(Link to News 14, NC: http://www.news14.com/content/local_news/coastal/605898/13-marines-injured-after-highway-bus-crash/Default.aspx)
13 Marines injured after highway bus crash
By: Andrea Pacetti
MAYSVILLE – An accident involving three buses on Highway 17 in Jones County has injured a number of Camp Lejeune Marines and crippled traffic.The incident happened just north of Maysville around 8 a.m. Several vehicles were stopped on the highway as a separate vehicle attempted to turn off Hwy. 17. Two of the buses carrying Marines slowed for the congestion, but the third failed to stop and ran into the back of the second bus.
According to the N.C. State highway Patrol, the bus driver was critically injured.
Thirteen Marines were injured in the crash. All those injured have been taken to a hospital on the Camp Lejeune base.
Officials say 59 Marines and one sailor were on the buses, heading to Norfolk, Va., for last-minute training exercises before deployment this spring. Those not injured in the crash will continue on their way to Norfolk.
Stay tuned to News 14 Carolina for the latest on this situation.
*An earlier report stating that one Marine was in critical condition is now said to be false.
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(Link to WWAY TV-3 [NC]: http://www.wwaytv3.com/3_buses_carrying_marines_crash_nc/03/2009)
3 buses carrying Marines crash in NC
Submitted by WWAY on 5 March 2009 - 11:36am.READ MORE:
MAYSVILLE, N.C. -- Authorities said three buses carrying Camp Lejeune Marines have crashed in eastern North Carolina, injuring nine Marines and one civilian.
Marine Corps Capt. Clark Carpenter said a bus driver was critically injured and air lifted to a hospital after the Thursday morning crash in Jones County. He said none of the Marines was seriously hurt.
Jones County authorities said the wreck occurred on U.S. Highway 17 near Maysville, about 20 miles north of Camp Lejeune. Carpenter said investigators believe the third bus failed to stop for traffic and collided with the bus it was following.
Carpenter said 59 Marines and one sailor were on the buses traveling to Norfolk, Va. The troops are scheduled to begin training exercises March 10 in advance of their deployments.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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(Link to WAVY-10: http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/local_wavy_tour_bus_marine_crash_20090305)
Marines' buses crash onway to Norfolk
Bus was on its way to Norfolk
Updated: Thursday, 05 Mar 2009, 10:52 AM ESTPublished : Thursday, 05 Mar 2009, 9:50 AM EST
Courtesy: WITN.com
JONES COUNTY, N.C. - Three tour buses carrying Camp Lejeune Marines crashed on their way to Norfolk Thursday morning.
WITN is reporting the crash happened in North Carolina on Highway 17 between Pollocksville and Maysville just before 8 a.m.
The driver of one of the Trailways buses was airlifted to PCMH in critical condition. Fifty-nine Marines and one sailor were onboard the buses, according to WITN. Thirteen Marines were injured and taken to the Naval Hospital at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville for treatment. None of their injuries were life-threatening.
The Highway Patrol told WITN the three buses were following a vehicle on Highway 17 when it stopped to make a left turn. Troopers say the first two buses stopped, but the third one did not and caused the chain reaction accident.
School buses are reportedly on their way to pick up the marines. There were hundreds of marines on the buses. According to Capt. Carpenter, with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit at Camp Lejeune, the Marines were headed to Norfolk ahead of certification exercises scheduled to begin March 10, in advance of deployment this spring. Capt. Carpenter says the Marines would be training with the Bataan Strike Group.
WITN is reporting the crash appeared to be a chain-reaction. The middle bus was pushed into the ditch.
Stay with WAVY.com and WAVY News 10 for the latest on this developing story.
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(Link to Jacksonville [North Carolina] Daily News Breaking News site: http://www.jdnews.com/articles/sheriff_62806___article.html/county_crash.html
22nd MEU Marines injured in bus crash in Jones County
March 5, 2009 - 8:28 AM
Two buses carrying Marines from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit collided on northbound U.S. 17 in Jones County this morning, and initial reports indicate six Marines were injured, MEU spokesman Capt. Clark Carpenter said.
The Marines were headed to Norfolk, Va. to board the ships of the USS Bataan Strike Group for the MEU's certification exercise, the last exercise the 22nd MEU is scheduled to complete before deploying this spring, Carpenter said.
Four Marines were taken to the Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital with injuries, one was flown to Pitt County Memorial Hospital and one was taken to Craven County Regional Medical Center, Carpenter said.
The buses collided at about 8:30 this morning. Onslow County sent rescue personnel to the scene of the crash to help, Sheriff Ed Brown said.
The Daily News has a crew at the scene. More information will follow.
Early Bird summary
Thursday’s Early Bird leads with a story from the Washington Post (and a similar story from the New York Times) reporting that President Obama ordered a government-wide review of federal contracting procedures yesterday, saying he wants to add more competition and accountability to an often overwhelmed procurement system.Obama's announcement, joined by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), served as a philosophical break with the Bush administration, which vastly expanded the role of contractors in running the government and fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The president said, "We will stop outsourcing services that should be performed by the government," noting that annual spending on contracts had doubled to more than $500 billion over the past eight years.Obama gave his budget director, Peter Orszag, until the end of September to issue new federal guidelines governing some of the most important areas of public procurement and contracting practices. Although he estimated that a more coherent system could save billions of dollars, several specialists in the field said that most of the financial benefits would not be realized for years and that other changes probably would cost money because they would involve adding employees to manage and monitor contracts.
