Indonesia lifts tsunami alert after powerful quake

Sunday, October 25, 2009 JAKARTA: Indonesia briefly issued a tsunami warning on Saturday after a powerful earthquake struck the eastern part of the country, but the meteorology agency later lifted the alert.Officials were still checking for possible casualties or damage after the quake struck in an area of the Banda sea southeast of the Maluku islands.The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck at 11:40 p.m. (1440 GMT) and measured magnitude 7.0.Its epicentre was located 232 km (144 miles) northwest of Saumlaki and 366 km southeast of Ambon at a depth of 138.5 km.The U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, also said that the earthquake did not have the potential to trigger a tsunami in the Indian Ocean due to its depth.In Papua, further east, Metro TV reported people panicked and fled to the hills after the quake, while in Ambon, in Maluku, people fled their homes fearing further aftershocks. "We felt the quake in the hotel. But people who live in a one-storey house probably didn't feel it ...," a witness in Ambon was quoted by Metro TV as saying .Indonesia suffers frequent earthquakes lying on the "Pacific Ring of Fire", an area of intense seismic activity where several tectonic plates meet.A powerful earthquake measuring 7.6 killed more than 1,000 people in an area around Padang in Western Sumatra last month.

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India's swine flu death rate is increasing

Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...

Suicide bombings kill 18 in Iraq

Thursday, August 13, 2009 MOSUL: At least 18 people, most of them members of the ancient Yazidi religious sect, were killed when two suicide bombers blew themselves up on Thursday in a packed cafe in northern Iraq, a local government official said.At least 31 people were also wounded after the bombers detonated suicide belts packed with explosives in the cafe in Kalaa town, in the district of Sanjar, local district chief Dakheel Qassem Hasoon, told a foreign news agency."Two suicide bombers entered the Cafe Barbaroz at 4:30 pm (1330 GMT) and blew themselves up, killing 18 civilians and wounding 31. Most of the victims were Yazidis," Hasoon said.Kalaa, northwest of the insurgent stronghold of Mosul in northern Nineveh province is predominantly populated by the minority Yazidi religious sect, as well as Arabs and Kurds.The attack is the deadliest since Monday, when 51 people were killed across Iraq, including 28 members of the tiny Shabak sect cut down when two truck bombs det...

US drones to target Taliban in Afghan war

Friday, July 31, 2009 WASHINGTON: The US military plans to use more drone aircraft to target Taliban militants in Afghanistan while focusing less on hunting down Al-Qaeda figures, report said on Thursday.Although defeating the Al-Qaeda terror network remains an overriding goal for Washington, officials now believe the best way to pursue that objective is to ensure stability in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan instead of Al-Qaeda manhunts, the paper said, citing US government and Defense Department officials.It was more important to prevent a slide towards violence and anarchy that could be exploited by Al-Qaeda, which used Afghanistan to stage its attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the officials said."We might still be too focused on Bin Laden," an official said. "We should probably reassess our priorities."The shift in priorities for the drone fleet comes despite President Barack Obama's declaration that defeating and dismantling Al-Qaeda ...

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