and tiny particles of glass were being spewed up to three miles in the air.

A team of volcanologists from the University of Iceland had hoped to fly over Eyjafjallajokull on Saturday to glean more information on how much longer the volcano might continue ejecting ash, but the expedition had to be called off, the Associated Press reported.

In Britain, balmy blue skies over much of the country gave no hint of the layer of grit high in the atmosphere. But some residents as far south as the county of Buckinghamshire, just north of London, woke to find a fine gray coating of ash on their windows.

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2010-04-16T20:03:00.001+07:00

Earthquake Kills Dozens in Northwest China

2010-04-14T13:08:00.000+07:00

BEIJING — A powerful earthquake in northwest China killed at least 67 people and left many others buried under debris early Wednesday, the state said.

The quake, which struck at 7:49 a.m. in Qinghai Province, was reported as having a magnitude of 7.1 by China’s earthquake administration. The United States Geological Survey recorded it as 6.9.

According to Xinhua, the earthquake struck 240 miles southeast of Golmud, a town of about 130,000 on the Tibetan plateau. Golmud is perhaps best known as the site of the world’s largest salt lake.

The China Earthquake Networks Center said epicenter had been in Yushu County, an area sparsely populated with farmers and herders, mostly ethnic Tibetans.

China National Radio said that 90 percent of the homes in the area had collapsed but that schools and government buildings had largely remained standing.

Karsum Nyima, an employee of a local television station in Yushu, told the national broadcaster, CCTV, that the early morning quake had sent people running into the streets.

“All of a sudden, the houses collapsed,” he said. “It was a terrible earthquake. In the park, a Buddhist pagoda fell off. Everyone is in the street in front of their houses. They are trying to find family members.”

In the same broadcast, Wu Yong, an officer with the Chinese army, said that the road to the airport was impassable and that soldiers were digging out people from collapsed homes by hand. “The most important thing now is that this place is far from everything, with few accessible rescue troops available,” said. “I feel like the number of dead and injured will keep going up.”

State news media reported that 3,000 troops would be sent to the area to assist in rescue efforts.

Last August, Golmud was hit by a 6.2 magnitude earthquake that destroyed dozens of homes but caused no deaths. Qinghai is an ethnic melting pot of Tibetans, Mongols and Han Chinese. It is adjacent to Sichuan Province, where 87,000 people died in a powerful earthquake in 2008.

Cyclist killed in Washington during nuclear summit

2010-04-13T10:49:00.001+07:00

A bicyclist was killed in downtown Washington on Monday after a crash with a police car along the motorcade route used by world leaders attending a two-day nuclear summit, officials said.

The bicyclist collided with a National Guard vehicle that was assigned to the motorcade route about halfway between the White House and the convention center where the summit is taking place.

"As a result of this collision, the bicyclist received fatal injuries," the summit's Joint Information Center said in a brief statement.

It said the accident was under investigation. A spokesman could not give further details on whether the bicycle hit the car or if the vehicle ran into the cyclist.

7.7 quake strikes off Indonesia's Sumatra island

2010-04-07T09:05:00.002+07:00

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A 7.7 earthquake shook Indonesia's northwest island of Sumatra early Wednesday, prompting a brief tsunami warning and sending residents rushing for higher ground. There were no immediate reports of widespread damage.

The quake struck at 5:15 a.m. (2215 GMT) and was centered 125 miles (205 kilometers) northwest of Sibolga in Sumatra at a depth of 28.6 miles (46 kilometers), the U.S. Geological Survey said. It had earlier said the quake measured 7.8.

The Indonesia Meteorology and Geophysics Agency and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu issued tsunami warnings following the quake, but lifted them two hours later.

"So far no damage or casualties have been reported and the situation is under control," Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf said.

At least five strong aftershocks measuring up to 5.2 were recorded, the meteorology agency said.

The quake, which struck as people in the region were preparing for morning prayers, caused panic in North Sumatra's capital of Medan and other cities in the region. Electricity was cut in Medan and Banda Aceh, provincial capital of Aceh.

People in several cities along the southeastern coast of Sumatra as well as Sinabang on Simeulue island and Gunung Sitoli on nearby Nias island poured into the streets and rushed to higher ground after the quake.

