Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Big Haiti quake topples buildings, many casualties

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – A major earthquake hit impoverished Haiti on Tuesday, toppling buildings in the capital Port-au-Prince, burying residents in rubble and causing many deaths and injuries, witnesses in the city said.

The magnitude 7.0 quake, whose epicenter was inland and only 10 miles from Port-au-Prince, sent panic-stricken people screaming into the streets of the city, as a cloud of dust and smoke from falling buildings rose into the sky.

As darkness fell amid scenes of chaos and anguished cries from victims, residents desperately tried to dig out survivors or searched for missing relatives in debris-strewn streets.

The presidential palace was among the buildings damaged, Haiti's ambassador to the United States, Raymond Alcide Joseph, told CNN.

"My country is facing a major catastrophe," he said.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and has a history of destructive natural disasters. Some 9,000 U.N. police and troops are stationed there to maintain order.

The major quake, followed by several aftershocks, prompted a tsunami watch for parts the Caribbean but this was later canceled.

"Everything started shaking, people were screaming, houses started collapsing ... it's total chaos," Reuters reporter Joseph Guyler Delva said in Port-au-Prince.

"I saw people under the rubble, and people killed," he added, saying he had witnessed dozens of casualties.

U.S. President Barack Obama said his "thoughts and prayers" were with the people of Haiti and pledged to come to their aid. The Obama administration said the State Department, USAID and U.S. military were working to coordinate assistance.

The United States "will be providing both civilian and military disaster relief and humanitarian assistance," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

A local employee for the charity Food for the Poor reported seeing a five-story building collapse in Port-au-Prince, spokeswoman Kathy Skipper told Reuters.

Another Food for the Poor employee said there were more houses destroyed than standing in Delmas Road, a major thoroughfare in the city.

"Within a minute of the quake ... soil, dust and smoke rose up over the city, a blanket that completely covered the city and obscured it for about 12 minutes until the atmospheric conditions dissipated the dust," Mike Godfrey, who works for USAID, told CNN from the city.

Experts said the quake's epicenter was very shallow at a depth of only 6.2 miles, which was likely to have magnified the destruction.

PEOPLE SCREAMED 'JESUS, JESUS'

Speaking to CNN from Port-au-Prince, Ian Rogers of the charity Save the Children said he could hear cries of anguish and mourning rising up from around the city in the darkness.

Homes and buildings built on hillsides had come crashing down along with earth and rubble.

"All the roads currently are blocked," Rogers said.

"People were screaming 'Jesus, Jesus' and running in all directions," Delva said.

The Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince, where many foreigners stay, suffered at least some minor damage.

A group of 12 U.S. students from Lynn University in Florida were visiting Haiti with Food for the Poor and some were able to send text messages to say they were fine, Skipper said.

The powerful quake was felt in southeastern Cuba, about 160 miles from the epicenter. Cuban authorities evacuated coastal residents because of the initial tsunami threat.

"I was seated on the terrace and I thought my chair had slid out from under me but I realized it was an earthquake," said Eduardo Machin, a resident of the coastal city of Santiago de Cuba. "It was very strong."

Sailors at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in eastern Cuba felt the quake but there was no damage to the base or the detention camp where the United States holds 198 foreign terrorism suspects, said Chief Petty Officer Bill Mesta.

"It just shook a number of the buildings," Mesta said. "It felt like there was a strong gust of wind up against the building."

The base has stockpiles of blankets, tents and other relief supplies on hand for emergency use in case of mass disasters in the Caribbean. Personnel had begun checking the goods in anticipation that they will be asked to help in the relief effort, Mesta said. (Additional reporting by Alister Bull, Jane Sutton, Phil Barbara, Jeff Franks, Writing by Sandra Maler and Pascal Fletcher; Editing by John O'Callaghan)

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Taser adds mobile phone monitoring tool to its arsenal

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AFP) -

Stun gun maker Taser wants to help parents, not with jolts of electricity but with a tool which allows parents to effectively take over a child's mobile phone and manage its use.

"Basically we're taking old fashioned parenting and bringing it into the mobile world," Taser chairman and co-founder Tom Smith said at the Consumer Electronics Show here, where the Arizona company unveiled the new product.

"Because when you give your child his mobile phone you don't know who they're talking to, what they're sending or texting, all of those things," Smith told AFP.

The phone application, called "Mobile Protector," allows a parent to screen a child's incoming and outgoing calls and messages, block particular numbers and even listen in on a conversation.

A dashboard on a parent's phone or a personal computer shows the mobiles being monitored and the permitted callers such as friends and family.

"You can start it out very restrictive and then as they get older you can relax those restrictions as that trust factor's gained," Smith said.

An alert is triggered when an unknown number calls a child's phone.

"I can click on this and it's going to say here's the person's who's calling," Smith said.

