China mine disaster: Dozens trapped by 'rock burst'

Dozens of miners have been trapped in a coal mine in China after a "rock burst", officials say.

     Four miners were killed and 57 are still missing after the accident, which happened late on Thursday in the city of Sanmenxia in Henan province.
State media reported that the rock burst - an explosion caused by the sudden release of built-up pressure - happened shortly after an earthquake.
Hundreds of Chinese miners die every year in pit accidents.
The industry is one of the most dangerous in the world, and is notorious for its lax safety standards.
Earlier this week a gas explosion at a mine in neighbouring Hunan province killed 29 people.
But officials insist the country's record is improving, and say they have taken action by closing many illegal mines.
A spokesman for the state-run Yima Coal Group, which runs the Sanmenxia mine, told the AFP news agency an "intense search" was going on for the missing miners.
Local safety officials said 75 miners had been working in the pit at the time of the explosion.
Some 14 had managed to escape, four had been confirmed killed and 57 others are missing.

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S Korea activists gather in protest at Jeju naval base

Demonstrators are gathering on the South Korean island of Jeju to protest at construction of a new naval base.

    Tensions have been rising over the past week as police moved in to the site to remove protesters who have been blocking access since June.
The government says the $970m (£600m) development is vital for national security.
But residents and activists argue that the base could spark regional tensions and is damaging to the environment.
More than 1,000 riot police dispersed protesters on Friday, allowing naval engineers to resume their work.
Yellow flags "Heavy equipment moved into the site after the navy erected fences to block off the protesters," a police spokesman in Seoul told AFP.
Earlier this week, the government warned that work could not be delayed any longer.
The BBC's Lucy Williamson in Gangjeong, where the site is, says the road there is lined with bright yellow flags with slogans voicing opposition to the project.
Rising above the small neat houses, the grey walls surrounding the military construction site are lined with riot police - 20 buses parked up in preparation for the event, our correspondent says.
The rally is being organised by a disparate crowd of religious leaders, political activists, and local groups, who want to see the project aborted.
They say the naval base - which will be open to US warships - risks creating tensions with China and causing environmental damage.
But the plan has supporters as well as detractors, with some local people saying the new project will bring more money into the area.
The base, which is due to be completed in 2014, is to host some 20 warships to protect shipping lanes through which most of South Korea's sea trade passes.

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Beijing 'plans congestion charge' to ease traffic woes

Congestion fees are to be introduced on some roads in the Chinese capital Beijing in a bid to tackle chronic traffic problems, state media report.

    Officials hope that the charges will encourage more people to use public transport, Xinhua news agency says.
The city is also reportedly planning to encourage residents to buy alternative-energy cars.
Few details of the new measures have been given, but Beijing has long tried to tackle its congestion troubles.
The capital has 4.8m registered vehicles, and residents say the traffic jams are sometimes so bad the roads resemble car parks.
Xinhua did not specify how high the new toll fees would be, which roads would be affected and how the fees would be collected.
But it did report on Beijing's plans to upgrade equipment at electric-vehicle charging stations and to build more of them in the hope of encouraging the purchase of new-energy cars, including electric vehicles.
Beijing officials have been trying to tackle the problem of congestion since the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
Measures have included restricting car purchases, increasing parking fees, widening roads and expanding its subway system.
But the city is trying to balance its traffic problems with the desire of a growing middle class to have the convenience and status of car ownership, observers say.
China overtook the US as the world's biggest car and van market in 2009, with 13.6 million vehicles sold within the country.

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China general reveals spy cases in web footage

Video footage showing a Chinese general talking about sensitive spy cases has appeared on the internet.

    In the video, Maj Gen Jin Yinan complains that there are many Communist Party members who have "turned rotten" and sold secrets to foreign countries.
China has not commented on the video, which is an embarrassing incident for a country that does not like to talk about spy cases.
It shows Gen Jin giving a lecture at Beijing's National Defence University.
With a tea cup by his side, the senior officer lifts the lid on a number of recent spy cases.
He talks about a Chinese ambassador in Seoul who passed on sensitive material to the South Koreans.
The authorities caught the ambassador but charged him with economic crimes because they were too embarrassed to reveal his real wrong-doing, says Gen Jin.
He goes on to talk about another senior official who spied - just as his father had done a generation before - although the father had spied for the Communists, not against them.
The audience were students at the university and the lecture was apparently given as a warning to discourage traitors.
China's leaders do not usually talk about spy cases, and they will probably be furious these details have now leaked out.