"Rumors about a tsunami panicked villagers living near the beach," said Eddy Effendi, a resident in Nias district of North Sumatra province. "They ran away on motorbikes and cars or by climbing the hills. There was panic and chaos everywhere, but I don't see serious damage or injuries in my village."

Residents in Sibolga said the shaking lasted more than a minute and utility poles in the area were knocked down.

A 2004 tsunami triggered by a magnitude-9.2 earthquake in the same region killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries on the Indian Ocean basin.

7 dead, 19 missing in W.Va. coal mine explosion

2010-04-06T10:33:00.002+07:00

MONTCOAL, W.Va. — Rescuers converged late Monday on a remote coal mine where seven workers were killed and 19 missing deep underground after an explosion rocked the operation that has a history of violations for not properly ventilating highly combustible methane gas, safety officials said.

The blast occurred around 3 p.m. at Massey Energy Co.'s sprawling Upper Big Branch mine as nine miners on a vehicle that takes workers in and out of the mine were leaving, said Kevin Stricklin, agency administrator for Coal Mine Safety and Health. Stricklin said a crew ahead of the vehicle felt a blast of air and went back in to find out what happened.

They found the nine workers, seven of whom were killed. Two others were hurt and in the hospital, officials said. Stricklin said two other nine-person crews and a safety inspector who had been working alone were believed trapped, perhaps about a mile and a half underground. Stricklin said officials don't believe a roof collapsed.

Nine rescue crews usually made up of six members each were at the mine about 30 miles south of Charleston, said federal Mine Safety and Health Administration spokeswoman Amy Louviere. It was unclear whether the mine was safe enough for rescuers to enter and looking for the trapped men.

"We want to assure the families of all the miners we are taking every action possible to locate and rescue those still missing," said Massey CEO Don Blankenship, who confirmed the number of dead and missing in a statement.

Distraught family members were briefed and taken to a Massey building off-limits to the media.

MSHA officials didn't yet know what caused the blast, but federal records say the Eagle coal seam releases up to 2 million cubic feet of methane gas into the mine every 24 hours. That is a large amount, said Dennis O'Dell, health and safety director for the United Mine Workers labor union.

Methane is one of the great dangers of coal mining. The colorless, odorless gas is often sold to American consumers to heat homes and cook meals. In mines, giant fans are used to keep methane concentrations below certain levels. In 2006, 12 miners died in a methane explosion at the Sago Mine in West Virginia. If concentrations are allowed to reach between 5 percent and 15 percent, the gas can explode with a spark roughly similar to the static charge created by walking across a carpet in winter.

In the past year, federal inspectors have cited Massey and fined the company more than $382,000 for repeated serious safety violations involving its ventilation plan and equipment at the mine run by subsidiary Performance Coal Co. The violations also cover failing to follow the ventilation plan, allowing combustible coal dust to pile up, and having improper firefighting equipment.

Two airtight rescue chambers near the blast site are stocked with enough food, water and air for the miners to survive four days. Another two chambers are a bit farther away. West Virginia requires all underground mines to have wireless communications and tracking systems designed to survive explosions and other disasters. However, Stricklin said much of the equipment near the missing men was likely destroyed in the explosion.

The company did not provide details on the extent of the damage at the mine that has had three other fatalities in the last dozen years.

Blankenship said the names would not be released until next-of-kin were notified.

One injured miner was in intensive care at Charleston Area Medical Center, spokeswoman Elizabeth Pellegrin said.

"We are preparing for other patients," she said.

The mine, which cannot be seen from the road, has 19 openings and roughly 7-foot ceilings. Inside, it's criss-crossed with railroad tracks used for hauling people and equipment. It is located in one of the state's more heavily mined areas. Along the main two-lane road lined with emergency vehicles Monday night are several plants where coal is prepared for shipment by train.

The bulk of the coal is removed with a machine called a longwall miner that uses a cutting head to move back and forth across the working face somewhat like a 1,000-foot-long deli slicer. Hydraulic roof supports shield the miners and equipment as the machines cut deeper into the mountain, with the roof in the mined-out areas caving in by design after workers move on, according to Massey's Web site.

The mine produced 1.2 million tons of coal in 2009, according to the mine safety agency, and has about 200 employees, most of whom work underground on different shifts.

