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Indonesia tsunami toll 282
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Obama to Zardari: Do more to tackle terror
3 Indians shortlisted for literary prize
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Indonesia tsunami toll 282
Jakarta, October 27 "The number of dead is now 282 and 411 are missing," West Sumatra provincial disaster management official Ade Edward told Reuters by phone. He said aid such as food, blankets and tents had begun filtering into the affected areas but that clean water was scarce and that the risk of disease was growing. Rescue workers were searching for hundreds of missing people in tsunami-ravaged villages on Indonesia's Mentawai islands Wednesday as the death toll rose to more than 300, officials said. Most of the deaths have occurred in the Pagai Utara and Pagai Selatan districts, where 10 villages were swept away by waves as high as 3 metres caused by a magnitude 7.2 quake on Monday. Up to 400 people were reported missing in Mentawai by Wednesday afternoon. More than 500 families were homeless and staying at temporary shelters, said Antorizon, an agency official who, like many Indonesians, uses only one name. Food and other aid had been distributed to survivors, Antorizon said, adding that additional rescue workers, volunteers and aid were being sent to Mentawai, which takes up to 10 hours to reach by ferry. West Sumatra Governor Irwan Supriyanto said bad weather hampered aid shipments to the islands. "We need big vessels," the state-run Antara news agency quoted Supriyanto as saying. "Big waves as high as 5 metres hampered small vessels from moving closer to the beach." The health ministry said waves from the tsunami reached as far as 600 metres inland minutes after the quake, sweeping away or heavily damaging hundreds of homes, places of worship and bridges.On Pagai Utara island, up to 80 per cent of homes in Betumonga village were destroyed, leaving many missing and feared dead, said Mujiharto, head of the health ministry's crisis centre. Aftershocks measuring up to 5.5 on the Richter scale were recorded through Wednesday, the Meteorology, Geophysics and Climatology Agency said. The tsunami and the eruption of the Merapi volcano on Java prompted President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to cut short a visit to Vietnam, a cabinet minister said. State Secretary Sudi Silalahi said Yudhoyono was scheduled to fly directly to Mentawai from Hanoi to inspect the conditions there. The Mentawai chain consists of 70 islands and islets with a population of about 68,000 people. It is located 150 km off the western coast of Sumatra. Experts have for the past two years warned of a massive undersea earthquake and a tsunami similar to the one that devastated Indian Ocean nations in December 2004. That tsunami killed more than 230,000 people, including about 170,000 in Indonesia's Aceh province on Sumatra.
— DPA
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Obama to Zardari: Do more to tackle terror
Washington, October 27 “Both President Obama and President Zardari acknowledged that more needed to be done to address the direct threat to our countries posed by terrorist groups in Pakistan,” a White House statement said. “They also agreed that the US and Pakistan have worked hard to build an atmosphere of trust and cooperation, and committed to ongoing efforts to build a stronger, strategic, and more collaborative US-Pakistan relationship,” the statement said. Obama emphasised US commitment and support for democracy and transparency in Pakistan, highlighting Washington and Islamabad share an interest in ensuring democratic traditions in Pakistan are strengthened, it stated. “He also acknowledged Pakistan’s economic difficulties, and encouraged President Zardari to work to pass key economic reforms, such as tax reform and containing energy subsidies,” the White House said, adding that Obama concluded the call by conveying his intention to visit Pakistan in 2011 and personally welcomed Zardari to visit the US in the coming year. — PTI
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3 Indians shortlisted for literary prize
London, October 27 Manju Kapur's 'The Immigrant', Neel Mukherjee's 'A Life Apart' and Amit Chaudhuri's 'The Immortals' have been shortlisted for the prestigious award. The other three authors in the short-list announced at the world-famous Shakespeare Globe Theatre here are Musharraf Ali (The Story of a Widow), H M Naqvi (Home Boy), both from Pakistan and Tania James (Atlas of Unknowns). Raising the issue of India-born author Rohinton Mistry's novel 'Such a Long Journey' being removed from the syllabus of the Bombay University following protests by student wing of the Shiva Sena, Nilanjana S Roy, Indian journalist and critic said that the readers must counter censorship. "There is no remedy against people who want to silence writers but to be a reader," she said, before inviting fellow jury member and London-based Pakistani author Moni Mohsin to announce the shortlist. — PTI
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London, October 27
