Canada passenger train collides...[ 3155 ]

Canada passenger train collides with bus in capital, five dead

By Randall Palmer

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OTTAWA | Wed Sep 18, 2013 10:52am EDT
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(Reuters) - A passenger train collided with a double-decker city bus on the outskirts of Ottawa and derailed on Wednesday, killing at least five people, an emergency official said.
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The front of the red double-decker bus was sheared off and the engine of the VIA Rail train had derailed, but the train cars remained upright with little noticeable damage.
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Ambulances and fire trucks swarmed the scene, and rail officials were helping train passengers off the train.
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Ottawa Fire Services spokesman Marc Messier told CTV News the initial estimate was that five people have been killed. He later told CBC News that six or more others have been hospitalized with serious injuries.
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VIA Rail, which operates the national passenger service in Canada, confirmed the crash and said there were no major injuries reported on the train. The crash occurred in the rural west end of Ottawa, Canada's capital city, at a level crossing surrounded by corn fields.
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Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he was "deeply saddened" to hear about the collision, which came just months after a runaway freight train crash and explosion killed 50 people in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.
"Our thoughts and prayers are (with) the families of those involved," Harper said on Twitter.
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Canada's two big railroads - Canadian National Railway Co and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd - are reviewing safety standards after the July 6 Lac-Megantic crash that destroyed the center of the small Quebec town.
(Writing by Andrea Hopkins; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and Doina Chiacu)

Italy Ship Aground was lifted...[ 3154 ]

Shipwrecked Costa Concordia pulled vertical after 19-hour operation
September 17, 2013/Associated Press

 

 September 17, 2013: The Costa Concordia is seen after it was lifted upright, on the Tuscan Island of Giglio, Italy, early Tuesday morning. (AP Photo)

GIGLIO ISLAND, Italy –  The crippled Costa Concordia cruise ship was pulled completely upright early Tuesday during a complicated, 19-hour operation to wrench it from its side where it capsized last year off Tuscany, with officials declaring it a "perfect" end to a daring and unprecedented engineering feat.

Shortly after 4 a.m., a foghorn wailed on Giglio Island and the head of Italy's Civil Protection agency, Franco Gabrielli, announced that the ship had reached vertical and that the operation to rotate it -- known in nautical terms as parbuckling -- was complete.

"We completed the parbuckling operation a few minutes ago the way we thought it would happen and the way we hoped it would happen," said Franco Porcellacchia, project manager for the Concordia's owner, Costa Crociere SpA.

"A perfect operation, I must say," with no environmental spill detected so far, he said.

Applause rang out among firefighters in the tent where the project engineers made the announcement. An hour later, Nick Sloane, the South African chief salvage master, received a hero's welcome as he came ashore from the barge that had served as the floating command control room for the operation.

"Brilliant! Perfetto," Sloane said, using some of the Italian he has learned over the past year on Giglio preparing for Tuesday's operation. "It was a struggle, a bit of a roller coaster. But for the whole team it was fantastic."

The Concordia slammed into a reef off Giglio Island on Jan. 13, 2012, after the captain brought it too close to shore. The cruise ship drifted, listed and capsized just off the island's port, killing 32 people. Two bodies were never recovered.

The operation to right it had been expected to take no more than 12 hours, but dragged on after some initial delays with the vast system of steel cables, pulleys and counterweights. The final phase of the rotation went remarkably fast as gravity began to kick in and pull the ship toward its normal vertical position.

Parbuckling is a standard operation to right capsized ships. But never before had it been used on such a huge cruise liner.

The Concordia is expected to be floated away from Giglio in the spring and turned into scrap.

Sloane said an initial inspection of the starboard side, covered in brown slime from its 20 months underwater while the ship was stuck on a rocky seabed perch, indicated serious damage that must be fixed in the coming weeks and months. The damage he said was caused by both the capsizing and the operation to rotate the ship.

"We have to do a really detailed inspection of the damage," to determine how to shore it up so it can withstand towing.

But he seemed confident: "She was strong enough to come up like this, she's strong enough to be towed."

The starboard side of the ship, which was raised 65 degrees in the operation, must be stabilized to enable crews to attach empty tanks on the side that will later be used to help float the vessel away. It must also be made strong enough to withstand the winter storm season, when high seas and gusts will likely buffet the 115,000-ton, 300-meter (1,000-foot) long liner.

After receiving cheers, embraces and a kiss from his wife on shore, Sloane said he wanted to get some sleep, a beer "and maybe a barbeque tomorrow."

"I think the whole team is proud of what they achieved," he said as he was mobbed by well-wishers and television crews.

Helping the Concordia to weather the winter is an artificial platform on the seabed that was constructed to support the ship's flat keel.

"The ship is resting on its platform," Gabrielli said.

About an hour before the rotation was complete, observers said the boat seemed to suddenly settle down upon its new perch.

Mayor Sergio Ortelli said the island felt a wave of relief as soon as the Concordia was freed from the reef in the initial hours of the operation. But he said there was also the realization that two bodies still have yet to be found, with a fresh search to be launched now.

