Deadly Madeira Floods and Mudslides Kill 25
Torrential rains in Madeira, a Portuguese island have caused heavy flooding and deadly mudslides, with twenty five people declared dead, according to a government minister.
The island, a favorite amongst tourists is also reported to have sixty three injured in the rains that have turned to cause fatalities, and they are currently being treated in hospital, stated Lusa, a state news agency. Officials are yet to confirm if any of the casualties are tourists.
Interior Minister Rui Pereira stated that the number of casualties stood at twenty five, as per reports from the national civil protection service. A duty office of the national civil protection service stated that they have been overwhelmed with calls from people requesting help following the flooding and mudslides.
Strong, gushing streams of water and mud were shown invading Funchal’s streets, the capital of Madeira – so powerful that it dragged and overturned cars in its wake.
Jose Socrates, Madeira’s Prime Minister spoke of his ‘profound shock’ regarding the size of the natural disaster, while promising to ensure that aid would be provided for everyone affected.
Minister Pereira also stated that they were considering the option of declaring a state of emergency in Lisbon. The decision is not yet known.
The airport in Funchal has been closed, with the capital’s mayor insisting that all residents stay indoors.
Doctors and council workers and other volunteers have been called in by authorities to provide assistance.
The severe flooding and powerful mudslides have destroyed homes, while electricity and phone lines have been destroyed. While rescue efforts are ongoing, strong winds topping 100 kmph seem to be taking its toll, while most roads are blocked and water levels high.
According to the weathermen, the worst of the storm is said to be over.
India Restaurant Bomb Blast Kills Eight in Pune
Eight people were killed and thirty-three wounded when a bomb exploded at a restaurant in Pune, located along the western coast of India.
Officials from the Maharashtra state said that the explosion took place at a restaurant called ‘The German Bakery’ in Koregaon Park. The restaurant is very popular amongst tourists and is quite close to the famed Osho Ashram.
News reports indicate that among the dead are four foreign women – their nationality is yet unknown.
The explosion took place around 1900 hrs in India, one of the busier times of the restaurant, which is located down North Main Road.
Vinod Dhale, one of the workers at the restaurant speaking to the Reuters news agency said, “We heard a big noise and we all rushed out. The impact was so much that there were tiny body parts everywhere.”
Meanwhile, Rajendra Sonawane, a senior police official told BBC that the bomb had been in an abandoned bag which apparently contained an improvised explosive device (IED). Anti-terror squad officers are currently at the scene.
Initial news reports of the explosion stated that it was caused by an exploding gas cylinder.
However, although officials are yet to confirm if the explosion was caused by a bomb, Home Secretary G.K. Pillai told the Press Trust of India (PTI) that this incident was ‘most probably a terror attack’.
State Deputy Chief Minister, Chhagan Bhujbal said Mumbai and the Maharashtra state has been put on high alert.
Shops located close to the restaurant were also badly damaged in the blast, while the site of the explosion was said to be splattered with blood and severed limbs.
The last major terror attack in India took place in Mumbai in November 2008, which recorded 166 fatalities.
Powerful Explosions In Karbala Kills Over 40 Shi’ite Pilgrims
Karbala experienced two very powerful explosions on February 5 2010, which killed over forty Shi’ite pilgrims. The attack in the holy city in Iraq is the latest in several similar bombings, which took place during the week.
The explosions were targeted at scores of Shi’ites during a pilgrimage, which took place in Karbala.
The third in a set of organized attacks, this one could be counted as the third biggest terror upheaval against Shi’ite pilgrims in a week. On Wednesday, February 3 2010, a suicide bombing in the very same city killed close to 25 Shi’ite pilgrims. The Monday of that week saw a female suicide bomber blow herself up in the midst of a mass of pilgrims, killing around 40 and leaving many more wounded.
The crowds of Shi’ite pilgrims on Friday were heavily concentrated with witnesses commenting that even a small explosion could easily have killed or wounded quite a number of them. Pilgrims fleeing the first bomb explosion, had unfortunately been caught when the second bomb went off, said other witnesses.
Close to 10 million pilgrims hailing from Kuwait, Iran, Bahrain, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia are present in Karbala for the pilgrimage, according to Iraqi authorities. The pilgrimage is being held to mark the fortieth day following the slaying of Hussein who was Prophet Mohammed’s grandson.
While the Iraqi government is taking steps to assist all those wounded in the explosions, the country’s Health Minister Salah al Hasnawi stated that government ambulances would be deployed to transport the wounded back to their homes, while emergency rescue teams seem to be leading all assistance schemes.
