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Severe snowstorm hits US, bears down on East Coast
Emergency workers assist the driver of a car which has crashed on a snow-covered street in Columbus, Indiana Drivers have been recommended to stay at home as many roads have become treacherous
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A severe winter storm that whipped up tornadoes in the southern US has brought heavy snow to the Midwest and threatens disruption in the east.

At least six people have been killed and authorities have told people to stay at home rather than brave freezing temperatures and treacherous roads.

A state of emergency has been declared in Mississippi and Alabama after the storm downed power lines.

Hundreds of flights have been grounded by snow and blizzards.

More delays are expected as the storm moves towards New York state and Maine, where as much as 18 inches (46cm) of snow is expected in the next 24 hours.

The National Weather Service has warned of near-zero visibility in Buffalo, New York, where heavy snowfall is predicted to combine with high winds.

Weather warnings are in place from Florida and the Gulf Coast all the way up to New England.

Little Rock, Arkansas, saw its first snow on Christmas Day in 83 years, while in neighbouring Oklahoma seven inches of snow was blamed for a 21-vehicle pile-up on an interstate highway outside Oklahoma City.

Thirty-four tornadoes were reported in the southern states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama on Tuesday. A large section of a church roof in Mobile, Alabama, was ripped off by a twister.

Falling trees claimed the lives of two people in Texas and Louisiana. Deaths were also reported on the roads in Oklahoma and Arkansas.

More than 200,000 people are said to be without power.

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Massive Christmas storms wreak havoc in US

Updated 1 hour 46 minutes ago

Photo: A Christmas Day tornado in Mobile, Alabama, brought down trees and power lines. (Reuters: Martin Gentry)

Map: United States
A winter storm system has wreaked havoc in southern and central areas of the United States, spawning more than 30 tornadoes, as well as blizzards and snowstorms.

At least seven people were killed as the storm hit areas from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes on Christmas Day.

The system is now heading north-east, leaving an estimated 200,000 people without power in its wake.

More than 1,500 flights were cancelled and people were warned to stay home rather than brave the strong winds, freezing temperatures and treacherous roads.

The National Weather Service warned of “dangerous travel conditions due to snow and ice covered roads” and said the weight of ice and snow could knock down power lines and trees.

Up to 46 centimetres of snow was forecast from New York state up to Maine and there were warnings of freezing rain, tornadoes and severe thunderstorms all the way down to the Carolinas.

Scores of homes and businesses were damaged on Christmas Day after 34 tornadoes were reported in the southern US states of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

James Bowman said he was sitting in his living room when a sudden wind rattled his rural Texas home apart on Christmas afternoon.

“The inside of the living room started falling down, so I just sat there in the recliner and then it didn’t last but just a few seconds – then it stopped,” he told local media.

“I just thank God that I wasn’t hurt and the walls and stuff didn’t fall in on me.”

The governors of both Mississippi and Alabama have declared a state of emergency.

Two children were killed after their mother lost control of her vehicle on an icy road in Arkansas on Christmas Day, the state police said.

Another person was killed in the state early on Boxing Day as a result of the storm, the Arkansas emergency management service said.

A dozen people were hurt in a 21-vehicle pile-up caused by icy roads in Oklahoma City.

Two women were killed in separate crashes in the state on Christmas Day, the state highway patrol said.

A man was killed in rural Louisiana when a tree hit his home on Christmas Day, and a Texas man died in similar circumstances in a Houston suburb, local media reported.

AFP/ABC

Topics:storm-disaster, storm-event, weather, united-states

Greens go mainstream with policy rework

Date December 27, 2012 86 reading now
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Lenore Taylor

Chief Political Correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald

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Greens leader Christine Milne … seeking to appeal to new constituencies. Photo: Jeffrey Chan

THE Greens are dropping their demands for death duties as part of a new platform of policies aimed at presenting a smaller target to critics in a federal election year.

The platform does not resile from the party’s core beliefs and positions, but like the main parties’ manifestos it now presents them largely as ”aims” and ”principles” with fewer explicit policy measures.