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Hong Kong diagnoses first bird flu case in seven years

A woman in Hong Kong is seriously ill in hospital with bird flu - the first human case of the disease to be diagnosed in the territory since 2003.

   Officials said the 59-year-old fell ill shortly after returning from a visit to the Chinese mainland.
It is not yet clear whether she contracted the potentially fatal disease there or in Hong Kong.
The territory has raised its alert level to "serious", meaning there is a risk of contracting the disease.
The last outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus in Hong Kong killed six people in 2003.
Health chief York Chow said there was no sign yet that the virus has been spread between humans and that investigations were focusing on poultry as being the source of the infection.
"But we will be concentrating on people who were in contact with her when she showed symptoms and also when she was in Hong Kong," the AFP news agency quoted him as saying.
"The chances of her catching it is most likely on the mainland, but you cannot rule out Hong Kong," he said.
The woman is reported to have travelled to the mainland with her husband and daughter, and to have visited Shanghai, Hangzhou and Nanjing.
Mr Chow said officials would meet on Thursday to decide what further precautions are needed.
The first time the virus crossed the species barrier between poultry and humans in 1997, every chicken in Hong Kong was culled.
The World Health Organization says more than 500 cases of bird flu have been diagnosed worldwide since 2003. Of those, 302 cases were fatal.

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Why bird flu has been kept at bay

Scientists say they have identified a key reason why bird flu has so far not posed a widespread menace to humans.

    So far, the H5N1 strain has mainly infected birds and poultry workers, but experts fear the virus could mutate to pass easily from human to human.
However, Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that to enter human respiratory cells the virus must first pick a very specific type of lock.
The study appears in the journal Nature Biotechnology.
The researchers say their discovery may help scientists better monitor changes in H5N1 - and find better ways to fight it.
Flu viruses attack by binding sugar chains, called glycans, that line the airways and lungs.
Latching on
The chemical linkages between the sugar molecules in these chains differ between humans and birds.
Until now it has been assumed that bird flu viruses would be adapt to humans simply by acquiring mutations that enable them to attach to the human types.
But Dr Ram Sasisekharan and colleagues found this step depends on the shape assumed by the flexible sugar chains rather than the type of linkage.
Bird flu viruses currently require cone-shaped glycans to infect birds, so the umbrella shape found in humans has protected most of us from avian flu.
This suggests that for the H5N1 bird flu virus to become pandemic it must adapt so that it can latch onto the umbrella-shaped glycans of the human upper respiratory tract. 

Dr Jeremy Berg of the National Institutes of Health which funded the work said: "Sasisekharan's team has changed our view of flu viruses and how they must adapt to infect us.
"The work may also improve our ability to monitor the evolution of the H5N1 virus and thwart potential outbreaks."
Professor Ian Jones, professor of virology at the University of Reading, said: "This new work shows that there are sublevels of sugar that the virus prefers to use to get into cells and the authors suggest this is a significant factor in why H5N1 has not yet spread to humans.

"It provides a finer level of analysis than has been done so far but it is likely that other factors, like the reduced temperate of the human upper airway, also are involved." 

 

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Return of bird flu to South Korea sparks cull

South Korea has confirmed its first outbreak of avian flu since 2008 and is culling many thousands of birds.

    The agricultural ministry confirmed that two farms in the centre and south-west of the country had been contaminated with the H5N1 virus.
So far, more than 100,000 chickens have been culled and more than 10,000 ducks.
South Korea was the second country in Asia to register bird flu, after Thailand, in 2003, suffering three major outbreaks until 2008.
Earlier this month, officials in Seoul confirmed that three cases of bird flu had been found in wild migratory birds that had arrived for winter.
The authorities have warned poultry farmers to take better precautions against wild birds infecting their flocks, including the erection of nets.
The latest outbreak was first detected on Wednesday when birds started dying.
One of the poultry farms affected is in the central city of Cheonan and the other is in the south-western city of Iksan, 90km (56 miles) and 230km (143 miles) south of Seoul, respectively.
Both are now under quarantine, meaning that the movements of people and vehicles are restricted.
Farming challenge Exports of chicken, duck and related products will be affected.
"All the 10,700 ducks at the farm in Cheonan and 17,000 breeding chickens at the farm in Iksan have already been culled and buried, together with 92,000 chickens raised at nearby farms," the ministry said in a press statement.
South Korea has embarked on major culls before: more than eight million birds in 2008, 2.8m in the 2006-07 outbreak and 5.28m in 2003-2004.
South Korea has not registered any human fatalities from bird flu. Four people were infected in 2003.
Separately, South Korea recently confirmed an outbreak of 66 cases of foot and mouth disease, and has registered swine flu infections that have caused the death of one man.
More than half a million cattle, pigs and other cloven-hoofed animals have been culled in the past month, with vaccinations carried out on 313,000 animals.
A month-long quarantine effort has been struggling to keep pace with the contagious disease, since a confirmed infection on 29 November.
One of the farms affected, in Gyeonggi province just west of Seoul is the single largest producer of cattle in the country.
Agriculture ministry estimates suggest that losses from the foot-and-mouth outbreak could exceed $463m (£300m).

