TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran’s Revolutionary Guards accused “foreign elements” linked to the United States of involvement in Sunday’s attack that killed at least two senior commanders of the elite force, state television reported.
“Surely foreign elements, particularly those linked to the global arrogance, were involved in this attack,” a Guards statement quoted by television said. Iran often uses the term “global arrogance” to refer to the United States, its old foe.
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — A man wearing an explosives-laden belt blew himself up during a conference between Shia and Sunni groups in southeastern Iran on Sunday, killing 20 and wounding up to 40 others, local media said.
Five senior officers of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed in the attack in Sarbaaz in the province of Sistan-Baluchestan, the semi-official Fars news agency said.
Other media outlets offered conflicting figures for the number of dead and wounded.
Among the officers killed was Nour Ali Shoushtari, the deputy head of the Corps’ ground forces, who was in the province to mediate between the two sides, Fars said.
GENEVA — The U.N. Human Rights Council voted Friday to endorse a Gaza war crimes report that calls on Israel and Hamas to carry out credible investigations into alleged abuses — or face possible referral to international war crimes prosecutors.
The move — which was opposed by six nations, including the United States — means Israel could find itself facing a request at the U.N. Security Council to refer the case to prosecutors at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, a move likely to be blocked by Washington.
Still, Friday’s decision could have far-reaching implications for the way the global body deals with war crimes claims, experts said.
It also keeps attention on the report, compiled by an expert panel chaired by respected South African jurist Richard Goldstone, just as President Barack Obama tries to restart the Middle East peace process. Almost 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed during the Dec. 27-Jan. 18 conflict.
The 575-page document concluded that Israel used disproportionate force, deliberately targeted civilians, used Palestinians as human shields and destroyed civilian infrastructure during its incursion into the Gaza Strip to root out Palestinian rocket squads.
It also accused Palestinian armed groups including Hamas, which controls Gaza, of deliberately targeting civilians and trying to spread terror through years of rocket attacks on southern Israel.
The report recommends that the 15-member Security Council require both sides in the conflict to show within six months that they are carrying out independent and impartial investigations into alleged abuses.
If they are not, the matter should be referred to prosecutors at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, the report says.
The coming US dollar crisis will be created in order to push through with the New World Order:
– Global banking body may be needed – FSA:
“LONDON (Reuters) – A global body with legal powers may be needed over time to enforce the world’s new financial rules, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) said on Wednesday.”
“Formerly known as the Financial Stability Forum, the FSB was expanded in April to include central bankers and finance ministry and regulatory officials from all Group of 20 (G20) countries.”
‘Problem’: In this case the coming US dollar crisis.
‘Reaction’: In this case a public outcry for stability and security.
Always the ‘Solution’: The New World Order. In this case the ‘New World Financial Order’
1000 yen notes are arranged on top of U.S. one dollar notes in New York, in this file photo. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) — The dollar may drop to 50 yen next year and eventually lose its role as the global reserve currency, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.’s chief strategist said, citing trading patterns and a likely double dip in the U.S. economy.
“The U.S. economy will deteriorate into 2011 as the effects of excess consumption and the financial bubble linger,” said Daisuke Uno at Sumitomo Mitsui, a unit of Japan’s third- biggest bank. “The dollar’s fall won’t stop until there’s a change to the global currency system.”
The dollar last week dropped to the lowest in almost a year against the yen as record U.S. government borrowings and interest rates near zero sapped demand for the U.S. currency. The Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against the currencies of six major U.S. trading partners, has fallen 15 percent from its peak this year to as low as 75.211 today, the lowest since August 2008.
The gauge is about five points away from its record low in March 2008, and the dollar is 2.5 percent away from a 14-year low against the yen.
“We can no longer stop the big wave of dollar weakness,” said Uno, who correctly predicted the dollar would fall under 100 yen and the Dow Jones Industrial Average would sink below 7,000 after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. last year. If the U.S. currency breaks through record levels, “there will be no downside limit, and even coordinated intervention won’t work,” he said.
