New Brunswick's deputy chief medical health officer feels confident about the way the Health Department is rolling out its flu vaccination programs.Dr. Paul Van Buynder made the comments Thursday, while announcing the start of the seasonal flu vaccination program.Swine-flu immunizations will follow in early November, he said.Influenza hasn't...

The danger of heavy rains causing more flooding in Manila, the capital, was enough to force families to flee their homes in low-lying areas. Farther north thousands were evacuated. Nearly half a million people in total are now thought to have fled their homes because of typhoons.But the worst affected area on Saturday was the coast in the...

The tsunami that killed dozens of people in the Pacific islands of Samoa and American Samoa, and sent smaller waves to the east coast of Japan almost 5,000 miles away, was caused by a huge subsea earthquake.A tsunami – literally "harbour wave" in Japanese – is typically caused by seismic activity under the seafloor that sends fast-travelling...

President Obama has let Iran know that it faces an arsenal of sanctions if it fails to completely disclose the nature of its nuclear program and ambitions. But with three rounds of U.N. sanctions already in place -- and Iran's defiant refusal Tuesday to put its nuclear program on the table when it meets Thursday with representatives of the...

Landslides triggered by an earthquake in western Indonesia wiped out at least three villages this week, an official said today.As many as 644 people, including a wedding party, were buried under mountains of mud and debris, according to Rustam Pakaya, the head of the health ministry's crisis centre.If all 644 are confirmed dead, the government's...

MANILA, Philippines — Typhoon Parma slammed into the Philippines today, ripping off roofs, toppling power pylons and swelling rivers in the country's mountainous north. At least two people were killed, an official said.The storm -- the country's second in eight days -- cut a path across the northeastern tip of the main island of Luzon and...

Typhoon Ketsana continued her destructive path Tuesday, raging through central Vietnam. Rivers swelled to record highs, causing street flooding as fierce winds tore through towns. The storm has killed at least 23 in Vietnam and forced the evacuation of more than 170,000 from six central provinces. Ketsana began her course in the Philippines...

President Obama has let Iran know that it faces an arsenal of sanctions if it fails to completely disclose the nature of its nuclear program and ambitions. But with three rounds of U.N. sanctions already in place -- and Iran's defiant refusal Tuesday to put its nuclear program on the table when it meets Thursday with representatives of the...

DUBLIN, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The EU's Lisbon Treaty looks set to be passed by a decisive majority in Ireland, as tallies from around the country indicate a massive swing to the "Yes" side. Although there are no official results yet, tallies everywhere are showing a big increase in support for the Treaty, RTE Radio reported. Irish Foreign...

Rescue teams from around the world poured into the worst-hit area around the regional capital of Padang as chances of finding survivors grew slimmer.Block after block of toppled hotels, hospitals, office buildings and schools had yet to be searched and dozens of unclaimed corpses were laid out in the scorching sun at Dr. M. Djamil General...

The country famed for vintage architecture, rum, cigars and '50s cars has a new spin.Cuba and its tourism industry are ramping up with hip hotels, Chinese-made tour buses and restaurants serving trendy international dishes, partly in anticipation of an influx of Americans and their greenbacks.At the rooftop pool of Havana's Hotel Saratoga,...

Mariamu Stanford, a soft-spoken, 28-year-old single mother from rural Tanzania, has earned a grim distinction: She's one of only two people with albinism -- a group that has faced discrimination in East Africa -- to survive a brutal attack by those wanting to sell the limbs of albinos on the black market. In her first interview with American...

Opposition parties had organised the protest in the capital's main football stadium, which drew some 50,000 people. Demonstrators chanted "We want true democracy."But soldiers from the presidential guard entered the stadium and fired into the crowd, reportedly using tear gas, live ammunition and baton charges against the demonstrators.The...

Australia's campaign will start with those most at risk in the pandemic, including health care workers, pregnant women and the chronically ill.The federal government has ordered 21 million doses of the vaccine developed by Melbourne-based CSL Ltd.A total of 5.5 million doses have been delivered across the country, enough to vaccinate 30 per...

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel will free 20 Palestinian women from jail as early as Friday in exchange for a videotape from Hamas proving an Israeli soldier held in the Gaza Strip since 2006 is alive, officials on both sides said on Wednesday.Egyptian and German mediators are continuing to work on a final deal to swap the soldier, Gilad Shalit,...