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World's first flu-resistant GM chickens 'created'

Professor Helen Sang: "Not only could we use this approach to tackle bird flu but other diseases"

UK scientists have created the world's first genetically modified chickens that do not spread bird flu.

Writing in Science journal, the team says their work demonstrates it is possible to create a variety of GM farm animals resistant to viral diseases.
     The research team inserted an artificial gene into chickens; this introduces a tiny part of the bird flu virus into chicken cells.
These birds become infected but render the virus harmless to other poultry.
The team believes that the genetic modification they have introduced is harmless to the chickens and to people who might eat the birds.
Professor Helen Sang of Edinburgh University told BBC News that genetic modification is potentially a much better way of protecting against diseases than vaccination because the GM technique works even if the virus mutates.
"It will protect a whole flock from avian influenza infection. This is really exciting because bird flu is a real challenge to poultry production and if it were introduced to poultry breeding it would protect our large scale production flocks from avian inlfuenza," said Professor Sang.
Broad protection

The researchers say that, in principle, the technique could be used to protect any farm animal from any disease. The eventual aim is to develop animals that are completely resistant to viral diseases.
According to co-author Dr Laurence Tiley, from the University of Cambridge, UK: "Agricultural selective breeding has made huge improvements on productivity of many livestock - but it's reaching the point where it's now limited.
"And the GM technologies allow you to introduce novel genes that don't exist in nature but are based on our detailed knowledge of the molecular biology of viruses. We can specifically target these viruses to prevent them from replicating."
The researchers say they think the technology has the potential to boost food production and reduce costs.
"There's going to be a real problem in feeding the world as the population increases," says Professor Sang.
"As the demand for animal products increases and it's going to get increasingly expensive and we are looking at different ways to tackle that problem."
GM techniques could also have benefits for human health, according to Professor Sang. If fewer animals are carrying viruses there is a lower chance of them mutating into a form that would be deadly to humans and so create a pandemic.
Cautious welcome But the news received a cautious welcome from the poultry industry. Peter Bradnock of The British Poultry Council said more research was needed to assess the long term impact on farm animals before food producers would even consider using the technology.
Even then, companies would have to assess the likely reaction from consumers: "We have to have a big debate as to whether society wants to have GM animals even for this very good potential benefit," he told BBC News.
And Tim Elsdale, who is an organic farmer in East Sussex, said it was better to adopt good farming practices to avoid animals getting diseases in the first place than to create GM farm animals.
"We don't suffer much from animal diseases on this farm," he said.
"Organic methods of husbandry doesn't encourage disease if the animals are well spaced enough. They live in a natural environment and they eat normal food then a lot of diseases that are prevalent on conventional farming would not be apparent to us".
If the food and farming industry did want to use GM technology in this way in the UK, they would need to seek prior approval from the Food Standards Agency (FSA). The FSA would conduct a full detailed safety evaluation before any of this GM produce could enter the market.
In addition to that, produce would need to be labelled so that consumers would be able to make a choice about the food they eat. If there were an application, the authorisation process could be carried out in a matter of months.
The FSA's Chief Scientist, Dr Andrew Wadge said it would be interesting to see if the debate over GM animals would go the same way as the debate over GM crops:
"I do think it's interesting that so far with GM technology it's not really a benefit for consumers and wouldn't it be interesting if we had produce that did offer a benefit?
"For example, food safety for us is about a bacteria found in chickens called Campylobacter which makes 500,000 people ill each year.
"If we could develop a GM chicken that is resistant to Campylobacter it would be very interesting indeed to see how consumers saw that technology and whether it was a technology they would be willing to embrace".

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Bird flu fear as mutant strain hits China and Vietnam

Avian flu shows signs of a resurgence, while a mutant strain - able to sidestep vaccines - could be spreading in Asia, the United Nations has warned.

