Derelict building's demise visible over much of city
5:00AM Saturday November 03, 2007
The building in Tennyson St, Mt Eden collapsed as the fire destroyed it. Photo / Chris Hoffmann
A derelict two-storey Auckland building was destroyed by fire last night on Tennyson St in Mt Eden.
A Northern Fire Communications spokesman said the blaze, which could be seen from much of central Auckland, started about 10.30pm. The cause was unknown.
Nine fire engines and about 30 firefighters fought the inferno. The spokesman said there didn't appear to be anybody inside the building, which collapsed.
Freelance photographer Chris Hoffmann said: "The flames were five or six storeys high and about 100 people were standing around watching. It was so hot that when the rain was coming down it was evaporating before touching the ground."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10473831
No wheat, just worry, from dust bowl
5:00AM Monday October 29, 2007
WEST WYALONG - Farmer John Ridley will not be harvesting so much as a bag of wheat this season from fields that stretch to the horizon as Australia's drought takes its toll on the country's grain belt.
Beneath a cloudless sky, 60-year-old Ridley, a descendant of one of Australia's pioneering farming families, pulls a clump of brittle stubble from the dusty earth.
"It should be this high, waving green in the breeze. Farmers are in a stunned state at the moment. In a state of disbelief, shock, helplessness."
Ridley's farm is in the epicentre of devastation from the drought, about 500km west of Sydney. Prime wheat growing territory, the district normally grows much of the wheat that makes Australia the world's second-biggest exporter.
Yet this year the district will produce almost nothing.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10472662
Alerts raised on active volcanoes
5:00AM Monday October 29, 2007
JAKARTA - Three volcanos in Indonesia are under close watch following heightened activity.
Indonesia's Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation raised the alert on Mt Anak Krakatau to the second-highest level on Saturday after showers of ash.
The volcano is about 130km west of Jakarta. It formed gradually after Krakatau erupted in 1883. Officials are also monitoring Mt Kelud in East Java and Mt Soputan in North Sulawesi.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10472622
Nature has spoken and needs to be heard
5:00AM Monday October 29, 2007
By Peter Huck
Beth Connor stands in the remains of her home. Photo / Reuters
Standing on a hillside in Ojai, north of Los Angeles, last week, as smoke from the Magic, Ranch and Buckweed wildfires turned the setting sun blood red, it was easy to succumb to the apocalyptic tones favoured by local media.
At that time - Friday - 13 blazes, including the huge Witch fire, which had blackened a large part of San Diego County, were still burning between Santa Barbara and the Mexican border.
Half-a-million people had been ordered from their homes, the largest US evacuation since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005.
More than 180,000ha had been burned, and more than 1600 homes - although both totals may rise - and around 12 people had been killed.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10472570
California calls new fire alert as winds forecast
2:54PM Thursday November 01, 2007
By Jill Serjeant
California's weary firefighters were placed on a new fire alert on Wednesday after weather forecasters warned of hot dry winds this weekend similar to those that sparked 22 deadly blazes last week.
With 3000 people still out of their homes as firefighters struggled to contain the last four stubborn fires in southern California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered personnel and aircraft to deploy to areas facing high fire risk from the forecast Santa Ana winds.
"We're not out of the danger zone yet," Schwarzenegger told reporters on Wednesday. "We still have four fires.. and we're watching the weather very closely.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10473471
Mini-tornado havoc
5:15AM Wednesday October 31, 2007
Residents hid under their utes and sheds were demolished as a "mini-tornado" tore through central Queensland during another night of wild storms.
The Queensland Government activated State Disaster Relief Assistance.
The storms came a day after similar weather caused property damage and blackouts in the south-east.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10473100
Storms lash south-east Queensland
11:36AM Monday October 29, 2007
Brisbane - A house was struck by lightning and more than 1700 homes are without power after a night of severe storms in south-east Queensland.
The region was hit by storms from about 11pm NZT yesterday, which continued into the night and resumed this morning.
The State Emergency Service (SES) received 82 calls throughout the night, with the majority of those calls coming from the Gold Coast region, an SES spokeswoman said.
There were also a number of calls from Ipswich, west of Brisbane, and the Beaudesert and Logan areas south of Brisbane.