Gov. Joe Manchin was out of town, but working to get back, according to his office. Chief of Staff Jim Spears went to the mine. President Barack Obama spoke Monday night with Manchin to express his condolences and to offer any assistance, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

Massey Energy is a publicly traded company based in Richmond, Va., that has 2.2 billion tons of coal reserves in southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southwest Virginia and Tennessee, according to the company's Web site. It ranks among the nation's top five coal producers and is among the industry's most profitable. It has a spotty safety record.

The federal mine safety administration fined Massey a then-record $1.5 million for 25 violations that inspectors concluded contributed to the deaths of two miners trapped in a fire at a different mine in January 2006. The company later settled a lawsuit naming it, several subsidiaries and Chief Executive Don Blankenship as defendants. Aracoma Coal Co. later paid $2.5 million in fines after the company pleaded guilty to 10 criminal charges in the fire.

In each of the last three years, Massey has had multiple operations cited by MSHA as repeat violators of safety and health rules and ordered to improve their conditions. Upper Big Branch was not one of them.

The United Mine Workers said it has personnel nearby and would help non-union Massey if the company asks. The UMW said it also is ready to help families of workers at the mine. Massey is virulently non-union and CEO Blankenship's television set with a UMW fired bullet in it still sits in his office.

Last year, the number of miners killed on the job in the U.S. fell for a second straight year to 34, the fewest since officials began keeping records nearly a century ago. That was down from the previous low of 52 in 2008.

U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration documents show 18 of the deaths occurred in coal mines, down from 29 in 2008; and 16 were in gold, copper and other types of mines, down from 22 in 2008.

The deadliest year in recorded U.S. coal mining history was 1907, when 3,242 deaths were reported. That year, the nation's deadliest mine explosion killed 358 people near Monongah, W.Va.

Eugene Terre'Blanche killing – white supremacists vow revenge

2010-04-05T09:12:00.001+07:00

A white supremacist group in South Africa today vowed to exact revenge for the death of their leader as the country's president, Jacob Zuma, sought to calm growing racial tensions.

Eugene Terre'Blanche, leader of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) movement, was found bludgeoned and hacked to death on Saturday at his farm in Ventersdrop. Two black farm workers involved in an apparent wage dispute were arrested at the scene.

The AWB has since ramped up the language of a race war. Its spokesman, Andre Visagie, said: "The death of Mr Terre'Blanche is a declaration of war by the black community of South Africa to the white community that has been killed for 10 years on end."

Visagie warned other countries to avoid sending their football teams to the World Cup in June as they would be travelling "to a land of murder". He added: "We will decide upon the action we are going to take to avenge Mr Terre'Blanche's death."

The AWB accused Julius Malema, leader of the youth wing of the ANC, of having blood on his hands. It blamed the killing on the recent apartheid-era protest song proclaiming the words "shoot the boer".

Malema expressed fear that his life was at risk, citing a rightwing conspiracy. Last week the ANC said it was concerned about a text message in circulation which appeared to offer a bounty for his death. The ANC has defended the song as no more than a way to remember a history of oppression, but a party spokesman told the Guardian it would now re-examine the issue in the light of recent criticism.

Today at Ventersdorp, in South Africa's North West Province, AWB followers clad in paramilitary khaki laid flowers at the gate of Terre'Blanche's farm.

South Africa's Sunday Times reported that the 69-year-old was killed by two farm workers who claimed that he refused to pay them their monthly salaries of 350 rand (£32) each. The workers, aged 21 and 15, reportedly smashed a window to enter Terre'Blanche's home and killed him with a knobkerrie (wooden club) and a panga (broad-bladed knife). A police source told the Sunday Times the pair alleged Terre'Blanche had threatened to kill them when they went to his farm for their money. "They claim they killed him in self defence," the officer said.

The men, who were said to have waited for police to arrive and arrest them, are due to appear in court on Tuesday.

The killing sparked fierce debate on race relations in a country where white farmers have become increasingly vocal, claiming thousands of them have been murdered since the end of white minority rule in 1994.

Last month former president F W De Klerk wrote to Zuma warning that Malema was creating an increasingly febrile mood. He said: "All this is beginning to create a volatile atmosphere in which any additional intemperate statement or action might spark an unfortunate incident."

