Free Republic

Threat of Hunger, Disease Looms As Reeling Nations Appeal for Aid COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Dec. 28 -- Devastated coastal areas across South Asia struggled Tuesday to prevent hunger and outbreaks of disease as dazed survivors searched desperately for the missing two days after a tsunami surged across the region. The death toll rose to more than 51,000 people, a large percentage of them on this island nation in the Indian Ocean. Sri Lankan officials said Tuesday that the freakish, earthquake-driven waves had killed more than 18,700 people here, a dramatic increase from earlier calculations. They said many more were...

State approves bid for I-35 toll alternative Spanish group led by Cintra and Zachry would pay for $6 billion of turnpikes, and give state a $1.2 billion concession payment. By Ben Wear AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF The Texas Transportation Commission, not prone to staring at the mouths of gift horses, today chose a consortium to build an alternative to Interstate 35 that pledges to construct most of that road on its own dime. Actually, the partnership led by Spanish tollroad operator Cintra and Zachry Construction corporation would spend $6 billion worth of its dimes to lay down a four-lane toll road from...

BEN WEAR: GETTING THERE This session, toll roads will get full attention GETTING THERE This session, toll roads will get full attention Everything you ought to know about toll roads Buses' controversial 200-foot trip An unlikely new face at Cap Metro Anti-toll founders plot a revolution Ben Wear --------------------------------------------------------- Monday, December 13, 2004 When I moved back to Austin about 16 months ago after living elsewhere since early 2001, everything I saw and was told indicated that Texas had a discussion about toll roads while I was gone and decided that turnpikes were the wave of the future. Texas 45...

Seventy-one US troops were killed in the offensive led by US Marines to take control of the Iraqi city Fallujah from insurgents, the US military has said. The toll was 20 higher than previously reported. Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim city of 300,000 people 50 kilometres west of Baghdad, was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting since the initial US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The Fallujah offensive caused more than half of the total US military fatalities in Iraq in November, the second-deadliest month of the 20-month war. According to Pentagon figures released on Wednesday, 134 US...

Death Toll Rises to 166 China Coal Blast 7 minutes ago World - AP Asia By JOE McDONALD, Associated Press Writer BEIJING - The death toll in a massive coal mine explosion in central China rose Wednesday to 166 after scores of missing miners were declared dead, government radio reported. The report on the Web site of China National Radio came after officials said rescue efforts were being blocked by fires and toxic fumes in the Chenjiashan Coal Mine, which was hit by the huge gas explosion on Sunday. The death toll earlier was reported at 65, with 101 miners...

Technology and Funds to Drive "Smart Highways"

US soldiers in Iraq say 1,000 death toll meaningless 2 hours, 30 minutes ago BAQUBA, Iraq (AFP) - The deaths of 1,000 American troops in Iraq since the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein has only strengthened US resolve to restore security to the strife-torn country, soldiers said. Dismissing parallels with the 1961-75 war in Vietnam, officers lashed out at the media for playing the grim-reaper over the mounting casualty toll and failing to appreciate the sacrifices made by each soldier. "It sucks. The newspapers glorify it. Everyday, reporting the numbers going up and up, trying to push a point,"...

BESLAN, Russia (AP) - Commandos stormed a school Friday in southern Russia and overcame separatist rebels holding hundreds of hostages as crying children, some naked and covered in blood, fled the building through explosions and gunfire. Health officials said more than 200 people died, the Interfax news agency reported. Ninety-five victims were identified - many of them children whose shattered, bloodied bodies were placed on lines of stretchers - and Interfax quoted unnamed sources in the regional Health Ministry as saying more than 200 people were killed by fire from the militants or died from their wounds. Hundreds of hostages...

Caribbean Death Toll from Floods Nears 2,000 Wed May 26, 2004 07:05 PM ET PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - The death toll from devastating floods and landslides in Haiti and the Dominican Republic rose to at least 1,950 on Wednesday. The toll rose dramatically with the discovery of more than 1,000 bodies in Mapou, a southeastern Haitian town where communications are poor, said Margareth Martin, the head of the civil protection office for Haiti's southeast region. Haiti's death toll stood at about 1,660, including 1,000 in Mapou, 500 elsewhere in Haiti's southeast region, 158 in the riverside town of Fond Verettes, and...

Norfolk Southern Corp. could make Roanoke, Va. once again the crossroads of two major rail corridors. Robert Martinez, Norfolk Southern vice-president for business development, told the Roanoke Times on March 29 the railroad wants to upgrade its tracks southwest of Roanoke in the Interstate 81 corridor. That alone would be a change from the railroad’s focus for the past 15 years. If the tracks were upgraded, NS could capture more of the business of shipping container freight from the Southeast to the Northeast and possibly slow the growth of truck traffic. The railroad also wants to improve its east-west corridor...

