Reuters - Bodies pile up as Haiti quake toll rises

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Bodies pile up as Haiti quake toll rises

Thursday, Jan 14, 2010 6:15PM UTC

By Tom Brown and Andrew Cawthorne

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Troops and planeloads of food and medicine trickled in to Haiti on Thursday to aid a traumatized nation still rattled by aftershocks from the catastrophic earthquake that flattened homes and government buildings and buried countless people.

The Haitian Red Cross said it believed 45,000 to 50,000 people had died and 3 million more were hurt or left homeless by the major 7.0 magnitude quake that hit Haiti's capital on Tuesday. The quake flattened entire hillsides and many people were believed to be still trapped alive in the rubble

Heavy aircraft had begun to ferry in aid but the influx had yet to reach shell-shocked Haitians who silently wandered the broken streets of Port-au-Prince, searching desperately for water, food and medical help.

"Money is worth nothing right now, water is the currency," one foreign aid-worker told Reuters.

Looters swarmed a broken supermarket in the Delmas area of Port-au-Prince, peacefully carrying out electronics and bags of rice. Others siphoned gasoline from a wrecked tanker.

"All the policemen are busy rescuing and burying their own families," said tile factory owner Manuel Deheusch. "They don't have the time to patrol the streets."

The United States was sending 3,500 soldiers and 300 medical personnel to help with disaster relief and security in the devastated Caribbean capital, with the first of those scheduled to arrive on Thursday. The Pentagon was also sending an aircraft carrier and three amphibious ships, including one that can carry up to 2,000 Marines.

"To the people of Haiti, we say clearly and with conviction, you will not be forgotten. In this, your hour of greatest need, America stands with you. The world stands with you," President Barack Obama said.

The United States pledged long-term U.S. help for the crippled Haitian government. Parliament, the national palace, and many government buildings collapsed and it was unclear how many lawmakers and officials survived. The main prison also fell, allowing dangerous criminals to escape.

"The authorities that existed before the earthquake are not able to fully function. We're going to try to support them as they re-establish authority," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told CNN.

SURVIVORS DUG OUT

There were still no signs of organized rescue operations to free those trapped in debris, and doctors in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, were ill-equipped to treat the injured.

Survivors feared returning to their precarious homes and slept overnight in open areas where groups of women sang religious songs in the dark and prayed for the dead.

"They want God to help them. We all do," said Hotel Villa Creole employee Dermene Duma, who lost four relatives.

Foreigners slept around the hotel's pool while scores of injured and dying people lay outside. Sobs and wailing were heard throughout the night but aftershocks interrupted the mourning, sending panicked people running away from the walls.

The quake's epicenter was only 10 miles from Port-au-Prince, a sprawling and densely packed city of 4 million people in a nation dogged by poverty, catastrophic natural disasters and political instability.

Bodies lay all around the hilly city. Corpses were delivered by the pickup truck load to the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, where hospital director Guy LaRoche estimated the bodies piled outside the morgue numbered 1,500.

BODY BAGS

The Haitian Red Cross had run out of body bags and the International Committee of the Red Cross said 3,000 were on the way. Brazil, whose troops make up part of the UN peacekeeping force, proposed an emergency plan to set up a new cemetery and the United States was sending mortuary teams.

Haitians clawed at chunks of concrete with bare hands and sledgehammers, trying to free those buried alive.

A 35-year-old Estonian, Tarmo Joveer, was freed from the rubble of the United Nations' five-story headquarters early Thursday, and told journalists he was fine.

The UN said at least 22 members of its 9,000-strong peacekeeping mission had been killed and scores were still missing. Brazil said 14 of its soldiers were among the dead.

Nations around the world pitched in to help. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said three French state aircraft carrying 40 tons of equipment, doctors and security staff had already landed in Haiti and two more were on the way.

The United States, China, and European states were sending reconnaissance and rescue teams, some with search dogs and heavy equipment, while other governments and aid groups sent tents, water purification units, food and telecoms teams.

Aid distribution was hampered because roads were still blocked by rubble and normal communications were cut off.

U.N. peacekeepers around the city seemed overwhelmed by the enormity of the recovery task ahead.

"We just don't know what to do," a Chilean peacekeeper said. "You can see how terrible the damage is. We have not been able to get into all the areas."