I have no idea what “grossly offensive” (pornographic) images are.
Why did the police search his mobile phone?
A Lowestoft teenager has become one of the first people to fall foul of a new law which bans the possession of “grossly offensive” pornographic images.
In January this year, a new law came into force as part of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 making it an offence to possess any extreme images which are deemed to be “grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character”.
Yesterday, Lowestoft teenager Damien Wentworth, of Laurel Road, was fined after police found a short video on his mobile telephone which contained an extreme image.
Wentworth pleaded guilty to possessing an extreme pornographic image.
His solicitor Richard Mann said: “Technically, he is guilty of the offence, but I would say that he didn’t even know it was an offence to have this on his phone. It is a law which came into force this year, so it is hardly a surprise that he didn’t know.”
“He was not putting it on the internet or distributing it to anybody.”
Wentworth was ordered to pay £175 in fines and costs. Magistrates also ordered the destruction of the image.
The new law covers any images, including those stored on mobile telephones, DVDs and on computer hard disks.
Documents have emerged which detail for the first time the potentially lethal nature of toxic waste dumped by British-based oil traders in one of west Africa’s poorest countries.
More than 30,000 people from Ivory Coast claim they were affected by the poisonous cocktail and are currently bringing Britain’s biggest-ever group lawsuit against the company, Trafigura.
The firm chartered the ship, Probo Koala, which transported the cargo to Ivory Coast in 2006.
An official Dutch analysis of samples of the waste carried by the Probo Koala indicate that it contained approximately 2 tonnes of hydrogen sulphide, a killer gas with a characteristic smell of rotten eggs.
The documents have been obtained by the BBC. One chemist told BBC Newsnight last night that if the same quantity and mixture of chemicals had been dumped in Trafalgar Square: “You would have people being sick for several miles around … millions of people.”
Related article:
– Guardian gagged from reporting parliament: “The Guardian has been prevented from reporting parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds which appear to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1688 Bill of Rights.
Today’s published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.”
The question from Paul Farrelly MP which was subject to a gagging order related to the Trafigura toxic waste scandal
Labour MP Paul Farrelly put down a question yesterday to the justice secretary, Jack Straw. It asked about the injunction obtained by “Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton Report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura”.
David Heath MP: ‘The public have a right to know what is said in the House of Commons’ Link to this audio
“To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.”
Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian editor, welcomed the move. He said: “I’m very pleased that common sense has prevailed and that Carter-Ruck’s clients are now prepared to vary this draconian injunction to allow reporting of parliament. It is time that judges stopped granting ‘super-injunctions’ which are so absolute and wide-ranging that nothing about them can be reported at all.”
At Westminster earlier today urgent questions were tabled by the Liberal Democrats in an attempt to get an emergency debate about the injunction.
Bloggers were active this morning in ‘speculating’ (Bloggers came up with the correct answer, which pressed the UK censorship into allowing the Guardian to report it now.) about what lay behind the ban on the Guardian reporting parliamentary questions. Proposals being circulated online included plans for a protest outside the offices of Carter-Ruck.
The ban on reporting parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds appeared to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1688 Bill of Rights.
The FBI plans to migrate from its IAFIS fingerprint database to a new biometrics system that will include DNA records, 3-D facial imaging, palm prints and voice scans that blows away fingerprinting.
TAMPA – The Federal Bureau of Investigation is expanding beyond its traditional fingerprint-focused collection practices to develop a new biometrics system that will include DNA records, 3-D facial imaging, palm prints and voice scans, blended to create what’s known as “multi-modal biometrics.”
“The FBI today is announcing a rapid DNA initiative,” said Louis Grever, executive assistant director of the FBI’s science and technology branch, during his keynote presentation at the Biometric Consortium Conference in Tampa.
The FBI plans to begin migrating from its IAFIS database, established in the mid-1990s to hold its vast fingerprint data, to a next-generation system that’s expected to be in prototype early next year. This multi-modal NGI biometrics database system will hold DNA records and more.
