The angry earth

Death toll continues to grow after Indonesian eruptions

The death toll in the ongoing eruption of Indonesia's Mount Merapi has now reached 275, officials there say. The volcano, on the island of Java, is 17 miles north of Jogjakarta City, in a highly populated and heavily farmed area.

Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency said many of the recent victims died of severe burns. Mount Merapi began erupting on 26 October.

A rare earthquake rattled Hong Kong on Friday, prompting alarmed residents to call local authorities to report feeling the tremor, officials said.

There were no reports of any damage or casualties as a result of the 2.8-magnitude quake, which struck in the middle of the afternoon about 30 kilometres north of Hong Kong, near the Chinese city of Shenzhen.

An asthmatic man became the first fatality amid heightened activity of Bulusan Volcano in the Philippines. Rolando Purino, 28, of Cogon village in Irosin town in Sorsogon, died of respiratory problems from the ash fall.

Furious storms that have been lashing Colombia all this year have killed another six people, pushing the overall death toll to 136, the Red Cross said last week. A mudslide in a slum near Bogota claimed four of the lives.

The organisation estimated that 1.2 million people in Colombia had been affected by the record rains.

One person was killed and many trees uprooted by Cyclone Jal, in the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu, India. The dead man was trapped under the branches of a fallen tree.

The week in laughs

Bill Clinton is going to appear in a movie, he has a small part in a movie called the Hangover 2. George W Bush ?next year will be seen in the new Jackass movie

(David Letterman)

Reports suggest that parts of former President Bush's new book may have been lifted from other books. Especially the parts about Dumbledore and Voldemort

(Conan O'Brien)

Kate Middleton must feel like the luckiest girl in the world at the moment. She's wearing Diana's ring and Prince Phillip hasn't had her assassinated yet..

(Sickipedia)

A scrounger living off the state marrying girl with no job whom, after the wedding, will be living in a home paid for by the taxpayer? No wonder the Daily Mail put the royal engagement on its front page

(Sickipedia)

Go figure

1,700

Aborted foetuses found in a Bangkok temple. Abortion is severely curtailed in Thailand.

8/1

Paddy Power odds against Sarah Palin being the next US?president. Barack Obama is 5/6.

14,000,000

items in?Europeana, the EU's digital archive, since it launched in 2008. www.europeana.eu

On this day

in 1980

Smoke kills more than 80 people
in Las Vegas casino inferno

Eighty-five people died in a fire on the fabled strip in Las Vegas 30 years ago today. The fire occurred at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino (now Bally's Las Vegas) in the Nevada gambling city and is still the third-worst hotel fire in modern US history.

At the time of the fire, approximately 5,000 people were in the hotel and casino, a 26-storey resort with more than 2,000 rooms. Just after 7am on the morning of 21 November 1980, a fire broke out in a restaurant known as The Deli. Smoke and fire spread through the building, killing 85 people and injuring 650, including guests, employees and 14 firefighters. While the fire primarily damaged the second floor casino and restaurants, most of the deaths were on the upper floors.

The disaster led to the general publicising of the fact that during a building fire, smoke inhalation is a more serious threat than flames: 82 people died from inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning, while only one person died from burns alone, and one after jumping from a high window.

The fire was caused by faulty wiring inside the wall used to power a refrigeration unit. Most deaths occurred in the stairwells, where the doors locked behind each person as the only open doors in the stairwell were on the roof and on the ground floor. Most of the victims died from smoke inhalation, many of them in their sleep.

The MGM?Grand fire happened 30 years ago, on this day.

Newshound - What it says in the international press

The Toronto Sun

Big leaf bonus for Canadian boy

Joseph Donato (9) was cycling home from the park when he spotted perhaps the greatest maple leaf of all time lying right there on the road. "The width is 13?" and then the length is 15?" with the stem," says Joseph proudly. Guinness have confirmed the record.

The Desert Sun

Nudists get shirty at full body scanners

Even nudists think the stepped-up security measures being employed at many US airports are overly invasive, the owner of Palm Springs' largest nudist resort said.

"It's an invasion of privacy," said Michael Patrick Williams, of The Desert Sun Resort.

Sydney Morning Herald

Wiggles don't giggle over copyright issue

The children's entertainers the Wiggles have taken on 'Wiggle and Giggle Music', claiming the businesses may be confused. The matter was resolved, a welcome relief for the small firm which runs music and dance classes for children up to five years old.

The Zimbabwe Guardian

Tsvangirai 'duped' by bogus trainer

Prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai's office has once again been caught up in a blunder which has exposed his office's political immaturity as it has emerged that they hired a bogus trainer to train officials in diplomacy in his parallel government.

Checking out

the people we said goodbye to last week

Moira Hoey (née Deady), 88, actor in RTE agri-soap 'The Riordans'

Ronni Chasen, 64,
American ?Hollywood
publicist, shot dead

Wes Santee, 78, American Olympic athlete, cancer

Jeannine 'Mimi' Perrin, 84, French jazz pianist and singer

William Self, 89, US actor and TV and film producer (Batman, Lost in Space)

Ned Ryan, 78, Tipperary-born London socialite and friend of Princess Margaret

Andrew Chambers, 31, Cork player-coach who played underage for Ireland at hockey and cricket

Fred Goldhaber, 63, founder teacher of Harvey Milk School, New York, for gay teenagers, liver cancer