Mar
15
Pakistan police battle protesters as crisis grows
Filed Under Most Pepular, National News, News, Pakistani News, Politics, Top Stories, World News | Leave a Comment
LAHORE, Pakistan – Pakistan’s opposition leader defied house arrest on Sunday to join anti-government protests that quickly descended into violence and chaos, with running battles between stone-throwing protesters and police.
The power struggle between Pakistan’s president and the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif threatens to paralyze the government and, alarmingly for the U.S., distract the nuclear-armed country from its fight against Taliban militants operating along the Afghan border.
Hundreds of police surrounded the Lahore residence of Sharif, a former prime minister, before dawn on Sunday and detained him along with scores of his supporters, a party spokesman said.
Officers in the eastern Pakistani city showed party officials an order placing Sharif and his politician brother Shahbaz under house arrest for three days, spokesman Pervaiz Rasheed said.
Sharif denounced the order as illegal and later left the house in a convoy of vehicles packed with chanting, flag-waving supporters, headed for a downtown rally that had already turned violent.
Mobs accompanying the swelling convoy smashed the windows of buses parked along the route. Others torched tires, sending plumes of black smoke into the blue sky over a usually bustling boulevard littered with stones and empty tear gas shells.
“These are the decisive moments,” Sharif told supporters before he climbed into his car. “I tell every Pakistani youth that this is not the time to stay home; Pakistan is calling you to come and save me.”
Rao Iftikhar, a senior government official, said authorities reconsidered the restrictions on Sharif to allow him to address the rally and return home afterward.
Washington worries that the crisis will further destabilize the shaky the year-old government and prevent it from being an effective ally in the fight against insurgents in Afghanistan.
Suspected militants attacked a transport terminal in northwestern Pakistan used to supply NATO troops in Afghanistan before dawn on Sunday and torched dozens of containers and military vehicles, police said.
Lawyers and opposition party supporters had planned to gather near Lahore’s main court complex before heading toward Islamabad to stage a mass sit-in front of Parliament, in defiance of a government ban.
To thwart them, authorities parked trucks across major roads on the edge of the city, and riot police took up positions outside the railway station and government buildings.
Still, several thousands flag-waving demonstrators pushed past police barricades to reach the courts.
Protesters pelted some of the hundreds of riot police ringing the area with rocks, triggering running clashes. An Associated Press reporter saw one officer led away with a head wound.
Police repeatedly fired tear gas, scattering the crowd, and beat several stragglers with batons, only for the demonstrators to return with fresh supplies of sticks and stones.
Shahbaz Sharif and a host of other protest leaders went underground to dodge their own detention orders. Iftikhar said they had been issued for the head of Pakistan’s main Islamist party and cricketer star-turned-politician Imran Khan.
Television images showed police commandos wearing flak jackets and armed with assault rifles apparently searching for Shahbaz in Rawalpindi, just south of the capital.
The political turmoil began last month when the Supreme Court disqualified the Sharif brothers from elected office, over convictions dating back to an earlier chapter in Pakistan’s turbulent political history.
Zardari compounded the crisis by dismissing the Sharifs’ administration in Punjab, Pakistan’s biggest and richest province, of which Lahore is the capital.
The brothers then threw their support behind plans by lawyers to stage an indefinite sit-in in Islamabad – a move officials say would bring the government to a standstill and present a target to terrorists.
On Saturday, after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke to both Zardari and Nawaz Sharif by telephone, the government announced it would appeal the Supreme Court ruling in the coming days.
Sharif’s party welcomed the move but stuck by its demand for a shake-up of the judiciary.
Zardari refuses to reinstate a group of independent-minded judges fired by Musharraf.
Many observers suspect Zardari fears the judges could challenge a pact signed by Musharraf that quashed long-standing corruption charges against him and his wife, slain former leader Benazir Bhutto.
Skeptics suspect Sharif of hoping to force early elections, from which he and Islamist parties would likely profit.
Nov
27
101 killed as gunmen rampage in India city
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MUMBAI, India - Teams of gunmen stormed luxury hotels, a popular restaurant, a crowded train station and a Jewish group’s headquarters in India’s financial capital, killing at least 101 people, taking Westerners hostage and leaving parts of the city under siege Thursday. A group of suspected Muslim militants claimed responsibility.