Many hospitals were too badly damaged to use, and doctors struggled to treat crushed limbs, head wounds and broken bones at makeshift facilities where medical supplies were scarce.

Aid group Doctors Without Borders was sending an inflatable hospital with two operating theaters and the Brazilian military was sending two field hospitals. The U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort was on the way back to Haiti, where it delivered medical care after a spate of storms caused massive flooding and mudslides in 2008.

(Additional reporting by Raymond Colitt, Carlos Barria, David Morgan, Joseph Guyler Delva, Stephanie Nebehay, Patrick Worsnip and Louis Charbonneau; Writing by Jane Sutton, Pascal Fletcher and Anthony Boadle; Editing by Vicki Allen and David Storey)

Reuters - Google's cyber woes in China may aid security firms

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Google's cyber woes in China may aid security firms

Wednesday, Jan 13, 2010 9:59PM UTC

By Jim Finkle

BOSTON (Reuters) - Cyber attacks on Google Inc's China operations could scare businesses and consumers into spending more on protection, benefiting security companies like McAfee Inc, Symantec Corp and Trend Micro.

Hackers frequently succeed in attacking businesses, security experts say, but companies rarely disclose the breaches because they are afraid of damaging their reputations and encouraging criminals.

"It's basically a call to arms. If Google can be hacked, it can happen to anybody," said Laura DiDio, analyst with technology research firm ITIC.

On Tuesday, Google said that in mid-December, it detected a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack" on its corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google.

The world's largest Internet search engine said its investigation showed that not just Google but at least 20 other large companies from a wide range of businesses, including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical, had been similarly targeted.

Google said it had evidence suggesting that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

It said accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe- based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appeared to have been routinely accessed by third parties.

Google has threatened to quit China, the world's biggest Internet market, saying it would no longer tolerate strict censorship of its Google.cn search engine.

WHO BENEFITS FROM THE CRIME?

"People's security departments are constantly saying, 'We need more security.' Business leaders say, 'Justify that expense'," said Jeff Moss, a member of the U.S. government's Homeland Security Advisory Council and founder of the Black Hat and DEFCON computer hacker conferences.

Moss said that when Google makes a disclosure about such attacks, "It gives the people arguing for budget a really strong argument."

Google offered the anti-virus industry a free advertisement when it disclosed the attack.

"We would advise people to deploy reputable anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on their computers," Google wrote in its official blog, http://googleblog.blogspot.com.

The attacks on Google are the latest in a string of high-profile cyber attacks that Wall Street analysts said have helped security companies outperform the broader technology market.

They cited last year's April 1 "Conficker" worm attack, the "Koobface" Facebook virus, and attacks on U.S. government websites that were believed to have originated from North Korea.

Facebook said on Tuesday that its 350 million users could download a free six-month trial of McAfee's Internet Security Suite, which protects computer users from viruses and other Internet threats.

Market researcher IDC estimates that sales of security software rose 4 percent last year to $15.4 billion, even as overall technology spending declined. IDC projects that it will rise another 6 percent this year.

"Symantec and McAfee are the Batman and Superman in terms of protecting enterprises and consumers," said FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives. "The situation with Google brings the issue even more to the forefront."

Symantec, McAfee and Trend are the three largest makers of anti-virus software.

Jefferies & Co analyst Katherine Egbert said that beneficiaries of increased security spending would include Checkpoint Software Technologies Ltd, SonicWALL Inc and Websense Inc.

"Any time you have a high profile breach like this it creates a wave of awareness. That's nothing but good for the security companies," Egbert said.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle; Editing by Paul Thomasch)

Reuters - Haiti earthquake triggers massive Twitter response

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Haiti earthquake triggers massive Twitter response

Thursday, Jan 14, 2010 12:7AM UTC

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The devastating earthquake in Haiti is the biggest natural disaster so far in the Twitter era, and response on the micro-blogging site has been accordingly momentous.

According to Twitter.com, four of the 10 most popular topics posted on the site were related to Haiti, where the death toll from a magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck on Tuesday could run into the tens of thousands.

Among them were the terms "Port-au-Prince," "Help Haiti," and "Yele," a charity organization founded by Haitian-born musician and record producer Wyclef Jean.

Jean was asking people to text the word "Yele" to the number 501501, which will charge the user $5 and donate the funds to the Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund.

