THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2007
NEWS
ARMED FORCES
5A
Navy sailors help Koreans get ship back from pirates
Boat was hijacked off Somalian coast
BY EDWARD HARRIS ASSOCIATED PRESS
NAIROBI, Kenya — A U.S. Navy destrover helped sailors who retook control of their vessel Tuesday in a deadly battle with pirates after the North Korean-flagged ship was hijacked off Somalia, the American military said.
A helicopter flew from the USS James E. Williams to investigate a phoned-in tip of a hijacked vessel, and demanded by bridge-to-bridge
radio that the pirates give up their weapons, the military said in a statement.
The crew of the Dai Hong Dan then overwhelmed the hijackers, leaving two pirates dead, according to preliminary reports.
and five captured, the military said.
and five captured, the military said.
Three seriously injured crew members were brought aboard the Williams, the statement said. The pirates remained on the Dai Hong Dan, which the crew was returning to the port of Mogadishu.
A U.S. Navy spokeswoman said piracy was a scourge in Somalia's waters, and American ships were available to intercede.
"When we get a distress call, we help," said Cmdr. Lydia Robertson of the U.S. Fifth Fleet told The Associated Press by telephone from Manama, Bahrain.
Geoff Morrell, a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Department, said piracy off the Horn of Africa is a concern because "you're talking about an area that has seen greater terrorist involvement."
"The time of fighting has ended, and we are in the season of reconciliation."
It's logical. Morrell said, that the military would want to know "what
is being transported on the high seas and who is out there operating and if they have nothing but the best intentions in mind."
Andrew Mwangura, program coordinator of the Seafarers Assistance Program, said an estimated 22 crew members were aboard the North Korea-flagged vessel that gunmen seized late Monday in Somali waters. His group independently monitors piracy in the region. Workers at the Mogadishu port said the vessel delivered a load of sugar from India.
The U.S. Navy said ships in a coalition monitoring the waters near Somalia were also following a hijacked Japanese vessel in those waters, and that four other boats are still controlled by pirates near Somalia.
SALIM ALIYOW IBROW Somalian prime minister
An international watchdog reported this month that pirate attacks worldwide jumped 14 percent in the first nine months of 2007, with the biggest increases in the poorly policed waters of Somalia and Nigeria.
Piracy off Somalia increased this year after Ethiopian forces backing
Somalia has had 16 years of violence and anarchy, and is now led by a government battling to establish authority even in the capital. Its coasts are virtually unpoliced.
Reported attacks in Somali waters rose to 26, up from eight a year earlier, the London-based International Maritime Bureau said through its piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
A U.S. Navy spokeswoman said piracy was a scourge in Somalia's waters, and American ships were available to intercede.
Somali government troops ousted an Islamic militia in December, said Mwangura.
During the six months that the Council of Islamic Courts ruled most of southern Somalia, where
Somali pirates are based, piracy abated, Mwangura said.
At one point, the Islamic group said it was sending scores of fighters to crack down on pirates there. Islamic fighters even stormed a hijacked, UAE-registered ship and recaptured it after a gunbattle in which pirates — but no crew members — were reportedly wounded.
The Somali capital has become especially unsafe in recent days, with fighting over the weekend between an Islamic militia and government forces backed by Ethiopian troops. The U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday around 36,000 people have been driven from their homes in what locals said was the worst fighting in months, adding to the tens of thousands who fled the capital earlier this year.
Somalia's president named Salim Aliyow ibrow, a former deputy prime minister, as caretaker prime
minister, a day after the outgoing premier lost a power struggle in the government and resigned.
By law,
President
Abdullahi Yusuf
The new prime minister struck a conciliatory tone Tuesday, calling for an end to the country's crisis.
must name a permanent prime minister within 30 days of the resignation.
But hundreds more families around the city's main market were preparing to flee the capital on Tuesday, loading trucks, buses' and donkey carts with their belongings, said Jennifer Pagonis, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
"The time of fighting has ended, and we are in the season of reconciliation," he told The Associated Press.
"They're really rather confused about where to go: whether to stay, whether to leave the city entirely or whether to relocate to another part of the city," she told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland.
