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Sunday, January 24, 2010 PORT-AU-PRINCE: An international rescue team on Saturday dug a man out of the rubble of the Haitian capital 11 days after a devastating quake and took him away on a stretcher. Wismond Exantus, 25, said he survived his ordeal in the ruins of the grocer's shop where he worked by drinking Coca-Cola and eating snacks, a rare tale of hope from a disaster that has claimed more than 112,000 lives. His rescue came as thousands of survivors wept outside the capital's shattered cathedral for the funeral of the archbishop of Port-au-Prince in a moving ceremony that symbolized the deep mourning of the Caribbean nation. "I feel good," Exantus told media in Creole from his hospital bed after French, American and Greek search and rescue teams removed him from the debris on a stretcher. "I survived by drinking Coca-Cola. I drank Coca-Cola every day, and I ate some little tiny things," he said. Exantus' brother said he had been unabl...

Sunday, January 24, 2010 WASHINGTON: A shipping accident off the coast of Texas on Saturday spilled an estimated 450,000 gallons of oil into the ocean, the US Coast Guard said. The spill happened Saturday morning when a towing vessel, the Dixie Vengeance, collided with an 807-foot tank ship, the Eagle Otome. "As a result of the collision, the Eagle Otome sustained damage in the vicinity of the number one starboard tank, which was reported to be loaded with crude oil. The initial estimate of spilled oil is 450,000 gallons," the Coast Guard said in a statement. The collision happened near Port Arthur, in the south-east of Texas near the border with Louisiana. In the wake of the crash, the Coast Guard closed a waterway and established a perimeter around the Eagle Otome and the Dixie Vengeance, which was towing two barges at the time of the collision. The Coast Guard said no injuries had been reported, adding that it had deployed 4,000 feet of boom -- a flotating conta...

Sunday, January 24, 2010 PORT-AU-PRINCE: The death toll from the devastating quake in Haiti rose Saturday to 112,226, according to new official figures. The figure continued to rise from the 111,499 deaths confirmed by the interior ministry Friday. "There is catastrophic damage," the ministry said in a statement, adding 194,000 people were injured and one million had been left homeless. It added that most homes had been destroyed in the capital Port-au-Prince as well as the towns of Jacmel and Leogane to the southwest. "At least 23 private hospitals as well as schools, banks, industry and commerce have all been badly affected," the statement added.

Sunday, January 24, 2010 BAGHDAD: Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. promised Iraqi leaders on Saturday that the United States would appeal the dismissal of manslaughter charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security contractors involved in a deadly shooting here that has inflamed anti-American tensions. Biden, tasked by the Obama administration to oversee policy in Iraq, made the statement after a day of meetings with Iraqi leaders that dealt, in part, with a political crisis that has erupted over the March 7 parliamentary elections. American officials view the vote, a barometer of the durability of Iraq’s political system, as a crucial date in American plans to withdraw tens of thousands of combat troops from Iraq by the end of August. The vice president expressed his “personal regret” for the Blackwater shooting in 2007, in which contractors guarding American diplomats opened fire in a crowded Baghdad traffic circle, killing 17 people, including women and children. “A ...

Sunday, January 24, 2010 BUENOS AIRES: Argentina will send a third military cargo plane of relief aid to Haiti that will include more physicians and a fresh team of rescue workers, the Defense Ministry said Saturday. The Hercules aircraft will leave Sunday for Port-au-Prince bearing food, medical supplies, communications equipment and spare parts for power generators sent in earlier flights, the ministry said in a statement. Aboard the military aircraft will also travel nine doctors and six White Helmets -- members of Argentina's humanitarian aid and peacekeeping agency -- to reinforce Argentine rescue crews already on the ground in Haiti, the ministry said. Before arriving in Haiti, the military flight will make a stop in Paraguay to pick up additional emergency rescue equipment and three more White Helmets, it added. Argentina staffed the first major medical outpost near the Port-au-Prince airport after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck on November 12, and has since s...

