Category: news

Christchurch resident Marg McCone told the BBC the quake was quite severe

An overnight curfew has been imposed in Christchurch, New Zealand, following a powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake.

Police said the curfew was intended to protect people from falling debris, as the quake caused significant damage.

The mayor of the city, Bob Parker, described the scale of the damage as immense, and a state of emergency has been declared.

There have been strong aftershocks, and weather forecasters say gale force winds are expected within 24 hours.

The quake caused considerable infrastructure damage, but local officials say power has been largely restored and tankers will supply water.

There are thousands of earthquakes in New Zealand every year, but very few do any damage.

The earthquake struck off New Zealand’s South Island, the US Geological Survey has said, in the early hours of the morning when most people were asleep.

The epicentre was 55km (35 miles) north-west of Christchurch, at a depth of 12 km (7.5 miles).

Two men were seriously injured by falling masonry and glass, but there have been no reports of fatalities.

“The damages are incredibly frightening. The only thing you can say it’s a miracle that no-one lost their life,” Prime Minister John Key told TV NZ.

Many homeowners faced a cold winter’s night and leaking or damaged homes. Hours after the quake, one building in the Christchurch city centre burst into flames, following a suspected gas leak.

Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker said the “sharp, vicious earthquake” had caused significant damage in parts of the city.

He said daylight showed that the damage was considerably worse than first thought.

“There would not be a house, there would not be a family in our city that has not in some way have damage done to their person, to their property,” he said on national radio.

“I think it’s like an iceberg; there is… below the visible line, significant structural damage.”

Police said damage and power outages had been reported as far afield as Dunedin, 360km (223miles) to the south-west.

Chimneys and walls had fallen from older buildings, with roads blocked, traffic lights out and power, gas and water supplies disrupted, he added.

“There is considerable damage in the central city and we’ve also had reports of looting, just shop windows broken and easy picking of displays,” police inspector Mike Coleman told Radio New Zealand. “It’s very unsafe to be out and about.”

Susan Birkbeck, who lives in the centre of Christchurch, told the BBC: “It was absolutely shocking, we’re all terrified and scared of what’s going to happen next.”

Daylight showed extensive damage

“I was asleep when suddenly the house started shaking and there was this smashing sound, I thought a large truck had just driven through the front window.”

“I’m now sitting on my bed surrounded by broken glass and I’ve no idea what to do. The walls and roof are just hanging, it’s terrifying,” she added.

The local newspaper, The Press, said it was felt widely across the South Island, including Christchurch and the nearby port city of Timaru.

New Zealand lies at the southern end of the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, and above an area of the Earth’s crust where the Pacific Plate converges with the Indo-Australian Plate.

The country experiences more than 14,000 earthquakes a year, of which only around 20 have a magnitude in excess of 5.0.

The last fatal earthquake was in 1968, when a 7.1-magnitude tremor killed three people on the South Island’s western coast.

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Injury-hit midfielder Owen Hargreaves has been left out of Manchester United’s Champions League squad.

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Survivors of a 1972 plane crash in the Andes arrive at the San Jose mine to support the 33 men trapped underground.

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Fox Glacier is a popular destination for tourists and sports enthusiasts

A British tourist who was among nine people killed in a plane crash in New Zealand has been named by the Foreign Office as 24-year-old Brad Coker.

New Zealand Police said Mr Coker, from Farnborough in Hampshire, was one of four foreigners on the light aircraft.

The plane, which was owned by a skydiving company, crashed soon after taking off from Fox Glacier on the South Island at 1330 local time.

Irish citizen Patrick Byrne, 26, from County Wexford, was also killed.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it was offering consular assistance.

The dead were from Britain, Ireland, Australia and Germany, said police. The pilot and the other four passengers were all local.

The plane was reported to be a Fletcher fixed-wing aircraft, commonly used in the area.

It is thought to be New Zealand’s worst aviation accident since a plane crashed on landing near Christchurch in 2003, killing eight people.

New Zealand’s Transport Accident Investigation Commission has begun an investigation into the crash.

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Mohamed ElBaradei returned to his native Egypt this year

Former UN chief nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei has accused Egypt’s government of being behind a smear campaign targeting his family.

A government-run newspaper had said the ElBaradeis were accused of being atheists and having a daughter married to a non-Muslim.

Mr ElBaradei said this was how “the regime” responded to reformers.

He has been seen as a potential presidential candidate in Egypt, a Muslim-majority state.

Speculation is high about who may replace Hosni Mubarak, the country’s 82-year-old president, who is known to be unwell but has no obvious successor after nearly 30 years in office.

Mr ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize winner as well as former head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, was quoted in independent newspaper Al-Dustour as saying the government was “waging a campaign of sheer lies” against himself and his family.

He also condemned a “smear campaign” allegedly being waged on the social networking site Facebook.

“This just shows how desperate the forces against change have become by resorting to a smear campaign based on lies and fabrication,” he told the Associated Press news agency through a spokeswoman.