Second on the EB Thursday slate is a story from the New York Times reporting that Afghanistan’s top political opposition leaders accused President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday of trying to manipulate the country’s coming presidential election. They demanded that he step aside in May so that he could not continue what they characterized as his abuse of power to help himself get re-elected.The unusual public criticism came just hours after the country’s independent election commission rejected Mr. Karzai’s call for the election to be held by April, and instead formally confirmed Aug. 20 as the voting date.The commission cited security problems as an important factor in its decision, saying it hoped the Taliban insurgency raging in much of the countryside might be better controlled by August.
The Guardian (UK) reports that the top US diplomat in Kabul warned yesterday that Pakistan posed a bigger security challenge to America and the world than Afghanistan, as Islamabad grappled with the latest terrorist attack on its soil and the escalating Taliban insurgency on its north-western border.Christopher Dell, who currently runs the US embassy in Kabul, was speaking in the aftermath of the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore and the news that Pakistani Taliban groups had formed a common front to attack Nato troops in Afghanistan, in what is widely expected to be a bloody and possibly decisive summer this year.
USA Today reports Pentagon officials estimated for the first time Wednesday that up to 360,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans may have suffered brain injuries. Among them are 45,000 to 90,000 veterans whose symptoms persist and warrant specialized care.Army Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton provided the estimate during a news conference about March as Brain Injury Awareness Month. She heads the Pentagon's Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury.Pentagon officials have been reluctant to estimate the number of potential brain-injury casualties among the 1.8 million troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Congressional Quarterly Today reports Pentagon officials quietly notified Congress late last month that a program to build a new fleet of presidential helicopters will cost $1.8 billion more than the Defense Department has publicly acknowledged, congressional aides said Wednesday.That figure comes on top of a nearly $5 billion hike disclosed a short time earlier. The latest revelation pushes the total cost of developing and procuring 28 new VH-71 helicopters to at least $13 billion, twice the original $6.5 billion estimate in 2001.As a result, each new helicopter made by Lockheed Martin Corp. would cost $464 million.
Pentagon planners are taking a long look at the role unmanned robot boats, or “bot boats,” might play in preventing piracy and thwarting terrorists who approach their targets from waterways, according to the Washington Times.The remote-control craft, which can go untended for longer periods than manned ships and can communicate with other airborne or seaborne vessels, are being considered in light of the increasing incidents of piracy off the coast of Somalia and the Mumbai terror attacks last year. In that case, the terrorists made their way to the city after hijacking a fishing trawler at sea.
The current method of procurement for information technology is so slow that by the time software systems and the like are purchased, they're out of date, Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Gen. James Cartwright said March 4 at a conference for the IT industry, according to defensenews.com."It takes longer to declare a new [program] start than the lifecycle of the software package," Cartwright told an audience of IT industry and Armed Services representatives at the eighth annual Naval IT Day, put on by the Northern Virginia chapter of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.
Blaming preventable errors and oversights for a fatal jet crash in December in San Diego, Marine officials are promising changes that extend from the operations room to the flight line, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.The fixes include greater focus on trouble-shooting relatively minor problems before they become severe.In July, for example, mechanics had found a fuel system glitch in the F/A-18D Hornet that eventually plunged into a University City neighborhood on Dec. 8. The Marine Corps did not ground the plane to make the needed repairs, instead allowing it to be used for 166 more flight hours before it crashed.Marine officials have since scrapped the “ambiguous” maintenance rules that enabled the aircraft to keep flying, said Col. John Rupp, operations officer for the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.He and other senior commanders also want to provide more realistic emergency training for pilots and those on the ground trying to help them. That includes using simulators to present pilots with multiple problems simultaneously.Most details of the safety improvements have not been made public. The Marine Corps will likely introduce the overhaul in phases.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was upbeat Wednesday over Europe's response to an Obama administration request to help resettle detainees now at the U.S. prison camps at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to the Miami Herald.Reporters asked the secretary about the issue during an inflight interview en route from the West Bank town of Ramallah to Brussels.She said what she had heard from European officials in recent weeks about their willingness to resettle some of the Muslim detainees.
The Washington Times reports that Georgia's defense minister is appealing to the West to halt what he said was a continuing Russian military buildup in two breakaway Georgian regions, adding that a fresh Russian attack “cannot be ruled out.”The Kremlin recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states in the wake of last year's five-day war between Russia and Georgia, when Moscow smashed a Georgian assault on South Ossetia.Defense Minister David Sikharulidze told Reuters in an interview Monday that Russia's war aim had been “regime change,” but that it had failed. Moscow's continued military buildup in the absence of international monitoring meant the situation “remains fragile,” he said.
The United States and Libya have signed a historic pact on defense cooperation, moving closer to normalizing diplomatic ties after years of strained relations, according to Inside the Pentagon.The non-binding agreement, inked in January at the Pentagon, signals the two countries now have military-to-military relations and will work together in fields of mutual interest such as peacekeeping, maritime security, counterterrorism and African security and stability, said Theresa Whelan, deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs.
Inside the Pentagon also reports that Angola has begun to hammer out an agreement defining its overall defense relationship with the United States that includes peacekeeping and maritime security, according to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs Theresa Whelan.Work on the non-binding memorandum of understanding began last October and will outline important areas of military cooperation between the countries, Whelan told Inside the Pentagon in a Feb. 27 interview.Angola requested an agreement similar to one the Pentagon signed with Libya in January, Whelan said. That MOU indicates Libya and the United States have military-to-military relations and will work together in fields such as peacekeeping, maritime security, counterterrorism and African security and stability, she explained.