Police and gunmen were exchanging occasional gunfire at two luxury hotels and dozens of people were believed held hostage or trapped inside the besieged buildings. Pradeep Indulkar, a senior official at the Maharashtra state Home Ministry said 101 people were killed and 287 injured.
Officials said eight militants had also been killed in the coordinated attacks on at least 10 sites that began around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Gunmen also seized the Mumbai headquarters of the ultra-orthodox Jewish outreach group Chabad Lubavitch, the New York-based group said. Indian commandos surrounded the building Thursday morning and media reports said gunfire was heard from the building.
Police loudspeakers declared a curfew around Mumbai’s landmark Taj Mahal hotel, and black-clad commandos ran into the building as fresh gunshots rang out from the area, apparently the beginning of an assault on gunmen who had taken hostages in the hotel.
Soldiers outside the hotel said forces were moving slowly, from room to room, looking for gunmen and traps.
A series of explosions had rocked the Taj Mahal just after midnight. Screams were heard and black smoke and flames billowed from the century-old edifice on Mumbai’s waterfront. Firefighters sprayed water at the blaze and plucked people from balconies with extension ladders. By dawn, the fire was still burning.
At the nearby upscale Oberoi hotel, soldiers could be seen on the roof of neighboring buildings. A banner hung out of one window read “save us.” No one could be seen inside the room from the road.
Officials at Bombay Hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a Japanese man had died there and nine Europeans had been admitted, three of them in critical condition with gunshots. All had come from the Taj Mahal, the officials said.
At least three top Indian police officers – including the chief of the anti-terror squad – were among those killed, said and A.N. Roy, a top police official.
The attackers specifically targeted Britons and Americans at the hotels and restaurant, witnesses said.
Alex Chamberlain, a British citizen who was dining at the Oberoi, told Sky News television that a gunman ushered 30 to 40 people from the restaurant into a stairway and, speaking in Hindi or Urdu, ordered everyone to put up their hands.
“They were talking about British and Americans specifically. There was an Italian guy, who, you know, they said: ‘Where are you from?” and he said he’s from Italy and they said ‘fine’ and they left him alone. And I thought: ‘Fine, they’re going to shoot me if they ask me anything – and thank God they didn’t,” he said.
Chamberlain said he managed to slip away as the patrons were forced to walk up stairs, but he thought much of the group was being held hostage.
The motive for the onslaught was not immediately clear, but Mumbai has frequently been targeted in terrorist attacks blamed on Islamic extremists, including a series of bombings in July 2006 that killed 187 people.
Mumbai, on the western coast of India overlooking the Arabian Sea, is home to splendid Victorian architecture built during the British Raj and is one of the most populated cities in the world with some 18 million crammed into shantytowns, high rises and crumbling mansions. The Taj Mahal hotel, filled with Oriental carpets, Indian artifacts and alabaster ceilings, overlooks the fabled Gateway of India that commemorated the visit of King George V and Queen Mary.
A spokesman for the Lubavitch movement in New York, Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, said attackers “stormed the Chabad house” in Mumbai.
“It seems that the terrorists commandeered a police vehicle which allowed them easy access to the area of the Chabad house and threw a grenade at a gas pump nearby,” he said, citing a variety of sources.
He said he did not know the status of occupants of the house, which serves as an educational center and a synagogue.
Early Thursday, state home secretary Bipin Shrimali said four suspects had been killed in two incidents in Mumbai when they tried to flee in cars, and Roy said four more gunmen were killed at the Taj Mahal. State Home Minister R.R. Patil said nine more were arrested. They declined to provide any further details.
“We’re going to catch them dead or alive,” Patil told reporters. “An attack on Mumbai is an attack on the rest of the country.”
An Indian media report said a previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen had claimed responsibility for the attacks in e-mails to several media outlets. There was no way to verify that claim.
The state government ordered schools and colleges and the Bombay Stock Exchange closed Thursday.
Police reported hostages being held at the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, two of the best-known upscale destinations.
Gunmen who burst into the Taj “were targeting foreigners. They kept shouting: `Who has U.S. or U.K. passports?’” said Ashok Patel, a British citizen who fled from the hotel.