Will the BBC finally admit that it is just spreading elite sponsored dogma, propaganda and disinformation?
Average temperatures have not increased for over a decade
This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.
A North Korean soldier points as he is photographed from the Chinese border in May
TOKYO — China has detected deadly nerve gas at its border with North Korea and suspects an accidental release inside the secretive state, a Japanese news report said Friday.
The Chinese military is strengthening its surveillance activities after detecting the highly virulent sarin gas in November last year and in February in Liaoning province, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported, citing anonymous sources from the Chinese military.
Sarin gas, which was developed in Germany before World War I, was used in the deadly 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway by a doomsday cult.
Yes, less then two weeks after he became President, he was nominated for this esteemed prize!
Wow, he really must be an over acheiver, a mover and a shaker, or something like that?
How is it possible that Obama is nominated and wins a Nobel Peace Prize, when he only became President, just two weeks before the nomination deadline. Yes, you read that right!
Just shy of TWO weeks (12 days to be exact) before the nominations deadline, Obama becomes President.
Just to be sure that the information was correct, I checked at NobelPrize.org, and sure enough
in the section- “How are Nobel Laureates Selected”.
It says, and I quote-
February – Deadline for submission. The Committee bases its assessment on nominations that must be postmarked no later than 1 February each year. Nominations postmarked and received after this date are included in the following year’s discussions. In recent years, the Committee has received close to 200 different nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. The number of nominating letters is much higher, as many are for the same candidates.
And Obama was, of course, inaugurated on January 20th/09
Now could someone tell me what Obama accomplished in a less then two week period of time of Presidency, that would explain this momentous nomination??
“War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.”
Obama should have shared the Nobel Peace Prize with George W. Bush, because he is just continuing his policies. And right now it looks like Obama will be even a lot worse than Bush.
“Just look at us. Everything is backwards; everything is upside down. Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information and religions destroy spirituality.”
– Michael Ellner
Less than nine months into his presidency, Barack Obama has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.
(CNN) — President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, a stunning decision that comes just eight months into his presidency.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it honored Obama for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
The president had not been mentioned as among front-runners for the prize, and the roomful of reporters gasped when Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Nobel committee, uttered Obama’s name.
The president, who was awakened to be told he had won, said he was humbled to be selected, according to an administration official.
The Nobel committee recognized Obama’s efforts to solve complex global problems including working toward a world free of nuclear weapons.
“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said.
A 21-year-old computer whizzkid has become a millionaire and takes home £50,000 a month after he created a hit online computer game.
In Torn players earn points and status by carrying out muggings, murders and heists in an imaginary city. Photo: TORN.COM
Joe Chedburn, a self-confessed geek, was just 16 when he came up with the idea to write an online game focused on crime.
Torn, which is text-based and has no graphics, grew quickly and now has around 41,000 active users with over 1.3 million account holders.
Although the game is free to play users can pay £3 every month to receive extra points and status.
Most players are willing to pay enabling the site to make around £50,000-a-month. Joe, from Frome, Somerset, is now a millionaire at the age of 21.
He said: “I suppose when I was younger my parents used to tell me off for spending too much time on my computer but they are quite happy with what I am doing now.
“My father helps me quite a lot and I will go to him for advice about the business side of things.
“I have always been interested in computers and I am really lucky to be able to make money out of doing something that I really enjoy.
Obama is an elite puppet. He really has no idea what is really going on. There are more than 40 security levels above President Obama. There is more to President Obama than just being a ‘ human loudspeaker’ for a teleprompter, but not much more.
I expect the greatest financial/economic collapse in history to take place very soon.
Max Keiser:
“The war industry in America controls the White House.”
