China PM responds to outrage over school bus crash

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at the ASEAN-China Commemorative Summit in Nusa Dua on the Indonesian island of Bali November 18, 2011. Wen pledged central and local government funds to improve and provide school bus service to China’s schools in the wake of a traffic accident that killed 18 pre-school children.


Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao today pledged central and local government funds to improve and provide school bus service to schools in the wake of a traffic accident that killed 18 pre-school children and sparked outrage across the country.

A school van with nine seats but crammed with 62 children and two adults crashed head-on into a coal truck in western Gansu province after the van swerved into oncoming traffic, television and other media reports said.

The two adults on board also died in the crash and 44 people were injured.

At least 13 dead in the shootout in a Brazilian school

A combination picture of images taken from a security camera video distributed by the Rio police shows students running from the classroom where gunman Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, 24,

Moment grieving mother fights off violent mugger's attack as he tries to steal her phone... with a video of her dead baby on it

This is the horrifying moment a mother is punched to the ground by a violent mugger trying to steal her purse.

But the brave woman fights the thug off in a desperate bid to keep hold of her purse - because inside it was a recording of her dead baby calling her 'Mommy'.

The unnamed woman was punched in the face and dragged along the street in the Venice beach area of Los Angeles.

One of the possessions in the bag was a mobile phone with recordings of her infant daughter Minty on it.

Ready to die: Footage shows the unnamed mother and her baby daughter, Minty, who died ten weeks ago of cancer

Not letting go: The defiant woman is dragged into the road by her attacker

Cult leader who styled himself 'Black Jesus' convicted of raping young 'flower girls'

A cult leader known as 'Black Jesus' has been found guilty of raping young 'flower girls' belonging to his Papua New Guinea sect.

Steven Tari, 38, avoided a murder charge even though villigers claimed he had sacrificed at least three of the girls and drunk their blood.

The Lutheran pastor's first hit the headlines when he was captured in 2007 after eluding police for more than a year by moving from village to village in the Transgogol area of Madang province.

Guilty: Steven Tari (pictured) has been convicted by a court in Madang of four counts of rape

Girl, 15, who went on a post-Christmas diet dies from anorexia in a year

When Anna Wood said she was joining her mother on a post-Christmas diet, they expected to lose a few pounds then carry on life as normal.

But within months the grade-A student at an independent school was caught in the grip of a terrible eating disorder.

Her battle with anorexia took her through several crises, all the time reducing her frail body’s ability to survive.

And just over a year after starting the diet, she died aged 16.

A shadow of her former self: Anna in the grip of her anorexia and before she started the diet that ended up causing her death

Man shoots dead wife and four stepchildren before turning the gun on himself but spare his 2 own children

A father shot dead his wife and four stepchildren but spared his two biological children before turning the gun on himself.

Authorities say seven children were inside the south Florida home early on Monday morning when 41-year-old Patrick Dell killed 36-year-old Natasha Whyte-Dell.

She and four children were pronounced dead at the scene. All had been shot.

A body is removed from the Florida home where a man killed his wife and four stepchildren before turning the gun on himself. He spared his biological children

Parents' fury as teenage daughter dies just days after doctors sent her home and 'told her to take paracetamol'

Amy Carter, on the day she was released from Worcestershire Royal Hospital. She died three days later after suffering multiple organ failure and four heart attacks

A schoolgirl suffered multiple organ failure and four heart attacks just days after doctors sent her home with paracetamol and told her to take 'plenty of rest', an inquest heard.

Amy Carter, 15, begged doctors not to discharge her, telling them 'I'm dying' but medics assured her she would be fine.

She developed septicaemia after being released by doctors who had diagnosed her with glandular fever.

Two days later on Christmas Eve, Amy - who had not been able to eat for 19 days and weighed just six stone - was taken to hospital and died hours later.

Horror as woman stamps on her baby after being accused of stealing a mobile

This was the shocking moment a woman accused of stealing a mobile phone in China threw her baby on the ground and stamped on it.