After a year in which Labor figures have attacked the Greens as ”loopy” and ”extremists” who ”threaten democracy”, the new platform gives the federal elected MPs – nine senators and one lower house MP – more flexibility in negotiating legislation when holding the balance of power.

But it also makes it harder for opponents to attack or ridicule the party over specific policies.

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For example, the new platform no longer specifies the Greens want to abolish the 30 per cent private health insurance rebate, but rather talks about ”redirecting funding from subsidising private health insurance towards direct public provision”.

And it no longer calls for a freeze on Commonwealth funding to private schools, but rather states that funding should be based on school need and that money not provided to the very wealthiest schools be instead given to the public sector.

The new platform was agreed at the party’s November national conference and has now been approved by all the party’s state branches.

It still makes clear the Greens want to increase the marginal tax rate for people earning more than $1 million, but no longer specifies that it should be put up to 50 per cent.

It advocates increasing the minerals resource rent tax and applying it to more commodities, but no longer proposes an increase in the company tax rate to 33 per cent.

It says the Greens want tax reform that improves housing affordability by no longer rewarding speculation, but it doesn’t specifically call for an end to the concessional arrangements for the capital gains tax.

And – removing one of the critics’ favourite lines of attack – it no longer specifies that the Greens support death duties or an ”estate tax”.

The Greens have had disappointing results in several recent elections, including the ACT poll when they lost three of the four seats they had held in the territory assembly.

Founder and long term leader Bob Brown retired this year and the new leader, Christine Milne, has sought to appeal to new constituencies, including rural voters and small businesses. But the Greens are attracting about 10 per cent of the national vote in most major opinion polls, compared with the almost 12 per cent they achieved at the 2010 federal election.

The party has begun a national fund-raising effort through microdonations to build a $3 million war chest for the federal election year.

Labor minister Anthony Albanese said this year that if the Greens ”stood on their real platform, they would be struggling to get to 3 per cent of the electorate”. AWU national secretary Paul Howes said they were ”loopy” and were extremists who threatened Australia’s democracy.

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Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/greens-go-mainstream-with-policy-rework-20121226-2bwl4.html#ixzz2GCPcWAi3

Study casts doubt on safety of fracking for gas

By Anthony Stewart, ABCUpdated December 26, 2012, 11:34 am

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The Northern Territory Environment Centre says it wants the government to re-draft its gas drilling laws.

A study from Cornell University in the United States has found a strong link between the gas drilling practice of fracking and ill-health in cattle.

There are several companies exploring for shale and coal seam gas in the Territory.

The environment centre’s Stuart Blanch says the current laws are outdated and need to be reviewed.

“We have to be very careful because once we gone down the path of the shale gas industry in the Territory, and if there is widespread contamination or risk from well failures in the future, they are very hard to fix up and rehabilitate,” he said.
“It is a concern that a very reputable study out of Cornell University has identified a link between fracking and the health of the pastoral industry.”

Coalition backdown on roads promise

Date December 26, 2012 62 reading now
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Lenore Taylor, Jacob Saulwick

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Conceded the start date for the projects could be further away … Coalition transport spokesman Warren Truss. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

TONY ABBOTT’S transport spokesman has cast doubt on his promise that Coalition funding of $4 billion for big projects will put cranes over Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane within a year of its election.

Mr Abbott says he wants to be a prime minister ”who revels in seeing cranes over our cities, who revels in seeing bulldozers at work” and has pledged that three big projects, including the WestConnex road in Sydney and the east-west road link in Melbourne, would be ”under way within 12 months of a change of government”.

But in an interview with Fairfax Media, the Coalition transport spokesman, Warren Truss, conceded a start date for the projects could be further away.

”The project in Melbourne .. will require considerable time associated with planning and various approvals to get under way – the Sydney one as well. It is part of a bigger project now, and so there will be time … I think it will take at least a couple of years and maybe longer for those two to start construction,” he said.

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Mr Abbott has promised $1.5 billion to the WestConnex motorway, $1.5 billion to the east-west link and $1 billion to the Gateway extension road in Brisbane.

The O’Farrell government has committed $1.8 billion to the WestConnex road, expected to cost $10 billion to $15 billion.