    The variant appeared in Vietnam and China and its risk to humans cannot be predicted, veterinary officials said.
Virus circulation in Vietnam threatens Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia, where eight people have died after becoming infected this year, they warned.
The World Health Organization says bird flu has killed 331 people since 2003.
It has also killed or provoked the culling of more than 400m domestic poultry worldwide and caused an estimated $20bn (£12.2bn) of economic damage.
Wild birds The virus had been eliminated from most of the 63 countries infected at its 2006 peak, which saw 4,000 outbreaks across the globe, but remains endemic in Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia and Vietnam.
And the number of cases has been rising again since 2008, apparently because of migratory bird movements, said the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) chief veterinary officer, Juan Lubroth.
"Wild birds may introduce the virus, but people's actions in poultry production and marketing spread it," he said.
Avian flu has in the past two years appeared in poultry or wild birds in countries that had been virus-free for several years: Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Bulgaria, Romania, Nepal and Mongolia are among those recently affected.
Mr Lubroth said the new strain had infected most parts of northern and central Vietnam and could also pose a risk to Japan and the Korean peninsula.
South Korea began culling hundreds of thousands of chickens and ducks in December last year after confirming its first cases since 2008.
The FAO is calling for countries to adopt "heightened readiness and surveillance" against a resurgence of the virus.

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Naoto Kan resigns: Japan's revolving door

Ask Japanese people about their country's politicians, and the response is usually eye-rolling exasperation - or despair.

    It may have the world's most efficient trains and supremely orderly cities, but Japan's political system is ineffectual. Whoever takes over now will be the sixth occupant of the prime minister's office since September 2006.
It is a measure of how bad things have got that by surviving in office for just over a year Naoto Kan has done rather better than his four immediate predecessors.
Yukio Hatoyama lasted just 10 months. He squandered the goodwill which carried his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) to a historic victory in August 2009 by dithering over the relocation of the US military's Futenma base in Okinawa.
Mr Hatoyama had defeated Taro Aso, only the second Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) prime minister in more than half a century to lose an election.
Mr Aso's brief period in power is remembered for his verbal gaffes, like when he described the elderly as "hobbling malingerers". One in five Japanese voters is over the age of 70.
Before that, Yasuo Fukuda resigned just a few days shy of a year in office. Shinzo Abe chose the first anniversary of his appointment to step down abruptly.
Nuclear woes Mr Kan was doomed from the moment he won a no confidence vote in the Diet (parliament) on 2 June.
Facing a rebellion in his own party orchestrated in large part by his predecessor Mr Hatoyama, Mr Kan extended his time as prime minister only by making a promise to step down at a future date.

From the very next day, the only question that mattered in Japanese politics was when he would go - with his opponents urging him to quit sooner rather than later.

What makes the paralysis, and the revolving door at the prime minister's office more serious now is that everybody agrees Japan is facing its biggest challenge since the end of World War II.
Clearing up and rebuilding after the 11 March earthquake and tsunami is an enormous and costly task. The crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power station remains unresolved, radiation is still leaking, the reactors are far from a cold shutdown.
Spooked by the catastrophe, local communities are reluctant to give their go-ahead for nuclear reactors elsewhere to be restarted after routine maintenance. Two-thirds of the plants are now offline, threatening power shortages, or at the very least a far greater dependence on expensive fossil fuels, undermining Japan's balance of payments.
What choice? And then there is Japan's big long-term problem. Before the earthquake politicians were embroiled in a debate over how to restart a stagnant economy while maintaining social welfare in a rapidly ageing society.
Japan's national debt is the biggest in the industrialised world and ballooning. Consumption tax is among the lowest, just 5%. But as politicians struggle for tactical advantage, none seem willing to grasp the nettle and raise it.
Even if he musters the determination Japan's next prime minister will be hampered, like Mr Kan, by what is known as a "twisted Diet". The opposition controls the upper house of parliament and can delay and block legislation.
"Nothing is moving forward, the Japanese economy is going down even faster. The politics is not making necessary decisions. The government is not implementing necessary policies and the people are suffering," says Taro Kono, a reform-minded member of the opposition LDP tipped to perhaps be prime minister one day.
"It is a political disaster and we've got to do something about this. The budget deficit, ageing society; we've been saying the pension system needs reform for about 10 years and nothing has been done.
"A lot of things have been stagnating. The politicians need to see the reality. There is no time for a political in-fight. We all have to unite together and start taking action for the country."
Opinion polls show the voters are bitterly disappointed with the DPJ, which promised great reforms in 2009 but has failed to deliver much.
Few voters want to go back to the LDP. In 55 years of almost unbroken power it operated what became known as the Iron Triangle - the party, bureaucrats and big business all scratching each other's backs.
The crisis at Fukushima has provided a stark warning of the hazards of such a system. Collusion at the top undermined regulation in the nuclear power industry.
The cry going up in the Diet and newspaper editorials is for a so-called grand coalition, bringing together the LDP and the DPJ to govern in the interest of the country. This, say supporters, is the only way to break through the gridlock in parliament that has delayed bills to rebuild the disaster area, and made reform so difficult.
Doubters wonder if it can work. Whether politicians who carried on squabbling through the disaster despite the disapproval of ordinary Japanese will be able to put aside their differences and actually work together.
But the idea has one great advantage. As Japan tries to mend its broken political system, a grand coalition is one of the few options that has not been tried yet.