The hideous incident came after a high school student had challenged the woman and a female friend, both holding babies, after being told by witnesses that they had stolen her phone.
The confrontation turned physical and the police were called in Zhengzhou, Henan province.

Officers arrived along with some of the student's relatives. One of these family members pushed one of the suspected thieves who, shockingly, responded by throwing her baby on to the road and stamping on it while shouting in protest.

The Chinese boy saved from certain death by his big ears (or, how Ming Ming's head got stuck in a grate eight storeys up)

Close call: The flat in which Ming Ming lives, circled.Ming Ming appears to be praying as workers fight desperately to free him.Don't move, Ming Ming! Firefighters work to save a six-year-old boy whose head got stuck in a window grate... eight storeys up

A boy in China was saved from the certain death of an eight-storey fall when his head got stuck in the bars of a window after he fell through.

Ming Ming, aged six, was only prevented from plunging straight through the grate to his death by his ears.

Instead, he was left dangling high above the street, to the terror of passers-by below.

The agonising decision faced by the parents of conjoined twins who share a heart... and must be separated

---


It is one of the most agonising decisions any parent could have to make.

Conjoined twins Emma and Taylor Bailey, three, will die if they are not separated because too much strain is being put on their shared heart.

But the odds that even one would survive the complex operation are extremely slim.
No twins born with one heart have ever been separated successfully.
Now doctors say that time is running out for their parents to make their choice.

Emma and Taylor, who are fused from the breastbone to the belly button, have already defied experts once.
They were expected to live for only 15 minutes because it was thought that their heart would become overworked as soon as they took their first breath.

But doctors say they must be separated in the next year or two to have any chance of survival.

The girls also share a liver. For the surgery to succeed, it is likely that they will both need heart transplants and one will need a new liver.
Their American mother Mandy Bailey, 32, who lives in Arizona, said: 'There's a tiny window of time for a separation. We have to get it completely right, if we wait too long then the operation cannot go ahead.

'In the next year, life for all of us will be drastically different.

'We know we have to make difficult choices. We understand the risks. But we also understand the outcome if we don't do anything.'

She said that when the girls were born, all her husband Tor, a 34-yearold builder, had hoped for was to hear them cry just once.

'We were told they would live for minutes and then they would suffocate,' she added. 'The girls were handed to him straight away and they simultaneously inhaled and quietly cried. It was a magical sound.'

The twins' future was still uncertain when they were well enough to be discharged from hospital. They were given oxygen and medication to strengthen their lungs and have astonished doctors with their progress.

They can feed themselves and are learning to get about using a special walker.

Mrs Bailey said: 'The girls are becoming different people and developing adorable little traits. Taylor is the bossy one.

'Emma is a bit crazy, she's always pulling funny faces.' The Baileys have four other children aged 11, nine, seven and two. Emma and Taylor have already had several smaller heart operations.

One in June last year involved placing a band around Emma's aorta to reduce her blood pressure.

Seattle Children's Hospital, which is overseeing the twins' care, does not want to discuss the treatment.

Mrs Bailey said: 'We realise what a great miracle it is for our daughters to be alive and happy. They are a blessing for our family.'



Independent: The girls move around using a specially-adapted walker and are able to feed themselves

Dilemma: Emma and Taylor Bailey share a single heart, but must be separated if they are to survive

Miracle: When the girls were born, doctors said they would live for only a few minutes

Family time: The three-year-old twins with their mother Mandy, who is also mother two four other children

The curse of Fallujah: Women warned not to have babies because of rise in birth defects since U.S. assault

Mother's agony: BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson is shown photographs of children with birth defects in the Fallujah clinic

A photograph of another disabled youngster born since the American assault on Fallujah

Birth defects: A Fallujah mother holds her little girl, who was born without a left forearm and hand

Curse of Fallujah: This little girl was born with deformed feet

Collateral damage? Another Fallujah youngster born with six fingers on one hand

Mystery: An infant born with just one eye battling to stay alive in the Fallujah clinic

A soldier from the U.S. Army 1st Infantry Division leaps through an opening in a broken wall while clearing abandoned buildings of insurgent fighters in Fallujah in 2004

The battle for Fallujah: Insurgents load a rocket-propelled grenade into a launch tube during an attack on U.S. forces in Fallujah on November 8, 2004

A high number of children are being born with birth defects in an Iraqi city where U.S. forces may have used chemical weapons during a fierce battle in 2004.