Washington Times reports that counterterrorism officials suspect that the Somalia–based al-Shabab organization is recruiting young men from Somali communities in Minnesota and other Midwestern states, luring them back to their home country for terror training and creating cells of fighters who could travel to other countries, including the United States, to launch attacks.Four months ago, a young Somali man left Minneapolis to become a suicide bomber. He detonated a bomb he was wearing - one step in a series of coordinated attacks targeting a U.N. compound, the Ethiopian Consulate and the presidential palace in Somaliland's capital, Hargeisa.It was the first known time that a U.S. citizen was a suicide bomber.In response, the FBI stepped up efforts to reach out to community leaders in the Minneapolis area, where young Somali-American men have disappeared and are thought to have traveled to Somalia to fight along with militants. FBI spokesman E.K. Wilson said that since the disappearances, the bureau has worked to expand relationships with community elders, religious leaders and others active in the local Somali population, which numbers about 80,000.
Media summary
1. Leading newspaper headlines: USA Today leads with a look at how the $410 billion omnibus spending bill contains $227 million for pet projects requested by lawmakers who aren't even in Congress anymore. (Slate Magazine)
2. Blasts target main U.S. Afghan base: The US military says two bomb blasts near the gate to its main Afghan base have injured at least three people. (BBC)
3. North Korea threatens civilian planes: North Korea has said it cannot ensure the safety of South Korean civilian flights passing near its airspace over the Sea of Japan (East Sea). (BBC)
4. Sufi shrine ‘blown up’ by Taliban: Suspected Taleban militants in north-west Pakistan have blown up the shrine of a 17th Century Sufi poet of the Pashtun language, police say. (BBC)
Leading newspaper headlines
USA Today leads with a look at how the $410 billion omnibus spending bill contains $227 million for pet projects requested by lawmakers who aren't even in Congress anymore. The New York Times and Washington Post lead with the Obama administration announcing the details of its program to rescue millions of struggling homeowners. The White House said it hopes the two-part plan will help as many as one in nine homeowners. The program received favorable reviews from several large lenders, but others insist it won't do enough to end the ongoing foreclosure crisis.
The Los Angeles Times leads with growing concern among lawmakers and interest groups that President Obama is naming too many policy czars, who could undermine congressional authority and concentrate too much power in the White House. The Wall Street Journal leads its world-wide newsbox, and the LAT off-leads, with the Supreme Court declaring that drug makers can still be sued in state court by injured patients even if federal regulators approved the product. The 6-3 ruling could affect many other industries besides prescription drugs and marked a major blow to businesses that have long argued federal rules should protect them from lawsuits at the state level. In 2006, the Bush administration, which often sided with businesses on this issue, reversed a Food and Drug Administration policy and declared that federal approval of a drug "preempts" lawsuits at the state level.
The budget that will keep the government running through September has faced lots of criticism for containing more than $7 billion in earmarks. USAT points out that the bill even includes 459 projects that were requested solely by former lawmakers, including seven projects worth $1.2 million for Rick Renzi, a former Republican congressman who is facing corruption charges. Former Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, who was arrested in 2007, is also getting $1 million for his pet projects. The White House has called the bill "last year's business" and says the president will be cracking down on the practice in the future.
The NYT says the program detailed by the White House yesterday is "the most ambitious effort since the 1930s to help troubled homeowners." As was already known, the program has two main components. The main one is a $75 billion program that could help as many as 4 million people avoid foreclosure by offering financial incentives to lenders in order to modify mortgages so that monthly payments don't make up more than 31 percent of a borrower's income. Homeowners can qualify as long as they live in the property and their loan isn't higher than $729,750 for a single-family home. Several large banks said they would participate, but the NYT points out that their "eagerness" will almost certainly be affected by the fate of a bill currently making its way through Congress that would give bankruptcy judges the power to modify troubled mortgages.
The second part of the program will help homeowners with little or no home equity refinance mortgages held or owned by Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. Homeowners of any income can qualify to get lower rates, but they cannot owe more than 105 percent of the current value of their home. The government expects as many as 5 million homeowners to benefit. While the focus has always been on owner-occupied homes, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said they would refinance some second homes as well. Although the administration said that homeowners could begin to apply for the program right away, the WP points out lenders were overwhelmed with calls yesterday, and many said it could take several weeks to set everything up.
The Treasury Department also announced that it will issue a new plan in the coming weeks to help borrowers with second mortgages, which were often used as "piggy back" loans. Although few details were released, it seems the administration will try to convince the holders of these second mortgages to forgive those debts. The WSJ specifies that around half of delinquent subprime borrowers have second mortgages, and that has often prevented them from modifying their loans.
The program doesn't require lenders to reduce the principal of what homeowners owe, which is one of the main reasons why some remain skeptical. In the NYT's op-ed page, John Geanakoplos and Susan Koniak warn that we'll soon be faced with an "avalanche of foreclosures," and the White House plan "wastes taxpayer money and won't fix the problem." The best thing to do would be to reduce the principal "far enough so that each homeowner will have equity in his house and thus an incentive to pay and not default again down the line." This would help not only homeowners but also bondholders who would get more out of it than if the property went into foreclosure. Throwing money at mortgage servicers to encourage them to reduce interest payments is simply "a bad use of scarce federal dollars."
The idea of a policy czar isn't new, but the LAT says no president "has embraced the concept … to the extent that Obama has." So far he has appointed these "super aides" to direct policy from inside the White House on a number of issues, including health care, the economy, and energy, and more are expected. Presidential scholars say that these czars often get frustrated because they have no clear authority. Because their focus frequently overlaps with several agencies, they can end up clashing with officials throughout the administration. Some lawmakers have also said they're worried these advisers aren't subject to congressional oversight. "They rarely testify before congressional committees and often shield the information and decision-making process behind the assertion of executive privilege," Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia wrote in a letter to Obama last week.
