From Wikinews, the free news source, this is the audio Wikinews brief for Wednesday, April 14th, 2010. I’m Dan Harlow and here are today’s top stories:

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At least 400 people have been killed and a further 10,000 injured after a magnitude 6.9 earthquake and its aftershocks struck the remote and mountainous Yushu county in the south of Qinghai province in western China.

The USGS has reported that the tremors started at 07.49 local time and that the epicenter was located 240 kilometers north-northwest of Qamdo, Xizang at a depth of ten kilometers. However the China Earthquake Networks Centers estimations conflicted with the USGS statistics, putting the earthquake’s magnitude at 7.1.

The head of news for the Yushu county television station, who was a witness to the quake, spoke to the state broadcaster CCTV about the incident, saying “In a flash, the houses went down. It was a terrible earthquake. In a small park, there is a Buddhist tower and the top of the tower fell off.”

An official commented that around 85% of the buildings in the town of Jiegu, located close to the quake’s epicentre, were destroyed, and local official, Huang Limin was quoted by the Chinese Xinhua news service as saying: “Soldiers have been dispatched to save the people buried in the collapsed houses.” Authorities have ordered supplies to be moved to the area, but Yushu is hundreds of miles away from any airport, according to the BBC.

The plateau where the earthquake hit is frequently visited by tremors; though casualties are rare due to its remoteness and small population. However, in May of 2008 an 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck near the Sichuan foothills, killing an estimated 80,000 people.

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Toyota is to suspend sales of its Lexus GX 460 over new safety concerns following an unfavorable verdict from Consumer Reports – the first such warning in almost a decade.

After conducting its standard emergency handling tests on the 2010 version of the Lexus GX 460, Consumer Reports became concerned that the rear of the vehicle had a tendency to slide out, which in real life situations could lead to rollovers. However, the consumer organization is unaware of any such incidents with the 5000 GX 460s sold since its launch three months ago.

Already embattled with ongoing safety issues with its vehicles, Toyota has been quick to act, though it did claim that the car was safe to drive and that it had passed internal safety standards. According to Toyota, “Lexus’ extensive vehicle testing provides a good indication of how our vehicles perform and we are confident that the GX meets our high safety standards.”

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The Vatican prime minister who made comments Monday linking homosexuality to pedophilia has been severely criticized by gay rights activists around the world.

Holy See secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said yesterday that instead of celibacy, homosexuality was responsible for recent allegations of child abuse by Catholic priests. He said, on a televised broadcast in Chile, that “Many psychologists and psychiatrists have shown that there is no link between celibacy and pedophilia but many others have shown, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia.” He also claimed to have documents of scientific studies proving his claims.

His statements were immediately criticized by several gay rights groups in both South America and Europe. The president of Italy’s largest such group, Arcigay, Paolo Patané, says “The equation between homosexuality and pedophilia is a false, despicable and anti-scientific statement that affects the lives and dignity of millions of gay and lesbian people.”

The president of Chilean gay rights group, Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation in Chile, Rolando Jiménez, said that the statement was “a perverse strategy by the Vatican to shirk its own ethical and legal responsibility by making a spurious and disgusting connection.”

The cardinal’s statements are not the first time the Catholic Church has made allegations of a link between homosexuality and pedophilia. In 2005, the Vatican prohibited men from becoming priests if they “showed deeply rooted homosexual tendencies.” That move came shortly after a major child abuse scandal in the United States, and was also seen as implicitly linking homosexuality with pedophilia.

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At least 30 insurgents and two Pakistani soldiers died in a fire fight between Taliban rebels and security forces in the Orakzai region of the North-West Frontier Province. Officials stated that the gun battle started when the insurgents attacked a military base with rockets and mortars. Army Lt. Col. Nadeem Anwar said that the attack “started at midnight and continued until early Monday morning”.

According to local government official, Sajjad Ahmad, troops opened fire aided by artillery when about 200 insurgents attacked a checkpoint. Ahmad told AFP news agency that “[t]he attack was repulsed and up to 32 rebels and two soldiers of paramilitary Frontier Corps were killed”.

In light of recent events, the United Nations said that it might have to close projects for assisting the people of Pakistan as only one-fifth of the funds they had requested has been collected. The UN had appealed for 537 million dollars in February to aid the one million people dispersed due to recurring conflicts in the northwestern parts of Pakistan located near the Afghanistan border.