– Top US commander in Afghanistan: The Taliban have gained the upper hand: The Taliban have gained the upper hand in Afghanistan, the top American commander there said, forcing the U.S. to change its strategy in the eight-year-old conflict by increasing the number of troops in heavily populated areas like the volatile southern city of Kandahar, the insurgency’s spiritual home.Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned that means U.S. casualties, already running at record levels, will remain high for months to come. (Source: The Wall Street Journal)
US soldiers fire a Howitzer in Logar province. President Obama is to decide whether to order a surge of troops in Afghanistan (Nikola Solic/Reuters)
Ten American troops were killed at the weekend in two surprise attacks that caused alarm in Nato’s US-led coalition.
In one, hundreds of insurgents attacked a pair of isolated outposts in eastern Afghanistan, killing eight US soldiers and several Afghan policemen in the deadliest battle in 15 months. Scores more Afghan policemen were reportedly captured by the Taleban.
In the other an Afghan policeman opened fire on the American soldiers with whom he was working in central Wardak province, killing two and injuring three.
It was unclear whether the policeman was working for the Taleban or simply ran amok but the attack fuelled the distrust that many Nato soldiers already feel for the Afghan security forces that they are supposed to be working with and training as part of the coalition’s eventual exit strategy.
The attacks also came at a crucial juncture in the eight-year-old war, with President Obama soon to decide whether to accept a request by General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the 100,000-strong US and Nato force in Afghanistan, for 40,000 extra troops, or to scale back the counter-insurgency operation and focus narrowly on crushing al-Qaeda.
Domestic opposition to the first option is increasing as the death toll rises steadily. Around 400 coalition troops have now been killed in Afghanistan this year, well over half of them American.
The two outposts on a hill in the remote and mountainous province of Nuristan, a Taleban and al-Qaeda stronghold on the lawless Pakistan border, were attacked before dawn on Saturday by around 300 insurgents from a mosque and a nearby village.
They stormed the Afghan police post at the foot of the hill then swept on to the Nato post further up. The attack was repelled with the help of US airpower but the ferocious battle lasted many hours.
Child mortality rates have doubled in India’s slums. In Rajasthan, Surma lost her son Parmesh to easily preventable diarrhoea at only four years old. Source: Save the Children Link to this video
India’s growing status as an economic superpower is masking a failure to stem a shocking rate of infant deaths among its poorest people.
Nearly two million children under five die every year in India – one every 15 seconds – the highest number anywhere in the world. More than half die in the month after birth and 400,000 in their first 24 hours.
A devastating report by Save the Children, due out on Monday, reveals that the poor are disproportionately affected and the charity accuses the country of failing to provide adequate healthcare for the impoverished majority of its one billion people. While the World Bank predicts that India’s economy will be the fastest-growing by next year and the country is an influential force within the G20, World Health Organisation figures show it ranks 171st out of 175 countries for public health spending.
Malnutrition, neonatal diseases, diarrhoea and pneumonia are the major causes of death. Poor rural states are particularly affected by a dearth of health resources. But even in the capital, Delhi, where an estimated 20% of people live in slums, the infant mortality rate is reported to have doubled in a year, though city authorities dispute this.
In the Bhagwanpura slum on the north-west fringes of the capital, numerous mothers have lost one or more infants in their first years of life through want of basic medical attention.
Rotting carcasses testify to the scale of the disaster looming in East Africa.
No rainfall for three years has left the Kenyan landscape strewn with animal carcasses
On the plains of Marsabit the heat is so intense the bush seems to shiver. The leafless scrub, bleached white by the sun, looks like a forest of fake Christmas trees. Carcasses of cattle and camels are strewn about the burnt red dirt in every direction. Siridwa Baseli walks out of the haze along a path of the dead and dying. He passes a skeletal cow that has given up and collapsed under a thorn tree. A nomad from the Rendille people, he is driving his herd in search of water.
He marks time in seasons but knows that it has not rained for three years: “Since it is not raining there is no pasture,” he says. Only 40 of his herd of sheep and goats that once numbered 200 have survived. Those that remain are dying at a rate of 10 every day.
Already a herder before Kenya’s independence he has never seen a drought like this.
“If I was young I would go to look for cash work. I am old. I may just die with my animals.”