》 WILDFIRE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A rescued surfboard and other items saved by firefighters are placed outside a wildfire-burned home in the Rancho Santa Fe community of San Diego County, Calif. Thursday, Rancho Santa Fe is an unincorporated census-designated place in San Diego County, and the highest income community in the United States with at least 2,500 households.
Landscaping rules save California homes
ELLIOT SPAGAT ASSOCIATED PRESS
RANCHO SANTA FE, Calif. — Dr. Jorge Llorente became irritated recently when the fire department kept rejecting his plans to landscape his hacienda-style home with jacarandas and avocado trees.
But he is grateful now.
Those restrictions may well have saved his multimillion-dollar home when a wildfire passed through last week.
"Now that we have a chance to see how it works we are tickled pink," the retired surgeon said. "I'm a convert. I'm a true believer."
Rancho Santa Fe has lots of converts after braving last week's Southern California's wildfires, the first major test of the stringent construction and landscaping standards adopted by the community in 1997. The San Diego suburb lost 53 houses, but none of them were in the five subdivisions that embraced restrictions designed to be so tough that people can stay in their homes if they cannot evacuate.
As Southern California begins to rebuild from the blazes that killed at least seven people and destroyed more than 2,000 homes, homeowners and government officials are looking at places as far away as Australia and as nearby as Stevenson Ranch in Santa Clarita, north of Los Angeles, that have
adopted super-strict standards that require such precautions as non-flammable roofs, indoor sprinklers and regular watering of shrubs.
Rancho Santa Fe practices a strategy known as "shelter-in-place," designed to insulate homes from flames if people cannot evacuate.
Emergency Services Consulting Inc. in Elk Grove, Calif. "It's a success event."
Cliff Hunter, Rancho Santa Fe's fire marshal, believes the standards saved homes.
"I just go by the results," he said as he drove through the wide streets of The Crosby subdivision.
The fire department in Rancho Santa Fe, whose past residents include Bing Crosby and Howard Hughes, scrutinizes plans for every tree and bush and sends inspectors with measuring tapes
JORGE LLORENTE
Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. resident
"Now that we have a chance to see how it works we are tickled pink. I'm a convert. I'm a true believer."
to make sure its orders are obeyed.
where hillside flames stopped just short of homes.
Fire experts caution that no home is fireproof; they prefer the term "ignition-resistant." Advocates say such precautions give firefighters time
Trees and bushes must be a certain distance from the house and cannot exceed a certain height. Roofs must be nonflammable; shrubs near the house must always be watered. Indoor sprinklers are a must.
"Rancho Santa Fe has done some really, really pivotal work," said Ron Coleman, former California state fire marshal and vice president of
Columns must be masonry, stucco or precast concrete; windows must be dual-paned or tempered glass; wood fences cannot touch the home.
to save more vulnerable homes in fast-moving fires.
But some critics say the shelter-in-place strategy may kill homeowners into a false sense of security, leading them to stay put when they should flee. And some say it only encourages construction in tinderbox areas in California and elsewhere across the West.
Nearly 1 million homes in 11 Western states border undeveloped wildlands, and builders are increasingly breaking ground on the edge of wooded areas, according to a study last month by Headwaters Economics, a consulting firm in
Bozeman, Mont.
Despite the destruction in Southern California — and widespread acknowledgment that fire will strike again — there is little doubt homeowners will be allowed to rebuild on the same lots. San Diego County has already issued its first building permit for a home destrored in last week's fires.
But government officials and fire experts say the blazes may lead to stricter standards.
San Diego County, which was hardest hit, will revisit building codes and may add restrictions, said Supervisor Dianne Jacob. In March, the county Department of Planning and Land Use expanded the shelter-in-place concept as an option for new subdivisions in areas where the topography prevents the building of a second escape road.
It is difficult to say how much a shelter-in-place design adds to the cost of a home. Roofing and sprinkler systems can easily run tens of thousands of dollars, said Dan Bailey of the International Code Council, which advises governments on building restrictions. Other measures, such as trimming trees, cost little.
Rancho Sante Fe is a community of about 10,000 people with giant homes on large lots, where golfing and horseback riding are popular pastimes. The median household income in the 92067 ZIP code tops $200,000.
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