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California, US: Helicopter crashes at Raytheon warehouse in El Segundo

A helicopter crashed into a Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems warehouse in El Segundo this morning, causing an intense fire and severely injuring the pilot.

Image
© KABC7
Lucky: A pilot escaped alive after his helicopter crashed and burst into flames in El Segundo, south of Los Angeles
The Sikorsky helicopter was attempting to lift an industrial air-conditioning unit to be replaced at 9:30 a.m. when the aircraft lost control and crashed onto the patio next to the building, El Segundo Fire Department Battalion Chief Richard Guyer said.

Fuel leaked onto mechanical parts and caught fire, which immediately spread to the two-story building known on site as E-1, Guyer said. The pilot was pulled to safety and taken to a nearby trauma hospital. The extent of his injuries was not released.

Star of David

Jewish prayer ritual alarms Alaska Airlines crew

An orthodox Jewish prayer observance by three passengers aboard an Alaska Airlines flight on Sunday alarmed flight attendants unfamiliar with the ritual, prompting them to lock down the cockpit and issue a security alert, officials said.

Alaska Flight 241 from Mexico City to Los Angeles International Airport landed safety at LAX and was met by fire crews, foam trucks, FBI agents, Transportation Security Administration personnel and police dispatched as a precaution.

The three men, all Mexican nationals, were escorted off the plane by police and questioned by the FBI before being released to make connecting flights to other countries, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said. No charges were filed, she said.

Radar

'One poor harvest away from chaos'

Image
© Getty Images
Hunger pains: millions of the worlds poorest people and the state of the global economy are threatened by the food price rises
Millions of the world's poorest people and the state of the global economy are threatened by the food price rises, writes Geoffrey Lean.

'Within a decade," promised the top representative of the world's mightiest country, "no man, woman or child will go to bed hungry."

Dr Henry Kissinger, at the height of his powers as US Secretary of State, was speaking to the landmark 1974 World Food Conference. Since then, the number of hungry people worldwide has almost exactly doubled: from 460 million to 925 million.

And this week the airwaves have been full of warnings that the formidable figure could be about to increase further, as a new food crisis takes hold. Some experts warned that the world could be on the verge of a "nightmare scenario" of cut‑throat competition for the control of shrinking supplies.

Bad Guys

New Zealand: DOC Seeking Public Help Over Bird Shooting

NZ dotterel
© Forest & Bird
The endangered NZ dotterel.

The Department of Conservation (DOC) is hoping people will come forward with with information as it investigates the shooting of more than 100 protected birds in Northland.

The birds, which included godwits, knots and endangered dotterels, were shot at remote Okato Creek in Kaipara Harbour about February 27.

Some of them were left to suffer in agony.

DOC has said any information on the shooting could be given in confidence to visitor assets and historic ranger Awhi Nathan.

A prosecution could lead to fines of up to $100,000 and a jail term of up to six months.

Mr Nathan said today that he had yet to receive any calls since the case was made public.

Police had not been called in because there was not enough information for them to act on.

Mr Nathan said the shooting appeared to involve a group of people.

"A boat load of shooters came into a secluded bay and let rip with what sounded like automatic shotguns," he said.

Bizarro Earth

2nd Blast at Stricken Japan Nuclear Plant, New Tsunami Heads for Coast

A destroyed landscape
© REUTERS/KYODO
A destroyed landscape is pictured in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture in northern Japan, after an earthquake and tsunami struck the area, March 13, 2011.
A hydrogen explosion rocked the earthquake-stricken nuclear plant in Japan where authorities have been working desperately to avert a meltdown, while media said a fresh tsunami was heading for the same coastline that was hit last week.

Japan's nuclear agency confirmed there was an explosion at the No. 3 reactor of the Daiichi plant in Fukushima, and TV images showed smoke rising from the facility, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

Officials said they could not immediately confirm whether the blast had caused a radioactive leak.

Operators had earlier halted injection of sea water into the reactor, resulting in a rise in radiation levels and pressure. The government had warned that an explosion was possible because of the buildup of hydrogen in the building housing the reactor.

Family

Revolution, food riots in America by 2012

The man who predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the fall of the Soviet Union is now forecasting revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions - all within four years, while cautioning that putting food on the table will be a more pressing concern than buying Christmas gifts by 2012.

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© Unknown
Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute, is renowned for his accuracy in predicting future world and economic events, which will send a chill down your spine considering what he told Fox News this week.

Celente says that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts.