Authorities believed up to 15 foreigners were hostages at the Taj Mahal hotel, said Anees Ahmed, a top state official.
It was also unclear where the hostages were in the Taj Mahal, which is divided into an older wing that was in flames, and a more modern tower.
State Department spokesman Robert Wood said U.S. officials were not aware of any American casualties, but were still checking.
“We condemn these attacks and the loss of innocent life,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.
Blood smeared the grounds of the 19th century Chhatrapati Shivaji railroad station – a beautiful example of Victorian Gothic architecture – where attackers sprayed bullets into the crowded terminal.
Nasim Inam’s hands shook when he spoke of seeing four attackers gunning down commuters as they walked to catch late trains home.
“They wore black T-shirts and blue jeans. They were carrying big guns,” said Inam. “They just fired randomly at people and then ran away. In seconds, people fell to the ground.”
Other gunmen attacked Leopold’s restaurant, a landmark popular with foreigners, and the police headquarters in southern Mumbai, the area where most of the attacks took place. The restaurant was riddled with bullet holes and there was blood on the floor and shoes left by fleeing customers. Gunmen also attacked Cama and Albless Hospital and G.T. Hospital, though it was not immediately clear if anyone was killed.
Early Thursday, several European lawmakers were among those who barricaded themselves inside the Taj, a century-old seaside hotel complex and one of the city’s best-known destinations.
Nov
15
WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama has interviewed primary election rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Richardson for secretary of state, according to Democratic officials who revealed his secret meetings with both as he weighed the decision on folding former foes into his new administration. Obama met with Richardson late Friday afternoon, a day after conferring one-on-one with Clinton at his Chicago office, said several Democratic officials.
He plans to meet there Monday with his Republican opponent, John McCain, but advisers to both of the general election rivals say they don’t expect Obama to consider McCain for an administration job.
The meeting with Clinton, revealed to The Associated Press Friday, excited a burst of speculation that Obama would transform the former first lady and his fierce campaign foe into one of his top Cabinet officials and the nation’s chief diplomatic voice. But where she stands in contention for the post came into question as other Democrats, also speaking on condition of anonymity about the private discussions, said Richardson was brought in as well.
The two are not the only candidates Obama has talked to about the job, Democrats said. One senior Obama adviser said the president-elect has given no evidence whom he is favoring for the post.
Obama asked Clinton directly whether she would be interested in the job, said one Democrat, who cautioned that it was no indication that he was leaning toward her.
Obama was deciding on his presidential staff as well, naming longtime friend Valerie Jarrett as a White House senior adviser. Jarrett met Obama when she hired his wife for a job in the Chicago mayor’s office years ago and has been a close confidante to the couple ever since.
Obama was silent and out of sight in Chicago. On Friday evening, he attended a birthday party for Jarrett at a high-rise building in the city. Clinton, a New York senator, addressed a transit conference in her home state and said emphatically, “I’m not going to speculate or address anything about the president-elect’s incoming administration, and I’m going to respect his process.”
Obama’s aides say he would like to have McCain as a partner with him on legislation they both have advocated, such as climate change, government reform, immigration and a ban on torture.
All this fits with an idea that Obama often talked about on the campaign trail, as he praised the presidency of Abraham Lincoln as described by presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in her book “Team of Rivals.”
“Lincoln basically pulled in all the people who had been running against him into his Cabinet because whatever personal feelings there were, the issue was: How can we get this country through this time of crisis?” Obama said at one point.
Lincoln appointed three of his rivals for the Republican nomination to his Cabinet. Obama turned to one rival for vice president, picking Democratic primary candidate Joe Biden even though Biden had questioned whether Obama had the experience to be president.
In his first two weeks as president-elect, Obama has struck a bipartisan tone. He paired a Republican and a Democrat to meet with foreign leaders this weekend on his behalf in Washington, for example.
It’s far from clear how interested Clinton would be in being his secretary of state. She’d face a Senate confirmation hearing that would certainly probe her husband’s financial dealings – something the Clintons refused to disclose in the presidential campaign.
But remaining in the Senate may not be Clinton’s first choice, either, since she is a junior senator without prospects for a leadership position or committee chairmanship anytime soon.
