www.JCFILORIDAN.com INTERNATIONAL Jackson County Floridan * Wednesday, August 11, 2010 " 3B China landslide toll rises to 700 By DAVID WIVELL AssoCIA'riI) PRIS'SS WNEIT:R ZHOUQU, China - The death toll from landslides in northwestern China more than doubled to 702 Tuesday, as rescue crews in three Asian countries struggled to reach survivors from flooding that has imperiled millions. Rescuers digging by hand through mud found a 52-year-old man who had been trapped for more than 50 hours inside a leveled apartment building in the remote town of Zhouqu, where more than 1,000 other people were still listed as missing. Rescuers with sniffer dogs discovered the man, Liu Ma Shindan, who was weak but breathing normally. Pakistan's 'President Asif Ali Zardari returned home to a storm of criticism after visiting Europe as his country was gripped by the worst floods in its history. His arrival Tuesday came as thousands of people fled a major city in central Pakistan as rivers threatened to submerge the area. And rescuers in the desert moun- tainsides in Indian-controlled Kashmir recovered more bodies, with the death toll rising to 165 from flash floods. Thousands of army and para- military soldiers continued clearing roads and removing the debris of hundreds of homes flattened in the Ladakh region. About 200 remained missing around Ladakh, said Lt. Col. J. S. Brar, an army spokesman. With the road links being restored, nearly 300 people who fled to higher ground have returned to their homes, he said. The disaster in China's Gansu province was caused when a debris- blocked swollen river burst, swamp- ing entire mountain villages in the county seat of Zhouqu. Tian Baozhong, the director of civil affairs in Gansu province, said the death toll now stood at 702, up from 337 on Monday. Another survivor, Yang Zhukai, began the sad task of making simple coffins for the 10 to 20 relatives killed by the mudslide: "These are all for relatives, for rel- atives killed by the' mudslide. It was so unexpected - a huge landslide like this. There's nothing left. We managed to escape with our lives. As far as relatives, 10 to 20 died from my village," he told Associated Press Television News. Throughout the area, bodies were, seen wrapped in blankets and tied to sticks or placed on planks and left on the shattered streets for pickup. The ruling Communist Party's all- RM W. T "Ki11 If a r - r ~1 ,~0 I -- ~ IF' '4,.. ~ I; - ' -' i - - I 4' ~ 6,A 4 ,.4. n 1 ."- - - -._ iiU. . Rescue workers and residents search for victims after a mud slide swept into the town of Zhouqu in Gannan prefecture of northwestern China's Gansu province Tuesday. - AP Photo/Ng Han Guan powerful Politburo Standing Committee met early Tuesday to dis- cuss rescue and relief work, a move that will likely free up even more resources. "It is now a critical time for disas- ter relief and rescue work. We must give the highest prominence to the protection of people's lives and prop- erties," the committee said in a state- ment. The government said 1,042 were missing and about 45,000 were evac- uated. It was not known how many of the missing were in danger or simply out of contact as workers rushed to restore communications. More rain is expected in the region in coming days, the China Meteorological Administration said. Tents, blankets, food and water were all being rushed to the isolated area, creating traffic jams on the few roads Flooding in China has killed about 1,800 people this year .and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage across 28 provinces and regions. In Pakistan, two weeks of flooding have killed 1,500. Amid the relentless rains, President Zardari - an unpop- ular figure to begin with - took off for a visit to France and Britain. His aides said he had to make the trip for diplomatic reasons, especially to Britain, whose Prime Minister DaVid Cameron had recently accused Pakistan of exporting terrorism. But the timing' of trip struck a raw nerve among many who said Zardari should have stayed with his suffering people. The widespread crisis has overwhelmed Pakistan's government and frustrated citizens who have complained about slow or nonexist- ent aid efforts. Huge ice island could pose threat to oil and shipping BY KARL RITTER ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER STOCKHOLM - An island of ice more than four times the size of Manhattan is drifting across the Arctic Ocean after breaking off from a glacier in Greenland. Potentially iti the path of this unstoppable giant are oil platforms and shipping lanes - and any collision could do untold damage. In a worst case scenario, large chunks could reach the heavily trafficked waters where another Greenland iceberg sank the Titanic-in 1912. It's been a summer of near biblical climatic havoc across the planet, with wild- fires, heat and smog in Russia and killer floods in Asia. But the moment the Petennrmann glacier cracked last week - creating the biggest Arctic ice island in half a century - may sym- bolize a warming world like no other. "It's so big that you can't prevent it from drifting. You can't stop it," said Jon-Ove Methlie Hagen, a glaciolo- gist at the University of Oslo. Few images can capture the world's climate fears like a 100-square- mile (260-sqare-kilometer) chunk of ice breaking off Greenland's vast ice sheet, a reservoir of freshwater that if it collapsed would raise global sea levels by a devas- tating 20 feet (6 meters). The world's newest ice island already is being used as a powerful emblem in the global warming debate, with U.S. Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts suggesting it could serve as a home for climate change skeptics. Researchers are in a scramble to plot the trajec- tory of the floating ice shelf, which is moving toward the Nares Strait separating Greenland's northwestern coast and Canada's Ellsemere Island. If it makes it into the strait before the winter freeze - due to start next month - it would likely be carried south by ocean currents, hugging Canada's east coast until it enters waters busy with oil activities and ship- ping off Newfoundland. "That's where it starts to become dangerous," said Mark Drinkwater, of the European Space Agency. The Canadian Ice Service estimates the journey will take one to two years. It's likely to' break up as it bumps into other icebergs and jagged islands. The fragments would be further ground down by winds and waves and would start to melt as they move into warmer waters. "But the fragments may still be quite large," warned Trudy Wohlleben, a Canadian ice forecaster, who first spotted the mas- sive chunk of ice on satellite images last Thursday. The chunks of ice could be large enough to threaten Canada's offshore platforms in the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, said Wohlleben. And, while it's possible to redirect smaller icebergs, by towing them or spraying them with water cannons, "I don't think they could do that with an iceberg this large," she said. "They would have to physically move the rig." Moving an offshore plat- form is time-consuming and expensive - and very com- plicated in cases where they are fixed to the ocean floor. While Greenland's gla- ciers break off thousands of icebergs into Arctic waters every year, scientists say this ice island is the biggest in the northern hemisphere since 1962. It contains enough fresh- water to keep the Hudson River flowing for more than two years, said Andreas Muenchow of the University of Delaware. The drifting ice sheet is likely to remain at the heart of the global warming dis- cussion during its journey. While experts say it's dif- ficult to directly tie the giant ice island to climate change because there are so many factors that affect glaciers in the area, the unusual event coincides with worrisome Who are signs of waning in the WMBB-DT Arctic. Award Wir Since 1970, temperatures ' in Panamr have risen more than 4.5 nine couni degrees (2.5 degrees C) in much of the Arctic - much faster than the global aver- age. In June the Arctic sea ice cover was at the lowest level for that month since l records began in 1979, - according to the Nationalgl Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. M*( The retreat of C7<� Greenland's glaciers, which U has accelerated in recent MMU|( years, i- one of the least understood pieces of the cli- mate puzzle. A team of climate scien- tists who visited the Email? Pctermann glacier last year, wmbbnev expecting it to crack then, is now planning another trip within weeks. . .. ,_j . D 'T- . "" "'i ..... ' ' :i'" " ' ' Stuident Nainc _ r, the lavorle pholo cof your student to: Student 2010, C/O Jackson FL 32'-.7 ' ,ou may drop il by our office at 4403 Constitution Lane. :oo .:,an he e al died t,:o sales,._jcfloridan.com S: special Message .. Daytime Phone Number t4 --' .. *"*- ,...s' me'm'is yf.w^^" w--yu . i.. --^e ^ a ~ ~ U.S. officials optimistic about direct talks BY MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER RAMALLAH, West Bank - The White House's Mideast envoy failed Tuesday to secure Palestinian agreement to go to direct talks with Israel, but U.S. and Palestinian officials said a possible solution to the standoff is emerging. The U.S. has been calling for a speedy resumption of face-to-face negotiations, with officials citing Sept. 1 as a target date. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wants agreement first on a framework, agenda and timeline for negotiations, including Israel's acceptance of a Palestinian state that would include the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, with minor adjust- ments. Abbas also wants an Israeli settlement con- struction freeze in those territories, occupied by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says direct talks should begin immediately without any conditions, but has refused to give any guarantees on what he is prepared to offer. He has only agreed to a limited curb on settlement construction. On Tuesday, U.S. envoy George Mitchell was unable to reach agreement on the terms of direct talks in a three-hour meeting with Abbas. However, U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley character- ized Mitchell's talks as "serious and positive." "We're pushing the parties to agree to direct nego- tiations and we think after today's meeting, we are closer to reaching that point than we were yesterday," Crowley said in Washington. Abbas and Mitchell spent much of their time dis- cussing one particular way out of the impasse, said an Abbas aide who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the content of the meeting to reporters. Under that proposal, Israelis and Palestinians would recognize a March 19 statement by. the Quartet of Mideast mediators - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia - as the basis for negotiations. In the statement, the Quartet said a peace deal should be reached within two years and end the occupation that' began in 1967. Crowley said that "if a Quartet statement can be helpful in encouraging the parties to move forward, obviously, I think that's something that we the United States support." Mitehell was to meet Wednesday with Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. In Washington, a U.S. official suggested it was pos- sible that an announcement about direct talks could be made as early as Wednesday after Mitchell sees Netanyahu and Barak. He said the Quartet could issue an invitation to direct talks after the Mitchell- Netanyahu meeting. ."We're almost there," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the diplomacy. The official said preliminary plans call for the direct talks to be held in either the United States or Egypt with high-level Arab participation, the official said. .After nearly two decades of intermittent, inconclu- sive talks, the Palestinians are wary of entering open- ended negotiations.