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OMG, that is awful... I hope he stays locked up for good.
The death toll from China's deadliest earthquake in decades has climbed to nearly 15,000, as officials warned of calamities downstream from broken rivers and dams strained to bursting point.
Tens of thousands of troops, firefighters and civilians raced to save more than 25,000 people buried across a wide swathe of southwest Sichuan province under collapsed schools, factories and hospitals after Monday's 7.9 magnitude quake.
Many schoolchildren were buried as they were taking an afternoon nap. One body of a boy was found still clutching a pen.
The official death toll climbed to 14,866, as rescuers pulled at tangled chunks of buildings for signs of life.
The government sent 50,000 troops to dig for victims. A paramilitary officer who arrived at Wenchuan, at the epicentre, told Sichuan TV a third of houses there had been destroyed and more than 90 per cent damaged.
Amid the overwhelming gloom, there were also moments of joy.
In Mianzhu, where thousands have already been confirmed dead, about 500 people were pulled out alive from crushed buildings.
Rescuers in Hanwang, a village in Mianzhu, sustained a girl with food and water as they struggled to free her from the ruins of a school.
A woman eight-months pregnant and her mother, trapped under an apartment building in Dujiangyan, were freed by firefighters.
"We are very happy. We have been standing here shouting for two days," said Pan Jianjun, a relative. "But there are still three more people in there making sounds."
But television showed whole villages wiped out across the poor, mountainous region suggesting searchers would find many more bodies than survivors among the toppled buildings.
BLOCKED RIVERS, DAMAGED DAMS
Officials have also warned of dangers from increased strain on local dams as well as mudslides on brittle hillsides where rain has been forecast over the next few days.
Two hydropower stations in Maoxian county, where 7,000 residents and tourists remain stranded near the epicentre, were "seriously damaged". Authorities warned that dams could burst.
Landslides had blocked the flow of two rivers in northern Qingchuan county, forming a huge lake in a region where 1,000 have already died and 700 are buried, Xinhua said.
"The rising water could cause the mountains to collapse. We desperately need geological experts to carry out tests and fix a rescue plan," Xinhua quoted Li Hao, the county's Communist Party chief, as saying.
The quake had also stopped a river in the stricken Mianzhu region, prompting officials to evacuate residents and drain dams, downstream, the agency said.
Underscoring the urgency of relief efforts, the Communist Party's top discipline watchdog vowed to punish officials for any dereliction of duty.
Pictures from Beichuan, which rescuers have struggled to reach, showed near total devastation. Survivors lay alongside the dead in the open air, surrounded by rubble as state TV showed dramatic footage of soldiers parachuting in to help.
PREMIER'S APPEAL
Premier Wen Jiabao made emotional appeals to workers and comfort orphaned children.
"Your pain is our pain," he said, standing amid a cluster of residents, some of whom wiped away tears. "Saving people's lives is the most important task."
The quake, the worst to hit China since 1976 when up to 300,000 died, has drowned out upbeat government propaganda three months ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games.
It has also muffled criticism from abroad over recent unrest in Tibet, with images of the human tragedy and heroic rescue efforts spurring offers of aid and an outpouring of sympathy.
The Party's swift action to mobilize a massive rescue force has made a jarring comparison with that of Myanmar, whose government's slow response to a devastating cyclone has infuriated aid and rights groups.
China's stock market initially weakened after the quake, partly on fears it could add to inflation that is already at a 12-year high, but the Shanghai stock index ended 2.7 per cent higher as fears of the long-term impact ebbed.
Industrial production growth showed China's busy factories moving down a gear and economists said output growth could fade in coming months, partly due to the impact of the Sichuan quake.
Leading disaster modeling firm AIR Worldwide said the cost of the quake was likely to exceed $US20 billion.
Reuters
The United Nations has estimated those affected by the Myanmar cyclone at up to 2.5 million and called an urgent meeting of big donors and Asian states as the Myanmar junta continued to limit foreign aid.
The European Union's top aid official said the military government's restrictions were increasing the risk of starvation and disease.
UN humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes told reporters that there were now between 1.6-2.5 million people who were "severely affected" by Cyclone Nargis and urgently needed aid, up from a previous estimate of at least 1.5 million people.
Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said after a two-hour meeting in Yangon, where he urged his counterpart Thein Sein to ease visa rules for relief workers, that he was told Myanmar could "tackle the problem by themselves."
In New York, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has expressed frustration over the response by Myanmar's reclusive leaders, called a meeting of key donor states and Asian powers later on Wednesday to discuss "what kind of concrete measures we can do from now on."
