Eeyore's News and view

Italy quake death toll at 260; pope to visit area
By VANESSA GERA
L'AQUILA, Italy (AP) - Aftershocks from the earthquake that has killed at least 260 people in central Italy sent new fears through the tent camps that shelter thousands of survivors, and Pope Benedict XVI said Wednesday that he would visit the shocked and injured people of the area as soon as possible.
As rescue teams pressed ahead with their searches in the crumbled buildings, some of the almost 28,000 left homeless emerged from tents after spending a second night in chilly mountain temperatures.
"I slept so badly because I kept feeling the aftershocks," said Daniela Nunut at one of the tent camps set up across the city of L'Aquila. The 46-year Romanian-born woman said she and her companion plan to stay in the tent for now. "What can you do? You can't go into the building."
The magnitude-6.3 quake hit L'Aquila and several towns in central Italy early Monday, leveling buildings and reducing entire blocks to piles of rubble and dust.
The pope praised the relief operations as an example of how solidarity can help overcome "even the most painful trials."
"As soon as possible I hope to visit you," Benedict said Wednesday at the Vatican.
The Vatican said he would make the trip after Easter Sunday and that he does not want to interfere with relief operations.
Premier Silvio Berlusconi said 260 people have died, including 16 children. The premier, speaking in L'Aquila after a third day in the quake area, said nine bodies remained to be identified. He said about 100 injured were in serious condition.
Berlusconi said looting in the quake zone was on the rise and that the government was looking to increase penalties for the crime. He said details were still being worked out, adding the new penalties would be "very severe."
A funeral for the victims is scheduled for Friday morning, and is to be conducted by L'Aquila Bishop Giuseppe Molinari, the premier said. At least one victim's funeral was going to be held Wednesday in one of the small villages in the stricken area.
Berlusconi said about 17,700 people left homeless by the quake had found shelter in tent camps set up by authorities. An additional 10,000 people were housed in hotels along the coast, bringing the overall number of homeless to almost 28,000.
Fifteen people remain missing, officials said.
The ANSA news agency reported that four students trapped in the rubble of a dormitory of the University of L'Aquila had died.
By Tuesday evening, rescue crews gave up painstakingly removing debris from the dormitory by hand and brought in huge pincers that pulled off parts of the roof, balconies and walls, showering debris down.
"Unless there is a miracle, I've been told (by rescuers) that they probably are dead," university rector Ferdinando Di Orio said.
Since the quake early Monday, some 430 aftershocks have rumbled through, including some strong ones, said Marco Olivieri of the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology in Rome.
A strong aftershock at 7:47 p.m. Tuesday rained debris on screaming residents and rescue crews, who ran from the site.
Many survivors at the camp said they had been cold during the night as heaters in some of the tents were not working. Some read a newspaper as they lined up for hot coffee or tea and a croissant.
To shelter the homeless against the chilly nights in the mountains, about 20 tent cities have sprouted in open spaces around L'Aquila and surrounding towns. Field kitchens, medical supplies - and clowns with bubbles to entertain traumatized children - were brought in.
Officials estimated Monday that 50,000 people had been left homeless by the quake. By Tuesday evening, that number was lowered to between 17,000 and 25,000, because many moved in with friends or relatives.
Rescue workers continuing their search still held out hope to find somebody alive. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said the rescue efforts would likely continue until Easter Sunday, beyond the period originally indicated by Berlusconi.
"It all depends on the conditions, if the person under the rubble has any air or water," Cristian Martinez, from the Spanish rescue organization Unidad Canina, said as his dogs ran across a pile of rubble that had once been a four-story building in L'Aquila.
Martinez explained that his dogs, which have been sent across the world after quakes and other catastrophes, "would bark if they found a live body and would start digging if they found a dead body."
So far, the dogs had found no signs of any living human beings in the debris.
"But we don't give up hope," said Martinez, adding that his dogs had once found somebody alive 11 days after a quake in Pakistan.
On Tuesday, rescue officials pulled a young woman alive from a collapsed building about 42 hours after the main quake struck the mountainous region.
Eleonora Calesini, a 20-year-old student, was found alive in the ruins of the five-story building in central L'Aquila.
Officials said some 10,000 to 15,000 buildings were either damaged or destroyed in the 26 cities, towns and villages around L'Aquila, a city of 70,000 that is the regional capital of Abruzzo.
Teams started inspecting some buildings still standing Wednesday, including an 18th-century church in downtown L'Aquila, which had been damaged in the quake. Teams also began surveying houses to see if residents can move back in, Berlusconi said.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090408/D97EA01O0.html

From another news source and amazing recued person, what she did until rescued
Another of those rescued today was Maria D’Antuono, 98, who said that she had spent 30 hours knitting as she waited to be freed from her ruined home.

