theSun | WEDNESDAY AUGUST 19 2009
news without borders
Hurricane Bill
strengthens
to Category 2
MIAMI: Hurricane Bill, the first
of the Atlantic storm season,
reached Category 2 strength
late on Monday, with top winds
whizzing at about 160kph, US
forecasters said.
At 0300 GMT (11am yesterday
in Malaysia), the hurricane was
located in the middle of the At-
lantic some 865 miles 1,395km
east of the Lesser Antilles and
was churning west-northwest-
ward toward the US mainland
at nearly 28km/h, the National
Hurricane Centre said.
“Additional strengthening
is forecast during the next 48
hours,” the Miami-based Centre
said, “and Bill could become a
major hurricane within the next
day or so.”
Meanwhile, what began as
Tropical Storm Claudette, which
lashed tourist resorts with strong
winds and heavy rain, weak-
ened to a tropical depression as
it moved across the southern
United States.
What had been the first named
storm of the season, Tropical
Storm Ana, also lost its punch
as it moved quickly at maxi-
mum winds of 55km/h across
the Caribbean, with all tropical
storm watches discontinued in
the region.
Claudette appeared suddenly
on Sunday in the Gulf of Mexico,
while most Atlantic hurricanes
usually begin far from the US
coast. The Centre said the tropi-
cal depression would weaken as
it continued to track northwest-
ward through Mississippi.
A man sailing on a small
boat went missing in the storm
and was presumed dead, an
emergency official told the News
Herald daily of Panama City,
Florida.
But “much of the shower and
thunderstorm activity has sub-
sided,” the National Centres for
Environmental Prediction said,
noting that “only isolated to scat-
tered thunderstorms remain in
Georgia.”
All flood-related watches and
warnings were no longer in ef-
fect for the system. In the Pacific,
Guillermo weakened rapidly from
a hurricane to a tropical storm.
Located 1,062km east-northeast
of Honolulu, Hawaii and moving
west-northwest at about 32kmh,
it was expected to weaken in the
next 48 hours, the Central Pacific
Hurricane Centre said.
The Atlantic hurricane season
began on June 1 and ends on Nov
30. – AFP
US helicopters join Taiwan
typhoon rescue efforts
CHISHAN (Taiwan): US military
helicopters joined Taiwan’s massive
typhoon rescue operation yesterday,
lifting excavation equipment into
areas that have been cut off for 10
days by floods and mudslides.
President Ma Ying-jeou, who has
apologised for the government’s
slow response to the emergency,
was scheduled to face domestic and
international media in separate news
conferences to provide an update on
relief efforts.
Ma has already warned the
death toll from Typhoon Morakot
could climb to more than 500, with
hundreds feared buried, while 127
people are so far confirmed to have
perished in the disaster.
The crisis may have claimed its
first political victim as TVBS cable
news channel reported deputy for-
eign minister Andrew Hsia resigned
over the ministry’s decision to reject
foreign aid immediately after the
typhoon hit.
A foreign ministry spokesman
told a news conference he could not
Celebrity doctor accused of raping patients
SAO PAOLO: Police have arrested one
of Brazil’s most prominent fertility spe-
cialists on suspicion of sexually abusing
more than 50 of his patients.
Roger Abdelmassih, 66, was ap-
prehended on Monday in his upmarket
Sao Paulo clinic, the globo.com internet
service reported. He is accused of hav-
ing raped or sexually abused women
patients while they were under anaes-
thetic or just recovering from surgery.
One former patient of the celebrity
doctor, whose in-vitro fertilisation clinic
was regarded one of the best in South
confirm the report. The government
was expected to cancel National Day
celebrations on Oct 10, deeming the
planned festivities no longer appro-
priate, the China Times reported.
Meanwhile, rescue operations
continued at a slow pace as many
typhoon victims, mostly aboriginal
people, refused to leave cut-off vil-
lages, fearing they would not be al-
lowed to return, rescue officials and
tribal elders said.
A total of 1,638 people still needed
to be airlifted as of Sunday night, ac-
cording to the government, but only
a small number were brought to
safety during Monday’s operations,
military spokesman Colonel Tai
Chan-Teh said.