"Even though the Myanmarese government has shown some sense of flexibility, at this time it is far, far too short," he said. "The magnitude of this situation requires much more mobilisation of resources and aid workers."
A Western diplomat said the meeting would be at 4:30 p.m. EDT (8:30 a.m. NZT) and that among those invited were the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China, India, Bangladesh, Australia and Japan.
TRICKLE OF AID
Nearly two weeks after the cyclone swept through the heavily populated Irrawaddy delta rice bowl, killing tens of thousands of people, foreign aid still amounts to little more than a trickle.
Myanmar, formerly called Burma, was once the world's biggest rice exporting country but more than 40 years of military rule have left it impoverished. The military junta has repeatedly crushed pro-democracy movements and tightly restricts visits by foreigners.
Samak told reporters in Bangkok that Myanmar's leaders had insisted that teams of foreign experts, who have been refused entry, were not needed.
"They are confident of dealing with the problem by themselves. There are no outbreaks of diseases, no starvation, no famine. They don't need experts, but are willing to get aid supplies from every country," Samak said.
Louis Michel, the top European Union aid official, disagreed.
"There is a risk of water pollution. There is a risk of starvation because the storages of rice have been destroyed," he told reporters in Bangkok before flying to Yangon to seek better access for international aid workers and relief efforts.
"We want to convince the authorities of our good faith. We are there for humanitarian reasons," he said, throwing cold water on suggestions foreign countries move unilaterally to bring in aid.
Even so, one EU member said on Wednesday it was time to act. "If need be, the international community must force the Burmese regime to let more help and relief workers in," Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said.
ACCESS IS "CRITICAL"
One group of Christian doctors has been treating children in churches, operating below the government's radar. "We have to try to do something," said one Asian doctor from the group, giving out medicine to children for diarrhea in a rickety wooden church in a village just north of Yangon.
World Food Program Executive Director Josette Sheeran said in Washington her organisation had so far reached 28,000 people. "A critical issue now is access. WFP has managed to reach more than 28,000 people with food aid so far, with 14 international and 214 national staff in-country," she said.
"Our flights are allowed to bring in some supplies, but far from enough - a massive effort is needed to save lives..." she said at a US Senate hearing on the global food crisis.
Holmes was asked if the United Nations might have to consider air drops to get food and other aid to cyclone victims who have not been helped and who are crowded into Buddhist monasteries and schools. He said it was not an ideal form of distributing aid but might become an option.
"It is something that could be contemplated," he said, adding that if barriers to aid workers were not lifted "one might have to look at it."
He also warned that epidemics of diseases like cholera, malaria and measles "can break out at anytime now."
Heavy rain and winds were forecast in the delta as a tropical depression moved in, but the UN weather agency discounted fears that a new cyclone was forming.
Myanmar state television raised its official toll to 38,491 dead, 1,403 injured and 27,838 missing on Wednesday.
The International Federation of the Red Cross estimated on the basis of reports from 22 organisations working in Myanmar that between 68,833 and 127,990 people had died.
ASIANS WELCOME, SAYS JUNTA
In a gesture to critics, Myanmar's rulers invited 160 personnel from Bangladesh, China, India and Thailand to assist in the sometimes chaotic relief efforts but that was a fraction of the number needed, experts said.
"It's just awful. People are in just desperate need, begging as vehicles go past," Gordon Bacon, an emergency coordinator for the International Rescue Committee, told Reuters from Yangon.
Some foreign aid workers who have reached Myanmar have been restricted to cobbling together assessment reports in Yangon for donors, based on what local staff tell them.
Experts say the relief effort is only delivering a tenth of the needed supplies. Heavy rains have slowed transportation of aid by land and added to the misery of tens of thousands of refugees packed into monasteries, schools and pagodas.
The operations in Myanmar are a shadow of the massive international relief operation begun just days after the 2004 Asian tsunami. The United States alone deployed thousands of its military and more than a dozen ships in the Indian Ocean.
So far the US military has made a total of eight aid flights into Yangon, an official said.
"We don't have confirmation of future flights yet but we are very optimistic," said Colonel Douglas Powell.
Three US naval ships were in international waters off Myanmar waiting for a go-ahead from Myanmar's generals.
Reuters
A JEALOUS husband who suspected his wife of an affair took revenge – by putting her for sale on eBay.
Paul Osborn, 44, kicked out wife Sharon and advertised her on the internet auction site – with bids hitting £500,100.
Take my wife ... Paul's eBay advert
Take my wife ... Paul's eBay advert
It offered his “cheating, lying, adulterous slag of a wife” to the highest bidder – and became an internet phenomenon, with users forwarding the link worldwide. But Sharon, 43, denies an affair and cops are now investigating Paul for harassment.
