Stricken US cruise passengers formed bonds

The passengers of cruise ship Triumph have finally disembarked after five numbing days stuck at sea. Source: AAP

PASSENGERS aboard the Carnival Triumph could have been selfish and looked out only for themselves and their loved ones after their cruise ship lost power. Instead, they became comrades in a long, exhausting smelly struggle to get home.

As ship conditions deteriorated after an engine fire, travellers formed Bible study groups, shared or traded precious supplies and welcomed strangers into their private cabins.

Even after they have returned to the everyday luxuries of hot showers and cold drinks, passengers will remember the crew and the personal bonds formed during a cruel week at sea.

The tired tourists finally reached land on Friday and gave a glimpse into an intensely uncomfortable journey.

Sandy Jackson was fortunate to have an upper-level room with a balcony and a breeze that kept the air in her cabin fresh. Rooms on the lower decks were too foul or stifling, so Jackson took in five people, including four strangers.

"We knew one, the others we're very good friends with now," Jackson said.

Brandi Dorsett said people were antsy and irritable at times, and there was tension. But it never got out of hand.

"People were bartering. Can I have your cereal for this? Can I have your drink for that?" she said. "We had one lady, she was begging for cigarettes and for nappies. There were no nappies on the boat. There was no formula."

The ship left Galveston, Texas, on February 7 for what was supposed to be a four-day jaunt to Cozumel, Mexico. The fire paralysed the ship on the third day, leaving it adrift in the Gulf of Mexico until tugboats towed it to Mobile.

Many of the more than 4,200 people aboard were bussed to New Orleans to catch a flight home or to the ship's home port in Galveston. And as if they hadn't suffered enough, one of the buses broke down during the two-hour ride to New Orleans. Passengers on a different bus reported losing their luggage.

But that was nothing compared to life on the crippled cruise liner. To pass the time, Joseph Alvarez said about 45 people gathered in a public room on the lower deck for Bible study.

"It was awesome," he said. "It lifted up our souls and gave us hope that we would get back."

Because many passengers were sleeping on the outside deck, Dwayne Chapman used his pocket knife to make tents out of bed sheets. At first, other passengers told him they thought he was going to get into trouble, but later, everyone wanted to borrow his knife to do the same thing.

"I really think we've made some lifelong friends going through this ordeal," Chapman's wife, Kim, said.

When it was over, many passengers were just grateful for simple pleasures. After days of warm drinks, Cheryl McIntosh and her husband were glad to see coolers full of ice.

"The first thing we did was open up those Diet Cokes and we drank some," McIntosh said.

Tugs pulled the ship away from the dock on Friday, moving it down a waterway to a shipyard where it will be repaired and cleaned.

The work ahead is. Passengers described water-logged carpets, sewage seeping through the walls, overflowing toilets and a stench so bad people choked.

But, by most accounts, the crew did as much as they could, using disinfectant and picking up plastic bags of faeces after toilets stopped working.

David Glocker praised the crew's efforts to help passengers and recognised the conditions for them were worse than for most passengers because their quarters were on the lowest part of the ship.

"They all had to wear masks," he said. "They worked their butts off trying to get us food."

Dorsett praised a calming voice over the ship's public address system that she knew as "Jen".

Connie Ede was on the cruise with her husband. During the fire, the two got their life jackets ready and put mobile phones, passports, money and credit cards in their pockets.

"All in all, I wish it hadn't happened, but it did, and we survived," she said.

Carnival promised to give refunds, offer passengers another trip and cover their transportation costs home. Travellers were also to receive $US500 ($A485) in compensation.

But those gestures may not be enough. Less than 24 hours after the boat docked, the first lawsuit was filed.

15.21 | 0 komentar | Read More

Telecom NZ cancels email users' passwords

TELECOM has started cancelling the passwords of about 60,000 Yahoo! Xtra email accounts it believes have been compromised following a cyber attack.

The users will need to enter new password information when they log in to their email account.

The 60,000 customers affected by Saturday night's password cancellation are additional to the 15,000 customers that Telecom has been contacting following last weekend's cyber attack.

The move is aimed at protecting email customers and preventing information in emails being accessed. There is no evidence that this has occurred.

"We're taking this matter very seriously and urge those whose passwords have been cancelled to create new passwords," Telecom retail chief executive Chris Quin says.

"However, it's advisable for all others that have not changed their password, to do so immediately." This should be done on computers and mobile devices.

"We continue to be sorry for any distress caused or inconvenience this has caused and reinforce that in today's online world regular password changes are an important need."

15.21 | 0 komentar | Read More

Anti-North Korea leaflets launched

NORTH Korean defectors in the South have launched 200,000 anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the tense inter-Korean border.

