The Perlich Press

The Iraqi parliament selected a new speaker Sunday after months of turmoil and failed majority votes prevented the appointment of a speaker.

The new speaker, Ayad Samarrai, a 63 year-old Sunni Arab, defeated his opponent, Mustafa al-Hiti, by a result of 153 votes to 36. The Iraqi parliament has 275 members, and 86 members did not vote or cast blank ballots, according to a report from the New York Times.

In a February vote, Samarrai received 136 votes, only two votes shy of the 138 that were required for victory.

Under the Iraqi system of government, the position of parliament speaker is reserved for a Sunni Arab, according to the New York Times.

Samarrai was considered the favorite for the position since it was left vacant in December by Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, who claimed he was forced to step down by rival political parties, including the Iraqi Islamic Party, of which Samarrai is a member.

Samarrai has also been a vocal opponent of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a member of the Dawa party. However, following his election, Samarrai express an interest in working with Maliki.

“Parliament should be complementary to the executive system, not hold it up,” Samarrai said to the New York Times.

A spokesman for Maliki did not have any comment on Samarrai’s election when contacted by the New York Times.

Samarrai had dual Iraqi-British citizenship, and lived in Britain during Sadaam Hussein’s rule, returning to Iraq after the United States evasion of 2003, according to a report from the Associated Press, appearing in the USA Today.

Posted by perli024 at 5:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The death toll has risen to over 200 people Tuesday after an earthquake hit the Italian mountain range early Monday morning.
The earthquake hit the medieval town of L’Aquila, Italy before dawn Monday and the number of people killed has climbed to 207, according to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. He also reported that 17 victims have not yet been identified.
According to a report from the New York Times, Berlusconi said that 15 people remain missing and that around 100 of the 1,000 people injured were still listed in critical condition. He said that the search for survivor will last for another 48 hours.
Many aftershocks have shaken the nation less than a day after the earthquake.
According to a report from the BBC, the earthquake that hit Monday morning was a 6.3 magnitude, which was preceded by a 4.6 magnitude tremor hours earlier that did not cause any damage.
The BBC reports that thousands of the 70,000 residents of the city poured into city streets after the 30-second shock.
A student dormitory was reported as one of the more damaged buildings.
“We managed to come down with other students but we had to sneak through a hole in the stairs as the whole floor came down,” student Luigi Alfonsi, 22, told the BBC.
Reports from Italy say that the earthquake was felt 60 miles away in Rome.

Posted by perli024 at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A large dam in Indonesia burst open following heavy rains Friday, flooding a highly urban area in minutes and killing at least 60 people, police said.

The dam broke around 2 a.m. in a largely urban neighborhood on the outskirts of the town of Jakarta, according to a report from the New York Times. Many were still asleep at the time, and woke to find their homes completely flooded with mud and water.

Rescue workers are now working through the mud and water to find any survivors. The death toll is currently 60, but police say it is rising. The Wall Street Journal reports that bodies from 47 of the victims have been identified.

The neighborhood, home to hundreds of residents, is a mostly middle-class university are of the city.

Residents described the event as almost like a tsunami, as a wall of water nearly 33-feet high rushed through their valley.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited the area Friday to speak with rescue workers and residents. Yudhoyono said that the government will do everything possible to continue the rescue effort and find places to live for those who have been displaced.

The dam protected a low-lying area of the city from the waters of Situ Gintung, a 50-acre lake. The dam was constructed while Indonesia was still under Dutch colonial rule. Authorities said that they have been concerned something like this could happen.

Yudhoyono said a new, more modern dam will be built.

Posted by perli024 at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A suicide bomber driving near a police academy Sunday in Baghdad blew himself up, killing 28 people.

According to the Iraqi interior minister the attack killed five police officers and injured 57 other people. Witnesses described a chaotic scene full or carnage and police gunfire after the attack occurred, The New York Times reported.

This is not the first time suicide bombers have targeted the police academy in Baghdad. On Dec. 1, a suicide bomber blew himself up at nearly the say exact spot, killing 15 people on that occasion.

The attack comes on the same day that the American military announced its intentions to have 12,000 U.S. troops leave Iraq by September, as part of President Barack Obama’s plan to have the military out of Iraq by August 2010.

The city of Baghdad is still heavily protected with many checkpoints and security officers remaining in the area, according to The New York Times report.

Violence across Iraq has dropped to its lowest level since the American invasion in March 2004, however, in recent weeks, there have been several high-profile attacks, including a bombing at a cattle market in the city of Hilla.

