Small stone houses and huts at the foot of the mountain village of Masara were destroyed Saturday by falling mud and rocks, killing six villagers and injuring 17 others. Another landslide struck the village early Sunday, killing five more people.

The landslides, which cascaded down a mountainside with frightening booms, buried about 28 houses and forced up to 5,000 people in Masara and nearby villages to run for their lives, said Mayor Voltaire Rimando.

Rimando declared a state of emergency in Masara, which he described as a "no man’s land" because of the danger and devastation.

Army and police, backed by two air force helicopters and workers from a gold–mining company, battled heavy rains and mud to search for at least 16 villagers reported buried, regional police Chief Andres Caro told The Associated Press by telephone.

Among the missing were Masara village chief Juvencio Anquera, who helped in the rescue work following the first landslide. He went missing with his two children when their house was hit by the second landslide Sunday, Caro said.

The landslides occurred in Compostela Valley province, about 520 miles southeast of Manila.

Roger Corales, who escaped unharmed, said Saturday he saw people crying for help as they slowly disappeared under the falling earth, their hands grasping desperately for something to hold on to.

A landslide last year killed 10 people in the same village, prompting the Bureau of Mines and Geosciences to recommend that the landslide–prone area be abandoned. But many villagers, who depend on the local gold–mining industry for a living, refused to leave, Caro said.

Islanders load food supplies onto a speedboat bound for nearby North Caicos Island from the island of Providenciales, in the Turks & Caicos Islands, Saturday, Sept. 6, 2008. Ike was due to arrive the night of Sept. 6 in the Turks and Caicos as a Category 3 hurricane. Photo: AP

Turks and Caicos premier Michael Misick said Ike damaged 80 percent of the homes on the main island and that hundreds lost their roofs as the hurricane made a near–direct hit. People have been cowering in closets and under stairwells and "just holding on for life. They got hit really, really bad," he told The Associated Press Sunday morning.

At 8 a.m. EDT, Ike’s eye was just east of Great Inagua Island in the southeastern Bahamas, with maximum sustained winds of 135 mph (215 kph). It was moving west–southwest at 14 mph (24 kph) and was expected to remain a major hurricane as it approaches eastern Cuba.

"It’s looking terrible," said reserve police officer Henry Nixon from inside a shelter on the Bahamas’ Great Inagua Island, where about 85 people huddled around a radio. "All we can do is hunker down and pray."

Great Inagua, which is closer to Haiti than to the Bahamian capital of Nassau, is the southernmost island in the Bahamas archipelago. It has the world’s largest breeding colony of West Indian flamingos, and about 1,000 people.

"Everybody is very concerned because of the strength of this one. They want to make sure they survive," administrator Preston Cunningham said after authorities went door–to–door urging residents to seek higher ground. All power was cut as a precaution Sunday morning, and about 135 people took refuge in shelters.

Grand Turk, the capital of the tiny British territory of Turks and Caicos, is home to about 3,000 people, and has little natural protection from the sea and expected storm surge of up to 18 feet (5.5 meters). Rain was driving through in horizontal sheets early Sunday and wind was tearing through some roofs. It was too early to know of any deaths or injuries.

The airport in Providenciales closed after thousands of tourists and residents evacuated from the typically tranquil island chain.

Desiree Adams, along with 11 members of her family, could hear the winds through the storm shutters of her Grand Turk home. The power was out, but they had water and food and battery–powered lanterns if necessary.

"We’re all just laying down looking up at the dark ceiling and talking," Adams, a personal adviser to the island chain’s chief minister for tourism issues, said by mobile phone.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Ike’s eye was expected to move over eastern Cuba Sunday night and into central Cuba by late Monday on a track that will likely take it into the Gulf of Mexico.

"These storms have a mind of their own," Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said as tourists were ordered out of the vulnerable Florida Keys Saturday. Authorities planned a phased evacuation for residents Sunday morning, starting with the southernmost islands. "What we have to do is be prepared, be smart, vigilant and alert."

In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal set up a task force to prepare for the possibility of more havoc after getting slammed by Hurricane Gustav.

Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in southeast Cuba went on "condition of readiness one" early Sunday morning, meaning all ferries were secured, beaches were off limits and private cars were banned from roads at the U.S. base, where some 255 men suspected of links to the Taliban and al–Qaida live in what the military says are hurricane–proof cells.

"People have been forewarned for a day," Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Robert Lamb said. "It’s starting to get breezy."

The approach of the hurricane also raised alarm in Haiti, where floods from Tropical Storm Hanna killed at least 167 people by Saturday. Hundreds fled the waterlogged city of Gonaives as Ike approached, and international aid groups were struggling to reach people with little or no access to food or water for days.

"We are very concerned about Ike," said Holly Inurreta of Catholic Relief Services. "Any bit more of rain and Gonaives will be cut off again."