Democratic officials, speaking only anonymously about private negotiations, say Clinton asked Sen. Edward Kennedy to establish a subcommittee that she would lead that would allow her to shepherd health care reform through the Senate. But Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, wants to lead the effort as a capstone to his career, and there also are other members with more seniority than Clinton whom he wouldn’t want to bypass.
Nov
14
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Sen. Hillary Clinton emerged on Thursday as a candidate to be U.S. secretary of state for Barack Obama, months after he defeated her in an intense contest for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Putting Clinton, wife of former President Bill Clinton, in the position could help heal whatever lingering divisions remain in the Democratic Party after her bitter battle with Obama.
Obama passed over Clinton as his vice presidential running mate in favor of Sen. Joe Biden, a decision that angered her ardent supporters and widened a rift in the party that Obama and Clinton later worked hard to heal.
Her selection as top U.S. diplomat could also mean a more hawkish foreign policy than that advocated by Obama during his presidential campaign. On the campaign trail, Clinton was more reluctant than Obama to commit to a firm timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
But both Obama and Clinton were adamant about improving the image of the United States abroad and correcting what they considered the “failed policies” of the outgoing Bush administration.
Clinton was described by her office as having flown to Chicago on Thursday on personal business.
Neither her aides nor aides to President-elect Obama would say whether she was interviewed for the job by Obama, who spent a great part of the day behind closed doors in transition meetings at his Chicago office.
“Any speculation about cabinet or other administration appointments is really for President-elect Obama’s transition team to address,” said Clinton’s senior adviser, Philippe Reines.
NBC News and The Washington Post reported that Clinton was under consideration for the top U.S. diplomatic position.
EXPANDED SEARCH?
This would mean Obama was expanding his search beyond other candidates mentioned for the job, such as Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, a Democrat who lost the 2004 presidential election to George W. Bush, and Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican who backed Obama over Republican John McCain this year.
CNN reported that on Monday night, while walking into an awards ceremony in New York, Clinton was asked if she would consider taking a post in the Obama administration. It did not sound like she ruled it out.
“I am happy being a senator from New York, I love this state and this city. I am looking at the long list of things I have to catch up on and do. But I want to be a good partner and I want to do everything I can to make sure his agenda is going to be successful,” Clinton said.
The former first lady had argued during the Democratic primary campaign that Obama was too inexperienced to be president. But they mended fences and during the Democratic National Convention in Denver, she declared that “Barack Obama is my candidate and he must be our president.”
Analyst Paul Light of New York University’s John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress said picking Clinton would mean Obama was serious about reaching across the party divide.
On the other hand, he said: “To put her in the competition with several others and pick somebody other than Hillary Clinton after you’ve floated her name is to have a repeat of the spring and summer division and raise questions about Obama’s seriousness about healing the division within the party.”
Clinton was at first considered the shoo-in to win the Democratic nomination only to watch the 47-year-old Illinois senator defeat her in a series of decisive battles.
Whether Clinton would want the position was immediately debated on cable television talk shows. After all, she wanted to be president, and why would she settle for anything less?
“I think she has her sights set higher than that,” said Stephen Hayes, a columnist for the Weekly Standard Magazine, on
CNN.
On the other hand, Obama won election over McCain decisively and if he is successful in his first term, he very well could win again in 2012, probably putting the presidency out of reach for Clinton, who is now 61.
As U.S. first lady Clinton devoted a great deal of time to the rights of women around the world, often traveling the globe with her daughter, Chelsea.
As a presidential candidate, she argued for putting greater U.S. emphasis on defeating the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and in ensuring nuclear weapons do not spread.
Nov
14
CHICAGO – Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is among the candidates that President-elect Barack Obama is considering for secretary of state, according to two Democratic officials in close contact with the Obama transition team.
Clinton, the former first lady who pushed Obama hard for the Democratic presidential nomination, was rumored to be a contender for the job last week, but the talk died down as party activists questioned whether she was best-suited to be the nation’s top diplomat in an Obama administration.
The talk resumed in Washington and elsewhere Thursday, a day after Obama named several former aides to President Bill Clinton to help run his transition effort.