"While there is happiness today, there is no triumphalism," he told The Associated Press.

The Concordia's captain is on trial for alleged manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship during the chaotic and delayed evacuation. Capt. Francesco Schettino claims the reef wasn't on the nautical charts for the liner's weeklong Mediterranean cruise.

Costa is a division of Miami-based Carnival Corp., the world's largest cruise company.

Read more: 

• http://www.foxnews.com/

• Ανέλκυση του Costa Concordia,

The Maryland counties...[ 3153 ]

Maryland counties join movement to secede from largely Democrat-run state

Published September 15, 2013

FoxNews.com

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FILE: April 2013: Congressional lawmakers and staffers leaving the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, D.C.

A group of Maryland residents frustrated with its state’s liberal government is joining a recent movement across the country of regions trying to secede.
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Western Maryland is made up of five counties whose residents largely vote Republican and feel under-represented at the state capitol, run by Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley and a Democrat-controlled legislature.
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The movement began in July as a social-media effort, with activist Scott Strzelczyk starting a Facebook page titled the Western Maryland Initiative.
The movement, however, has since garnered significant media attention, with Strzelczyk talking to everybody from National Public Radio to The Washington Post.
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“We are tired of this,” he said during an interview Thursday with Washington-area NPR affiliate WAMU. “We have had enough.”
Strzelczyk said the biggest concerns are increasing taxes, and the Democrat-controlled legislature gerrymander voting district so that the state’s big metropolitan areas have the most representation and tighter gun laws enacted this year, which he calls “the last straw.”  
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The movement is just one of several across the country that includes the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, Northern California and several conservative northern Colorado counties.
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The Colorado effort is backed by the Tea Party movement and has gotten the issue put on the November ballot as a non-binding referendum. The movement was also driven in large part by state lawmakers passing tighter gun-control legislation this year that was signed by Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.
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Todd Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, argues the movement goes beyond disgruntled conservatives, pointing out Democrats in South Florida and western Arizona counties want to break from their states, which they consider run by Republicans.
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“This is about folks who just do not believe they are being represented, whether it's Democrats and Republicans,” he told WAMU.
Still, secession will not be easy, for a variety of reasons, including that many of these remote, rural regions rely on money generated in their state’s more commercial and populated cities. And secession leaders would need state and federal approval, which seems unlikely considering the last time a region broke off was 1863, when 50 western Virginia counties split to form West Virginia.
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Strzelczyk acknowledges he is helping lead a longshot effort but says the movement will go forward with such efforts as starting policy committees, reaching out to lawmakers and forming a nonprofit 501 (c) (4) group that is allowed to engage in political activities.
“This is about popular support,” he said. “Ultimately, if the people of these five western counties do not support this effort, we’re not going to force them to leave.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/

Japan, powerful typhoon ..[ 3152 ]

Powerful typhoon lashes Japan, thousands evacuate
Associated Press 4:08 a.m. EDT, Monday September 16, 2013

•     Typhoon Man-yi, packing wind speeds of 100 mph
•     At least one person has died, dozens injured
•     Parts of Kyoto city center evacuated

TOKYO (AP) — A powerful typhoon lashed Japan Monday, leaving one dead and dumping torrential rains, damaging homes and flooding parts of the country's popular tourist destination of Kyoto, where 260,000 people in city center were ordered to evacuate to shelters.

Typhoon Man-yi, packing wind speeds of 100 mph Monday afternoon, was centered over the city of Sendai, about 350 kilometers (160 miles) north of Tokyo.

Dozens were injured. Police and disaster management officials said a 72-year-old woman was found dead Monday after her body was dug out of the debris of her home smashed by a mudslide the night before in Shiga prefecture, east of Kyoto. Public broadcaster NHK said three others were missing.

NHK showed tourists in Kyoto being taken to safety on boats on a flooded riverside street, towed by rescue workers.

In the nearby town of Fukuchiyama, an aerial view showed a vast area of muddy water swallowing the town, with houses, fields or other structures half-submerged under water. The town's entire population of 81,246 was ordered to evacuate.

The government set up an emergency task force to assess damage and support rescue effort, said Prime Minister's Office official Hikariko Ono. Kyoto and neighboring Shiga prefecture asked the Defense Ministry to mobilize relief teams.

Some 70 people were injured across the country since Sunday, NHK said, citing its own tally. Among the missing was a 77-year-old woman who disappeared since a mudslide hit her house in nearby Fukui prefecture. A man was missing after he went to check fish traps in a river in Fukushima prefecture.

More than 300 homes were flooded across the western and central Japan, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. About 80,000 houses were without electricity in western and central Japan.

Trains in Tokyo and its vicinity were largely suspended and hundreds of flights were grounded.