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Yoshihiko Noda wins Japan leadership race

Japan's governing Democratic Party (DPJ) has chosen Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda as its leader, lining him up to become the country's sixth prime minister in five years.

       Mr Noda secured victory in a run-off against Trade Minister Banri Kaieda, after a first-round vote in which no candidate won a clear majority.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced his resignation on Friday.
He has been criticised for his handling of the quake aftermath.
Mr Noda, 54, is expected to be confirmed by parliament as prime minister on Tuesday.
He secured 215 votes in the ballot against Mr Kaieda's 177 votes.
Supporters of public favourite Seiji Maehara - the former foreign minister who was eliminated in first-round voting - threw their support behind Mr Noda in the second ballot.
Mr Kaieda was backed by scandal-hit party heavyweight Ichiro Ozawa, who controls the DPJ's biggest faction.
 
Divided party
Correspondents say the new prime minister will face a daunting agenda, including trying to unify a divided party.

Large parts of Japan need to be rebuilt after March's earthquake and tsunami, and the crisis at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant still needs to be resolved.

Added to that, Mr Noda, a fiscal conservative, will need to address Japan's stagnant economy.
He has said in the past that he favours raising funds through increased taxation - including a doubling of Japan's sales tax, which currently stands at 5% - to cut debt and meet social security commitments.
Unlike Mr Kan, he wants Japan's halted nuclear reactors to be restarted and has not backed his call for a nuclear-free Japan.
"Let us sweat together for the sake of the people," he said after the vote. "This is my heartfelt wish."

The DPJ won power in a general election in 2008, ending half a century of almost unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.

But it lost control of the upper house in polls in 2010 and has struggled to pass key legislation through parliament.
It has also been hit by in-fighting, with the leadership race turning into a bitter factional battle between supporters and enemies of tainted king-maker Ichiro Ozawa.
Mr Ozawa - who is known as the Shadow Shogun - commands the loyalty of around 130 lawmakers, despite awaiting trial on charges of misreporting political donations. He is currently suspended from the DPJ.
The public's favourite candidate, Mr Maehara, would have become Japan's youngest leader since World War II if elected.
Farm Minister Michihiko Kano and former Transport Minister Sumio Mabuchi were also in the leadership contest.

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Typhoon Nanmadol kills eight in the Philippines

Several people died when Typhoon Nanmadol struck northern Philippines, causing severe flooding and landslides

Typhoon Nanmadol has killed at least eight people in the Philippines and is heading to Taiwan, officials have said.

   Fierce winds and rain caused floods and landslides, with 20 major roads blocked and several bridges collapsing, said civil defence office head Benito Ramos.
Among the dead were two children killed when a rubbish tip wall collapsed in the northern mountain city of Baguio.
Nanmadol is expected to make landfall in eastern Taiwan on Monday morning, its Central Weather Bureau said.
Transport disruption It said the storm was packing gusts of 137 km/h (85mph) and moving north at 10 kilometres an hour.
The island has evacuated 2,500 villagers from its eastern and southern regions, with schools and offices closed, flights cancelled and public transport disrupted.
Authorities in the Philippines - where the storm raged at up to 230 km/h (145mph) - are focusing on rescue operations, with states of emergency declared in many areas.
An average of 20 storms and typhoons hit the Philippines annually, with dozens killed during the last storms - Nock-ten and Muifa - in July.

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Christchurch quake: Life in the condemned red zone

People may still have to move, even if their home was less badly damaged

Six months after an earthquake killed dozens of people in New Zealand's second largest city, Christchurch, the consequences for thousands more are playing out in slow motion.

         It's been a life-changing event, one of those events that forces you to think hard, and make some big decisions.
Six thousand people in Christchurch are living in the so-called red zone, where the land was so badly shaken up the government has decided they must leave.
They don't have to go until 2013 but many have already left. In my street, Avonside Drive, which runs along the Avon river, there are 92 homes. Now there are only 18 families left. I count the lights every evening.
If, like us, you are in the red zone, where do you move to?
Rising prices Some people want to get away completely and put it all behind them. I know two families that are going to Australia - one has already gone, the other is about to go. They are confident they can get jobs there, so they are just upping and leaving.