Amaleddin al Hir, the provincial governor blamed the twin explosions on “elements of al Qaeda” that were “abetted by Baathists” from the Saddam Hussein regime.
Security has been upped on all routes from Baghdad to Karbala with numerous checkpoints set up as well.
Quake in China’s Sichuan Kills One, Damages Homes
Xinhua news agency reports stated that an earthquake at 5:32am hit villages in the Sichuan province of China on Sunday, 31 January 2010, leaving one person dead and 15 others injured. The earthquake damaged thousands of homes as well.
The epicenter of the earthquake was between Chongqing and Chengdu and caused the collapse of close to 100 houses. The United States Geological Survey records indicated that the earthquake registered a magnitude of 5.2 on the Richter scale, and was centered at a depth of 18.6 kilometers.
Officials from the Sichuan Provincial Earthquake Administration said that the casualties were from three villages in Moxi town located close to Suining city in Eastern Sichuan.
Xinhua reports stated that 4,700 houses were damaged by the quake in Tongnan County, located next to Suining, while losses were estimated at close to 30 million Yuan, which is around $4.5 million.
Around 40 tents and 1,500 cotton-padded quilts were sent across to the disaster-hit area by the Chongqing civil affairs authority. The Sichuan Provincial Seismological Bureau said that a 30-member team was in Moxi assisting with the disaster.
Suining’s population stands at 3.8 million people and is not an earthquake-prone area, with records of only three minor tremors measuring around 2.0 over the past two decades. Sichuan Province however, is still rebuilding from the 8.0 earthquake, which hit in 2008 and killed around 70,000 people. Known as the Wenchuan earthquake or the Great Sichuan earthquake, it was felt in countries close by and even as far off as Shanghai and Beijing.
Brittany Murphy
When one talks of hip-hop, one cannot help but think of the sharp, thoughtful and intense lyrics of Eminem evident through his music, and rather vividly in the movie 8 Mile, which was a semi-autobiographical account of his life in poverty in Detroit before he rose to fame.
Now if you have watched the movie, then you would have noticed that the role of Alex Latorno was played by Brittany Murphy as Eminem’s girlfriend. However, while Eminem continues to forge ahead with his music, Brittany Murphy is not with us anymore.
The 32-year-old ‘Girl, Interrupted’ actor who collapsed in her shower in full cardiac arrest could not be resuscitated by paramedics, and was pronounced dead on arrival at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center at 10:04 A.M.
Her mother had informed the paramedics that she was a diabetic while TMZ reported that she had flu like symptoms for days and was vomiting heavily around the time that she died. With prescriptions around the house, her friends were worried that her addiction to the prescription painkiller Vicodin (which Michael Jackson was on as well) was completely out of control after undergoing plastic surgery.
While the Los Angeles Police Department is investigating the ‘cause of death’, a coroner has so far speculated that the cause of her death was ‘natural’. Her husband, Simon Monjak, has requested that no autopsy be conducted despite the apparent mystery that surrounds her sudden and tragic death.
Perhaps, Brittany is no more, but her work in over 25 Hollywood films will remain etched in the memory of her fans and fellow actors. And perhaps Ashton Kutcher’s tweet, “See you on the other side, kid”, couldn’t be more fitting a tribute to the tragic end of a ‘shining star’.
Iran Nuclear Standoff
Albert Einstein once remarked, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones”. Ever since the dropping of the atom bomb (which abruptly ended World War II) on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, one can conclude that the ‘arms race’ will lead to the eventual destruction of humanity.
With the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, one hoped that the imminent threat to humanity’s survival could be stemmed by preventing the possession of nuclear warheads. While India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel have publicly declared nuclear capability, Iran is a party to the NPT but has been in the news recently because of failing to comply with the NPT Safeguards Agreement, based on a report filed by the International Atomic Energy Agency on November 16, 2007, which expressed their doubts about Iran’s nuclear program.
With the discovery of a second secret plutonium plant that manufactures nuclear fuel, the G20 summit witnessed a tough stand by the United States urging Iran to come clean with its nuclear program, which Iran claims, is solely for peaceful purposes.
In this ongoing battle since 2003, the latest developments include Iran rejecting the December 31 2009 deadline to accept an UN-drafted proposal to swap its low-enriched uranium for fuel exported from the West, thus indicating how seriously the nuclear program is being taken.