The LAT and WP front the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges that he played an "essential role" in committing atrocities in Darfur. The court charged Bashir on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Sudanese government reacted quickly to the news and expelled at least 10 foreign aid groups that the WP says "handle 60 percent of humanitarian assistance in Darfur." Many are concerned that the court's actions could spark renewed violence and result in more suffering in Darfur.
In the WP's op-ed page, Merrill McPeak and Kurt Bassuener argue that it's time for the Obama administration to step up and work with allies to establish a no-fly zone in Darfur. "Bashir has strung the international community along in a way that the late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic would have envied," they write. Although some have opposed the move to establish a no-fly zone, it's the best way to "get enough leverage with Khartoum to negotiate the entry of a stronger U.N. ground force," and "reducing Bashir's options" could also make diplomacy more effective.
In a front-page dispatch from China, the NYT's Edward Wong writes about how the Chinese government is so worried about violence once again breaking out in the country's Tibetan regions that it has ordered "the largest troop deployment since the Sichuan earthquake last spring." Wong "got a rare look" at the deployment when he was recently driven through some of these areas "while being detained by the police for 20 hours" without explanation. The Tibetan regions have now become "militarized zones," where soldiers are seemingly everywhere, and a curfew has been imposed in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. The Chinese government insists that there are no real problems in Tibet, but the extent of the deployments shows how it "remains one of the most sensitive political and security issues for China, though one that remains invisible in the developed cities along the country's east coast."
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Blasts target main US Afghan base
Inside Bagram base
The US military says two bomb blasts near the gate to its main Afghan base have injured at least three people.
A car bombing outside the Bagram base was followed moments later by a suicide bombing, US officials said.
"No US soldier was present at that moment but three contractors have suffered minor injuries," a US military spokesman told the AFP news agency.
Bagram air base is about 60km (40 miles) north of Kabul. It is the main base for the US-led coalition force.
"There were two explosions, first a vehicle and then a suicide bomber wearing an explosives vest, near the gate," Sergeant First Class Joel Peavey told AFP.
Military officials also said that three Nato soldiers had been killed after being wounded in a bomb blast in the south on Tuesday.
Taleban insurgency
Originally built by the Soviet military during its invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, some 10,000 troops are based at Bagram.
They are mostly Americans, but also include French, Egyptian, New Zealand, Turkish, German and Australian troops serving as part of the coalition.
In addition the base houses the US military's main prison facility in Afghanistan for people detained by US forces.
The latest deaths in the south take the number of international soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year to 52, according to the icasualties.org website that tracks casualties in Afghanistan.
Nato has not divulged the identities of the dead soldiers or the exact location of the attack, but a Canadian general has been reported by the AP news agency as saying that they were all Canadian.
The south of Afghanistan has become the centre of the Taleban insurgency after they were forced from power by US-led forces in 2001.
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N Korea threatens civilian planes
It is the latest in a series of bellicose statements issued by the North
North Korea has said it cannot ensure the safety of South Korean civilian flights passing near its airspace over the Sea of Japan (East Sea).
The comment comes ahead of a joint South Korean-US military exercise, which Pyongyang says is preparation for an invasion of the communist state.
Washington and Seoul say the annual drill is for purely defence purposes.
Tensions are high in the region amid speculation that the North is planning to test-fire a long-range missile.
In the latest of a series of bellicose statements, a North Korean committee warned that "security cannot be guaranteed for South Korean civil airplanes... in particular while the military exercises are under way".
It said no one knows what "military conflicts will be touched off by the reckless war exercises".
Launch fears
The annual US-South Korean drill, which involves tens of thousands of troops, starts on Monday and continues for 12 days.
North Korea opposes the exercise every year, but this event comes at a particularly tense time on the Korean peninsula.
Pyongyang has scrapped a series of peace agreements with Seoul over its decision to link bilateral aid to progress on denuclearisation.
The communist state also announced last month that it was preparing to launch a communications satellite. Some suspect this could be a cover for a test of the Taepodong 2 missile, which is capable of reaching as far as Alaska.
It is, analysts believe, keen to secure a position high on the agenda of the new US administration - and perhaps press for further concessions in return for abandoning its nuclear ambitions.
America's top envoy on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, is currently visiting China, Japan and South Korea in a bid to breathe life into the stalled nuclear disarmament talks and reduce regional tensions.
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Sufi Shrine 'blown up by Taleban'
Sufi Islam and the Taleban
Suspected Taleban militants in north-west Pakistan have blown up the shrine of a 17th Century Sufi poet of the Pashtun language, police say.
No casualties are reported but the poet Rahman Baba's grave has been destroyed and the shrine building badly damaged.
Rahman Baba is considered the most widely read and poet in Pashto speaking regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Taleban had warned they would blow up the shrine if women continued to visit it and pay their respects.
Historic popularity
Literary experts say the poet's popularity is due to his message of tolerance coupled with a powerful expression of love for God in a Sufi way.
The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that his lasting appeal reflects the historic popularity of Sufism in South Asia.
But our correspondent says that his views are anathema to the Taleban, who represent a more purist form of Islam and are opposed to Sufism, preventing people from visiting shrines of Sufi saints in areas they control.
When the Taleban seized power in neighbouring Afghanistan in 1996, they locked Sufi shrines.
In Mohmand tribal region, the local Taleban captured the shrine of a revered freedom movement hero, Haji Sahib of Turangzai, and turned it into their headquarters.
Taleban leaders have said in the past that they are opposed to women visiting these shrines because they believe it promotes obscenity.
Residents of Hazarkhwani area on the eastern outskirts of Peshawar - where the shrine of Rahman Baba is located - say that local Taleban groups had warned that if the women continued to visit the shrine, they would blow it up.