Across East Africa an extraordinary drought is drying up rivers, and grasslands, scorching crops and threatening millions of people with starvation. In Kenya, the biggest and most robust economy in the region, the rivers that feed its great game reserves have run dry and since the country relies on hydropower, electricity is now rationed in the cities.
And yet, it is in the semi-desert on the southern fringe of the Sahel zone where the most dramatic changes are being felt. Droughts are nothing new here and the nomadic way of life where herders follow patchy rains across the seasons developed centuries ago as a response to precarious natural resources. The herds of cattle, sheep, goats and camels – which are venerated by the nomads – were built up in the good years to pad the margins of life when the rains failed. But this way of life is being overwhelmed, even the camels are dying of thirst.
“As soon as the Irish people’s ballots were counted in June, their rejection of Lisbon was treated as the “wrong” answer, as if they had been taking part in a multiple-choice maths exam and had failed to work out that 2+2=4. Now, they will be given a chance to sit the exam again, “until [they] come up with the right answer,” says George Galloway, attacking EU elitism. The notion that the Irish “got it wrong” exposes gobsmacking ignorance about democracy in the upper echelons of the EU. The very fact that a majority of Irish people said no to Lisbon made it the “right answer”, true and sovereign and final. “No” really does mean no.”
“Asking the Irish to vote again on the Lisbon treaty is arrogant, insulting and undemocratic.”
“Such an appointment would restore him to the world stage as well as boost his long-term income.”
Tony Blair – the same criminal that lied the U.K. into an illegal war – as EU president?
A ‘NO’ would also be a blow for the ‘New World Order’.
Pole position: Tony Blair is set to become EU President within weeks if Ireland votes ‘Yes’ in its referendum on the Lisbon Treaty tomorrow
Tony Blair is set to become EU President within weeks if Ireland votes ‘Yes’ in its referendum on the Lisbon Treaty tomorrow.
The former prime minister’s candidacy for the new post will be rushed through as quickly as possible, according to government sources.
Mr Blair is among the favourites to become the first President of the European Union, a role that is chosen by the EU’s 27 leaders and not by voters.
Such an appointment would restore him to the world stage as well as boost his long-term income.
The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has thanked Iran for providing the agency with information about the construction of its new pilot enrichment plant.
“With reference to the letter of 21 September 2009… from HE Ambassador Soltanieh to the Director General of the Agency Dr ElBaradei, I wish to thank the Islamic Republic of Iran for providing the Agency with information about Iran’s activities related to the construction of a new pilot enrichment plant,” read a letter by the IAEA to Iran, a copy of which was obtained by Press TV.
Iran, on September 21, informed the agency that it was constructing an enrichment plant in Fordu, south of the capital Tehran. The plant will be, according to senior lawmaker Hassan Ghafouri-Fard, used as a backup facility to Iran’s first enrichment facility in Natanz.
Iran, a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), says its program is solely aimed at the civilian applications of the technology.
“To ensure that appropriate safeguard measures are put in place, I would appreciate receiving, in accordance with Iran’s Safeguards Agreement, further information with respect to the name and location of the pilot enrichment facility, the current status of its construction and plans for the introduction of nuclear material into the facility,” continued the IAEA letter, signed by Herman Nackaerts, Director of IAEA’s Division Of Operations Department Of Safeguards.
“We kindly request that this information, along with the other information detailed in the attached design information questionnaire, be provided to the Agency as soon as possible. The Agency would also appreciate being given access to the facility as soon as possible.”
Iran, under the Safeguards Agreement, is obliged to inform the IAEA of a new facility six months before using it for nuclear purposes. Tehran, however, informed the IAEA of the construction about a-year-and-a-half before the introduction of nuclear material.