"We're going to see the end of the retail Christmas....we're going to see a fundamental shift take place....putting food on the table is going to be more important that putting gifts under the Christmas tree," said Celente, adding that the situation would be "worse than the great depression".

"America's going to go through a transition the likes of which no one is prepared for," said Celente, noting that people's refusal to acknowledge that America was even in a recession highlights how big a problem denial is in being ready for the true scale of the crisis.

Info

Japanese Struggling to Find Food and Water in Disaster Area

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© AFP / Philippe Lopez
People look for food amid empty shelves in a shop in Fukushima on March 13, 2011.
Officials with Japan's nuclear safety agency said early Sunday morning there is an emergency at another nuclear reactor at a quake-hit power plant. The agency says the cooling system at the number three reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant is offline and could possibly explode, following Saturday's blast at the plant's number one reactor.

Reports quoting government officials say up to 160 people may have been exposed to radiation. Meanwhile, residents in the country's northeast are struggling to find food and clean water.

Aftershocks continued to hit northeastern Japan Sunday, several days after a 8.9-magnitude earthquake and resulting 10-meter-high tsunami devastated the coastline.

VOA Correspondent Steve Herman is near the power plant. He says locals are complaining that the authorities are not giving them accurate information about the situation fast enough. "One of the things the authorities are trying to do is not have any panic spreading among people, but information about what is happening is coming out of Tokyo not Fukushima," he said.

Nuke

Earthquake Death Toll May Exceed 10,000 as Japan Fights Nuclear Accident

Image
© Reuters / Kyodo
Houses lie flattened after a powerful earthquake in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture March 11, 2011.
Japan grappled to contain its worst nuclear accident in at least 33 years at a plant north of Tokyo as local media said the death toll from the nation's biggest earthquake and ensuing tsunami may top 10,000.

Radiation levels around the Tokyo Electric Power Co. station in Fukushima, 135 miles north (217 kilometers) of the capital, rose after cooling systems at a second reactor failed, heightening concerns about a possible meltdown following an explosion there yesterday. Water levels fell at a third reactor, raising the possibility of a hydrogen explosion there, Japan's top government spokesman said yesterday.

The 8.9-magnitude temblor and subsequent tsunami may have killed 10,000 in Miyagi prefecture north of Tokyo, national broadcaster NHK reported, citing local police. The official toll reached 1,597, with 1,481 more missing and 1,683 injured, the National Police Agency said. More than 350,000 people are in emergency shelters.

"Our country faces its worst crisis since the end of the war 65 years ago," an emotional Prime Minister Naoto Kan said at a nationally televised press conference in Tokyo yesterday. "I'm convinced that working together with all our might the Japanese people can overcome this."

Life Preserver

Japan tsunami survivor Hiromitsu Shinkawa found 10 miles out at sea

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© The Associated Press
Tsunami victim Hiromitsu Shinkawa, 65, waves to rescuers who spotted him floating on the roof of his home nearly 10 miles out to sea.
Rescuers spot 60-year-old from Fukushima prefecture clinging to the roof of his home two days after the tsunami struck

A 60-year-old man has been found on the roof of his floating house nearly 10 miles out at sea, two days after the tsunami that devastated the north-east coast of Japan.

Hiromitsu Shinkawa must have resigned himself to his fate when he was swept away by the retreating tsunami that roared ashore in his home town of Minami Soma in Fukushima prefecture.

As the wave approached, Shinkawa took the fateful decision to return home to collect belongings. Minutes later he was out at sea clinging to a piece of the roof from his own home.

Incredibly, he was spotted by a maritime self-defence force destroyer taking part in the rescue effort as he clung to the wreckage with one hand and waved a self-made red flag with the other. He had been at sea for two days.

Reports said that on being handed a drink aboard the rescue boat, Shinkawa gulped it down and immediately burst into tears. His wife, with whom he had returned home as the tsunami approached, is still missing.

Dollar

Moscow is now the billionaire capital of the world

Vladimir Lisin
© Agence France-Presse
Publicity shy Vladimir Lisin, pictured in Lipetsk in 2003, has retained his position as Russia's wealthiest man
Russian oligarchs are back with a bang, making Moscow the billionaire capital of the world.

Profiting from a boom in commodities, the number of billionaires in Russia, most of whom built their empires during the country's anarchic 1990s, grew to 101 from 62 last year, Forbes said in its annual list of the world's richest people.

Moscow is home to 79 of Russia's billionaires, more than any other city in the world.

Russia accounts for a third of Europe's 300 billionaires, and 15 of the world's 100 richest people, more than all the other so-called BRIC countries combined (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and more than Saudi Arabia.