Frans Cronje, deputy director of the South African Institute of Race Relations, said: "It could be an explosive case, especially if the ANC don't back down."

Zuma appealed for calm following the "terrible deed". In a statement he asked South Africans not to allow "agent provocateurs" to take advantage of the situation by "inciting or fuelling racial hatred".

Jackson Mthembu, an ANC spokesman, also denied any causal link between the "shoot the boer" song and the murder of Terre'Blanche. But he also appeared to shift the party's position: "The ANC is prepared to look at whether it is appropriate to continue singing it in this manner. We will … look at what we can do."

The opposition Democratic Alliance warned of a risk of polarisation with a dangerous outcome. Its leader, Helen Zille, said: "The murder of Eugene Terre'Blanche will inevitably polarise and inflame passions in South Africa at a time when tensions are already running high …This could have tragic consequences and it is essential that all leaders stand together now and call for calm."

Terre'Blanche had threatened war on South Africa's white minority government in the 1980s when it began to make what he considered dangerous concessions that endangered South Africa's white race. Described yesterday as a bully and buffoon, his predictions of doom under a multiracial democracy proved hollow and his support dwindled to a tiny rump.

"He was a has-been personality," said Allister Sparks, a veteran political analyst. "His influence is absolutely minimal. I regarded him as one of the most remarkably powerful orators I've ever heard. He spoke with a great passion and could really move people, but that was before 1994 when he was trying to mount his rather crazy resistance campaign."

Songs of protest

Many songs in South Africa refer to the armed struggle against apartheid. During last year's election campaign Jacob Zuma sang Umshini Wami (Bring Me My Machine Gun). The song Ayasab' Amagwala (The Cowards are Scared) rose from the conflict between exiled African National Congress guerrillas and white farmers defending the land.

Allister Sparks, a veteran political analyst and journalist, said: "Initially the armed struggle was supposed to be aimed only at installations. Then it extended somewhat. One of the expansions was when farmers formed civilian militia units that were used to patrol the borders, so in the ANC's eyes they became active soldiers, not civilians.

"There were some landmine attacks on farm roads and some farmers were killed along the borders of Botswana and Zimbabwe. I remember going to the funeral of one whose entire family was wiped out by a landmine.

"That's where this song arose and some farmers were killed."

The song raised controversy in 2002 when a crowd chanted "kill the boer, kill the farmer", at the funeral of Peter Mokaba, an ANC Youth League leader. It became contentious again when Julius Malema led a rendition. Its lyrics include: aw dubul'ibhunu (shoot the boer) dubula dubula (shoot shoot).

Eugene Terre'Blanche's life and times

31 January 1941 Born in Ventersdorp.

1973 Founds the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging party (AWB).

1980 Registers AWB as a political party, Die Witvolkparty (White People's party).

1983 Stands trial on terrorism charges, receives a suspended sentence.

1989 Accusations linking Terre'Blanche with journalist Jani Allan cause a schism in AWB. The scandal scuppers his intention to run as a political candidate.

1991 Charged with assault of an elderly black man at a farm near Ventersdorp.

1993 Convicted of public violence and fined 10,000 rand (£910), for sparking a riot in 1991 that led to three deaths.

1997 Sentenced to six years for the attempted murder of his black security guard, Paul Motshabi, who was beaten in March 1996, and of assaulting gas station attendant John Ndzima by setting his dog on him.

1998 Appears before South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), accepting responsibility for an AWB bombing campaign during the 1994 elections that killed 21.

1991 Granted amnesty by the TRC over his role in the 1991 riot, and for tarring and feathering a professor in 1979; features in Nick Broomfield's controversial documentary The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife.

2000 Serves five months of his one-year sentence for the attack on Ndzima

2001 Jailed for the attempted murder of Motshabi after his appeal fails.

2004 Released from jail after serving half of his six-year sentence; comes 25th in a TV poll of great South Africans.

2009 Announced plans to apply to the UN for an independent Afrikaner republic.

3 April 2010 Killed at his farm outside Ventersdorp.

More Dancing Drama—Erin Andrews Faces Death Threats

2010-04-03T14:17:00.000+07:00

We won't blame the Dancing With the Stars curse on this. Just one big sicko.