Cuba, which suffered a devastating hit from Gustav, was directly in Ike’s projected path, and warned its people to be ready.

Just ahead of Ike’s arrival, the Bahamas government had urged tourists to evacuate the sparsely populated southeastern islands and the Royal Bahamas Defence Force dispatched marines to bring food and water to the eastern islands of Mayaguana and San Salvador.

Off Mexico’s Pacific coast, Tropical Storm Lowell was moving away from land.

President Bashar Assad also said indirect negotiations with Israel were on hold until that country chooses a new prime minister and that direct talks would have to wait until a new U.S. president takes office.

Assad’s comments came after meetings with France’s leader and regional mediators in talks focusing on Mideast peace and Iran’s nuclear program. France hopes that warmer relations with Syria, Iran’s ally, could help the West in its efforts to persuade Iran to curb its nuclear program.

Assad said his proposal for Israel was intended to serve as a basis for direct talks. He said he would wait for a similar document laying out Israel’s positions before any face–to–face talks. So far, negotiations between the two foes have been held indirectly through Turkish mediators.

Although Assad didn’t divulge details of his proposal, the move reflected a desire to break with Syria’s past policies. The quest was given a boost by France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, who visited Damascus on Wednesday and Thursday, becoming the first Western leader in several years to come to Syria.

Sarkozy has encouraged face–to–face Syria–Israel negotiations and offered to sponsor such talks in the future. The French president has been trying to forge better relations with both Syria and Libya, a longtime international pariah that has significantly improved ties with the West.

Assad and Sarkozy were joined Thursday in a four–way summit by Turkey’s prime minister, whose country is mediating and has close ties to Arabs and Israel, and the leader of Qatar, key broker in inter–Arab disputes, to discuss Mideast stability and peace.

Syria and Israel have held four rounds of indirect talks through Turkish mediation in the last year.

Assad said at the summit that in the peace proposal given to Turkish mediators, Syria outlined six points on the issue of the ’’withdrawal line’’ – a reference to the extent of an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights.

This has been a major sticking point in the previous talks, causing the collapse of U.S.–brokered direct negotiations in 2000. Syria has long demanded the complete return of the heights, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. In the previous negotiations, Israel sought to keep a strip of land around the Sea of Galilee.

Assad did not say whether the six points changed the demand for a full withdrawal.

Assad said a fifth planned round of indirect talks with Israel had been postponed until after Israeli leadership elections and that the future of negotiations rested on whether a new prime minister in Israel will be committed to pursuing peace with Syria.

Any direct talks would also have to wait until a new American administration is in place, Assad added, acknowledging the importance of strong U.S. backing for such an effort.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the target of several corruption investigations, has announced he will step down after his party chooses a new leader this month. That has left peace prospects with both Syria and the Palestinians uncertain.

’’We want the support of all states, basically France, Qatar and Turkey in order to be assured that the next (Israeli) prime minister will follow the same direction Olmert had followed through his readiness for complete withdrawal from the occupied territories in order for peace to be achieved,’’ he said.

In Israel, an official said contacts were already being made to set up more talks. He said Israel has a ’’genuine intention to reach an agreement.’’ The official declined to be identified because the diplomatic efforts are ongoing.

Israeli officials have insisted that Syria also must end its support for militant groups opposed to Israel, namely Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Palestinian Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.

But Assad on Thursday sought to reassure the groups that he would continue to back what he described as the ’’resistance’’ against Israeli occupation.

’’We don’t see any interest in abandoning the resistance,’’ he told Hezbollah’s Al–Manar television. ’’Our position has always been clear. Our position toward the resistance against any occupation in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine is firm and has not changed.’’

Sarkozy’s visit also was an opportunity for the French leader to pass a letter from the father of a captured Israeli soldier so it could be delivered to the soldier, who also holds French citizenship. Gilad Schalit has been held by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip for two years.

Officials in Sarkozy’s office, who were speaking anonymously in accordance with presidential policy, said the letter, from Noam Schalit, is to be handed over to the emir of Qatar, who is to pass it to Khaled Mashaal, the Damascus–based leader of the militant Palestinian Hamas.

It was the first official admission that low building standards may have been behind the deaths of thousands of children.

Government critics have raised questions about shoddy construction after the 7.9–magnitude quake killed nearly 70,000 people in Sichuan province, including many students crushed to death when their classrooms crumbled.

Ma Zongjin, chairman of an official expert committee on the May 12 earthquake in southwest China, said Thursday that poor quality construction materials were one possible reason more than 1,000 schools were damaged. The government has said about 7,000 classrooms were destroyed, but has so far not released a tally of how many schoolchildren died.

