A strong earthquake has struck eastern Turkey, killing at least 57 people, officials have said.
The 6.0-magnitude quake, centred on the village of Basyurt in Elazig province, struck at 0432 (0232 GMT). It has been followed by more than 40 aftershocks.
Officials said the nearby village of Okcular had been almost destroyed and several others badly damaged.
A number of people were trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings, many of which were built of mud-bricks.
“Villages consisting mainly of mud-brick houses have been damaged, but we have minimal damage such as cracks in buildings made of cement or stone,” Elazig Governor Muammer Erol told CNN Turk.
Everything has been knocked down - there is not a stone in place
At least 17 of the dead came from the hillside village of Okcular, where up to 30 houses collapsed, rescuers said.
“The village is totally flattened,” Okcular’s administrator, Hasan Demirdag, told NTV.
Television footage from Okcular showed rescue workers and soldiers digging among the rubble of collapsed buildings as villagers looked on.
Ali Riza Ferhat, a resident, said he had been asleep in his home when the earthquake struck.
“I tried to get out of the door but it wouldn’t open. I came out of the window and started helping my neighbours,” he told NTV. “We removed six bodies.”
The nearby villages of Yukari Kanatli, Kayalik, Gocmezler and Yukari Demirci were also badly damaged and each reported several deaths.
“Everything has been knocked down - there is not a stone in place,” Yadin Apaydin, the administrator for Yukari Kanatli, told CNN Turk.
At least 50 people have been taken to hospital, officials say. Some were reportedly hurt during the panic after the first earthquake, when they jumped from windows or balconies.
Residents of the affected villages have been warned not to return to damaged homes while the area continues to be hit by aftershocks, the strongest of which have so far measured 5.1 and 5.5.
The government disaster management centre and Turkish Red Crescent have set up tents to help survivors cope with the harsh winter weather, and are also distributing food and blankets.
Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek and three other ministers have travelled to the earthquake zone to provide assistance.
We’ve experienced so many earthquakes in the last 20 years, yet no measures have been taken to strengthen the buildings
Volkan Durkal
In Ankara, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan lamented the lack of earthquake-safe buildings and said he had ordered the start of a reconstruction project in the area.
“Mud-brick construction is undoubtedly a local tradition. But unfortunately, it has proved to have a heavy price,” he said.
A BBC News website reader who visited the village of Basyurt after the earthquake said its residents blamed the government for the destruction and loss of life.
“This is a seismic area. We’ve experienced so many earthquakes in the last 20 years, yet no measures have been taken to strengthen the buildings,” Volkan Durkal said.
“Most houses are not made with cement, they are not well-built and the people are not well-educated about what to do and where to take cover during an earthquake.”
Turkey is plagued by earthquakes - generally minor - because of its location on the North Anatolian fault line.
A 7.4-magnitude tremor which hit the western city of Izmit in August 1999 killed more than 17,000 people.
The BBC’s Jonathan Head in Istanbul says poor quality buildings were also blamed for the high death toll then and there is still concern in Turkey’s largest city, where seismologists predict a major earthquake will occur within the next few decades.
Within the last months, I have been speaking about the principles of objectivity and conservatism in our approach to situations in Barbados. My first direct critic would have done well to research the application of these two principles before attacking my speeches.
Less than one week after the former Minister sought to berate my contribution about oil exploration, we got the stunning news that the highway project would be costing three times the amount budgeted for. Had this being proffered by Rayside or C.O. Williams Construction, we would have been hearing a lot of negativity.
It is clear that once you are operating from outside the space, anything is acceptable. At a public meeting in Speightstown a couple months ago, I said that I was opposed to build, operate, lease and transfer (BOLT) arrangements, because I felt that Government had no control over the costs. This was considered at the time to be a foolish statement by Mr. Griffith and his likes, because it could not be found in a textbook.