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13 Marines injured after highway bus crash
By: Andrea Pacetti
MAYSVILLE – An accident involving three buses on Highway 17 in Jones County has injured a number of Camp Lejeune Marines and crippled traffic.The incident happened just north of Maysville around 8 a.m. Several vehicles were stopped on the highway as a separate vehicle attempted to turn off Hwy. 17. Two of the buses carrying Marines slowed for the congestion, but the third failed to stop and ran into the back of the second bus.
According to the N.C. State highway Patrol, the bus driver was critically injured.
Thirteen Marines were injured in the crash. All those injured have been taken to a hospital on the Camp Lejeune base.
Officials say 59 Marines and one sailor were on the buses, heading to Norfolk, Va., for last-minute training exercises before deployment this spring. Those not injured in the crash will continue on their way to Norfolk.
Stay tuned to News 14 Carolina for the latest on this situation.
*An earlier report stating that one Marine was in critical condition is now said to be false.
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(Link to WWAY TV-3 [NC]: http://www.wwaytv3.com/3_buses_carrying_marines_crash_nc/03/2009)
3 buses carrying Marines crash in NC
Submitted by WWAY on 5 March 2009 - 11:36am.READ MORE:
MAYSVILLE, N.C. -- Authorities said three buses carrying Camp Lejeune Marines have crashed in eastern North Carolina, injuring nine Marines and one civilian.
Marine Corps Capt. Clark Carpenter said a bus driver was critically injured and air lifted to a hospital after the Thursday morning crash in Jones County. He said none of the Marines was seriously hurt.
Jones County authorities said the wreck occurred on U.S. Highway 17 near Maysville, about 20 miles north of Camp Lejeune. Carpenter said investigators believe the third bus failed to stop for traffic and collided with the bus it was following.
Carpenter said 59 Marines and one sailor were on the buses traveling to Norfolk, Va. The troops are scheduled to begin training exercises March 10 in advance of their deployments.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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(Link to WAVY-10: http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/local_wavy_tour_bus_marine_crash_20090305)
Marines' buses crash onway to Norfolk
Bus was on its way to Norfolk
Updated: Thursday, 05 Mar 2009, 10:52 AM ESTPublished : Thursday, 05 Mar 2009, 9:50 AM EST
Courtesy: WITN.com
JONES COUNTY, N.C. - Three tour buses carrying Camp Lejeune Marines crashed on their way to Norfolk Thursday morning.
WITN is reporting the crash happened in North Carolina on Highway 17 between Pollocksville and Maysville just before 8 a.m.
The driver of one of the Trailways buses was airlifted to PCMH in critical condition. Fifty-nine Marines and one sailor were onboard the buses, according to WITN. Thirteen Marines were injured and taken to the Naval Hospital at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville for treatment. None of their injuries were life-threatening.
The Highway Patrol told WITN the three buses were following a vehicle on Highway 17 when it stopped to make a left turn. Troopers say the first two buses stopped, but the third one did not and caused the chain reaction accident.
School buses are reportedly on their way to pick up the marines. There were hundreds of marines on the buses. According to Capt. Carpenter, with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit at Camp Lejeune, the Marines were headed to Norfolk ahead of certification exercises scheduled to begin March 10, in advance of deployment this spring. Capt. Carpenter says the Marines would be training with the Bataan Strike Group.
WITN is reporting the crash appeared to be a chain-reaction. The middle bus was pushed into the ditch.
Stay with WAVY.com and WAVY News 10 for the latest on this developing story.
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(Link to Jacksonville [North Carolina] Daily News Breaking News site: http://www.jdnews.com/articles/sheriff_62806___article.html/county_crash.html
22nd MEU Marines injured in bus crash in Jones County
March 5, 2009 - 8:28 AM
Two buses carrying Marines from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit collided on northbound U.S. 17 in Jones County this morning, and initial reports indicate six Marines were injured, MEU spokesman Capt. Clark Carpenter said.
The Marines were headed to Norfolk, Va. to board the ships of the USS Bataan Strike Group for the MEU's certification exercise, the last exercise the 22nd MEU is scheduled to complete before deploying this spring, Carpenter said.
Four Marines were taken to the Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital with injuries, one was flown to Pitt County Memorial Hospital and one was taken to Craven County Regional Medical Center, Carpenter said.
The buses collided at about 8:30 this morning. Onslow County sent rescue personnel to the scene of the crash to help, Sheriff Ed Brown said.
The Daily News has a crew at the scene. More information will follow.
Early Bird summary
Thursday’s Early Bird leads with a story from the Washington Post (and a similar story from the New York Times) reporting that President Obama ordered a government-wide review of federal contracting procedures yesterday, saying he wants to add more competition and accountability to an often overwhelmed procurement system.Obama's announcement, joined by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), served as a philosophical break with the Bush administration, which vastly expanded the role of contractors in running the government and fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The president said, "We will stop outsourcing services that should be performed by the government," noting that annual spending on contracts had doubled to more than $500 billion over the past eight years.Obama gave his budget director, Peter Orszag, until the end of September to issue new federal guidelines governing some of the most important areas of public procurement and contracting practices. Although he estimated that a more coherent system could save billions of dollars, several specialists in the field said that most of the financial benefits would not be realized for years and that other changes probably would cost money because they would involve adding employees to manage and monitor contracts.