"WARRIORS HAITI NEEDS U NOW!" Jean tweeted on Wednesday, about 24 hours after the quake. "PLEASE LEND YOUR PRAYERS AND SUPPORT TO THE EARTHQUAKE RELIEF EFFORT TEXT 'YELE' TO 501 501 OR VISIT YELE.ORG."

Since its creation in 2006, privately owned San Francisco-based Twitter has become wildly popular as a social networking site and means of communicating information in 140-character bursts.

A search for the term "Haiti" on Twitter found it awash with other means to help, in several languages, including links to websites for such agencies as the Red Cross and Unicef.

Twitterers also shared news from the region, such as aftershocks rattling the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, or the rising death toll. Some sought information about missing or injured friends and relatives.

Others took to the website to pour out their shock, grief or anger. A user with the screen name Crys_Michelle said: "R.I.P. to all involved with the Haiti disaster!!! Ssooo sad."

A user named ladybot wrote: "Reading about Haiti on CNN.com; started crying. It sounds like absolute hell on earth. Not feeling like my $$ are nearly enough."

Many reacted to U.S. televangelist Pat Robertson, who told viewers of his Christian Broadcasting Network on Wednesday that Haiti had been cursed by a "pact to the devil" in 1804 -- a reference to the date of its independence from France.

User michaelianblack wrote, "What kind of deal with the devil did we make to deserve Pat Robertson?"

Facebook spokesman Larry Yu said that since the quake, there had been over 1,500 status updates a minute containing the word "Haiti."

(Editing by Ed Stoddard and Peter Cooney)

CNN - More than 100,000 feared dead in Haiti quake, officials say

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More than 100,000 feared dead in Haiti quake, officials say

Officials fear more than 100,000 people have died as a result of Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti.

The capital, Port-au-Prince, "is flattened," said Haiti's consul general to the U.N., Felix Augustin, who said he believed more than 100,000 people were dead. Hospitals are gone, and medical supplies and heavy equipment are desperately needed, he said.

The country's prime minister said the death toll could be in the hundreds of thousands.

"I hope that is not true, because I hope the people had the time to get out," Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told CNN.

Hear the prime minister describe the situation

President Rene Preval said he heard reports of death tolls ranging from 30,000 to 100,000 -- but he said the true toll is not yet known.

"Let's say that it's too early to give a number," he told CNN's Sanjay Gupta at the airport in Port-au-Prince.

Preval said the country desperately needs medical help.

"Some of the hospitals, they have collapsed," Preval said. "We need some hospitals, some medicine and some doctors."

Late Wednesday afternoon, CNN's Gary Tuchman described the devastation as "horrifying and disturbing."

"Block after block after block, there is not one building," he reported from downtown Port-au-Prince. There also are bodies everywhere, he said, adding there were 12 bodies on one block alone.

People have been piling bodies in the streets, because there is nowhere to take them, CNN's Susan Candiotti reported.

The 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck shortly before 5 p.m. Tuesday, centered about 10 miles (15 kilometers) southwest of Port-au-Prince, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. It could be felt strongly in eastern Cuba, more than 200 miles away.

The earthquake's power matched that of several nuclear bombs, said Roger Searle, a professor of geophysics in the Earth Sciences Department at Durham University in England. He said the combination of its magnitude and geographical shallowness made it particularly dangerous.

About 3 million people -- one-third of Haiti's population -- were affected by the quake, the Red Cross estimated. About 10 million people felt shaking from the earthquake, including 2 million who felt severe trembling, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated.

President Obama said the U.S. would have a "swift, coordinated and aggressive" response.

"The reports and images that we've seen of collapsed hospitals, crumbled homes and men and women carrying their injured neighbors through the streets are truly heart-wrenching," Obama said.

Watch survivors describe what they saw

Aid groups scrambled to help.

None of the three aid centers run by Doctors Without Borders is operable, the group said, and the organization is focusing on re-establishing surgical capacity so it can deal with the crushed limbs and head wounds it is seeing.

Authorities braced for civil disturbances.

Edmond Mulet, the U.N. assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, told CNN that the National Penitentiary collapsed and the inmates escaped, prompting worries about looting by escapees.