"Those calls have been mainly to do with fallen trees and roof damage," the spokeswoman said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10472723
Disaster zone declared in NSW
6:15AM Monday October 29, 2007
An area of the New South Wales north coast damaged by storms has been declared a natural disaster zone.
Large hailstones and destructive winds battered the towns of Dunoon, Lismore, Grafton, Byron Bay and Mullumbimby.
The NSW government has estimated that the storms caused about A$1 million ($1.2 million) of damage.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10472633
Earthquake rocks western Indonesia
12:47PM Wednesday October 24, 2007
A strong earthquake struck western Indonesia in the Mentawi islands off Sumatra on Wednesday, but there were no reports of casualties or damage, a meteorology official said.
The magnitude 6.0 quake struck just before 9am (NZT) at a depth of 35km, with its epicentre 125km southwest of the town of Padang, according to a bulletin on the website of the US Geological Survey.
An official at the Indonesian meteorological and geophysics centre said by telephone that the latest quake could be felt strongly in the area, but there had been no reports of damage or casualties. There was no tsunami warning issued.
The local agency put the quake at 6.1 on the Richter scale and at a shallower depth of 20km.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10471805
Sumatra tsunami warning lifted
11:47AM Thursday October 25, 2007
A tsunami warning for the Indonesian island of Sumatra has been lifted, after it was struck by a 7.1 mgnitude quake this morning.
The country's meteorological agency said that the quake struck overnight 166km southwest of the Lais Bengkulu area and was at a relatively shallow depth of 10km.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10472010
San Diego fire evacuees set to return home
1:15PM Thursday October 25, 2007
California firefighters are making headway reining in 18 wildfires as hot winds abated and San Diego said it hoped to let some of the 700,000 evacuees to start returning home.
But despite the progress, nearly 9,000 firefighters were still waging a pitched battle on hillsides and in canyons while the skies over much of the region were choked with thick, acrid smoke, forcing residents to stay indoors or wear masks.
"We should have almost all of our people back in their homes by this evening," San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders said, referring to evacuees within city limits.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10471956
Bad luck comes in threes for Invercargill couple
10:00AM Thursday October 25, 2007
Bad luck really does come in threes for an Invercargill couple who have cracks in their house, a flattened garage and a damaged car.
The earthquake centred off Milford last week cracked the house and the gales got the garage.
Brian and Pauline Reece were returning from seeing the council about the garage when they found the H from and H&J Smith sign on a nearby building had fallen and smashed the rear window of their car, the Southland Times reported.
"You've just got to laugh really," Mrs Reece said. "That's all you can do," Mr Reece said.
H&J Smith chief executive officer John Green said the sign made of tin and steel had probably fallen as a result of recent bad weather and could have been affected by last week's earthquake.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10471997
Kaeo residents back multi-million dollar flood plan
2:19PM Thursday October 25, 2007
By Peter de Graaf
Flood-weary Kaeo residents are backing a multi-million dollar plan to cut the risk of their town disappearing under water again but they worry they'll be asked to foot much of the bill.
The town was hit by major floods in February and July, wrecking homes and inundating businesses. Some residents have yet to finish repairing their homes; some shops never reopened after the July 10 storm.
The Northland Regional Council has come up with a plan which includes raising stopbanks and carving a river overflow channel near the college and primary school, both of which were hard hit. It also wants to lift some buildings and dredge the river. The catch is coming up with the cash.
Even the council doesn't know where it will find the $1.8 million needed, and expects locals will have to spend a similar amount.
But with a population of just under 500, many on low incomes, the town will struggle to pay.
Whangaroa College principal Nicolette Pako is pleased by the promises of action but questions why it took "a major disaster" before Kaeo's flooding woes were taken seriously.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10471992
$2m project to help make flood-prone town safer
5:00AM Wednesday October 24, 2007
By Tony Gee
The Northland Regional Council is proposing works costing nearly $2 million to try to reduce risks to the flood-prone Far North township of Kaeo and its properties.
A programme of staged, ratepayer and Government-funded projects worth about $1.8 million is proposed over the next 12 months, but the council acknowledges progress on all work depends on funding.