Too often, visionary statements are made by our humble servant and the high flyers have their opinions. Quite often, an impression is given that the speaker does not know of what he speaks. This country because of its negrocratic approach has been deprived of its true potential. Brilliant ideas are dumped due to lack of vision being exhibited by persons who have no practical experience. These persons have over the years lifted external knowledge believing it to be superior and applying it without the necessary modifications.
My whole Parliamentary life has been spent trying to convince law makers that our role is about making laws to suit us and not following international dictates blindly. We have continuously followed these dictates and have nothing positive to show for them.
I have complained bitterly about us borrowing money, having to service it and the lender dictating the persons with whom we should spend it. As a small developing country, we have to understand that we did not seek Independence for the sake of a status. We did it because we understood the significance of being independent compared with dependent.
As Barbadians, we have to be careful of politicians who believe that people should be dependent on them. It is a mentality thing and we can easily get a Government with the same thinking.
I remembered being told by the Prime Minister that I was anti-international business and that once I saw something relating to them, I raised the red flag. I never denied it, but the truth is, I have always studied and watched how these organizations were formed and operated. I have argued that those countries that were blacklisted did nothing wrong other than challenging the status quo and a way had to be found to keep them dependent.
The international business sector has always been dominated by a “too few” and any small developing country which allows potential, had to be kept in check. Barbados Sugar Industry was allowed to flourish when England had control. Similarly, we started tourism and the hotels were owned again by external players and went unhindered. As soon as the BDB was setup and the demographics changed, the structure was changed.
I have said before that the all-inclusive concept did not flourish in the Caribbean because of crime, but it had more to do with market share. Previously, it was a percentage of certain cost, but now the overseas players are getting a percentage of the total packages. We, being so internationally influenced did not realize that we were creating social problems for ourselves.
This country needs a proper land usage policy. Had we one, we would not have used taxpayers’ money for investors to deprive others of an opportunity to earn a living. We in Barbados have to understand that they were some positive things coming out of slavery. For example, even though we had plantations, we still had peasants and those persons who cannot appreciate the importance of sugar, flour, water and pudding and souse, I feel sorry for them.
I recall my critic on oil laughing at me for saying that while the owners had stocks in paper, that the workers had theirs in animals. He too thought that it was foolishness. Man should never be ashamed of past. What he needs to do is to build on it and move himself from mental slavery.
I was once criticized by the “economist” for saying that I have no regrets for being an offspring of a slave and that I would not walk around with malice on my shoulders. Too many of us spend time dealing with negativity and leave no room for development. We must understand that the sky is the limit and no one should dictate your final decision.
Some say that I behave as if everybody is from the same background as I did and that everyone was not as privileged. Too many persons expect to live on family history. I have never done it and I felt proud entering politics as Kellman and not O’Neale. Too often people expect to go through life on family names.
There is nothing wrong with goodwill, but it is always better when you can create that goodwill for yourself. I have always said that the Right Excellent Errol Barrow did not achieve his political fame because of the Right Excellent Duncan O’Neale, but he achieved it as a result of what he stood for.
We should stop seeing people base on family history and see them for what they stand for and has to offer. For Barbados to be developed, ideas must be at the forefront and country must come before self.
The last month should have thought us a lesson. We have seen too much not to heed the message being sent to us.I do not know the message but I believe that I have a personal understanding of it. We need to change our ways and be more caring and sharing as a nation. We need to treat people equally and stop seeing inflows that have not been earned as the solution.
Barbadians need to earn their way in this world and the old saying, “that hard work pays off” must be taught, but we must ensure that workers get their fair due. We cannot continue telling persons to increase productivity and the investor and the Government realizing their increased returns, while workers are been asked to hold strain. I have bitterly opposed this and I am not surprised that the persons who reaped the rewards are now so powerful that all gains are being spent overseas. Large companies are not performing as well as they should because the ordinary workers have not seen real increases in their pay packets.
It has been touted lately that in order for us to develop that we have to increase our population. This statement is the complete opposite of what I have been saying in these articles and it is the reason why the QEH is in a mess. We have increased our population hoping for increased production but all we have seen from it are problems with our social services. The Government needs to acknowledge our true population figure and stop hiding behind unemployment statistics. We have under budgeted our social costs because we are treating unemployment statistics as an indicator of growth. This Government has to accept that it is using the accrual system and everything must be accounted for. The patients for social services have given the lie to our unemployment statistics.