Second on the EB Thursday slate is a story from the New York Times reporting that Afghanistan’s top political opposition leaders accused President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday of trying to manipulate the country’s coming presidential election. They demanded that he step aside in May so that he could not continue what they characterized as his abuse of power to help himself get re-elected.The unusual public criticism came just hours after the country’s independent election commission rejected Mr. Karzai’s call for the election to be held by April, and instead formally confirmed Aug. 20 as the voting date.The commission cited security problems as an important factor in its decision, saying it hoped the Taliban insurgency raging in much of the countryside might be better controlled by August.
The Guardian (UK) reports that the top US diplomat in Kabul warned yesterday that Pakistan posed a bigger security challenge to America and the world than Afghanistan, as Islamabad grappled with the latest terrorist attack on its soil and the escalating Taliban insurgency on its north-western border.Christopher Dell, who currently runs the US embassy in Kabul, was speaking in the aftermath of the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore and the news that Pakistani Taliban groups had formed a common front to attack Nato troops in Afghanistan, in what is widely expected to be a bloody and possibly decisive summer this year.
USA Today reports Pentagon officials estimated for the first time Wednesday that up to 360,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans may have suffered brain injuries. Among them are 45,000 to 90,000 veterans whose symptoms persist and warrant specialized care.Army Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton provided the estimate during a news conference about March as Brain Injury Awareness Month. She heads the Pentagon's Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury.Pentagon officials have been reluctant to estimate the number of potential brain-injury casualties among the 1.8 million troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Congressional Quarterly Today reports Pentagon officials quietly notified Congress late last month that a program to build a new fleet of presidential helicopters will cost $1.8 billion more than the Defense Department has publicly acknowledged, congressional aides said Wednesday.That figure comes on top of a nearly $5 billion hike disclosed a short time earlier. The latest revelation pushes the total cost of developing and procuring 28 new VH-71 helicopters to at least $13 billion, twice the original $6.5 billion estimate in 2001.As a result, each new helicopter made by Lockheed Martin Corp. would cost $464 million.
Pentagon planners are taking a long look at the role unmanned robot boats, or “bot boats,” might play in preventing piracy and thwarting terrorists who approach their targets from waterways, according to the Washington Times.The remote-control craft, which can go untended for longer periods than manned ships and can communicate with other airborne or seaborne vessels, are being considered in light of the increasing incidents of piracy off the coast of Somalia and the Mumbai terror attacks last year. In that case, the terrorists made their way to the city after hijacking a fishing trawler at sea.
The current method of procurement for information technology is so slow that by the time software systems and the like are purchased, they're out of date, Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Gen. James Cartwright said March 4 at a conference for the IT industry, according to defensenews.com."It takes longer to declare a new [program] start than the lifecycle of the software package," Cartwright told an audience of IT industry and Armed Services representatives at the eighth annual Naval IT Day, put on by the Northern Virginia chapter of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.
Blaming preventable errors and oversights for a fatal jet crash in December in San Diego, Marine officials are promising changes that extend from the operations room to the flight line, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.The fixes include greater focus on trouble-shooting relatively minor problems before they become severe.In July, for example, mechanics had found a fuel system glitch in the F/A-18D Hornet that eventually plunged into a University City neighborhood on Dec. 8. The Marine Corps did not ground the plane to make the needed repairs, instead allowing it to be used for 166 more flight hours before it crashed.Marine officials have since scrapped the “ambiguous” maintenance rules that enabled the aircraft to keep flying, said Col. John Rupp, operations officer for the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.He and other senior commanders also want to provide more realistic emergency training for pilots and those on the ground trying to help them. That includes using simulators to present pilots with multiple problems simultaneously.Most details of the safety improvements have not been made public. The Marine Corps will likely introduce the overhaul in phases.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was upbeat Wednesday over Europe's response to an Obama administration request to help resettle detainees now at the U.S. prison camps at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to the Miami Herald.Reporters asked the secretary about the issue during an inflight interview en route from the West Bank town of Ramallah to Brussels.She said what she had heard from European officials in recent weeks about their willingness to resettle some of the Muslim detainees.
The Washington Times reports that Georgia's defense minister is appealing to the West to halt what he said was a continuing Russian military buildup in two breakaway Georgian regions, adding that a fresh Russian attack “cannot be ruled out.”The Kremlin recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states in the wake of last year's five-day war between Russia and Georgia, when Moscow smashed a Georgian assault on South Ossetia.Defense Minister David Sikharulidze told Reuters in an interview Monday that Russia's war aim had been “regime change,” but that it had failed. Moscow's continued military buildup in the absence of international monitoring meant the situation “remains fragile,” he said.
The United States and Libya have signed a historic pact on defense cooperation, moving closer to normalizing diplomatic ties after years of strained relations, according to Inside the Pentagon.The non-binding agreement, inked in January at the Pentagon, signals the two countries now have military-to-military relations and will work together in fields of mutual interest such as peacekeeping, maritime security, counterterrorism and African security and stability, said Theresa Whelan, deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs.
Inside the Pentagon also reports that Angola has begun to hammer out an agreement defining its overall defense relationship with the United States that includes peacekeeping and maritime security, according to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs Theresa Whelan.Work on the non-binding memorandum of understanding began last October and will outline important areas of military cooperation between the countries, Whelan told Inside the Pentagon in a Feb. 27 interview.Angola requested an agreement similar to one the Pentagon signed with Libya in January, Whelan said. That MOU indicates Libya and the United States have military-to-military relations and will work together in fields such as peacekeeping, maritime security, counterterrorism and African security and stability, she explained.