“Most of the people still stranded
on the mountain refuse to leave,” Tai
told AFP.
Transport Minister Mao Chih-kuo
said the military may have to start
removing people by force, because
it would be too expensive to airlift
food and supplies to the villages in
the six months it is expected to take
America, said he touched her intimately
and kissed her. She had been too weak
from the anaesthetic to defend herself.
Other patients also reported being
touched or fondled.
Abdelmassih’s lawyer, Jose Luis Oliv-
eria Lima, rejected the accusations and
said his client’s detention was illegal.
“He has met all requirements to await
the trial in freedom.”
Sao Paulo’s medical ethics commis-
sion also initiated an investigation, but
stressed the accused would receive
every opportunity to defend himself.
AFPPIX
Residents look
at damage left
by Typhoon
Morakot in the
town of Chiashien
yesterday.
to rebuild roads.
The US heavy-lift military
helicopters were to carry 12 crane
shovels into the disaster area to help
speed up repairs to blocked roads,
said Christopher Kavanagh, spokes-
man for the American Institute in
Taiwan, the de facto embassy.
China sent 100 prefabricated
houses late Monday to help recon-
struction efforts, the first in a batch
of 1,000 homes worth US$2.9 mil-
lion (RM10.44 million) being sent to
Taiwan’s Kaohsiung port, China’s
official Xinhua news agency said.
At a makeshift morgue in the
southern Chishan township, a senior
police officer said work was going
slowly.
“We have been working here
round-the-clock for days. But while
we hope to help families recover
the bodies of their loved ones on the
mountain, it is not easy to find them.
The mud they were buried in is often
a few storeys high,” the officer, who
gave only his surname, Chang said.
– AFP.
Abdelmassih’s clinic website says he
and his team had conducted more than
6,000 successful fertilisations by 2006. “I
have always believed that a good society
consists of good families,” the father of
five and grandfather of 12 said.
His clinic has treated many high-
profile clients, including the family of
Brazilian football icon Pele.
Prosecutors were informed of the
accusations as early as last year. But lo-
cal media reports said the accusations
were not followed up as there had been
no police investigation. – dpa
9
briefs
More than 1,500 held
in gang crackdown
BEIJING: Police in southwest Chi-
na’s Chongqing city have detained
more that 1,500 suspects in a
widening crackdown on organised
crime that has implicated several
senior officials, state media said
yesterday.
A total of 1,544 suspected
members of 14 different gangs are
now in detention, while 469 on the
wanted list are still at large, the
China Daily said, citing officials in
Chongqing, one of the country’s
largest cities.
The gangs that are being bro-
ken up are believed to have been
involved in illegal loan businesses
worth 30 billion yuan (RM16 billion),
equivalent to one third of the city’s
annual revenue, the paper said.
– AFP
Pakistani TV
journalist shot dead
VIENNA: A Pakistani television
journalist was shot dead as he
made his way to work in the
latest killing of a reporter to
rock the insurgency-hit country,
a press freedom group said on
Monday.
Aaj TV correspondent Sadiq
Bacha Khan, described as a “bold
reporter” by the broadcaster,
was shot at least 15 times in an
ambush Friday outside his work-
place in the town of Mardan,
North West Frontier Province.
“We call upon the authorities
in Pakistan to transparently
investigate the murder of Bacha
Khan,” said David Dadge, direc-
tor of the Vienna-based Interna-
tional Press Institute (IPI).
MJ’s 51st birthday
to be his burial day
LAS VEGAS: Michael Jackson’s
body will be laid to rest on Aug 29,
the day the King of Pop would have
turned 51, his father said.
Joe Jackson, 80, said the birthday
burial at Los Angeles’ Forest Lawn
Cemetery would be a private event,
although he could not say which
family members would be present.
The singing star’s interment is to
be held more than two months
after his June 25 death from heart
failure.
Authorities are investigat-
ing whether prescription drugs
played a role in death the death
of Jackson, 50, and have focused
on the role played by his personal
physician Conrad Murray. Murray
was present at the time Jackson
died and reportedly has admitted
prescribing powerful anesthetics to
his world-famous client. – AFP