Until we accept the true population figure for the QEH, we will not be able to solve our health problems. We have easily accepted the numbers studying, because it helps us with the unemployment statistics. If we have persons seeking and they cannot find any, all we have to do is to put them in a class room and that will change the statistics.
We were told that the National Insurance Fund was in trouble and that we had to increase workers and employers contributions, only to see the fund paying out larger suns due to early retirement. Another interesting feature of this unemployment statistics is that the workers who was unemployed before, now gets an opportunity to move from being unemployed to being employed and people who were employed moved from being employed to unemployable.
This Government has used statistics well and must be admired for it. It has now found itself in a situation where it has to account for the additional population so as to justify the additional social costs that we have to account for. Social costs will now increase our employment rate. The high flyers will ask what foolishness he is on to now, but I stand by the statement.
Again, I must offer my deepest sympathy to the relatives of those persons who have lost their lives in that unexpected occurrence and to reflect on life to demonstrate that we do not know when our calling will be. We are only flesh and blood that will turn into ashes and dust when we die. Death is fair, so why can’t we be fair before death? 429 3019.
Peace, love, unity, humility, Kellmanomics, wisdom and understanding.
ST. JOHN’S, Antigua – Congressman Mike Coffman of Colorado has introduced a resolution in the US House of Representatives seeking to pressure Antigua and Barbuda over the alleged multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme involving disgraced Texan financier, Sir Allen Stanford.
The four-page resolution which was introduced last Friday has been referred to the US House of Representatives Financial Services Committee and is now awaiting a vote.
It calls on US Executive Directors to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to ensure that any loan provided to Antigua and Barbuda should have conditions attached.
Coffman wants the Baldwin Spencer administration to release to the US receiver all of Sir Allen properties that were compulsorily acquired and that the country makes several monetary contributions for the benefit of investors who lost money in the alleged scheme that US regulators said amounted to US$ 7 billion.
Specifically, it asks that the government be pressed to give the US receivership estate being managed by Ralph Janvey the same amount of money provided to Antigua and Barbuda by Sir Allen or any Stanford-affiliated entity.
A similar Senate resolution sponsored by eight US Senators in December 2009 is now pending a vote by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The Baldwin Spencer government has in the past criticised the moves to blacklist the country over the affair and has described as “unbelievable” a class action lawsuit filed in the United States by a group of disgruntled investors against the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) and the government.
The so-called Stanford Victims Coalition, which filed the action in a New York court claims its 28,000 members fell prey to Sir Allen, who is alleged to have conducted the scheme through his Antigua-based Stanford International Bank.
Sir Allen, who is awaiting trial in the United States, has consistently denied the allegations. (Antigua Sun)
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad — In 2008 the government of Trinidad and Tobago recognized the importance of business tourism and agreed to the establishment of a national Convention Bureau, with the mandate to position Port of Spain as the Meetings and Conference Capital of the Southern Caribbean.
Trinidad and Tobago is now poised to build upon the platform of its energy sector-generated commercial traffic to develop the important, and high yielding, discretionary business travel market.
Through the implementation of a targeted marketing strategy, the newly established Trinidad and Tobago Convention Bureau (TTCB) is working to increase the country’s share in this lucrative international, Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions market.
Over the last few years Trinidad and Tobago has developed a track record for successfully hosting several major and very prestigious conferences including the Caribbean Hotel Tourism Investment Conference (CHTIC) (2008), the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association Conference (2008), and more recently, the Summit of the Americas (2009) and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (2009).
The capital city of Port of Spain boasts the largest conference facilities in the English speaking Caribbean including the Hyatt Regency Trinidad, with 43,000 square feet of meeting space complete with break-out rooms and top notch technology- and the Hilton Trinidad Conference Centre, with 40,000 square feet of meeting space. Other options for large events include the Cascadia Hotel and Conference Centre, the Crowne Plaza and the theatre of the new National Academy of the Performing Arts.