MoT inspector Paul heard rumours in March that Network Rail manager Sharon, his wife of 24 years, was having an affair with a man at work.
Complaint
Dad-of-two Paul, of Bletchley, Bucks, said: “I started checking her emails and I realised the rumours were true. They had been discussing their sex life together and making plans for the future.
“I was absolutely destroyed. I gathered all her stuff in bags and dumped it in the drive.”
Three weeks ago, Sharon pleaded for Paul to take her realised it wasn’t the right thing to do. I was just so angry.”
Sharon and her colleague made a police complaint against Paul. Neither was available for comment last night. But the unnamed man’s wife said at home in Hemel Hempstead, Herts: “There’s nothing going on. They work in the same office, that’s all.”
Thames Valley Police confirmed it was investigating, saying: “Statements have been taken from two people. ”
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The Sun.co.uk
my brother wants to make a bid
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VICTIM: Lauren Huxley.
A Sydney carpenter has been found guilty of the brutal attack on an 18-year-old woman in which she was beaten, doused in petrol and left for dead in her garage, which was set alight.
It took the jury about three hours to come back with a verdict. The six men and six women found Robert Black Farmer, 39, guilty of the attempted murder of Lauren Huxley, detaining her for advantage, and maliciously damaging her Northmead home by fire in the attack on November 9, 2005.
As each guilty verdict was read out, family and friends of the Ms Huxley cried: "Yes."
Ms Huxley, now 21, was left clinging to life after the attack and spent 23 days on life support and suffered permanent brain damage as a result.
Standing with their arms around each other outside the court, Ms Huxley's parents Patrick and Christine Huxley and older sister Simone paid tribute to her strength.
"I don't think she makes sense of any of it because why should you make sense of such a horrific crime,'' Simone Huxley told reporters.
"She chooses to get on with her life, put herself first ... and not worry about the past.
"You can't describe how remarkable she is, how strong and how brave and what a strong spirit she has to overcome her horrific injuries and get on with her life.''
Mr Huxley said: "It's a black day for Mr Farmer, isn't it?''
Asked if he had a message Farmer, Mr Huxley replied: "Go burn in hell, with petrol, where you belong you bastard."
Farmer showed no emotions when the verdict was read out.
During the trial the court heard that DNA found in the Huxley home linked Farmer to the crime scene.
A DNA profile found on a bed rail in Ms Huxley's bedroom had a one in 10 billion chance of being from someone other than Farmer. A shoe print matching Farmer's Nike running shoes was also found in the garage the court heard.
Ms Huxley's mother and sister embraced and wept, leaning forward in the public gallery to embrace the lead detective on the case.
Farmer, dressed all in black, stared at the jury but displayed little emotion as the verdicts were handed down.
Crown Prosecutor Chris Maxwell, QC, indicated he would be pushing for the maximum penalty for the offences, labelling them as being in "the worst category" of crimes.
The prosecution case hinged on forensic and circumstantial evidence against Farmer, who lived just streets from the Huxley family's western Sydney home.
Farmer's ex-girlfriend Catharine Beverley told the court he was overly happy on the afternoon of November 9, and attempted to drive past the Huxley home later that night.
Gail Farmer said she found her son writing a suicide note in the early hours of the following morning.
Both women testified Farmer disappeared later that day.
Old school friend Yuri Naranjo gave refuge to Farmer in the weeks following the attack, after he showed up unannounced at his Southern Highlands home.
"Rob told me he'd done something wrong but he didn't want to tell me and I shouldn't ask him about what it was," Mr Naranjo told the court.
- with AAP
A suicide blast has killed 18 police and civilians in Afghanistan's western province of Farah, officials said.
The incident occurred in a bazaar near a police station in Del Aram district of Farah, they said.
"So far, 18 people, including police and civilians, have been killed," Farah's governor Rohul Amin said by phone.
Citing officials near the site, Amin said the bomber was wearing an all-enveloping burqa robe that Afghan women commonly wear.
"I know that 18 people have been killed, but do not know whether the bomber was a man or woman or was wearing burqa or not," said Juman Khan, a police officer from Del Aram.
He said two police vehicles were destroyed in the attack, the latest in rising violence in Afghanistan in the past two years, the bloodiest period since the Taliban were driven from power in 2001.
Reuters
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CONCRETE JUNGLE: Survivors check a collapsed building in the city of Dujiangyan.