Children in Fallujah are being born with limb, head, heart and nervous system defects. There is even a claim that a baby was born with three heads.

The number of heart defects among newborn babies is said to be 13 times higher than the rate in Europe.
The city, 40 miles west of Baghdad, was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the Iraq war in late 2004. U.S. Marines led Operation Phantom Fury to recapture it from insurgents.

British troops were involved in manning checkpoints on the outskirts of the city as the Americans went in. The U.S. has admitted that it used white phosphorus in the attack, but only as an illumination device.

Under international law it is illegal if used as an offensive weapon. America has never given a clear response to claims it also used depleted uranium weapons against the insurgents, such as ‘bunkerbuster’ bombs. Both types of weapons can contaminate crops and water supplies.

The BBC’s John Simpson reported on Thursday from Fallujah that, while there had been no authoritative medical investigation, there was growing evidence of an alarming incidence of birth defects
We went to a clinic for the disabled, and were given details of dozens upon dozens of cases of children with serious birth defects,’ he said. ‘One photograph I saw showed a newborn baby with three heads.’

He said that while he was at a U.S.-funded hospital in the city, a stream of parents arrived with children who had limb defects, spinal conditions and other problems.
A British-based Iraq researcher, Malik Hamdan, told the BBC that Fallujah doctors were swamped by a ‘massive, unprecedented’ number of heart defects and other problems.

Figures from a city doctor from 2003, before the war, showed she was dealing with one birth defect every two months at that time, but was now seeing at least one case a day.

Miss Hamdan said data from this January showed the rate of heart defects among newborns was 95 per 1,000 births – 13 times that of Europe

Simpson said that the worst problems appeared to be in a part of the city which was at the heart of the resistance to the Allies.

The Americans said they took public health concerns ‘very seriously’.

A U.S. military spokesman added: ‘No studies to date have indicated environmental issues resulting in specific health issues.’

Fallujah became infamous after the burned corpses of four U.S. contractors were dragged through the streets in March 2004. Rebel leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had gathered up to 5,000 rebels there.

It was encircled by U.S. forces, along with the Black Watch Regiment, to ensure no rebels escaped. However, civilians were encouraged to leave and up to 90 per cent of the 300,000 population did so.

The attack began late on November 7 and by November 16, U.S. officials announced that Fallujah had been cleared. The battle cost America 51 dead but up to 1,400 gunmen were killed.
SHELLS WITH A RADIOACTIVE PUNCH

Radiation experts claim the birth defects have been caused by uranium. Depleted uranium, or spent nuclear fuel, is twice as dense as lead, making it an effective material for armour-piercing shells and bullets.

On hitting a tank or bunker, they disintegrate, with up to 40 per cent of the uranium, which is still radioactive, turning into fine powder.

Roger Coghill, a Government adviser on the health risks of radiation who has research labs in Gwent, said: ‘The particles are so small that they don’t fall back to earth, they hang around in the atmosphere and are still very deadly years after the conflict.’

The dust particles are not only poisonous, they can enter the bloodstream and become lodged in the lymph glands from where they emit radiation that could cause cancer.

Chris Busby, an Ulster University expert in the effects of radiation, said the uranium particles can also wreck the DNA of sperm and eggs produced by contaminated adults – causing a multitude of birth defects in any baby they conceive.

Professor Busby, who is also co-founder of environmental consultancy Green Audit, said: ‘White phosphorus is not something that specifically damages the DNA.