Port of Spain also has a range of accommodation options from luxury boutique hotels and first class international properties to smaller hotels and guesthouses. The Kapok Hotel, Courtyard by Marriott, Carlton Savannah and Cara Suites Hotel are among those that can provide excellent meeting spaces for smaller meeting needs.
On Trinidad’s sister isle of Tobago, the Mt Irvine Bay Hotel and Golf Club, Tropikist Beach Hotel, Grafton Beach Resort and Coco Reef Resort and Spa also offer facilities for smaller meetings.
All of the business hotels are equipped with state of the art facilities, technical support and business amenities.
Moreover, the destination is endowed with unique creativity and experience in staging memorable events, and with the ingenuity and energy of some of our internationally recognized and world class event designers and planners, such as Peter Minshall and Brian Mc Farlane, coupled with a burgeoning events industry supplier segment in Trinidad and Tobago, we are well positioned to exploit our comparative advantage in this area.
Trinidad and Tobago is served by 19 international airlines with direct service to more destinations and connection hubs than any other country in the Southern Caribbean. Trinidad and Tobago also affords easy access to key business markets throughout the region, especially those in North America and Europe with about 140,000 seats per month.
This country has a diverse and rich cultural tradition and this is evidenced by museums, art galleries, historic sites, recreational spaces and theatres all within walking distance of major hotels and conference facilities. The city of Port of Spain also offers a rich-ranging shopping experience, and exciting nightlife including various clubs, bars, comedy shows and live theatre, thereby providing a vast variety of post business entertainment and attractions for our business visitors.
Trinidad and Tobago has a diversified tourism product with two very distinct destinations thus offering a unique combination to meeting planners. While Trinidad will welcome the actual meetings, the beautiful and serene sister isle of Tobago can provide the pre and post convention tours always offered to delegates and participants. Tobago has many beautiful beaches and is internationally recognized for its rich and colourful reefs, the oldest protected rainforest in the Western Hemisphere, Main Ridge Forest, as well as forts and historical sites reminiscent of the island’s history, to name just a few of this islands added attractions .
Whatever your desire, Trinidad and Tobago offers a wide range of fun, leisure, adventure, sightseeing or relaxation.
The Trinidad and Tobago Convention Bureau (TTCB) offers comprehensive information on the island’s venues, hotels, pricing, sites and attractions. It acts as an intermediary between hotels and meetings coordinators or local chapters of international organizations, local business chambers and incoming groups and develops and issues destination bid documents for presentation to overseas meeting planners. The Bureau operates as a liaison and coordinator for hoteliers, tour guides, even consultants and tour operators ensuring a comfortable and enjoyable working environment. (Caribnet)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) – Haitian President Rene Preval will get a sympathetic hearing when he meets with US counterpart Barack Obama on Wednesday, ahead of an international donors’ conference for his quake-hit nation.
What he is looking for, though, is billions of dollars to rebuild the poorest country in the Americas, which lost 222,000 people, 70 percent of its capital Port-au-Prince and more than half its economy in the January 12 catastrophe.
Haiti President Rene Preval. AFP PHOTO
Last month, the United Nations launched its biggest appeal ever: 1.44 billion dollars for water, food, sanitation and medical services to see Haiti through the rest of this year as it copes with the quake’s aftermath, including its 1.3 million homeless.
But the UN pledge amounts to just 10 percent of what the Inter-American Development Bank says Haiti needs to rebuild in the years to come — 14 billion dollars.
And debt relief announced in early February by Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States has alleviated only a small proportion of the 1.88 billion dollars the Caribbean nation still owes.
The stricken country relied on international aid for more than half of its revenue before the quake.
Obama will underscore that the Haitian people have a “friend and partner” in the United States, and discuss with Preval how the international community can support the Haitian government, the White House said.