Other people are moving to other cities in New Zealand. But my family has chosen to stay put for now, to help out and work through it.

We aim to move to another home in the Christchurch area, but we are faced with some complicated financial choices.
The government will buy the land our house is built on and the insurance company will pay us what it would have cost to repair the house, had we been able to stay here.
But we live on the east side of the city, which was the worst affected and like many other people, we cannot afford to move to the more expensive west.
A lot of people are therefore looking at out-of town locations, but prices there have been rapidly escalating, because of the high demand. We are hoping they will peak, and then fall.
It's been a really stressful time for everyone. The drinking of alcohol has gone up about 10-fold, I can assure you of that. Over-the-counter sales of sleeping pills have also rocketed. Today there were two people in the supermarket having a face-to-face shouting match - you don't often see that. People are tense, like a stretched rubber band.

No insurance
We are really lucky that the New Zealand government is offering to buy so many people out. It's sad for anyone to have to move from the community they always wanted to live in, but if the government had not given this guarantee, we would be a lot worse off.
Economically, the future of the city is unclear. Insurance companies won't issue any new policies until we go two months without a level-four earthquake. We had almost got there until a few days ago, when a few more big shocks came along. A lot of expletives were uttered.
(We have had so much practice, everyone can instantly tell now what level a quake is.)
This is bad for business. The Crowne Plaza hotel, quite a landmark in this part of the city, declared a few days ago that the building would be coming down and would not be rebuilt.
They say they cannot afford to rebuild - there are many costly new technical requirements that have to be followed - and they cannot get a new hotel insured.
Our own home has a few cracks. A lot of windows don't open and close properly, and nor does the front door.
Avonside Drive is now below the level of the river, so where we used to look out on lush greenery we now have a freshly built shingle retaining wall.
This will all become government-owned land. They have not said what they will do with it, but there is speculation that in five or 10 years the land will be fit for development again.
Some people would like to have the option to come back, but there is no sign that they will be given that option.
 
Weekend repairs
If there has been upside to all this, it has been the community spirit that has arisen. Dozens of new community groups have been formed. Each street has a co-ordinator, who passes information to a committee for that particular suburb.
Ultimately this information is conveyed to the government in Wellington. The same committees also help to gather information, from officials and insurers, and convey it back to street level.
Here is one example of community spirit.
There is a group called Eddington Action, whose members realised there were a number of elderly people in their area, living in houses that were in poor condition even before the quake.
Now, every weekend, builders and volunteers are carrying out repairs to two of these houses - one on Saturday, one on Sunday.

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Australian MP Craig Thomson in sex scandal inquiry

Australian police are investigating claims an MP from the governing Labor Party misused his trade union credit card to pay for sex with prostitutes.

Police said they were examining new evidence against Craig Thomson.
Mr Thomson has denied any wrongdoing, and has already said an unnamed friend forged his signature to use the card.
A conviction for theft or fraud could bring down Julia Gillard's minority government, which has a working majority of just one seat.
Prime Minister Gillard has expressed "full confidence" in Mr Thomson, and said any investigation into his conduct should be allowed to run its course.
 
'Deep unpopularity'
The new evidence was presented to police by an opposition politician.
"This correspondence has now been referred for internal assessment to determine whether a criminal offence has occurred," police said in a statement.
It is alleged that Mr Thomson paid for escort services and drew out more than $A100,000 ($104,000; £63,000) in cash on a card issued by the Health Services Union during his employment there in 2003 to 2005.
Mr Thomson, who entered parliament after the 2007 election, has claimed that other union officials had access to that credit card, and denies any wrongdoing.
The country's employment watchdog, Fair Work Australia, is also carrying out its own investigation.
Mr Thomson holds his seat in the Central Coast of New South Wales with a majority of 5%.
The BBC's Nick Bryant in Sydney says that given the Gillard government's deep unpopularity, the Liberals would be expected to win a by-election at a canter.
If Labor loses that seat, of course, it also loses its parliamentary majority,
The allegations against Mr Thomson were first published two years ago by local newspapers. He mounted a defamation case against the newspapers - which he later dropped.
It has since been reported that the New South Wales Labor party helped Mr Thomson with $A90,000 towards his legal bills. Bankruptcy disqualifies people from sitting in parliament.

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North Korea's Kim Jong-il in rare Russia visit

North Korea's reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il, has begun his first trip to Russia since 2002.