‘But depleted uranium, normal uranium and enriched uranium are all mutagens and cause birth defects at quite small concentrations.

'It WAS Maddie': Witness convinced girl in photo that Portuguese police kept secret was missing Madeleine

The woman who reported a possible sighting of Madeleine McCann in New Zealand which was kept secret by Portuguese police said today she 'absolutely believes' it was the missing girl.

Files have been released showing that Portuguese police dismissed dozens of potential sightings of Madeleine.

Leads from around the world - including the CCTV footage from New Zealand of a child looking strikingly like the missing girl - were filed away under the heading 'not relevant'.

Information that police forces in the United States, Europe and North Africa considered important was also discarded.

None of the files was handed to private investigators working for Madeleine's parents, Gerry and Kate.
Taryn Dryfhout was working on the tills at the Warehouse discount store in Dunedin, New Zealand, when she saw the girl with a man, a woman and a boy.

She said the girl 'looked just like" Madeleine and spoke with an English accent.

Ms Dryfhout told broadcaster TVNZ's ONE News: 'She told me that her name was Hayley and was quite apprehensive... and sort of stammered over her words when she was trying to think of her name. She was just very shy and afraid.'

The shop worker said the adults with the children were 'a little bit suspicious' and added that the woman seemed to be in a hurry to leave when she spoke to her.

Ms Dryfhout said it was disappointing that her possible sighting was not fully followed up.

She told the broadcaster: 'I absolutely believe it was her. I have no doubt in my mind'.

Mrs McCann, 41, said the disclosure of the secret files was heartbreaking and shocking.

Their existence came to light in a legal action brought by the McCanns against Goncalo Amaral, the disgraced detective who was in charge of the case.
They had wanted to stop him airing the slur that they had been involved in their daughter's disappearance.

The leads were all received and archived after Algarve police closed the case in July 2008.

Madeleine was four when she vanished from the family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in May 2007. Her parents were at a restaurant 80 yards away.

They now have a copy of the 2,000-page dossier which was published yesterday on the order of a court in Portugal after an application by newspapers including the Daily Mail.

The McCanns are incensed that their private investigators were given no access to the sightings at the time.

Mrs McCann said: 'There are instances where information which we think is very credible and worthy of information has not been actioned.

'We're gutted, it's absolutely shocking and difficult. Some of the information handed in was very credible. It's heartbreaking to know that it seems to end there.'

Mr McCann, also 41, was particularly angered at Inspector Ricardo Paiva, who was responsible for collating any information about Madeleine after the formal investigation ended.

He said: 'Inspector Paiva believes Madeleine is dead. How can he investigate thoroughly if he believes that? We know now there is a lot of information just filed away - and that is not acceptable. Once the file has been closed, what has actually been done? Next to nothing.'

The file contains a series of sightings which the McCanns would have expected to be fully investigated.

The astonishing CCTV footage from New Zealand shows a girl very like Madeleine being led into a supermarket by a portly man in shorts - seven months after her disappearance.

The man's behaviour aroused the suspicions of a female security guard in the shop in Dunedin on the South Island and she approached the girl to establish she was British.

Although the girl said her name was 'Hailey', the security guard was convinced the girl was Madeleine and reported the incident to police.

Interpol in Wellington then sent the images to police in Portugal who promptly deemed it 'not relevant'.
Other discarded leads include:

• A British ex-pat saying he saw a girl being dragged along a road toward the airport on the night Madeleine disappeared. He had not approached the authorities earlier because he was wanted for fraud.

• A girl like Madeleine was seen with an unkempt Spanish-looking man in his 30s at a shop near Murcia. The woman witness followed the girl but the pair vanished. She failed to tell Spanish police until June 2008.
• Another lookalike wearing only a dirty yellow jumper was seen being held at gunpoint on a French motorway by a half-naked man in August 2008. French lorry driver Michel Guidard walked toward them only to be threatened with a gun.

• Photos from the internet uncovered by a female French detective were found to show images of sexual abuse which involved a girl resembling Madeleine.