’’In recent years, a lot of school buildings have been built in China and in this process of rapid development, some problems may exist,’’ Ma, a geologist, told reporters in Beijing. ’’The structure of the school buildings may not be reasonable enough and the related construction materials may not be strong enough.’’

While the government has promised an investigation and strict punishment for bad construction, there has been no public attempt so far to hold anyone to account.

The issue has become a sensitive political matter for the Chinese government, with parents of dead children staging protests to demand investigations into why schools collapsed even though nearby buildings were left standing. In one case, police pulled grieving parents away from a courthouse as they were trying to file a lawsuit.

Engineers and building experts sent to the disaster zone by the government to study damage have also raised questions about poor construction, bad urban planning and lack of enforcement of building codes.

Often schoolhouses were the only buildings in the area to collapse fully, and experts say China’s problem, similar to that in many other parts of the world, was a lack of commitment to safe schools.

But local communist leaders have seemed eager to suppress the issue as they tried to provide for the 5 million people left homeless. Parents and volunteers who questioned authorities were often subjected to detention, intimidation and financial inducements to keep quiet.

A key problem was the lack of reinforcement, Ma said. Large classrooms were often supported by columns that could not withstand major earthquakes, he said.

He did not elaborate, but large classrooms are often considered problematic because they offer relatively little support for rooms in floors above. Also, the presence of large numbers of students makes them more difficult to evacuate in an emergency.

Some disturbing examples of bad construction included a building in Pingwu county constructed near a river bend on unstable beds of sinking soil and shifting sands, and a 15–story building elsewhere that was built without support columns driven into the ground for stability, one expert said in June.

The earthquake, China’s worst disaster in three decades, left another 18,000 people still missing. Shi Peijun, the expert committee’s vice chairman, said Thursday it was increasingly unlikely that they had survived.

’’Given that it has been three months since the deadly earthquake struck, the hope of survival for those missing is very slim,’’ Shi said. He added that there was no tally on how many of the victims were schoolchildren.

Shi also said the quake resulted in direct economic and property losses of about $123 billion, more than 90 percent of it in Sichuan province.

According to the Chinese government, up to three years will be needed to rebuild and restore jobs and services. Ma said the construction ministry has sent more than 2,000 experts to study the quake–hit areas and make recommendations for the reconstruction of schools and hospitals.

Since the May quake, the region has been hit by scores of aftershocks. A magnitude 5.7 quake struck the provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan on Saturday, killing at least 38 people. More than 500,000 homes were damaged and 191,000 people were evacuated.

In Huili county, the worst–hit area in Saturday’s quake, 27 people were killed. Schools postponed the start of the new semester to the end of October due to a lack of prefabricated materials and tents to build temporary classrooms and dormitories, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Nineteen people suffered minor injuries when the British Airways Boeing 777 made a crash landing just inside the airport perimeter on Jan. 17.

Investigators from the Air Accident Investigations Branch said that water, which is normally present in aircraft fuel, may have frozen because of unusually cold weather on a flight from Beijing to London on Jan. 17.

’’Although the exact mechanism in which the ice has caused the restriction is still unknown in detail, it has been proven that ice could cause a restriction in the fuel feed system,’’ the report said.

’’The risk of recurrence needs to be addressed in the short term whilst the investigation continues.’’

The report called for the Federal Aviation Administration and the European Aviation Safety Agency to work with Boeing and Rolls–Royce, maker of the plane’s Trent 800, to develop measures to reduce the risk of ice forming.

The report also recommended that the regulators review certification requirements to insure that fuel systems can cope with the possible accumulation and sudden release of ice.

’’Water is always present, to some extent, in aircraft fuel systems and can be introduced during refueling or by condensation from moist air which has entered the fuel tanks through the tank vent system,’’ the report said.

Water can be dissolved in the fuel, particles can be suspended in the fuel or free water in the form of drops or puddles can be present.

Ice crystals start to form when the fuel temperature dips to –1C to –3C (31–27 F), but generally remain suspended as discrete particles, the report said. At –18C (0F) the crystals can stick to each other and form clumps.

’’Below this temperature little is know about the properties of ice crystals in fuel and further research may be required to enable the aviation industry to understand this behavior,’’ the report said.

The National Transportation Safety Board in Washington said in a statement Thursday that it supports the recommendations made by the British aviation safety agency to prevent similar accidents involving the Boeing 777.

The recommendations ’’show how international cooperation can lead to safety improvements that benefit the aviation community worldwide,’’ NTSB acting chairman Mark Rosenker said.

(Marianas Variety)

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has told the Northern Marianas government it must provide stable electrical power supply at Saipan’s international airport or risk losing its operating certificate, the Marianas Variety reports.