Built in 1915, the prison was overcrowded. Enlarged to a total capacity of 1,200, it held 3,908 inmates in December, the U.S. State Department has said.

The earthquake sheared huge slabs of concrete off structures and pancaked scores of them, trapping people inside those buildings, and knocking down phone and power lines.

"One woman, I could only see her head and the rest of her body was trapped under a block wall," said Jonathan de la Durantaye, who drove through Port-au-Prince after the quake. "I think she was dead. She had blood coming out of her eyes and nose and ears."

Impact Your World: How you can help

CNN's Anderson Cooper, viewing Port-au-Prince from a helicopter, called the sight of the destroyed buildings in the quake-devastated city "incredibly shocking" and "eerie."

He said many people are "just kind of standing around on the streets, not really sure what to do or where to go. And for many, there is nowhere to go."

AC360 Blog: Anderson Cooper in Haiti

A worker at a youth ministry said he was on the second floor of a two-story building, and there were many children on the first floor, when the quake hit.

"Everything was flying everywhere and we ran downstairs and we started grabbing kids, four or five of them at a time, and just throwing them to the door. All of the houses around us totally collapsed and not one was left standing, but the one that we're in ... is still standing and every one of us are alive and nobody's hurt," he said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the U.N. headquarters at the Christopher Hotel collapsed in the quake, and that people were still trapped inside. He said possibly 100 or 150 people were in the building around the time the quake struck. He said the chief of the U.N. mission in Haiti and a deputy special representative had not been accounted for.

At least 15 peacekeepers were reported to have died. The Brazilian army said 11 of its soldiers were killed, while state-run media in Jordan reported the deaths of three Jordanian peacekeepers. The Argentine military confirmed the death of one peacekeeper from Argentina.

Joseph Serge Miot, the archbishop of Port-au-Prince, died in the quake, according to the official Vatican newspaper. Also among the dead were 100 priests and aspiring priests, said Papal Nuncio Bernardito Auza, speaking to the Vatican's Fides news agency, which is owned by the Roman Catholic Church.

A religious conference was under way when the quake occurred, he said. "There were priests and nuns in the street. ... Everywhere, you heard cries from beneath the rubble."

Are you there? Submit an iReport

The presidential palace in Port-au-Prince was in ruins. Preval, Haiti's president, said he did not know where he was going to sleep Wednesday night.

"I have plenty of time to look for a bed," he said late in the afternoon. "But now I am working on how to rescue the people. Sleeping is not the problem."

A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter evacuated four critically injured U.S. Embassy staff to the Naval Station Guantanamo, Cuba, hospital for further treatment.

Cheryl Mills, counselor to the secretary of state and the driving force behind Haiti policy formulation at the U.S. State Department, said about 80 embassy spouses, children and non-essential personnel planned to leave Wednesday afternoon.

Obama urged Americans trying to locate family members in Haiti to telephone the State Department at 888-407-4747.

Are you looking for loved ones?

Haiti's main airport appeared to be operable, which should enable foreign aid to start flowing into the country, State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley said Wednesday.

The U.S. military is working to get ground and air assessments of the damage. Two Coast Guard cutters were off Port-au-Prince Wednesday afternoon, one of which was providing air traffic control for the airport, where the control tower was damaged, U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, R-Florida, said.

Military airplanes and choppers were deploying to the scene, and Navy ships were getting ready to go.

Many countries and agencies across the globe geared up to help Haiti. A 50-member Chinese rescue team planned to deploy, Xinhua news agency said, and Ban said the U.N. plans to release $10 million in aid immediately.

Reuters - U.S., Google take hard line on China Web censorship

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U.S., Google take hard line on China Web censorship

Wednesday, Jan 13, 2010 4:25AM UTC

By Alexei Oreskovic

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc said it may pull out of China because it is no longer willing to accept censorship of its search results, in a surprise retreat from the world's largest Internet market by users.

The announcement on Tuesday comes amid growing tensions between China and the United States over Internet freedoms, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton set to announce a technology policy next week to help citizens in other countries gain access to an uncensored Web.

Google said it had uncovered a sophisticated attack on the email accounts of Chinese human rights activists using its Gmail service, and that more than 20 other companies were similarly attacked.

"These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered -- combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the Web -- have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China," Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond said in a statement posted on the company's blog.

"We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China."