The two Democratic officials who spoke Thursday did so on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering Obama and his staff. Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines referred questions to the Obama transition team, which said it had no comment.
Other people frequently mentioned for the State Department job are Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and New Mexico’s Democratic governor, Bill Richardson.
Oct
6
MIAMI - On a muggy afternoon, more than 3,000 immigrants, most of them Hispanic, wave flags, cheer and weep as they swear to protect and defend the United States of America as its newest citizens.
Moments later, dozens of volunteers from the Democratic and Republican parties swoop down on the new citizens as they file out of their citizenship ceremony in a Miami auditorium, competing to sign them up to vote. It’s a scene that is being played out nationwide.
Supporters of Barack Obama and John McCain are fighting for every voter this campaign, and naturalized citizens of Hispanic descent are a growing target. In 2004, there were 4 million foreign-born Hispanics citizens of voting age. Today, that number is more than 5 million, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data by the nonprofit Pew Hispanic Center.
These new voters are especially important in swing states like Florida and New Mexico, said Jeffrey Passel, the center’s senior demographer.
“In places where the election is very close, they make all the difference in the world,” Passel said.
Voter registration data, polls and Associated Press interviews with new citizens in a half-dozen key states suggest Obama has the most to gain by reaching out to these new citizens.
Cuban-born Victor Castillo, 27, who took the citizenship oath along with his mother at the recent Miami ceremony, fought past a frenzy of party volunteers to register to vote with nonpartisan county poll workers, but said he was leaning toward Obama.
“Who’s more willing to work with the middle class, not just the upper class? I believe Obama will be better for that,” Castillo said, adding that he disliked McCain’s negative campaigning. “He’s trying to bring Obama down. Why don’t you do something yourself, show your ability?”
Obama campaign spokesman Federico de Jesus said the Democratic presidential candidate is devoting more money to bilingual advertising than any previous campaign, and spending roughly $20 million on Hispanic outreach, including voter registration efforts.
“In the states where the difference is 1 or 2 percentage points, the ground operation is going to make the difference,” he said.
Ana Navarro, McCain’s adviser on Hispanic affairs, said Republicans aren’t investing the same amount of money as Democrats on registering new citizens. She also allows that the party lost support among new Hispanic citizens because of some Republican lawmakers’ remarks during the recent congressional debate over proposed immigration reforms.
But the McCain campaign is using Spanish-language ads to convince Hispanics that he was on their side of that fight and that he has had a lifelong interest in Latin America, Navarro said.
“On the other side, you’ve got a man who’s never so much as set foot in Tijuana,” she said.
Overall, the Hispanic vote seems to be coalescing behind the Democrats.
Hispanic registered voters supported Obama over McCain by a 66 percent to 23 percent margin in a nationwide survey conducted by the Pew center in June and July. The survey found that Latino voters have moved sharply into the Democratic camp in the past two years, reversing gains made by the GOP earlier in the decade.
In Florida, a state known for its conservative Cuban-American Republicans, this year marked the first time that more Hispanics are registered as Democrats than Republicans. At least part of that comes from new citizens. Still, recent polls show McCain ahead among Florida Hispanics overall, making support from new Hispanic citizens in the Sunshine State all the more crucial for Obama.
After the Miami citizenship ceremony, Panama native Graciela Hidalgo stood with her 11 year-old son Jesse waiting to sign up with the Democrats. Hildalgo, 46, has lived in the United States nearly half her life but waited to become a citizen, first because she had arrived illegally and later because she was too busy working and raising her son.
She said she was most worried about the economy, the Iraq war and, to a lesser extent, immigration.
“I would have liked Hillary,” Hidalgo said wistfully of Hillary Rodham Clinton, “but McCain for me is not an option. He’s all war, war, and the Republicans haven’t done much.”
Those new Florida citizens interviewed who did support McCain tended to be older and to come from communist Cuba or socialist-leaning Nicaragua and Venezuela, where their experiences made them more sympathetic to the Republican candidate, a former Vietnam prisoner of war.
Jose Delgado, 74, a retired construction worker, arrived in the United States in 1986 from Camaguey, Cuba, after years of struggling under the government there.