A spokesman for President Mubarak’s National Democratic Party, Ali Eddin Helal, said it had had no connection to the alleged Facebook campaign, which he called an attempt at “character assassination”.

“I think this is a very grave mistake, violating the privacy of others,” the party spokesman said.

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Craigslist was started in 1995 as a hobby by founder Craig Newmark

The online marketplace Craigslist has closed the controversial “adult services” listing in the US.

The company has not said why it took the decision, but it has faced an ongoing barrage of criticism from attorneys general and advocacy groups.

They have claimed the listing was a virtual tool for pimps and prostitutes.

The section has now been replaced with a black and white bar that reads “censored”. An “erotic” service is still active outside the US.

A statement from Craigslist executives is expected in the coming days.

‘Threat to women and children’

Last year the San Francisco based company removed its “erotic services” section and replaced it with a fee-based adult category in response to pressure from 40 state attorneys general.

It also adopted a policy of screening every advert.

In a May blog post, Craigslist chief executive Jim Buckmaster said Craigslist had “gone beyond fulfilling its legal obligations”. The site was “a leader in the fight against human trafficking and exploitation,” he said.

But critics continued to accuse the firm of helping to facilitate child prostitution.

The listings came under renewed scrutiny after the suicide in prison last month of a former medical student who was awaiting trial in the killing of a masseuse he met through Craigslist.

In early August a paid advert appeared in the Washington Post from two women appealing for the closure of the adult services section. One said she had been forced into prostitution at the age of 11, with the jobs organised through Craigslist.

And last week in a joint letter to Craigslist, 17 attorneys general said women and children would “continue to be victimised in the market and trafficking provided by Craigslist”.

‘Easy target’

The latest move by Craigslist to close down the service was welcomed by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, a persistent critic of both the erotic and adult listings.

“We welcome any steps toward eliminating the adult services section and prostitution ads on Craigslist, as we have urged, and we are seeking to verify the site’s official policy going forward,” he said.

“If Craigslist is doing the right thing voluntarily in response to our coalition of attorneys general, it could set an example for others.”

But in the blogosphere there has been broad support for Craigslist’s position.

“It is surely, though, splendidly naive to think Craigslist would somehow be alone in providing a forum for prostitution ads,” said Chris Matyszczyk on the news blog CNET.com.

“However, Craigslist is in the unfortunate position of being high-profile and successful and has become a very easy target in what is a far more complex and nuanced issue than the attorneys general are making out.”

And at Wired, Evan Hansen said: “Internet services may accelerate and exacerbate some social problems like prostitution, but they rarely cause them. The root of these issues – and their solutions – lie in the realm of public policy, not web sites.”

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Queues formed at Kabul Bank branches across Afghanistan

Afghans have continued to withdraw money from the country’s largest bank, Kabul Bank, over fears it may collapse.

Government and bank officials have given repeated assurances that the bank will not fail.

The run on the bank began earlier this week after allegations of corruption and mismanagement among executives.

The government says it has transferred $100m (£65m) to the bank to cover salaries for soldiers, police and teachers who are paid through the bank.

Branches of the bank across the country were crowded on Saturday as people concerned about their savings queued to withdraw money.

“For the time being I want to withdraw my money and then I will wait to see what will happen next,” said Mohammad Habib Angar in Kabul.

“If the bank is able to create confidence, for sure I will put my money back in Kabul Bank because I do not want to close my account.”

Some officials have suggested the long lines at the bank’s branches were attributable to customers withdrawing cash for Eid ul-Fitr, the upcoming Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan.

Finance Minister Hazrat Omar Zakhailwal sought to reassure customers, saying the bank had the government’s full backing.

On Saturday he said money was being delivered to branches across the country to pay the salaries of the tens of thousands of government workers, including soldiers and police, who hold accounts with Kabul Bank.

The scale of Saturday’s withdrawals has not been announced and the the size of the bank’s debts remains unclear.

The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Kabul Bank’s losses could exceed $300m (£194m) – and that the figure is more than the bank’s assets.

The newspapers reported that two senior executives – chairman Sherkhan Farnood and chief executive Khalilullah Ferozi – had been replaced and Mr Farnood ordered to surrender $160m worth of property purchased in Dubai.

The governor of the Central Bank, Abdul Qadir Fitrat, said that the two executives had voluntarily resigned because, under new reforms, only banking professionals can hold the top operating positions at banks.

The two each own 28% of the bank’s shares, making them the largest shareholders.

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A fourth Pakistan cricketer is being investigated by cricket’s governing body, claims the News of the World.

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The government’s crackdown has drawn high-level criticism

Demonstrations are planned across France in protest at the government’s policy of deporting Roma people.

Anti-racism groups opposed to the moves say that more than 30,000 people may rally in Paris alone.

There has been strong international criticism of the deportations, which saw 1,000 Roma (Gypsies) returned to Romania and Bulgaria last month.