The defectors used gas-filled balloons to float the leaflets along with $US1 notes across the western border town of Imjingak on Saturday, the birthday of the North's late leader Kim Jong-Il.

The balloons were inscribed with slogans such as "Stop provocative acts with missiles and nuclear tests", "North Koreans rise up" and "The Kim dynasty will soon collapse".

North Korea celebrates the birthdays of its late leaders as major national holidays.

Kim Jong-Il, who died of heart attack in December 2011, was succeeded by his son Jong-Un.

Anti-Pyongyang activists suspended leaflet launches until after the South's presidential election in December as the government urged them to halt such activities for fear of provoking Pyongyang.

North Korea has in the past threatened "merciless military strike" in response to anti-regime propaganda leaflets.

The North conducted a third nuclear test on Tuesday, whose detonation power was much larger than those of two previous ones in 2006 and 2009.

Pyongyang said the test was a riposte to UN sanctions imposed after its launch of a long-range rocket in December, which it claimed was part of a space program.

15.21 | 0 komentar | Read More

Airbus decides against lithium batteries

AIRBUS will not use lithium batteries in the A350 long-range liner under development, a company source says.

"The first planes will be delivered with cadmium, not lithium batteries," the source told AFP on Friday, adding that the airliner's first test flights would take place with the lithium batteries.

The announcement comes as Boeing's 50 Dreamliners in service around the world have been grounded since January, after battery smoke forced an emergency landing of one plane and a battery fire was reported on a parked plane.

US air safety investigators have since zeroed in on how a battery fire occurred on the parked plane - a Japanese Airlines 787 at Boston's Logan airport - saying evidence pointed to a single cell on the eight-cell lithium-ion battery, which short circuited, leading to a rise in temperature.

Investigators do not yet know what specifically caused the short circuit.

The Airbus A350 is due to enter service in the second half of 2014, with the company hoping the liner will make it competitive in the long-haul market, where its planes have found it hard to challenge Boeing's 747s and 777s.

15.21 | 0 komentar | Read More

Indian troops kill Pakistani soldier

INDIAN troops have shot dead a Pakistani soldier who strayed onto their side of the de facto border in the disputed Kashmir region, officials from both countries say.

A Pakistani official said on Friday that contact was being made with the Indian authorities for the return of the body of the soldier, identified only as Ikhlaq.

The soldier had been killed on Thursday night after he "inadvertently crossed the line of control in Khoi Ratta sector", the Pakistani official told AFP.

15.21 | 0 komentar | Read More

Land Corp boss reappointment questioned

THE Indigenous Land Corporation was accused during a senate hearing of breaking a law that governs them in the appointment of an acting chief.

A Senate Estimates hearing on Friday was told Bruce Gemmell acted as chief executive of the corporation for just under six months - in line with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act that stipulates acting appointments for the ILC acting chief be no more than six months.

Department Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) secretary Finn Pratt told the hearing Mr Gemmell resigned and went away for a few weeks before he was reappointed.

However Mr Gemmell attended a corporate management meeting in Adelaide and the ILC paid for his flights during the interim period after his resignation and before his reappointment.

Mr Gemmell said his colleague Jodie Lindsay was acting CEO while he was away and everything he did during that period was "as a guest".

He did not give back his work phone or office keys because he expected a further appointment so handing them back seemed unnecessary.

Senator Nigel Scullion described the explanation as a "fabrication" to get around the body's employment law.

Mr Pratt said the department had "legal advice" that it was "not inappropriate".

"Frankly I don't think there's any scandal here, I just think it's a sensible strategy to deal with an inconvenient part of the Act," he said.

Senator Scullion said it was amazing the department was denying there was a scandal afoot.

15.21 | 0 komentar | Read More

Three Victorian fires join near Buangor

THREE fires burning in plantation forest and grassland are joining into one and racing towards a small town in central Victoria.

The CFA has issued an emergency warning for the Buangor area, located between Ararat and Ballarat, west of Melbourne.

The large, fast-moving fire is expected to impact Middle Creek and Buangor anytime within the next two hours, the warning issued just after 5pm (AEDT) on Thursday said.

A State Control Centre spokeswoman said there had initially been three fires in the area.

"Two have already joined and it's looking like another one is about to," she said.

The fires are burning in plantation forest and grassland but are heading towards Buangor, which is home to about 250 people.

Twenty tankers and two aircraft are on scene.

The emergency warning has been expanded with the CFA saying the fire is expected to impact Eurambeen, Middle Creek, Shirley, Buangor and Buangor East any time within the next two hours.

The grassfire is being controlled, the latest warning said.