Erin Andrews, who helped send her candid-candid creep to prison last month, now has another freak to deal with.

Her lawyer announced today that at least a dozen sometimes threatening emails and phone calls have been directed at the DWTS hoofer and ESPN reporter since September. The threats were made to an unspecified media outlet, which passed them to Andrews' reps this week.

"As soon as we learned of them, the FBI was notified,'' said attorney Marshall B. Grossman said. "They are on the case. Erin and her family are protected.''

To that end, security at DWTS has also been beefed up, according to Grossman, and Andrews has no intent to quit the competition.

The attorney says that the messages alternated between sexually explicit and violent, and made reference to Michael David Barrett, who was sentenced to two and half years in federal detention for stalking and videotaping Andrews.

Grossman says the messages appear to be the work of a man believed to live on the East Coast. While Grossman did not name the suspect, he said the person had been ID'd by the FBI.

"It is unfortunate that there are sick people who prey on the fears and threaten the well being of others,'' Grossman said.

"Erin is not alone among those who have to deal with such predators. Erin is looking forward to the future and will keep all of her commitments including her appearance on Dancing With the Stars."

This Easter, A Priest Prays For The Church's Rebirth

2010-04-02T12:39:00.000+07:00

The Rev. James Martin is a Catholic priest and author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything.

The religious symbolism could not be clearer. On Good Friday, Jesus of Nazareth willingly surrendered himself to his fate, which led to his trial, torture and crucifixion. The Catholic Church, too, is undergoing a crucifixion.

And I'm not talking about the hierarchy here, but the entire church, the "People of God," as the Second Vatican Council said. The primary suffering in the church has been among the victims of sexual abuse, which destroys lives and entire families. So the church suffers.

Good Friday, though, reminds us that Jesus went to his crucifixion freely and surrendered his life for something greater, which came on Easter Sunday. This profound image may help the Catholic Church meditate on what it is invited to do. But that means that something has to die.

What needs to die is a clerical culture that fostered power, privilege and secrecy. An attitude that placed a priest's reputation above a child's welfare. A mindset in which investigations of dissident theologians and American Catholic sisters were more swiftly prosecuted than investigations of abusive priests. What needs to die is a certain pride. All this needs to be surrendered freely.

But the story does not end on Good Friday. That's what critics who say that the church is dead aren't seeing. "Dying to self," painful as it is, always leads to something new. Jesus' willingness to die led to everlasting life on Easter Sunday.

If we can let those old habits die, the church can be reborn as well. It can be a church more willing to confess its sins, more willing to seek forgiveness, more willing to do penance. Simple, humble, poor — like Jesus.

This is not to say that God intended abuse for the "benefit" of the church, any more than God intends any other kind of suffering. But the passion, death and resurrection of Christ invites the church to ponder what must die — so that it may live anew.

Lee DeWyze Finds the Soul of "Treat Her like a Lady" for American Idol Top 10

2010-04-01T08:59:00.000+07:00

One of the greatest soul/ R&B songs of all time is the Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose classic "Treat Her Like A Lady," and it was interesting to see what Lee Dewyze would do with it as his selection for
American Idol Soul and R&B Week. There is a catchy groove in the song that, if not handled right, can throw the singer. That unique sound is the background singing in the chorus, where the singers croon "Treat her like, got to, got to treat her like..." So how was Lee Dewyze going to incorporate that catchy background rhythm in his rendition for the American Idol audience?

As each of the American Idol Top 10 contestants performed fairly well -- except for Tim Urban, who gave his now standard sub-par performance -- Lee Dewyze followed what the judges called Andrew Garcia's "strong performance" (Ellen Degeneres) and Katie Stevens' "best vocal performance of the night" (Randy Jackson). He was also under pressure to of preceding Crystal Bowersox, who had yet to give a bad performance on the American Idol stage.

In the taped segment where Lee Dewyze met this week's mentor, singing legend Usher, the R&B star told him he had an "incredible voice." He also told him that he had to own it. Dewyze admitted that he had always had a problem with beating himself up. But Usher's biggest compliment of DeWyze came after he left the rehearsal studio. Usher turned to the camera and mouthed, "Wow," then nodded emphatically.