His train arrived in the border town of Khasan in the Russian Far East, where he is to hold talks with President Dmitry Medvedev in the coming days.
They are likely to discuss the possible resumption of international talks over North Korea's nuclear programme.
North Korea is in talks with Russian gas monopoly Gazprom about a pipeline through its territory to South Korea.
A delegation from the company visited North Korea last month.
The BBC's Lucy Williamson in Seoul says the pipeline would have a far-reaching political and economic impact, and potentially allow North Korea to control a key energy supply to the South.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency says the North Korean leader is expected to visit a dam north of Vladivostock, before holding summit talks with President Medvedev in Siberia on Tuesday.
The agency quotes an unnamed official as saying Mr Kim may also meet Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
The leader's visit comes amid severe economic hardship and food shortages in North Korea.
On Friday, Moscow announced it was providing 50,000 tons of wheat to Pyongyang.

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Singer uses opera to build China-US bridges

When Hao Jiang Tian was a teenager, growing up in a China wrecked by the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, his prospects were not bright.

His parents had been sent away for re-education and he was living alone. At 15, he was forced to leave school and work in a factory making electric boilers.
But a chance encounter changed his life, beginning a chain of events that turned him into one of the world's top opera singers.
Now living in the US, the 57-year-old is back in China with a group of young performers to teach them how to sing Chinese opera.
It is his attempt to bridge the gap between two very different countries that will largely shape the world this century.

Learning Chinese
Tian, as he likes to be known, got the idea for the project when he first went to the West and saw how little people knew about his home country.
He still thinks this is the case today.
"Look at him, I bet he's seen 20 or so Hollywood movies," he said, pointing randomly to a young man during an interview with the BBC.
"But how many Chinese films have people in the West seen?" he added.
Tian has brought 20 singers for the "I Sing Beijing" project, most of them from the United States.
They have spent a month in the Chinese capital, learning how to speak Mandarin for their singing roles.
They took part in a special performance in Beijing's National Centre for the Performing Arts, just off Tiananmen Square, on Thursday.
It featured a series of scenes mostly taken from modern Chinese operas.
But just as important as the show, Tian wants the singers, all promising young opera performers, to learn something about China.
"Positive, negative, good or bad - I just want to them to take whatever they get from this trip back home to share with their friends and family," he said.
They singers said they would now see China in a different light.
"The little bit about China I did know was wrong. The word that comes to mind is 'growth'," said Brian Wahlstrom, a baritone from San Diego.
Life-changing moment
Tian was born into a musical family - his mother was a composer and his father a conductor - but he was reluctant to follow in their footsteps.
His parents forced him to abandon his dream of becoming a painter and learn the piano instead.
When his piano teacher was arrested as a counter revolutionary at the start of the political upheaval known as the Cultural Revolution, he screamed with joy.
Later in life, he sought out his old teacher and apologised.
Like many in China, his life was turned upside down by the Cultural Revolution. That is when his parents were sent away and he had to work in a factory.
"I was a wild teenager," he told another interviewer. He drank, smoked and picked fights.
As the Cultural Revolution was ending, in the mid-1970s, Tian won a place to study at Beijing's prestigious Central Conservatory of Music.
He was encouraged to apply by a man who overheard Tian shouting outside a friend's home.
"That couple of minutes saved my life," he once said.

 

 

Tian was forced to learn the piano - even though he disliked it

Tian finally made his way to New York in 1983, where he immediately spent some of the little money he had on a ticket to see Luciano Pavarotti sing at the Metropolitan Opera.
Ten years to the day after that, he sang on stage with Pavarotti at the same venue.
Despite the fact he is now a US citizen, Tian still maintains strong links with China.
Every time the internationally-acclaimed singer comes back he searches out an old friend or former neighbourhood to track the immense changes taking place in the country of his birth.
On this trip he visited his old middle school, where he met his ex-physical education teacher.
Only the school's garden remains the same as when Tian was there, although even here there has been change: some of the trees have been moved around.
"When I left China I could imagine that everyone would have a watch or a colour TV, but not a car," he said, before leaving to deal with the preparations for the show.
That performance coincided with an official visit to China by US Vice-President Joe Biden, who was too busy to attend the opera.
Ahead of the trip, the vice-president's national security advisor, Tony Blinken, said the visit's aim was to deepen the relationship between two countries that are interdependent, but also very different.
"Simply put, we're investing in the future of the US-China relationship," said Mr Blinken.
In some ways - although he is using music rather than diplomacy - that is exactly what Hao Jiang Tian is trying to achieve.