• An account by a Scottish mother of two who saw a girl who looked like Madeleine with a group of gipsies in Albufeira, Portugal, in July 2008. A woman who was with the girl ran off down the hill with her when two police officers turned up.

• Details of a sighting of a girl on October 9, 2008, with a Portuguese man living in the U.S. He allegedly ran a child trafficking operation smuggling in children from his homeland, Mexico and Greece.

Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for the McCanns, said: 'They are incredibly frustrated that this was sitting there and being disregarded by the Portuguese police.

'They were shocked when they saw the scale of the information that had come in and the lack of action taken.

'There are potential leads in the file that are now being followed up by our investigators.

'It's more than a pity that the file has just sat there for so long and simply marked "not relevant" by the Portuguese.

'There are also images in the file that are strikingly similar to Madeleine and are being looked into.'



Lead: This CCTV image of a girl strongly resembling Madeleine in a supermarket in New Zealand was among the leads deemed 'not relevant' by Portugese police

No follow up: Another CCTV image showing the girl resembling Maddie in the New Zealand supermarket

Kate and Gerry McCann said they were 'gutted' to discover that they weren't given access to secret files involving their daughter's disappearance

Secret files: The police dossier.Madeleine went missing from Praia da Luz in Portugal in May 2007

Alleged Colorado school shooter has violent past, will appear in court today-Teacher tackles gunman after school shootings

Yesterday, we reported the horrifying news that a man had opened fire on a group of middle school children at Deer Creek Middle School in Littleton, Colorado. Click here to read the initial report.

More information has since emerged regarding the suspect. He is 32-year-old Colorado resident Bruco Strongeagle Eastwood, and he has a violent and criminal history. This includes domestic violence, assault, menacing, driving under the influence and motor vehicle theft. He is scheduled to make his first court appearance today at 10AM to face multiple charges.



Reports say Eastwood has been to Deer Creek school before, and went inside before coming back out to start shooting. No motive has yet been hypothesized as to why he would target the children. The two children who were shot are pictured here.


13-year-old Reagan Weber was shot in the arm and has since been released from the hospital. 14-year-old Matt Thieu was shot in the chest and, as of late last night, remained in critical condition. He is now at Children's Hospital in Denver.

Steve Potter, Deer Creek bus driver, witnessed the heroics of math teacher Dr. David Benke as he tackled the gunman while reloading, preventing him from getting off any more shots. He subdued him until police arrived.

"Dr. Benke was out there at the time the school was being let out. It looked to me like he heard the shot and decided to react accordingly," said Potter. "There was a little bit of a wresting match for about 5 seconds or so," before Benke had disarmed the gunman.

"As many school districts have learned, you can prepare, you can train, but I don't think you're every really prepared for something like this to happen," Lynn Setzer with the Jefferson County School District said. "In terms of being ready, we train our staff members for a number of different scenarios. This is one of them."

"It's hard to explain why they would target innocent victims," said Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink, who was among the hundreds of law enforcement agents who responded to the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. "It's just mind-boggling to me why someone would do that."


The gunman was walking through a middle school parking lot and taking shots at students with a hunting rifle as terrified teenagers ran for their lives. He had just wounded two students and seemed ready to unleash more violence when a math teacher named David Benke sprung into action.



Police gather outside Deer Creek Middle School in Littleton, Colo., where a gunman shot two students and was tackled by a math teacher.


Math teacher David Benke was being hailed as a hero for tackling the suspected school gunman.

Benke confronted the 32-year-old gunman, tackled him and pinned him to the ground with the help of another teacher, stopping what could have been a much more violent encounter in a city all too familiar with tragic school shootings. The shooting on Tuesday afternoon occurred less than three miles from where the Columbine High School massacre happened nearly 11 years ago.

"Unfortunately he got another round off before I could grab him," Benke said. "He figured out that he wasn't going to be able to get another round chambered before I got to him so he dropped the gun and then we were kind of struggling around trying to get him subdued."