How did Lee Dewyze treat "Treat Her Like A Lady"?

He hit center stage and began strumming his guitar over a bass drum beat. He then sang, keeping close to the original rhythm of "Treat Her Like A Lady," giving it a more Soul-like feel, sort of Sam and Dave-ish. He sang through the first verse and the first chorus without backup, but then he added backing vocals and the rest of the band, giving the song extra power. And that catchy background vocal that makes the original such a unique R&B classic? He got around that by not using it at all. His background singers punctuated his music and crooned in the backround behind his vocals. But did that hurt the song? Not in the least.

Tevez hailed and questioned after City win

2010-03-30T10:27:00.000+07:00

Shay Given hailed Manchester City team-mate Carlos Tevez for the hat-trick which saw off Wigan in the Premier League.

Tevez escaped punishment for an ugly second half incident which saw Wigan defender Gary Caldwell sent off for a similarly crude challenge - and responded to the reprieve with three goals in the last 19 minutes.

Given said: "It was a bit of a scrappy first half and the manager let us know at half-time he wasn't happy - but we upped it a gear. Carlos was fantastic, he scored three great goals."

The Irish keeper, whose team are two points adrift of Tottenham with seven games remaining in the hunt for a Champions League place, added on ESPN: "We've got a lot of big games coming up and hopefully we can get across the line. It will be a tense finish and hopefully we can back tonight's result up with three more points on Saturday at Burnley."

City boss Roberto Mancini added: "It was an important win, it wasn't easy and it was difficult in the first half because Wigan played very well and there was no tempo from us.

"We played better in the second half and after the sending off it was too easy. The sending off probably changed the game. Carlos is a fantastic striker and I hope he continues (scoring) in the last seven games. I also hope Emmanuel Adebayor can play better. He's been out of the game for a long time (four-match suspension) and it's difficult in the first game when you come back."

Wigan boss Roberto Martinez highlighted Caldwell's red card as the key moment.

Roberto Martinez speaks to ESPN
"The decision was a key moment in the game and until that moment we were coping really well with everything Man City had," he said on ESPN. "I felt we were growing into the game, we had a couple of opportunities and felt that the last half an hour was going to be crucial.

"That decision was a key moment. It really cost us and the game went away from us."

As for the actual challenge, Martinez added: "It was a wholehearted challenge, he (Caldwell) gets the ball in the challenge. Carlos can see the challenge coming and he jumps with both feet. Gary is going with one leg. To give a red for that, as a referee you need to be very, very sure. You can't guess with a decision like that and it is a turning point."

Moscow Bombing:Moscow Subway Explosion

2010-03-29T19:14:00.000+07:00

According to sources on Monday morning two terrorist bombers on the Moscow metro killed at least 37 people. In the suicide attacks 102 have been injured. A report says that the first explosion killed 22 people and injured 12 and the second bomb went off at Park Kultury killing at least 15 people. This incident happened around 8:00 am. According to initial reports two females were responsible for the suicide bombing and their bodies have already been recovered including the head and remains of an older woman.

The Russian security services said that two female suicide bombers from the North Caucasus detonated the bombs and the bombs might have been controlled by remotes. A report says that other metro lines and the trains continued to run regularly and the authorities are handling the situation in a very positive manner.

Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev has not made any formal statement yet. It’s not the first time that Russia is facing such situation the people of Russia have been facing it for last many years. Many countries have been condemned these suicide attacks. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan also condemned the attacks in Moscow and said, “It is with great anguish that I have learnt of the bomb blasts in Moscow, which have led to the loss of so many innocent lives. This is most tragic and horrific act of violence.”

Apple Is Sold Out of iPads for Launch Day

2010-03-28T15:28:00.001+07:00

Apple's often accused of running its hype machine to new levels in advance of a product launch. This naturally makes its anonymous claims of pre-selling hundreds of thousands of its latest gizmo, the famed Apple iPad, a bit tougher to digest.

However, whoever tipped off The Wall Street Journal about the iPad's supposed pre-success seems to have been closer to the truth than fiction: According to Apple Insider, initial orders for the iPad have now consumed all of Apple's stock.

Or, in layman's terms, you simply aren't getting an iPad on launch day if you didn't preorder the device.