According to a report from CBS News, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. David Perkins said that security in Iraq is improving, and that it is the best it has been since the summer of 2003.

Perkins said the U.S. military would evacuate 12,000 troops by September, and that the British would take 4,000 over their troops out of Iraq by September.

Posted by perli024 at 8:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

74 workers died and dozens more are trapped Sunday after a gas explosion destroyed a Chinese coal mine.

More than 400 miners were in the mine at the time of the explosion. Officials reported that many miners died after being rescued.

The mine is located in Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi, the main coal-producing province of China.

According to a report the French Press Agency, it has been reported that many trapped minors have called loved ones on their cell phones.

The rising death toll makes this is the worst coal-mining accident in China in the last 14 months. 105 people were killed in a December 2007 explosion at a mine also located in Shanxi.

114 miners are currently under observation in the hospital, and five of them are considered in serious condition.

Government officials have ordered that everything possible should be done to rescue those who are still trapped in the mine, the French Press Agency said according to a television report in China.

27-year-old survivor Xue Huangcheng told reporters that he and his co-workers were not aware of the initial damage in the blast. They were not told to leave the mine until an hour after the explosion.

According to state media, around 3,200 people have died in Chinese coal mines in the past year.

Posted by perli024 at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A volcano has erupted in southwestern Colombia near the Ecuadorian border, causing 7,000 people living in the area to evacuate.

There have been no reports of major damage or injuries, but officials ordered an evacuation in case of a larger evacuation, according to a report from the Press Association.

The eruption Saturday covered the city of Pasto in ash. The city is a provincial capital with a population of over 500,000.

Pasto is just six miles from Mount Galeras, which last erupted in January 2008. No one was hurt in that eruption and most nearby residents refused to evacuate.

The city is not only evacuating the people who live nearby the volcano. Most other residents are being urged to remain in their homes, said Eduardo Alvarado, mayor of Pasto.

According to a report from the United Press International, Mount Galeras has erupted nine times since becoming active in 1989.

The worst eruption on record occurred in 1993 when an eruption of the volcano caused the death of nine people.

Posted by perli024 at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Many employees in Japan have found themselves without a job or a place to live in the last in the last year.

Laid off workers in Japan will lose their homes as well as their jobs. Employers provide workers with employee-housing, and when an employee is laid off they must leave the housing.

Many of the laid of employees in Japan are not full-time employees, which means that they do not have any unemployment or welfare benefits to fall back on. As short-term employees, they do not have any of the rights that are given to full-time employees, according to a report by the New York Times.

Japan has not experienced widespread unemployment before the current economic crisis that has enveloped the entire world. In the month of December, the unemployment rate jumped to 4.4 percent from 3.9 percent in November. The Labor Ministry estimates that 131,000 layoffs have been announced since October, with 125,000 of those being short-term workers.

Short-term employees usually make less than $700 a month in Japan, according to Koji Hirano, a former short-term employee for Canon, as reported by the New York Times. They have no savings to rely upon, so many have become homeless.

Currently 34.5 percent of Japan’s 55.3 million workers are not full-time employees. This is up from 25 percent in 1999 when Japan began to deregulate its labor laws.

Posted by perli024 at 3:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over 100 people died and another 200 were severly burned in Kenya after an overturned tanker exploded.
According to the BBC, an overturned petrol tanker began to leak fuel and hundreds of Kenyans ran to the tanker to siphon fuel when the tanker exploded. 111 people are confirmed dead and hundreds more are severely hurt.
The explosion occurred just days after a fire at a supermarket killed 25 people in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
It is suspected that the explosion was caused by a cigarette, the police say that the cause is still under investigation.
In an article from the Associated Press that appeared in the Star Tribune, it was reported that besides the 100 dead, over 200 people are severely burned and that local hospitals are overwhelmed. The Kenyan government has sent extra body bags and medical supplies to the area to assist the hospitals.
Many burnt cars and clothes lay strewn all over the road after the explosion. Hundreds of people were in the streets, badly burned and begging for help. Even Red Cross workers on the scene to assist were offered grief counselors to help them deal with the disturbing task in front of them.
The government estimates that as the scene is cleaned up, that the death toll will rise. Families will have a difficult time to identify the bodies of their loved ones. “Most of the families will have a hard time because these bodies are charred beyond recognition,�? Patrick Nyongesa, the regional manage for the Kenya Red Cross, told the Associated Press.

Posted by perli024 at 8:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)