15.21 | 0 komentar | Read More

Tokyo stocks close mixed

TOKYO stocks have closed mixed as the Bank of Japan holds off fresh monetary policy action and investors await the start of Group of 20 talks in Moscow.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index ended 0.5 per cent, or 55.87 points, higher at 11,307.28. The Topix index of all first-section shares eased 0.22 per cent, or 2.14 points, to 954.88.

The Bank of Japan (BoJ) on Thursday held off announcing fresh policy action, following the announcement of an indefinite easing program last month, while serving up a rosier view of the economy.

Following a two-day policy meeting, the BoJ also held rates steady at zero to 0.1 per cent, as its Governor, Masaaki Shirakawa, prepares to step down, making way for new leadership widely expected to embrace Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's views on aggressive easing.

Official data on Thursday showed Japan's recession-hit economy shrank 0.1 per cent in the last quarter of 2012 from the previous three months.

In forex markets, the yen was volatile as speculation grows that Japan's easy-money policies could spark criticism from the G20, after the Group of Seven richest nations issued a statement this week calling on governments to hold off any intervention, apparently in a swipe at Tokyo

Critics, particularly in Europe, have accused Japan of engineering a steep decline in the yen over the past few months to boost exports, a claim it has repeatedly denied.

"It will be one of the most important (G20 meetings) for quite some time in terms of markets," Sean Callow, senior currency strategist at Westpac Institutional Bank in Sydney, told Dow Jones Newswires.

"The risk for currencies is whether there are strong comments from some of the many officials, with their different viewpoints, who will be surrounded by media in Moscow. So the potential for an impact to markets is not small."

In Asian trade, the dollar bought Y93.55 against Y93.46 in New York on Wednesday. The euro was flat at Y125.70.

Brewer Asahi Group was up 5.83 per cent at Y2,125 after it launched legal action in Australia against two private equity firms over claims it paid too much in its $1.3 billion takeover of New Zealand's Independent Liquor in 2011.

Exporters were mixed, with camera and copier maker Canon up 1.69 per cent to Y3,315, Toyota was down 0.31 per cent at Y4,815 and Toshiba was up 0.49 per cent to Y412.

Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal fell 3.02 per cent to Y257 after the world's second-biggest steelmaker said it was on track to lose Y140 billion ($A1.45 billion) in the fiscal year to March.

15.21 | 0 komentar | Read More

Oscar Pistorius shoots girlfriend dead

Olympian Oscar Pistorius has reportedly shot his girlfriend dead after mistaking her for a burglar. Source: AAP

OLYMPIAN Oscar Pistorius has allegedly shot his girlfriend dead after mistaking her for a burglar.

Captain Sarah Mcira of the South African police confirmed Pistorius, 26, was in custody and would appear in court on Thursday.

The dead woman is believed to be model Reeva Steenkamp, according to the Beeld newspaper website.

She was hit four times, including in the head and arm, and paramedics declared her dead at the scene. Police took possession of a 9mm pistol.

Capt Mcira said the incident took place early on Thursday morning at Pistorius' upmarket home in a Pretoria security estate.

South African media speculated the shooting may have been a Valentine's Day surprise gone wrong.

Pistorius, who is reported to be in shock, was being questioned by police.

Pistorius, referred to as the Blade Runner because of his artificial limbs, had been expected to race in Australia in March.

He made history in 2012 when he became the first double amputee to compete in the Olympics.

He won gold in the 4x400m relay at the Paralympics.

He had both legs amputated below the knee when he was a baby.

15.21 | 0 komentar | Read More

Hilton bombing victims remembered

Dozens of people gathered in Sydney's CBD to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the Hilton Bombing. Source: AAP

COUNCIL workers and police officers have laid wreaths and flowers outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney as they remembered three men killed in Australia's first terrorist attack.

Garbage collectors Alex Carter and William Favell were killed on February 13, 1978, when a bomb concealed in a rubbish bin exploded outside the hotel.

Police officer Paul Birmistriw, who was guarding the hotel entrance, was fatally wounded in the attack and died nine days later.

Members of the United Services Union (USU), NSW police, and family and friends gathered on George Street in Sydney's CBD to place flowers in front of the memorial plaque and observe a minute's silence.

USU spokesman Graeme Kelly said Mr Carter and Mr Favell were known to be "larrikins" and "dedicated family men".

A council worker who had worked with the men described them as "good blokes".

NSW Police Association President Scott Weber said Mr Birmistriw had been a "first-class constable".

Those responsible for the bombing, which took place outside the venue for a Commonwealth Heads of Government regional meeting, have never been found.

15.21 | 0 komentar | Read More