ONE NEWS

Monday, February 08, 2010 SYDNEY: Papua New Guinea's cholera outbreak has spread to 2,000 people, a World Health Organization official said Monday as he warned that poor water sanitation was making the disease hard to contain. The country's first cholera outbreak in 50 years emerged in northern Morobe province last July and within months had spread along the north coast to Madang and East Sepik, WHO representative Eigil Sorensen said. "We have seen the ongoing transmission in all these three provinces at the moment so it is gradually spreading," Sorensen said. "We have now more than 2,000 confirmed cases of cholera." Sorensen said the number of deaths so far remained modest at fewer than 50, but the disease continued to spread due to poor water supplies and as infected people, including those with no symptoms of the sickness, travelled around. "The problem is that it's spreading to new areas and so we cannot say there has been any contai...

Monday, February 08, 2010 WASHINGTON: US’s northeast was hit by a devastating winter storm today that dumped several feet of snow around Washington DC and caused widespread chaos. The gigantic weather system, predicted to be one of the largest storms on record in the region, effectively brought the US federal government to a halt. Workers were sent home early on Friday and it was unclear whether federal offices would reopen tomorrow. Government advisors suggested all residents of the city stay indoors and the underground train system stopped running in many places. "Stay in unless you absolutely have to be out," said John Lisle, of the district department of transportation. Flights were also badly hit, with hundreds of cancellations and several airports closing. Washington's international airport, Dulles, was using just one runway. Hundreds of thousands of people were also left without power in the storm's wake after fallen trees hit power lines. The sudden...

Monday, February 08, 2010 WASHINGTON: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says she would consider a run for president in 2012 if the situation was right for her family and the nation. In an interview recorded Saturday and broadcast on television on Sunday," Palin said she would run "if I believed that; that is the right thing to do for our country and for the Palin family." "I think that it would be absurd to not consider what it is that I can potentially do to help our country," Palin said, later adding: "I won't close the door that perhaps could be open for me in the future." The interview was recorded before her keynote address Saturday night at what was billed the first national Tea Party convention. Palin, who had little national profile before running unsuccessfully for vice president on Sen. John McCain's Republican ticket in 2008, remains a leading GOP draw and an unofficial symbol of the Tea Party movement of conservative disconte...

Monday, February 08, 2010 MIDDLETOWN: Five people were killed and 12 injured Sunday in a gas explosion at a US power plant, according to preliminary figures, the local mayor said. "We know that 12 individuals have been injured. Five individuals are known to have lost their lives," the mayor of Middletown in Connecticut told a news conference. However officials cautioned that they did not yet know how many people were in the as-yet unfinished power plant and therefore they could not immediately account for everyone who may have been present during the explosion. Terrorism had been ruled out, according to the mayor, saying the accident happened during a testing procedure in the unfinished plant.