Saturday, January 23, 2010 WASHINGTON: Another earthquake is threatening to hit Haiti with as much, if not more force than the massive temblor that leveled Port-au-Prince, seismologists said, urging the country to rebuild with strict norms. Aftershocks have already rattled the impoverished Caribbean nation in the days following the January 12 quake that killed over 110,000 people, left nearly 610,000 homeless and injured scores more. On Wednesday, a magnitude 5.9 temblor struck a people already scrambling to rebuild their tattered lives. But more are likely on their way. The US Geological Survey (USGS) estimated on Thursday that there was a 25 percent probability that one or several magnitude 6 aftershocks could strike in the coming weeks, although they will space out more and more over time. If the devastating magnitude 7 quake that hit nearly two weeks ago freed much of the tension accumulated on one portion of the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone, another segment east...

Saturday, January 23, 2010 ROME: The World Food Programme has scaled up its food aid to Haiti's quake survivors, distributing two million meals on Friday, the UN agency's director said in a statement Saturday. "This is the most complex operation WFP has ever launched. Haiti's entire supply chain infrastructure has been devastated, and we have been faced with launching an operation from scratch," executive director Josette Sheerman said after a two-day evaluation mission to the capital Port-au-Prince. She said that the WFP's initial response "launched within 24 hours of the quake" had grown on a daily basis. "On Friday, we delivered about two million meals -- a significant increase on the 1.2 million meals distributed on Thursday. We are getting the job done, even if we wish we could do more, quicker." "Words cannot describe the devastation that has been wrought on Haiti by the January 12 earthquake. Parts of the capital Port-au...

Saturday, January 23, 2010 MEXICO CITY: Two Mexican women were killed in Haiti's devastating earthquake last week and 31 Mexican nationals are still missing, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The ministry confirmed on Friday the death of Maria Antonieta Castillo Santamaria, who worked at the UN mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). "Her remains are in the Dominican Republic and will be repatriated to Mexico," the ministry said in a statement. Karen Valero, another Mexican national, also perished in the quake and her remains have already been brought back to Mexico. A total of 148 Mexicans were in Haiti when the massive 7.0-magnitude tremor struck the impoverished Caribbean nation on January 12, the ministry said in updating its estimates. Among those, 22 have returned to Mexico, 34 have left Haiti for other countries and 59 others have decided to remain in Haiti, where survivors are still scrambling for access to much-needed food, water and medical supplies.

Saturday, January 23, 2010 KUALA LUMPUR: The sultan of Malaysia's Johor state Iskandar Ismail, who served as the nation's king for five years, has died aged 77, state media reported. Abdul Ghani Othman, chief minister of the southern state, announced the sultan's death late Friday after he was admitted to a local hospital the day before for an unspecified illness, a local news agency said. "The sultan of Johor was very much respected and loved," Abdul Ghani said, reading a statement on TV, according to the news agency. He said the sultan died at 7:15 pm (1115 GMT). A senior aide to the chief minister confirmed the sultan's death and that the sultan's eldest son, Tunku Ibrahim Ismail, had been appointed regent. He is expected to be named as sultan shortly. Sultan Iskandar was born in 1932 and educated in Australia and Britain before joining the state civil service. He took over as sultan of Johor in 1981, following the death of his father and se...

Saturday, January 23, 2010 PARIS: Thirty-three Haitian children adopted by French families flew into Paris Friday, airport officials told media, leaving behind a country shattered by the January 12 earthquake that killed thousands. The children, aged between one and six years, were met at the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport by Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the wife of President Nicolas Sarkozy, as well as their new families and medical teams, they said. They would join their adoptive families once their papers had been verified, an official said. They were also due to meet Red Cross and Emergency Medical Assistance Service personnel to treat "the emotional and psychological shock they have been through," he said. Several of the children had lived in a nursery that was severely damaged in last week's earthquake but "not a single child was injured and not a single adoption file was lost," French consul in Haiti, Jean-Pierre Gueguan, told media. The children --...