Council land operations manager Bob Cathcart estimates at least that much money again will also need to be spent by the community itself to repair houses, driveways, and public and private infrastructure damaged in two major floods this year.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=68&objectid=10471656
Hilary competes in political 'all-boys club'
New 6:15AM Saturday November 03, 2007
Democrat Hilary Clinton yesterday urged women voters to rally behind her campaign against "the boys' club of presidential politics" two days after male rivals attacked her repeatedly at a debate.
The front-runner among Democrats seeking the presidential nomination in the November 2008 elections - and the only woman seeking the job - rallied enthusiastic students at her alma mater Wellesley College, a leading liberal arts school outside Boston.
"In so many ways, this all-women's college prepared me to compete in the all-boys club of presidential politics," the former First Lady told hundreds of students.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10473794
Russia-China toughen stance over Iran 'nuclear bomb'
9:48AM Friday November 02, 2007
By Mark Heinrich
Vladimir Putin. Photo / Reuters
VIENNA - Russia and China have been blocking tough UN sanctions against Iran for months, the United States said overnight, but major powers will seek to impose them if Iran does not halt nuclear work within two weeks.
Iran's president said he was "not worried at all" about broader economic sanctions it faces over its continued defiance of UN Security Council demands to stop enriching uranium.
The five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany will meet in London on Friday to weigh a third round of sanctions.
In Vienna for consultations with the UN nuclear watchdog director, US undersecretary of state for political affairs Nicholas Burns said Iran was given a two-month grace period after the last UN resolution on March 24 to allow for further talks. But it pressed ahead with enrichment anyway.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10473648
Next two articles from RIA Novosti
Russia questions plan for nuclear fuel center in Arab country
02/ 11/ 2007
MOSCOW, November 2 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Nuclear Power Agency is against the idea of setting up an international uranium enrichment center in one of the Arab states, the head of Rosatom said on Friday.
"We believe there should be a number of such centers, but clearly the centers should be located in countries in full possession of [uranium] enrichment technology, so that the technology does not proliferate around the world," Sergei Kiriyenko said, commenting on recent initiatives of some Arab nations.
He said he had no formal information about the initiatives, adding that one such center was being set up in Russia, in east Siberia, and that countries developing nuclear energy programs could have access to its services.
He also said Russia's nuclear sector has orders worth 1.3 trillion rubles ($53 billion) up to 2020.
"We have calculated that orders up to 2020 total 1.3 trillion rubles. This is a huge sum, but the requirements are tough," Kiriyenko told journalists.
Russia said previously it would grant any country in the world the use of an international uranium enrichment center currently being constructed in east Siberia.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20071102/86458074.html
Why did Lavrov visit Ahmadinejad?
31/ 10/ 2007
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov) - Obviously, Moscow is trying to persuade Iran to adjust its nuclear policy in line with the demands of Iran's two main opponents, the U.S. and the EU: renounce uranium enrichment or face sanctions.
Russia opposes unilateral sanctions against Teheran and is still advocating a collective solution to the problem, said the Russian Foreign Minister after meeting the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The otherwise standard sentence has one important detail. Moscow, unlike Teheran, does not deny the existence of the Iranian nuclear problem and urges the need to solve it. True, it makes no difference whatsoever to the collectively developed scenario. The scenario, to which Russia has signed on, would toughen UN Security Council's sanctions against Iran if it refuses to stop uranium enrichment.
The most likely aim of Sergei Lavrov's flying visit to Teheran was to bring home to Ahmadinejad the simple truth that if Iran fails to comply with the Security Council demand to stop uranium enrichment by the end of November, Moscow will have no grounds for protecting it. That sanctions (in the event of non-compliance with the UN demand) would become inevitable was recently stressed by the European Union's Foreign Policy and Security Chief Xavier Solana. Solana, along with IAEA head Muhammed el-Baradei, are to prepare a report on the Iranian nuclear program by November 15. Judging from his remarks, Solana is in a very resolute mood.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20071031/86125441.html
Tibetan nomad found guilty
5:15AM Saturday November 03, 2007
A Tibetan nomad held for three months for shouting "long live the Dalai Lama" has been convicted on charges of trying to split China, according to Radio Free Asia.
A court in southwest Sichuan province convicted Runggye Adak of "subversion" when he called for the return of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, at a local horse racing festival in August.