The newspaper says FAA Regional Administrator William C. Withycombe in a July 21 letter to Gov. Benigno Fitial said the commonwealth government is supposed to provide consistent electricity to the airport as a condition of maintaining its federal operating certificate. The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. on numerous occasions, including when aircraft are arriving and department, has shut down power to the airport as part of island-wide outages.

“The intentional power blackouts are causing interruptions of the navigational aids for extended periods of time,” the FAA official said. “The high voltage transformers, cables, and engine generators feeding critical airport navigational aids are being exercised repeatedly beyond their design limits damaging and shortening the life-cycle of vital equipment and systems,” Withycombe said in his letter.

The FAA regional administrator also noted that the agency has paid $10,000 for fuel to operate an emergency generator to keep the airport’s tower operational. The cost is the responsibility of the commonwealth government, Withycombe said, and any further fuel purchases will be charged to local officials.

http://www.mvarietynews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10205:feds-want-nmi-to-review-airport-emergency-plan&catid=1:local-news&Itemid=2

(Saipan Tribune)

A Northern Marianas government official says federalization of the commonwealth’s labor department will mean a $4.4 million reduction in revenues for the local treasury, the Saipan Tribune reports.

Deputy Labor Secretary Cinta M. Kaipat said fees and other assessments it charges the tens of thousands of foreign workers in the Northern Marianas generates a net $4.4 million in revenue for the commonwealth general fund. She said that would be lost when U.S. officials assume control of the Northern Marianas labor department, a move scheduled to take place in mid-2009.

But some commonwealth lawmakers dispute Kaipat’s analysis, saying there will be reductions in the cost of running the department once Washington takes over.

Rep. Tina Sablan, an independent who supports federalization, says she wants to see a detailed breakdown of the administration’s lost-revenue analysis. Sablan says Kaipat’s position is simply “propaganda” to get lawmakers to back an effort by the administration to sue the U.S. government over the pending takeover.

http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?cat=1&newsID=83252

(Pacific Daily News)

Some $40 million in U.S. federal education funding remains on hold until Guam’s territorial government officially determines who is responsible for its public school system, the Pacific Daily News reports.

DOE Risk Management Services Director Philip Maestri has told the Guam Public School System that the federal funding will continue to be withheld until the territorial Attorney General determines who has ultimate authority for public schools.

Public Schools Superintendent Nerissa Bretania-Shafer says a telephone conference call has been set for 7 a.m. today between Guam Attorney General Alicia Limtiaco, Maestri and other U.S. education officials.

Until an opinion is issued, Maestri says Washington will not release the funding, which would be for the fiscal year that begins October 1. According to the newspaper, Some GPSS programs that stand to lose funding include special education, the Reading First program, the English as a Second Language program, Direct Instruction and Success for All, among others.

http://www.guampdn.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080908/NEWS01/809080303&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL

(Taipei Times)

Taiwan officials are keeping in detention one of the key players in the botched 2006 attempt to get Papua New Guinea to drop Beijing and recognize Taipei, the Taipei Times reports.

Wu Shih-tsai remains in detention following his indictment on Friday on charges of fraud and defamation. Wu, a Singaporean, and Ching Chi-ju, an American who remains on the run, were paid $30 million by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after they promised to get Port Moresby to switch diplomatic allegiances and recognize Taipei. Officials are still trying to determine what happened to the funds.

“The forgery and Wu’s lying to the police, made for a solid case for us to keep him,” said Chief Prosecutor Huang Mo-hsin.

Officials also continue to investigate whether former Foreign Minister James Huang and including former vice premier Chiou I-jen, among other senior officials in the previous government, should be indicted, too.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/09/07/2003422558

(Solomon Star)

The Solomon Islands is at the forefront of renewed global efforts to eliminate malaria, thanks to a new, AusAID-funded support center.

The Pacific Malaria Initiative Support Center (PacMISC) is part of an A$25 million AusAID commitment to intensified malaria control and progressive elimination in the South-West Pacific.

Solomon Islands and Vanuatu are the first two countries included. Already the centre is investigating the acceptability of different types of insecticide-treated mosquito nets in Solomon Islands.

It says it will soon complete a randomized controlled trial that will inform national policy. The center is based at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. It is a partnership between its school for population health, the Australian Army Malaria Institute and the Queensland Institute for Medical Research.

PacMISC Director, Dr. Andrew Vallely, said the Centre would initially focus on Vanuatu and Solomon Islands. But it may be extended to Papua New Guinea within the next two or three years.

Vallely said that, while countries in the developed world largely conquered malaria in the 1950s and 1960s, malaria was still a major public health threat.

It is responsible for an estimated two to three million deaths every year in many low and middle-income countries.

Vallely said: “Together, members of this consortium are providing highly-flexible, focused and demand-driven assistance to the national malaria control programs in Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.”

http://solomonstarnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3341&change=71&changeown=78&Itemid=26