So much for being 5 years away
Iran to say mastering final stage of nuclear cycle
TEHRAN (Reuters) – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to announce Iran has mastered the final stage of nuclear fuel production when the Islamic state celebrates its National Nuclear Day on Thursday.
"I will have good nuclear news for the honored Iranian nation tomorrow (April 9)," Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday in a televised speech at the central city of Isfahan.
Foreign nuclear analysts believe Tehran has yet to prove it has mastered industrial-scale enrichment of uranium, the key to making fuel in large, usable quantities and the most technically difficult aspect of churning out nuclear energy.
Tehran has slowly expanded its Natanz enrichment plant in defiance of U.N. resolutions demanding it stop over concerns Tehran's goal is atomic bombs, something it denies.
But analysts expected Ahmadinejad to say that Iran has perfected the last of several phases of fuel output.
"A possible announcement will be production of natural uranium pellets (in Isfahan) for Iran's Arak heavy water reactor and also production of fuel rods and assembling rods into bundles," said an analyst who asked not to be named, citing the issue's political sensitivities. "It is the final stage in a long process to produce nuclear fuel."
The nuclear fuel cycle includes mining and milling of uranium ore, uranium enrichment, fabrication and use of nuclear fuel, reprocessing of used fuel, and disposal or management of radioactive waste or unreprocessed spent fuel.
In a February 19 report, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it could not verify Iran's planned Arak heavy water reactor was being designed only for peaceful uses because Tehran had been denying visits by IAEA inspectors since August.
CONCERNS OVER HEAVY-WATER REACTOR
The report said Iran's fuel fabrication plant in Isfahan had begun producing fuel rods and that a process line for making uranium pellets was ready for operations.
Tehran says the Arak complex will be geared to making only isotopes for medical care and agriculture.
Western powers fear Iran may configure the Arak reactor to derive plutonium from spent fuel rods as another possible source of bomb-grade fuel, besides its Natanz uranium enrichment plant, which is under daily IAEA surveillance.
Iran's student news agency ISNA said, without giving a source, that Ahmadinejad would inaugurate the nuclear fuel manufacturing facility.
Nuclear energy chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh said in 2007 that Iran had produced and tested fuel pellets of enriched uranium.
Iran has long been working on its uranium enrichment capability to fuel its developing nuclear power program.
The U.N. Security Council has so far issued three sanctions resolution against Tehran for defying its demand to suspend all activities related to enrichment and fuel reprocessing, which could also be turned to producing nuclear weapons.
Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, says its nuclear program is only aimed at generating electricity.
U.S. President Barack Obama is striving for a "new beginning" in bilateral ties with Iran and could play a role in mending bridges almost three decades after Washington severed all relations soon after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.
Iran has responded cautiously to the overture, saying Washington must show real policy change toward Iran. "If you (Obama) say you are after change ... change your method, change your literature and your way," Ahmadinejad said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090408/wl_nm/us_iran_nuclear

Everything is fine Russia say they are not a threat to us, so all is well. After all we have Russia's word on it.
Iran poses no threat to US: Russia
Iran poses no threat to the United States, Russia said Tuesday, rebuffing a key argument of President Barack Obama on whether to go ahead with a European missile shield bitterly opposed by Moscow.
Former president George W. Bush had infuriated Russia by striking a deal to install 10 missile interceptors in Poland and related radar stations in the Czech Republic, saying they were needed to counter "rogue states" such as Iran.
The Obama administration says it is reviewing the shield project, studying whether it is militarily justified and cost effective.
But Sergei Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, said that the Iran threat was a myth.
"I don't see any threat to the United States coming from Iran anytime soon," Kislyak told a conference of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
He said the shield in the former Soviet bloc nations also failed to cover all of the NATO alliance.
"It didn't accomplish a single stated goal that we were told was the reason to deploy. If that was the case, that means there was something else behind this," Kislyak said.
Western nations widely suspect that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, although Obama has also reached out to try to repair relations with the Islamic republic.
Kislyak said that Russia was encouraged by Obama's approach. Under Bush, Russia engaged in some of the harshest rhetorical attacks on the United States since the Cold War.
"We sense that the American administration is willing at least to engage in serious discussions and we welcome this," he said.
"We are looking forward to these discussions because things which have been developing so far were of great concern to us," he said.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hailed Obama as "my new comrade" after their first face-to-face talks last week, saying the new president "can listen."
Obama also met on his recent European trip with leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic who pressed him to go ahead with the missile shield.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.89f94643ff57e11b42acfa11b92f8e26.fd1&show_article=1