The US Senate urged the International Monetary Fund and other lenders Friday to further relieve Haiti’s debt obligations and called for future aid to be in the form of grants, not loans.
The European Union meanwhile increased direct aid to Haiti, taking total European donations — including from individual EU states — to 609 million euros (828 million dollars).
EU foreign policy and security chief Catherine Ashton vowed during a visit that more long-term aid would be forthcoming, once Preval’s government defined priorities.
The Obama-Preval meeting was seen as a key preparatory step toward the donors’ conference set to take place at the United Nations in New York on March 31.
It may also be a forum for Preval to voice concerns that much of the aid pouring into Haiti has entirely by-passed his government, leaving it in the dark about aid recipients.
But Haiti’s homeless see the direct outside help as a positive sign after decades of corrupt governments.
“There isn’t any real politics in our country. Politics in our country is taking the money and putting it into a bank account, putting it in their pockets and running off,” quake survivor Pierre-Francis Junior told AFP as he stood in the vast tent city that is now his home in the capital.
Haiti and the United States have had a troubled past. US involvement in Haiti effectively began with a 1915-1934 occupation. US troops returned in 1994 and again in 2004 during regime changes.
After the quake, Washington deployed about 20,000 troops to Haiti for humanitarian aid operations. That number has since been halved. (Caribnet)
MONTREAL, Canada (AFP) – Haitian-born governor general Michaelle Jean will mark International Women’s Day on Monday in Haiti, as the impoverished nation struggles to rebuild two months after a crippling earthquake.
“We know that the island is experiencing terrible suffering, not only because of the earthquake, but also because of the poverty, which was already endemic before the disaster,” Jean said in a statement ahead of her three-day trip, which will include a visit to the neighboring Dominican Republic.
Haitian-born governor general Michaelle Jean.
AFP PHOTO
“In these situations of crisis and destabilization, women continue to look after the needs of their children and their loved ones.
“This year, International Women’s Day will be even more moving for me, because I will be by the side of those Haitian women who are striving to recover from disaster and rebuild.”
In a separate statement on her blog, Jean said she was “expecting to see the worst when I get there. However, I feel I must go to meet those who are working so hard to rebuild Haiti.”
Canada’s first black governor general, Jean was born in Port-au-Prince in 1957 and spent her childhood summers in the coastal town of Jacmel. She and her family fled Papa Doc Duvalier’s regime when she was 11 years old.
Jean is scheduled to meet President Rene Preval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, along with non-profit groups her two-day stop in her homeland.
She will “engage the Haitian authorities and civil society groups as central players in a long-term, sustainable strategy for reconstruction and development of Haiti,” the statement said.
Jean’s trip comes on the heels of Canadian Defense Minister Peter Mackay’s weekend visit to Haiti, where Canada has more than 1,500 troops on the ground. Mackay met with soldiers involved in aid efforts, and visited medical facilities in the country.
On Wednesday, Jean will hold talks with Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez. (Caribnet)
HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) — Cash-strapped Cuba will require visitors to buy health insurance if they want to enter the country, according to a new government measure disclosed on Saturday.
Under the measure, which takes effect in May, the insurance will be sold by foreign companies approved by the Cuban government or by Cuban firms at ports of entry to the communist-led island, the government said in the online edition of Cuba’s Official Gazette.
The measure decrees that tourists, foreigners with temporary residence in Cuba and Cubans living abroad who return to visit will have to be insured.
It exempts diplomats and representatives of accredited international organizations. The cost of the insurance was not disclosed.
Cuba prides itself on having a strong healthcare system, which is provided free to its citizens and at low costs to foreigners.
But the island has been hit hard by the global recession and is looking for new sources of revenue to boost its depleted financial reserves.
Tourism is one of Cuba’s main sources of income. In 2009, 2.42 million people visited the island. (Caribnet)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) — Government planners and international experts are racing to produce a blueprint this week to reconstruct Haiti’s economy after the earthquake that killed up to 300,000 people and devastated its infrastructure.