To make matters worse, with domestic turmoil intensifying in the country, and talks of imposing economic sanctions by the UN still underway, it seems that Iran has their work cut out for them both internationally and from within their own ranks.
One only hopes that Iran will clear up its act, and make the necessary compromises that will end heightened tensions in the Middle East.
Iran Protests
When one thinks of the word coup d’état, one would think that this sort of thing only existed when a need arose to overthrow a regime, such as Tom Cruise’s performance in the movie ‘Valkyrie’ in an effort to overthrow Adolf Hitler. Yet in the world that we live in only as recent as 2009, did we see yet another instance (or at least claims of such of an instance) due to the Iranian Presidential Elections in June 2009 which was rigged to favor the candidate, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, of the neoconservative party of Adabgaran.
With one of the candidates dubbing the controversial Presidential Elections as ‘the end of the Islamic Republic’ (and the beginning of the Adabgaran Regime), peaceful demonstrations and rioting were met with stiff resistance while several universities were closed and websites, text messages, cell phone transmissions and text messages were blocked.
It has been about six months now since the conclusion of the Presidential election but the protests have taken an ugly turn, with almost 4000 protestors arrested apart from torturing and raping the prisoners that have been detained. The International community is considering the imposing of sanctions on Iran for its outrageous acts towards the protesters.
Absurdly enough, the Iranian President has blamed Western governments for inciting these protests, while threatening to treat the demonstrators as ‘enemies of God’ who are punishable under Islamic law by death.
According to the latest report by BusinessWeek, Iran hanged two demonstrators out of the eleven that are sentenced to death that were detained from the January 28 protests, stating that the reason for this was because of an act that displayed the ‘enmity towards God’.
Yet another heinous act committed in the name of religion?
The Tiger Woods Scandal
What is it these days with celebrities and sex scandals? Or will the right question be: What is it with the media and celebrity sex scandals?
Yes, we are talking about Hollywood gossip which makes millions of dollars by keeping us (the common man) updated on who’s dating whom and who cheated on whom, thanks to the need that requires us to satiate our shallow proclivity of peeking into the lives of the rich and famous, without their permission of course.
The Tiger Woods scandal is the latest to make headlines since his car crash on November 27 2009, and in my opinion, just another scandal that shows what power and money can do for a man. Apparently, his liaison with a nightclub owner called Rachel Uchitel has set off a tirade of accusations revealing his numerous (and secretive) affairs with one woman after another, much to the chagrin of his wife Elin Nordegren and their two kids. Up until now, six women have stepped forward to talk about their kinky romps with the world’s top golfer namely Cori Rist, Mindy Lawton, Jaimee Grubbs, Jamie Jungers, Kalika Moquin and the vamp that started it all, Rachel Uchitel.
Apart from the public passing personal judgment, Tiger has enough to give him sleepless nights of worry. With his sponsors bailing out on him, thanks to his admittance of infidelity while simultaneously having to attend marriage counseling for his sex addiction and most of all, having no option but to seclude himself from the people who once considered him a role model with a clean and wholesome image, one can only imagine the change that the man is up against.
The Earthquake in Haiti
The Haiti earthquake first came to my attention, thanks to a YouTube video urging people to donate whatever they can towards the victims of this natural disaster, that was measured at a devastating 7.0 Mw on the Richter scale.
Taking a heavy toll on Haiti’s infrastructure, the earthquake took place at 15:53 hrs local time on Tuesday, January 12 2010, with the epicenter located near the town of Léogâne. Almost 170,000 bodies have been recovered, and the counting still continues. Apart from human casualties, almost 20,000 commercial buildings and 225,000 residential buildings collapsed due to the ferocity of the natural disaster, specifically in Port-au-Prince, Jacmel and the other settlements in the region.
Not only did the earthquake take thousands of lives that are still unaccounted for, but also the lives of the Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, the Opposition Leader Micha Gaillard as well as UN personnel and tourists. Notable buildings such as the Presidential Palace, the National Assembly Building, the Port-au-Prince Cathedral, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the capital and the main jail that were some of the building that collapsed in the aftermath.
However, Haiti is no stranger to natural disasters as it has a long history of recurring cyclones, tsunamis and earthquakes that have struck the island with a ferocity that can only be described as the work of Mother Nature in all its destructive glory.
With up to three million survivors still cut off from rescue efforts, rioting has only compounded the situation resulted leaving the police taking firm action to bring a state of law and order. Currently, despite the volatility of gang violence being an imminent threat, a two-week food distribution program has begun in earnest to feed the two million people in ravaged capital of Haiti.