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| Giant cyclone pounds Australia coast; no deaths reported Posted: 02 Feb 2011 06:57 PM PST  A complete roof is wrapped around a power pole after Cyclone Yasi passed, in the northern Australian town of Cowley Beach. — Reuters pic  Flood water caused by cyclone Yasi block the main road between the northern Australian towns of Innisfail and Tully. — Reuters pic Many people were astounded that Cyclone Yasi — which packed winds of up to 300kmh at its core — did much less damage than feared. "It's amazing no one was killed," said farmer Nathan Fisher, speaking out the window of his four-wheel-drive vehicle as he returned to his property from a shelter in the town of Innisfail. "The wind was howling like a banshee." The cyclone came ashore around midnight along hundreds of kilometres of coast in Queensland state and then drove inland, bringing heavy rains to mining areas struggling to recover from recent devastating floods. While the cyclone was the size of Italy, it appeared to miss major towns in Queensland, a sparsely populated state with about two people for every square kilometre. The biggest impact could be on the economy. Sugarcane crops had been damaged although the extent of the destruction was still being assessed, said Steve Greenwood, chief executive of Queensland's canegrowers organisation. The districts affected produce 30 per cent of the cane grown in Australia, the world's third-largest exporter of raw sugar. Some coal mines remained shut, although others were starting to resume operations. Queensland accounts for 90 per cent of Australia's steelmaking coal exports. The eye of the cyclone crossed the coast close to the tourist town of Mission Beach. "It sounds like a roaring train going over the top of the house," Hayley Leonard told Seven Network television from a concrete bunker beneath her home in the town of Innisfail. "There are trees cracking outside." Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said there had been no reports of deaths. "What I'm very relieved about is that we have yet to hear any reports from any police or any other source of any serious injury or fatality," Bligh told Sky TV. She said evacuation centres, where more than 10,000 people had sheltered across the state, had not reported structural damage. One resident, Maria Cook, returned to check on her home on the outskirts of Innisfail after spending the night in an emergency shelter. "I'm going to have to use a chainsaw to cut past trees and to get back inside my house, but that's OK," she said. Yasi was rated a maximum-strength category five storm and drew comparisons with Hurricane Katrina, which wrecked New Orleans in 2005. It has been downgraded to a category two storm as it moves inland. But its core remained very destructive, the Bureau of Meteorology said. Almost everyone in the storm zone was bunkered down at home or in cyclone shelters. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated in the hours before the storm struck. Storm surge not as high A Bureau of Meteorology spokesman said a storm surge of two metres above the normal level of the tide had inundated one stretch of coast but reporters said the surges were not as severe as feared. More than 400,000 people live in the cyclone's path. The entire stretch is popular with tourists, includes the Great Barrier Reef, and is home to major coal and sugar ports. The storm could inflate world prices of sugar, copper and coal, after forcing a copper refinery to close and paralysing sugar and coal exports. It even prompted a major mining community in Mt Isa, almost 1,000km inland, to go on alert. Global miners BHP Billiton and Peabody Energy had shut several coal mines, an official for the union representing Queensland coal miners told Reuters. Bligh said the cyclone, predicted to be the strongest ever to hit Australia, could batter the state for up to three days as it moved inland. Queensland has had a cruel summer, with floods sweeping across it and other eastern states in recent months, killing 35 people. The state is also home to most of Australia's sugar industry and losses for the industry from Yasi could exceed A$500 million (RM1.5 billion), including crop losses and damage to farming infrastructure, industry group Queensland Canegrowers said. — Reuters |
| Mubarak backers attack Cairo protesters, 3 dead Posted: 02 Feb 2011 03:21 PM PST  Pro-government protesters (left) clash with anti-government protesters outside the National Museum near Tahrir Square in Cairo early February 3, 2011. — Reuters pic  A protester waits to be treated at a makeshift medical triage station at Tahrir Square. — Reuters pic Anti-Mubarak protesters hurled stones back, and said the attackers were police in plainclothes. The Interior Ministry denied the accusation, and the Egyptian government rejected international calls for Mubarak to end his 30-year rule now. This apparent rebuff, along with the appearance of Mubarak supporters on Cairo's streets and their clashes with protesters — after days of relatively calm demonstrations — complicated US calculations for an orderly transition of power. In pointed comments, a senior US official said it was clear that "somebody loyal to Mubarak has unleashed these guys to try to intimidate the protesters". The emergence of Mubarak loyalists, whether ordinary citizens or police, injected a new dynamic into the momentous events in this most populous Arab nation of 80 million people. The uprising broke out last week as public frustration with corruption, oppression and economic hardship under Mubarak boiled over. At least 140 people are estimated to have been killed so far and there have been protests across the country. As night fell, Egyptian Vice-President Omar Suleiman urged the 2,000 demonstrators bedding down in Cairo's central Tahrir (Liberation) Square to leave and observe a curfew to restore calm. Suleiman said the start of dialogue with the opposition depended on an end to street