[Top News] from [REUTERS]
[World > Haiti]
Joseph Guyler Delva and Tom Brown
Wed Jan 13, 2010 2:32pm EST
Thousands feared dead as major quake strikes Haiti
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Thousands were feared dead in a major earthquake that destroyed the presidential palace, schools, hospitals and hillside shanties in Haiti, its leaders said on Wednesday, and the United States and other nations geared up for a big relief operation.
A five-story U.N. headquarters building was demolished by Tuesday's 7.0 magnitude quake, which the U.S. Geological Survey said was the most powerful in Haiti in more than a century. Several bodies were pulled from the wreckage of the U.N. building and more than 100 staff members were missing, a spokesman said.
Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told Reuters that he believed there could be "in the range of thousands of dead." Soon after, Bellerive told CNN he believed well over 100,000 people could have died.
President Rene Preval called the damage "unimaginable" and described stepping over dead bodies and hearing the cries of those trapped in the collapsed Parliament building, where the senate president was among those pinned by debris.
Destruction in the capital was "massive and broad," and tens -- if not hundreds -- of thousands of homes were destroyed, a spokesman for the U.N. mission said.
Sobbing and dazed people wandered the streets of Port-au-Prince, and voices cried out from the rubble.
"Please take me out, I am dying. I have two children with me," a woman told a Reuters journalist from under a collapsed kindergarten in the Canape-Vert area of the capital.
The presidential palace lay in ruins, its domes fallen on top of flattened walls. Preval and his wife were not inside when the quake hit.
GROUND STILL TREMBLING
The quake's epicenter was only 10 miles from Port-au-Prince. About 4 million people live in the city and surrounding area. Many people slept outside on the ground, away from weakened walls, as aftershocks as powerful as 5.9 rattled the city throughout the night and into Wednesday.
The devastation crippled the government and the U.N. security mission that had kept order. There were no signs of organized rescue efforts, and people clawed at concrete chunks with their bare hands to try to free trapped loved ones.
Haitian Red Cross spokesman Pericles Jean-Baptiste said his organization was overwhelmed. "There are too many people who need help ... We lack equipment, we lack body bags," he told Reuters.
Normal communications were cut off, roads were blocked by rubble and trees, electric power was interrupted and water was in short supply.
In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said those unaccounted for at the U.N. mission headquarters included the chief of the mission, Hedi Annabi, but he could not confirm reports Annabi had died.
Brazil's army said at least 11 Brazilian members of the 9,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti were killed.
The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is ill-equipped to respond to such a disaster, lacking heavy equipment to move debris and sufficient emergency personnel.
FLIMSY HOMES
"I am appealing to the world, especially the United States, to do what they did for us back in 2008 when four hurricanes hit Haiti," Raymond Alcide Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to Washington, said in a CNN interview.
"At that time the U.S. dispatched ... a hospital ship off the coast of Haiti. I hope that will be done again ... and help us in this dire situation that we find ourselves in."
U.S. President Barack Obama called the quake an "especially cruel and incomprehensible" tragedy and pledged swift, coordinated support to help save lives. The Pentagon was sending a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and three amphibious ships, including one that can carry up to 2,000 Marines.
Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders said its three hospitals in Haiti were unusable and it was treating the injured at temporary shelters.
"The reality of what we are seeing is severe traumas, head wounds, crushed limbs, severe problems that cannot be dealt with the level of medical care we currently have available with no infrastructure really to support it," said Paul McPhun, operations manager for the group's Canadian section.
The University of Miami School of Medicine sent a plane full of doctors and nurses to set up a field hospital and planned to fly a group of critically injured people to Miami for treatment on Wednesday.
The United Nations said $10 million would be released immediately from the its central emergency response fund and it would organize a flash appeal to raise more money for Haiti over the next few days.
The United States, China and European states were sending reconnaissance and rescue teams, some with search dogs and heavy equipment, while other governments and aid groups offered tents, water purification units, food and telecoms teams.
NOWHERE TO GO
The quake hit at 5 p.m. (2200 GMT), and witnesses reported people screaming "Jesus, Jesus" running into the streets as offices, hotels, houses and shops collapsed. Experts said the quake's epicenter was very shallow at a depth of only 6.2 miles, which was likely to have magnified the destruction.
Witnesses saw homes and shanties built on hillsides tumble as the earth shook, while cars bounced off the ground. "You have thousands of people sitting in the streets with nowhere to go," said Rachmani Domersant, an operations manager with the Food for the Poor charity.
Haiti's cathedral was destroyed and media reports said the archbishop of Port-au-Prince, Monsignor Joseph Serge Miot, had been found dead in the wreckage of the archdiocese office. (Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Adam Entous, Patrick Worsnip, Louis Charbonneau Sophie Hardach, Raymond Colitt, Alister Bull and David Morgan; Writing by Jane Sutton and Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Vicki Allen)
[Green Business]
Charles Abbott
SEATTLE
Tue Jan 12, 2010 6:23pm EST
U.S. farm group: Stop EPA on greenhouse gases
SEATTLE (Reuters) - The largest U.S. farm group called on Congress on Tuesday to prevent the government from regulating greenhouse gases if lawmakers kill climate change legislation.