This shouldn't come as much of a surprise for Apple enthusiasts: The various incarnations of the iPhone suffered a similar launch day fate. So much so, in fact, that Apple itself even released an application that checked Apple stores for available stock during the launch of the iPhone 3GS. Instead of having to chug down to the store (or badger Apple's retail employees with endless repetitions of the, "do you have any" phone call), wannabe-purchasers could simply fire up a handy little online grid to check which of their local stores had various incarnations of the phone's four launch day models.

If you sat around and let the preorder pass you buy, are you completely out of luck on launch day? That remains to be seen. According to The Unofficial Apple Weblog's report of a reader's conversation with an Apple store employee, Apple might be able to increase its launch day iPad stock by ten percent. There's no additional confirmation of that fact beyond what you just read, so take it with a grain of salt.

According to Steve Jobs himself (and verified by an internal sales playbook), Best Buy will also be selling the iPad on launch day – sort of. Only Best Buy stores with integrated Apple Shops (roughly 675 of more than 1,000 stores nationwide) will have inventory on-hand, and it's unclear as to the exact quantities that might be arriving at any given store. You won't be able to order and reserve an iPad in any fashion through bestbuy.com.

As well, antsy wannabe iPad purchasers can also roll the dice and wait in line around 3 PM. at any Apple retail store: All reserved iPads that haven't been picked up by that point will be open for the masses to purchase. Otherwise, the next shipping date for the iPad, according to Apple's online store, is April 12. The 3G-friendly iPad is still on-track for a "late April" ship date.

Be part of Earth Hour, support work

2010-03-26T09:01:00.004+07:00

Can you imagine sitting in the dark for one hour — no lights, no TV, no computer? In this day and time, that could be considered torture. We have a hard time living without our electronic gizmos.

But at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, March 27, people around the world will take a stand for our planet by turning off their lights for one hour to make a statement about their concern for climate change.

It's called Earth Hour, and since its inception three years ago, its nonpartisan approach has captured the world's imagination and became a global phenomenon. Nearly one billion people turned out for Earth Hour 2009 — involving 4,100 cities in 87 countries on seven continents.

Last year, 80 million Americans and 318 U.S. cities officially voted for action with their light switch, joining iconic landmarks from around the world that went dark for Earth Hour, including the Empire State Building, Broadway theater marquees and the Las Vegas Strip.

Every region of the United States is experiencing the impacts of climate change. A 2009 White House report found that climate changes are already affecting water resources, energy supply and demand, transportation, agriculture, ecosystems, and health. These impacts differ from region to region and will grow as climate continues to change. The Southeast and the West, for example, are facing more frequent droughts. Snowpack, a primary source of freshwater in the West and Alaska, is declining.

We urge our readers to do something good for our planet and flip the switch on Saturday evening. One hour of dark isn't a lot to ask to help the place we call home.

Freak storm cuts power in Perth, Australia

2010-03-23T12:02:00.002+07:00

A severe storm in the western Australian city of Pert has left tens of thousands of homes without power.

The cost of the damage is estimated at more than $100m (£66.5m).

The storm brought huge hailstones, torrential rains, flooding, landslides and wind gusts of more than 120km/hour (75 mph).

At Perth airport, where part of the terminal roof collapsed, almost a month's average rainfall fell in just seven minutes, affecting flights.

The freak storm hit Perth, one of the world's most isolated cities, late on Monday.

Power cables collapsed, hospitals were flooded. Some schools remained closed on Tuesday.

"From my memory this would be the most severe weather conditions we've had since the famous May storm in 1994, where we had very, very strong winds and a massive loss of power supply," Western Australia premier Colin Barnett told public broadcaster ABC.

"Hopefully the damage to the power supply won't be as severe but I suspect this time we've got a lot more damage to buildings and housing," he said.

Hailstones the size of golf balls smashed cars windscreens. Driving became more dangerous when traffic lights went out.

Weather forecasters said more stormy weather was expected, after one of the driest summers on record.

Air Pollution Hits Record High in Hong Kong

2010-03-22T19:10:00.000+07:00

HONG KONG — Air pollution in Hong Kong, one of the perpetual banes of living and working in the Asian financial hub, skyrocketed to record levels on Monday, triggering an official government warning to avoid outdoor activities and physical exertion.