Martin Mogwanja, humanitarian coordinator of UN for Pakistan told reporters “The response by the international community to this appeal is inadequate,” and that “humanitarian actors responding to the needs of the people are concerned that some of the projects may have to be suspended because of lack of finances.”

Only 106 million dollars had been donated to the body, 20 percent of the total appeal. Mogwanja said that they were in dire need of the remaining portion of the fund and 1.3 million had been displaced in the northwestern parts of the country, against a total of 3.1 million last year.

Meanwhile, on Monday, five others died in attacks in the Abottabad District over the renaming of the North-West Frontier Province. Earlier this month, several people were killed during a political meeting to celebrate the renaming.

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The bodies of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and first lady Maria Kaczynska are lying in state ahead of their funeral on Sunday. The couple died along with 94 other people when the plane they were traveling in crashed in Russia. They will be buried after a memorial to the crash victims.

President Kaczynski’s body was repatriated from Russia on Sunday while the first lady’s was flown to Warsaw airport on Tuesday. Kaczynska’s coffin was driven to the Presidential Palace while draped in Poland’s flag. Thousands of mourners lined the six mile route as her coffin was transported. The first couple will be buried at Wawel Castle on Sunday.

Both chambers of parliament held special sessions to honor the crash victims. Poland is currently observing seven days of mourning while Russia held a day of mourning this past Monday.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is expected to attend the funeral. President of the United States Barack Obama and Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper have both announced that they will also attend.

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And those are the top headlines for Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

This has been the Audio Wikinews brief. To receive the latest news, please visit wikinews.org, presenting up-to-date, relevant, newsworthy and entertaining content without bias. Wikinews is a free service and is funded by your generous donations. Click on the donate link on our homepage to learn how you can contribute. This recording has been released under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

A new study by researchers of Boston University’s School of Public Health and colleagues sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO) shows children with severe pneumonia can be effectively treated at home and do not need to be hospitalized. This finding is hugely significant for developing countries where children cannot be brought to a hospital easily or where no hospitals exist.

Per the study the change of treatment could save many children’s lives and take pressure off health systems. Every year pneumonia kills 2 million children under the age of 5. The researchers found that antibiotics given at home could significantly reduce deaths.

The group examined 2,037 children between 3 to 59 months in seven areas in Pakistan. About half of them were given antibiotics and sent home while the other ones got intravenous antibiotics in the hospital. Both groups were found to show equal progress in healing off the illness.

Current WHO guidelines recommend that pneumonia should be treated in a hospital with injectable antibiotics. With the new study there are indicators that pneumonia can be treated just as effectively at home with oral antibiotics.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Apple Inc. today has introduced the much-anticipated iPhone at the Macworld Conference in San Francisco.

The iPhone is claimed to be “a revolutionary mobile phone” as stated on the Apple website. The device appears to be running a mobile version of the Apple operating system Mac OSX. It is approximately the same size as a 5th generation iPod, it has a 3.5-inch LCD touchscreen display that is used to access all features of the phone including number dial, as well as making phone calls. The iPhone plays music, movies, displays pictures and is able to connect to a wireless network.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the device by walking onto the stage and taking the iPhone out of his jeans pocket. During his 2 hour speech he stated that “Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone, We are going to make history today”.

Today Apple also released their Media Center device – Apple TV. It will directly compete with Microsoft’s Media Center operating system. Apple has taken a different approach to the media center market; rather than storing content (such as movies, music and photos) on the device, Apple TV connects to a computer (Mac and Windows) over a wirless network connection and plays all content stored on that computer. This makes it substantially easier for users to organize their media content.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Corus, the fifth largest steelmaker in the world, is set to cut 2000 jobs in both the United Kingdom and The Netherlands. 123 jobs are reported to be going in the Netherlands with the remainder from the United Kingdom. Corus have blamed the move on the “further deterioration” of the demand for steel in both the United States and Europe.

Corus Chief Executive Kirby Adams stated, “Any recovery in Europe appears to be some time off”. He added that Corus have to achieve “long-term sustainable competitiveness in a global and over-supplied steel market”. In January of this year Corus cut approximately 3,500 staff worldwide; 2,500 of them in Britain.