Washington Times reports that counterterrorism officials suspect that the Somalia–based al-Shabab organization is recruiting young men from Somali communities in Minnesota and other Midwestern states, luring them back to their home country for terror training and creating cells of fighters who could travel to other countries, including the United States, to launch attacks.Four months ago, a young Somali man left Minneapolis to become a suicide bomber. He detonated a bomb he was wearing - one step in a series of coordinated attacks targeting a U.N. compound, the Ethiopian Consulate and the presidential palace in Somaliland's capital, Hargeisa.It was the first known time that a U.S. citizen was a suicide bomber.In response, the FBI stepped up efforts to reach out to community leaders in the Minneapolis area, where young Somali-American men have disappeared and are thought to have traveled to Somalia to fight along with militants. FBI spokesman E.K. Wilson said that since the disappearances, the bureau has worked to expand relationships with community elders, religious leaders and others active in the local Somali population, which numbers about 80,000.
Media summary
1. Leading newspaper headlines: USA Today leads with a look at how the $410 billion omnibus spending bill contains $227 million for pet projects requested by lawmakers who aren't even in Congress anymore. (Slate Magazine)
2. Blasts target main U.S. Afghan base: The US military says two bomb blasts near the gate to its main Afghan base have injured at least three people. (BBC)
3. North Korea threatens civilian planes: North Korea has said it cannot ensure the safety of South Korean civilian flights passing near its airspace over the Sea of Japan (East Sea). (BBC)
4. Sufi shrine ‘blown up’ by Taliban: Suspected Taleban militants in north-west Pakistan have blown up the shrine of a 17th Century Sufi poet of the Pashtun language, police say. (BBC)
Leading newspaper headlines
USA Today leads with a look at how the $410 billion omnibus spending bill contains $227 million for pet projects requested by lawmakers who aren't even in Congress anymore. The New York Times and Washington Post lead with the Obama administration announcing the details of its program to rescue millions of struggling homeowners. The White House said it hopes the two-part plan will help as many as one in nine homeowners. The program received favorable reviews from several large lenders, but others insist it won't do enough to end the ongoing foreclosure crisis.
The Los Angeles Times leads with growing concern among lawmakers and interest groups that President Obama is naming too many policy czars, who could undermine congressional authority and concentrate too much power in the White House. The Wall Street Journal leads its world-wide newsbox, and the LAT off-leads, with the Supreme Court declaring that drug makers can still be sued in state court by injured patients even if federal regulators approved the product. The 6-3 ruling could affect many other industries besides prescription drugs and marked a major blow to businesses that have long argued federal rules should protect them from lawsuits at the state level. In 2006, the Bush administration, which often sided with businesses on this issue, reversed a Food and Drug Administration policy and declared that federal approval of a drug "preempts" lawsuits at the state level.
The budget that will keep the government running through September has faced lots of criticism for containing more than $7 billion in earmarks. USAT points out that the bill even includes 459 projects that were requested solely by former lawmakers, including seven projects worth $1.2 million for Rick Renzi, a former Republican congressman who is facing corruption charges. Former Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, who was arrested in 2007, is also getting $1 million for his pet projects. The White House has called the bill "last year's business" and says the president will be cracking down on the practice in the future.
The NYT says the program detailed by the White House yesterday is "the most ambitious effort since the 1930s to help troubled homeowners." As was already known, the program has two main components. The main one is a $75 billion program that could help as many as 4 million people avoid foreclosure by offering financial incentives to lenders in order to modify mortgages so that monthly payments don't make up more than 31 percent of a borrower's income. Homeowners can qualify as long as they live in the property and their loan isn't higher than $729,750 for a single-family home. Several large banks said they would participate, but the NYT points out that their "eagerness" will almost certainly be affected by the fate of a bill currently making its way through Congress that would give bankruptcy judges the power to modify troubled mortgages.
The second part of the program will help homeowners with little or no home equity refinance mortgages held or owned by Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. Homeowners of any income can qualify to get lower rates, but they cannot owe more than 105 percent of the current value of their home. The government expects as many as 5 million homeowners to benefit. While the focus has always been on owner-occupied homes, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said they would refinance some second homes as well. Although the administration said that homeowners could begin to apply for the program right away, the WP points out lenders were overwhelmed with calls yesterday, and many said it could take several weeks to set everything up.
The Treasury Department also announced that it will issue a new plan in the coming weeks to help borrowers with second mortgages, which were often used as "piggy back" loans. Although few details were released, it seems the administration will try to convince the holders of these second mortgages to forgive those debts. The WSJ specifies that around half of delinquent subprime borrowers have second mortgages, and that has often prevented them from modifying their loans.
The program doesn't require lenders to reduce the principal of what homeowners owe, which is one of the main reasons why some remain skeptical. In the NYT's op-ed page, John Geanakoplos and Susan Koniak warn that we'll soon be faced with an "avalanche of foreclosures," and the White House plan "wastes taxpayer money and won't fix the problem." The best thing to do would be to reduce the principal "far enough so that each homeowner will have equity in his house and thus an incentive to pay and not default again down the line." This would help not only homeowners but also bondholders who would get more out of it than if the property went into foreclosure. Throwing money at mortgage servicers to encourage them to reduce interest payments is simply "a bad use of scarce federal dollars."
The idea of a policy czar isn't new, but the LAT says no president "has embraced the concept … to the extent that Obama has." So far he has appointed these "super aides" to direct policy from inside the White House on a number of issues, including health care, the economy, and energy, and more are expected. Presidential scholars say that these czars often get frustrated because they have no clear authority. Because their focus frequently overlaps with several agencies, they can end up clashing with officials throughout the administration. Some lawmakers have also said they're worried these advisers aren't subject to congressional oversight. "They rarely testify before congressional committees and often shield the information and decision-making process behind the assertion of executive privilege," Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia wrote in a letter to Obama last week.
