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Death toll in US mudslide rises to 30

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 03 April 2014 | 09.16

AS medical examiners painstakingly piece together the identities and lives of the 30 people known killed when a mudslide wiped out a small Washington community, one mystery troubles them.

One set of remains does not fit with the description on the missing persons list, which, as of Thursday, includes 17 people.

The medical examiners know it is a male, but his remains give no clue as to who he was, or who might be looking for him.

They can't even identify his age range, and at this point, gold teeth are all they have to go on.

The mystery underscores the tedious process of identifying remains more than a week after the March 22 landslide that broke off a steep hill, roared across the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River and buried a community at Oso, about 90km north of Seattle.

Like the homes, the cars and the other parts of people's lives swept away by the torrent of mud, some bodies are in pieces.

Norman Thiersch, the Snohomish County Medical Examiner, said the goal of the team - made up of medical examiners, detectives, dentists and others - is to make sure there's no doubt as to the identities of the victims.

"This is not television," he said.

"These are methodical, painstaking processes we go through."

Although the identities of 28 of the 30 confirmed dead have been determined, officials have so far released the names of only 27.

Other names are expected to be released by the end of the week.


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Rate rises may be limited: IMF

AS consumers and businesses worry about an interest rate rise from the Reserve Bank before long, a new analysis suggests any increases are likely to be limited.

The International Monetary Fund says worldwide interest rates are expected to increase in the medium term with global economic conditions normalising, reversing the decline into negative territory due to the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.

But in the analytical chapters of its forthcoming world economic outlook, the IMF does not believe real, or inflation adjusted, interest rates will return to high levels.

"The increase from current levels is expected to be modest, because the factors that have mostly contributed to low real rates in the past recent years are unlikely to reverse substantially," the report released in Washington on Thursday said.

It says the "scars" from the GFC have resulted in a sharp and persistent decline in investment in advanced economies, while there will be only a modest impact from lower savings in emerging market economies as a result of slower economic growth.

There has also been an investment shift to safer interest-rate yielding bonds away from riskier equities, which has kept rates low.

Using data from a number of countries, including Australia, it found that 10-year real interest rates declined from an average of 5.5 per cent in the 1980s, to 3.5 per cent in the 1990s, to two per cent between 2001 and 2008 and to slightly negative territory of 2012.

While continued low real rates will help borrowers to lower debt ratios, they also raise new policy challenges.

"The envisioned low real rate environment ... may re-emerge as a constraint to monetary policy should risks of very low growth in advanced economies materialise," it said.


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Queen meets Pope Francis at Vatican

BRITAIN'S Queen Elizabeth II has paid a private call on Pope Francis at the Vatican, making him the fifth pontiff she has met.

She arrived on Thursday afternoon wearing a lilac-coloured spring coat and matching hat that are practically the same colours as the wisteria blooming over much of the Italian capital.

The monarch, accompanied by her husband, Prince Philip, was ushered into a small room near the Vatican's public audience hall for the 30-minute meeting.

Previously, Elizabeth had met with four pontiffs, starting with Pius XII in 1951, a year before her accession to the throne.

Earlier in the day, Elizabeth lunched with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano at the Quirinal palace.

Illness had forced her to cancel a 2013 trip to Rome when she was supposed to see Napolitano.


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Four dead in Bangladesh gas blast

AT least four workers have been killed after a gas cylinder exploded in a ship-breaking yard in southern Bangladesh, police said.

The explosion occurred while workers were removing parts from an old ship in the Kadam Rasul area of Sitakunda, 200 kilometres southeast of the capital Dhaka.

Six people were injured, four of whom later died in hospital, police officer Iftekha Hasan said.

"The workers might have died of inhaling toxic gas," the officer said.

Bangladesh is the third largest country in terms of dismantling obsolete ships.

Safety measures in the yards are still inadequate.

At least 20 people were killed in 2013 in Bangladeshi ship-breaking yards, which are mostly located in Chittagong district, according to a human rights group.


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