Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation: News in English, 04-12-30

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From: The Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation at <http://www.cybc.com.cy/>

CONTENTS

[01] HEADLINES

[02] QUAKE DEVELOP

[03] QUAKE TOURISTS

[04] NEW TSUNAMI

[05] MIDEAST

[06] SAUDI BLAST

[07] IRAQ

[08] NSIA MUNICIPALITY

[09] WEATHER THURSDAY 30 DECEMBER 2004

[01] HEADLINES

-- European leaders prepared their citizens for the worst as hopes dimmed for nearly 5,000 tourists, half of them Swedes and Germans, still missing.

-- Israeli troops killed five Palestinians today as tanks pushed into the southern Gaza Strip in what the army called a raid to root out militants behind mortar and rocket fire on Jewish settlements. And

-- Suicide bombers tried to storm Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry and a security unit in the capital Riyadh today in what appeared to be the latest brazen strike by al Qaeda in the world's top oil exporter.

[02] QUAKE DEVELOP

The death toll rose above 87,000 but the true scale of the disaster may not be known for weeks, if ever, as rescuers battled to reach remote areas and grieving survivors searched for bodies.

The scale that was known was staggering.

"Villages have been washed away," said Rod Volway of CARE Canada, whose emergency response team was one of the first into Indonesia's northern Aceh province, the worst-hit area with more than half of known deaths.

Some areas have yet to be reached. The death toll could rise to 100,000, said Peter Rees of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. U.N. officials say children could make up a third of victims.

As the world pledged 220 million dollars in cash and sent a flotilla of ships and aircraft laden with supplies, history's biggest relief operation battled with the enormity of the task.

"As many as 5 million people are not able to access what they need for living," said David Nabarro, head of a World Health Organisation (WHO) crisis team.

Many villages and resorts are now little more than mud-covered rubble, blanketed with the stench of corpses after a 9.0 magnitude underwater quake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered the tsunami. Thousands of bodies rotting in the tropical heat were tumbled into mass graves.

Authorities predict a second round of deaths among those who survived Sunday's monster wave from diseases such as dysentery, cholera and typhoid fever caused by contaminated food and water.

"Frustration will be growing in the days and the weeks ahead," said U.N. emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland.

Well over a million people have been left homeless. Hospitals are overwhelmed with the injured -- an estimated 100,000 or more.

The United Nations prepared what could be its largest appeal for donations to cope with its biggest, costliest relief effort.

U.S. President George W. Bush said a U.S. pledge of 35 million dollars was just a start. A U.S. military unit based in Japan will set up a post in Thailand to run U.S. efforts.

The Pentagon is sending an aircraft carrier group to Sumatra and another group including a helicopter carrier was headed for the Bay of Bengal.

The financial costs are estimated at up to 14 billion dollars.

[03] QUAKE TOURISTS

Officially, only 212 foreign tourists have been reported as killed by their home countries, but Thailand alone has said that at least 435 foreigners had died there.

Some 1,500 Swedes, 1,000 Germans, 600 Italians, 464 Norwegians, 219 Danes, 200 Finns and 200 Czechs were reported as missing by their countries, along with 294 Singaporean tourists.

More than a thousand others, including 930 Norwegians, are still unaccounted for. Many of them could be among the 6,043 missing in Thailand, where the official death toll rose to 1,975.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told citizens to expect that hundreds of missing compatriots had been killed.

Thailand's dead tally includes 54 Swedes, 49 Germans, 43 British, 20 Americans, 18 Norwegians and 11 Italians.

Tourists from Australia, Canada, Japan, Singapore, South Africa and South Korea were also among the dead.

Leaders around Europe held out hope that survivors would be found but also tried to prepare their people for more bad news.

"This will affect Swedish lives for a long time to come," Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson said.

Norway's foreign minister said the tsunami threatened to be one of the worst disasters for his nation in modern times.

Japan's Foreign Ministry confirmed five citizens dead, all in Thailand, but media reports said as many as 13 may have been killed. At least 26 Japanese were missing.

[04] NEW TSUNAMI

But there were no signs of giant waves and the U.S. Geological Survey said it was unaware of any aftershock large enough to trigger a fresh tsunami.

Overnight aftershocks in Indonesia's Banda Aceh, also near the epicentre, sent people fleeing their homes.

In north Sri Lanka, survivors recovering corpses faced a new danger -- floating landmines from a long-running conflict.

Sunday's waves tore relatives from each other's arms, swept trucks and buses through buildings and flipped boats onto land.

[05] MIDEAST

Israel moved closer to abandoning the occupied territory as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the opposition Labour party reached a deal that appeared to clear a final obstacle to a unity government able to remove troops and settlers.

Violence has shown little sign of ebbing in Gaza despite the pullout plan, new hopes for talks with Israel after Yasser Arafat's death last month and a looming Palestinian presidential election expected to bring moderate Mahmoud Abbas to power.

[06] SAUDI BLAST

An Interior Ministry statement said members of the "deviant group" -- what the government calls al Qaeda -- detonated two bomb-rigged cars outside the vast, heavily fortified ministry compound and the security unit, wounding at least 18 people.

It said there were no reports of deaths so far in the huge blasts -- the first against a government building since April and the second major militant strike this month.

The attacks sent global oil prices higher, with U.S. crude futures ending up 1.93 dollars at 43.70 dollars a barrel.

[07] IRAQ

Insurgents have attacked U.S.-led and Iraqi forces in several parts of Iraq this week. A bomb explosion at a house in Baghdad being raided by Iraqi police yesterday flattened several nearby buildings and killed at least 28 people.

[08] NSIA MUNICIPALITY

A Nicosia Municipality statement said that the public can make contributions in aid of the victims until the end of the celebrations and all the money that will be collected will be collected will be handed to the Cyprus Red Cross.

Meanwhile, in Limassol, the New Year's eve celebrations tomorrow night have been cancelled. Limassol Municipality said in this way it wanted to participate in the worldwide mourning for the southeast Asia victims of the tsunami that followed the 9 on the Richter scale quake.

The money allocated for the celebrations, around four thousand pounds, will go in aid of the victims.

[09] WEATHER

Tonight it will be clear with some thin cloud. Winds will be north-easterly light to moderate, force three to four and the sea slight. Temperatures will fall to nine degrees inland, eleven on the coasts and seven on the mountains.

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