“McCain will be stronger on communism and in foreign affairs in general,” Delgado said. “I’m not in agreement with many of Bush’s policies, but (McCain) will bring change.”
Strong sentiment for Obama emerged in interviews with new Latino citizens in other swing states with sizable Hispanic populations, although many also expressed admiration for McCain.
In Denver, Guatemalan native Eddie Samaoya, 73, who works as a press operator, says he and his six sons – all citizens_ often chat about politics.
He believes both candidates could do a good job, but two issues are key: “McCain is capable, but Obama has a longer life ahead of him. And he can end the war,” Samaoya said.
Mayra Crum, who came to the United States from Baja California, Mexico, registered as a Republican minutes after becoming a citizen at a Las Vegas ceremony and will vote for McCain. She thinks he can get the country out of Iraq and do more to help the “terrible” economy.
“He (McCain) has plenty of experience. You know, I love when he speaks – he makes you feel confident, like you’re going to put your country in good hands,” said Crum, 46, who teaches citizenship courses.
Even swing states with small Hispanic populations, like Virginia, could feel the effect of new Latino voters. Hispanics make up only about 3 percent of Virginia voters, but in 2006, Democrat Jim Webb won his U.S. Senate seat by a margin of only about 10,000 votes.
Salvadoran native Arturo Munoz, 64, of Fairfax, Va., began educating other Hispanic immigrants about the issues after his hours were cut at an aircraft maintenance company in March. Munoz, who supports Obama, became a citizen in August after living seven years in the United States.
“We can make the difference in these elections,” said Munoz, through a translator. “If more Hispanics vote, the future president will have to address topics important to them.”
Sep
15
LOS ANGELES – Federal rail investigators said Monday they would go to court to get an engineer’s cell phone records to determine if he was text messaging when his commuter train slammed head-on into a freight locomotive, killing 25 people.
The investigation into Friday’s fatal Metrolink crash was also focusing on whether signal lights worked properly and were synchronized with a control center where a dispatcher was warned of a problem apparently only after the collision had occurred.
As workers continued to clear the tracks to restore full service, a smaller number of commuters – many wary and emotional – returned to the rail line, where Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa tried to reassure them the trains are safe.
“I want to dispel any fears about taking the train,” he said. “Safety has to be our No. 1 concern, and while accidents can and do happen, taking the train is still one of the safest and fastest options for commuters.”
About a dozen bouquets were strung the length of the loading platform at the Simi Valley station as passengers boarded buses and were shuttled to the Chatsworth station, bypassing the tracks still being cleared of wreckage.
Regular commuters said the train load was much lighter than usual.
The National Transportation and Safety Board said the commuter train, which carried 220 people Friday, rolled past stop signals at 42 mph and forced its way onto a track where a Union Pacific freight was barreling toward it. NTSB board member Kitty Higgins said the commuter train engineer, who was among the 25 dead, had failed to stop at the final red signal. The crash also injured 138 people.
The collision occurred at a curve in the track just short of where a 500-foot-long tunnel separates the San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Chatsworth from Simi Valley in Ventura County.
Higgins said investigators will subpoena the cell phone records of engineer Robert Sanchez after two teenage train buffs who befriended him told KCBS-TV that they received a text message from him a minute before the crash.
Investigators did not find a cell phone belonging to Sanchez in the wreckage. The boys’ families have been cooperating with investigators, but Higgins declined to characterize their conversations.
“Today we are subpoenaing the phone records of the engineer to determine whether in fact that might have been happening,” Higgins told KTTV-TV. Higgins did not return messages from The Associated Press. The NTSB scheduled a 7 p.m. (10 p.m. EDT) news conference.
Jerry Romero, who normally takes Metrolink 111 home but skipped it Friday to pick up a bicycle, said he was disturbed by texting reports.
“That would be pretty disturbing in respect to what we’re going through as a society, this fascination we have with gizmos,” he said.
In 2003, the NTSB recommended banning the use of cell phones by railroad employees on duty after finding that a coal train engineer’s phone use contributed to a May 2002 accident in which two freight trains collided head-on near Clarendon, Texas. The coal train engineer was killed and the conductor and engineer of the other train were critically injured.