The 6-million-member American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) also underlined its firm opposition to legislation to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for boosting global temperatures.
In their first item of policy work, delegates at the AFBF annual meeting voted to support "any legislative action" to suspend authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases under air pollution laws.
The EPA cleared the way for such regulation a month ago by ruling that greenhouse gases endanger human health.
It offered a route to control greenhouse gases, if Congress does not pass a climate law. AFBF staff say the Senate is unlikely to pass a "cap and trade" climate bill this year.
At least one bill is pending in the House to prohibit EPA regulation of greenhouse gases. Senators say they may offer amendments to do the same thing.
Delegates applauded after Phil Nelson, president of the Illinois Farm Bureau, read a 1-1/2-page critique of climate legislation, which included a warning that EPA regulation "would significantly burden all sectors of the economy" as well as drive up food prices.
Nelson's resolution was adopted on a unanimous voice vote.
"I think the delegates wanted to send a strong message by passing it," he said afterward.
"They don't have enough lipstick to put on that pig (climate legislation) to make it look good," said Missouri Farm Bureau president Charles Kruse.
While opposing a mandatory cap-and-trade system and EPA regulation of greenhouse gases, the AFBF backs voluntary carbon credit trading, development of alternative energy sources and incentives to industries trying to reduce emissions.
Four dozen climate scientists asked the AFBF in a letter last week to divorce itself from "climate change deniers."
Farmers are dubious of Obama administration analyses that say higher fuel and fertilizer costs resulting from climate legislation would be outweighed by revenue from contracts to offset greenhouse gases by planting trees and crops that capture carbon.
Higher production costs are certain, but many farmers will not see any income from carbon sequestration, Nelson said.
An Agriculture Department study says that up to 8 percent of crop and pasture land, or 59 million acres, would be converted to woodlands by 2050 because carbon-capturing trees would be more profitable than crops.
The USDA is taking a second look at its analysis because of complaints about the economic models that were used.
In other activity, the delegates:
-- elected Bob Stallman, a Texas beef and rice grower, to his sixth two-year term as AFBF president.
-- voted that the government should "properly compensate farmers when the government issues an inaccurate food safety warning or recall that causes losses."
(Reporting by Charles Abbott; Editing by Ted Kerr)
[World > Haiti]
Joseph Guyler Delva and Tom Brown
Wed Jan 13, 2010 2:32pm EST
Thousands feared dead as major quake strikes Haiti
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Thousands were feared dead in a major earthquake that destroyed the presidential palace, schools, hospitals and hillside shanties in Haiti, its leaders said on Wednesday, and the United States and other nations geared up for a big relief operation.
A five-story U.N. headquarters building was demolished by Tuesday's 7.0 magnitude quake, which the U.S. Geological Survey said was the most powerful in Haiti in more than a century. Several bodies were pulled from the wreckage of the U.N. building and more than 100 staff members were missing, a spokesman said.
Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told Reuters that he believed there could be "in the range of thousands of dead." Soon after, Bellerive told CNN he believed well over 100,000 people could have died.
President Rene Preval called the damage "unimaginable" and described stepping over dead bodies and hearing the cries of those trapped in the collapsed Parliament building, where the senate president was among those pinned by debris.
Destruction in the capital was "massive and broad," and tens -- if not hundreds -- of thousands of homes were destroyed, a spokesman for the U.N. mission said.
Sobbing and dazed people wandered the streets of Port-au-Prince, and voices cried out from the rubble.
"Please take me out, I am dying. I have two children with me," a woman told a Reuters journalist from under a collapsed kindergarten in the Canape-Vert area of the capital.
The presidential palace lay in ruins, its domes fallen on top of flattened walls. Preval and his wife were not inside when the quake hit.
GROUND STILL TREMBLING
The quake's epicenter was only 10 miles from Port-au-Prince. About 4 million people live in the city and surrounding area. Many people slept outside on the ground, away from weakened walls, as aftershocks as powerful as 5.9 rattled the city throughout the night and into Wednesday.
The devastation crippled the government and the U.N. security mission that had kept order. There were no signs of organized rescue efforts, and people clawed at concrete chunks with their bare hands to try to free trapped loved ones.
Haitian Red Cross spokesman Pericles Jean-Baptiste said his organization was overwhelmed. "There are too many people who need help ... We lack equipment, we lack body bags," he told Reuters.
Normal communications were cut off, roads were blocked by rubble and trees, electric power was interrupted and water was in short supply.
In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said those unaccounted for at the U.N. mission headquarters included the chief of the mission, Hedi Annabi, but he could not confirm reports Annabi had died.
Brazil's army said at least 11 Brazilian members of the 9,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti were killed.