The search market in China, while small in revenue terms, has 360 million Internet users and is viewed as a critical battleground for Google. It is one of the rare markets where the U.S. company is not in the lead, lagging homegrown rival Baidu Inc, which commands a 60 percent share of the Chinese Internet search market versus Google's 30 percent.

Shares of Google fell 1.3 percent in after-hours trading following the news that it might withdraw from China, while shares of Baidu jumped 6.8 percent.

China's tough stance on Web censorship has put it at odds with Western technology firms in recent years. The latest dispute had pit personal computer makers against a Chinese government that said it was intent on keeping pornography out of the hands of China's youth, though many believe the move involved censorship and invasion of privacy.

In June, Beijing ordered Google to block overseas sites with "vulgar" content from being accessible through the Chinese language version of its search engine. Google said then that it met with Chinese government officials and was taking necessary steps to ensure search results on its Chinese site complied.

NO ACCESS?

Google said the hackers had tried to access the Gmail email accounts of Chinese human rights activists but only managed to access two unidentified accounts, and then only subject headings and other data such as when the account was created.

It did not say what information the hackers tried to access from the other corporations, nor which they were. Google said it was now notifying the other affected corporations, adding that it was working with the U.S. authorities.

A Google spokesperson said the company was still investigating the attack and would not say whether Google believed Chinese authorities were involved.

The "implication here is that the government is somehow responsible for conducting this cyber-attack and I guess they feel they cannot operate in that kind of an environment," said RBC Capital Markets analyst Stephen Ju.

"This is a complete 180 turnaround (for Google). Just about every earnings call recently has been that they are focused on the long-term growth opportunities for China and that they are committed."

Google generated 53 percent of its $5.9 billion in revenue in the third quarter outside of the United States. It does not disclose the size of its business in China, where it maintains the Chinese-language Google.cn which the company says complies with local laws.

Google has faced a rocky road in China, where its video site YouTube has been inaccessible since March. Many of Google's primary services, such as Gmail and Google.com, became briefly inaccessible to many Chinese users last year.

"We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all," Drummond said.

Human rights have been a frequent source of tension between the United States and China, which is the largest holder of U.S. Treasuries, with total holdings of $798.9 billion.

Last week, Clinton dined with tech heavyweights such as Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Microsoft Corp research and strategy chief Craig Mundie, and Cisco Systems Inc Executive Vice President Sue Bostrom. It was not clear if the meeting was related to Google's revelation, and the companies had no immediate comment.

According to a JPMorgan estimate this month, the search market in China hit $1 billion in 2009 and will grow to $1.5 billion in 2010. But search advertising is still less than 50 percent of the total online ad market in China, compared with 67 percent in the United States, according to JPMorgan.

"What makes Google the largest search engine and one of the leading Internet companies is that they care about users' privacy, and if that privacy comes under challenge it may impact their global business," said Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal. "They obviously did not appreciate the attack ... We should not take the Google threat lightly."

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic and Edwin Chan; Additional reporting by Jim Finkle; Editing by Peter Henderson, Steve Orlofsky and Richard Chang)

CNN - 7.0 quake hits Haiti; 'Serious loss of life' expected

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7.0 quake hits Haiti; 'Serious loss of life' expected

A major earthquake struck southern Haiti on Tuesday, knocking down buildings and power lines and inflicting what its ambassador to the United States called a catastrophe for the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.

Several eyewitnesses reported heavy damage and bodies in the streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince, where concrete-block homes line steep hillsides. There was no estimate of the dead and wounded Tuesday evening, but the U.S. State Department has been told to expect "serious loss of life," department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters in Washington.

"The only thing I can do now is pray and hope for the best," the ambassador, Raymond Alcide Joseph, told CNN.

Pictures sent to CNN's iReport show what appear to be homes and small businesses in Haiti that have collapsed.

Are you there? Submit an iReport

The magnitude 7.0 quake -- the most powerful to hit Haiti in a century -- struck shortly before 5 p.m. and was centered about 10 miles (15 kilometers) southwest of Port-au-Prince, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. It could be felt strongly in eastern Cuba, more than 200 miles away, witnesses said.

Mike Godfrey, an American contractor working for the U.S. Agency for International Development, said "a huge plume of dust and smoke rose up over the city" within minutes of the quake -- "a blanket that completely covered the city and obscured it for about 20 minutes."

