NewZealand: Earthquake: Dramatic rescue of quake victims, others not

Raw Video: Dramatic Rescue of 

Quake Survivors

See refWrite's YouTubeService channel, yUT2ube, for this vidclip and our entire collection.

NZ police: Up to 120 bodies in quake-hit building

By KRISTEN GELINEAU

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• Christchurch Quake Rescuers Search Offices for Survivors
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CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND

Associated Press via Bloomberg Businessweek (Feb23,2k11):

Police in Christchurch, New Zealand, say up to 120 bodies may still be inside one of the buildings hardest hit by the country's devastating earthquake. That number is not included in the official death toll of 76, which is based on the bodies recovered and brought to a temporary morgue in the stricken city.  Police Superintendent Dave Cliff told reporters Thursday that "between the late 60s and 120 bodies, at the upper limit" were believed to still be inside the Canterbury Television building. That number includes foreign students at an English language school in the building.


-- YouTube, AP, & Businessweek material posted by Politicarp

New Zealamd Industry: Mining disaster: 2nd blasted blast seals fate of 29 miners

Associated Press via Yahoo! News by Joe Morgan and Ray Lilley (Nov24,2kt0):

 GREYMOUTH, New Zealand – Rescue teams were in full gear and ready to begin searching for 29 missing miners when toxic gas levels suddenly increased touching off an explosion that dashed all hopes of a rescue, a lost miner's brother and police said Thursday.

Prime Minister John Key declared the disaster a national tragedy, and across New Zealand on Thursday flags flew at half staff and many churches held services for people wanting to show respect for the miners.

Wednesday's massive explosion deep inside the mine on New Zealand's South Island came five days after the men were caught underground by a similar blast and only hours after rescuers reported their first progress in the rescue attempt.

A drilling team broke a narrow shaft through to the mine section believed to be holding the missing workers and two robots had crawled their way into the tunnel, providing the first view from inside the mine.

"She was all go," said Geoff Valli whose brother Keith, 62, perished in the mine. "There was going to be more than one or two (rescuers involved)" in the rescue bid.

"They explained just how close they were to going in. It was bloody scary. It could have been so much worse," he told National Radio.

After such close calls with large groups of miners working underground -- thinking of West Virginia, of Chile, of China, and now these deaths in New Zealand, a certain picture forms of an extremely dangerous industry worldw+d.  We thank God in the Mercy (as Charles Williams used to put it) sent the survivors worldw+de; but we turn quissical eyes to this counter-pattern -- too much endangerment of labourers!  What shoud be our global orientation in regard to such a condition of work in this heavy, dirty labour called "mining"?


-- EconoMix

Politics: Fiji: Is Russia keen on establishing foothold in SouthWest Pacific?

Radio Australia's website reports that Europe has taken quite seriously the renegade military coup d'etat, tho the ruinous militarism was far off in the SouthWest Pacific.

The European Union has told the military authorities in Fiji that it will stop development aid if it doesn't see enough progress on a return to democracy, human rights and media freedom.

Lee Duffield reports from Brussels the European Commission has put conditions on Fiji, that it needs to get back to democratic government and fully restore human rights.

Its spokesperson Amadeu Altafaj said that was a condition, for Fiji to receive assistance.

"If the responses are not satisfactory of course we will have to take measures in terms of suspending partially or totally our aid," Amadeu Altafaj says.

Strictly humanitarian aid is not affected.

Meanwhile, serendipity itself is reconsidering its role in the Pacific, where Fiji has become the most pressing problem of New Zealand's foreign relations.

SouthWest Pacific > Republic of Fiji

Other foreign sources, as well, have indicated Fiji's development aid may be cut-off if the failed Republic doesn't check its military (which means the military itself must backtrack, as there's no other internal force that can oust it). That is, Fiji's military must backtrack to its barracks -- unless it wants to exacerbate to the level of a major disaster the already-weakened economic situation that has descended on Fijians since the coup.

And, while the military's interim Foreign Minister is off to India, guess who's showed up for the financial presentation of the military's interim Economics Minister? None other than Russia! Perhaps it wants to buy an island, perhaps establish its own offshore Crimean Paradise, a series of beachfront skyscraper hotels for all those big spenders from Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Stalingrad.

More Info:

Special Feature on Military Coup in Fiji Today (Mar4,2k7)

Politics: Military coup: More on the troubles of the Republic of Fiji in the southwest Pacific (Feb21,2k7)

Politics: Coup: SouthWest Pacific island-state of Fiji undergoes coup, dismissing constitutional government (Dec6,2k6)