A team of 150 Haitian government officials and 90 international experts is to submit the plan to the government by Friday, said Doekle Wielinga, a World Bank disaster recovery specialist in charge of the effort.
The document will then be assessed at a meeting of international technical experts in the Dominican Republic on March 16 before a donor conference in New York on March 31.
“What we are working on is what the requirements will be in terms of recovery and reconstruction,” Wielinga told Reuters.
“This is the first PDNA (post-disaster needs assessment) where we have almost the entire international community participating physically,” Wielinga said, adding that Haitian communities outside the country were also being consulted.
An outstanding question remains the scope of recovery and whether to attempt to restore the economic status quo that existed prior to the January 12 quake, or go further.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. Its society is divided among a tiny elite, many of whom dwell in sumptuous villas on hills overlooking the capital, a small middle class and a majority who earn just a few dollars a day.
At the same time, the fractured relationship between the government and people could undermine long-term recovery.
Wielinga stressed that a single recovery plan produced by international actors and the Haitian government would likely produce more coherence, but he acknowledged the difficulties of restoring a country beset by long-term structural weaknesses.
“Doing this thing in a joint or coherent manner, the ordinary Haitian will see a uniformly managed reconstruction process and therefore get more bang for your buck,” he said.
Haitians in a series of interviews on Saturday said they had little confidence in the government and criticized its efforts since the earthquake.
The country saw modest stabilization under President Rene Preval, who was elected in 2006. But the views expressed by poor and middle-class Haitians reflected a cynicism bred from decades of political upheaval.
“We have never had the impression that the government was on the side of the people. Never ever,” said Florence Romain, a civil engineer. “Haitians got used to it. They ended up counting on God.”
“I have the impression that we are in a boat without a captain,” said Gaelle Ambroise, who runs a pet food store in Petionville. “We get no help from the government, though we still have to pay taxes.”
At a camp in Petionville for around 25,000 people displaced by the quake, several noted that it was international aid groups, rather than the government, who provided assistance.
“The government does nothing for us. It is the international community and that’s what everyone says,” said Wesner Lafond, an accountant who is living in a tent.
The plan will address eight areas of reconstruction including education, housing, telecommunications, transport and energy. One aspect will deal with boosting the effectiveness of government and macro economic recovery.
Another will look at how to improve the agricultural sector to provide an alternative livelihood for the thousands who have fled the capital, which was overcrowded prior to the earthquake.
At the same time, there would be a special focus on preparing for the storms and hurricanes that regularly batter the country — as well as for the possibility of another big quake.
The plan would look at what can be done in an initial period of six to 18 months, then within the next three years and finally over a 10-year period, and the aim was to fund the first period at the donor conference, he said. (Caribnet)
Sir Patrick, the governor general, will deliver his second Throne Speech on March 25. - File
THE ceremonial opening of Parliament has been set for March 25, beginning at 11 a.m.
On that day, Governor General Sir Patrick Allen will deliver the Throne Speech, in which he will outline the Government’s pro-grammes and policies for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, which begins on April 1.
Later in the afternoon, Minister of Finance and the Public Service Audley Shaw will table the 2010-2011 Estimates of Expenditure in the House of Representatives.
The estimates will provide details on how the programmes will be funded and what the various ministries and agencies will receive for recurrent (house-keeping) and capital (development) expenses.
The Standing Finance Committee of the House will meet to consider the estimates from March 30 to April 1.
On April 8, the finance minister will open the 2010-2011 Budget Debate, which will last until April 21. During the debate, select members of the Government and the Opposition will make presentations.
Opposition Spokesman on Finance, Dr Omar Davies, is expected to make his presentation on April 13, while presentations will be made by a government minister and an opposition spokesman on April 14.
On April 15, Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller is scheduled to make her contribution to the debate.
Prime Minister Bruce Golding is slated to deliver his speech on April 20. The finance minister will close the debate on April 21.
When the Budget Debate is completed, other members of the House of Representatives will make their presentations in the Sectoral Debate which follows. (Jamaica Gleaner)
Everything has been knocked down - there is not a stone in place 