Witnesses reported damaged buildings throughout the capital, including the president's residence and century-old homes nearby, and The Associated Press reported that a hospital collapsed. President Rene Preval is safe, Joseph said, but there was no estimate of the dead and wounded Tuesday evening.

He said an official of his government told him houses had crumbled "on the right side of the street and the left side of the street."

"He said it is a catastrophe of major proportions," Joseph said.

Impact Your World: How you can help

Frank Williams, the Haitian director of the relief agency World Vision International, said the quake left people "pretty much screaming" all around Port-au-Prince. He said the agency's building shook for about 35 seconds, "and portions of things on the building fell off."

"None of our staff were injured, but lots of walls are falling down," Williams said. "Many of our staff have tried to leave, but were unsuccessful because the walls from buildings and private residences are falling into the streets, so that it has pretty much blocked significantly most of the traffic."

Read what people in Haiti are saying via social media

Haiti's government is backed by a U.N. peacekeeping mission established after the ouster of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004.

The headquarters of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Port-au-Prince collapsed, a U.N. official told CNN.

There was no immediate report of any dead or wounded from the building, but Alain Le Roy, the undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations said of the 9,000-member, Brazilian led-force, "For the moment, a large number of personnel remain unaccounted for." Outside the capital, several people were hurt when they rushed to get out of a school in the southwestern city of Les Cayes, said the Rev. Kesner Ajax, the school's executive director. Two homes in the area collapsed and the top of a church collapsed in a nearby town, he said, but he did not know of any fatalities.

Les Cayes, a city of about 400,000 people, is about 140 miles (225 kilometers) southwest of Port-au-Prince.

The quake was centered about 6 miles (10 kilometers) underground, according to the USGS -- a depth that can produce severe shaking. At least 10 aftershocks followed, including two in the magnitude 5 range, the USGS reported.

Appeals for aid after quake strikes Haiti

Jean Bernard, an eyewitness in Port-au-Prince, told CNN the city had no electricity Tuesday evening. The first quake lasted 35 to 40 seconds, he said.

"A lot of houses [and] buildings went down, and people are still running all over the streets," Bernard said. "People are looking for their wives, looking for their husbands and their kids. It's scary."

Luke Renner, an American staying in Cap-Hatien, a city nearly 100 miles north of Port-au-Prince, said he was sitting at his home when "the whole world started to shake."

"It felt like our whole house was balancing on a beach ball," Renner said. "We heard the whole community screaming and in an uproar during that whole 20- to 30-second window."

"I haven't seen any structural damage here," Renner continued. "With the sun setting it may be difficult to tell. In the morning we'll know for sure."

Because of the earthquake's proximity to the capital, and because the city is densely populated and has poorly constructed housing, "it could cause significant casualties," said Jian Lin, a senior geologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

In Washington, President Obama said the U.S. government would "stand ready to assist the people of Haiti." At the Pentagon, the U.S. military said humanitarian aid was being prepared for shipping, but it was not yet clear where or how it would be sent. A U.S. aviation source said the control tower at the Port-au-Prince international airport collapsed, possibly hindering efforts to fly relief supplies into the country.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters that Washington is offering "our full assistance" to Haiti."

The deputy chief of the U.S. mission in Haiti, David Lindwall, told Clinton that he saw "significant damage" from the quake and said U.S. officials there expect "serious loss of life," Crowley said.

And Clinton's husband, former President Clinton -- now the U.N. special envoy for Haiti -- said the world body was "committed to do whatever we can to assist the people of Haiti in their relief, rebuilding and recovery efforts."

The United States has been heavily involved in Haiti commercially, politically and militarily for most of the last century. U.S. intervention under Clinton restored Aristide to power in 1994 after a 1991 coup, and a U.S. jet hustled him out of the country again in 2004 following a rapidly spreading uprising against his government.

The disaster is the latest to befall the country of about 9 million people, roughly the size of Maryland. It is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and among the poorest in the world.

With people stripping the trees for fuel and to clear land for agriculture, the mountainous countryside has been heavily deforested. That has led to severe erosion and left Haitians vulnerable to massive landslides when heavy rains fall.

