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6B – Daily News – Monday, April 18, 2011 WORLD BRIEFING Devastating storms leave 21 dead in NC alone RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Rescue crews searched for survivors in wind- blasted landscapes Sun- day in North Carolina, the state hardest hit by a storm system that spawned dozens of torna- does from Oklahoma to Virginia and left dozens dead. The spring storm, North Carolina’s deadliest in two decades, spun off 62 tornadoes in that state alone Saturday night. Eleven people were con- firmed dead in rural Bertie County, county manager Zee Lamb said. Another four were confirmed dead in Bladen County, bringing the state’s death toll to at least 21. Deaths reported by officials in five other states brought the U.S. toll to 45. In the capital city of Raleigh, three family members died in a mobile home park, said Wake County spokeswoman Sarah Williamson-Baker. At that trailer park, resi- dents lined up outside Sunday and asked police guarding the area when they might get back in. Peggy Mosley, 54, who has lived in the park for 25 years, said she was prepared when the storm bore down on the trailer park. She gathered small pillows and other material and hunkered down in her small bathroom. Operator of nuclear plant announces crisis plan TOKYO (AP) — The operator of Japan’s crippled nuclear plant laid out a blue- print Sunday for stopping radiation leaks and stabiliz- ing damaged reactors with- in the next six to nine months as a first step toward allowing some of the tens of thousands of evacuees to return to the area. While the government said the timeframe was real- istic, those forced to flee their homes, jobs and farms were frustrated that their exile is not going to end soon. And officials acknowledge that unfore- seen complications, or even another natural disaster, could set that timetable back even further. ‘‘Well, this year is lost,’’ said Kenji Matsueda, 49, who is living in an evacua- tion center in Fukushima after being forced from his home 12 miles (20 kilome- ters) from the plant. ‘‘I have no idea what I will do. Nine months is a long time. And it could be longer. I don’t think they really know.’’ Pressure has been build- ing on the government and plant operator Tokyo Elec- tric Power Co. to resolve Japan’s worst-ever nuclear power accident since a cata- strophic earthquake and tsunami hit the country March 11, knocking out power and cooling systems at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex. Support our classrooms, keep kids reading. DONATE YOUR VACATION newspaper dollars to the Newspaper In Education Program HELP OUR CHILDREN On orders from Prime Minister Naoto Kan, TEPCO drew up the blue- print and publicly explained its long-term strategy — for the first time since the disas- ter — for containing the cri- sis that has cast a cloud of fear over the country. Congress to increase debt WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Tim- othy Geithner says Republi- can leaders have privately assured the Obama admin- istration that Congress will raise the government’s bor- rowing limit in time to pre- vent an unprecedented default on the nation’s debt. But a top Republican quickly pushed back Sun- day and said there was no guarantee the GOP would For more details call Circulation Department (530) 527-2151 D NEWSAILY RED BLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U N T Y S I N C E 1 8 8 5 PHONE: (530) 527-2151 FAX: (530) 527-5774 545 Diamond Avenue • P.O. Box 220 • Red Bluff, CA 96080 agree to increase the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling without further controls on federal spending. Geithner told ABC’s ‘‘This Week’’ and NBC’s ‘‘Meet the Press’’ that Republicans told President Barack Obama in a White House meeting last Wednesday that they will go along with a higher limit. ‘‘I want to make it per- fectly clear that Congress will raise the debt ceiling,’’ Geithner said in the inter- views taped Saturday and aired Sunday. He said the leaders told Obama that they couldn’t play around with the gov- ernment’s credit rating. ‘‘They recognize it, and they told the president that on Wednesday in the White House,’’ Geithner said. FAAgives controllers extra rest WASHINGTON (AP) — The government said Sunday it is giving air traffic controllers an extra hour off between shifts so they don’t doze off at work, a problem that stretches back decades. But officials rejected the remedy that sleep experts say would make a real dif- ference: on-the-job nap- ping. ‘‘On my watch, con- trollers will not be paid to take naps. We’re not going to allow that,’’ Transporta- tion Secretary Ray LaHood said. That’s exactly the oppo- site of what scientists and the Federal Aviation Administration’s own fatigue working group say is needed after five cases disclosed since late March of sleeping controllers. The latest one occurred just before 5 a.m. Saturday at a busy regional radar facility that handles high altitude air traffic for much of Florida, portions of the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Several other countries, including Germany and Japan, permit controllers to take sleeping breaks and they provide quiet rooms with cots for that purpose. ‘‘Given the body of sci- entific evidence, that deci- sion clearly demonstrates that politics remain more important than public safe- ty,’’ said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Founda- tion of Alexandria, Va. ‘‘People are concerned about a political backlash if they allow controllers to have rest periods in their work shifts the same way firefighters and trauma physicians do.’’ 3 killed in Syrian protest BEIRUT (AP) — Gun- men opened fire during a funeral for a slain anti-gov- ernment protester Sunday, killing at least three people on a day when tens of thou- sands of people took to the streets nationwide as part of an uprising against the country’s authoritarian regime, witnesses and activists said. It was not immediately clear who was behind the shooting at the funeral near Homs, 100 miles (160 kilo- meters) from the capital, Damascus. In the past four weeks, Syrian security forces in uniforms and plainclothes have launched a deadly crackdown on demonstra- tions, killing at least 200 people, according to human rights groups. The govern- ment has blamed armed gangs looking to stir up unrest for many of the killings. One witness said gun- men wearing black clothes opened fire at hundreds of people in the Talbiseh dis- trict in central Syria at a funeral for a protester who was killed Saturday. Other witnesses said they saw sol- diers and security forces open fire, shooting even at homes and balconies. Dozens were wounded, they said. A human rights activist in Damascus confirmed the three deaths, but said he had no information on who killed them. He confirmed the deaths through witness- es on the ground who saw the killings and gave him the names of the dead. Anti- Americanism up in Iraq BASRA, Iraq (AP) — Make no mistake, Mazin al-Nazeni hates Ameri- cans. Soldiers, diplomats, oilmen — the militant leader in Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, con- siders all of them to be Enemy No. 1. But U.S. diplomats in the southern port city say they’re here to stay — even if it’s at their peril. It’s a quandary for the Obama administration as the U.S. tries to move from invading power to normal diplomatic part- ner. But with the last American troops obligat- ed to be gone by year’s end, the protection of American diplomats will fall almost entirely to pri- vate contractors and Iraqi security forces.