This is another picture after typhoon Ketsana hit:
People wade in the chest deep floodwater Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009 in suburban Cainta, east of Manila, Philippines Source: Time
Residents go on with their normal life amidst floodwaters in Taytay township, Rizal province, east of Manila, Philippines Friday Oct. 2, 2009. Tropical storm Ketsana brought the worst flooding in metropolitan Manila and neighboring provinces in more than 40 years that left more than 250 people dead and dozens more missing. The Philippines is bracing for the super typhoon Parma which is expected to hit the northern part of the country Saturday. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)
MANILA, Philippines — Tens of thousands of villagers fled the likely path of a powerful typhoon bearing down Friday on the Philippines, as the government braced for the possibility of a second disaster just days after a storm killed more than 400.
Heavy rain drenched mountainous coastal regions in the northeast as Typhoon Parma tracked ominously toward heavily populated areas still saturated from the worst flooding in 40 years.
Parma was forecast to hit the east coast Saturday, packing sustained winds of up to 120 mph (195 kph) and gusts up to 140 mph (230 kph). Officials fear it may develop into a “super-typhoon,” the government’s weather bureau said.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared a nationwide “state of calamity” and ordered six provincial governments to evacuate residents from flood- and landslide-prone areas in the path of the storm.
The “state of calamity” extends the one applied to Manila and 25 provinces hit by the earlier storm. The declaration frees up funds to respond to emergencies.
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — Typhoon Ketsana headed west toward Laos Wednesday after battering central Vietnam with powerful winds and heavy rain, leaving behind blue and sunny skies but dangerously rising flood waters. The official death toll was placed at 41, but officials said that number was expected to rise as more reports came in and as floodwaters threatened further destruction.
“The rain was heavy and the wind was like crazy,” said Nguyen Trong Tung, a photographer, describing the scene in a telephone call from Danang. “Right now the sun is beautiful, there are white clouds and the sky is blue and the streets are already clear.”
The clear weather is deceptive and the danger has not passed, said Andrew Wells-Dang, a representative of Catholic Relief Services, who called Ketsana “the most serious typhoon that’s hit here in four or five years.”
“The casualty figures will get worse over the next days as more reports come in and also as the river levels rise from rain up in the mountains that will cause more flooding,” he said in a telephone call from the capital, Hanoi. The floods could reach the historic highs of 1964, said Le Van Duong, a relief and disaster mitigation coordinator for World Vision, speaking by telephone from Danang.
WASHINGTON — U.S. military troops will begin getting required swine flu shots in the next week to 10 days, with active duty forces deploying to war zones and other critical areas going to the front of the vaccine line, a top military commander said Tuesday.
Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart also told The Associated Press that as many as 400 troops are ready to go to five regional headquarters around the country to assist federal health and emergency management officials if needed as the flu season heats up.
The Pentagon has bought 2.7 million vaccines, and 1.4 million of those will go to active duty military. National Guard troops on active duty are also required to receive the vaccine, as are civilian Defense Department employees who are in critical jobs.
As a result, the military is expected to provide health officials with an early assessment of the vaccine.
“Because I can compel people to get the shots, larger numbers will have the vaccine,” said Renuart, commander of U.S. Northern Command. “They will, as a percentage of the population, be vaccinated more rapidly than many of us. So we may see some objective results, good or not, of the vaccinations.”
The downtown of Fagatoga was flooded when a tsunami hit American Samoa early on Tuesday. (AP)
SYDNEY, Australia — A powerful tsunami generated by an undersea earthquake killed more than two dozen people and wiped out several villages in the tropical islands of American Samoa and Samoa early on Tuesday there, according to officials and local residents who were working to assess the damage.
The earthquake struck around dawn, as many residents were preparing for work and getting their children ready for school. Officials said they expected heavy damage in the southern parts of Samoa and American Samoa, a United States territory with about 60,000 residents.
Damaged telephone lines on both islands hampered efforts to count the casualties and assess the destruction from the earthquake, with a magnitude of 8.0. It struck below the ocean about 120 miles southwest of American Samoa and 125 miles south of Samoa, and it was centered only 11 miles below the seabed, according to the United States Geological Survey.
At least 14 people were killed in American Samoa, the territory’s governor, Togiola T. A. Tulafono, said at a news conference in Hawaii. The toll could rise as emergency workers gain access to damaged areas, he and other officials said.
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