Hurricane Gordon killed more than 1,000 people in 1994, while Hurricane Georges killed more than 400 and destroyed the majority of the country's crops in 1998. And in 2004, Hurricane Jeanne killed more than 3,000 people as it passed north of Haiti, with most of the deaths in the northwestern city of Gonaives.

Gonaives was hit heavily again in 2008, when four tropical systems passed through.

In addition, a Haitian school collapsed in November 2008, killing more than 90 people and injuring 150 -- a disaster authorities blamed on poor construction.

Eighty percent of Haiti's population lives under the poverty line, according to the CIA World Factbook.

Reuters - Qualcomm to support Google's Chrome OS

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Qualcomm to support Google's Chrome OS

Friday, Jan 08, 2010 8:0PM UTC

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) -Qualcomm plans to support Chrome, Google Inc's upcoming operating system for small computers known as netbooks, the company's chief executive, Paul Jacobs, said on Friday.

Jacobs, who heads the leading maker of mobile phone chips, announced support for Chrome during a speech at the Consumer Electronics Show that focused on the convergence of wireless and computing.

The executive, a first-time keynote speaker at the annual gadget festival, also said 15 different device makers are designing about 40 products that will use Qualcomm's Snapdragon chip for smartphones and mobile computing devices.

Also during Jacobs' presentation, the chief executive of HTC Corp came on stage to announce that his company would support Qualcomm's Brew mobile application platform.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Reuters - Judges question FCC authority in Comcast case

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Judges question FCC authority in Comcast case

Friday, Jan 08, 2010 11:17PM UTC

By John Poirier

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. judges questioned the FCC's authority to punish Comcast Corp for blocking online file-sharing services on Friday in a case that could wind up curbing the regulators' campaign for a free and open Internet.

A three-judge panel appeared unsatisfied with Federal Communications Commission arguments and was probing whether the FCC acted based on established rules or on direct authority from Congress on broadband network management issues.

The case, which may not be decided by the court for several months, could severely hamper the FCC's push to maintain an open and free Internet through a "net neutrality" rule-making proposal if the judges decide the agency lacks authority.

That could in turn prompt the FCC, which has argued it has broad authority through regulation of the cable and telephone industries, to ask Congress to pass "open Internet" legislation, which has been waiting in the wings to give the agency cover if needed.

In a packed courtroom of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Judge A. Raymond Randolph told FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick that it appeared the FCC acted based on policy statements that are "aspirational, not operational."

"It's very difficult to predict what the court will do based on oral argument, but it certainly appears that the judges were troubled by the FCC's order," former FCC General Counsel Sam Feder said.

"A lot of regulation -- both present and future -- could go down with this case," said Feder, a partner at Jenner & Block.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said he was confident the agency has the legal authority. "Our hope is that there's an outcome that preserves a free and open Internet and accomplishes what we're in this game to do," he said at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

In 2008 under then-Republican Chairman Kevin Martin, the FCC upheld a complaint accusing Comcast of violating the agency's open Internet principles by blocking file-sharing services that distribute video and television shows.

Comcast then challenged the FCC order and asked a federal appeals court to reverse the action, which required the biggest U.S. cable operator to change its management practices.

Paul Galant, an analyst with Concept Capital, said it appears likely the court's ruling will strike down the FCC's move and said even some additional legal or political maneuvering is not guaranteed to succeed.

NETWORK BLOCKING, OR MANAGEMENT?

The FCC is now guided by a set of principles dating back to 2005 and aimed at preventing Internet service providers from interfering with certain network traffic.

Backed by many advocates, the FCC and Genachowski, a Democrat appointed by President Barack Obama, proposed rules in October that would put teeth behind those guidelines.

Obama strongly backed an open Internet, or net neutrality, during the campaign and as a senator.

The FCC may not act on a final net neutrality rule possibly affecting Internet providers Comcast, AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc until spring.

But Comcast and other Internet providers argue they must engage in reasonable network management due to increasing bandwidth-hogging applications used by consumers.

During the oral arguments before the three-judge panel, an attorney for Comcast argued the FCC acted based on a set of nonbinding principles rather than on established rules or direct congressional authority.

"All that existed was a policy statement," said Helgi Walker, an attorney representing Comcast, referring to the set of principles opposed to blocking, discriminating or degrading content by Internet providers.

Walker asked the judges to vacate the FCC order and erase the black mark from the company, which has already agreed to comply fully with the FCC requirements to alter its network management practices.