Bird flu reaches China as death toll rises to eight By Jan McGirk in Bangkok 28 January 2004 Bird flu sweeping across Asia has reached China, authorities said yesterday, after dead ducks tested positive to the virus. A second boy died in Thailand yesterday, pushing the official number of human fatalities from bird flu in Vietnam and Thailand to eight. Five other suspicious deaths may be linked to avian influenza, but the test results in Bangkok are incomplete. Officials were due to gather in Bangkok today for an emergency health summit. The infected Chinese duck farm is located in Dingdang,...

Flu panic grows as death toll rises By Jan McGirk in Bangkok 25 January 2004 Thai officials were battling yesterday to contain mounting public panic over the outbreak of avian influenza, which has left millions of chickens dead and killed at least eight people across Asia. Up to 13 deaths have been linked to the disease.By the weekend it was apparent that the widespread slaughter of chickens, including burying them alive in Thailand, had failed to stop the bird flu from spreading through Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, in south-east Asia, as well as South Korea and Japan. The latest reports...

Doctors warn of death toll from 'silent epidemic' of hepatitis C By Jeremy Laurance Health Editor 01 January 2004 Hospital specialists criticised the Government yesterday for failing to act to curb the spread of hepatitis C, a lethal blood-borne virus. The silent epidemic of hepatitis C is officially estimated to have infected 200,000 people in the UK - four times as many as HIV - and more than 100 people are being infected each week. It is already the main reason for liver transplants and is predicted to be killing more people than Aids by 2020, yet only a quarter...

Iran Quake Kills 4,000, Toll Expected to Rise By Parisa Hafezi BAM, Iran (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake struck the ancient Silk Road city of Bam in southeastern Iran on Friday, killing at least 4,000 people and injuring some 30,000 others, state television said. "This is only an initial statistic," the television said, indicating the death toll was expected to rise further. Iranian television said about 70 per cent of the buildings in the historic city, a popular tourist destination 600 miles southeast of the capital, Tehran, had collapsed in the earthquake which measured 6.3 on the Richter scale. Reuters...

Did anybody catch Imus this morning? I've transcripted this because I thought it was kind of funny. As soon as I heard Imus talking to the correspondent from Turkey...I knew there would be problems. LOL!!! Imus:"Alright Charles, Whats going on in the news this morning? Whats this about Turkey and Iraq I hear?" Charles:"Well I-Man the Uh...um...there was a bomb explostion in Levent, Istanbul. Apparently near a shopping mall." Imus:"What about Iraq?" Charles:"Well I-Man the Uh...um...there was a bomb explosion in uh Ram..." Imus:"You don't seem to even know what in the hell you are talking about!" Charles:"Well I-Man you...

So you think you accomplished something by stealing another election and putting that dummy goon "Ahhnuld" in as Governor. Well he's an idiot just like that other installed resident George (imbecile) W. Bush. The reason California's economy is so bad is the fault of the white house resident and his moronic economic policies. Also, his Enron buddies screwed California with the energy contracts. So after Ahhnie screws California royally and the nation sees what corrupt fools W and the repuggies are, the Democrats will take control of the nation again for 40 years. Hasta La Vista baybee

Smart cards track commuters By Aaron Scullion BBC News Online staff Civil rights campaigners have expressed concerns about the new smart travelcards introduced for London commuters. Under the new system, Transport for London will be able to track a commuter's movements and it plans to retain information on journeys made for "a number of years" Each card has a unique ID number linked to the registered owner's name, which is recorded together with the location and time of the exchange every time the card is used. The data, retained for business purposes, could be released to law enforcement agencies...

<p>PARIS — The death toll in France from August's blistering heat wave has reached nearly 15,000, according to a government-commissioned report released Thursday, surpassing a prior tally by more than 3,000.</p> <p>A study by scientists at INSERM, the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (search), determined that 14,802 people had died in August.</p>

As many as 5,000 people could have died as a result of the recent heatwave across France. The estimate, up from an original 3,000, has been acknowledged by French Health Minister Jean-Francois Mattei. "The figure of 5,000 was mentioned. It's one hypothesis. It's plausible but it's just a hypothesis," Mattei said. He said available death tolls were currently based on estimates. "We won't have definitive and indisputable figures for several weeks," he added Most of the dead were elderly people who could not cope in the temperatures of more than 40C. But they included two Britons caught up in forest...

MOSCOW, 9 August 2003 — More than 12,000 Russian soldiers have died in the nearly four-year war in separatist Chechnya, almost triple the officially disclosed figure, the Soldiers’ Mothers Committee rights group said yesterday. Valentina Malnikova, a representative of the respected group, told Moscow Echo radio that the figures included soldiers who died on their way to a hospital or from injuries at a later date — deaths that are not officially registered by the authorities. The estimate suggests that on an average, nearly nine Russian soldiers have died daily since President Vladimir Putin launched the self-declared “anti-terror” campaign while...