Peter Hogg, a commercial director at Corus, reported that the company was surprised at the extent of the global recession. He added that it is clear a full recovery is years away.

Some plants have been hit harder than others. Scunthorpe will lose 500 members of staff, with 379 going at Stocksbridge and 377 at Rotherham. Corus will also reduce operations at Hartlepool, Skinningrove and their Teesside Beam Mill, in Cleveland, where an additional 2,000 already face redundancy. A total of 11 plants in the United Kingdom are affected.

Elliot Morley, Labour Member of Parliament for Scunthorpe, told the BBC that he was disappointed with the job cuts and said he had previously told Corus that they should be a last resort. He added that this was a “sad day” for Scunthorpe.

The Community union general secretary Michael Leahy said that it was “devastating news” and spoke of his concerns for the integrity of the British steel industry.

Corus has the second largest steelmaking operation in Europe. The company was bought in 1999 by Tata Steel, part of India’s Tata Group. The company has around 50,000 employees worldwide.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Hundreds of thousands of air travelers had their travel plans disrupted in Europe by volcanic ash from the Eyjafjallajökull eruption.

Tens of thousands of air travelers were stranded when all flights into and out of the United Kingdom were grounded, as it became one of the first nations to be affected. The grounding was even more extensive than that following the September 11 attacks of 2001 when only trans-Atlantic flights were canceled.

Eurocontrol released a statement saying “…most air traffic in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden is suspended.”

The grounding is because the volcanic ash drawn into the jet stream is of a particle size which allows it to remain aloft in the atmosphere. Ingestion of this foreign matter, because of its distribution, would lead to flame outs in all aircraft engines. The composition of the ash also means that it would first melt into glass if it were to enter the engine of an aircraft before solidifying again as it cooled. This could lead to damage to the compressors and fan blades, which would make it impossible to restart the engines, even if the aircraft were to exit the cloud.

The current contingency is informed by the experience of British Airways Flight 9, which on June 24, 1982 suffered just such complete engine flame outs when it flew through the plume of Mount Galunggung in Indonesia. In that case, the flight crew after many efforts was able to restart the engines, though one failed shortly after, and the aircraft landed without casualties.

The UK National Air Traffic Services (NATS) has stated that “restrictions will remain in place in UK controlled airspace until 1300 (UK time) tomorrow, Friday 16 April, at the earliest,” and that “We will review further Met Office information and at 0230 (UK time) tomorrow we will advise the arrangements that will be in place through to 1800 (UK time) tomorrow.” The NATS statement concluded “…the situation cannot be said to be improving”.

In addition to Northern Europe, the ash is drifting south; Berlin and Hamburg airports in Germany are closed, and airports in the Netherlands, Belgium and Northern France are described as now being closed or closing. Some flights from Spain and Portugal, together with upwards of 4,000 flights across Northern Europe, have been affected, and the knock-on effect of aircraft and crews out of position could disrupt air travel worldwide for up to 72 hours.

One affected group are British musicians booked to play at this weekend’s Coachella Festival in California. Amongst those stranded are Frightened Rabbit, Gary Numan, The Cribs and Bad Lieutenant.

Monday, January 25, 2010

An elderly woman has died in a house fire in South Yorkshire, England. The woman, who is currently remaining unidentified, was blind and 93-years-old when her bungalow in Sheffield caught fire as a result of an accident in her kitchen yesterday afternoon.

An internal investigation into the fire has suggested that while the woman was cooking, she dropped a towel onto one of the stovetops while attempting to move a pan on the cooker. The towel then set alight. When she attempted to put out the fire, the towel dropped to the side of the cooker, alongside some plastic bags.

A smoke alarm sounded; a nearby resident heard the alarm and went to assist. The neighbour managed to break into the bedroom window of the bungalow in order to be able to get inside the building. The person made it to the hallway but had to double back upon seeing the fire and the smoke. It is believed that the woman was overwhelmed by the fumes given out from the plastic which was burning.

At around 1350 GMT, fire service workers entered the elderly lady’s residence to find her collapsed inside the kitchen. People investigating the incident have come to the conclusion that this particular fire was an accidental one. A spokesperson for the South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service noted: “Neighbours who tried to enter the property were fought back by smoke and flames.”