As a preventative step, workers at the crippled Fukushima Da-ichi nuclear power plant, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northeast of Tokyo, were pumping accumulating rain water pooling around hundreds of storage tanks containing radioactive water to the ocean. That was to avoid the risk of potential tank leaks getting mixed with rainwater seeping into the soil or flowing into the sea.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said the plant released what is believed to be untainted rainwater to the Pacific in order to avoid flooding near the tanks, a step that could violate safety rules, the Nuclear Regulation Authority said. TEPCO says the radioactivity in the released water was within allowed discharge limits, but duty regulators at the plant are checking.

Recent acknowledgement by officials that contaminated water is leaking from underground and storage tanks into the ocean have triggered concerns about the plant's safety.

The Meteorological Agency said the storm dumped an "unprecedented amount of rainfall" in Kyoto and two of its neighboring prefectures it passed overnight, dumping as much as 8 centimeters (3 inches) per hour. It lifted a "special warning" for the area was earlier Monday but urged residents to stay alert.

In Kyoto, where the city's major Katsura River flooded, some 260,000 people in the prefectural capital alone were told to evacuate. Hundreds of thousands of others were also ordered to evacuate across Japan.

Australia election...[ 3151 ]

Australia election: Tony Abbott defeats Kevin Rudd
BBC..September 2013 Last updated at 19:45 GMT
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Tony Abbott: "From today I declare that Australia is under new management"

Australia's opposition has crushed the governing Labor party in a general election that has returned the Liberal-National coalition to power for the first time in six years.
The coalition won 88 seats to Labor's 57 in the 150-seat parliament.
Liberal leader Tony Abbott, who will be prime minister, promised a competent and trustworthy government.Outgoing PM Kevin Rudd earlier admitted defeat and said he would not stand again for the Labor leadership.

The main election issues were how to tackle an expected economic slowdown, whether to keep a tax on carbon emissions, and how to reduce the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat.
Mr Rudd called the election after defeating Julia Gillard in a leadership challenge in June, amid dismal polling figures that showed Labor on course for a wipe-out.
"From today I declare Australia is under new management and Australia is now open for business", Mr Abbott told a cheering crowd as he delivered a victory speech.
He said that he would put the budget back into surplus, and stop boats bringing migrants from Asia.He added that support for Labor was at its lowest ebb for 100 years, and said the results showed that the Australian people would punish anyone who took them for granted.
Mr Rudd said he had phoned Mr Abbott and wished him well."I gave it my all but it was not enough for us to win," he said. But he was pleased that Labor was preserved as a "viable fighting force for the future".+
Mr Rudd retained his seat in the Brisbane constituency of Griffith but said he would not re-contest the Labor party leadership because the Australian people "deserve a fresh start".
"I know that Labor hearts are heavy across the nation tonight. As your Labor leader I accept it as my responsibility," he said.The Australian Election Commission confirmed on its website that the Liberal-National coalition had won 88 seats in the House of Representatives, and Labor 57.
Three seats were distributed between three small parties, and there were two seats still to return results.In the previous parliament, Labor relied on the support of independents and the Greens for its minority government, with 71 seats to the coalition's 72.Assange misses out+Mr Abbott took on the leadership of the flagging Liberal-National coalition in 2009.
A Rhodes scholar who once wanted to be a Roman Catholic priest, Mr Abbott has pledged to repeal both the mining and carbon taxes introduced by Labor.
He has also promised a raft of budget cuts, including reducing the foreign aid budget by A$4.5bn ($4bn; £2.6bn).
But he says he will fund an expanded paid parental leave scheme.
Labor's six years in power are emphatically over. Australia's economic growth during difficult global financial times should have played well for an incumbent government. But the economy has begun to slow and Kevin Rudd's Labor party has been undone by disunity and infighting. The rivalry between Mr Rudd and Julia Gillard which saw the leadership of the party and the country switch back and forth did not sit well with voters.
You sense from voters that Mr Abbott's victory is not so much a ringing endorsement as a rejection of Labor. He's a conservative who has promised a tough line on immigration and asylum-seekers. He opposes gay marriage and has been a sceptic on climate change. Kevin Rudd sold himself as the comeback kid. It didn't work. His party now faces a period of further introspection.
The economy has been at the heart of campaigning.
Mr Abbott will be charged with managing the transition as the mining and resources boom subsides, amid slowing demand from China and slumping commodity prices.
Ahead of the polls, his coalition highlighted bitter Labor infighting, seeking to portray itself as the more stable party.
And former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke blamed the internal divisions for Labor's defeat.
"I really believe this was an election that was lost by the government rather than one that was won by the opposition," he said.
Julia Gillard, meanwhile, congratulated the Labor candidate who succeeded her in her seat, as she bowed out of politics.The outsider candidates had mixed fortunes at the polls.
One of the two undecided seats in the House sees billionaire Clive Palmer, famous for his attempt to build a new version of the Titanic based on the original designs, on course for victory.

 
However, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange missed out on a Senate seat in Victoria, where the final place was claimed by Rick Muir of the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party.
More than 14 million people were registered to vote in Saturday's election. Voting is compulsory in Australia.