Experts say the FCC could salvage a win even if the judges decide that the FCC process -- not its authority -- was flawed because it could still move forward with its net neutrality proposal by changing its process.

(Additional reporting by Sinead Carew in Las Vegas; editing by Andre Grenon, Gary Hill)

Reuters - Google becoming "giant monopoly" - German minister

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Google becoming "giant monopoly" - German minister

Saturday, Jan 09, 2010 5:33PM UTC

BERLIN (Reuters) - Internet search engine Google Inc is becoming a "giant monopoly" like Microsoft and could face legal action if it does not become more transparent, Germany's justice minister said.

In an interview with weekly magazine Der Spiegel Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said she was concerned the firm was accruing too much power and information about citizens via programs like Google Earth and Google Books.

"All in all, what's taking shape there to a large extent is a giant monopoly, similar to Microsoft," the minister said.

"My initial response is not to ban something or stop something. But I do want to create more transparency and ensure that users know what is going on with their data," she added.

"I think the companies have an obligation here, and a lot of things ought to be improved. If that doesn't happen soon we may have to take action as legislators."

A liberal member of the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP), Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger also served as justice minister between 1992 and 1996, when she stood down in protest about moves to allow the state more scope to snoop on citizens.

A spokesman for Google in Germany said offering users full transparency was central to how the company operated and that it was constantly working to make improvements in this realm.

(Reporting by Dave Graham and Klaus-Peter Senger)

Reuters - Republicans call on Senator Reid to quit post

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Republicans call on Senator Reid to quit post

Sunday, Jan 10, 2010 5:28PM UTC

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican Party chief called on Senator Harry Reid on Sunday to step down as Senate majority leader over racial comments about President Barack Obama, while Democrats tried to put the issue behind them.

Reid, a key figure in pushing Obama's agenda through Congress, apologized to the president on Saturday over remarks published in a new book calling Obama a "light-skinned" black man "with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one."

Both Obama and Reid are Democrats.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said Reid should step aside as Senate majority leader, saying if a Republican made the same remarks Democrats would be "screaming for his head."

"Oh yeah, there's a big double standard here," Steele, who is black, said on the NBC program "Meet the Press."

"There is this standard where the Democrats feel that they can say these things and they can apologize when it ... comes from the mouths of their own. But if it comes from anyone else, it's racism," Steele added on "Fox News Sunday."

Steele said Reid used "anachronistic language," adding, "It harkens back to the 1950s and 60s, and it confirms to me a mind-set that's out of step with where America is today."

Steele was asked about his use in a recent television appearance of the words "honest injun," seen as disparaging toward American Indians. Asked if his own words were a racial slur, Steele said, "Well, if it is, I apologize for it. ... I wasn't intending to say a racial slur at all."

Reid's comments, made in private conversations, were quoted in a newly published book about the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, "Game Change," by Time magazine reporter Mark Halperin and New York magazine writer John Heileman.

'A POOR CHOICE OF WORDS'

Reid on Saturday apologized for "using such a poor choice of words." Obama issued a statement accepting the apology.

Reid, 70, has been a close partner of the White House on key Obama initiatives, and succeeded in helping to round up the 60 votes needed to win Senate passage on December 24 of a healthcare reform bill, Obama's top legislative priority.

It is unclear whether this controversy will undermine Reid's influence in the Senate. Reid is also facing a tough re-election battle in Nevada this November.

Democratic Party chairman Tim Kaine said "the comments were unfortunate and they were insensitive," but he said there is no reason for Reid to step down as majority leader.

"I think the case is closed because President Obama has spoken directly with the leader (Reid) and accepted his apology. ... We're moving on," Kaine told "Meet the Press."

"Harry Reid made a misstatement. He owned up to it. He apologized. I think he is mortified by the statement he's made. And I don't think he should step down," Democratic Senator Jack Reed told "Fox News Sunday."

Republicans compared Reid's remarks to those made in 2002 by Republican Trent Lott, praising former segregationist presidential candidate and long-time senator Strom Thurmond. Lott stepped down as Senate majority leader over the comments.

"If he (Lott) should resign, then Harry Reid should," Republican Senator Jon Kyl told "Fox News Sunday."

(Editing by Todd Eastham)