Saturday, January 23, 2010 PORT-AU-PRINCE: Friends and family rescued 84-year-old Marie Carida Roman alive from the rubble of her Port-au-Prince home Friday, 10 days after she was buried by Haiti's killer earthquake, her son and doctors told media at her hospital bedside. "I'm trying to find out how I can help her survive. She has a crushed chest and lots of maggots" all over her body, said Ernest Benjamin, an emergency volunteer from Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. "It's worth everything to try to save her," Benjamin added. Nearby, the frail woman lay on her bed at Port-au-Prince's crowded General Hospital, hooked up to a drip and her face covered with an oxygen mask. "She is 84. She's been fighting for 10 days, and now I have to give her 24 hours to say what chance she has," said doctor Vladimir Laroche of Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hospital, also in New York. "When she was brought in here, there was no mo...

Saturday, January 23, 2010 LOS ANGELES: British actress Jean Simmons, an Emmy Award winner whose career included roles in "Hamlet" and "Spartacus," died in California Friday, the Los Angeles Times reported. She was 80. The Times said Simmons, who earned two Oscar nominations during a long career that spanned seven decades, died at her home in Santa Monica after losing a battle to lung cancer. The movie star's manager could not immediately be reached for comment. Although she worked mostly in television in her later years, appearing in the hit 1983 mini-series "The Thorn Birds," for which she obtained an Emmy Award, Simmons gained fame in the 1950s and 1960s after starring in several hit films. Her career took off after she appeared as the doomed Ophelia opposite Laurence Olivier in the legendary actor's 1948 production of "Hamlet." Simmons's performance earned her the first of two Academy Award nominations. Among her notab...

January 23, 2010 SAN FRANCISCO: Google is courting folks that make games people love to play on smartphones. The Internet giant has teamed with a professional Game Developers Conference (GDC) taking place in San Francisco in March to offer free Nexus One and Droid smartphones to those that register early for the event. Sessions at the conference will be devoted to games tailored for mobile devices, "making attendees great potential developers of new content for phones using the Android" operating system, according to GDC organizers. Game applications are top sellers at Apple's wildly popular App Store for iPhone and iPod Touch devices, which Google has in its cross-hairs with its freshly launched Nexus One and an online Android Market for mini-programs. Growing numbers of hardware makers are building smartphones, netbooks and tablet computers based on Google's open-source Android software. Smartphones are among the most widespread and widely-used game plat...

Saturday, January 23, 2010 WASHINGTON: Rescuers pulled a 22-year-old man from the ruins of a building in Haiti's capital Friday, 10 days after an earthquake devastated the city, a statement from an Israeli military team said.

Saturday, January 23, 2010 PORT-AU-PRINCE: Friends and family rescued 84-year-old Marie Carida Roman alive from the rubble of her Port-au-Prince home Friday, 10 days after she was buried by Haiti's killer earthquake, her son and doctors told media at her hospital bedside. "I'm trying to find out how I can help her survive. She has a crushed chest and lots of maggots" all over her body, said Ernest Benjamin, an emergency volunteer from Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. "It's worth everything to try to save her," Benjamin added. Nearby, the frail woman lay on her bed at Port-au-Prince's crowded General Hospital, hooked up to a drip and her face covered with an oxygen mask. "She is 84. She's been fighting for 10 days, and now I have to give her 24 hours to say what chance she has," said doctor Vladimir Laroche of Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hospital, also in New York. "When she was brought in here, there was no mo...

Saturday, January 23, 2010 MELBOURNE: World number one Roger Federer, Williams Sisters and Novak Djokovic qualified for the fourth round at the Australian Open tennis tournament here on Saturday. Serena Williams of America completed a 6-0, 6-3 demolition of Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain and her sister Venus beat Australian Casey Dellacqua 6-1, 7-6 (7/4). Federer, the Swiss great, made short work of Spanish 31st Albert Montanes 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 as the fourth round of the opening Grand Slam of the season was finalised. Also staying on track was men's third seed Novak Djokovic, sixth seed Nikolay Davydenko, ninth seed Fernando Verdasco and local hope Lleyton Hewitt. Joining Williams Sisters in the women's draw were fourth seed Caroline Wozniacki, seventh seed Victoria Azarenka, ninth seeded Vera Zvonareva and 13th seeded Samantha Stosur. Federer, with 15 Grand Slam titles, now faces a round of 16 clash against Hewitt, who was in good touch against Marcos Baghdatis before ...