The California Legislature last month sent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a bill that would outlaw texting while driving. According to the Governors’ Highway Safety Association, four states have banned texting while driving – Alaska, Minnesota, New Jersey and Washington – and similar laws are under consideration in 16 other states.
Metrolink prohibits rail workers from using cell phones on the job.
Audio recordings of contact between Sanchez and conductor on Metrolink 111 show they were regularly communicating verbal safety checks about signals along the track until a period of radio silence as the train passed the final two signals before the wreck. The tapes captured Sanchez confirming a flashing yellow light after pulling out of the Chatsworth station.
The train may have entered a dead zone where the recording was interrupted. Investigators planned to interview the injured conductor about the lapse, Higgins said.
A computer indicated the last signal before the collision displayed a red light, and experts were to test the signals to determine if they worked properly and were in the engineer’s line of sight.
“It’s really a process of elimination. That’s why we’re out testing the signals, we’re looking at the track, we’re examining the equipment, we’re looking at what issues that might have been with the engineer and the other crew members,” Higgins said.
Investigators will also look at the toxicology report of the engineer, his medical history and his personnel record.
Also Monday, Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell resigned after the railroad’s board said her Saturday announcement that the engineer’s mistake likely caused the crash was “premature.”
Passenger Art Reis expressed concern as he rode the train to work that authorities might not be completely candid with the public after the investigation is done. He said he was concerned that Tyrrell resigned almost immediately after announcing that the agency was responsible for the crash.
Source
Sep
1
Students pitch in with sandbagging as Gustav nears
Filed Under CNN News, News, Top Stories | Leave a Comment
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (CNN) — It was dark and hot and everyone was bone tired on Sunday night in Baton Rouge. But they still came, many in truck after truck, to a parking lot on the edge of the edge of the city, all armed with shovels.
Dwayne Nickles, center, loads sandbags into the trunk of his car with Harsha Dissanayake, left.
“Sandbagging — gotta do it,” said Dwayne Nickles, his T-shirt soaked through, grunting as he dug into a massive pile of sand left for those who needed to guard their homes against potential Hurricane Gustav flooding.
Squatting next to Nickles, Louisiana State University student Harsha Dissanayake had too much energy for someone who had spent much of the day at the school medical school helping officials take care of patients.
The 20-year-old moved 10 days ago from Sri Lanka to Baton Rouge, the state capital about 80 miles northwest of New Orleans. When he heard of the impending hurricane, he thought about the miserable experience his country endured during the 2004 tsunami.
“Southern hospitality is real,” he said. “People are so, so nice to me, and they ask me, ‘Did you lose your relatives? What was it like during the tsunami?’ and I feel like they really care. iReport.com: How did you prepare for Gustav?
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“I knew I had to volunteer and do my part to help,” he said.
Dissanayake was, in part, also helping his friend Kenneth De Abrew, also an LSU student. De Abrew had a remarkably cheerful disposition considering he lives on a first floor apartment complex that often floods. See and hear De Abrew talk about his hurricane plans »
“You just have to be ready for it,” he said, laughing. “It’s nature. Actually, it’s kind of exciting!”
He heaved a few bags toward their pile and paused, surveying the dozen sweating people working hard to dig, stuff and seal bags.
“Sandbags actually remind me of bad stuff,” De Abrew said. “They use them in wars to make bunkers.”
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Aug
29
White House hopeful Barack Obama says the U.S is facing one of its periodic defining moments as he vowed to mend the economy and restore the nation’s moral leadership.
Filed Under News, World News | Leave a Comment
In his acceptance speech at Denver he said we meet at one of those defining moments when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more.
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Aug
24
PPP co-chairman senator Asif Ali Zardari has been nominated as party’s candidate for the office of president scheduled on 6th of the next next month.,
Filed Under Local News, National News, News, Pakistani News, Politics | Leave a Comment
Addressing a news conference at Zardari house, party’s deputy Secretary General Mian Raza Rabbani said Asif Ali Zardari has accepted the unanimous decision of the central executive council to become presidential candidate. He said leadership of coalition parties has been informed about the decision. He said there is no ambiguity in the restoration of deposed judges as PPP is committed to all its agreements made with the coalition partners. A special committee has already been constituted to prepare the draft of the resolution regarding reinstatement of judges.