The LAT and WP front the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges that he played an "essential role" in committing atrocities in Darfur. The court charged Bashir on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Sudanese government reacted quickly to the news and expelled at least 10 foreign aid groups that the WP says "handle 60 percent of humanitarian assistance in Darfur." Many are concerned that the court's actions could spark renewed violence and result in more suffering in Darfur.
In the WP's op-ed page, Merrill McPeak and Kurt Bassuener argue that it's time for the Obama administration to step up and work with allies to establish a no-fly zone in Darfur. "Bashir has strung the international community along in a way that the late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic would have envied," they write. Although some have opposed the move to establish a no-fly zone, it's the best way to "get enough leverage with Khartoum to negotiate the entry of a stronger U.N. ground force," and "reducing Bashir's options" could also make diplomacy more effective.
In a front-page dispatch from China, the NYT's Edward Wong writes about how the Chinese government is so worried about violence once again breaking out in the country's Tibetan regions that it has ordered "the largest troop deployment since the Sichuan earthquake last spring." Wong "got a rare look" at the deployment when he was recently driven through some of these areas "while being detained by the police for 20 hours" without explanation. The Tibetan regions have now become "militarized zones," where soldiers are seemingly everywhere, and a curfew has been imposed in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. The Chinese government insists that there are no real problems in Tibet, but the extent of the deployments shows how it "remains one of the most sensitive political and security issues for China, though one that remains invisible in the developed cities along the country's east coast."
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Blasts target main US Afghan base
Inside Bagram base
The US military says two bomb blasts near the gate to its main Afghan base have injured at least three people.
A car bombing outside the Bagram base was followed moments later by a suicide bombing, US officials said.
"No US soldier was present at that moment but three contractors have suffered minor injuries," a US military spokesman told the AFP news agency.
Bagram air base is about 60km (40 miles) north of Kabul. It is the main base for the US-led coalition force.
"There were two explosions, first a vehicle and then a suicide bomber wearing an explosives vest, near the gate," Sergeant First Class Joel Peavey told AFP.
Military officials also said that three Nato soldiers had been killed after being wounded in a bomb blast in the south on Tuesday.
Taleban insurgency
Originally built by the Soviet military during its invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, some 10,000 troops are based at Bagram.
They are mostly Americans, but also include French, Egyptian, New Zealand, Turkish, German and Australian troops serving as part of the coalition.
In addition the base houses the US military's main prison facility in Afghanistan for people detained by US forces.
The latest deaths in the south take the number of international soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year to 52, according to the icasualties.org website that tracks casualties in Afghanistan.
Nato has not divulged the identities of the dead soldiers or the exact location of the attack, but a Canadian general has been reported by the AP news agency as saying that they were all Canadian.
The south of Afghanistan has become the centre of the Taleban insurgency after they were forced from power by US-led forces in 2001.
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N Korea threatens civilian planes
It is the latest in a series of bellicose statements issued by the North
North Korea has said it cannot ensure the safety of South Korean civilian flights passing near its airspace over the Sea of Japan (East Sea).
The comment comes ahead of a joint South Korean-US military exercise, which Pyongyang says is preparation for an invasion of the communist state.
Washington and Seoul say the annual drill is for purely defence purposes.
Tensions are high in the region amid speculation that the North is planning to test-fire a long-range missile.
In the latest of a series of bellicose statements, a North Korean committee warned that "security cannot be guaranteed for South Korean civil airplanes... in particular while the military exercises are under way".
It said no one knows what "military conflicts will be touched off by the reckless war exercises".
Launch fears
The annual US-South Korean drill, which involves tens of thousands of troops, starts on Monday and continues for 12 days.
North Korea opposes the exercise every year, but this event comes at a particularly tense time on the Korean peninsula.
Pyongyang has scrapped a series of peace agreements with Seoul over its decision to link bilateral aid to progress on denuclearisation.
The communist state also announced last month that it was preparing to launch a communications satellite. Some suspect this could be a cover for a test of the Taepodong 2 missile, which is capable of reaching as far as Alaska.
It is, analysts believe, keen to secure a position high on the agenda of the new US administration - and perhaps press for further concessions in return for abandoning its nuclear ambitions.
America's top envoy on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, is currently visiting China, Japan and South Korea in a bid to breathe life into the stalled nuclear disarmament talks and reduce regional tensions.
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Sufi Shrine 'blown up by Taleban'
Sufi Islam and the Taleban
Suspected Taleban militants in north-west Pakistan have blown up the shrine of a 17th Century Sufi poet of the Pashtun language, police say.
No casualties are reported but the poet Rahman Baba's grave has been destroyed and the shrine building badly damaged.
Rahman Baba is considered the most widely read and poet in Pashto speaking regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Taleban had warned they would blow up the shrine if women continued to visit it and pay their respects.
Historic popularity
Literary experts say the poet's popularity is due to his message of tolerance coupled with a powerful expression of love for God in a Sufi way.
The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that his lasting appeal reflects the historic popularity of Sufism in South Asia.
But our correspondent says that his views are anathema to the Taleban, who represent a more purist form of Islam and are opposed to Sufism, preventing people from visiting shrines of Sufi saints in areas they control.
When the Taleban seized power in neighbouring Afghanistan in 1996, they locked Sufi shrines.
In Mohmand tribal region, the local Taleban captured the shrine of a revered freedom movement hero, Haji Sahib of Turangzai, and turned it into their headquarters.
Taleban leaders have said in the past that they are opposed to women visiting these shrines because they believe it promotes obscenity.
Residents of Hazarkhwani area on the eastern outskirts of Peshawar - where the shrine of Rahman Baba is located - say that local Taleban groups had warned that if the women continued to visit the shrine, they would blow it up.
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