Pollution levels have been elevated in the city for days, casting a gray pall over the harbor and obscuring views of Hong Kong’s famed skyline.

By Monday afternoon, Hong Kong’s official air pollution index soared even further, to well above 400 points at several measurement stations across the city, according to the Environmental Protection Department’s Web site.

These were the worst levels since records began in 1998, a spokesperson for the department said by phone. The previous record was 202, hit in July 2008.

At 600 to 700 micrograms of particulate matter per cubic meter, pollution levels are between 12 and 14 times what is recommended by the World Health Organization, said the Clean Air Network, which campaigns to inform the public on Hong Kong’s pollution issues.

The high levels were partly caused by a sandstorm in northern China, which has been moving south, the Hong Kong environment department said in a statement.

But the Clean Air Network said home-grown roadside pollution was also key to explaining the record levels.

And Mike Kilburn, environmental program manager at Civic Exchange, a public policy research institution, said in a statement: “Even though the dust storms have created record levels of particulate emissions, we must not lose sight of the fact that roadside pollution remains the single biggest threat to public health in Hong Kong.”

Air pollution index levels of 100 or above are classified as “very high” and come with advice that people who are sensitive to pollution should reduce outdoor activities. Anything above 200 is “severe,” and can lead to coughing, phlegm and sore throats, the authorities warned.

High air pollution levels are often cited by international companies as a major drawback of doing business in the city, and the extreme levels on Monday, though highly unusual, hinder the city’s efforts to bolster its image as a nice place to live.

Volcano erupts in Iceland

2010-03-21T17:21:00.000+07:00

A volcano erupted beneath a glacier in south Iceland, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of people.

It was the first time since 1821 -- almost 200 years ago -- that the volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier has erupted.

Eyjafjallajokull is about 100 miles (160 km) east of the capital, Reykjavik.

The country's civil protection agency did not immediately record any injuries or damage. But the heat from the volcano could melt the glacier and cause floods in the surrounding area.

NCAA March Madness Bracket Results 2010 Are Streaming In

2010-03-20T07:50:00.000+07:00

March Madness results 2010 are coming in for the opening-round. Thursday provided a lot of excitement with some teams coming away absolutely thrilled to be moving on while others are still shaking their heads wondering what happened. Notre Dame, who based on their conference tournament play ended up getting a sixth seed, took on the number 11 seed Old Dominion. The game was a very low scoring affair with Old Dominion getting the victory by a score of 51-50. They will take on the number three seed Baylor on Saturday at 5:45 pm ET in the second round of March Madness. You can bet on the March Madness Results 2010 online at Bodog.com and enjoy a huge March Madness bonus to kick start your account.

Other March Madness results 2010 worth taking a look at include the Ohio University and Georgetown game. Ohio University made the tournament by winning the MAC tournament and was anticipated to lose to Georgetown, but Ohio upset Georgetown with a final score of 97-83. Washington defeated Marquette by two points with a basket scored with 1.7 seconds left on the clock. In other exciting action, Murray State had a buzzer beater to pull out a win over number four seed Vanderbilt.

Things went a little bit better for the number one seeds as Kansas and Kentucky both won their games. Although Kansas did have a little bit of a more difficult time against 16th seed Lehigh they were was able to reclaim their composure and win with a score of 90-74. Number two seeds Kansas State and Villanova will be moving on to the second round as well. Wake Forest had a one-point win over Texas, UNI beat UNLV, Butler won over UTEP, and Xavier beat Minnesota. The March Madness results are continuing to come in for the second day of round one play. Make sure you keep track of all of the games, as well as update your brackets.

Anna Nicole Smith estate denied $300 million

2010-03-20T07:44:00.000+07:00

Poor little Dannielynn Birkhead, 3. And we mean that literally.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled today that Anna Nicole Smith's estate (i.e., Dannielynn, Anna's daughter with Larry Birkhead) is not entitled to a single penny from Smith's husband, oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall.

Smith, who died of a drug overdose in 2007, married Marshall in 1994, when she was 26 and he was 89. He died 14 months later. Marshall had given Smith $6 million in gifts but didn't make additional provisions for her in his will. Throughout years of legal wrangling, Smith had most recently been awarded $88 million.