The two students survived and one remained hospitalized.

Police said they aren't immediately sure about what motivated Bruco Strongeagle Eastwood to target Deer Creek Middle School just after classes had ended for the day. Eastwood has an arrest record in Colorado dating back to 1996 for menacing, assault, domestic violence and driving under the influence, and he is believed to have a history of mental issues.

Sheriff thanks teacher
Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink praised Benke and called him a hero, and the math teacher's status seems to be growing by the minute. A Facebook page called "Dr. David Benke.. A TRUE hero!" quickly picked up more than 1,000 fans by Wednesday morning.

Benke, the father of 7-year-old twins and a 13-year-old girl, fought back tears after Mink thanked him.

"Believe me when I say, I think he stopped what could have been a more tragic event than it was," Mink said.

The victims, students Reagan Webber and Matt Thieu, were both treated at Littleton Adventist Hospital, where spokeswoman Christine Alexander said Webber was later released. Thieu was transferred to The Children's Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition late Tuesday.

Student Steven Seagraves said he was about 10 feet away when an adult approached students and asked them: "Do you guys go to this school?"

When the students said they did, he shot them, Seagraves said.

Benke, a 6-foot-5 former college basketball player who oversees the school's track team, was monitoring the parking lot in the afternoon when he heard what he thought was a firecracker and began walking toward the noise.


"At first when I was walking over there, it was kind of what a teacher does," Benke said, still shaken hours after the shooting. "'Hey kid, what are you doing,' you know that kind of thing."

He said another teacher was quickly on the scene and both of them pinned the gunman to the ground. Eastwood was armed with a bolt-action rifle.

"I basically have my arms and legs wrapped around him, (the other teacher) has his forearm around his front and we were basically trying to get the guy to quit struggling."

"I talked to him while we were on the ground," Benke added. "I was underneath him and his face was pretty close to mine. I asked him, 'Why did you do this? Were you a student here?'

"He either didn't respond or his responses didn't make a whole lot of sense," Benke said.

Bus driver Steve Potter said he was about to pull away from the school with a full bus when he heard a loud bang that sounded like an M-80 firecracker. Students screamed when they spotted the man with a rifle, Potter told KMGH-TV.

"He looked like he was just kind of looking around for someone to shoot," he said.

Potter said he saw Benke grab the suspect so he and another man jumped on the gunman and helped hold him until police arrived.

Falling lamppost that crushed baby boy may have been weakened by roadworks

Recent roadworks may have weakened a lamppost which fell and crushed a baby boy, it has been revealed.

The 11-month-old was today fighting for his life after his pram was crushed when the 40ft lamppost collapsed and crashed onto his pram.

Now an investigation has been launched by the Health and Safety Executive into roadworks being carried out in the area.

Investigators believe the post's base could have been weakened by heavy machinery used to dig up the footpath.

Horrified mothers watched as paramedics pulled the baby from the mangled pram to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
The nanny escaped unhurt, but a 62-year-old woman walking nearby was said to have been ‘knocked out instantly’ when she was struck and pinned to the floor by the fallen metal post.

Hounslow Council said work was being carried out on a scheme to provide faster bus journeys.

It included road repairs, updating pedestrian crossing facilities and improvements to pavements.

The baby, who has not been named, was in a critical but stable condition today after being taken by air ambulance to the Royal London Hospital following the accident outside Chiswick Town Hall, West London, at 10.30am yesterday morning.

It is believed the nanny was taking the baby to a ‘music time for under fives’ class, one of many parent-and-toddler sessions held at the town hall.

Witness Nora Correa, 45, said: ‘Paramedics and police had the baby out of the pram and gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the steps of the town hall.

'He was pale and had his eyes closed. At first he wasn’t breathing but after a few minutes he began to move a little.
‘The force of the crush had snapped the front two wheels of the pram off.’

Mrs Correa said the nanny appeared to be in shock and was not allowed to touch the child because of the injuries.

She said: ‘A few minutes later the mother arrived and got straight into the back of the ambulance.