The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is ill-equipped to respond to such a disaster, lacking heavy equipment to move debris and sufficient emergency personnel.
FLIMSY HOMES
"I am appealing to the world, especially the United States, to do what they did for us back in 2008 when four hurricanes hit Haiti," Raymond Alcide Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to Washington, said in a CNN interview.
"At that time the U.S. dispatched ... a hospital ship off the coast of Haiti. I hope that will be done again ... and help us in this dire situation that we find ourselves in."
U.S. President Barack Obama called the quake an "especially cruel and incomprehensible" tragedy and pledged swift, coordinated support to help save lives. The Pentagon was sending a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and three amphibious ships, including one that can carry up to 2,000 Marines.
Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders said its three hospitals in Haiti were unusable and it was treating the injured at temporary shelters.
"The reality of what we are seeing is severe traumas, head wounds, crushed limbs, severe problems that cannot be dealt with the level of medical care we currently have available with no infrastructure really to support it," said Paul McPhun, operations manager for the group's Canadian section.
The University of Miami School of Medicine sent a plane full of doctors and nurses to set up a field hospital and planned to fly a group of critically injured people to Miami for treatment on Wednesday.
The United Nations said $10 million would be released immediately from the its central emergency response fund and it would organize a flash appeal to raise more money for Haiti over the next few days.
The United States, China and European states were sending reconnaissance and rescue teams, some with search dogs and heavy equipment, while other governments and aid groups offered tents, water purification units, food and telecoms teams.
NOWHERE TO GO
The quake hit at 5 p.m. (2200 GMT), and witnesses reported people screaming "Jesus, Jesus" running into the streets as offices, hotels, houses and shops collapsed. Experts said the quake's epicenter was very shallow at a depth of only 6.2 miles, which was likely to have magnified the destruction.
Witnesses saw homes and shanties built on hillsides tumble as the earth shook, while cars bounced off the ground. "You have thousands of people sitting in the streets with nowhere to go," said Rachmani Domersant, an operations manager with the Food for the Poor charity.
Haiti's cathedral was destroyed and media reports said the archbishop of Port-au-Prince, Monsignor Joseph Serge Miot, had been found dead in the wreckage of the archdiocese office. (Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Adam Entous, Patrick Worsnip, Louis Charbonneau Sophie Hardach, Raymond Colitt, Alister Bull and David Morgan; Writing by Jane Sutton and Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Vicki Allen)
[Green Business]
Charles Abbott
SEATTLE
Tue Jan 12, 2010 6:23pm EST
U.S. farm group: Stop EPA on greenhouse gases
SEATTLE (Reuters) - The largest U.S. farm group called on Congress on Tuesday to prevent the government from regulating greenhouse gases if lawmakers kill climate change legislation.
The 6-million-member American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) also underlined its firm opposition to legislation to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for boosting global temperatures.
In their first item of policy work, delegates at the AFBF annual meeting voted to support "any legislative action" to suspend authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases under air pollution laws.
The EPA cleared the way for such regulation a month ago by ruling that greenhouse gases endanger human health.
It offered a route to control greenhouse gases, if Congress does not pass a climate law. AFBF staff say the Senate is unlikely to pass a "cap and trade" climate bill this year.
At least one bill is pending in the House to prohibit EPA regulation of greenhouse gases. Senators say they may offer amendments to do the same thing.
Delegates applauded after Phil Nelson, president of the Illinois Farm Bureau, read a 1-1/2-page critique of climate legislation, which included a warning that EPA regulation "would significantly burden all sectors of the economy" as well as drive up food prices.
Nelson's resolution was adopted on a unanimous voice vote.
"I think the delegates wanted to send a strong message by passing it," he said afterward.
"They don't have enough lipstick to put on that pig (climate legislation) to make it look good," said Missouri Farm Bureau president Charles Kruse.
While opposing a mandatory cap-and-trade system and EPA regulation of greenhouse gases, the AFBF backs voluntary carbon credit trading, development of alternative energy sources and incentives to industries trying to reduce emissions.
Four dozen climate scientists asked the AFBF in a letter last week to divorce itself from "climate change deniers."
Farmers are dubious of Obama administration analyses that say higher fuel and fertilizer costs resulting from climate legislation would be outweighed by revenue from contracts to offset greenhouse gases by planting trees and crops that capture carbon.
Higher production costs are certain, but many farmers will not see any income from carbon sequestration, Nelson said.
An Agriculture Department study says that up to 8 percent of crop and pasture land, or 59 million acres, would be converted to woodlands by 2050 because carbon-capturing trees would be more profitable than crops.
The USDA is taking a second look at its analysis because of complaints about the economic models that were used.
In other activity, the delegates:
-- elected Bob Stallman, a Texas beef and rice grower, to his sixth two-year term as AFBF president.
-- voted that the government should "properly compensate farmers when the government issues an inaccurate food safety warning or recall that causes losses."
(Reporting by Charles Abbott; Editing by Ted Kerr)
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