"I can either choose to block that call, allow that call or even answer that call and find out who it is before I release it through to my child.

"If it's Grandma, who I forgot to add, I can just click 'always allow' and I'll never see that alert again," he said.

Smith said that when listening in on a call "it's going to announce that to both parties." "We're not doing spyware. This is a collaboration effort," he said.

Smith said text messages, emails, photos and videos can be screened for inappropriate language or pornographic content. "You can see the image and decide whether you want to let it go through or not," he said.

Mobile Protector also allows a parent to disable a phone for a specified period.

"I see so many parents trying to wrestle with their kids to try to get them off the phone during dinner," he said. "You can punch this and say 'You know what, for the next hour your phone's not going to work during dinner.'

"Or, if they get in trouble you can say 'You know what, you're grounded, for 48 hours your phone doesn't work,'" he said.

GPS capability brings up a map showing where a child -- or at least their phone -- is at any given time. "In college I don't need to know where you currently are but for young kids I want to see where they are," he said.

Mobile Protector also has an "emergency feature" that could help locate a missing child, Smith said.

"I can call up 'records release' and it's going to take all of the data -- last known location, phone numbers, texts everything -- and that's going to go to the local authorities," he said.

Along with Mobile Protector, Taser is also releasing a tool known as "Driver Protector" designed to cut back on mobile phone use while behind the wheel. It requires special hardware in the vehicle and a Bluetooth connection.

"If it's a first time driver it's going to disable the phone so they can't text while driving or use the phone," Smith said. "As they get older, we can enable it so they have hands-free talking but still no texting while driving.

"Maybe it will alert me when they go over 90 miles an hour (145 kilometers an hour)," he said. "It's really going to be up to the parent how much they want to limit or not limit."

Smith said Mobile Protector and Driver Protector will be available this summer and will be a subscription service costing between 10 and 30 dollars a month depending on the selected options.

Smith noted that other companies have released similar tools but said "nobody's put the whole thing together" like Taser.

Despedida romántica lo metió en líos

Amigos del joven que violó seguridad en aeropuerto de Newark dicen que lo hizo por amor

PISCATAWAY, Nueva Jersey — El hombre que transgredió la seguridad en el aeropuerto internacional Newark Liberty y provocó la suspensión de vuelos por varias horas, es un romántico que sólo deseaba despedirse de su novia.

Un amigo de Haisong Jiang habló el sábado cerca de su casa situada junto a la Universidad Rutgers, de Piscataway. Ning Huang dijo que conoce al joven de 28 años desde hace bastante tiempo. Agregó que Jiang “es una buena persona” que no midió el alcance de sus acciones el domingo pasado.

Otro amigo, Andy Riu, calificó a Jiang como “muy romántico”. Ambos amigos dijeron que Jiang ha estado saliendo con la joven desde hace un año, y que había viajado a California varias veces a visitarla.

Jiang, que es de nacionalidad china, estudia el doctorado en un programa de biociencias moleculares en Rutgers y vive en Estados Unidos desde el 2004. Su novia acaba de graduarse en Rutgers, vive en Los Angeles y le visitaba por las fiestas.

“Sólo deseaba despedirse de ella”, comentó el amigo de Jiang, que no ha hecho declaraciones públicas desde que fue arrestado el viernes en su casa.

Las autoridades dijeron que cuando Jiang transgredió el sistema de seguridad el 3 de enero, provocó el cierre del terminal aéreo, y consecuentemente, la congestión de los vuelos en todo el mundo.

El hombre podría ser acusado de transgresión y multado con 500 dólares, pero aún no estaba claro el sábado si tenía un abogado. Tendrá que comparecer ante un juez la próxima semana, pero aún no se había previsto fecha.

El senador de Nueva Jersey, Frank Lautenberg, dijo que las autoridades hallaron a Jiang mediante “un intenso trabajo policial”, pero expresó su indignación que el hombre será sancionado sólo con una “palmada en la muñeca”.

Lautenberg también dijo que presionará para que se imponga una pena más severa para este tipo de delitos.

Los tres terminales del aeropuerto de Newark fueron cerrados por seis horas el domingo, provocando el estancamiento de miles de pasajeros, y contribuyeron a largas demoras. El guardia de seguridad que dejó su puesto de vigilancia ha sido puesto en descanso administrativo desde el martes.

En una cámara de seguridad divulgada el jueves por la Agencia de Seguridad de Transporte y la Autoridad del Puerto, se ve a un guardia sentado vigilando una fila de salida y le pide a un hombre de chaqueta beige que se aleje. Un minuto después el guardia deja su puesto y desaparece.

Entonces una mujer de abrigo blanco se acerca al lugar y el hombre la ve, cruza la barrera por debajo de la soga y se van juntos del brazo.

Un hombre que presenció el hecho avisó a las autoridades.