But it is uncertain where the rest of the funding will be found, even if a large proportion comes from tolls on the motorway, a 33-kilometre road between Auburn in Sydney’s west that will connect to the airport and the M5 motorway in the south west. The government has set up a project office to come up with a detailed case for WestConnex by the middle of next year. It has said construction would start before the state election in March 2015.

Given Australia’s fairly poor record in toll road modelling and the fact that the companies behind projects such as the cross-city and Lane Cove tunnels in Sydney and the Clem7 tunnel in Brisbane have ended up in administration, Mr Truss said the Coalition was looking for innovative ways a Coalition government could attract private investment for the projects.

”I’ve been approached with lots of ideas about how the government could share the investment risk on these projects,” he said.

”I am not attracted to proposals where the government takes all the risk and the private sector gets all the profit. But risk sharing is something I am prepared to look at.

”We will have to find ways to leverage private-sector funding – particularly the Sydney and Melbourne projects are likely to require a mix of Commonwealth, state and private funding.

”Investors say since toll finance projects haven’t gone so well recently, they want an arrangement where the government takes some risk if toll revenue turns out to be less …

”Once a patronage estimate has been established there might be a formula under which a certain percentage of risk and profit is shared with the government, with the percentage getting bigger or smaller depending on the size of the divergence … I haven’t said yes or no to that yet but I am looking at it,” Mr Truss said.

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Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/coalition-backdown-on-roads-promise-20121225-2bvap.html#ixzz2G6l42ZOA

O’Farrell hits turbulence over airport

Date December 26, 2012 Read later

Jacob Saulwick

Transport Reporter

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Under fire … Barry O’Farrell. Photo: Tamara Voninski

BARRY O’FARRELL has become embroiled in a stoush with members of his own electorate over his reasons for opposing a second airport in Sydney.

Two long-standing aircraft noise campaigners from his Ku-ring-gai electorate claim the Premier told them at a meeting in May he would not support another airport in Sydney because of “votes in the western suburbs”.

The residents claim Mr O’Farrell said he would not talk about airport issues in Sydney because they were a federal matter – a stance he back-tracked on this month when he called for more planes to fly in and out of the airport.

The Premier denies their account of the conversation.

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Mr O’Farrell has maintained for the past year that Sydney does not need another airport, despite predictions from the aviation industry, the federal government and his own bureaucrats that the city will soon require one.

Upset at the Premier’s stance, which they fear will lead to constant flights during the middle of the night from the airport, the two campaigners secured a meeting with Mr O’Farrell at his Wahroonga electorate office.

One of them, Derek Frere, said he took notes of the conversation. The other, John Clarke, recalls the conversation in the same terms as Mr Frere.

Mr Frere said he was surprised by the Premier’s candour at the meeting.

”It is all about the votes in the western suburbs,” Mr Frere quotes the Premier as saying. ”I would like to be able to help you blokes, but you’ve got to understand it is all about the votes in the western suburbs.”

Mr Frere said: ”That is a direct verbatim quote from my notes. We didn’t expect him to say that, but he disarmed us.”

The pair have decided to make the Premier’s comments public because of his push this month to break the long-standing cap and curfew on flights out of Sydney Airport.

They fear continued refusal to build a second airport in the city will lead to more intensive use of Sydney Airport.

This is what Mr O’Farrell called for this month when he said the hourly cap on flight movements should increase from 80 to 85, and planes should be able to take off and land between 5am and 6am and 11am and midnight.

Mr O’Farrell’s stance has angered members of his own party, including the federal shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey.

Mr Frere said the meeting with Mr O’Farrell was on May 25 at 3.45pm.

At the meeting, they recollect the Premier saying he would not talk any more about Sydney airport issues, because they were ultimately a federal matter. ”I had come away with a clear expectation that Barry basically wasn’t going to say anything else, and then he comes out and is prepared to sacrifice his own electorate,” Mr Clarke said.

A spokesman for Mr O’Farrell said: ”The claims being made about the meeting are untrue.

”The Premier also rejected their proposal of dumping the aircraft noise problems they were complaining about onto residents of western and south-western Sydney.”

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/ofarrell-hits-turbulence-over-airport-20121225-2bvat.html#ixzz2G6kFziYg