Monday, November 02, 2009 SYDNEY: A boat carrying 40 people has sunk off the Cocos Islands, west of Australia, a report said on Monday. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority received a distress call on Sunday saying the boat was taking on water about 700 nautical miles northwest of the Cocos Islands, media reported. A merchant ship from the Bahamas responded to a broadcast for help but found the stricken vessel had sunk when it arrived 12 hours later, and its passengers were in the water.The merchant ship's crew were trying to rescue passengers and an Australian Defence Force plane was heading to join a search for survivors, it said. The report did not say how many passengers had been accounted for but added that authorities have yet to confirm whether the boat was carrying asylum seekers.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
Comments