‘I can’t understand how this could happen. How could a lamppost just collapse? It beggars belief.

'They have been doing roadworks on this stretch for a long time and it has been a complete mess.’

Another passer-by, a mother who asked not to be named, said: 'It was horrific.

'Children are coming in and out of the town hall all the time, there are music classes and ballet classes held there.'

The council said it had been waiting for Virgin Media contractors to move cabling, but none was on site at the time.

The spokesman added: ‘Council engineers are on site and liaising with the police. This is an awful tragedy and our heartfelt sympathies go out to the injured and all their families.’
The woman victim, who has also not been named but is said not to be related to the baby boy, was recovering from back injuries at Charing Cross Hospital.

Thomas Daniell, 28, a travel consultant who works in an agency near the scene, said she could have been lying unconscious for some time following the impact.

‘I’m really shocked and it was obviously quite upsetting for a lot of people who saw what happened. It’s a busy pedestrian area. There were people standing around with tears in their eyes.

‘The first I knew of it was seeing two policemen sprinting towards the town hall,’ Mr Daniell said. ‘Within minutes there were ambulances and police at the scene and a helicopter overhead.

'Police cordoned off the area, but the injured woman was in full view of the public. I didn’t see the baby, but the pram was smashed in half by the sheer force of the impact.’

Pedestrian Lisa Lambakis added: 'The woman was on the ground but conscious, and the baby was unconscious but breathing.

'Nothing hit the pole causing it to fall, so I have no idea what happened. Very scary considering the number of people who use that crossing every day.'

The Metropolitan Police said it had attended the scene in Sutton Court Road at the junction with Heathfield Terrace and confirmed the HSE had been informed.



A paramedic is pictured tending to the baby injured by the falling lamppost

A police officer removes the pushchair from the scene

Workmen at the scene where the lamppost collapsed in Chiswick. The council had been carrying out roadworks in the area

Crisis of the one million Haitian orphans as Unicef warns the devastation has jumped to 'unbearable proportions'

 Safe hands: Haitian orphans arrive for medical care at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh

 

 Bill Clinton helps load supplies at the General Hospital downtown during his one day visit to Haiti

 

 A baby boy injured in the earthquake rests in the University de la Paix hospital in Port-au-Prince. It is estimated as many as one million children on the island have been left without one or both parents since the tragedy

 

 Two young girls helping with the removal of debris at what used to be the Petionville market in Port-au-Prince. Child advocacy groups say the crisis in Haiti has now jumped to 'unbearable proportions'

 

One year old Misa Gureline Bestige reacts as she wakes up from sleeping on the street with her family and other displaced people in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

The first of Haiti's evacuated orphans have arrived in the US to begin new lives, according to reports.

However aid groups fear as many as one million more on the island have been left without one or both parents following the last week's devastating earthquake.

Just 26 children who cleared the process before the disaster struck have been taken out of the country - but Unicef has warned the scale of the crisis has jumped to 'unbearable proportions'.

The lucky few arrived for medical care at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh early on Tuesday.

The children were not orphaned by the quake but were left homeless when their orphanage on the island collapsed. An article in The Times newspaper claims Unicef estimates 380,000 children had already lost one or both parents before the quake.

Tom DiFilipo, president of the Joint Council on International Children's Services, (JCICS) told The Times: 'Everyone seems to be estimating, whether it's Unicef or medical groups on the ground, that we are going to have over one million orphans in Haiti at the end of this.

'That is defined as children who have lost either a mother, or a father, or both. If a father dies, how does the mother cope in a situation where you have no home, no job, you're living on the streets?

'It's an enormous figure, it's incomprehensible. We didn't have housing for them all before the earthquake, let alone now.'

There are also fears that some children may be shipped overseas without proper checks to see if any extended family members are alive, given the chaotic state of communications on the island.

In a statement quoted by The Times, JCICS said: 'Bringing children into the US, either by airlift or new adoption during a time of national emergency, can open the door for fraud, abuse and trafficking.

