Shooting spree on DC naval base leaves 13 dead

The motive remained unknown.
WASHINGTON: A U.S. military veteran opened fire at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday in a burst of violence that killed 13 people, including the gunman, and set off waves of panic at the military installation just miles from the White House and U.S. Capitol.
The FBI identified the suspect as Aaron Alexis, 34, of Fort Worth, Texas, a Navy contractor who had two gun-related brushes with the law. He was discharged from the Navy Reserve in 2011 after a series of misconduct issues, a Navy official said.
He was killed in one of several gun battles with police after he entered the Naval Sea Systems Command headquarters about 8:20 a.m. (1220 GMT) and started picking off victims in a cafeteria from a fourth-floor atrium, witnesses said.
That set off pandemonium, with fire alarms sounding and security officers yelling at people to leave the building. Hundreds fled, some scrambling over walls to escape the gunfire. A loudspeaker announcement ordered those who remained to stay in their offices.
The motive remained unknown. He was armed with an AR-15 military-style assault rifle, a double-barreled shotgun and a handgun, a federal law enforcement source said.
About 12 people were injured, Washington Mayor Vincent Gray said, though it was unclear how many of them were shot. About 3,000 people worked in the building.
Hours later, police were searching for a possible second suspect in an incident that raised questions about security at the Washington Navy Yard, about a mile (1.6 km) south of the U.S. Capitol and 3 miles (5 km) from the White House.
Police patrol officers and active shooter teams put an end to the rampage, shooting Alexis dead. Washington Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier said the gun battles produced acts of heroism she could not yet reveal.
"Everybody was panicking and trying to decide which way to get out. A few of us just ran out the side exit," Patricia Ward, who works at the Navy Yard, told reporters.
Security guards told people to "run, run, run," Ward said.
It was the worst attack at a U.S. military installation since U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan opened fire on unarmed soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, killing 13 people and wounding 31 others. Hasan, who said he acted in retaliation for U.S. wars in Muslim countries, was convicted and sentenced to death by a military jury in August.
"We are confronting yet another mass shooting, and today it happened at another military installation, in our nation's capital," said U.S. President Barack Obama, who vowed to enact "sensible" gun control measures after a gunman shot dead 20 school children and six adults at an elementary school in Connecticut last December.

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Unknown 02:39  No comment

Dutch king: say goodbye to welfare state

King Willem-Alexander delivered a message to the Dutch people from the government Tuesday in a nationally televised address: the welfare state of the 20th century is gone.
In its place will be a "participation society" in which people must save and invest to create their own social safety net with less help from the national government.
The king traveled past waving fans in an ornate horse-drawn carriage to the 13th-century Hall of Knights in The Hague for the monarch's traditional annual address on the day the government presents its budget for the coming year. It was Willem-Alexander's first appearance on the national stage since former Queen Beatrix abdicated in April and he ascended to the throne.
"The shift to a 'participation society' is especially visible in social security and long-term care," the king said, reading out to lawmakers a speech written for him by Prime Minister Mark Rutte's government.
"The classic welfare state of the second half of the 20th century in these areas in particular brought forth arrangements that are unsustainable in their current form."
He said that nowadays, people expect and "want to make their own choices, to arrange their own lives, and take care of each other."
Rutte may provide details later in the day on what the shift to a "participation society" will entail, but it appears part of a long-term effort to rein in the costs of government-funded entitlements. Benefits such as unemployment compensation and subsidies on health care have been regularly pruned for the past decade.
Rutte may be hoping that the pomp and ceremony surrounding the king will provide a diversion from the gloomy reality of new cuts.
Though specifics are not yet available, a review of the government's plans by the country's independent analysis agency Monday showed that the budget deficit will widen in 2014 to 3.3 percent of GDP despite new spending cuts intended to reduce it.
Eurozone rules specify that countries must keep their deficit below 3 percent, and Rutte has been among the most prominent of European leaders, along with Germany's Angela Merkel, in insisting that Southern European countries attempt to meet that target.

After several consecutive years of government spending cuts, the Dutch economy is expected to have shrunk by more than 1 percent in 2013, and the agency is forecasting growth of less than 0.5 percent next year.
"The necessary reforms take time and demand perseverance," the king said. But they will "lay the basis for creating jobs and restoring confidence."
A series of recent polls have shown that confidence in Rutte's government is at record low levels, and that most Dutch people — along with labor unions, employers' associations and many economists — believe the Cabinet's austerity policies are at least partially to blame as the Dutch economy has worsened even as recoveries are underway in neighboring Germany, France and Britain.
Dutch media are also expecting new defense spending cuts, following a 2011 decision to cut 12,000 jobs — one out of every six workers in the military — between 2012 and 2015. However, the government is expected to say Tuesday it has decided once and for all not to abandon the U.S.-led "Joint Strike Fighter" program to develop new military aircraft. The program has suffered cost overruns and created divisions within Rutte's governing coalition.
The debate in parliament that follows the presentation of the budget Tuesday will be crucial for the future of the coalition, as it does not command a majority in the upper house, and it must seek help from opposition parties to have the budget approved.

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Unknown 02:26  1 comment

KIDS GIVEN WRONG VACCINATION IN KOLKATA

The children started vomiting and sweating after they were orally given hepatitis B vaccine‚ instead of polio drops
KOLKATA: Almost 60 children were taken to hospital in eastern India after they were mistakenly instructed to swallow a hepatitis B vaccine instead of polio drops, officials said today.
The children started vomiting and sweating after they were orally given hepatitis B vaccine, which is normally injected, at clinics in a village in West Bengal state yesterday, the health officials said.
Some 120 children in total swallowed the medication at the clinics, set up to administer polio vaccine drops as part of a campaign to eradicate the disease, before health workers discovered the mistake, said Biswaranjan Sathpaty, director of West Bengal Health Services.
“A total of 57 children started vomiting immediately after they were administered the wrong vaccine,” Sathpaty told AFP.
They were taken to a local hospital in Arambagh for treatment and have since been discharged, Sathpaty said. Doctors and officials were quoted by local media as saying the hepatitis B vaccine would not cause any long-term harm, but the mishap could deter parents from allowing their children to be vaccinated in future.
Medical workers in India have worked hard to stamp out polio, a rare public health victory in a country where children are at risk of a range of deadly illnesses. Almost half of all children below the age of three are malnourished.
The polio clinics were set up at two schools in Goghat village 80 kilometres northwest of the state capital Kolkata, said Apurba Ghosh, director of the state-run Institute of Child Health. Four health officials have been suspended and an investigation is under way, Sathpaty said. “A few samples of hepatitis B mistakenly found their way into the container marked for polio vaccines,” he said. “A nurse was assigned to collect the packet of vaccines from a local government office,” he said. “But she sent her husband to get the vaccines.”

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Unknown 02:03  No comment