Alem Abebe is a 14-year-old girl who left home three years ago and made her way to the capital. She now earns 50 US cents a day working at the Abebech Gobena project in one of the city’s slums. It’s not enough to send money home, but enough to survive — and to pay for night school.But by the World Bank definition, Abebe and other women working...

The tsunami that killed dozens of people in the Pacific islands of Samoa and American Samoa, and sent smaller waves to the east coast of Japan almost 5,000 miles away, was caused by a huge subsea earthquake.A tsunami – literally "harbour wave" in Japanese – is typically caused by seismic activity under the seafloor that sends fast-travelling...

JERUSALEM -- It may seem counterintuitive, but the news that Iran has a second, clandestine uranium enrichment plant, and has just test-fired long-range missiles, could actually put off any plans for a quick Israeli strike.To be sure, Israel still sees an Iran with nuclear weapons as its greatest threat and has not taken a military assault...

The cobbled stone cellars, built in 1177 by Cistercian monks, are cool and dark, lined, now as then, with 1,000-litre barrels made from dark-brown German oak. Closed off from the sun for centuries, these silent, arching caverns form the heart of the Mönchhof (monks' house) riesling winery in the village of Ürzig, purchased from Napoleon by...

Iran announced plans today to test-fire a long-range missile capable of hitting Israel as it adopted a defiant stance over its nuclear capability.It also fired several short-range missiles using a multiple rocket launching system for the first time during military exercises by the regime's Revolutionary Guards.General Hossein Salami, head...

The Philippines government says 240 people are now know to have died in flooding caused by Tropical Storm Ketsana, the AFP news agency reports.The country has appealed for foreign aid to deal with the disaster, which has displaced more than 450,000 people.Some 374,890 people are living in makeshift shelters, three times more than previously...

Reporting from Tegucigalpa, Honduras - The de facto government of Honduras suspended constitutional guarantees indefinitely late Sunday, outlawing public gatherings and making it easier for the army to make arrests.The measure, announced on a nationwide simultaneous television and radio broadcast, came on the eve of a potentially enormous...

If necessity is the mother of invention, we should be looking forward to a breathtakingly innovative agreement on climate change in Copenhagen in December. Such an agreement would not only outline how we should curb greenhouse gas emissions, but also how we could realistically adapt to climate change, and help countries cope with its negative...

You don’t need to be an Obama tour groupie to know we’re a country preoccupied with health care. Even if you’re a scripted-only TV addict, afloat in a DVR-fueled bubble, you can’t miss it. This season, the already long list of medical shows that includes “House,’’ “Grey’s Anatomy,’’ “Nurse Jackie,’’ “Private Practice,’’ and “HawthoRNe’’ will...

By MARC CHAMPION in Brussels, JAY SOLOMON in Washington and CHIP CUMMINS in DubaiIran said it tested short-range missiles in a defiant gesture ahead of talks on its nuclear program, as diplomats noted Tehran is on the defensive over a hidden facility -- but the threat of international sanctions remains uncertain.The missile exercise, which...

The death toll from two suicide bomb attacks in Pakistan rose to 27 on Sunday, a day after the blasts shattered hopes that the militants were a spent force following the killing of their leader last month.A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden truck into a police station in the town of Bannu, the gateway to the North Waziristan militant...

Safire also worked as speechwriter and aide to President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal that ultimately drove him from office in 1974.For the last 30 years of his life, he was best known for his famous New York Times magazine column "On Language".Safire is survived by his wife and two children.Born in New York in 1929, Safire...

Hirohisa Fujii said currency intervention was not necessary as long as the yen moved gradually, and added other countries would not support it.Mr Fujii also said a strong yen had merits - which is unusual, considering Japan is such a large exporter.The yen is up 6.7% against the dollar since June. A stronger yen makes Japanese exports less...

Many Filipino villagers managed to save only the clothes on their backs but began to rebuild Sunday as the flood waters receded from a tropical storm that set off the worst flooding in the Philippine capital in 42 years and left about 80 dead.Army troops, police and civilian volunteers plucked dead bodies from muddy flood waters and rescued...