His sentence will be announced in the next week, Radio Free Asia said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10473793
YOU MEAN TO TELL ME, the Bush Executive Branch couldn't see an incentive to LYING without 'evidence' otherwise? Give me a break, Cheney saw 'a reason' to believe lies to promote his own lies on top of them. This is old news.
Iraqi defector 'made up' weapons claim
New 8:15AM Saturday November 03, 2007
An Iraqi defector made up his claim that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons, a threat cited by the Bush Administration as a key reason for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the American news programme 60 Minutes said yesterday.
Rafid Ahmed Alwan, codenamed "Curve Ball" in intelligence circles, claimed to be a chemical engineering expert but was actually an alleged thief, the programme said.
He arrived at a German refugee centre in 1999.
"To bolster his asylum case and increase his importance, he told officials he was a star chemical engineer who had been in charge of a facility at Djerf al Nadaf that was making mobile biological weapons."
The report, a culmination of a two-year investigation by journalist Bob Simon, is due to be broadcast on the CBS network on Monday.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10473796
McCanns attack Madeline spoof
5:00AM Saturday November 03, 2007
The mock advertisement. Photo / Reuters
The parents of missing British toddler Madeline McCann have criticised a satirical magazine joke about the child, branding it sick.
German magazine Titanic published a mock supermarket advertisement in which the 4-year-old's picture is shown on a kitchen cleaning product, saying it "removes all traces at home and against which DNA tests have no chance".
McCann family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said Madeline's parents, Kate and Gerry, were hurt and distressed.
"The use of Madeline's image in this way is extremely distressing for Kate and Gerry," Mitchell said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10473798
Madeleine McCann's father returns to work
10:16AM Friday November 02, 2007
Gerry McCann. Photo / Reuters
London - Madeleine McCann's father Gerry has returned to his job as a consultant cardiologist saying he and his wife Kate had done everything they could in the search for their missing daughter.
Madeleine disappeared six months ago, shortly before her fourth birthday, during a family holiday in Praia da Luz, Portugal.
Neither Gerry, 39, nor Kate, a GP, have since worked.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10473658
Samoa's 'Baby Miracle' needs help to live
5:00AM Friday November 02, 2007
By Xavier La Canna
She was not expected to survive for more than a few hours. Doctors had even decided she should not be fed.
But two months later, after her family refused to let her slip away, Samoa's "Baby Miracle" is clinging to life, despite terrible facial deformities.
Supporters have now launched a campaign to raise money to get tiny Miracle Tina Julie Nanai to New Zealand for a full medical assessment.
Miracle's birth two months ago in a village on the main Samoan island of Upolu was not what her parents had expected.
When doctors handed over their baby, they saw her tiny face was not as it should have been.
Her misshapen eyes were pushed to the side of her face, and her nose and mouth were malformed, preventing her from suckling.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10473718
At home in the hotspots
5:00AM Saturday November 03, 2007
By Geoff Cummings
Former "street kid" Judy Moore has managed to survive the high burnout factor of aid work. Photo / Kenny Rodger
The diminutive woman sipping a latte in the sun looks relaxed and carefree, her face younger than her 59 years. In conversation she is animated and quick to laugh. She talks of family - her immediate priorities include visiting her sons in Melbourne and shopping for her grandchildren. But with one cellphone call she could be whisked to the world's troublespots: a natural or man-made disaster in Africa, Asia or the Middle-East.
When carnage erupts in the world's flashpoints, Judy Moore, ex-street kid from Christchurch, is among the first to go in. After the Pakistan earthquake, after the tsunami, in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and a dozen other hotspots, Moore, a grandmother of three, was calling the shots for World Vision.
She forms the advance guard which sets up a base camp, liaises with local and UN officials, and reports back to the aid agency on what's needed and where. Among indescribable chaos and constant danger, her job is to make sense of the situation as head of a small rapid response team of specialists.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10473711
London police guilty of shooting Brazilian
7:24AM Friday November 02, 2007
Ian Blair, Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police. Photo / Reuters
London - London's police force has been found guilty of putting the public at risk over the killing of an innocent Brazilian police mistook for a suicide bomber in 2005.