However, opinion polls suggest more than half of French people back the government on the issue.

According to official figures, 11,000 Roma were expelled from France last year.

The League of Human Rights, which called for the demonstrations, said it wanted to counteract government “xenophobia” and what it described as the systematic abuse of Roma in France.

At least 138 demonstrations are planned, including a march through the capital due to start at 1400 (1200 GMT).

The rallies are being backed by the opposition Socialist Party and the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), France’s second largest trade union confederation.

France began a high-profile campaign of clearing large numbers of illegal Roma camps last month, as part of a security crackdown announced by President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The move was announced after a number of incidents of violence targeting the police.

Mr Sarkozy has faced dissent from his own cabinet on the issue

In mid-July, riots erupted in Grenoble after police shot an alleged armed robber during a shootout.

The next day, dozens of French Roma attacked a police station in the small Loire Valley town of Saint Aignan, after police shot dead a French Roma man who had allegedly not stopped at a police checkpoint.

The mass expulsions have drawn criticism from the Vatican and the UN and President Sarkozy has also faced dissent from within his own cabinet.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon hinted that he disliked the crude links being made between foreigners and crime, while Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he considered resigning over the issue.

Earlier this week, the European Commission criticised France over its expulsions of Roma, saying it did not put enough emphasis on the individual circumstances of those facing expulsion.

Under EU rules, the state can expel people who have been in the country for at least three months without a job or are a social burden. They can also be expelled within three months of their arrival if they are deemed to be a threat to public security.

France said it has been “scrupulously respecting European law”, and that most of the repatriations were voluntary.

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Two people have died after a collision between two light aircraft over the Isle of Wight.

The crash was witnessed by people in the Havenstreet area, between Newport and Ryde, just after 1700 BST.

One aircraft, carrying two people, came down in remote woodlands in the Havenstreet area and both occupants were killed.

The other aircraft was damaged, but landed safely at Bembridge Airfield. One person was taken to hospital.

Hampshire Police are at the scene of the fatal crash.

They said they were working to identify the victims of the crash.

Officers are due to stay at the scene overnight.

Insp Paul Saville urged anyone who saw the crash to contact officers.

“I would also ask that anyone who has recovered parts of the aircraft, which may be spread over a wide area, take them to Newport police station,” he said.

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An Argentine court reopens an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity under General Franco in Spain.

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England batsman Kevin Pietersen returns to form with 116 as Surrey tie their final CB 40 game with Sussex.

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Newport council chamber would seat fewer members under the proposals

More plans to reduce the number of councillors in Wales have been put forward to create what supporters say would be greater fairness for voters.

Boundary commissioners’ final proposals for Anglesey, Denbighshire, Neath Port Talbot, Newport and draft plans for Bridgend would cut the total by 21.

The aim is that councillors represent roughly the same number of electors.

The final decision on arrangements across the 22 Welsh counties will rest with the assembly government.

If the proposals go through as suggested, the number of councillors would fall from 40 to 36 in Anglesey, and from 47 to 42 in Denbighshire.

In Neath Port Talbot the total would be reduced from 64 to 59, and in Newport from 50 to 46.

Meanwhile, Bridgend would see a reduction from 54 to 51.

The Local Government Boundary Commission for Wales was asked to examine councils’ arrangements in January 2009 by the then Local Government Minister Brian Gibbons.

Dr Gibbons said at the time: “Since the last reviews were conducted new communities have been created in some areas and there have been shifts in population in others.

“This means that in some areas there is now an imbalance in the number of electors that councillors represent.

“The commission will review the total number of councillors making up each council; the number of councillors representing each electoral division and the name and boundary of each division.

“As far as possible, I want to restore fairness so that councillors generally represent the same number of people.”

Paul Wood, the chair of the commission, said in his introduction to the proposals that the issue of fairness was a “key principle for our work”.

“The situation which currently exists, where a councillor from one part of the county represents a small number of voters whereas another councillor may represent many, many more is simply not fair on electors.

“In practical terms, it means that some areas have an unfair advantage over others in decisions made in the council chamber.”

Mr Wood said correcting this was “far from simple” and commissioners had to adhere to existing “building blocks” which sometimes did not reflect current “patterns of community life”.

He added that “even where this is the case, we have not been able to accept suggestions which cut across these boundaries. This is frustrating for both respondents and the commission”.

Mr Wood said: “The publication of our first few draft proposals reports drew some concern that we were moving away from the principle of having one councillor for an electoral division to suggesting far greater use of multi-member divisions.

“The rules within which we operate envisage that each electoral division shall be represented by one councillor; this could be called the ‘default position’.

“However, we can move away from this for a variety of reasons, including where we have found this is the best way of ensuring that electors are more equally represented.”

He said the commission had aimed for “democratic fairness for all electors” and that, along with other proposals “will lead to local government which is effective and convenient”.

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A lawyer for the three Pakistan players at the centre of allegations of corruption says they are keen for a “timely and satisfactory outcome” to the affair.

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