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BBC drops film-maker over Malaysia impartiality fears

The BBC is investigating how it aired programmes made by a company that allegedly received millions of pounds in payments from Malaysia's government.

The BBC has suspended all programming by UK-based production company FBC, which has made documentaries on controversial issues in Malaysia.
The BBC said it has strict agreements with independent producers "including avoiding any conflict of interest".
FBC has denied any wrongdoing in its programme-making for any broadcaster.
FBC told the UK newspaper The Independent via its lawyers that "at no time have the television programmes made for the BBC ever been influenced or affected by our client's commercial activities".

'Strict agreements'

FBC has made several documentaries for the BBC about Malaysia since 2009, examining controversial issues such as the palm oil industry and its treatment of indigenous people.
The most recent programme was aired on BBC World News this summer.
A BBC spokesman said: "FBC has admitted to the BBC that it has worked for the Malaysian government. That information was not disclosed to the BBC as we believe it should have been when the BBC contracted programming from FBC.
"Given this, the BBC has decided to transmit no more programming from FBC while it reviews its relationship with the company."
"All independent TV companies who produce programmes for BBC World News have to sign strict agreements to ensure programmes meet the BBC's editorial guidelines, including avoiding any conflict of interest."
US broadcaster CNBC has suspended its weekly show World Business, which was made by FBC, and says it has asked the company to explain the allegations against it.

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Migrant schools closed in Chinese capital

Thousands of migrant workers' children in Beijing have been left with no school to attend after officials abruptly closed their schools.

State media said some 14,000 children in three districts of the Chinese capital had been hit.
Officials said the schools had not met safety standards or were unapproved.
The move has sparked concern over discrimination against the children of migrant workers, who are not allowed to attend state-funded schools.
Under China's household registration (or Hukou) system, its tens of millions of migrant workers remain registered in their home towns even if they move to the city to work.
Without a "city" registration, they do not have access to some state-subsidised services, like health and education.
So the children of migrant workers often have to attend cheap, privately-run schools, some of which have not been approved by the authorities.
State-run Xinhua news agency said 24 schools in Beijing's Haidian, Chaoyang and Daxing districts had been closed just before the start of the new term.

Xie Zhenqing, the head teacher of one of the schools that was demolished, said her 1,400 students now had nowhere to go.

"I know nothing about what they are going do with the students and teachers, when the school will reopen, any relevant polices, what their plan is, I know nothing, they just shut down the school all of a sudden," she told AFP news agency.
Education officials told Xinhua news agency that the schools were closed because they did not meet official standards on construction, sports facilities and other safety issues.
But the head teacher of one closed facility said it was unrealistic to expect migrant schools to meet these standards.
Zhang Zhiqiang, founder of aid group Migrant Workers' Friend, told AFP the move highlighted discrimination against migrant workers, and Xinhua news agency said the issue had sparked "wide public concerns over inequality in education".
Debate has increased over the household registration system in recent years, with some academics calling for it to be abolished.

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Thousands protest outside jail where Anna Hazare held

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has told parliament that the hunger strike by the anti-corruption activist, Anna Hazare, is "totally misconceived".


He said the 74-year-old was trying to circumvent democracy by demanding the overhaul of an anti-corruption bill.


Mr Hazare spent the night inside Tihar jail in Delhi after rejecting an offer by the authorities to release him.


Protests backing his campaign have been gathering momentum across the country and thousands have gathered outside the prison where he is being held.
The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder has been surveying the scene.

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Australian project hunts lost indigenous languages

Indigenous communities number under half a million in today's Australia

Librarians in Australia have launched a three-year project to rediscover lost indigenous languages.

The New South Wales State Library says fragments of many lost languages exist in papers left by early settlers.
Before British colonialisation began there in 1788, around 250 aboriginal languages were spoken in Australia by an estimated one million people.
Only a few dozen languages remain and the communities number around 470,000 people in a nation of 22 million.
'Unrivalled' accounts "A nation's oral and written language is the backbone to its culture," said the Arts Minister of New South Wales, George Souris.
"The preservation of the languages and dialects of our indigenous citizens is a very important project in this regard."
Noelle Nelson, the acting chief executive of Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, which is backing the project, said the settlers' first-hand accounts at the State Library are "unrivalled".
"These first-hand accounts are often the only surviving records of many indigenous languages," Nelson told the AFP news agency.
"The project will introduce and reconnect people with indigenous culture."
An Australian government survey in 2004 found that only 145 indigenous languages were still spoken in Australia and that 110 of these were severely or critically endangered.

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