* Quake death toll estimated at 15,000 but likely to grow
* Homeless enduring strained water and sanitation supplies
* Nuclear company reports deaths and damage, no mention of radiation leaks
* Government mobilises more troops and helicopters
Fresh aid has reached China's earthquake-devastated areas but the sheer magnitude of caring for tens of thousands of homeless, grieving survivors threatened to overwhelm relief efforts.
The Communist Party leadership told officials to "ensure social stability" as Monday's 7.9 magnitude quake in southwestern Sichuan province spawned rumours of chemical spills, fears of dam bursts and scenes of collective grief and desperation.
The official death toll estimate from the quake stood at 14,866. But 25,000 remain buried and as search teams sift, often bare-handed, through towns turned to rubble, the number of dead is likely to climb.
The strains from tens of thousands of homeless are growing.
"There is enough food but not enough water. We have only had bottled mineral water the past few days, nothing to cook with," said Wang Yujie, a teacher whose school withstood the quake.
Three days after the quake hit, hopes of pulling survivors from crushed homes, schools and factories dimmed and the waves of rescuers appear to be hampered by lack of specialised equipment.
But more aid was arriving and efforts at co-ordination were also improving, with Sichuan setting up a hotline for victims and ambulances with Beijing licence plates on the roads.
About 130,000 army and paramilitary troops had reached the province by Thursday, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
But in some villages near the badly hit area of Beichuan, angry residents complained they had had little to eat and were forced to drink contaminated water to keep themselves alive.
State radio broadcast messages warning local people not to drink unsafe water and to be patient in waiting for help.
Many are sleeping outside or in makeshift shelters where the lack of water and blocked toilets has raised fears of outbreaks of diarrhoea and other infectious disease.
And new threats emerged from damaged dams.
Minister for Water Resources, Chen Lei, said such damage was widespread and sounded far from assured in comments put on the ministry website.
"Especially in Sichuan province, there are many dams, damage from the quake is extensive and the hazards are unclear," Chen said in the speech given to officials a day earlier.
And the minister blamed more than nature for the dangers.
"Because the management systems of hydro-power stations are not smooth and information channels are blocked, the extent of their damage is unclear," Chen said.
Premier Wen Jiabao, a geologist himself, has made emotional appeals from the disaster zone urging on workers and comforting orphaned children. On Thursday he headed for Qingchuan, where landslides had blocked the flow of two rivers.
The disaster area is also home to China's chief nuclear weapons research lab in Mianyang, as well as several secretive atomic sites, but no nuclear power stations.
The China Nuclear Engineering and Construction Corp reported that several of its facilities in Sichuan were damaged.
The report on its website did not mention any radiation leaks. A Western expert with knowledge of the Mianyang lab said it was not likely the facilities were put at serious risk. He requested anonymity.
Reuters
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WASTELAND: A woman sifts through the debris of her home destroyed by Cyclone Nargis
Po Aung would rather return to the ruins of his village in Myanmar's delta region than stay in a state relief camp.
"We keep hearing things about victims at the government-run camps," said the 57-year-old. "We just don't know what to do."
Nearly two weeks after Cyclone Nargis tore through Myanmar's rice bowl over half a million people are thought to be sheltering in temporary settlements.
The lucky have been taken in by monks and private volunteers.
The less fortunate are stuck in government-run centres, where people complain of tiny food rations and forced labour.
"They have to break stones at the construction sites. They are paid K 1000 ($NZ1.30) per day but are not provided with any food," said Ko Hla Min, who has been able to stay in his village outside Bogalay, a delta town 90km southwest of the main city of Yangon.
"Most people don't want live in strange places and do new jobs. They want to go back to where they lived with their beloved ones and go back to their traditional profession, agriculture," said the 35-year-old.
Ko Hla Min lost nine members of his family in the storm. Only six people survived the tidal wave that engulfed his village and they were flung miles by its force.
He said the government relief effort in Bogalay, where at least 10,000 people are believed to have perished, has been negligible.
Along the river bank, rotting corpses are still tangled in the scrubs. Villagers continue to fish, wash and bathe in the same river.
"We can see the relief aid materials given by donors stored at some places. I wonder when they will give them to us?"
Po Aung, who survived the cyclone by clinging on to a tree and then lived on coconuts for three straight days, is hoping Buddhist monks will take him in for now.
In time, he wants to return to his village, where only around 80 people survived out of more than 500.
"If possible, most of us would like to go back to our village no matter what has happened to it," said Po Aung, who lost his son and mother in the storm.
"Those dead are gone. But, we the remaining want to return to our own place and to go back to our traditional profession, agriculture and fishing."
Reuters