Pirates hijack ship with 20 Americans onboard
By Daniel Wallis
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Somali pirates hijacked a U.S.-flagged, Danish-owned container ship on Wednesday with 20 American crew on board in a major escalation in attacks at sea off the Horn of Africa nation, officials said.
Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the Mombasa-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Program, told Reuters the 17,000 ton Maersk Alabama had been seized off Mogadishu far out in the Indian Ocean, but all its crew were believed to be unharmed.
Denmark's A.P. Moller-Maersk confirmed that the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama had been attacked by pirates about 500 km (300 miles) off Somalia and had probably been hijacked. The company said it had 20 American crew on board.
A spokesman for the U.N.'s World Food Program (WFP) in Nairobi told Reuters that among the vessel's cargo were 232 containers of WFP relief food destined for Somalia and Uganda.
In the latest wave of pirate attacks, gunmen from Somalia seized a British-owned ship on Monday after hijacking another three vessels over the weekend.
In the first three months of 2009 just eight ships were hijacked in the Gulf of Aden, which links the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and is used by ships traveling between Europe and Asia.
Last year, heavily armed Somali pirates hijacked dozens of vessels, took hundreds of sailors hostage -- often for weeks -- and extracted millions of dollars in ransoms.
MORE ATTACKS
Foreign navies rushed warships to the area in response and reduced the number of successful attacks. But there are still near-daily attempts and the pirates have also started hunting further afield near the Seychelles.
On Monday, they hijacked a British-owned, Italian-operated ship with 16 Bulgarian crew on board.
Over the weekend, they also seized a French yacht, a Yemeni tug and a 20,000-tonne German container vessel. Interfax news agency said the Hansa Stavanger had a German captain, three Russians, two Ukrainians and 14 Filipinos on board.
The Maersk Alabama is owned and operated by Maersk Line Ltd, a Norfolk, Virginia-based subsidiary of A.P. Moller-Maersk and the world's biggest container shipper.
A Moller-Maersk spokesman said it had been transporting general goods to Mombasa from Djibouti when it was attacked.
The pirates typically launch speed boats from "mother ships," meaning they can sometimes evade warships patrolling the strategic shipping lanes and strike far out to sea.
They then take captured vessels to remote coastal village bases in Somalia, where they have usually treated their hostages well in anticipation of a sizeable ransom payment.
Pirates stunned the shipping industry last year when they seized a Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million worth of crude oil. The Sirius Star and its 25 crew members were freed in January after $3 million was parachuted onto its deck.
Last September, they seized a Ukrainian cargo ship carrying 33 Soviet-era T-72 tanks and other heavy weapons. It was released in February, reportedly for a $3.2 million ransom.
Many of the pirates are based in northern Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region, where the authorities called on Wednesday for more funds to tackle the gangs onshore.
"It's better for the international community to give us $1 million to clear out the pirates on the ground, instead of paying millions of dollars to keep the warships at sea," Puntland's security minister, Abdullahi Said Samatar, told Reuters.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE53721Z20090408

Update on the latest Samonella
FDA: Recall of tainted pistachio nuts far from over
The recall last week of 2 million pounds of pistachios because of concerns about salmonella contamination has been expanded, and federal officials say more recalls of foods containing pistachios are on the horizon.
Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella, the California company that is the nation's second-largest processer of pistachios, originally had recalled all of its pistachios harvested since September.
The recall was expanded this week to cover Setton's entire 2008 crop, except for raw in-shell pistachios. Most pistachios sold in stores are roasted.
Setton spokeswoman Fabia D'Arienzo said she did not know how many pounds of pistachios were involved in the expanded recall.
"This is going to resemble the peanut recall in that products are going to be added every day as companies discover they used Setton pistachios," says Caroline Smith DeWaal of the non-profit Center for Science in the Public Interest. "It's going to take a while for the dust to settle."
Products are still being recalled that contained peanuts or peanut paste produced by the Peanut Corp. of America, the processor tied to a salmonella outbreak this year that sickened almost 700 people.
No illnesses from pistachio consumption have been reported. The salmonella was detected in testing by an Illinois foodmaker that buys from Setton.
Setton had been processing raw and roasted pistachios on the same production lines without adequate cleaning between uses, says David Acheson, the FDA's associate commissioner for foods, adding: "Not a good idea." A Setton official said earlier that roasted pistachios may have picked up salmonella from contact with raw nuts.
Federal and state inspectors have found salmonella in the plant, including on machines used to feed pistachios through the production line.
"There were a number of other factors that demonstrated a lack of microbiological control in the facility," Acheson says.
The FDA is telling consumers and industry to not use any pistachios or foods with pistachios unless the agency can confirm that the products do not contain nuts recalled by Setton. In addition to selling in the USA, Setton sold to Canada, Korea, Hong Kong, Germany, Australia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France, Cyprus, Greece, Lebanon, Norway, Ukraine and Ecuador.
Setton did not respond to detailed questions, but Acheson says it's his impression that the company is "really busting to try to clean up the facility."
The FDA has fast-tracked research into one possible solution. The chemical propylene oxide was proven an effective pasteurization method for almonds in 2004 after salmonella outbreaks in almonds alerted growers and producers to the risk of bacterial contamination.
There is no proven process in pistachios for using propylene oxide, but FDA has a contract with the University of California-Davis to create one and hopes to have at least initial information within a month, Acheson says.
Customers can call Setton Pistachio at (888) 228-3717 for more information.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-04-07-pistachio-salmonella_N.htm