'Every effort must be made in a timely fashion to locate living parents and extended family members. Many children who might appear to be orphaned may in fact only be temporarily separated from their family.'

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is being urged to speed up the paperwork for up to 900 children whose adoptions were almost complete before the catastrophe occurred.

Today it was announced that Haitian orphans will be allowed temporary entry to the US to receive care after the devastating event.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said: 'We are committed to doing everything we can to help reunite families in Haiti during this very difficult time.

'While we remain focused on family reunification in Haiti, authorising the use of humanitarian parole for orphans who are eligible for adoption in the United States will allow them to receive the care they need here.'

The 'humanitarian parole policy' will be applied on a case-by-case basis to children legally confirmed as orphans eligible for adoption in another country by the Haitian government and who are being adopted by US citizens.

Also eligible are children previously identified by an adoption service as eligible for inter-country adoption and who have been matched to prospective adoptive American parents, the Homeland Security Department said.

Meanwhile the death toll is being estimated at a staggering 200,000, with 1.5 million left homeless as survivors continue to die in the streets and looters spread anarchy.

Violence flared again yesterday as hundreds clambered over the broken walls of shops to grab anything they could - including toothpaste, now valuable for lining nostrils against the stench of Port-au-Prince's dead. Police fired into the air as young men fought each other over rum and beer with broken bottles and machetes.

Gang members who broke out of a heavily damaged prison following the quake are profiting from the disaster by taking advantage of a void left by police and peacekeepers focused on disaster relief.

'If you don't kill the criminals, they will all come back,' a Haitian police officer shouted over a loudspeaker in the country's most notorious slum, imploring citizens to take justice into their own hands.

In the sprawling Cite Soleil slum, gangsters are settling into the haunts they dominated before being locked up and resuming struggles for control that never really ended once they were inside the walls of the city's notorious main penitentiary.

'The trouble is starting,' said Jean-Semaine Delice, a 51-year-old father from Cite Soleil. 'People are starting to leave their homes to go to others.'

As police urged residents to fight criminals themselves, Delice said, 'I think it's a message we should listen to.'

There is the potential for violence in any disaster zone where food and medical aid are unable to keep up with fast-growing hunger and mass casualties. But the danger is multiplied in Haiti, where self-designated rebels and freedom fighters have consistently threatened the country's fragile stability with a few weapons, some spare money for handouts and the ire of disaffected throngs.

'Even as we are digging bodies out of buildings, they are trying to attack our officers,' Cite Soleil police inspector Aristide Rosemond said, surrounded by officers wielding automatic weapons.

Neighbourhood residents say three people died and several women were raped in a small-scale turf war that gangsters nicknamed 'Belony' and 'Bled' launched in the seaside slum in the days following last Tuesday's quake.

People who live here have been told not to count on security forces for help.

The Brazilian peacekeeping unit assigned to Cite Soleil lost 18 of its 145 soldiers in the earthquake.

Ten perished when the 'Blue House' - a landmark concrete tower converted into a UN post near the slum's entrance - collapsed, leaving weapons and equipment readily available to fast-acting looters.

The UN peacekeeping mission also lost its chief, deputy chief and acting police commander.

The police lost an uncounted number of personnel and equipment, leaving a group of officers who in large part are just recently recruited and trained.

'The problem is they have weapons ... so we cannot send the population or (just) any policemen' to capture them, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said yesterday.

Bob Perito, coordinator of Haiti programs for the Washington-based US Institute of Peace think tank, said concerns about the gangs are legitimate - in the long run.

In the more immediate future, 'the gangs may be more of a nuisance,' Perito said in an interview from his Washington office.

'They are not going to challenge the US military,' he said.

'But when the US decides the emergency is over and goes home, will the reconstituted UN peacekeeping force have the coherence necessary to suppress the problem?'

There are 1,700 US troops on the ground in Haiti and 2,000 Marines off shore.

Get Haiti Earthquake stuffs.