Police shot electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, seven times in the head after he boarded an underground train in south London on July 22, 2005.
They had wrongly identified him as one of four men who had tried to attack the city's transport system a day earlier.
The capital's Metropolitan Police were fined $477,565 and ordered to pay legal costs of $1m after being convicted of the single charge of breaching health and safety rules which require it to protect the public.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10473636
Celebrity real estate agent beaten to death
11:35AM Friday November 02, 2007
Linda Stein, former manager of US punk band the Ramones and realtor to New York's A-list celebrities, has been found beaten to death in her Fifth Avenue apartment.
Stein, whose clientele included Madonna, Sting, Steven Speilberg and Angelina Jolie, died from "blunt impact injuries of the head and neck" according to the New York medical examiner's office.
The 62-year-old's death is being treated as a homicide, reports CNN, but the New York Police Department have refused to comment on possible suspects.
There were no signs of forced entry to Stein's luxury apartment on exclusive Fifth Avenue when police responded to a 911 call on Tuesday night local time.
The New York Times reports that the leading real estate agent was found face down in a pool of blood by her daughter Mandy and a friend.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10473669
School builds foundations of peace
5:00AM Saturday November 03, 2007
By Donald Macintyre
At first glance the class of excited 9-year-olds looks like any other when the principal drops in for a visit.
Teacher Yaffa Tala writes each item on the blackboard as her pupils shoot their hands up to specify what they hope will be in the new school building they will be moving into this month and will visit for the first time on a trip which Tala explains will start at 8am today: a cafeteria (no); computers (yes); a proper playground (yes); drinks machines (for water, yes, for Coca Cola, no); a library (yes); a gym (yes); individual lockers (yes).
There's a murmur of approval when principal Ala Khatib announces that there will be two lavatories for every class instead of the six the whole school has shared in the "temporary" building it has occupied for the past decade. There is a gasp of excitement when Moid Hussein in the back row asks him if there will be an elevator and the head says yes - changing swiftly to disappointment when he explains it will be not for Moid and his classmates but for the disabled, and for elderly visitors to the school.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10473728
Israel shells Gaza police, 4 dead
9:14AM Wednesday October 31, 2007
GAZA - Israeli forces killed four Hamas policeman in an attack on their compound in the southern Gaza Strip, the Islamist faction and Palestinian hospital officials said.
The Israeli military confirmed its forces carried out the shelling in Abasan village, east of Khan Younis, but had no further details. Earlier, an Israeli missile struck Gaza City's Jabalya refugee camp, wounding six Palestinian civilians, hospital officials said.
A military spokeswoman said Israeli troops operating in the area fired at a Palestinian rocket crew but the missile flew off-target due to a "technical error".
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/feature/story.cfm?c_id=601&objectid=10473156
Comparing Apples to Oranges. If Turkey were to enter Northern Iraq it would never leave for the same reason the USA is bogged down in Iraq now. There would be young Arab men coming from all over to fight Turkey no different than what is occurring now in Iraq. Besides Turkey already has troops in Iraq and should be seeing an effort by the Coalition to remove PKK from northern Iraq while Turkey protects it's border. If that is not occurring then what makes Turkey believe anymore of their troops are going to matter? No. Turkey needs to stay within it's own borders while diplomacy between Kurds and Turks find solutions for the region and not just Northern Iraq.
Gwynne Dyer: Good for the goose, but not for Turkey?
5:00AM Thursday November 01, 2007
By Gwynne Dyer
Fifteen months ago, the armed wing of Lebanon's Hezbollah party, listed as a terrorist organisation by the United States and most other Western countries, attacked Israel's northern border, capturing two Israeli soldiers and killing eight more.
Israel replied with a month of massive air attacks across Lebanon that destroyed much of the country's infrastructure, levelled a good deal of south Beirut, and killed about 1000 Lebanese civilians.
Washington, London, Ottawa and some other Western capitals insisted that this was a reasonable and proportionate response, and shielded Israel from intense diplomatic pressure to stop the attacks even when Israel began a land invasion of southern Lebanon in early August, 2006. The operation only ended when Israeli casualties on the ground mounted rapidly and the Israeli Government pulled its troops back.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/feature/story.cfm?c_id=601&objectid=10473264
continued...