protests. After dark the protesters barricaded the square against groups of pro-Mubarak supporters who appeared to be trying to penetrate the makeshift cordon. There was sporadic gunfire, with blazes caused by firebombs, and the atmosphere was tense. Officials said three people were killed in yesterday's violence, and a doctor at the scene said more than 1,500 were injured. Reacting to the tumult in Egypt, a key ally, the White House said it was vital for clashes to stop to ease a power handover. "If any of the violence is instigated by the government it should stop immediately," spokesman Robert Gibbs said. Opposition figurehead Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace laureate, called on the army to intervene to stop the violence in Tahrir Square, the worst in the nine-day uprising against Mubarak since protesters waged street battles last Friday. Troops and tanks stood by as the violence raged. Urging protesters to clear the streets, the armed forces told them their demands had been heard. But some were determined to occupy the square until Mubarak quits. Khalil, a man in his '60s holding a stick, blamed Mubarak supporters and undercover security men for the clashes. "We will not leave," he told Reuters. "Everybody stay put." US conflicted The crisis has alarmed the United States and other Western governments who have regarded Mubarak as a bulwark of stability in a volatile region, and has raised the prospect of unrest spreading to other authoritarian Arab states. Mubarak went on television on Tuesday to say he would not stand in elections scheduled for September. This was not good enough for the protesters, who demanded he leave the country. President Barack Obama telephoned the 82-year-old to say Washington wanted him to move faster on political transition. "The message that the president delivered clearly to President Mubarak was that the time for change has come," Gibbs said, adding: "Now means now." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a call to Suleiman, underlined that US position. But Mubarak dug in his heels yesterday. A Foreign Ministry statement rejected US and European calls for the transition to start immediately, saying they aimed to "incite the internal situation" in Egypt. "This appears to be a clear rebuff to the Obama administration and to the international community's efforts to try to help manage a peaceful transition from Mubarak to a new, democratic Egypt," said Robert Danin, a former senior US official now at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank. The administration will want to see order restored without compromising the standing of the Egyptian army, which it supplies annually with about US$1.3 billion (RM4 billion) in aid. Many analysts see the army as trying to ensure a transition of power that would allow it to retain much of its influence. International backing for Mubarak, for three decades a stalwart of the West's Middle East policy, a key player in the Middle East peace process and defence against the spread of militant Islam, crumbled as he tried to ride out the crisis. France, Germany and Britain also urged a speedy transition. Some of the few words of encouragement for him have come from oil giant Saudi Arabia, a country seen by many analysts as vulnerable to a similar outbreak of discontent. Israel, which signed a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, is also watching the situation in its western neighbour nervously, weighing the possibility that Islamists hostile to the Jewish state might gain a share of power in Cairo. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday called for "bolstering Israel's might" in response to turmoil n Egypt. Fighting in the square Troops made no attempt to intervene as opposing factions clashed in the vast Tahrir Square, the focus of the protests. Attackers brandished baseball bats and iron bars and broke up pieces of paving stones to throw. Earlier, pro-Mubarak youths were bussed into various districts of the capital. Thousands were involved in what escalated into pitch battles. Reuters correspondents saw dozens of people injured, and people fleeing in panic. One of the riders who wielded whips and sticks as they galloped into the crowd was dragged from his horse and beaten. Petrol bombs landed in the gardens of the Egyptian Museum. Journalists said they were targeted by pro-Mubarak supporters. An opposition coalition, which includes the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood group, responded to the army warning to leave Tahrir Square by calling for more protests. It said it would only negotiate with Suleiman, a former intelligence chief appointed by Mubarak at the weekend, once the president stepped down. At the weekend, Mubarak reshuffled his cabinet and promised reform but that was not enough for the protesters. One million people took to the streets of Egyptian cities on Tuesday calling for him to quit. Many protesters spoke of a new push on Friday, the Egyptian weekend, to rally at Cairo's presidential palace to dislodge Mubarak. The uprising was inspired in part by a popular revolt in Tunisia last month that overthrew long-ruling President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. The mood is spreading across the region. King Abdullah of Jordan replaced his prime minister on Tuesday following protests there. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, an important US ally in the fight against al Qaeda, said yesterday that he would not seek to extend his presidency. Oil prices fell back from 28-month highs, but North Sea Brent crude was still more than US$101 a barrel because of worries that unrest in Egypt could kindle yet more political upheaval across the Middle East and North Africa. But with Mubarak pledging to go, foreign investors have begun to show renewed interest in Egyptian bonds and stocks, and the cost of insuring Egyptian debt against default fell. — Reuters |
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